Part 13

The magistrate asked him something of his story. He said he had formerly driven a stage-coach, in the north of Ireland, and had a small share in the proprietorship of the coach. In this time of his prosperity he married a young woman with a little property, but he failed in business, and, after enduring many troubles, he enlisted as a private soldier in the 18th, or Royal Irish Regiment of Foot, and went on foreign service, taking with him his wife and four children--Henry (the prisoner) being his second son, and his "darling pride." At the end of nine years he was discharged, in this country, without a pension, or a friend in the world; and coming to London, he, with some trouble, got employed as a paviour, by "the gentlemen who manage the streets at Mary-la-bonne." "Two years ago, your honour," he continued, "my poor wife was wearied out with the world, and she deceased from me, and I was left alone with the children; and every night after I had done work I washed their faces, and put them to bed, and washed their little bits o'things, and hanged them o' the line to dry, myself--for I'd no money, your honour, and so I could not have a housekeeper to do for them, you know. But, your honour, I was as happy as I well could be, considering my wife was deceased from me, till some bad people came to live at the back of us; and they were always striving to get Henry amongst them, and I was terribly afraid something bad would come of it, as it was but poorly I could do for him; and so I'd made up my mind to take all my children to Ireland.--If he had only held up another week, your honour, we should have gone, and he would have been saved. But now!----"

Here the poor man looked at his boy again, and wept; and when the magistrate endeavoured to console him by observing that his son would sail for Botany Bay, and probably do well there; he replied somewhat impatiently,--"Aye, it's fine talking, your worship; I pray to the great God he may never sail any where, unless he sails with _me_ to Ireland?" and then, after a moment's thought, he asked, in the humblest tone imaginable, "Doesn't your honour think a little bit of a petition might help him?"

The magistrate replied, it possibly might; and added, "If you attend his trial at the Old Bailey, and plead for him as eloquently in word and action as you have done here, I think it would help him still more."

"Aye, but then _you_ won't be there, I suppose, will you?" asked the poor fellow, with that familiarity which is in some degree sanctioned by extreme distress; and when his worship replied that he certainly should not be present, he immediately rejoined, "Then--what's the use of it! There will be nobody there who knows _me_; and what _strangers_ will listen to a poor old broken-hearted fellow, who can't speak for crying?"

The prisoners were now removed from the bar to be conducted to prison, and his son, who had wept incessantly all the time, called wildly to him, "Father! Father!" as if he expected that his father could snatch him out of the iron grasp of the law. But the old man remained rivetted, as it were, to the spot on which he stood with his eyes fixed on the lad until the door had closed upon him; and then putting on his hat, unconscious where he was, and crushing it down over his brows, he began wandering round the room in a state of stupor. The officers in waiting reminded him that he should not wear his hat in the presence of the magistrate, and he instantly removed it; but he still seemed lost to every thing around him, and, though one or two gentlemen present put money into his bands, he heeded it not, but slowly sauntered out of the office, apparently reckless of every thing[29].

SORROWS OF THE SULLIVANS.

Mr. Daniel Sullivan, of Tottenham-court-road, green-grocer, fruiterer, coal and potato-merchant, salt fish and Irish pork-monger, was brought before the magistrate on a peace-warrant issued at the suit of his wife, Mrs. Mary Sullivan.

Mrs. Sullivan is an Englishwoman, who, according to her own account, married Mr. Sullivan for love, and has been "blessed with many children by him." But nevertheless, she appeared before the magistrate with her face all scratched and bruised, from the eyes downward to the very tip of her chin; all which scratches and bruises, she said, were the handiwork of her husband.

