CHAPTERCLXXV.CONCLUSION.We have seen the last of the miscreant whose career we have shadowed forth, and our task is all but completed.The celebrated Peace, says a journalist, terminated his disgraceful career on Tuesday morning on the scaffold at Armley Gaol, Leeds. He seems to have kept up his pluck and his appetite to the very last, and concluded all by making a pious and edifying speech to the reporters. We should be sorry to criticise too closely a production which was given to the world under circumstances most trying to the nerves of its author. It would be obviously absurd to judge the statement of a man of Peace’s antecedents by the canons of good taste; and as for the genuineness and sincerity of them they must be ascertained by a higher tribunal than public opinion. Nevertheless there is a little too much tendency to glorify a great criminal into a great hero. Peace was well aware of this and naturally acted consciously or unconsciously, upon the assumption. Several millions of people were kept from day to day in a perfect flutter of excitement to know all that the convict was saying, doing, writing, and almost thinking. Even the composition of his breakfasts and the way in which he enjoyed them were telegraphed for the information of an expectant public. For one who was not altogether insensible to his own merits as a professional burglar and murderer, there was a strong temptation to pose before the world. He was almost as closely watched as LouisXIV., who walked, ate, slept, dressed, and, Macaulay tells us, even vomited majestically before a crowd of distinguished spectators. With the knowledge that everybody’s eyes were upon him, he may perhaps have been a little too self-conscious, and a little too solicitous not to spoil a reputation which he evidently considered splendid. His repentance may have been perfectly sincere, and his latest statements quite truthful. But it would be obviously unwise to take all his revelations for gospel verity without sifting them thoroughly. We trust that no pains will be spared in the investigation of his latest confessions, and that if they are found consistent, with known and undisputed facts, prompt reparation will be made to the man who has, or may have, suffered for his crimes. A more terrible fate than that of one who has been convicted and punished for an offence which he has not committed, on the strength of a chain of plausible circumstantial evidence, can hardly be conceived. The lawyers are, no doubt, right in their dictum that circumstantial evidence is the best of all evidence, always supposing that it is strong enough. But, after the recent statements of Peace, the public will naturally be tempted to re-open the question of the Whalley Range murder, in order to ascertain whether every link of the chain was complete; and if there is a single unsatisfied doubt, they will not remain content until the prisoner Habron receives the benefit of that doubt.The last scene of what some exuberant journalists had delighted in calling Charles Peace’s “life-drama” was thus enacted to the mild satisfaction of everybody whose hopes had not pictured a sensation of the type furnished by Mr. Meritt’s “New Babylon.”There was the orthodox last dying speech and confession, ready to be turned into what has now become the fashionable literature of the period; there was the moribund posturising of nice old Newgate days; and, to increase the likeness to that Saturnian period, there was a crowd close at hand whose murmurs one could hear, and which the parson’s and the patient’s voices could reach.The “celebrity” Mrs. Thompson so coyly deprecates, and which her paramour loved with all his little heart, was worthily crowned at the end.The unkind prudishness of the prison officials refused to admit more than four reporters to the sickening ceremony; but those four were found quite sufficient to flood every newspaper in the land with funereal “flimsy.”The descriptions resulting from these reports were literary gems which, when he digs them up, will afford the coming New Zealander a curious insight into the niceties of contemporary taste and the peculiarities of contemporary syntax.The most “thorough” descriptions took the convict very early indeed—in fact it might almost be alleged that they never quite let him go.They informed us that his sleep was troubled and his supper hearty; they dwelt on the poor wretch’s feeble endeavour to emulate his betters in a silly and sickly “improving of the occasion”—which apparently is achieved by an abundant use of the second person singular, and frequent references to the Gospel ofSt.Chadband; they hovered about his last sleep, and peered into the cups and egg-shells of his last breakfast.And the occasion was one of such surpassing interest, the opportunity for distinguishing oneself in the appraisement of the criminal’s linen, or the analysis of the criminal’s countenance, that at least one gentleman, intoxicated with his sublimity, fairly forgot whether the subject of his essay was hanged or not, and used “he is” and “he was” in the same sentences with perplexing impartiality.But that lucubration appeared in theDaily Telegraph, a journal which is happy in the possession of a class of readers who do not require good grammar to help down nasty stories. And this time the story was nasty enough to suit the palate of an epicure in Topsyturvydom.Every step, every pause on that vulgarvia dolorosathat leads from the prison door to the scaffold was counted, criticised, described. Little scraps of the beautiful Burial Service were desecrated