“Another deep roar, louder than any which had preceded it, broke from the multitude. Then came the cry of ‘Hats off!’ and ‘Down in front!’ as at a theatre. It was followed by the deep and solemn booming of the death-bell from the church of St. Sepulchre—the iron knell that rang upon the beating heart of the living man who was about to die; and with blanched cheek, and sinking, we turned away from the scene.”
In thus describing the saturnalia before the gallows I have been drawn on somewhat beyond the period with which I am at present dealing. Let me retrace my steps, and speak more in detail of the treatment of the condemned in those bloodthirsty and brutally indifferent days, and of their demeanour after sentence until the last penalty was paid. One of the worst evils was the terrible and long-protracted uncertainty as to the result. In the case of convicted murderers only was prompt punishment inflicted, and with them indeed this despatch amounted to undue precipitancy. Forty-eight hours was the limit of time allowed to the unhappy man to make his peace, and during that time he was still kept on a bare allowance of bread and water. But the murderers formed only a small proportion of the total number sentenced to death, and for the rest there was a long period of anxious suspense, although in the long run mercy generally prevailed, and very few capitally convicted for crimes less than murder actually suffered. Thus in the years between May 1st, 1827, and 30th April, 1831, no less than four hundred and fifty-one sentences of death for capital crimes were passed at the Old Bailey; but of these three hundred and ninety-six were reversed by the king in council, and only fifty-two were really executed. Already the severity of our criminal code, and the number of capital felonies upon the statute book, had brought a reaction; and while the courts adhered to the letter of the law, appeals were constantly made to the royal prerogative of mercy. This was more particularly the practice in London. Judges on assize were satisfied with simply recording a sentence of death against offenders whom they did not think deserved the extreme penalty. At the Old Bailey almost every one capitally convicted by a jury was sentenced to be hanged. The result in the latter case was left in the first place to the king in council, but there was a further appeal then, as now, to the king himself, or practically to the Home Secretary. Neither in town or country were cases entirely taken on their own merits. Convicted offenders might have good or bad luck; they might be arraigned when their particular crime was uncommon, and were then nearly certain to escape; or theirs might be one of many, and it might be considered necessary to “make an example.” In this latter it might fairly be said that a man was put to death less for his own sins than for the crimes of others.
The absurdity of the system, its irregularity and cruelty, were fully touched upon by the inspectors of prisons in their first report. They found at Newgate, under disgraceful conditions as already described,[96] seventeen capital convicts, upon all of whom the sentence of death had been passed. Eventually two only of the whole number suffered; two others were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, and the balance to varying terms. Nothing could be more strongly marked than the contrast between the ultimate destiny of different individuals all abiding the same awful doom: on the one hand the gallows, on the other a short imprisonment. The inspectors very properly desired to call attention to the inevitable tendency in this mode of dealing with “the most awful sanctions of the law,” to make those sanctions an object of contemptuous mockery. The consequences were plainly proved to the inspectors. Capitally convicted prisoners did, as a matter of fact, “treat with habitual and inexpressible levity the sentence of death.” Of this I have treated at length in the last chapter.
The time thus spent varied considerably, but it was seldom less than six weeks. It all depended upon the sovereign’s disposition to do business. Sometimes the Privy Council did not meet for months, and during all that time the convicts languished with hope nearly indefinitely deferred. When the council had decided, the news was conveyed to Newgate by the Recorder, who made his “report,” as it was called. The time of the arrival of this report was generally known at Newgate, and its contents were anxiously awaited by both convicts in the press-yard and their friends collected in a crowd outside the gates. Sometimes the report was delayed. On one occasion, Mr. Wakefield tells us, the Recorder, who had attended the council at Windsor, did not deliver the report till the following day. “The prisoners and their friends, therefore, were kept in a state of the most violent suspense for many hours, during which they counted the moments—the prisoners in their cells as usual, and their friends in the street in front of Newgate, where they passed the night. I have heard the protracted agony of both classes described by those who witnessed it in terms so strong, that I am unwilling to repeat them.”...[97] “The crowd of men and women who passed the night in front of Newgate, began, as soon as the hour was passed when they had expected the report, to utter imprecations against the Recorder, the Secretary of State, the Council, and the King; they never ceased cursing until the passion of anger so excited was exchanged for joy in some and grief in others. I myself heard more than one of those whose lives were spared by that decision of the council, afterwards express a wish to murder the Recorder for having kept them so long in suspense.”
The Recorder’s report generally reached Newgate late at night. Its receipt was immediately followed by the promulgation of its contents to the persons most closely concerned, which was done with a sort of ceremony intended to be impressive. The whole of the convicts were assembled together in one ward, and made to kneel down. To them entered the chaplain or ordinary of Newgate in full canonicals, who in solemn tones communicated to each in turn the fate in store for him. The form of imparting the intelligence was generally the same. “So-and-so, I am sorry to tell you that it is all against you;” or, “A. B., your case has been taken into consideration by the king in council, and His Majesty has been mercifully pleased to spare your life.” The fatal news was not always received in the same way. The men who were doomed often fell down in convulsions upon the floor. Sometimes any who had had a narrow escape fainted, but the bulk of those respited looked on with unfeeling indifference. The concluding part of the ceremony was, for those who had been pardoned, to recite a thanksgiving to God and the king.
