13100 lines
1.7 MiB
13100 lines
1.7 MiB
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0001.pt|Printing, in the only sense with which we are at present concerned, differs from most if not from all the arts and crafts represented in the Exhibition
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0002.pt|in being comparatively modern.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0003.pt|For although the Chinese took impressions from wood blocks engraved in relief for centuries before the woodcutters of the Netherlands, by a similar process
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0004.pt|produced the block books, which were the immediate predecessors of the true printed book,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0005.pt|the invention of movable metal letters in the middle of the fifteenth century may justly be considered as the invention of the art of printing.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0006.pt|And it is worth mention in passing that, as an example of fine typography,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0007.pt|the earliest book printed with movable types, the Gutenberg, or "forty-two line Bible" of about fourteen fifty-five,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0008.pt|has never been surpassed.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0009.pt|Printing, then, for our purpose, may be considered as the art of making books by means of movable types.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0010.pt|Now, as all books not primarily intended as picture-books consist principally of types composed to form letterpress,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0011.pt|it is of the first importance that the letter used should be fine in form;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0012.pt|especially as no more time is occupied, or cost incurred, in casting, setting, or printing beautiful letters
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0013.pt|than in the same operations with ugly ones.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0014.pt|And it was a matter of course that in the Middle Ages, when the craftsmen took care that beautiful form should always be a part of their productions whatever they were,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0015.pt|the forms of printed letters should be beautiful, and that their arrangement on the page should be reasonable and a help to the shapeliness of the letters themselves.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0016.pt|The Middle Ages brought calligraphy to perfection, and it was natural therefore
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0017.pt|that the forms of printed letters should follow more or less closely those of the written character, and they followed them very closely.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0018.pt|The first books were printed in black letter, i.e. the letter which was a Gothic development of the ancient Roman character,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0019.pt|and which developed more completely and satisfactorily on the side of the "lower-case" than the capital letters;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0020.pt|the "lower-case" being in fact invented in the early Middle Ages.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0021.pt|The earliest book printed with movable type, the aforesaid Gutenberg Bible, is printed in letters which are an exact imitation
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0022.pt|of the more formal ecclesiastical writing which obtained at that time; this has since been called "missal type,"
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0023.pt|and was in fact the kind of letter used in the many splendid missals, psalters, etc., produced by printing in the fifteenth century.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0024.pt|But the first Bible actually dated (which also was printed at Maintz by Peter Schoeffer in the year fourteen sixty-two)
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0025.pt|imitates a much freer hand, simpler, rounder, and less spiky, and therefore far pleasanter and easier to read.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0026.pt|On the whole the type of this book may be considered the ne-plus-ultra of Gothic type,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0027.pt|especially as regards the lower-case letters; and type very similar was used during the next fifteen or twenty years not only by Schoeffer,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0028.pt|but by printers in Strasburg, Basle, Paris, Lubeck, and other cities.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0029.pt|But though on the whole, except in Italy, Gothic letter was most often used
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0030.pt|a very few years saw the birth of Roman character not only in Italy, but in Germany and France.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0031.pt|In fourteen sixty-five Sweynheim and Pannartz began printing in the monastery of Subiaco near Rome,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0032.pt|and used an exceedingly beautiful type, which is indeed to look at a transition between Gothic and Roman,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0033.pt|but which must certainly have come from the study of the twelfth or even the eleventh century MSS.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0034.pt|They printed very few books in this type, three only; but in their very first books in Rome, beginning with the year fourteen sixty-eight,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0035.pt|they discarded this for a more completely Roman and far less beautiful letter.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0036.pt|But about the same year Mentelin at Strasburg began to print in a type which is distinctly Roman;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0037.pt|and the next year Gunther Zeiner at Augsburg followed suit;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0038.pt|while in fourteen seventy at Paris Udalric Gering and his associates turned out the first books printed in France, also in Roman character.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0039.pt|The Roman type of all these printers is similar in character,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0040.pt|and is very simple and legible, and unaffectedly designed for use; but it is by no means without beauty.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0041.pt|It must be said that it is in no way like the transition type of Subiaco,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0042.pt|and though more Roman than that, yet scarcely more like the complete Roman type of the earliest printers of Rome.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0043.pt|A further development of the Roman letter took place at Venice.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0044.pt|John of Spires and his brother Vindelin, followed by Nicholas Jenson, began to print in that city,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0045.pt|fourteen sixty-nine, fourteen seventy;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0046.pt|their type is on the lines of the German and French rather than of the Roman printers.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0047.pt|Of Jenson it must be said that he carried the development of Roman type as far as it can go:
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0048.pt|his letter is admirably clear and regular, but at least as beautiful as any other Roman type.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0049.pt|After his death in the "fourteen eighties," or at least by fourteen ninety, printing in Venice had declined very much;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0050.pt|and though the famous family of Aldus restored its technical excellence, rejecting battered letters,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0051.pt|and paying great attention to the "press work" or actual process of printing,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0052.pt|yet their type is artistically on a much lower level than Jenson's, and in fact
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0053.pt|they must be considered to have ended the age of fine printing in Italy.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0054.pt|Jenson, however, had many contemporaries who used beautiful type,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0055.pt|some of which -- as, e.g., that of Jacobus Rubeus or Jacques le Rouge -- is scarcely distinguishable from his.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0056.pt|It was these great Venetian printers, together with their brethren of Rome, Milan,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0057.pt|Parma, and one or two other cities, who produced the splendid editions of the Classics, which are one of the great glories of the printer's art,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0058.pt|and are worthy representatives of the eager enthusiasm for the revived learning of that epoch. By far,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0059.pt|the greater part of these Italian printers, it should be mentioned, were Germans or Frenchmen, working under the influence of Italian opinion and aims.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0060.pt|It must be understood that through the whole of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the sixteenth centuries
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0061.pt|the Roman letter was used side by side with the Gothic.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0062.pt|Even in Italy most of the theological and law books were printed in Gothic letter,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0063.pt|which was generally more formally Gothic than the printing of the German workmen,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0064.pt|many of whose types, indeed, like that of the Subiaco works, are of a transitional character.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0065.pt|This was notably the case with the early works printed at Ulm, and in a somewhat lesser degree at Augsburg.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0066.pt|In fact Gunther Zeiner's first type (afterwards used by Schussler) is remarkably like the type of the before-mentioned Subiaco books.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0067.pt|In the Low Countries and Cologne, which were very fertile of printed books, Gothic was the favorite.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0068.pt|The characteristic Dutch type, as represented by the excellent printer Gerard Leew, is very pronounced and uncompromising Gothic.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0069.pt|This type was introduced into England by Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's successor,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0070.pt|and was used there with very little variation all through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and indeed into the eighteenth.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0071.pt|Most of Caxton's own types are of an earlier character, though they also much resemble Flemish or Cologne letter.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0072.pt|After the end of the fifteenth century the degradation of printing, especially in Germany and Italy,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0073.pt|went on apace; and by the end of the sixteenth century there was no really beautiful printing done:
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0074.pt|the best, mostly French or Low-Country, was neat and clear, but without any distinction;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0075.pt|the worst, which perhaps was the English, was a terrible falling-off from the work of the earlier presses;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0076.pt|and things got worse and worse through the whole of the seventeenth century, so that in the eighteenth printing was very miserably performed.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0077.pt|In England about this time, an attempt was made (notably by Caslon, who started business in London as a type-founder in seventeen twenty)
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0078.pt|to improve the letter in form.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0079.pt|Caslon's type is clear and neat, and fairly well designed;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0080.pt|he seems to have taken the letter of the Elzevirs of the seventeenth century for his model:
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0081.pt|type cast from his matrices is still in everyday use.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0082.pt|In spite, however, of his praiseworthy efforts, printing had still one last degradation to undergo.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0083.pt|The seventeenth century founts were bad rather negatively than positively.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0084.pt|But for the beauty of the earlier work they might have seemed tolerable.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0085.pt|It was reserved for the founders of the later eighteenth century to produce letters which are positively ugly, and which, it may be added,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0086.pt|are dazzling and unpleasant to the eye owing to the clumsy thickening and vulgar thinning of the lines:
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0087.pt|for the seventeenth-century letters are at least pure and simple in line. The Italian, Bodoni, and the Frenchman, Didot,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0088.pt|were the leaders in this luckless change, though our own Baskerville, who was at work some years before them, went much on the same lines;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0089.pt|but his letters, though uninteresting and poor, are not nearly so gross and vulgar as those of either the Italian or the Frenchman.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0090.pt|With this change the art of printing touched bottom,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0091.pt|so far as fine printing is concerned, though paper did not get to its worst till about eighteen forty.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0092.pt|The Chiswick press in eighteen forty-four revived Caslon's founts, printing for Messrs. Longman the Diary of Lady Willoughby.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0093.pt|This experiment was so far successful that about eighteen fifty Messrs. Miller and Richard of Edinburgh
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0094.pt|were induced to cut punches for a series of "old style" letters.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0095.pt|These and similar founts, cast by the above firm and others,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0096.pt|have now come into general use and are obviously a great improvement on the ordinary "modern style" in use in England, which is in fact the Bodoni type
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0097.pt|a little reduced in ugliness. The design of the letters of this modern "old style" leaves a good deal to be desired,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0098.pt|and the whole effect is a little too gray, owing to the thinness of the letters.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0099.pt|It must be remembered, however, that most modern printing is done by machinery on soft paper, and not by the hand press,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0100.pt|and these somewhat wiry letters are suitable for the machine process, which would not do justice to letters of more generous design.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0101.pt|It is discouraging to note that the improvement of the last fifty years is almost wholly confined to Great Britain.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0102.pt|Here and there a book is printed in France or Germany with some pretension to good taste,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0103.pt|but the general revival of the old forms has made no way in those countries.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0104.pt|Italy is contentedly stagnant.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0105.pt|America has produced a good many showy books, the typography, paper, and illustrations of which are, however, all wrong,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0106.pt|oddity rather than rational beauty and meaning being apparently the thing sought for both in the letters and the illustrations.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0107.pt|To say a few words on the principles of design in typography:
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0108.pt|it is obvious that legibility is the first thing to be aimed at in the forms of the letters;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0109.pt|this is best furthered by the avoidance of irrational swellings and spiky projections, and by the using of careful purity of line.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0110.pt|Even the Caslon type when enlarged shows great shortcomings in this respect:
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0111.pt|the ends of many of the letters such as the t and e are hooked up in a vulgar and meaningless way,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0112.pt|instead of ending in the sharp and clear stroke of Jenson's letters;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0113.pt|there is a grossness in the upper finishings of letters like the c, the a, and so on,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0114.pt|an ugly pear-shaped swelling defacing the form of the letter:
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0115.pt|in short, it happens to this craft, as to others, that the utilitarian practice, though it professes to avoid ornament,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0116.pt|still clings to a foolish, because misunderstood conventionality, deduced from what was once ornament, and is by no means useful;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0117.pt|which title can only be claimed by artistic practice, whether the art in it be conscious or unconscious.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0118.pt|In no characters is the contrast between the ugly and vulgar illegibility of the modern type
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0119.pt|and the elegance and legibility of the ancient more striking than in the Arabic numerals.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0120.pt|In the old print each figure has its definite individuality, and one cannot be mistaken for the other;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0121.pt|in reading the modern figures the eyes must be strained before the reader can have any reasonable assurance
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0122.pt|that he has a five, an eight, or a three before him, unless the press work is of the best:
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0123.pt|this is awkward if you have to read Bradshaw's Guide in a hurry.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0124.pt|One of the differences between the fine type and the utilitarian must probably be put down to a misapprehension of a commercial necessity:
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0125.pt|this is the narrowing of the modern letters.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0126.pt|Most of Jenson's letters are designed within a square,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0127.pt|the modern letters are narrowed by a third or thereabout; but while this gain of space very much hampers the possibility of beauty of design,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0128.pt|it is not a real gain, for the modern printer throws the gain away by putting inordinately wide spaces between his lines, which, probably,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0129.pt|the lateral compression of his letters renders necessary.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0130.pt|Commercialism again compels the use of type too small in size to be comfortable reading:
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0131.pt|the size known as "Long primer" ought to be the smallest size used in a book meant to be read.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0132.pt|Here, again, if the practice of "leading" were retrenched larger type could be used without enhancing the price of a book.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0133.pt|One very important matter in "setting up" for fine printing is the "spacing," that is, the lateral distance of words from one another.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0134.pt|In good printing the spaces between the words should be as near as possible equal
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0135.pt|it is impossible that they should be quite equal except in lines of poetry
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0136.pt|modern printers understand this, but it is only practiced in the very best establishments.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0137.pt|But another point which they should attend to they almost always disregard;
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0138.pt|this is the tendency to the formation of ugly meandering white lines or "rivers" in the page
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0139.pt|a blemish which can be nearly, though not wholly, avoided by care and forethought
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0140.pt|the desirable thing being "the breaking of the line" as in bonding masonry or brickwork
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0141.pt|The general solidity of a page is much to be sought for
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0142.pt|modern printers generally overdo the "whites" in the spacing, a defect probably forced on them by the characterless quality of the letters.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0143.pt|For where these are boldly and carefully designed, and each letter is thoroughly individual in form,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0144.pt|the words may be set much closer together, without loss of clearness.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0145.pt|No definite rules, however, except the avoidance of "rivers" and excess of white, can be given for the spacing,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0146.pt|which requires the constant exercise of judgment and taste on the part of the printer.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0147.pt|The position of the page on the paper should be considered if the book is to have a satisfactory look.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0148.pt|Here once more the almost invariable modern practice is in opposition to a natural sense of proportion.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0149.pt|From the time when books first took their present shape till the end of the sixteenth century, or indeed later,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0150.pt|the page so lay on the paper that there was more space allowed to the bottom and fore margin than to the top and back of the paper,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0151.pt|the unit of the book being looked on as the two pages forming an opening.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0152.pt|The modern printer, in the teeth of the evidence given by his own eyes, considers the single page as the unit, and prints the page in the middle of his paper
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0153.pt|only nominally so, however, in many cases, since when he uses a headline he counts that in,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0154.pt|the result as measured by the eye being that the lower margin is less than the top one, and that the whole opening has an upside-down look vertically
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0155.pt|and that laterally the page looks as if it were being driven off the paper.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0156.pt|The paper on which the printing is to be done is a necessary part of our subject:
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0157.pt|of this it may be said that though there is some good paper made now,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0158.pt|it is never used except for very expensive books, although it would not materially increase the cost in all but the very cheapest.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0159.pt|The paper that is used for ordinary books is exceedingly bad even in this country, but is beaten in the race for vileness
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0160.pt|by that made in America, which is the worst conceivable.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0161.pt|There seems to be no reason why ordinary paper should not be better made,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0162.pt|even allowing the necessity for a very low price; but any improvement must be based on showing openly that the cheap article is cheap,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0163.pt|e.g. the cheap paper should not sacrifice toughness and durability to a smooth and white surface,
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0164.pt|which should be indications of a delicacy of material and manufacture which would of necessity increase its cost.
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LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0165.pt|One fruitful source of badness in paper
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0166.pt|is the habit that publishers have of eking out a thin volume by printing it on thick paper almost of the substance of cardboard,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0167.pt|a device which deceives nobody, and makes a book very unpleasant to read.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0168.pt|On the whole, a small book should be printed on paper which is as thin as may be without being transparent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0169.pt|The paper used for printing the small highly ornamented French service-books about the beginning of the sixteenth century is a model in this respect,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0170.pt|being thin, tough, and opaque.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0171.pt|However, the fact must not be blinked that machine-made paper cannot in the nature of things be made of so good a texture as that made by hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0172.pt|The ornamentation of printed books is too wide a subject to be dealt with fully here; but one thing must be said on it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0173.pt|The essential point to be remembered is that the ornament, whatever it is, whether picture or pattern-work, should form part of the page,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0174.pt|should be a part of the whole scheme of the book.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0175.pt|Simple as this proposition is, it is necessary to be stated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0176.pt|because the modern practice is to disregard the relation between the printing and the ornament altogether,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0177.pt|so that if the two are helpful to one another it is a mere matter of accident.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0178.pt|The due relation of letter to pictures and other ornament was thoroughly understood by the old printers; so that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0179.pt|even when the woodcuts are very rude indeed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0180.pt|the proportions of the page still give pleasure by the sense of richness that the cuts and letter together convey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0181.pt|When, as is most often the case, there is actual beauty in the cuts,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0182.pt|the books so ornamented are amongst the most delightful works of art that have ever been produced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0183.pt|Therefore, granted well-designed type, due spacing of the lines and words, and proper position of the page on the paper,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0184.pt|all books might be at least comely and well-looking: and if to these good qualities were added really beautiful ornament and pictures,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0185.pt|printed books might once again illustrate to the full
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ001-0186.pt|the position of our Society that a work of utility might be also a work of art, if we cared to make it so.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section four: Newgate down to eighteen eighteen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0002.pt|Under the conditions referred to in the previous chapter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0003.pt|with criminals and misdemeanants of all shades crowding perpetually into its narrow limits, the latter state of Newgate was worse than the first.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0004.pt|The new jail fell as far short of the demands made on it as did the old.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0005.pt|The prison population fluctuated a great deal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0006.pt|but it was almost always in excess of the accommodation available, and there were times when the place was full to overflowing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0007.pt|Neild gives some figures which well illustrate this.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0008.pt|On the fourteenth June, eighteen hundred, there were one hundred ninety-nine debtors and two hundred eighty-nine felons in the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0009.pt|On the twenty-seventh April, in the following year,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0010.pt|these numbers had risen to two hundred seventy-five and three hundred seventy-five respectively, or six hundred fifty in all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0011.pt|For two more years these high figures were steadily maintained, and in eighteen oh three the total rose to seven hundred ten.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0012.pt|After that they fell as steadily,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0013.pt|till, eighteen oh eight, the lowest point was touched of one hundred ninety-seven debtors and one hundred eighty-two felons, or three hundred seventy-nine in all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0014.pt|The numbers soon increased, however, and by eighteen eleven had again risen to six hundred twenty-nine; and Mr. Neild was told that there had been at one time
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0015.pt|three hundred debtors and nine hundred criminals in Newgate, or twelve hundred prisoners in all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0016.pt|Previous to that date there had been seven hundred or eight hundred frequently, and once, in Mr. Akerman's time, one thousand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0017.pt|Trustworthy evidence is forthcoming to the effect that these high figures were constantly maintained for many months at a time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0018.pt|The inadequacy of the jail was noticed and reported upon again and again by the grand juries of the city of London,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0019.pt|who seldom let a session go by without visiting Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0020.pt|In eighteen thirteen
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0021.pt|the grand jury made a special presentment to the Court of Common Council, pointing out that on the debtors' side, which was intended for only one hundred,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0022.pt|no less than three hundred forty were crowded, to the great inconvenience and danger of the inmates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0023.pt|On the female side matters were much worse;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0024.pt|Quote. the apartments set apart for them, being built to accommodate sixty persons, now contain about one hundred twenty. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0025.pt|Returns laid before the House of Commons showed that six thousand, four hundred thirty-nine persons had been committed to Newgate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0026.pt|in the three years between eighteen thirteen and eighteen sixteen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0027.pt|and this number did not include the debtors, a numerous class, who were still committed to Newgate pending the completion of the White Cross Street prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0028.pt|In order to realize the evils entailed by incarceration in Newgate in these days, it is necessary to give some account of its interior
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0029.pt|as it was occupied and appropriated in eighteen ten.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0030.pt|Full details of the arrangements are to be found in Mr. Neild's "State of Prisons in England, Scotland, and Wales," published in eighteen twelve.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0031.pt|The jail at that date was divided into eight separate and more or less distinct departments, each of which had its own wards and yard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0032.pt|These were: one. The male debtors' side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0033.pt|two. The female debtors' side. three. The chapel yard. four. The middle yard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0034.pt|five. The master felons' side. six. The female felons' side. seven. The state side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0035.pt|eight. The press yard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0036.pt|one. The male debtors' side consisted of a yard forty-nine feet by thirty-one,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0037.pt|leading to thirteen wards on various floors, and a day room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0038.pt|Of these wards, three were appropriated to the "cabin side," so called because
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0039.pt|they each contained four small rooms or "cabins" seven feet square,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0040.pt|intended to accommodate a couple of prisoners apiece, but often much more crowded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0041.pt|Two other wards were appropriated to the master's side debtors; they were each twenty-three feet by fourteen and a half,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0042.pt|and supposed to accommodate twenty persons. The eight remaining wards were for the common side debtors,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0043.pt|long narrow rooms -- one thirty-six feet, six twenty-three feet, and the eighth eighteen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0044.pt|the whole about fifteen feet wide.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0045.pt|The various wards were all about eleven feet in height,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0046.pt|and were occupied as a rule by ten to fifteen people when the prison was not crowded, but double the number was occasionally placed in them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0047.pt|The day room was fitted with benches and settles after the manner of the tap in a public-house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0048.pt|two. The female debtors' side consisted of a court-yard forty-nine by sixteen feet,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0049.pt|leading to two wards, one of which was thirty-six feet by fifteen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0050.pt|and the other eighteen by fifteen; and they nominally held twenty-two persons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0051.pt|A high wall fifteen feet in height divided the females' court-yard from the men's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0052.pt|three. The chapel yard was about forty-three feet by twenty-five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0053.pt|It had been for some time devoted principally to felons of the worst types,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0054.pt|those who were the oldest offenders, sentenced to transportation, and who had narrowly escaped the penalty of death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0055.pt|This arrangement was, however, modified after eighteen eleven, and the chapel yard was allotted to misdemeanants and prisoners awaiting trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0056.pt|The wards in this part were five in number, all in dimensions twenty feet by fifteen, with a sixth ward fifteen feet square.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0057.pt|These wards were all fitted with barrack-beds, but no bedding was supplied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0058.pt|The chapel yard led to the chapel, and on the staircase were two rooms frequently set apart for the king's witnesses,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0059.pt|those who had turned king's evidence, whose safety might have been imperiled had they been lodged with the men against whom they had informed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0060.pt|But these king's witnesses were also put at times into the press yard among the capital convicts, seemingly a very dangerous proceeding,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0061.pt|or they lodged with the gatesmen, the prisoner officers who had charge of the inner gates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0062.pt|The middle yard was at first given up to the least heinous offenders. After eighteen twelve it changed functions with the chapel yard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0063.pt|It was fifty feet by twenty-five, and had five wards each thirty-eight by fifteen. At one end of the yard was an arcade,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0064.pt|directly under the chapel, in which there were three cells, used either for the confinement of disorderly and refractory prisoners,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0065.pt|or female convicts ordered for execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0066.pt|The master felons' side consisted of a yard the same size as the preceding, appropriated nominally to the most decent and better-behaved prisoners,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0067.pt|but really kept for the few who had funds sufficient to gain them admission to these more comfortable quarters.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0068.pt|Here were also lodged the gatesmen, the prisoners who had charge of the inner gates, and who were entrusted with the duty of escorting visitors from the gates
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0069.pt|to the various wards their friends occupied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0070.pt|The state side was the part stolen from the female felons' side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0071.pt|It was large and comparatively commodious, being maintained on a better footing than any other part of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0072.pt|The inmates were privileged, either by antecedents or the fortunate possession of sufficient funds to pay the charges of the place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0073.pt|Neild takes it for granted that the former rather than the latter prevailed in the selection,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0074.pt|and tells us that in the state side, quote, such prisoners were safely associated whose manners and conduct evince a more liberal style of education,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0075.pt|and who are therefore lodged apart from all other districts of the jail. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0076.pt|The state side contained twelve good-sized rooms,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0077.pt|from twenty-one by eighteen feet to fifteen feet square, which were furnished with bedsteads and bedding.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0078.pt|seven. The press yard was that part set aside for the condemned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0079.pt|Its name and its situation were the same as those of the old place of carrying out the terrible sentence inflicted on accused persons who stood mute.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0080.pt|The long narrow yard still remained as we saw it in Jacobite times,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0081.pt|and beyond it was now a day room for the capital convicts or those awaiting execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0082.pt|Beyond the press yard were three stories, condemned cells, fifteen in all, with vaulted ceilings nine feet high to the crown of the arch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0083.pt|The ground floor cells were nine feet by six;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0084.pt|those on the first floor were rather larger on account of a set-off in the wall; and the uppermost were the largest, for the same reason.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0085.pt|Security was provided for in these condemned cells by lining the substantial stone walls with planks studded with broad-headed nails;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0086.pt|they were lighted by a double-grated window two feet nine inches by fourteen inches; and in the doors, which were four inches thick,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0087.pt|a circular aperture had been let in to give ventilation and secure a free current of air.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0088.pt|In each cell there was a barrack bedstead on the floor without bedding.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0089.pt|eight. The female felons were deprived of part of the space which the architect had intended for them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0090.pt|More than half their quadrangle had been partitioned off for another purpose,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0091.pt|and what remained was divided into a master's and a common side for female felons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0092.pt|The two yards were adjoining, that for the common side much the largest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0093.pt|There were nine wards in all on the female side, one of them in the attic,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0094.pt|with four casements and two fireplaces, being allotted for a female infirmary
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0095.pt|and the rest being provided with barrack beds, and in dimensions varying from thirty feet by fifteen to fifteen feet by ten.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0096.pt|The eight courts above enumerated were well supplied with water;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0097.pt|they had dust-bins, sewers, and so forth, "properly disposed," and the city scavenger paid periodical visits to the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0098.pt|The prisoners had few comforts, beyond the occasional use of a bath at some distance, situated in the press yard,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0099.pt|to which access was granted rarely and as a great favor. But they were allowed the luxury of drink -- if they could pay for it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0100.pt|A recent reform had closed the tap kept by the jailer within the precincts, but
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0101.pt|there was still a "convenient room" which served, and, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0102.pt|near it a grating through which the debtors receive their beer from the neighboring public-houses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0103.pt|The felons' side has a similar accommodation, and this mode of introducing the beverage is adopted because no publican as such
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0104.pt|can be permitted to enter the interior of this prison. End quote. The tap-room and bar were just behind the felons' entrance lodge,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0105.pt|and beyond it was a room called the "wine room," because formerly used for the sale of wine, but
