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diff --git a/1435-h/1435-h.htm b/1435-h/1435-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..29f61fa --- /dev/null +++ b/1435-h/1435-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2977 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Miscellaneous Papers, by Charles Dickens</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .5em; + text-decoration: none;} + span.red { color: red; } + body {background-color: #ffffc0; } + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Miscellaneous Papers, by Charles Dickens + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: Miscellaneous Papers + + +Author: Charles Dickens + + + +Release Date: August 13, 2019 [eBook #1435] +[This file was first posted June 23, 1998] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1912 Gresham Publishing Company edition +(<i>Works of Charles Dickens</i>, <i>Volume</i> 19) by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/cover.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Public domain cover" +title= +"Public domain cover" + src="images/cover.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +CHARLES DICKENS</p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Agricultural Interest (<i>Morning Chronicle</i>, March +9, 1844)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page529">529</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Threatening Letter to Thomas Hood from an Ancient +Gentleman (<i>Hood’s Magazine and Comic Miscellany</i>, +May, 1844)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page532">532</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Crime and Education (<i>Daily News</i>, February 4, +1846)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page538">538</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Capital Punishment (I–III; <i>Daily News</i>, March +9, 13, and 16, 1846)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page542">542</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Spirit of Chivalry in Westminster Hall (<i>Douglas +Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine</i>, August, 1845)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page560">560</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>In Memoriam: W. M. Thackeray (<i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, +February, 1864)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page564">564</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Adelaide Anne Procter: Introduction to her <i>Legends and +Lyrics</i> (1866)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page568">568</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Chauncey Hare Townshend: Explanatory Introduction to +<i>Religious Opinions</i> by the Late Reverend Chauncey Hare +Townshend (1869)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page574">574</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>On Mr. Fechter’s Acting (<i>Atlantic Monthly</i>, +August, 1869)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page576">576</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page529"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 529</span>THE +AGRICULTURAL INTEREST</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> present Government, having +shown itself to be particularly clever in its management of +Indictments for Conspiracy, cannot do better, we think (keeping +in its administrative eye the pacification of some of its most +influential and most unruly supporters), than indict the whole +manufacturing interest of the country for a conspiracy against +the agricultural interest. As the jury ought to be beyond +impeachment, the panel might be chosen among the Duke of +Buckingham’s tenants, with the Duke of Buckingham himself +as foreman; and, to the end that the country might be quite +satisfied with the judge, and have ample security beforehand for +his moderation and impartiality, it would be desirable, perhaps, +to make such a slight change in the working of the law (a mere +nothing to a Conservative Government, bent upon its end), as +would enable the question to be tried before an Ecclesiastical +Court, with the Bishop of Exeter presiding. The +Attorney-General for Ireland, turning his sword into a +ploughshare, might conduct the prosecution; and Mr. Cobden and +the other traversers might adopt any ground of defence they +chose, or prove or disprove anything they pleased, without being +embarrassed by the least anxiety or doubt in reference to the +verdict.</p> +<p>That the country in general is in a conspiracy against this +sacred but unhappy agricultural interest, there can be no +doubt. It is not alone within the walls of Covent Garden +Theatre, or the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, or the Town Hall +at Birmingham, that the cry “Repeal the Corn-laws!” +is raised. It may be heard, moaning at night, through the +straw-littered wards of Refuges for the Destitute; it may be read +in the gaunt and famished faces which make our streets terrible; +it is muttered in the thankful grace pronounced by haggard +wretches over their felon fare in gaols; it is inscribed in +dreadful characters upon the walls of Fever Hospitals; and may be +plainly traced in every record of mortality. All of which +proves, that there is a vast conspiracy afoot, against the +unfortunate agricultural interest.</p> +<p>They who run, even upon railroads, may read of this +conspiracy. The old stage-coachman was a farmer’s +friend. He wore top-boots, understood cattle, fed his +horses upon corn, and had a lively personal interest in +malt. The engine-driver’s garb, and sympathies, and +tastes belong to the factory. His fustian dress, besmeared +with coal-dust and begrimed with soot; his oily hands, his dirty +face, his knowledge of machinery; all point him out as one +devoted to the manufacturing interest. Fire and smoke, and +red-hot cinders follow in his wake. He has no attachment to +the soil, but travels on a road of iron, furnace wrought. +His warning is not conveyed in the fine old Saxon dialect of our +glorious forefathers, but in a fiendish yell. He never +cries “ya-hip”, with agricultural lungs; but jerks +forth a manufactured shriek from a brazen throat.</p> +<p>Where <i>is</i> the agricultural interest represented? +From what phase of our social life has it not been driven, to the +undue setting up of its false rival?</p> +<p>Are the police agricultural? The watchmen were. +They wore woollen nightcaps to a man; they encouraged the growth +of timber, by patriotically adhering to staves and rattles of +immense size; they slept every night in boxes, which were but +another form of the celebrated wooden walls of Old England; they +never woke up till it was too late—in which respect you +might have thought them very farmers. How is it with the +police? Their buttons are made at Birmingham; a dozen of +their truncheons would poorly furnish forth a watchman’s +staff; they have no wooden walls to repose between; and the +crowns of their hats are plated with cast-iron.</p> +<p>Are the doctors agricultural? Let Messrs. Morison and +Moat, of the Hygeian establishment at King’s Cross, London, +reply. Is it not, upon the constant showing of those +gentlemen, an ascertained fact that the whole medical profession +have united to depreciate the worth of the Universal Vegetable +Medicines? And is this opposition to vegetables, and +exaltation of steel and iron instead, on the part of the regular +practitioners, capable of any interpretation but one? Is it +not a distinct renouncement of the agricultural interest, and a +setting up of the manufacturing interest instead?</p> +<p>Do the professors of the law at all fail in their truth to the +beautiful maid whom they ought to adore? Inquire of the +Attorney-General for Ireland. Inquire of that honourable +and learned gentleman, whose last public act was to cast aside +the grey goose-quill, an article of agricultural produce, and +take up the pistol, which, under the system of percussion locks, +has not even a flint to connect it with farming. Or put the +question to a still higher legal functionary, who, on the same +occasion, when he should have been a reed, inclining here and +there, as adverse gales of evidence disposed him, was seen to be +a manufactured image on the seat of Justice, cast by Power, in +most impenetrable brass.</p> +<p>The world is too much with us in this manufacturing interest, +early and late; that is the great complaint and the great +truth. It is not so with the agricultural interest, or what +passes by that name. It never thinks of the suffering +world, or sees it, or cares to extend its knowledge of it; or, so +long as it remains a world, cares anything about it. All +those whom Dante placed in the first pit or circle of the doleful +regions, might have represented the agricultural interest in the +present Parliament, or at quarter sessions, or at meetings of the +farmers’ friends, or anywhere else.</p> +<p>But that is not the question now. It is conspired +against; and we have given a few proofs of the conspiracy, as +they shine out of various classes engaged in it. An +indictment against the whole manufacturing interest need not be +longer, surely, than the indictment in the case of the Crown +against O’Connell and others. Mr. Cobden may be taken +as its representative—as indeed he is, by one consent +already. There may be no evidence; but that is not +required. A judge and jury are all that is needed. +And the Government know where to find <i>them</i>, or they gain +experience to little purpose.</p> +<h2><a name="page532"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +532</span>THREATENING LETTER TO THOMAS HOOD<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">FROM AN ANCIENT GENTLEMAN</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Hood</span>. <span +class="smcap">Sir</span>,—The Constitution is going at +last! You needn’t laugh, Mr. Hood. I am aware +that it has been going, two or three times before; perhaps four +times; but it is on the move now, sir, and no mistake.</p> +<p>I beg to say, that I use those last expressions advisedly, +sir, and not in the sense in which they are now used by +Jackanapeses. There were no Jackanapeses when I was a boy, +Mr. Hood. England was Old England when I was young. I +little thought it would ever come to be Young England when I was +old. But everything is going backward.</p> +<p>Ah! governments were governments, and judges were judges, in +<i>my</i> day, Mr. Hood. There was no nonsense then. +Any of your seditious complainings, and we were ready with the +military on the shortest notice. We should have charged +Covent Garden Theatre, sir, on a Wednesday night: at the point of +the bayonet. Then, the judges were full of dignity and +firmness, and knew how to administer the law. There is only +one judge who knows how to do his duty, now. He tried that +revolutionary female the other day, who, though she was in full +work (making shirts at three-halfpence a piece), had no pride in +her country, but treasonably took it in her head, in the +distraction of having been robbed of her easy earnings, to +attempt to drown herself and her young child; and the glorious +man went out of his way, sir—out of his way—to call +her up for instant sentence of Death; and to tell her she had no +hope of mercy in this world—as you may see yourself if you +look in the papers of Wednesday the 17th of April. He +won’t be supported, sir, I know he won’t; but it is +worth remembering that his words were carried into every +manufacturing town of this kingdom, and read aloud to crowds in +every political parlour, beer-shop, news-room, and secret or open +place of assembly, frequented by the discontented working-men; +and that no milk-and-water weakness on the part of the executive +can ever blot them out. Great things like that, are caught +up, and stored up, in these times, and are not forgotten, Mr. +Hood. The public at large (especially those who wish for +peace and conciliation) are universally obliged to him. If +it is reserved for any man to set the Thames on fire, it is +reserved for him; and indeed I am told he very nearly did it, +once.</p> +<p>But even he won’t save the constitution, sir: it is +mauled beyond the power of preservation. Do you know in +what foul weather it will be sacrificed and shipwrecked, Mr. +Hood? Do you know on what rock it will strike, sir? +You don’t, I am certain; for nobody does know as yet but +myself. I will tell you.</p> +<p>The constitution will go down, sir (nautically speaking), in +the degeneration of the human species in England, and its +reduction into a mingled race of savages and pigmies.</p> +<p>That is my proposition. That is my prediction. +That is the event of which I give you warning. I am now +going to prove it, sir.</p> +<p>You are a literary man, Mr. Hood, and have written, I am told, +some things worth reading. I say I am told, because I never +read what is written in these days. You’ll excuse me; +but my principle is, that no man ought to know anything about his +own time, except that it is the worst time that ever was, or is +ever likely to be. That is the only way, sir, to be truly +wise and happy.</p> +<p>In your station, as a literary man, Mr. Hood, you are +frequently at the Court of Her Gracious Majesty the Queen. +God bless her! You have reason to know that the three great +keys to the royal palace (after rank and politics) are Science, +Literature, Art. I don’t approve of this +myself. I think it ungenteel and barbarous, and quite +un-English; the custom having been a foreign one, ever since the +reigns of the uncivilised sultans in the Arabian Nights, who +always called the wise men of their time about them. But so +it is. And when you don’t dine at the royal table, +there is always a knife and fork for you at the equerries’ +table: where, I understand, all gifted men are made particularly +welcome.</p> +<p>But all men can’t be gifted, Mr. Hood. Neither +scientific, literary, nor artistical powers are any more to be +inherited than the property arising from scientific, literary, or +artistic productions, which the law, with a beautiful imitation +of nature, declines to protect in the second generation. +Very good, sir. Then, people are naturally very prone to +cast about in their minds for other means of getting at Court +Favour; and, watching the signs of the times, to hew out for +themselves, or their descendants, the likeliest roads to that +distinguished goal.</p> +<p>Mr. Hood, it is pretty clear, from recent records in the Court +Circular, that if a father wish to train up his son in the way he +should go, to go to Court: and cannot indenture him to be a +scientific man, an author, or an artist, three courses are open +to him. He must endeavour by artificial means to make him a +dwarf, a wild man, or a Boy Jones.</p> +<p>Now, sir, this is the shoal and quicksand on which the +constitution will go to pieces.</p> +<p>I have made inquiry, Mr. Hood, and find that in my +neighbourhood two families and a fraction out of every four, in +the lower and middle classes of society, are studying and +practising all conceivable arts to keep their infant children +down. Understand me. I do not mean down in their +numbers, or down in their precocity, but down in their growth, +sir. A destructive and subduing drink, compounded of gin +and milk in equal quantities, such as is given to puppies to +retard their growth: not something short, but something +shortening: is administered to these young creatures many times a +day. An unnatural and artificial thirst is first awakened +in these infants by meals of salt beef, bacon, anchovies, +sardines, red herrings, shrimps, olives, pea-soup, and that +description of diet; and when they screech for drink, in accents +that might melt a heart of stone, which they do constantly (I +allude to screeching, not to melting), this liquid is introduced +into their too confiding stomachs. At such an early age, +and to so great an extent, is this custom of provoking thirst, +then quenching it with a stunting drink, observed, that brine pap +has already superseded the use of tops-and-bottoms; and +wet-nurses, previously free from any kind of reproach, have been +seen to stagger in the streets: owing, sir, to the quantity of +gin introduced into their systems, with a view to its gradual and +natural conversion into the fluid I have already mentioned.</p> +<p>Upon the best calculation I can make, this is going on, as I +have said, in the proportion of about two families and a fraction +in four. In one more family and a fraction out of the same +number, efforts are being made to reduce the children to a state +of nature; and to inculcate, at a tender age, the love of raw +flesh, train oil, new rum, and the acquisition of scalps. +Wild and outlandish dances are also in vogue (you will have +observed the prevailing rage for the Polka); and savage cries and +whoops are much indulged in (as you may discover, if you doubt +it, in the House of Commons any night). Nay, some persons, +Mr. Hood; and persons of some figure and distinction too; have +already succeeded in breeding wild sons; who have been publicly +shown in the Courts of Bankruptcy, and in police-offices, and in +other commodious exhibition-rooms, with great effect, but who +have not yet found favour at court; in consequence, as I infer, +of the impression made by Mr. Rankin’s wild men being too +fresh and recent, to say nothing of Mr. Rankin’s wild men +being foreigners.</p> +<p>I need not refer you, sir, to the late instance of the +Ojibbeway Bride. But I am credibly informed, that she is on +the eve of retiring into a savage fastness, where she may bring +forth and educate a wild family, who shall in course of time, by +the dexterous use of the popularity they are certain to acquire +at Windsor and St. James’s, divide with dwarfs the +principal offices of state, of patronage, and power, in the +United Kingdom.