I have described as patterers. The play-bill sellers are very rarely
patterers on other “paper work.” Some of them are on the look-out
during the day for a job in porterage or such like, but they are not
mixed up with any pattering,--and a regular patterer looks down upon a
play-bill seller as a poor creature, “fit for nothing but play-bills.”
I now proceed to describe such of these classes as have not been
previously given.
OF THE “GALLOWS” LITERATURE OF THE STREETS.
Under this head I class all the street-sold publications which relate
to the hanging of malefactors. That the question is not of any minor
importance must be at once admitted, when it is seen how very extensive
a portion of the reading of the poor is supplied by the “Sorrowful
Lamentations” and “Last Dying Speech, Confession, and Execution” of
criminals. One paper-worker told me, that in some small and obscure
villages in Norfolk, which, he believed, were visited only by himself
in his line, it was not very uncommon for two poor families to _club_
for 1_d._ to purchase an execution broad-sheet! Not long after Rush was
hung, he saw, one evening after dark, through the uncurtained cottage
window, eleven persons, young and old, gathered round a scanty fire,
which was made to blaze by being fed with a few sticks. An old man was
reading, to an attentive audience, a broad-sheet of Rush’s execution,
which my informant had sold to him; he read by the fire-light; for the
very poor in those villages, I was told, rarely lighted a candle on
a spring evening, saying that “a bit o’ fire was good enough to talk
by.” The scene must have been impressive, for it had evidently somewhat
impressed the perhaps not very susceptible mind of my informant.
The procedure on the occasion of a “good” murder, or of a murder
expected to “turn out well,” is systematic. First appears a
quarter-sheet (a hand-bill, 9-1/2 in. by 7-1/2 in.) containing the
earliest report of the matter. Next come half-sheets (twice the
size) of later particulars, or discoveries, or--if the supposed
murderer be in custody--of further examinations. The sale of these
bills is confined almost entirely to London, and in their production
the newspapers are for the most part followed closely enough. Then
are produced the whole, or broad-sheets (twice the size of the
half-sheets), and, lastly, but only on great occasions, the _double_
broad-sheet. [I have used the least technical terms that I might not
puzzle the reader with accounts of “crowns,” “double-crowns,” &c.]
The most important of all the broad-sheets of executions, according
to concurrent, and indeed unanimous, testimony is the case of Rush. I
speak of the testimony of the street-folk concerned, who all represent
the sale of the papers relative to Rush, both in town and country, as
the best in their experience of late years.
The sheet bears the title of “The Sorrowful Lamentation and Last
Farewell of J. B. Rush, who is ordered for Execution on Saturday
next, at Norwich Castle.” There are three illustrations. The largest
represents Rush, cloaked and masked, “shooting Mr. Jermy, Sen.” Another
is of “Rush shooting Mrs. Jermy.” A prostrate body is at her feet,
and the lady herself is depicted as having a very small waist and
great amplitude of gown-skirts. The third is a portrait of Rush,--a
correct copy, I was assured, and have no reason to question the
assurance,--from one in the _Norwich Mercury_. The account of the trial
and biography of Rush, his conduct in prison, &c., is a concise and
clear enough condensation from the newspapers. Indeed, Rush’s Sorrowful
Lamentation is the best, in all respects, of any execution broad-sheet
I have seen; even the “copy of verses” which, according to the
established custom, the criminal composes in the condemned cell--his
being unable, in some instances, to read or write being no obstacle
to the composition--seems, in a literary point of view, of a superior
strain to the run of such things. The matters of fact, however, are
introduced in the same peculiar manner. The worst part is the morbid
sympathy and intended apology for the criminal. I give the verses
entire:
“This vain world I soon shall leave,
Dear friends in sorrow do not grieve;
Mourn not my end, though ’tis severe,
For death awaits the murderer.
Now in a dismal cell I lie,
For murder I’m condemn’d to die;
Some may pity when they read,
Oppression drove me to the deed.
My friends and home to me were dear,
The trees and flowers that blossom’d near;
The sweet loved spot where youth began
Is dear to every Englishman.
I once was happy--that is past,
Distress and crosses came at last;
False friendship smiled on wealth and me,
But shunned me in adversity.
The scaffold is awaiting me,
For Jermy I have murdered thee;
Thy hope and joys--thy son I slew,
Thy wife and servant wounded too.
