RECORD-BREAKERS: JANE CAKEBREAD
A strange being was Jane, or, rather, ‘Miss Cakebread,’ as she loved to
call herself. Helpless, homeless, and penniless as she was, I question
whether any lady other than the Queen attracted the attention of the
public so long, or had so many paragraphs written about her as poor
demented Jane Cakebread. For years all England laughed and grew merry
over Jane, heedless of the tragedy that attended her, and of the cruel
farce, so long drawn out, that was enacted with regard to her.
Queen of her domain, she held the field against all comers. Many were
her challengers for notoriety, but they came and went, the grave
closed over them, yet she held on. Her movements were regular as the
motions of the planets. From police court to prison, from prison to the
streets, thence again to the court, was the regular order of her life.
Her quips and cranks, ready wit, and cool assurance, made her dear to
reporters, and Jane became national property.
Vain to an extraordinary extent, she dearly prized the notoriety that a
police court afforded her. To her the hum of amused wonder and scarcely
suppressed laughter when ‘No. 12, Jane Cakebread, your worship,’ was
announced by the gaoler was the very breath of life, and proved ample
compensation for the discomfort of the cells. But by no means did she
make herself miserable in the cells, for times and again have I seen
her in those cells with her little hymn-book, singing softly her old
favourite hymns, or repeating aloud choice portions of the Bible;
for she had a capital memory. Many a time has she repeated to me two
chapters from the Book of Job which she had learned forty years before.
Again and again I have seen her on her knees in the cells, repeating
her little prayers; yet there was not the faintest suspicion of the
hypocrite about her. I have seen her rise from her knees and pour
out floods of blasphemy and obscenity if she had been in the least
disturbed in her devotions. That was Jane all over; from Job to foul
obscenity, from hymns to coarse blasphemy, from prayer to violent
temper, were to her natural transitions, occupying but one moment of
time. The changes in her facial expression, even when sober and at
liberty, were most extraordinary. One had only to look into that face,
with its little, twinkling eyes, its square-set, powerful jaw, and
its determined mouth, to see in rapid succession all the passions and
powers that dwelt in her strange body and mysterious mind reflected in
it. Put a little child before her, and that hard mouth would soften,
and the whole face would brighten up. ‘Bless its dear little heart!’
she would say. ‘Shall I sing it a little hymn?’ And she would begin
in her thin old voice to sing to the child. In the middle of a verse
she would leave off abruptly to pour out the vials of wrath upon some
imaginary offender--and her wrath was something to be remembered.
Five minutes’ conversation with Jane was quite sufficient to prove to
me, at any rate, that she was an absolutely irresponsible creature,
of unsound mind; not insane in the ordinary acceptation of the term,
yet insane beyond a doubt. Her language in conversation would vary,
sometimes choice, grammatical, and well-expressed, the next moment
drivel, the next idiotic. I have seen her eyes light up with keen
intelligence one moment, and the next moment be dulled with vacancy.
When before the magistrate she was always at her best, and the
knowledge that she was sure to be the cause of many paragraphs next
day seemed to brace her up for a special effort; and oh the dear
delight if she could but make the majesty of the law to unbend, and
cause a smile to appear on the magistrate’s face! For that smile she
would cheerfully ‘do’ her month. ‘Mr. Holmes,’ she has said to me many
times, ‘did you see me make the magistrate laugh?’ And in the cells
she would hug herself, and fall to her hymns and prayers with rare
enjoyment.
Pitiful though her condition was, there was still an irrepressible
gaiety about her, and a power of saying ridiculous things in a humorous
way, that everyone who heard and saw was bound to smile at. The smiles
would not only be visible, but audible, and having seen and heard,
Jane would step jauntily out of the dock, bestowing her benediction
on the magistrate, and assuring the police that she ‘loved the very
ground they walked upon.’ ‘Save me a paper till I come out,’ she would
say to me. I never did, but somehow she did get one, and carefully she
treasured the little bits about herself.
Everything was for the best with Jane, and just as it should be.
Everyone else might be all wrong; she was all right, though once
or twice I have perceived a strangely pathetic look in her face,
as if there was a glimmering consciousness that perhaps, after
all, everything was not quite for the best with her; but on the
whole there was a tone of confidence about her that admitted of no
argument--indeed, ‘argufying’ was an abhorrence to her; she would have
none of it, and I soon found that my only plan was to agree with her
and pander to her vanity.
