Curiosity has occasionally led us into both Courts at the Old Bailey. Nothing is so likely to strike the person who enters them for the first time, as the calm indifference with which the proceedings are conducted; every trial seems a mere matter of business. There is a great deal of form, but no compassion; considerable interest, but no sympathy. Take the Old Court for example. There sit the judges, with whose great dignity everybody is acquainted, and of whom therefore we need say no more. Then, there is the Lord Mayor in the centre, looking as cool as a Lord Mayor CAN look, with an immense BOUQUET before him, and habited in all the splendour of his office. Then, there are the Sheriffs, who are almost as dignified as the Lord Mayor himself; and the Barristers, who are quite dignified enough in their own opinion; and the spectators, who having paid for their admission, look upon the whole scene as if it were got up especially for their amusement. Look upon the whole group in the body of the Court - some wholly engrossed in the morning papers, others carelessly conversing in low whispers, and others, again, quietly dozing away an hour - and you can scarcely believe that the result of the trial is a matter of life or death to one wretched being present. But turn your eyes to the dock; watch the prisoner attentively for a few moments; and the fact is before you, in all its painful reality. Mark how restlessly he has been engaged for the last ten minutes, in forming all sorts of fantastic figures with the herbs which are strewed upon the ledge before him; observe the ashy paleness of his face when a particular witness appears, and how he changes his position and wipes his clammy forehead, and feverish hands, when the case for the prosecution is closed, as if it were a relief to him to feel that the jury knew the worst. The defence is concluded; the judge proceeds to sum up the evidence; and the prisoner watches the countenances of the jury, as a dying man, clinging to life to the very last, vainly looks in the face of his physician for a slight ray of hope. They turn round to consult; you can almost hear the man's heart beat, as he bites the stalk of rosemary, with a desperate effort to appear composed.
Charles Dickens, Sketches by Boz, 1836
from The Illustrated London News, 1843
The Sessions House, in the Old Bailey. The Criminal Court and the New Court adjoining it are the principal criminal Courts of the metropolis.-A Court of Sessions is held here monthly; and, for the trial of minor offences, Courts of Sessions are held at different periods ; - for the County of Middlesex, at the Sessions House on Clerkenwell Green ; at the Town hall in the Borough, for Southwark; for the City of Westminster, at the Guildhall near Westminster Abbey; and for the City, at Guildhall, King Street, Cheapside. All these courts are open, during business hours, to the public, the Old Bailey (to the discredit of the City of London) alone excepted: a small fee, however, will admit here.
Mogg's New Picture of London and Visitor's Guide to it Sights, 1844
CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.
IT is this court, which stands in the Old Bailey, and is only separated from
the gloomy prison of Newgate by a broad court called the Press Yard, which
presents from time to time subjects of profoundest interest to the Londoner. The
court-house was destroyed by fire at the time of the No Popery riots, instigated
by Lord George Gordon, in the year 1780, but was rebuilt and enlarged at the
begin ning of the present century. It now contains several separate judicial
chambers, and under its roof, in times of pressure of business, as many as six
trials are sometimes proceeding at once. It is to the Old Court, however,
situated to the left of' the entrance from the street, that the greatest
interest attaches, because it is here that those memorable trials have taken
place which have made the annals of the Old Bailey famous in the classics of
crime. This Old Court is a hall of no architectural pretensions, about forty
feet square, and tolerably well lighted and ventilated. Opposite the entrance is
the raised seat of the judges, extending along one whole side of the apartment.
Near the centre is the chief seat, with a canopy overhead, surmounted by the
royal arms, and showing beneath it a gilded sword upon the crimson draped wall.
Fronting the bench, and close to the entrance, is the dock for the prisoners, in
which they stand on a raised platform with wainscoted bulwarks. The prisoners
are not brought to this dock from the street and through the assembled crowds,
but pass into it through an underground stone passage which connects the Old
Court with the prison of Newgate. In front of the prisoner, on the broad
hand-rail on which he leans, are scattered a number of sprigs of the rue plant -
not to remind him, as simple people have supposed, of his rueful condition, but
as an antidote to the danger of infection which the court is supposed to incur
from his presence after confinement in unwholesome cells. This practice is about
a century old, and owes its origin to the deadly jail-fever which, in 1750,
killed Baron Clarke, Sir Thomas Abney, Sir S. Pennant, then Lord Mayor of
London, and a number of the members both of the bar and the jury.
To the left of the dock is the witness-box, and to the left of that the
jury-box - an arrangement which enables the jury, as well as the judges on the
bench, to see at one glance the faces both of the witnesses and the prisoners.
