Chapter XXXI

Architects and civil engineers--Men of science--Scientific
societies--Medical men--Lawyers--"Tracts for the Times"--Curates'
pay--Flogging in the army and navy--Crime--Transportation
_versus_ hulks--Stories of convicts.

This was a reign in which both architecture and civil engineering were nascent, and yet there were some famous men in both professions. Among the former were Sir Chas. Barry, R.A., J. P. Deering, R.A., P. Hardwick, R.A., Sir Robert Smirke and Sydney Smirke, both R.A.'s, Sir John Soane, and Sir William Tite. Whilst among civil engineers we may note G. P. Bidder, once the famous calculating boy, both the Brunels, Sir W. Fairbairn, Sir John Rennie, and both the Stephensons; and, as a mechanical engineer, Joseph Whitworth was preparing the mathematical exactness of the tools which enabled England to hold her own, and more, against the whole world in the manufacture of machinery.

Of the men of science there is a fine list. Sir David Brewster, C. R. Darwin, M. Faraday, Sir John F. W. Herschel, and his wonderful aunt Caroline, Sir W. J. Hooker, to whom botany owes so much, as does geology to Sir Charles Lyell, and Sir J. Murchison, Mrs. Somerville, whose scientific attainments were marvellous, and W. H. Fox Talbot, by whom photography was much developed, though still in its infancy. In chemistry, we have Ure, Brande and Herapath.

The scientific societies inaugurated in this reign are as follows: in 1831, Royal Dublin Society, Harveian Society, British Association; in 1832, British Medical Association; 1833, Entomological Society; 1834, Statistical Society; 1837, Ornithological Society. In mechanical science both the gas engine and Ericson's caloric engine were known, the air-gun and limelight were novelties, and the hydro-oxygen microscope was a source of wonder to thousands.

A fine list, too, is to be found of medical men. Richard Bright, Sir B. Brodie, Sir R. Christison, Sir C. M. Clarke, Sir William Fergusson, Sir W. Laurence and Sir Charles Locock. Homeopathy was only just beginning to be talked about at the end of the reign.

There were some fine lawyers, Lord Abinger, Baron Alderson, Lord Brougham, Isaac Butt, Thomas Chitty, Sir A. J. E. Cockburn, Sir J. T. Coleridge, Lord Denman, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, Lord Lyndhurst, and Sir Frederick Thesiger, afterwards Lord Chelmsford.

Among the higher dignitaries of the Church of England in this reign were very few men of note,--all good men, doubtless; but, since the Wesleyan revival, the Church had been getting a wee bit sleepy, and wanted waking up. And it was woke up with a vengeance, when a conference of some Anglican clergymen and others was held at Hadleigh, July 25-29, 1833, and Oriel College may be said to be its birthplace, for at that College were Keble, Pusey, Newman, and Froude. From the tracts which were issued, exemplifying the views of these writers, the movement obtained the name of Tractarian. The first tract proper appeared September 9, 1833, and by November, 1835, seventy had appeared; and at first they were almost universally welcomed, for they carefully respected the Prayer-book, and defended the rights of the clergy. But the Evangelical party became alarmed at this growing popular movement, and, in the early part of Queen Victoria's reign, the strife waxed fast and furious, which only infused wakefulness and life into a somewhat dormant church, and has ended, as far as our time go, in the establishment of a so-called "High Church" form of worship, which would have utterly astonished the originators of the movement. True, some few good men left the Church of England, and joined that of Rome, but their secession only served as warnings to others, and the Church of England is now firmer established than ever it was.

A Clergy Act had been passed, enjoining that a curate's pay should in no case be less than £80 per annum; and that such salary should not be less than £100 per annum in any parish or place where the population, according to the last parliamentary returns, should amount to three hundred persons; where the population should amount to five hundred, the salary was not to be less than £120, and £150 if the population amounts to a thousand. This Act was much needed, as the following figures show. Six curates received under £20; 59 under £30; 173 under £40; 441 under £50; 892 under £60; 300 under £70; 415 under £80; 458 under £90; 156 under £100; 500 under £110; 69 under £120; 207 under £130; 52 under £140; 32 under £150; 162 under £160; 26 under £170; 15 under £180; 5 under £190; 3 under £200; 17 under £210; 2 under £220; 2 under £240; 3 under £250; 4 under £260; 1 under £290; 2 under £310; 1 under £320, and 1 under £340. There were forty-three who received the full income of the benefices they served. Two received one half of the income, and one was paid two guineas each Sunday.

