CHAPTER XXXV
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RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.
My life at Newgate was an ordeal such as I hope no reader of this will ever undergo. Day by day I saw the world slipping from under my feet, and the net drawing its deadly folds closer around me. Soon we all were forced to realize there was no escape for any of us.
Of course, we were all guilty and deserved punishment--I need not say we did not think so then--but the evidence was most weak, and had our trial taken place in America under the too liberal construction of our laws, undoubtedly we all would have escaped. But in England there is no court of criminal appeal, as with us, and when once the jury gives a verdict, that ends the matter. The result is that if judges are prejudiced, or want a man convicted, as in our case, he never escapes. The jury is always selected from the shopkeeping class, and they are horribly subservient to the aristocratic classes. They don't care for evidence--they simply watch the judge. If he smiles, the prisoner is innocent. If he frowns, then, of course, guilty.
With us when a man is charged with an offense against the laws he engages a lawyer--one is sufficient and quite costly enough. In England they are divided into three classes, viz.: solicitors, barristers and Queen's Counsels.
The solicitor takes the case and transacts all the business connected with it. A barrister is the lawyer who is employed by the solicitor to conduct the case in court and make the pleadings. He never comes in contact with the client, but takes the brief and all instructions from the solicitor. The Queen's Counsel is a lawyer of a higher rank, and whenever his serene lordship takes a brief he must, to keep up his dignity, "be supported" by a barrister. So my reader will perhaps understand the raison d'etre of the proverb, "The lawyers own England." As no solicitor can plead in court, so no Queen's Counsel will come in direct contact with a client, and must be "supported" by a barrister. Ergo, any unfortunate having a case in court must fee two, if not three legal sharks to represent him, if represented at all.
We employed as solicitor a Mr. David Howell of 105 Cheapside, and a thoroughgoing, unprincipled rascal he proved to be. He was a small, spare, undersized man, with little beady eyes, light complexion, red hair, and stubby beard, and when he spoke it was with a thin reedy voice. From first to last he managed our case in exactly the way the prosecution would have desired. He bled us freely, and altogether we paid him nearly $10,000, and our defense by our eight lawyers--four Queen's Counsels and four barristers--was about the lamest and most idiotic possible.
We early came to the unanimous conclusion that in our country Howell would have had to face a jury for robbing us, and that but one of our eight lawyers had ability enough to appear in a police court here to conduct a hearing before an ordinary magistrate.
I do not propose to enter into the details of our preliminary hearings before the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, or of the trial. Both the hearings and trial were sensational in the highest degree, and attracted universal attention all over the English-speaking world. Full-page pictures of the trial appeared in all the illustrated journals of Europe and America, and our portraits were on sale everywhere.
After many hearings before Sir Sidney Waterlaw, we were finally committed for trial.
Editorial from the London Times of Aug. 13, 1873:
THE BANK FORGERIES.
"Monday next has been fixed for the trial, and the depositions taken before the Lord Mayor at the Justice Room of the Mansion House by Mr. Oke, the chief clerk, have been printed for the convenience of the presiding judge and of the counsel on both sides. They extend over 242 folio pages, including the oral and documentary evidence, and make of themselves a thick volume, together with an elaborate index for ready reference. Within living memory there has been no such case for length and importance heard before any Lord Mayor of London in its preliminary stage, nor one which excited a greater amount of public interest from first to last. The Overend Gurney prosecution is the only one in late years which at all approaches it in those respects, but in that the printed depositions only extended over 164 folio pages, or much less than those in the Bank case, in which as many as 108 witnesses gave evidence before the Lord Mayor, and the preliminary examinations--twenty-three in number from first to last--lasted from the first of March until the 2d of July, exclusive of the time spent in remands."
From the London Times, Aug. 10, 1873:
"On the opening of the August sessions of the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court. The court and streets were much crowded from the beginning, and continued so throughout the day. Alderman Sir Robert Carden, representing the Lord Mayor; Mr. Alderman Finis, Mr. Alderman Besley, Mr. Alderman Lawrence, M.P., Mr. Alderman Whetham and Mr. Alderman Ellis, as commissioners of the Court, occupied seats upon the bench, as did also Alderman Sheriff White.
"Sheriff Sir Frederick Perkins, Mr. Under-Sheriff Hewitt and Mr. Under-Sheriff Crosley, Mr. R. B. Green, Mr. R. W. Crawford, M.P., Governor of the Bank. Mr. Lyall, Deputy Governor, and Mr. Alfred de Rothschild were present. The members of the bar mustered in force, and the reserved seats were chiefly occupied by ladies. Mr. Hardinge Gifford, Q.C. (now Lord Chancellor of the British Empire), and Mr. Watkin Williams, Q.C. (instructed by Messrs. Freshfield, the solicitors of the bank), appeared as counsel for the prosecution."
For eight mortal days the final trial dragged on, and there we were pilloried in that horrible dock--a spectacle for the staring throngs that flocked to see the young Americans who had found a pregnable spot in the impregnable Bank of England.
The misery of those eight days! No language can describe it, nor would I undergo it again for the wealth of the world.
The court was filled with fashionables, ladies as well, who flocked to stare at misery, while the corridors of the Old Bailey and the street itself were packed with thousands eager to catch a glimpse of us. The Judge, in scarlet, sat in solemn state, with members of the nobility or gouty Aldermen in gold chains and robes on the bench beside him. The body of the court was filled with bewigged lawyers--a tippling lot of sharks and rogues, always after lunch half tipsy with the punch or dry sherry which English lawyers drink, jesting and cracking jokes, unmindful of the fate of their clients. Capt. Curtin and a score of detectives were present.
No fewer than 213 witnesses were called by the prosecution. Of these about fifty were from America, and by them they traced our lives for many years before. As the forged bills were all sent by mail it was necessary to convict us by circumstantial evidence. The evidence was all very weak, save only in that remarkable matter of the blotting paper. Our conviction was a foregone conclusion.
The jury retired to consider their verdict shortly after 7 o'clock, and on returning into court after the lapse of about a quarter of an hour they gave in a verdict of guilty against all of the four prisoners.
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