Part 93
You,--Mr. Editor,--Have journeyed from London to Portsmouth, and must recollect Hindhead--you will, therefore, sympathize with me:--the luxury of riding round the rim of the Devil’s Punch-Bowl is over! Some few years back the road, on one side, was totally undefended against casualties of any description--overturning the coach into the bowl (some three or four hundred yards deep)--the bolting of a horse--or any other delightful mishap which could hurl you to the bottom--all is over! They--(the improvers of roads, but destroyers of an awful yet pleasing picture,)--have cut a new road about fifty or sixty feet below the former, and raised a bank, four feet high, round the edge, so that an accident is almost impossible, and no such chance as a roll to the bottom will again occur! The new road is somewhat shorter than the old--the _effect_ completely spoiled--the stone to perpetuate the murder of the sailor unheeded[299]--the gibbet unseen--and nothing left to balance the loss of these _pleasing_ memorials, but less labour to the horses, and a few minutes of time saved in the distance! Eighteen years since, the usual stoppage, and “Now, gentlemen, if you’ll have the goodness to alight, and walk up, you’ll oblige,” took place. At the present time you are galloped round, and have scarcely time to admire the much-spoken-of spot.
The last time I passed the place, on the _Independent_, when conversing on the subject, our coachee, Robert (or Bob, as he delights to be called) Nicholas, related an anecdote of an occurrence to himself, and which tells much of the fear in which passing the Devil’s Punch-Bowl was once held. You shall have it, as nearly as I can recollect it:--
An elderly lady, with two or three younger ones, and servants, engaged the coach to London, but with a special agreement, that the party should _walk_ round the said bowl,--“As we understand, it is next to a miracle to go along that horrid place in safety.” On the journey, each change of horses was accompanied by an inquiry, how far was the dreaded place? a satisfactory answer was, of course, generally given. When, at length, the coach arrived at the stone-memorial, one-third round the place, the coachman alighted, and pretended to be making some trifling alterations to the harness: his lady-passenger, looking complacently into the vast dell beneath her, inquired its name. “Higgin-bottom, ma’am.”--“What a delightful but singular looking spot!” was the rejoinder. The coach then drove on. On its arrival at the next stage, Road-lane, the anxious inquiry, “How far off, sir?” was again repeated. “We’re passed, ma’am.”--“Passed it!--in safety!--bless me!--where was it?”--“Where I stopped, and you asked the name of that deep dell-that was the Devil’s Punch-Bowl--Higgin-bottom’s the right name.” The delighted passenger rewarded the coachman for his innocent deception, and promised always, on that road, to travel under his guardianship.
---- I have spoken of a stone erected on the Bowl, and if, in this “airy nothing,” I do not occupy too much space that, undoubtedly, could be better filled, a brief recollection of the fact may close this notice of the Devil’s Punch-Bowl:--
An unfortunate sailor, with a trifle in his pocket, on the way to Portsmouth, fell in, at Esher, with three others, then strangers, and, with characteristic generosity, treated them on their mutual way. The party were seen at the Red Lion, Road-lane, together, which they left, and journeyed forward. On Hindhead they murdered their companion--stripped the body, and rolled it down the Devil’s Punch-Bowl. Two men, who had observed the party at the Red Lion, and who were returning home, not long after, on arriving at the spot, observed something which appeared like a dead sheep; one descended, and was shocked to find a murdered man, and recognised the sailor: conjecturing who were his destroyers, they followed in haste. On arriving at Sheet, the villains were overtaken, when in the act of disposing of their victim’s apparel. They were apprehended, and shortly afterwards hung and gibbeted near the spot. When at the place of execution one of them observed, he only wished to commit one murder more, and that should be on Faulkner, the constable, who apprehended him!--The following is (or was) the inscription on the stone; and many a kind “Poor fellow!” has been breathed as the melancholy tale has ended.