I think I hear the world to say--
‘Oh Rush, why didst thou Jermy slay?
His dear loved son why didst thou kill,
For he had done to thee no ill.’
If Jermy had but kindness shown,
And not have trod misfortune down,
I ne’er had fired the fatal ball
That caus’d his son and him to fall.
My cause I did defend alone,
For learned counsel I had none;
I pleaded hard and questions gave,
In hopes my wretched life to save.
The witness to confound did try,
But God ordained that I should die;
Eliza Chestney she was there,--
I’m sorry I have injured her.
Oh, Emily Sandford, was it due
That I should meet my death through you?
If you had wish’d me well indeed,
How could you thus against me plead?
I’ve used thee kind, though not my wife:
Your evidence has cost my life;
A child by me you have had born,
Though hard against me you have sworn.
The scaffold is, alas! my doom,--
I soon shall wither in the tomb:
God pardon me--no mercy’s here
For Rush--the wretched murderer!”
Although the execution broad-sheet I have cited may be the best, taken
altogether, which has fallen under my observation, nearly all I have
seen have one characteristic--the facts can be plainly understood. The
narrative, embracing trial, biography, &c., is usually prepared by the
printer, being a condensation from the accounts in the newspapers, and
is perhaps intelligible, simply because it _is_ a condensation. It is
so, moreover, in spite of bad grammar, and sometimes perhaps from an
unskilful connection of the different eras of the trial.
When the circumstances of the case permit, or can be at all constrained
to do so, the Last Sorrowful Lamentation contains a “Love Letter,”
written--as one patterer told me he had occasionally expressed it,
when he thought his audience suitable--“from the depths of the
condemned cell, with the condemned pen, ink, and paper.” The style is
stereotyped, and usually after this fashion:
“Dear ----,--Shrink not from receiving a letter from one who is
condemned to die as a murderer. Here, in my miserable cell, I write to
one whom I have from my first acquaintanceship, held in the highest
esteem, and whom, I believe, has also had the same kindly feeling
towards myself. Believe me, I forgive all my enemies and bear no
malice. O, my dear ----, guard against giving way to evil passions,
and a fondness for drink. Be warned by my sad and pitiful fate.”
If it be not feasible to have a love-letter--which can be addressed to
either wife or sweetheart--in the foregoing style, a “last letter” is
given, and this can be written to father, mother, son, daughter, or
friend; and is usually to the following purport:
“Condemned Cell, ----
“My Dear ----,--By the time you receive this my hours, in this world,
will indeed be short. It is an old and true saying, that murderers
will one day meet their proper reward. No one can imagine the dreadful
nights of anguish passed by me since the commital of the crime on poor
----. All my previous victims have appeared before me in a thousand
different shapes and forms. My sufferings have been more than I can
possibly describe. Let me entreat you to turn from your evil ways and
lead a honest and sober life. I am suffering so much at the present
moment both from mind and body that I can write no longer. Farewell!
farewell!
“Your affectionate ----.”
I have hitherto spoken of the Last Sorrowful Lamentation sheets. The
next broad-sheet is the “Life, Trial, Confession, and Execution.”
This presents the same matter as the “Lamentation,” except that
a part--perhaps the judge’s charge at the trial, or perhaps the
biography--is removed to make room for the “Execution,” and
occasionally for a portion of the “Condemned Sermon.” To judge by the
productions I treat of, both subjects are marvelously similar on all
occasions. I cite a specimen of the Condemned Sermon, as preached,
according to the broad-sheet, before Hewson, condemned for the murder
of a turnkey. It will be seen that it is of a character to fit _any_
condemned sermon whatever:
“The rev. gent. then turned his discourse particularly to the unhappy
prisoner doomed to die on the morrow, and told him to call on Him who
alone had the power of forgiveness; who had said, ‘though his sins
were red as scarlet,’ he would ‘make them white as snow,’ though he
had been guilty of many heinous crimes, there was yet an opportunity
of forgiveness.--During the delivery of this address, the prisoner was
in a very desponding state, and at its conclusion was helped out of
the chapel by the turnkeys.”
The “Execution” is detailed generally in this manner. I cite the “Life,
Trial, Confession and Execution of Mary May, for the Murder of W.