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0106.pt|in which latterly a copper had been fixed for the cooking of provisions sent in by charitable persons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0107.pt|Quote, On the top of the jail, continues Neild, are a watch-house and a sentry-box, where two or more guards, with dogs and firearms,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0108.pt|watch all night. Adjoining the felons' side lodge is the keeper's office, where the prison books are kept, and his clerk,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0109.pt|called the clerk of the papers, attends daily. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0110.pt|Having thus briefly described the plan and appropriation of the prison, I propose to deal now with the general condition of the inmates, and the manner of their life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0111.pt|Of these the debtors, male and female, formed a large proportion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0112.pt|The frequency and extent of processes against debtors seventy or eighty years ago will appear almost incredible
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0113.pt|in an age when insolvent acts and bankruptcy courts do so much to relieve the impecunious,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0114.pt|and imprisonment for debt has almost entirely disappeared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0116.pt|The number of processes against debtors annually was extraordinary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0117.pt|Neild gives, on the authority of Mr. Burchell, the under sheriff of Middlesex,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0118.pt|a table showing the figures for the year ending Michaelmas eighteen oh two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0119.pt|In that period upwards of two hundred thousand writs
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0120.pt|had been issued for the arrests of debtors in the kingdom, for sums varying from fourpence to five hundred pounds and upwards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0121.pt|Fifteen thousand of these were issued in Middlesex alone, which at that time was reckoned as only a fifteenth of Great Britain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0122.pt|The number of arrests actually made was one hundred fourteen thousand, three hundred for the kingdom, and seven thousand twenty for Middlesex.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0123.pt|Barely half of these gave bail bonds on arrests, and the remainder went to prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0124.pt|Quite half of the foregoing writs and arrests applied to sums under thirty pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0125.pt|Neild also says that in seventeen ninety-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0126.pt|five thousand, seven hundred nineteen writs and executions for debts between ten pounds and twenty pounds were issued in Middlesex,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0127.pt|and the aggregate amount of debts sued for was eighty-one thousand, seven hundred ninety-one pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0128.pt|He also makes the curious calculation that the costs of these actions if undefended
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0129.pt|would have amounted to sixty-eight thousand, seven hundred twenty-eight pounds, and if defended,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0130.pt|two hundred eighty-five thousand, nine hundred fifty pounds; in other words, that to recover eighty odd thousand pounds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0131.pt|three times the amount would be expended.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0132.pt|An elaborate machinery planned for the protection of the trader, and altogether on his side, had long existed for the recovery of debts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0133.pt|Alfred the Great established the Court Baron, the Hundred Court, and the County Court, which among other matters entertained pleas for debt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0134.pt|The County Court was the sheriff's, who sat there surrounded by the bishop and the magnates of the county;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0135.pt|but as time passed, difficulties and delays in obtaining judgment led to the removal of causes to the great Court of King's Bench,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0136.pt|and the disuse of the inferior courts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0137.pt|So much inconvenience ensued, that in fifteen eighteen the Corporation obtained from Parliament an act empowering two aldermen
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0138.pt|and four common councilmen to hold Courts of Requests, or Courts of Conscience, to hear and determine all causes of debt
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0139.pt|under forty shillings arising within the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0140.pt|These courts were extended two centuries later to several large provincial towns, and all were in full activity when Neild wrote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0141.pt|and indeed supplied the bulk of the poor debtors committed to prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0142.pt|These courts were open to many and grave objections.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0143.pt|The commissioners who presided were, quote, little otherwise than self-elected
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0144.pt|and when once appointed continued to serve sine die; they were generally near in rank to the parties whose causes they decided.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0145.pt|Often a commissioner had to leave the bench because he was himself a party to the suit that was sub judice.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0146.pt|The activity as well as the futility of these courts may be estimated from the statement given by Neild
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0147.pt|that thirteen hundred and twelve debtors were committed by them to Newgate between seventeen ninety-seven and eighteen oh eight,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0148.pt|and that no more than one hundred ninety-seven creditors recovered debts and costs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0149.pt|The latter indeed hung like millstones round the neck of the unhappy insolvent wretches who found themselves in limbo.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0150.pt|Costs were the gallons of sack to the pennyworth of debt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0151.pt|Neild found at his visit to Newgate in eighteen ten,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0152.pt|fourteen men and women who had lain there ten, eleven, and thirteen years for debts of a few shillings,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0153.pt|weighted by treble the amount of costs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0154.pt|Thus, amongst others, Thomas Blackburn had been committed on October fifteenth for a debt of one shilling five pence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0155.pt|for which the costs were six shillings ten pence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0156.pt|Thomas Dobson, on twenty-second August, seventeen ninety-nine, for one shilling, with costs of eight shillings, ten pence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0157.pt|and Susannah Evans, in October the same year, for two shillings, with costs of six shillings, eight pence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0158.pt|Other cases are recorded elsewhere, as at the Giltspur Street Compter, where in eighteen oh five Mr. Neild found a man named William Grant
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0159.pt|detained for one shilling nine pence, with costs of five shillings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0160.pt|and John Lancaster for one shilling, eight pence, with costs of seven shillings, six pence. Quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0161.pt|These surely, I thought," says Mr. Neild, "were bad enough! But it was not so. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0162.pt|He recites another most outrageous and extraordinary case, in which one John Bird,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0163.pt|a market porter, was arrested and committed at the suit of a publican
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0164.pt|for the paltry sum of four pence, with costs of seven shillings, six pence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0165.pt|Bird was, however, discharged within three days by a subscription raised among his fellow-prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0166.pt|Mr. Buxton, in his "Inquiry into the System of Prison Discipline,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0167.pt|quotes a case which came within his own knowledge of a boy sent to prison for non-payment of one penny.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0168.pt|The lad in question was found in Coldbath Fields prison, to which he had been sent for a month in default of paying a fine of forty shillings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0169.pt|He had been in the employ of a corn-chandler at Islington, and went into London with his master's cart and horse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0170.pt|There was in the City Road a temporary bar, with a collector of tolls who was sometimes on the spot and sometimes not.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0171.pt|The boy declared he saw no one, and accordingly passed through without paying the toll of a penny.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0172.pt|For this he was summoned before a magistrate, and sentenced as already stated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0173.pt|The lad was proved to be of good character and the son of respectable parents.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0174.pt|Mr. Buxton's friends at once paid the forty shillings, and the boy was released.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0175.pt|The costs in heavier debts always doubled the sum; if the arrest was made in the country it trebled it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0176.pt|Neild gives a list of the various items charged upon a debt of ten pounds, which included instructions to sue,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0177.pt|affidavit of debt, drawing praecipe (one pound, five shillings), capias, fee to officer on arrest,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0178.pt|affidavit of service, and many more, amounting in all to twenty-seven,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0179.pt|and costing eleven pounds, fifteen shillings, eight pence, within ten days.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0180.pt|Before dealing with the debtors in Newgate, I may refer incidentally
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0181.pt|to those in other London prisons, for Newgate was not the only place of durance for these unfortunate people. There were also the King's Bench,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0182.pt|the Fleet, and the Marshalsea prisons especially devoted to them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0183.pt|whilst Ludgate, the Giltspur Street, and Borough Compters also received them
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0184.pt|the latter two being also a prison for felons and vagrants arrested within certain limits.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0185.pt|The King's Bench was a national prison, in which were confined all debtors arrested for debt or for contempt of the court of the King's Bench.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0186.pt|The population generally amounted to from five hundred to seven hundred, the accommodation being calculated for two hundred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0187.pt|Every new-comer was entitled to a "chummage" ticket, but did not always get it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0188.pt|being often obliged to pay a high rent for a bed at the coffee-house or in some room which was vacated by its regular occupant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0189.pt|No fixed rates or rules governed the hiring out of rooms or parts of a room, and all sorts of imposition was practiced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0190.pt|The best, or at least the most influential prisoners, got lodging in the State House, which contained "eight large handsome rooms."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0191.pt|Besides those actually resident within the walls,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0192.pt|another two hundred more or less took advantage of "the rules," and lived outside within a circumference of two miles and a half.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0193.pt|In these cases security was given for the amount of the debt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0194.pt|and a heavy fee at the rate of eight pounds per one hundred pounds, with four pounds for every additional hundred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0195.pt|Besides these, a number had the privilege of a "run on the key," which allowed a prisoner to go into the rules for the day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0196.pt|The foregoing rentals and payments for privileges, together with fees exacted on commitment and discharge, went to the marshal or keeper of the prison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0197.pt|whose net annual income thus entirely derived from the impecunious amounted to between three and four thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0198.pt|The office of marshal had been hereditary,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0199.pt|but in the twenty-seventh George the second the right of presentation was bought by the Crown for ten thousand, five hundred pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0200.pt|The marshal was supposed to be resident either within the prison or the rules.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0201.pt|He seems to have felt no responsibility as to the welfare or comfort of those in charge, and out of whom he made all his money.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0202.pt|The prison was always in "the most filthy state imaginable."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0203.pt|The half or wholly starved prisoners fished for alms or food at the gratings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0204.pt|When they were sick no more notice was taken of them than of a dog.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0205.pt|A man dying of liver complaint lay on the cold stones without a bed or food to eat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0206.pt|Dissolute habits prevailed on all sides; drunkenness was universal, gambling perpetual.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0207.pt|The yards were taken up with rackets and five courts, and here and there were "bumble puppy grounds," a game in which the players rolled iron balls
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0208.pt|into holes marked with numbers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0209.pt|How to make most profit out of the wretched denizens of the jail was the marshal's only care. He got a rent for the coffee-house and the bake-house;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0210.pt|the keeper of the large tap-room called the Brace, because it was once kept by two brothers named Partridge, also paid him toll.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0211.pt|The sale of spirits was forbidden, but gin could always be had at the whistling shops, where it was known as Moonshine, Sky Blue,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0212.pt|Mexico, and was consumed at the rate of a hogshead per week.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0213.pt|The Fleet, which stood in Farringdon Street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0214.pt|was a prison for debtors and persons committed for contempt by the courts of Chancery, Exchequer, and Common Pleas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0215.pt|It was so used for the date of the abolition of the Star Chamber in the sixteenth Charles the first
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0216.pt|The shameful malpractices of Bambridge,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0217.pt|the warden of the Fleet at the commencement of the eighteenth century, are too well known to need more than a passing reference.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0218.pt|A committee of the House of Commons investigated the charges against Bambridge, who was proved to have connived at the escape of some debtors,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0219.pt|and to have been guilty of extortion to others. One Sir William Rich, Bart., he had loaded with heavy irons
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0220.pt|In consequence of these disclosures, both Bambridge and Huggin, his predecessor in the office, were committed to Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0221.pt|and many reforms instituted. But the condition of the prison and its inmates remained unsatisfactory to the last.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0222.pt|It contained generally from six to seven hundred inmates, while another hundred more or less resided in the rules outside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0223.pt|The principle of "chummage" prevailed as in the King's Bench,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0224.pt|but a number of rooms, fifteen more or less, were reserved for poor debtors under the name of Bartholomew Fair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0225.pt|The rentals of rooms and fees went to the warden, whose income was two thousand three hundred seventy-two pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0226.pt|The same evils of overcrowding, uncleanliness, want of medical attendance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0227.pt|absence or neglect of divine service, were present as in the King's Bench, but in an exaggerated form.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0228.pt|The Committee on Jails reported that, quote, although the house of the warden looked into the court,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0229.pt|and the turnkeys slept in the prison, yet scenes of riot, drunkenness, and disorder were most prevalent, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0230.pt|The state of morals was disgraceful. Any woman obtained admission if sober, and if she got drunk she was not turned out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0231.pt|There was no distinct place for the female debtors, who lived in the same galleries as the men.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0232.pt|Disturbances were frequent, owing to the riotous conduct of intoxicated women.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0233.pt|Twice a week there was a wine and beer club held at night, which lasted till two or three in the morning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0234.pt|In the yard behind the prison
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0235.pt|were places set apart for skittles, fives, and tennis, which strangers frequented as any other place of public amusement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0236.pt|Matters were rather better at the Marshalsea.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0237.pt|This very ancient prison, which stood in the High Street, Southwark,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0238.pt|was used for debtors arrested for the lowest sums within twelve miles of the palace of Whitehall;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0239.pt|also for prisoners committed by the Admiralty Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0240.pt|At one time the Marshalsea was the receptacle of pirates, but none were committed to it after seventeen eighty-nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0241.pt|The court of the Marshalsea was instituted by Charles the first in the sixth year of his reign,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0242.pt|to be held before the steward of the royal household, the knight marshal, and the steward of the court,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0243.pt|with jurisdiction to hold pleas in all actions within the prescribed limits. The court was chiefly used for the recovery of small debts under ten pounds
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0244.pt|but its business was much reduced by the extension of the Courts of Conscience.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0245.pt|The prison was a nest of abuses, like its neighbor the King's Bench
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0246.pt|and came under the strong animadversion of the Jail Committee of seventeen twenty-nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0247.pt|As the business of the Marshalsea Court declined, the numbers in its prison diminished.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0248.pt|The population, as reported by the committee in eighteen fourteen, averaged about sixty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0249.pt|and the prison, although wives and children resided within the walls, was not overcrowded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0250.pt|Their conduct too was orderly on the whole.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0251.pt|Drunkenness was not common, chiefly because liquor was not to be had freely, although the tapster paid a rent of two guineas a week for permission to sell it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0252.pt|The inmates, who euphemistically styled themselves "collegians,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0253.pt|were governed by rules which they themselves had framed, and under which subscriptions were levied
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0254.pt|and fines imposed for conduct disapproved of by the "college."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0255.pt|A court of the collegians was held every Monday to manage its affairs, at which all prisoners were required to attend.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0256.pt|A committee of collegians was elected to act as the executive, also a secretary or accountant to receive monies and keep books,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0257.pt|and a master of the ale-room, who kept this the scene of their revels clean, and saw that boiling water was provided for grog.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0258.pt|Bad language, quarreling, throwing water over one another was forbidden on pain of fine and being sent to Coventry;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0259.pt|but the prevailing moral tone may be guessed from the penalty inflicted upon persons singing obscene songs before nine p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0260.pt|Yet the public opinion of the whole body seems to have checked dissipation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0261.pt|The poorer prisoners were not in abject want, as in other prisons,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0262.pt|owing to many charitable gifts and bequests, which included annual donations from the Archbishop of Canterbury,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0263.pt|the Lord Steward of the Household, the steward and officers of the Marshalsea Court, and others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0264.pt|Legacies had also been left to free a certain number of debtors, notably that of one hundred pounds per annum
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0265.pt|left by a Mr. Henry Allnutt, who was long a prisoner in the Marshalsea, and came into a fortune while there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0266.pt|His bequest, which was charged upon his manor at Goring, Oxon, and hence called the Oxford Charity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0267.pt|was applied only to the release of poor debtors whom four pounds each could free.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0268.pt|The supreme control of the Marshalsea was vested in the marshal of the royal household; but although he drew a salary of five hundred pounds a year,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0269.pt|he did nothing beyond visiting the prison occasionally, and left the administration to the deputy marshal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0270.pt|The latter's salary, with fees, the rent of the tap and of the chandler's shop, amounted to about six hundred pounds a year.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0271.pt|The compters of Ludgate, Giltspur Street, and the Borough were discontinued as debtors' prisons (as was Newgate also)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0272.pt|on the opening of Whitecross prison for debtors in eighteen fifteen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0273.pt|Ludgate to the last was the debtors' prison for freemen of the city of London,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0274.pt|clergymen, proctors, attorneys, and persons specially selected by the Corporation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0275.pt|At one time the Ludgate debtors, accompanied by the keeper,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0276.pt|went outside and beyond the prison to call on their creditors, and try to arrange their debts, but this practice was discontinued.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0277.pt|There were fifteen rooms of various sizes, and as the numbers imprisoned rarely exceeded five-and-twenty, the place was never overcrowded,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0278.pt|while the funds of several bequests and charities were applied in adding to the material comfort of the prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0279.pt|The Giltspur Street Compter received sheriffs' debtors, also felons, vagrants, and night charges.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0280.pt|It was generally crowded, as debtors who would have gone to the Poultry Compter were sent to Giltspur Street when the former was condemned as unfit to receive prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0281.pt|The demands for fees were excessive in Giltspur Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0282.pt|Those who could not pay were thrown into the wards with the night charges,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0283.pt|and denied admission to the "charity wards," which partook of all the benefits of bequests and donations to poor debtors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0284.pt|The Borough Compter was in a disgraceful state to the last. The men's ward had an earth, or rather a mud, floor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0285.pt|and was so unfit to sleep on that it had not been used for many years, so that the men and women associated together indiscriminately.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0286.pt|The rooms had no fireplaces, so it mattered little that no coals were allowed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0287.pt|There were no beds or bedding, no straw even.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0288.pt|In one room Mr. Neild found a woman ill of a flux shut up with three men;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0289.pt|the latter raised eighteen pence among them to pay for a truss of straw for the poor woman to lie on.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0290.pt|Neild found the prisoners in the Borough Compter ragged, starving, and dirty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0291.pt|I come now to the debtors in Newgate. The quarters they occupied were divided, as I have said, into three principal divisions
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0292.pt|the master's side, the cabin side, and the common side. Payment of a fee of three shillings gained the debtor admission to the two first named;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0293.pt|those who could pay nothing went, as a matter of course, to the common side;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0294.pt|a further fee was, however, demanded from the new-comer before he was made free of either the master's or the cabin side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0295.pt|This was the reprehensible claim for "garnish," which had already been abolished in all well-conducted prisons, but which still was demanded in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0296.pt|Garnish on the cabin side was a guinea at entrance for coals, candles, brooms, etc., and a gallon of beer on discharge;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0297.pt|on the master's side it was thirteen and fourpence, and a gallon of beer on entrance, although Mr. Newman,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0298.pt|in his evidence in eighteen fourteen, said it was more,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0299.pt|and gave the garnish for the common side at that sum, which is five shillings more than Mr. Neild says was extorted on the common side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0300.pt|Numerous tyrannies were practiced on all who would not and could not pay the garnish.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0301.pt|They were made to wash and swab the ward, or they were shut out from the ward fireplace, and forbidden to pass a chalked line drawn on the floor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0302.pt|and so were unable either to warm themselves or to cook their food.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0303.pt|Besides these fees, legitimate and illegitimate, there were others which must be paid before release.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0304.pt|The sheriff demanded four shillings, six pence for his liberate, the jailer six shillings, ten pence more, and the turnkey two shillings;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0305.pt|and thus when the debtor's debt had been actually paid, or when he had abandoned his property to the creditors, and, almost destitute,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0306.pt|looked forward to his liberty, he was still delayed until he had paid a new debt arising, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0307.pt|only out of a satisfaction of all his former debts, end quote. The fees were not always extorted, it is true;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0308.pt|nor was non-payment made a pretext for further imprisonment, thanks to the humanity of the jailer, or the funds provided by various charities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0309.pt|There was this much honest forbearance in Newgate in these days,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0310.pt|that debtors who could afford the cabin and master's side were not permitted to share in the prison charities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0311.pt|These were lumped together into a general fund,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0312.pt|and a calculation made as to the amount that might be expended per week from the whole sum, so that the latter might last out the year.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0313.pt|It generally ran to about six pounds per week. The money, which at one time had been distributed quarterly, and all went in drink,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0314.pt|was after eighteen oh seven, through the exertions of the keeper of the jail, spent in the purchase of necessaries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0315.pt|But this weekly pittance did not go far when the debtors' side was crowded, as it often was;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0316.pt|notably as when numbers filled Newgate in anticipation of Lord Redesdale's bill for insolvent debtors,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0317.pt|and there were as many as three hundred and fifty prisoners in at one time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0318.pt|The city also allowed the poor debtors fourteen ounces of bread daily, and their share of eight stone of meat, an allowance which never varied,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0319.pt|issued once a week, and divided as far as it would go -- a very precarious and uncertain ration.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0320.pt|The bread was issued every alternate day; and while some prisoners often ate their whole allowance at once,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0321.pt|others who arrived just after the time of distribution were often forty-eight hours without food. The latter might also be six days without meat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0322.pt|Share in the weekly allowance of meat might also be denied to debtors who had not paid "garnish," as well as in the weekly grant from the charitable fund.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0323.pt|Hence starvation stared many in the face, unless friends from outside came to their assistance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0324.pt|or the keeper made them a special grant of six pence per diem out of the common stock;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0325.pt|or the sixpenny allowance was claimed for the creditors, which seldom happened, owing to the expense the process entailed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0326.pt|The poor debtors were not supplied with beds. Those who could pay the price might hire them from each other,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0327.pt|or from persons who made a trade of it, or they might bring their beds with them into the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0328.pt|Failing any of these methods, seeing that straw was forbidden for fear of fire, they had to be satisfied with a couple of the rugs provided by the city
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0329.pt|the supply of which was, however, limited, and there were not always enough to give bedding to all. The stock was diminished by theft;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0330.pt|female visitors carried them out of the prisons, or the debtors destroyed them when the weather was warm,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0331.pt|and they were not in great demand, in order to convert them into mop-heads or cleaning-rags.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0332.pt|Sometimes rugs were urgently required and not forthcoming;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0333.pt|a severe winter set in, the new stock had not been supplied by the contractors, and the poor debtors perished of cold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0334.pt|Again, there was no regular allowance of fuel. Coals were purchased out of the garnish money and the charitable fund;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0335.pt|so were candles, salt, pepper, mops and brooms. But the latter could have been of little service. Dirt prevailed everywhere;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0336.pt|indeed the place, with its oak floors caulked with pitch, and smoked ceilings,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0337.pt|could not be made even to look clean while there was no obligation of personal cleanliness on individuals, who often came into the prison in filthy rags.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ002-0338.pt|Only now and again, in extreme cases, an unusually nasty companion was stripped, haled to the pump,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section five: Newgate down to eighteen eighteen, part two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0002.pt|The squalor and uncleanness of the debtors' side was intensified by constant overcrowding.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0003.pt|Prisoners were committed to it quite without reference to its capacity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0004.pt|No remonstrance was attended to,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0005.pt|no steps taken to reduce the number of committals, and the governor was obliged to utilize the chapel as a day and night room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0006.pt|Besides this, although the families of debtors were no longer permitted to live with them inside the jail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0007.pt|hundreds of women and children came in every morning to spend the day there, and there was no limitation whatever to the numbers of visitors admitted to the debtors' side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0008.pt|Friends arrived about nine a.m., and went out at nine p.m., when as many as two hundred visitors have been observed leaving the debtors' yards at one time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0009.pt|The day passed in revelry and drunkenness. Although spirituous liquors were forbidden,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0010.pt|wine and beer might be had in any quantity, the only limitation being
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0011.pt|that not more than one bottle of wine or one quart of beer could be issued at one time. No account was taken of the amount of liquors admitted in one day,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0012.pt|and debtors might practically have as much as they liked, if they could only pay for it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0013.pt|No attempt was made to check drunkenness, beyond the penalty of shutting out friends from any ward in which a prisoner exceeded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0014.pt|Quarreling among the debtors was not unfrequent. Blows were struck, and fights often ensued.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0015.pt|For this and other acts of misconduct there was the discipline of the refractory ward, or "strong room" on the debtors' side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0016.pt|Bad cases were removed to a cell on the felons' side, and here they were locked in solitary confinement for three days at a time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0017.pt|Order throughout the debtors' side was preserved
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0018.pt|and discipline maintained by a system open to grave abuses, and which had the prescription of long usage,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0019.pt|and which was never wholly rooted out for many years to come.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0020.pt|This was the pernicious plan of governing by prisoners, or of setting a favored few in authority over the many.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0021.pt|The head of the debtors' prison was a prisoner called the steward, who was chosen by the whole body from six whom the keeper nominated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0022.pt|This steward was practically supreme.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0023.pt|All the allowances of food passed through his hands; he had the control of the poor-box for chance charities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0024.pt|he collected the garnish money, and distributed the weekly grant from the prison charitable fund.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0025.pt|In the latter duties he was, however, supervised by three auditors, freely chosen by the prisoners among themselves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0026.pt|The auditors were paid a shilling each for their services each time the poor-box was opened. The steward was also remunerated for his trouble.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0027.pt|He had a double allowance of bread, deducted, of course, from the already too limited portion of the rest,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0028.pt|and no doubt made the meat also pay toll.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0029.pt|Under the steward there were captains of wards, chosen in the same way, and performing analogous duties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0030.pt|These subordinate chiefs were also rewarded out of the scanty prison rations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0031.pt|The same system was extended to the criminal side, and cases were on record of the place of wardsman being sold for considerable sums.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0032.pt|So valuable were they deemed, that as much as fifty guineas was offered to the keeper for the post.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0033.pt|Enough has been said, probably, to prove that there was room for improvement in the condition and treatment of debtors in the prisons of the city of London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0034.pt|This gradually was forced upon the consciousness of the Corporation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0035.pt|and about eighteen twelve application was made to Parliament for funds to build a new debtors' prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0036.pt|Authority was given to raise money on the Orphans' Fund to the extent of ninety thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0037.pt|A site was purchased between Red Lion and White Cross streets, and a new prison planned,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0038.pt|which would accommodate the inmates of Newgate and of the three compters, Ludgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0039.pt|Giltspur Street, and the Poultry, or about four hundred and seventy-six in all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0040.pt|The evils of association for these debtors were perpetuated, although the plan provided for the separation of the various contingents committed to it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0041.pt|There was no lack of air and light for the new jail, and several exercising yards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0042.pt|The completion of this very necessary building was, however, much delayed for want of funds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0043.pt|and it was not ready to relieve Newgate till late in eighteen fifteen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0044.pt|The reforms which were to be attempted in that prison
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0045.pt|more particularly as regarded the classification of prisoners, and which were dependent on the space to be gained by the removal of the debtors,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0046.pt|could not be carried out till then. It is to be feared that long after the opening of White Cross Street prison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0047.pt|Newgate continued to be a reproach to those responsible for its management.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0048.pt|I pass now to the criminal side of Newgate, which consisted of the six quarters or yards already enumerated and described.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0049.pt|The inmates of this part, as distinguished from the debtors, were comprised in four classes:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0050.pt|(one) those awaiting trial;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0051.pt|(two) persons under sentence of imprisonment for a fixed period, or until they shall have paid certain fines;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0052.pt|(three) transports awaiting removal to the colonies, and (four) capital convicts, condemned to death and awaiting execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0053.pt|At one time the whole of these different categories were thrown together pell-mell, young and old, the untried with the convicted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0054.pt|An imperfect attempt at classification was, however, made in eighteen twelve, and a yard was as far as possible set apart for the untried,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0055.pt|or class (one), with whom, under the imperious demand for accommodation, were also associated the misdemeanants, or class (two).
