A VISIT TO THE OLD BAILEY.
As I entered the Court, a case of some importance had terminated, and the judge just concluded his summing up, when the clerk of the arraigns put the customary question to the jury, "How say ye, gentlemen—is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?" Upon which the jurymen laid their heads together, and I heard something in a whisper from their foreman, who immediately pronounced the agreeable verdict, "Not guilty." The prisoner bowed gracefully—he was a pickpocket—and retired.
The prompt decision of the jury convinced me that it must have been a clear case; and I rejoiced at the departure of the now exonerated sufferer.
"That's a reg'lar rascal," said the sheriff to me in a whisper; "never was such a case heard on, to be sure—seventeen watches, thirty-two pocket handkerchiefs, four pair of spectacles, and five snuff-boxes, all found upon his person!"
"Yet," said I, "the evidence could not have been very strong against him—the jury acquitted him after a minute's consultation."
"Evidence, Mr. Gurney!" said the sheriff, "how little do you know of the Old Bailey!—why, if these London juries were to wait to consider evidence, we never should get through the business—the way we do here is to make a zig-zag of it."
I did not exactly comprehend the term as it was now applied, although Daly had often used it in my society with reference to a pin and a card universally employed at the interesting game of rouge et noir; and I therefore made no scruple of expressing my ignorance.
"Don't you understand, sir?" said the sheriff—"why, the next prisoner will be found guilty—the last was acquitted—the one after the next will be acquitted too—it comes alternate like—save half, convict half—that's what we call a zig-zag; and taking the haggregate, it comes to the same pint, and I think justice is done as fair here as in any court in Christendom."
This explanation rendered the next prisoner who made his appearance an object of considerable interest to me. He was a little dirty boy, who stood charged with having stolen a pound of bacon and a peg-top from a boy somewhat his junior. The young prosecutor produced a witness, who, as far as appearances went, might, without any great injustice, have taken the place of the prisoner, and who gave his evidence with considerable fluency and flippancy. His manner attracted the notice of one of the leading barristers of the court, Mr. Flappertrap, who, in cross-examining him, inquired whether he knew the nature of an oath.
"Yes, I does," said the boy.
"Explain it," said Flappertrap.
"You may be d——d," replied the lad; "that's a hoath, arn't it?"
"What does he say?" said the judge—who, as I about this period discovered, was as deaf as a post.
"He says, 'You may be d——d,' my lord," said Flappertrap, who appeared particularly glad of an opportunity to borrow a phrase, which he might use for the occasion.
"What does he mean by that?" said the judge. That is the way, my lord, he exhibits his knowledge of the nature of an oath."
"Pah! pah!" said the judge—"Boy, d'ye hear me?"
"Yes," said the boy, "I hears."
"Have you ever been to school?"
"Yes," said the boy, "in St. Giles's parish for three years."
"Do you know your catechism?"
The boy muttered something which was not audible to the court generally, and was utterly lost upon the judge personally.
"What does he say?" said his lordship.
"Speak up, sir," said Mr. Flappertrap.
The boy muttered again, looking down and seeming embarrassed.
"Speak louder, sir," said another barrister, whose name I did not know, but who was remarkable for a most unequivocal obliquity of vision—"speak to his lordship—look at him—look as I do, sir."
"I can't," said the boy, "you squints!"
A laugh followed this bit of naïvete, which greatly abashed the counsellor, and somewhat puzzled the judge.
"What does he say?" said his lordship.
"He says he knows his catechism, my lord."
"Oh—does not know his catechism—why then, what—"
"Does know, my lord," whispered the lord mayor, who was in the chair.
"Oh—ah—does know—I know—here, boy," said his lordship, "you know your catechism, do you?"
"Yes," replied he, sullenly.
"We'll see, then—what is your name?" said his lordship.
"My name," said the intelligent lad—"what, in the catechism?"
"Yes, what is your name?"
"M. or N. as the case may be," said the boy.
"Go down, go down," said the judge, angrily, and down he went.