The army and navy had very few opportunities of distinguishing themselves; they had a well-earned rest after 1815, but they were slow in doing away with the old bad practices in force in both services. For instance, flogging is still in force for some offences in the navy, by the regulations issued on December 18, 1871. Abolition of flogging in the army, at all events in time of peace, was advocated in Parliament in 1836, but came to nought; this was, however, done in April, 1868, and altogether abolished in April, 1881.

What flogging in the army was like, we may see by the following police report, taken from the _Times_ of May 18, 1833:--

"MANSION HOUSE.--Yesterday, a soldier, named George M'Willen,
aged twenty-one years, was brought before the Lord Mayor, charged
by a soldier with having deserted from the 77th Regiment.

"William Rogers, a private in the army, stated that the prisoner
had admitted to him that he had deserted from his regiment.

"The Lord Mayor (to the prisoner): Did you acknowledge that you
deserted?

"Prisoner: Yes, my lord, but not till he told me I was a
deserter; I was not quite such a fool.

"The Lord Mayor: Why did you desert from your regiment?

"Prisoner: Because I was tired of flogging. I am only twenty-one
years of age, and I have received nine hundred lashes. (Here were
some expressions of surprise and disgust.)

"The Lord Mayor: Did I hear you rightly? Did you say nine hundred
lashes?

"Prisoner: No doubt of it, my lord.

"Mr. Hobler: It is impossible, if you received nine hundred
lashes, you can stand up so straight.

"Prisoner: I received them all, and I can show the marks. It is
true I received them at different times; but I've had them all.

"The Lord Mayor: And what have you been doing with yourself since
you deserted?

"Prisoner: I have been mining in Cornwall. I thought it would be
the best way of getting out of danger by going underground.

"The Lord Mayor: And why didn't you stay in Cornwall? Why did you
come to London?

"Prisoner: I don't know why I left Cornwall; but I was looking
for work when I was taken up for deserting. I am able for any
sort of labour.

"The Lord Mayor: Why were you flogged?

"Prisoner: I'd rather not say anything about that; I shall soon
have to answer again.

"Mr. Hobler: You unfortunate fellow, you must have been a great
violator of discipline, or you could not have been so dreadfully
punished.

"The Prisoner (shaking his head): I've had my share.

"The Lord Mayor: Tell me, are you a sober man?

"Prisoner: No, my lord; I can't say I am.

"The Lord Mayor: By how many Courts Martial have you been tried?

"Prisoner: By four. In Belfast I was sentenced to receive 500
lashes, but they only gave me 300; they forgave me 200. In
Londonderry they gave me 250. He mentioned two other places, in
one of which he received 200, and in the other 150. He had
deserted eight months ago, and had been a miner ever since, and
the very first day he ventured to town he was apprehended.

"The Lord Mayor: You must be incorrigible, or you would never
have been so dreadfully punished. I cannot help committing you."

In _Arnold's Magazine_ for September, 1833, a writer, speaking of flogging in the navy, says--

"I saw two men who were tried for desertion, and their sentence
was to receive 500 lashes round the fleet. There is, perhaps,
nothing on the face of the earth so revolting to human nature, as
this most brutal of all outrages upon the feelings of gallant
tars under such a sentence. The day the man is to be punished is
known by the admiral making a general signal to copy orders. A
midshipman from each ship goes on board the admiral's ship with a
book, and copies the order, which states that, at a certain hour,
on such a day, a boat, manned and armed, is to be sent from the
ship from which the man is sentenced to be punished. On the day
appointed, the signal is made from the admiral, for the fleet to
draw into a line. The hands are then turned up in each ship, and
every officer appears with his cocked hat and sidearms, and the
marines are drawn up in the gangway, with muskets and fixed
bayonets.

"The ship launch to which the delinquent belongs is hoisted out,
and rigged up for the bloody tragedy. In this boat are two
boatswain's mates, with their cats, together with the surgeon and
master-at-arms. The poor creature is now taken out of irons, in
which he has been confined both before and after his sentence,
and brought down from the deck into the boat. The master-at-arms
next desires the mates to tie him up; he is then stripped, and a
blanket thrown over his shoulders. The boats of each ship then
make their painters fast, one ahead of the other, and thus form a
long line of boats. The captain now looks over the gangway, the
master-at-arms reads the infernal sentence, and the quantity of
lashes the victim is to receive at each ship. The captain calls
the boatswain's mate, and says, 'Go on, sir, and do your duty.'