It is satisfactory to be able to record that some consideration was shown the capital convict actually awaiting execution. Even so severe a critic as Mr. Wakefield states that “a stranger to the scene would be astonished to observe the peculiar tenderness, I was going to add respect, which persons under sentence of death obtain from all the officers of the prison. Before sentence a prisoner has only to observe the regulations of the gaol in order to remain neglected and unnoticed. Once ordered to the cells, friends of all classes suddenly rise up; his fellow-prisoners, the turnkeys, the chaplain, the keepers, and the sheriffs all seem interested in his fate, and he can make no reasonable request that is not at once granted by whomsoever he may address. This rule has some, but very few, exceptions; such as where a hardened offender behaves with great levity and brutality, as if he cared nought for his life, and thought every one anxious to promote his death.” Mr. Wakefield goes on to remark that persons convicted of forgery “excited an extraordinary degree of interest in all who approached them.” This was noticeable with Fauntleroy, who, on account of his birth and antecedents, was allowed to occupy a turnkey’s room, and kept altogether separate from the other prisoners until the day of his death. It cannot be denied, however, that the ordinary’s treatment was somewhat unfeeling, and in proof thereof I will quote an extract from the reverend gentleman’s own journal. He seems to have improved the occasion when preaching the condemned sermon before Fauntleroy, by pointing a moral from that unhappy man’s own case. For this the chaplain was a few days later summoned before the gaol committee of aldermen, and informed that the public would not in future be admitted to hear the condemned sermon. “I was also informed,” writes Mr. Cotton, “that this resolution was in consequence of their (the aldermen’s) disapproving of the last discourse delivered by me, previous to the execution of Henry Fauntleroy for uttering a forged security, in which it was said I had enlarged upon the heinous nature of his crime, and warned the public to avoid such conduct. I was informed that this unnecessarily harassed his feelings, and that the object of such sermons was solely to console the prisoner, and that from the time of his conviction nothing but what is consolatory should be addressed to a criminal. One of the aldermen, moreover, informed me that the whole court of aldermen were unanimous in their opinion on this subject. As to the exclusion of strangers on these occasions, the experience I have had convinces me that one, and perhaps the only, good of an execution, i. e. the solemn admonition to the public, will thereby be lost.”
Probably the reader will side with the aldermen against the ordinary. This episode throws some doubt upon the tenderness and proper feeling exhibited by the chaplain towards the most deserving members of his criminal flock; and the idea will be strengthened by the following account of the Sunday service in the prison chapel on the occasion when the condemned sermon was preached. The extract is from Mr. E. Gibbon Wakefield’s brochure, the date 1828, just three years after Fauntleroy’s death. Strangers were now excluded, but the sheriffs attended in state, wearing their gold chains, while behind their pew stood a couple of tall footmen in state liveries. The sheriffs were in one gallery; in the other opposite were the convicts capitally convicted who had been respited. Down below between the galleries was the mass of the prison population; the schoolmaster and the juvenile prisoners being seated round the communion-table, opposite the pulpit. In the centre of the chapel was the condemned pew, a large dock-like erection painted black. Those who sat in it were visible to the whole congregation, and still more to the ordinary, whose desk and pulpit were just in front of the condemned pew, and within a couple of yards of it. The occupants of this terrible black pew were the last always to enter the chapel. Upon the occasion which I am describing they were four in number; and here I will continue the narrative in Mr. Wakefield’s own words:—
“First is a youth of eighteen, condemned for stealing in a dwelling-house goods valued above five pounds. His features have no felonious cast; ... he steps boldly with head upright, looks to the women’s gallery, and smiles. His intention is to pass for a brave fellow, but the attempt fails; he trembles, his knees knock together, and his head droops as he enters the condemned pew. The next convict is clearly and unmistakably a villain. He is a hardened offender, previously cast for life, reprieved, transported to Australia, and since returned without pardon. For this offence the punishment is death. He has, however, doubly earned his sentence, and is actually condemned for burglary committed since his arrival in England. His look at the sheriffs and the ordinary is full of scorn and defiance. The third convict is a sheep-stealer, a poor ignorant fellow in whose crime are mitigating circumstances, but who is left to die on the supposition that this is not his first conviction, and still more because a good many sheep have of late been stolen by other people. He is quite content to die; indeed the chaplain and others have brought him firmly to believe that his situation is enviable, and that the gates of heaven are open to receive him.” The last of the four is said to have been a clergyman of the Church of England,[98] condemned for forgery, “a miserable old man in a tattered suit of black. Already he is half dead. Great efforts have been made to save his life. Friends, even utter strangers, have interceded for him, and to the last he has buoyed himself up by hope of reprieve. Now his doom is sealed irrevocably, and he has given himself up to despair. He staggers towards the pew, reels into it, stumbles forward, flings himself on the ground, and, by a curious twist of the spine, buries his head under his body. The sheriffs shudder, their inquisitive friends crane forward, the keeper frowns on the excited congregation, the lately smirking footmen close their eyes and forget their liveries, the ordinary clasps his hands, the turnkeys cry ‘Hush!’ and the old clerk lifts up his cracked voice, saying, ‘Let us sing to the praise and glory of God.’
“The morning hymn is sung first, as if to remind the condemned that next morning at eight a.m. they are to die. The service proceeds. At last the burial service is reached. The youth alone is able to read, but from long want of practice he is at a loss to find the place in his prayer-book. The ordinary observes him, looks to the sheriffs, and says aloud, ‘The service for the dead!’ The youth’s hands tremble as they hold the book upside down. The burglar is heard to mutter an angry oath. The sheep-stealer smiles, and, extending his arms upwards, looks with a glad expression to the roof of the chapel. The forger has never moved.
“Let us pass on. All have sung ‘the Lamentation of a Sinner,’ and have seemed to pray ‘especially for those now awaiting the awful execution of the law.’ We come to the sermon.