_The lecture society--“Early Architecture”--The professional
consultation--Its result--“Un verre d’eau”--Its story--Lyrics as
an auxiliary to the lecture--The lecture in print--A well-earned
commendation--The preservation of ancient ruins--The best
preservative--“Stone walls do not a prison make”--The Parnell
Commission--A remarkable visitor--A false prophet--Sir Charles
Russell--A humble suggestion--The bashful young man--Somewhat
changed--“Ireland a Nation”--Some kindly hints--The “Invincibles” in
court--The strange advertisement--How it was answered--Earl Spencer as a
patron--“No kindly act was ever done in vain!”_
A REPORTER is now and again compelled to exercise other powers than
those which are generally supposed to be at the command of the writer
of shorthand and the paragraphist. I knew a very clever youth who in a
crisis showed of what he was capable. There was, in the town where we
lived, a society of very learned men and equally learned women. Once
a fortnight a paper was read, usually on some point of surpassing
dulness--this was in the good old days, when lectures were solemn and
theatres merry. Just at present, I need scarcely say, the position of
the two is reversed: the theatres are solemn (the managers, becoming
pessimistic by reason of their losses, endeavour to impress their
philosophy upon the public), but the lecture-room rings with laughter
as some _savant_ treats of the “Loves of Coleoptera” with limelight
illustrations, or “The Infant Bacillus.” The society which I have
mentioned had engaged as lecturer for a certain evening a local
architect, who had largely augmented his professional standing by a
reputation for conviviality; and the subject with which he was to deal
was “Early Architecture.” A brother professional man, whose sympathies
were said to extend in many directions, had promised to take the chair
upon this occasion. It so happened, however, that, owing to his pressing
but unspecified engagements, the lecturer found himself, on the day for
which the lecture was announced, still in doubt as to the sequence that
his views should assume when committed to paper. About noon on this day
he strolled into the office of the gentleman who was advertised to take
the chair in the evening, and explained that he should like to discuss
with him the various aspects of the question of Early Architecture, so
that his mind might be at ease on appearing before the audience.
They accordingly went down the street, and made an earnest inspection of
the interior of a cave-dwelling in the neighbourhood--it was styled
“The Cool Grot,” and tradition was respected by the presence therein of
shell-fish, oat-cake, and other elementary foods, with various samples
of alcohol in a rudimentary form. In this place the brother architects
discussed the subject of Early Architecture until, as a reporter would
say, “a late hour.” The result was not such as would have a tendency to
cause an unprejudiced person to accept without some reserve the theory
that on a purely æsthetic question, a just conclusion can most readily
be arrived at by a friendly discussion amid congenial surroundings.
A small and very solemn audience had assembled some twenty minutes or so
before the lecturer and chairman put in an appearance, and then no time
was lost in commencing the business of the meeting. The one architect
was moved to the chair, and seconded, and he solemnly took it. Having
explained that he occupied his position with the most pleasurable
feelings, he poured himself out a glass of water with a most
unreasonable amount of steadiness, and laid the carafe exactly on the
spot--he was most scrupulous on this point--it had previously occupied.
He drank a mouthful of the water, and then looked into the tumbler
with the shrewd eye of the naturalist searching for infusoria. Then he
laughed, and told a story that amused himself greatly about a friend of
his who had attended a temperance lecture, and declared that it
would have been a great success if the lecturer had not automatically
attempted to blow the froth off the glass of water with which he
refreshed himself. Then he sat down and fell asleep, before the lecturer
had been awakened by the secretary to the committee, and had opened his
notes upon the desk. For about ten minutes the lecturer made himself
quite as unintelligible as the most erudite of the audience could have
desired; but then he suddenly lapsed into intelligibility--he had
reached that section of his subject which necessitated the recitation of
a poem said to be in a Scotch dialect, every stanza of which terminated
with the words, “A man’s a man for a’ that!” He then bowed, and,
recovering himself by a grasp of the desk, which he shook as though it
were the hand of an old schoolfellow whom he had not met for years, he
retired with an almost supernatural erectness to his chair.
