London Labour and the London Poor, Vol. 1

by Henry Mayhew

Of the “Gallows” Literature of the Streets.

Under this head I class all the street-sold publications which relate to the hanging of malefactors. That the question is not of any minor importance must be at once admitted, when it is seen how very extensive a portion of the reading of the poor is supplied by the “Sorrowful Lamentations” and “Last Dying Speech, Confession, and Execution” of criminals. One paper-worker told me, that in some small and obscure villages in Norfolk, which, he believed, were visited only by himself in his line, it was not very uncommon for two poor families to club for 1d. to purchase an execution broad-sheet! Not long after Rush was hung, he saw, one evening after dark, through the uncurtained cottage window, eleven persons, young and old, gathered round a scanty fire, which was made to blaze by being fed with a few sticks. An old man was reading, to an attentive audience, a broad-sheet of Rush’s execution, which my informant had sold to him; he read by the fire-light; for the very poor in those villages, I was told, rarely lighted a candle on a spring evening, saying that “a bit o’ fire was good enough to talk by.” The scene must have been impressive, for it had evidently somewhat impressed the perhaps not very susceptible mind of my informant.

The procedure on the occasion of a “good” murder, or of a murder expected to “turn out well,” is systematic. First appears a quarter-sheet (a hand-bill, 9½ in. by 7½ in.) containing the earliest report of the matter. Next come half-sheets (twice the size) of later particulars, or discoveries, or—if the supposed murderer be in custody—of further examinations. The sale of these bills is confined almost entirely to London, and in their production the newspapers are for the most part followed closely enough. Then are produced the whole, or broad-sheets (twice the size of the half-sheets), and, lastly, but only on great occasions, the double broad-sheet. [I have used the least technical terms that I might not puzzle the reader with accounts of “crowns,” “double-crowns,” &c.]

The most important of all the broad-sheets of executions, according to concurrent, and indeed unanimous, testimony is the case of Rush. I speak of the testimony of the street-folk concerned, who all represent the sale of the papers relative to Rush, both in town and country, as the best in their experience of late years.

The sheet bears the title of “The Sorrowful Lamentation and Last Farewell of J. B. Rush, who is ordered for Execution on Saturday next, at Norwich Castle.” There are three illustrations. The largest represents Rush, cloaked and masked, “shooting Mr. Jermy, Sen.” Another is of “Rush shooting Mrs. Jermy.” A prostrate body is at her feet, and the lady herself is depicted as having a very small waist and great amplitude of gown-skirts. The third is a portrait of Rush,—a correct copy, I was assured, and have no reason to question the assurance,—from one in the Norwich Mercury. The account of the trial and biography of Rush, his conduct in prison, &c., is a concise and clear enough condensation from the newspapers. Indeed, Rush’s Sorrowful Lamentation is the best, in all respects, of any execution broad-sheet I have seen; even the “copy of verses” which, according to the established custom, the criminal composes in the condemned cell—his being unable, in some instances, to read or write being no obstacle to the composition—seems, in a literary point of view, of a superior strain to the run of such things. The matters of fact, however, are introduced in the same peculiar manner. The worst part is the morbid sympathy and intended apology for the criminal. I give the verses entire:

“This vain world I soon shall leave,

Dear friends in sorrow do not grieve;

Mourn not my end, though ’tis severe,

For death awaits the murderer.

Now in a dismal cell I lie,

For murder I’m condemn’d to die;

Some may pity when they read,

Oppression drove me to the deed.

My friends and home to me were dear,

The trees and flowers that blossom’d near;

The sweet loved spot where youth began

Is dear to every Englishman.

I once was happy—that is past,

Distress and crosses came at last;

False friendship smiled on wealth and me,

But shunned me in adversity.

The scaffold is awaiting me,

For Jermy I have murdered thee;

Thy hope and joys—thy son I slew,

Thy wife and servant wounded too.

I think I hear the world to say—

‘Oh Rush, why didst thou Jermy slay?

His dear loved son why didst thou kill,

For he had done to thee no ill.’

If Jermy had but kindness shown,

And not have trod misfortune down,

I ne’er had fired the fatal ball

That caus’d his son and him to fall.

My cause I did defend alone,

For learned counsel I had none;

I pleaded hard and questions gave,

In hopes my wretched life to save.

The witness to confound did try,

But God ordained that I should die;

Eliza Chestney she was there,—

I’m sorry I have injured her.

Oh, Emily Sandford, was it due

That I should meet my death through you?

If you had wish’d me well indeed,

How could you thus against me plead?