</p> +<p>Consider the deplorable consequences, Mr. Hood, which must +result from these proceedings, and the encouragement they receive +in the highest quarters.</p> +<p>The dwarf being the favourite, sir, it is certain that the +public mind will run in a great and eminent degree upon the +production of dwarfs. Perhaps the failures only will be +brought up, wild. The imagination goes a long way in these +cases; and all that the imagination <i>can</i> do, will be done, +and is doing. You may convince yourself of this, by +observing the condition of those ladies who take particular +notice of General Tom Thumb at the Egyptian Hall, during his +hours of performance.</p> +<p>The rapid increase of dwarfs, will be first felt in her +Majesty’s recruiting department. The standard will, +of necessity, be lowered; the dwarfs will grow smaller and +smaller; the vulgar expression “a man of his inches” +will become a figure of fact, instead of a figure of speech; +crack regiments, household-troops especially, will pick the +smallest men from all parts of the country; and in the two little +porticoes at the Horse Guards, two Tom Thumbs will be daily seen, +doing duty, mounted on a pair of Shetland ponies. Each of +them will be relieved (as Tom Thumb is at this moment, in the +intervals of his performance) by a wild man; and a British +Grenadier will either go into a quart pot, or be an Old Boy, or +Blue Gull, or Flying Bull, or some other savage chief of that +nature.</p> +<p>I will not expatiate upon the number of dwarfs who will be +found representing Grecian statues in all parts of the +metropolis; because I am inclined to think that this will be a +change for the better; and that the engagement of two or three in +Trafalgar Square will tend to the improvement of the public +taste.</p> +<p>The various genteel employments at Court being held by dwarfs, +sir, it will be necessary to alter, in some respects, the present +regulations. It is quite clear that not even General Tom +Thumb himself could preserve a becoming dignity on state +occasions, if required to walk about with a scaffolding-pole +under his arm; therefore the gold and silver sticks at present +used, must be cut down into skewers of those precious metals; a +twig of the black rod will be quite as much as can be +conveniently preserved; the coral and bells of his Royal Highness +the Prince of Wales, will be used in lieu of the mace at present +in existence; and that bauble (as Oliver Cromwell called it, Mr. +Hood), its value being first calculated by Mr. Finlayson, the +government actuary, will be placed to the credit of the National +Debt.</p> +<p>All this, sir, will be the death of the constitution. +But this is not all. The constitution dies hard, perhaps; +but there is enough disease impending, Mr. Hood, to kill it three +times over.</p> +<p>Wild men will get into the House of Commons. Imagine +that, sir! Imagine Strong Wind in the House of +Commons! It is not an easy matter to get through a debate +now; but I say, imagine Strong Wind, speaking for the benefit of +his constituents, upon the floor of the House of Commons! or +imagine (which is pregnant with more awful consequences still) +the ministry having an interpreter in the House of Commons, to +tell the country, in English, what it really means!</p> +<p>Why, sir, that in itself would be blowing the constitution out +of the mortar in St. James’s Park, and leaving nothing of +it to be seen but smoke.</p> +<p>But this, I repeat it, is the state of things to which we are +fast tending, Mr. Hood; and I enclose my card for your private +eye, that you may be quite certain of it. What the +condition of this country will be, when its standing army is +composed of dwarfs, with here and there a wild man to throw its +ranks into confusion, like the elephants employed in war in +former times, I leave you to imagine, sir. It may be +objected by some hopeful jackanapeses, that the number of +impressments in the navy, consequent upon the seizure of the +Boy-Joneses, or remaining portion of the population ambitious of +Court Favour, will be in itself sufficient to defend our Island +from foreign invasion. But I tell those jackanapeses, sir, +that while I admit the wisdom of the Boy Jones precedent, of +kidnapping such youths after the expiration of their several +terms of imprisonment as vagabonds; hurrying them on board ship; +and packing them off to sea again whenever they venture to take +the air on shore; I deny the justice of the inference; inasmuch +as it appears to me, that the inquiring minds of those young +outlaws must naturally lead to their being hanged by the enemy as +spies, early in their career; and before they shall have been +rated on the books of our fleet as able seamen.</p> +<p>Such, Mr. Hood, sir, is the prospect before us! And +unless you, and some of your friends who have influence at Court, +can get up a giant as a forlorn hope, it is all over with this +ill-fated land.</p> +<p>In reference to your own affairs, sir, you will take whatever +course may seem to you most prudent and advisable after this +warning. It is not a warning to be slighted: that I happen +to know. I am informed by the gentleman who favours this, +that you have recently been making some changes and improvements +in your Magazine, and are, in point of fact, starting +afresh. If I be well informed, and this be really so, rely +upon it that you cannot start too small, sir. Come down to +the duodecimo size instantly, Mr. Hood. Take time by the +forelock; and, reducing the stature of your Magazine every month, +bring it at last to the dimensions of the little almanack no +longer issued, I regret to say, by the ingenious Mr. Schloss: +which was invisible to the naked eye until examined through a +little eye-glass.</p> +<p>You project, I am told, the publication of a new novel, by +yourself, in the pages of your Magazine. A word in your +ear. I am not a young man, sir, and have had some +experience. Don’t put your own name on the +title-page; it would be suicide and madness. Treat with +General Tom Thumb, Mr. Hood, for the use of his name on any +terms. If the gallant general should decline to treat with +you, get Mr. Barnum’s name, which is the next best in the +market. And when, through this politic course, you shall +have received, in presents, a richly jewelled set of tablets from +Buckingham Palace, and a gold watch and appendages from +Marlborough House; and when those valuable trinkets shall be left +under a glass case at your publisher’s for inspection by +your friends and the public in general;—then, sir, you will +do me the justice of remembering this communication.</p> +<p>It is unnecessary for me to add, after what I have observed in +the course of this letter, that I am not,—sir, ever +your</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><span class="smcap">Constant +Reader</span>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Tuesday</span>, 23<i>rd</i> <i>April</i> +1844.</p> +<p><i>P.S.</i>—Impress it upon your contributors that they +cannot be too short; and that if not dwarfish, they must be +wild—or at all events not tame.</p> +<h2><a name="page538"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +538</span>CRIME AND EDUCATION</h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">offer</span> no apology for entreating +the attention of the readers of <i>The Daily News</i> to an +effort which has been making for some three years and a half, and +which is making now, to introduce among the most miserable and +neglected outcasts in London, some knowledge of the commonest +principles of morality and religion; to commence their +recognition as immortal human creatures, before the Gaol Chaplain +becomes their only schoolmaster; to suggest to Society that its +duty to this wretched throng, foredoomed to crime and punishment, +rightfully begins at some distance from the police office; and +that the careless maintenance from year to year, in this, the +capital city of the world, of a vast hopeless nursery of +ignorance, misery and vice; a breeding place for the hulks and +jails: is horrible to contemplate.</p> +<p>This attempt is being made in certain of the most obscure and +squalid parts of the Metropolis, where rooms are opened, at +night, for the gratuitous instruction of all comers, children or +adults, under the title of <span class="smcap">Ragged +Schools</span>. The name implies the purpose. They +who are too ragged, wretched, filthy, and forlorn, to enter any +other place: who could gain admission into no charity school, and +who would be driven from any church door; are invited to come in +here, and find some people not depraved, willing to teach them +something, and show them some sympathy, and stretch a hand out, +which is not the iron hand of Law, for their correction.</p> +<p>Before I describe a visit of my own to a Ragged School, and +urge the readers of this letter for God’s sake to visit one +themselves, and think of it (which is my main object), let me +say, that I know the prisons of London well; that I have visited +the largest of them more times than I could count; and that the +children in them are enough to break the heart and hope of any +man. I have never taken a foreigner or a stranger of any +kind to one of these establishments but I have seen him so moved +at sight of the child offenders, and so affected by the +contemplation of their utter renouncement and desolation outside +the prison walls, that he has been as little able to disguise his +emotion, as if some great grief had suddenly burst upon +him. Mr. Chesterton and Lieutenant Tracey (than whom more +intelligent and humane Governors of Prisons it would be hard, if +not impossible, to find) know perfectly well that these children +pass and repass through the prisons all their lives; that they +are never taught; that the first distinctions between right and +wrong are, from their cradles, perfectly confounded and perverted +in their minds; that they come of untaught parents, and will give +birth to another untaught generation; that in exact proportion to +their natural abilities, is the extent and scope of their +depravity; and that there is no escape or chance for them in any +ordinary revolution of human affairs. Happily, there are +schools in these prisons now. If any readers doubt how +ignorant the children are, let them visit those schools and see +them at their tasks, and hear how much they knew when they were +sent there. If they would know the produce of this seed, +let them see a class of men and boys together, at their books (as +I have seen them in the House of Correction for this county of +Middlesex), and mark how painfully the full grown felons toil at +the very shape and form of letters; their ignorance being so +confirmed and solid. The contrast of this labour in the +men, with the less blunted quickness of the boys; the latent +shame and sense of degradation struggling through their dull +attempts at infant lessons; and the universal eagerness to learn, +impress me, in this passing retrospect, more painfully than I can +tell.</p> +<p>For the instruction, and as a first step in the reformation, +of such unhappy beings, the Ragged Schools were founded. I +was first attracted to the subject, and indeed was first made +conscious of their existence, about two years ago, or more, by +seeing an advertisement in the papers dated from West Street, +Saffron Hill, stating “That a room had been opened and +supported in that wretched neighbourhood for upwards of twelve +months, where religious instruction had been imparted to the +poor”, and explaining in a few words what was meant by +Ragged Schools as a generic term, including, then, four or five +similar places of instruction. I wrote to the masters of +this particular school to make some further inquiries, and went +myself soon afterwards.</p> +<p>It was a hot summer night; and the air of Field Lane and +Saffron Hill was not improved by such weather, nor were the +people in those streets very sober or honest company. Being +unacquainted with the exact locality of the school, I was fain to +make some inquiries about it. These were very jocosely +received in general; but everybody knew where it was, and gave +the right direction to it. The prevailing idea among the +loungers (the greater part of them the very sweepings of the +streets and station houses) seemed to be, that the teachers were +quixotic, and the school upon the whole “a +lark”. But there was certainly a kind of rough +respect for the intention, and (as I have said) nobody denied the +school or its whereabouts, or refused assistance in directing to +it.</p> +<p>It consisted at that time of either two or three—I +forget which—miserable rooms, upstairs in a miserable +house. In the best of these, the pupils in the female +school were being taught to read and write; and though there were +among the number, many wretched creatures steeped in degradation +to the lips, they were tolerably quiet, and listened with +apparent earnestness and patience to their instructors. The +appearance of this room was sad and melancholy, of +course—how could it be otherwise!—but, on the whole, +encouraging.</p> +<p>The close, low chamber at the back, in which the boys were +crowded, was so foul and stifling as to be, at first, almost +insupportable. But its moral aspect was so far worse than +its physical, that this was soon forgotten. Huddled +together on a bench about the room, and shown out by some flaring +candles stuck against the walls, were a crowd of boys, varying +from mere infants to young men; sellers of fruit, herbs, +lucifer-matches, flints; sleepers under the dry arches of +bridges; young thieves and beggars—with nothing natural to +youth about them: with nothing frank, ingenuous, or pleasant in +their faces; low-browed, vicious, cunning, wicked; abandoned of +all help but this; speeding downward to destruction; and <span +class="smcap">Unutterably Ignorant</span>.</p> +<p>This, Reader, was one room as full as it could hold; but these +were only grains in sample of a Multitude that are perpetually +sifting through these schools; in sample of a Multitude who had +within them once, and perhaps have now, the elements of men as +good as you or I, and maybe infinitely better; in sample of a +Multitude among whose doomed and sinful ranks (oh, think of this, +and think of them!) the child of any man upon this earth, however +lofty his degree, must, as by Destiny and Fate, be found, if, at +its birth, it were consigned to such an infancy and nurture, as +these fallen creatures had!</p> +<p>This was the Class I saw at the Ragged School. They +could not be trusted with books; they could only be instructed +orally; they were difficult of reduction to anything like +attention, obedience, or decent behaviour; their benighted +ignorance in reference to the Deity, or to any social duty (how +could they guess at any social duty, being so discarded by all +social teachers but the gaoler and the hangman!) was terrible to +see. Yet, even here, and among these, something had been +done already. The Ragged School was of recent date and very +poor; but he had inculcated some association with the name of the +Almighty, which was not an oath, and had taught them to look +forward in a hymn (they sang it) to another life, which would +correct the miseries and woes of this.</p> +<p>The new exposition I found in this Ragged School, of the +frightful neglect by the State of those whom it punishes so +constantly, and whom it might, as easily and less expensively, +instruct and save; together with the sight I had seen there, in +the heart of London; haunted me, and finally impelled me to an +endeavour to bring these Institutions under the notice of the +Government; with some faint hope that the vastness of the +question would supersede the Theology of the schools, and that +the Bench of Bishops might adjust the latter question, after some +small grant had been conceded. I made the attempt; and have +heard no more of the subject from that hour.</p> +<p>The perusal of an advertisement in yesterday’s paper, +announcing a lecture on the Ragged Schools last night, has led me +into these remarks. I might easily have given them another +form; but I address this letter to you, in the hope that some few +readers in whom I have awakened an interest, as a writer of +fiction, may be, by that means, attracted to the subject, who +might otherwise, unintentionally, pass it over.</p> +<p>I have no desire to praise the system pursued in the Ragged +Schools; which is necessarily very imperfect, if indeed there be +one. So far as I have any means of judging of what is +taught there, I should individually object to it, as not being +sufficiently secular, and as presenting too many religious +mysteries and difficulties, to minds not sufficiently prepared +for their reception. But I should very imperfectly +discharge in myself the duty I wish to urge and impress on +others, if I allowed any such doubt of mine to interfere with my +appreciation of the efforts of these teachers, or my true wish to +promote them by any slight means in my power. Irritating +topics, of all kinds, are equally far removed from my purpose and +intention. But, I adjure those excellent persons who aid, +munificently, in the building of New Churches, to think of these +Ragged Schools; to reflect whether some portion of their rich +endowments might not be spared for such a purpose; to +contemplate, calmly, the necessity of beginning at the beginning; +to consider for themselves where the Christian Religion most +needs and most suggests immediate help and illustration; and not +to decide on any theory or hearsay, but to go themselves into the +Prisons and the Ragged Schools, and form their own +conclusions. They will be shocked, pained, and repelled, by +much that they learn there; but nothing they can learn will be +one-thousandth part so shocking, painful, and repulsive, as the +continuance for one year more of these things as they have been +for too many years already.