Jane was not an idle woman, but she had not the slightest wish or
intention to do anything toward earning her own living. She believed
herself to be a ‘lady,’ and prided herself on that belief. Very funny
it was to see the poor creature pounding up pieces of brick to a fine
powder. I came across her one day on Clapton Common while she was thus
engaged. I asked her what she was making the powder for, and found she
used it for tooth-powder. She was proud of her teeth, and cleaned them
regularly with her brick-dust; and, indeed, she had a set to be proud
of, for they were beautifully regular and perfectly sound. I believe
that on one occasion, when Jane was in trouble and was not behaving
nicely, the attendants, believing her teeth to be false ones, tried to
take them out, fearing she might get choked with them. She bit right
and left, and they soon came to the conclusion that her teeth were
best let alone. She told me several times about the affair, but she
was always angry about it, considering it the greatest indignity ever
offered to her.
She was a strange mixture of good and evil, sense and nonsense, sanity
and insanity. Her physical powers were as strange as her mental, for
she bade defiance to the elements, and laughed disease to scorn. If out
of gaol for a month, she spent that month out of doors night and day
unless I provided shelter for her, and toward the last I found this
difficult to do, for no one would have her, even if paid well. During
the great frost of 1895, for nine weeks she lay out of doors, her
lodging the bare ground, her bed a bundle of sticks, her dressing-room
the banks of the Lea, where morning by morning she broke the ice that
she might wash. ‘Ladies always wash in cold water,’ she was fond of
saying, and not in the depths of winter would she consent to have even
the chill taken off; and when at length in the asylum, she told me with
tears that they compelled her to bathe in warm water. Time after time
I have at midnight made some provision for her lodging. I have found
her in the early morning at other times lying wet through on a bed of
shavings shivering with cold, yet hot with fever. When I have suggested
the workhouse, she has got up and cursed me, and staggered away. Next
day she would smilingly accost me in the police court, where she
cheerfully awaited her month.
She had given herself into custody--a not infrequent occurrence. Jane
was not a drunkard; she had no drink crave at all, and when she chose
could do without it. But the smallest amount of drink roused the worst
elements within her; a pennyworth of four ale was quite sufficient,
and after the nearest policeman she would go. The police often fled
at the sight of her; they did not want to take her into custody. Many
an officer has bribed her to go away when she approached him. I have
seen policemen running away and ‘old Jane’ after them to be taken into
custody. When she could not catch them, she would lie down on her back,
screaming ‘Murder!’ and ‘Police!’ when of course they had to return and
arrest her; but not an inch would she budge then till they had fetched
the ‘perambulator,’ as she called the ambulance; and fetched it had to
be, and Jane strapped on it, before they got her to the station.
During the nine weeks she lay out of doors she touched no drink, and
no one could persuade her to take any, but the romantic heart of the
old lady had been touched. A gentleman living in the neighbourhood left
a shilling weekly at a coffee stall on Stamford Hill, that Cakebread
might be supplied with two cups of hot coffee daily. That shilling a
week loomed large in her eye, and became a pound a day; that kind act
of pity on the gentleman’s part she construed into a declaration of
love, and she built many hopes upon it. She became a nuisance to the
stall-keeper, declaring that she was being robbed, and not getting
value for her pound a day. She waited and waited on Stamford Hill for
the lover that never came, but fancying every well-dressed man that
passed to be her love. Hope deferred made her heart, hopeful as it was,
sick at last, so she got her pennyworth of drink and gave herself into
custody.
That was characteristic of Jane. No one could do her an act of kindness
but she built tremendous hopes upon it, and made herself a perfect
nuisance to the one who befriended her. Some years before the prison
doctor had found her insane--and here let me say that many times
have our magistrates remanded her to prison, that a medical opinion
might be obtained as to her sanity--feeling sorry for her, I tried an
experiment. By dint of much pressure and substantial payment I got
a poor woman to let Cakebread have a furnished room, also arranging
that she was to order her own food, for which I was to pay. I provided
her with a complete change of clothes, and took her to her room. I
naturally thought that, having been used to meagre prison fare so long,
and being withal an old woman, it would not cost much to keep her. I
was mistaken. Jane rose splendidly to her position. She was a ‘lady,’
and asserted herself. French rolls, new-laid eggs, prime cuts of ham,
etc., for breakfast, were only the prelude to nice dinners and snug
teas. She cost me over thirty shillings for food, etc., in a few days,
but it culminated rather suddenly. I got a note from her in her own
queer writing and spelling; I could scarcely read it, but with the
aid of friends we at length made it out to be an invitation to take
tea with her. I went. An expensive tea was nicely arranged, all at my
expense, and there sat the poor creature in fine style. Her thin gray
hair was plastered with pomade, and the whole room was redolent of
eau-de-Cologne. She rose and bade me welcome, and I saw that she was
nervous with suppressed excitement. During the meal she upset several
things, and behaved most awkwardly.