The counsel have their seats round a table in the centre below, and to the right
of the table are rows of raised seats for the accommodation of spectators, and a
few benches, supposed by a fiction of the law to be free to the public, though
in practice the reverse is the case. The accommodation: really provided for the
public is a gallery with rows of benches above the head of the prisoner, and in
front of the bench of judges, admission to which is obtainable only on payment
of a fee.
We will look in now upon this Old Court while a trial is going on. The crowd
around the outer portals, and the pushing and struggling for entrance, would
warn us, if we did not know it al ready, that an affair of more than usual
interest is going forward. We elbow through the crowd and make for the lower
door, but there the policemen in attendance only shake their heads at all
demands for admission, and refuse to, pass a single additional person who
cannot show that his presence is required within. We mount the stairs leading to
the gallery, where numbers more are clustered round the doom, waiting their time
to take the places of such of those within, who, under the pressure of the heat
or that of hunger and thirst, shall choose to vacate them. Half an hour's
patience, and an oblation of current coin, at length procure us the privilege of
attempting to force a way in. We happen to arrive at the fag end of a long
life-and-death trial, which has lasted two days, and at the moment when the doom
of the prisoner, which no man doubts, is already impending. There he stands in
the dock a young man, almost a boy, in the morning of life, who has deliberately
premeditated and in cold blood committed the foulest murder, for the mere
mercenary profit of the bloody deed. You would think, as he gazes round the
court with an air of apparent unconcern upon the dense mass of faces all turned
towards him, that he imagined himself the subject of sympathy, or even of
admiration, rather than of disgust and horror, so buoyant and self-confident is
the expression of his face. But a closer scrutiny shows you that he is acting a
part - that that nonchalant bearing is put on - that dismay is gathering at his
heart - and that the moment is not far distant when all that futile and assumed
bravado will suddenly collapse and disappear. Already, though his glance is
still defiant, the muscles of his mouth are not under his control, but are seen
to twitch and quiver convulsively ; his hand wanders mechanically among the
twigs of rue, and, without his volition or consciousness, his fingers are
rending then into fragments ; and the restlessness of his whole frame testifies
to that of his perturbed spirit. He is a foreigner, and ignorant of our laws ;
and to the last moment he buoys himself up with some latent hope, which perhaps
may be the secret of his seeming audacity. At the -very last minute, when all
other pleas have failed him, he claims exemption from capital punishment on the
ground that he is a minor and cannot be executed. The judge calmly tells him
that such a plea, however it might tell in his own country, is of no avail in an
English court of justice ; and in that response the unhappy man appears for the
first time to recognise the certainty of his fate. We need not dwell upon the
scene ; the sentence is pronounced by the judge amidst a deathlike stillness,
and the prisoner is withdrawn, disappearing from the world of men, to look upon
it but once more at that last hour, in the presence of ten thousand witnesses.
The disappearance of the doomed prisoner operates as a signal for the
clearance of the gallery, and that proceeding, in this instance at least, is
accompanied with very little ceremony. Everybody is thirsting for a breath of
air, and the rush down stairs of the whole mass in a body, carries us along with
it.
In the New Court, trials of less importance - robberies, felonies,
forgeries, and misdemeanors - are going on, and, lists of these being exhibited
on placards in the hall, the crowds are gathering round them to see what else,
in the shape of excitement, offers for their choice. The Criminal Court, as may
be easily conceived, is a source of constant interest and attraction to a
certain class of the population, and therefore the public, so far as they
represent it, are never absent from the trials. As the court sits every month,
these lovers of justice doing judgment are sometimes gratified with the
spectacle of very summary work. Thus, it has been known that a criminal, who has
committed an offence one day, has been apprehended the next day, committed the
third day, and tried and sentenced on the fourth day. Such examples of despatch
of business are, of course, but rare :things; and we cannot help thinking that
if they were the rule, instead of the exception; such despatch would tend
greatly to the decrease of crime.
Connected with the old Bailey trials are the Old Bailey dinners. These take
place every day the court sits, and in.the room above that in which we have seen
the murderer condemned to death. The dinners are given by the sheriffs to the
judges and aldermen, the recorder, common sergeant, city pleaders, and a few
visitors. Marrow puddings and rump steaks are invariably part of the fare. Two
dinners, each a duplicate of the other, are served each day?one at three, the
other at five o'clock. Thus, the judges can relieve each other, and there is no
truth in the ghastly sarcasm which says that wretches are hanged in a hurry lest
the dinner should grow cold. The cost of these daily dinners, which is something
considerable, is defrayed by the sheriffs.
