CHAPTERCLVI.OUTSIDE THE POLICE-COURT—EXTRAORDINARY SCENES.As was generally expected, there was a most exciting and most unusual scene outside the police-court on the morning appointed for the examination.On Friday comparatively few people knew that Peace was to be brought before the magistrates, but almost as soon as it was opened the court was crowded to its utmost capacity, the approaches were lined with excited people eager to gain but a glance at the prisoner or Mrs. Dyson, and in the hall on the ground floor were several hundred people who were unable to get upstairs.Outside a mob surged to and fro, obstructing the traffic in Castle-street, and several free fights occurred between people whose only object seemed to be to get nearer the Town Hall door without the faintest hope of getting in.This was the state of things when it was not generally known that the proeedings of the Police-court presented a feature of unusual attraction.But when it had been announced by the stipendiary, and announced in the papers, and was known by everybody, that the prisoner had been “remanded until Wednesday morning at ten o’clock,” and that Mrs. Dyson was to be cross-examined, it was generally anticipated that a crowd such as had never before been attracted to the Police-court would besiege the building. Some fears were entertained even that serious results might follow from the immense crush when the doors were opened and everybody in the large crowd made an almost superhuman individual effort to occupy one of the small number of places set apart for the gratification of the public.The Chief Constable accordingly took every precaution to guard against the rash and ill-judged violence of an excited crowd.A large staff of police-officers were marshalled in front of the Town Hall, their instructions being to keep the crowd moving as long as possible.They found on arriving that they had been forestalled by the public, who had already assembled to the number of about 200, and were being rapidly reinforced.Some of the people who were there had, it is said, taken up their positions as early as five o’clock, and verily they looked it. The cold, raw air had exercised to the full its nipping influence upon them.Their faces were pallid, with just a dash of blue in the lips, and a dab of carnation on the tip of the nose. Their shoulders were raised almost to their ears, and their coats drawn carefully round their throats.They shivered occasionally in a most complete and uncompromising manner, but there was even in that shiver an expressed determination to stand their ground to see Peace, even though an insidious fox, in the form of a biting wind, were gnawing to their very vitals.The unmistakeable meaning conveyed in the shiver was echoed in the ceaseless stamp of feet upon the pavement, as the people endeavoured by that means to keep up something like circulation in their benumbed extremities. There could be no doubt of their intentions.They had come to see Peace, and they would see him however much they suffered.But waiting was very monotonous work, and despite the excitement of the occasion, the time passed slowly and wearily along.The individuals who composed the crowd must have been those “with whom time ambles withal,” for the minutes dragged themselves along in the style supposed to be appropriated to “linked sweetness,” and each succeeding minute seemed to be longer drawn out than its predecessor.The crowd was not large enough to get up any enthusiasm, and it was not until towards eight o’clock that anything like life and fun were observable.Then the new arrivals were frequent and numerous, and what had been the fringe of the crowd became a compact mass.Castle-street, near the Town Hall, was crammed full of people, and now that it was evident that the whole of them could not get in, an excited and determined struggle for places began and was carried on with vigour up to the time when it was known that their labours had been in vain.It was an intensely and essentially selfish crowd, and its composition was a medley of a motley character.Nearly all classes of society were represented in that mass of people, and one extraordinary feature was the immense number of women amongst them.Men, women, and children were huddled together as closely as it was possible for human beings to be packed.They were crushed and crushed and crushed again until almost all the compressibility contained in their individual bodies had been utilised, and they were contorted into angular portions of humanity, all of whose sides geometrically corresponded with the sides of other portions of humanity presented to them.Thus it may be imagined that space was economised at the expense of comfort, but that was a trifling consideration.The people had come to see Peace.Comfort was a secondary matter—away with it! So they grinned—those of them who had room to do so—and bore the discomfort good humouredly so long as they did not lose a point in the struggle towards the door.Those immediately round the door were, of course, the early risers.They were, without exception, people in the lower classes of society. Boys, who might fairly be