I saw there was something exciting her, so after the tray was removed,
I asked her what it was. It soon came out. Jane had fallen in love
with me, and proposed that I should share with her the immense fortune
which she believed had come to her. It was a delicate situation, and
an alarming prospect, but I got out of it very well, and did not scorn
her. I told her that I thought she had better go into the country for a
few weeks while she thought the matter over, and that I must have time
to consider her proposal, which had come so suddenly.
I got a cab, took her to the railway-station, and saw her safely into
the train off to her brother who, I knew, would not be pleased to see
her, for he was as helpless with her as myself. Six months she stayed
in the country, and many were the letters she wrote to me, all couched
in the most endearing language--they lie before me as I write, and
bring it all back to me. She got tired of writing letters, and her
brother got tired of her; so one night at eleven o’clock I found her
on my doorstep, and all her worldly goods with her--three brown-paper
parcels of good dimensions. She always had them with her. Few people
saw her at liberty without those brown-paper parcels. Many people
have asked me what she carried tied up in brown-paper. Every piece of
clothing I had given her for ten years was tied carefully up in those
parcels. When her clothing got too bad, I gave her some better; but all
the old pieces were carefully treasured and jealously guarded; on no
account would she part with any.
In two days’ time she bade a cheerful ‘Good-morning’ to the magistrate
at North London, who promptly discharged her, because she looked so
nice and had been away so long; and before she could well speak she
was ushered out of court. But that did not suit Jane, so next day she
appeared again, and this time more evidence had to be given by the
police--she had taken care of that--so time was given her to get in her
usual string of interruptions, and Jane was happy.
For over thirty years this farce had gone on, and all this time
a demented woman had been looked upon and treated as a confirmed
inebriate. Of course she took drink, and plenty of fools were always
ready to treat her, nay, even to entice her into a public-house for the
purpose of hearing her talk and seeing the fireworks. It has always
seemed to me an extraordinary thing that publicans who knew her so
well, and knew what would happen, should allow her to be served on
their premises; but so it was.
Cakebread became a great nuisance, not only to the public, but
especially to my family. As soon as she was discharged from prison she
would make her way to the street in which I lived; but she never could
remember which was the right house, and as there was a number of houses
exactly alike, she invariably began at the first and inquired at every
one till she arrived at mine. After calling at one house, and being
told that I lived farther on, sometimes she would insist that I did
live there, and would make herself comfortable on the doorstep, where
she would remain till taken away by a policeman. The neighbours began
to look coolly at me; they did not want any of Jane’s glory reflected
on them.
Her appearances before the magistrate became more numerous and her
vagaries more pronounced, till Lady Henry Somerset went to visit her
in Holloway. I do not think that her ladyship expected to do Cakebread
much good, but she did, I know, hope to put an end to the perpetual
scandal, so an offer was made to Jane to live in one of the cottage
homes that were being prepared for habitual inebriates at Duxhurst, and
I was commissioned to convey her thither. The _Daily Chronicle_ had for
some time given special attention to her case, and on the morning of
her release from prison, the morning I was to convey her to Duxhurst,
Mr. Milne of that paper, together with Mr. Phil May, came to my house
to meet with Jane and see her off. My wife had prepared an entirely new
outfit for her, and taking a mantle that was intended for her use on my
arm, I went to meet her at Holloway. This mantle did its work too well,
for while it brought her readily to my house, it also made her more
certain than ever that at last her long-looked-for fortune had come to
her, and this made her intractable. My wife performed the duties of
lady’s-maid, and, I understand, did not have an easy task. Jane came
down at length dressed for her journey, excepting boots. I told her
that we had not bought boots yet, for we did not know her exact size.
It was worth something to see the sixty-six-year-old woman pull up the
front of her dress and look admiringly at her advanced foot and say,
‘Haven’t I a nice foot! Isn’t mine a high instep! I take threes.’ I
looked at her foot, and sent out for a pair of sixes, which she could
scarcely get on. I introduced her to Mr. Milne and Phil May as friends
of mine, and a curious time followed, for she became aware of the
notebooks and pencils, and wanted to know what they ‘were getting at.’
