THE EXPIATION
Run to earth, and captured like a rabbit at the end of its burrow, the
murderer was brought to Albany, and shipped to Melbourne by the liner
"Ballaarat." As a relief from the general lack of events of interest
that marked his return progress, it may be noted that the train on
which he traveled from Freemantle to Albany, was stormed at York by
an indignant populace, who voiced the sentiment universally pervading
all the Colonies against his atrocities by a determined effort to
visit a rude, if original, form of justice upon him by tearing him to
pieces between two bullock-teams, and were dissuaded with difficulty
from this intention by a display of revolvers by his guards. His
feelings were outraged also on the steamer, where he expressed himself
as much distressed by the light and profane conversation of certain
unregenerate marines who were on their way to the Australian station,
and strongly rebuked them therefor:--thus illustrating anew the strange
contradiction in his nature which was before shown in his reproach
of Miss Rounsfell's fondness for dancing. In fact, all who at various
times came in contact with him--including and ending with his guardians
in the Melbourne jail--remarked upon his scrupulousness of language and
nicety of conduct.
* * * * *
I have gone thus at some length into a description of this monster
and his crimes for two reasons:--in the first place because it seemed
essential to show the causes of the repulsion and horror which his very
name inspired, and thus to place the reader in a position to appreciate
the effect upon the popular mind of later incidents which I am about to
record; and, in the second place, because the close study which I was
able to give alike to the man and his deeds convinced me that his case
was one possessing far more interest for the psychologist than even the
criminologist.
The ingenious Sir William S. Gilbert, in the song of the sentimental
police sergeant in "The Pirates of Penzance," wherein it is recited that
"When the enterprizing burglar isn't burgling, When the cutthroat isn't
occupied with crime, He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling, And
listens to the merry village chime"--
voiced a truth which has been marked in the cases of many malefactors.
It has been observed of Deeming that, in the intervals of swindling,
lying and homicide by which his career is chiefly remembered, he
bristled like a copybook with virtuous and noble sentiments--nor is
his sincerity to be doubted in their utterance. It is unquestionable
that he was a man of singular address and subtlety--not only among
men skilled in business affairs and experienced in reading character.
He was a clever mechanic, and able to adapt himself quickly and
efficiently to any occupation:--as is shown by the fact that although
there is nothing in his history to indicate that he had had any
previous experience in mine-management, he more than fulfilled all the
requirements laid upon him at Southern Cross, increased the output of
gold by ingenious inventions, and was esteemed by the company as the
most capable manager it had ever had. He had a marked, if imperfectly
developed, fondness for music and literature, and although his
conversation included many grammatical solecisms, it was effective and
often eloquent. His taste in dress, although rather flamboyant in the
matter of jewelry, of which he always wore a profusion, was noticeably
correct--the frock-coat, light trousers and perfectly-fitting
patent-leather shoes which he wore at his trial were evidently from the
hands of the best London outfitters, and would have graced (as they
doubtless had done) the fashionable afternoon parade which is a feature
of Melbourne's Collins Street.
The anomaly that is suggested by these established facts regarding
him is of minor interest, however, in comparison with more striking
contradictions that were remarked after his capture. It was my
fortune to have a place near him at the inquest which resulted in
his commitment for trial, as well as at the trial itself that duly
followed. Popular feeling against him was so intense and violent that
the authorities did not dare to land him at the steamboat pier, but
smuggled him aboard a tug when the "Ballaarat" entered the harbor, and
brought him ashore at the suburb of St. Kilda, whence he was hurried in
a closed cab to the Melbourne jail. Brought into the court where the
inquest was held, his appearance was so brutal and revolting that a
murmur of horror and disgust arose at his entrance which the judge and
officers with difficulty quelled.
There was in his deeply-lined and saturnine face no indication of an
understanding of his position. His lips were drawn in a sardonic
sneer, and his eyes--steely, evil and magnetic--glistened like those
of the basilisk as he looked boldly and with a sort of savage bravado
at the faces about him. He disdained to pay any attention to the
proceedings, and was seemingly deaf to the testimony that was advanced
against him by more than thirty witnesses. Yet he evinced a lively,
if contemptuous, interest in minor details, and audibly expressed his
views regarding them. When the canary that had played so singular a
part in his Australian experiences was produced, still in its ornate
gilded cage, he cried out: "Hullo! here comes the menagerie! Why don't
the band play?" Of a reporter taking notes at a table near him he
remarked that "he wrote like a hen," commented upon the weak utterance
of a certain witness that "he had no more voice than a consumptive
shrimp," and interjected ribald criticisms on the words of the judge
that were fairly shocking under the circumstances.
