In prison he had earned a few shillings, so into the nearest public-house he went, got drunk, came out and "went for" the first policeman, who naturally took him into custody. When before the magistrate he asked for three months, but the magistrate thought that one month met the justice of the case. So back he went to prison, where the Governor promptly gave him his "old job."
When I saw the old man, his month was running out.
I have since learnt that when he was again discharged, he said to his friend, "Cheer up! I shall soon be back." But the dying youth lingers on, and waits for him in vain.
Eagerly he scans every fresh comer, but no glint of recognition lights up his poor face. The officials, too, scan every list that comes with a fresh consignment of prisoners, but the "old lag's" name has not appeared. Neither do the police know anything of him. What has happened to the old convict? Perhaps, after all, his time was up first. Maybe he waits in the spirit-world for the coming of his friend. Maybe the young man will plead for the old convict, and say: "Lord, I was sick and in prison, and he came unto me." And the Lord will answer and say: "Inasmuch as ye did it unto him, ye did it unto Me."
The police effect many smart and plucky captures. Sometimes they are aided by a stupid oversight on the part of the criminal, but quite as often by some extraordinary piece of luck. Let me give an instance of the latter.
A six-foot fellow from the country joined the London police-force. He also, as soon as possible, joined himself in matrimony to a servant-girl living in London. Her health proved to be very bad, but this did not prevent her having children quickly, and so it came about that, before he had been in the police-force many years he was in debt and difficulties. Four young children and a wife constantly ill do not help to make a policeman's life a happy one. His friends made a collection for him on the quiet, but it had little beneficial effect. The children became ill, the wife became worse, the debts heavier, and exposure threatened. It was winter-time. He left his ailing wife and crying children to go on night-duty, wishing he was dead and out of it all. As he went quietly to his beat, his step became slower and slower, until it stopped altogether, and he found himself standing with his back to the wall thinking of suicide.
Some months afterwards he gave me this account of what happened.
"Mr. Holmes, pluck and courage had nothing to do with it, for I had just made up my mind to make a hole in the water, when I happened to look at the window of a jeweller's shop, in which a light was burning.
"I saw somebody move in the shop, so I took out my truncheon and went softly into the shop door. I had an idea it was unfastened, so I stood still for a minute or two, hardly breathing, and then I rushed at the door, and sure enough it opened, and in I went.
"The three fellows were just packing up the jewellery. One of them came for me with a pistol, but before he could get it to fire I caught him on the head with my truncheon, and down he went. Another made for the door, but he had to pass me, and I laid him out. The third came at me with a big jemmy, and we had a fight, but I was too big and quick for him. I almost broke his arm. So I took the lot; but I should not have cared if they had killed me. I was just in a mad fury, and it was nothing but a piece of luck."
Yes, it was a bit of luck. A large sum of money was collected for him by the public. His praises were duly sung in the Press, his debts were paid, and his wife sent for a time to a convalescent home. He might have made headway in the Force, but he was no scholar. I went sometimes to give him lessons in arithmetic, spelling, etc., but it was of no use. He wanted to catch more thieves, and sometimes made the terrible mistake of arresting an innocent person. The last time I saw him he told me that his wife was no better, but that she had had another child.
Not long ago a singular mistake occurred in North London. Burglars had infested a respectable road for some time. An attempt to enter had evidently been made at one house without success, for they had left jemmy-marks upon the door, but did not enter. The police resolved to watch this house from the outside. The owner and his stalwart son resolved to watch inside, but neither communicated with the other. At midnight two men were seen by the police to enter the garden and go to the front door, so the constables softly followed and listened at the door, which was closed. Evidently there was someone inside, so they cautiously opened the door, when suddenly they were set on by two men armed with heavy hammers. A severe blow fell on the shoulder of one of the officers, who responded with a crack on the head with a truncheon, and the man inside fell on the floor. Poor fellow, he was the owner! The son also got injured, and when the police were about to handcuff him, the affair was explained. Meanwhile the thieves went higher up the road, made a real attempt, and were caught. But the owner of the house lay ill for some days, suffering from concussion of the brain, while the officer was incapacitated from duty for some weeks.
In my opening chapter a slight reference was made to the Habitual Inebriates Act of 1898.
I now wish to deal more fully with this subject, for it has occupied much time in police-courts, and has held a large place in the public mind and interest.
The uselessness of short terms of imprisonment for persons frequently charged with drunkenness had been fully proved; they had not been found deterrent or reformative, the only practical result being that the lives of those constantly committed were considerably lengthened.
Sometimes I have felt that it would be good if the women to whom I now refer could have gone quietly out of existence, for I believe that the All-Merciful would extend greater mercy to them than they show to themselves.
But life has a firm grip upon women; and when it is devoted to animalism and idleness, when the cares and worries of home, children, and employment do not concern them, then indeed those lives are often lengthened out beyond the lives of their more virtuous and industrious sisters.
For these women prisons had proved useful sanatoria, and frequent sentences times of recuperation.
Small wonder, then, that new methods should at length be tried. The Habitual Inebriates Act came into being in 1898.
The Act adopted the definition of a much earlier Act as to what constituted the habitual inebriate, which was as follows:
"Those who, by the excessive use of intoxicating drink, are unable to control their affairs or are dangerous to themselves or others."
I quite believe that if the framers of this Act had realized the character of those who would come within its provisions, a far different definition would have been found. But the Act also conditioned that only those who were charged four times during the year with drunkenness should be dealt with, the great mistake being that no attempt was made previously to inquire into the character and condition of those that happened to be charged four times in the year. I suppose it was a natural inference that anyone so frequently charged must be of necessity a confirmed and regular inebriate. But the reverse proved true, for the worst inebriates, dipsomaniacs, and sots, escaped the meshes of the net so carefully spread.
They at any rate did not fall into the hands of the police so frequently; indeed, many of them did not at all. But the Act netted a very different kind of fish—a kind that ought to have been netted many years previously, and dealt with in a far more effectual manner than was now proposed.
The Act gave power to local authorities and philanthropic societies to establish inebriates' reformatories, which, after satisfying the requirements of the Home Office, were to be duly licensed to receive habitual inebriates qualified under the new law. These institutions were to be supported by an Imperial capitation grant for every inebriate committed, the local authorities being empowered to draw upon the rates for the balance.
Magistrates were given power to commit to these establishments for one, two, or three years, when the persons charged before them pleaded guilty to being habitual inebriates, and desired the question settled without reference to a higher court; but magistrates could not deal with them until they had been charged four times within the year.
If consent was refused, magistrates were empowered to send them for trial before the Judge and jury. Early in 1898 I took considerable pains to ascertain the exact character and condition of the persons who came within the provision of the Act. I found, as I expected to find, that they were idle and dissolute persons, nearly all of them women, and such women as only the streets of our large towns could furnish.