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0056.pt|This was the chapel yard, with its five wards, which were calculated to hold seventy prisoners, but often held many more.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0057.pt|A further sub-classification was attempted by separating at night those charged with misdemeanors from those charged with felony,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0058.pt|but all mingled freely during the day in the yard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0059.pt|The sleeping accommodation in the chapel-yard wards, and indeed throughout the prison, consisted of a barrack bed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0060.pt|which was a wooden flooring on a slightly inclined plane, with a beam running across the top to serve as a pillow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0061.pt|No beds were issued, only two rugs per prisoner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0062.pt|When each sleeper had the full lateral space allotted to him, it amounted to one foot and a half on the barrack bed;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0063.pt|but when the ward was obliged to accommodate double the ordinary number, as was frequently the case,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0064.pt|the sleepers covered the entire floor, with the exception of a passage in the middle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0065.pt|All the misdemeanants, whatever their offense, were lodged in this chapel ward.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0066.pt|As many various and, according to our ideas, heinous crimes came under this head,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0067.pt|in the then existing state of the law,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0068.pt|the man guilty of a common assault found himself side by side with the fraudulent, or others who had attempted abominable crimes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0069.pt|In this heterogeneous society were also thrown the unfortunate journalists to whom I have already referred, and on whom imprisonment in Newgate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0070.pt|was frequently adjudged for so-called libels, or too out-spoken comments in print.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0071.pt|It was particularly recommended by the Committee on Jails in eighteen fourteen
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0072.pt|that some other and less mixed prison should be used for the confinement of persons convicted of libels. But this suggestion was ignored.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0073.pt|Indeed the partial classification attempted seems to have been abandoned within a year or two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0074.pt|The Hon. H. G. Bennet, who visited Newgate in eighteen seventeen, saw in one yard, in a total of seventy-two prisoners,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0075.pt|thirty-five tried and thirty-seven untried. Of the former, three were transports for life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0076.pt|four for fourteen years, and three of them persons sentenced to fines or short imprisonment -- one for little more than a month.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0077.pt|Two of the untried were for murder, and several for house-breaking and highway robbery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0078.pt|Nor were the misdemeanants and bail prisoners any longer separated from those whose crimes were of a more serious character.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0079.pt|Mr. Bennet refers to a gentleman confined for want of bail, who occupied a room with five others
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0080.pt|two committed by the Bankruptcy Commissioner, one for perjury, and two transports.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0081.pt|Persons convicted of publishing libels were still immured in the same rooms with transports and felons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0082.pt|The middle yard, as far as its limits would permit, was appropriated to felons and transports. The wards here were generally very crowded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0083.pt|Each ward was calculated to hold twenty-four, allowing each individual one foot and a half;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0084.pt|Quote, a common-sized man, says the keeper, Mr. Newman, can turn in nineteen inches, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0085.pt|These twenty-four could just sleep on the barrack bed; when the number was higher, and it often rose to forty, the surplus had to sleep on the floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0086.pt|The crowding was in consequence of the delay in removing transports.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0087.pt|These often remained in Newgate for six months, sometimes a year, in some cases longer;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0088.pt|in one, for seven years -- that of a man sentenced to death, for whom great interest had been made, but whom it was not thought right to pardon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0089.pt|Occasionally the transports made themselves so useful in the jail that they were passed over.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0090.pt|Mr. Newman admitted that he had petitioned that certain "trusty men" might be left in the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0091.pt|Constantly associated with these convicted felons were numbers of juveniles, infants of tender years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0092.pt|There were frequently in the middle yard seven or eight children, the youngest barely nine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0093.pt|the oldest only twelve or thirteen, exposed to all the contaminating influences of the place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0094.pt|Mr. Bennet mentions also the case of young men of better stamp, clerks in city offices, and youths of good parentage,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0095.pt|Quote, in this dreadful situation, end quote. who had been rescued from the hulks through the kindness and attention of the Secretary of State.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0096.pt|Quote, yet they had been long enough, he goes on to say, in the prison associated with the lowest and vilest criminals,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0097.pt|with convicts of all ages and characters, to render it next to impossible but that, with the obliteration of all sense of self-respect,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0098.pt|the inevitable consequence of such a situation, their morals must have been destroyed;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0099.pt|and though distress or the seduction of others might have led to the commission of this their first offense,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0100.pt|yet the society they were driven to live in, the language they daily heard, and the lessons they were taught in this academy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0101.pt|must have had a tendency to turn them into the world hardened and accomplished in the ways of vice and crime. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0102.pt|Mr. Buxton, in the work already quoted, instances another grievous case of the horrors of indiscriminate association in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0103.pt|It was that of a person, quote, who practiced in the law, and who was connected by marriage with some very respectable families.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0104.pt|Having been committed to Clerkenwell,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0105.pt|he was sent on to Newgate in a coach, handcuffed to a noted house-breaker, who was afterwards cast for death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0106.pt|The first night in Newgate, and for the subsequent fortnight,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0107.pt|he slept in the same bed with a highwayman on one side, and a man charged with murder on the other.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0108.pt|Spirits were freely introduced, and although he at first abstained,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0109.pt|he found he must adopt the manners of his companions, or that his life would be in danger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0110.pt|They viewed him with some suspicion, as one of whom they knew nothing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0111.pt|He was in consequence put out of the protection of their internal law, end quote. Their code was a subject of some curiosity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0112.pt|When any prisoner committed an offense against the community or against an individual, he was tried by a court in the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0113.pt|A prisoner, generally the oldest and most dexterous thief,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0114.pt|was appointed judge, and a towel tied in knots was hung on each side in imitation of a wig.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0115.pt|The judge sat in proper form; he was punctiliously styled "my lord."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0116.pt|A jury having been selected and duly sworn, the culprit was then arraigned. Justice, however, was not administered with absolute integrity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0117.pt|A bribe to the judge was certain to secure acquittal, and the neglect of the formality was as certainly followed by condemnation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0118.pt|Various punishments were inflicted, the heaviest of which was standing in the pillory.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0119.pt|This was carried out by putting the criminal's head through the legs of a chair, and stretching out his arms and tying them to the legs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0120.pt|The culprit was then compelled to carry the chair about with him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0121.pt|But all punishments might readily be commuted into a fine to be spent in gin for judge and jury.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0122.pt|The prisoner mentioned above was continually persecuted by trials of this kind.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0123.pt|The most trifling acts were magnified into offenses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0124.pt|He was charged with moving something which should not be touched, with leaving a door open, or coughing maliciously to the disturbance of his companions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0125.pt|The evidence was invariably sufficient to convict, and the judge never hesitated to inflict the heaviest penalties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0126.pt|The unfortunate man was compelled at length to adopt the habits of his associates;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0127.pt|Quote, by insensible degrees he began to lose his repugnance to their society,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0128.pt|caught their flash terms and sung their songs, was admitted to their revels, and acquired, in place of habits of perfect sobriety,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0129.pt|a taste for spirits. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0130.pt|His wife visited him in Newgate, and wrote a pitiable account of the state in which she found her husband.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0131.pt|He was an inmate of the same ward with others of the most dreadful sort, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0132.pt|whose language and manners, whose female associates of the most abandoned description, and the scenes consequent with such lost wretches
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0133.pt|prevented me from going inside but seldom, and I used to communicate with him through the bars from the passage. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0134.pt|One day he was too ill to come down and meet her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0135.pt|She went up to the ward and found him lying down, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0136.pt|pale as death, very ill, and in a dreadfully dirty state, the wretches making game of him, and enjoying my distress;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0137.pt|and I learned he had been up with the others the whole night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0138.pt|Though they could not force him to gamble, he was compelled to drink,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0139.pt|and I was obliged afterwards to let him have five shillings to pay his share,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0140.pt|otherwise he would have been stripped of his clothes. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0141.pt|Felons who could pay the price were permitted, irrespective of their character or offenses,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0142.pt|to purchase the greater ease and comfort of the master's side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0143.pt|The entrance fee was at least thirteen shillings, six pence a head, with half-a-crown a week more for bed and bedding,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0144.pt|the wards being furnished with barrack bedsteads, upon which each prisoner had the regulation allowance of sleeping room
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0145.pt|or about a foot and a half laterally. These fees were in reality a substantial contribution towards the expenses of the jail;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0146.pt|without them the keeper declared that he could not pay the salaries of turnkeys and servants, nor keep the prison going at all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0147.pt|Besides the jail fees, there was garnish of half-a-guinea, collected by the steward,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0148.pt|and spent in providing coals, candles, plates, knives, and forks; while all the occupants of this part of the prison
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0149.pt|supported themselves; they had the ration of prison bread only,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0150.pt|but they had no share in the prison meat or other charities, and they or their friends found them in food.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0151.pt|All who could scrape together the cash seem to have gladly availed themselves of the privilege of entering the master's side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0152.pt|It was the only way to escape the horrors, the distress, penury, and rags of the common yards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0153.pt|Idleness was not so universally the rule in this part of the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0154.pt|Artisans and others were at liberty to work at their trades, provided they were not dangerous.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0155.pt|Tailoring and shoemaking was permitted, but it was deemed unsafe to allow a carpenter or blacksmith to have his tools.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0156.pt|All the money earned by prisoners was at their own disposal, and was spent almost habitually in drink, chambering, and wantonness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0157.pt|The best accommodation the jail could offer was reserved for the prisoners on the state side,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0158.pt|from whom still higher fees were exacted, with the same discreditable idea of swelling the revenues of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0159.pt|To constitute this the aristocratic quarter, unwarrantable demands were made upon the space properly allotted to the female felons,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0160.pt|and no lodger was rejected, whatever his status, who offered himself and could bring grist to the mill.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0161.pt|The luxury of the state side was for a long time open to all who could pay
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0162.pt|the convicted felon, the transport awaiting removal, the lunatic whose case was still undecided,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0163.pt|the misdemeanant tried or untried, the debtor who wished to avoid the discomfort of the crowded debtors' side, the outspoken newspaper editor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0164.pt|or the daring reporter of parliamentary debates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0165.pt|The better class of inmate complained bitterly of this enforced companionship with the vile,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0166.pt|association at one time forbidden by custom, but which greed and rapacity long made the rule.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0167.pt|The fee for admission to the state side, as fixed by the table of fees, was three guineas, but Mr. Newman declared that he never took more than two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0168.pt|Ten and sixpence a week more was charged as rent for a single bed; where two or more slept in a bed the rent was seven shillings a week each.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0169.pt|Prisoners who could afford it sometimes paid for four beds, at the rate of twenty-eight shillings, and so secured the luxury of a private room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0170.pt|A Mr. Lundy, charged with forgery, was thus accommodated on the state side for upwards of five years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0171.pt|But the keeper protested that no single prisoner could thus monopolize space if the state side was crowded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0172.pt|The keeper went still further in his efforts to make money.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0173.pt|He continued the ancient practice of letting out a portion of his own house, and by a poetical fiction treated it as an annex of the state side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0174.pt|Mr. Davison, sent to Newgate for embezzlement, and whose case is given in the preceding chapter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0175.pt|was accommodated with a room in Mr. Newman's house at the extravagant rental of thirty guineas per week;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0176.pt|Mr. Cobbett was also a lodger of Mr. Newman's; and so were any members of the aristocracy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0177.pt|if they happened to be in funds -- among whom was the Marquis of Sligo in eighteen eleven.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0178.pt|The female felons' wards I shall describe at length in the next chapter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0179.pt|which will deal with Mrs. Fry's philanthropic exertions at this period in this particular part of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0180.pt|These wards were always full to overflowing; sometimes double the number the rooms could accommodate were crowded into them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0181.pt|There was a master's side for females who could pay the usual fees, but they associated with the rest in the one narrow yard common to all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0182.pt|The tried and the untried, young and old, were herded together
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0183.pt|sometimes girls of thirteen, twelve, even ten or nine years of age, were exposed to, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0184.pt|all the contagion and profligacy which prevailed in this part of the prison, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0185.pt|There was no separation even for the women under sentence of death, who lived in a common and perpetually crowded ward.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0186.pt|Only when the order of execution came down were those about to suffer placed apart in one of the rooms in the arcade of the middle ward.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0187.pt|I have kept till the last that part of the prison which was usually the last resting-place of so many.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0188.pt|The old press yard has been fully described in a previous chapter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0189.pt|The name still survived in the new press yard, which was the receptacle of the male condemned prisoners. It was generally crowded, like the rest of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0190.pt|Except in murder cases, where the execution was generally very promptly performed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0191.pt|strange and inconceivable delay occurred in carrying out the extreme sentence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0192.pt|Hence there was a terrible accumulation of prisoners in the condemned cells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0193.pt|Once, during the long illness of George the third, as many as one hundred were there waiting the "Report," as it was called.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0194.pt|At another time there were fifty, one of whom had been under sentence a couple of years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0195.pt|Mr. Bennet speaks of thirty-eight capital convicts he found in the press yard in February eighteen seventeen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0196.pt|five of whom had been condemned the previous July, four in September, and twenty-nine in October.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0197.pt|This procrastination bred certain callousness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0198.pt|Few realizing that the dreadful fate would overtake them, dismissed the prospect of death,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0199.pt|and until the day was actually fixed, spent the time in roistering, swearing, gambling, or playing at ball.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0200.pt|Visitors were permitted access to them without stint;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0201.pt|unlimited drink was not denied them provided it was obtained in regulated quantities at one time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0202.pt|These capital convicts, says Mr. Bennet, quote, lessened the ennui and despair of their situation by unbecoming merriment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0203.pt|or sought relief in the constant application of intoxicating stimulants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0204.pt|I saw Cashman a few hours before his execution, smoking and drinking with the utmost unconcern and indifference, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0205.pt|Those who were thus reckless reacted upon the penitent who knew their days were numbered,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0206.pt|and their gibes and jollity counteracted the ordinary's counsels or the independent preacher's earnest prayers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0207.pt|For while Roman Catholics and Dissenters were encouraged to see ministers of their own persuasion,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0208.pt|a number of amateurs were ever ready to give their gratuitous ministrations to the condemned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0209.pt|The prisoners in the press yard had free access during the day to the yard and large day room;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0210.pt|at night they were placed in the fifteen cells, two, three, or more together, according to the total number to be accommodated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0211.pt|They were never left quite alone for fear of suicide, and for the same reason they were searched for weapons or poisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0212.pt|But they nevertheless frequently managed to secrete the means of making away with themselves, and accomplished their purpose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0213.pt|Convicted murderers were kept continuously in the cells on bread and water,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0214.pt|in couples, from the time of sentence to that of execution, which was about three or four days generally,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0215.pt|from Friday to Monday, so as to include one Sunday, on which day there was a special service for the condemned in the prison chapel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0216.pt|This latter was an ordeal which all dreaded, and many avoided by denying their faith.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0217.pt|The condemned occupied an open pew in the center of the chapel, hung with black; in front of them, upon a table, was a black coffin in full view.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0218.pt|The chapel was filled with a curious but callous congregation, who came to stare at the miserable people thus publicly exposed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0219.pt|Well might Mr. Bennet write that the condition of the condemned side was the most prominent of the manifold evils in the present system of Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0220.pt|quote, so discreditable to the metropolis, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0221.pt|Yet it must have been abundantly plain to the reader that the other evils existing were great and glaring. A brief summary of them will best prove this.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0222.pt|The jail was neither suitable nor sufficiently large. It was not even kept weather-tight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0223.pt|The roof of the female prison, says the grand jury in their presentment in eighteen thirteen, let in the rain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0224.pt|Supplies of common necessaries, such as have now been part of the furniture of every British jail for many years,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0225.pt|were meager or altogether absent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0226.pt|The rations of food were notoriously inadequate, and so carelessly distributed, that many were left to starve.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0227.pt|So unjust and unequal was the system, that the allowance to convicted criminals was better than that of the innocent debtor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0228.pt|and the general insufficiency was such
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0229.pt|that it multiplied beyond all reason the number of visitors, many of whom came merely as the purveyors of food to their friends.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0230.pt|The prison allowances were eked out by the broken victuals generously given by several eating-house keepers in the city,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0231.pt|such as Messrs. Birch of Cornhill and Messrs. Leach and Dollimore of Ludgate Hill.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0232.pt|These were fetched away in a large tub on a truck by a turnkey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0233.pt|Amongst the heap was often the meat that had made turtle soup, which, when heated and stirred together in a saucepan, was said to be very good eating.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0234.pt|The bedding was scanty; fuel and light had to be purchased out of prisoners' private means; clothing was issued but rarely,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0235.pt|even to prisoners almost in nakedness, and as a special charitable gift. Extortion was practiced right and left.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0236.pt|Garnish continued to be demanded long after it had disappeared in other and better-regulated prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0237.pt|The fees on reception and discharge must be deemed exorbitant, when it is remembered the impoverished class who usually crowded the jail;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0238.pt|and they were exacted to relieve a rich corporation from paying for the maintenance of their own prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0239.pt|This imposition of fees left prisoners destitute on their discharge, without funds to support them in their first struggle to recommence life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0240.pt|with ruined character, bad habits, and often bad health contracted in the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0241.pt|A further and a more iniquitous method of extorting money
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0242.pt|was still practiced, that of loading newly-arrived prisoners until they paid certain fees.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0243.pt|Ironing was still the rule, not only for the convicted, but for those charged with felonies; only the misdemeanants escaped.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0244.pt|At the commencement of every sessions, such of the untried as had purchased "easement" of irons were called up and re-fettered,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0245.pt|preparatory to their appearance in the Old Bailey. Irons were seldom removed from the convicted until discharge;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0246.pt|sometimes the wearer was declared medically unfit, or he obtained release by long good conduct,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0247.pt|or the faithful discharge of some petty office, such as gatesman or captain of a ward.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0248.pt|The irons weighed from three to four pounds, but heavier irons, seven or eight pounds' weight,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0249.pt|were imposed in case of misconduct; and when there had been an attempt at escape,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0250.pt|the culprit was chained down to the floor by running a chain through his irons which prevented him from climbing to the window of his cell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0251.pt|Among other excuses offered for thus manacling all almost without exception, was that it was the best and safest method
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0252.pt|of distinguishing a prisoner from a stranger and temporary visitor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0253.pt|Clothes or prison uniform would not have served the purpose, for a disguise can be rapidly and secretly put on,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0254.pt|whereas irons cannot well be exchanged without loss of time and attracting much attention.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0255.pt|The unchecked admission of crowds of visitors to the felons' as well as the debtors' side was another unmixed evil.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0256.pt|By this means spirits, otherwise unattainable and strictly prohibited, were smuggled into the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0257.pt|Searches were made certainly, but they were too often superficial, or they might be evaded by a trifling bribe.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0258.pt|Hence the frequent cases of drunkenness, of which no notice was taken, unless people grew riotous in their cups
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0259.pt|and attracted attention by their disorderly behavior.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0260.pt|Another frightful consequence of this indiscriminate admission was the influx of numbers of abandoned women,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0261.pt|only a few of whom had the commendable prudery to pass themselves off as the wives of prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0262.pt|Any reputed, and indeed any real, wife might spend the night in Newgate if she would pay the shilling fee, commonly known as the "bad money,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0263.pt|which might have done something towards increasing the prison receipts, had it not been appropriated by the turnkey who winked at this evasion of the rules.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0264.pt|Among the daily visitors were members of the criminal classes still at large,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0265.pt|the thieves and burglars who carried on the active business of their profession, from which their confederates were temporarily debarred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0266.pt|One notorious character, while a prisoner awaiting transfer to the hulks,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0267.pt|kept open house, so to speak, and entertained daily within the walls a select party of the most noted thieves in London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0268.pt|This delectable society enticed into their set a clerk who had been imprisoned for fraud,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0269.pt|and offered him half the booty if he would give full information as to the transactions and correspondence of his late employers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0270.pt|Owing to the facility of intercourse between inside and outside, many crimes were doubtless hatched in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0271.pt|Some of the worst and most extensive burglaries were planned there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0273.pt|"I believe," says Mr. Bennet in the letter already largely quoted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0274.pt|"that there is no place in the metropolis where more crimes are projected or where stolen property is more secreted than in Newgate."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0275.pt|These malpractices were fostered by the absence of all supervision and the generally unbroken idleness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0276.pt|Although attempted partially at Bridewell, and more systematically at the new Millbank penitentiary,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0277.pt|but just open (eighteen sixteen), the regular employment of prisoners had never yet been accepted as a principle in the metropolitan prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0278.pt|Insuperable difficulties were still supposed to stand in the way of any general employment of prisoners at their trades.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0279.pt|There was fear as to the unrestricted use of tools,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0280.pt|limits of space, the interference of the ill-disposed, who would neither work nor let others do so,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0281.pt|and the danger of losing material, raw or manufactured.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0282.pt|Many years were to elapse before these objections should be fairly met and universally overcome.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0283.pt|It was not strange, therefore, that the inmates of Newgate should turn their unoccupied brains and idle hands to all manner of mischief;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0284.pt|that when they were not carousing, plotting, or scheming,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0285.pt|they should gamble with dice or cards, and play at bumble puppy or some other disreputable game of chance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0286.pt|The report of the Committee of the House of Commons painted so black a picture of Newgate as then conducted, that the Corporation were roused in very shame
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0287.pt|to undertake some kind of reform.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0288.pt|The above-mentioned report was ordered to be printed upon the ninth May.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0289.pt|Upon the twenty-ninth July the same year,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0290.pt|the court of aldermen appointed a committee of its own body, assisted by the town clerk, Mr. Dance, city surveyor, son to the architect of Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0291.pt|and Mr. Addison, keeper of Newgate, to make a visitation of the jails supposed to be the best managed, including those of Petworth and Gloucester.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0292.pt|This committee was to compare allowances, examine rules, and certify as to the condition of prisoners;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0293.pt|also to make such proposals as might appear salutary, and calculated to improve Newgate and the rest of the city jails.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0294.pt|This committee made its report in September the following year, and an excellent report it is, so far as its recommendations are concerned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0295.pt|The committee seems to have fully realized, even at this early date (eighteen fifteen),
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0296.pt|many of the indispensable conditions of a model prison according to modern ideas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0297.pt|It admitted the paramount necessity
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0298.pt|for giving every prisoner a sleeping cell to himself, an amount of enlightenment which is hardly general among European nations at this
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0299.pt|the latter end of the nineteenth century, several of which still fall far short of our English ideal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0300.pt|that all prisoners should always be in separate cells by night, and those of short sentences by day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0301.pt|It recommended day cells or rooms for regular labor, which should be compulsory upon all transports and prisoners sentenced to hard labor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0302.pt|the work being constant and suitable, with certain hours of relaxation and for food and exercise.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0303.pt|The personal cleanliness of all prisoners was to be insisted upon; they should be made to wash at least once a day,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0304.pt|with the penalty of forfeiting the day's allowance of food, an increase of which the committee had recommended.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0305.pt|The provision of more baths was also suggested, and the daily sweeping out of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0306.pt|The clothes of prisoners arriving dirty, or in rags, should be fumigated before worn in the jail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0307.pt|but as yet no suggestion was made to provide prison uniform.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0308.pt|A laundry should be established, and a matron appointed on the female side, where all the prisoners' washing could be performed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0309.pt|Proper hours for locking and unlocking prisoners should be insisted upon;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0310.pt|a bell should give notice thereof, and of meal-hours, working-hours, or of escapes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0311.pt|The committee took upon itself to lay down stringent rules for the discipline of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0312.pt|The jailer should be required to visit every part and see every prisoner daily; the chaplain should perform service, visit the sick,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0313.pt|instruct the prisoners, quote, give spiritual advice and administer religious consolation, end quote. to all who might need them;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0314.pt|the surgeon should see all prisoners, whether ill or well, once a week, and take general charge of the infirmaries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0315.pt|All three, governor, chaplain, and surgeon, should keep journals, which should be inspected periodically by the visiting magistrates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0316.pt|It should be peremptorily forbidden to the keeper or any officer to make a pecuniary profit out of the supplies of food, fuel, or other necessaries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0317.pt|No prisoner should be allowed to obtain superior accommodation on the payment of any fees. Fees indeed should be generally abolished, garnish also.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0318.pt|No prisoners should in future be ironed, except in cases of misconduct,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0319.pt|provided only that their security was not jeopardized, and dependent upon the enforcement of another new rule,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0320.pt|which recommended restrictions upon the number of visitors admitted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0321.pt|No wine or beer should be in future admitted into or sold in the jail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0322.pt|except for the use of the debtors, or as medical comforts for the infirmary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0323.pt|Drunkenness, if it ever occurred, should be visited with severe punishment;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0324.pt|gaming of all sorts should be peremptorily forbidden under heavy pains and penalties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0325.pt|The feelings of the condemned prisoners should no longer be outraged by their exposure in the chapel, and the chapel should be rearranged,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0326.pt|so that the various classes might be seated separately, and so as not to see each other.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0327.pt|It will hardly be denied that these proposals went to the root of the matter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0328.pt|Had they been accepted in their entirety, little fault could in future have been found with the managers of Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0329.pt|In common justice to them, it must be admitted that immediate effect was given to all that could be easily carried out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0330.pt|The state side ceased to exist, and the female prisoners thus regained the space of which their quadrangle had been robbed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0331.pt|The privileges of the master's side also disappeared; fees were nominally abolished, and garnish was scotched, although not yet killed outright.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0332.pt|A certain number of bedsteads were provided, and there was a slight increase in the ration of bread.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0333.pt|But here the recommendations touched at once upon the delicate subject of expense, and it is clear that the committee hesitated on this score.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0334.pt|It made this too the excuse for begging the most important issue of the whole question.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0335.pt|The committee did not deny the superior advantages offered by such prisons as Gloucester and Petworth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0336.pt|but it at once deprecated the idea that the city could follow the laudable example thus set in the provinces. Quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0337.pt|Were a metropolitan prison erected on the same lines, with all the space not only for air and exercise, but for day rooms and sleeping cells
