to

bourhoods, but other articles were adulterated , adulterated, and that thus the inquiry would without relation to the localities in which they “horrors on horror's head accumulate." The were purchased, and the spurious substitutes milk of the nursery was mixed not alone with were amply present in a very large majority water, but with annatto, flour, starch, and of cases.

The presence of alum in bread treacle, if with nothing worse; butter was was almost universal, and it is still often as- derived from lard and fat; fresh butter from serted that its use is necessary while people the common salted article; orange marmalade demand a white loaf; but out of twenty- from turnips, apples, and carrots; pickles and eight loaves bought in every quarter of Lon- preserved fruits were green with verdigris; don Dr. Hassall found alum, and in many and the ornamental sweetmeats with which instances it was present in considerable infancy was delighted or pacified, contained quantities in high-priced loaves, a fact after- Prussian blue, Antwerp blue, gamboge, ultrawards explained (in consequence of the in- marine, chromate of lead, red oxide of lead, dignant remonstrances of the “Pure Bread Brunswick green, and arsenite of copper, while Company") to proceed from the adulteration plaster of Paris entered largely into the comof the flour itself with alum before it was position of many of them. purchased by the baker. Tea was proved to We so often hear now of salesmen or others be frequently a deadly poison prepared in being summoned and fined for attempting to China, where the desired colour was given to it dispose of meat or the carcasses of animals by the use of gypsum and Prussian blue, while unfit for human consumption, that we may adulteration was effected by a compound of readily believe some forms of flesh food were sand, dirt, tea-dust, and broken leaves worked pretty largely adulterated both with inferior up with gum into small nodules, and contain- meat and other substances. Happily Smithing 45 per cent of earthy matter. These nod- field market had been abolished, and some of ules were “faced” with black-lead, Prussian its evils had been abated. One of the witnesses blue, or turmeric, according to the kind of tea to examined before the commissioners who debe sophisticated, while French chalk gave the creed its fall, had declared that quantities of fictitious leaf its spurious bloom. Curiously diseased meat were bought by soup shops, enough the lower-priced teas were found to sausage-makers, alamode beef and meat pie be the more genuine; but a good deal was shops, &c. One soup shop (a firm which done in the way of redrying tea-leaves which had a large foreign trade), were doing five had been used at hotels, clubs, and coffee- hundred pounds a week in diseased meat. houses, and mixing them with bay leaves, Anything in the shape of flesh could be sold sloe leaves, and other substitutes; gum and a at a penny a pound, or eightpence a stone. solution of copperas being used to give con

He was certain that if one hundred carcasses sistency and colour.

of cows were lying dead in the neighbourhood Coffee, even when sold as genuine, was of London he could get them all sold in mixed with chicory. This mixture in certain twenty-four hours. It wouldn't matter what proportions had been permitted by a Treasury they died of. The London market was very minute of 1840, and the quantity of chicory extensively supplied with diseased meat from had increased till Mr. Gladstone brought in the country, he said; and he also declared that a resolution that the words“ mixture of an insurance office in London in which graziers chicory and coffee” should be placed on any

could insure their beasts from disease, made package containing both ingredients. But the it a practice to send the unsound animals worst of it was that chicory itself was adul- dying from disease to their own slaughterterated with roasted acorns and other vege- houses a hundred and sixty miles from Lontable substances, dogs' biscuits, burnt sugar, don, to be dressed and sent to the London red earth, and baked horses' and bullocks' market. Cattle, sheep, &c., were insured by livers. In fact it was discovered that the this office against all kinds of diseases, one of articles used to adulterate, were themselves the conditions being that the diseased animals SECULAR EDUCATION-CHEAP NEWSPAPERS.