So much misapprehension and uncertainty prevailed as to the kind and sex of the persons who would be affected by the new law that the London County Council, after acquiring a valuable property in Surrey for the purposes of the Act, prepared for the reception of males. For this there was no excuse. A glance at the annual criminal statistics would have shown to what sex the oft-convicted inebriates belonged, and an inquiry among the police would have revealed their true character and condition. A considerable time elapsed before these reformatories were ready, local authorities being very reluctant to use their powers, but at length the task of trying to cure London's grossest women of inebriety began. It was a hopeless task from the first. After eight years' experience its futility has been fully demonstrated.
In the Contemporary Review of May, 1899, I ventured to give a description of the men and women who would be dealt with. The women, I said, would consist of 80 per cent. of gross unfortunates, dominated by vice or mental disease, homeless and shameless women; 10 per cent. old women who live alternately in workhouses and prisons, with occasional spells of liberty and licence; and 10 per cent. of otherwise decent women, the majority of whom would be mentally weak.
The men I described as idle, dissolute, and dishonest fellows, or worse. Eight years' experience of the working of the Act has verified my analysis. The report of the Government Inspector for 1906 amply proves it. Dr. Branthwaite (the Government Inspector), a properly qualified medical officer, has taken infinite pains to ascertain the mental condition of those committed to certified reformatories, and who became his special charge. I quote from his report for 1906:
"During the eight years the Act has been in operation 2,277 men and women had been committed to reformatories. Of these, 375 were men and 1,902 were women." He thus classifies them as to mental condition: 16·1 per cent. as insane, defective, imbecile, or epileptic; 46·5 per cent. as eccentric, dull, or senile; 37·4 per cent. as of average mental capacity. This means that out of the total admissions for the eight years, 62·6 per cent. were practically insane, and therefore hopeless from a reformatory point of view. The remaining 37·4 per cent. were, he says, of average mental capacity. But the Inspector can only speak of them as he finds them; he cannot speak of their mental capacity when outside his reformatories. I can; therefore I wish to say here something about them. There exists a large class of men and women who, when placed under absolute control in prisons or reformatories, submit themselves quietly to the authority that controls and the conditions that environ them. They obey orders, they display no anger, they offer no violence; they are not moody or spiteful, but they fulfil their duties with some degree of cheerfulness and alacrity. Those who have charge of them naturally look upon them as the most hopeful of their prisoners. A greater mistake could not be made. It may be vice, it may be drink, it may be dishonesty, that is the master passion of their lives; it may be, for aught I know—and in reality I believe that it is—some inscrutable mental disease that causes their passions or weaknesses; but whatever the passion, and however caused or controlled, when these people are under absolute authority in places where the vice, passion, or weakness cannot possibly be indulged, then that passion, vice, or weakness is absolutely non-existent for the time, and its victims appear as normal people.
But a far different state of mind and body exists when they are released from authority, for with liberty the old instinct or passion comes into fierce existence, and instantly demands gratification. While the released person has on the one hand gained considerably in health of mind and body, the sleeping passion too has gained in strength during the time it has hibernated. These persons, I am happy to believe, are not of normal mind, for they are helpless before the stress of temptation. In fact, decent as they may seem while in custody, the gratification of their particular vice is the only thing of importance in life to them. These unfortunate people, when at liberty, are in reality under authority of a different kind, and their obedience to the dark, mysterious authority that controls them is as implicit as if they were detained in prison or reformatory, for they do not question or gainsay its imperious demands. Small wonder, then, that nearly all the women who have been committed to inebriate reformatories revert to their old habits of life. To speak of their relapse is wrong, for in reality there is no relapse about it; they have only been held by force from their old life, which they resume when that preventive force is withdrawn.
But it has been a costly experience so far, at any rate, as London is concerned. The Government led off with a capitation grant of 10s. 6d. weekly. For the first few years it cost about £1 10s. per week, in addition to the outlay on land, buildings, and appointments, to keep each of these demented women. Though this cost has now been considerably reduced, it is even now about £1 weekly. No one, I feel sure, would begrudge this outlay if there was the remotest chance of these extraordinary women living decently when released from the reformatories.
Sadly, but emphatically, I say no such chance exists. Let it be clearly understood that I am not making this terrible statement about inebriates generally, but only with regard to those women who fall into the hands of the police four times in one year, thus qualifying for committal according to the Act. The very hopelessness of these women excites my deepest pity, and because I pity them I point out plainly their condition, in the sincere hope that more satisfactory methods of dealing with them may be provided. The Inspector claims that it is better for these women to be detained in inebriate reformatories than to undergo a continual round of short terms of imprisonment, varied by spells of liberty spent in gross orgies upon the street. He says, too, that it is the cheaper course. There is some truth in his contention. Of the exact proportion of the monetary cost of the two methods I am not concerned, but undoubtedly, for the good of the community and the purity of our streets, lengthened detention in inebriate reformatories is infinitely better than short detention in prisons. I am not objecting to their lengthened detention, but to the method and objects of detention. If their detention is to be for the good of the public, let it be understood that the common weal demands it. But as they are a class altogether apart from ordinary women, even from ordinary drunken women, they ought to be detained in institutions adapted for women of their condition only, and the absurdity of trying to cure vice-possessed women of the drink habit ought to cease.
But the legal advantages attaching to the life of a gross and disorderly woman are considerable—far greater than the advantages that are attached to a life of virtue and honest toil. "Only be bad enough, gross enough, violent enough, and you shall have your reward. Only get into conflict with the guardians of law and order four times in one year, and three years' comfort in an inebriate reformatory shall be your reward. There your work shall be limited, your leisure shall be certain, your food shall be plentiful and varied, and your recreation, indoors and out of doors, shall not be forgotten. There you shall live lives of comfort and comparative ease." So the State seems to say to the women of the class who at present fill our inebriate reformatories. And some are not slow to accept the invitation. I remember one massive young Irishwoman, who had a strong aversion to anything like honest work, saying to me one morning when she was again in custody: "Mr. Holmes, I am about sick of this: I'll go to a home for a year. Ask the magistrate to send me; it will do me good."
I declined to be the intermediary, so she appealed to the magistrate to send her away under the Act.
There being some doubt as to the requisite number of convictions, the magistrate added to the list by giving her fourteen days. At the expiration of her sentence—indeed, on the very day of her discharge from prison—she got into collision with the police, and next day was again before the magistrate. She again asked the magistrate to send her to a reformatory. But she had another grievance this time: she told the magistrate that Mr. Holmes had insulted her. On being asked for particulars, she said that I had refused to help her to get into an inebriate reformatory, and further (and this was the insult), that I had said that she was big enough, strong enough, and young enough to work for her living. I pleaded guilty to the insult, and pointed out to the magistrate the physical dimensions of the prisoner. He smiled, and said there was some truth in my statement; but as the prisoner was young, there was hope of her reformation, so he committed her for two years. I ventured respectfully to tell him that he had but allowed her one of the legal advantages of an idle and disorderly woman.