The Leisure Hour, 1858
The Old Bailey! Ugly words---associated (in a Londoner's
mind, at all events) with greasy squalor, crime of every description, a cold,
bleak-looking prison, with an awful little iron door, three feet or so from the
ground, trial by jury, black caps, bullying counsel, a "visibly
affected" judge, prevaricating witnesses, and a miserable, trembling, damp
prisoner in the dock. The Old Bailey---or rather the Central Criminal Court,
held at the Old Bailey---is, par excellence, the criminal court of the
country. In it all the excellences and all the disadvantages of our criminal
procedures are developed to an extraordinary degree. The Old Bailey juries are
at once more clearsighted and more pig-headed than any country jury. The local
judges---that is to say, the Recorder and the Common-Serjeant---are more
logical, and more inflexible, and better lawyers than the corresponding
dignitaries in any of our session towns. The counsel are keener in their conduct
of defences than are the majority of circuit and session counsel; and at the
same time the tone of their cross-examinations is not so gentlemanly, and
altogether they are less scrupulous in their method of conducting the cases
entrusted to them. The witnesses are more intelligent and less trustworthy than
country witnesses. The officers of the court keep silence more efficiently, and
at the same time are more offensive in their general deportment than the
officers of any other court in the kingdom. And lastly, the degree of the
prisoners' guilt seems to take a wider scope than it does in cases tried on
circuit. More innocent men are charged with crime and more guilty men escape at
the Old Bailey than at any other court in the kingdom; because the juries, being
Londoners, are more accustomed to look upon the niceties of evidence from a
legal point of view, and in many cases come into the jury-box with exaggerated
views of what constitutes a 'reasonable doubt,' and so are disposed to give a
verdict for the prisoner, when a country jury would convict.
The Old Bailey, although extremely inconvenient, is
beautifully compact. You can be detained there between the time of your
committal and your trial---you can be tried there, sentenced there,
condemned-celled there, and comfortably hanged and buried there, without having
to leave the building, except for the purpose of going on to the scaffold.
Indeed, recent legislation has removed even this exception, and now there is no
occasion to go outside the four walls of the building at all---the thing is done
in the paved yard that separates the court-house from the prison. It is as
though you were tried in the drawing-room, confined in the scullery, and hanged
in the back garden.
The court-house contains, besides ample accomodation for the
judges, alder men, common-councilmen, sheriffs, and under-sheriffs, two large
courts, called the Old Court and New Court, and two or three secondary courts,
which are only used when the pressure of business is rather heavy. The gravest
offences are usually tried in the Old Court on the Wednesday or Thursday after
the commencement of the session, on which days one or two of the judges from
Westminster sit at the Old Bailey. The arrangement of the Old Court may be taken
as a tolerably fair sample of a criminal court. The bench occupies one side of
the court, and the dock faces it. On the right side of the bench are the
jury-box and witness-box; on the left are the seats for privileged witnesses and
visitors, and also for the reporters and jurymen in waiting. The space bounded
by the bench on one side, the dock on another, the jury-box on a third, and the
reporters' box on the fourth, is occupied by counsel and attorneys, the larger
half being assigned to the counsel. Over the dock is the public gallery, to
which admission was formerly obtained by payment of a fee to the warder. It is
now free to about thirty of the public at large at one time, who can see nothing
of the prisoner except his scalp, and hear very little of what is going on.
The form in which a criminal trial is conducted is briefly as
follows: The case is submitted to the grand jury, and if, on examination of one
or more of the witnesses for the prosecution, they find a prima facie
case against the prisoner, a "true bill" is found, and handed to the
clerk of arraigns in open court. The prisoner is then called upon to plead: and,
in the event of his pleading "guilty," the facts of the case are
briefly stated by counsel, together with a statement of a previous conviction,
if the prisoner is an old offender, and the judge passes sentence. If the
prisoner pleads "not guilty," the trial proceeds in the following
form. The indictment and plea are both read over to the jury by the clerk of
arraigns, and they are charged by him to try whether the prisoner is
"guilty" or "not guilty." The counsel for the prosecution
then opens the case briefly or at length, as its nature may suggest, and then
proceeds to call witnesses for the prosecution. At the close of the
"examination in chief" of each witness, the counsel for the defence
(or, in the absence of counsel for the defence, the prisoner himself)
cross-examines. At the conclusion of the examination and cross-examination of
the witnesses for the prosecution, the counsel for the prosecution has the
privilege of summing up the arguments that support his case. If witnesses are
called for the defence, the defending counsel has, also, a right to sum up; and
in that case the counsel for the prosecution has a right of reply. The matter is
then left in the hands of the judge, who "sums up," placing the facts
of the case clearly and impartially before the jury, pointing out discrepancies
in the evidence, clearing the case of all superfluous matter, and directing them
in all the points of law that arise in the case. The jury then consider their
verdict, and, when they are agreed, give it in open court, and the prisoner at
the bar is asked whether he has anything to say why the sentence of law shall
not be passed upon him. This question is little more than a matter of form, and
the judge rarely waits for an answer, but proceeds immediately to pass sentence
on the prisoner.