"The blanket is now removed from the shoulders of the poor
fellow, and then commences the fiend-like exhibition. After the
victim has received one dozen, the captain tells the other
boatswain's mate to commence, and after the poor fellow has
received the next dozen the blanket is again thrown over his
shoulders, and the boats tow the launch alongside the next ship,
the drummer and fifer playing the Rogue's March. The same
ceremony is repeated from ship to ship, until the surgeon
pronounces that the man can receive no more without endangering
life; and woe be to the tyrant who dares to inflict one lash more
after the surgeon has spoken. I must here remark that I never
knew an instance of a surgeon in the navy being a tyrant; on the
contrary, both he and his assistants are always respected for
their tender regard for the sick under their care. After this
degrading and cruel punishment the man is again towed to his ship
and helped on board; he is next sent into the sick-bay, his back
anointed in order to heal it, and, in case he has not received
all his punishment, to enable him again to be tortured. When a
man has been flogged round the fleet he is of no further service,
his muscles are contracted, and he is no longer an able man."

Luckily there was no need for impressment to fill the navy, but it was legal, as it still is.

But most things were rougher and more brutal than nowadays, and nowhere was it better exemplified than in criminal punishment. Hanging was the punishment for many offences, but there was such a growing disinclination on the part of jurors to convict, and so many recommendations to mercy on the part of judges, that it was about time to modify our criminal legislature. Something must be done with the criminals, and they must be punished somehow. It was very certain that hanging was no deterrent to crime, which was so rampant that the gaols in England would have been utterly unable to hold the convicts. There was the alternative of sending them to colonize and be servants in that vast Australian continent, of which we then knew so little; or there was the employment of old men-of-war, called "hulks," as floating prisons, in which the prisoners were confined at night, working in the daytime on shore, in the dockyards, or elsewhere. These "hulks" were verily floating hells, but they had the merit over transportation, of economy, as we may see in a short leader in the _Times_ of July 19, 1830:--

"Some useful papers have been printed by order of the House of
Commons, exhibiting by a clear and distinct table the difference
of expense attendant on the transport of convicts to New South
Wales, as compared with the cost of their retention and
employment on board of hulks in this country and in Bermuda.

"By a return for the years 1820 to 1829 inclusive, it appears
that, deducting from the gross expense the sums earned by the
labour of the convict, the cost of feeding, clothing, and
maintaining each individual, together with that of the
establishment, and of repairing the hulks, did not, in the course
of last year, exceed £3 17_s._ 4-3/4_d._ per man.

"The expense of transporting convicts to New South Wales presents
a very unfavourable view of that method of treatment, miscalled
punishment, as compared with detention and hard labour on board
the hulks. The official returns of 1828 give, for the charge of
carrying out each male, £26 18_s._ 6_d._; for each female, £34
8_s._ 6-3/4_d._ In 1829, for each male, £25 15_s._ 9-3/4_d._; for
each female, £27 12_s._ 6-1/4_d._"

At that time Australia, Van Dieman's Land, and the Cape of Good Hope, were so sparsely populated by Europeans, that the introduction of criminal scum could not very well prejudice anything but the criminal colonies themselves. Once there, they were irrevocably fixed until their sentence was expired, and returning before that time was punishable by death, until August, 1834, when an Act of Parliament was passed (5 Gul. IV. c. 67) which reduced the penalty to transportation for life.

But if the vicious and criminal were transported, so occasionally were the good and innocent, and one case is specially pregnant; it occurs in a letter in the _Times_ of May 1, 1833--

"Sophia Hallen, a gentlewoman by birth, after having been
detained in prison for several years on an execution obtained in
an action at law by an attorney for the amount of his bill of
costs for £100, was put upon her trial at the Clerkenwell
Sessions on Thursday last, and sentenced to seven years
transportation beyond the seas, for refusing, in effect, to give
up her little property to discharge the debt of this person, who
is her only real creditor; who, it is alleged by her, has acted
improperly in not following the instructions of his client, in
the first instance; in subsequently holding back material
documents, and in rendering a false account in not giving credit
for money he had received, and which have had the effect in
making the defendant, evidently a strong-minded woman,
obstinately refuse to do any act whereby the prosecutor may
obtain payment of his demand."

If we want to know how the system of transportation worked, a glance through the pages of "The Felonry of New South Wales," by Jas. Mudie, Lond., 1837, gives us details hardly to be found elsewhere. Talking about assigning servants, how husbands were assigned to wives, etc., and then became practically free, he says--

"To such a pitch has this system arrived, that the streets of
Sydney are, literally, almost as crowded with carriages of every
class as Cheapside, or the Strand, in London; carriages not only
conveying, but being the property of emancipists, and convicts
assigned to their wives.

"A London thief, of any notoriety, after having been a short time
in Sydney, would scorn to place himself or his assignee wife in
so mean a vehicle as a gig; nothing less than a carriage and pair
is commensurate with the rank in felonry to which they have
arisen in Australia.