The unfortunate Mary, it appeared, married Mr. Sullivan about seven years ago; at which time he was as polite a young Irishman as ever handled a potato on this side Channel;--he had every thing snug and comfortable about him, and his purse and his person taken together were quite _ondeniable_. She, herself, was a young woman genteelly brought up--abounding in friends, and acquaintance, and silk gowns; with three good bonnets always in use, and black velvet shoes to correspond; welcome wherever she went, whether to dinner, tea, or supper, and made much of by everybody. St. Giles's bells rang merrily at their wedding; a fine fat leg of mutton and capers, plenty of pickled salmon, three ample dishes of salt fish and potatoes, with pies, pudding, and porter of the best, were set forth for the bridal supper; all the most considerablest families in Dyott-street and Church-lane were invited, and everything promised a world of happiness--and, for five whole years, they were happy. She loved--as Lord Byron would say, "She lov'd and was belov'd; she ador'd and she was worshipped;" but Mr. Sullivan was too much like the hero of his Lordship's tale--his affections could not "hold the bent;" and the sixth year had scarcely commenced when poor Mary discovered that she had "outlived his liking." From that time to the present he had treated her continually with the greatest cruelty; and, at last, when by this means he had reduced her from a comely young person to a mere handful of a poor creature, he beat her, and turned her out of doors!

This was Mrs. Sullivan's story; and she told it with such pathos, that all who heard it pitied her--except her husband.

It was now Mr. Sullivan's turn to speak. Whilst his wife was speaking, he had stood with his back towards her, his arms folded across his breast to keep down his choler, biting his lips, and staring at the blank wall; but, the moment she ceased, he abruptly turned round and, curiously enough, asked the magistrate whether _Misthress_ Sullivan had done _spaking_?

"She has," replied his worship; "but suppose you ask her whether she has anything more to say."

"I sholl, Sir!" exclaimed the angry Mr. Sullivan.--"Misthress Sullivan, had you any more of it to say?"

Mrs. Sullivan raised her eyes to the ceiling, clasped her hands together, and was silent.

"Very well, then," continued he--"will I get lave to spake, your honour?"

His honour nodded permission, and Mr. Sullivan immediately began a defence, to which it is impossible to do justice; so exuberantly did he suit the action to the word, and the word to the action. "Och! your honour, there is something the matter with me!" he began; at the same time putting two of his fingers perpendicularly over his forehead to intimate that Mrs. Sullivan had played him false. He then went into a long story about a "_Misther Burke_" who lodged in his house, and had taken the liberty of assisting him in his conjugal duties, "without any lave from _him_ at all." It was one night in _partickler_, he said, that he himself went to bed betimes in the little back parlour, quite entirely sick with the head-ache. _Misther_ Burke was out from home; and when the shop was shut up, Mrs. Sullivan went out too: but he didn't much care for that, _ounly_ he thought she might as well have staid at home, and so he couldn't go to sleep for thinking of it. "Well, at one o'clock in the morning," he continued, lowering his voice into a sort of loud whisper; "at one o'clock in the morning, Misther Burke lets himself in with the key that he had, and goes up to bed--and I thought nothing at all; but presently I hears something come, tap, tap, tap, at the street door. The minute after, down comes Misther Burke, and opens the door, and sure it was Mary--Misthress Sullivan that _is_, more's the pity--and devil a bit she came to see after me in the little back parlour at all, but upstairs she goes after Misther Burke.--'Och!' says I, 'but there's something the mather with me this night!'--and I got up with the night-cap o' th' head o' me, and went into the shop to see for a knife, but I couldn't get one by no manes. So I creeps upstairs, step by step, step by step, (here Mr. Sullivan walked on tip-toe all across the office, to show the magistrate how quietly he went up the stairs,) and when I gets to the top, I sees 'em--by the _gash_ (gas) coming through the chink in the windy-curtains--I sees 'em; and 'Och! Misthress Sullivan!' says he; and 'Och! Misther Burke!' says she--and 'Och botheration!' says I to myself, 'and what will I do now?'" We cannot follow Mr. Sullivan any further in the _detail_ of his melancholy affair; it is sufficient that he saw enough to convince him that he was dishonoured; that by some accident or other, he disturbed the guilty pair, whereupon Mrs. Sullivan crept under Mr. Burke's bed, to hide herself; that Mr. Sullivan rushed into the room and dragged her from under the bed, by her "wicked leg;" and that he felt about the round table in the corner, where Mr. Burke kept his bread and cheese, in the hope of finding a _knife_.

"And what would you have done with it if you had found it?" asked his worship.

"Is it what I would have done with it, your honour asks?" exclaimed Mr. Sullivan, almost choked with rage--"Is it what I would have done with it!--ounly that I'd have _dagged_ it into the heart of 'em at that same time!" As he said this, he threw himself into an attitude of wild desperation, and made a tremendous lunge, as if in the very act of slaughter.

