CHAPTER XII.

GRAHAM, THE POLITE JUDGE.

Just before my time the punishment of death was inflicted for almost every offence of stealing which would now be thought sufficiently dealt with by a sentence of a week’s imprisonment.  The struggle to turn King’s evidence was great, and it was almost a competitive examination to ascertain who knew most about the crime; and he, being generally the worst of the gang, was accepted accordingly.

I remember when I was a child three men, named respectively Marshall, Cartwright, and Ingram, were charged with having committed a burglary in the house of a gentleman named Pym, who lived in a village in Hertfordshire, Marshall being at that time, and Cartwright having previously been, butler in the gentleman’s service.  Ingram had been a footman in London.

The burglary was not in itself of an aggravated character.  Plate only was stolen, and that had been concealed under the gravel bed of a little rivulet which ran through the grounds.

No violence or threat of violence had been offered to any inmate of the house, yet the case was looked upon as serious because of the position of trust which had been held by the two butlers.

Ingram was admitted as King’s evidence.  The butlers were convicted, sentenced to death, and hanged, whilst Ingram was, according to universal practice, set at liberty.  Before the expiration of a year, however, he was convicted of having stolen a horse, and as horse-stealing was a capital offence at that time, he suffered the penalty of death at Hereford.

It was a curious coincidence that only a year or two afterwards a man named Probert, who had given King’s evidence upon which the notorious Thurtell and Hunt were convicted of the brutal murder of Weare and executed, was also released, and within a year convicted of horse-stealing and hanged.

An old calendar for the Assize at Lincoln, which I give as an Appendix, reminds me of the condition of the law and of its victims at that time.  At every assize it was like a tiger let loose upon the district.  If a man escaped the gallows, he was lucky, while the criminals were by no means the hardened ruffians who had been trained in the school of crime; they were mostly composed of the most ignorant rural labourers—­if, indeed, in those days there were any degrees of ignorance, when to be able to read a few words by spelling them was considered a prodigious feat.

Jurors often endeavoured to mitigate the terrors of the law by finding that the stolen property, however valuable it might be, was of less value than five shillings.  May the recording angel “drop a tear over this record of perjury and blot it out for ever.”

It was in those days that Mr. Justice Graham was called upon to administer the law, and on one occasion particularly he vindicated his character for courtesy to all who appeared before him.  He was a man unconscious of humour and yet humorous, and was not aware of the extreme civility which he exhibited to everybody and upon all occasions, especially to the prisoner.