by his wife, his stepson, his daughter, Mrs. Bolsover, and her husband,
he was in much better spirits. He asked his visitors to restrain
themselves from displays of emotion, as he felt very happy and did
not wish to be disturbed. He advised them to sell or exhibit for money
certain works of art of his own devising. Among them was a design
in paper for a monument to be placed over his grave. The design is
elaborate but well and ingeniously executed; in the opinion of Frith,
the painter, it showed "the true feeling of an artist." It is somewhat
in the style of the Albert Memorial, and figures of angels are prominent
in the scheme. The whole conception is typical of the artist's sanguine
and confident assurance of his ultimate destiny. A model boat and a
fiddle made out of a hollow bamboo cane he wished also to be made the
means of raising money. He was describing with some detail the ceremony
of his approaching death and burial when he was interrupted by a sound
of hammering. Peace listened for a moment and then said, "That's a noise
that would make some men fall on the floor. They are working at my own
scaffold." A warder said that he was mistaken. "No, I am not," answered
Peace, "I have not worked so long with wood without knowing the sound of
deals; and they don't have deals inside a prison for anything else than
scaffolds." But the noise, he said, did not disturb him in the least, as
he was quite prepared to meet his fate. He would like to have seen his
grave and coffin; he knew that his body would be treated with scant
ceremony after his death. But what of that? By that time his soul would
be in Heaven. He was pleased that one sinner who had seen him on his way
from Pentonville to Sheffield, had written to tell him that the sight of
the convict had brought home to him the sins of his own past life, and
by this means he had found salvation.
The time had come to say good-bye for the last time. Peace asked his
weeping relatives whether they had anything more that they wished to ask
him. Mrs. Peace reminded him that he had promised to pray with them
at the last. Peace, ever ready, knelt with them and prayed for half an
hour. He then shook hands with them, prayed for and blessed each one
singly, and himself gave way to tears as they left his presence. To his
wife as she departed Peace gave a funeral card of his own designing. It
ran:
In
Memory
of
Charles Peace
Who was executed in
Armley Prison
Tuesday February 25th,
1879 Aged 47
For that I don but never
Intended.
The same day there arrived in the prison one who in his own trade had
something of the personality and assurance of the culprit he was to
execute. William Marwood--unlike his celebrated victim, he has his place
in the Dictionary of National Biography--is perhaps the most remarkable
of these persons who have held at different times the office of public
executioner. As the inventor of the "long drop," he has done a lasting
service to humanity by enabling the death-sentence passed by the judge
to be carried out with the minimum of possible suffering. Marwood took a
lofty view of the office he held, and refused his assent to the somewhat
hypocritical loathing, with which those who sanction and profit by his
exertions are pleased to regard this servant of the law. "I am doing
God's work," said Marwood, "according to the divine command and the
law of the British Crown. I do it simply as a matter of duty and as
a Christian. I sleep as soundly as a child and am never disturbed by
phantoms. Where there is guilt there is bad sleeping, but I am conscious
that I try to live a blameless life. Detesting idleness, I pass
my vacant time in business (he was a shoemaker at Horncastle, in
Lincolnshire) and work in my shoeshop near the church day after day
until such time as I am required elsewhere. It would have been better
for those I executed if they had preferred industry to idleness."
Marwood had not the almost patriarchal air of benevolent respectability
which his predecessor Calcraft had acquired during a short experience
as a family butler; but as an executioner that kindly old gentleman
had been a sad bungler in his time compared with the scientific and
expeditious Marwood. The Horncastle shoemaker was saving, businesslike,
pious and thoughtful. Like Peace, he had interests outside his ordinary
profession. He had at one time propounded a scheme for the abolition of
the National Debt, a man clearly determined to benefit his fellowmen in
some way or other. A predilection for gin would seem to have been his
only concession to the ordinary weakness of humanity. And now he had
arrived in Armley Jail to exercise his happy dispatch on the greatest
of the many criminals who passed through his hands, one who, in his own
words, "met death with greater firmness" than any man on whom he had
officiated during seven years of Crown employment.