"Gentlemen of the jury," said his lordship, "this case will require very little of your attention—the only evidence against the prisoner at the bar which goes to fasten the crime upon him, is that which has been offered by the last witness, who evidently is ignorant of the nature and obligation of an oath. With respect to the pig's toes which the prisoner stands charged with stealing——"
"A peg-top, my lord!" said Flappertrap, standing up, turning round, and speaking over the bench into the judge's ears.
"Peg-top," said his lordship—"oh—ah—I see—very bad pen—it looks in my notes like pig's toes. Well—peg-top—of the peg-top which it is alleged he took from the prosecutor, there has not been one syllable mentioned by the prosecutor himself; nor do I see that the charge of taking the bacon is by any means proved. There is no point for me to direct your attention to, and you will say whether the prisoner at the bar is guilty or not; and a very trumpery case it is altogether, that I must admit."
His lordship ceased, and the jury again laid their heads together; again the foreman gave the little "hem" of conscious readiness for decision; again did the clerk of the arraigns ask the important question, "How say ye, gentlemen, is the prisoner at the bar guilty or not guilty?" "Guilty," said the foreman to the clerk of the arraigns; and "I told you so," said the sheriff to me.
The next case was a short one. The prisoner a woman, the evidence clear and straightforward; but no great interest was excited, because it was known that the case, for the trial of which in point of fact the learned judge had, for particular reasons, given his attendance, and which accounted for his lordship's presence at the close of the session, was very speedily to come on. This extraordinary combination of circumstances afforded me the most favourable opportunity of seeing all the sights of this half awful, half amusing scene, even to the discharge of the grand jury, who had been specially kept together for the purpose of finding or ignoring the bill preferred against the eminent culprit, who was evidently the great attraction of the day—having found which, they had but three more to decide upon.
It was in the middle of the defence of the female prisoner, now "coram nobis," and just as she was making a beautiful but useless appeal to the "gentlemen of the jury," that a bustle in the court announced some coming event.
"I am," said the weeping prisoner, "an orphan—I lost my mother while I was yet a child—my father married again, and I was driven from what had been before a happy home—I have only to pray——"
Bang went a door—the scuffle of feet were heard—down went some benches—"Make way—make way!" cried some of the officers. "Stand back, sir, stand back—the gentlemen of the grand jury are coming into court." To what the moaning prisoner at the bar might have limited her supplications, I never had an opportunity of ascertaining, for the noise I have mentioned was succeeded by the appearance of eighteen or nineteen men, dressed up in something like the shabbiest dominoes I had seen at Lady Wolverhampton's masquerade, trimmed with very dirty fur—the leader, or foreman, carrying in his hand three bits of parchment. As these gentlemen advanced to a space reserved for them in the centre of the court, the judge kept exchanging bows with them until they had all reached their destination—the foreman then delivered to the clerk of arraigns the three bits of parchment, who, putting his glasses on his nose, read—James Hickson, larceny—not found.—John Hogg, felony—true bill.—Mary Ann Hodges, felony—not found. The clerk then informed his lordship, partly by words, and partly by signs, the result of the deliberations of the grand jury, and the fact that there were no more bills to set before them. Having thus far proceeded, that officer inquired if the gentlemen of the grand jury had any presentment to make; whereupon the foreman, one of the largest and dirtiest-looking persons imaginable, but whose countenance was indicative of love of power and command, and who appeared, at the moment he prepared himself to unburthen his great soul of a grievance, to feel as if the whole world were a football, made for him to play with,—
"My lord," said he, drawing himself up into an attitude, "I am sure I need not, at this time of day, enter into any discussion with your lordship on the vast importance of the rights and privileges of Englishmen—of the original establishment of the trial by jury in this country. It would be worse than idle to occupy your valuable time and that of this court, by dilating upon the merits of our constitution—the chiefest of which has, I may say—been always—and I will say—wisely, considerately, and prudently held to be that peculiar mode of administering justice between man and man. But, my lord, if in civil cases the deliberation and decision of a jury are considered adequate safeguards to the rights and property of the people, the law, still more careful of their lives and liberties, has interposed in criminal cases another and a higher tribunal, in the nature of a grand jury." [Hereabouts the judge, having bowed his head graciously, omitted to raise it again, having dropped into a sound slumber.]