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0338.pt|End quote. it would cover some thirty acres, and cost a great deal more than the city, with the example of Whitecross Street prison before it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0339.pt|could possibly afford.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0340.pt|The committee does not seem to have yet understood that Newgate could be only and properly replaced
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0341.pt|by a new jail built on the outskirts, as Holloway eventually was, and permitted itself to be altogether countered
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0342.pt|and checked in its efforts towards reform by the prohibitory costliness of the land about Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0343.pt|With the seeming impossibility of extending the limits of the prison as it then stood,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0344.pt|all chances of classification and separation vanished, and the greatest evils remained untouched.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0345.pt|All the committee could do in this respect was to throw the responsibility on others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0346.pt|It pointed out that the Government was to blame for the overcrowding, and might diminish it if it chose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0347.pt|It was very desirable that there should be a more speedy removal of transports from Newgate to the ships.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0348.pt|Again, there was the new Millbank penitentiary now ready for occupation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ003-0349.pt|Why not relieve Newgate by drawing more largely upon the superior accommodation which Millbank offered?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section seven: The beginnings of prison reform.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0002.pt|While Mrs. Fry was diligently engaged upon her self-imposed task in Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0003.pt|other earnest people, inspired doubtless by her noble example, were stirred up to activity in the same great work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0004.pt|It began to be understood that prison reform could only be compassed by continuous and combined effort.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0005.pt|The pleadings, however eloquent, of a single individual were unable to more than partially remedy the widespread and colossal evils of British prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0006.pt|Howard's energy and devotion were rewarded by lively sympathy, but the desire to improve which followed his exposures was but short-lived.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0007.pt|It was so powerless against the persistent neglect of those intrusted with prison management, that, five-and-twenty years later,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0008.pt|Mr. Neild, a second Howard,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0009.pt|as indefatigable and self-sacrificing, found by personal visitation that the condition of jails throughout the kingdom was,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0010.pt|with a few bright exceptions, still deplorable and disgraceful.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0011.pt|Mr. Neild was compelled to admit in eighteen twelve that "the great reformation produced by Howard
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0012.pt|was in several places merely temporary:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0013.pt|some prisons that had been ameliorated under the persuasive influence of his kind advice were relapsing into their former horrid state of privation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0014.pt|filthiness, severity, or neglect; many new dungeons had aggravated the evils against which his sagacity could not but remonstrate;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0015.pt|the motives for a transient amendment were becoming paralyzed, and the effect had ceased with the cause."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0016.pt|I have shown in a previous chapter what Newgate was at this period, despite a vast expenditure and boasted efforts to introduce reforms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0017.pt|Some of the county jails, and one or two borough jails, had been rebuilt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0018.pt|generally through the personal activity of influential and benevolent local magnates, but the true principles of prison construction
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0019.pt|were as yet but imperfectly understood, and such portions of the "improved" jails of that period as were still extant a few years back,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0020.pt|contrast ludicrously with the prison architecture based upon a century's experience of our own age.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0021.pt|The neglect of prison reform in those days was not to be visited upon the legislature.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0022.pt|The executive, although harassed by internal commotion and foreign war, was not entirely callous to the crying need for amelioration in jails.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0023.pt|Measures remedial, although at best partial and incomplete, were introduced from time to time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0024.pt|Thus in eighteen thirteen the exaction of jail fees had been forbidden by law,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0025.pt|and two other acts more peremptory and precise followed on the same subject in succeeding years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0026.pt|In eighteen fourteen a bill was brought in to insist upon the appointment of chaplains in jails, and when this had passed into law,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0027.pt|it was subsequently amplified, and the rates of salaries fixed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0028.pt|Various acts were also passed to consolidate and amend previous jail acts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0029.pt|The erection of new prison buildings was made imperative under certain conditions and following certain rules
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0030.pt|the principle of classification was freshly enunciated; prison regulations were framed for general observance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0031.pt|But the effect of this legislation was rather weakened by the remoteness of the pressure exercised.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0032.pt|The onus of improvement lay upon the magistracy, the local authorities administering local funds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0033.pt|and they were not threatened with any particular penalties if they evaded or ignored the new acts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0034.pt|Moreover, the laws applied more particularly to county jurisdictions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0035.pt|The borough jails, those in fact under corporate management, were not included in the new measures;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0036.pt|it was hoped that their rulers would hire accommodation in the county prisons, and that the inferior establishments would in course of time disappear.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0037.pt|Yet the borough jails were destined to survive many years, and to exhibit for a long time to come all the worst features of jail mismanagement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0038.pt|It was in eighteen seventeen that a small band of philanthropists resolved to form themselves into an association for the improvement of prison discipline.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0039.pt|They were hopeless of any general reform by the action of the executive alone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0040.pt|They felt that private enterprise might
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0041.pt|with advantage step in, and by the collection and diffusion of information, and the reiteration of sound advice, greatly assist the good work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0042.pt|The association was organized under the most promising auspices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0043.pt|A king's son, the Duke of Gloucester, was the patron; among the vice-presidents were many great peers of the realm
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0044.pt|several bishops, and a number of members of the House of Commons, including Mr. Manners Sutton,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0045.pt|Mr. Sturges Bourne, Sir James Mackintosh, Sir James Scarlett, and William Wilberforce.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0046.pt|An active committee was appointed, comprising many names already well known, some of them destined to become famous in the annals of philanthropy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0047.pt|One of the moving spirits was the Honorable H. G. Bennet, M.P., whose vigorous protests against the lamentable condition of Newgate have already been recorded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0048.pt|Mrs. Fry's brother, Mr. Samuel Hoare, Junior, was chairman of the committee, on which also served many noted members of the Society of Friends
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0049.pt|Mr. Gurney, Mr. Fry, Messrs. Forster, and Mr. T. F. Buxton, the coadjutor of Wilberforce in the great anti-slavery struggle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0050.pt|Mr. Buxton had already been associated with Mrs. Fry in the Newgate visitation, and his attention had thus been drawn to the neglected state of English prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0051.pt|When in Belgium he had examined with great satisfaction the admirable management of the great "Maison de Force" at Ghent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0052.pt|which Howard had eulogized some forty years before.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0054.pt|In order to give greater value to the pamphlet,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0055.pt|he personally visited several English jails, and pointed his observations by drawing forcible contrasts between the good and bad.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0056.pt|Mr. Buxton's small work on prison discipline gave a new aspect to the question he had so much at heart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0057.pt|For the first time the doctrine was enunciated that prisoners had rights of their own.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0058.pt|The untried, and in the eyes of the law still innocent, could claim pure air, wholesome and sufficient food, and opportunities for exercise.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0059.pt|They had a right, Mr. Buxton affirmed, to be employed in their own crafts, provided it could be safely followed in prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0060.pt|"You have no right," he says, addressing the authorities, "to subject a prisoner to suffering from cold,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0061.pt|by want of bed-clothing by night or firing by day
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0062.pt|and the reason is plain: you have taken him from his home, and have deprived him of the means of providing himself with the necessaries or comforts of life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0063.pt|and therefore you are bound to furnish him with moderate indeed but suitable accommodation."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0064.pt|"You have for the same reason," he goes on, "no right to ruin his habits by compelling him to be idle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0065.pt|his morals by compelling him to mix with a promiscuous assemblage of hardened and convicted criminals,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0066.pt|or his health by forcing him at night into a damp, unventilated cell, with such crowds of companions as very speedily render the air foul and putrid;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0067.pt|or to make him sleep in close contact with the victims of contagious and loathsome disease,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0068.pt|or amidst the noxious effluvia of dirt and corruption.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0069.pt|In short, attention to his feelings, mental and bodily, a supply of every necessary, abstraction from evil society,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0070.pt|the conservation of his health and industrious habits, are the clear, evident, undeniable rights of an unconvicted prisoner."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0071.pt|Nor even when found guilty and his liberty forfeited did his privileges cease. The law appointed a suitable punishment for the offense;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0072.pt|it was for those charged with the administration of the law to guard carefully against any aggravation of that punishment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0073.pt|to see that "no circumstances of severity are found in his treatment which are not found in his sentence."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0074.pt|No judge ever condemned a man to be half-perished with cold by day, or half-suffocated with heat by night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0075.pt|"Who ever heard of a criminal being sentenced to catch the rheumatism or the typhus fever?"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0076.pt|"Disease, cold, famine, nakedness, and contagious and polluted air are not lawful punishments in the hands of the civil magistrates;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0077.pt|nor has he a right to poison or starve his fellow-creatures."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0078.pt|"The convicted delinquent has his rights," said Mr. Buxton authoritatively.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0079.pt|"All measures and practices in prison which may injure him in any way are illegal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0080.pt|because they are not specified in his sentence; he is therefore entitled to a wholesome atmosphere,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0081.pt|decent clothing and bedding, and a diet sufficient to support him."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0082.pt|These somewhat novel but undoubtedly indisputable propositions were backed up, not by sound arguments only, but by the letter of the law.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0083.pt|As Mr. Buxton pointed out, many old acts of parliament designed to protect the prisoner were still in full force.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0084.pt|Some might be in abeyance, but they had never been repealed, and some were quite freshly imported upon the Statute Book.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0085.pt|As far back as the reign of Charles the second, a law was passed declaring that sufficient provision should be made for the relief and setting on work
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0086.pt|of "poor and needy prisoners committed to the common jail for felony and other misdemeanors, who many times perish before their trial;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0087.pt|and the poor there living idle and unemployed become debauched, and come forth instructed in the practice of thievery and lewdness."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0088.pt|As a remedy, justices of the peace were empowered to provide materials for the setting of poor prisoners to work,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0089.pt|and to pay overseers or instructors out of the county rates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0090.pt|Again, the twenty-two Charles the second c twenty ordered the jailer to keep felons and debtors "separate and apart from one another,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0091.pt|in distinct rooms, on pain of forfeiting his office and treble damages to the party aggrieved."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0092.pt|A much later act, the fourteen George the third c. fifty-nine (seventeen seventy-four),
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0093.pt|which was contemporaneous with Howard's first journeys, laid down precise rules as regards cleanliness, and the proper supply of space and air.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0094.pt|This act set forth that "whereas the malignant fever commonly called the jail distemper
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0095.pt|is found to be owing to want of cleanliness and fresh air in the several jails,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0096.pt|the fatal consequences whereof might be prevented if the justices of the peace were duly authorized
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0097.pt|to provide such accommodations in jails as may be necessary to answer this salutary purpose,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0098.pt|it is enacted that the justices shall order the walls of every room to be scraped and white-washed once every year."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0099.pt|Ventilators, hand and others, were to be supplied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0100.pt|An infirmary, consisting of two distinct rooms, one for males and one for females, should be provided for the separate accommodation of the sick.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0101.pt|Warm and cold baths, or "commodious bathing tubs,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0102.pt|were to be kept in every jail, and the prisoners directed to wash in them before release. These provisions were almost a dead letter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0103.pt|Yet another act passed in seventeen ninety-one, if properly observed, should have insured proper attention to them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0104.pt|By the thirty-one George the third c. forty-six, s. five,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0105.pt|two or more justices were appointed visitors of prisons, and directed to visit and inspect three times every quarter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0106.pt|They were to report in writing to quarter sessions as to the state of the jail, and as to all abuses which they might observe therein.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0107.pt|The most important jail act of that early period, however, was the twenty-four George the third c. fifty-four, s. four (seventeen eighty-four)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0108.pt|which was the first legislative attempt to compel the classification of prisoners, or their separation into classes
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0109.pt|according to their categories or crimes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0110.pt|It was made incumbent upon the justices to provide distinct places of confinement for five classes of prisoners, viz.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0111.pt|one. Prisoners convicted of felony. two. Prisoners committed on a charge or suspicion of felony.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0112.pt|three. Prisoners guilty of misdemeanors. four. Prisoners charged with misdemeanors. five. Debtors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0113.pt|It was further ordered that male prisoners should be kept perfectly distinct from the females.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0114.pt|King's evidences were also to be lodged apart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0115.pt|Infirmaries separating the sexes were also to be provided, a chapel too, and warm and cold baths.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0116.pt|"Care also was to be taken that the prisoners shall not be kept in any apartment underground."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0117.pt|In an early report of the Prison Discipline Improvement Society,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0118.pt|published some six-and-thirty years after the promulgation of this act, the flagrant and persistent violations of it and others
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0119.pt|which had continued through that long period, are forcibly pointed out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0120.pt|In eighteen eighteen, out of five hundred and eighteen prisons in the United Kingdom,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0121.pt|to which a total of upwards of one hundred thousand prisoners had been committed in the year, only twenty-three prisons were divided according to law;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0122.pt|fifty-nine had no division whatever to separate males and females; one hundred and thirty-six had only one division for the purpose;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0123.pt|sixty-eight had only two divisions, and so on.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0124.pt|In four hundred and forty-five prisons no work of any description had been introduced for the employment of prisoners;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0125.pt|in the balance some work was done, but with the most meager results.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0126.pt|The want of room was still a crying evil.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0127.pt|In one hundred jails,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0128.pt|capable of accommodating only eight thousand five hundred and forty-five persons, as many as thirteen thousand and fifty-seven were crowded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0129.pt|Many of the jails were in the most deplorable condition:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0130.pt|incommodious, as has been stated, insecure, unhealthy, and unprovided with the printed or written regulations required by law.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0131.pt|To specify more particularly one or two of the worst, it may be mentioned that in the Borough Compter
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0132.pt|the old evils of indiscriminate association still continued unchecked.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0133.pt|All prisoners passed their time in absolute idleness, or killed it by gambling and loose conversation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0134.pt|The debtors were crowded almost inconceivably. In a space twenty feet long by six wide,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0135.pt|twenty men slept on eight straw beds, with sixteen rugs amongst them, and a piece of timber for a bolster.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0136.pt|Mr. Buxton, who found this, declared that it seemed physically impossible, but he was assured that it was true,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0137.pt|and that it was accomplished by "sleeping edgewise."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0138.pt|One poor wretch, who had slept next the wall, said he had been literally unable to move for the pressure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0139.pt|"In the morning the stench and heat were so oppressive that he and every one else on waking rushed unclothed into the yard;"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0140.pt|and the turnkey told Mr. Buxton that the "smell on first opening the door was enough to knock down a horse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0141.pt|The hospital was filled with infectious cases, and in one room, seven feet by nine, with closed windows,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0142.pt|where a lad lay ill with fever, three other prisoners, at first perfectly healthy, were lodged. Of course they were seized with the fever;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0143.pt|so that the culprit, in addition to his sentence,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0144.pt|had to endure by "the regulations of the city a disease very dangerous in its nature," and ran the risk of a lingering and painful death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0145.pt|At Guildford prison, which Mr. Buxton also visited in eighteen eighteen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0146.pt|there was no infirmary, no chapel, no work, no classification.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0147.pt|The irons, which nearly every one wore, were remarkably heavy; those double ironed could not take off their small clothes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0148.pt|No prison dress was allowed, and half the inmates were without shirts or shoes or stockings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0149.pt|The diet was limited to dry bread, which was of the best certainly, and a pound and a half in weight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0150.pt|Matters were on much the same footing at St. Albans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0151.pt|They were far worse at Bristol,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0152.pt|although at Mr. Buxton's visit a new jail was in process of erection, the first step towards reform since Howard's visitation in seventeen seventy-four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0153.pt|In eighteen eighteen the old jail was so densely packed that it was nearly impossible to pass through the yards for the throng.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0154.pt|One hundred and fifty were lodged in a prison just capable of holding fifty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0155.pt|In the crowd, all of them persons who had "no other avocation or mode of livelihood but thieving," Mr. Buxton counted eleven children
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0156.pt|children hardly old enough to be released from the nursery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0157.pt|All charged with felony were in heavy irons, without distinction of age.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0158.pt|All were in ill health; almost all were in rags; almost all were filthy in the extreme.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0159.pt|The state of the prison, the desperation of the prisoners, broadly hinted in their conversation and plainly expressed in their conduct,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0160.pt|the uproar of oaths, complaints, and obscenity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0161.pt|"the indescribable stench," presented together a concentration of the utmost misery and the utmost guilt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0162.pt|It was "a scene of infernal passions and distresses," says Buxton, "which few have imagination sufficient to picture,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0163.pt|and of which fewer still would believe that the original is to be found in this enlightened and happy country."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0164.pt|There was still worse to come. Having explored the yards and adjacent day rooms, and sleeping cells, a door was unlocked,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0165.pt|the visitors were furnished with candles, and they descended eighteen long steps into a vault.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0166.pt|At the bottom was a circular space, through which ran a narrow passage, and the sides of which were fitted with barrack bedsteads.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0167.pt|The floor was on the level of the river, and very damp.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0168.pt|The smell at one o'clock of the day "was something more than can be expressed by the term disgusting."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0169.pt|On the dirty bedstead lay a wretched being in the throes of severe illness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0170.pt|The only ventilation of this pit, this "dark, cheerless, damp, unwholesome cavern -- a dungeon in its worst sense"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0171.pt|was by a kind of chimney, which the prisoners kept hermetically sealed, and which had never been opened in the memory of the turnkey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0172.pt|Untried persons were often lodged in this nauseous underground den,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0173.pt|and sometimes slept in "the pit," loaded with heavy irons for a whole year, waiting the jail delivery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0174.pt|Confinement for twelve months in the Bristol jail was counted a punishment equivalent to seven years' transportation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0175.pt|In this prison there was no female infirmary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0176.pt|Sick women and their children remained in the ordinary wards, and propagated disease.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0177.pt|No prison dress was allowed; no reception-room was provided, no soap, towels, or baths.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0178.pt|The bedclothes consisted only of a single "very slight" rug.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0179.pt|The allowance of food daily to felons was a fourpenny loaf,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0180.pt|a price which in those days fluctuated enormously -- as much as a hundred percent in a couple of years;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0181.pt|but as no similar variation occurred in the prisoner's appetite, his ration was somewhat precarious.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0182.pt|As for the debtors, they had no allowance whatever, and were often in imminent danger of starvation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0183.pt|With all this, the inmates were crowded together at night to such a degree as to excite surprise that they should escape suffocation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0184.pt|There reigned through the whole edifice a chilly, damp, unwholesome atmosphere, and the effluvia from the prisoners was so nauseous
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0185.pt|that the chaplain found it necessary to take his place before they entered chapel, as he could not otherwise have faced the smell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0186.pt|It is consoling to know that there were a few brilliant exceptions to this cruel, callous neglect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0187.pt|Already, as early as eighteen eighteen, a prison existed at Bury St. Edmunds which was a model for imitation to others at that time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0188.pt|and which even fulfilled many of the exacting requirements of modern days.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0189.pt|The great principles of classification, cleanliness, and employment were closely observed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0190.pt|There were eighty-four separate sleeping-cells, and unless the jail was overcrowded, every inmate passed the night alone,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0191.pt|and in comparative comfort, with a bed and proper bedding.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0192.pt|The prison stood on a dry, airy situation outside the town.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0193.pt|Prisoners on reception were treated as they are now-a-days -- bathed, dressed in prison clothes, and inspected by the surgeon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0194.pt|No irons were worn except as a punishment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0195.pt|Personal cleanliness was insisted upon, and all parts of the prison were kept scrupulously clean.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0196.pt|There was an infirmary, properly found and duly looked after.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0197.pt|No idleness was permitted among the inmates. Trades were taught, or prisoners were allowed to follow their own if suitable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0198.pt|There was, besides, a mill for grinding corn, somewhat similar to a turn-spit, which prisoners turned by walking in rows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0199.pt|This made exertion compulsory, and imposed hard labor as a proper punishment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0200.pt|Another jail, that of Ilchester, was also worthy of all commendation. It exhibited all the good points of that at Bury.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0201.pt|At Ilchester the rule of employment had been carried further.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0202.pt|A system not adopted generally till nearly half a century later had already prevailed at Ilchester.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0203.pt|The new jail had been in a great measure constructed by the prisoners themselves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0204.pt|Masons, bricklayers, carpenters, painters had been employed upon the buildings, and the work was pronounced excellent by competent judges.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0205.pt|Industrial labor had also been introduced with satisfactory results.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0206.pt|Blanket weaving and cloth spinning was carried on prosperously,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0207.pt|and all the material for prisoners' apparel was manufactured in the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0208.pt|There were work-rooms for wool-washing, dyeing, carding, and spinning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0209.pt|The looms were constantly busy. Tailors were always at work, and every article of clothing and bedding was made up within the walls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0210.pt|There was a prison laundry too, where all the prisoners' linen was regularly washed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0211.pt|The moral welfare of the inmates was as closely looked after as the physical.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0212.pt|There was an attentive chaplain, a schoolmaster, and regular religious and other instruction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0213.pt|Compared with those highly meritorious institutions Newgate still showed but badly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0214.pt|Its evils were inherent and irremediable, but some ameliorating measures had been introduced,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0215.pt|mainly through the exertions of a new governor, Mr. Brown, who succeeded Mr. Newman at Newgate in eighteen seventeen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0216.pt|The most noticeable of the improvements introduced was a better regulation of dietaries within the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0217.pt|The old haphazard system, by which meat was issued in bulk,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0218.pt|a week's allowance at a time, was abolished, and there was a regular scale of daily rations adopted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0219.pt|The diet was now ample. It consisted of a pound and a half of bread per diem;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0220.pt|for breakfast a pint of gruel; for dinner half a pound of boiled meat, or a quart of soup with vegetables, on alternate days.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0221.pt|The food was properly prepared in the prison kitchen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0222.pt|Meat was no longer issued raw, to be imperfectly cooked before a ward fire and bolted gluttonously, the whole two pounds at one sitting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0223.pt|Mr. Brown confidently asserted that no jail in England now fed its inmates so well as did Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0224.pt|So plentiful was this dietary, that although the old permission remained in force of allowing the friends of prisoners to bring them supplies from outside,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0225.pt|the practice was falling into abeyance, and the prisoners seldom required private assistance to eke out their meals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0226.pt|It was also claimed for the more ample and more orderly distribution of victuals, that the general health of the prisoners had greatly improved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0227.pt|Mr. Brown also, much to his own credit, brought about the abandonment of the practice of ironing all prisoners as a matter of course.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0228.pt|In eighteen eighteen prisoners awaiting trial in Newgate, were at length relieved from this illegal infliction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0229.pt|Convicts were not even compelled to wear irons, providing they behaved well.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0230.pt|It was found that shackles might be safely dispensed with, even in the case of the most desperate characters.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0231.pt|This was effected by stopping the nearly indiscriminate admission of visitors, which had hitherto prevailed all over the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0232.pt|Ironing it will be remembered, was a distinguishing badge, so that when the jail was cleared the free might be readily known from the captive, and escapes prevented.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0233.pt|Under the new rule visitors were not allowed to pass into the interior of the prison, but were detained between the grating.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0234.pt|This change led to some discontent, until it was found that the much greater boon of relief from irons accompanied it, and the reform was quietly accepted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0235.pt|Indeed the best consequences followed from the removal of irons. The prisoners were much better disposed; there were no riots, and fewer disturbances.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0236.pt|But nothing short of radical reform and complete reconstruction could touch the deep-seated evils of association, overcrowding, and idleness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0237.pt|The first still produced deplorable results -- results to be observable for many years to come.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0238.pt|Mr. Buxton mentions the case of a boy whose apparent innocence and artlessness had attracted his attention.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0239.pt|He had been committed for an offense for which he was acquitted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0240.pt|He left Newgate utterly corrupted, and after lapsing into crime, soon returned with a very different character.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0241.pt|Other cases of moral deterioration have already been recorded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0242.pt|Some attempt was made to reduce the overcrowding, on the recommendation of the House of Commons Committee of eighteen eighteen, but this applied only a partial remedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0243.pt|The bulk of the prisoners were still left in idleness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0244.pt|A few fortunate criminals, many of them kept back from transportation on purpose, who were skilled in trades, were employed at them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0245.pt|Painters, plasterers, and carpenters were allowed to follow their handicrafts, with the reward of sixpence per diem and a double allowance of food.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0246.pt|They used their own tools, and this without any dangerous consequences as regards facilitating the escape of others,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0247.pt|thus disposing of the objection so long raised against the industrial employment of prisoners in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0248.pt|But this boon of toil was denied to all but a very limited number.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0249.pt|As the Prison Discipline Society pertinently observed in a report dated eighteen twenty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ004-0250.pt|"It is obvious that reformation must be materially impeded, and in some cases utterly defeated, when the prisoners are defectively classed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section eight: The beginnings of prison reform.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0002.pt|Newgate prisoners were the victims to another most objectionable practice which obtained all over London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0003.pt|Persons committed to a metropolitan jail at that time were taken in gangs, men and women handcuffed together, or linked on to a long chain,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0004.pt|unless they could afford to pay for a vehicle out of their own funds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0005.pt|Even then they were not certain of the favor, for I find a reference to a decent and respectable woman sent to Newgate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0006.pt|who handed a shilling to the escort warder to provide her with a hackney coach; but this functionary pocketed the cash, and obliged the woman to walk
