THE HONOURS OF THE MOB
It was far from my intention to witness the reception of my friends in
Pillory from the sympathizing mob. I was, however, reminded that the day
had arrived by finding in my morning walk from Lambeth to the Old Bailey
the Pillory itself actually erected, in St Martin's Lane, somewhat above
St. Martin's Church. It was put up in the open space where Long Acre
runs into St Martin's Lane, very nearly in the actual spot where the
assault was delivered and the plot carried out A just retribution. Even
now, after thirty years, only to think of the villainy causes my blood
to boil: nothing surely could be bad enough for these creatures, vilest
of all the vile creatures of this wicked town. At the same time when I
saw the preparations that were making for the reception of the
criminals, my heart sank, and I would willingly have spared them all and
forgiven them all to save them from what followed.
The pillory, on a scaffold four feet high, was put up with
'accommodation'--if we may so describe it--for two persons standing side
by side, so that they could not see each other. They were also so close
together that favours intended for the face of one might if they missed
him be received by some part of the body of the other. A vast crowd was
already assembled, although the sentence would not be carried out till
eleven, and it was then barely nine. The crowd consisted of the scum and
off-scouring of the whole city: there was a company from Southwark.
While I was looking on, they arrived marching in good form like
soldiers: there were contributions from Turnmill Street and
Hockley-by-the-Hole: there were detachments from the Riverside: from St.
Katherine's by the Tower: from Clerkenwell: but, above all, from St.
Giles's.
'Who is to stand up there to-day?' I asked one of them--a more
decent-looking man than most. Of course, I knew very well, but I wished
to find out what the people intended.
'Where do you come from, not to know that?' the man replied. ''Tis the
thief-taker: him that makes the rogue: teaches the rogue and then sells
the rogue. Now we've got him--wait till we leave him. And there's the
lawyer who made the plot to hang a man. We've got him, too. We don't
often get a lawyer. Wait a bit--wait a bit. You shall see what they'll
look like when we leave them.'
He had his apron full of something or other--rotten eggs, perhaps: or
rotten apples: or, perhaps, brickbats. The faces of all around expressed
the same deadly look of revenge. I thought of the Captain's terror, and
of his petition to Jenny; that he might be put up with the Bishop; it
was impossible not to feel awed and terrified at the aspect of so much
hatred and such deliberate preparation for revenge. A thief-taker and a
lawyer! Oh! noble opportunity! Some carried baskets filled with
missiles: some had their aprons full; the women for their part brought
rotten eggs and dead cats, stinking rabbits, and all kinds of putrid
offal in baskets and in their arms, as if they had been things precious
and costly. They conferred together and laughed, grimly telling what
they had to throw, and how they would throw it.
'I don't waste my basket,' said one, 'on rotten eggs. There's something
here sharper than rotten eggs. He took my man before his time was up,
because he wanted the money. My man was honest before he met Merridew,
who made him a rogue, poor lad!--yes, made him--told him what to
do--taught him: made him a highwayman: told him where to go; hired a
horse for him and gave him a pistol. Then he sold him--got forty pounds
and a Tyburn ticket for him and twenty pounds allowance for his own
horse. Oh! If my arm is strong enough! Let me get near him--close to
him, good people.'
'He took my son,' said another, 'to be sure he was a rogue, but he
thieved in a safe way till John Merridew got him. If I had my strength
that I used to have it wouldn't be rotten eggs; but never mind--there's
others besides me. Don't waste your brickbats: throw straight: let the
women get to the front. Oh! He shall look very pretty when he is carried
home. He shall have a pleasant hour with his friends. We love him, don't
we? We love him like a son, we do.'
This man had for years exercised absolute sway over Rogueland. He
instructed the young in the various branches of the criminal's horrid
trade: he led them on from pocket-picking to stealing from stalls and
bulkheads: to shop-lifting; to burglary; to robbery in the street: to
forgery: to coining and issuing false coin: to highway robbery and, at
times, to murder. 'Twas the most accomplished and the most desperate
villain that ever lived--I cannot believe that his like was ever known.
No one dared to cross him or to refuse his orders. If anyone should be
so presumptuous, he speedily repented in Newgate under a capital charge
followed by a capital sentence. There are so many ways of getting
hanged, and so few outside the law know what offences may be capital and
what are not, that there was never any certainty in the mind of the
smallest rogue that he was safe from such a charge. Children of fourteen
on his information were hung as well as grown men: little girls of
fourteen were hung on his information as well as grown women: for
shop-lifting, for lifting linen from the hedge--why this devil incarnate
would instigate a child to commit a capital offence and then give him
into custody for the reward, careless whether the child was hanged or
not. It was a terrible end that he met with. I read sometimes of
dreadful punishments: of tortures and agonies: yet I cannot picture to
myself a punishment more awful than to stand up before an infuriated and
implacable mob; to look down upon thousands of faces and to see no gleam
of relenting upon one: not one with a tear of pity: to hear their yells
of execration: to see their arms springing up with one consent----Poor
wretch! Poor wretch!
