Mr. B. is remembered in Millbank as a man of considerable attainments. He was well educated, and spoke several languages. One of his favourite feats was to write the Lord’s Prayer on a scrap of paper not larger than a sixpence, in five different languages. In his appearance there was nothing to justify his success with the female sex. If anything he was plain, thereby supporting Wilkes, who asserted that he was only five minutes behind the best looking man in a room. In complexion Mr. B. was dark, almost swarthy; in figure, stout. He could not be called even gentlemanlike in his bearing. But he had a good address; spoke well and readily; and he was extremely shrewd and clever. As a prisoner his conduct was all that could be desired. He passed on like the rest eventually to Australia, where he again married.
The clergymen whose crimes brought them to Millbank were rather commonplace characters; weak men, mostly, who could not resist their evil propensities. Of course they were not always what they pretended to be. One of the most noteworthy was the Honourable and Reverend Mr.——, who was really an ordained minister of the Church of England, and had held a good living in Ireland, worth £1,400 a year. But he was passionately addicted to the turf, and attended every meeting. His luck varied considerably—sometimes up and sometimes down. He came at length to lose every shilling he had in the world at Manchester races. The inveterate spirit of gambling was so strong within him that he was determined to try his luck again. He had been staying at a friend’s house—a careless man, of good means, who left his cheque-book too accessible to others. The Honourable and Reverend Mr.—— went straight from the course to his friend’s study, filled in a cheque, forged the signature, cashed the same en route to the races, and recommenced operations forthwith. Meanwhile his friend went also, quite by accident, to the bank for cash. They told him a large cheque had only just been paid to his order.
“I drew no cheque!” he exclaimed.
“Why, here it is?”
“But that is not my signature.”
Whereupon the honourable and reverend gentleman was incontinently arrested in the middle of the grand stand. His sentence was transportation for life, and from Millbank he passed on in due course to the antipodes. He was a poor creature at the best times, and under prison discipline became almost imbecile and useless. After a long interval he gained a ticket-of-leave, and was last heard of performing divine worship at an out-station at the rate of a shilling a service.
Of a very different kidney was the Rev. A. B., a man of parts, clever and dexterous, who succeeded in everything he tried. He spoke seven languages, all well; and when in prison learned with ease to tailor with the best.
Somewhat similar to him in character was the Rev. Dr. B., a doctor of divinity, according to his own statement, whose career of villainy was of long duration. This man had served several long sentences, which in no wise prevented his return to crime. He also was a man of superior education, who could read Hebrew, so the warders said, as easily as the chaplain gave the morning prayers. Dr. B. was discovered one day writing in Hebrew characters in his copy-book at school time, just when a party of distinguished visitors were inspecting the prison. One of them, surprised, said, “What! do you know Hebrew?”
“Yes,” was the impudent reply, “I expect a great deal better than you do.”
A better story still is told of this man later, when set at large on ticket-of-leave. Through barefaced misrepresentation he had been permitted to take the duty of a beneficed clergyman during his absence from the parish. In due course came an invitation to dine with the local magnate, whose place was some distance from the rectory. Our ex-convict clergyman ordered a carriage and pair from the neighbouring town, and drove to the hall in state. As he alighted from the carriage, his footman, hired also for the occasion, recognized his face in the blaze of light from the open door. “Blow me, if that ain’t Slimy B., the chaplain’s man, who did his ‘bit’ along with us at the ‘Steel,’” he exclaimed. Both coachman and lacquey were ex-convicts too, and after that the secret soon leaked out. The reverend doctor found his country parish rather too hot to hold him. Some of his later misdeeds consisted in decoying and plundering governesses in search of situations; he also established himself in various neighbourhoods as a schoolmaster, and more than once succeeded in obtaining church duty.