I was afraid of a storm, but Mr. Milne handled her with considerable
tact, telling her that it was usual for ladies of quality and means to
be interviewed and sketched, so at last she agreed to sit still. But
that poor old face could not keep still. Change after change passed
over it; all the emotions of her queer mind rang in quick succession
their never-ending changes upon it, and Mr. Phil May had a hopeless
task. Mr. Milne could get her to talk, and talk she did fast enough,
but what a jumble that talk was! from one thing suddenly to another;
sensible talk and silly talk; half laughing and half crying; sometimes
pleased like a little child, at others raging with passion; tales of
her own girlhood; bits of romance and love. She was just beginning to
get coarse when I asked her to recite something for the gentlemen. Out
came a long string of verses descriptive of the books of the Old and
New Testament. Some hymns followed, and then on to her favourite Job,
from whom she recited one chapter perfectly. As soon as it was finished
she turned to Mr. Phil May and said: ‘Didn’t I say that correctly?’
I have it on the authority of Mr. Milne that Mr. May looked very
confused, and blushed when this question was put to him. I am bound to
confess that I did not see that blush, but I am inclined to think that
Mr. Milne wished us to infer that he knew all about Job. Jane talked
about those ‘nice young gentlemen’ to me many times afterwards, even
when nearing her end in the asylum.
I had bought a new trunk for Jane--an iron one--and my wife had packed
it ready for the journey to Duxhurst. I called her attention to it,
and told her it was time we were going. She indignantly refused a
‘tin box,’ as she termed it, and declared she would have a leathern
travelling trunk, with ‘J. C.’ painted on it. Argument and promises
were of no avail. For a ‘lady possessed of £17,000 to visit Lady Henry
Somerset with a tin box! No, indeed, not Miss Cakebread!’ To end the
matter, she gathered up her brown-paper parcels, went straight to
Tottenham Station, and, with some money that Mr. Phil May and Mr. Milne
had given her, paid her fare to Sawbridgeworth, where, in less than an
hour after her arrival, she was deposited in the local ‘lock-up,’ and
was next day sentenced to a month’s imprisonment in Cambridge Gaol.
I suppose the governor thought I had proprietary rights in the
half-blind old woman, for at the expiration of her sentence, he kindly
paid her fare to Tottenham, and once again she found her way to my
house. But the month in Cambridge Gaol had not agreed with her. She had
evidently been treated with more severity than in Holloway. She seemed
weak and ill, and was quite prepared to go to Lady Henry Somerset, and
even to accept the ‘tin box.’ So we went, but go without her parcels of
old rags she would not, and they had to go with us. At Cannon Street
she was quite willing that her box, which contained good new clothing,
should be put into the luggage-van, but not so with the bundles; into
the carriage with us they must come, and they did. It was a memorable
ride to me--poor demented Jane on one side and three bundles of rags on
the other. She nestled close up to me, and all the time spoke of her
money, and what we should do with it, for she really believed that at
last she was eloping. She grew more vivacious, and her broken health of
the morning seemed to disappear by magic. She had renewed her youth.
I left her at Duxhurst, knowing that she would get every kindness and
be treated with great patience. I knew also that I had by no means
seen the last of her, for I felt sure that in an institution of that
character they would not for long be able to put up with her whims and
oddities, temper and violence. I wonder how Lady Henry Somerset and the
matron stood it for three months; they went through something in the
time, I am sure. So I was not surprised when I got a telegram asking me
to meet Jane at Cannon Street, as they were obliged to send her away.
Even Lady Henry seemed to acknowledge my vested interests in Jane, so
I met her, and once more found her on my hands. I had to pay a fancy
price for her lodgings in Tottenham that night, but for that night
only. The next day she was conveyed on the ‘perambulator’ to the police
station, and the day after she stood in her old familiar place--the
dock at North London Police Court.
Her sojourn at Duxhurst had not been altogether in vain. Lady Henry
discovered what the magistrates and myself knew years before--that she
was mad. The medical officer at Duxhurst, too, found that Jane was
mad. I acquainted Mr. Paul Taylor, the sitting magistrate, with these
discoveries, and he promptly remanded her to Holloway, once more asking
the prison doctor’s opinion on her state of mind. This is what happened
on the remand:
‘At North London, Jane Cakebread, sixty-seven, was brought up on
remand, before Mr. Paul Taylor, to answer the charge of being drunk
and disorderly in Stoke Newington on the evening of the 20th instant.
The appearance of the accused last week marked the two hundred and
eightieth occasion on which she has been charged with drunkenness.