These people knew very well that Mr. Merridew could hang them all: that,
in course of time, he would hang them all; and that, if they offended
him, he would hang them all at once. It was a terrible weapon for one
man to wield: nor can I believe that the laws of the land intended that
any one man should be able to wield such a weapon. Why they allowed him
to exist I know not--seeing their insensibility to crime, one would
think that they would have murdered him long before. From wives he had
taken their husbands; from mothers their sons; from girls their
sweethearts: he had taken their wives and their mistresses from the men;
he had taken the boys--one cannot say the innocent boys--from their
playfellows; and he had hanged them all. It would be interesting to know
how many he had hanged, this murderous, blood-stained villain, whose
heart was like the nether millstone for hardness.
The punishment of pillory hands a man over to the people, for judgment
and execution or for acquittal or for pardon. The law says practically,
'We find him guilty: we assign him a term of imprisonment: it is for the
people to increase the punishment or to protest against it.' In the case
of a common rogue, whose offence is in no way remarkable, a few rotten
eggs, broken on his face and dropping yellow streams over the nose and
cheeks, please the mob, who like this harmless demonstration in favour
of virtue which does not hurt their friend and brother, the prisoner. In
other cases, where the sympathy of the people is entirely with the
prisoner, one hour of pillory means an hour of triumph. For they bring
bands of music and welcome the criminal; they shout applause: they hang
the pillory with flowers: they take out the horses and drag the
carriage. This happened to Dr. Shebbeare, who came to the pillory in the
sheriff's carriage and stood in front of the pillory, not in it, a man
holding an umbrella over his head the whole time to keep off the rain.
It is, however, the most terrible punishment that can be devised when
the mob are infuriated with the prisoner. In this case the thief-taker,
the Man-slayer was about to stand before them: and with him the designer
of a plot to take away the life of an innocent man.
The crowd now became so dense that it was impossible to get forwards or
back. Therefore, though it might seem revengeful to look on at the
popular reception of these two wretches, I was fain to stay where I was,
namely, on the top step of Slaughter's Coffee House. The time passed
quickly while I stood looking on and listening. The crowd grew thicker:
on the outskirts with me were many respectable persons. Their
indignation against the crime was, like mine, tempered by the prospect
of the horrible punishment that awaited the evil-doers. I would not tell
them that I myself was the object of this plot, for fear of being
considered as wishing to enjoy a revenge full and satisfying.
'The greatest villain of the four,' said one gentleman, 'is the
attorney. He will barely escape, I think: but these people are assembled
to vent their revenge upon the thief-taker. I know not whether, when he
is gone, crime will decrease, but it is time that something was done to
prevent the encouragement of crime with one hand, and the arrest of the
criminal with the other. Such a wretch, Sir, is not fit to live.'
'And,' said another, 'unless I mistake, we are here to witness the
resolution of the mob that he shall no longer live.'
At eleven o'clock there was a shout which ran all down St. Martin's
Lane. 'Here they come! here they come!' followed by roars which were
certainly not meant for applause and approval.
'It is an awful moment,' said my next neighbour. 'If I could get out of
the throng I would go away. It will be a terrible spectacle.'
There was a force of constables round the pillory. As it appeared
immediately afterwards, it was insufficient. They formed a circle
standing shoulder to shoulder, to keep back the crowd and to preserve an
open space round the scaffold. It is a merciful plan because the greater
the distance, the better is the prisoner's chance.
The prisoners were brought in a cart. It was recognised by the crowd as
a cart used for flogging unfortunates, and there were jokes on the
subject, perhaps the hitching of shoulders, as it passed. It was guarded
by a force of constables armed with clubs; not that they feared a
rescue, but that they feared a rush of the crowd and the tearing of the
prisoners to pieces.
I was standing, I say, on the highest doorstep of Slaughter's Coffee
House, the windows of which were full of men looking on. Looking thus
over the heads of the people, I saw that the driver and the prisoner
Probus were covered already with filth and with rotten eggs. The former
cursed the people. 'Why can't you wait--you?' he cried as the eggs flew
about his head or broke upon his face. Mr. Probus sat on the bench bowed
and doubled up. He showed no fear: he was as one who is utterly broken
up, and in despair: he had lost his money--all his money: the work of
his life. That was all he cared for. He was disgraced and imprisoned--he
had lost his money. He was going to be pelted in the pillory--he had
lost his money--nothing else mattered.