A visitor at the Old Bailey, to whom the courts of
Westminster or Guildhall are familiar, will probably be very much struck with
the difference between the manner in which the Nisi Prius and the criminal
barristers are treated by the officials of their respective Courts. At
Westminster the ushers, who are most unpleasant in their demeanour towards the
public at large, are as deferential in their tone to the bar as so many club
servants. Like Kathleen's cow, though vicious to others, they are gentle to
them. Indeed, at Westminster the bar are treated by all the officials as
gentlemen of position have a right to expect to be. But at the Old Bailey it is
otherwise. They appear to be on familiar terms with criers, ushers, thieves'
attorneys, clerks, and police serjeants. Attorneys' clerks, of Israelitish
aspect, buttonhole them; bumptious criers elbow them right and left, and the
policemen on duty at the bar-entrance chaffs them with haughty condescension. Of
course there are many gentlemen at the criminal bar whose professional position
overawes even this overbearing functionary; but it unfortunately happens that
there are a great many needy and unscrupulous practitioners at the Old Bailey,
who find it to their advantage to adopt a conciliatory policy towards everybody
in office; for it is an unfortunate fact, that almost everybody in office has it
in his power, directly or indirectly, to do an Old Bailey barrister a good turn.
"Dockers," or briefs handed directly from the prisoner in the dock to
counsel, without the expensive intervention of an attorney, are distributed
pretty well at the discretion of the warder in the dock, or of the gaoler to
whose custody the prisoner has been entrusted since his committal; and there are
a few needy barristers who are not ashamed to allow their clerks to tout among
prisoners' friends for briefs at half fees. It is only fair to state, that the
counsel who resort to these ungentlemanly dodges form but a small proportion of
the barristers who practise at the Old Bailey; but still they are sufficiently
numerous to affect most seriously the tone that is adopted by Old Bailey
officials towards the bar as a body.
The conventional Old Bailey barrister, however, is a type
that is gradually dying out. The rising men at the criminal bar are certainly
far from being all that could be desired; but their tone, in cross-examination,
is more gentlemanly than that commonly in vogue among Old Bailey barristers of
twenty years since. There are a few among them who occasionally attempt to
bully, not only the witnesses, but even the judge and jury; but they always get
the worst of it. As a rule, cross-examinations are conducted more fairly than
they were, and a determination to convict at any price is rarer on the part of a
prosecuting counsel than of yore. If some means could be adopted to clear the
court of the touting counsel, or, at all events, to render their discreditable
tactics inoperative, a great change for the better would be effected in the tone
adopted towards the bar by the officials about the court. As it is, it is almost
impossible for a young counsel to retain his self-respect in the face of the
annoying familiarities of the underlings with whom he is brought into contact.
On the occasion of our last visit to the Old Bailey, during the trial of Jeffrey
for the murder of his son, we happened to witness a dispute between an insolent
policeman, stationed at the bar-entrance, and a young barrister in robes, who
was evidently not an habitue of that court. The barrister had a friend
with him, and he wanted to get a place for his friend, either in the bar seats,
or in the seats set aside for the friends of the bench and bar. The policeman in
question placed his arm across the door, and absolutely refused to allow either
the barrister or his friend to enter, on the ground that the court was quite
full. The barrister sent his card to the under-sheriff, who immediately gave
directions that both were to be admitted to the bar-seats, which were occupied
by about a fourth of the number which they would conveniently accomodate, about
half the people occupying them being friends of counsel who, we suppose, were on
more intimate terms with the discourteous functionary than was the barrister in
question. On another occasion it came to our knowledge that a barrister, who did
not habitually practise at the Old Bailey, was refused admission at the bar
entrance to the court-house by the police-sergeant stationed there. He showed
his card, but without avail, and eventually he expressed his intention of
forcing his way past the policeman, and told that official that if he stopped
him he would do so at his peril. The policeman allowed him to pass, but actually
told another constable to follow him to the robing-room, to see whether he had
any right there or not. The barrister, naturally annoyed at being thus conveyed
in custody through the building, complained to one of the under-sheriffs for the
time being, but without obtaining the slightest redress. Of course this system
of impertinence has the effect of confining Old Bailey practice to a
thick-skinned few; but it does not tend to elevate the tone of the bar (of which
the Old Bailey barrister is unfortunately generally taken as a type); and those
who are jealous for the honour of the profession should take steps to do away
with it.
