George Borrow and His Circle Part 11

They cut his throat from ear to ear, His brain they battered in, His name was Mr. William Weare, He dwelt in Lyon's Inn.

Carlyle's division of human beings of the upper cla.s.ses into 'n.o.blemen, gentlemen, and gigmen,' which occurs in his essay on Richter, and a later reference to gig-manhood which occurs in his essay on Goethe's Works, had their inspiration in an episode in the trial of Thurtell, when the question being asked, 'What sort of a person was Mr. Weare?'

brought the answer, 'He was always a respectable person.' 'What do you mean by respectable?' the witness was asked. 'He kept a gig,' was the reply, which brought the word 'gigmanity' into our language.[70]

I have said that John Thurtell and two members of his family became subscribers for Borrow's _Romantic Ballads_,[71] and it is certain that Borrow must often have met Thurtell, that is to say looked at him from a distance, in some of the scenes of prize-fighting which both affected, Borrow merely as a youthful spectator, Thurtell as a reckless backer of one or other combatant. Thurtell's father was an alderman of Norwich living in a good house on the Ipswich Road when the son's name rang through England as that of a murderer. The father was born in 1765 and died in 1846. Four years after his son John was hanged he was elected Mayor of Norwich, in recognition of his violent ultra-Whig or blue and white political opinions. He had been nominated as mayor both in 1818 and 1820, but it was perhaps the extraordinary 'advertis.e.m.e.nt' of his son's shameful death that gave the citizens of Norwich the necessary enthusiasm to elect Alderman Thurtell as mayor in 1828. It was in those oligarchical days a not unnatural fas.h.i.+on to be against the Government.

The feast at the Guildhall on this occasion was attended by four hundred and sixty guests. A year before John Thurtell was hanged, in 1823, his father moved a violent political resolution in Norwich, but was out-Heroded by Cobbett, who moved a much more extreme one over his head and carried it by an immense majority. It was a brutal time, and there cannot be a doubt but that Alderman Thurtell, while busy setting the world straight, failed to bring up his family very well. John, as we shall see, was hanged; Thomas, another brother, was a.s.sociated with him in many disgraceful transactions; while a third brother, George, also a subscriber, by the way, to Borrow's _Romantic Ballads_, who was a landscape gardener at Eaton, died in prison in 1848 under sentence for theft. Apart from a rather riotous and bad bringing up, which may be pleaded in extenuation, it is not possible to waste much sympathy over John Thurtell. He had thoroughly disgraced himself in Norwich before he removed to London. There he got further and further into difficulties, and one of the many publications which arose out of his trial and execution was devoted to pointing the moral of the evils of gambling.[72] It was bad luck at cards, and the loss of much money to William Weare, who seems to have been an exceedingly vile person, that led to the murder. Thurtell had a friend named Probert who lived in a quiet cottage in a byway of Hertfords.h.i.+re--Gill's Hill, near Elstree. He suggested to Weare in a friendly way that they should go for a day's shooting at Gill's Hill, and that Probert would put them up for the night. Weare went home, collected a few things in a bag, and took a hackney coach to a given spot, where Thurtell met him with a gig. The two men drove out of London together. The date was 24th October 1823. On the high-road they met and pa.s.sed Probert and a companion named Joseph Hunt, who had even been instructed by Thurtell to bring a sack with him--this was actually used to carry away the body--and must therefore have been privy to the intended murder. By the time the second gig containing Probert and Hunt arrived near Probert's cottage, Thurtell met it in the roadway, according to their accounts, and told the two men that he had done the deed; that he had killed Weare first by ineffectively shooting him, then by das.h.i.+ng out his brains with his pistol, and finally by cutting his throat. Thurtell further told his friends, if their evidence was to be trusted, that he had left the body behind a hedge. In the night the three men placed the body in a sack and carried it to a pond near Probert's house and threw it in. The next night they fished it out and threw it into another pond some distance away.