I’ve used thee kind, though not my wife:

Your evidence has cost my life;

A child by me you have had born,

Though hard against me you have sworn.

The scaffold is, alas! my doom,—

I soon shall wither in the tomb:

God pardon me—no mercy’s here

For Rush—the wretched murderer!”

Although the execution broad-sheet I have cited may be the best, taken altogether, which has fallen under my observation, nearly all I have seen have one characteristic—the facts can be plainly understood. The narrative, embracing trial, biography, &c., is usually prepared by the printer, being a condensation from the accounts in the newspapers, and is perhaps intelligible, simply because it is a condensation. It is so, moreover, in spite of bad grammar, and sometimes perhaps from an unskilful connection of the different eras of the trial.

When the circumstances of the case permit, or can be at all constrained to do so, the Last Sorrowful Lamentation contains a “Love Letter,” written—as one patterer told me he had occasionally expressed it, when he thought his audience suitable—“from the depths of the condemned cell, with the condemned pen, ink, and paper.” The style is stereotyped, and usually after this fashion:

“Dear ——,—Shrink not from receiving a letter from one who is condemned to die as a murderer. Here, in my miserable cell, I write to one whom I have from my first acquaintanceship, held in the highest esteem, and whom, I believe, has also had the same kindly feeling towards myself. Believe me, I forgive all my enemies and bear no malice. O, my dear ——, guard against giving way to evil passions, and a fondness for drink. Be warned by my sad and pitiful fate.”

If it be not feasible to have a love-letter—which can be addressed to either wife or sweetheart—in the foregoing style, a “last letter” is given, and this can be written to father, mother, son, daughter, or friend; and is usually to the following purport:

“Condemned Cell, ——

“My Dear ——,—By the time you receive this my hours, in this world, will indeed be short. It is an old and true saying, that murderers will one day meet their proper reward. No one can imagine the dreadful nights of anguish passed by me since the commital of the crime on poor ——. All my previous victims have appeared before me in a thousand different shapes and forms. My sufferings have been more than I can possibly describe. Let me entreat you to turn from your evil ways and lead a honest and sober life. I am suffering so much at the present moment both from mind and body that I can write no longer. Farewell! farewell!

“Your affectionate ——.”

I have hitherto spoken of the Last Sorrowful Lamentation sheets. The next broad-sheet is the “Life, Trial, Confession, and Execution.” This presents the same matter as the “Lamentation,” except that a part—perhaps the judge’s charge at the trial, or perhaps the biography—is removed to make room for the “Execution,” and occasionally for a portion of the “Condemned Sermon.” To judge by the productions I treat of, both subjects are marvelously similar on all occasions. I cite a specimen of the Condemned Sermon, as preached, according to the broad-sheet, before Hewson, condemned for the murder of a turnkey. It will be seen that it is of a character to fit any condemned sermon whatever:

“The rev. gent. then turned his discourse particularly to the unhappy prisoner doomed to die on the morrow, and told him to call on Him who alone had the power of forgiveness; who had said, ‘though his sins were red as scarlet,’ he would ‘make them white as snow,’ though he had been guilty of many heinous crimes, there was yet an opportunity of forgiveness.—During the delivery of this address, the prisoner was in a very desponding state, and at its conclusion was helped out of the chapel by the turnkeys.”

The “Execution” is detailed generally in this manner. I cite the “Life, Trial, Confession and Execution of Mary May, for the Murder of W. Constable, her Half-brother, by Poison, at Wix, near Manningtree:”

“At an early hour this morning the space before the prison was very much crowded by persons anxious to witness the execution of Mary May, for the murder of William Constable, her half-brother, by poison, at Wix, Manningtree, which gradually increased to such a degree, that a great number of persons suffered extremely from the pressure, and gladly gave up their places on the first opportunity to escape from the crowd. The sheriffs and their attendants arrived at the prison early this morning and proceeded to the condemn cell, were they found the reverend ordinary engaged in prayer with the miserable woman. After the usual formalities had been observed of demanding the body of the prisoner into their custody she was then conducted to the press-room. The executioner with his assistants then commenced pinioning her arms, which opperation they skillfully and quickly dispatched. During these awful preparations the unhappy woman appeared mently to suffer severely, but uttered not a word when the hour arrived and all the arrangements having been completed, the bell commenced tolling, and then a change was observed, to come over the face of the prisoner, who trembling violently, walked with the melancholy procession, proceeded by the reverend ordinary, who read aloud the funeral service for the dead. When the bell commenced tolling a moment was heard from without, and the words “Hats off,” and “Silence,” were distinctly heard, from which time nothing but a continual sobbing was heard. On arriving at the foot of the steps leading to the scaffold she thanked the sheriffs and the worthy governor of the prison, for their kind attentions to her during her confinement; & then the unfortunate woman was seen on the scaffold, there was a death like silence prevailed among the vast multitude of people assembled. In a few seconds the bolt was drawn, and, after a few convulsive struggles, the unhappy woman ceased to exist.”

