CHAPTER XX
THE HONOURS OF THE MOB
It was far from my intention to witness the reception of my friends inPillory from the sympathizing mob. I was, however, reminded that the dayhad arrived by finding in my morning walk from Lambeth to the Old Baileythe Pillory itself actually erected, in St Martin's Lane, somewhat aboveSt. Martin's Church. It was put up in the open space where Long Acreruns into St Martin's Lane, very nearly in the actual spot where theassault was delivered and the plot carried out A just retribution. Evennow, after thirty years, only to think of the villainy causes my bloodto boil: nothing surely could be bad enough for these creatures, vilestof all the vile creatures of this wicked town. At the same time when Isaw the preparations that were making for the reception of thecriminals, my heart sank, and I would willingly have spared them all andforgiven them all to save them from what followed.
The pillory, on a scaffold four feet high, was put up with'accommodation'--if we may so describe it--for two persons standing sideby side, so that they could not see each other. They were also so closetogether that favours intended for the face of one might if they missedhim be received by some part of the body of the other. A vast crowd wasalready assembled, although the sentence would not be carried out tilleleven, and it was then barely nine. The crowd consisted of the scum andoff-scouring of the whole city: there was a company from Southwark.While I was looking on, they arrived marching in good form likesoldiers: there were contributions from Turnmill Street andHockley-by-the-Hole: there were detachments from the Riverside: from St.Katherine's by the Tower: from Clerkenwell: but, above all, from St.Giles's.
'Who is to stand up there to-day?' I asked one of them--a moredecent-looking man than most. Of course, I knew very well, but I wishedto find out what the people intended.
'Where do you come from, not to know that?' the man replied. ''Tis thethief-taker: him that makes the rogue: teaches the rogue and then sellsthe rogue. Now we've got him--wait till we leave him. And there's thelawyer who made the plot to hang a man. We've got him, too. We don'toften get a lawyer. Wait a bit--wait a bit. You shall see what they'lllook like when we leave them.'
He had his apron full of something or other--rotten eggs, perhaps: orrotten apples: or, perhaps, brickbats. The faces of all around expressedthe same deadly look of revenge. I thought of the Captain's terror, andof his petition to Jenny; that he might be put up with the Bishop; itwas impossible not to feel awed and terrified at the aspect of so muchhatred and such deliberate preparation for revenge. A thief-taker and alawyer! Oh! noble opportunity! Some carried baskets filled withmissiles: some had their aprons full; the women for their part broughtrotten eggs and dead cats, stinking rabbits, and all kinds of putridoffal in baskets and in their arms, as if they had been things preciousand costly. They conferred together and laughed, grimly telling whatthey had to throw, and how they would throw it.
'I don't waste my basket,' said one, 'on rotten eggs. There's somethinghere sharper than rotten eggs. He took my man before his time was up,because he wanted the money. My man was honest before he met Merridew,who made him a rogue, poor lad!--yes, made him--told him what todo--taught him: made him a highwayman: told him where to go; hired ahorse for him and gave him a pistol. Then he sold him--got forty poundsand a Tyburn ticket for him and twenty pounds allowance for his ownhorse. Oh! If my arm is strong enough! Let me get near him--close tohim, good people.'
'He took my son,' said another, 'to be sure he was a rogue, but hethieved in a safe way till John Merridew got him. If I had my strengththat I used to have it wouldn't be rotten eggs; but never mind--there'sothers besides me. Don't waste your brickbats: throw straight: let thewomen get to the front. Oh! He shall look very pretty when he is carriedhome. He shall have a pleasant hour with his friends. We love him, don'twe? We love him like a son, we do.'
This man had for years exercised absolute sway over Rogueland. Heinstructed the young in the various branches of the criminal's horridtrade: he led them on from pocket-picking to stealing from stalls andbulkheads: to shop-lifting; to burglary; to robbery in the street: toforgery: to coining and issuing false coin: to highway robbery and, attimes, to murder. 'Twas the most accomplished and the most desperatevillain that ever lived--I cannot believe that his like was ever known.No one dared to cross him or to refuse his orders. If anyone should beso presumptuous, he speedily repented in Newgate under a capital chargefollowed by a capital sentence. There are so many ways of gettinghanged, and so few outside the law know what offences may be capital andwhat are not, that there was never any certainty in the mind of thesmallest rogue that he was safe from such a charge. Children of fourteenon his information were hung as well as grown men: little girls offourteen were hung on his information as well as grown women: forshop-lifting, for lifting linen from the hedge--why this devil incarnatewould instigate a child to commit a capital offence and then give himinto custody for the reward, careless whether the child was hanged ornot. It was a terrible end that he met with. I read sometimes ofdreadful punishments: of tortures and agonies: yet I cannot picture tomyself a punishment more awful than to stand up before an infuriated andimplacable mob; to look down upon thousands of faces and to see no gleamof relenting upon one: not one with a tear of pity: to hear their yellsof execration: to see their arms springing up with one consent----Poorwretch! Poor wretch!
