'Who is to stand up there to-day?' I asked one of them—a more decent-looking man than most. Of course, I knew very well, but I wished to find out what the people intended.
'Where do you come from, not to know that?' the man replied. ''Tis the thief-taker: him that makes the rogue: teaches the rogue and then sells the rogue. Now we've got him—wait till we leave him. And there's the lawyer who made the plot to hang a man. We've got him, too. We don't often get a lawyer. Wait a bit—wait a bit. You shall see what they'll look like when we leave them.'
He had his apron full of something or other—rotten eggs, perhaps: or rotten apples: or, perhaps, brickbats. The faces of all around expressed the same deadly look of revenge. I thought of the Captain's terror, and of his petition to Jenny; that he might be put up with the Bishop; it was impossible not to feel awed and terrified at the aspect of so much hatred and such deliberate preparation for revenge. A thief-taker and a lawyer! Oh! noble opportunity! Some carried baskets filled with missiles: some had their aprons full; the women for their part brought rotten eggs and dead cats, stinking rabbits, and all kinds of putrid offal in baskets and in their arms, as if they had been things precious and costly. They conferred together and laughed, grimly telling what they had to throw, and how they would throw it.
'I don't waste my basket,' said one, 'on rotten eggs. There's something here sharper than rotten eggs. He took my man before his time was up, because he wanted the money. My man was honest before he met Merridew, who made him a rogue, poor lad!—yes, made him—told him what to do—taught him: made him a highwayman: told him where to go; hired a horse for him and gave him a pistol. Then he sold him—got forty pounds and a Tyburn ticket for him and twenty pounds allowance for his own horse. Oh! If my arm is strong enough! Let me get near him—close to him, good people.'
'He took my son,' said another, 'to be sure he was a rogue, but he thieved in a safe way till John Merridew got him. If I had my strength that I used to have it wouldn't be rotten eggs; but never mind—there's others besides me. Don't waste your brickbats: throw straight: let the women get to the front. Oh! He shall look very pretty when he is carried home. He shall have a pleasant hour with his friends. We love him, don't we? We love him like a son, we do.'
This man had for years exercised absolute sway over Rogueland. He instructed the young in the various branches of the criminal's horrid trade: he led them on from pocket-picking to stealing from stalls and bulkheads: to shop-lifting; to burglary; to robbery in the street: to forgery: to coining and issuing false coin: to highway robbery and, at times, to murder. 'Twas the most accomplished and the most desperate villain that ever lived—I cannot believe that his like was ever known. No one dared to cross him or to refuse his orders. If anyone should be so presumptuous, he speedily repented in Newgate under a capital charge followed by a capital sentence. There are so many ways of getting hanged, and so few outside the law know what offences may be capital and what are not, that there was never any certainty in the mind of the smallest rogue that he was safe from such a charge. Children of fourteen on his information were hung as well as grown men: little girls of fourteen were hung on his information as well as grown women: for shop-lifting, for lifting linen from the hedge—why this devil incarnate would instigate a child to commit a capital offence and then give him into custody for the reward, careless whether the child was hanged or not. It was a terrible end that he met with. I read sometimes of dreadful punishments: of tortures and agonies: yet I cannot picture to myself a punishment more awful than to stand up before an infuriated and implacable mob; to look down upon thousands of faces and to see no gleam of relenting upon one: not one with a tear of pity: to hear their yells of execration: to see their arms springing up with one consent——Poor wretch! Poor wretch!
These people knew very well that Mr. Merridew could hang them all: that, in course of time, he would hang them all; and that, if they offended him, he would hang them all at once. It was a terrible weapon for one man to wield: nor can I believe that the laws of the land intended that any one man should be able to wield such a weapon. Why they allowed him to exist I know not—seeing their insensibility to crime, one would think that they would have murdered him long before. From wives he had taken their husbands; from mothers their sons; from girls their sweethearts: he had taken their wives and their mistresses from the men; he had taken the boys—one cannot say the innocent boys—from their playfellows; and he had hanged them all. It would be interesting to know how many he had hanged, this murderous, blood-stained villain, whose heart was like the nether millstone for hardness.
The punishment of pillory hands a man over to the people, for judgment and execution or for acquittal or for pardon. The law says practically, 'We find him guilty: we assign him a term of imprisonment: it is for the people to increase the punishment or to protest against it.' In the case of a common rogue, whose offence is in no way remarkable, a few rotten eggs, broken on his face and dropping yellow streams over the nose and cheeks, please the mob, who like this harmless demonstration in favour of virtue which does not hurt their friend and brother, the prisoner. In other cases, where the sympathy of the people is entirely with the prisoner, one hour of pillory means an hour of triumph. For they bring bands of music and welcome the criminal; they shout applause: they hang the pillory with flowers: they take out the horses and drag the carriage. This happened to Dr. Shebbeare, who came to the pillory in the sheriff's carriage and stood in front of the pillory, not in it, a man holding an umbrella over his head the whole time to keep off the rain. It is, however, the most terrible punishment that can be devised when the mob are infuriated with the prisoner. In this case the thief-taker, the Man-slayer was about to stand before them: and with him the designer of a plot to take away the life of an innocent man.
The crowd now became so dense that it was impossible to get forwards or back. Therefore, though it might seem revengeful to look on at the popular reception of these two wretches, I was fain to stay where I was, namely, on the top step of Slaughter's Coffee House. The time passed quickly while I stood looking on and listening. The crowd grew thicker: on the outskirts with me were many respectable persons. Their indignation against the crime was, like mine, tempered by the prospect of the horrible punishment that awaited the evil-doers. I would not tell them that I myself was the object of this plot, for fear of being considered as wishing to enjoy a revenge full and satisfying.
'The greatest villain of the four,' said one gentleman, 'is the attorney. He will barely escape, I think: but these people are assembled to vent their revenge upon the thief-taker. I know not whether, when he is gone, crime will decrease, but it is time that something was done to prevent the encouragement of crime with one hand, and the arrest of the criminal with the other. Such a wretch, Sir, is not fit to live.'