Handbill.
“Preparing for the Press, and speedily will be published,
“An exhibition of the gambols practised by the ancient lechers of Sodom and Gomorrah; embellished and improved with the modern refinements in Sodomitical practices, by the Members of the Vere-street Coterie of detestable memory.
“The facts in this publication are given and substantiated on oath, without regard to the rank or situation in life of the several actors in this diabolical drama. Peers, Footmen, and Foot-soldiers, will be held up to the indignation of mankind (aye and womankind to) in the several characters they acted, the hediousness of whose transactions petrify the reader.
“James Cook, the author of this pamphlet, with shame, confesses that he was an eye and ear witness to the execrable scenes of iniquity he relates, and, but for the damning proofs that put to confusion every attempt at contradiction, he would despair of gaining credit for an hundredth part of the odious tale he has to unfold. He is now in Newgate, undergoing a punishment for keeping the rendezvous of the miscreants; a punishment which ought, in strict justice, to have fallen to the lot of the characters whose infamy will shortly come under the cognizance of the public.
“N.B. It is said that the ghost of White, the drummer boy, lately executed for Sodomy, pays his nocturnal visits to old Moggy, the rump-rider, Park-street, exclaiming,
“Monster! amidst the din of infernal howl
The fiends in hell will scramble for thy soul.”
The foregoing intimation caused some temporary abatement of whiskered dalliance; and the softer passions gave way to the spirit of revenge: the first fruits of which was a detainer for twenty-three pounds debt, lodged against him on the eve of his enlargement, after two year’s imprisonment, of which he had received a week’s notice:—the attorney who issued out the writ was applied to, and requested to give it to a Sheriff’s officer, to whom a sufficient bail-bond should be given, although the defendant denied owing the money. Such of my readers as are acquainted with the rules of practice will conclude with me, that the ends of justice, and the completion of an attorney’s duty would have been answered by this means; or, at least, any attorney who had not been nursed by a Siberian Tartar, would have thought himself justified by acceding to the proposition; but it was made to a wretch,
“whose parent was a rock,
And fierce Hercanean tigers gave him birth.”
However, I see by the roll of attorneys, that the gentleman in question stands alone; and that Providence seems satisfied with the mischief done, by placing him there solo!—In my anxiety to procure food for my next number of legalized cormorancy, I made some inquiry respecting the general practice of this virtuous one, et cetera:—the answer I received from one professional gentleman was as satisfactory as laconic: “Did you ever see him?” I replied in the negative:—then, said he, “his heart is as ugly as his face; and that is as ugly as Kit Chrishop’s!”
Cook’s brother, a poor hard-working man, happened to have about forty pounds in his possession, a sum devoted to pay for some timber, to carry on his business as a bedstead-maker; and who, under the agonizing affliction of a brother in such a predicament, in order to facilitate his enlargement, deposited the amount of the debt, and ten pounds costs, in the Sheriff’s office, until the return of the writ, when it was intended to justify bail, and try the cause. I will now account for Cook’s being defeated in a remedy provided even by an Act of Parliament.
Being at liberty, and without a shilling to help himself, he had recourse to several wretches who, in the burning frenzy of their love fits, and to gratify the appetites of their languishing enamoratas, ordered suppers, and run into other expences for which they were not provided with the means of prompt payment, and which they never thought fit to discharge during his two year’s confinement: he, therefore, called upon some few of his equivocal gender customers, to remind them that the dues arising out of their gallantries had not been discharged. This led him, in company with his wife, to the house of a Mr. Stewart, to enquire after his friend and neighbour Mr. —, a ci-divant Reverend, who, it seems, had been unfrocked during his probation in Newgate. Upon Cook’s name being announced, the old hen began clucking, and caused a momentary cessation of amorous billing with the salacious brood within. Cook, not being able to get any satisfaction, walked away; but was followed by a champion for the sacred rights of Sodom, who, at the distance of two streets, came up to them, seized the woman by the arm, and, after twisting her round, knocked her down!—My reader will be apt to think that this was beginning at the wrong end of a manly contest; but it must be remembered that the woman was the most offensive object of the two; for Cook, having breeches on, possessed the possibility of a reconciliation; but with a petticoat, no terms of accommodation could take place: and in this case the antipathy was widened; for Mrs. Cook is really a good-looking, nay, a pretty woman. However J. Shenston, whether John or Jane I know not, received from Cook a knock-down blow in (his) turn; with the token of which clinging to his nose and month he ran back to Moggy Stewart’s; and, after a fainting fit or two had been recovered, Shenston assumed his male character, and posted away to Marlborough-street; where, upon the usual terms, he obtained a warrant against both Cook and his wife, for a pretended assault committed upon him.