</p> +<p>Anticipating that some of the more prominent facts connected +with the history of the Ragged Schools, may become known to the +readers of <i>The Daily News</i> through your account of the +lecture in question, I abstain (though in possession of some such +information) from pursuing the question further, at this +time. But if I should see occasion, I will take leave to +return to it.</p> +<h2><a name="page542"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +542</span>CAPITAL PUNISHMENT</h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">will</span> take for the subject of this +letter, the effect of Capital Punishment on the commission of +crime, or rather of murder; the only crime with one exception +(and that a rare one) to which it is now applied. Its +effect in preventing crime, I will reserve for another letter: +and a few of the more striking illustrations of each aspect of +the subject, for a concluding one.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">The effect of Capital Punishment on +the commission of Murder.</p> +<p>Some murders are committed in hot blood and furious rage; +some, in deliberate revenge; some, in terrible despair; some (but +not many) for mere gain; some, for the removal of an object +dangerous to the murderer’s peace or good name; some, to +win a monstrous notoriety.</p> +<p>On murders committed in rage, in the despair of strong +affection (as when a starving child is murdered by its parent) or +for gain, I believe the punishment of death to have no effect in +the least. In the two first cases, the impulse is a blind +and wild one, infinitely beyond the reach of any reference to the +punishment. In the last, there is little calculation beyond +the absorbing greed of the money to be got. Courvoisier, +for example, might have robbed his master with greater safety, +and with fewer chances of detection, if he had not murdered +him. But, his calculations going to the gain and not to the +loss, he had no balance for the consequences of what he +did. So, it would have been more safe and prudent in the +woman who was hanged a few weeks since, for the murder in +Westminster, to have simply robbed her old companion in an +unguarded moment, as in her sleep. But, her calculation +going to the gain of what she took to be a Bank note; and the +poor old woman living between her and the gain; she murdered +her.</p> +<p>On murders committed in deliberate revenge, or to remove a +stumbling block in the murderer’s path, or in an insatiate +craving for notoriety, is there reason to suppose that the +punishment of death has the direct effect of an incentive and an +impulse?</p> +<p>A murder is committed in deliberate revenge. The +murderer is at no trouble to prepare his train of circumstances, +takes little or no pains to escape, is quite cool and collected, +perfectly content to deliver himself up to the Police, makes no +secret of his guilt, but boldly says, “I killed him. +I’m glad of it. I meant to do it. I am ready to +die.” There was such a case the other day. +There was such another case not long ago. There are such +cases frequently. It is the commonest first exclamation on +being seized. Now, what is this but a false arguing of the +question, announcing a foregone conclusion, expressly leading to +the crime, and inseparably arising out of the Punishment of +Death? “I took his life. I give up mine to pay +for it. Life for life; blood for blood. I have done +the crime. I am ready with the atonement. I know all +about it; it’s a fair bargain between me and the law. +Here am I to execute my part of it; and what more is to be said +or done?” It is the very essence of the maintenance +of this punishment for murder, that it <i>does</i> set life +against life. It is in the essence of a stupid, weak, or +otherwise ill-regulated mind (of such a murderer’s mind, in +short), to recognise in this set off, a something that diminishes +the base and coward character of murder. “In a +pitched battle, I, a common man, may kill my adversary, but he +may kill me. In a duel, a gentleman may shoot his opponent +through the head, but the opponent may shoot him too, and this +makes it fair. Very well. I take this man’s +life for a reason I have, or choose to think I have, and the law +takes mine. The law says, and the clergyman says, there +must be blood for blood and life for life. Here it +is. I pay the penalty.”</p> +<p>A mind incapable, or confounded in its perceptions—and +you must argue with reference to such a mind, or you could not +have such a murder—may not only establish on these grounds +an idea of strict justice and fair reparation, but a stubborn and +dogged fortitude and foresight that satisfy it hugely. +Whether the fact be really so, or not, is a question I would be +content to rest, alone, on the number of cases of revengeful +murder in which this is well known, without dispute, to have been +the prevailing demeanour of the criminal: and in which such +speeches and such absurd reasoning have been constantly uppermost +with him. “Blood for blood”, and “life +for life”, and such like balanced jingles, have passed +current in people’s mouths, from legislators downwards, +until they have been corrupted into “tit for tat”, +and acted on.</p> +<p>Next, come the murders done, to sweep out of the way a dreaded +or detested object. At the bottom of this class of crimes, +there is a slow, corroding, growing hate. Violent quarrels +are commonly found to have taken place between the murdered +person and the murderer: usually of opposite sexes. There +are witnesses to old scenes of reproach and recrimination, in +which they were the actors; and the murderer has been heard to +say, in this or that coarse phrase, “that he wouldn’t +mind killing her, though he should be hanged for +it”—in these cases, the commonest avowal.</p> +<p>It seems to me, that in this well-known scrap of evidence, +there is a deeper meaning than is usually attached to it. I +do not know, but it may be—I have a strong suspicion that +it is—a clue to the slow growth of the crime, and its +gradual development in the mind. More than this; a clue to +the mental connection of the deed, with the punishment to which +the doer of that deed is liable, until the two, conjoined, give +birth to monstrous and misshapen Murder.</p> +<p>The idea of murder, in such a case, like that of +self-destruction in the great majority of instances, is not a new +one. It may have presented itself to the disturbed mind in +a dim shape and afar off; but it has been there. After a +quarrel, or with some strong sense upon him of irritation or +discomfort arising out of the continuance of this life in his +path, the man has brooded over the unformed desire to take +it. “Though he should be hanged for it.” +With the entrance of the Punishment into his thoughts, the shadow +of the fatal beam begins to attend—not on himself, but on +the object of his hate. At every new temptation, it is +there, stronger and blacker yet, trying to terrify him. +When she defies or threatens him, the scaffold seems to be her +strength and “vantage ground”. Let her not be +too sure of that; “though he should be hanged for +it”.</p> +<p>Thus, he begins to raise up, in the contemplation of this +death by hanging, a new and violent enemy to brave. The +prospect of a slow and solitary expiation would have no +congeniality with his wicked thoughts, but this throttling and +strangling has. There is always before him, an ugly, +bloody, scarecrow phantom, that champions her, as it were, and +yet shows him, in a ghastly way, the example of murder. Is +she very weak, or very trustful in him, or infirm, or old? +It gives a hideous courage to what would be mere slaughter +otherwise; for there it is, a presence always about her, darkly +menacing him with that penalty whose murky secret has a +fascination for all secret and unwholesome thoughts. And +when he struggles with his victim at the last, “though he +should be hanged for it”, it is a merciless wrestle, not +with one weak life only, but with that ever-haunting, +ever-beckoning shadow of the gallows, too; and with a fierce +defiance to it, after their long survey of each other, to come on +and do its worst.</p> +<p>Present this black idea of violence to a bad mind +contemplating violence; hold up before a man remotely compassing +the death of another person, the spectacle of his own ghastly and +untimely death by man’s hands; and out of the depths of his +own nature you shall assuredly raise up that which lures and +tempts him on. The laws which regulate those mysteries have +not been studied or cared for, by the maintainers of this law; +but they are paramount and will always assert their power.</p> +<p>Out of one hundred and sixty-seven persons under sentence of +Death in England, questioned at different times, in the course of +years, by an English clergyman in the performance of his duty, +there were only three who had not been spectators of +executions.</p> +<p>We come, now, to the consideration of those murders which are +committed, or attempted, with no other object than the attainment +of an infamous notoriety. That this class of crimes has its +origin in the Punishment of Death, we cannot question; because +(as we have already seen, and shall presently establish by +another proof) great notoriety and interest attach, and are +generally understood to attach, only to those criminals who are +in danger of being executed.</p> +<p>One of the most remarkable instances of murder originating in +mad self-conceit; and of the murderer’s part in the +repulsive drama, in which the law appears at such great +disadvantage to itself and to society, being acted almost to the +last with a self-complacency that would be horribly ludicrous if +it were not utterly revolting; is presented in the case of +Hocker.</p> +<p>Here is an insolent, flippant, dissolute youth: aping the man +of intrigue and levity: over-dressed, over-confident, +inordinately vain of his personal appearance: distinguished as to +his hair, cane, snuff-box, and singing-voice: and unhappily the +son of a working shoemaker. Bent on loftier flights than +such a poor house-swallow as a teacher in a Sunday-school can +take; and having no truth, industry, perseverance, or other dull +work-a-day quality, to plume his wings withal; he casts about +him, in his jaunty way, for some mode of distinguishing +himself—some means of getting that head of hair into the +print-shops; of having something like justice done to his +singing-voice and fine intellect; of making the life and +adventures of Thomas Hocker remarkable; and of getting up some +excitement in connection with that slighted piece of +biography. The Stage? No. Not feasible. +There has always been a conspiracy against the Thomas Hockers, in +that kind of effort. It has been the same with Authorship +in prose and poetry. Is there nothing else? A Murder, +now, would make a noise in the papers! There is the gallows +to be sure; but without that, it would be nothing. Short of +that, it wouldn’t be fame. Well! We must all +die at one time or other; and to die game, and have it in print, +is just the thing for a man of spirit. They always die game +at the Minor Theatres and the Saloons, and the people like it +very much. Thurtell, too, died very game, and made a +capital speech when he was tried. There’s all about +it in a book at the cigar-shop now. Come, Tom, get your +name up! Let it be a dashing murder that shall keep the +wood-engravers at it for the next two months. You are the +boy to go through with it, and interest the town!</p> +<p>The miserable wretch, inflated by this lunatic conceit, +arranges his whole plan for publication and effect. It is +quite an epitome of his experience of the domestic melodrama or +penny novel. There is the Victim Friend; the mysterious +letter of the injured Female to the Victim Friend; the romantic +spot for the Death-Struggle by night; the unexpected appearance +of Thomas Hocker to the Policeman; the parlour of the Public +House, with Thomas Hocker reading the paper to a strange +gentleman; the Family Apartment, with a song by Thomas Hocker; +the Inquest Room, with Thomas Hocker boldly looking on; the +interior of the Marylebone Theatre, with Thomas Hocker taken into +custody; the Police Office with Thomas Hocker +“affable” to the spectators; the interior of Newgate, +with Thomas Hocker preparing his defence; the Court, where Thomas +Hocker, with his dancing-master airs, is put upon his trial, and +complimented by the Judge; the Prosecution, the Defence, the +Verdict, the Black Cap, the Sentence—each of them a line in +any Playbill, and how bold a line in Thomas Hocker’s +life!</p> +<p>It is worthy of remark, that the nearer he approaches to the +gallows—the great last scene to which the whole of these +effects have been working up—the more the overweening +conceit of the poor wretch shows itself; the more he feels that +he is the hero of the hour; the more audaciously and recklessly +he lies, in supporting the character. In public—at +the condemned sermon—he deports himself as becomes the man +whose autographs are precious, whose portraits are innumerable; +in memory of whom, whole fences and gates have been borne away, +in splinters, from the scene of murder. He knows that the +eyes of Europe are upon him; but he is not proud—only +graceful. He bows, like the first gentleman in Europe, to +the turnkey who brings him a glass of water; and composes his +clothes and hassock as carefully, as good Madame Blaize could +do. In private—within the walls of the condemned +cell—every word and action of his waning life, is a +lie. His whole time is divided between telling lies and +writing them. If he ever have another thought, it is for +his genteel appearance on the scaffold; as when he begs the +barber “not to cut his hair too short, or they won’t +know him when he comes out”. His last proceeding but +one is to write two romantic love letters to women who have no +existence. His last proceeding of all (but less +characteristic, though the only true one) is to swoon away, +miserably, in the arms of the attendants, and be hanged up like a +craven dog.</p> +<p>Is not such a history, from first to last, a most revolting +and disgraceful one; and can the student of it bring himself to +believe that it ever could have place in any record of facts, or +that the miserable chief-actor in it could have ever had a motive +for his arrogant wickedness, but for the comment and the +explanation which the Punishment of Death supplies!</p> +<p>It is not a solitary case, nor is it a prodigy, but a mere +specimen of a class. The case of Oxford, who fired at Her +Majesty in the Park, will be found, on examination, to resemble +it very nearly, in the essential feature. There is no +proved pretence whatever for regarding him as mad; other than +that he was like this malefactor, brimful of conceit, and a +desire to become, even at the cost of the gallows (the only cost +within his reach) the talk of the town. He had less +invention than Hocker, and perhaps was not so deliberately bad; +but his attempt was a branch of the same tree, and it has its +root in the ground where the scaffold is erected.</p> +<p>Oxford had his imitators. Let it never be forgotten in +the consideration of this part of the subject, how they were +stopped. So long as attempts invested them with the +distinction of being in danger of death at the hangman’s +hands, so long did they spring up. When the penalty of +death was removed, and a mean and humiliating punishment +substituted in its place, the race was at an end, and ceased to +be.</p> +<h3>II</h3> +<p>We come, now, to consider the effect of Capital Punishment in +the prevention of crime.</p> +<p>Does it prevent crime in those who attend executions?</p> +<p>There never is (and there never was) an execution at the Old +Bailey in London, but the spectators include two large classes of +thieves—one class who go there as they would go to a +dog-fight, or any other brutal sport, for the attraction and +excitement of the spectacle; the other who make it a dry matter +of business, and mix with the crowd solely to pick pockets. +Add to these, the dissolute, the drunken, the most idle, +profligate, and abandoned of both sexes—some moody +ill-conditioned minds, drawn thither by a fearful +interest—and some impelled by curiosity; of whom the +greater part are of an age and temperament rendering the +gratification of that curiosity highly dangerous to themselves +and to society—and the great elements of the concourse are +stated.</p> +<p>Nor is this assemblage peculiar to London. It is the +same in country towns, allowing for the different statistics of +the population. It is the same in America. I was +present at an execution in Rome, for a most treacherous and +wicked murder, and not only saw the same kind of assemblage +there, but, wearing what is called a shooting-coat, with a great +many pockets in it, felt innumerable hands busy in every one of +them, close to the scaffold.</p> +<p>I have already mentioned that out of one hundred and +sixty-seven convicts under sentence of death, questioned at +different times in the performance of his duty by an English +clergyman, there were only three who had not been spectators of +executions. Mr. Wakefield, in his <i>Facts relating to the +Punishment of Death</i>, goes into the working, as it were, of +this sum. His testimony is extremely valuable, because it +is the evidence of an educated and observing man, who, before +having personal knowledge of the subject and of Newgate, was +quite satisfied that the Punishment of Death should continue, but +who, when he gained that experience, exerted himself to the +utmost for its abolition, even at the pain of constant public +reference in his own person to his own imprisonment. +“It cannot be egotism”, he reasonably observes, +“that prompts a man to speak of himself in connection with +Newgate.”