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0007.pt|chained to the rest. As the miserable crew filed through the public streets, exposed to the scornful gaze of every passenger,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0008.pt|they were followed by a crowd of reckless boys, who jeered at and insulted them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0009.pt|Many thus led in procession were in a shocking condition of dirt and misery, frequently nearly naked, and often bearing upon them
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0010.pt|the germs, more or less developed, of contagious disease. "Caravans," the forerunners of the prison vans,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0011.pt|were first made use of about eighteen twenty-seven. That the need for prison reform was imperative may be gathered from the few out of many instances I have adduced,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0012.pt|yet there were those who, wedded to ancient ideas, were intolerant of change; they would not admit the existence of any evils.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0013.pt|One smug alderman, a member of the House of Commons, sneered at the ultra philanthropy of the champions of prison improvement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0014.pt|Speaking on a debate on prison matters, he declared that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0015.pt|our prisoners have all that prisoners ought to have, without gentlemen think they ought to be indulged with Turkey carpets.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0016.pt|The Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline was taxed with a desire to introduce a system
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0017.pt|tending to divest punishment of its just and salutary terrors;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0018.pt|an imputation which the Society indignantly and very justly repudiated, the statement being, as they said,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0019.pt|refuted by abundant evidence, and having no foundation whatever in truth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0020.pt|Among those whom the Society found arrayed against it was Sydney Smith,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0021.pt|who, in a caustic article contributed to the 'Edinburgh Review,' protested against the pampering of criminals
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0022.pt|While fully admitting the good intentions of the Society, he condemned their ultra humanitarianism as misplaced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0023.pt|He took exception to various of the proposals of the Society. He thought they leant too much to a system of indulgence and education in jails.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0024.pt|He objected to the instruction of prisoners in reading and writing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0025.pt|"A poor man who is lucky enough," he said, "to have his son committed for a felony
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0026.pt|educates him under such a system for nothing, while the virtuous simpleton who is on the other side of the wall is paying by the quarter for these attainments."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0027.pt|He was altogether against too liberal a diet; he disapproved of industrial occupations in jails, as not calculated to render prisons terrible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0028.pt|"There should be no tea and sugar, no assemblage of female felons around the washing-tub,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0029.pt|nothing but beating hemp and pulling oakum and pounding bricks -- no work but what was tedious, unusual."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0030.pt|"In prisons, which are really meant to keep the multitude in order, and to be a terror to evil-doers, there must be no sharings of profits,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0031.pt|no visiting of friends, no education but religious education, no freedom of diet,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0032.pt|no weavers' looms or carpenters' benches. There must be a great deal of solitude, coarse food, a dress of shame,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0033.pt|hard, incessant, irksome, eternal labor, a planned and regulated and unrelenting exclusion of happiness and comfort.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0034.pt|Undeterred by these sarcasms and misrepresentations,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0035.pt|the Society pursued its laudable undertaking with remarkable energy and great singleness of purpose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0036.pt|The objects it had in view were set forth in one of its earliest meetings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0037.pt|It sought to obtain and diffuse useful information
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0038.pt|to suggest beneficial regulations, and circulate tracts demonstrating the advantages of classification,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0039.pt|constant inspection, regular employment, and humane treatment generally, with religious and moral instruction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0040.pt|It earnestly advocated the appointment of female officers to take exclusive charge of female prisoners,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0041.pt|a much-needed and, according to our ideas, indispensable reform, already initiated by the Ladies' Committee at Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0042.pt|It made the subject of the newly-invented tread-wheels, or stepping-wheels, as they were at first called, its peculiar affair,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0043.pt|and obtained full details, from places where they had been adopted, of the nature of these new machines
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0044.pt|the method by which they were worked, and the dietaries of the prisoners employed upon them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0045.pt|Nor did it confine itself to mere verbal recommendations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0046.pt|The good it tried to do took active shape in the establishment of temporary refuges -- at Hoxton for males, and in the Hackney Road for females
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0047.pt|for the reception of deserving cases discharged from prison. The governor of Newgate and other metropolitan prisons had orders of admission to this refuge
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0048.pt|which he could bestow on prisoners on release, and so save the better-disposed or the completely destitute from lapsing at once into crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0049.pt|The refuge, which had for its object the training of its inmates in habits of industry,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0050.pt|and in moral and religious duty, and which after a time sought to provide them with suitable situations, was supported entirely out of the funds of the Society.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0051.pt|At the time of its greatest prosperity, its annual income from donations and subscriptions was about one thousand six hundred pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0052.pt|Another point to which the Society devoted infinite pains was the preparation of plans for the guidance of architects in the construction of prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0053.pt|A very valuable volume published by the Society
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0054.pt|traced the progress of prison architecture from the days when the jail was the mere annexe of the baronial or episcopal castle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0055.pt|or a dungeon above or below the gate of a town, to the first attempts at systematic reconstruction carried out under the advice and supervision of Howard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0056.pt|It is interesting to observe that the plan of "radiation," by which the prison blocks radiated from a central hall, like spokes in a wheel
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0057.pt|was introduced as early as seventeen ninety by Mr. Blackburn
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0058.pt|an architect of eminence who was very largely employed in the erection of prison buildings at the close of the last century.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0059.pt|With some important modifications this principle of radiation is still the rule.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0060.pt|The Society did not limit its remarks to the description of what had already been done
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0061.pt|but it offered suggestions for future buildings, with numerous carefully-executed drawings and designs of the model it recommended for imitation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0062.pt|Experience has since shown that in some respects these plans are defective, especially in the placing of the governor's residence in the center of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0063.pt|It was thought that this would guarantee constant supervision and inspection, but it did nothing of the kind, and only the presence of warders on duty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0064.pt|is found now-a-days to be really efficacious. The main recommendations, however, are based upon common sense
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0065.pt|and none are more commendable than that which deprecates the excessive ornamentation of the external parts of the edifice.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0066.pt|"The new jails," as Howard says, "having pompous fronts, appear like palaces to the lower class of people, and many persons are against them on this account."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0067.pt|The Prison Society reproves the misdirected efforts of ambitious architects, who by a lavish and improvident expenditure of public money
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0068.pt|sought to "rank the prisons they built among the most splendid buildings of the city or town."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0069.pt|Absence of embellishment is in perfect unison with the character of the establishment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0070.pt|These are principles fully recognized now-a-days, and it may fairly be conceded that the Prison Discipline Society's ideal
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0071.pt|differed little from that kept in view in the construction of the latest and best modern jails.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0072.pt|After a few years of active exertion the Society was rewarded by fresh legislation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0073.pt|To its efforts, and their effect upon Parliament and the public mind, we must attribute the new Jail Acts of four George the fourth
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0074.pt|cap. sixty-four, and five George the fourth cap. eighty-five
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0075.pt|which having gone through several sessions, at last became law in eighteen twenty-three to four
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0076.pt|By the preamble of the first-named act it was declared
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0077.pt|"expedient to introduce such measures and arrangements as shall not only provide for the safe custody,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0078.pt|but shall also tend more effectually to preserve the health
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0079.pt|and improve the morals of the prisoners, and shall insure the proper measure of punishment to convicted offenders.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0080.pt|Accordingly due provision was made for the enforcement of hard labor on all prisoners sentenced to it, and for the employment of all others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0082.pt|unless such ability (to work) should cease by reason of sickness, infirmity, the want of sufficient work, or from any other cause.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0083.pt|It was distinctly laid down that male and female prisoners should be confined in separate buildings or parts of the prison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0084.pt|"so as to prevent them from seeing, conversing, or holding any intercourse with each other."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0085.pt|Classification was insisted upon, in the manner laid down by the twenty-four George the third cap. fifty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0086.pt|with such further separation as the justices should deem conducive to good order and discipline.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0087.pt|Female prisoners were in all cases to be under the charge of female officers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0088.pt|Every prison containing female prisoners was to have a matron who was to reside constantly in the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0089.pt|The religious and moral welfare of the prisoners were to be attended to,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0090.pt|the first by daily services, the latter by the appointment of schoolmasters and instruction in reading and writing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0091.pt|Last, but not least, the use of irons was strictly forbidden, "except in cases of urgent and absolute necessity,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0092.pt|and every prisoner was to be provided with a hammock or cot to himself, suitable bedding, and, if possible, a separate cell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0093.pt|The second act, passed in the following year, enlarged and amended the first, and at the same time gave powers to the House
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0094.pt|to call for information as to the observance of its provisions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0095.pt|The promulgation of these two Jail Acts strengthened the hands of the Prison Discipline Society enormously.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0096.pt|It had now a legal and authoritative standard of efficiency to apply,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0097.pt|and could expose all the local authorities that still lagged behind, or neglected to comply with the provisions of the new laws.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0098.pt|The Society did not shrink from its self-imposed duty, but continued year after year, with unflagging energy and unflinching spirit, to watch closely
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0099.pt|and report at length upon the condition of the prisons of the country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0100.pt|For this purpose it kept up an extensive correspondence with all parts of the kingdom, and circulated queries to be answered in detail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0101.pt|whence it deduced the practice and condition of every prison that replied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0102.pt|Upon these and the private visitations made by various members the Society obtained the facts,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0103.pt|often highly damnatory, which were embodied in its annual reports.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0104.pt|The progress of improvement was certainly extremely slow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0105.pt|It was long before the many jurisdictions imitated the few.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0106.pt|Jails, of which the old prison at Reading was a specimen, were still left intact.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0107.pt|In that prison, with its cells and yards arranged within the shell of an ancient abbey chapel,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0108.pt|the prisoners, without firing, bedding, or sufficient food, spent their days "in surveying their grotesque prison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0109.pt|or contriving some means of escape by climbing the fluted columns which supported the Gothic arches of the aisles,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0110.pt|and so passing by the roof down into the garden and on to freedom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0111.pt|In a county prison adjoining the metropolis, the separation between the male and female quarters was supposed to be accomplished by the erection of an iron railing;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0112.pt|in this same prison capital convicts were chained to the floor until execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0113.pt|In another jail not far off male and female felons still occupied the same room -- underground, and reached by a ladder of ten steps.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0114.pt|In others the separation between the sexes consisted in a hanging curtain
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0115.pt|or an imaginary boundary line, and nothing prevented parties from passing to either side
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0116.pt|but an empty regulation which all so disposed could defy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0117.pt|Numbers of the jails were still unprovided with chaplains, and the prisoners never heard Divine service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0118.pt|In many others there were no infirmaries, no places set apart for the confinement of prisoners afflicted with dangerous and infectious disorders.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0119.pt|No attempt was made to maintain discipline.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0120.pt|Half the jails had no code of rules properly prepared and sanctioned by the judges, according to law.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0121.pt|By degrees, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0122.pt|the changes necessary to bring the prisons into conformity with the recent acts were attempted, if not actually introduced into the county prisons, to which,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0123.pt|with a few of the more important city or borough prisons, these acts more especially applied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0124.pt|Most of the local authorities embarked into considerable expenditure, determined to rebuild their jails de novo on the most approved pattern,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0125.pt|or to reappropriate, reconstruct, and patch up the existing prisons till they were more in accordance with the growing requirements of the times.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0126.pt|Religious worship became more generally the rule; chaplains were appointed, and chapels provided for them; surgeons and hospitals also.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0127.pt|Workshops were built at many prisons, various kinds of manufactures and trades were set on foot, including weaving, matting, shoe-making, and tailoring.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0128.pt|The interior of one prison was illuminated throughout with gas, -- still a novelty, which had been generally adopted in London only four years previously,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0129.pt|"a measure which must greatly tend to discourage attempts to escape."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0130.pt|There were tread-wheels at most of the prisons, and regular employment thereon or at some other kind of hard labor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0131.pt|In many places too where the prisoners earned money by their work, they were granted a portion of it for their own use after proper deduction for maintenance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0132.pt|Only a few glaring evils still demanded a remedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0133.pt|The provision of separate sleeping cells was still quite inadequate. For instance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0134.pt|in twenty-two county jails there were one thousand sixty-three sleeping cells in all (in eighteen twenty-three)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0135.pt|and the average daily number committed that year amounted to three thousand, nine hundred eighty-five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0136.pt|The want of sleeping cells long continued a crying need.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0137.pt|Four years later the Prison Society reported
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0138.pt|that in four prisons, which at one time of the year contained one thousand three hundred eight prisoners, there were only sixty-eight sleeping rooms or cells,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0139.pt|making an average of nineteen persons occupying each room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0140.pt|At the New Prison, Clerkenwell, which had become the principal reception jail of Middlesex, and so took all the untried,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0141.pt|the sleeping space per head was only sixteen inches, and often as many as two hundred ninety-three men had to be accommodated on barrack beds
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0142.pt|occupying barely three hundred ninety feet lineal
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0143.pt|The "scenes of tumult and obscenity" in these night rooms are said to have been beyond description; a prisoner in one nocturnal riot lost an eye.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0144.pt|Yet to Clerkenwell were now committed the juveniles, and all who were inexperienced in crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0145.pt|Great want of uniformity in treatment in the various prisons was still noticeable
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0146.pt|and was indeed destined to continue for another half century, in other words, until the introduction of the Prison Act of eighteen seventy-seven.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0147.pt|At the time of which I am writing there was great diversity of practice as regards the hours of labor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0148.pt|In some prisons the prisoners worked seven hours a day, in others ten and ten and a half.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0149.pt|The nature of the employment varied greatly in severity, especially the tread-wheel labor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0150.pt|In some county jails, as I have already said, female prisoners were placed upon the tread-wheel;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0151.pt|in others women were very properly exempted from it, and also from all severe labor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0152.pt|Earnings were very differently appropriated. Here the prisoners were given the whole amount, there a half or a third.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0153.pt|Sometimes this money might be expended in the purchase of extra articles of food.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0154.pt|The rations varied considerably everywhere.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0155.pt|It was still limited to bread in some places, the allowance of which varied from one to three pounds;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0156.pt|in others meat, soup, gruel, beer were given.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0157.pt|Here and there food was not issued in kind, but a money allowance which the prisoner might expend himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0158.pt|Bedding and clothing was still denied, but only in a few jails;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0159.pt|in others both were supplied in ample quantities, the cost varying per prisoner from twenty shillings to five pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0160.pt|It was plain that although the law had defined general principles of prison government,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0161.pt|too much discretion was still left to the magistracy to fill in the details. The legislature only recommended,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0162.pt|it did not peremptorily insist. Too often the letter of the law was observed, but not its spirit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0163.pt|One great impediment to wide amelioration was that a vast number of small jails lay out of reach of the law.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0164.pt|When the new acts were introduced, numerous prisons under local jurisdiction were exempted from the operation of the law.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0165.pt|They were so radically bad that reform seemed hopeless, and it was thought wiser not to bring them under provisions which clearly could not be enforced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0166.pt|Mr. Peel, who as Home Secretary had charge of the bill,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0167.pt|which became the four George the fourth cap. sixty-four, said that he had abstained from legislating for these small jurisdictions "on mature deliberation."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0168.pt|"It is not," he said, "that I am insensible of the lamentable and disgraceful situation in which many of them are,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0169.pt|but I indulge a hope that many of them will contract with the counties,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0170.pt|that many of them will build new jails, and that when in a year or two we come to examine their situation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0171.pt|we shall find but few which have not in one or other of these ways removed the grievance of which such just complaint is made.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0172.pt|When that time arrives
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0173.pt|I shall not hesitate to ask Parliament for powers to compel them to make the necessary alterations, for it is not to be endured that these local jurisdictions should remain
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0174.pt|in the deplorable situation in which many of them now are."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0175.pt|At this time there were in England one hundred and seventy boroughs, cities, towns, and liberties
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0176.pt|which possessed the right of trying criminals for various offenses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0177.pt|Nearly every one of these jurisdictions had its own prison, and there were one hundred and sixty such jails in all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0178.pt|Many of them consisted of one or two rooms at most.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0179.pt|he total number of prisoners they received during the year varied from two persons to many hundreds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0180.pt|It was in these jails, withdrawn from the pressure of authority, that the new rules were invariably ignored.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0181.pt|The right and privilege of the borough to maintain its own place of confinement was so "ancient and indisputable,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0182.pt|that for long no idea of interfering with them was entertained.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0183.pt|All that was urged was that the borough magistracy had no right to govern their jails
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0184.pt|so as to corrupt those committed, "to the injury of the peace and morals of the public."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0185.pt|As time passed, however, these magistrates made no effort at reform.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0186.pt|They neither built new jails nor contracted with the counties, as had been expected, for the transfer of their prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0187.pt|As the Society put it in eighteen twenty-seven, "the friends to the improvement of prison discipline will regret to learn
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0188.pt|that the jails attached to corporate jurisdictions continue to be the fruitful sources
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0189.pt|of vice and misery, debasing all who are confined within their walls, and disseminating through their respective communities
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0190.pt|the knowledge and practice of every species of criminality.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0191.pt|The Society proceeded to support this indictment by facts. It is much the old story.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0192.pt|The prisoners were lodged in rooms whence they could converse with passengers in the streets, and freely obtain spirits and other prohibited articles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0193.pt|All descriptions of offenders congregated together in the felons' wards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0194.pt|The keeper and his officers resided at a distance from the jail, and left its inmates to their own devices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0195.pt|There was no decency whatever in the internal arrangements;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0196.pt|still no separation of the sexes, no means of ablution or other necessary services.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0197.pt|One borough prison consisted of nothing more than a couple of cells, about ten yards square, and absolutely nothing more.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0198.pt|In another borough, with a population of ten thousand, the prison was of the same dimensions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0199.pt|One cell was a dungeon, and the other an "improper and unhealthy abode for any human being," with a watercourse running through it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0200.pt|Most of these small jails were still in existence and in much the same state eight years later,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0201.pt|as is shown by the report of the Commissioners to inquire into the state of the municipal corporations in eighteen thirty-five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0202.pt|An examination of this report shows how even the most insignificant township had its jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0203.pt|Thus Dinas Mwddy, in Merionethshire, had, "besides the pinfold and the stocks or crib, a little prison."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0204.pt|Clun, in Shropshire, had a lock-up under the town hall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0205.pt|At Eye, in Suffolk, the jail was part of the poor-house; so it was at Richmond, in Yorkshire, where the master of the workhouse was also keeper of the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0206.pt|At Godmanchester there was no jail, but a cage to secure prisoners till they could be taken before a magistrate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0207.pt|Kidderminster had a prison, one damp chill room,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0208.pt|the only aperture through which air could be admitted being an iron grating level with the street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0209.pt|through the bars of which quills or reeds were inserted, and drink conveyed to the prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0210.pt|At Walsall, in Staffordshire,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0211.pt|the jail consisted of six cells, frequently so damp that the moisture trickled down the walls; there was not space for air or exercise,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0212.pt|and the prison allowance was still limited to bread and water.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0213.pt|Newgate through all these years continued a bye-word with the Society.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0214.pt|Some reforms had certainly been introduced, such as the abolition of irons, already referred to, and the establishment of male and female infirmaries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0215.pt|The regular daily visitation of the chaplain was also insisted upon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0216.pt|But it was pointed out in eighteen twenty-three that defective construction must always bar the way to any radical improvement in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0217.pt|Without enlargement no material change in discipline or interior economy could possibly be introduced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0218.pt|The chapel still continued incommodious and insufficient
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0219.pt|female prisoners were still exposed to the full view of the males, the netting in front of the gallery being perfectly useless as a screen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0220.pt|In eighteen twenty-four Newgate had no glass in its windows, except in the infirmary and one ward of the chapel yard;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0221.pt|and the panes were filled in with oiled paper, an insufficient protection against the weather;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0222.pt|and as the window-frames would not shut tight, the prisoners complained much of the cold, especially at night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0223.pt|There was a diminution in the numbers in custody, due to the adoption of the practice of not committing at once to Newgate every offender for trial at the Old Bailey
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0224.pt|but nothing had been done to improve the prison buildings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0225.pt|In eighteen twenty-seven the Society was compelled to report that "no material change had taken place in Newgate since the passing of the prison laws,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0226.pt|and that consequently the observance of their most important provisions was habitually neglected.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0227.pt|It was enacted that the court of aldermen should make rules for the government of the prison, and that these should be posted publicly within the walls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0228.pt|As yet no rules or regulations had been printed or prepared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0229.pt|By another clause of the Jail Act, two justices were to be appointed to visit the prison at least thrice in every quarter, and "oftener if occasion required."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0230.pt|These justices were to inspect every part of the prison, and examine into the state and condition of prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0231.pt|The city justices had not fulfilled this obligation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0232.pt|Idleness was still the general rule for all prisoners in Newgate, in defiance of the law.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0233.pt|There was no instruction of adult prisoners, in accordance with the law. The sleeping accommodation was still altogether contrary to the latest ideas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0234.pt|The visits of friends was once more unreservedly allowed, and these incomers freely brought in extra provisions and beer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0235.pt|Last, and worst of all, the arrangements for keeping the condemned prisoners between sentence and execution were more than unsatisfactory.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0236.pt|They were not confined apart from each other, but were crowded thirty or forty together in the press yard,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0237.pt|so that "corrupt conversation obliterated from the mind of him who is doomed to suffer every serious feeling and valuable impression."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0238.pt|I shall have more to say on this subject, and upon the state of Newgate generally, in the following chapter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0239.pt|The Prison Society did not relax its efforts as time passed, but its leading members had other and more pressing claims upon their energies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0240.pt|Mr. Buxton had succeeded to the great work which William Wilberforce had commenced, and led the repeated attacks upon slavery in British colonies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0241.pt|till the whole body of the slaves were manumitted in eighteen thirty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0242.pt|In the year immediately preceding this, Parliament was too busy with the great question of its own reform to spare much time for domestic legislation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0243.pt|Nevertheless a committee of the House of Commons was appointed in eighteen thirty-one to report upon the whole system of secondary punishments,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0244.pt|which dealt with jails of all classes, as well as transportation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0245.pt|This committee animadverted strongly upon the system in force at the metropolitan jails, and more especially upon the condition of Newgate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0246.pt|where "prisoners before and after trial are under no efficient superintendence," and where "there was no restraint, or attempt at restraint."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0247.pt|Mr. Samuel Hoare was examined by this committee
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0248.pt|and stated that in his opinion Newgate, as the common jail of Middlesex, was wholly inadequate to the proper confinement of its prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0249.pt|From the moment of a person's committal he was certain to be plunged deeper and deeper in guilt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0250.pt|The prisoners were crowded together in the jail, contrary to the requirements of the four George the fourth
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0251.pt|Again in eighteen thirty-five prisons and their inmates became once more the care of the senate, and the subject was taken up this time by the House of Lords.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0252.pt|A committee was appointed, under the presidency of the Duke of Richmond
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0253.pt|"to inquire into and report upon the several jails and houses of correction in the counties, cities, and corporate towns within England and Wales
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0254.pt|upon the rules and discipline therein established with regard to the treatment of unconvicted as well as convicted persons."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0255.pt|The committee was also to report upon the manner in which sentences were carried out, and to recommend any alterations necessary in the rules