To a stranger, a criminal trial is always an interesting
sight. If the prisoner happens to be charged with a crime of magnitude, he has
become quite a public character by the time he enters the dock to take his
trial; and it is always interesting to see how far a public character
corresponds with the ideal which we have formed of him. Then his demeanour in
the dock, influenced, as it often is, by the fluctuating character of the
evidence for and against him, possesses a grim interest for the unaccustomed
spectator. He is witnessing a real sensation drama, and as the case draws to a
close, if the evidence has been very conflicting, he feels an interest in the
issue akin to that with which a sporting man would take in the running of a
great race. Then the deliberations of the jury on their verdict, the sharp,
anxious look which the prisoner casts ever and anon towards them, the deep
breath that he draws as the jury resume their places, the trembling anxiety, or,
more affecting still, the preternaturally compressed lips and contracted brow,
with which he awaits the publication of their verdict, and his great, deep sigh
of relief when he knows the worst, must possess a painful interest for all but
those whom familiarity with such scenes has hardened. Then comes the sentence,
followed, perhaps, by a woman's shriek from the gallery, and all is over, as far
as the spectator is concerned. The next case is called on, and new facts and new
faces soon obliterate any painful effect which the trial may have had upon his
mind.
Probably the first impression on the mind of a man who visits
the Old Bailey for the first time is that he never saw so many ugly people
collected in any one place before. The judges are not handsome men, as a rule,
the aldermen on the bench never are; barristers, especially Old Bailey
barristers, are the ugliest of professional men, excepting always solicitors;
the jury have a bull-headed look about them that suggests that they have been
designedly selected from the most stupid of their class; the reporters are
usually dirty, and of evil savour; the understrappers have a bloated, overfed,
Bumble-like look about them, which is always a particularly annoying thing to a
sensitive mind; and the prisoner, of course, looks (whether guilty or innocent)
the most ruffianly of mankind, for he stands in the dock. We remember seeing a
man tried for burglary some time since, and we came to the conclusion that he
had the most villanous face with which a man could be cursed. The case against
him rested on the testimony of as nice-looking and ingenious a lad as ever
stepped into a witness-box. But, unfortunately for the ingenious lad, a clear alibi
was established, the prisoner was immediately acquitted, and the nice boy, his
accuser, was trotted into the dock on a charge of perjury. The principal witness
against him was the former prisoner, and we were perfectly astounded at the
false estimate we had formed of their respective physiognomies. The former
prisoner's face was, we found, homely enough; but it absolutely beamed with
honest enthusiasm in the cause of justice, while the nice lad's countenance
turned out to be the very type of sly, insidious rascality. It is astonishing
how the atmosphere of the dock inverts the countenance of any one who may happen
to be in it. And this leads us to the consideration how surpassingly beautiful
must that ballet-girl have been, who, even in the dock, exercised so
extraordinary a fascination over a learned deputy-judge at the Middlesex
sessions not long ago. We remember once to have heard a well-known counsel, who
was defending a singularly ill-favoured prisoner, say to the jury,
"Gentlemen, you must not allow yourselves to be carried away by any effect
which the prisoner's appearance may have upon you. Remember, he is in the dock;
and I will undertake to say, that if my lord were to be taken from the bench
upon which he is sitting, and placed where the prisoner is now standing, you,
who are unaccustomed to criminal trials, would find, even in his lordship's
face, indications of crime which you would look for in vain in any other
situation!" In fairness we withhold the learned judge's name.
Perhaps the most ill-favoured among this ill-favoured
gathering are to be found among the thieves' attorneys. There are some Old
Bailey attorneys who are respectable men, and it often happens that a
highly-respectable solicitor has occasion to pay an exceptional visit to this
establishment, just as queen's counsel standing at Nisi Prius are often employed
in cases of grave importance; but these solicitors of standing are the
exception, and the dirty, cunning-looking, hook-nosed, unsavoury little Jews,
with thick gold rings on their stubby fingers, and crisp black hair curling down
their backs, the rule. They are the embodiment of meat, drink, washing, and
professional reputation to the needy barristers whom they employ, and, as such,
their intimacy is, of course, much courted and in great request. Of course many
Old Bailey barristers are utterly independent of this ill-favoured race; but
there are, unfortunately, too many men to be found whose only road to
professional success lies in the good-will of these gentry. There are, among the
thieves' lawyers, men of acute intelligence and honourable repute, and who do
their work extremely well; but the majority of them are sneaking, underhand,
grovelling practitioners, who are utterly unrecognized by men of good standing.
for the rest of this book, including pictures, click here
W.S.Gilbert , London Characters and the Humorous Side of London Life, 1870?
see
also The Great Metropolis Vol.2 Chpt 3 - click here
see also Montagu Williams in Round London - click here
Victorian London - Publications - History - The Queen's London : a Pictorial and Descriptive Record of the Streets, Buildings, Parks and Scenery of the Great Metropolis, 1896 - Interior of the Central Criminal Court
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INTERIOR OF THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.