Drink had no more to do with her condition than it has with mine, though to some extent it was useful to her; but vice and idleness were the dominant factors in her life, not drink.
The Habitual Inebriates Act of 1898 was followed by the Licensing Act of 1902, some clauses of which dealt with habitual inebriates, and provided for the compilation of a Black List.
Every person, male or female, charged with drunkenness, or some crime connected with drunkenness, four times in one year, was to be placed on an official list, whether sent or not sent to an inebriate reformatory. Their photographs were to be taken and circulated to the police and to the publicans. Publicans were prohibited under a severe penalty from serving the "listed" with intoxicating drink within a period of three years. If the "listed" persons procured, or attempted to procure, any drink during that time they, too, were liable to a penalty not exceeding £1 or fourteen days. There was considerable fear and a strange anxiety among many of the repeatedly convicted as to what would happen to them when this Act began its operations.
But this wholesome dread soon disappeared. When its operations became known, the lists were duly made and circulated; the photographs were accurately, if not beautifully, taken; the police were supplied with the lists and the publicans with the photographs. But very soon the "listed" proceeded to procure drink and get drunk as usual, for a wonder had come to light. When charged under the new Act, instead of getting their usual month they received but a fortnight, for the Act did not allow a more severe punishment. True, they had committed more heinous offences, for they had defied the law, which said they must not procure drink, and their offences had been dual, for they had been drunk, too, and disorderly and disgusting as of yore. Nevertheless, their double offence entitled them to but half their former reward. Magistrates soon saw the humour of it, and soon got tired of it, and sometimes, when a charge was preferred against a "lister" under the Act, they ordered the police to charge the prisoners under the old Act, that more punishment might be given. But if these clauses were not successful from a legal point of view, they were from another.
The Act came into force on January 1, 1902. At the beginning of May in the same year—that is, in four months from commencing operations—339 names, mostly women, were on that List. I sometimes have the privilege of looking at the List, which has now grown to a portentous length. It is an education to look at those hundreds of portraits. I look at them with fear and wonderment, for they are a revelation—an awe-inspiring picture-gallery! I would like every student of humanity and every lover of his kind to have a copy of that List, to study those photographs, and ponder the letterpress description that accompanies each photograph. It would almost appear that we are getting back to primeval man, the faces are so strange and weird. Different as the faces are, one look is stamped upon them all—the look of bewilderment. They one and all seem to think that there is something wrong, and they wonder what it is. No one can glance for a single moment at those terrible photographs without seeing that there is something more than drink at the root of things. No one can meet them, as I have met them, face to face, can look into their eyes, and know, as I know, how pitifully sad, yet how horrible, are their lives, without affirming, as I affirm, that the State proclaims its ignorance when it classifies them as inebriates, and its impotence when it asks others to cure them of the love of drink. These are the women that fill our inebriate reformatories, and of whom the Home Office Inspector reports that 62·6 per cent. are not sane. Certainly they are not sane, and it is high time that the truth was realized and the fact faced. Is it scientific to call their disease inebriety, when in sober truth it is something far worse—something that comes down through the ages, and in all climes and at all times has seized hold upon certain women—a something that never releases its hold till the portals of death are open for its victims? Oh, I could almost laugh at the irony of it all! Cure them of animal passion elemental in its intensity? Cure them of diseased minds and disordered brains, by keeping them for two or three years without drink? It cannot be done. But something can be done; only it is so simple a thing that I feel sure it will not be done. Yet if we had any thought for the purity of our streets, any concern for public morality and public decency, any consideration for the public weal, we should take these women aside, and keep them aside—not for one, two, or three years, but for the remainder of their natural lives, justified by the knowledge that they are not responsible creatures, and that pity itself demands their submission to kindly control and to strong-handed restraint.
But the Licensing Act of 1902 dealt with another class of women inebriates, and dealt with them in a drastic but unsatisfactory way. The law got hold of really drunken women this time, but it did not give them half the consideration extended to gross and demented unfortunates. It empowered magistrates to grant separation orders between married couples when either husband or wife became habitually drunken. In this Act the same definition of habitual inebriety that governed the 1898 Act was adopted, and husbands very promptly began to demand separation orders on account of their wives' drunkenness. My experiences of the result of this Act are sorrowful to a degree; but I expected those results, for I knew that the clauses that empowered separation orders must be either inoperative or disastrous. Alas! they did not remain inoperative, for the number of discarded wives began quickly to multiply.
When the Bill was before Parliament I spent some weeks in a vain endeavour to prevent some of the worst consequences that I knew would follow, and have followed. I contributed several articles to leading reviews; I wrote to The Times and scores of other influential papers; I wrote to leaders of temperance societies; I circularized the Members of both Houses, pointing out the enormity and the absurdity of putting drunken wives homeless on the streets; I pleaded, I begged, with heart, voice, and pen, for just one chance to be given the miserable women. My efforts were vain. No one supported me. I was a voice crying in the wilderness. It might be thought that I was asking for some great thing or some silly thing. I asked for neither. Let my readers judge. We had established inebriate reformatories at the public cost. We were filling them with the grossest unfortunates, of whom there was no hope of redemption; these women we were maintaining for two or three years in comfort. Will it be believed? I asked that drunken, but not immoral, women should be given equal chances of reformation. I asked that when a wife's drunkenness was proved, that she should, whether she consented or not, be committed for one year to an inebriate reformatory, and that the husband's contribution for her support should be paid to the institution that controlled her. But the House of Commons would have none of it; the House of Lords would not entertain it; the Christian Churches would not support it; the guardians of public morality ignored it. Drunken wives, though physically weak and ill, though mothers of young children, though decent in other ways, were not to be allowed one chance of reformation, were not to be considered for one moment worthy of treatment equal to that given to demented and gross women of the streets. "Pitch them out!" said our lords and gentlemen of both Houses. "Get rid of them!" said the Christian Churches. Husbands have not been slow in taking this advice, for they have been pitching wives out and have been getting rid of wives ever since. But the public do not get rid of them so easily. It has to bear the burden that cast-off wives bring, and that burden grows with every separation granted; so wives hitherto moral are fast qualifying for the legal advantages given to unspeakable women, and by-and-by, when the cast-out women behave themselves sufficiently badly, and the police take them into custody four times in a year—then, and not till then, when it is too late, both Houses of Parliament, the Christian Churches, and the guardians of public morality offer them the reforming influences of an institution for the cure of inebriety.
Contrasts: the Young Commission Agent and a Brave Old Man.
