BEFORE THE MAGISTRATES.
THERE are two places well worth seeing in London. One is the Central
Criminal Court or "Old Bailey" as it is usually called, situated next
door to Newgate, and the "Lord Mayor's" Court, in the Mansion House.
The Old Bailey is a famous criminal Court, and has had an eventful
history. The magistrates who sit here, are the Lord Mayor, who opens
the Court, the sheriffs of Middlesex and London, the Lord Chancellor,
who is never present excepting in a State trial, the Judges, Aldermen,
and Recorder, the Common Sergeant of London, the Judge of the Sheriff's
Court, or City Commissions, and others whom the Crown may appoint to
assist them. Of these dignitaries the Recorder and Common Sergeant
of London are most generally to be found presiding, as the common
law judges only assist when knotty points are to be decided, or when
conviction may affect the life of the prisoner.
At the Old Bailey are tried crimes of every kind, from treason to
petty larceny, and even offences committed upon the high seas. The
jurisdiction comprises every part of the metropolis of London, together
with the county of Middlesex; the parishes of Richmond and Mortlake in
Surrey, and the greater part of Essex county, adjoining Middlesex.
[Sidenote: THE "OLD BAILEY" COURT.]
The Old Bailey Court is a square hall with a gallery for visitors,
below which is a large clock, that ticks in the prisoner's ears, like
a bell of doom. Below it is the dock for the culprits, with stairs
descending to the covered passage, by which they are conveyed to and
from Newgate. Opposite the dock in which the wretched prisoner stands
up to plead for mercy, is the bench for the judges, and here may be
seen day after day the Recorder of London sitting to try offenders,
in his blue cloth gown, with furred borders, and his neck encircled
with a gold chain, listening listlessly to the testimony, and now and
then making notes on a square piece of paper, while from the open
window comes the chirruping of birds; and before him are arraigned poor
wretches in rags and squalor, on trial for offences which may peril
their lives, reputation and happiness.
There are three large square windows in this Court, through which
appear the ridge of the gloomy walls of Newgate, having on their left
a gallery close to the ceiling, with projecting boxes, and on the
right the Bench extending the whole length of the wall, with desks
at intervals, for the use of the judges, whilst in the body of the
Court are the witness-box and the jury-box, below the windows of the
Court, an arrangement that allows the jury to look clearly, and without
turning, on the faces of the witnesses and the prisoners. The strong
light from the windows enables the witness to identify the prisoner,
who stands shivering in the dock, at the same time that it permits the
judges on the Bench and the counsel below in the hollow space of the
Court to keep jury, witnesses and prisoners all at once within the same
perspective line.
In the upper seats are the double rows of reporters, smart,
well-looking and well-dressed fellows, the majority of whom look bored
and disgusted, as well they may, when it is taken into account that
they have to sit here day after day, to look at the same horse-hair
wigs of the jabbering lawyers, the same gowns, the same blank ceiling,
the same stupid, harsh faced jurymen, and the same hard looking or
wobegone wretches who stand up in the dock to listen to sentence or
acquittal. Occasionally there is a little amusement for them when some
ass of an alderman attempts in a pompous way, to show the bearing
of a statute in a criminal case, and only succeeds in exposing his
turtle-fed ignorance to the merriment of the knowing ones.
Look there now. A youth well-dressed and cleanly-looking is brought
into the dock and placed for trial on a charge of forgery on his
employer, for the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds. The young fellow
has a weak, pallid face, and seems rather dazed at all the preparation
and mysterious jabber on his account. A dozen of the counsel, in black
stuff gowns and with white wigs of horse-hair look around for a minute
at the dock, where the prisoner stands, merely out of curiosity, as if
he were a sheep or a calf brought in for slaughter. Their curiosity
satisfied, they turn away from him and dismiss his pale face from their
thoughts almost instantaneously. The judge on the bench--who is flanked
by a fat alderman on each side, in red robes--sits, looking at some
documents, with a far-away, abstracted look, as if the prisoner at the
bar was a thousand miles distant, and a free man.
And meanwhile the case progresses, the counsel for the Crown opening
indignantly on the side of virtue and the law, and witness after
witness is called up and kisses the book, and there is much making of
affidavit and counter-affidavit, and through all this maze of swearing
and mist of statement, it appears that the young lad at the bar has
been wild and reckless, and has signed his master's name, beyond all
doubt, to a check, which he had cashed, the proceeds of which were
spent in the haunts of vice and shame. The case goes to the jury, who
pronounce him guilty without leaving their seats, and the sun streams
through the windows on the despairing face of the youth, and I am
awakened from a sort of a trance into which I have fallen, to hear the
voice of the Recorder of the good city of London, drone out at the
prisoner:
"In this case I can find no extenuating circumstances. You are of age
to know better, and the sentence of the Court is, therefore, that you
suffer penal servitude, with hard labor, for the space of twelve years."