"That tribunal of mediation in the first instance, is full of importance; and whatever subsequent proceedings may be taken in a case, I do say, for myself and my fellows, that the decision upon ex-parte evidence requires more circumspection, more care, and more consideration than a verdict delivered after a case had been argued, and after witnesses have been heard on both sides.
"If, my lord, your lordship concedes this point, I will merely say, generally, that when the mind is occupied by any important object, more especially in matters of jurisprudence, it is absolutely necessary that nothing, if possible, should occur to irritate or exacerbate the feelings—all should be calm, and at rest."
Several people turned their eyes towards his lordship, and some smiled.
"No incidental annoyance should be permitted to interpose itself; nothing which could divert the judge from the point to which his intellectual faculties ought to be directed, and to which, my lord, under suitable circumstances, they would as they should naturally converge. But, my lord, we are finite beings—creatures of habit—subject to all the weaknesses of our nature, and liable to be acted upon by impulses almost unaccountable to ourselves. For myself and my fellows, I may, perhaps, hope for a favourable interpretation of our intentions, and a lenient judgment of our conduct. We have, my lord, struggled hard to do our duty, and I hope we have done it serviceably and effectually—conscientiously and faithfully, I am sure we have. But, my lord, we do think it necessary to call your lordship's most serious attention to a fact which is embodied in the presentment I hold in my hand. It is one which occurs to us to be of paramount importance, as far as the tempering of justice with mercy is involved: we have suffered grievously from the existence of the evil to which we point; and although at this time of the year its effects are of course not so heavily felt as in the winter season, we have considered it a duty we owe to this court, to our fellow-countrymen, and, we may say, to every man intimately or remotely connected with the administration of criminal justice, spread as they may be over the whole surface of the globe, to state that the chimney in the grand jury-room smokes so much and so continually, that it is impossible to endure its effects calmly or patiently; and we therefore think it right to bring the matter thus formally before your lordship, and to desire that measures may be taken to abate a nuisance which, by its effects, is calculated to thwart, impede, and even distort the course of justice, and produce evils, the magnitude of which it is scarcely possible to imagine, and certainly not to express."
A buzz of approbation from the gentlemen of the grand jury, who had been undergoing the process of smoke-drying for several days, created a stir in the court, in the midst of which the learned judge awoke; and the lord mayor having whispered into his lordship's wig, his lordship bowed, and the clerk took the parchment.
"Mr. Foreman, and gentlemen of the grand jury," said his lordship, "I am happy to say that your labours for the present are concluded; there are no more bills for your consideration. Your presentment shall be attended to, and I have to acknowledge your great zeal and attention, and to give you thanks for your services:—gentlemen, you are now discharged."
The bows, and scufflings, and cries of "Make way there for the gentlemen of the grand jury, who are coming out of court," were resumed, and the orator and his peers retired, leaving the poor girl at the bar, wondering what had happened, and what could be the reason that the worshipful community with the cat-skin tippets should have interposed themselves in the middle of her pathetic defence, in order to discuss the irritating characteristic of a smoky chimney.
I admit that the pompous oratory of the foreman, the "mons parturiens"—a splendid exhibition, and the "ridiculus mus," which eventually presented itself, were to me treats of no common order, and I regretted that Daly was not with me to participate with me in devouring the grave absurdities which we should have had before us.
The trial of the girl was concluded, and I had no doubt as to her fate, now that I became acquainted with the principle,—she was acquitted, and never shall I forget the effect which this result of her trial produced upon her manners and features. The moment my friend Zig-zag had pronounced the words, "Not guilty," the pathetic expression which had characterised her countenance turned into the most humorous, and having winked her eye at the learned judge, who, poor man, had summed up decidedly against her, she proceeded to place her two hands extended in a right line from the tip of her nose, in the direction of his lordship's seat, after the fashion of what is called "taking a double sight," and then, making a noise which, if not indescribable by imitation, is certainly irreducible to writing, something between that which a hackney-coachman utters to encourage his tired horses, and that which a duck makes when it sees either a ditch or a drake in dry weather, she turned herself suddenly round with the least graceful pirouette I ever saw, leaving one of the hands which she had previously elevated for observation the last part of her person visible.