One of the first men to apply for a separation order under the Act was a thriving commission agent—i.e., a bookmaker—who had married a barmaid. His jewellery was massive, and there was all over him the appearance of being extremely well-to-do. He brought with him a solicitor to advocate his cause, and witnesses, too, were forthcoming. His young wife, when asked for her statement, did not attempt to deny that she was sometimes the worse for drink, but contented herself by saying that her husband drank a great deal more than she did, but it took less effect. She also said if she did drink, her husband was the cause of it, for he was unfaithful to her. She readily agreed to her husband's offer of £1 weekly, so the order was promptly granted, and she went her way alone. The husband, I noticed, was not so lonely, being accompanied by a well-dressed female.
The second act of this unseemly farce was played before the same court after a three months' interval. The commission agent, again fortified by his solicitor's presence, applied for an abrogation of the order made upon him for his wife's maintenance. Her lapse into immorality was duly proved, her defence—which, of course, was no defence at all—being that her husband was worse than herself, for he had been living with the woman now in court for some months. The magistrate had no option—for private opinion must not prevent the due fulfilment of the law—so the order was quashed. Henceforth the husband was free of all obligations, pecuniary or otherwise, excepting that he might not legally marry till his wife's death. Whatever her faults were, I must confess that I felt very sorry for her. Young, friendless, and homeless, she was already on that polished, inclined plane down which many are precipitated to the lowest depths, from which nothing short of a miracle could save her. A few minutes later I was speaking to her outside the court, and asking about her future, when the opulent commission agent and his expensively dressed but non-legalized wife passed us. Triumph was written on his coarse face, and, turning to his cast-off wife, he snapped his fingers in her face, and said: "I knew I should soon get rid of you!" using, of course, vulgar embellishment. To such contemptible blackguards, men without an atom of decency, this Act has provided a ready means for getting rid of wives when their company proves distasteful. But oh the chivalry of it, especially when the fellow who participated in the wife's wrong-doing comes cheerfully to give evidence against her! When I think on these things, I believe that I have some faith still in physical chastisement.
But I turn gladly—nay, eagerly—to another side of the question; for all men are not made on the same lines as the opulent bookie, for which we have need to be thankful. Among some of the men who, driven almost distraught by the misery they had endured—and only those who have to endure it can tell how great that misery is—have applied for separation orders on account of their wives' habitual drunkenness, I have met some that shone resplendent amid the moral darkness so often connected with police-court cases.
A sorrowful-faced old man, nearly seventy years of age, applied to the magistrate for advice. His wife for some years had been giving way constantly to drink. His home was ruined; he was in debt. He produced a bundle of pawn-tickets, etc. "Have you any sons and daughters? Cannot they influence her?" "They are married, and are all abroad. They cannot help me; but they send me money when I require any. They want me to go to them, but I cannot leave her." "Do you earn any money?" "Oh yes! quite sufficient to keep us. I have had a good place for forty years." "Well," said the magistrate, "I cannot advise you, but you can have a summons against her for habitual drunkenness. Will you have one?" "Yes, sir," said the bewildered old man. The summons was served upon the wife, and in due time they appeared before the court.
A pathetic couple they were; neither of them appeared to exactly understand why they were there. He knew that he had to prove his wife's drunkenness, and he did it simply enough. It was the old, old story of drink, neglect, waste, and dirt—no food provided, no house made tidy, no beds made, no washing of clothes. That was the negative side. The pawnings and debts, and cuts and wounds she had received from falling, formed the positive.
The old woman denied nothing, but said it was all true. When asked for her defence, she could only reiterate: "He's been very good to me; he's been very good to me." When asked about his means, the old man said he thought that he could allow his wife 10s. a week. The magistrate thought that 7s. was as much as he could afford, and made the order accordingly. The couple waited in court till the separate orders were delivered to them, and then tremblingly rose to go, he to his lonely home and she to ——. I accompanied them into the streets, and said to the old woman: "Where are you going to live?" She replied: "I am going home." "But you are separated. The magistrate has given your husband an order which says that you must no longer live with him." "Not live with my husband! Where am I to live, then?" I do not think that either of them understood till that moment what a separation order meant, for the old man said: "You can't live anywhere else." Then, turning to me, he said half defiantly: "I suppose I can take her back home if I like?" "Certainly," I said; "but you cannot come to the magistrate for another order." "I will never ask for another. I don't want this"; and he tore it in twain.
"Come on." And he offered his arm to his old and bewildered partner, and away they went—he to endure patiently and still to hope; she, touched by his faithful love, to struggle and, perchance, to conquer. He was a brave old man—a Sir Galahad with bent back and frosty locks. I watched them as they slowly disappeared along the street. Old as they were, they were passing through love to light. For I saw them many times after that day; I made it my business to see them, and to give them such encouragement as I could: they sorely needed it. So I learned the story of their lives.
She had been a good wife and mother till late in life. Then her children had all dispersed, and great loneliness came upon her. She had not even the prattle of a grandchild to cheer her. Her husband was away so much from home, for he worked many hours.
Old age steals away the power of self-control, and loneliness is hard to bear, and drink promised to cheer her. The old man's faithfulness was her only anchorage, but it held. The battle went sometimes against her, but from the day they stood before the magistrate the old woman began to gain strength, and with strength came hope and happier days.
I have selected these two instances because they fully illustrate the dangers and the weakness of this system. But these two by no means stand alone, and I am not exaggerating when I say that hundreds of men have consulted me about their wives' drunkenness, all of them expecting some help or relief from the Act. When I have explained to them exactly how it affected them and what a separation order meant, by far the greater number went away sorrowing, and most of them have added: "I thought she would be put in a home for a time, where I could pay a little for her. I cannot put her homeless into the streets; I should not be able to sleep if I knew she was out." Of course not; what decent husband could? And this feeling has, I am glad to say, been characteristic of husbands who have suffered intensely and long, and who through it all have been good and patient husbands. I do not wish it to be understood that I think evil of every husband who enforces a separation order on account of his wife's habitual drunkenness—far from it; for I know only too well that with some it has been a bitter and last resource, nothing else being apparently possible. But I do say this, and for this reason I have told the above stories: that this law places it in the power of a worthless husband, who cares not what becomes of his wife, to get rid of her and his responsibilities at practically the same time, but does nothing for the unfortunate husband who hopes for his wife's reformation, and who has still some respect for her; also that it consigns wretched women to a position that is certain to bring about their complete demoralization, for it submits them to temptations they cannot withstand.
The fashion that has arisen of late years of judges or magistrates engineering weddings among the wretched and often penniless people who sometimes come before them savours of indecency. Such proceedings ought to have no place in our courts of penal administration. The effects of thriftless and ill-assorted marriages are so palpable in police-courts that one wonders to what malign source of inspiration the suggestion that some criminal youth or some vicious young woman can be reincarnated by marriage is to be attributed.