</p> +<p>“Whoever will undergo the pain,” says Mr. +Wakefield, “of witnessing the public destruction of a +fellow-creature’s life, in London, must be perfectly +satisfied that in the great mass of spectators, the effect of the +punishment is to excite sympathy for the criminal and hatred of +the law. . . . I am inclined to believe that the criminals +of London, spoken of as a class and allowing for exceptions, take +the same sort of delight in witnessing executions, as the +sportsman and soldier find in the dangers of hunting and war. . . +I am confident that few Old Bailey Sessions pass without the +trial of a boy, whose first thought of crime occurred whilst he +was witnessing an execution. . . . And one grown man, of +great mental powers and superior education, who was acquitted of +a charge of forgery, assured me that the first idea of committing +a forgery occurred to him at the moment when he was accidentally +witnessing the execution of Fauntleroy. To which it may be +added, that Fauntleroy is said to have made precisely the same +declaration in reference to the origin of his own +criminality.”</p> +<p>But one convict “who was within an ace of being +hanged”, among the many with whom Mr. Wakefield conversed, +seems to me to have unconsciously put a question which the +advocates of Capital Punishment would find it very difficult +indeed to answer. “Have you often seen an +execution?” asked Mr. Wakefield. “Yes, +often.” “Did it not frighten you?” +“No. <i>Why should it</i>?”</p> +<p>It is very easy and very natural to turn from this ruffian, +shocked by the hardened retort; but answer his question, why +should it? Should he be frightened by the sight of a dead +man? We are born to die, he says, with a careless +triumph. We are not born to the treadmill, or to servitude +and slavery, or to banishment; but the executioner has done no +more for that criminal than nature may do tomorrow for the judge, +and will certainly do, in her own good time, for judge and jury, +counsel and witnesses, turnkeys, hangman, and all. Should +he be frightened by the manner of the death? It is +horrible, truly, so horrible, that the law, afraid or ashamed of +its own deed, hides the face of the struggling wretch it slays; +but does this fact naturally awaken in such a man, +terror—or defiance? Let the same man speak. +“What did you think then?” asked Mr. Wakefield. +“Think? Why, I thought it was +a—shame.”</p> +<p>Disgust and indignation, or recklessness and indifference, or +a morbid tendency to brood over the sight until temptation is +engendered by it, are the inevitable consequences of the +spectacle, according to the difference of habit and disposition +in those who behold it. Why should it frighten or +deter? We know it does not. We know it from the +police reports, and from the testimony of those who have +experience of prisons and prisoners, and we may know it, on the +occasion of an execution, by the evidence of our own senses; if +we will be at the misery of using them for such a purpose. +But why should it? Who would send his child or his +apprentice, or what tutor would send his scholars, or what master +would send his servants, to be deterred from vice by the +spectacle of an execution? If it be an example to +criminals, and to criminals only, why are not the prisoners in +Newgate brought out to see the show before the debtors’ +door? Why, while they are made parties to the condemned +sermon, are they rigidly excluded from the improving postscript +of the gallows? Because an execution is well known to be an +utterly useless, barbarous, and brutalising sight, and because +the sympathy of all beholders, who have any sympathy at all, is +certain to be always with the criminal, and never with the +law.</p> +<p>I learn from the newspaper accounts of every execution, how +Mr. So-and-so, and Mr. Somebody else, and Mr. So-forth shook +hands with the culprit, but I never find them shaking hands with +the hangman. All kinds of attention and consideration are +lavished on the one; but the other is universally avoided, like a +pestilence. I want to know why so much sympathy is expended +on the man who kills another in the vehemence of his own bad +passions, and why the man who kills him in the name of the law is +shunned and fled from? Is it because the murderer is going +to die? Then by no means put him to death. Is it +because the hangman executes a law, which, when they once come +near it face to face, all men instinctively revolt from? +Then by all means change it. There is, there can be, no +prevention in such a law.</p> +<p>It may be urged that Public Executions are not intended for +the benefit of those dregs of society who habitually attend +them. This is an absurdity, to which the obvious answer is, +So much the worse. If they be not considered with reference +to that class of persons, comprehending a great host of criminals +in various stages of development, they ought to be, and must +be. To lose sight of that consideration is to be +irrational, unjust, and cruel. All other punishments are +especially devised, with a reference to the rooted habits, +propensities, and antipathies of criminals. And shall it be +said, out of Bedlam, that this last punishment of all is alone to +be made an exception from the rule, even where it is shown to be +a means of propagating vice and crime?</p> +<p>But there may be people who do not attend executions, to whom +the general fame and rumour of such scenes is an example, and a +means of deterring from crime.</p> +<p>Who are they? We have seen that around Capital +Punishment there lingers a fascination, urging weak and bad +people towards it, and imparting an interest to details connected +with it, and with malefactors awaiting it or suffering it, which +even good and well-disposed people cannot withstand. We +know that last-dying speeches and Newgate calendars are the +favourite literature of very low intellects. The gallows is +not appealed to as an example in the instruction of youth (unless +they are training for it); nor are there condensed accounts of +celebrated executions for the use of national schools. +There is a story in an old spelling-book of a certain Don’t +Care who was hanged at last, but it is not understood to have had +any remarkable effect on crimes or executions in the generation +to which it belonged, and with which it has passed away. +Hogarth’s idle apprentice is hanged; but the whole +scene—with the unmistakable stout lady, drunk and pious, in +the cast; the quarrelling, blasphemy, lewdness, and uproar; Tiddy +Doll vending his gingerbread, and the boys picking his +pocket—is a bitter satire on the great example; as +efficient then, as now.</p> +<p>Is it efficient to prevent crime? The parliamentary +returns demonstrate that it is not. I was engaged in making +some extracts from these documents, when I found them so well +abstracted in one of the papers published by the committee on +this subject established at Aylesbury last year, by the humane +exertions of Lord Nugent, that I am glad to quote the general +results from its pages:</p> +<blockquote><p>“In 1843 a return was laid on the table of +the House of the commitments and executions for murder in England +and Wales during the thirty years ending with December 1842, +divided into five periods of six years each. It shows that +in the last six years, from 1836 to 1842, during which there were +only 50 executions, the commitments for murder were fewer by 61 +than in the six years preceding with 74 executions; fewer by 63 +than in the six years ending 1830 with 75 executions; fewer by 56 +than in the six years ending 1824 with 94 executions; and fewer +by 93 than in the six years ending 1818 when there was no less a +number of executions than 122. But it may be said, perhaps, +that in the inference we draw from this return, we are +substituting cause for effect, and that in each successive cycle, +the number of murders decreased in consequence of the example of +public executions in the cycle immediately preceding, and that it +was for that reason there were fewer commitments. This +might be said with some colour of truth, if the example had been +taken from two successive cycles <i>only</i>. But when the +comparative examples adduced are of no less than <i>five</i> +successive cycles, and the result gradually and constantly +progressive in the same direction, the relation of facts to each +other is determined beyond all ground for dispute, namely, that +the number of these crimes has diminished in consequence of the +diminution of the number of executions. More especially +when it is also remembered that it was <i>immediately after</i> +the first of these cycles of five years, when there had been the +greatest number of executions and the greatest number of murders, +that the greatest number of persons were suddenly cast loose upon +the country, without employ, by the reduction of the Army and +Navy; that then came periods of great distress and great +disturbance in the agricultural and manufacturing districts; and +<i>above all</i>, that it was during the subsequent cycles that +the most important mitigations were effected in the law, and that +the Punishment of Death was taken away not only for crimes of +stealth, such as cattle and horse stealing and forgery, of which +crimes corresponding statistics show likewise a corresponding +decrease, but for the crimes of violence too, <i>tending to +murder</i>, such as are many of the incendiary offences, and such +as are highway robbery and burglary. But another return, +laid before the House at the same time, bears upon our argument, +if possible, still more conclusively. In table 11 we have +<i>only</i> the years which have occurred since 1810, in which +<i>all</i> persons convicted of murder suffered death; and, +compared with these an <i>equal</i> number of years in which the +<i>smallest</i> proportion of persons convicted were +executed. In the first case there were 66 persons +convicted, all of whom underwent the penalty of death; in the +second 83 were convicted, of whom 31 only were executed. +Now see how these two very different methods of dealing with the +crime of murder affected the commission of it <i>in the years +immediately following</i>. The number of commitments for +murder, in the four years immediately following those in which +all persons convicted were executed, was 270.</p> +<p>“In the four years immediately following those in which +little more than one-third of the persons convicted were +executed, there were but 222, being 48 less. If we compare +the commitments in the following years with those in the first +years, we shall find that, immediately after the examples of +unsparing execution, the crime <i>increased nearly 13 per +cent.</i>, and that after commutation was the practice and +capital punishment the exception, it <i>decreased 17 per +cent.</i></p> +<p>“In the same parliamentary return is an account of the +commitments and executions in London and Middlesex, <i>spread +over a space of</i> 32 <i>years</i>, ending in 1842, divided into +two cycles of 16 years each. In the first of these, 34 +persons were <i>convicted</i> of murder, <i>all of whom were +executed</i>. In the second, 27 were <i>convicted</i>, and +only 17 executed. The <i>commitments</i> for murder during +the latter long period, with 17 executions, were <i>more than one +half</i> fewer than they had been in the former <i>long</i> +period with <i>exactly double the number of executions</i>. +This appears to us to be as conclusive upon our argument as any +statistical illustration can be upon any argument professing to +place successive events in the relation of cause and effect to +each other. How justly then is it said in that able and +useful periodical work, now in the course of publication at +Glasgow, under the name of the <i>Magazine of Popular Information +on Capital and Secondary Punishment</i>, ‘the greater the +number of executions, the greater the number of murders; the +smaller the number of executions, the smaller the number of +murders. The lives of her Majesty’s subjects are less +safe with a hundred executions a year than with fifty; less safe +with fifty than with twenty-five.’”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Similar results have followed from rendering public executions +more and more infrequent, in Tuscany, in Prussia, in France, in +Belgium. Wherever capital punishments are diminished in +their number, there, crimes diminish in their number too.</p> +<p>But the very same advocates of the punishment of Death who +contend, in the teeth of all facts and figures, that it does +prevent crime, contend in the same breath against its abolition +because it does not! “There are so many bad +murders,” say they, “and they follow in such quick +succession, that the Punishment must not be +repealed.” Why, is not this a reason, among others, +<i>for</i> repealing it? Does it not go to show that it is +ineffective as an example; that it fails to prevent crime; and +that it is wholly inefficient to stay that imitation, or +contagion, call it what you please, which brings one murder on +the heels of another?</p> +<p>One forgery came crowding on another’s heels in the same +way, when the same punishment attached to that crime. Since +it has been removed, forgeries have diminished in a most +remarkable degree. Yet within five and thirty years, Lord +Eldon, with tearful solemnity, imagined in the House of Lords as +a possibility for their Lordships to shudder at, that the time +might come when some visionary and morbid person might even +propose the abolition of the punishment of Death for +forgery. And when it was proposed, Lords Lyndhurst, +Wynford, Tenterden, and Eldon—all Law Lords—opposed +it.</p> +<p>The same Lord Tenterden manfully said, on another occasion and +another question, that he was glad the subject of the amendment +of the laws had been taken up by Mr. Peel, “who had not +been bred to the law; for those who were, were rendered dull, by +habit, to many of its defects!” I would respectfully +submit, in extension of this text, that a criminal judge is an +excellent witness against the Punishment of Death, but a bad +witness in its favour; and I will reserve this point for a few +remarks in the next, concluding, Letter.</p> +<h3>III</h3> +<p>The last English Judge, I believe, who gave expression to a +public and judicial opinion in favour of the punishment of Death, +is Mr. Justice Coleridge, who, in charging the Grand Jury at +Hertford last year, took occasion to lament the presence of +serious crimes in the calendar, and to say that he feared that +they were referable to the comparative infrequency of Capital +Punishment.</p> +<p>It is not incompatible with the utmost deference and respect +for an authority so eminent, to say that, in this, Mr. Justice +Coleridge was not supported by facts, but quite the +reverse. He went out of his way to found a general +assumption on certain very limited and partial grounds, and even +on those grounds was wrong. For among the few crimes which +he instanced, murder stood prominently forth. Now persons +found guilty of murder are more certainly and unsparingly hanged +at this time, as the Parliamentary Returns demonstrate, than such +criminals ever were. So how can the decline of public +executions affect that class of crimes? As to persons +committing murder, and yet not found guilty of it by juries, they +escape solely because there are many public executions—not +because there are none or few.</p> +<p>But when I submit that a criminal judge is an excellent +witness against Capital Punishment, but a bad witness in its +favour, I do so on more broad and general grounds than apply to +this error in fact and deduction (so I presume to consider it) on +the part of the distinguished judge in question. And they +are grounds which do not apply offensively to judges, as a class; +than whom there are no authorities in England so deserving of +general respect and confidence, or so possessed of it; but which +apply alike to all men in their several degrees and pursuits.</p> +<p>It is certain that men contract a general liking for those +things which they have studied at great cost of time and +intellect, and their proficiency in which has led to their +becoming distinguished and successful. It is certain that +out of this feeling arises, not only that passive blindness to +their defects of which the example given by my Lord Tenterden was +quoted in the last letter, but an active disposition to advocate +and defend them. If it were otherwise; if it were not for +this spirit of interest and partisanship; no single pursuit could +have that attraction for its votaries which most pursuits in +course of time establish. Thus legal authorities are +usually jealous of innovations on legal principles. Thus it +is described of the lawyer in the Introductory Discourse to the +Description of Utopia, that he said of a proposal against Capital +Punishment, “‘this could never be so established in +England but that it must needs bring the weal-public into great +jeopardy and hazard’, and as he was thus saying, he shaked +his head, and made a wry mouth, and so he held his +peace”. Thus the Recorder of London, in 1811, +objected to “the capital part being taken off” from +the offence of picking pockets. Thus the Lord Chancellor, +in 1813, objected to the removal of the penalty of death from the +offence of stealing to the amount of five shillings from a +shop. Thus, Lord Ellenborough, in 1820, anticipated the +worst effects from there being no punishment of death for +stealing five shillings worth of wet linen from a bleaching +ground. Thus the Solicitor General, in 1830, advocated the +punishment of death for forgery, and “the satisfaction of +thinking” in the teeth of mountains of evidence from +bankers and other injured parties (one thousand bankers alone!) +“that he was deterring persons from the commission of +crime, by the severity of the law”. Thus, Mr. Justice +Coleridge delivered his charge at Hertford in 1845. Thus +there were in the criminal code of England, in 1790, one hundred +and sixty crimes punishable with death. Thus the lawyer has +said, again and again, in his generation, that any change in such +a state of things “must needs bring the weal-public into +jeopardy and hazard”. And thus he has, all through +the dismal history, “shaked his head, and made a wry mouth, +and held his peace”. Except—a glorious +exception!