In a moment the chairman was on his feet--the sudden silence had
awakened him. In a few well-chosen phrases he thanked the audience for
the very hearty manner in which they had drunk his health. He then told
them a humorous story of his boyhood, and concluded by a reference to
one “Mr. Vice,” whom he trusted frequently to see at the other end
of the table, preparatory to going beneath it. He hoped there was no
objection to his stating that he was a jolly good fellow. No absolute
objection being made, he ventured on the statement--in the key of B
flat; the lecturer joined in most heartily, and the solemn audience
went to their homes, followed by the apologies of the secretary to the
committee.
The chairman and the lecturer were then shaken up by the old man who
came to turn out the lights. He turned them out as well.
Now, the reporter who had been “marked” for that lecture found that he
had some much more important business to attend to. He did not reach
the newspaper office until late, and then he seated himself, and
thoughtfully wrote out the remarks which nine out of every ten chairmen
would have made, attributing them to the gentleman who presided at
the lecture; and then gave a general summary of the lecture on “Early
Architecture” which ninety-nine out of every hundred working architects
would deliver if called on. He concluded by stating that the usual vote
of thanks was conveyed to the lecturer, and suitably acknowledged
by him, and that the audience was “large, representative, and
enthusiastic.”
The secretary called upon the proprietor of the paper the next day,
and expressed his high appreciation of the tact and judgment of the
reporter; and the proprietor, who was more accustomed to hear comments
on the display of very different attainments on the part of his staff,
actually wrote a letter of commendation to the reporter, which I think
was well earned.
The most remarkable point in connection with this occurrence was the
implicit belief placed in the statements of the newspaper, not only
by the public--for the public will believe anything--but also by the
architect-lecturer and the architect-chairman. The professional standing
of the former was certainly increased by the transaction, and till the
day of his death he was accustomed to allude to his lecture on “Early
Architecture.” The secretary to the committee, for his own credit’s
sake, said nothing about the fiasco, and the solemn members of the
audience were so accustomed to listen to incomprehensible lectures in
the same room that they began to think that the performance at which
they had “assisted” was only another of the usual type, so they also
held their peace on the matter.
*****
Having introduced this society, I cannot refrain from telling the story
of another transaction in which it was concerned. The ramifications of
the society extended in many directions, and a more useful organisation
could scarcely be imagined. It was like an elephant’s trunk, which can
uproot a tree--if the elephant is in a good humour--but which does not
disdain to pick up a pin--like the boy who afterwards became Lord Mayor
of London. The society did not shrink from discussing the question “Is a
Monarchy or a Republic the right form of Government?” on the same
night that it dealt with a new stopper for soda-water bottles. The
Carboniferous Future of England was treated of upon the same evening as
the Immortality of the Soul; perhaps there is a closer connection
than at first meets the eye between the two subjects. It took ancient
buildings under its protection, as well as the most recently fabricated
pre-historic axe-head; and it was the discharge of its functions
in regard to ancient buildings that caused the committee to pass a
resolution one day, calling on their secretary to communicate with the
owner of a neighbouring property, in the midst of which a really fine
ruin of an ancient castle, with many interesting associations, was
situated, begging him to order a wall to be built around the ruins, so
as to prevent them from continuing to be the resort of cows with a fine
taste in archaeology, when the summer days were warm and they wanted
their backs scratched.
The property was in Ireland, consequently the landlord lived in England,
and had never so much as seen the ruins. It was news to him that
anything of interest was to be found on his Irish estates; but as his
son was contemplating the possibility of entering Parliament as the
representative of an Irish borough, he at once crossed the Channel,
had an interview with the society’s secretary, and, with the president,
visited the old castle, and was delighted with it. He sent for his
bailiff, and told him that he wanted a wall four feet high to be built
round the field in the centre of which the ruins lay--he even went so
far as to “peg out,” so to speak, the course that he wished the wall to
take.
The Irish bailiff stared at his master, but expressed the delight it
would give him to carry out his wishes.
The owner crossed to England, promising to return in three months to see
how the work had been done.
He kept his word. He returned in three months, and found, sure enough,
that an excellent wall had been built on the exact lines he had
laid down, but every stone of the ruins of the ancient castle had
disappeared.
The bailiff stood by with a beaming face as he explained how the ruins
had gone.