The day of February the 25th broke bitterly cold. Like Charles I.
before him, Peace feared lest the extreme cold should make him appear
to tremble on the scaffold. He had slept calmly till six o'clock in the
morning. A great part of the two hours before the coming of the hangman
Peace spent in letter-writing. He wrote two letters to his wife, in one
of which he copied out some verses he had written in Woking Prison
on the death of their little boy John. In the second he expressed his
satisfaction that he was to die now and not linger twenty years in
prison. To his daughter, step-son and son-in-law he wrote letters of
fervent, religious exhortation and sent them tracts and pictures
which he had secured from well-intentioned persons anxious about
his salvation. To an old friend, George Goodlad, a pianist, who
had apparently lived up to his name, he wrote: "You chose an honest
industrious way through life, but I chose the one of dishonesty,
villainy and sin"; let his fate, he said, be a warning.
Peace ate a hearty breakfast and awaited the coming of the executioner
with calm. He had been troubled with an inconvenient cough the night
before. "I wonder," he said to one of his warders, "if Marwood could
cure this cough of mine." He had got an idea into his head that Marwood
would "punish" him when he came to deal with him on the scaffold, and
asked to see the hangman a few minutes before the appointed hour. "I
hope you will not punish me. I hope you will do your work quickly," he
said to Marwood. "You shall not suffer pain from my hand," replied that
worthy. "God bless you," exclaimed Peace, "I hope to meet you all in
heaven. I am thankful to say my sins are all forgiven." And so these two
pious men--on the morning of an execution Marwood always knelt down and
asked God's blessing on the work he had to do--shook hands together and
set about their business. Firmly and fearlessly Peace submitted himself
to the necessary preparations. For one moment he faltered as the gallows
came in sight, but recovered himself quickly.
As Marwood was about to cover his face, Peace stopped him with some
irritation of manner and said that he wished to speak to the gentlemen
of the press who had been admitted to the ceremony. No one gainsaid him,
and he thus addressed the reporters: "You gentlemen reporters, I wish
you to notice the few words I am going to say. You know what my life
has been. It has been base; but I wish you to notice, for the sake of
others, how a man can die, as I am about to die, in fear of the Lord.
Gentlemen, my heart says that I feel assured that my sins are forgiven
me, that I am going to the Kingdom of Heaven, or else to the place
prepared for those who rest until the great Judgment day. I do not think
I have any enemies, but if there are any who would be so, I wish them
well. Gentlemen, all and all, I wish them to come to the Kingdom of
Heaven when they die, as I am going to die." He asked a blessing on the
officials of the prison and, in conclusion, sent his last wishes and
respects to his dear children and their mother. "I hope," he said, "no
one will disgrace them by taunting them or jeering them on my account,
but to have mercy upon them. God bless you, my dear children. Good-bye,
and Heaven bless you. Amen: Oh, my Lord God, have mercy upon me!"
After the cap had been placed over his head Peace asked twice very
sharply, as a man who expected to be obeyed, for a drink of water. But
this time his request was not compiled with. He died instantaneously and
was buried in Armley Jail.
Had Peace flourished in 1914 instead of 1874, his end might have been
honourable instead of dishonourable. The war of to-day has no doubt
saved many a man from a criminal career by turning to worthy account
qualities which, dangerous in crime, are useful in war. Absolute
fearlessness, agility, resource, cunning and determination; all these
are admirable qualities in the soldier; and all these Charles Peace
possessed in a signal degree. But fate denied him opportunity, he became
a burglar and died on the scaffold. Years of prison life failed, as they
did in those days, to make any impression for good on one resolute in
whatever way he chose to go. Peace was a born fighter. A detective who
knew him and had on one occasion come near capturing him in London, said
that he was a fair fighter, that he always gave fair warning to those on
whom he fired, and that, being a dead shot, the many wide shots which
he fired are to be reckoned proofs of this. Peace maintained to the last
that he had never intended to kill Dyson. This statement ex-detective
Parrock believed, and that the fatal shot was fired over Peace's
shoulder as he was making off. Though habitually sober, Peace was made
intoxicated now and then by the drink, stood him by those whom he used
to amuse with his musical tricks and antics in public-houses. At such
times he would get fuddled and quarrelsome. He was in such a frame
of mind on the evening of Dyson's murder. His visit to the Vicar of
Ecclesall brought him little comfort or consolation. It was in this
unsatisfactory frame of mind that he went to Dyson's house. This much
the ex-detective would urge in his favour. To his neighbours he was an
awe-inspiring but kind and sympathetic man. "If you want my true opinion
of him," says Detective Parrock, "he was a burglar to the backbone but
not a murderer at heart. He deserved the fate that came to him as little
as any who in modern times have met with a like one." Those who are in
the fighting line are always the most generous about their adversaries.