Thurtell meanwhile had divided the spoil--some 20, which he said was all that he had obtained from Weare's body--with his companions. Hunt, it may be mentioned, afterwards declared his conviction that Thurtell, when he first committed the murder, had removed his victim's princ.i.p.al treasure, notes to the value of three or four hundred pounds. Suspicion was aroused, and the hue and cry raised through the finding by a labourer of the pistol in the hedge, and the discovery of a pool of blood on the roadway. Probert promptly turned informer; Hunt also tried to save himself by a rambling confession, and it was he who revealed where the body was concealed, accompanying the officers to the pond and pointing out the exact spot where the corpse would be found. When recovered the body was taken to the Artichoke Inn at Elstree, and here the coroner's inquest was held. Meanwhile Thurtell had been arrested in London, and taken down to Elstree to be present at the inquest. A verdict of guilty against all three miscreants was given by the coroner's jury, and Weare's body was buried in Elstree Churchyard.[73]

In January 1824 John Thurtell was brought to trial at Hertford a.s.sizes, and Hunt also. But first of all there were some interesting proceedings in the Court of King's Bench, before the Chief Justice and two other judges,[74] complaining that Thurtell had not been allowed to see his counsel. And there were other points at issue. Thurtell's counsel moved for a criminal injunction against the proprietor of the Surrey Theatre in that a performance had been held there, and was being held, which a.s.sumed Thurtell's guilt, the identical horse and gig being exhibited in which Weare was supposed to have ridden to the scene of his death.

Finally this was arranged, and a _mandamus_ was granted 'commanding the admission of legal advisers to the prisoner.' At last the trial came on at Hertford before Mr. Justice Park. It lasted two days, although the judge wished to go on all night in order to finish in one. But the protest of Thurtell, supported by the jury, led to an adjournment.

Probert had been set free and appeared as a witness. The jury gave a verdict of guilty, and Thurtell and Hunt were sentenced to be hanged, but Hunt escaped with transportation. Thurtell made his own speech for the defence, which had a great effect upon the jury, until the judge swept most of its sophistries away. It was, however, a very able performance. Thurtell's line of defence was to declare that Hunt and Probert were the murderers, and that he was a victim of their perjuries.

If hanged, he would be hanged on circ.u.mstantial evidence only, and he gave, with great elaboration, the details of a number of cases where men had been wrongfully hanged upon circ.u.mstantial evidence. His lawyers had apparently provided him with books containing these examples from the past, and his month in prison was devoted to this defence, which showed great ability. The trial took place on 6th January 1824, and Thurtell was hanged on the 9th, in front of Hertford Gaol: his body was given to the Anatomical Museum in London. A contemporary report says that Thurtell, on the scaffold,

fixed his eyes on a young gentleman in the crowd, whom he had frequently seen as a spectator at the commencement of the proceedings against him. Seeing that the individual was affected by the circ.u.mstances, he removed them to another quarter, and in so doing recognised an individual well known in the sporting circles, to whom he made a slight bow.

The reader of _Lavengro_ might speculate whether that 'young gentleman'

was Borrow, but Borrow was in Norwich in January 1824, his father dying in the following month. In his _Celebrated Trials_ Borrow tells the story of the execution with wonderful vividness, and supplies effective quotations from 'an eyewitness.' Borrow no doubt exaggerated his acquaintance with Thurtell, as in his _Robinson Crusoe_ romance he was fully ent.i.tled to do for effect. He was too young at the time to have been much noticed by a man so much his senior. The writer who accepts Borrow's own statement that he really gave him 'some lessons in the n.o.ble art' is too credulous,[75] and the statement that Thurtell's house 'on the Ipswich Road was a favourite rendezvous for the Fancy' is unsupported by evidence. Old Alderman Thurtell owned the house in question, and we find no evidence that he encouraged his son's predilection for prize-fighting. In _The Romany Rye_ he gives his friend the jockey as his authority for the following apologia:

