Chapter CLVII (2)

Did you say then that the prisoner had threatened your life at all?――Not that I remember.

The depositions of the witness were then put in by Mr. Pollard, from which it appeared that before the coroner witness had said that Peace had threatened to blow out both her brains and her husband’s.

Had there been any quarrel between prisoner and your husband?――I say he had been very annoying.

Was there any quarrel?――I can’t say there was any quarrel, because my husband would not speak to him.

Have you ever received a letter from the prisoner at all?――No sir. Oh! yes. I have received threatening letters.

Have you got them?――Mr. Chambers has them, I think.

I am now talking about the night of the murder. Previous to your going into the closet had your son been taken to bed, do you know?――Yes.

Did you see the prisoner when you were in the bedroom?――No.

When you were coming out of the closet did you see the prisoner?――Yes, I did.

Did you say to him, “You old devil, what are you doing here now?”――I don’t remember saying anything to him, but he said, “Speak or I’ll fire.”

Will you swear that you did not say, “You old devil, what are you doing here to-night? I should have thought that you had brought enough disgrace upon me?――I don’ remember speaking at all. I was too astonished.

Did he say to you, “I will let you have the notes back again if you will get him to stay proceedings?”――No.

Did you say, “You know very well he won’t do it, as he has placed it in the hands of the lawyers?”――No; I did not speak to him.

Your husband then came up?――Yes.

How far was he from you and the prisoner before you first saw him?――About two or three feet.

How far is the passage from where you were to the closet? Close by.

Well, how many yards?――I can’t say.

How far were you from the closet door when you saw your husband?――Only three or four feet; I was just at the end.

Whereabouts was the prisoner when he came up?――The prisoner was going down the passage.

Was he walking or running away?――He was going at a rather quick pace.

Was he walking pretty quickly away from your husband?――He was going down the passage.

Away from your husband?――Away from him.

When your husband was going towards the prisoner did you hear him say, “If you don’t stop I’ll fire?”――No.

Did you see the prisoner on the ground?――How do you mean?

With your husband. Was there any struggling between your husband and the prisoner?――No, no.

How far were you away from them when your husband was shot, did you say?――A few feet off.

Did you hear the prisoner speak to your husband before he fired?――No, I did not. There was no speaking at all.

Not from the time that he came out right up to the time he was shot?――No.

Will you swear that your husband and the prisoner were not struggling together on the ground?――No, they were not struggling. They were not close enough together.

Mr. Clegg: What became of the lantern that you had?――What became of my lantern?

Yes, had you it in your hand?――I threw it down.

Before you saw your husband come out had you the lantern still in your hand?――Yes.

This concluded the cross-examination of Mrs. Dyson.

Mr. Pollard (re-examining): Are there some steps coming from the passage into the roadway?――There are one or two steps.

When your husband fell in what direction did his head fall?――From the side of the passage.

Did he take any step forward after the bullet struck him?――No, he dropped instantly.

At the time the bullet was fired did you see whether Peace was down on the pathway of the causeway?――Yes.

Therefore he would be some few feet below your husband?――Yes. He was down off the steps on the causeway when he fired the second shot.

And you say he would therefore be some two or three feet below your husband’s head at the time he fired?――Yes.

You were saying something about threatening letters. Between July and October, 1876, did you see any threatening letters?――Yes.

How many?――I know of two, and there were perhaps more.

Have you those letters?――Mr. Chambers, solicitor, has them. Mr. Dyson gave them to Mr. Chambers.

You gave them to Mr. Dyson, your husband, and he gave them to Mr. Chambere?――Yes.

You don’t know whose writing they were?――They were signed as if from prisoner, and seemed to come from Germany.

(Prisoner: I wish to call witnesses.)

The Stipendiary: It’s not time to call witnesses.

Prisoner: Am I going to be committed to-day? I want my witnesses called before.

The Stipendiary: It’s not the time.

This concluded Mrs. Dyson’s evidence, who then retired.

Police-constable 235, John Pearson, was next called and examined by Mr. Pollard. Do you know the prisoner?――I do, three or four years.