Some of the most effective and eloquent homilies I have ever listened to have been delivered from the bench upon youthful and thriftless marriages, and upon the folly of obtaining household goods by the hire-purchase system.
In spite, however, of the well-known results of such marriages—for squalor and misery inevitably attend them—educated gentlemen of position and experience appear to take pleasure in arranging them, and Police-Court Missionaries find occupation and joy in seeing the arrangements duly carried out.
The altogether unwholesome effect of arranging these marriages is considerably enhanced by the press, which duly chronicles in heavy type and sensational headings a "Police-Court Romance."
Romance! I would like to find the romance. I have seen much of the results of such marriages, but I never discovered any romance; they were anything but romantic. While I have seen the results, and have had to alleviate some of the miseries following such marriages, I am thankful to say that I never did anything quite so foolish as to take part in arranging or giving any assistance in carrying out the arrangements for a single marriage of this description.
Many years ago I was asked by a worthy magistrate to see that the arrangements for a marriage of this kind were duly carried out; I told him that I must respectfully decline.
He reminded me, with a humorous twinkle in the eye, "that marriages were made in heaven." The reply was obvious: "Sometimes in hell, your Worship." And the sequel proved my reply to be true. Magistrates seldom see the after-results, but those results are far-reaching. From this one case alone grievous burdens have already been cast upon the public, and future generations will be called upon to bear an aggravated burden. For in a short time the couple were homeless, with three young children, and were found sleeping, or trying to sleep, in a van one winter's night.
It requires no prophetical vision to see the consequences of these marriages, but a few instances may stimulate imagination.
Three years ago a decent-looking young woman of twenty was charged in one of our courts with abandoning her illegitimate child. She was young, pretty, and told a sad tale about her wrongs.
The press account of the matter appeared with such embellishment as befitted a "romance," for a young man had risen in court and offered to marry the girl, and make her into an "honest woman." Now, this chivalrous young man had not seen the girl previously—they were complete strangers; nevertheless, the magistrate adjourned the case, and offered a sovereign towards the wedding expenses. The hero in this business—the chivalrous young man!—was penniless and out of work; in fact, if he himself spoke truly, he had done no work for a year; but, seeing publicity had been gained and interest excited, he wrote a letter to the press, asking the public to supplement the magistrate's contribution, and supply him with funds to furnish a home for himself and future wife His letter was not published, but it was sent in to me by the editor, for I had written to the press on the subject.
I have said that he was out of work, and certainly he was likely to remain out of work, for he was one of the audience to be seen regularly at the police-court, many of whom never seem to seek for work. I have no hesitation in saying that the man who comes forward in a police-court and offers to marry a young woman to whom he is a complete stranger, and who is, moreover, charged with serious crime, is either a fool or a rogue—probably both.
Why magistrates should smile on these impromptu proposals, and order remands that the consummation may take place, I cannot possibly understand. If I were a magistrate and a fellow came forward with a like proposal, I would order him out of court; in fact, I should experience some pleasure in kicking him out. But in this case the magistrate gave a fatherly benediction and twenty shillings. The missionary, too, was by no means out of it, for he afterwards took some credit for this sorry business.
The true story of the girl came out afterwards. It was not one to excite pity, for it was a shameful one to a degree. But morbid, and I think I may say maudlin, sympathy is one of the prevailing evils of the day, and is not founded in real pity or love, or controlled by common-sense or by the least discretion, as the following will show:
The case of a young woman in whom I was interested was placed before the public as a "romance," and consequently well advertised. She was by no means a desirable person; as a matter of fact, there was nothing to be said in her favour. The untrue statement she made before the magistrate was, however, duly circulated. In a few days I received a large number of letters, many of them from men with proposals of marriage. I did the best thing possible by burning the latter, with one exception, for this interested me, as it contained a membership ticket of a religious society.
The writer told me that he was a God-fearing man, a Church member for many years, a carpenter in business on his own account, a widower with several children; that he had prayed over the matter, and it was laid upon his conscience that he must marry the young woman and save her. He also enclosed a postal order for 10s., and asked me to pay her rail-fare and send him a telegram. I returned his membership ticket, his letter, and his postal order, and some words of my own—brief and pointed:
"Sir,
"You may be a well-meaning man, but you are an ass. What right have you to submit your children to the care of an abandoned woman? Marry some decent woman you are acquainted with, and save them and yourself.
"Yours truly,
"T. Holmes."
Quite recently a Police-Court Missionary told us through the press that he had arranged seventy such weddings, that he raised £200 to give the various couples a start in life, many of whom were so poor that he loaned them a wedding-ring for the ceremony, as he always kept one by him for emergencies. Yet he assured us, in spite of the poverty of the persons concerned, and notwithstanding the disgraceful circumstances that had brought them within his province, all these marriages had turned out happily. I sincerely wish that I could believe in the happiness of couples of this description, married under such circumstances, but I cannot, for my experience of them has been so very different. Indeed, I was not surprised to read an account in the press of the trial of a young man for the murder of his wife, when the wife's mother stated that the marriage had been arranged by a Police-Court Missionary.
When I reflect upon this subject, I must confess myself astonished that our Bishops and clergy, who insist so strongly on the sacredness of marriage and of its indissolubility, are silent upon the matter, and have no advice to give to their representatives upon it.
Especially am I surprised that our good Bishop of London, who is conversant with every phase of London life, and who has spoken so fearlessly upon the extent and evils of immorality, is silent on police-court marriages and police-court separations; for these marriages are none the less immoral though they be legalized by the State and blessed by the Church, and the evils of them will not bear recapitulation. On divorce our leaders have much to say; on marriage with deceased wives' sisters they have advice to give. Are the poor to have no guidance? Are penniless, ignorant, and often gross young people to be engineered into promiscuous marriage without a protest? Is the widespread evil that attaches to wholesale "separation" of no consequence? Are these and suchlike arrangements good enough for the poor?
But there is another light in which these engineered marriages must be considered. Not very long since one of our judges had before him a young man charged with the attempted murder of the girl with whom he had kept company. His jealousy and brutality had alarmed her, so she had given him up. But he was not to be got rid of so easily, for he waylaid her and attempted to murder her by cutting her throat. He was charged, but the charge was reduced to one of grievous bodily harm. At the trial the young woman was asked by the judge whether she would consent to marry the prisoner, adding that if she would consent it would make a difference in the sentence imposed. The matter was adjourned to the next session, the prisoner being allowed his liberty that the marriage might be effected. During the adjournment they were married, and when next before the magistrate the marriage certificate was produced. She saved the man from prison, and the judge bestowed his benediction in the following words: "Take her away" (as if, forsooth, she had been the prisoner) "and be good to her. You have assaulted her before: don't do it again"—thus giving him every opportunity of doing at his leisure what he had barely failed to do in his haste. I ask, Is not a procedure of this kind a grave misuse of the power of the courts? Is there any justice about it? Is it fair to place on a young and inexperienced girl the onus of deciding whether or not her would-be murderer shall be punished? Is there any sense of propriety in holding a half-veiled threat over her, and inducing her, against her better judgment, to marry a jealous and murderous brute? I can find no satisfactory answers to these questions, and contend such proceedings ought to be impossible in our courts of justice.
