In a letter addressed to the Governors of the Hospital, Pearce argued the point in a very serious and connected manner. "If," said he, in allusion to some of the witnesses, who at various times had stated they felt his bedding and found it dry, "the simple act of placing one's hand upon a damp bed, or even the immediate impression on a man's body when he gets into it, was infallible, how could it occur so frequently that travellers at times are crippled with rheumatism, or lose their lives by remaining all night in damp bedding? If the thing was so easily discoverable, no man of common understanding could be injured by such a proceeding or accident at inns.
"Technically speaking, the matter of which I complain is not a delusion; it is an allegation—a positive charge, susceptible of proof, if proper evidence could be brought to bear upon the fact, not warped or suborned by the man or men in whose power I hourly am. It would be a sad delusion for me to declare my bed was composed of straw instead of flocks, or that I was a prophet, or the Pope, or Sir Astley Cooper. I grant I have no such crotchets. My mind is perfectly sound, calm, and reflective; and I implore you to consider well the distinction between the things which cannot in nature physically be and the things which can physically be. It is a vital one in my sad case.
"It may be told you, I have charged persons elsewhere with this atrocity of damping my bed. I have done so. At the private madhouse, near Uxbridge, whence I was brought here, my bed was kept almost wet for three months, and I only saved my life by sleeping on a large trunk, with my daily articles of dress to cover me. Some portion of this time, the cold was eight and ten degrees below freezing-point."
He then solicited that a lock might be put upon his cell-door to protect him from this annoyance; and concluded his letter with this appeal: "I beseech you to commiserate my hard lot. I have some little claim to the title of a gentleman, and have been estimated by persons of some consideration in society; I am now, by a wretched chain of circumstances, in a great prison hospital, dragged from my children and my home, and the comforts of social life, and doomed to herd with desperadoes against the State, the destitute, and the mad."
Mr. Pearce was afterwards introduced, and answered the questions put to him in a very collected manner. He then stated that since his marriage-trip to Boulogne, he had been subjected to the greatest abuse from his present wife, and on one occasion, had been struck by her, and insulted by the vilest epithets. He complained that when first brought to Bethlem Hospital, he had been "chummed" with Oxford, and objected, but had been compelled to associate with that ruffian. He had taught Oxford the French language, and tried to improve his mind. Oxford had conveyed to him matter of importance relative to the great crime of which he had been guilty, and which he (Mr. Pearce) thought of sufficient importance to be communicated to the Secretary of State, and had accordingly written a letter in Latin, detailing the several circumstances. It had, however been taken from him, and he did not know whether it had ever been sent to Downing Street. He wished to show how Oxford boasted of having cajoled Sir A. Morrison and Dr. Monro into a belief that he was insane, and how he sent for such books as Jack the Giant-Killer in order to make the jury let him off on the ground of insanity. This was what he (Mr. Pearce) wished to tell the Secretary of State, and now the letter was used against him.
After some further remarks, Mr. Pearce was questioned by the jury, and persisted in the statement that his bed was damped, that deleterious drugs were applied to his clothes, and that a conspiracy existed against him. He produced from under his clothes a small packet, which he said contained portions of the shirt of which mention had been made, and a snuff-box, in which he stated he had kept parts of the shirt, and which he "demanded" to have submitted to the test of Professor Faraday or some other eminent chemist. He announced himself to be grand-nephew of Zachariah Pearce, Bishop of Rochester, and translator of Longinus, and prayed, in conclusion, the jury to relieve him from the situation in which he was placed.
The jury returned a verdict to the effect "that Mr. Pearce was of unsound mind, and that he had been so from the 16th of October, 1840."
["Corner Memory Thompson."]
In February, 1843, there died, at the age of 86, this remarkable person, whose eccentric success had become matter of public interest. John Thompson was a native of St. Giles's, where his father was a greengrocer; the boy on carrying a salad to the house of an undertaker in the neighbourhood, attracted attention by his ready and active manner, and the undertaker took him as errand-boy; then he became assistant, and next married his master's daughter, and thus obtained property. This was his start in life, and enabled him to commence business as an auctioneer and brewer's valuer, by which he amassed considerable wealth. As he advanced in life, he sought retirement, and on a spot just below Hampstead Church, built for himself, without plan or order, "Frognal Priory," an assemblage of grotesque structures, but without any right of road to it, which he had to purchase at a great price. Thence, Thompson often went to town in his chariot, to collect curiosities for his house; and he might be seen pottering about among the curiosity-shops: as Horace Walpole cheapened Dicky Bateman's chairs at half-a-crown apiece for Strawberry Hill, so John Thompson collected his "items of taste and vertu" for Frognal Priory, and these, for a time, he would show to any person who rang at his gate. He was designated "Corner Memory," for his having, for a bet, drawn a plan of St. Giles's parish from memory, at three sittings, specifying every coach-turning, stable-yard, and public pump, and likewise the corner shop of every street. He possessed a most mechanical memory; for he would, by reading a newspaper over-night, repeat the whole of it next morning. He gained some notoriety by presenting to the Queen a carved bedstead, reputed once to have belonged to Cardinal Wolsey; with this he sent some other old furniture to Windsor Castle.