—when such lawyers as Bacon, More, Blackstone, +Romilly, and—let us ever gratefully remember—in later +times Mr. Basil Montagu, have striven, each in his day, within +the utmost limits of the endurance of the mistaken feeling of the +people or the legislature of the time, to champion and maintain +the truth.</p> +<p>There is another and a stronger reason still, why a criminal +judge is a bad witness in favour of the punishment of +Death. He is a chief actor in the terrible drama of a +trial, where the life or death of a fellow creature is at +issue. No one who has seen such a trial can fail to know, +or can ever forget, its intense interest. I care not how +painful this interest is to the good, wise judge upon the +bench. I admit its painful nature, and the judge’s +goodness and wisdom to the fullest extent—but I submit that +his prominent share in the excitement of such a trial, and the +dread mystery involved, has a tendency to bewilder and confuse +the judge upon the general subject of that penalty. I know +the solemn pause before the verdict, the bush and stifling of the +fever in the court, the solitary figure brought back to the bar, +and standing there, observed of all the outstretched heads and +gleaming eyes, to be next minute stricken dead as one may say, +among them. I know the thrill that goes round when the +black cap is put on, and how there will be shrieks among the +women, and a taking out of some one in a swoon; and, when the +judge’s faltering voice delivers sentence, how awfully the +prisoner and he confront each other; two mere men, destined one +day, however far removed from one another at this time, to stand +alike as suppliants at the bar of God. I know all this, I +can imagine what the office of the judge costs in this execution +of it; but I say that in these strong sensations he is lost, and +is unable to abstract the penalty as a preventive or example, +from an experience of it, and from associations surrounding it, +which are and can be, only his, and his alone.</p> +<p>Not to contend that there is no amount of wig or ermine that +can change the nature of the man inside; not to say that the +nature of a judge may be, like the dyer’s hand, subdued to +what it works in, and may become too used to this punishment of +death to consider it quite dispassionately; not to say that it +may possibly be inconsistent to have, deciding as calm +authorities in favour of death, judges who have been constantly +sentencing to death;—I contend that for the reasons I have +stated alone, a judge, and especially a criminal judge, is a bad +witness for the punishment but an excellent witness against it, +inasmuch as in the latter case his conviction of its inutility +has been so strong and paramount as utterly to beat down and +conquer these adverse incidents. I have no scruple in +stating this position, because, for anything I know, the majority +of excellent judges now on the bench may have overcome them, and +may be opposed to the punishment of Death under any +circumstances.</p> +<p>I mentioned that I would devote a portion of this letter to a +few prominent illustrations of each head of objection to the +punishment of Death. Those on record are so very numerous +that selection is extremely difficult; but in reference to the +possibility of mistake, and the impossibility of reparation, one +case is as good (I should rather say as bad) as a hundred; and if +there were none but Eliza Fenning’s, that would be +sufficient. Nay, if there were none at all, it would be +enough to sustain this objection, that men of finite and limited +judgment do inflict, on testimony which admits of doubt, an +infinite and irreparable punishment. But there are on +record numerous instances of mistake; many of them very generally +known and immediately recognisable in the following summary, +which I copy from the <i>New York Report</i> already referred +to.</p> +<blockquote><p>“There have been cases in which groans have +been heard in the apartment of the crime, which have attracted +the steps of those on whose testimony the case has +turned—when, on proceeding to the spot, they have found a +man bending over the murdered body, a lantern in the left hand, +and the knife yet dripping with the warm current in the +blood-stained right, with horror-stricken countenance, and lips +which, in the presence of the dead, seem to refuse to deny the +crime in the very act of which he is thus surprised—and yet +the man has been, many years after, when his memory alone could +be benefited by the discovery, ascertained not to have been the +real murderer! There have been cases in which, in a house +in which were two persons alone, a murder has been committed on +one of them—when many additional circumstances have +fastened the imputation upon the other—and when, all +apparent modes of access from without, being closed inward, the +demonstration has seemed complete of the guilt for which that +other has suffered the doom of the law—yet suffered +<i>innocently</i>! There have been cases in which a father +has been found murdered in an outhouse, the only person at home +being a son, sworn by a sister to have been dissolute and +undutiful, and anxious for the death of the father, and +succession to the family property—when the track of his +shoes in the snow is found from the house to the spot of the +murder, and the hammer with which it was committed (known as his +own), found, on a search, in the corner of one of his private +drawers, with the bloody evidence of the deed only imperfectly +effaced from it—and yet the son has been +innocent!—the sister, years after, on her death-bed, +confessing herself the fratricide as well as the parricide. +There have been cases in which men have been hung on the most +positive testimony to identity (aided by many suspicious +circumstances), by persons familiar with their appearance, which +have afterwards proved grievous mistakes, growing out of +remarkable personal resemblance. There have been cases in +which two men have been seen fighting in a field—an old +enmity existing between them—the one found dead, killed by +a stab from a pitchfork known as belonging to the other, and +which that other had been carrying, the pitch-fork lying by the +side of the murdered man—and yet its owner has been +afterwards found not to have been the author of the murder of +which it had been the instrument, the true murderer sitting on +the jury that tried him. There have been cases in which an +innkeeper has been charged by one of his servants with the murder +of a traveller, the servant deposing to having seen his master on +the stranger’s bed, strangling him, and afterwards rifling +his pockets—another servant deposing that she saw him come +down at that time at a very early hour in the morning, steal into +the garden, take gold from his pocket, and carefully wrapping it +up bury it in a designated spot—on the search of which the +ground is found loose and freshly dug, and a sum of thirty pounds +in gold found buried according to the description—the +master, who confessed the burying of the money, with many +evidences of guilt in his hesitation and confusion, has been hung +of course, and proved innocent only too late. There have +been cases in which a traveller has been robbed on the highway of +twenty guineas, which he had taken the precaution to +mark—one of these is found to have been paid away or +changed by one of the servants of the inn which the traveller +reaches the same evening—the servant is about the height of +the robber, who had been cloaked and disguised—his master +deposes to his having been recently unaccountably extravagant and +flush of gold—and on his trunk being searched the other +nineteen marked guineas and the traveller’s purse are found +there, the servant being asleep at the time, half-drunk—he +is of course convicted and hung, for the crime of which his +master was the author! There have been cases in which a +father and daughter have been overheard in violent +dispute—the words “<i>barbarity</i>”, +“<i>cruelly</i>”, and “<i>death</i>”, +being heard frequently to proceed from the latter—the +former goes out locking the door behind him—groans are +overheard, and the words, “<i>cruel father</i>, <i>thou art +the cause of my death</i>!”—on the room being opened +she is found on the point of death from a wound in her side, and +near her the knife with which it had been inflicted—and on +being questioned as to her owing her death to her father, her +last motion before expiring is an expression of assent—the +father, on returning to the room, exhibits the usual evidences of +guilt—he, too, is of course hung—and it is not till +nearly a year afterwards that, on the discovery of conclusive +evidence that it was a suicide, the vain reparation is made, to +his memory by the public authorities, of—waving a pair of +colours over his grave in token of the recognition of his +innocence.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>More than a hundred such cases are known, it is said in this +Report, in English criminal jurisprudence. The same Report +contains three striking cases of supposed criminals being +unjustly hanged in America; and also five more in which people +whose innocence was not afterwards established were put to death +on evidence as purely circumstantial and as doubtful, to say the +least of it, as any that was held to be sufficient in this +general summary of legal murders. Mr. O’Connell +defended, in Ireland, within five and twenty years, three +brothers who were hanged for a murder of which they were +afterwards shown to have been innocent. I cannot find the +reference at this moment, but I have seen it stated on good +authority, that but for the exertions, I think of the present +Lord Chief Baron, six or seven innocent men would certainly have +been hanged. Such are the instances of wrong judgment which +are known to us. How many more there may be in which the +real murderers never disclosed their guilt, or were never +discovered, and where the odium of great crimes still rests on +guiltless people long since resolved to dust in their untimely +graves, no human power can tell.</p> +<p>The effect of public executions on those who witness them, +requires no better illustration, and can have none, than the +scene which any execution in itself presents, and the general +Police-office knowledge of the offences arising out of +them. I have stated my belief that the study of rude scenes +leads to the disregard of human life, and to murder. +Referring, since that expression of opinion, to the very last +trial for murder in London, I have made inquiry, and am assured +that the youth now under sentence of death in Newgate for the +murder of his master in Drury Lane, was a vigilant spectator of +the three last public executions in this City. What effects +a daily increasing familiarity with the scaffold, and with death +upon it, wrought in France in the Great Revolution, everybody +knows. In reference to this very question of Capital +Punishment, Robespierre himself, before he was</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">“in blood stept +in so far”,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>warned the National Assembly that in taking human life, and in +displaying before the eyes of the people scenes of cruelty and +the bodies of murdered men, the law awakened ferocious +prejudices, which gave birth to a long and growing train of their +own kind. With how much reason this was said, let his own +detestable name bear witness! If we would know how callous +and hardened society, even in a peaceful and settled state, +becomes to public executions when they are frequent, let us +recollect how few they were who made the last attempt to stay the +dreadful Monday-morning spectacles of men and women strung up in +a row for crimes as different in their degree as our whole social +scheme is different in its component parts, which, within some +fifteen years or so, made human shambles of the Old Bailey.</p> +<p>There is no better way of testing the effect of public +executions on those who do not actually behold them, but who read +of them and know of them, than by inquiring into their efficiency +in preventing crime. In this respect they have always, and +in all countries, failed. According to all facts and +figures, failed. In Russia, in Spain, in France, in Italy, +in Belgium, in Sweden, in England, there has been one +result. In Bombay, during the Recordership of Sir James +Macintosh, there were fewer crimes in seven years without one +execution, than in the preceding seven years with forty-seven +executions; notwithstanding that in the seven years without +capital punishment, the population had greatly increased, and +there had been a large accession to the numbers of the ignorant +and licentious soldiery, with whom the more violent offences +originated. During the four wickedest years of the Bank of +England (from 1814 to 1817, inclusive), when the one-pound note +capital prosecutions were most numerous and shocking, the number +of forged one-pound notes discovered by the Bank steadily +increased, from the gross amount in the first year of +£10,342, to the gross amount in the last of +£28,412. But in every branch of this part of the +subject—the inefficiency of capital punishment to prevent +crime, and its efficiency to produce it—the body of +evidence (if there were space to quote or analyse it here) is +overpowering and resistless.</p> +<p>I have purposely deferred until now any reference to one +objection which is urged against the abolition of capital +punishment: I mean that objection which claims to rest on +Scriptural authority.</p> +<p>It was excellently well said by Lord Melbourne, that no class +of persons can be shown to be very miserable and oppressed, but +some supporters of things as they are will immediately rise up +and assert—not that those persons are moderately well to +do, or that their lot in life has a reasonably bright +side—but that they are, of all sorts and conditions of men, +the happiest. In like manner, when a certain proceeding or +institution is shown to be very wrong indeed, there is a class of +people who rush to the fountainhead at once, and will have no +less an authority for it than the Bible, on any terms.</p> +<p>So, we have the Bible appealed to in behalf of Capital +Punishment. So, we have the Bible produced as a distinct +authority for Slavery. So, American representatives find +the title of their country to the Oregon territory distinctly +laid down in the Book of Genesis. So, in course of time, we +shall find Repudiation, perhaps, expressly commanded in the +Sacred Writings.</p> +<p>It is enough for me to be satisfied, on calm inquiry and with +reason, that an Institution or Custom is wrong and bad; and +thence to feel assured that <span class="GutSmall">IT CANNOT +BE</span> a part of the law laid down by the Divinity who walked +the earth. Though every other man who wields a pen should +turn himself into a commentator on the Scriptures—not all +their united efforts, pursued through our united lives, could +ever persuade me that Slavery is a Christian law; nor, with one +of these objections to an execution in my certain knowledge, that +Executions are a Christian law, my will is not concerned. I +could not, in my veneration for the life and lessons of Our Lord, +believe it. If any text appeared to justify the claim, I +would reject that limited appeal, and rest upon the character of +the Redeemer, and the great scheme of His Religion, where, in its +broad spirit, made so plain—and not this or that disputed +letter—we all put our trust. But, happily, such +doubts do not exist. The case is far too plain. The +Rev. Henry Christmas, in a recent pamphlet on this subject, shows +clearly that in five important versions of the Old Testament (to +say nothing of versions of less note) the words, “by +man”, in the often-quoted text, “Whoso sheddeth +man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed”, do not +appear at all. We know that the law of Moses was delivered +to certain wandering tribes in a peculiar and perfectly different +social condition from that which prevails among us at this +time. We know that the Christian Dispensation did +distinctly repeal and annul certain portions of that law. +We know that the doctrine of retributive justice or vengeance, +was plainly disavowed by the Saviour. We know that on the +only occasion of an offender, liable by the law to death, being +brought before Him for His judgment, it was <i>not</i> +death. We know that He said, “Thou shalt not +kill”. And if we are still to inflict capital +punishment because of the Mosaic law (under which it was not the +consequence of a legal proceeding, but an act of vengeance from +the next of kin, which would surely be discouraged by our later +laws if it were revived among the Jews just now) it would be +equally reasonable to establish the lawfulness of a plurality of +wives on the same authority.</p> +<p>Here I will leave this aspect of the question. I should +not have treated of it at all in the columns of a newspaper, but +for the possibility of being unjustly supposed to have given it +no consideration in my own mind.