If our penal administrators think that brutality, jealousy, and murderous instincts can be cured by matrimonial ties, especially when these ties are forged and riveted under such circumstances, then their knowledge of human nature is small indeed.
The jealous brute when single is in all conscience bad enough, but when married he is infinitely worse; for with him jealousy becomes an absolute mania, and tragedy is almost inevitable. It must not be understood that all magistrates and judges bring pressure to bear on wretched or sinning couples for the purpose of compelling matrimony, for this is not the case. We have need to be thankful that comparatively few do so. But there is enough of this business done to warrant my calling attention to it, and in expressing the hope that "romance" of this kind may speedily die a death from which there is no resurrection. It may be that among the long list of sordid cases that come before the courts there are some in which marriage seems the best way out of the tangle, financial or otherwise. Sometimes, perhaps, it is the only honourable course, especially where the mother of a child is desirous of it. But it must be remembered that in these cases the parties have had plenty of opportunity for marriage previous to appearing before the court, and would have like opportunities after going from the court, without magistrates intervening.
But it becomes a public matter when judges or magistrates use their positions and the power of the law to compel young people, sometimes mere boys and girls, to marry.
Better a thousand times that many should bear the ills and sorrows that they have, and go through life with the shadow of disgrace over them, rather than take as partners those that have been either forced by circumstances or terrorized by representatives of the law into the unhappy position.
It may seem strange that, while some of our judges, magistrates, and missionaries betray anxiety to hurry on these indecent marriages, and to coerce penniless young people into them, the State should find ready means for undoing them. It is no uncommon thing for very young women who have been married but a few months to apply for separation orders and maintenance orders. I may add also that it is no uncommon thing for magistrates to grant them. The extent to which separation prevails may be gathered from the fact that under the Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act, 1895, there have been granted up to the end of 1906 (the latest date for which statistics are available) 72,537 separation orders; and, assuming the average for the years 1902 to 1906 to be maintained, up to the end of 1907 there would have to be added a further 1,048 separation orders, making a total since the Act came into force of 79,583 such orders.
Surely these figures ought to compel serious thought.
I owe my readers an apology for introducing this chapter, inasmuch as it does not deal chiefly with my own experiences, but with two extraordinary sentences recently given, and made public through the press; though it is fair to say that I know something of the friends in the one case and the victims in the other of the prisoners who received those sentences. I have seen nothing during my personal experiences to cause me any misgivings as to the administration of justice. I have not seen people punished for crimes they had not committed, but I have seen a large number of prisoners discharged about whose guilt there was no moral doubt. It stands to the credit of our penal system that it is much easier for a guilty man to escape than it is for an innocent man to be punished. This is a just and safe position. I would like also to say that among all the sentences that I have known imposed upon prisoners, there have been very few—indeed, scarcely any—that I have thought did not meet the justice of the case. I have, therefore, no sympathy with the organized outcries that are from time to time raised against our judges and magistrates and the police. Judges and magistrates are but human, and that they will err sometimes in their judgments is certain. We censure them sometimes because their sentences are too severe; we blame them sometimes because they have been too lenient; but it is always well to remember that judges and magistrates see and know more of the attendant circumstances of a case than the press and the public possibly can see or know. This knowledge, of course, cannot have any bearing on the question of guilt or innocence; but it can have, and ought to have, some effect upon the length of sentence imposed.
Within limits, then, judges and magistrates must be allowed latitude with regard to degrees of sentence, for a cast-iron method allowing no latitude would entail a tremendous amount of injustice.
Nine times out of ten, when a judge or magistrate errs in the imposition of sentence, he errs on the side of leniency, and it is right that it should be so. But an error on the side of mercy does not create a public sensation; and this speaks well for the public, for it is good to know that the community is better pleased to hear of leniency than of severity. Nevertheless, an error on the side of leniency is an error, and may be followed with results as disastrous as those that follow from an error on the side of severity; for while those results are not so quickly palpable, they may be more extensive.
I want, then, in this chapter to select two sentences—one given by a judge, the other by a magistrate: the judge erring, in my opinion, on the side of severity; the magistrate erring, in my judgment, on the side of leniency.
Neither of these sentences seems to have attracted public attention, though both are of recent date.
Let me quote from a letter received on June 4, 1907:
"Dear Sir,
"I hope you will excuse me writing to you about my son, who is a young man not twenty-three years of age.
"He is a carpenter and joiner, and has a good little business of his own, with a shop and yard.
"On January 4, 1906, there was a burglary at the house next to mine, and in a fortnight after my son was arrested on suspicion. The people—very old friends of ours—being awake, heard voices, but did not recognize one of the voices as that of my son.
"At the trial there was no evidence produced to prove that my son was in the house. My wife and myself are prepared to say that he went to bed at ten o'clock, and that we called him at seven o'clock next morning.
"The jury brought my son in guilty, and the judge gave him fourteen years' penal servitude. The whole court was shocked; no one could understand it. I cannot understand it, for I have read many instances of real old criminals, after committing robberies, being sentenced to a few months or a year or so. But fourteen years for a young man! Oh, sir, my family have lived in this old town for nearly three hundred years, and no member of it had ever been in a prisoner's dock till now. I have written to the Home Secretary, and his answer was that he could not at present interfere. I pray to Heaven that you will be kind enough to write to him and beg of him to pardon my son. I am sending to you a paper with a full account of the trial.
"I remain,
"Yours truly,
"X."
I have that paper now before me—the Coventry Times, dated Wednesday, December 12, 1906. The trial took place on the previous Friday at Warwick Assizes. Taylor was charged with breaking and entering, and feloniously stealing twenty-four farthings, one gold locket, one metal chain, and ten spoons; to make assurance doubly sure, he also was charged with receiving the same property. Taylor had been in custody since January 23, 1906. On December 7 of the same year he received his extraordinary sentence, after being detained in prison nearly eleven months. Everything seems extraordinary about this case—the long delay before trial, the severe sentence, the trumpery character of the articles stolen. I express no opinion about the prisoner's guilt. Some of the articles were found in his possession, and it was proved that he had been spending farthings. That the people whose house had been entered did not suspect the prisoner was clear, as they sent for him next morning to repair the door that had been broken. But, at any rate, the jury believed Taylor guilty, for, without leaving the box, they gave their verdict to that effect.