I cannot refrain from calling the reader’s attention to the “copy of verses” touching Mary May. I give them entire, for they seem to me to contain all the elements which made the old ballads popular—the rushing at once into the subject—and the homely reflections, though crude to all educated persons, are, nevertheless, well adapted to enlist the sympathy and appreciation of the class of hearers to whom they are addressed:

COPY OF VERSES.

“The solemn bell for me doth toll,

And I am doom’d to die

(For murdering my brother dear,)

Upon a tree so high.

For gain I did premeditate

My brother for to slay,—

Oh, think upon the dreadful fate

Of wretched Mary May.

CHORUS.

Behold the fate of Mary May,

Who did for gain her brother slay.

In Essex boundry I did dwell,

My brother lived with me,

In a little village called Wix,

Not far from Manningtree.

In a burial club I entered him,

On purpose him to slay;

And to obtain the burial fees

I took his life away.

One eve he to his home return’d,

Not thinking he was doom’d,

To be sent by a sister’s hand

Unto the silent tomb.

His tea for him I did prepare,

And in it poison placed,

To which I did administer,—

How dreadful was his case.

Before he long the poison took

In agony he cried;

Upon him I in scorn did look,—

At length my brother died.

Then to the grave I hurried him,

And got him out of sight,

But God ordain’d this cruel deed

Should soon be brought to light.

I strove the money to obtain,

For which I did him slay,

By which, also, suspicion fell

On guilty Mary May.

The poison was discovered,

Which caused me to bewail,

And I my trial to await

Was sent to Chelmsford jail.

And for this most atrocious deed

I at the bar was placed,

The Jury found me guilty,—

How dreadful was my case.

The Judge the dreadful sentence pass’d,

And solemn said to me,

‘You must return from whence you came,

And thence unto the tree.’

On earth I can no longer dwell,

There’s nothing can me save;

Hark! I hear the mournful knell

Which calls me to the grave.

Death appears in ghostly forms,

To summon me below;

See, the fatal bolt is drawn,

And Mary May must go.

Good people all, of each degree,

Before it is too late,

See me on the fatal tree,

And pity my sad fate.

My guilty heart stung with grief,

With agony and pain,—

My tender brother I did slay

That fatal day for gain.”

This mode of procedure in “gallows” literature, and this style of composition, have prevailed for from twenty to thirty years. I find my usual impossibility to fix a date among these street-folk; but the Sorrowful Lamentation sheet was unknown until the law for prolonging the term of existence between the trial and death of the capitally-convicted, was passed. “Before that, sir,” I was told, “there wasn’t no time for a Lamentation; sentence o’ Friday, and scragging o’ Monday. So we had only the Life, Trial, and Execution.” Before the year 1820, the Execution broad-sheets, &c., were “got up” in about the same, though certainly in an inferior and more slovenly manner than at present; and one copy of verses often did service for the canticles of all criminals condemned to be hung. These verses were to sacred or psalm tunes, such as Job, or the Old Hundredth. I was told by an aged gentleman that he remembered, about the year 1812, hearing a song, or, as he called it, “stave,” of this description, not only given in the street with fiddle and nasal twang, to the tune of the Old Hundredth, but commencing in the very words of Sternhold and Hopkins—

“All people that on earth do dwell.”

These “death-verses,” as they were sometimes called, were very frequently sung by blind people, and in some parts of the country blind men and women still sing—generally to the accompaniment of a fiddle—the “copy of verses.” A London chaunter told me, that, a few years back, he heard a blind man at York announce the “verses” as from the “solitudes” of the condemned cell. At present the broad-sheet sellers usually sing, or chaunt, the copy of verses.

An intelligent man, now himself a street-trader, told me that one of the latest “execution songs” (as he called them) which he remembered to have heard in the old style—but “no doubt there were plenty after that, as like one another as peas in a boiling”—was on the murder of Weare, at Elstree, in Hertfordshire. He took great interest in such things when a boy, and had the song in question by heart, but could only depend upon his memory for the first and second verses:

“Come, all good Christians, praise the Lord,

And trust to him in hope.