Parrock as a potential target for Peace's revolver, may have erred on
the side of generosity, but there is some truth in what he says.
As Peace himself admitted, his life had been base. He was well aware
that he had misused such gifts as nature had bestowed on him. One
must go back to mediaeval times to find the counterpart of this daring
ruffian who, believing in personal God and devil, refuses until the end
to allow either to interfere with his business in life. In this respect
Charles Peace reminds us irresistibly of our Angevin kings.
There is only one criminal who vies with Charley Peace in that genial
popular regard which makes Charles "Charley" and John "Jack," and that
is Jack Sheppard. What Jack was to the eighteenth century, that Charley
was to the nineteenth. And each one is in a sense typical of his period.
Lecky has said that the eighteenth century is richer than any other
in the romance of crime. I think it may fairly be said that in the
nineteenth century the romance of crime ceased to be. In the eighteenth
century the scenery and dresses, all the stage setting of crime make for
romance; its literature is quaint and picturesque; there is something
gay and debonair about the whole business.
Sheppard is typical of all this. There is a certain charm about the
rascal; his humour is undeniable; he is a philosopher, taking all that
comes with easy grace, even his betrayal by his brother and others
who should have been loyal to him. Jack Sheppard has the good-humoured
carelessness of that most engaging of all eighteenth century
malefactors, Deacon Brodie. It is quite otherwise with Charley Peace.
There is little enough gay or debonair about him. Compared with
Sheppard, Peace is as drab as the surroundings of mid-Victorian crime
are drab compared with the picturesqueness of eighteenth century
England.
Crime in the nineteenth century becomes more scientific in its methods
and in its detection also. The revolver places a more hasty, less
decorous weapon than the old-fashioned pistol in the hands of the
determined burglar. The literature of crime, such as it is, becomes
vulgar and prosaic. Peace has no charm about him, no gaiety, but he has
the virtues of his defects. He, unlike Sheppard, shuns company; he works
alone, never depending on accomplices; a "tight cock," as Sheppard would
have phrased it, and not relying on a like quality of tightness in
his fellows. Sheppard is a slave to his women, Edgeworth Bess and Mrs.
Maggot; Mrs. Peace and Sue Thompson are the slaves of Peace. Sheppard
loves to stroll openly about the London streets in his fine suit
of black, his ruffled shirt and his silver-hilted sword. Peace lies
concealed at Peckham beneath the homely disguise of old Mr. Thompson.
Sheppard is an imp, Peace a goblin. But both have that gift of
personality which, in their own peculiar line, lifts them out from the
ruck, and makes them Jack and Charley to those who like to know famous
people by cheery nicknames.
And so we must accept Charles Peace as a remarkable character, whose
unquestioned gifts as a man of action were squandered on a criminal
career; neither better nor worse than a great number of other persons,
whose good fortune it has been to develop similar qualities under
happier surroundings. There are many more complete villains than the
ordinary criminal, who contrive to go through life without offending
against the law. Close and scientific investigation has shown that the
average convicted criminal differs intellectually from the normal person
only in a slightly lower level of intelligence, a condition that may
well be explained by the fact that the convicted criminal has been
found out. Crime has been happily defined by a recent and most able
investigator into the character of the criminal(12) as "an unusual act
committed by a perfectly normal person." At the same time, according
to the same authority, there is a type of normal person who tends to
be convicted of crime, and he is differentiated from his fellows by
defective physique and mental capacity and an increased possession of
antisocial qualities.(13)
(12) "The English Convict," a statistical study, by Charles Goring, M.D.
