The prisoner said he had been informed, a quarter of an hour before being brought into court, that he would be again remanded, which was not fair, as he had never before been in custody. Mr. Flowers remanded the prisoner.
When Peace was brought to the Greenwich Station after he had been caught in the act, he presented a most miserable and pitiable spectacle. “Talk of him being taken for a half-caste,” said my informant, “he looked more like a black man than a mulatto.
“What with the rough usage he had got in the struggle and the tumbling about on the grass, he was in a desperate plight—clay all over him, his face clogged up with dirt, and the mud oozing up about his neck and stiffening the little hair he had. He was a mealy-mouthed, whining old scamp, and he was as dirty as the devil.”
This was not a very official way of putting it; but it was explicit enough for the purpose.
“Did he say anything particular?” I asked.
“Oh, he kept whining away; but the fact was he had been badly ‘punished.’ Robinson had certainly given him a stiff un on the head.”
“And who wouldn’t?” asked an approving constable who just looked in. “Wouldn’t you, if a fellow fired a revolver at you, and then searched for his knife?”
Of course we concurred, Peace having no sympathisers in the company. “Well,” continued my informant, “he had got it and no mistake. Robinson had given him sufficient to settle him for a day. Peace looked dazed and bewildered, and kept wandering in his talk, now and again moaning and crying. When we stripped him we found he was one mass of filth. His shirt was all rags; the marvel is how it hung together; everything about him was similar—he was one of the most miserable-looking scoundrels I ever set eyes upon. In fact he was in so bad a way that I felt sorry for the poor wretch. I had some hard eggs boiled for myself. I gave him one and some bread, which he ate with some difficulty.
“When he was locked up he went on in the same way.
“When I looked at him through the grating, he whined out,” said the officer, imitating his way of talking, as if his tongue was too big for his mouth, “Oh, would to God, sergeant, you would come in here and knock my brains out—I feel so bad.” He was always going on in this way—“Would to God,” and “I wish to God,” being the phrases which most frequently fell from his lips.