classed asgamins, with a neglected look and a suspicious air of having been out all night, had taken up front positions, and, having become jammed in by the crowd, were unable to get out, though there was not the slightest probability that the police would let them into the court.Many of the men were dressed in their working clothes, whilst some of the women had only shawls thrown over their heads.Further back in the crowd other classes were represented.Not a few silk hats were observable, dotted about here and there, amid the sober shoal of less demonstrative round felts, and one of the former dodged about in a most amusing manner, as its owner made the most heroic but unsuccessful attempts to defend a fair companion who wore a beautiful sealskin jacket.There was also a good sprinkling of young men, who would perhaps be looked upon as “swells” by the lower classes, but these young gentlemen did not show any of their distinguishing characteristics, and kept quiet.As nine o’clock approached the people began to be excited, and their ebullitions of feeling found vent in a series of rushes which produced a swaying, surging movement on the part of the crowd.This placed in jeopardy the situation of some of the people who had secured what they thought to be good chances of getting in, and they fought manfully to retain any advantage they might have gained.Their struggles, however, against the surging of the crowd were puerile and utterly inoperative, and their vehement protestations against the injustice of the dispensation was laughed to scorn.As a natural sequence curses and blasphemy took the place of protestations, but these were alike ineffective, and everybody seemed to devote his attention to swindling everyone in front of him of his position. The slightest rent in the crowd caused by a rush called forth numerous claimants, and angry passions were allowed to rise, without stint in the breasts of those who allowed their chances to pass.Women as well as men struggled to the front, and as they asserted their rights courtesy retired.Place aux dameswas an obsolete idea. The women placed themselves on the same level as the men, and demanding the rights extended to men, received courtesy in the same ratio.Judging by the looks of some of them they did not enjoy the working of the principle, and they would have been only too glad to sink their rights for a little comfort and convenience.It was a case of every man for himself, and the hindermost, who were supposed to be left in the care of the prince of darkness, were of course the women.Nine o’clock struck, and the excitement of the crowd reached fever heat. It was pretty generally known that Peace was to arrive about nine, and it was thought the doors now would soon be opened.The people on the outside of the crowd saw that it would be hopeless for them to attempt to get into the court, and in the hope of seeing something to recompense them for their trouble they gravitated towards the Castle-green and Water-lane entrances to the Police-offices.Those who went to Water-lane had the satisfaction of seeing a number of gentlemen pass in the portals of the offices, receive a military salute from the numerous constables posted about the place, and disappear in the long passage at the top of the steps.Several other people came up the same way, and some having the necessary credentials were passed in, and the others rejected and turned back. One of the funniest scenes of the morning occurred here, when a fat and self-sufficient landlord, accompanied by his gaudily-dressed wife, sailed down Water-lane, and with an important air strutted up the steps, throwing dignified nods at the police-officers.His wife waddled after him, and they successfully passed the gauntlet of police until they came to the steps.Here they were tackled in an apologetic but firm manner, and after having been reminded, as they were loth to go, that they were obstructing the passage, they, were unceremoniously ordered out.The spectators who assembled in front of the Castle-green entrance certainly had the best of the day. They were in the very thick of the excitement. The prison van had gone down Castle-green to the station, and Peace was momentarily expected.He would be concealed in the inmost recesses of the van, but what of that? He would be there. Time sped. It was ten minutes past nine. The train must be late.No, there was the jingle of the bells on the harness, and the heavy rumble of the wheels was heard as the ponderous conveyance turned out of Bridge-street into the Green. But what—what is this? Why does the van come so slowly? Why does everyone seem so dejected?Why does not the driver turn his pair cleverly round into the Parade Ground with a triumphant and defiant crack of the whip? What does it all mean?