To make short of a long story, he did not find the knife, Mr. Burke barricadoed himself in his room, and Mr. Sullivan turned his wife out of doors.

The magistrate ordered him to find bail to keep the peace towards his wife and all the king's subjects, and told him if his wife was indeed what he had represented her to be, he must seek some less violent mode of separation than the _knife_.

"WHERE SHALL I SLEEP?"

Henry Walters, a tailor, was brought up from St. Martin's watch-house, to answer the complaint of Mr. Thomas Thompson, who is a tailor too--that is to say, they are two tailors; Mr. Thompson, the master, and Mr. Walters, the man--or, to speak more proverbially, the _servant_.

Mr. Walters lodges on Mr. Thomas Thompson's premises, near Leicester-square, and at two o'clock in the morning, Mr. Thomas Thompson, being then fast asleep in bed with his wife, was awoke by some person on his side of the bed, leaning over him, and saying--"Be quiet;--can't you?" At the same moment Mrs. Thompson screamed, and said, "Tom Thompson, there's a strange man in the room!"--"What the devil do you want here?" exclaimed Mr. Tom Thompson--valorously jumping out of bed, and seizing the strange man by the collar. To which the strange man replied, by giving Mr. Tom Thompson a thump on the eye, and unseaming his shirt from top to bottom! This was strange treatment in one's own bed-room! But Mr. Tom Thompson kept his hold, Mrs. Thompson alarmed the lodgers, the lodgers called the watch, the watch came (with as much speed as they could,) and when they held their lanterns to the strange man's face--who should it be but this identical Mr. Walters! He had not "a word to throw at a dog," as one of the witnesses shrewdly remarked; and therefore he was at once consigned to the care of the watchman, who _bundled_ him away to the watch-house. Mr. Tom Thompson added, that his wife was so much alarmed at the circumstance, she was quite unable to attend this examination; but that she had told him she was awoke by some one squeezing her hand tenderly, and saying, as aforesaid, "Be quiet--can't you?"

Mr. Walters was now called upon for his defence. But first it may be as well to say something of his person. He was young--say five-and-twenty; short in stature; by no means _fat_; parenthesis-legged; brush-cropped; nutmeg complexion; unvaccinated; scarlet-trimmed eyes; an Ashantee nose; and a mouth capacious enough to admit the biggest Battersea cabbage that ever was boiled--

"A combination and a form indeed, Where _everything_ did seem to set its seal, To give the world _assurance_ of a tailor!"

We have been thus particular in describing the person of Mr. Walters, in order to show that he had no business whatever to be meddling with Mrs. Thompson, or with any other lady.

And now for his defence:--"Please your worship, Sir," said he, "I have lodged in Mr. Thomas Thompson's house just one month next _Toosday_ week--I _think_ it's _Toosday_; but howsomever, that's neither here nor there. I'm a young man from the country, your worship; a tailor _by trade_; and so is Mr. Thomas Thompson--only he's a _master_, and I'm a _man_! (His worship smiled.) Last night, your worship, Sir, I met a _foo_ friends, and when I went home I had a great deal of trouble to open the street door--("No doubt of it," observed his worship)--and somehow or other, when I got in, instead of getting into my own room, I got into the yard: it's a sort of timber-yard: and there I was, poking about among the timber, please your worship--I'm sure for a good long hour, and I couldn't find my road out of it for the life of me!--and at last I found myself in Mr. Thomas Thompson's bed-room; but I'll be hanged if ever I touched his wife, or struck him; and I'll give you my honour that I did not go there intentionally."

His worship had no faith in the _honour_ of Mr. Walters, and he was ordered to find bail for the assault, in default whereof he was handed over to the gaoler.

BEEF VALOUR.

James Green, alias _Jemmy Green_, a short, squat, spherical-phizzed, poodle-pated, seedy subject--between a buck and a bumpkin, said to be the identical hero of the Moncriefian, Adelphian, Tom and Jerry-extinguishing, nondescript gallimaufry, yclep'd "_Jemmy Green_ in France;" and Launcelot Snodgrass, were brought up from the almost bottomless pit of St. Clement's watch-house, charged with sundry midnight disorders in an alamode beef-house; and also with an outrageous assault upon Edmund Speering, Esq., of New Inn, and divers other persons--subjects of our Sovereign Lord the King.