Our picture shows the interior of the chief of the two Courts at the Old Bailey, where criminal trial for London and Middlesex are held. To the left is the dock; below the double windows is the jury box ; in the foreground, to the right, marked by the gas-pipe, is the reporters' box, in front of which are the seats for barristers ; while the small table in the well of the Court ie reserved for solicitors. Under the canopy, where hangs the emblematic sword of justice, the Lord Mayor, or the senior alderman no duty, takes his seat, with the judge at the unpretentious desk to his right, and with City colleagues and the Sheriff to his left. One of the judges from the Queen's Bench presides over the more important trials, instead of, as ordinarily, the Recorder or the Common Sergeant.
[-Vol.1-]
[-107-]
A TRIAL AT THE OLD BAILEY
By GEORGE R. SIMS
The Old Bailey is the Central Criminal Court of London, and here
the last scenes of most of the great criminal tragedies of the capital are
enacted. In the close atmosphere of a small, inconvenient, and utterly
inadequate chamber the most famous advocates of the past and of the present have
contended for the life of a fellow creature.
Passing the grim, forbidding prison of Newgate, with its
allegorical chains, and its black memories of the days when a public execution
brought together a ribald mob composed of the dregs of the populace, we find
immediately adjoining it the Old Bailey. Outside a large crowd is already
assembled, for this, it is anticipated, will be the last day of the trial of a
young murderer, whose cool, calculating crime has sent a thrill of horror
through the kingdom.
We are early, but if we attempt to enter at the principal
doorway we shall have to return. For the trial at which we wish to assist every
place has been allotted and admission is by the Under-Sheriff's signed order
only. To reach the Court comfortably we shall therefore enter by the side gate.
We are provided with the necessary card, and, showing this, the police on duty
step aside and permit us to pass. We find ourselves in the courtyard. Here
already stands the prison van known as "Black Maria." From it the
prisoners who have been brought from another gaol are alighting to be led to the
cells in which they will be detained until it is time for them to be placed in
the dock.
In the covered yard, in which we wait until the officer at
the foot of the stairs leading to the Court has time to inspect our card of
admission, there is a wooden bench. On this are seated two pale-faced, nervous
looking women, and an old, grey-hair man. One of the women, the younger, is the
sweet-heart of the man at whose trial we are to assist. The old gentleman is his
grandfather. Close by, talking together in a low tone, are a group of witnesses.
Presently the Sheriff's servant in livery [-108-]
comes to the top of the stairs, and we send our card to him. He reads it,
and beckons us to follow him. We pass through a glass door at the top of the
stairs, and find ourselves in a narrow passage filled with barristers and
officials. A wooden barrier near the entrance of the court is raised for us, and
the door-keeper ushers us into a seat in the well. We have only time to glance
round the crowded chamber when the cry of the Usher is heard, and everybody
starts to his feet. Preceded by the City officials and the Lord Mayor, the Lord
Chief Justice enters and takes his seat.
The prisoner comes up the stairs accompanied by two warders,
and steps down to the front of the dock. One of the warders puts a chair for
him, and he sits down. His face is pale, and though throughout the week the
trial has lasted he has borne himself with considerable bravado, he shows
nervousness to-day. For it is Saturday, and he has heard the Judge say that he
will sit to any hour in order that the verdict may be reached without the
intervention of a Sunday. To-day is, therefore, to seal the prisoner's fate, and
he knows that before many hours are over he will leave the Court a free man or
be taken to the condemned cell, there to wait until he is led out to die a
shameful death.
The Counsel for the defence, before making his speech, which
it is understood will be a short one, has promised to call a witness who was not
able to be present before. In the course of the evidence it is necessary that a
large photograph of the murdered woman should be handed to the witness and to
the Jury. This photograph is held by the Counsel in such a way that the prisoner
in the dock cannot help seeing it. He looks at it almost carelessly. There is
not a soul in Court who doubts the man's guilt, and this careless look makes
people turn to each other and whisper. How can a man standing in the shadow of
death look upon the face of his victim without a flushing of the cheeks, without
a tremor of the lips? A moment later, and the jacket that the poor woman wore on
the night of the crime is held up. The prisoners looks at it for a moment, then
glances out of the window, and becomes apparently interested in two sparrows who
are chirruping on the wall. The nervousness he betrayed when he stepped into the
dock he has apparently conquered.
Counsel makes his speech. It is a clear impassioned effort to
belittle the evidence as purely circumstantial, and to build up a theory that
the murder was committed by a man unknown who has been vaguely hinted at as
having been seen in the neighbourhood of the crime. In the course of the speech
there is a strong attack made upon the police who have had "the getting up
of the case." The detectives to whom unpleasant reference is made are
seated near the solicitors' table. One of them holds on his knee the black bag
which contains the direct evidence that connects the prisoner with the deed.