A short case of pot-stealing followed—the prisoner was found guilty in ten minutes; and then came the case. It was a curious and intricate one, and I felt quite assured, when I saw the prisoner, a genteel-looking young man, take his place under the inverted mirror, contrived with an almost diabolical ingenuity, so as to refract and reflect the light upon his face from the huge window at his back; I said to myself, having got both hardened and hungry during my short probation in court, "We shall not dine at six to-day."
It might, perhaps, injure the feelings of the individual himself, or, if he is dead, those of his friends and relations, to detail the particular case, the more especially as nothing could be clearer than that the crime laid to his charge was amply and satisfactorily—to everybody except himself—proved and substantiated.
Just as the last witness for the defence was under cross-examination, I saw one of the lord mayor's servants put his powdered head in a little hole, and whisper something to the ordinary of Newgate, a remarkably pious-looking man, in full canonicals, with a bag-wig, which, to use Foote's phraseology, speaking of Dr. Simony (by whom, as of course everybody knows, he meant the unfortunate Dr. Dodd), "looked as white as a curd, and as close as a cauliflower." It struck me that either the pretty wanton who had just been acquitted desired some serious conversation with the clergyman, or that the last convicted pot-stealer felt some qualms of conscience, and had sent for spiritual assistance; but no,—my friend Mr. Sheriff Bucklesbury relieved my mind from any such apprehensions, by inviting me to a whisper, with an expression of countenance which convinced me that it was nothing of so serious a character which had suddenly summoned the reverend divine from the court.
"Good news!" said the sheriff; "land is in sight."
"What?" said I, not exactly catching the idea.
"Dinner is not far distant," said the sheriff, "the ordinary has been sent for to dress the salad."
Well, thought I, that ever a man so dressed, and so addressed, as the reverend divine opposite, should quit the seat of justice tempered with mercy, to mix oil and vinegar in a salad-bowl, does seem strange. It was evident to me, from the manner in which my friend spoke of the chaplain's secular vocations, that his respect for the table was infinitely greater than that which he entertained for the cloth, and never from that day have I seen painted over suburban inns, "an ordinary on Sundays at two o'clock," without thinking of the reverend functionary so styled in the Old Bailey, and the probable duties he would be called upon to perform.
The evidence having terminated, and the clock pointing to fifteen minutes after six, his lordship began summing up. I have already mentioned that his lordship was deaf, and the strange blunders which I noticed in his early charges will perhaps serve to inform the reader of these papers, whoever he may be, that his lordship's handwriting was utterly unintelligible, even to himself; indeed, so completely illegible were his notes, that the only resource his lordship had, if ever they were called for upon motions for new trials (which perhaps I need not here add, was in his lordship's case by no means an unfrequent occurrence), was to send them to be printed—printers being proverbially the best decypherers in the world.
His lordship's charge—barring the inevitable blunders and hesitations, rendered absolutely necessary by this almost hopeless illegibility—was exceedingly minute and elaborated. He recapitulated the evidence of the three first witnesses verbatim, and continued thus of the fourth:—
"Now, gentlemen of the jury, here is Amos Hardy—Handy—no, not Handy—Harding—Amos Harding tells you, that on Tuesday—no, not Tuesday—I see—Friday the 14th—that is, the 24th—he was going along Liverpool—no—Liquorpond Street—near Gug's Island—Guy's—no—Gray's Inn Lane—yes—going along Liquorpond Street, Gray's Inn Lane—at about eight o'clock in the morning—and saw the fire break out of Mr. Stephenson's windows. This, gentlemen of the jury, is a very remarkable fact—and in connection with some other circumstances to which we shall presently come, is quite worthy of your particular attention—you perceive that he swears to eight o'clock in the morning."