God in his mercy Jack Thurtell sent

To hang from Hertford gallows rope.

Poor Weare’s murder the Lord disclosed—

Be glory to his name:

And Thurtell, Hunt, and Probert too,

Were brought to grief and shame.”

Another street paper-worker whom I spoke to on the subject, and to whom I read these two verses, said: “That’s just the old thing, sir; and it’s quite in old Jemmy Catnach’s style, for he used to write werses—anyhow, he said he did, for I’ve heard him say so, and I’ve no doubt he did in reality—it was just his favourite style, I know, but the march of intellect put it out. It did so.”

In the most “popular” murders, the street “papers” are a mere recital from the newspapers, but somewhat more brief, when the suspected murderer is in custody; but when the murderer has not been apprehended, or is unknown, “then,” said one Death-hunter, “we has our fling, and I’ve hit the mark a few chances that way. We had, at the werry least, half-a-dozen coves pulled up in the slums that we printed for the murder of ‘The Beautiful Eliza Grimwood, in the Waterloo-road.’ I did best on Thomas Hopkins, being the guilty man—I think he was Thomas Hopkins—’cause a strong case was made out again him.”

I received similar accounts of the street-doings in the case of “mysterious murders,” as those perpetrations are called by the paper workers, when the criminal has escaped, or was unknown. Among those leaving considerable scope to the patterer’s powers of invention were the murders of Mr. Westwood, a watchmaker in Prince’s-street, Leicester-square; of Eliza Davis, a bar-maid, in Frederick-street, Hampstead-road; and of the policeman in Dagenham, Essex. One of the most successful “cocks,” relating to murders which actually occurred, was the “Confession to the Rev. Mr. Cox, Chaplain of Aylesbury Gaol, of John Tawell the Quaker.” I had some conversation with one of the authors of this “Confession,”—for it was got up by three patterers; and he assured me that “it did well, and the facts was soon in some of the newspapers—as what we ’riginates often is.” This sham confession was as follows:

“The Rev. Mr. Cox, the chaplain of Aylesbury Gaol, having been taken ill, and finding his end approaching, sent for his son, and said, ‘Take this confession; now I am as good as my word; I promised that unhappy man, John Tawell, that while I lived his confession should not be made public, owing to the excited state of the public mind. Tawell confessed to me, that besides the murder of Sarah Hart, at Salt-hill, for which he suffered the last penalty of the law at Aylesbury, he was guilty of two other barbarous murders while abroad as a transport in Van Dieman’s Land. One of these barbarous and horrid murders was on the body of one of the keepers. He knocked him down with the keys, which he wrenched from him, and then cut his throat with his own knife, leaving the body locked up in his cell; and before that, to have the better opportunity of having the turnkey single-handed, John Tawell feigned illness. He then locked the keeper, in the cell, and went to a young woman in the town, a beautiful innkeeper’s daughter, whom he had seduced as he worked for her father, as he had the privilege of doing in the day-times. He went to her, and she, seeing him in a flurried state, with blood upon his hand, questioned him. He told the unhappy young woman how he had killed the keeper for the love of her, and the best thing to be done was for her to get possession of all the money she could, and escape with him to this country, where he would marry her, and support her like a lady. The unhappy young woman felt so terrified, that at the moment she was unable to say yes or no. He became alarmed for his safety, and with the identical knife that he killed the keeper with, he left his unhappy victim a weltering in her gore. He then fled from the house unobserved, and went into the bush, where he met three men, who had escaped through his killing the keeper. He advised them to go down with him to an English vessel lying off the coast. When they reached the shore, they met a crew in search of fresh water; to them they made out a pitiful story, and were taken on board the ship. All being young men, and the captain being short of hands, and one of them having been really a seaman transported for mutiny, the captain, after putting questions which the seaman answered, engaged them to work their passage home. Tawell was the captain of the gang, and was most looked up to. They worked their passage home, behaving well during the voyage, so that the captain said he would make each of them a present, and never divulge. When they reached Liverpool, Tawell robbed the captain’s cabin of all the money contained in it, which was a very considerable sum. After that he left Liverpool, and adopted the garb of a Quaker, in which he could not easily be recognized, and then pursued the course of wickedness and crime which led him to a shameful death.’”