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0256.pt|in order to insure uniformity of discipline. It met on the thirty-first March, eighteen thirty-five, and continued its sittings well into July
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0257.pt|during which time a host of witnesses were examined, and the committee presented three separate reports,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0258.pt|embodying recommendations which may be said to have formed the basis of modern prison management.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0259.pt|It was laid down as a first and indispensable principle that uniformity of discipline should prevail everywhere,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0260.pt|a theory which did not become a practical fact for forty more years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0261.pt|As a means of securing this uniformity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0262.pt|it was suggested that the rules framed for prison government should be subjected to the Secretary of State for approval,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0263.pt|and not, as heretofore, to the judges of assize; that, both to check abuses and watch the progress of improvement,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0264.pt|inspectors of prisons should be appointed, who should visit all the prisons from time to time and report to the Secretary of State.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0265.pt|It was recommended that the dietaries should be submitted and approved like the rules; that convicted prisoners should not receive any food but the jail allowance;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0266.pt|that food and fuel should be issued in kind, and never provided by the prisoners themselves out of monies granted them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0267.pt|The use of tobacco, hitherto pretty generally indulged in both by men and women,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0268.pt|should be strictly prohibited, "as a stimulating luxury inconsistent with any notion of strict discipline and the due pressure of just punishment."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0269.pt|Prison officers should not have any share in prisoners' earnings,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0270.pt|which should be paid into general prison funds, and no part of them handed over to the prisoners themselves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0271.pt|As a means of increasing the severity of imprisonment, letters and visits from outside should not be permitted during the first six months of an imprisonment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0272.pt|Various other recommendations were made as regards the appointment of chaplain and schoolmasters; the limitation of the powers of wardsmen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0273.pt|or prisoners employed in positions of trust, who should not be permitted to traffic with their fellow-prisoners in any way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0274.pt|The committee most of all insisted upon the entire individual separation of prisoners, except during the hours of labor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0275.pt|religious worship, and instruction, as "absolutely necessary for preventing contamination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0276.pt|and for securing a proper system of prison discipline.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0277.pt|This was the first enunciation of the system of separate confinement,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0278.pt|which was eventually to replace the attempted arrangement of prisoners by classes according to antecedents and crimes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0279.pt|an incomplete and fallacious method of preventing contamination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0280.pt|The Lords' Committee fully recognized the painful fact
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0281.pt|that the greatest mischief followed from the intercourse which was still permitted in so many prisons; to use its words,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0282.pt|"the comparatively innocent are seduced, the unwary are entrapped,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0283.pt|and the tendency to crime in offenders not entirely hardened is confirmed by the language, the suggestions, and the example
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0284.pt|of more depraved and systematic criminals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0285.pt|This committee, as well as the one preceding it, also reported in terms of strong reprobation on the small prisons and jails
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0286.pt|still under the borough corporations. The Commons' Committee gave it as their opinion that they were in a deplorable state.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0287.pt|The same language was used by the commissioners appointed to inquire into the municipal corporations in eighteen thirty-five,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0288.pt|when speaking more particularly of the borough jails.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0289.pt|In these the commissioners found "additional proof of the evils of continuing the present constitution of the local tribunals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0290.pt|Instances rarely occur in which the borough jails admit of any proper classification of the prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0291.pt|In some large towns, as at Berwick on Tweed, Southampton, and Southwark, they (the prisons) are in a very discreditable condition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0292.pt|In many of the smaller boroughs they are totally unfit for the confinement of human beings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0293.pt|In these places the prisoners are often without a proper supply of air and light; frequently the jails are mere dungeons under the town hall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0294.pt|It was frequently stated in evidence that the jail of the borough was in so unfit a state for the reception of prisoners,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0295.pt|that plaintiffs were unwilling to consign the defendants against whom they had obtained execution to confinement within its walls."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0296.pt|The Lords' Committee on Jails were of the same opinion, and considered the prisons under corporate or peculiar jurisdiction in a very unsatisfactory condition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0297.pt|They therefore recommended that the prisoners should be removed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0298.pt|to the county jails from such prisons as were past improvement, and that the borough funds should be charged for the accommodation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0299.pt|The whole question was again dealt with in Lord John Russell's bill for the reform of the municipal corporations, and with a more liberal election of town councilors,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ005-0300.pt|and the establishment of municipal institutions upon a proper footing,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section nine: The first report of the inspector of prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0002.pt|In the preceding chapter I have been tempted by the importance of the general question to give it prominence and precedence over the particular branch of which I am treating.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0003.pt|Newgate has remained rather in the background while the whole of the jails as a body were under discussion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0004.pt|But this digression was necessary in order to present a more complete picture of the state of jails in the early part of the present century,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0005.pt|just before the public mind was first awakened to the need for thorough reform.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0006.pt|I shall now return to the great jail of the city of London, and give a more detailed account of its condition and inner life
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0007.pt|as the inspectors of prisons found them in eighteen thirty-five to six.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0008.pt|These gentlemen were appointed in October eighteen thirty-five, owing to the strong representations of the Lords' Committee
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0009.pt|backed up by the evidence of several influential witnesses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0010.pt|Mr. Samuel Hoare, when examined, considered it indispensably necessary, to carry out whatever system might be established,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0011.pt|that inspectors should watch over the observance of the law. He saw no objection on the score of their probable interference with the local jurisdiction,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0012.pt|but he would not arm them with any authority lest their cooperation might be offensive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0013.pt|Sir Frederick Roe was of the same opinion as regards the appointment, but he would give the inspectors the power of acting as well as reporting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0014.pt|They should be persons, he thought, selected from the highest class; the duty was most important,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0015.pt|one which required discretion, judgment, and knowledge of law, with sufficient insight and experience to discover defects in prison discipline.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0016.pt|These considerations no doubt had weight
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0017.pt|with those who made the selection of the first inspectors, and the two gentlemen appointed were probably the most fitted in England to be so employed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0018.pt|One was Mr. William Crawford, the other the Rev. Whitworth Russell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0019.pt|The first named had long been an active philanthropist, devoting himself more particularly to the reformation of juvenile criminals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0020.pt|William Crawford had been one of the promoters and managers of the Philanthropic Society's farm school.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0021.pt|Later on he had devoted himself to the personal investigation of the prisons of the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0022.pt|At that time the mild and intelligent prison discipline in force in Pennsylvania, the legacy of the old Quaker immigrants,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0023.pt|had made such prisons as Auburn a model for imitation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0024.pt|Several European states had dispatched emissaries to examine and report upon them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0025.pt|France had sent Misseurs Beaumont and De Tocqueville, who subsequently published several interesting works on the subject.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0026.pt|England was represented by Mr. Crawford, and the result of his inquiry was given to the public as an appendix to the House of Commons' Report on Secondary Punishments.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0027.pt|It is an able and exhaustive state paper, testifying to the keenness of the writer's perception, and his unremitting labor in pursuing his researches.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0028.pt|Mr. Crawford was thoroughly versed in the still imperfectly understood science of prison management, and fully qualified for his new duties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0029.pt|The second inspector, the Rev. Whitworth Russell, was the chaplain of Millbank penitentiary,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0030.pt|the great architectural experiment which grew out of the strong representations of Jeremy Bentham and others, and was the first national recognition of the principle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0031.pt|that punishment must be reformatory as well as deterrent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0032.pt|Messrs. Crawford and Russell proceeded to carry out their new functions with commendable energy, and without a moment's loss of time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0033.pt|The ink was barely dry upon their letters of appointment before they appeared at Newgate, and commenced a searching investigation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0034.pt|They attended early and late; they mustered the prisoners, examined into their condition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0035.pt|took voluminous evidence from all classes of individuals, from the governor down to the convict in the condemned cells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0036.pt|They visited the wards after locking-up time, and saw with their own eyes what went on.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0038.pt|"a subject of magnitude and importance sufficient to exclude other jails," they soon narrowed their inquiry still further,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0039.pt|and limited it to Newgate alone. Newgate indeed became the sole theme of their first report.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0040.pt|The fact was that the years as they passed, nearly twenty in all, had worked but little permanent improvement in this detestable prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0041.pt|Changes introduced under pressure had been only skin deep.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0042.pt|Relapse was rapid and inevitable, so that the latter state of the prison was worse than the first.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0043.pt|The disgraceful overcrowding had been partially ended, but the same evils of indiscriminate association were still present; there was the old neglect of decency,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0044.pt|the same callous indifference to the moral well-being of the prisoners, the same want of employment and of all disciplinary control.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0045.pt|All these evils were set forth at length in the inspectors' first report.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0046.pt|There was no longer the faintest possible excuse for overcrowding. The numbers now committed to Newgate had sensibly diminished.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0047.pt|The prison had become more or less a place of detention only, harboring mainly those awaiting trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0048.pt|To these were still added an average of about fifty expecting the last penalty of the law; a certain number of transports awaiting removal to the colonies;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0049.pt|an occasional prisoner or two committed by the Houses of Parliament, the Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0050.pt|the Exchequer, the Commissioners of bankruptcy and of taxes; smugglers, and a larger number sentenced for very short terms,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0051.pt|and for offenses of the most varying description, by the Central Criminal Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0052.pt|The sum total thus produced was inconsiderable compared with the hundreds that had formerly filled the jail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0053.pt|and the whole by proper management might have been so accommodated as to prevent overcrowding.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0054.pt|But incredible as it may appear, the authorities of Newgate declined to avail themselves of the advantages offered them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0055.pt|and when the population fell they shut up one half the jail and crowded up the other.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0056.pt|Some rooms remained quite empty and unoccupied, while others were full to overflowing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0057.pt|Not only were the wards thus needlessly crammed, and for no reason but the niggardliness of the corporation which refused a proper supply of bedding
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0058.pt|but the occupants of each were huddled together indiscriminately. The inspectors found in the same wards in the chapel yard the convicted and the untried,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0059.pt|the felon and the misdemeanant, the sane and the insane, the old and young offender.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0060.pt|The classification prescribed by the Jail Act, which laid down that certain prisoners should not intermix, was openly neglected,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0061.pt|and "the greatest contempt shown for the law."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0062.pt|In another part there were men charged with and convicted of unnatural offenses shut up with lads of tender years;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0063.pt|minor offenders charged with small thefts or non-payment of small sums were cheek by jowl with convicts sentenced to long terms of transportation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0064.pt|In the master's side yard, which had only one washing place, as many as seventy-eight prisoners, frequently more,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0065.pt|were associated together, "of every variety of age, habit, and delinquency, without employment, oversight, or control."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0066.pt|In the middle yard it was still worse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0067.pt|"Here," say the inspectors, "are herded together the very worst class of prisoners; certainly a more wretched combination of human beings can hardly be imagined.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0068.pt|We have reason to fear that poverty, ragged clothes, and an inability to pay the ward dues, elsewhere exacted for better accommodation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0069.pt|consign many of the more petty and unpracticed offenders to this place,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0070.pt|where they inevitably meet with further contamination from the society of the most abandoned and incorrigible inmates of the jail."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0071.pt|No doubt the governor for the time being, Mr. Cope, was in a great measure to blame for all this, and for the want of proper classification.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0072.pt|I shall have occasion to speak again, and more at length, of Mr. Cope's careless and perfunctory discharge
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0073.pt|of his many manifest duties, but I shall here confine myself to animadverting on his neglect as regards the appropriation of his prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0074.pt|He was unable to give any reason whatever for not utilizing the whole of the wards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0075.pt|He saw certain rooms fill up, and yet took no steps to open others that were locked up and empty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0076.pt|He blamed the construction of Newgate for the neglect of classification, and was yet compelled to confess that he had made no attempt whatever to carry it out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0077.pt|The fact was, he did not keep the classification of prisoners on first arrival in his own hands, nor even in that of his officers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0078.pt|A new prisoner's fate, as to location, rested really with a powerful fellow-prisoner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0079.pt|The inspectors found that prisoners had their places assigned to them
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0080.pt|by the inner gatesman, himself a convicted prisoner, and a "wardsman" or responsible head of a room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0081.pt|The wardsman still exacted dues, of which more directly,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0082.pt|and this particular official took excellent care to select as residents for his own ward those most suitable from his own point of view.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0083.pt|"So great is the authority exercised by him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0084.pt|and so numerous were his opportunities of showing favoritism, that all the prisoners may be said to be in his power.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0085.pt|If a man is poor and ragged, however inexperienced in crime, or however trifling may be the offense for which he has been committed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0086.pt|his place is assigned among the most depraved, the most experienced, and the most incorrigible offenders in the middle yard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0087.pt|It must be admitted that so far but little effort had been made to counteract the evils of indiscriminate association.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0088.pt|It was not likely that a system which left innocent men -- for the great bulk of new arrivals were still untried
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0089.pt|to be pitchforked by chance anywhere, into any sort of company,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0090.pt|within this the greatest nursery of crime in London, should exercise even the commonest care for the personal decency or comfort of the prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0091.pt|Their treatment was also a matter of chance. They still slept on rope mats on the floor, herded together in companies of four or more to keep one another warm
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0092.pt|and under the scanty covering of a couple of dirty stable-rugs apiece.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0093.pt|So closely did they lie together, that the inspectors at their night visits found it difficult in stepping across the room to avoid treading on them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0094.pt|Sometimes two mats were allotted to three sleepers. Sometimes four slept under the same bedding, and left their mats unoccupied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0095.pt|The rugs used were never washed; an order existed that the bedding should be taken into the yards to be aired, but it was not very punctually obeyed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0096.pt|The only convenience for personal ablutions were the pumps in the yards, and the far-off baths in the condemned or press-yard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0097.pt|Water might not be taken into the ward for washing purposes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0098.pt|There was some provision of clothing, but it was quite insufficient, and nothing at all was given if prisoners had enough of their own to cover their nakedness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0099.pt|The inspectors paraded the prisoners, and found them generally ragged and ill-clad, squalid and filthy in the extreme;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0100.pt|many without stockings, and with hardly shoes to their feet;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0101.pt|some, who had the semblance of covering on the upper part of their feet, had no soles to the shoes, and their bare feet were on the ground.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0102.pt|This, too, was in the depth of the winter, and during a most inclement season.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0103.pt|The allowance of food was not illiberal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0104.pt|but its issue was precarious, and dependent on the good will of the wardsmen, who measured out the portions to each according to his eye,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0105.pt|and not with weights and measures, no turnkey being present.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0106.pt|Too much was left to the wardsman. It was he who could issue small luxuries;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0107.pt|he sold tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, although prohibited, and extra beer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0108.pt|He charged a weekly sum as ward dues for the use of knives, forks, and plates
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0109.pt|a perpetuation under another form of the old detestable custom of garnish.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0110.pt|He had power where his exactions were resisted of making the ward most uncomfortable for the defaulter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0111.pt|He could trump up a false complaint against his fellow-prisoner, and so get him punished;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0112.pt|he might keep him from the fire, or give him his soup or gruel in a pail instead of a basin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0113.pt|The authority of these wardsmen so improperly exalted, and so entirely unchecked, degenerated into a baneful despotism.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0114.pt|They bought their offices from one another, and were thus considered to have a vested interest in them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0115.pt|Their original capital had been a few shillings, and for this they purchased the right to tax their fellows to the extent of pounds per week.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0116.pt|The wardsman had a monopoly in supplying provisions, gave dinner and breakfast at his own price, and was such complete master of the ward
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0117.pt|that none of its inmates were suffered to make tea or coffee for themselves lest it should interfere with his sales.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0118.pt|He made collections when it suited him for ward purposes, to be spent as he chose, in candles and so forth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0119.pt|When the wardsman was a man of some education, with some knowledge of legal chicanery gained by personal experience, he might add considerably to his emoluments
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0120.pt|by drawing briefs and petitions for his fellows. There was a recognized charge of five shillings per brief,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0121.pt|for a petition of from one shilling, half pence to eight shillings, according to its length,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0122.pt|and by these payments a wardsman had been known to amass as much as forty pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0123.pt|The man intrusted with this privilege was often the inner gatesman,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0124.pt|the prisoner official already mentioned, who held the fate of new arrivals as regards location in his hands.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0125.pt|It was not strange that he should sometimes misuse his power, and when prisoners were not to be cajoled into securing his legal services,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0126.pt|had been known to employ threats, declaring that he was often consulted by the governor as to a prisoner's character,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0127.pt|in view of speaking to it at the trial, and he could easily do them a good turn -- or a very bad one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0128.pt|The brief-drawing gatesman and wardsman at the time of the inspectors' first visit must have been a particularly powerful personage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0129.pt|He was on the most intimate and improperly familiar terms with the turnkeys,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0130.pt|had a key of both the master's side and middle side yards, was the only person present at the distribution of beer, and was trusted to examine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0131.pt|and, if he chose, pass in, all provisions, money, clothes, and letters brought for prisoners by their friends.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0132.pt|All the wardsmen alike were more or less irresponsible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0133.pt|The turnkeys complained bitterly that these old prisoners had more power than they themselves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0134.pt|The governor himself admitted that a prisoner of weak intellect who had been severely beaten and much injured by a wardsman did not dare complain
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0135.pt|the victim of this cruel ill-usage having "more fear of the power of the wardsman to injure him, than confidence in the governor's power to protect him."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0136.pt|These wardsmen, besides thus ruling the roast, had numerous special privileges, if such they can be called.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0137.pt|They were not obliged to attend chapel, and seldom if ever went; "prisoners," said one of them under examination, "did not like the trouble of going to chapel."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0138.pt|They had a standing bedstead to sleep on, and a good flock mattress; double allowance of provisions, filched from the common stock.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0139.pt|Nobody interfered with them or regulated their conduct. They might get drunk when so disposed, and did so frequently, alone or in company.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0140.pt|Evidence was given before the inspectors of eight or ten prisoners seen "giddy drunk, not able to sit upon forms."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0141.pt|The female wards-women were also given to intemperance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0142.pt|The matron deposed to having seen the gates-woman "exceedingly drunk," and having been insulted by her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0143.pt|There was no penalty attached to drunkenness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0144.pt|A wardsman did not necessarily lose his situation for it. Nor was drink the only creature comfort he might enjoy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0145.pt|He could indulge in snuff if a snuff-taker,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0146.pt|and might always smoke his pipe undisturbed; for although the use of tobacco had been prohibited since the report of the Lords Committee,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0147.pt|it was still freely introduced into the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0148.pt|Probably authority would not have been so recklessly usurped by the wardsmen had not the proper officials too readily surrendered it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0149.pt|The turnkeys left the prisoners very much to themselves, never entering the wards after locking-up time, at dusk, till unlocking next morning,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0150.pt|and then only went round to count the number.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0151.pt|Many of them were otherwise and improperly occupied for hours every day in menial services for the governor, cleaning his windows or grooming his horse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0152.pt|One turnkey had been so employed several hours daily for nearly eleven years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0153.pt|It was not strange that subordinates should neglect their duty when superiors set the example.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0154.pt|Nothing was more prominently brought out by the inspectors than the inefficiency of the governor at that time, Mr. Cope.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0155.pt|He may have erred in some points through ignorance, but in others he was clearly guilty of culpable neglect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0156.pt|We have seen that he took no pains to classify and separate prisoners on reception.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0157.pt|This was only one of many grave omissions on his part. He did not feel it incumbent on himself to visit his prison often or see his prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0158.pt|The act prescribed that he should do both every twenty-four hours, but days passed without his entering the wards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0159.pt|The prisoners declared that they did not see him oftener than twice a week;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0160.pt|one man who had been in the condemned ward for two months, said the governor only came there four times.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0161.pt|Again, a turnkey deposed that his chief did not enter the wards more than once a fortnight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0162.pt|But it is only fair to Mr. Cope to state that he himself said he went whenever he could find time
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0163.pt|and that he was constantly engaged attending sessions and going with drafts to the hulks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0164.pt|But when he did visit, his inspections were of the most superficial character
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0165.pt|sometimes he looked at his bolts and bars, but he never examined the cupboards, coal-boxes, or other possible hiding-places for cards
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0166.pt|dice, dangerous implements, or other prohibited articles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0167.pt|He only attended chapel once on Sunday, never on the week-day, and generally devoted the time service was in progress
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0168.pt|to taking the descriptions of newly-arrived prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0169.pt|He really did not know what passed in his jail
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0170.pt|and was surprised when the inspectors proved to him that practices of which he was ignorant, and which he admitted that he reprehended, went on without hindrance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0171.pt|He was satisfied to let matters run on as in the old times, he said in his own justification; with him what was, was right,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0172.pt|and evils that should have been speedily rooted out remained because they had the prescription of long usage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0173.pt|He kept no daily journal of occurrences, and nothing, however important, was recorded at the time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0174.pt|The aldermen never called upon him to report, and left him nearly unsupervised and uncontrolled.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0175.pt|In his administration of discipline he was quite uncertain;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0176.pt|the punishments he inflicted were unequal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0177.pt|and it was not the least part of the blame imputed to him that he made special favorites of particular prisoners, retaining of his own accord in Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0178.pt|and for years, felons who should have been sent beyond the seas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0179.pt|But, indeed, his whole rule was far too mild, and under this mistaken leniency
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0180.pt|the interior of the jail was more like a bear-garden or the noisy purlieus of a public-house than a prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0181.pt|It was the same old story -- evil constantly in the ascendant, the least criminal at the mercy of the most depraved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0182.pt|Under the reckless contempt for regulations,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0183.pt|the apathy of the authorities, and the undue ascendancy of those who, as convicted felons, should have been most sternly repressed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0184.pt|the most hardened and the oldest in vice had the best of it, while the inexperienced beginner went to the wall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0185.pt|Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who spent three years in Newgate a little before the time of the inspectors' first report,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0186.pt|said with justice that "incredible scenes of horror occur in Newgate."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0187.pt|It was, moreover, in his opinion undoubtedly the greatest nursery of crime in London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0188.pt|The days were passed in idleness, debauchery, riotous quarreling, immoral conversation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0189.pt|gambling, indirect contravention of parliamentary rules, instruction in all nefarious processes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0190.pt|lively discourse upon past criminal exploits, elaborate discussion of others to be perpetrated after release.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0191.pt|No provision whatever was made for the employment of prisoners, no materials were purchased, no trade instructors appointed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0192.pt|There was no school for adults; only the boys were taught anything, and their instructor, with his assistant, were convicted prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0193.pt|Idle hands and unoccupied brains found in mischief the only means of whiling away the long hours of incarceration.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0194.pt|Gaming of all kinds, although forbidden by the Jail Acts, was habitually practiced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0195.pt|This was admitted in evidence by the turnkeys, and was proved by the appearance of the prison tables, which bore the marks of gaming-boards deeply cut into them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0196.pt|Prisoners confessed that it was a favorite occupation, the chief games being "shoving halfpence" on the table,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0197.pt|pitch in the hole, cribbage, dominoes, and common tossing, at which as much as four or five shillings would change hands in an hour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0198.pt|But this was not the only amusement. Most of the wards took in the daily papers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0199.pt|the most popular being the "Times," "Morning Herald," and "Morning Chronicle"; on Sunday the "Weekly Dispatch," "Bell's Life," and the "Weekly Messenger."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0200.pt|The newsman had free access to the prison; he passed in unsearched and unexamined, and, unaccompanied by an officer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0201.pt|went at once to his customers, who bought their paper and paid for it themselves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0202.pt|The news-vendor was also a tobacconist,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0203.pt|and he had thus ample means of introducing to the prisoners the prohibited but always much-coveted and generally procurable weed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0204.pt|In the same way the wardsman laid in his stock to be retailed. Other light literature besides the daily journals were in circulation:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0205.pt|novels, flash songs, play-books, such as "Jane Shore," "Grimm's German Tales," with Cruikshank's illustrations,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0206.pt|and publications which in these days would have been made the subject of a criminal prosecution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0207.pt|One of these, published by Stockdale, the inspectors styled "a book of the most disgusting nature."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0208.pt|There was also a good supply of Bibles and prayers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0209.pt|the donation of a philanthropic gentleman, Captain Brown, but these, particularly the Bibles, bore little appearance of having been used.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0210.pt|Drink, in more or less unlimited quantities, was still to be had.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0211.pt|Spirits certainly were now excluded; but a potman, with full permission of the sheriffs,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0212.pt|brought in beer for sale from a neighboring public-house, and visited all the wards with no other escort than the prisoner gatesman.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0213.pt|The quantity to be issued per head was limited by the prison regulations to one pint