It appeared by the evidence of the said Edmund Speering, Esq., that as he was passing through Clare-court, between one and two o'clock in the morning, he heard a great row and uproar in Thomas's alamode beef-shop--the shrill voices of women in distress, and the hoarse clamour of numerous throats masculine. Hearing this, he looked towards the said shop, and saw through the beef-besteamed windows and the salads three or four men, and as many women, in personal conflict with each other; and, like a true knight, he rushed into the midst of the affray, demanding of the distressed damsels whether or not they wished to be rid of their unmanly opponents? They answered in a joint and corporate voice--"Oh! yes, we do!" Whereupon the said Edmund seized one fellow by the nape of the neck, and another by the waistband of his breeches, and with pith and power propelled them from the premises. This accomplished, he turned to seize the others; when _Jemmy Green_, who appeared to be the most violent among them, seized the said Edmund by the collar, and strenuously endeavoured to floor him; but it would not do--Jemmy Green was out-done both in length and strength, and was compelled to give way before the superior pith of his adversary; and just as Jemmy was flung headlong from the door, Launcelot Gobbo--we beg his pardon, Launcelot Snodgrass, struck the conquering Edmund a blow on the back of his head with an umbrella, and laid him horizontally on the floor. But Edmund rebounded to the perpendicular in an instant, and was preparing to renew the combat, when the watch came up, and Jemmy and Launcelot were both carried off to the watch-house as contemners of the public peace.

The magistrate asked how this disgraceful uproar began.

The landlady, and her barmaid, and Nicholas the waiter, all gave evidence on that part of the subject; and it appeared, by their account, that Jemmy Green, Launcelot Snodgrass, and two other gentlemen, came in late, and full of gin, and ate alamode beef in such quantities, that at length the spicery of the beef, the gin, and the beer, concocting together, produced a fume which got the better of what little sense they carried about them, and made them all agog for what "the Fancy" calls a "_spree_." In this state they rushed into the privacy of the bar, upset the salads, insulted the mistress, milled the waiter, and demolished the barmaid's head gear. It was at this juncture the above-mentioned Edmund came to their relief; and the barmaid swore positively that Launcelot not only knocked down the said Edmund with his umbrella as aforesaid, but that he also "knocked her down up a-top of him," and how she got off again she did not know.

The accused were called upon for their defence; and Jemmy Green made the first essay; but, unfortunately for him, the fumes of the commingled gin and hot-spiced beef had not entirely evaporated--his brain seemed clogged with beefy vapour, notwithstanding the unctuous dews which distilled copiously from his forehead, and he found it impossible to make any defence at all. So he was ordered to find bail for his appearance at the Sessions, and he waddled out of the office under the superintendence of the turnkey.

Launcelot then addressed himself to speak; and to the astonishment of all the witnesses, he smilingly denied--firstly, that he had ever been in the house at all; and secondly, that he ever in the whole course of his life carried an umbrella--_ergo_, he could neither have been there, nor could he have knocked the said Edmund down with an umbrella, as falsely alleged by Mary Mulready, the barmaid. He admitted having witnessed the affair from the court; and that, though prudence "bade him budge, he budged not"--like his prototype, honest _Gobbo_, he scorned running with his heels, and so he remained looking on, till he was seized by a watchman and conveyed to durance.

In proof of this, he called a gentleman, his friend, who was present with him; and this gentleman said, "every word, what Mr. Launcelot Snodgrass speaks, is true as possible."

But this worthy witness, unluckily for Launcelot, admitted that he himself was very drunk at the time, and also that he had an umbrella in his hand; and the magistrate--being of opinion that Launcelot might have _borrowed_ this umbrella for the purpose of knocking down the aforesaid Edmund Speering, believed all that the witnesses had said, and ordered Master Launcelot to find bail also. Whereupon he was handed over to the turnkey, who instantly locked him up with his friend Jemmy Green.

JEMMY LENNAM AND THE JEW.

