Part 70

I found the poor poet, who bears a good character, on a sick bed; he was suffering, and had long been suffering, from abscesses. He was apparently about forty-five, with the sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, and, not pale but thick and rather sallow complexion, which indicate ill-health and scant food. He spoke quietly, and expressed resignation. His room was not very small, and was furnished in the way usual among the very poor, but there were a few old pictures over the mantel-piece. His eldest boy, a lad of thirteen or fourteen, was making dog-chains; at which he earned a shilling or two, sometimes 2_s._ 6_d._, by sale in the streets.

“I was born at Newcastle-under-Lyne,” the man said, “but was brought to London when, I believe, I was only three months old. I was very fond of reading poems, in my youth, as soon as I could read and understand almost. Yes, very likely, sir; perhaps it was that put it into my head to write them afterwards. I was taught wire-working, and jobbing, and was brought up to hawking wire-work in the streets, and all over England and Wales. It was never a very good trade--just a living. Many and many a weary mile we’ve travelled together,--I mean, my wife and I have: and we’ve sometimes been benighted, and had to wander or rest about until morning. It wasn’t that we hadn’t money to pay for a lodging, but we couldn’t get one. We lost count of the days sometimes in wild parts; but if we did lose count, or thought we had, I could always tell when it was Sunday morning by the look of nature; there was a mystery and a beauty about it as told me. I was very fond of Goldsmith’s poetry always. I can repeat ‘Edwin and Emma’ now. No, sir; I never read the ‘Vicar of Wakefield.’ I found ‘Edwin and Emma’ in a

## book called the ‘Speaker.’ I often thought of it in travelling through

some parts of the country.

“Above fourteen years ago I tried to make a shilling or two by selling my verses. I’d written plenty before, but made nothing by them. Indeed I never tried. The first song I ever sold was to a concert-room manager. The next I sold had great success. It was called the ‘Demon of the Sea,’ and was to the tune of ‘The Brave Old Oak.’ Do I remember how it began? Yes, sir, I remember every word of it. It began:

Unfurl the sails, We’ve easy gales; And helmsman steer aright. Hoist the grim death’s head-- The Pirate’s head-- For a vessel heaves in sight!

That song was written for a concert-room, but it was soon in the streets, and ran a whole winter. I got only 1_s._ for it. Then I wrote the ‘Pirate of the Isles,’ and other ballads of that sort. The concert-rooms pay no better than the printers for the streets.

“Perhaps the best thing I ever wrote was the ‘Husband’s Dream.’ I’m very sorry indeed that I can’t offer you copies of some of my ballads, but I haven’t a single copy myself of any of them, not one, and I dare say I’ve written a thousand in my time, and most of them were printed. I believe 10,000 were sold of the ‘Husband’s Dream.’ It begins:

O Dermot, you look healthy now, Your dress is neat and clean; I never see you drunk about, Then tell me where you’ve been.

Your wife and family--are they well? You once did use them strange: O, are you kinder to them grown, How came this happy change?

“Then Dermot tells how he dreamed of his wife’s sudden death, and his childrens’ misery as they cried about her dead body, while he was drunk in bed, and as he calls out in his misery, he wakes, and finds his wife by his side. The ballad ends:

‘I pressed her to my throbbing heart, Whilst joyous tears did stream; And ever since, I’ve heaven blest, For sending me that dream.’

“Dermot turned teetotaller. The teetotallers were very much pleased with that song. The printer once sent me 5_s._ on account of it.