"A better idea of the effect of all this upon a stranger cannot
be conveyed than by the following anecdote of an officer who
visited New South Wales on leave of absence from his regiment in
India.

"Having gone with a friend in a gig from Sydney to the races at
Paramatta, they were passed on the road by many genteel
equipages, including close carriages, curricles, and landaus.

"In answer to the stranger's questions, his companion informed
him that one brilliant 'set out' belonged to Sam Such-a-one, who
had been a convict, but was now a free man and a man of fortune;
that another was the property of a convict who kept a draper's
shop in Sydney, but was assigned to his wife, who had brought out
with her a large sum of money; that a third belonged to a
ticket-of-leave man, who had obtained that indulgence almost
immediately after his arrival in the colony--and so on.

"At the racecourse, where all the 'beauty and fashion' of
felonry was assembled, the stranger's astonishment was complete
at the number of instances in which he obtained similar answers.

"After some graver reflections on so singular an exhibition, he
ironically remarked that he thought he had better return as soon
as possible to India for the purpose of there committing some
crime that should subject him to a short sentence of
transportation; for it really seemed to him that that was the
best way of getting on in the world!"

His description of the "fine lady convicts" is particularly amusing--

"Things are differently managed now, and when a transport ship
arrives at Sydney, all the madams on board occupy the few days
which elapse before their landing in preparing to produce the
most dazzling effect at their _descent_ upon the Australian
shores.

"With rich silk dresses, bonnets _a la mode_, ear pendants three
inches long, gorgeous shawls and splendid veils, silk stockings,
kid gloves, and parasols in hand, dispensing sweet odours from
their profusely perfumed forms, they disembark, and are assigned
as _servants_ and distributed to the expectant settlers.

"On the very road to their respective places of assignment the
women are told of the easy retirement of the factory, and advised
to get themselves sent there, without having to obtain the
consent of an assignee master.

"Offers of marriage are made to some of them from the waysides;
and at their new habitations they are besieged by suitors.

"The hapless settler who expected a _servant_, able, or, at
least, willing to act perhaps as house and dairymaid, finds he
has received quite a _princess_.

"Her _highness_, with her gloved and delicate fingers, can do
_no_ sort of work!

"Attempts are made to break her in, but in vain. 'If you don't
like me, send me to the factory,' is the common retort; and the
master, having no alternative, takes her before a Bench of
magistrates, by whom she is returned to Government, and conveyed
to the factory accordingly.

"The author, amongst the _favours_ of this kind that have been
conferred upon himself, once received a Dulcinea who, in addition
to her other finery, brought such a cargo of hair, tooth and nail
brushes, Macassar and other hair oils, otto of roses and
botanical creams, cosmetics and scented soaps, that she might
have commenced as a dealer in perfumery. She would have spent
half her time at her toilette, and the rest in playing off the
airs of a fine lady! She was quite indignant at not being allowed
an exclusive dressing-room; and the more so as the _dear_ doctor,
during the passage, had considered her much too delicate to
endure any sort of hardship, and had been so kind and considerate
as to insist upon her using two kinds of tooth brush, lest the
hardness of that first applied should injure the enamel of her
teeth!"

The colonies at last rebelled against having the criminals of England imported, certainly not to their benefit, and were successful, the Cape in 1849, and Australia generally in 1864; but a shipment of convicts was made to West Australia as late as 1867.

Taken altogether, crime, in this reign, was much the same as in any other, excepting the offences of Burkeing and body-snatching, for the sake of providing the anatomical schools with subjects--details of which are too loathsome to read--and the crimes themselves have now no existence.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

A Ballade of the Scottyshe King.
Chap Books of the Eighteenth Century.
Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne.
The Adventures of Captain John Smith.
Humour, Wit, and Satire of the Seventeenth Century.
English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon First.
Old Times.
The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century.
The Voiage and Travayle of Sir John Maundeville.
A Century of Ballads.
The Fleet, its River, Prison, and Marriages.
The Legendary History of the Cross.
Men, Maidens, and Manners a Hundred Years Ago.
Romances of Chivalry.
Modern Street Ballads.
Curious Creatures in Zoology.
Social England under the Regency.
Eighteenth Century Waifs.
Drinks of the World.
The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood.
Charles Letts's Date Book and Chronological Diary.
Lord Mayor's Show in the Olden Time.
Real Sailor Songs.
"Varia."
History of the Lottery in England.
Cassell's Social Life in England (_partly_).
A Righte Merrie Christmasse!
Hyde Park from Domesday Book to Date.
When William IV. was King.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

[Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained.]

End of Project Gutenberg's When William IV. Was King, by John Ashton