Reader! as the business becomes a little more serious, I must crave a little unprejudiced attention. The warrant being executed in the evening, I undertook to produce the parties next morning, before the magistrates; they, of course, willingly appeared; when the hardy villain related the particulars of the assault committed upon him, as if he had never heard of the crime of perjury, or the punishment annexed to it: however the two defendants were of course ordered to find bail, which they did. And now begins a scene of oppression sufficient to make a man believe that the actors were impatient for their share of pillories and gibbets. When these two ill-fated people were before the magistrates, Mr. Baker asked Shenstone what he was?—he replied, a gentleman’s servant out of place. “How do you get your living?” was the next question. ‘I am supported by my friends at Birmingham:’ Cook, not chusing to let this Birmingham-story, pass, gave his town-made description in the following workman-like manner; “You are maintained by a set of Sodomites! these are your friends that support you!”—Now, mark how this business was reported in the public papers:
“Cook, the cidevant keeper of the Swan, in Vere-street, was brought before the magistrates, for assaulting a respectable tradesman, with an intent to extort money from him.” The account then stated the names and places of residence of his bail; and that Cook had been taken to Queen-square, a few days before, for a similar attempt on a gentleman. With regard to what passed at Marlborough-street, I have faithfully stated it; and what passed at Queen-square was simply this, for I was present. Cook met a gentleman of some consequence over Westminster-bridge, and used some unpleasing language to him, which raised a mob: he thereupon threatened to take Cook before a magistrate, who replied that he would meet him at Queen-square; where they met, and, upon Cook’s promising not to molest him again, he was discharged. The reporter, not satisfied with the most shameful perversion of truth, added a malignant, diabolical note, that extorting money is a capital offence.
I must now bestow a few observations upon the transactions at Marlborough-street: and, first, with respect to the extortion and respectability of the prosecutor, who, by his own account, is a gentleman’s servant out of place—no very promising subject for extortion; a fellow whom Cook states to be one of the lowest attendants at Vere-street, for the most depraved purposes;—a fellow that was obliged to borrow a great coat to appear before the magistrates!!! Extortion! from a wretch living in a back garret, and literally in rags, and whose breeches, from the superfluous apertures, gave manifestation of rapturous attacks upon his virtue! and whose finances were so far from satisfying the demands of extortion, that the Constable was obliged to go to one of his Birmingham friends, for money to defray the trifling expences at the office.
I have only to observe, on the conduct of the reporter, that there can be no act of diabolism equal to the mischief originating in the ignorance, falshood, or that species of low bribed calumny, that is to be procured from the necessities of a fellow, who would libel the fairest character in the nation, for a beef-steak and pot of porter: and it is astonishing, that magistrates will suffer such vermin to infest the office:—at best, these hireling reporters are not to be depended upon; and the experience of half a century enables me to aver that I do not remember half a score correct reports, even of what passed in the courts at Westminster. Nor does the mischief close here: for the supplementary part of the atrocity is equally dreadful; which consists in the conductors of the Papers almost constantly refusing to correct their own errors, or censuring the conduct of such pernicious scribblers.