“I have written all sorts of things--ballads on a subject, and copies of verses, and anything ordered of me, or on anything I thought would be accepted, but now I can’t get about. I’ve been asked to write indecent songs, but I refused. One man offered me 5_s._ for six such songs.--‘Why, that’s less than the common price,’ said I, ‘instead of something over to pay for the wickedness.’--All those sort of songs come now to the streets, I believe all do, from the concert-rooms. I can imitate any poetry. I don’t recollect any poet I’ve imitated. No, sir, not Scott or Moore, that I know of, but if they’ve written popular songs, then I dare say I have imitated them. Writing poetry is no comfort to me in my sickness. It might if I could write just what I please. The printers like hanging subjects best, and I don’t. But when any of them sends to order a copy of verses for a ‘Sorrowful Lamentation’ of course I must supply them. I don’t think much of what I’ve done that way. If I’d my own fancy, I’d keep writing acrostics, such as one I wrote on our rector.” “God bless him,” interrupted the wife, “he’s a good man.” “That he is,” said the poet, “but he’s never seen what I wrote about him, and perhaps never will.” He then desired his wife to reach him his big Bible, and out of it he handed me a piece of paper, with the following lines written on it, in a small neat hand enough:

“C elestial blessings hover round his head, H undreds of poor, by his kindness were fed, A nd precepts taught which he himself obeyed. M an, erring man, brought to the fold of God, P reaching pardon through a Saviour’s blood. N o lukewarm priest, but firm to Heaven’s cause; E xamples showed how much he loved its laws. Y outh and age, he to their wants attends, S teward of Christ--the poor man’s sterling friend.”

“There would be some comfort, sir,” he continued, “if one could go on writing at will like that. As it is, I sometimes write verses all over a slate, and rub them out again. Live hard! yes, indeed, we do live hard. I hardly know the taste of meat. We live on bread and butter, and tea; no, not any fish. As you see, sir, I work at tinning. I put new bottoms into old tin tea-pots, and such like. Here’s my sort of bench, by my poor bit of a bed. In the best weeks I earn 4_s._ by tinning, never higher. In bad weeks I earn only 1_s._ by it, and sometimes not that,--and there are more shilling than four shilling weeks by three to one. As to my poetry, a good week is 3_s._, and a poor week is 1_s._--and sometimes I make nothing at all that way. So I leave you to judge, sir, whether we live hard; for the comings in, and what we have from the parish, must keep six of us--myself, my wife, and four children. It’s a long, hard struggle.” “Yes, indeed,” said the wife, “it’s just as you’ve heard my husband tell, sir. We’ve 2_s._ a week and four loaves of bread from the parish, and the rent’s 2_s._ 6_d._, and the landlord every week has 2_s._,--and 6_d._ he has done for him in tinning work. Oh, we do live hard, indeed.”

As I was taking my leave, the poor man expressed a desire that I would take a copy of an epitaph which he had written for himself. “If ever,” he said, “I am rich enough to provide for a tomb-stone, or my family is rich enough to give me one, this shall be my epitaph” [I copied it from a blank page in his Bible:]

“Stranger, pause, a moment stay, Tread lightly o’er this mound of clay. Here lies J---- H----, in hopes to rise, And meet his Saviour in the skies. Christ his refuge, Heaven his home, Where pain and sorrow never come. His journey’s done, his trouble’s past, With God he sleeps in peace at last.”

OF THE STREET-SELLERS OF BROAD-SHEETS.

The broad-sheet known in street-sale is an unfolded sheet, varying in size, and printed on one side. The word is frequently used to signify an account of a murder or execution, but it may contain an account of a fire, an “awful accident and great loss of life,” a series of conundrums, as in those called “Nuts to Crack,” a comic or intended comic engraving, with a speech or some verses, as recently in satire of the Pope and Cardinal Wiseman (these are sometimes called “comic exhibitions”), or a “bill of the play.” The “cocks” are more frequently a smaller size than the broad-sheet.

The sellers of these articles (play-bills excepted), are of the class I have described as patterers. The play-bill sellers are very rarely patterers on other “paper work.” Some of them are on the look-out during the day for a job in porterage or such like, but they are not mixed up with any pattering,--and a regular patterer looks down upon a play-bill seller as a poor creature, “fit for nothing but play-bills.” I now proceed to describe such of these classes as have not been previously given.