These people knew very well that Mr. Merridew could hang them all: that,in course of time, he would hang them all; and that, if they offendedhim, he would hang them all at once. It was a terrible weapon for oneman to wield: nor can I believe that the laws of the land intended thatany one man should be able to wield such a weapon. Why they allowed himto exist I know not--seeing their insensibility to crime, one wouldthink that they would have murdered him long before. From wives he hadtaken their husbands; from mothers their sons; from girls theirsweethearts: he had taken their wives and their mistresses from the men;he had taken the boys--one cannot say the innocent boys--from theirplayfellows; and he had hanged them all. It would be interesting to knowhow many he had hanged, this murderous, blood-stained villain, whoseheart was like the nether millstone for hardness.
The punishment of pillory hands a man over to the people, for judgmentand execution or for acquittal or for pardon. The law says practically,'We find him guilty: we assign him a term of imprisonment: it is for thepeople to increase the punishment or to protest against it.' In the caseof a common rogue, whose offence is in no way remarkable, a few rotteneggs, broken on his face and dropping yellow streams over the nose andcheeks, please the mob, who like this harmless demonstration in favourof virtue which does not hurt their friend and brother, the prisoner. Inother cases, where the sympathy of the people is entirely with theprisoner, one hour of pillory means an hour of triumph. For they bringbands of music and welcome the criminal; they shout applause: they hangthe pillory with flowers: they take out the horses and drag thecarriage. This happened to Dr. Shebbeare, who came to the pillory in thesheriff's carriage and stood in front of the pillory, not in it, a manholding an umbrella over his head the whole time to keep off the rain.It is, however, the most terrible punishment that can be devised whenthe mob are infuriated with the prisoner. In this case the thief-taker,the Man-slayer was about to stand before them: and with him the designerof a plot to take away the life of an innocent man.
The crowd now became so dense that it was impossible to get forwards orback. Therefore, though it might seem revengeful to look on at thepopular reception of these two wretches, I was fain to stay where I was,namely, on the top step of Slaughter's Coffee House. The time passedquickly while I stood looking on and listening. The crowd grew thicker:on the outskirts with me were many respectable persons. Theirindignation against the crime was, like mine, tempered by the prospectof the horrible punishment that awaited the evil-doers. I would not tellthem that I myself was the object of this plot, for fear of beingconsidered as wishing to enjoy a revenge full and satisfying.
'The greatest villain of the four,' said one gentlem
an, 'is theattorney. He will barely escape, I think: but these people are assembledto vent their revenge upon the thief-taker. I know not whether, when heis gone, crime will decrease, but it is time that something was done toprevent the encouragement of crime with one hand, and the arrest of thecriminal with the other. Such a wretch, Sir, is not fit to live.'
'And,' said another, 'unless I mistake, we are here to witness theresolution of the mob that he shall no longer live.'
At eleven o'clock there was a shout which ran all down St. Martin'sLane. 'Here they come! here they come!' followed by roars which werecertainly not meant for applause and approval.
'It is an awful moment,' said my next neighbour. 'If I could get out ofthe throng I would go away. It will be a terrible spectacle.'
There was a force of constables round the pillory. As it appearedimmediately afterwards, it was insufficient. They formed a circlestanding shoulder to shoulder, to keep back the crowd and to preserve anopen space round the scaffold. It is a merciful plan because the greaterthe distance, the better is the prisoner's chance.
The prisoners were brought in a cart. It was recognised by the crowd asa cart used for flogging unfortunates, and there were jokes on thesubject, perhaps the hitching of shoulders, as it passed. It was guardedby a force of constables armed with clubs; not that they feared arescue, but that they feared a rush of the crowd and the tearing of theprisoners to pieces.
I was standing, I say, on the highest doorstep of Slaughter's CoffeeHouse, the windows of which were full of men looking on. Looking thusover the heads of the people, I saw that the driver and the prisonerProbus were covered already with filth and with rotten eggs. The formercursed the people. 'Why can't you wait--you?' he cried as the eggs flewabout his head or broke upon his face. Mr. Probus sat on the bench bowedand doubled up. He showed no fear: he was as one who is utterly brokenup, and in despair: he had lost his money--all his money: the work ofhis life. That was all he cared for. He was disgraced and imprisoned--hehad lost his money. He was going to be pelted in the pillory--he hadlost his money--nothing else mattered.
