The lure of horrors--Beginnings of the “Dead Room”--Sir Thomas
Lawrence, P.R.A., sketches a suicide--Burke and Hare--Fieschi’s
infernal machine--Greenacre--Executions in Public--“Free at
last!”
_Crime may be secret, but never secure._--OLD PROVERB.
In citing the old aphorism that society itself creates the crimes that
most beset it, we shall in no way be tempted to regard the popularity of
the Chamber of Horrors as due to any desire on the part of the people to
visit the place with the object of gazing upon the result of their own
handiwork.
An inquiry into the motives that induce the public to visit this gloomy
chamber scarcely comes within the scope of this work. But that a very
large number _do_ visit the place in the course of each year, and that
they cannot be deemed to belong to any particular class, but represent,
without distinction, _all_ classes of society, we may, of our own certain
knowledge, aver without the slightest hesitation.
Were we, however, if only from an abstract point of view, to venture an
opinion on the vexed question as to why so many have a leaning towards
the seamy and sinister side of life, we should be disposed to consider
that, apart from the allurement of the abnormal and the inclination to
indulge a morbid curiosity, perhaps the chief influence serving to
stimulate the mind of the public when a great crime has been perpetrated
in a genuine concern that a serious outrage has been made on society,
constituting a veritable menace to its security.
We have stated in a former chapter that Curtius, more than a century
ago, had allocated a part of his Museum in Paris to models of men of
ill-repute, and had named it the “Caverne des Grands Voleurs.” How far
this place approximated to the present Chamber of Horrors we cannot say,
but it certainly must have created a precedent for the placing of the
portraits and the relics of lawbreakers in a place separate and apart
from the main and more reputable portion of the Exhibition.
In 1802, when Madame Tussaud crossed the Channel to establish her
Exhibition permanently in this country, she did not, in all probability,
find it easy to obtain an additional room for these figures, especially
when touring through the provinces. Nevertheless, when she had to exhibit
her models in the same hall, she undoubtedly differentiated, to the best
of her ability, between the famous and the infamous by grouping the
models of evil-doers in a corner by themselves.
When the Exhibition was opened in Baker Street, the Chamber of Horrors
became a recognised feature of the collection. It was at first called the
“Dead Room,” although some designated it the “Black Room,” owing to its
sombre aspect.
Its chief exhibit at that time was the guillotine, surrounded by the
impressions of heads that had been decapitated by it. Here also was
shown the model of Marat dying in his bath, besides many other relics of
the Revolution. Indeed, it might have been regarded as the nucleus of
an historical museum dealing exclusively with the last days of the old
French Monarchy. Even the walls were constructed and draped in imitation
of the interior of the Bastille, the principal keys of which were shown
therein as mementoes of unusual interest.
[Illustration: KEY OF THE BASTILLE
Set in a stone from the dungeons of the famous fortress.]
“Mr. Punch” made his début before the British public somewhere during the
early forties, and, as already indicated, he took an early opportunity
of referring to this part of the Tussaud collection as the “Chamber of
Horrors,” by which title it has been known ever since.
The number of persons visiting this extra room during these days was not
great, except on those occasions when the business was galvanised into
activity by the addition of a portrait-model of some unworthy being who
happened for the nonce to figure largely in the public eye.
There came into our possession at a time beyond my memory a singular
and valuable sketch, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, of the alleged murderer,
Williams, as he appeared directly after he had hanged himself in Coldbath
Fields prison.
[Illustration: SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE
President of the Royal Academy.]
Williams was accused of the murders of the Marr and the Williamson
families in the East End of London under peculiarly brutal circumstances.
These massacres, which were committed in December, 1811, caused an
immense sensation, and inspired the remarkable monograph of de Quincey
entitled _Murder as One of the Fine Arts_.
How Lawrence came to make such a drawing, and what induced so refined and
dignified a person to interest himself in a subject so repulsive, it is
difficult to understand. Although Lawrence had not then been elected to
the presidency of the Royal Academy, he held a high position in society
as the first portrait painter of his day.