His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1913.
(13) Murderers--at least those executed for their crimes--have not for
obvious reasons been made the subject of close scientific observation.
Their mental capacity would in all probability be found to be rather
higher than that of less ambitious criminals.
How does Peace answer to the definition? Though short in stature, his
physical development left little to be desired: he was active, agile,
and enjoyed excellent health at all times. For a man of forty-seven he
had aged remarkably in appearance. That is probably to be accounted for
by mental worry. With two murders on his conscience we know from Sue
Thompson that all she learnt of his secrets was what escaped from him in
his troubled dreams--Peace may well have shown traces of mental
anxiety. But in all other respects Charles Peace would seem to have been
physically fit. In intellectual capacity he was undoubtedly above the
average of the ordinary criminal. The facts of his career, his natural
gifts, speak for themselves. Of anti-social proclivities he no doubt
possessed his share at the beginning, and these were aggravated, as in
most cases they were in his day, by prison life and discipline.
Judged as scientifically as is possible where the human being is
concerned, Peace stands out physically and intellectually well above
the average of his class, perhaps the most naturally gifted of all those
who, without advantages of rank or education, have tried their hands at
crime. Ordinary crime for the most part would appear to be little better
than the last resort of the intellectually defective, and a poor game
at that. The only interesting criminals are those worthy of something
better. Peace was one of these. If his life may be said to point a
moral, it is the very simple one that crime is no career for a man of
brains.
The Career of Robert Butler
There is a report of Butler's trial published in Dunedin. It gives in
full the speeches and the cross-examination of the witnesses, but not
in all cases the evidence-in-chief. By the kindness of a friend in
New Zealand I obtained a copy of the depositions taken before the
magistrate; with this I have been able to supplement the report of the
trial. A collection of newspaper cuttings furnished me with the details
of the rest of Butler's career.
I
THE DUNEDIN MURDERS
On the evening of March 23, 1905, Mr. William Munday, a highly respected
citizen of the town of Tooringa, in Queensland, was walking to the
neighbouring town of Toowong to attend a masonic gathering. It was about
eight o'clock, the moon shining brightly. Nearing Toowong, Mr. Munday
saw a middle-aged man, bearded and wearing a white overcoat, step
out into the moonlight from under the shadow of a tree. As Mr. Munday
advanced, the man in the white coat stood directly in his way. "Out with
all you have, and quick about it," he said. Instead of complying with
this peremptory summons, Mr. Munday attempted to close with him. The man
drew back quickly, whipped out a revolver, fired, and made off as fast
as he could. The bullet, after passing through Mr. Munday's left arm,
had lodged in the stomach. The unfortunate gentleman was taken to a
neighbouring hospital where, within a few hours, he was dead.
In the meantime a vigorous search was made for his assailant. Late the
same night Constable Hennessy, riding a bicycle, saw a man in a white
coat who seemed to answer to the description of the assassin. He
dismounted, walked up to him and asked him for a match. The man put his
hand inside his coat. "What have you got there?" asked the constable.
"I'll--soon show you," replied the man in the white coat, producing
suddenly a large revolver. But Hennessy was too quick for him. Landing
him one under the jaw, he sent him to the ground and, after a sharp
struggle, secured him. Constable Hennessy little knew at the time that
his capture in Queensland of the man in the white coat was almost as
notable in the annals of crime as the affray at Blackheath on an autumn
night in 1878, when Constable Robinson grappled successfully, wounded as
he was, with Charles Peace.