One of the objects of the burglary appears to have been the acquisition of the silver teaspoons.
Mrs. Wilson, the prosecutor's wife, had been previously married to a man named Vernon, and the spoons in question belonged to him. It was said that the friends of Vernon wanted the spoons, and Mrs. Wilson admitted that "they would like them; but they had let her alone for twenty years."
These spoons disappeared. They were not found in Taylor's possession, but someone had undoubtedly taken them. Mrs. Wilson stated in her evidence that after the burglary there was a piece of paper left on the parlour table, on which was written in pencil the words, "Mrs. Vernon, after twenty years"; but this paper was missing, and the prisoner's mother had been in the parlour and had seen the paper, which could not be found after she left.
Whether Taylor committed a trumpery burglary, or whether he did the thing out of mean spirit, or whether he was in collusion with others, does not matter very much. Punishment he doubtless deserved, but fourteen years for a young man for a silly offence seems beyond the bound of credibility. But it is true; for in June, 1907, I approached the Home Secretary, begging for a revision of the sentence, and received a reply similar to that sent to the prisoner's father—that it was too early a date for interference. It is only fair to assume that the judge was in possession of knowledge that justified his words, if not his sentence, for in addressing the prisoner he said: "You have been convicted, and properly convicted; but I know the sort of man you are, from this case and from the fact that there is another charge against you in this calendar. Fourteen years' penal servitude!"
I am not surprised to read that "The prisoner appeared to be stunned when he heard the sentence, and fell into the warders' arms who surrounded him!" I am not surprised to read that the prisoner's father and mother rose to their feet, and that the one shouted, "He is innocent!" and that the other went into hysterics; but I am surprised to read that an English judge could not allow something for parental feelings, and that he said fiercely: "Take those people away!" and when the prisoner's father shouted, "I can go out, but he is innocent!" that the judge instantly retorted: "If you don't go out, I will commit you to prison." Fourteen years for a young man of twenty-two! Fourteen years for a first offender! It requires an effort to make oneself believe it, but it is a fact.
I should like to know what was at the back of Mr. Justice Ridley's mind when he gave that sentence. Surely he had some reasons that he, at any rate, considered sufficient to justify it. It is difficult to imagine what they were, for no personal violence had been offered, no firearms had been carried, no burglar's tools had been discovered. Taylor was not even suspected of connection with any professional criminals. It was, moreover, the first time he had been in the hands of the police. Taylor seems to have been industrious, for at twenty-two years of age he was in business on his own account. I can't help thinking that there was something wrong with Taylor, some mental twist or peculiarity; for, admitting him to be guilty, he acted like a fool. To leave a piece of paper, in his own handwriting, referring to matters of which only intimate friends could have knowledge, was of itself an extraordinary thing; but to go spending openly at public-houses stolen farthings was more extraordinary still. So the responsibility for his conviction rests largely with himself.
But fourteen years even for a fool is unthinkable, and the responsibility for that rests with his judge.
This leads me to say that stupid and half-witted criminals are often more severely dealt with than clever and dangerous rogues. The former "give themselves away" in such sweetly simple fashion that they appear hardened and indifferent, and are punished accordingly. I am afraid, too, that sometimes judges and magistrates cannot attain to Pauline excellence and "suffer fools gladly." Hundreds of times I have heard the expression about someone who had received a severe sentence: "Well, he deserved it for being such a fool!" Even the public is more prepared to tolerate severe punishments for the men whose crimes savour of crass folly, if not of downright idiocy, than it is for dangerous, clever daring, and calculating rogues. My second example will tend to show that magistrates are not exempt from this kind of feeling, but when led by it, rush to the other extreme, and inflict no punishment whatever. The hearing of the case I am about to relate took place at Tower Bridge Police-Court in July, 1908.
A young married woman was charged with obtaining by false pretences £75 in cash and £15 worth of jewellery from an old woman who had been a domestic servant, but who at the age of seventy had given up regular work, and was hoping to make her little savings suffice for the remainder of her days. The prisoner was also charged with obtaining by fraud £10 5s. from a working man in whose house she had lodgings.
Evidence was given that the prisoner had an uncle abroad, but nothing had been heard of him for a very long time. Two years ago the prisoner spread a report that he had died immensely rich, and had left her thousands of pounds. In order to pay legal expenses, she said, she borrowed money from her aunt, an old woman of eighty. Having exhausted her aunt's money, and leaving her to the workhouse authorities, the prisoner then proceeded to draw upon the retired domestic, who parted with every penny of her savings and her jewellery.
In due time she was penniless also, and had again to seek work, at seventy years of age, having no friends to help her. The prisoner then turned her attention to her landlord, and obtained £10 5s. from him; but he became suspicious, and wanted to see some documents or solicitors. She gave him the address of her solicitors in Chancery Lane. Then he insisted upon her accompanying him to see them; he compelled her to go, and, on arriving, found the address to be a bank. The landlord then communicated with the police, and she was arrested. The prisoner admitted that the whole story was false, and that she was very wicked. It was stated in evidence that the prisoner had an illegitimate child, which she said was the child of a gentleman, and that she had persuaded a young man to marry her by promising him £300 from the child's father, when the wedding took place; but the young husband had never received the money.
The lady missionary told the magistrate that she had received a letter from the prisoner, whilst under remand in Holloway Prison, expressing her deep sorrow, and promising to work hard and pay the money back.
Mr. Hutton bound the prisoner over under the Probation Act! I wonder what was at the back of Mr. Hutton's mind when he practically discharged her.
If the Probation Act is to bring us such judgments as this, it would have been well if we had never heard of it.
I can imagine no more heartless and cruel series of frauds than those perpetrated in this case.
The prisoner seems to have pursued her victims with unerring instinct and skill: the old aunt was robbed and ruined; the old domestic, after a long life of hard work and economy, was robbed and ruined; then, with confidence in her own powers, she proceeded to rob her landlord. A continual succession of lies, deceptions, and frauds, extending over years! And then bound over! Herein is a problem: If ten teaspoons, one metal chain, and one gold locket are equal to fourteen years' penal servitude, what are some hundreds of pounds, obtained by two years' fraud, and entailing the ruin of two decent old women, equal to?
The answer, according to the magistrate, is, Nothing! A great deal has been said, and not without some show of justice, about there being one law for the rich and another for the poor. In this case it is positively true, though in an opposite sense to the generally accepted meaning of the words.
I have no hesitation in saying that if the prosecutors had been in more influential circumstances, and had employed a solicitor to put their case, the law would not have been satisfied by accepting the prisoner's recognizances. Are we to accept the principle that punishment must be in inverse ratio to the seriousness of the offence? It appears so!