To a revengeful man this day's work was revenge indeed, ample and
satisfying, if revenge ever can satisfy. I do not think it can: one
would want to repeat it every day: the man in the Italian Poem who gnaws
his enemy's head can never have enough of his cruel and horrid revenge.
I hope, however, that no one will think that I rejoiced over sufferings,
terrors, and pain unspeakable; even though they were deserved.
If Mr. Probus showed callousness and insensibility extraordinary, his
companion behaved in exactly an opposite manner. For he had thrown
himself down in the bottom of the cart, and there lay writhing while the
execrations of the people followed the cart. When the procession arrived
at the pillory it took six men to drag him out. He covered his face with
his hands: he wept--the tears ran down his cheeks: he clung to the
constables; it took a quarter of an hour before they had him up the
steps and on the platform: it took another ten minutes before he was
placed in the machine, his face turned towards the crowd on the north
side with his helpless hands struck through the holes. As for the other
he stood facing the south.
When both the miserable men were ready the under-sheriff and the
constables ducked their heads and ran for their lives from the stage
down the ladder and waited under cover.
For, with a roar as of a hungry wild beast the mob began. There was no
formal or courteous commencement with rotten eggs and dead cats. These
things, it is true, were flung, and with effect. But from the very
beginning they were accompanied by sharp flints, stones and brickbats.
The mob broke through the line of constables and filled up the open
space; they pushed the women to the front: I think they were mad: they
shrieked and yelled execrations: the air was thick with missiles; where
did they come from? There were neither pause nor cessation. For the
whole time the storm went on: the under-sheriff wanted, I have heard, to
take down the men; but no one would venture on the stage to release
them. Meanwhile with both of them the yellow streams of broken eggs had
given way to blood. Their faces and heads were covered every inch--every
half inch--with open bleeding wounds: their eyes were closed, their
heads held down as much as they could: if they groaned; if they
shrieked; if they prayed for mercy; if they prayed for the mercy of
Heaven since from man there was none; no one could hear in the Babel of
voices from the mob. It was the Thief-taker, the Man-slayer, who was the
principal object of the crowd's attention: but they could not
distinguish between the two and they soon threw at one head or the other
impartially. It was indeed a most dreadful spectacle of the popular
justice. Just so, the Jews took out the man who worshipped false idols,
and the woman who was a witch and stoned them with stones, so that they
died. For my own part I can never forget that sight of the two bowed
heads at which a mob of I know not how many hundreds crowded together in
a narrow street hurled everything that they could find, round paving
stones, sharp flints, broken bricks, wooden logs, with every kind of
execration that the worst and lowest of the people can invent. From the
south and from the north: there was an equal shower; there was no
difference.
For a whole hour this went on. The pillory should have been turned every
quarter of an hour. But no one dared to mount the stage in order to turn
it--besides it was safer to let one side exhaust their artillery than to
tempt the unspent stores of the other side.
At last the hour of twelve struck. There was a final discharge: then all
stopped. The heads hung down inanimate, motionless. Had the mob, then,
killed them both?
The under-sheriff mounted the stage: one of the constables cleared it of
the miscellaneous stuff lying at the feet of the prisoners; then they
took out the men. Both were senseless; they were carried down the steps
and placed in the cart. The driver went to the horse's head; the
constables closed in: the show was over.
In five minutes the whole crowd had dispersed; they had enjoyed the very
rare chance of expressing their opinion upon a Thief-taker and an
Attorney. They went off in great spirits, marching away in companies
each in its own direction. Those from Clare Market I observed, were
headed by music peculiar to that district played by eight butchers with
marrow-bones and cleavers.
The horrid business over I thought I would learn how the other two fared
in Soho Square. The pillory was still standing when I got there, but the
business of the day was over. From a gentleman who had been a spectator
I learned that the two men were turned to the four quarters in the
pillory, that their friends on the St. Giles's side would not pelt them;
but that on the other three sides they received a liberal allowance of
eggs and such harmless gifts, together with a more severe expression of
opinion in stones and brickbats. They were taken out wounded and
bleeding, but they could walk down the ladder and were carried off in
their right senses, at least.
I went on to Newgate. There I learned that the man Merridew was already
dead: he was found dead in the cart when he was brought in. It was not
wonderful. His skull was battered in; his cheek-bones were broken: his
jaw was fractured: for the last half-hour it was thought he had been
already senseless if not dead. The case of Mr. Probus was nearly as bad.
He was breathing, they told me, and no more. It was doubtful if he would
recover.
The Captain and the Bishop were, as I have said, more fortunate. They
escaped with scars which would disfigure them for life. But they did
escape, and since their master the Man-slayer was dead, they might begin
again, once out of prison, with another rope much longer, perhaps, than
the first.
I suppose they are long since hanged, both of them. No other lot was
possible for them. I have not seen them or heard of them, since that
day.