_He had caused the wall to be built out of the stones of the ancient
castle, to save expense._
*****
If reporters were only afforded a little leisure, any one of them who
has lived in a large town could compile an interesting volume of his
experiences. I have often regretted that I could never master the art
of shorthand. I worked at it for months when a boy, and made sufficient
progress to be able to write it pretty fairly; but writing is not
everything. The capacity for transcribing one’s notes is something to be
taken into account; and it was at this point that I broke down, and was
forced to become a novelist--a sort of novelist. The first time that I
went up country in Africa, my stock of paper being limited, I carried
only two pocket-books, and economised my space by taking my notes in
shorthand. I had no occasion to refer to these notes until I was writing
my novel “Daireen,” and then I found myself face to face with a hundred
pages of hieroglyphs which were utterly unintelligible to me. In despair
I brought them to a reporter, and he read them off for me much more
rapidly than he or anyone else could read my ordinary handwriting
to-day. In fact, he read just a little too fast,--I was forced to beg
him to stop. There are some occurrences of which one takes a note in
shorthand in one’s youth in a strange country, but which one does not
wish particularly to offer to the perusal of strangers years afterwards.
But although I could never be a reporter, I now and again availed myself
of a reporter’s privileges, when I wished to be present at a trial that
promised some interesting features to a student of good and evil. It
seemed to me that the Parnell Commission was an epitome of the world’s
history from the earliest date. No writer has yet done justice to that
extraordinary incident. I have asked some reporters, who were
present day after day, if they intended writing a real history of the
Commission; not the foolish political history of the thing, but the
story of all that was laid bare to their eyes hour after hour,--the
passions of patriotism, of power, of hate, of revenge; the devotion to
duty, the dogged heroism, the religious fervour; every day brought to
light such examples of these varied attributes of the Irish nature as
the world had never previously known.
The reporters said they had no time to devote to such thankless work;
and, besides, every one was sick of the Commission.
Often as I went into the court and faced the scene, it never lost its
glamour for me. Every day I seemed to be wandering through a world of
romance. I could not sleep at night, so deeply impressed was I with the
way certain witnesses returned the scrutiny of Sir Charles Russell; with
the way Mr. Parnell hypnotised others; with the stories of the awful
struggle of which Ireland was the centre.
Going out of the courts one evening, I came upon an old man standing
with his hat off and with one arm uplifted in an attitude of
denunciation that was tragic beyond description. He was a handsome old
man, very tall, but slightly stooped, and he clearly occupied a good
position in the world.
We were alone just outside the courts. I pretended that I had suddenly
missed something. I stood thrusting my hands into my pockets and feeling
between the buttons of my coat, for I meant to watch him. At last I
pulled out my cigarette-case and strolled on.
“You were in that court?” the old man said, in a tone that assured me I
had not underestimated his social position.
He did not wait for me to reply.
“You saw that man sitting with his cold impassive face while the tears
were on the cheeks of every one else? Listen to me, sir! I called upon
the Most High to strike him down--to strike him down--and my prayer was
heard. I saw him lying, disgraced, deserted, dead, before my eyes; and
so I shall see him before a year has passed. ‘Mene, mene, tekel,
upharsin.’”
Again he raised his arm in the direction of the court, and when I saw
the light in his eyes I knew that I was looking at a prophet.
Suddenly he seemed to recover himself. He put on his hat and turned
round upon me with something like angry surprise. I raised my hat. He
did the same. He went in one direction and I went in the opposite.
He was a false prophet. Mr. Parnell was not dead within the year. In
fact, he was not dead until two years and two months had passed. In
accordance with the thoughtful provisions of the Mosaic code, that old
gentleman deserved to be stoned for prophesying falsely. But his manner
would almost have deceived a reporter.
*****
Having introduced the subject of the Parnell Commission, I may perhaps
be permitted to express the hope that Sir Charles Russell will one day
find sufficient leisure to give us a few chapters of his early history.
I happen to know something of it. I am fully acquainted with the nature
of some of its incidents, which certainly would be found by the public
to possess many interesting and romantic elements; though, unlike the
romantic episodes in the career of most persons, those associated with
the early life of Sir Charles Russell reflect only credit upon himself.