231

when dead became the property of the insur- and industrial training of destitute boys and ance company, the party insuring receiving girls, were opened, and were among the most two-thirds of the value of the animal, and one significant institutions of the time. third of the salvage; or in other words, one Advances were also to be observed in much third of the amount the beast sold for when of the popular literature. Not only were dead. They were, he said, consigned to a more periodicals and magazines of the higher salesman in Newgate Market. This evidence class, like the Saturday Review and others, was sickeningly significant, and it is not to be commenced, but a larger number of cheap supposed that the sale of diseased and putrid newspapers and other publications were issued, meat had ceased immediately after the con- many of them of an educational and domestic demnation of Smithfield Market, and while character. The abolition of the newspaper the butchers' shambles about Newgate Street, stamp duty in June, 1855, greatly contributed and the slaughter-houses, lanes, and alleys of to this movement. This tax had been originCowcross and its neighbourhood were scarcely ally imposed for the purpose of checking the abolished, especially as we know that in Lon- issue of seditious publications. It underwent don as well as in other great centres of popu- several changes as to the amount charged, lation continual vigilance on the part of in- and in the beginning of the present century spectors and officers of the law is still necessary had stood at fourpence. In 1836, as we have to prevent large quantities of diseased or putrid seen, it was reduced to a penny, and at that meat from being quickly disposed of. At the sum it remained as represented by a red stamp same time it scarcely needs to be mentioned | impressed upon every copy of a newspaper. that the descriptions of food into which such In addition to this there was a heavy duty on meat is converted are found in largest quan- each advertisement appearing in a paper, and tities in neighbourhoods inhabited by the all these charges combined to make such pubpoorest part of the population.

lications dear, and the knowledge of public

events limited and uncertain. No important We may see from what has been already daily newspaper was published at a less price indicated, that the period succeeding the close than sixpence before the abolition of the adof the Crimean war was one of considerable vertisement duty, but the remission of that excitement, but one also of great social de- tax enabled the proprietors to reduce the velopment. Immense efforts were made for price, while many new publications came into the extension of education in the direction of existence. The abolition of the stamp duty some general system separable from the secta- gave the further relief that was needed to rian difficulty, and yet preserving the means enable enterprising persons to start that great of religious instruction, while, at the same engine of public opinion and public informatime, schools were established and supported tion—the penny newspaper, and both in Lonon a basis of merely secular and moral teach- don and the provinces many influential papers ing. On the whole, the large balance of were either originated or considerably enopinion was in favour of retaining the reading larged or improved. At first the red stamp of Scripture in schools, whether they were pro- was either removed altogether or allowed fessedly founded on an unsectarian or a

secu

to stand in lieu of postage, but papers started lar” basis, the word secular being often inter- which needed no stamp, and could be sent preted to mean much the same thing as unsec- through the post. The Morning Star was tarian, as distinguished from doctrinal religious brought out under the new auspices, the Daily teaching; and the parents generally concur- Telegraph, the Daily News soon followed; and ring in a desire that their children should be eventually the Standard and other high-priced taught to regard the authority of the Scriptures papers were issued at the popular penny, as conveying the highest sanction for religion but that was not till after a further remission and morals. Several schools, not only for of charges by the reduction and ultimate ordinary instruction, but for the maintenance abolition of the duty on paper.

a

many

The period of which we are speaking was the Bankruptcy Court, was no longer liable to a time of transition, and a time, therefore, criminal proceedings. Mr. James, for Mr. when evils that needed remedying were Bates, rested his case upon his total ignorance exposed. The aggressive temper which had of the transaction in question. The court then been exhibited for some months seemed to be adjourned to the following morning, when strangely emphasized by crimes of violence and Baron Alderson, having charged the jury, cruelty, while commercial laxity and financial after an absence of half an hour they returned disasters were accompanied on the criminal a verdict of guilty against all the prisoners. side by extensive and sometimes remarkable The judge proceeded to pass sentence. Comfrauds and robberies. Among the most prom- menting on the heinous nature of the offence, inent of these was the appropriation of trust he observed that all the prisoners had been money by one of the oldest and most respected well educated, and moved in a high position firms of private bankers in London—the house of society. The punishment which was about of Sir John Dean Paul, Strahan, & Bates. The to fall on them, therefore, would be far more discovery was a great shock to a large number heavy and more keenly felt than by persons of estimable people, for the head of the firm in a lower condition of life. It would also, was associated with many religious societies, he regretted to say, afflict those who were and subscribed to numerous charities. Cri- connected with them. These, however, were minal proceedings were taken against the firm, not considerations for him at that moment: and they were tried in the Central Criminal all he had to do was to say that he could Court on the 26th of October, 1855, for fraudu- not conceive any worse case of the sort that lently appropriating to their own use certain could arise under the statute upon which they Danish bonds of the value of £5000 committed had been convicted, and that being the case, to their keeping as bankers by Dr. Griffith, he had no alternative but to pass upon them prebendary of Rochester. The case for the the sentence which the act of parliament proprosecution was stated by the attorney- vided for the worst class of offences arising general. It was proved that Sir John Dean under it, that was, that they be severally Paul instructed the secretary of the National transported for the term of fourteen years. Insurance Company to sell Dr. Griffith's bonds; Another case which caused great exciteand Dr. Griffith deposed to conversations sub- ment was that of John Sadleir, M.P. for Sligo sequent to the bankruptcy, from which it borough, who in February, 1856, committed appeared that Mr. Strahan and Mr. Bates suicide on Hampstead Heath, by swallowing were accessory to the transaction. Sir F.