Prisoner: Let that person come up here, will you? I don’t know him.

Mr. Pollard (to witness): Three or four years from now?――Yes, I knew him about two years before the murder.

You remember the date of the murder of Mr. Dyson in November, 1876?――Yes.

Did you receive some instructions from your superior officer to go in search of the prisoner?――I did. I received instructions the same morning at half past two o’clock.

That was Nov. 30?――Yes.

Did you go to any place in Hull which you had any reason to know?――Yes, I went to 37, Collier-street.

Who was living there?――Peace’s wife, I believe. The same person who had been locked up here in the name of Hannah Peace. She was keeping a shop.

You failed to find him there?――Yes.

Mr. Pollard: I propose now to take the escape and recapture of the prisoner on the last occasion.

Stipendiary: You have gone after the time.

Mr. Pollard: I put it on the ground of what it is worth, as an element for a jury to consider, whether an innocent person after having been examined, and hearing evidence such as was given on the last occasion, would have attempted to escape as he did.

The Stipendiary: He was a convict, you know, suffering under sentence of penal servitude for life.

Mr. Pollard: Well, I will not press it.

Mr. Pollard then said that was his case.

Prisoner here exclaimed: “I want my witnesses called. Why don’t you call my witnesses?” and then fell down.

The depositions were now read over, Mrs. Dyson’s being taken first.

Whilst her depositions were being read the prisoner conducted himself in an excited and somewhat insolent manner. Making a faint of jumping from his chair, he fell back suddenly, calling to be taken to his cell. The warders stepped forward, and he then refused to be removed, and called for his counsel, to whom he began to give instructions in an excited fashion. Mr. Clegg took little notice, and soon after Peace put his arms on the table, laid his head between them, and moaned loudly. He next drew the rug over his head, and made such interruptions that the rug was drawn back, and he was asked to be still. He paid little attention to this request, but kept moaning and muttering till the deposition were read over.

Stipendiary (to Peace): Do you hear what is said?

Prisoner (whining): Oh yes, I hear.

The depositions were afterwards read over of Sarah Ann Colgrave, Mary Ann Gregory, George Brassington, Thomas Wilson, Police-constable Ward, Inspector Bradbury, and Police-constable Pearson.

Prisoner: Cannot you call my witnesses? What is the use of my having witnesses if they are not called?

The Stipendiary: Listen to me.

Prisoner: I cannot have them called.

The Stipendiary: Oh, yes, you can, Listen to me. You first of all have to make a statement, and then if there are any witnesses to be called they can be called. Now listen to me. The charge against you is that you wilfully and of malice aforethought did kill and murder one Arthur Dyson, on Oct. 29, 1876. Having heard the evidence, do you wish to say anything in answer to the charge?

Prisoner: Yes; I wish to say that――――

Stipendiary: You are not obliged to say anything in answer to the charge. What you do say will be taken down, and may be given in evidence against you.

Mr. Clegg: If you take my advice you will simply say not guilty.

The Prisoner: I say I am not guilty, and that justice has not been done to me so that I can prove I am not guilty. That is what I want. I want that. I want justice done me. Why don’t they let me call my witnesses, because you are asking me shall my witnesses be called? Why should they not be called here? Why? because I have not the money to pay the expenses.

The Stipendiary: What is it you complain of?

The Prisoner: I want my witnesses called to prove that I have really not done this.

The Stipendiary: Are there any witnesses to be called?

Prisoner: Yes, sir.

The Stipendiary: Are they here?

Prisoner: Yes, sir.

The Stipendiary: Then you must ask your solicitor.

Mr. Robinson (reading): You say, “I say I am not guilty, and I want my witnesses called to prove I am not guilty.”

Prisoner: That is what I said. I have lots of witnessses who can prove that that base, bad, woman has threatened my life, and has threatened her husband’s life; but I can’t talk to you, I am so bad. I feel very bad. But she has threatened to take my life often.

The Stipendiary: Is this what you say?