Constable, her Half-brother, by Poison, at Wix, near Manningtree:”
“At an early hour this morning the space before the prison was very
much crowded by persons anxious to witness the execution of Mary
May, for the murder of William Constable, her half-brother, by
poison, at Wix, Manningtree, which gradually increased to such a
degree, that a great number of persons suffered extremely from the
pressure, and gladly gave up their places on the first opportunity
to escape from the crowd. The sheriffs and their attendants arrived
at the prison early this morning and proceeded to the condemn cell,
were they found the reverend ordinary engaged in prayer with the
miserable woman. After the usual formalities had been observed of
demanding the body of the prisoner into their custody she was then
conducted to the press-room. The executioner with his assistants
then commenced pinioning her arms, which opperation they skillfully
and quickly dispatched. During these awful preparations the unhappy
woman appeared mently to suffer severely, but uttered not a word when
the hour arrived and all the arrangements having been completed,
the bell commenced tolling, and then a change was observed, to come
over the face of the prisoner, who trembling violently, walked with
the melancholy procession, proceeded by the reverend ordinary, who
read aloud the funeral service for the dead. When the bell commenced
tolling a moment was heard from without, and the words “Hats off,”
and “Silence,” were distinctly heard, from which time nothing but a
continual sobbing was heard. On arriving at the foot of the steps
leading to the scaffold she thanked the sheriffs and the worthy
governor of the prison, for their kind attentions to her during her
confinement; & then the unfortunate woman was seen on the scaffold,
there was a death like silence prevailed among the vast multitude of
people assembled. In a few seconds the bolt was drawn, and, after a
few convulsive struggles, the unhappy woman ceased to exist.”
I cannot refrain from calling the reader’s attention to the “copy of
verses” touching Mary May. I give them entire, for they seem to me
to contain all the elements which made the old ballads popular--the
rushing at once into the subject--and the homely reflections, though
crude to all educated persons, are, nevertheless, well adapted to
enlist the sympathy and appreciation of the class of hearers to whom
they are addressed:
COPY OF VERSES.
“The solemn bell for me doth toll,
And I am doom’d to die
(For murdering my brother dear,)
Upon a tree so high.
For gain I did premeditate
My brother for to slay,--
Oh, think upon the dreadful fate
Of wretched Mary May.
CHORUS.
Behold the fate of Mary May,
Who did for gain her brother slay.
In Essex boundry I did dwell,
My brother lived with me,
In a little village called Wix,
Not far from Manningtree.
In a burial club I entered him,
On purpose him to slay;
And to obtain the burial fees
I took his life away.
One eve he to his home return’d,
Not thinking he was doom’d,
To be sent by a sister’s hand
Unto the silent tomb.
His tea for him I did prepare,
And in it poison placed,
To which I did administer,--
How dreadful was his case.
Before he long the poison took
In agony he cried;
Upon him I in scorn did look,--
At length my brother died.
Then to the grave I hurried him,
And got him out of sight,
But God ordain’d this cruel deed
Should soon be brought to light.
I strove the money to obtain,
For which I did him slay,
By which, also, suspicion fell
On guilty Mary May.
The poison was discovered,
Which caused me to bewail,
And I my trial to await
Was sent to Chelmsford jail.
And for this most atrocious deed
I at the bar was placed,
The Jury found me guilty,--
How dreadful was my case.
The Judge the dreadful sentence pass’d,
And solemn said to me,
‘You must return from whence you came,
And thence unto the tree.’
On earth I can no longer dwell,
There’s nothing can me save;
Hark! I hear the mournful knell
Which calls me to the grave.
Death appears in ghostly forms,
To summon me below;
See, the fatal bolt is drawn,
And Mary May must go.
Good people all, of each degree,
Before it is too late,
See me on the fatal tree,
And pity my sad fate.
My guilty heart stung with grief,
With agony and pain,--
My tender brother I did slay
That fatal day for gain.”