by being quoted beside the doomed man’s call for drink.The demeanour and voice of the hangman, the culprit’s dress, his tremours, his appetite, his letters, his speeches, the scaffold itself, with its draping of black sacking or black glazed calico (authorities differ), all this forms as pretty a page of contemporary history as confirmedDaily Telegraphwriters will ever care to dwell upon.Well might the moribund hypocrite address his last whimpering to “you reporters;” the reporters make the “celebrity” of such as he was.And we may add that the journalist just mentioned not only makes the celebrity but suggests imitation by its morbid habit of manufacturing monsters out of such sorry rascals as Charles Peace.Its epitaph on the dead sinner is, “We hanged his detestable body because it was in the highest degree expedient to rid the world of a monster of iniquity.” Common gratitude to a subject that has filled its most readable columns and suggested its most high-flown homilies for a long three months might have moved even theDaily Telegraphto tardy and temporary charity.It is pleasant to record that the unfortunate young Irishman Habron has received her Majesty’s pardon, and is at present in Ireland, a small yearly stipend having been settled upon him sufficient to support him in comparative comfort for the remainder of his life.This is as it should be. A great wrong was done to the ill-fated young man, but every possible means has been taken to place him in a respectable position, for which it is understood he is duly grateful.It will be needful before concluding to take a cursory glance at the other characters who have figured in this strange eventful history.None of our hero’s quondam companions was more pained and mortified on discovering the depth of guilt into which he had been plunged than “Bandy-Legged Bill,” who, however, despite the overwhelming weight of evidence, stuck to his friend “Charlie” to the last, but after Peace’s trial and conviction Bill Rawton became an altered man.The change, we are happy to say, was for the better; Rawton reformed and became an altered character. He was never at any time what might be considered hopelessly bad; indeed, to say the truth, he possessed many good qualities, which, under different circumstances and conditions, might have done much to lift him out of the slough of despondency into which he had fallen, and in which he remained for so many dark and miserable years.But Bill saw the errors of his way. Mrs. Bourne was very good to him and strove as best she could to lead him towards the right path, and eventually succeeded. Bill Rawton is at the present time engaged as handy man in one of the travelling circus companies.No one knew better than he how to manage horses, and by diligence, adroitness, and attention he has contrived to give general satisfaction in his new vocation.Brickett still continues the obliging host of the “Old Carved Lion,” but the halo of crime with which the name of Peace has become associated is still a puzzle to old Brickett, who, when the name of our hero is mentioned, shakes his head, heaves a sigh, and says he “can’t make it out rightly—the fellow must have gone off his chump, or summat of the sort.”Mrs. Brickett’s ghost is still said to haunt the precincts of the “Lion,” and, in addition to this apparition, two others are at times visible in Marshgrove-lane; these being the spirits of the late Mr. Philip Jamblin and of Giles Chudley. This is, of course, only village gossip, or superstition; nevertheless, the rustics have full faith in the truth of the report.Mr. Jakyl, full of years and honours, passed away tranquilly some months before the arrest of Peace; and the radiant footman (now radiant no longer) drives a prosperous business in the greengrocery line, and is the father of five pledges of affection.Lord Ethalwood got himself into a host of entanglements, both monetary and amatory, and his life was none of the happiest for a very long time.One night a strange circumstance happened to his lordship, which might, and indeed would, have proved fatal had it not been for a sudden and strange intervention. Lord Ethalwood had left Somerset-street after having paid a visit to Theresa Trieste.He walked carelessly along until he reached Grosvenor-square. While crossing the road he was suddenly attacked by some person behind, who had aimed, what doubtless was intended to be, a fatal blow; but the point of the knife of the would-be assassin struck against the shoulder-blade, and did no further mischief than inflicting a long superficial gash, which proved afterwards to be painful and troublesome, but it was not dangerous.Lord Ethalwood, young, active, and resolute, turned nimbly round upon his assailant, whom he struck several violent blows on the head and shoulders, at the same time shouting lustily for the police.In a moment or so he was tripped up by another ruffian, who was evidently in league with the others, and it was equally clear (so his lordship thought) that their intention was murder.He was not far out in his reckoning. The men who had been companions of the young mountaineer, Janot, had sworn to have Lionel Ethalwood’s life, and for this purpose they had lain in wait for him.What the issue would have been, had not timely assistance arrived, it would be impossible to say. Luckily, for his lordship, a passenger on the other side of the way saw the position he was in, and at once hastened to the rescue.With one well-delivered blow he knocked down with his clenched fist one of the mountaineers. Upon the instant the other closed