We give an illustration of the sketch in question which is quite
authentic.
[Illustration: JOHN WILLIAMS
From a drawing made after he had committed suicide in prison by Sir
Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A.]
Until 1823 it was directed that the body of a suicide should be buried in
a cross-road and have a stake driven through it, and there can be little
doubt that that of Williams was thus treated. It was not, indeed, until
1882 that an Act was passed putting an end to this barbarous custom.
This circumstance readily calls to mind Tom Hood’s description of the
fate that befell Ben Battle, the victim of Faithless Nelly Gray:
A dozen men sat on his corpse,
To find out why he died--
And they buried Ben in four cross-roads,
With a _stake_ in his inside!
Of the characters that became, in course of time, suitable objects for
the “Dead Room” we have neither the space nor the inclination to dwell
upon, but a passing reference to two or three that helped to give the
place its present distinctiveness may prove interesting.
The hideous crimes perpetrated by Burke and Hare, to which slight
reference has already been made, took place about the year 1828, and the
memory of those crimes was still fresh in the mind of the public when we
opened in Baker Street; indeed, a matter of six years could not suffice
for its obliteration.
The appalling revelation that it was not only possible, but easy, for
one’s neighbour to be decoyed away, put to death, and his body sold,
without question, for a sum varying from £8 to £14, aroused a feeling of
consternation throughout the country of a very real and lasting character.
The high prices paid for bodies required for dissection had begotten
this terrible traffic. At least sixteen murders had been traced to these
miscreants, but the evidence at the trial failed to answer the question
“How many more?”
Burke was executed in January, 1829, on the strength of Hare’s evidence,
so that for nearly a century have the portrait-models of these two
notorious criminals stood facing each other. There are to this day many
visitors who, on catching sight of their forbidding features, seem to
recognise them, and make ready comment, without the aid of a Catalogue,
on the leading circumstances associated with their nefarious careers.
[Illustration: BURKE AND HARE
Both notorious criminals who perpetrated a series of gruesome murders in
Scotland before 1828. These models from life by Madame Tussaud were among
the first of contemporary criminals made by her for the famous “Chamber
of Horrors,” then called the “Dead Room” or the “Black Room.”]
The very first startling event that furnished a subject for the “Dead
Room,” when the Exhibition opened in Baker Street in 1835, was the
attempt on the life of Louis Philippe, King of the French, four months
later.
It had been the custom of His Majesty to review the Gardes Nationales and
the garrison of Paris on each anniversary of the Revolution of 1830.
For some considerable time the King and his Government had been growing
very unpopular, and many warnings had been given him to desist from this
military function; but, in spite of all advice, he persisted in holding
the review.
The anniversary of the Revolution was on the 28th of July, and the King,
followed by a numerous Staff, left the Tuileries at half-past ten on the
morning of that day, accompanied by his three sons, the Ducs d’Orléans,
de Nemour, and de Joinville.
In passing along the Boulevard du Temple--and, strange to say, when
almost opposite the site of Curtius’s old Museum--a noise was heard
resembling an irregular musket fire. In an instant the road and pavement
at the point where Louis had been riding was strewn with dead and dying
men and horses, and amid the mêlée the King, slightly wounded in the
forehead, stood alone by the side of his injured horse.
More than forty persons had been struck and nineteen killed or mortally
wounded. Among the latter was Edward Joseph Mortier, Duc de Trevise, the
famous Marshal of Napoleon I.
After a few moments’ suspense, attention was directed to a cloud of smoke
issuing from the third-floor window of a house on the Boulevard. Herein
was discovered a machine composed of a row of twenty-five gun-barrels
so arranged as to cover the cavalcade as it passed the premises. It had
been fired by a train of gunpowder, with the result that several of the
barrels had burst on the discharge.
The room was empty, but from one of the back windows of the house the
police caught sight of a man huddled up in a corner of the courtyard
below. He was trying to stanch the blood which was flowing from a great
wound in his head. In spite of his injury, caused by his firing of the
infernal machine, he had had the strength to stagger out of the room,
seize a rope, secure it to a window, and by its means escape from the
house.