This mode of procedure in “gallows” literature, and this style of
composition, have prevailed for from twenty to thirty years. I find
my usual impossibility to _fix_ a date among these street-folk;
but the Sorrowful Lamentation sheet was unknown until the law for
prolonging the term of existence between the trial and death of the
capitally-convicted, was passed. “Before that, sir,” I was told, “there
wasn’t no time for a Lamentation; sentence o’ Friday, and scragging
o’ Monday. So we had only the Life, Trial, and Execution.” Before the
year 1820, the Execution broad-sheets, &c., were “got up” in about the
same, though certainly in an inferior and more slovenly manner than at
present; and _one_ copy of verses often did service for the canticles
of all criminals condemned to be hung. These verses were to sacred or
psalm tunes, such as Job, or the Old Hundredth. I was told by an aged
gentleman that he remembered, about the year 1812, hearing a song, or,
as he called it, “stave,” of this description, not only given in the
street with fiddle and nasal twang, to the tune of the Old Hundredth,
but commencing in the very words of Sternhold and Hopkins--
“All people that on earth do dwell.”
These “death-verses,” as they were sometimes called, were very
frequently sung by blind people, and in some parts of the country
blind men and women still sing--generally to the accompaniment of a
fiddle--the “copy of verses.” A London chaunter told me, that, a few
years back, he heard a blind man at York announce the “verses” as from
the “solitudes” of the condemned cell. At present the broad-sheet
sellers usually sing, or chaunt, the copy of verses.
An intelligent man, now himself a street-trader, told me that one of
the latest “execution songs” (as he called them) which he remembered
to have heard in the old style--but “no doubt there were plenty after
that, as like one another as peas in a boiling”--was on the murder of
Weare, at Elstree, in Hertfordshire. He took great interest in such
things when a boy, and had the song in question by heart, but could
only depend upon his memory for the first and second verses:
“Come, all good Christians, praise the Lord,
And trust to him in hope.
God in his mercy Jack Thurtell sent
To hang from Hertford gallows rope.
Poor Weare’s murder the Lord disclosed--
Be glory to his name:
And Thurtell, Hunt, and Probert too,
Were brought to grief and shame.”
Another street paper-worker whom I spoke to on the subject, and to
whom I read these two verses, said: “That’s just the old thing, sir;
and it’s quite in old Jemmy Catnach’s style, for he used to write
werses--anyhow, he said he did, for I’ve heard him say so, and I’ve no
doubt he did in reality--it was just his favourite style, I know, but
the march of intellect put it out. It did so.”
In the most “popular” murders, the street “papers” are a mere recital
from the newspapers, but somewhat more brief, when the suspected
murderer is in custody; but when the murderer has not been apprehended,
or is unknown, “then,” said one Death-hunter, “we has our fling, and
I’ve hit the mark a few chances that way. We had, at the werry least,
half-a-dozen coves pulled up in the slums that we printed for the
murder of ‘The Beautiful Eliza Grimwood, in the Waterloo-road.’ I did
best on Thomas Hopkins, being the guilty man--I think he was Thomas
Hopkins--’cause a strong case was made out again him.”
I received similar accounts of the street-doings in the case of
“mysterious murders,” as those perpetrations are called by the paper
workers, when the criminal has escaped, or was unknown. Among those
leaving considerable scope to the patterer’s powers of invention
were the murders of Mr. Westwood, a watchmaker in Prince’s-street,
Leicester-square; of Eliza Davis, a bar-maid, in Frederick-street,
Hampstead-road; and of the policeman in Dagenham, Essex. One of the
most successful “cocks,” relating to murders which actually occurred,
was the “Confession to the Rev. Mr. Cox, Chaplain of Aylesbury Gaol,
of John Tawell the Quaker.” I had some conversation with one of the
authors of this “Confession,”--for it was got up by three patterers;
and he assured me that “it did well, and the facts was soon in some of
the newspapers--as what we ’riginates often is.” This sham confession
was as follows:
“The Rev. Mr. Cox, the chaplain of Aylesbury Gaol, having been taken
ill, and finding his end approaching, sent for his son, and said,
‘Take this confession; now I am as good as my word; I promised that
unhappy man, John Tawell, that while I lived his confession should not
be made public, owing to the excited state of the public mind. Tawell
confessed to me, that besides the murder of Sarah Hart, at Salt-hill,
for which he suffered the last penalty of the law at Aylesbury, he was
guilty of two other barbarous murders while abroad as a transport in
Van Dieman’s Land. One of these barbarous and horrid murders was on
the body of one of the keepers. He knocked him down with the keys,
which he wrenched from him, and then cut his throat with his own
knife, leaving the body locked up in his cell; and before that, to