OF THE “GALLOWS” LITERATURE OF THE STREETS.

Under this head I class all the street-sold publications which relate to the hanging of malefactors. That the question is not of any minor importance must be at once admitted, when it is seen how very extensive a portion of the reading of the poor is supplied by the “Sorrowful Lamentations” and “Last Dying Speech, Confession, and Execution” of criminals. One paper-worker told me, that in some small and obscure villages in Norfolk, which, he believed, were visited only by himself in his line, it was not very uncommon for two poor families to _club_ for 1_d._ to purchase an execution broad-sheet! Not long after Rush was hung, he saw, one evening after dark, through the uncurtained cottage window, eleven persons, young and old, gathered round a scanty fire, which was made to blaze by being fed with a few sticks. An old man was reading, to an attentive audience, a broad-sheet of Rush’s execution, which my informant had sold to him; he read by the fire-light; for the very poor in those villages, I was told, rarely lighted a candle on a spring evening, saying that “a bit o’ fire was good enough to talk by.” The scene must have been impressive, for it had evidently somewhat impressed the perhaps not very susceptible mind of my informant.

The procedure on the occasion of a “good” murder, or of a murder expected to “turn out well,” is systematic. First appears a quarter-sheet (a hand-bill, 9-1/2 in. by 7-1/2 in.) containing the earliest report of the matter. Next come half-sheets (twice the size) of later particulars, or discoveries, or--if the supposed murderer be in custody--of further examinations. The sale of these bills is confined almost entirely to London, and in their production the newspapers are for the most part followed closely enough. Then are produced the whole, or broad-sheets (twice the size of the half-sheets), and, lastly, but only on great occasions, the _double_ broad-sheet. [I have used the least technical terms that I might not puzzle the reader with accounts of “crowns,” “double-crowns,” &c.]

The most important of all the broad-sheets of executions, according to concurrent, and indeed unanimous, testimony is the case of Rush. I speak of the testimony of the street-folk concerned, who all represent the sale of the papers relative to Rush, both in town and country, as the best in their experience of late years.

The sheet bears the title of “The Sorrowful Lamentation and Last Farewell of J. B. Rush, who is ordered for Execution on Saturday next, at Norwich Castle.” There are three illustrations. The largest represents Rush, cloaked and masked, “shooting Mr. Jermy, Sen.” Another is of “Rush shooting Mrs. Jermy.” A prostrate body is at her feet, and the lady herself is depicted as having a very small waist and great amplitude of gown-skirts. The third is a portrait of Rush,--a correct copy, I was assured, and have no reason to question the assurance,--from one in the _Norwich Mercury_. The account of the trial and biography of Rush, his conduct in prison, &c., is a concise and clear enough condensation from the newspapers. Indeed, Rush’s Sorrowful Lamentation is the best, in all respects, of any execution broad-sheet I have seen; even the “copy of verses” which, according to the established custom, the criminal composes in the condemned cell--his being unable, in some instances, to read or write being no obstacle to the composition--seems, in a literary point of view, of a superior strain to the run of such things. The matters of fact, however, are introduced in the same peculiar manner. The worst part is the morbid sympathy and intended apology for the criminal. I give the verses entire:

“This vain world I soon shall leave, Dear friends in sorrow do not grieve; Mourn not my end, though ’tis severe, For death awaits the murderer.

Now in a dismal cell I lie, For murder I’m condemn’d to die; Some may pity when they read, Oppression drove me to the deed.

My friends and home to me were dear, The trees and flowers that blossom’d near; The sweet loved spot where youth began Is dear to every Englishman.

I once was happy--that is past, Distress and crosses came at last; False friendship smiled on wealth and me, But shunned me in adversity.

The scaffold is awaiting me, For Jermy I have murdered thee; Thy hope and joys--thy son I slew, Thy wife and servant wounded too.