with him, and a short but desperate struggle ensued, the end of which was that both combatants fell, the stranger undermost and the mountaineer on the top.Lord Ethalwood rose to his feet, whereupon both the foreigners scampered off without further ado. Now that the struggle was over two policemen came.Lord Ethalwood was found to be bruised and wounded, but his rescuer was in a still worse plight; he was stretched on the pavement in a senseless condition, his head resting on the broad stone steps which led to the vestibule of a palatial mansion.The policeman stooped down and examined the features of the stranger, from whose head a dark stream of blood was flowing. He was evidently a man slightly past the middle period of life. Lord Ethalwood was greatly concerned when he saw the lamentably prostrate condition of the gallant gentleman who had risked his own life to preserve his.The stranger was taken to the accident ward of the nearest hospital, whereupon Lord Ethalwood jumped into a cab and proceeded at once to his own residence. The family doctor attended to his wound, and declared that his young patient had had a narrow escape.In a few days, however, his lordship was convalescent. Not so, however, was the ill-fated man who had come so opportunely to his rescue. He had received from the fall a fracture of the skull, and for some days he alternated between life and death.Earl Ethalwood was constant in his visits to the hospital where the patient lay, and it was on one of these occasions that a terrible and harrowing fact became manifest.He discovered that his preserver was his own father, Tom Gatliffe, who, the reader will remember, had come upon the scene just in time to save his son. When the fact was clearly established the Earl was almost frantic.Lady Batershall, Lady Marvlynn, and a host of other persons were in close attendance on the sufferer, who, despite skill and unremitting attention, breathed his last in the ward of a metropolitan hospital.But very little now remains to be told. Mr. Kensett at his decease left all his worldly wealth to him whom we have known as Alf Parvis, who squandered his patrimony as he had heretofore squandered his ill-gotten gains, and died in poverty and wretchedness while yet in the springtime of his life.Our story hath a mournful ending, but we trust that those who have perused these pages have yet been able to derive entertainment and instruction from the many noteworthy facts contained therein. One fact has been clearly established—“A life of crime is always a life of sorrow and care, for the hearts of the guilty tremble for the past, for the present, and the future.”THE END.
We have seen the last of the miscreant whose career we have shadowed forth, and our task is all but completed.
The celebrated Peace, says a journalist, terminated his disgraceful career on Tuesday morning on the scaffold at Armley Gaol, Leeds. He seems to have kept up his pluck and his appetite to the very last, and concluded all by making a pious and edifying speech to the reporters. We should be sorry to criticise too closely a production which was given to the world under circumstances most trying to the nerves of its author. It would be obviously absurd to judge the statement of a man of Peace’s antecedents by the canons of good taste; and as for the genuineness and sincerity of them they must be ascertained by a higher tribunal than public opinion. Nevertheless there is a little too much tendency to glorify a great criminal into a great hero. Peace was well aware of this and naturally acted consciously or unconsciously, upon the assumption. Several millions of people were kept from day to day in a perfect flutter of excitement to know all that the convict was saying, doing, writing, and almost thinking. Even the composition of his breakfasts and the way in which he enjoyed them were telegraphed for the information of an expectant public. For one who was not altogether insensible to his own merits as a professional burglar and murderer, there was a strong temptation to pose before the world. He was almost as closely watched as LouisXIV., who walked, ate, slept, dressed, and, Macaulay tells us, even vomited majestically before a crowd of distinguished spectators. With the knowledge that everybody’s eyes were upon him, he may perhaps have been a little too self-conscious, and a little too solicitous not to spoil a reputation which he evidently considered splendid. His repentance may have been perfectly sincere, and his latest statements quite truthful. But it would be obviously unwise to take all his revelations for gospel verity without sifting them thoroughly. We trust that no pains will be spared in the investigation of his latest confessions, and that if they are found consistent, with known and undisputed facts, prompt reparation will be made to the man who has, or may have, suffered for his crimes. A more terrible fate than that of one who has been convicted and punished for an offence which he has not committed, on the strength of a chain of plausible circumstantial evidence, can hardly be conceived. The lawyers are, no doubt, right in their dictum that circumstantial evidence is the best of all evidence, always supposing that it is strong enough. But, after the recent statements of Peace, the public will naturally be tempted to re-open the question of the Whalley Range murder, in order to ascertain whether every link of the chain was complete; and if there is a single unsatisfied doubt, they will not remain content until the prisoner Habron receives the benefit of that doubt.