Mr. Nathan Nathan, a slender, shapely, shewily-clad Israelite--"a tall fellow of his hands," but having only "a younger brother's having in that ancient Jewish indispensable--a beard;" thereby seeming to signify that he was, as yet, scarcely arrived at years of discretion, was brought up among a squad[30] of disorderly Christians from Covent-garden watch-house, and charged with having created a disturbance in Drury-lane theatre on the preceding night; and also with having assaulted Jemmy Lennam--time out of mind, Old Drury's little-wigg'd, big, old watchman.

It appeared by the testimony of the aforesaid Jemmy Lennam, that after the performances were over, "and the company had well nigh all departed dacently to their beds," this Mr. Nathan Nathan came into the hall, "brim-full of the cratur, and _coming the gentleman_ over the folks, according to the present blackguard fashion;" that is to say, by manifesting a supreme contempt for the _genteel_, insulting the women and making as much noise as he could, just to show that he considered himself quite _at home_ anywhere and everywhere. So much for generalities, as Jemmy Lennam said; and then for particularities, he pretended to be _mighty swate_ upon every modest woman that came out, obstructed the free passage of the company, mocked the servants when they called the coaches, put the said servants upon a wrong scent, and out-roared the loudest link-boys in bellowing "coach _on_-hired!" Jemmy Lennam bore all this with a not-very-easily-suppressed indignation; and at last, when he could bear it no longer, he "just took a civil twist of the young gentleman's cravat," and handed him over to some of the patrol; but as he was doing this, he received "two hard strokes on the right cheek-bone from the fist of him."

This was the substance of Jemmy Lennam's charge, and the patrol bore him out in it as far as they were concerned in the matter.

Mr. Nathan Nathan, in his defence, declared upon his honour, that Jemmy Lennam was the first aggressor--by refusing to let him wait in the hall for "the party of ladies and gentlemen to whom he _belonged_!" and by calling him "a Jew pickpocket!" and he appealed to the "gentlemen of the patrol," whether he did not place himself under their protection from Jemmy Lennam's _wiolence_.

"The gentlemen of the patrol" said they heard a great noise in the hall, and going to see what it was about, they found Jemmy Lennam's fist locked in Mr. Nathan Nathan's collar, and Mr. Nathan Nathan's fist working away at Jemmy Lennam's face--and that was all they had to say in the business.

So Mr. Nathan Nathan was ordered to find bail, and a pair of Holywell-street vendors of seedy[31] apparel became his sureties.

WOLF _versus_ WELLDONE.

Mrs. Winifred Welldone, widow, of Monmouth-street, Seven Dials, was charged with having assaulted Mrs. Mary Wolf of the same place, spinster.

Mrs. Wolf, as her name would seem to signify, is bony and gaunt, and grim--a lady of most voracious aspect, and much more like an assault_er_ than an assault_ee_. But the proverb saith--"judge not by outward appearances--they too often prove deceitful;" and they did so in this case; for Mrs. Welldone was so overdone with fat--so round, so soft, so puffy, and so short withal, that nobody would have supposed her capable of bruising even a pound of butter; and yet she contrived to give Mrs. Wolf a black eye! How she had reached so high as the eye of Mrs. Wolf, was matter of wonder to everybody; for she was by no means well made for jumping, and Mrs. Wolf was nearly double her height.

It appeared by the evidence adduced on both sides, that Mrs. Welldone occupies a house in Monmouth-street--that far-famed street which is sometimes, though _maliciously_, yclep'd "_Rag_-fair." Here she carries on a thriving trade in the "_translating_ line,"--that is to say, she employs sundry ingenious craftsmen in translating _old shoes_ into new ones--an art that will be dignified to all posterity, as being that art by which the patriot PRESTON procured _bub_ and _grub_[32] for his family. These shoes, thus translated, or "revivified," Mrs. Welldone sells at a small profit to those persons, and they are not a few, whose destinies forbid them to purchase their shoes of the shoe-_maker_. Beneath the shop, or parlour, in which she carries on this trade, she has two cellars--_under-ground apartments_ she calls them, and perhaps it is the _genteeler_ term; and it was these two cellars, or under-ground apartments, that brought her in contact with Mrs. Wolf. Mrs. Wolf is of a profession nearly allied to _translating_, only she operates upon gowns, and petticoats, and "_chemises_," instead of _shoes_.--As Robert Burns would say,

"----She--wi' her needle and her shears, Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new."