a quantity of essential oil of almonds. His Thesiger, who appeared for Mr. Strahan, body was found early in the morning on the defended him on the ground that the sale of rise of a small mound at the back of Jack the Danish bonds was effected solely by Sir Straw's Castle, the head close to a furze bush, John Paul; that he received the proceeds; the clothes undisturbed, and the hat at a disand that there was no proof that Mr. Strahan tance. It was taken to Hampstead workhouse. was privy to the transaction; and further, | In the course of the inquest the evidence that Mr. Strahan, having made a disclosure showed that the deceased had been concerned of the circumstances before the Court of in a series of gigantic embezzlements and forBankruptcy, was not (according to the Act of geries. Two letters written by him before he 7 and 8 Geo. IV.) liable to be indicted on left the house were laid before the jury. account of such circumstances. Mr. Serjeant one of them, addressed to Mr. Keating, M.P. Byles, for Sir John Paul, admitted the facts for Waterford, were the words :-“No one as stated by Dr. Griffith, but said that it was has been privy to my crimes; they sprung from his intention to replace the bonds, as was my own cursed brain alone; I have swindled shown by his subsequently purchasing others

and deceived without the knowledge of any to a similar amount. He also maintained that one. . . . . It was a sad day for all when I Sir J. Paul, having made a full disclosure in came to London; I can give but little aid to

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In FRAUD AND VIOLENCE-THE “GAROTTE” PANIC.

233

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unravel accounts and transactions." The full counted bills and other securities which were extent of Sadleir's embezzlements and forgeries mostly worthless, and above £100,000 had was never exactly known. One fraudulent been advanced to a Welsh coal mine which transaction in respect to the Royal Swedish was not worth one-third of the value. EveryRailway consisted of an over-issue of shares body in the management had been helping and obligations to the amount of at least himself to the money. A Mr. Gwynne, a £150,000. In respect of the Tipperary Bank, retired director, owed £13,600; Mr. John the manager, his brother, had permitted him M'Gregor, M.P., the founder of the bank, to overdraw more than £200,000, and, with £7000; Mr. Humphrey Brown, M.P., above other fraudulent mismanagement, the deficit £70,000 ; and a Mr. Cameron, the manager, of the bank exceeded £400,000. The assets about £30,000. The unfortunate shareholders were stated to be little more than £30,000. were called upon by the Bankruptcy Court to The misery caused by this infamous confeder- pay £50 on each of their shares; some of them acy was unspeakable. Not only were the fled to Boulogne and elsewhere, many were depositors in the south of Ireland-chiefly ruined, and public confidence was so shaken small farmers and tradesmen-defrauded of that for a long time such investments were their savings, but the shareholders were looked at with much suspicion. The governstripped, for the most part, of everything they ment instituted criminal proceedings against possessed. The means taken to entrap the the manager and the most obviously dishonest last-named class were unusually nefarious. directors, and in February, 1858, some of them On the first of February--one month before were sentenced to a year's imprisonment. the crash-the Sadleirs published a balance- Crimes of violence and murderous assaults sheet and report, in which the concern was were numerous and were attended with great represented as most flourishing. A dividend brutality. Street outrages and robbery were at the rate of £6 per cent with a bonus of £3 also connected with a new method of attack per cent was declared, and £3000 was carried named after the Spanish instrument of executo the reserve fund, raising it to £17,000. By tion, the “garotte” or “garota.” The assailant, means of this fabrication a considerable num- coming suddenly from behind, placed his arm ber of persons, most of them widows, spinsters, round the neck of his victim, so that by and half-pay officers, were induced to become a sudden constriction of his muscles great shareholders, and lost their all. Endless suits pressure was exerted on the throat and the were brought by attorneys who had purchased head was forced back, while an accomplice debts due by the company, against these robbed the half-strangled sufferer of watch, unhappy people. Some declared themselves money, and other valuables. There was selinsolvent, while others fled to the United dom time to cry out, for the attack was entirely States with as much of their property as they unexpected, and the person robbed was mostly could hastily secure. James Sadleir had ab- left in a half-insensible condition. Assaults sconded under circumstances which gave rise of this kind became so frequent that something to much discussion, and many large financial like a panic was the result, until fear was sucbusinesses in London suffered considerably ceeded by indignation, and heavy sentences from his frauds.