THIS STONE Was erected in detestation of a barbarous MURDER, Committed near this Spot On an UNKNOWN SAILOR, By Edward Lonogan, Michael Casey, and James Marshall, September 24, 1786.
Gen. ix. 6.
“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.”
R. N. P.
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P. S.--Since writing as above, a mutilation of the Sailor’s stone is noticed in a Portsmouth paper by the following advertisement:--
TEN GUINEAS REWARD.
WHEREAS some evil-disposed person or persons did, in the night of Tuesday, the 17th instant, maliciously BREAK, DEFACE, and INJURE the STONE lately put up at Hindhead, by the Trustees of the Lower District of the Sheetbridge Turnpike Road, to perpetuate the memory of a murder committed there, in the place of one removed by John Hawkins, Esq.
Whoever will give information of the offender or offenders shall on his, her, or their conviction receive a Reward of TEN GUINEAS, which will be paid by Mr. James Howard, the Surveyor of the said Road.
_Witley, 26th July, 1827._
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NOTE.
“You, Mr. Editor,” says my pleasant correspondent R. N. P., “you, Mr. Editor, have journeyed from London to Portsmouth, and must recollect Hindhead--the luxury of riding round the rim of the Devil’s Punch-Bowl--the stone to perpetuate the memory of the sailor--the gibbet, &c.” Ah me! I travel little beyond books and imagination; my personal journeys are only gyration-like portions of a circle, scarcely of larger circumference than that allowed to a tethered dumb animal. If now and then, in either of the four seasons, I exceed this boundary, it is only for a few miles into one of the four counties--to a woodland height, a green dell, or beside a still flowing water--to enjoy the features of nature in loneliness and quiet--the sight of “every green thing” in a glorious noontide, the twilight, and the coming and going of the stars:--on a sunless day, the vapours of the sky dissolving into thin air, the flitting and sailing of the clouds, the ingatherings of night, and the thick darkness.
No, Mr. R. N. P., no sir, I am very little of a traveller, I have not seen any of the things you pleasure me by telling of in your vividly written letter. I know no gibbet of the murderer of a sailor, except one of the “men in chains” below Greenwich--whom I saw last Whitsuntide two-years through the pensioners’ telescopes from the Observatory[300]--was a slayer of his messmate; nor though I have heard and read of the Devil’s Punch-Bowl, have I been much nearer its “rim” than the gibbet of Jerry Abershaw at Wimbledon Common.
Abershaw was the last of the great highwaymen who, when people carried money about them, robbed every night, and sometimes in the open day, on Bagshot, Wimbledon, Finchley, and other commons, and high roads, in the neighbourhood of London. Some of these highwaymen of the “old school” lived in the wretched purlieus of Saffron-hill, and would mount and “take the road” in the afternoon from the end of Field-lane, at Holborn-bridge, as openly as travellers setting out from an inn. On the order in council, in 1797, which prohibited the Bank from paying in specie, gold went out, and bank-notes came in; and as these were easily concealed, and when stolen were difficult to pass, the business of “the highway” fell off, and highwaymen gradually became extinct. Jerry Abershaw was the most noted, because he was the most desperate, and most feared of these marauders. He was a reckless desperado who, pistol in hand, would literally have “your money, or your life;” and perhaps both. He was as famous in his day as Sixteen-string-Jack, or the Flying Highwayman. He shot several persons; his trial excited as much interest as Thurtell’s; and the concourse of people at his execution was innumerable. It was in the height of summer; and the following Sunday being fine, London seemed a deserted city; for hundreds of thousands went to see Abershaw hanging in chains. His fame will outlast his gibbet, which I suppose has been down years ago. The papers tell us, that the duke of Clarence, as Lord High Admiral, ordered down the pirates’ gibbets from the river-side. These were the last “men in chains” in the vicinage of the metropolis.
*
_July, 1827._
[298] A deep valley in Surrey, so called from its circular form. It is about forty-one miles from London.