—he can’t have escaped.The suspense for the moment is fearful, almost agonising, and then the word is passed, “He has escaped—jumped out of the train, going at full speed.”A few incoherent sentences convey a world of information, and form the groundwork of numerous rumours. The news spread like wildfire. The crowd in front of the Town Hall is dazed. The strain is gone. No longer do they struggle to get the best places. A feeling of insecurity has come over them.They think of Peace in the dock as an insignificant old man, but Peace at liberty is a very different individual.He is surrounded by an air of villainy with a dark background of vengeful intrepidity, and his constant companion is a “six-shooter.”Society feels unsafe, and though an additional lustre has been imparted to the halo of glorious romance which surrounds his life by his latest achievement, a universal hope is expressed that he will be recaptured.The wildest rumours are floating about as to his mode of escape, and circumstantial details are not wanting as to his having overpowered the warders, alighted uninjured, and, plunging into a wood, eluded pursuit.But these surmises are premature. Again the van was brought out, and driven off to the station. These were anxious moments. More than half the people declined to believe the rumour that Peace had escaped.It was such a likely thing for Peace to attempt, that some one would be sure to suggest it, and thus start a rumour. On the other hand, it was so unlikely that a couple of London warders would allow a little man like Peace to escape, that the majority of the people assembled would not accept the statement.However, the bringing out of the van a second time gave a foundation to the first rumour, especially when it was now expected that he had been retaken. The van was not long away.Again the jingle of the bells. The horses came up Castle-green at a smart pace. Triumph was written on the faces of the local police.The van turned into the yard of the police-station; with a good swing, the doors were banged to and locked, and once more Peace was safe.Now came another struggle for places, and this was continued fiercely. Traffic had been resumed, however, and every now and then the consistency of the crowd was broken in upon by a vulgar cart, an impertinent hansom, or a blundering ’bus.The breaches were most trying to the people in the roadway. They must either sacrifice their positions or be run over. As long as they could they stuck to their places, but preferring not to be run over, they relented and ran for it.Women as well as men were in the way of the conveyances, and it was most funny to see the terrified faces of the women as, after being elbowed out of the crowd by men who coolly took their positions, they suddenly found a horse’s nose within a few inches of their faces. Flight was the first thing with them. Then when they were safely out of the way they were frightened, and exhibited a tendency to screaming and hysteria; and subsequently, when all was over, they became vaguely, but virtuously, indignant.Such scenes as these beguiled the minutes which crept slowly by, until about a quarter-past ten, when it was known that a remand had been granted. More vague rumours flew about for a few minutes, and then the chief constable appeared at one of the upper windows.Immediately there was a breathless silence, and Mr. Jackson announced that Peace had been remanded for eight days in consequence of injuries he had received. He had made an attempt to escape, but had been recaptured.A great shout greeted this latter statement, and society once more breathed.In spite of the obvious wish of the chief constable that it should move on as well as breathe, society did not move on, and for hours hung about the street in the hope of picking up gossip, reliable or unreliable.Now and then a wild rumour sent a thrill through the crowd. Several times Peace had just expired. Others stated that he was so “smashed that he had to be carried about in a sack.”Then it was given out that he was very little hurt, and was “drinking brandy like mad.” And lastly, as might have been expected, that “he was not hurt at all, but was only shamming.”Mrs. Dyson, though only a lesser light by the side of Peace, was somebody, and her apparance was anxiously looked for. But here again disappointment waited on the unhappy people.No.88.Illustration: TPEACE IS VISITED BY HIS SOLICITOR.PEACE IS VISITED BY HIS SOLICITOR.She got safely away, and the only thing in the way of a sensation that turned up to gratify the crowd for long waiting was the appearance of the Pentonville warders.They had occasion to appear in the Haymarket, and, being identified by their uniforms, were made the butt of much unpleasant chaff.They were followed about by the people, laughed at, jeered, ironically cheered, and asked the most pertinent, yet impertinent, questions.Eventually they were protected by a strong body of police, and, amid a discharge of chaff, succeeded in gaining the Police-offices.After this nothing more happened, and as nothing seemed likely to happen, first one and then another of the members of the crowd dropped off, until finally the last man, sighing over the barren results of all his struggling, scuffling, suffering,&c., cast a furtive eye at the Police-station, and a perfunctory glance at the now lighted Town Hall clock, and departed.
As was generally expected, there was a most exciting and most unusual scene outside the police-court on the morning appointed for the examination.
