The case excited great interest, and, in the first instance, was sent to Bow Street; but Sir Frederick Roe being out of town, it was ordered to be heard at this office.
The Times, 20 Dec.—Yesterday, the lad found in Buckingham Palace, who had given his name as Edward Cotton, and described himself as the son of a respectable tradesman living in the town of Hertford, was brought before Messrs. White and Gregorie for final examination. It will be recollected that he had purloined, amongst other articles, two letters, which were immediately sealed up, and sent back to the Palace. The prisoner turns out to be the son of an industrious tailor, named Jones, residing in York Street, Westminster; and, it appears, had frequently expressed his intention to enter the Palace, under any circumstances. He had often stated that he wished to see the grand staircase, in order to take a sketch of it, and had often expressed his determination to see the Queen, and to hear her sentiments when Her Majesty and her Ministers were assembled in Council.
Frederick Blume now deposed that he was valet to the Hon. Mr. Murray, and that a sword, a quantity of linen and other articles, had been stolen from that gentleman’s apartments in the Palace.
Mr. White: When were they stolen?
Witness: I can’t recollect.
Mr. White: Was it a week, a month, or three or four months ago?
Witness: I cannot say.
Mr. White: Where was your master’s sword at the time you saw it last?
Witness: When I went to Windsor.
Mr. White: When was that?
Witness: I cannot exactly recollect, and then he added, that about a week since, he had sent from Windsor to the Palace, a portmanteau containing his linen, and three pairs of trousers, four of stockings, and three cravats were missing. The padlock of the portmanteau had been forced by the sword having been applied to it. The sword had broken in the attempt. He had also lost five 10 sous pieces, which had been found upon the prisoner.
Mr. White: What is the value of the articles you have lost?
Witness: I don’t know; but I should like to give three guineas to get them back.
Mr. White: Can you swear to the French coin found upon the prisoner as being yours?
The witness was then shown the coin, and he said that he certainly could. They had been taken from his bedroom.
* * * * *
Mr. White: Can any information be given as to the manner in which the prisoner gained access to the Palace? Cox, one of the porters to the Palace, said that the principal entrance door was always locked, and the key in his possession. At 5 o’clock on Saturday morning, just as he was about to get out of bed, the prisoner opened the door of his room, as witness considered, to obtain the key; his face and hands were disguised with soot and bear’s grease, and he was asked whether he came to sweep a chimney: he did not make any answer, but endeavoured to escape.
Inspector Steed, A division, said that upon examining the gates of the principal entrance of the Palace, he found that, at the Marble Arch, there was a vacuum sufficient to admit a boy into the Palace, without any inconvenience.
Mr. White: And is there no sentry at this gate?
Witness: There are two.
The inspector said that he had examined the boy’s boots, and the gravel upon them corresponded with that lately laid down close to the Marble Arch. The boots had been taken off by the prisoner, and left in one of the apartments appropriated to the use of the porters of the Palace.
Mr. Griffiths, builder, Coventry Street, said that the lad had been in his employment for a few months; he had always expressed his intention to get into the interior of the Palace by some means or other; he was a clever lad, and had made a sketch of the exterior, and a view of the enclosure fronting the Palace. He had left his service two days since, and witness was very much distressed, as were his parents, to know what had become of him. Upon reading the accounts in the newspapers, he immediately went to Tothill Fields, and identified him, much to the gratification of his father, who supposed that he had drowned himself, the latter having, on account of his son’s bad conduct, turned him out of doors.
The Magistrate, after telling the boy that he would, most likely, be committed for trial, asked him what he could say in his defence.
Prisoner: I wished to see the Palace, and I went in with a man in a fustian jacket. I had the whole range of the Palace for a day or two, but the money found upon me I picked up in one of the rooms.
Mr. White: Tell me the truth, for I am about to send you for trial.
Prisoner: Oh, very well; with all my heart.
He was fully committed to the Westminster Sessions, and all parties bound over to prosecute.
He was tried on 28 Dec., and was most ably defended by his Counsel, Mr. Prendergast, who turned everything to ridicule, and the jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty, regarding the escapade in the light of a youthful folly, and being, also, mindful of the fact that the boy did not enter the Palace for the purpose of theft.
But we shall hear of the Boy Jones again.
CHAPTER VIII.
Death of Lord Norbury—Birth of photography—Experimental street pavements—Forecast of the Queen’s marriage—Sad story of Lady Flora Hastings—Story of a climbing boy—Van Amburgh—Embanking the Thames—Victoria Park—Robbery of gold dust.
In a book, professedly of Gossip, politics should be strictly kept in the background—but at this time Ireland was seething with sedition. Still I should hardly have adverted to it, had not the deliberate and brutal murder of the Earl of Norbury, on 1 Jan., set all tongues wagging. His Lordship was walking in the shrubbery, near his own house at Kilbeggan, in the county of Meath, talking to his steward, and pointing out to him some trees he wished to have cut down, when some miscreant, behind a hedge, fired a blunder-buss loaded with swan shot at him, and he fell, mortally wounded. He lived for 43 hours afterwards—but his assassin ran away and escaped; nor, in spite of large rewards offered, was he ever discovered.
Photography may be said to have been practically born early in this year, for, on 7 Jan., the French Academy reported on the invention of M. Daguerre, by which the pictures of the camera lucida were rendered permanent. All former attempts may be regarded as scientific dilletanteism and nothing more. The earliest known pictures caused by light on a sensitive surface were made by Thomas Wedgwood (a son of Josiah, the famous potter), whose researches were published in 1802 in the Journal of the Royal Institution, under the title: “An account of a Method of copying Paintings upon Glass, and making Profiles by the agency of Light upon Nitrate of Silver: with Observations by H. Davy.” Afterwards,
came Nicephore Niepce, of Châlon sur Saône, who produced permanent light pictures in 1814, and he and Daguerre went into partnership in this matter, in 1829. Fox Talbot was the first to invent a negative photograph, and he read a paper on “Photogenic Drawings” before the Royal Society, on 31 Jan., this year; and that scientific investigation of the new wonder excited the attention, even of amateurs, is shown by a letter in the Times of 21 Feb.:
“Sir,—Seeing in a newspaper, last week, that a German had found out M. Daguerre’s secret, I was so impressed with that testimony to the possibility of seizing a shadow, that I thought over all the little I knew of light, colours and chymistry. The next day, I took a piece of writing paper, hastily prepared by myself, placed it behind the lens of a camera obscura, made on the spur of the moment, and obtained a satisfactory result; for the trees, in front of my house, were produced, but not the parts agitated by the wind. Since that, I have obtained, progressively improving, several landscapes, which may be called, most appositely, ‘lucigraphs.’ I mention my humble effort as corroborative of the reality, or feasibility of M. Daguerre’s beautiful discovery; and I can readily conceive that, in a very short time, the traveller’s portmanteau will not be complete without the very portable means of procuring a lucigraph at pleasure.—Yours, etc., Clericus, Welney, Wisbeach.” This gentleman’s prophecy has, long since, been verified, as the “Kodakers” all over the world can testify. But the first public experiment in England (if we exclude Wedgwood’s) was made, on Sept. 13, 1839, when M. St. Croix exhibited the whole process of Daguerreotype, in presence of a select party of scientific men and artists. He also succeeded in producing a picture of the place of meeting; No. 7, Piccadilly.