[299] The old stone was destroyed at the alteration of the road; but a new one has very recently been erected on the new road.
[300] Told of in the _Every-Day Book_.
* * * * *
JERRY ABERSHAW
AND
THE MEN IN CHAINS.
Townsend, the Bow-street officer’s interesting examination before the police committee of the House of Commons in June, 1816, contains some curious particulars respecting Abershaw, the pirates, “the dangers of the _road_” and “hanging matters,” toward the close of the last century.
_Q._ The activity of the officers of Bow-street has infinitely increased of late years?
_A._ No doubt about it; and there is one thing which appears to me most extraordinary, when I remember, in very likely a week, there should be from ten to fifteen highway robberies. We have not had a man committed for a highway robbery lately; I speak of persons on horseback. Formerly there were two, three, or four highwaymen, some on Hounslow Heath, some on Wimbledon Common, some on Finchley Common, some on the Romford Road. I have actually come to Bow-street in the morning, and while I have been leaning over the desk, had three or four people come in and say, ‘I was robbed by two highwaymen in such a place;’ ‘I was robbed by a single highwayman in such a place.’ People travel now safely, by means of the horse-patrol that sir Richard Ford planned. Where are there highway robberies now? As I was observing to the chancellor, as I was up at his house on the Corn Bill: he said, ‘Townsend, I knew you very well so many years ago.’ I said, ‘Yes, my lord; I remember your coming first to the bar, first in your plain gown, and then as king’s counsel, and now chancellor. Now your lordship sits as chancellor, and directs the executions on the recorder’s report; but where are the highway robberies now?’ and his lordship said, ‘Yes, I am astonished.’ There are no footpad robberies or road robberies now but merely jostling you in the streets. They used to be ready to pop at a man as soon as he let down his glass.
_Q._ You remember the case of _Abershaw_?
_A._ Yes; I had him tucked up where he was; it was through me. I never left a court of justice without having discharged my own feeling as much in favour of the unhappy criminal as I did on the part of the prosecution; and I once applied to Mr. Justice Buller to save two men out of three who were convicted; and on my application we argued a good deal about it. I said, ‘My lord, I have no motive but my duty; the jury have pronounced them guilty. I have heard your lordship pronounce sentence of death, and I have now informed you of the different dispositions of the three men. If you choose to execute them all I have nothing to say about it; but was I you, in the room of being the officer, and you were to tell me what Townsend has told you, I should think it would be a justification of you to respite those two unhappy men, and hang that one who has been convicted three times before.’ The other men never had been convicted before, and the other had been three times convicted; and he very properly did. And how are judges or justices to know how many times a man has been convicted but by the information of the officer in whose duty and department it is to keep a register of old offenders. The magistrate sits up there, he knows nothing of it till the party is brought before him; he cannot.
_Q._ Do you think any advantages arise from a man being put on a gibbet after his execution?