Counsel points a denunciatory finger at him, and refers to him in terms of
withering scorn. But the detective sits unmoved, with the blank expression on
his face of a deaf man in church during sermon time. The Judge makes an
occasional note or two, then sits back in his seat and folds his hands in his
lap. But the prisoner's face relaxes into a grim smile when the police who have
hunted him down are abused, and in the glance he darts at the victim of his
Counsel's scathing eloquence there is a world of malignity.
It is a brilliant speech, and the rumour that it is stirring
and dramatic has spread to the other Courts. Barristers look in, and occupy a
tightly packed space between the press box and the public seats. From the
gallery above the spectators lean over, listening intently. On the bench a
well-known peer, a famous general, and a clergyman have taken their places and
are deeply interested. Packed tightly together in the limited space allotted to
the public are politicians, literary men, dramatists, actors, men of fashion and
of finance. The Jury listen attentively, but with impassive faces. The foreman,
half turned towards the Counsel, leans his elbow on the edge of the jury box and
rests his head upon his hand.
The speech as it progresses and becomes more and more
dramatic and impassioned has a distinct effect upon the prisoner. It is
raising his hopes. The same thought has come into his mind that has come into
the minds of the large audience - Will the Jury seize the loophole offered them
by the advocate and give the prisoner the benefit [-110-]
of the doubt. The advocate finishes with a magnificent burst of eloquence. As he
utters the last word and sinks into his seat one is almost tempted to applaud
him. It seems a drop from the clouds to the earth when the Judge, glancing at
the clock, says, "I think this will be a convenient time to adjourn."
Everybody rises. The Lord Mayor, the Aldermen and others on
the bench, stand back as the Lord Chief Justice walks with quiet dignity to the
door where Mr. Under-Sheriff is waiting to conduct him to the luncheon room. The
warders turn to the prisoner, who rises, glances at the clock, and then goes
down the little staircase that leads to the cell below, in which his
mid-day meal will be served.
The prisoner can order practically what he likes, with
certain restrictions as regards liquor. His lunch is sent in from a neighbouring
hostelry, and he eats it under fairly comfortable circumstances.
The Court now rapidly empties. The barristers go to their
luncheon room, and the spectators file out into the street to take their
refreshment. There is a luncheon bar at the public house opposite the Old
Bailey, and her the prospects of the verdict are eagerly discussed.
In response to the courteous invitation of the Under-Sheriff,
we are privileged to be his guests. We find ourselves in a comfortable dining
room in which a big table is laid for luncheon. The Lord Chief in his robs sits
at the head of it. Here and there along the table are barristers and
distinguished visitors to whom the Under-Sheriff has extended his hospitality.
Liveried servants wait upon the guests, who speak together in a low tone. In the
presence of the Lord Chief no reference is made aloud to the case that is being
tried.
After luncheon the Lord Chief retires, and coffee is served
in an adjoining apartment. Here one meets barristers and visitors who have been
lunching in other rooms. Here is the clergyman who has been sitting quietly on
the bench all the morning. It is only when we learn who he is that the
significance of his presence is understood. He is the Sheriff's Chaplain. In the
event of the verdict being against the prisoner he will be called upon to take
an active part in the later proceedings.
Suddenly there is a general murmur. The
[-111-] word has gone round that the Lord Chief is ready to resume. The
Under-Sheriff is quickly in attendance, and precedes his Lordship to the Court.
There is a moment's pause while barristers and spectators settle down, and then
the prisoner is brought up and the trial proceeds.
The Counsel for the prosecution rises. He is about to reply
on the whole case. The prisoner leans forward and listens attentively to the
opening. Slowly, but with masterly precision, the eminent King's Counsel, who is
acting for the Treasury, sweeps away point after point made by the defence. With
perfect fairness, but with deadly effect, he reweaves the evidence, twisting the
separate strands into a hangman's rope. The prisoner shifts uneasily in his
chair. He can no longer conceal his nervous apprehension. His lips twitch. There
is a flushing of the neck and cheeks. Again and again he passes his handkerchief
over his face. For the first time a warder has seated himself close behind him,
and another warder has taken the vacant corner. As Counsel drives nail after
nail into the coffin of a living man, the prisoner, whose head has been bending
down, sways slightly, and the warder nearest him catches his arm. But for that
grasp he would probably have fainted. He recovers himself, but the warders'
shoulders now almost touch his.
For two hours the Counsel for the Crown speaks, always in the
same calm but convincing manner. When at last the speech is ended, there is but
one opinion in Court. The prisoner is doomed. Only were and there men whisper to
each other there is a rumour that one Juryman is against capital punishment. He
may hold out and delay the verdict.