</p> +<p>In bringing to a close these letters on a subject, in +connection with which there is happily very little that is new to +be said or written, I beg to be understood as advocating the +total abolition of the Punishment of Death, as a general +principle, for the advantage of society, for the prevention of +crime, and without the least reference to, or tenderness for any +individual malefactor whomsoever. Indeed, in most cases of +murder, my feeling towards the culprit is very strongly and +violently the reverse. I am the more desirous to be so +understood, after reading a speech made by Mr. Macaulay in the +House of Commons last Tuesday night, in which that accomplished +gentleman hardly seemed to recognise the possibility of anybody +entertaining an honest conviction of the inutility and bad +effects of Capital Punishment in the abstract, founded on inquiry +and reflection, without being the victim of “a kind of +effeminate feeling”. Without staying to inquire what +there may be that is especially manly and heroic in the advocacy +of the gallows, or to express my admiration of Mr. Calcraft, the +hangman, as doubtless one of the most manly specimens now in +existence, I would simply hint a doubt, in all good humour, +whether this be the true Macaulay way of meeting a great +question? One of the instances of effeminacy of feeling +quoted by Mr. Macaulay, I have reason to think was not quite +fairly stated. I allude to the petition in Tawell’s +case. I had neither hand nor part in it myself; but, unless +I am greatly mistaken, it did pretty clearly set forth that +Tawell was a most abhorred villain, and that the House might +conclude how strongly the petitioners were opposed to the +Punishment of Death, when they prayed for its non-infliction even +in such a case.</p> +<h2><a name="page560"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 560</span>THE +SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY IN WESTMINSTER HALL</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Of</span> all the cants that are +canted in this canting world,” wrote Sterne, “kind +Heaven defend me from the cant of Art!” We have no +intention of tapping our little cask of cant, soured by the +thunder of great men’s fame, for the refreshment of our +readers: its freest draught would be unreasonably dear at a +shilling, when the same small liquor may be had for nothing, at +innumerable ready pipes and conduits.</p> +<p>But it is a main part of the design of this Magazine to +sympathise with what is truly great and good; to scout the +miserable discouragements that beset, especially in England, the +upward path of men of high desert; and gladly to give honour +where it is due, in right of Something achieved, tending to +elevate the tastes and thoughts of all who contemplate it, and +prove a lasting credit to the country of its birth.</p> +<p>Upon the walls of Westminster Hall, there hangs, at this time, +such a Something. A composition of such marvellous beauty, +of such infinite variety, of such masterly design, of such +vigorous and skilful drawing, of such thought and fancy, of such +surprising and delicate accuracy of detail, subserving one grand +harmony, and one plain purpose, that it may be questioned whether +the Fine Arts in any period of their history have known a more +remarkable performance.</p> +<p>It is the cartoon of Daniel Maclise, “executed by order +of the Commissioners”, and called The Spirit of +Chivalry. It may be left an open question, whether or no +this allegorical order on the part of the Commissioners, displays +any uncommon felicity of idea. We rather think not; and are +free to confess that we should like to have seen the +Commissioners’ notion of the Spirit of Chivalry stated by +themselves, in the first instance, on a sheet of foolscap, as the +ground-plan of a model cartoon, with all the commissioned +proportions of height and breadth. That the treatment of +such an abstraction, for the purposes of Art, involves great and +peculiar difficulties, no one who considers the subject for a +moment can doubt. That nothing is easier to render it +absurd and monstrous, is a position as little capable of dispute +by anybody who has beheld another cartoon on the same subject in +the same Hall, representing a Ghoule in a state of raving +madness, dancing on a Body in a very high wind, to the great +astonishment of John the Baptist’s head, which is looking +on from a corner.</p> +<p>Mr. Maclise’s handling of the subject has by this time +sunk into the hearts of thousands upon thousands of people. +It is familiar knowledge among all classes and conditions of +men. It is the great feature within the Hall, and the +constant topic of discourse elsewhere. It has awakened in +the great body of society a new interest in, and a new perception +and a new love of, Art. Students of Art have sat before it, +hour by hour, perusing in its many forms of Beauty, lessons to +delight the world, and raise themselves, its future teachers, in +its better estimation. Eyes well accustomed to the glories +of the Vatican, the galleries of Florence, all the mightiest +works of art in Europe, have grown dim before it with the strong +emotions it inspires; ignorant, unlettered, drudging men, mere +hewers and drawers, have gathered in a knot about it (as at our +back a week ago), and read it, in their homely language, as it +were a Book. In minds, the roughest and the most refined, +it has alike found quick response; and will, and must, so long as +it shall hold together.</p> +<p>For how can it be otherwise? Look up, upon the pressing +throng who strive to win distinction from the Guardian Genius of +all noble deeds and honourable renown,—a gentle Spirit, +holding her fair state for their reward and recognition (do not +be alarmed, my Lord Chamberlain; this is only in a picture); and +say what young and ardent heart may not find one to beat in +unison with it—beat high with generous aspiration like its +own—in following their onward course, as it is traced by +this great pencil! Is it the Love of Woman, in its truth +and deep devotion, that inspires you? See it here! Is +it Glory, as the world has learned to call the pomp and +circumstance of arms? Behold it at the summit of its +exaltation, with its mailed hand resting on the altar where the +Spirit ministers. The Poet’s laurel-crown, which they +who sit on thrones can neither twine or wither—is +<i>that</i> the aim of thy ambition? It is there, upon his +brow; it wreathes his stately forehead, as he walks apart and +holds communion with himself. The Palmer and the Bard are +there; no solitary wayfarers, now; but two of a great company of +pilgrims, climbing up to honour by the different paths that lead +to the great end. And sure, amidst the gravity and beauty +of them all—unseen in his own form, but shining in his +spirit, out of every gallant shape and earnest thought—the +Painter goes triumphant!</p> +<p>Or say that you who look upon this work, be old, and bring to +it grey hairs, a head bowed down, a mind on which the day of life +has spent itself, and the calm evening closes gently in. Is +its appeal to you confined to its presentment of the Past? +Have you no share in this, but while the grace of youth and the +strong resolve of maturity are yours to aid you? Look up +again. Look up where the spirit is enthroned, and see about +her, reverend men, whose task is done; whose struggle is no more; +who cluster round her as her train and council; who have lost no +share or interest in that great rising up and progress, which +bears upward with it every means of human happiness, but, true in +Autumn to the purposes of Spring, are there to stimulate the race +who follow in their steps; to contemplate, with hearts grown +serious, not cold or sad, the striving in which they once had +part; to die in that great Presence, which is Truth and Bravery, +and Mercy to the Weak, beyond all power of separation.</p> +<p>It would be idle to observe of this last group that, both in +execution and idea, they are of the very highest order of Art, +and wonderfully serve the purpose of the picture. There is +not one among its three-and-twenty heads of which the same remark +might not be made. Neither will we treat of great effects +produced by means quite powerless in other hands for such an end, +or of the prodigious force and <i>colour</i> which so separate +this work from all the rest exhibited, that it would scarcely +appear to be produced upon the same kind of surface by the same +description of instrument. The bricks and stones and +timbers of the Hall itself are not facts more indisputable than +these.</p> +<p>It has been objected to this extraordinary work that it is too +elaborately finished; too complete in its several parts. +And Heaven knows, if it be judged in this respect by any standard +in the Hall about it, it will find no parallel, nor anything +approaching to it. But it is a design, intended to be +afterwards copied and painted in fresco; and certain finish must +be had at last, if not at first. It is very well to take it +for granted in a Cartoon that a series of cross-lines, almost as +rough and apart as the lattice-work of a garden summerhouse, +represents the texture of a human face; but the face cannot be +<i>painted</i> so. A smear upon the paper may be +understood, by virtue of the context gained from what surrounds +it, to stand for a limb, or a body, or a cuirass, or a hat and +feathers, or a flag, or a boot, or an angel. But when the +time arrives for rendering these things in colours on a wall, +they must be grappled with, and cannot be slurred over in this +wise. Great misapprehension on this head seems to have been +engendered in the minds of some observers by the famous cartoons +of Raphael; but they forget that these were never intended as +designs for fresco painting. They were designs for +tapestry-work, which is susceptible of only certain broad and +general effects, as no one better knew than the Great +Master. Utterly detestable and vile as the tapestry is, +compared with the immortal Cartoons from which it was worked, it +is impossible for any man who casts his eyes upon it where it +hangs at Rome, not to see immediately the special adaptation of +the drawings to that end, and for that purpose. The aim of +these Cartoons being wholly different, Mr. Maclise’s +object, if we understand it, was to show precisely what he meant +to do, and knew he could perform, in fresco, on a wall. And +here his meaning is; worked out; without a compromise of any +difficulty; without the avoidance of any disconcerting truth; +expressed in all its beauty, strength, and power.</p> +<p>To what end? To be perpetuated hereafter in the high +place of the chief Senate-House of England? To be wrought, +as it were, into the very elements of which that Temple is +composed; to co-endure with it, and still present, perhaps, some +lingering traces of its ancient Beauty, when London shall have +sunk into a grave of grass-grown ruin,—and the whole circle +of the Arts, another revolution of the mighty wheel completed, +shall be wrecked and broken?</p> +<p>Let us hope so. We will contemplate no other +possibility—at present.</p> +<h2><a name="page564"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 564</span>IN +MEMORIAM<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">W. M. THACKERAY</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> has been desired by some of the +personal friends of the great English writer who established this +magazine, <a name="citation564"></a><a href="#footnote564" +class="citation">[564]</a> that its brief record of his having +been stricken from among men should be written by the old comrade +and brother in arms who pens these lines, and of whom he often +wrote himself, and always with the warmest generosity.</p> +<p>I saw him first nearly twenty-eight years ago, when he +proposed to become the illustrator of my earliest book. I +saw him last, shortly before Christmas, at the Athenæum +Club, when he told me that he had been in bed three +days—that, after these attacks, he was troubled with cold +shiverings, “which quite took the power of work out of +him”—and that he had it in his mind to try a new +remedy which he laughingly described. He was very cheerful, +and looked very bright. In the night of that day week, he +died.</p> +<p>The long interval between those two periods is marked in my +remembrance of him by many occasions when he was supremely +humorous, when he was irresistibly extravagant, when he was +softened and serious, when he was charming with children. +But, by none do I recall him more tenderly than by two or three +that start out of the crowd, when he unexpectedly presented +himself in my room, announcing how that some passage in a certain +book had made him cry yesterday, and how that he had come to +dinner, “because he couldn’t help it”, and must +talk such passage over. No one can ever have seen him more +genial, natural, cordial, fresh, and honestly impulsive, than I +have seen him at those times. No one can be surer than I, +of the greatness and the goodness of the heart that then +disclosed itself.</p> +<p>We had our differences of opinion. I thought that he too +much feigned a want of earnestness, and that he made a pretence +of under-valuing his art, which was not good for the art that he +held in trust. But, when we fell upon these topics, it was +never very gravely, and I have a lively image of him in my mind, +twisting both his hands in his hair, and stamping about, +laughing, to make an end of the discussion.</p> +<p>When we were associated in remembrance of the late Mr. Douglas +Jerrold, he delivered a public lecture in London, in the course +of which, he read his very best contribution to Punch, describing +the grown-up cares of a poor family of young children. No +one hearing him could have doubted his natural gentleness, or his +thoroughly unaffected manly sympathy with the weak and +lowly. He read the paper most pathetically, and with a +simplicity of tenderness that certainly moved one of his audience +to tears. This was presently after his standing for Oxford, +from which place he had dispatched his agent to me, with a droll +note (to which he afterwards added a verbal postscript), urging +me to “come down and make a speech, and tell them who he +was, for he doubted whether more than two of the electors had +ever heard of him, and he thought there might be as many as six +or eight who had heard of me”. He introduced the +lecture just mentioned, with a reference to his late +electioneering failure, which was full of good sense, good +spirits, and good humour.</p> +<p>He had a particular delight in boys, and an excellent way with +them. I remember his once asking me with fantastic gravity, +when he had been to Eton where my eldest son then was, whether I +felt as he did in regard of never seeing a boy without wanting +instantly to give him a sovereign? I thought of this when I +looked down into his grave, after he was laid there, for I looked +down into it over the shoulder of a boy to whom he had been +kind.</p> +<p>These are slight remembrances; but it is to little familiar +things suggestive of the voice, look, manner, never, never more +to be encountered on this earth, that the mind first turns in a +bereavement. And greater things that are known of him, in +the way of his warm affections, his quiet endurance, his +unselfish thoughtfulness for others, and his munificent hand, may +not be told.</p> +<p>If, in the reckless vivacity of his youth, his satirical pen +had ever gone astray or done amiss, he had caused it to prefer +its own petition for forgiveness, long before:—</p> +<blockquote><p>I’ve writ the foolish fancy of his brain;<br +/> +The aimless jest that, striking, hath caused pain;<br /> +The idle word that he’d wish back again.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In no pages should I take it upon myself at this time to +discourse of his books, of his refined knowledge of character, of +his subtle acquaintance with the weaknesses of human nature, of +his delightful playfulness as an essayist, of his quaint and +touching ballads, of his mastery over the English language. +Least of all, in these pages, enriched by his brilliant qualities +from the first of the series, and beforehand accepted by the +Public through the strength of his great name.</p> +<p>But, on the table before me, there lies all that he had +written of his latest and last story. That it would be very +sad to any one—that it is inexpressibly so to a +writer—in its evidences of matured designs never to be +accomplished, of intentions begun to be executed and destined +never to be completed, of careful preparation for long roads of +thought that he was never to traverse, and for shining goals that +he was never to reach, will be readily believed. The pain, +however, that I have felt in perusing it, has not been deeper +than the conviction that he was in the healthiest vigour of his +powers when he wrought on this last labour. In respect of +earnest feeling, far-seeing purpose, character, incident, and a +certain loving picturesqueness blending the whole, I believe it +to be much the best of all his works. That he fully meant +it to be so, that he had become strongly attached to it, and that +he bestowed great pains upon it, I trace in almost every +page. It contains one picture which must have cost him +extreme distress, and which is a masterpiece. There are two +children in it, touched with a hand as loving and tender as ever +a father caressed his little child with. There is some +young love as pure and innocent and pretty as the truth. +And it is very remarkable that, by reason of the singular +construction of the story, more than one main incident usually +belonging to the end of such a fiction is anticipated in the +beginning, and thus there is an approach to completeness in the +fragment, as to the satisfaction of the reader’s mind +concerning the most interesting persons, which could hardly have +been better attained if the writer’s breaking-off had been +foreseen.