Every one should know by this time that the question of what is
Patriotism and what is not is altogether dependent upon the nature of
the Government of the country. In order to prolong its own existence for
six months, a Ministry will take pains to alter the definition of the
word Patriotism, and to prosecute every one who does not accept the
new definition. Forty years ago the political lexicon was being daily
revised. I need say no more on this point; only, if Sir Charles Russell
means to give us some of the earlier chapters of his life he should
lose no time in setting about the task. A Lord Chief Justice of England
cannot reasonably be expected to deal with any romantic episodes in his
own career, however important may be the part which he feels himself
called on now and again to take in the delimitation of the romantic
elements (of a different type) in the careers of others of Her Majesty’s
subjects.
*****
It may surprise some of those persons who have been unfortunate enough
to find themselves witnesses for the prosecution in cases where Sir
Charles Russell has appeared for the defence, to learn that in his
young days he was exceedingly shy. He has lost a good deal of his early
diffidence, or, at any rate, he manages to prevent its betraying itself
in such a way as might tend to embarrass a hostile witness. As a
rule, the witnesses do not find that bashfulness is the most prominent
characteristic of his cross-examination. But I learned from an early
associate of Sir Charles’s, that when his name appeared on the list to
propose or to respond to a toast at one of the dinners of a patriotic
society of which my informant as well as Sir Charles was a member, he
would spend the day nervously walking about the streets, and apparently
quite unable to collect his thoughts. Upon one occasion the proud duty
devolved upon him of responding to the toast, “Ireland a Nation!”
Late in the afternoon my informant, who at that time was a small
shopkeeper--he is nothing very considerable to-day--found him in a
condition of disorderly perturbation, and declaring that he had no
single idea of what he should say, and he felt certain that unless
he got the help of the man who afterwards became my informant he must
inevitably break down.
“I laughed at him,” said the gentleman who had the courage to tell the
story which I have the courage to repeat, “and did my best to give him
confidence. ‘Sure any fool could respond to “Ireland a Nation!”’ said I;
‘and you’ll do it as well as any other.’ But even this didn’t give him
courage,” continued my informant, “and I had to sit down and give him
the chief points to touch on in his speech. He wrung my hand, and in the
evening he made a fine speech, sir. Man, but it was a pity that there
weren’t more of the party sober enough to appreciate it!”
I tell this tale as it was told to me, by a respectable tradesman whose
integrity has never been questioned.
It occurred to me that that quality in which, according to his
interesting reminiscence of forty years ago, his friend Russell was
deficient, is not one that could with any likelihood of success be
attributed to the narrator.
*****
If any student of good and evil--the two fruits, alas! grow upon the
same tree--would wish for a more startling example of the effect of a
strong emotion upon certain temperaments than was afforded the people
present in the Dublin Police Court on the day that Carey left the dock
and the men he was about to betray to the gallows, that student would
indeed be exacting.
I had been told by a constabulary officer what was coming, so that,
unlike most persons in the court, I was not too startled to be able
to observe every detail of the scene. Carey was talking to a brother
ruffian named Brady quite unconcernedly, and Brady was actually smiling,
when an officer of constabulary raised his finger and the informer
stepped out of the dock, and two policemen in plain clothes moved to his
side. Carey glanced back at his doomed accomplices, and muttered some
words to Brady. I did not quite catch them, but I thought the words
were, “It’s half an hour ahead of you that I am, Joe.”
Brady simply looked at his betrayer, whom it seems he had been anxious
to betray. There was absolutely no expression upon his face. Some of the
others of the same murderous gang seemed equally unaffected. One of them
turned and spat on the floor. But upon the faces of at least two of the
men there was a look of malignity that transformed them into fiends. It
was the look that accompanies the stab of the assassin. Another of them
gave a laugh, and said something to the man nearest to him; but the
laugh was not responded to.
The youngest of the gang stared at one of the windows of the court-house
in a way that showed me he had not been able to grasp the meaning of
Carey’s removal from the dock.
In half-an-hour every expression worn by the faces of the men had
changed. They all had a look that might almost have been regarded as
jocular. There can be no doubt that when a man realises that he has been
sentenced to death, his first feeling is one of relief. His suspense is
over--so much is certain. He feels that--and that only--for an hour or
so. I could see no change on the faces of these poor wretches whom the
Mephistophelian fun of Fate had induced to call themselves Invincible,
in order that no devilish element might be wanting in the tragedy of the
Phoenix Park.
