BEFORE THE "LORD MAYOR."
Harwood has the air of a languid and haughty "swell," or exquisite, and is most fashionably dressed. There is no flinching in his blonde and whiskered face as he is brought up for sentence, having been previously convicted. Out of £15,000, detective Irving recovered over £11,000 from the forger, and it seems the charge is to be hushed up. The father of the culprit is a wealthy citizen, and the counsel for the prisoner makes his point that the greater part of the money having been recovered, and the prisoner having "suffered much anguish of mind" for his crime, has offered to go to America if released, and make amends for his "fault" by leading a new and repentant life.
I looked at the exquisite, who stood there as cool as a cucumber, and it seemed to me rather doubtful that he had suffered much anguish of mind. I also doubted if he would be willing to lead a very virtuous life in America. As he stood there with his assured and rather contemptuous look and insolent face, he was quite a contrast to the pale, weak-looking lad, who stood the day before in the dock of the Old Bailey to receive with trembling lips his sentence of twelve long years penal servitude, and just as the thought struck me, Irving, the detective, whispered to me:
"He looks very sorry, don't he? Of course! Cheese things."
THE POOR RASCAL.
Then the Lord Mayor plucked up a proper spirit, threw back his furred sleeves, put on a look of profound wisdom, consulted with the prisoner's counsel, and making up his judicial mind that Harwood had "suffered enough,"—poor young man—the forger was released and set at liberty in order to allow him to become a virtuous citizen of the United States. Nothing was said about the deficit of two or three thousand pounds; the young man's family was wealthy and respectable. But who is this poor rascal at the bar now, who appears as the friends of the wealthy forger gather in a knot to congratulate him. Why it is a low ruffian of a pickpocket who has been caught in the act of abstracting a lady's reticule valued at fourteen shillings. The villain! He has no wealthy friends, so let him take eighteen months imprisonment at Hollaway prison, and there let him repent while on the treadmill.
I left the Lord Mayor's Court with mixed feelings, and the remarks of the detective failed to reassure me as to the honesty of the method of administering justice by his Worship, the Lord Mayor of London.