When, at the termination of the proceedings, the judge ordered his
commitment for trial, and stated that a rescript would be issued
against him for the wilful murder of his wife, Emily Williams, he
shouted, in a shrill, cackling, strident sort of voice: "And when you
have got it, you can put it in your pipe and smoke it!"--looking about
with a demoniac grin as if expecting applause for an effective bit of
repartee. As the constables seized him and dragged him to the door,
his eyes fell upon a comely young woman standing on the edge of the
crowd, who regarded him with horrified amazement. Breaking away from
the officers, he danced up to her, chucked her under the chin, and with
his leering face close to hers ejaculated: "O, you ducky, ducky!" and
disappeared amid the cries of the scandalized lookers-on.
* * * * *
I do not know what the emotions of other attendants on the trial may
have been, but I remember my own mental attitude as one of distaste
that my duties as a correspondent required my presence. To see one
weak human being contending for his life against the organized and
tremendous forces of the Law is always a pitiful and moving spectacle;
in this case, with recollections of the repulsive incidents of the
inquest in mind, one nerved oneself for some scene of desperation and
horror. The dock, surrounded by a spiked railing and already guarded
by a posse of white-helmeted constables, stood in the centre of the
courtroom, its platform, elevated some three feet from the floor,
being furnished with a trap-door that communicated with the cells
below by a spiral iron staircase, which the prisoner must ascend. The
audience watched this trap-door in somewhat that state of hesitating
eagerness with which a child awaits the spring of a jack-in-the-box,
not knowing what grotesque or terrifying thing may appear:--and when it
lifted, and the murderer stepped to his place beneath the thousand-eyed
gaze that was fastened upon him, a murmur in which amazement was the
dominant note ran through the room.
My own first feeling was that my eyesight was playing me a trick;
my second, that by some change of program of which I had not
been informed, the trial of Deeming had been postponed. In this
frock-coated, well-groomed and gentlemanly person in the dock there
was no trace whatever of the ruffian who had been the central figure
of the inquest. In age he seemed to have dropped some twenty years;
his manner was perfect, showing no trace either of apprehension or
bravado:--in short, the impression he conveyed (as I described it in my
correspondence at the time) was of a young clergyman of advanced views
presenting himself to trial for heresy, rather than of one of the most
brutal murderers of his generation. This impression prevailed during
the four days his trial lasted; only once or twice could one detect in
his eye the former flash of implacableness and ferocity. It was not
as if he made an effort to keep himself in control, but rather as if
he were a man with two strongly opposed and antagonistic sides to his
nature, of which one or the other might manifest itself without any
conscious exercise of will.
It was also evident to anyone who could observe him dispassionately
that the details of the murder, as they were brought out in the
testimony, were all as news to _him_:--and when, in the address he made
to the jury before it retired to consider its verdict, he admitted
knowledge of the subsidiary facts brought out (as to his acquaintance
with Miss Rounsfell, for example), but swore he was as innocent as
he was incapable of the murder of his wife, I, for one, believed him
sincere, although I could perceive in the faces about me that I was
alone in that opinion. A suggestion that this man might illustrate the
phenomenon of "dual personality" and should be subjected to hypnotic
suggestion at the hands of qualified experts, rather than have swift
condemnation measured out to him, would doubtless have been received
with derision by the hard-headed audience that was the real jury in
the case; but I felt at the time, and feel now even more strongly,
that if Frederick Bailey Deeming had been tried in a country where
psychological aberrations have been the subject of study, he would have
been committed, not to the hangman, but to a lifelong restraint wherein
science might have gained from his extraordinary personality much
valuable knowledge.
The man whose life was choked out of him on the gallows three weeks
later was the man of the inquest, not the man of the trial--and in
this fact is some occasion for satisfaction. He was more subdued, as
though he appreciated--as any other animal might do--what the sinister
preparations for his ending meant:--but when, as he hung beneath the
open trap, the death-cap was lifted from his face, there were plainly
to be seen the hard and brutal lines about his mouth, and the wolfish
sneer upon his lips, which one could not but feel, with something like
a shudder, had distinguished his features in the commission of the
atrocities for which at last he had paid such insufficient price as
society could exact.
* * * * *
The scaffold of the Melbourne jail is a permanent structure with
several traps; and across and above it runs a heavy beam, its ends
fixed in the solid masonry of the walls, and the greater part of its
length scarred and grooved by the chafing of the ropes which, from time
to time, have given despatch to the souls of several hundred murderers.
As I looked up at this fearsome tally-stick, I turned to the oldest
warder of the jail, a man of nearly seventy years, who had been present
at my interview with Deeming a few days before, and who now stood
beside me.
"I want to ask you a question," I said, "unless your official position
may prevent your answering it."
"What is it, sir?" he inquired.
"You have been for many years a warder here, and must have seen many
men under sentence of death."
"Yes," he replied. "I was first here in the bushranging days, and have
been here ever since. I fancy I have seen two hundred men depart this
life by the route of that gallows."
"Then," said I, "you should be a good judge of the character and
mental state of a man who is awaiting a death of that sort. Here is my
question:--What is your opinion of Deeming?"
"Mad, sir," replied the warder. "Mad as a March hare."
This verdict might be qualified, but I believe it to be essentially
just.