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0214.pt|but no steps were taken to prevent any prisoner from obtaining more if he could pay for it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0215.pt|The beer-man brought in as much as he pleased; he sold it without the controlling presence of an officer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0216.pt|Not only did prisoners come again and again for a "pint," but large quantities were carried off to the wards to be drunk later in the day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0217.pt|There were more varied, and at times, especially when beer had circulated freely, more uproarious diversions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0218.pt|Wrestling, in which legs were occasionally broken, was freely indulged in; also such low games as "cobham,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0219.pt|leap-frog, puss in the corner, and "fly the garter," for which purpose the rugs were spread out to prevent feet slipping on the floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0220.pt|Feasting alternated with fighting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0221.pt|The weekly introduction of food, to which I shall presently refer, formed the basis of luxurious banquets, washed down by liquor
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0222.pt|and enlivened by flash songs and thrilling long-winded descriptions of robberies and other "plants."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0223.pt|There was much swearing and bad language, the very worst that could be used, from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0224.pt|New arrivals, especially the innocent and still guileless debutant, were tormented with rude horse-play, and assailed by the most insulting "chaff."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0225.pt|If any man presumed to turn in too early
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0226.pt|he was "toed," that is to say, a string was fastened to his big toe while he was asleep, and he was dragged from off his mat,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0227.pt|or his bedclothes were drawn away across the room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0228.pt|The ragged part of the prisoners were very anxious to destroy the clothes of the better dressed, and often lighted small pieces of cloth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0229.pt|which they dropped smoldering into their fellow-prisoners' pockets.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0230.pt|Often the victim, goaded to madness, attacked his tormentors; a fight was then certain to follow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0231.pt|These fights sometimes took place in the daytime, when a ring was regularly formed, and two or three stood by the door to watch for the officer's approach.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0232.pt|More often they occurred at night, and were continued to the bitter end.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0233.pt|The prisoners in this way administered serious punishment on one another. Black eyes and broken noses were always to be seen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0234.pt|More cruel injuries were common enough, which did not result from honest hand-to-hand fights.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0235.pt|The surgeon's journal produced to the inspectors contained numerous entries of terrible wounds inflicted in a cowardly way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0236.pt|"A serious accident: one of the prisoners had a hot poker run into his eye."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0237.pt|"A lad named Matthew White has had a wound in his eye by a bone thrown at him, which very nearly destroyed vision."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0238.pt|"There was a disturbance in the transport yard yesterday evening, and the police were called in.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0239.pt|During the tumult a prisoner, who was one of the worst of the rioters, was bruised about the head and body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0240.pt|Watkins' knee-joint is very severely injured.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0241.pt|A prisoner Baxter is in the infirmary in consequence of a severe injury to his wrist-joint.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0242.pt|Watkins' case, referred to above, is made the subject of another and a special report from the surgeon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0243.pt|He was in the transport side, when one of his fellows, in endeavoring to strike another prisoner with a large poker, missed his aim, and struck Watkins' knee
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0244.pt|Violent inflammation and extensive suppuration ensued, and for a considerable time amputation seemed inevitable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0245.pt|After severe suffering prolonged for many months, the inflammation was subdued, but the cartilage of the knee-joint was destroyed, and he was crippled for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0246.pt|On another occasion a young man, who was being violently teased, seized a knife and stabbed his tormentor in the back.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0247.pt|The prisoner who used the knife was secured, but it was the wardsman, and not the officers, to whom the report was made, and no official inquiry or punishment followed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0248.pt|Matters were at times still worse, and the rioting went on to such dangerous lengths as to endanger the safety of the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0249.pt|On one occasion a disturbance was raised which was not quelled until windows had been broken and forms and tables burnt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0250.pt|The officers were obliged to go in among the prisoners to restore order with drawn cutlasses,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0251.pt|but the presence and authority of the governor himself became indispensable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0252.pt|The worst fights occurred on Sunday afternoons; but nearly every night the act of locking up became, from the consequent removal of all supervision,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0253.pt|the signal for the commencement of obscene talk, revelry, and violence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0254.pt|Other regulations laid down by the Jail Acts were still defied. One of these was that prisoners should be restricted to the jail allowance of food;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0255.pt|but all could still obtain as much extra, and of a luxurious kind, as their friends chose to bring them in.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0256.pt|Visitors were still permitted to come with supplies on given days of the week, about the only limitation being that the food should be cooked, and cold;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0257.pt|hot meat, poultry, and fish were also forbidden.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0258.pt|But the inspectors found in the ward cupboards mince-pies and other pasties, cold joints, hams, and so forth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0259.pt|Many other articles were introduced by visitors, including money, tobacco, pipes, and snuff.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0260.pt|From the same source came the two or three strong files which the inspectors found in one ward,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0261.pt|together with four bradawls, several large iron spikes, screws, nails, and knives;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0262.pt|all of them instruments calculated to facilitate attempts at breaking out of prison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0263.pt|and capable of becoming most dangerous weapons in the hands of desperate and determined men.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0264.pt|The nearly indiscriminate admission of visitors, although restricted to certain days, continued to be an unmixed evil.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0265.pt|The untried might see their friends three times a week, the convicted only once.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0266.pt|On these occasions precautions were supposed to be taken to exclude bad characters,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0267.pt|yet many persons of notoriously loose life continually obtained egress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0268.pt|Women saw men if they merely pretended to be wives; even boys were visited by their sweethearts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0269.pt|Decency was, however, insured by a line of demarcation, and visitors were kept upon each side of a separated double iron railing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0270.pt|But no search was made to intercept prohibited articles at the gate, and there was no permanent gate-keeper,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0271.pt|which would have greatly helped to keep out bad characters. Some idea of the difficulty and inconvenience of these lax regulations as regards visiting,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0272.pt|may be gathered from the statement that as many as three hundred were often admitted on the same day
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0273.pt|enough to altogether upset what small show of decorum and discipline was still preserved in the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0274.pt|Perhaps the worst feature of the visiting system was the permission accorded to male prisoners "under the name of husbands, brothers, and sons"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0275.pt|to have access to the female side on Sundays and Wednesdays, in order to visit their supposed relations there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0276.pt|On this female side, where the Ladies' Association still reigned supreme, more system and a greater semblance of decorum was maintained.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0277.pt|But there were evils akin to those on the male side, prominent amongst which was the undue influence accorded to prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0278.pt|A female prisoner kept the registers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0279.pt|Wards-women were allowed much the same authority, with the same temptations to excess, and intoxication was not unknown among them and others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0280.pt|The clothing was still meager and ragged: the washing places insufficient, and wanting in decency;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0281.pt|in some yards
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0282.pt|the pump was the only provision, and this in a place within sight of visitors, of the windows of the male turnkeys, and unprotected from the weather.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0283.pt|There was the same crowding in the sleeping arrangements as on the male side; the same scarcity of bedding.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0284.pt|It was a special evil of this part of the prison, that the devotional exercises, originally so profitable, had grown into a kind of edifying spectacle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0285.pt|which numbers of well-meaning but inquisitive people were anxious to witness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0286.pt|Thus, when the inspectors visited there were twenty-three strangers, and only twenty-eight prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0287.pt|The presence of so many strangers, many of them gentlemen, distracted the prisoners' attention, and could not be productive of much good.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0288.pt|The separation of the sexes was not indeed rigidly carried out in Newgate as yet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0289.pt|We have seen that male prisoners visited their female relations and friends on the female side. Besides this,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0290.pt|the gatesman who prepared the briefs had interviews with female prisoners alone while taking their instructions; a female came alone and unaccompanied by a matron
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0291.pt|to clean the governor's office in the male prison;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0292.pt|male prisoners carried coal into the female prison, when they saw and could speak or pass letters to the female prisoners;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0293.pt|and the men could also at any time go for tea, coffee, and sugar to Mrs. Brown's shop, which was inside the female gate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0294.pt|In the bail-dock, where most improper general association was permitted, the female prisoners were often altogether in the charge of male turnkeys.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0295.pt|The governor was also personally responsible for gross contravention of this rule of separation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0296.pt|and was in the habit of drawing frequently upon the female prison for prisoners to act as domestic servants in his own private dwelling.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0297.pt|Some member of the Ladies' Association observed and commented upon the fact that a "young rosy-cheeked girl" had been kept by the governor from transportation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0298.pt|while older women in infirm health were sent across the seas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0299.pt|His excuse was that he had given the girl his promise that she should not go, an assumption of prerogative which by no means rested with him;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0300.pt|but he afterwards admitted that the girl had been recommended to him by the principal turnkey, who knew something of her friends.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0301.pt|This woman was really his servant, employed to help in cleaning, and taken on whenever there was extra work to be done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0302.pt|The governor had a great dislike, he said, to seeing strangers in his house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0303.pt|This girl had been first engaged on account of the extra work entailed by certain prisoners
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0304.pt|committed by the House of Commons, who had been lodged in the governor's own house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0305.pt|The house at this time was full of men and visitors; waiters came in from the taverns with meals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0306.pt|Some of the prisoners had their valets, and all these were constantly in and out of the kitchen where this female prisoner was employed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0307.pt|There was reveling and roistering, as usual, with "high life below-stairs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ006-0308.pt|The governor sent down wine on festive occasions, of which no doubt the prisoner housemaid had her share.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section ten: The first report of the inspector of prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0002.pt|Eighteen years had elapsed since the formation of the "Ladies' Association,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0003.pt|and Mrs. Fry with her colleagues still labored assiduously in Newgate, devoting themselves mainly to the female prison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0004.pt|although their ministrations were occasionally extended to the male side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0005.pt|The inspectors paid tribute to the excellence of the motives of these philanthropic ladies, and recognized the good they did.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0006.pt|They had introduced "much order and cleanliness,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0007.pt|had provided work for those who had hitherto passed their time in total idleness, and had made the treatment of female transports on the way to New South Wales
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0008.pt|their especial care.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0009.pt|They had tried, moreover,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0010.pt|by their presence and their pious, disinterested efforts, to restrain the dissolute manners and vicious language of the unhappy and depraved inmates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0011.pt|But it was already plain that they constituted an independent authority within the jails; they were frequently in conflict with the chaplain,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0012.pt|who not strangely resented the orders issued by the aldermen
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0013.pt|that women should be frequently kept from chapel in order that they might attend the ladies' lectures and exhortations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0014.pt|The admission of a crowd of visitors to assist in these lay services has already been remarked upon; as the inspectors pointed out,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0015.pt|it had the bad effect of distracting attention,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0016.pt|it tended to "dissipate reflection, diminish the gloom of the prison, and mitigate the punishment which the law has sentenced the prisoner to undergo."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0017.pt|It is to be feared too that although the surface was thus whitewashed and decorous, much that was vicious still festered and rankled beneath,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0018.pt|and that when the restraining influences of the ladies were absent, the female prisoners relapsed into immoral and uncleanly discourse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0019.pt|Even in the daytime, when supervision was withdrawn, "the language used to be dreadful," says one of the women when under examination;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0020.pt|"swearing and talking of what crimes they had committed, and how they had done it." Another witness declared she had heard the most shocking language in the yard; she said
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0021.pt|"she had never witnessed such scenes before, and hopes she never shall again -- it was dreadful!"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0022.pt|After locking-up time, which varied, as on the male side, according to the daylight, the scenes were often riotous and disgraceful.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0023.pt|The poor, who could afford no luxuries, went to bed early, but were kept awake by the revelries of the rich,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0024.pt|who supped royally on the supplies provided from outside, and kept it up till ten or eleven o'clock.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0025.pt|There were frequent quarrels and fights; shoes and other missiles were freely bandied about;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0026.pt|and with all this "the most dreadful oaths, the worst language, too bad to be repeated," were made use of every night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0027.pt|Bad as were the various parts of the jail already dealt with,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0028.pt|there still remained one where the general callous indifference and mismanagement culminated in cruel culpable neglect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0029.pt|The condition of the capitally-convicted prisoners after sentence was still very disgraceful. The side they occupied, still known as the press-yard,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0030.pt|consisted of two dozen rooms and fifteen cells. In these various chambers, until just before the inspectors made their report,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0031.pt|all classes of the condemned, those certain to suffer, and the larger number who were nearly certain of a reprieve,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0032.pt|were jumbled up together, higgledy-piggledy, the old and the young, the murderer and the child who had broken into a dwelling.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0033.pt|All privacy was impossible under the circumstances.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0034.pt|At times the numbers congregated together were very great; as many as fifty and sixty, even more, were crowded indiscriminately into the press-yard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0035.pt|The better-disposed complained bitterly of what they had to endure;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0036.pt|one man declared that the language of the condemned rooms was disgusting, that he was dying a death every day in being compelled to associate with such characters.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0037.pt|In the midst of the noisy and blasphemous talk no one could pursue his meditations; any who tried to pray became the sport and ridicule of his brutal fellows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0038.pt|Owing to the repeated entreaties of the criminals who could hardly hope to escape the gallows, some show of classification was carried out,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0039.pt|and when the inspectors visited Newgate they found the three certain to die in a day-room by themselves;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0040.pt|in a second room were fourteen more who had every hope of a reprieve.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0041.pt|The whole of these seventeen had, however, a common airing-yard, and took their exercise there at the same time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0042.pt|so that men in the most awful situation, daily expecting to be hanged,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0043.pt|were associated continually with a number of those who could look with certainty on a mitigation of punishment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0044.pt|The latter, light-hearted and reckless, conducted themselves in the most unseemly fashion, and "with as much indifference as the inmates of the other parts of the prison."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0045.pt|They amused themselves after their own fashion; played all day long at blind-man's-buff and leap-frog, or beat each other with a knotted handkerchief,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0046.pt|laughing and uproarious, utterly unmindful of the companionship of men upon whom lay the shadow of an impending shameful death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0047.pt|"Men whose cases were dangerous, and those most seriously inclined, complained of these annoyances,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0048.pt|so subversive of meditation, so disturbing to the thoughts;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0049.pt|they suffered sickening anxiety, and wished to be locked up alone. This indiscriminate association lasted for months,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0050.pt|during the whole of which time the unhappy convicts who had but little hope of commutation were exposed to the mockery of their reckless associates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0051.pt|The brutal callousness of the bulk of the inmates of the press-yard may be gathered from the prison punishment-book, which frequently recorded such entries as the following:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0052.pt|Benjamin Vines and Daniel Ward put in irons for two days for breaking the windows of the day room in the condemned cells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0053.pt|"Joseph Coleman put in irons for three days for striking one of the prisoners," in the same place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0054.pt|There were disputes and quarrels constantly among these doomed men; it was a word and blow, an argument clenched always with a fight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0055.pt|The more peaceably disposed found some occupation in making Newgate tokens,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0056.pt|leaden hearts, and "grinding the impressions off penny-pieces, then pricking figures or words on them to give to their friends as memorials.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0057.pt|Turnkeys occasionally visited the press-yard, but its occupants were under little or no control.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0058.pt|The chaplain, who might have been expected to make these men his peculiar care, and who at one time had visited them frequently, often several times a week,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0059.pt|had relaxed his efforts, because, according to his own account, he was so frequently stopped in the performance of his duties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0060.pt|In his evidence before the inspectors he declared that "for years he gave his whole time to his duties, from an early hour in the morning till late in the afternoon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0061.pt|He left off because he was so much interfered with and laughed at, and from seeing that no success attended his efforts, owing to the evils arising from association.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0062.pt|Latterly his ministrations to the condemned had been restricted to a visit on Sunday afternoons, and occasionally about once a fortnight on a week-day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0063.pt|It is only fair to Mr. Cotton to add that, according to his own journal, he was unremitting in his attentions to convicts who were actually cast for death,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0064.pt|and the day of whose execution was fixed. He had no doubt a difficult mission to discharge;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0065.pt|on the one hand, the Ladies' Association, supported and encouraged by public approval, trenched upon his peculiar province;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0066.pt|on the other, the governor of the jail sneered at his zeal
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0067.pt|stigmatized his often most just strictures on abuses as "a bundle of nonsense," and the aldermen, when he appealed to them for protection and countenance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0068.pt|generally sided with his opponents. Nevertheless the inspectors summed up against him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0069.pt|While admitting that he had had many difficulties to contend with,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0070.pt|and that he had again and again protested against the obstacles thrown in his way, the inspectors "cannot forbear expressing their opinion that he might have shown greater perseverance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0071.pt|in the face of impediments confessedly discouraging
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0072.pt|as regards the private teaching of prisoners; and they went on to say that "a resolved adherence, in spite of discouragements the most disheartening,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0073.pt|to that line of conduct which his duty imposed on him
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0074.pt|would, it is probable, have eventually overcome the reluctance of some of the prisoners at least, and would have possessed so much moral dignity
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0075.pt|as effectually to rebuke and abash the profane spirit of the more insolent and daring of the criminals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0076.pt|The lax discipline maintained in Newgate was still further deteriorated by the presence of two other classes of prisoners who ought never to have been inmates of such a jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0077.pt|One of these were the criminal lunatics, who were at this time and for long previous continuously imprisoned there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0078.pt|As the law stood since the passing of the ninth George the fourth c. forty, any two justices might remove a prisoner found to be insane, either on commitment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0079.pt|or arraignment, to an asylum, and the Secretary of State had the same power as regards any who became insane while undergoing sentence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0080.pt|These powers were not invariably put in force, and there were in consequence many unhappy lunatics in Newgate and other jails,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0081.pt|whose proper place was the asylum.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0082.pt|At the time the Lords' Committee sat there were eight thus retained in Newgate, and a return in the appendix of the Lords' report
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0083.pt|gives a total of thirty-nine lunatics confined in various jails, many of them guilty of murder and other serious crimes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0084.pt|The inspectors in the following year, on examining the facts, found that some of these poor creatures had been in confinement for long periods:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0085.pt|at Newgate and York Castle as long as five years; "at Ilchester and Morpeth for seven years; at Warwick for eight years,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0086.pt|at Buckingham and Hereford for eleven years
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0087.pt|at Appleby for thirteen years, at Anglesea for fifteen years, at Exeter for sixteen years, and at Pembroke
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0088.pt|for not less a period than twenty-four years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0089.pt|It was manifestly wrong that such persons, "visited by the most awful of calamities," should be detained in a common prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0090.pt|Not only did their presence tend greatly to interfere with the discipline of the prison, but their condition was deplorable in the extreme.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0091.pt|The lunatic became the sport of the idle and the depraved. His cure was out of the question;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0092.pt|he was placed in a situation "beyond all others calculated to confirm his malady and prolong his sufferings."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0093.pt|The matter was still further complicated at Newgate by the presence within the walls of sham lunatics. Some of those included in the category
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0094.pt|had actually been returned as sane from the asylum to which they had been sent, and there was always some uncertainty as to who was mad and who not.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0095.pt|Prisoners indeed were known to boast that they had saved their necks by feigning insanity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0096.pt|It was high time that the unsatisfactory state of the law as regards the treatment of criminal lunatics should be remedied
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0097.pt|and not the least of the good services rendered by the new inspectors was their inquiry into the status of these unfortunate people, and their recommendation to improve it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0098.pt|The other inmates of the prison of an exceptional character, and exempted from the regular discipline, such as it was,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0099.pt|were the ten persons committed to Newgate by the House of Commons in eighteen thirty-five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0100.pt|These were the gentlemen concerned in the bribery case at Ipswich in eighteen thirty-five,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0101.pt|when a petition was presented against the return of Messrs. Adam Dundas and Fitzroy Kelly. Various witnesses, including Messrs. J. B. Dasent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0102.pt|Pilgrim, Bond, and Clamp, had refused to give evidence before the House of Commons' Committee; a Speaker's warrant was issued for their arrest when they absconded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0103.pt|Mr. J. E. Sparrow and Mr. Clipperton
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0104.pt|the parliamentary agents of the members whose election was impugned, were implicated in aiding and abetting the others to abscond, and a Mr. O'Mally,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0105.pt|counsel for the two M.P.'s, was also concerned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0106.pt|Pilgrim and Dasent were caught and given into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms, and the rest were either arrested or they surrendered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0107.pt|A resolution at once passed the House without division to commit the whole to Newgate, where they remained for various terms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0108.pt|Dasent and Pilgrim were released in ten days, on making due submission.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0109.pt|O'Mally sent in a medical certificate, declaring that the imprisonment was endangering his life, and after some question he was also released.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0110.pt|The rest were detained for more than a month, it being considered that they were the most guilty, as being either professional agents, who advised the others to abscond,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0111.pt|or witnesses who did not voluntarily come forward when the chance was given them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0112.pt|Many of the old customs once prevalent in the State Side, so properly condemned and abolished,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0113.pt|were revived for the convenience of these gentlemen, whose incarceration was thus rendered as little like imprisonment as possible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0114.pt|A certain number, who could afford the high rate of a guinea per diem, fixed by the under sheriff, were lodged in the governor's house,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0115.pt|slept there, and had their meals provided for them from the Sessions House or London Coffee-House.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0116.pt|A few others, who could not afford a payment of more than half a guinea, were permitted to monopolize a part of the prison infirmary,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0117.pt|where the upper ward was exclusively appropriated to their use. They also had their meals sent in, and, with the food, wine almost ad libitum.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0118.pt|A prisoner, one of the wardsmen, waited on those in the infirmary; the occupants of the governor's house had their own servants, or the governor's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0119.pt|As a rule, visitors, many of them persons of good position, came and went all day long, and as late as nine at night;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0120.pt|some to the infirmary, many more to the governor's house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0121.pt|There were no restraints, cards and backgammon were played, and the time passed in feasting and revelry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0122.pt|Even Mr. Cope admitted that the committal of this class of prisoners to Newgate was most inconvenient,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0123.pt|and the inspectors expressed themselves still more strongly in reprehension of the practice.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0124.pt|The infirmary at this particular period epitomized the condition of the jail at large.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0125.pt|It was diverted from its proper uses, and, as the "place of the greatest comfort," was allotted to persons who should not have been sent to Newgate at all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0126.pt|All the evils of indiscriminate association were strongly accentuated by the crowd collected within its narrow limits.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0127.pt|"It may easily be imagined," say the inspectors, in speaking of the prison generally,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0128.pt|"what must be the state of discipline in a place filled with characters so various as were assembled there, where the tried and the untried, the sick and the healthy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0129.pt|the sane and the insane, the young and the old, the trivial offender and the man about to suffer the extreme penalty of the law,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0130.pt|are all huddled together without discrimination, oversight, or control."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0131.pt|Enough has probably been extracted from this most damnatory report to give a complete picture of the disgraceful state in which Newgate still remained in eighteen thirty-five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0132.pt|The inspectors, however, honestly admitted that although the site of the prison was convenient, its construction was as bad as bad could be.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0133.pt|Valuable space was cumbered with many long and winding passages, numerous staircases, and unnecessarily thick and cumbrous inner walls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0134.pt|The wards were in some cases spacious, but they were entirely unsuited for separation or the inspection of prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0135.pt|The yards were narrow and confined, mainly because the ground plan was radically vicious. These were evils inseparable from the place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0136.pt|But there were others remediable under a better system of management.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0137.pt|More attention to ventilation, which was altogether neglected and inadequate, would have secured a better atmosphere for the unhappy inmates
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0138.pt|who constantly breathed an air heavy, and, when the wards were first opened in the morning, particularly offensive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0139.pt|Again, the discipline commonly deemed inseparable from every place of durance was entirely wanting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0140.pt|The primary object of committing a prisoner to jail, as the inspectors pointed out, was to deter not only the criminal himself, but others from crime,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0141.pt|and "to dispose him, by meditation and seclusion, to return to an honest life."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0142.pt|But at Newgate the convicted prisoner, instead of privation and hard fare,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0143.pt|"is permitted to purchase whatever his own means or the means of his friends in or out of prison can afford,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0144.pt|and he can almost invariably procure the luxuries of his class of life, beer and tobacco, in abundance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0145.pt|Instead of seclusion and meditation, his time is passed in the midst of a body of criminals of every class and degree, in riot, debauchery, and gaming,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0146.pt|vaunting his own adventures, or listening to those of others;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0147.pt|communicating his own skill and aptitude in crime, or acquiring the lessons of greater adepts. He has access to newspapers, and of course
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0148.pt|prefers that description which are expressly prepared for his own class, and which abound in vulgar adventure in criminal enterprise, and in the histories of the police,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0149.pt|the jail, and the scaffold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0150.pt|He is allowed intercourse with prostitutes who, in nine cases out of ten, have originally conduced to his ruin;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0151.pt|and his connection with them is confirmed by that devotion and generosity towards their paramours in adversity for which these otherwise degraded women are remarkable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0152.pt|Having thus passed his time, he returns a greater adept in crime, with a wider acquaintance among criminals, and, what perhaps is even more injurious to him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0153.pt|is generally known to all the worst men in the country; not only without the inclination, but almost without the ability of returning to an honest life."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0154.pt|These pungent and well-grounded strictures applied with still greater force to the unconvicted prisoner, the man who came to the prison innocent, and still uncontaminated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0155.pt|to be subjected to the same baneful influences, and to suffer the same moral deterioration, whether ultimately convicted or set free.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0156.pt|The whole system, or more correctly the want of system, was baneful and pernicious to the last degree.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0157.pt|The evils of such association were aggravated by the unbroken idleness; one "evil inflamed the other;" reformation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0158.pt|or any kind of moral improvement was impossible; the prisoner's career was inevitably downward, till he struck the lowest depths.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0159.pt|Forced and constant intercourse with the most depraved individuals of his own class;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0160.pt|the employment of those means and agents by which the lowest passions and the most vulgar propensities of man are perpetually kept in the highest state of excitement