Good God! twelve years! He is not yet eighteen, and the twelve best
years of his life are erased from his span of existence, by the breath
of the man in blue cloth gown and the fur tippet, and now the latter
goes up stairs to eat his dinner, the jury are dismissed, and a young
girl falls fainting in the Court as the prisoner is led out--however it
is only his sister. There is a little stir among the horse-hair-wigged
counsel and a buzz in the audience, and in three minutes another case
comes on to excite new interest, and make us forget the convict and his
sobbing, fair-haired sister.
Upon the front of the dock is placed a sprig of rue, which dissipates
any infection that may proceed from the clothes of the prisoner, should
he be suffering from illness. The origination of this custom is worthy
of note.
In 1750, when the jail fever raged in Newgate, the effluvia entering
the Court, caused the death of Baron Clarke, Sir Thomas Abney, the
judge of the Common Pleas; and Pennant's "respected kinsman," Sir
Samuel Pennant, Lord Mayor; besides members of the bar and of the jury,
and other persons. This disease was also fatal to several persons in
1772. Since that time a sprig of rue has always been kept in the dock
to drive away contagion.
[Sidenote: THE JUDGES' DINNER.]
Above the old Court is a stately dining-room, wherein, during the Old
Bailey sittings, the dinners are given by the sheriffs to the judges
and aldermen, the Recorder, Common Sergeant, city pleaders, and a few
visitors. Marrow-puddings and rump-steaks are always provided. Two
dinners, exact duplicates, are served each day, at 3 and 5 o'clock; and
the judges relieve each other, but aldermen have eaten both dinners;
and a chaplain, who invariably presided at the lower end of the table,
thus ate two dinners a day for ten years. Theodore Hook admirably
describes a Judges' Dinner in his _Gilbert Gurney_. In 1807-8, the
dinners for three sessions, nineteen days, cost Sheriff Phillips £35
per day--£665; 145 dozen of wine, consumed at the above dinners, £450:
total £1,115. The amount is now considerably greater, as the sessions
are held monthly.
Outside in the lobbies and hall rooms, passages and corridors adjacent
to and connected with the Old Bailey Court there is always a crowd
of lawyers, policemen, hangers-on, countrymen, cadgers, and persons
anxious to become spectators, females of the poorer class, members
of the aristocratic swell mob, sneak thieves and pickpockets, all
curious to know how matters are going on inside with their friends or
associates in crime or misfortune, and among them all, rushing hither
and thither, chatting and joking, conferring with his clients, and
nodding familiarly to the police and the officers of the Court, may
be seen the sharpest legal bird in the world. I mean the regular Old
Bailey practitioner, who could take a penny from a dead man's eyes, rob
an altar, or cheat the widow and orphan, and still prove to his own
satisfaction that it was done for a good and laudable purpose.
[Illustration: LOADING THE PRISON VAN.]
A not uncommon sight in the vicinity of police offices and petty
Courts, in London, is the noisy, brawling discharge of prisoners,
who are turned out on the streets in the morning, after having been
locked up all night for trifling offences, or disorderly conduct and
intoxication.
Their unlucky companions, who have received sentences of imprisonment,
are taken from the Courts to the places of confinement in which they
are to pay the penalty of their indiscretion or crime. Every morning
there is a dreadful row and confusion at the Bow street police office,
when the prisoners are brought out to be placed in the prison wagon or
"van," in which they are transported to Holloway, Milbank or Newgate
prisons. A large crowd assembles daily to witness the embarkation of
these poor wretches for their new residences. Fighting women, squalling
children, patient policemen, and drunken blackguards are among the
details of these assemblages. There is a strong able bodied virago,
with her dress hanging to her form in shreds, who has just tossed her
soiled bonnet madly among the crowd, with a series of shrieks, and
three policemen are hardly sufficient to restrain her, while she is
being helped into the "Van." At last she is locked up with other unruly
personages inside of the iron door, in a dark box, where she may swear
away to her heart's content for a ride of five to ten miles.
[Sidenote: THE MANSION HOUSE.]
And now let us take a look at the Justice Room of the Mansion House,
which is only a few rods distant from the Old Bailey.
Be it known to all my readers that the Mansion House, or Guildhall,
is to London what the City Hall is to New York--the Hotel de Ville to
Paris or Brussels--and the Stadt Haus to Amsterdam. It is here that
the Lord Mayor of London lives and here he deals out justice to his
constituents. The Guildhall or Mansion House of London is one of the
finest public buildings in the city, and has a noble gallery, dining
hall, and a service of municipal gold and silver plate, which is used
by the Lord Mayor on state occasions, besides a splendid collection of
paintings.
But it is of the Justice Court, a small room in the Mansion House, that
we have to speak on this occasion, and not of the plate, or of the Lord
Mayor's annual show.
The Mansion House is just opposite the Bank of England and the Royal
Exchange, in the very heart of moneyed London, Lombard street being
but a very short distance around the corner, with its horde of money
changers, bill discounters brokers, and bankers.
This Court is not opened before noonday, as the Lord Mayor of London is
too mighty a magnate to be hurried in his daily duties for any command
or Court of Justice.
