Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885

by T. Wemyss Reid

I simply repeat that I never in the course of my life tasted one of Mr. Wright's hams. The sole refreshment I ever consumed in his filthy den consisted of eggs and tea. The tea I drank with unfeigned reluctance, but the eggs, however stale, inspired me with a confidence I felt in none of the other viands provided by the ex-boat-builder. The reporters nowadays have a dining-room of their own, as well as reading-room, smoking-room, and tea-room. The status of the Press is changed indeed.

One of Mr. Wright's characteristics was his love of talking Johnsonese. I can see him in my mind's eye now, as I emerged from the Gallery after a heavy "turn," reclining on the wooden bench which was his favourite place of rest. His head half covered with the famous red bandana; his boots off, and a pair of dirty worsted stockings exposed to view, he twiddled his thumbs, and through half-closed eyes cast a disparaging glance at the young member of the Gallery who had not yet patronised either his whisky or his ham; then, with a grunt, he would wake up and begin to speak. "I hope, sir, that you are intellectual enough to appreciate the grandeur of the debate to which you have just been privileged to listen. Sir, it fills me with an amazement that is simply inexpressible to listen to those two men, Gladstone and Disraeli, when they are a-conducting themselves as they 'ave been this evening. What I want to know, sir, is, where do they get it from? You and me could never do such a thing—no, not a moment. In my opinion they are more than mortal." But enough of Mr. Wright, who is dead now, though he lived to see the twentieth century born, and to mourn over the changed times which no longer made the hungry reporter dependent upon his famous ham.

The first night of that autumn session of 1867 was a memorable one. Mr. Disraeli sat on the Treasury Bench as leader of the House. Opposite to him sat Mr. Gladstone, now the recognised leader of the Liberal party. Mrs. Disraeli had been seriously ill; was, in fact, still ill when Parliament met. Mr. Gladstone, who never overlooked the courtesies of debate, in opening his attack upon the Government after the speech had been duly moved and seconded, made touching reference to the personal anxieties of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Disraeli was visibly moved. He suddenly covered his face with his hands, and one could see that his eyes were filled with tears. Nearly thirty years later there was a similar scene in the House, in which Mr. Gladstone was again the moving cause. This was when, referring to a speech by Mr. Austen Chamberlain, he spoke of it in terms that made Mr. Chamberlain himself flush with emotion, and caused the tears to gather in the eyes of that hardened political fighter. Strange are the links which bind the generations together!

It was in the late autumn of 1867 that one of the most remarkable of the outrages committed by the Fenians in London took place. This was the explosion at the Clerkenwell House of Detention. The object of the crime was the rescue of two Fenians who were confined in the prison. The authorities at Scotland Yard had got wind of the plot, and sought to put the governor of the prison, and the magistrates who controlled it, on their guard. The latter declared themselves quite able to look after their prisoners, and declined the proffered assistance of the police. Instead of keeping guard, as they should have done, round the walls of the House of Detention, they contented themselves with keeping the prisoners—whose names, if my memory does not fail, were Burke and Casey—in their cells at the hour when they usually took their daily exercise in the yard. A wheelbarrow, laden with powerful explosives, was deliberately wheeled up to the prison wall, outside the exercise ground, at the time when Burke and Casey were supposed to be walking there. An orange was thrown over into the yard, this being the signal that had been agreed upon with the captives, and the fuse attached to the barrel of explosives was lighted. Then the conspirators quietly retired, nobody molesting them. A terrific explosion followed.

I had just left the reading-room of the British Museum that afternoon, and was crossing the quadrangle, when I heard a sound which my experience of the Oaks Pit enabled me at once to recognise as that of an explosion. I thought that some kitchen boiler in an adjoining house must have burst; but nothing was to be seen, and I went my way, merely making a note, with the reporter's instinct, of the exact moment at which the explosion took place. The next morning the London papers were full of the details of the great crime. Several persons, including some children, had been killed outright, and many more had been injured. A breach had been made in the prison wall, but the Fenian prisoners, of course, had not escaped, owing to the precautions taken by the authorities. The whole country was roused to a violent state of indignation by this crime, which followed close upon a similar attempt to rescue other Fenian prisoners who were being carried in a prison van through the streets of Manchester. The Manchester crime resulted in the death of a police sergeant named Brett, and for that murder three men—Allen, Larkin, and Gould, who are still famous in Irish history as "the Manchester martyrs"—were hanged.