I think I hear the world to say-- ‘Oh Rush, why didst thou Jermy slay? His dear loved son why didst thou kill, For he had done to thee no ill.’

If Jermy had but kindness shown, And not have trod misfortune down, I ne’er had fired the fatal ball That caus’d his son and him to fall.

My cause I did defend alone, For learned counsel I had none; I pleaded hard and questions gave, In hopes my wretched life to save.

The witness to confound did try, But God ordained that I should die; Eliza Chestney she was there,-- I’m sorry I have injured her.

Oh, Emily Sandford, was it due That I should meet my death through you? If you had wish’d me well indeed, How could you thus against me plead?

I’ve used thee kind, though not my wife: Your evidence has cost my life; A child by me you have had born, Though hard against me you have sworn.

The scaffold is, alas! my doom,-- I soon shall wither in the tomb: God pardon me--no mercy’s here For Rush--the wretched murderer!”

Although the execution broad-sheet I have cited may be the best, taken altogether, which has fallen under my observation, nearly all I have seen have one characteristic--the facts can be plainly understood. The narrative, embracing trial, biography, &c., is usually prepared by the printer, being a condensation from the accounts in the newspapers, and is perhaps intelligible, simply because it _is_ a condensation. It is so, moreover, in spite of bad grammar, and sometimes perhaps from an unskilful connection of the different eras of the trial.

When the circumstances of the case permit, or can be at all constrained to do so, the Last Sorrowful Lamentation contains a “Love Letter,” written--as one patterer told me he had occasionally expressed it, when he thought his audience suitable--“from the depths of the condemned cell, with the condemned pen, ink, and paper.” The style is stereotyped, and usually after this fashion:

“Dear ----,--Shrink not from receiving a letter from one who is condemned to die as a murderer. Here, in my miserable cell, I write to one whom I have from my first acquaintanceship, held in the highest esteem, and whom, I believe, has also had the same kindly feeling towards myself. Believe me, I forgive all my enemies and bear no malice. O, my dear ----, guard against giving way to evil passions, and a fondness for drink. Be warned by my sad and pitiful fate.”

If it be not feasible to have a love-letter--which can be addressed to either wife or sweetheart--in the foregoing style, a “last letter” is given, and this can be written to father, mother, son, daughter, or friend; and is usually to the following purport:

“Condemned Cell, ----

“My Dear ----,--By the time you receive this my hours, in this world, will indeed be short. It is an old and true saying, that murderers will one day meet their proper reward. No one can imagine the dreadful nights of anguish passed by me since the commital of the crime on poor ----. All my previous victims have appeared before me in a thousand different shapes and forms. My sufferings have been more than I can possibly describe. Let me entreat you to turn from your evil ways and lead a honest and sober life. I am suffering so much at the present moment both from mind and body that I can write no longer. Farewell! farewell!

“Your affectionate ----.”

I have hitherto spoken of the Last Sorrowful Lamentation sheets. The next broad-sheet is the “Life, Trial, Confession, and Execution.” This presents the same matter as the “Lamentation,” except that a part--perhaps the judge’s charge at the trial, or perhaps the biography--is removed to make room for the “Execution,” and occasionally for a portion of the “Condemned Sermon.” To judge by the productions I treat of, both subjects are marvelously similar on all occasions. I cite a specimen of the Condemned Sermon, as preached, according to the broad-sheet, before Hewson, condemned for the murder of a turnkey. It will be seen that it is of a character to fit _any_ condemned sermon whatever:

“The rev. gent. then turned his discourse particularly to the unhappy prisoner doomed to die on the morrow, and told him to call on Him who alone had the power of forgiveness; who had said, ‘though his sins were red as scarlet,’ he would ‘make them white as snow,’ though he had been guilty of many heinous crimes, there was yet an opportunity of forgiveness.--During the delivery of this address, the prisoner was in a very desponding state, and at its conclusion was helped out of the chapel by the turnkeys.”