"Evening, my lord," said Mr. Flappertrap, standing up and whispering his lordship audibly.
"Evening is it?" said his lordship—"ay, so it is—evening—no matter—he swears to the time at which he saw the fire break out—and hence will naturally arise in your minds a chain of circumstances which it will be my duty to endeavour to unravel. In the first place——"
Hereabouts one of the servants of the court put his head in at one of the doors at the back of the bench, and whispered the lord mayor much after the same manner in which Mr. Flappertrap had just before whispered the judge. His lordship immediately pulled out his watch—then looked at the clock—and then wrote a few words upon a slip of paper, and laid that slip of paper upon his lordship's notes. The judge took up the memorandum, and tore it in pieces—as I thought indignantly.
"You know what that means?" said my friend, the sheriff.
"No," said I.
"Dinner's waiting," replied my friend—an announcement which startled me, as it seemed impossible but that it would be kept waiting for some time. This little scene, however, was followed by the arrival of the recorder, who, after bowing to the lord mayor, took his seat on the bench.
"I told you so," said the sheriff; "Mr. Recorder is come to try the remaining cases——" A cry of "Silence—pray, silence," indicated that Mr. Sheriff Bucklesbury and I were speaking somewhat too loudly.
"The circumstances to which I allude," continued his lordship, after he had torn up the note, "are in fact so clearly detailed in the evidence you have heard, that to men of intelligence and experience, like those I am now addressing, any attempt at explanation on my part would be superfluous. The case appears a very clear one—you have to decide upon the value of the evidence, and return your verdict accordingly, giving the prisoner the benefit of any doubts you may entertain on the question."
Never was I more surprised than at finding the promised explanations and comparisons of fact and testimony so suddenly cut short, after the manner of "the story of the Bear and Fiddle," and I could not help, while the clerk of the arraigns was putting his accustomed question to the jury, noticing the circumstance to my worshipful friend.
"To be sure," said the sheriff, "don't you see—the time is up—he smells the marrow puddings."
The jury, emulating the expedition of the judge, in one minute, according to the zig-zag system, acquitted the prisoner; whereupon, his lordship rising to depart, addressed that individual in words to this effect:—
"Prisoner at the bar, you have been tried by an able, patient, and conscientious jury of your countrymen, who, convinced like myself of the enormity of your crime, and of the wicked intentions by which you were actuated in its commission, have returned the only verdict which they could justly and honestly return—they have well discharged their duty. And although it is not my province in this place to pronounce the awful sentence of the law upon you, I shall take care——"
Here Mr. Flappertrap whispered his lordship that the jury had acquitted the prisoner.
"By-and-by, sir," said his lordship, angry at being interrupted—"I shall take care, young man, that an example shall be made in your person of the——"
The lord mayor here ventured to suggest that the "young man" was found not guilty.
"Very well, my lord—presently, presently," said his lordship—"even-handedness of justice; and that an enormous offender of your class may not be suffered to escape the just vengeance of the laws which he has outraged."
Here Mr. Flappertrap whipped a bit of paper over the desk of the bench into the very place which the announcement of dinner had so recently occupied. His lordship looked at it, and exclaimed, unconsciously—"Oh! ah!—umph!" and then continued—"It is true that upon the present occasion the mercy and forbearance of the jury have been exercised in a signal manner; and I trust their benevolence and indulgence will not be thrown away upon you. I maintain my own opinion still—yet they have decided, and I have only to receive that decision—you are discharged, sir, and may go about your business; but I can tell you this, young man, you have had a very narrow escape indeed."
There was not a man in court who did not tacitly admit the truth and justice of at least the concluding passage of his lordship's address to the acquitted prisoner; nor was that individual himself the least astonished of his lordship's auditors. The incident, however, was worthy of its place in the day's proceedings, as producing a climax to the judicial operations of the learned lord, and leaving upon the minds of all his majesty's liege subjects then and there present, a conviction, that however classical it maybe to picture Justice blind, it is not, as a matter of convenience and utility, at all desirable that she should also be deaf.