</p> +<p>The last line he wrote, and the last proof he corrected, are +among these papers through which I have so sorrowfully made my +way. The condition of the little pages of manuscript where +Death stopped his hand, shows that he had carried them about, and +often taken them out of his pocket here and there, for patient +revision and interlineation. The last words he corrected in +print were, “And my heart throbbed with an exquisite +bliss”. <span class="smcap">God</span> grant that on +that Christmas Eve when he laid his head back on his pillow and +threw up his arms as he had been wont to do when very weary, some +consciousness of duty done and Christian hope throughout life +humbly cherished, may have caused his own heart so to throb, when +he passed away to his Redeemer’s rest!</p> +<p>He was found peacefully lying as above described, composed, +undisturbed, and to all appearance asleep, on the twenty-fourth +of December 1863. He was only in his fifty-third year; so +young a man that the mother who blessed him in his first sleep +blessed him in his last. Twenty years before, he had +written, after being in a white squall:</p> +<blockquote><p>And when, its force expended,<br /> +The harmless storm was ended,<br /> +And, as the sunrise splendid<br /> + Came blushing o’er the sea;<br /> +I thought, as day was breaking,<br /> +My little girls were waking,<br /> +And smiling, and making<br /> + A prayer at home for me.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Those little girls had grown to be women when the mournful day +broke that saw their father lying dead. In those twenty +years of companionship with him they had learned much from him; +and one of them has a literary course before her, worthy of her +famous name.</p> +<p>On the bright wintry day, the last but one of the old year, he +was laid in his grave at Kensal Green, there to mingle the dust +to which the mortal part of him had returned, with that of a +third child, lost in her infancy years ago. The heads of a +great concourse of his fellow-workers in the Arts were bowed +around his tomb.</p> +<h2><a name="page568"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +568</span>ADELAIDE ANNE PROCTER<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">INTRODUCTION TO HER “LEGENDS AND +LYRICS”</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the spring of the year 1853, I +observed, as conductor of the weekly journal <i>Household +Words</i>, a short poem among the proffered contributions, very +different, as I thought, from the shoal of verses perpetually +setting through the office of such a periodical, and possessing +much more merit. Its authoress was quite unknown to +me. She was one Miss Mary Berwick, whom I had never heard +of; and she was to be addressed by letter, if addressed at all, +at a circulating library in the western district of London. +Through this channel, Miss Berwick was informed that her poem was +accepted, and was invited to send another. She complied, +and became a regular and frequent contributor. Many letters +passed between the journal and Miss Berwick, but Miss Berwick +herself was never seen.</p> +<p>How we came gradually to establish, at the office of +<i>Household Words</i>, that we knew all about Miss Berwick, I +have never discovered. But we settled somehow, to our +complete satisfaction, that she was governess in a family; that +she went to Italy in that capacity, and returned; and that she +had long been in the same family. We really knew nothing +whatever of her, except that she was remarkably business-like, +punctual, self-reliant, and reliable: so I suppose we insensibly +invented the rest. For myself, my mother was not a more +real personage to me, than Miss Berwick the governess became.</p> +<p>This went on until December, 1854, when the Christmas number, +entitled <i>The Seven Poor Travellers</i>, was sent to +press. Happening to be going to dine that day with an old +and dear friend, distinguished in literature as Barry Cornwall, I +took with me an early proof of that number, and remarked, as I +laid it on the drawing-room table, that it contained a very +pretty poem, written by a certain Miss Berwick. Next day +brought me the disclosure that I had so spoken of the poem to the +mother of its writer, in its writer’s presence; that I had +no such correspondent in existence as Miss Berwick; and that the +name had been assumed by Barry Cornwall’s eldest daughter, +Miss Adelaide Anne Procter.</p> +<p>The anecdote I have here noted down, besides serving to +explain why the parents of the late Miss Procter have looked to +me for these poor words of remembrance of their lamented child, +strikingly illustrates the honesty, independence, and quiet +dignity, of the lady’s character. I had known her +when she was very young; I had been honoured with her +father’s friendship when I was myself a young aspirant; and +she had said at home, “If I send him, in my own name, +verses that he does not honestly like, either it will be very +painful to him to return them, or he will print them for +papa’s sake, and not for their own. So I have made up +my mind to take my chance fairly with the unknown +volunteers.”</p> +<p>Perhaps it requires an editor’s experience of the +profoundly unreasonable grounds on which he is often urged to +accept unsuitable articles—such as having been to school +with the writer’s husband’s brother-in-law, or having +lent an alpenstock in Switzerland to the writer’s +wife’s nephew, when that interesting stranger had broken +his own—fully to appreciate the delicacy and the +self-respect of this resolution.</p> +<p>Some verses by Miss Procter had been published in the <i>Book +of Beauty</i>, ten years before she became Miss Berwick. +With the exception of two poems in the <i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, +two in <i>Good Words</i>, and others in a little book called <i>A +Chaplet of Verses</i> (issued in 1862 for the benefit of a Night +Refuge), her published writings first appeared in <i>Household +Words</i>, or <i>All the Year Round</i>. The present +edition contains the whole of her <i>Legends and Lyrics</i>, and +originates in the great favour with which they have been received +by the public.</p> +<p>Miss Procter was born in Bedford Square, London, on the 30th +of October, 1825. Her love of poetry was conspicuous at so +early an age, that I have before me a tiny album made of small +note-paper, into which her favourite passages were copied for her +by her mother’s hand before she herself could write. +It looks as if she had carried it about, as another little girl +might have carried a doll. She soon displayed a remarkable +memory, and great quickness of apprehension. When she was +quite a young child, she learned with facility several of the +problems of Euclid. As she grew older, she acquired the +French, Italian, and German languages; became a clever pianoforte +player; and showed a true taste and sentiment in drawing. +But, as soon as she had completely vanquished the difficulties of +any one branch of study, it was her way to lose interest in it, +and pass to another. While her mental resources were being +trained, it was not at all suspected in her family that she had +any gift of authorship, or any ambition to become a writer. +Her father had no idea of her having ever attempted to turn a +rhyme, until her first little poem saw the light in print.</p> +<p>When she attained to womanhood, she had read an extraordinary +number of books, and throughout her life she was always largely +adding to the number. In 1853 she went to Turin and its +neighbourhood, on a visit to her aunt, a Roman Catholic +lady. As Miss Procter had herself professed the Roman +Catholic Faith two years before, she entered with the greater +ardour on the study of the Piedmontese dialect, and the +observation of the habits and manners of the peasantry. In +the former, she soon became a proficient. On the latter +head, I extract from her familiar letters written home to England +at the time, two pleasant pieces of description.</p> +<h3>A <span class="smcap">Betrothal</span></h3> +<p>“We have been to a ball, of which I must give you a +description. Last Tuesday we had just done dinner at about +seven, and stepped out into the balcony to look at the remains of +the sunset behind the mountains, when we heard very distinctly a +band of music, which rather excited my astonishment, as a +solitary organ is the utmost that toils up here. I went out +of the room for a few minutes, and, on my returning, Emily said, +‘Oh! That band is playing at the farmer’s near +here. The daughter is <i>fiancée</i> to-day, and +they have a ball.’ I said, ‘I wish I was +going!’ ‘Well,’ replied she, ‘the +farmer’s wife did call to invite us.’ +‘Then I shall certainly go,’ I exclaimed. I +applied to Madame B., who said she would like it very much, and +we had better go, children and all. Some of the servants +were already gone. We rushed away to put on some shawls, +and put off any shred of black we might have about us (as the +people would have been quite annoyed if we had appeared on such +an occasion with any black), and we started. When we +reached the farmer’s, which is a stone’s throw above +our house, we were received with great enthusiasm; the only +drawback being, that no one spoke French, and we did not yet +speak Piedmontese. We were placed on a bench against the +wall, and the people went on dancing. The room was a large +whitewashed kitchen (I suppose), with several large pictures in +black frames, and very smoky. I distinguished the Martyrdom +of Saint Sebastian, and the others appeared equally lively and +appropriate subjects. Whether they were Old Masters or not, +and if so, by whom, I could not ascertain. The band were +seated opposite us. Five men, with wind instruments, part +of the band of the National Guard, to which the farmer’s +sons belong. They played really admirably, and I began to +be afraid that some idea of our dignity would prevent me getting +a partner; so, by Madame B.’s advice, I went up to the +bride, and offered to dance with her. Such a handsome young +woman! Like one of Uwins’s pictures. Very dark, +with a quantity of black hair, and on an immense scale. The +children were already dancing, as well as the maids. After +we came to an end of our dance, which was what they called a +Polka-Mazourka, I saw the bride trying to screw up the courage of +her <i>fiancé</i> to ask me to dance, which after a little +hesitation he did. And admirably he danced, as indeed they +all did—in excellent time, and with a little more spirit +than one sees in a ball-room. In fact, they were very like +one’s ordinary partners, except that they wore earrings and +were in their shirt-sleeves, and truth compels me to state that +they decidedly smelt of garlic. Some of them had been +smoking, but threw away their cigars when we came in. The +only thing that did not look cheerful was, that the room was only +lighted by two or three oil-lamps, and that there seemed to be no +preparation for refreshments. Madame B., seeing this, +whispered to her maid, who disengaged herself from her partner, +and ran off to the house; she and the kitchenmaid presently +returning with a large tray covered with all kinds of cakes (of +which we are great consumers and always have a stock), and a +large hamper full of bottles of wine, with coffee and +sugar. This seemed all very acceptable. The +<i>fiancée</i> was requested to distribute the eatables, +and a bucket of water being produced to wash the glasses in, the +wine disappeared very quickly—as fast as they could open +the bottles. But, elated, I suppose, by this, the floor was +sprinkled with water, and the musicians played a Monferrino, +which is a Piedmontese dance. Madame B. danced with the +farmer’s son, and Emily with another distinguished member +of the company. It was very fatiguing—something like +a Scotch reel. My partner was a little man, like Perrot, +and very proud of his dancing. He cut in the air and +twisted about, until I was out of breath, though my attempts to +imitate him were feeble in the extreme. At last, after +seven or eight dances, I was obliged to sit down. We stayed +till nine, and I was so dead beat with the heat that I could +hardly crawl about the house, and in an agony with the cramp, it +is so long since I have danced.”</p> +<h3>A <span class="smcap">Marriage</span></h3> +<p>“The wedding of the farmer’s daughter has taken +place. We had hoped it would have been in the little chapel +of our house, but it seems some special permission was necessary, +and they applied for it too late. They all said, +“This is the Constitution. There would have been no +difficulty before!” the lower classes making the poor +Constitution the scapegoat for everything they don’t +like. So as it was impossible for us to climb up to the +church where the wedding was to be, we contented ourselves with +seeing the procession pass. It was not a very large one, +for, it requiring some activity to go up, all the old people +remained at home. It is not etiquette for the bride’s +mother to go, and no unmarried woman can go to a wedding—I +suppose for fear of its making her discontented with her own +position. The procession stopped at our door, for the bride +to receive our congratulations. She was dressed in a shot +silk, with a yellow handkerchief, and rows of a large gold +chain. In the afternoon they sent to request us to go +there. On our arrival we found them dancing out of doors, +and a most melancholy affair it was. All the bride’s +sisters were not to be recognised, they had cried so. The +mother sat in the house, and could not appear. And the +bride was sobbing so, she could hardly stand! The most +melancholy spectacle of all to my mind was, that the bridegroom +was decidedly tipsy. He seemed rather affronted at all the +distress. We danced a Monferrino; I with the bridegroom; +and the bride crying the whole time. The company did their +utmost to enliven her by firing pistols, but without success, and +at last they began a series of yells, which reminded me of a set +of savages. But even this delicate method of consolation +failed, and the wishing good-bye began. It was altogether +so melancholy an affair that Madame B. dropped a few tears, and I +was very near it, particularly when the poor mother came out to +see the last of her daughter, who was finally dragged off between +her brother and uncle, with a last explosion of pistols. As +she lives quite near, makes an excellent match, and is one of +nine children, it really was a most desirable marriage, in spite +of all the show of distress. Albert was so discomfited by +it, that he forgot to kiss the bride as he had intended to do, +and therefore went to call upon her yesterday, and found her very +smiling in her new house, and supplied the omission. The +cook came home from the wedding, declaring she was cured of any +wish to marry—but I would not recommend any man to act upon +that threat and make her an offer. In a couple of days we +had some rolls of the bride’s first baking, which they call +Madonnas. The musicians, it seems, were in the same state +as the bridegroom, for, in escorting her home, they all fell down +in the mud. My wrath against the bridegroom is somewhat +calmed by finding that it is considered bad luck if he does not +get tipsy at his wedding.”</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Those readers of Miss Procter’s poems who should suppose +from their tone that her mind was of a gloomy or despondent cast, +would be curiously mistaken. She was exceedingly humorous, +and had a great delight in humour. Cheerfulness was +habitual with her, she was very ready at a sally or a reply, and +in her laugh (as I remember well) there was an unusual vivacity, +enjoyment, and sense of drollery. She was perfectly +unconstrained and unaffected: as modestly silent about her +productions, as she was generous with their pecuniary +results. She was a friend who inspired the strongest +attachments; she was a finely sympathetic woman, with a great +accordant heart and a sterling noble nature. No claim can +be set up for her, thank God, to the possession of any of the +conventional poetical qualities. She never by any means +held the opinion that she was among the greatest of human beings; +she never suspected the existence of a conspiracy on the part of +mankind against her; she never recognised in her best friends, +her worst enemies; she never cultivated the luxury of being +misunderstood and unappreciated; she would far rather have died +without seeing a line of her composition in print, than that I +should have maundered about her, here, as “the Poet”, +or “the Poetess”.</p> +<p>With the recollection of Miss Procter as a mere child and as a +woman, fresh upon me, it is natural that I should linger on my +way to the close of this brief record, avoiding its end. +But, even as the close came upon her, so must it come here.</p> +<p>Always impelled by an intense conviction that her life must +not be dreamed away, and that her indulgence in her favourite +pursuits must be balanced by action in the real world around her, +she was indefatigable in her endeavours to do some good. +Naturally enthusiastic, and conscientiously impressed with a deep +sense of her Christian duty to her neighbour, she devoted herself +to a variety of benevolent objects. Now, it was the +visitation of the sick, that had possession of her; now, it was +the sheltering of the houseless; now, it was the elementary +teaching of the densely ignorant; now, it was the raising up of +those who had wandered and got trodden under foot; now, it was +the wider employment of her own sex in the general business of +life; now, it was all these things at once. Perfectly +unselfish, swift to sympathise and eager to relieve, she wrought +at such designs with a flushed earnestness that disregarded +season, weather, time of day or night, food, rest. Under +such a hurry of the spirits, and such incessant occupation, the +strongest constitution will commonly go down. Hers, neither +of the strongest nor the weakest, yielded to the burden, and +began to sink.