The man taken by Hennessy gave the name of James Wharton, and as
James Wharton he was hanged at Brisbane. But before his death it was
ascertained beyond doubt, though he never admitted it himself, that
Wharton was none other than one Robert Butler, whose career as a
criminal and natural wickedness may well rank him with Charles Peace in
the hierarchy of scoundrels. Like Peace, Butler was, in the jargon of
crime, a "hatter," a "lone hand," a solitary who conceived and
executed his nefarious designs alone; like Peace, he supplemented an
insignificant physique by a liberal employment of the revolver; like
Peace, he was something of a musician, the day before his execution he
played hymns for half an hour on the prison organ; like Peace, he knew
when to whine when it suited his purpose; and like Peace, though not
with the same intensity, he could be an uncomfortably persistent lover,
when the fit was on him. Both men were cynics in their way and viewed
their fellow-men with a measure of contempt. But here parallel ends.
Butler was an intellectual, inferior as a craftsman to Peace, the
essentially practical, unread, naturally gifted artist. Butler was a man
of books. He had been schoolmaster, journalist. He had studied the lives
of great men, and as a criminal, had devoted especial attention to those
of Frederick the Great and Napoleon. Butler's defence in the Dunedin
murder trial was a feat of skill quite beyond the power of Peace. Peace
was a religious man after the fashion of the mediaeval tyrant, Butler
an infidel. Peace, dragged into the light of a court of justice, cut a
sorry figure; here Butler shone. Peace escaped a conviction for murder
by letting another suffer in his place; Butler escaped a similar
experience by the sheer ingenuity of his defence. Peace had the modesty
and reticence of the sincere artist; Butler the loquacious vanity of the
literary or forensic coxcomb. Lastly, and it is the supreme difference,
Butler was a murderer by instinct and conviction, as Lacenaire or
Ruloff; "a man's life," he said, "was of no more importance than a
dog's; nature respects the one no more than the other, a volcanic
eruption kills mice and men with the one hand. The divine command,
'kill, kill and spare not,' was intended not only for Joshua, but for
men of all time; it is the example of our rulers, our Fredericks and
Napoleons."
Butler was of the true Prussian mould. "In crime," he would say, "as
in war, no half measures. Let us follow the example of our rulers whose
orders in war run, 'Kill, burn and sink,' and what you cannot carry
away, destroy.'" Here is the gospel of frightfulness applied almost
prophetically to crime. To Butler murder is a principle of warfare; to
Peace it was never more than a desperate resort or an act the outcome of
ungovernable passion.
Ireland can claim the honour of Butler's birth. It took place at
Kilkenny about 1845. At an early age he left his native land for
Australia, and commenced his professional career by being sentenced
under the name of James Wilson--the same initials as those of James
Wharton of Queensland--to twelve months' imprisonment for vagrancy. Of
the sixteen years he passed in Victoria he spent thirteen in prison,
first for stealing, then in steady progression for highway robbery and
burglary. Side by side with the practical and efficient education in
crime furnished by the Victorian prisons of that day, Butler availed
himself of the opportunity to educate his mind. It was during this
period that he found inspiration and encouragement in the study of the
lives of Frederick and Napoleon, besides acquiring a knowledge of music
and shorthand.
When in 1876 Butler quitted Australia for New Zealand, he was
sufficiently accomplished to obtain employment as a schoolmaster.
At Cromwell, Otago, under the name of "C. J. Donelly, Esq.," Butler
opened a "Commercial and Preparatory Academy," and in a prospectus that
recalls Mr. Squeers' famous advertisement of Dotheboys Hall, announced
that the programme of the Academy would include "reading, taught as
an art and upon the most approved principles of elocution, writing,
arithmetic, euclid, algebra, mensuration, trigonometry, book-keeping,
geography, grammar, spelling and dictation, composition, logic and
debate, French, Latin, shorthand, history, music, and general lectures
on astronomy, natural philosophy, geology, and other subjects." The
simpler principles of these branches of learning were to be "rendered
intelligible, and a firm foundation laid for the acquirement of future
knowledge." Unfortunately a suspicion of theft on Butler's part cut
short the fulfilment of this really splendid programme, and Butler left
Cromwell hurriedly for the ampler field of Dunedin. There, less than a
fortnight after his arrivel{sic}, he was sentenced to four years' hard
labour for several burglaries committed in and about that city.