were demanded against some of the “garotters” The failure of the Royal British Bank in who had been arrested. Many of the London August, 1856, was also the cause of widely- shops exposed "anti-garotters” for sale, in the spread misery and confusion, since a large shape of short sharp daggers, loaded canes, number of shares were held by persons of life-preservers, and “knuckle-dusters" or thick comparatively small means. The share capital leather gloves, covering part of the hand and in this country was stated to be £300,000, of fitted with projecting iron spikes or plates cut which £150,000 was stated to have been paid into facets,-a modern reproduction, in fact, of up. The debts due to depositors amounted to the old Roman cestus. Swordsticks and revol£500,000, the assets were found to be dis- vers were commonly carried by men who lived

in the suburbs, and whose business or plea- | daily talk was of war. In surveying the sure called them out at night. People armed aspects of that period it appears as though, at themselves, more to the danger of themselves the very time that great and strenuous efforts and their friends than to that of the robbers; were being made to establish all kinds of agenbut some of the latter had severe handlings, for cies for bringing instruction to the lower classes the blood of the braver portion of the popula- of the population, ameliorating the condition tion was up, and a dead-set was made against of the poor and the abandoned, and redeemcowardly footpads who selected old and weaking the depraved and the vicious, misery, men or helpless women for their murderous poverty, and crime stood forth in more appalassaults. In some neighbourhoods stout fel- ling shapes, as if to show the urgent need of lows well armed with cudgels were on the powerful and immediate influences for their alert, and the garotters themselves made one transformation, or to test the faith and the sinor two awkward mistakes. In one instance cerity of those who professed to believe that an attack was made on a pedestrian who was earnest and unremitting effort would effect the passing over Waterloo Bridge at midnight. desired improvement. The ruffians followed and pounced on their Among the most terrible crimes were several prey. They had mistaken their

man, however.

cases of poisoning. In that which excited most The belated passenger was a famous pugilist. horror the murderer was William Palmer, a The conflict was short and decisive. One of surgeon of Rugeley, in Staffordshire, who was the garotters was found an hour or two after- not of very reputable character, but was well wards lying insensible, and the other had fled. known among his neighbours, had for some But the most effectual remedy was the inflic- time kept race-horses and been mixed up

with tion of flogging as a part of the sentence on transactions on “the turf,” and had, in fact prisoners convicted of garotting. Mere im- given up his practice and made it over to a forprisonment with hard labour was tried until mer assistant, except in the case of two or three the end of the year 1861 and seemed to have old patients. In the course of his pursuits little result in checking the evil, but directly as a sportsman Palmer became intimately a dozen or two of strokes with the “cat,” acquainted with John Parsons Cook, a young laid on by a strong-armed warder in the pre- man of respectable family, who had inherited sence of witnesses who afterwards reported some £12,000 or £15,000, and become a some of the details, became a recognized pun- frequenter of races and a betting man. ishment for this offence, the cowardly ruffians For two or three years Palmer had been in abandoned a form of crime which exposed pecuniary difficulties, and had to raise money them to a retribution involving severe phy- on bills. It appeared from the charge made sical suffering. Probably, however, they be against him on his trial that his circumstances came alarmed at the resentment everywhere became hopeless, that he owed various persons expressed against them, and at an apparent large sums of money, and that he had had intention on the part of a number of deter- recourse to forgery. One bill for £2000 bore mined men in various districts to show no the forged acceptance of Sarah Palmer, his quarter to a garotter, but to shoot him down, mother, a woman of considerable wealth, and or in some way to disable him at once. It on whose security money would therefore be will easily be seen to what constant perils advanced without hesitation. This bill was resulting from mistakes, from accidents, and discounted, but other pressing claims coming from the too prompt aggressiveness of timid on, he did not meet it when it became due, persons unaccustomed to the use of weapons,

and had to continue paying upon it. Then this panic had given rise.

his wife died, and as he had effected an insurThere is no need to refer particularly to the ance on her life for £13,000, and the amount crimes of more than ordinary atrocity which was realized, he was able to discharge some were committed during a time of public ex- of his more immediate liabilities. He aftercitement, after so many months during which wards induced his brother to effect an insur