</p> +<p>To have saved her life, then, by taking action on the warning +that shone in her eyes and sounded in her voice, would have been +impossible, without changing her nature. As long as the +power of moving about in the old way was left to her, she must +exercise it, or be killed by the restraint. And so the time +came when she could move about no longer, and took to her +bed.</p> +<p>All the restlessness gone then, and all the sweet patience of +her natural disposition purified by the resignation of her soul, +she lay upon her bed through the whole round of changes of the +seasons. She lay upon her bed through fifteen months. +In all that time, her old cheerfulness never quitted her. +In all that time, not an impatient or a querulous minute can be +remembered.</p> +<p>At length, at midnight on the second of February, 1864, she +turned down a leaf of a little book she was reading, and shut it +up.</p> +<p>The ministering hand that had copied the verses into the tiny +album was soon around her neck, and she quietly asked, as the +clock was on the stroke of one:</p> +<p>“Do you think I am dying, mamma?”</p> +<p>“I think you are very, very ill to-night, my +dear!”</p> +<p>“Send for my sister. My feet are so cold. +Lift me up?”</p> +<p>Her sister entering as they raised her, she said: “It +has come at last!” And with a bright and happy smile, +looked upward, and departed.</p> +<p>Well had she written:</p> +<blockquote><p>Why shouldst thou fear the beautiful angel, +Death,<br /> +Who waits thee at the portals of the skies,<br /> +Ready to kiss away thy struggling breath,<br /> +Ready with gentle hand to close thine eyes?</p> +<p>Oh what were life, if life were all? Thine eyes<br /> +Are blinded by their tears, or thou wouldst see<br /> +Thy treasures wait thee in the far-off skies,<br /> +And Death, thy friend, will give them all to thee.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2><a name="page574"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +574</span>CHAUNCEY HARE TOWNSHEND<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">EXPLANATORY INTRODUCTION TO +“RELIGIOUS OPINIONS” BY THE LATE REVEREND CHAUNCEY +HARE TOWNSHEND</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Chauncey Hare Townshend</span> died in +London, on the 25th of February 1868. His will contained +the following passage:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“I appoint my friend Charles Dickens, of +Gad’s Hill Place, in the County of Kent, Esquire, my +literary executor; and beg of him to publish without alteration +as much of my notes and reflections as may make known my opinions +on religious matters, they being such as I verily believe would +be conducive to the happiness of mankind.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In pursuance of the foregoing injunction, the Literary +Executor so appointed (not previously aware that the publication +of any Religious Opinions would be enjoined upon him), applied +himself to the examination of the numerous papers left by his +deceased friend. Some of these were in Lausanne, and some +were in London. Considerable delay occurred before they +could be got together, arising out of certain claims preferred, +and formalities insisted on by the authorities of the Canton de +Vaud. When at length the whole of his late friend’s +papers passed into the Literary Executor’s hands, it was +found that <i>Religious Opinions</i> were scattered up and down +through a variety of memoranda and note-books, the gradual +accumulation of years and years. Many of the following +pages were carefully transcribed, numbered, connected, and +prepared for the press; but many more were dispersed fragments, +originally written in pencil, afterwards inked over, the intended +sequence of which in the writer’s mind, it was extremely +difficult to follow. These again were intermixed with +journals of travel, fragments of poems, critical essays, +voluminous correspondence, and old school-exercises and college +themes, having no kind of connection with them.</p> +<p>To publish such materials “without alteration”, +was simply impossible. But finding everywhere internal +evidence that Mr. Townshend’s <i>Religious Opinions</i> had +been constantly meditated and reconsidered with great pains and +sincerity throughout his life, the Literary Executor carefully +compiled them (always in the writer’s exact words), and +endeavoured in piecing them together to avoid needless +repetition. He does not doubt that Mr. Townshend held the +clue to a precise plan, which could have greatly simplified the +presentation of these views; and he has devoted the first section +of this volume to Mr. Townshend’s own notes of his +comprehensive intentions. Proofs of the devout spirit in +which they were conceived, and of the sense of responsibility +with which he worked at them, abound through the whole mass of +papers. Mr. Townshend’s varied attainments, delicate +tastes, and amiable and gentle nature, caused him to be beloved +through life by the variously distinguished men who were his +compeers at Cambridge long ago. To his Literary Executor he +was always a warmly-attached and sympathetic friend. To the +public, he has been a most generous benefactor, both in his +munificent bequest of his collection of precious stones in the +South Kensington Museum, and in the devotion of the bulk of his +property to the education of poor children.</p> +<h2><a name="page576"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 576</span>ON +MR. FECHTER’S ACTING</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> distinguished artist whose name +is prefixed to these remarks purposes to leave England for a +professional tour in the United States. A few words from +me, in reference to his merits as an actor, I hope may not be +uninteresting to some readers, in advance of his publicly proving +them before an American audience, and I know will not be +unacceptable to my intimate friend. I state at once that +Mr. Fechter holds that relation towards me; not only because it +is the fact, but also because our friendship originated in my +public appreciation of him. I had studied his acting +closely, and had admired it highly, both in Paris and in London, +years before we exchanged a word. Consequently my +appreciation is not the result of personal regard, but personal +regard has sprung out of my appreciation.</p> +<p>The first quality observable in Mr. Fechter’s acting is, +that it is in the highest degree romantic. However +elaborated in minute details, there is always a peculiar dash and +vigour in it, like the fresh atmosphere of the story whereof it +is a part. When he is on the stage, it seems to me as +though the story were transpiring before me for the first and +last time. Thus there is a fervour in his +love-making—a suffusion of his whole being with the rapture +of his passion—that sheds a glory on its object, and raises +her, before the eyes of the audience, into the light in which he +sees her. It was this remarkable power that took Paris by +storm when he became famous in the lover’s part in the +<i>Dame aux Camélias</i>. It is a short part, really +comprised in two scenes, but, as he acted it (he was its original +representative), it left its poetic and exalting influence on the +heroine throughout the play. A woman who could be so +loved—who could be so devotedly and romantically +adored—had a hold upon the general sympathy with which +nothing less absorbing and complete could have invested +her. When I first saw this play and this actor, I could not +in forming my lenient judgment of the heroine, forget that she +had been the inspiration of a passion of which I had beheld such +profound and affecting marks. I said to myself, as a child +might have said: “A bad woman could not have been the +object of that wonderful tenderness, could not have so subdued +that worshipping heart, could not have drawn such tears from such +a lover”. I am persuaded that the same effect was +wrought upon the Parisian audiences, both consciously and +unconsciously, to a very great extent, and that what was morally +disagreeable in the <i>Dame aux Camélias</i> first got +lost in this brilliant halo of romance. I have seen the +same play with the same part otherwise acted, and in exact degree +as the love became dull and earthy, the heroine descended from +her pedestal.</p> +<p>In Ruy Blas, in the Master of Ravenswood, and in the Lady of +Lyons—three dramas in which Mr. Fechter especially shines +as a lover, but notably in the first—this remarkable power +of surrounding the beloved creature, in the eyes of the audience, +with the fascination that she has for him, is strikingly +displayed. That observer must be cold indeed who does not +feel, when Ruy Blas stands in the presence of the young unwedded +Queen of Spain, that the air is enchanted; or, when she bends +over him, laying her tender touch upon his bloody breast, that it +is better so to die than to live apart from her, and that she is +worthy to be so died for. When the Master of Ravenswood +declares his love to Lucy Ashton, and she hers to him, and when +in a burst of rapture, he kisses the skirt of her dress, we feel +as though we touched it with our lips to stay our goddess from +soaring away into the very heavens. And when they plight +their troth and break the piece of gold, it is we—not +Edgar—who quickly exchange our half for the half she was +about to hang about her neck, solely because the latter has for +an instant touched the bosom we so dearly love. Again, in +the Lady of Lyons: the picture on the easel in the poor cottage +studio is not the unfinished portrait of a vain and arrogant +girl, but becomes the sketch of a Soul’s high ambition and +aspiration here and hereafter.</p> +<p>Picturesqueness is a quality above all others pervading Mr. +Fechter’s assumptions. Himself a skilled painter and +sculptor, learned in the history of costume, and informing those +accomplishments and that knowledge with a similar infusion of +romance (for romance is inseparable from the man), he is always a +picture,—always a picture in its right place in the group, +always in true composition with the background of the +scene. For picturesqueness of manner, note so trivial a +thing as the turn of his hand in beckoning from a window, in Ruy +Blas, to a personage down in an outer courtyard to come up; or +his assumption of the Duke’s livery in the same scene; or +his writing a letter from dictation. In the last scene of +Victor Hugo’s noble drama, his bearing becomes positively +inspired; and his sudden assumption of the attitude of the +headsman, in his denunciation of the Duke and threat to be his +executioner, is, so far as I know, one of the most ferociously +picturesque things conceivable on the stage.</p> +<p>The foregoing use of the word “ferociously” +reminds me to remark that this artist is a master of passionate +vehemence; in which aspect he appears to me to represent, perhaps +more than in any other, an interesting union of characteristics +of two great nations,—the French and the Anglo-Saxon. +Born in London of a French mother, by a German father, but reared +entirely in England and in France, there is, in his fury, a +combination of French suddenness and impressibility with our more +slowly demonstrative Anglo-Saxon way when we get, as we say, +“our blood up”, that produces an intensely fiery +result. The fusion of two races is in it, and one cannot +decidedly say that it belongs to either; but one can most +decidedly say that it belongs to a powerful concentration of +human passion and emotion, and to human nature.</p> +<p>Mr. Fechter has been in the main more accustomed to speak +French than to speak English, and therefore he speaks our +language with a French accent. But whosoever should suppose +that he does not speak English fluently, plainly, distinctly, and +with a perfect understanding of the meaning, weight, and value of +every word, would be greatly mistaken. Not only is his +knowledge of English—extending to the most subtle idiom, or +the most recondite cant phrase—more extensive than that of +many of us who have English for our mother-tongue, but his +delivery of Shakespeare’s blank verse is remarkably facile, +musical, and intelligent. To be in a sort of pain for him, +as one sometimes is for a foreigner speaking English, or to be in +any doubt of his having twenty synonymes at his tongue’s +end if he should want one, is out of the question after having +been of his audience.</p> +<p>A few words on two of his Shakespearian impersonations, and I +shall have indicated enough, in advance of Mr. Fechter’s +presentation of himself. That quality of picturesqueness, +on which I have already laid stress, is strikingly developed in +his Iago, and yet it is so judiciously governed that his Iago is +not in the least picturesque according to the conventional ways +of frowning, sneering, diabolically grinning, and elaborately +doing everything else that would induce Othello to run him +through the body very early in the play. Mr. +Fechter’s is the Iago who could, and did, make friends, who +could dissect his master’s soul, without flourishing his +scalpel as if it were a walking-stick, who could overpower Emilia +by other arts than a sign-of-the-Saracen’s-Head grimness; +who could be a boon companion without <i>ipso facto</i> warning +all beholders off by the portentous phenomenon; who could sing a +song and clink a can naturally enough, and stab men really in the +dark,—not in a transparent notification of himself as going +about seeking whom to stab. Mr. Fechter’s Iago is no +more in the conventional psychological mode than in the +conventional hussar pantaloons and boots; and you shall see the +picturesqueness of his wearing borne out in his bearing all +through the tragedy down to the moment when he becomes invincibly +and consistently dumb.</p> +<p>Perhaps no innovation in Art was ever accepted with so much +favour by so many intellectual persons pre-committed to, and +preoccupied by, another system, as Mr. Fechter’s +Hamlet. I take this to have been the case (as it +unquestionably was in London), not because of its +picturesqueness, not because of its novelty, not because of its +many scattered beauties, but because of its perfect consistency +with itself. As the animal-painter said of his favourite +picture of rabbits that there was more nature about those rabbits +than you usually found in rabbits, so it may be said of Mr. +Fechter’s Hamlet, that there was more consistency about +that Hamlet than you usually found in Hamlets. Its great +and satisfying originality was in its possessing the merit of a +distinctly conceived and executed idea. From the first +appearance of the broken glass of fashion and mould of form, pale +and worn with weeping for his father’s death, and remotely +suspicious of its cause, to his final struggle with Horatio for +the fatal cup, there were cohesion and coherence in Mr. +Fechter’s view of the character. Devrient, the German +actor, had, some years before in London, fluttered the theatrical +doves considerably, by such changes as being seated when +instructing the players, and like mild departures from +established usage; but he had worn, in the main, the old +nondescript dress, and had held forth, in the main, in the old +way, hovering between sanity and madness. I do not remember +whether he wore his hair crisply curled short, as if he were +going to an everlasting dancing-master’s party at the +Danish court; but I do remember that most other Hamlets since the +great Kemble had been bound to do so. Mr. Fechter’s +Hamlet, a pale, woebegone Norseman with long flaxen hair, wearing +a strange garb never associated with the part upon the English +stage (if ever seen there at all) and making a piratical swoop +upon the whole fleet of little theatrical prescriptions without +meaning, or, like Dr. Johnson’s celebrated friend, with +only one idea in them, and that a wrong one, never could have +achieved its extraordinary success but for its animation by one +pervading purpose, to which all changes were made intelligently +subservient. The bearing of this purpose on the treatment +of Ophelia, on the death of Polonius, and on the old student +fellowship between Hamlet and Horatio, was exceedingly striking; +and the difference between picturesqueness of stage arrangement +for mere stage effect, and for the elucidation of a meaning, was +well displayed in there having been a gallery of musicians at the +Play, and in one of them passing on his way out, with his +instrument in his hand, when Hamlet, seeing it, took it from him, +to point his talk with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.</p> +<p>This leads me to the observation with which I have all along +desired to conclude: that Mr. Fechter’s romance and +picturesqueness are always united to a true artist’s +intelligence, and a true artist’s training in a true +artist’s spirit. He became one of the company of the +Théâtre Français when he was a very young +man, and he has cultivated his natural gifts in the best +schools. I cannot wish my friend a better audience than he +will have in the American people, and I cannot wish them a better +actor than they will have in my friend.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTE</h2> +<p><a name="footnote564"></a><a href="#citation564" +class="footnote">[564]</a> Cornhill Magazine.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1435-h.htm or 1435-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/3/1435 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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