The last scene of what some exuberant journalists had delighted in calling Charles Peace’s “life-drama” was thus enacted to the mild satisfaction of everybody whose hopes had not pictured a sensation of the type furnished by Mr. Meritt’s “New Babylon.”
There was the orthodox last dying speech and confession, ready to be turned into what has now become the fashionable literature of the period; there was the moribund posturising of nice old Newgate days; and, to increase the likeness to that Saturnian period, there was a crowd close at hand whose murmurs one could hear, and which the parson’s and the patient’s voices could reach.
The “celebrity” Mrs. Thompson so coyly deprecates, and which her paramour loved with all his little heart, was worthily crowned at the end.
The unkind prudishness of the prison officials refused to admit more than four reporters to the sickening ceremony; but those four were found quite sufficient to flood every newspaper in the land with funereal “flimsy.”
The descriptions resulting from these reports were literary gems which, when he digs them up, will afford the coming New Zealander a curious insight into the niceties of contemporary taste and the peculiarities of contemporary syntax.
The most “thorough” descriptions took the convict very early indeed—in fact it might almost be alleged that they never quite let him go.
They informed us that his sleep was troubled and his supper hearty; they dwelt on the poor wretch’s feeble endeavour to emulate his betters in a silly and sickly “improving of the occasion”—which apparently is achieved by an abundant use of the second person singular, and frequent references to the Gospel ofSt.Chadband; they hovered about his last sleep, and peered into the cups and egg-shells of his last breakfast.
And the occasion was one of such surpassing interest, the opportunity for distinguishing oneself in the appraisement of the criminal’s linen, or the analysis of the criminal’s countenance, that at least one gentleman, intoxicated with his sublimity, fairly forgot whether the subject of his essay was hanged or not, and used “he is” and “he was” in the same sentences with perplexing impartiality.
But that lucubration appeared in theDaily Telegraph, a journal which is happy in the possession of a class of readers who do not require good grammar to help down nasty stories. And this time the story was nasty enough to suit the palate of an epicure in Topsyturvydom.
Every step, every pause on that vulgarvia dolorosathat leads from the prison door to the scaffold was counted, criticised, described. Little scraps of the beautiful Burial Service were desecrated by being quoted beside the doomed man’s call for drink.
The demeanour and voice of the hangman, the culprit’s dress, his tremours, his appetite, his letters, his speeches, the scaffold itself, with its draping of black sacking or black glazed calico (authorities differ), all this forms as pretty a page of contemporary history as confirmedDaily Telegraphwriters will ever care to dwell upon.
Well might the moribund hypocrite address his last whimpering to “you reporters;” the reporters make the “celebrity” of such as he was.
And we may add that the journalist just mentioned not only makes the celebrity but suggests imitation by its morbid habit of manufacturing monsters out of such sorry rascals as Charles Peace.
Its epitaph on the dead sinner is, “We hanged his detestable body because it was in the highest degree expedient to rid the world of a monster of iniquity.” Common gratitude to a subject that has filled its most readable columns and suggested its most high-flown homilies for a long three months might have moved even theDaily Telegraphto tardy and temporary charity.
It is pleasant to record that the unfortunate young Irishman Habron has received her Majesty’s pardon, and is at present in Ireland, a small yearly stipend having been settled upon him sufficient to support him in comparative comfort for the remainder of his life.
This is as it should be. A great wrong was done to the ill-fated young man, but every possible means has been taken to place him in a respectable position, for which it is understood he is duly grateful.
It will be needful before concluding to take a cursory glance at the other characters who have figured in this strange eventful history.
None of our hero’s quondam companions was more pained and mortified on discovering the depth of guilt into which he had been plunged than “Bandy-Legged Bill,” who, however, despite the overwhelming weight of evidence, stuck to his friend “Charlie” to the last, but after Peace’s trial and conviction Bill Rawton became an altered man.
The change, we are happy to say, was for the better; Rawton reformed and became an altered character. He was never at any time what might be considered hopelessly bad; indeed, to say the truth, he possessed many good qualities, which, under different circumstances and conditions, might have done much to lift him out of the slough of despondency into which he had fallen, and in which he remained for so many dark and miserable years.
But Bill saw the errors of his way. Mrs. Bourne was very good to him and strove as best she could to lead him towards the right path, and eventually succeeded. Bill Rawton is at the present time engaged as handy man in one of the travelling circus companies.
No one knew better than he how to manage horses, and by diligence, adroitness, and attention he has contrived to give general satisfaction in his new vocation.