Prisoner: I say I am not guilty, and I say I have not justice done me to prove I am not guilty, and that I want my witnesses called. (Loudly.) I say I can prove that I have not threatened her life. She has threatened her husband’s, and she has pointed pistols and things at me.

The Stipendiary: Have you any witnesses to-day? You are not taking your trial to-day. This is only a preliminary examination.

Prisoner: I cannot have those witnesses without I pay for them.

Mr. Clegg: I say I don’t intend calling any witnesses to-day.

The Stipendiary: Do you care to sign your statement? Would you like to put your name to the statement?

Prisoner: I will try.

Prisoner (to his warder, in a very rough tone of voice): Let me be. Then, taking up the pen, he said, I cannot see.

Mr. Clegg: Just sign it there.

Prisoner then rested his head on one arm and signed his name very deliberately, the capital “C” and “P” being particularly well flourished.

The Stipendiary: You are committed to take your trial on this charge at the assizes at Leeds.

The Prisoner (with eagerness): When are they?

The Stipendary: They are next week.

Inspector Bradbury was then bound over to prosecute, and the witnesses to appear at the trial.

The Prisoner: Will you let me sit before the fire a bit before I go? I am really very bad.

Mr. Clegg: He complains of being cold.

Prisoner: You can put me in irons if you like, but put me near a fire.

The Chief Constable: The cells are warm enough. It is only in this corridor that there is so much air.

Mr. Clegg: You will be warm enough in the cell.

Prisoner: I want to see you.

Mr. Clegg: Yes, I will see you.

Prisoner was then removed to the cell, groaning and whining, apparently overcome by the result of the day’s proceedings.

Mrs. Dyson laboured under suppressed emotion, but bore the ordeal well. The utmost precautions were taken to keep down excitement in the town, but popular feeling ran very high.

We have during the progress of this work had occasion to refer in more than instance to the latitude allowed to counsel on police examinations. A striking instance of this was made manifest on the several examinations of the prisoner Webster for the Richmond murder, and before then, in a lesser degree, perhaps, a similar instance occurred in the examination of the witnesses brought forward to give their testimony upon the Bannercross murder.

Peace was a daring and reckless burglar. An adept at disguising himself in a style that eluded the scrutiny of the police, he set small value on the vigilance of professional detectives.

The comparative immunity with which he had escaped the consequences of his iniquity induced him to wax bold in transgression.

Even to the last there seemed an idea that he might still be able to baffle justice. Everything a wicked ingenuity could do was done to discredit the testimony on which he was convicted; but the utmost license of counsel was unavailing.

We are not disposed to say anything severe about a barrister struggling with the difficulties Mr. Lockwood was called to combat. In such circumstances the old adage of “No case――abuse the plaintiff’s attorney,” is a sufficient explanation of what might otherwise appear unseemly.

On the present occasion, however, it was not the attorney, but the press that got abused. In the recent trial of the directors of the City of Glasgow Bank, a similar policy was pursued by a prominent and really able advocate.

But the barrister to whom the defence of Charles Peace was committed passed beyond the duty of counsel in the denunciation of newspapers.

It was thus that Mr. Lockwood delivered himself:

“Never in the course of my experience has there been such a cry raised on the part of those who ought to be most careful of all others in preserving the liberties of their fellow-men and the independence of the tribunals of justice. I say that in this respect these parties have proved false to the great duties entrusted to them, and have not hesitated to raise a merciless cry for blood for the sake of the paltry pennies which they have been able to extract from the public, whom they have tried to gull.”

This charge against the press is false. There had really been no attempt to stimulate public antipathy against the Bannercross culprit. In point of fact, a judicious critic might with some show of reason insinuate that the details of the life of Peace had been placed before the public in aspects more attractive than just.

The convict was not at all averse to the notoriety which he had recently achieved. But when his life is carefully scanned from the day that he first enlisted in the “Devil’s Regiment of the Line” until sentence of death was passed upon him, it is abundantly evident that the way of the transgressor was hard.