The “Execution” is detailed generally in this manner. I cite the “Life, Trial, Confession and Execution of Mary May, for the Murder of W. Constable, her Half-brother, by Poison, at Wix, near Manningtree:”

“At an early hour this morning the space before the prison was very much crowded by persons anxious to witness the execution of Mary May, for the murder of William Constable, her half-brother, by poison, at Wix, Manningtree, which gradually increased to such a degree, that a great number of persons suffered extremely from the pressure, and gladly gave up their places on the first opportunity to escape from the crowd. The sheriffs and their attendants arrived at the prison early this morning and proceeded to the condemn cell, were they found the reverend ordinary engaged in prayer with the miserable woman. After the usual formalities had been observed of demanding the body of the prisoner into their custody she was then conducted to the press-room. The executioner with his assistants then commenced pinioning her arms, which opperation they skillfully and quickly dispatched. During these awful preparations the unhappy woman appeared mently to suffer severely, but uttered not a word when the hour arrived and all the arrangements having been completed, the bell commenced tolling, and then a change was observed, to come over the face of the prisoner, who trembling violently, walked with the melancholy procession, proceeded by the reverend ordinary, who read aloud the funeral service for the dead. When the bell commenced tolling a moment was heard from without, and the words “Hats off,” and “Silence,” were distinctly heard, from which time nothing but a continual sobbing was heard. On arriving at the foot of the steps leading to the scaffold she thanked the sheriffs and the worthy governor of the prison, for their kind attentions to her during her confinement; & then the unfortunate woman was seen on the scaffold, there was a death like silence prevailed among the vast multitude of people assembled. In a few seconds the bolt was drawn, and, after a few convulsive struggles, the unhappy woman ceased to exist.”

I cannot refrain from calling the reader’s attention to the “copy of verses” touching Mary May. I give them entire, for they seem to me to contain all the elements which made the old ballads popular--the rushing at once into the subject--and the homely reflections, though crude to all educated persons, are, nevertheless, well adapted to enlist the sympathy and appreciation of the class of hearers to whom they are addressed:

COPY OF VERSES.

“The solemn bell for me doth toll, And I am doom’d to die (For murdering my brother dear,) Upon a tree so high. For gain I did premeditate My brother for to slay,-- Oh, think upon the dreadful fate Of wretched Mary May.

CHORUS.

Behold the fate of Mary May, Who did for gain her brother slay.

In Essex boundry I did dwell, My brother lived with me, In a little village called Wix, Not far from Manningtree. In a burial club I entered him, On purpose him to slay; And to obtain the burial fees I took his life away.

One eve he to his home return’d, Not thinking he was doom’d, To be sent by a sister’s hand Unto the silent tomb. His tea for him I did prepare, And in it poison placed, To which I did administer,-- How dreadful was his case.

Before he long the poison took In agony he cried; Upon him I in scorn did look,-- At length my brother died. Then to the grave I hurried him, And got him out of sight, But God ordain’d this cruel deed Should soon be brought to light.

I strove the money to obtain, For which I did him slay, By which, also, suspicion fell On guilty Mary May. The poison was discovered, Which caused me to bewail, And I my trial to await Was sent to Chelmsford jail.

And for this most atrocious deed I at the bar was placed, The Jury found me guilty,-- How dreadful was my case. The Judge the dreadful sentence pass’d, And solemn said to me, ‘You must return from whence you came, And thence unto the tree.’

On earth I can no longer dwell, There’s nothing can me save; Hark! I hear the mournful knell Which calls me to the grave. Death appears in ghostly forms, To summon me below; See, the fatal bolt is drawn, And Mary May must go.

Good people all, of each degree, Before it is too late, See me on the fatal tree, And pity my sad fate. My guilty heart stung with grief, With agony and pain,-- My tender brother I did slay That fatal day for gain.”