Brickett still continues the obliging host of the “Old Carved Lion,” but the halo of crime with which the name of Peace has become associated is still a puzzle to old Brickett, who, when the name of our hero is mentioned, shakes his head, heaves a sigh, and says he “can’t make it out rightly—the fellow must have gone off his chump, or summat of the sort.”
Mrs. Brickett’s ghost is still said to haunt the precincts of the “Lion,” and, in addition to this apparition, two others are at times visible in Marshgrove-lane; these being the spirits of the late Mr. Philip Jamblin and of Giles Chudley. This is, of course, only village gossip, or superstition; nevertheless, the rustics have full faith in the truth of the report.
Mr. Jakyl, full of years and honours, passed away tranquilly some months before the arrest of Peace; and the radiant footman (now radiant no longer) drives a prosperous business in the greengrocery line, and is the father of five pledges of affection.
Lord Ethalwood got himself into a host of entanglements, both monetary and amatory, and his life was none of the happiest for a very long time.
One night a strange circumstance happened to his lordship, which might, and indeed would, have proved fatal had it not been for a sudden and strange intervention. Lord Ethalwood had left Somerset-street after having paid a visit to Theresa Trieste.
He walked carelessly along until he reached Grosvenor-square. While crossing the road he was suddenly attacked by some person behind, who had aimed, what doubtless was intended to be, a fatal blow; but the point of the knife of the would-be assassin struck against the shoulder-blade, and did no further mischief than inflicting a long superficial gash, which proved afterwards to be painful and troublesome, but it was not dangerous.
Lord Ethalwood, young, active, and resolute, turned nimbly round upon his assailant, whom he struck several violent blows on the head and shoulders, at the same time shouting lustily for the police.
In a moment or so he was tripped up by another ruffian, who was evidently in league with the others, and it was equally clear (so his lordship thought) that their intention was murder.
He was not far out in his reckoning. The men who had been companions of the young mountaineer, Janot, had sworn to have Lionel Ethalwood’s life, and for this purpose they had lain in wait for him.
What the issue would have been, had not timely assistance arrived, it would be impossible to say. Luckily, for his lordship, a passenger on the other side of the way saw the position he was in, and at once hastened to the rescue.
With one well-delivered blow he knocked down with his clenched fist one of the mountaineers. Upon the instant the other closed with him, and a short but desperate struggle ensued, the end of which was that both combatants fell, the stranger undermost and the mountaineer on the top.
Lord Ethalwood rose to his feet, whereupon both the foreigners scampered off without further ado. Now that the struggle was over two policemen came.
Lord Ethalwood was found to be bruised and wounded, but his rescuer was in a still worse plight; he was stretched on the pavement in a senseless condition, his head resting on the broad stone steps which led to the vestibule of a palatial mansion.
The policeman stooped down and examined the features of the stranger, from whose head a dark stream of blood was flowing. He was evidently a man slightly past the middle period of life. Lord Ethalwood was greatly concerned when he saw the lamentably prostrate condition of the gallant gentleman who had risked his own life to preserve his.
The stranger was taken to the accident ward of the nearest hospital, whereupon Lord Ethalwood jumped into a cab and proceeded at once to his own residence. The family doctor attended to his wound, and declared that his young patient had had a narrow escape.
In a few days, however, his lordship was convalescent. Not so, however, was the ill-fated man who had come so opportunely to his rescue. He had received from the fall a fracture of the skull, and for some days he alternated between life and death.
Earl Ethalwood was constant in his visits to the hospital where the patient lay, and it was on one of these occasions that a terrible and harrowing fact became manifest.
He discovered that his preserver was his own father, Tom Gatliffe, who, the reader will remember, had come upon the scene just in time to save his son. When the fact was clearly established the Earl was almost frantic.
Lady Batershall, Lady Marvlynn, and a host of other persons were in close attendance on the sufferer, who, despite skill and unremitting attention, breathed his last in the ward of a metropolitan hospital.
But very little now remains to be told. Mr. Kensett at his decease left all his worldly wealth to him whom we have known as Alf Parvis, who squandered his patrimony as he had heretofore squandered his ill-gotten gains, and died in poverty and wretchedness while yet in the springtime of his life.
Our story hath a mournful ending, but we trust that those who have perused these pages have yet been able to derive entertainment and instruction from the many noteworthy facts contained therein. One fact has been clearly established—
“A life of crime is always a life of sorrow and care, for the hearts of the guilty tremble for the past, for the present, and the future.”
THE END.