_A._ Yes, I was always of that opinion; and I recommended sir William Scott to hang the two men that are hanging down the river. I will state my reason. We will take for granted, that those men were hanged as this morning, for the murder of those revenue officers--they are by law dissected; the sentence is, that afterwards, the body is to go to the surgeons for dissection; there is an end of it--it dies. But look at this: there are a couple of men now hanging near the Thames, where all the sailors must come up; and one says to the other, ‘Pray what are those two poor fellows there for?’--‘Why,’ says another, ‘I will go and ask.’ They ask. ‘Why, those two men are hung and gibbeted for murdering his majesty’s revenue officers.’ And so the thing is kept alive. If it was not for this, people would die, and nobody would know any thing of it. In Abershaw’s case I said to the sheriff, ‘The only difficulty in hanging this fellow, upon this place, is its being so near lord Spencer’s house.’ But we went down, and pointed out a particular place; he was hung at the particular pitch of the hill where he used to do the work. If there was a person ever went to see that man hanging, I am sure there was a hundred thousand. I received information that they meant to cut him down. I said to sir Richard Ford, ‘I will counteract this; in order to have it done right, I will go and sit up all night, and have eight or ten officers at a distance, for I shall nail these fellows;’ for I talked cant language to him. However, we had the officers there, but nobody ever came, or else, being so close to Kent-street, they would have come down and sawed the gibbet, and taken it all away, for Kent-street was a very desperate place, though it is not so now. Lord chief justice Eyre once went the Home Circuit; he began at Hertford, and finished at Kingston. Crimes were so desperate, that in his charge to the grand jury at Hertford, he finished--‘Now, gentlemen of the jury, you have heard my opinion as to the enormity of the offences committed; be careful what bills you find, for whatever bills you find, if the parties are convicted before me, if they are convicted for capital offences, I have made up my mind, as I go through the circuit, to execute every one.’ He did so--he never saved man or woman--and a singular circumstance occurred, that stands upon record fresh in my mind. There were seven people convicted for a robbery in Kent-street; for calling in a pedlar, and after robbing the man, he jumped out of window. There were four men and three women concerned; they were all convicted, and all hanged in Kent-street, opposite the door; and, I think, on Kennington Common eight more, making fifteen:--all that were convicted were hung.
_Q._ Do you think, from your long observation, that the morals and manners of the lower people in the metropolis are better or worse than formerly?
_A._ I am decidedly of opinion, that, with respect to the present time, and the early part of my time, such as 1781, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, where there is one person convicted now--I may say, I am positively convinced--there were five then. We never had an execution wherein we did not grace that unfortunate gibbet (at the Old Bailey) with ten, twelve, to thirteen, sixteen, and twenty; and forty I once saw, at twice; I have them all down at home. I remember in 1783, when sergeant Adair was recorder, there were forty hung at two executions. The unfortunate people themselves laugh at it now; they call it ‘a bagatelle.’ I was conversing with an old offender some years ago, who has now quite changed his life; and he said, ‘Why, sir, where there is one hung now, there were five when I was young;’ and I said, ‘Yes, you are right in your calculation, and you are very lucky that you were spared so long, and have lived to be a better man.’ I agree with George Barrington--whom I brought from Newcastle--and however great lord chief baron Eyre’s speech was to him, after he had answered him, it came to this climax: ‘Now,’ says he, ‘Townsend, you heard what the chief baron said to me; a fine flowery speech, was it not?’ ‘Yes:’ ‘But he did not answer the question I put to him.’ Now how could he? After all that the chief baron said to him after he was acquitted--giving him advice--this word was every thing: says he, ‘My lord, I have paid great attention to what you have been stating to me, after my acquittal: I return my sincere thanks to the jury for their goodness: but your lordship says, you lament very much that a man of my abilities should not turn my abilities to a better use. Now, my lord, I have only this reply to make: I am ready to go into any service, to work for my labour, if your lordship will but find me a master.’ Why, what was the reply to that? ‘Gaoler, take the prisoner away.’ Why who would employ him? It is really farcical. I have heard magistrates say, ‘Young man, really I am very sorry for you; you are much to be pitied; you should turn your talents to a better account; and you should really leave off this bad course of life.’ Yes, that is better said than done; for where is there any body to take these wretches? They have said to me; ‘Sir, we do not thieve from disposition; but we thieve because we cannot get employment: our character is damned, and nobody will have us:’ and so it is; there is no question about it.
* * * * *
REMARKABLE EPITAPHS.
AT PENRYN.
Here lies William Smith: and what is somewhat rarish, He was born, bred, and hang’d in this here parish.
* * * * *
AT STAVERTON.
Here lieth the body of Betty Bowden, Who would live longer but she couden; Sorrow and grief made her decay, Till her bad leg carr’d her away.
* * * * *
AT LOCH RAUSA.
Here lies Donald and his wife, Janet Mac Fee: Aged 40 hee, And 30 shee.
* * * * *
ON MR. BYWATER.