The “confession” of Rush to the chaplain of Norwich Castle, was another production which was remunerative to the patterers. “There was soon a bit of it in the newspapers,” said one man, “for us and them treads close on one another’s heels. The newspapers ‘screeved’ about Rush, and his mother, and his wife; but we, in our patter, made him confess to having murdered his old grandmother fourteen years back, and how he buried her under the apple-tree in the garden, and how he murdered his wife as well.”

These ulterior Confessions are very rarely introduced, in lieu of some matter displaced, into the broad-sheet, but form separate bills. It was necessary to mention them here, however, and so preserve the sequence of the whole of the traffic consequent upon a conviction for murder, in this curious trade.

Sometimes the trial, &c., form also separate bills, as well as being embodied afterwards in the Sorrowful Lamentation. This is only, however, in cases which are deemed important. One of the papers I obtained, for instance, is the “Trial of Mr. and Mrs. Manning for the Murder of Mr. Patrick O’Connor.” The trial alone occupies a broad-sheet; it is fairly “got up.” A portrait of Mr. Patrick O’Connor heads the middle column. From the presence of a fur collar to the coat or cloak, and of what is evidently an order with its insignia, round the neck, I have little doubt that the portrait of Mr. O’Connor was originally that of the sovereign in whose service O’Connor was once an excise-officer—King William IV.

The last publication to which the trade has recourse is “the book.” This is usually eight pages, but sometimes only four of a larger size. In authorship, matter, or compilation, it differs little from the narratives I have described. The majority of these books are prepared by one man. They are in a better form for being preserved as a record than is a broad-sheet, and are frequently sold, and almost always offered by the patterers when they cry a new case on a sheet, as “people that loves such reading likes to keep a good account of the best by them; and so, when I’ve sold Manning’s bills, I’ve often shoved off Rush’s books.” The books, like the bills, have generally the letters and the copy of verses.

Some of these books have the title-page set forth in full display,—for example: “Horrible Murder and Mutilation of Lucy Game, aged 15, by her Cruel Brother, William Game, aged 9, at Westmill, Hertfordshire. His Committal and Confession. With a Copy of Letter. Also, Full Particulars of the Poisonings in Essex.” Here, as there was no execution, the matter was extended, to include the poisonings in Essex. The title I have quoted is expanded into thirteen lines. Sometimes the title-page is adorned with a portrait. One, I was told, which was last employed as a portrait of Calcraft, had done severe service since Courvoisier’s time,—for my informant thought that Courvoisier was the original. It is the bust of an ill-looking man, with coat and waistcoat fitting with that unwrinkled closeness which characterises the figures in tailors’ “fashions.”

The above style of work is known in the trade as “the book;” but other publications, in the book or pamphlet form, are common enough. In some I have seen, the title-page is a history in little. I cite one of these:—“Founded on Facts. The Whitby Tragedy; or, the Gambler’s Fate. Containing the Lives of Joseph Carr, aged 21, and his sweetheart, Maria Leslie, aged 19, who were found Dead, lying by each other, on the morning of the 23rd of May. Maria was on her road to Town to buy some Ribbon, &c., for her Wedding Day, when her lover in a state of intoxication fired at her, and then run to rob his prey, but finding it to be his Sweetheart, reloaded his Gun, placed the Muzzle to his Mouth, and blew out his Brains, all through cursed Cards, Drink, &c. Also, an affectionate Copy of Verses.”

To show the extent of the trade in execution broad-sheets, I obtained returns of the number of copies relating to the principal executions of late, that had been sold:

Of	Rush	2,500,000	copies.
„	the Mannings	2,500,000	„
„	Courvoisier	1,666,000	„
„	Good	1,650,000	„
„	Corder	1,650,000	„
„	Greenacre	1,666,000	„

Of Thurtell I could obtain no accounts—“it was so long ago;” but the sale, I was told, was enormous. Reckoning that each copy was sold for 1d. (the regular price in the country, where the great sale is,) the money expended for such things amounts to upwards of 48,500l. in the case of the six murderers above given. All this number was printed and got up in London; a few “broad-sheets” concerning Rush were printed also in Norwich.

Touching the issue of “cocks,” a person connected with the trade calculated for me, from data at his command, that 3,456 copies were struck off weekly, and sold in the streets, in the metropolis; and reckoning them at only a ½d. each, we have the sum of 7l. 4s. spent every week in this manner. At this rate, there must be 179,712 copies of “cocks” printed in a year, on which the public expend no less than 374l. 8s.

Of the style of illustrations usually accompanying this class of street literature the two large engravings here given are fac similes—while the smaller ones are faithful copies of the average embellishments to the halfpenny ballads. On another occasion I shall speak at length on “Street-Art.”