The night before the day he was hanged at H----, I harnessed a Suffolk Punch to my light gig, the same Punch which I had offered to him, which I have ever since kept, and which brought me and this short young man to Horncastle, and in eleven hours I drove that Punch one hundred and ten miles. I arrived at H---- just in the nick of time. There was the ugly jail--the scaffold--and there upon it stood the only friend I ever had in the world. Driving my Punch, which was all in a foam, into the midst of the crowd, which made way for me as if it knew what I came for, I stood up in my gig, took off my hat, and shouted, 'G.o.d Almighty bless you, Jack!' The dying man turned his pale grim face towards me--for his face was always somewhat grim, do you see--nodded and said, or I thought I heard him say, 'All right, old chap.' The next moment--my eyes water. He had a high heart, got into a sc.r.a.pe whilst in the marines, lost his half-pay, took to the turf, ring, gambling, and at last cut the throat of a villain who had robbed him of nearly all he had.

But he had good qualities, and I know for certain that he never did half the bad things laid to his charge.

FOOTNOTES:

[65] _Celebrated Trials and Remarkable Cases of Criminal Jurisprudence from the Earliest Records to the Year 1825_. In six volumes. London: Printed for Geo. Knight & Lacey, Paternoster Row, 1825. Price 3, 12s.

in boards.

[66] _The New and Complete Newgate Calendar or Malefactors Recording Register_. By William Jackson. Six vols. 1802.

[67] Cobbett and Howell's _State Trials_. In thirty-three volumes and index, 1809 to 1828. The last volume, apart from the index, was actually published the year after Borrow's _Celebrated Trials_, that is, in 1826; but the last trial recorded was that of Thistlewood in 1820. The editors were William Cobbett, Thomas Bayly Howell, and his son, Thomas Jones Howell.

[68] The following note appeared in _The Monthly Magazine_ for 1st July 1824 (vol. lvii. p. 557):

'A Selection of the most remarkable Trials and Criminal Causes is printing in five volumes. It will include all famous cases, from that of Lord Cobham, in the reign of Henry the Fifth, to that of John Thurtell; and those connected with foreign as well as English jurisprudence. Mr.

Borrow, the editor, has availed himself of all the resources of the English, German, French, and Italian languages; and his work, including from 150 to 200 of the most interesting cases on record, will appear in October next. The editor of the preceding has ready for the press a _Life of Faustus, his Death, and Descent into h.e.l.l_, which will also appear early in the next winter.'

[69] Did the poet, who had an interest in criminology, know of his father's quite innocent a.s.sociation with the Fauntleroy trial?

[70] Another witness attained fame by her answer to the inquiry, 'Was supper postponed?' with the reply, 'No, it was pork.'

[71] I have already stated (ch. x. p. 111) that three members of the Thurtell family subscribed for _Romantic Ballads_. I should have hesitated to include John Thurtell among the subscribers, as he was hanged two years before the book was published, had I not the high authority of Mr. Walter Rye, but recently Mayor of Norwich, and the honoured author of a _History of Norfolk Families_ and other works. Mr.

Rye, to whom I owe much of the information concerning the Thurtells published here, tells me that there was only this one, 'J. Thurtell.'

Borrow had doubtless been appealing for subscribers for a very long time. I cannot, however, accept Mr. Rye's suggestion to me that Borrow left Norwich because he was mixed up with Thurtell in ultra-Whig or Radical sc.r.a.pes, the intimidation and 'cooping' of Tory voters being a characteristic of the elections of that day with the wilder spirits, of whom Thurtell was doubtless one. Borrow's sympathies were with the Tory party from his childhood up--following his father.

[72] _The Fatal Effects of Gambling Exemplified in the Murder of Wm.

Weare and the Trial and Fate of John Thurtell, the Murderer, and his Accomplices_. London: Thomas Kelly, Paternoster Row. 1824. I have a very considerable number of Weare pamphlets in my possession, one of them being a record of the trial by Pierce Egan, the author of _Life in London_ and _Boxiana_. Walter Scott writes in his diary of being absorbed in an account of the trial, while he deprecates John Bull's maudlin sentiment over 'the pitiless a.s.sa.s.sin.' That was in 1826, but in 1828 Scott went out of his way when travelling from London to Edinburgh, to visit Gill's Hill, and describes the scene of the tragedy very vividly. Lockhart's _Life_, ch. lxxvi.