*****
I do not suppose that many persons are acquainted with the secret
history of the detection of the “Invincibles.” I think I am right in
stating that it has never yet been made public. I am not at liberty
to mention the source whence I derived my knowledge of some of the
circumstances that led to the arrest of Carey, but there is no doubt in
my mind as to the accuracy of my “information received” on this matter.
It may, perhaps, be remembered that, some months after the date of the
murders, a strange advertisement appeared in almost every newspaper in
Great Britain. It stated that if the man who had told another, on the
afternoon of May 6th, 1882, that he had once enjoyed a day’s skating on
the pond at the Viceregal Lodge, would communicate with the Chief of the
Detective Department at Dublin Castle, he would be thanked. Now beyond
the fact that May 6th was the date of the murders, and that they had
taken place in the Phoenix Park, there was nothing in this advertisement
to suggest that it had any bearing upon the shocking incident; still
there was a general feeling that it had a very intimate connection with
the efforts that the police were making to unravel the mystery of the
outrage; and this impression was well founded.
I learned that the strangely-worded advertisement had been inserted in
the newspapers at the instigation of a constabulary officer, who had, in
many disguises, been endeavouring to find some clue to the assassins
in Dublin. One evening he slouched into a public-house bespattered as
a bricklayer, and took a seat in a box, facing a pint of stout. He had
been in public-house after public-house every Saturday night for several
weeks without obtaining the slightest suggestion as to the identity of
the murderers, and he was becoming discouraged; but on this particular
evening he had his reward, for he overheard a man in the next box
telling some others, who were drinking with him, that Lord Spencer was
not such a bad sort of man as might be supposed from the mere fact of
his being Lord-Lieutenant. He (the narrator) had been told by a man in
the Phoenix Park on the very evening of the murders that he (the man)
had not been ashamed to cheer Lord Spencer on his arrival at Dublin that
day, for when he had last been in Dublin he had allowed him to skate
upon the pond in the Viceregal grounds.
The officer dared not stir from his place: he knew that if he were at
all suspected of being a detective, his life would not be worth five
minutes’ purchase. He could only hope to catch a glimpse of some of the
party when they were leaving the place. He failed to do so, for some
cause--I cannot remember what it was--nor could the barmaid give any
satisfactory reply to his cautiously casual enquiries as to the names of
any of the men who had occupied the box.
It was then that the advertisement was inserted in the various
newspapers; and, after the lapse of some weeks, a man presented himself
to the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, saying that he
believed the advertisement referred to him. The man seemed a respectable
artisan, and his story was that one day during the last winter that Earl
Spencer had been in Ireland, he (the man) had left his work in order
to have a few hours’ skating on the ponds attached to the Zoological
Gardens in the Phoenix Park, but on arriving at the ponds he found that
the ice had been broken. “I was just going away,” the man said, “when
a gentleman with a long beard spoke to me, and enquired if I had had a
good skate. I told him that I was greatly disappointed, as the ice had
all been broken, and I would lose my day’s pay. He took a card out of
his pocket, and wrote something on it,” continued the man, “and then
handed it to me, saying, ‘Give that to the porter at the Viceregal
Lodge, and you’ll have the best day’s skating you have had in all your
life.’ He said what was true: I handed in the card and told the porter
that a tall gentleman with a beard had given it to me. ‘That was His
Excellency himself,’ said the porter, as he brought me down to the pond,
where, sure enough, I had such a day’s skating as I’ve never had before
or since.”
“And you were in the Phoenix Park on the evening of the murders?” said
the Chief of the Department.
“I must have been there within half-an-hour of the time they were
committed,” replied the man. “But I know nothing of them.”
“I’m convinced of it,” said the officer. “But I should like to hear if
you met any one you knew in the Park as you were coming away.”
“I only met one man whose name I knew,” said the other, “and that was a
builder that I have done some jobs for: James Carey is his name.”
This was precisely the one bit of evidence that was required for the
committal of Carey.
An hour afterwards he offered to turn Queen’s Evidence.