On Friday comparatively few people knew that Peace was to be brought before the magistrates, but almost as soon as it was opened the court was crowded to its utmost capacity, the approaches were lined with excited people eager to gain but a glance at the prisoner or Mrs. Dyson, and in the hall on the ground floor were several hundred people who were unable to get upstairs.
Outside a mob surged to and fro, obstructing the traffic in Castle-street, and several free fights occurred between people whose only object seemed to be to get nearer the Town Hall door without the faintest hope of getting in.
This was the state of things when it was not generally known that the proeedings of the Police-court presented a feature of unusual attraction.
But when it had been announced by the stipendiary, and announced in the papers, and was known by everybody, that the prisoner had been “remanded until Wednesday morning at ten o’clock,” and that Mrs. Dyson was to be cross-examined, it was generally anticipated that a crowd such as had never before been attracted to the Police-court would besiege the building. Some fears were entertained even that serious results might follow from the immense crush when the doors were opened and everybody in the large crowd made an almost superhuman individual effort to occupy one of the small number of places set apart for the gratification of the public.
The Chief Constable accordingly took every precaution to guard against the rash and ill-judged violence of an excited crowd.
A large staff of police-officers were marshalled in front of the Town Hall, their instructions being to keep the crowd moving as long as possible.
They found on arriving that they had been forestalled by the public, who had already assembled to the number of about 200, and were being rapidly reinforced.
Some of the people who were there had, it is said, taken up their positions as early as five o’clock, and verily they looked it. The cold, raw air had exercised to the full its nipping influence upon them.
Their faces were pallid, with just a dash of blue in the lips, and a dab of carnation on the tip of the nose. Their shoulders were raised almost to their ears, and their coats drawn carefully round their throats.
They shivered occasionally in a most complete and uncompromising manner, but there was even in that shiver an expressed determination to stand their ground to see Peace, even though an insidious fox, in the form of a biting wind, were gnawing to their very vitals.
The unmistakeable meaning conveyed in the shiver was echoed in the ceaseless stamp of feet upon the pavement, as the people endeavoured by that means to keep up something like circulation in their benumbed extremities. There could be no doubt of their intentions.
They had come to see Peace, and they would see him however much they suffered.
But waiting was very monotonous work, and despite the excitement of the occasion, the time passed slowly and wearily along.
The individuals who composed the crowd must have been those “with whom time ambles withal,” for the minutes dragged themselves along in the style supposed to be appropriated to “linked sweetness,” and each succeeding minute seemed to be longer drawn out than its predecessor.
The crowd was not large enough to get up any enthusiasm, and it was not until towards eight o’clock that anything like life and fun were observable.
Then the new arrivals were frequent and numerous, and what had been the fringe of the crowd became a compact mass.
Castle-street, near the Town Hall, was crammed full of people, and now that it was evident that the whole of them could not get in, an excited and determined struggle for places began and was carried on with vigour up to the time when it was known that their labours had been in vain.
It was an intensely and essentially selfish crowd, and its composition was a medley of a motley character.
Nearly all classes of society were represented in that mass of people, and one extraordinary feature was the immense number of women amongst them.
Men, women, and children were huddled together as closely as it was possible for human beings to be packed.
They were crushed and crushed and crushed again until almost all the compressibility contained in their individual bodies had been utilised, and they were contorted into angular portions of humanity, all of whose sides geometrically corresponded with the sides of other portions of humanity presented to them.
Thus it may be imagined that space was economised at the expense of comfort, but that was a trifling consideration.
The people had come to see Peace.
Comfort was a secondary matter—away with it! So they grinned—those of them who had room to do so—and bore the discomfort good humouredly so long as they did not lose a point in the struggle towards the door.
Those immediately round the door were, of course, the early risers.
They were, without exception, people in the lower classes of society. Boys, who might fairly be classed asgamins, with a neglected look and a suspicious air of having been out all night, had taken up front positions, and, having become jammed in by the crowd, were unable to get out, though there was not the slightest probability that the police would let them into the court.