[73] Elstree had already had its a.s.sociation with a murder case, for Martha Reay, the mistress of John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, was buried in the church in 1779. She was the mother of several of the Earl's children, one of whom was Basil Montagu. She was a beautiful woman and a delightful singer, and was appearing on the stage at Covent Garden, which theatre she was leaving on the night of 7th April 1779, when the Reverend James Hackman, Vicar of Wiveton in Norfolk, shot her through the head with a pistol in a fit of jealous rage. Hackman was hanged at Tyburn, Boswell attending the funeral. Croft's supposed letters between Hackman and Martha Reay, which made a great sensation when issued under the t.i.tle of _Love and Madness_, are now known to be spurious (see ch. x. p. 115). Martha Reay was buried in the chancel of Elstree Church, but Lord Sandwich, who, although he sent word to Hackman, who asked his forgiveness, that 'he had robbed him of all comfort in this world,' took no pains to erect a monument over her remains. On 28th February 1913 the present writer visited Elstree in the interest of this book. He found that the church of Martha Reay and William Weare had long disappeared. A new structure dating from 1853 had taken its place. The present vicar, he was told, has located the spot where Weare was buried, and it coincides with the old engravings. Martha Reay's remains, at the time of the rebuilding, were removed to the churchyard, and lie near the door of the vestry, lacking all memorial.

The Artichoke Inn has also been rebuilt, and 'Weare's Pond,' which alone recalls the tragedy to-day, where the body was found, has contracted into a small pool. It is, however, clearly authentic, the brook, as pictured in the old trial-books, now running under the road.

[74] One of them was Mr. Justice Best, of whom it is recorded that a certain index had the reference line, 'Mr. Justice Best: his Great Mind,' which seemed to have no justification in the mental qualities of that worthy, but was explained when one referred to the context and saw that 'Mr. Justice Best said that he had a great mind to commit the witness for contempt.'

[75] See an introduction by Thomas Seccombe to _Lavengro_ in 'Everyman's Library.'

CHAPTER XII

BORROW AND THE FANCY

George Borrow had no sympathy with Thurtell the gambler. I can find no evidence in his career of any taste for games of hazard or indeed for games of any kind, although we recall that as a mere child he was able to barter a pack of cards for the Irish language. But he had certainly very considerable sympathy with the notorious criminal as a friend and patron of prize-fighting. This now discredited pastime Borrow ever counted a virtue. Was not his G.o.d-fearing father a champion in his way, or, at least, had he not in open fight beaten the champion of the moment, Big Ben Brain? Moreover, who was there in those days with blood in his veins who did not count the cultivation of the Fancy as the n.o.blest and most manly of pursuits! Why, William Hazlitt, a prince among English essayists, whose writings are a beloved cla.s.sic in our day, wrote in _The New Monthly Magazine_ in these very years[76] his own eloquent impression, and even introduces John Thurtell more than once as 'Tom Turtle,' little thinking then of the fate that was so soon to overtake him. What could be more lyrical than this:

Reader, have you ever seen a fight? If not, you have a pleasure to come, at least if it is a fight like that between the Gas-man and Bill Neate.

And then the best historian of prize-fighting, Henry Downes Miles, the author of _Pugilistica_, has his own statement of the case. You will find it in his monograph on John Jackson, the pugilist who taught Lord Byron to box, and received the immortality of an eulogistic footnote in _Don Juan_. Here is Miles's defence:

No small portion of the public has taken it for granted that pugilism and blackguardism are synonymous. It is as an antidote to these slanderers that we pen a candid history of the boxers; and taking the general habits of men of humble origin (elevated by their courage and bodily gifts to be the a.s.sociates of those more fortunate in worldly position), we fearlessly maintain that the best of our boxers present as good samples of honesty, generosity of spirit, goodness of heart and humanity, as an equal number of men of any cla.s.s of society.