The man turned out to be Giuseppe Fieschi, a rabid conspirator. Our
model of him was added some weeks after the event, and, being placed by
the side of an exact copy of the machine he had used, the man and his
diabolical contrivance proved of considerable interest, a circumstance
that substantially assisted to establish the Exhibition as a permanent
London attraction.
This political crime was, however, soon eclipsed by one of a particularly
sordid character committed much nearer home.
James Greenacre who murdered his fiancée, Hannah Brown, by striking her a
fatal blow in a fit of temper, will ever figure as a criminal of a very
curious type. Many a deed like that which brought him to the scaffold
has occasioned but a passing interest. It was the means he adopted for
the purpose of evading the consequences of his crime that aroused the
excitement and indignation of the people. He dismembered the body, and
deliberately distributed it in broad daylight to widely different parts
of the Metropolis.
The discovery of the various parts of the body from time to time, the
bringing of them together, and the final identification of the remains
wrought up the public mind to a state of high tension, and after the
culprit had been brought to justice many thousands visited the Exhibition
to scan for themselves the features of his model which had been installed.
It will be remembered that we are dealing with a period when the extreme
penalty of the law was exacted in public, a condition of things which
lasted till 1868, when it was enacted that all executions should take
place privately within prison walls.
The night before Greenacre’s execution at Newgate (the 2nd of May, 1837)
hundreds slept on the prison steps and round about the neighbourhood
of the old gaol. Crowds spent the night in taverns and lodging-houses,
indulging in unseemly revelry and ribald and drunken dissipation. Nor
were the spectators all drawn from the lowest class; all classes were
represented. Positions within sight of the drop fetched from five
shillings to a couple of guineas each, and a first-floor room overlooking
the scaffold commanded as much as £12, no small price in those days.
It is a grim story, but who has not been entertained by the account in
the _Ingoldsby Legends_ of the way in which “My Lord Tomnoddy” failed to
witness the launching into eternity of a doomed fellow creature?
As the result of a happy thought from “Tiger Tim”--
“An’t please you, my Lord, there’s a man to be hang’d”--
Tomnoddy invites a party of convivial friends to enjoy the scene, for
“To see a man swing
At the end of a string,
With his neck in a noose, will be quite a new thing.”
So he
Turns down the Old Bailey,
Where, in front of the gaol, he
Pulls up at the door of the gin-shop, and gaily
Cries, “What must I fork out to-night, my trump,
For the whole first-floor of the Magpie and Stump?”
St. Sepulchre’s clock strikes eight, and
God! ’tis a fearsome thing to see
That pale wan man’s mute agony,--
The glare of that wild, despairing eye,
Now bent on the crowd, now turn’d to the sky.
Oh! ’twas a fearsome sight! Ah me!
A deed to shudder at,--not to see.
The clock strikes
Nine! ’twas the last concluding stroke!
And then--my Lord Tomnoddy awoke!
“Hollo! Hollo!
Here’s a rum go!
Why, Captain!--my Lord!---here’s the devil to pay!
The fellow’s been cut down and taken away!
What’s to be done?
We’ve missed all the fun!”
What _was_ to be done? The man was dead!
Nought _could_ be done--nought could be said;
So--my Lord Tomnoddy went home to bed!
Referring back to the days before the advent of the daily illustrated
papers with their portraits of all kinds of people, a very affecting
story was once told by a well-known author.
It related to a very pretty and plaintive young woman who visited the
Chamber of Horrors early on the morning that a certain criminal with many
_aliases_ was executed.
She was accompanied by her father, who, with his arm about her waist
to steady her faltering steps, led her up to where the figure of
the murderer stood. The poor woman remained gazing at it as though
fascinated; then, with a nod, she burst out crying and buried her head in
her hands.
Her father gently drew her out of the place, and as he did so whispered
in her ear, “Free, my child; free at last!”
How the author came to hear of the incident we do not know, or was it one
of those coincidences that somehow do occur?