have the better opportunity of having the turnkey single-handed, John
Tawell feigned illness. He then locked the keeper, in the cell, and
went to a young woman in the town, a beautiful innkeeper’s daughter,
whom he had seduced as he worked for her father, as he had the
privilege of doing in the day-times. He went to her, and she, seeing
him in a flurried state, with blood upon his hand, questioned him. He
told the unhappy young woman how he had killed the keeper for the love
of her, and the best thing to be done was for her to get possession of
all the money she could, and escape with him to this country, where
he would marry her, and support her like a lady. The unhappy young
woman felt so terrified, that at the moment she was unable to say yes
or no. He became alarmed for his safety, and with the identical knife
that he killed the keeper with, he left his unhappy victim a weltering
in her gore. He then fled from the house unobserved, and went into
the bush, where he met three men, who had escaped through his killing
the keeper. He advised them to go down with him to an English vessel
lying off the coast. When they reached the shore, they met a crew in
search of fresh water; to them they made out a pitiful story, and
were taken on board the ship. All being young men, and the captain
being short of hands, and one of them having been really a seaman
transported for mutiny, the captain, after putting questions which the
seaman answered, engaged them to work their passage home. Tawell was
the captain of the gang, and was most looked up to. They worked their
passage home, behaving well during the voyage, so that the captain
said he would make each of them a present, and never divulge. When
they reached Liverpool, Tawell robbed the captain’s cabin of all the
money contained in it, which was a very considerable sum. After that
he left Liverpool, and adopted the garb of a Quaker, in which he could
not easily be recognized, and then pursued the course of wickedness
and crime which led him to a shameful death.’”
The “confession” of Rush to the chaplain of Norwich Castle, was another
production which was remunerative to the patterers. “There was soon a
bit of it in the newspapers,” said one man, “for us and them treads
close on one another’s heels. The newspapers ‘screeved’ about Rush,
and his mother, and his wife; but we, in our patter, made him confess
to having murdered his old grandmother fourteen years back, and how he
buried her under the apple-tree in the garden, and how he murdered his
wife as well.”
These ulterior Confessions are very rarely introduced, in lieu of some
matter displaced, into the broad-sheet, but form separate bills. It was
necessary to mention them here, however, and so preserve the sequence
of the whole of the traffic consequent upon a conviction for murder, in
this curious trade.
Sometimes the trial, &c., form also separate bills, as well as being
embodied afterwards in the Sorrowful Lamentation. This is only,
however, in cases which are deemed important. One of the papers I
obtained, for instance, is the “Trial of Mr. and Mrs. Manning for
the Murder of Mr. Patrick O’Connor.” The trial alone occupies a
broad-sheet; it is fairly “got up.” A portrait of Mr. Patrick O’Connor
heads the middle column. From the presence of a fur collar to the coat
or cloak, and of what is evidently an order with its insignia, round
the neck, I have little doubt that the portrait of Mr. O’Connor was
originally that of the sovereign in whose service O’Connor was once an
excise-officer--King William IV.
The last publication to which the trade has recourse is “the book.”
This is usually eight pages, but sometimes only four of a larger
size. In authorship, matter, or compilation, it differs little from
the narratives I have described. The majority of these books are
prepared by one man. They are in a better form for being preserved as
a record than is a broad-sheet, and are frequently sold, and almost
always offered by the patterers when they cry a new case on a sheet,
as “people that loves such reading likes to keep a good account of
the best by them; and so, when I’ve sold Manning’s bills, I’ve often
shoved off Rush’s books.” The books, like the bills, have generally the
letters and the copy of verses.
Some of these books have the title-page set forth in full display,--for
example: “_Horrible Murder and Mutilation of Lucy Game, aged 15, by her
Cruel Brother, William Game, aged 9, at Westmill, Hertfordshire. His
Committal and Confession. With a Copy of Letter. Also, Full Particulars
of the Poisonings in Essex._” Here, as there was no execution, the
matter was extended, to include the poisonings in Essex. The title I
have quoted is expanded into thirteen lines. Sometimes the title-page
is adorned with a portrait. One, I was told, which was last employed
as a portrait of Calcraft, had done severe service since Courvoisier’s
time,--for my informant thought that Courvoisier was the original. It
is the bust of an ill-looking man, with coat and waistcoat fitting with
that unwrinkled closeness which characterises the figures in tailors’
“fashions.”