From Samuel Johnson to George Bernard Shaw literary England has had a kindness for the pugilist, although the magistrate has long, and rightly, ruled him out as impossible. Borrow carried his enthusiasm further than any, and no account of him that concentrates attention upon his accomplishment as a distributor of Bibles and ignores his delight in fisticuffs, has any grasp of the real George Borrow. Indeed it may be said, and will be shown in the course of our story, that Borrow entered upon Bible distribution in the spirit of a pugilist rather than that of an evangelist. But to return to Borrow's pugilistic experiences. He claims, as we have seen, occasionally to have put on the gloves with John Thurtell. He describes vividly enough his own conflicts with the Flaming Tinman and with Petulengro. His one heroine, Isopel Berners, had 'Fair Play and Long Melford' as her ideal, 'Long Melford' being the good right-handed blow with which Lavengro conquered the Tinman. Isopel, we remember, had learned in Long Melford Union to 'Fear G.o.d and take your own part!'

George Borrow, indeed, was at home with the whole army of prize-fighters, who came down to us like the Roman Caesars or the Kings of England in a noteworthy procession, their dynasty commencing with James Fig of Thame, who began to reign in 1719, and closing with Tom King, who beat Heenan in 1863, or with Jem Mace, who flourished in a measure until 1872. With what zest must Borrow have followed the account of the greatest battle of all, that between Heenan and Tom Sayers at Farnborough in 1860, when it was said that Parliament had been emptied to patronise a prize-fight; and this although Heenan complained that he had been chased out of eight counties. For by this time, in spite of lordly patronage, pugilism was doomed, and the more harmless boxing had taken its place. 'Pity that corruption should have crept in amongst them,' sighed Lavengro in a memorable pa.s.sage, in which he also has his paean of praise for the bruisers of England:

Let no one sneer at the bruisers of England--what were the gladiators of Rome, or the bull-fighters of Spain, in its palmiest days, compared to England's bruisers?[77]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FAMILY OF JASPER PETULENGRO

'Jasper' or Ambrose Smith was a very old man when this picture was taken by Mr. Andrew Innes of Dunbar in 1878. In both pictures we see Sanspirella, Jasper's wife, seated and holding a child. We are indebted to Mr. Charles Spence of Dunbar for these interesting groups.]

Yes: Borrow was never hard on the bruisers of England, and followed their achievements, it may be said, from his cradle to his grave. His beloved father had brought him up, so to speak, upon memories of one who was champion before George was born--Big Ben Brain of Bristol. Brain, although always called 'Big Ben,' was only 5 feet 10 in. high. He was for years a coal porter at a wharf off the Strand. It was in 1791 that Ben Brain won the champions.h.i.+p which placed him upon a pinnacle in the minds of all robust people. The Duke of Hamilton then backed him against the then champion, Tom Johnson, for five hundred guineas. 'Public expectation,' says _The Oracle_, a contemporary newspaper, 'never was raised so high by any pugilistic contest; great bets were laid, and it is estimated 20,000 was wagered on this occasion.' Ben Brain was the undisputed conqueror, we are told, in eighteen rounds, occupying no more than twenty-one minutes.[78] Brain died in 1794, and all the biographers tell of the piety of his end, so that Borrow's father may have read the Bible to him in his last moments, as Borrow avers,[79] but I very much doubt the accuracy of the following:

Honour to Brain, who four months after the event which I have now narrated was champion of England, having conquered the heroic Johnson. Honour to Brain, who, at the end of other four months, worn out by the dreadful blows which he had received in his manly combats, expired in the arms of my father, who read the Bible to him in his latter moments--Big Ben Brain.