On the day following the Clerkenwell explosion I attended the inquest upon some of the victims, and, curiously enough, I was the only person who could inform the coroner of the exact hour at which the outrage was committed. The police were soon in hot pursuit of the culprits. Five men were arrested, and after a tedious investigation at Bow Street were committed for trial at the Old Bailey. If I remember aright, they were Irishmen hailing from Glasgow. I made my first acquaintance with Bow Street Police Court at the examination of these men. It was the old police court—a dismal, stuffy, ill-ventilated room—where justice had been administered for several generations. I have a lively recollection of the fact that whilst I was reporting the proceedings I suddenly fainted, for the first time in my life; and I still remember gratefully the kindness of the police, who removed me from the court room into the fresh air, and tended me with the utmost care until I had recovered. This sympathy with illness is one of the best characteristics of our London police.

The trial at the Old Bailey resulted in the acquittal of all the prisoners except one, a man named Barrett. He was convicted, and sentenced to death. Great interest in his case was felt in Glasgow, and I was asked by one of the Glasgow newspapers to telegraph to it a full account of the execution. It was in one respect to be a remarkable occasion, for an Act had just received the assent of Parliament putting an end to public executions, and Barrett's was to be the last event of the kind. I and an old newspaper friend named Donald, who was also commissioned to describe the scene, agreed to stay up all night in order that we might witness the gruesome preliminaries of a hanging at the Old Bailey. We were on duty in the Reporters' Gallery up to a late hour of the night, and I remember that Mr. Bright, rising from his seat below the gangway, made an appeal to the Home Secretary to spare the condemned man's life. It was very unusual for such an appeal to be made in that fashion, and it was still more unusual to make it within a few hours of the time fixed for the execution. The Home Secretary was, of course, unable to comply with Mr. Bright's prayer, but this scene in the House of Commons was undoubtedly a solemn one, more solemn and impressive than the tragedy to which it was the prelude. Donald and I, when the House at last rose, sauntered slowly through the streets, taking note of that night side of London, which was novel to both of us. In the early hours of the morning we found ourselves at Covent Garden, where we watched the unloading of the vegetable carts and the unpacking of the great hampers filled with sweet spring flowers. Before six o'clock we had reached the Old Bailey, where already a large crowd was gathering.

Rumours of an attempted rescue, even on the scaffold, had been freely circulated. Calcraft, the executioner, had received a number of threatening letters, which had frightened him greatly. The police, knowing what the Fenians had already attempted in the way of rescuing their friends, were very much on the alert, and more than a hundred officers, in private clothes and armed with revolvers, had been placed outside the barriers amongst the crowd. At six o'clock the great gates leading to the yard of the Old Bailey courthouse were thrown open, and with a heavy, rumbling sound the grim old scaffold which had figured in so many scenes of horror was for the last time drawn forth from its resting-place and wheeled to its position in front of the small, iron-barred door, which, as late as 1900, was still seen in the middle of the blank wall of Newgate Prison. The noise of the workmen's hammers as they made the scaffold fast was almost drowned by the roar of the quickly gathering crowd. All the scoundreldom of London seemed to have assembled for the occasion. It was the last Old Bailey execution crowd. The windows of the public-house opposite the scaffold had been thrown open, and at every window men and women were crowded together, eagerly waiting for the grim approaching spectacle. It was not an edifying sight, this execution crowd.

There was one strange incident connected with it that has never been put on record. Shortly after the scaffold had been placed in position I saw four men, whose faces were familiar to me, trying to force their way through the crowd, and I was greatly startled when I recognised them as the four men who had been tried at the same time as Barrett, but who had been acquitted by the jury. Not knowing what sinister purpose they might have in view, I felt it my duty at once to warn the chief inspector of police of their presence. He was greatly disturbed, and quickly pushed his way through the crowd towards the place I had indicated to him. I followed close at his heels until we reached the front of the scaffold. As we did so he quickly put his hand upon my shoulder to stop me, and at the same time uncovered his head. It was a strange sight that we saw in the middle of that obscene and blasphemous mob. The four men, who had so narrowly escaped the fate of Barrett, were kneeling, bare-headed, on the stones of the Old Bailey in front of the scaffold on which their friend was about to die, praying silently but earnestly. For several minutes they continued to kneel and pray, and then, suddenly rising, they hurriedly left the crowd and disappeared. "Did you ever see anything like that?" said the inspector to me; and I do not know which of us was the more moved by this strange incident.

Of the execution itself I have only one thing to say: that is, that Barrett died in a very different fashion from any other murderer whom I had seen hanged. He faced death, in fact, like a hero, with undaunted mien, and a smile upon his pallid lips. I observed that his trousers were all frayed and worn at the knees, and remarked upon the fact to one of the warders who was standing beside me. "Yes," he replied, "he has been on his knees, praying, ever since he was sentenced." I came away from the spot rejoicing in the thought that I should never again be called upon to witness that abominable thing a public execution.