Remarkable Rogues / The Careers of Some Notable Criminals of Europe and America; Second Edition

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Remarkable Rogues, by Charles Kingston
MARIE TARNOWSKA ON TRIAL
REMARKABLE ROGUES THE CAREERS OF SOME NOTABLE CRIMINALS OF EUROPE AND AMERICA
BY CHARLES KINGSTON WITH EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD LTD. NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY,
MCMXXI.
SECOND EDITION
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE DEVONSHIRE PRESS, TORQUAY.

That interest in crime and the criminal is universal no one will deny. In a cruder age it was the custom to organize parties to witness the public execution of notable scoundrels—Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) took Thackeray and, I believe, Dickens, to see Courvoisier's—but nowadays we are more decorous, although on occasion several thousand persons can assemble outside a prison and stare at a blank wall during a private hanging inside. Most of us, however, are content to behold crime through the eyes of our favourite journal and it is impossible to complain that the press does not cater fully for us in this respect. That crime retains its fascination for high and low is proved almost every time there is a sensational trial at the Central Criminal Court, for the attendance invariably includes distinguished politicians, authors, artists and representatives of that nebulous class termed Society. It is, however, no longer possible for a special box to be erected at the Old Bailey to enable members of the Royal Family to watch a man on trial for his life, and it is now bad form for a popular judge to surround himself with princes and peers and audibly keep them au fait with the evidence. These things have passed away and we have headlines and contents-bills in their place. We are, in fact, more respectable if less robust, but sin and sinners will intrigue us to the end of Time.
James Greenacre, was the subject of more than one pamphlet biography, but I have preferred to go to the copious reports of his trial for my material, and I consulted similar sources whenever possible before writing the chapters dealing with Marie Tarnowska, Mrs. Leroy Chadwick, Jeanne Daniloff, three of my German criminals and several others. Greenacre's trial and execution were conducted on typical early nineteenth century lines, and that loathsome scoundrel was nearly elevated to the pinnacle of a hero by indiscriminate publicity. The competition to be present in Court when he was in the dock was so keen that a pound a head was charged for admission to the gallery on each day and even at that price the queue was always greater than the accommodation. After his conviction he was visited in prison by scores of noblemen and gentlemen, and while in a contemporary account of the execution—which I quote—the reporter omits the names of those eminent persons who attended it, it is significant that the number of private carriages, according to another journalist, should have exceeded fifty.