But the Lord Chief has yet to sum up. As he begins to speak
the prisoner revives a little. For the summing up is to the speech of Cousel as
a gentle, purling brook after the remorseless flood. The Judge brings before the
Jury all that should weigh with them in the prisoner's favour, all that should
tell against him. It is a quiet, almost a soothing summing up, but it disposes
of all possible doubt in the minds of the audience. Nothing but an obstinate
Juryman can save the prisoner now.
It is past six o'clock when the Judge withdraws, and the
Clerk, giving the Jury into custody of the Usher, bids them retire and consider
their verdict.
Again the Judge leaves the bench, and the prisoner is led
below. The Jury file out, and the spectators eagerly scan their faces as they
go. Which is the Juryman who is expected to be obstinate and to keep us all in a
state of suspense for hours?
With the departure of the Jury a buzz of [-112-]
conversation begins. Counsel come forward and chat with the spectators
whom they know. Journalists who have to get their "special" accounts
done for the Sunday papers look anxiously at their watches. It is past six - it
may be eight before the Jury returns, it may be nine. Will there be time for
dinner? Will it be safe to go to a restaurant? It is impossible to say. The Jury
may agree in a few minutes if the verdict is to be guilty; they may remain
deliberating for hours if only one of their number is in favour of an acquittal.
The atmosphere of the Court has become almost unbearable with
the night. The gas jets have all been lighted long ago, and the air of the small
chamber, which has been breathed for more than ten hours by a packed audience,
has become heavy and vitiated. The faces of the audience are anxious and
flushed. The excitement and suspense are intensified by the sense of the
impending doom of a fellow-creature. Outside in the corridor they tell us that
the young man's sweetheart is in a room waiting for the verdict. His father and
mother have left the building, unable to bear the strain.
The clock ticks on - the Jury have been gone half an hour.
Have they disagreed? Must we remain in this terrible Court to hear sentence
pronounced at midnight, as happened years ago in the trial of two men and two
women for the Penge murder?
Just as the spectators have made up their mind that the
verdict may be delayed for hours, there is a sudden excitement near the door by
which the Jury retired. The Usher has come to say they are agreed upon their
verdict. Instantly a dead silence falls upon the Court. Everyone returns to his
seat. Counsel take their places. The Judge enters slowly and solemnly.
Now for the first time we can see that the prisoner is in
readiness. We catch sight of him half way up the steps that lead to the dock.
There are two warders with him, and an officer in plain clothes stands behind
him. The Judge takes his seat. A warder touches the prisoner on the shoulder, he
mounts the remaining steps and comes down to the front of the dock. Two warders
stand by him on each side.
The Jury re-enter. The Clerk calls out their names one by
one, and they answer to them. Then he says to them:
"Gentlemen of the Jury, have you agreed upon your
verdict?"
The Foreman answers, "Yes."
"Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not
guilty?"
There is a moment's hush, a general catching of the breath.
"Guilty."
The warders' hands almost join behind the prisoner's back.
But he has only given a little start. For a moment his jaw
has fallen, but he closes it again with a snap and stands pale - almost defiant.
He is asked the usual question - Has he anything to say why
sentence should not be passed upon him?
In a husky voice he replies,
"Only that I am innocent, sir."
The Judge's Clerk has risen from his desk. He has something
in his hand. It is a square piece of cloth. It is the Black Cap. He lays it on
the Judge's wig, and then for the first time we realise that the clergyman who
has [-113-] been present all day on the bench has
put on a black gown and stands near the Judge.
The Lord Chief addresses the prisoner by name. Only a few
words he speaks to him, saying that he will not harrow his feelings. Then he
pronounces the dread sentence of the law. When he says "And may the Lord
have mercy on your soul," over the solemn silence that follows rings the
deep voice of the chaplain -
"Amen!"
No one moves for a second, everyone is watching the
condemned man. He lingers for a second, his lips moving as though he wanted to
speak. Then the warders take his arms. He turns, and, with a last look around
the Court as though in search of someone, he disappears from view.
The Court rises. The spectators come into the corridors.
There is a hum of conversation, a hurried exchange of good nights, and we pour
out into the welcome air of the street.
Outside there is a crowd. They heard the news some minutes
ago. The Judge had barely passed the sentence when we caught a fair cheer. Now,
as we get outside, where the police are busy keep a pathway for us, we are
questioned on all sides as to how the prisoner behaved at the finish.
Before we have reached the end of the street of doom the
newsboys are rushing up. One of them stands in front of the Old Bailey with
papers on his arm and a contents bill open in front of him. On it we see, in
large letters,
VERDICT
The boy begins to shout the news. The gates of court-yard
open and a four-wheeled cab comes slowly out.
In it are two women. One is lying with her head upon the
other's shoulder. The fainting woman is the sweetheart of the man who death
sentence is being shouted almost in her ears as the cab passes down Newgate
Street.
George Sims, Living London, 1902