Many of the men were dressed in their working clothes, whilst some of the women had only shawls thrown over their heads.
Further back in the crowd other classes were represented.
Not a few silk hats were observable, dotted about here and there, amid the sober shoal of less demonstrative round felts, and one of the former dodged about in a most amusing manner, as its owner made the most heroic but unsuccessful attempts to defend a fair companion who wore a beautiful sealskin jacket.
There was also a good sprinkling of young men, who would perhaps be looked upon as “swells” by the lower classes, but these young gentlemen did not show any of their distinguishing characteristics, and kept quiet.
As nine o’clock approached the people began to be excited, and their ebullitions of feeling found vent in a series of rushes which produced a swaying, surging movement on the part of the crowd.
This placed in jeopardy the situation of some of the people who had secured what they thought to be good chances of getting in, and they fought manfully to retain any advantage they might have gained.
Their struggles, however, against the surging of the crowd were puerile and utterly inoperative, and their vehement protestations against the injustice of the dispensation was laughed to scorn.
As a natural sequence curses and blasphemy took the place of protestations, but these were alike ineffective, and everybody seemed to devote his attention to swindling everyone in front of him of his position. The slightest rent in the crowd caused by a rush called forth numerous claimants, and angry passions were allowed to rise, without stint in the breasts of those who allowed their chances to pass.
Women as well as men struggled to the front, and as they asserted their rights courtesy retired.Place aux dameswas an obsolete idea. The women placed themselves on the same level as the men, and demanding the rights extended to men, received courtesy in the same ratio.
Judging by the looks of some of them they did not enjoy the working of the principle, and they would have been only too glad to sink their rights for a little comfort and convenience.
It was a case of every man for himself, and the hindermost, who were supposed to be left in the care of the prince of darkness, were of course the women.
Nine o’clock struck, and the excitement of the crowd reached fever heat. It was pretty generally known that Peace was to arrive about nine, and it was thought the doors now would soon be opened.
The people on the outside of the crowd saw that it would be hopeless for them to attempt to get into the court, and in the hope of seeing something to recompense them for their trouble they gravitated towards the Castle-green and Water-lane entrances to the Police-offices.
Those who went to Water-lane had the satisfaction of seeing a number of gentlemen pass in the portals of the offices, receive a military salute from the numerous constables posted about the place, and disappear in the long passage at the top of the steps.
Several other people came up the same way, and some having the necessary credentials were passed in, and the others rejected and turned back. One of the funniest scenes of the morning occurred here, when a fat and self-sufficient landlord, accompanied by his gaudily-dressed wife, sailed down Water-lane, and with an important air strutted up the steps, throwing dignified nods at the police-officers.
His wife waddled after him, and they successfully passed the gauntlet of police until they came to the steps.
Here they were tackled in an apologetic but firm manner, and after having been reminded, as they were loth to go, that they were obstructing the passage, they, were unceremoniously ordered out.
The spectators who assembled in front of the Castle-green entrance certainly had the best of the day. They were in the very thick of the excitement. The prison van had gone down Castle-green to the station, and Peace was momentarily expected.
He would be concealed in the inmost recesses of the van, but what of that? He would be there. Time sped. It was ten minutes past nine. The train must be late.
No, there was the jingle of the bells on the harness, and the heavy rumble of the wheels was heard as the ponderous conveyance turned out of Bridge-street into the Green. But what—what is this? Why does the van come so slowly? Why does everyone seem so dejected?
Why does not the driver turn his pair cleverly round into the Parade Ground with a triumphant and defiant crack of the whip? What does it all mean?—he can’t have escaped.
The suspense for the moment is fearful, almost agonising, and then the word is passed, “He has escaped—jumped out of the train, going at full speed.”
A few incoherent sentences convey a world of information, and form the groundwork of numerous rumours. The news spread like wildfire. The crowd in front of the Town Hall is dazed. The strain is gone. No longer do they struggle to get the best places. A feeling of insecurity has come over them.
They think of Peace in the dock as an insignificant old man, but Peace at liberty is a very different individual.