We have already shown that Brain lived for four years after his fight with Johnson. Perhaps the fight in Hyde Park between Borrow's father and Ben, as narrated in _Lavengro_, is all romancing. It makes good reading in any case, as does Borrow's eulogy of some of his own contemporaries of the prize-ring:

So the bruisers of England are come to be present at the grand fight speedily coming off; there they are met in the precincts of the old town, near the field of the chapel, planted with tender saplings at the restoration of sporting Charles, which are now become venerable elms as high as many a steeple. There they are met at a fitting rendezvous, where a retired coachman, with one leg, keeps an hotel and a bowling-green. I think I now see them upon the bowling-green, the men of renown, amidst hundreds of people with no renown at all, who gaze upon them with timid wonder. Fame, after all, is a glorious thing, though it lasts only for a day. There's Cribb, the champion of England, and perhaps the best man in England; there he is, with his huge, ma.s.sive figure, and face wonderfully like that of a lion. There is Belcher, the younger, not the mighty one, who is gone to his place, but the Teucer Belcher, the most scientific pugilist that ever entered a ring, only wanting strength to be, I won't say what. He appears to walk before me now, as he did that evening, with his white hat, white greatcoat, thin genteel figure, springy step, and keen, determined eye. Crosses him, what a contrast! grim, savage Shelton, who has a civil word for n.o.body, and a hard blow for anybody--hard! one blow, given with the proper play of his athletic arm, will unsense a giant.

Yonder individual, who strolls about with his hands behind him, supporting his brown coat lappets, under-sized, and who looks anything but what he is, is the king of the light weights, so called--Randall! the terrible Randall, who has Irish blood in his veins--not the better for that, nor the worse; and not far from him is his last antagonist, Ned Turner, who, though beaten by him, still thinks himself as good a man, in which he is, perhaps, right, for it was a near thing; and 'a better shentleman,' in which he is quite right, for he is a Welshman.

But how shall I name them all? They were there by dozens, and all tremendous in their way. There was Bulldog Hudson, and fearless Scroggins, who beat the conqueror of Sam the Jew.

There was Black Richmond--no, he was not there, but I knew him well; he was the most dangerous of blacks, even with a broken thigh. There was Purcell, who could never conquer till all seemed over with him. There was--what! shall I name thee last?

ay, why not? I believe that thou art the last of all that strong family still above the sod, where mayest thou long continue--true piece of English stuff, Tom of Bedford--sharp as winter, kind as spring.

All this is very accurate history. We know that there really was this wonderful gathering of the bruisers of England a.s.sembled in the neighbourhood of Norwich in July 1820, that is to say, sixteen miles away at North Walsham. More than 25,000 men, it is estimated, gathered to see Edward Painter of Norwich fight Tom Oliver of London for a purse of a hundred guineas. There were three Belchers, heroes of the prize-ring, but Borrow here refers to Tom, whose younger brother, Jem, had died in 1811 at the age of thirty. Tom Belcher died in 1854 at the age of seventy-one. Thomas Cribb was champion of England from 1805 to 1820. One of Cribb's greatest fights was with Jem Belcher in 1807, when, in the forty-first and last round, as we are told by the chroniclers, 'Cribb proving the stronger man put in two weak blows, when Belcher, quite exhausted, fell upon the ropes and gave up the combat.' Cribb had a prolonged career of glory, but he died in poverty in 1848. Happier was an earlier champion, John Gully, who held the glorious honour for three years--from 1805 to 1808. Gully turned tavern-keeper, and making a fortune out of sundry speculations, entered Parliament as member for Pontefract, and lived to be eighty years of age.

It is necessary to dwell upon Borrow as the friend of prize-fighters, because no one understands Borrow who does not realise that his real interests were not in literature but in action. He would have liked to join the army but could not obtain a commission. And so he had to be content with such fighting as was possible. He cared more for the men who could use their fists than for those who could but wield the pen. He would, we may be sure, have rejoiced to know that many more have visited the tomb of Tom Sayers in Highgate Cemetery than have visited the tomb of George Eliot in the same burial-ground. A curious moral obliquity this, you may say. But to recognise it is to understand one side of Borrow, and an interesting side withal.