To a revengeful man this day's work was revenge indeed, ample andsatisfying, if revenge ever can satisfy. I do not think it can: onewould want to repeat it every day: the man in the Italian Poem who gnawshis enemy's head can never have enough of his cruel and horrid revenge.I hope, however, that no one will think that I rejoiced over sufferings,terrors, and pain unspeakable; even though they were deserved.
If Mr. Probus showed callousness and insensibility extraordinary, hiscompanion behaved in exactly an opposite manner. For he had thrownhimself down in the bottom of the cart, and there lay writhing while theexecrations of the people followed the cart. When the procession arrivedat the pillory it took six men to drag him out. He covered his face withhis hands: he wept--the tears ran down his cheeks: he clung to theconstables; it took a quarter of an hour before they had him up thesteps and on the platform: it took another ten minutes before he wasplaced in the machine, his face turned towards the crowd on the northside with his helpless hands struck through the holes. As for the otherhe stood facing the south.
When both the miserable men were ready the under-sheriff and theconstables ducked their heads and ran for their lives from the stagedown the ladder and waited under cover.
For, with a roar as of a hungry wild beast the mob began. There was noformal or courteous commencement with rotten eggs and dead cats. Thesethings, it is true, were flung, and with effect. But from the verybeginning they were accompanied by sharp flints, stones and brickbats.The mob broke through the line of constables and filled up the openspace; they pushed the women to the front: I think they were mad: theyshrieked and yelled execrations: the air was thick with missiles; wheredid they come from? There were neither pause nor cessation. For thewhole time the storm went on: the under-sheriff wanted, I have heard, totake down the men; but no one would venture on the stage to releasethem. Meanwhile with both of them the yellow streams of broken eggs hadgiven way to blood. Their faces and heads were covered every inch--everyhalf inch--with open bleeding wounds: their eyes were closed, theirheads held down as much as they could: if they groaned; if theyshrieked; if they prayed for mercy; if they prayed for the mercy ofHeaven since from man there was none; no one could hear in the Babel ofvoices from the mob. It was the Thief-taker, the Man-slayer, who was theprincipal object of the crowd's attention: but they could notdistinguish between the two and they soon threw at one head or the otherimpartially. It was indeed a most dreadful spectacle of the popularjustice. Just so, the Jews took out the man who worshipped false idols,and the woman who was a witch and stoned them with stones, so that theydied. For my own part I can never forget that sight of the two bowedheads at which a mob of I know not how many hundreds crowded together ina narrow street hurled everything that they could find, round pavingstones, sharp flints, broken bricks, wooden logs, with every kind ofexecration that the worst and lowest of the people can invent. From thesouth and from the north: there was an equal shower; there was nodifference.
For a whole hour this went on. The pillory should have been turned everyquarter of an hour. But no one dared to mount the stage in order to turnit--besides it was safer to let one side exhaust their artillery than totempt the unspent stores of the other side.
At last the hour of twelve struck. There was a final discharge: then allstopped. The heads hung down inanimate, motionless. Had the mob, then,killed them both?
The under-sheriff mounted the stage: one of the constables cleared it ofthe miscellaneous stuff lying at the feet of the prisoners; then theytook out the men. Both were senseless; they were carried down the stepsand placed in the cart. The driver went to the horse's head; theconstables closed in: the show was over.
In five minutes the whole crowd had dispersed; they had enjoyed the veryrare chance of expressing their opinion upon a Thief-taker and anAttorney. They went off in great spirits, marching away in companieseach in its own direction. Those from Clare Market I observed, wereheaded by music peculiar to that district played by eight butchers withmarrow-bones and cleavers.
The horrid business over I thought I would learn how the other two faredin Soho Square. The pillory was still standing when I got there, but thebusiness of the day was over. From a gentleman who had been a spectatorI learned that the two men were turned to the four quarters in thepillory, that their friends on the St. Giles's side would not pelt them;but that on the other three sides they received a liberal allowance ofeggs and such harmless gifts, together with a more severe expression ofopinion in stones and brickbats. They were taken out wounded andbleeding, but they could walk down the ladder and were carried off intheir right senses, at least.
I went on to Newgate. There I learned that the man Merridew was alreadydead: he was found dead in the cart when he was brought in. It was notwonderful. His skull was battered in; his cheek-bones were broken: hisjaw was fractured: for the last half-hour it was thought he had beenalready senseless if not dead. The case of Mr. Probus was nearly as bad.He was breathing, they told me, and no more. It was doubtful if he wouldrecover.
The Captain and the Bishop were, as I have said, more fortunate. Theyescaped with scars which would disfigure them for life. But they didescape, and since their master the Man-slayer was dead, they might beginagain, once out of prison, with another rope much longer, perhaps, thanthe first.
I suppose they are long since hanged, both of them. No other lot waspossible for them. I have not seen them or heard of them, since thatday.