Charles Peace commenced his criminal career before he was fourteen. He was not yet fifty, but already there was unambiguous evidence that premature old age was stealing over him.

Though devoted to crime, Peace never consorted with criminals. This peculiarity in his career constituted his safety. It is mainly because the haunts and habits of criminals are known that they are detected.

The impunity with which, for a very considerable period, Peace was enabled to commit the Blackheath burglaries arose from the air of mystery with which he was surrounded.

It must not, however, be assumed that there was anything heroic in the kind of housebreaking with which he was identified.

Houses in the district that formed the scene of his depredations afford every facility to the “cracksman.” But the good fortune which had so often favoured Peace in this region at length deserted him.

A constable whom a revolver could not scare mastered the burglar.

When he was condemned to penal servitude, it was discovered that the culprit had been guilty of a more serious crime. “Information received” enabled the authorities to connect the Blackheath burglar with the Bannercross murder.

That crime was fast fading from the memory of even those amongst whom it had been committed, and every hope of arresting the murderer had been abandoned.

Mr. Dyson’s widow was in America, and Peace, who knew this, thought himself safe.

But, if “justice steals along with woollen feet, it strikes with iron hands.”

Mrs. Dyson was brought back from the United States to avenge in the witness-box the brutality of her tormentor.

Her evidence as to all that transpired on the eventful night that her husband fell was too minute and circumstantial to be shaken by even the severest cross-examination.

The line of evidence which counsel was instructed to take only deepened the infamy of the accused.

Even had it been possible to prove an improper intimacy between Peace and Mrs. Dyson, that would have done nothing to mitigate the atrocity of Mr. Dyson’s murder.

A most persistent effort was made by Mr. Lockwood to show that, previous to the firing of the shot from which Mr. Dyson fell, there had been a struggle between the murderer and his victim.

On this point, however, the widow’s evidence was decisive. There was indeed no necessity that Mr. Dyson should close with the culprit.

Moreover, inoffensive people are not usually anxious to fight ruffians who are armed with “six-shooters.”

When Peace was in a difficulty or in a passion, recourse to firearms seemed perfectly natural. Society was his legitimate prey, and in presence of unarmed antagonists the burglar waxed valorous. Rarely has a more wanton murder been perpetrated than that of Mr. Dyson.

The only offence of which that unfortunate man appeared guilty was his abhorrence of the attentions of Peace. To escape them, he removed from the neighbourhood in which the convict dwelt.

The scamp, however, followed the Dysons with a fiendish malignity. When threatening to blow out Mrs. Dyson’s brains, Peace had the effrontery to ask a bystander to “bear him witness that she had struck him with a life-preserver.” This idea was a pure myth.

The preserver existed only in the foul imagination of the criminal, and the struggle with Mr. Dyson on the 29th November, 1876, a still bolder fiction. It is possible that the crime was unpremeditated, and that annoyance rather than murder was intended. But a man who makes a revolver the instrument of annoyance cannot guard against the most dreaded contingencies.

Mr. Campbell Foster was justly enough precluded from making any reference to Peace’s attempted escape from the railway train. But it is not difficult to understand the motives under which the desperate leap was taken.

If Peace had possessed any confidence in his ability to support the plea set up in his behalf, there would have been no attempt to escape. But he was awnre of what awaited him.

He knew enough of Mrs. Dyson to fear that her testimony was not likely to be shaken. Every incidence in her career, so far as it was known to counsel, was reproduced for the purpose of disconcerting and discrediting her. Nevertheless, she left the witness-box with her evidence unshaken.

Thus has Charles Peace been condemned. Hunted down while not yet fifty, there is in every feature of his forbidding face evidence that such a career is as unprofitable as it is criminal.

It is difficult to conceive what this malefactor might have been under other and brighter auspices. But, dedicated to crime from his youth upward, as years passed away, conscience, which in his case was never tender, became “seared as with a hot iron.”

When the final stage in his trial was reached, and Peace was asked if he had anything to say, he whimpered out, “Is there any use of saying anything now?”

But in his cell the convict collapses, and his courage proves melodramatic.