He is surrounded by an air of villainy with a dark background of vengeful intrepidity, and his constant companion is a “six-shooter.”
Society feels unsafe, and though an additional lustre has been imparted to the halo of glorious romance which surrounds his life by his latest achievement, a universal hope is expressed that he will be recaptured.
The wildest rumours are floating about as to his mode of escape, and circumstantial details are not wanting as to his having overpowered the warders, alighted uninjured, and, plunging into a wood, eluded pursuit.
But these surmises are premature. Again the van was brought out, and driven off to the station. These were anxious moments. More than half the people declined to believe the rumour that Peace had escaped.
It was such a likely thing for Peace to attempt, that some one would be sure to suggest it, and thus start a rumour. On the other hand, it was so unlikely that a couple of London warders would allow a little man like Peace to escape, that the majority of the people assembled would not accept the statement.
However, the bringing out of the van a second time gave a foundation to the first rumour, especially when it was now expected that he had been retaken. The van was not long away.
Again the jingle of the bells. The horses came up Castle-green at a smart pace. Triumph was written on the faces of the local police.
The van turned into the yard of the police-station; with a good swing, the doors were banged to and locked, and once more Peace was safe.
Now came another struggle for places, and this was continued fiercely. Traffic had been resumed, however, and every now and then the consistency of the crowd was broken in upon by a vulgar cart, an impertinent hansom, or a blundering ’bus.
The breaches were most trying to the people in the roadway. They must either sacrifice their positions or be run over. As long as they could they stuck to their places, but preferring not to be run over, they relented and ran for it.
Women as well as men were in the way of the conveyances, and it was most funny to see the terrified faces of the women as, after being elbowed out of the crowd by men who coolly took their positions, they suddenly found a horse’s nose within a few inches of their faces. Flight was the first thing with them. Then when they were safely out of the way they were frightened, and exhibited a tendency to screaming and hysteria; and subsequently, when all was over, they became vaguely, but virtuously, indignant.
Such scenes as these beguiled the minutes which crept slowly by, until about a quarter-past ten, when it was known that a remand had been granted. More vague rumours flew about for a few minutes, and then the chief constable appeared at one of the upper windows.
Immediately there was a breathless silence, and Mr. Jackson announced that Peace had been remanded for eight days in consequence of injuries he had received. He had made an attempt to escape, but had been recaptured.
A great shout greeted this latter statement, and society once more breathed.
In spite of the obvious wish of the chief constable that it should move on as well as breathe, society did not move on, and for hours hung about the street in the hope of picking up gossip, reliable or unreliable.
Now and then a wild rumour sent a thrill through the crowd. Several times Peace had just expired. Others stated that he was so “smashed that he had to be carried about in a sack.”
Then it was given out that he was very little hurt, and was “drinking brandy like mad.” And lastly, as might have been expected, that “he was not hurt at all, but was only shamming.”
Mrs. Dyson, though only a lesser light by the side of Peace, was somebody, and her apparance was anxiously looked for. But here again disappointment waited on the unhappy people.
No.88.
Illustration: TPEACE IS VISITED BY HIS SOLICITOR.PEACE IS VISITED BY HIS SOLICITOR.
PEACE IS VISITED BY HIS SOLICITOR.
She got safely away, and the only thing in the way of a sensation that turned up to gratify the crowd for long waiting was the appearance of the Pentonville warders.
They had occasion to appear in the Haymarket, and, being identified by their uniforms, were made the butt of much unpleasant chaff.
They were followed about by the people, laughed at, jeered, ironically cheered, and asked the most pertinent, yet impertinent, questions.
Eventually they were protected by a strong body of police, and, amid a discharge of chaff, succeeded in gaining the Police-offices.
After this nothing more happened, and as nothing seemed likely to happen, first one and then another of the members of the crowd dropped off, until finally the last man, sighing over the barren results of all his struggling, scuffling, suffering,&c., cast a furtive eye at the Police-station, and a perfunctory glance at the now lighted Town Hall clock, and departed.