Here lie the remains of his relative’s pride, Bywater he lived, and by water he died; Though by water he fell, yet by water he’ll rise, By water baptismal attaining the skies.
* * * * *
ON A MISER.
Here lies one who for med’cine would not give A little gold, and so his life he lost; I fancy now he’d wish again to live, Could he but guess how much his fun’ral cost.
S. S. S.
* * * * *
KING HENRY II.
DESCRIBED BY GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS,
_Who accompanied him (as he afterwards did King John) into Ireland, A. D. 1172_.
Henry II., king of England, was of a very good colour, but somewhat red; his head great and round, his eyes were fiery, red, and grim, and his face very high coloured; his voice or speech was shaking, quivering, or trembling; his neck short, his breast broad and big; strong armed; his body was gross, and his belly somewhat big, which came to him rather by nature than by any gross feeding or surfeiting; for his diet was very temperate, and to say the truth, thought to be more spare than comely, or for the state of a prince; and yet to abate his grossness, and to remedy this fault of nature, he did, as it were, punish his body with continual exercise, and keep a continual war with himself. For in the times of his wars, which were for the most part continual to him, he had little or no rest at all; and in times of peace he would not grant unto himself any peace at all, nor take any rest: for then did he give himself wholly unto hunting; and to follow the same, he would very early every morning be on horseback, and then go into the woods, sometimes into the forests, and sometimes into the hills and fields, and so would he spend the whole day until night. In the evening when he came home, he would never, or very seldom, sit either before or after supper; for though he were never so weary, yet still would he be walking and going. And, forasmuch as it is very profitable for every man in his lifetime that he do not take too much of any one thing, for medicine itself, which is appointed for man’s help and remedy, is not absolutely perfect and good to be always used, even so it befell and happened to this prince; for, partly by his excessive travels, and partly by divers bruises in his body, his legs and feet were swollen and sore. And, though he had no disease at all, yet age itself was a breaking sufficient unto him. He was of a reasonable stature, which happened to none of his sons; for his two eldest sons were somewhat higher, and his two younger were somewhat lower and less than he was. If he were in a good mood, and not angry, then would he be very pleasant and eloquent: he was also (which was a thing very rare in those days) very well learned; he was also very affable, gentle, and courteous; and besides, so pitiful, that when he had overcome his enemy, yet would he be overcome with pity towards him. In war he was most valiant, and in peace he was as provident and circumspect. And in the wars, mistrusting and doubting of the end and event thereof, he would (as Terence writeth) try all the ways and means he could devise, rather than wage the battle. If he lost any of his men in the fight, he would marvellously lament his death, and seem to pity him more being dead, than he did regard or account of him being alive; more bewailing the dead, than favouring the living.
In times of distress no man was more courteous; and when all things were safe, no man more cruel. Against the stubborn and unruly, no man more sharp, yet to the humble no man more gentle; hard towards his own men and household, but liberal to strangers; bountiful abroad, but sparing at home; whom he once hated, he would never or very hardly love; and whom he once loved, he would not lightly be out with him, or forsake him. He had great pleasure and delight in hawking and hunting:--would to God he had been as well bent and disposed unto good devotion![301]
It was said, that after the displeasure grown between the king and his sons, by the means and through the enticing of the queen their mother, he never was accounted to keep his word and promise, but, without any regard or care, was a common breaker thereof. And true it is, that, of a certain natural disposition, he was light and inconstant of his word; and if the matter were brought to a narrow strait or pinch, he would not stick rather to cover his word, than to deny his deed. And for this cause, in all his doings, he was very provident and circumspect, and a very upright and severe minister of justice, although he did therein grieve and make his friends to smart. His answers, for the most part, were perverse and froward. And, albeit, for profit and lucre all things are set to sale, and do bring great gains, as well to the clergy as the laity, yet they are no better to a man’s heirs and executors, than were the riches of Gehasi, whose greedy doings turned himself to utter ruin and destruction.