The innocent young man she decoyed into marriage has not received his £300—he never will—but he received what he might have expected, and at least he got his deserts.
I ask my readers to ponder this decision: Bound over! I ask them to ponder this sentence: Fourteen years' penal servitude! There is an eternity between the two sentences; the one is permitted to go on her guileless way. The other is sent to confinement, monotony, and degradation for fourteen years. The latter was at the worst a foolish, clumsy rogue; the other was a consummate and accomplished artist in deception.
Whether the old women would have received any benefit from the imprisonment of the younger woman is beside the question. I am sure they will receive no benefit from her liberty, though she says she will work hard and repay them!
On what principle can she be called a first offender? If rogues are to be imprisoned at all, by what process of reasoning can it be argued that she ought to go free?
Surely the time is come when other people as well as prisoners must be considered. What will be the effect of a judgment like this? It can have but one effect: it will encourage similar young women in their lives of deception and fraud.
I may here stop to ask whether a young man charged with similar offence would have been dealt with at Tower Bridge Police-Court, or at any other court, in a similar way. My own conviction is that he would not have been so dealt with.
This raises the question whether there is or ought to be equality, or something approximating to equality, of punishment for the sexes.
This being the day of women's rights, I would say that certainly there ought to be something like equality even in the imposition of sentences; but the law and its administrators do not hold this view. I do not remember any case of a man and woman being jointly charged, both being jointly and equally guilty, in which the man did not receive much the heavier sentence.
I can understand it in the case of husband and wife, for the law considers husband and wife as one; but, unfortunately for the husband, it considers the male person as that particular one. But, with regard to unmarried couples, I can see no general reason for severity to the man and leniency to the woman.
At the risk of appearing ferocious, I must say that I was taken aback at the Tower Bridge Police-Court decision, for I confess that I would have preferred the magistrate giving the prisoner six months' hard labour, or sending her for trial before judge and jury. Not that I want either men or women to be detained in prison—I hate the thought of it—but I happen to hate something else much more, and that is the idea that plausible and crafty young women can rob and ruin decent old women with impunity.
I hold—though in this I may be wrong—that if the law cannot compel fraudulent persons to restore their ill-gotten gains—and in the case of the prisoner at Tower Bridge this was, of course, impossible—then at least it ought to administer in such cases a decent amount of punishment. But the course adopted did not uphold the dignity of the law; it did not in the least help those that have suffered; it did not punish the prisoner; neither did it serve to act as a warning to others. But while, as I have previously said, justice is, on the whole, fairly administered, there is still a wide difference in the sentences given for like offences. The demeanour of a prisoner before the magistrate may easily add to or lessen the length of his sentence; crocodile tears and a whining appeal for mercy generally have an opposite effect to that the prisoner wishes.
A scornful, defiant, or violent attitude is almost certain to increase the length of sentence. The plausible, cunning, and somewhat clever man, who cross-examines with the skill of an expert, is sure to be hardly judged and appraised when sentence is given; but the devil-may-care fellow, who bears himself a bit jauntily, and who, moreover, has considerable humour and a dash of wit, is almost sure by a few witty or humorous quips to partially disarm justice and secure for himself more lenient punishment. I suppose we all have a sneaking kindness for the complete vagabond; we instinctively like the fellow who can make us laugh; we do not want to believe that the man who is possessed of humour is altogether bad, and when we have to punish him we let him off as lightly as possible. But the stubborn thick-head does not excite either our risible faculties or our heart's sympathy; nevertheless, that thick-head may be far less guilty than the complete vagabond—in truth, he is often a far better fellow—but his thick-headedness is against him, and we punish him accordingly. And here I draw upon my own experiences, for I have known complete vagabonds that were also absolute scoundrels, who, by their apparent candour, jollity, and flashes of humour, continually saved themselves from anything approaching long sentences.
One fellow in particular took at least twelve years in qualifying for penal servitude, though he was a thorough rogue and a vagabond absolutely. He was a printer and a clever workman; but he never worked—not he! He would steal anything. Several times he had called on clergymen, and while conversing with them in their halls had appropriated their best silk umbrellas. On one occasion he had gone away without booty, but he returned five minutes afterwards, and rang the bell, which, being answered by the servant, he said: "I am very sorry to trouble, but I forgot my umbrella. Ah! here it is." And he went away with the parson's best.
"Give me another chance," I have heard him say. "You know you like me: I am not a bad fellow at heart." He saved himself from penal servitude many times, but he got it at last, after several narrow escapes.
One winter night I was told he was at my front-door, where he had been many times, for I never asked him in: I am sure he would have robbed me if I had. "Well, old man, how are you?" he said, for he always patronized me in a delightful manner. "Oh, it is you, Downy, is it?" "Ah, it is me. I say, Holmes, I am starving!" "There is some comfort in that," I said. "Bah! you don't mean it; you are too good-hearted. Give us a cup of tea." I declined his invitation, and told him that I had no umbrellas to spare. "Well, that's a bit thick," he said; "I did not expect that from you. Well, I'm off." Then, as an afterthought, he said: "What's the time?" "Five minutes past six," I said. "Why, I have been on this doorstep quite five minutes." "Quite ten minutes," I said.
Away he went to the parish clergyman, who did not know him, and delivered some imaginary messages from myself. He got two shillings and a meal from the clergyman.
To my surprise, I saw him in the dock next day, charged with stealing a valuable fur-lined overcoat. He had called at a gentleman's house to ask for employment. The servant had admitted him, and left him standing in the hall while she summoned the master. It was dark, but he discovered the valuable coat and put it on. There was no work for him, and the gentleman, who knew Downy well, showed him out promptly. He afterwards missed his coat, and quickly gave information to the police. Downy was as light-hearted as usual, denied his guilt, and closely examined the prosecutor as to the exact time he (Downy) called on him. The magistrate, having had depositions taken, was about to commit him for trial, when the prisoner said: "I have a witness to call." "You can call him at your trial," the magistrate said. "Who is your witness?" "Mr. Holmes." "What can he prove?" "That I was at his house at exactly the same time that it is said I was at the prosecutor's." I declined to give evidence, for I believed the fellow had the overcoat, though he was without a coat when I saw him. He was duly committed for trial, but before leaving the dock he turned to the magistrate and said: "You have made up your mind that I am to get five years, but you are mistaken this time: no jury will convict on the evidence." The grand jury threw out the bill, so I was saved the pleasure of giving evidence for him. In a few days he appeared at the court desiring to speak to the magistrate. When given the chance, he said: "Well, I'm here again. I thought you might be pleased to know that no true bill was found against me; my case did not go to the jury. You haven't done with me yet." "I am sorry," said the magistrate. "But you will not be disappointed many more times. You will get your five years." "Probably, but not at your suggestion. Good-morning!"