Every effort to reclaim her has failed, and during the last few years,
Mr. T. Holmes, the police court missionary, has constantly asserted
that she was insane. Nevertheless, no doctors could be induced to agree
upon the point, and the woman has been treated as an habitual drunkard.
Last week a remand was ordered, for the state of the prisoner’s mind to
be again inquired into, and the following report was now handed to the
magistrate: “H.M. Prison, Holloway, January 27, 1896. Registered No.
17,706, Jane Cakebread, is well known to me. I have always considered
her to be of impaired intellect. Her mental condition has, however,
so much deteriorated of late that I am of opinion that she is now
not responsible for her actions, and that she should be sent to an
asylum.--GEO. E. WALKER, Medical Officer.” Mr. Paul Taylor
said, in the face of this certificate, he should order an officer to
conduct the woman to the Hackney Workhouse. The gaolers endeavoured
to remove the prisoner from the dock, but she clung to the rails and
refused to go. “What have I got?” she screamed. “I did not hear. I will
know!” Sergeant Baker, the gaoler, said he would tell her all about
it outside. The prisoner was induced to go to the gaoler’s office,
but as she left the court she screamed: “Tell Mr. Holmes to mind my
box.” Directly she heard that she was going to the workhouse, she
cried and said she would not go. Mr. Holmes told her that it would be
better for her to go quietly, and she replied: “Yes, you want to get my
property--my £17,000--but you will not. I have got my proper senses,
though they say I have not.” Ultimately, after a struggle, during which
she tried to bite the gaoler, she was secured on the police ambulance,
and taken to the Hackney Workhouse.’
And so poor old half-blind Jane passed. She had grown old in the
service of the State, and at length the State rewarded her with
something other than prison--the lunatic asylum. But for the manner of
that ‘passing’ Jane never forgave the police, for when very near her
death, in Claybury Asylum, she referred to it, and said: ‘Mr. Holmes,
if I was mad, why did they take me strapped on the perambulator to the
workhouse? Why did they not take me in a cab, like they would have
taken any other lady?’ And there was reason in her query. Sane enough
to realize her misery in being surrounded by the insane--too insane
to be fit for liberty or to control her actions. Nature had its pound
of flesh, and her strange life ebbed out. I went several times to see
her, and the last bit of needlework she ever did she saved for me, and
I keep it for her sake; the tin box that she so much despised is in my
possession, and the clothes that my wife so gladly arranged for her are
still in it, neatly folded, mementos of the most ill-used woman it was
ever my lot to meet with. Once again I went to see her, and death was
upon her. She lay in a half-comatose condition, and as I bent over her
and spoke to her, for a time I got no response. But I thought I would
try again for some little sign of recognition; so I touched her, and
said: ‘Jane, don’t you know me? I am Mr. Holmes.’ She half opened her
eyes for a moment, and said: ‘You are a liar. Mr. Holmes wouldn’t leave
me here.’ Even in death she had some kind of faith in me, and I am glad
to remember it.
I had one other duty to perform, and on December 9, 1898, I performed
it in Chingford Mount Cemetery. It was a very quiet funeral; the
conveyance from the asylum drove up, two men lifted the remains of
our ‘dear sister’ into the prepared grave; the clergyman read the
beautiful service, and into the safe keeping of Mother Earth, and to
the mercy of God, poor old Jane went, a solitary representative of the
press and myself being the only witnesses. I have before me now an old
letter, bearing the date 1890. It is one of Jane’s. A few wildflowers
are inside that letter. She tells of living in a cottage surrounded
by fields, where the birds are singing, the flowers blooming, and the
‘breases is beautiful.’ And it was meet and right, poor old demented
Jane, that the birds should sing when thou wert laid to rest. For on
that December day the sun shone gloriously, and the birds sang merrily
in the trees around her, and as we laid her gently down the breath of
the forest came about her, and the breezes were beautiful. _Requiescat
in pace._
A few words will suffice for the history of Jane Cakebread. Born of
humble parents in Hertfordshire, she had some schooling, but not much.
After leaving school she went into domestic service, and ultimately
became what she called ‘a single-handed parlour-maid.’ To commemorate
the sudden death of some connection of the family she lived with, she
committed to memory certain chapters of the Bible, the one from Job
having to do with the uncertainty of life. While in service someone
left her a legacy of £100. That was her undoing, as she did no work
again. She seems to have carried the money about with her and wasted
it, or got robbed of it. Then began her life of so-called inebriety;
the rest is public knowledge.