Accordingly at noon, I find myself below the steps leading to the
Mansion House, and presently I begin to ascend the broad staircase
of stone, with a small crowd of policemen, officers of the Court,
witnesses, and lawyers. I am questioned as to my business by an officer
at the door, but being in company with detective Irving, of New York
City (who is about to appear before the Lord Mayor, in the case of
Clement Harwood, the celebrated forger, whom the former had captured
at New York on board of an English steamer, before she had touched her
dock, and had him brought back to London for trial), I am admitted,
and after one or two turnings, find myself in a well-lighted room of
moderate size, with a high ceiling and two windows looking out on the
Poultry and Threadneedle street.
[Illustration: DETECTIVE IRVING.]
Between those two windows is a throne or dais, gorgeous enough for
a monarch, and behind the throne are emblazoned the municipal mace
and sword, and the motto of the City of London, "Domine Dirige Nos,"
surmounted by the lion and unicorn, the arms of Great Britain. This
is the Lord Mayor's Chair of Justice, but the awful being to whom it
appertains has not yet made his appearance, and I have leisure to look
around me.
There are two rows of desks, for the reporters, and behind them sit
representatives of the _Times_, _Daily News_, _Daily Telegraph_,
_Standard_, _Morning Advertiser_, and other leading journals, the
evening papers, with the exception of the _Echo_, _Pall Mall Gazette_
and _Globe_ not being represented, the others always copying their
police reports from the morning journals.
[Sidenote: THE RICH RASCAL.]
There are two or three high desks in the centre of the room, a square
iron railing, and a number of police waiting to make charges, but
the prisoners are kept below in the lockup and will presently appear
through a trap door in the floor when they are called to answer to the
charges on the sheet.
The American detective has just finished his business regarding
Harwood's case, and saunters in carelessly with his hat in his hand to
take a look around him.
Presently there is a bustle and commotion, and a man looking like a
drum major of a band, with scarlet and gold facings on his coat, whom
I am informed enjoys the dignity of Mayor's Marshal, marches into the
room like a peacock, with his big staff of office, and cries out:
"Make way there, for the Right Honorable the Lud Mayor."
Then enters the awful being himself, in a furred robe of heavy cloth,
like one of Rembrandt's burgomasters, a blazing gold chain depending
from his neck and covering his waistcoat, and having taken his seat,
the charge sheet is examined by him in a dignified way, and the first
case is called.
This is the case of the forger Harwood, a young man, the son of the
senior partner of one of the largest banking firms in London, who has
forged his father's name for the amount of £15,000.
The trap door opens and discloses a fashionably-dressed and
good-looking young fellow, with a police officer on each side. The case
had excited great interest in London, and the prisoner having fled to
New York was captured before the steamer got to her dock, and brought
back to London. Harwood had been brought to justice because the junior
member of the firm, to protect its interests, had been compelled to the
unwilling task of making the charge against his partner's son.
[Illustration: BEFORE THE "LORD MAYOR."]
Harwood has the air of a languid and haughty "swell," or exquisite,
and is most fashionably dressed. There is no flinching in his blonde
and whiskered face as he is brought up for sentence, having been
previously convicted. Out of £15,000, detective Irving recovered over
£11,000 from the forger, and it seems the charge is to be hushed up.
The father of the culprit is a wealthy citizen, and the counsel for the
prisoner makes his point that the greater part of the money having been
recovered, and the prisoner having "suffered much anguish of mind" for
his crime, has offered to go to America if released, and make amends
for his "fault" by leading a new and repentant life.
I looked at the exquisite, who stood there as cool as a cucumber, and
it seemed to me rather doubtful that he had suffered much anguish of
mind. I also doubted if he would be willing to lead a very virtuous
life in America. As he stood there with his assured and rather
contemptuous look and insolent face, he was quite a contrast to the
pale, weak-looking lad, who stood the day before in the dock of the
Old Bailey to receive with trembling lips his sentence of twelve long
years penal servitude, and just as the thought struck me, Irving, the
detective, whispered to me:
[Sidenote: THE POOR RASCAL.]
"He looks very sorry, don't he? Of course! Cheese things."
Then the Lord Mayor plucked up a proper spirit, threw back his
furred sleeves, put on a look of profound wisdom, consulted with the
prisoner's counsel, and making up his judicial mind that Harwood had
"suffered enough,"--poor young man--the forger was released and set
at liberty in order to allow him to become a virtuous citizen of the
United States. Nothing was said about the deficit of two or three
thousand pounds; the young man's family was wealthy and respectable.
But who is this poor rascal at the bar now, who appears as the friends
of the wealthy forger gather in a knot to congratulate him. Why it
is a low ruffian of a pickpocket who has been caught in the act of
abstracting a lady's reticule valued at fourteen shillings. The
villain! He has no wealthy friends, so let him take eighteen months
imprisonment at Hollaway prison, and there let him repent while on the
treadmill.
I left the Lord Mayor's Court with mixed feelings, and the remarks of
the detective failed to reassure me as to the honesty of the method of
administering justice by his Worship, the Lord Mayor of London.