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0161.pt|drink, gaming, obscene and blasphemous language; utter idleness, the almost unrestricted admission of money and luxuries;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0162.pt|uncontrolled conversation with visitors of the very worst description -- prostitutes, thieves, receivers of stolen goods
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0163.pt|all the tumultuous and diversified passions and emotions which circumstances like these must necessarily generate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0164.pt|forbid the faintest shadow of a hope that in a soil so unfavorable for moral culture
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0165.pt|any awakening truth, salutary exhortation, or imperfect resolutions of amendment can take root or grow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0166.pt|Strong as were the foregoing remarks, the inspectors wound up their report in still more trenchant language
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0167.pt|framing a terrible indictment against those responsible for the condition of Newgate. Their words deserve to be quoted in full.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0168.pt|"We cannot close these remarks," say the inspectors, "without an expression of the painful feelings with which we submit to your Lordship
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0169.pt|this picture of the existing state of Newgate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0170.pt|That in this vast metropolis, the center of wealth, civilization, and information;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0171.pt|distinguished as the seat of religion, worth, and philanthropy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0172.pt|where is to be found in operation every expedient by which Ignorance may be superseded by Knowledge, Idleness by Industry, and Suffering by Benevolence;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0173.pt|that in the metropolis of this highly-favored country, to which the eyes of other lands turn for example, a system of prison discipline such as that enforced in Newgate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0174.pt|should be for a number of years in undisturbed operation, not only in contempt of religion and humanity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0175.pt|but in opposition to the recorded denunciations of authority, and in defiance of the express enactments of the law,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0176.pt|is indeed a subject which cannot but impress every considerate mind with humiliation and sorrow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0177.pt|We trust, however, that the day is at hand when this stain will be removed from the character of the city of London,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0178.pt|and when the first municipal authority of our land will be no longer subjected to the reproach of fostering an institution which outrages the rights and feelings of humanity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0179.pt|defeats the ends of justice, and disgraces the profession of a Christian country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0180.pt|The publication of this report raised a storm in the city, and the corporation was roused to make an immediate protest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0181.pt|A committee of aldermen was forthwith appointed to report upon the inspectors' report,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0182.pt|and the result was another lengthy blue book, printed in the parliamentary papers, eighteen thirty-six,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0183.pt|traversing where it was possible the statements of the inspectors, and offering explanation and palliation of such evils as could not be denied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0184.pt|The inspectors retorted without loss of time, reiterating their charges, and pointing out that the committee of aldermen by its own admission
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0185.pt|justified the original allegations. It was impossible to deny the indiscriminate association; the gambling, drinking, smoking, quarreling in the jail;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0186.pt|the undue authority given to prisoners, the levying of garnish under another name
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0187.pt|the neglect of the condemned convicts, the filthy condition of the wards, the insufficiency of bedding and clothing,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0188.pt|the misemployment of officers and prisoners by the governor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0189.pt|The corporation evidently had the worst of it, and began to feel the necessity for undertaking the great work of reform.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0190.pt|Next year we find the inspectors expressing their satisfaction that "the full and faithful exposure which we felt it our duty to make of Newgate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0191.pt|has been productive of at least some advantage,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0192.pt|inasmuch as it has aroused the attention of those upon whom parliamentary reports and grand jury presentments had hitherto failed to make the slightest impression.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0193.pt|The measures of improvement introduced were mainly as follows:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0194.pt|the fixing of "inspection holes" in the doors and walls, so as to insure more supervision; of windows opening into the well-holes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0195.pt|to give better light and ventilation; the construction of bed-places, three tiers high alongside the walls for males, two tiers for females;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0196.pt|the provision of dining-rooms and dining-tables.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0197.pt|The infirmary was enlarged, the admission of visitors limited, and the passing of articles prevented by a wire screen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0198.pt|The windows were to be glazed and painted to prevent prisoners from looking out;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0199.pt|baths, fumigating places for clothing, wash-house, and the removal of dust-bins, completed the new arrangements in the main prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0200.pt|In the press-yard, the press-room and ward above it were parceled out into nine separate sleeping cells;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0201.pt|each was provided with an iron bedstead, and a small desk at which the condemned man might read or write.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0202.pt|But the one great and most crying evil remained unremedied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0203.pt|"The mischief of jail associations," say the inspectors,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0204.pt|"which has been demonstrably proved to be the fruitful source of all the abuses and irregularities which have so long disgraced Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0205.pt|is not only permitted still to exist in the prison, but is rendered more powerful than before.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0206.pt|In endeavoring to arrest contamination, prisoners were more closely confined, and associated in smaller numbers;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0207.pt|but this had the effect of throwing them into closer contact, and of making them more intimately acquainted with, more directly influential upon, one another.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0208.pt|In the inspectors' fourth report, dated eighteen thirty-nine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0209.pt|they return to the charge, and again call the corporation to task for their mismanagement of Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0210.pt|Abuses and irregularities, which had been partially remedied by the reform introduced in eighteen thirty-seven, were once more in the ascendant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0211.pt|"In our late visits," they say, "we have seen manifest indications of a retrograde movement in this respect,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0212.pt|and a tendency to return to much of that laxity and remissness which formerly marked the management of this prison."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0213.pt|Again the following year the inspectors repeat their charge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0214.pt|"The prominent evils of this prison (Newgate) -- evils which the alterations made within the last four years have failed to remove
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0215.pt|are the association of prisoners, and the unusual contamination to which such association gives rise.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0216.pt|For nearly twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four the prisoners are locked up, during which time no officer is stationed in the ward with them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0217.pt|They go on to say
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0218.pt|Newgate is only less extensively injurious than formerly because it is less crowded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0219.pt|The effects of the imprisonment are to vitiate its inmates, to extend their acquaintanceship with each other,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0220.pt|to corrupt the prisoner charged with an offense of which he may be innocent, and to confirm in guilt the young and inexperienced offender.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0221.pt|The reports as the years flow on reiterate the same complaints.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0222.pt|Much bitterness of feeling is evidently engendered, and the corporation grows more and more angry with the inspectors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0223.pt|The prison officials appear to be on the side of the inspectors, to the great dissatisfaction of the corporation, who claimed the full allegiance and support of its servants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0224.pt|In a resolution passed by the Court of Aldermen on eighteenth March, eighteen forty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0225.pt|I find it ordered "that the ordinary of Newgate be restricted from making any communications to the Home Office
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0226.pt|or the Inspectors of Prisons, and that he be required wholly to confine himself to the performance of his duty as prescribed by Act of Parliament.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0227.pt|The inspectors were not to be deterred, however, by any opposition from the earnest discharge of their functions, and continued to report against Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0228.pt|In their tenth report
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0229.pt|they state that they are compelled by an imperative sense of duty to advert in terms of decided condemnation to the lamentable condition of the prisons of the city of London,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0230.pt|Newgate, Giltspur St. Compter, and the City Bridewell,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0231.pt|in which the master evil of jail association and consequent contamination still continues to operate directly to the encouragement of crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0232.pt|The plan adopted for ventilating the dining-room on the 'master's side' and that of the middle yard is very inefficient;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0233.pt|it consists of several circular perforations, about two inches in diameter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0234.pt|slanting downwards from the top of the walls to the outside adjoining the slaughterhouses of Newgate market; and occasionally, in hot weather,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0235.pt|instead of ventilating the apartments, they only serve to convey the offensive effluvia arising from the decaying animal matter into the dining-rooms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0236.pt|Sometimes the stench in hot weather is said to be very bad.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0237.pt|Many rats also come through these so-called ventilators, as they open close to the ground at the back of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0238.pt|At the same time the inspectors animadvert strongly upon the misconduct of prisoners and the frequency of prison punishments,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0239.pt|both offenses and punishments affording a sufficient index to the practices going forward; and they wind up by declaring
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0240.pt|that a strict compliance with their duties gave them no choice "but to report matters as we found them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0241.pt|and again and again to protest against Newgate as it at present exists.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0242.pt|No complete and permanent improvement was indeed possible while Newgate remained unchanged.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ007-0243.pt|It was not till the erection of the new prison at Holloway in eighteen fifty, and the entire internal reconstruction of Newgate according to new ideas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section eleven: Executions, part one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0002.pt|I propose to return now to the subject of Newgate executions,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0003.pt|which we left at the time of the discontinuance of the long-practiced procession to Tyburn.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0004.pt|The reasons for this change were fully set forth in a previous chapter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0005.pt|The terrible spectacle was as demoralizing to the public, for whose admonition it was intended,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0006.pt|as the exposure was brutal and cruel towards the principal actors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0007.pt|The decision to remove the scene of action to the immediate front of the jail itself
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0008.pt|was in the right direction, as making the performance shorter and diminishing the area of display.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0009.pt|But the Old Bailey was not exclusively used;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0010.pt|at first, and for some few years after seventeen eighty-four, executions took place occasionally at a distance from Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0011.pt|This was partly due to the survival of the old notion that the scene of the crime ought also to witness the retribution;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0012.pt|partly perhaps because residents in and about the Old Bailey raised a loud protest against the constant erection of the scaffold in their neighborhood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0013.pt|As regards the first, I find that in seventeen eighty-six
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0014.pt|John Hogan, the murderer of a Mr. Odell, an attorney who resided in Charlotte Street, Rathbone Place,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0015.pt|was executed on a gibbet in front of his victim's house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0016.pt|Lawrence Jones, a burglar, was in seventeen ninety-three ordered for execution in Hatton Garden, near the house he had robbed;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0017.pt|and when he evaded the sentence by suicide, his body was exhibited in the same neighborhood,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0018.pt|extended upon a plank on the top of an open cart, in his clothes, and fettered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0019.pt|Again, as late as eighteen oh nine and eighteen twelve, Execution Dock, on the banks of the Thames, was still retained.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0020.pt|Here John Sutherland, commander of the British armed transport 'The Friends,' suffered on the twenty-ninth June, eighteen oh nine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0021.pt|for the murder of his cabin-boy, whom he stabbed after much ill-usage on board the ship as it lay in the Tagus.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0022.pt|On the eighteenth December, eighteen twelve,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0023.pt|two sailors, Charles Palm and Sam Tilling, were hanged at the same place for the murder of their captain, James Keith
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0024.pt|of the trading vessel 'Adventure,' upon the high seas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0025.pt|They were taken in a cart to the place of execution, amidst a vast concourse of people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0026.pt|Palm, as soon as he was seated in the cart,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0027.pt|put a quid of tobacco into his mouth, and offered another to his companion, who refused it with indignation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0028.pt|Some indications of pity were offered for the fate of Tilling; Palm, execration alone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0029.pt|But the Old Bailey gradually, and in spite of all objections urged, monopolized the dread business of execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0030.pt|The first affair of the kind on this spot was on the third December, seventeen eighty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0031.pt|when, in pursuance of an order issued by the Recorder to the sheriffs of Middlesex and the keeper of His Majesty's jail, Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0032.pt|a scaffold was erected in front of that prison for the execution of several convicts named by the Recorder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0033.pt|Ten were executed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0034.pt|the scaffold hung with black; and the inhabitants of the neighborhood, having petitioned the sheriffs to remove the scene of execution to the old place,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0035.pt|were told that the plan had been well considered, and would be persevered in.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0036.pt|The following twenty-third April, it is stated that the malefactors ordered for execution on the eighteenth instead
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0037.pt|were brought out of Newgate about eight in the morning, and suspended on a gallows of a new construction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0038.pt|After hanging the usual time they were taken down, and the machine cleared away in half-an-hour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0039.pt|By practice the art is much improved, and there is no part of the world in which villains are hanged in so neat a manner, and with so little ceremony.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0040.pt|A full description of this new gallows, which was erected in front of the debtors' door, is to be found in contemporary records.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0041.pt|The criminals are not exposed to view till they mount the fatal stage. The last part of the stage, or that next to the jail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0042.pt|is enclosed by a temporary roof, under which are placed two seats for the reception of the sheriffs, one on each side of the stairs leading to the scaffold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0043.pt|Round the north, west, and south sides are erected galleries for the reception of officers, attendants, etc.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0044.pt|and at the distance of five feet from the same is fixed a strong railing all round the scaffold to enclose a place for the constables.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0045.pt|In the middle of this machinery is placed a movable platform, in form of a trap-door, ten feet long by eight wide,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0046.pt|on the middle of which is placed the gibbet, extending from the jail across the Old Bailey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0047.pt|This movable platform is raised six inches higher than the rest of the scaffold, and on it the convicts stand;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0048.pt|it is supported by two beams, which are held in their place by bolts. The movement of the lever withdraws the bolts, the platform falls in;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0049.pt|and this, being much more sudden and regular than that of a cart being drawn away, has the effect of immediate death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0050.pt|A broadsheet dated April twenty-fourth, seventeen eighty-seven, describing an execution on the newly-invented scaffold before the debtors' door,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0051.pt|says, "The scaffold on which these miserable people suffered is a temporary machine which was drawn out of the yard of the sessions house by horses;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0052.pt|it is supported by strong posts fixed into grooves made in the street;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0053.pt|the whole is temporary, being all calculated to take to pieces, which are preserved within the prison."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0054.pt|This contrivance appears to have been copied with improvements from that which had been used in Dublin at a still earlier date,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0055.pt|for that city claims the priority in establishing the custom of hanging criminals at the jail itself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0056.pt|The Dublin "engine of death," as the gallows are styled in the account from which the following description is taken, consisted of an iron bar
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0057.pt|parallel to the prison wall, and about four feet from it, but strongly affixed thereto with iron scroll clamps.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0058.pt|From this bar hang several iron loops, in which the halters are tied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0059.pt|Under this bar at a proper distance is a piece of flooring or platform,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0060.pt|projecting somewhat beyond the range of the iron bar, and swinging upon hinges affixed to the wall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0061.pt|The entrance upon this floor or leaf is from the middle window over the gate of the prison;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0062.pt|and this floor is supported below,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0063.pt|while the criminals stand upon it, by two pieces of timber, which are made to slide in and out of the prison wall through apertures made for that purpose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0064.pt|When the criminals are tied up and prepared for their fate, this floor suddenly falls down, upon withdrawing the supporters inwards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0065.pt|They are both drawn at once by a windlass, and the unhappy culprits remain suspended.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0066.pt|This mode of execution, it is alleged, gave rise to the old vulgar "chaff," "Take care, or you'll die at the fall of the leaf."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0067.pt|The machinery in use in Dublin is much the same as that employed at many jails now-a-days.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0068.pt|But the fall apart and inwards of two leaves is considered superior.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0069.pt|The latter is the method still followed at Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0070.pt|The sentences inflicted in front of Newgate were not limited to hanging.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0071.pt|In the few years which elapsed between the establishment of the gallows at Newgate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0072.pt|and the abolition of the practice of burning females for petty treason, more than one woman suffered this penalty at the Old Bailey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0073.pt|One case is preserved by Catnach,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0074.pt|that of Phoebe Harris, who in seventeen eighty-eight was "barbariously" executed and burnt before Newgate for coining.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0075.pt|She is described as a well-made little woman, something more than thirty years of age, of a pale complexion and not disagreeable features.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0076.pt|When she came out of prison she appeared languid and terrified, and trembled greatly as she advanced to the stake,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0077.pt|where the apparatus for the punishment she was about to experience
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0078.pt|seemed to strike her mind with horror and consternation, to the exclusion of all power of recollectedness in preparation for the approaching awful moment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0079.pt|She walked from the debtors' door to a stake fixed in the ground about half-way between the scaffold and Newgate Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0080.pt|She was immediately tied by the neck to an iron bolt fixed near the top of the stake,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0081.pt|and after praying fervently for a few minutes, the steps on which she stood were drawn away, and she was left suspended.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0082.pt|A chain fastened by nails to the stake was then put round her body by the executioner with his assistants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0083.pt|Two cart-loads of faggots were piled about her, and after she had hung for half-an-hour the fire was kindled.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0084.pt|The flames presently burned the halter, the body fell a few inches, and hung then by the iron chain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0085.pt|The fire had not quite burnt out at twelve, in nearly four hours, that is to say.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0086.pt|A great concourse of people attended on this melancholy occasion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0087.pt|The change from Tyburn to the Old Bailey had worked no improvement as regards the gathering together of the crowd or its demeanor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0088.pt|As many spectators as ever thronged to see the dreadful show,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0089.pt|and they were packed into a more limited space, disporting themselves as heretofore by brutal horse-play, coarse jests, and frantic yells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0090.pt|It was still the custom to offer warm encouragement or bitter disapproval, according to the character and antecedents of the sufferer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0091.pt|The highwayman, whose exploits many in the crowd admired or emulated, was cheered and bidden to die game;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0092.pt|the man of better birth could hope for no sympathy, whatever his crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0093.pt|At the execution of Governor Wall, in eighteen oh two, the furious hatred of the mob was plainly apparent in their appalling cries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0094.pt|His appearance on the scaffold was the signal for three prolonged shouts from an innumerable populace, "the brutal effusion of one common sentiment."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0095.pt|It was said that so large a crowd had never collected since the execution of Mrs. Brownrigg, nor had the public indignation risen so high.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0096.pt|Pieman and ballad-monger did their usual roaring trade amidst the dense throng.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0097.pt|No sooner was the "job" finished than half-a-dozen competitors appeared, each offering the identical rope for sale at a shilling an inch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0098.pt|One was the "yeoman of the halter," a Newgate official, the executioner's assistant, whom Mr. J. T. Smith, who was present at the execution,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0099.pt|describes as "a most diabolical-looking little wretch -- Jack Ketch's head man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0100.pt|The yeoman was, however, under-sold by his wife, "Rosy Emma,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0101.pt|exuberant in talk and hissing hot from Pie Corner, where she had taken her morning dose of gin-and-bitters.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0102.pt|A little further off, says Mr. Smith, was "a lath of a fellow past three-score years and ten,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0103.pt|who had just arrived from the purlieus of Black Boy Alley, woebegone as Romeo's apothecary, exclaiming,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0104.pt|Here's the identical rope at sixpence an inch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0105.pt|Mr. Smith's account of the condemned convict, whose cell he was permitted to enter, may be inserted here.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0106.pt|He was introduced by the ordinary, Dr. Forde, a name familiar to the reader, who met him at the felons' door
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0107.pt|in his canonicals, and with his head as stiffly erect as a sheriff's coachman.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0108.pt|The ordinary "gravely uttered, 'Come this way, Mr. Smith.'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0109.pt|As we crossed the press yard a cock crew, and the solitary clanking of a restless chain was dreadfully horrible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0110.pt|The prisoners had not risen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0111.pt|They entered a "stone cold room," and were presently joined by the prisoner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0112.pt|He was death's counterfeit, tall, shriveled, and pale;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0113.pt|and his soul shot out so piercingly through the port-holes of his head, that the first glance of him nearly petrified me
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0114.pt|His hands were clasped, and he was truly penitent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0115.pt|After the yeoman had requested him to stand up, 'he pinioned him,' as the Newgate phrase is
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0116.pt|and tied the cord with so little feeling that the governor (Wall), who had not given the wretch his accustomed fee, observed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0117.pt|"You have tied me very tight," upon which Dr. Forde ordered him to slacken the cord, which he did, but not without muttering.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0118.pt|"Thank you, sir," said the governor to the doctor, "it is of little moment."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0119.pt|He then made some observations to the attendant about the fire, and turning to the doctor, questioned him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0120.pt|"Do tell me, sir; I am informed I shall go down with great force; is it so?"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0121.pt|After the construction and action of the machine had been explained, the doctor asked the governor what kind of men he had commanded at Goree,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0122.pt|where the murder for which he was condemned had been committed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0123.pt|"Sir," he answered, "they sent me the very riff-raff."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0124.pt|The poor soul then joined the doctor in prayer, and never did I witness more contrition at any condemned sermon than he then evinced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0125.pt|The sheriff arrived, attended by his officers, to receive the prisoner from the keeper.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0126.pt|A new hat was partly flattened on his head, for, owing to its being too small in the crown, it stood many inches too high behind.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0127.pt|As we were crossing the press yard,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0128.pt|the dreadful execrations of some of the felons so shook his frame that he observed "the clock had struck;" and quickening his pace,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0129.pt|he soon arrived at the room where the sheriff was to give a receipt for his body, according to the usual custom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0130.pt|Before the colonel had been pinioned he had pulled out two white handkerchiefs, one of which he bound over his temples so as nearly to conceal his eyes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0131.pt|the other he kept between his hands.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0132.pt|Over the handkerchief around his brows he placed a white cap, the new hat being on top of all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0133.pt|He was dressed in a mixed-colored loose coat with a black collar, swandown waistcoat, blue pantaloons, and white silk stockings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0134.pt|Thus appareled he ascended the stairs at the debtors' door,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0135.pt|and stepped out on to the platform, to be received, as has been said, by prolonged yells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0136.pt|These evidently deprived him of the small portion of fortitude he had summoned up.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0137.pt|He bowed his head under extreme pressure of ignominy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0138.pt|and at his request the ordinary drew the cap further down over his face, when in an instant,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0139.pt|without waiting for any signal, the platform dropped, and he was launched into eternity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0140.pt|Whenever the public attention had been specially called to a particular crime, either on account of its atrocity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0141.pt|the doubtfulness of the issue, or the superior position of the perpetrator,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0142.pt|the attendance at the execution was certain to be tumultuous, and the conduct of the mob disorderly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0143.pt|This was notably the case at the execution of Holloway and Haggerty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0144.pt|in eighteen oh seven, an event long remembered from the fatal and disastrous consequences which followed it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0145.pt|They were accused by a confederate, who, goaded by conscience, had turned approver, of the murder of a Mr. Steele,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0146.pt|who kept a lavender warehouse in the city, and who had gardens at Feltham,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0147.pt|whither he often went to distill the lavender, returning to London the same evening.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0148.pt|One night he was missing
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0149.pt|and after a long interval his dead body was discovered, shockingly disfigured, in a ditch. This was in eighteen oh two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0150.pt|Four years passed without the detection of the murderers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0151.pt|but in the beginning of eighteen oh seven one of them, at that time just sentenced to transportation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0152.pt|made a full confession, and implicated Holloway and Haggerty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0153.pt|They were accordingly apprehended and brought to trial, the informer, Hanfield by name, being accepted as king's evidence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0154.pt|Conviction followed mainly on his testimony; but the two men, especially Holloway, stoutly maintained their innocence to the last.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0155.pt|Very great excitement prevailed in the town throughout the trial, and this greatly increased when the verdict was known.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0156.pt|An enormous crowd assembled to witness the execution, amounting, it was said, to the hitherto unparalleled number of forty thousand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0157.pt|By eight o'clock not an inch of ground in front of the platform was unoccupied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0158.pt|The pressure soon became so frightful that many would have willingly escaped from the crowd; but their attempts only increased the general confusion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0159.pt|Very soon women began to scream with terror;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0160.pt|some, especially of low stature, found it difficult to remain standing, and several, although held up for some time by the men nearest them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0161.pt|presently fell, and were at once trampled to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0162.pt|Cries of Murder! murder! were now raised, and added greatly to the horrors of the scene.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0163.pt|Panic became general. More women, children, and many men were borne down, to perish beneath the feet of the rest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0164.pt|The most affecting and distressing scene was at Green Arbor Lane, just opposite the debtors' door of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0165.pt|Here a couple of piemen had been selling their wares; the basket of one of them, which was raised upon a four-legged stool, was upset.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0166.pt|The pieman stooped down to pick up his scattered stock, and some of the mob, not seeing what had happened, stumbled over him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0167.pt|No one who fell ever rose again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0168.pt|Among the rest was a woman with an infant at the breast.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0169.pt|She was killed, but in the act of falling she forced her child into the arms of a man near her, and implored him in God's name to save it;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0170.pt|the man, needing all his care for his own life, threw the child from him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0171.pt|and it passed along the heads of the crowd, to be caught at last by a person who struggled with it to a cart and deposited it there in safety.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0172.pt|In another part seven persons met their death by suffocation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0173.pt|In this convulsive struggle for bare existence people fought fiercely with one another, and the weakest, of course the women, went under.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0174.pt|One cart-load of spectators having broken down, some of its occupants fell off the vehicle, and were instantly trampled to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0175.pt|This went on for more than an hour, and until the malefactors were cut down and the gallows removed;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0176.pt|then the mob began to thin, and the streets were cleared by the city marshals and a number of constables.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0177.pt|The catastrophe exceeded the worst anticipations. Nearly one hundred dead and dying lay about; and after all had been removed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0178.pt|the bodies for identification, the wounded to hospitals, a cart-load of shoes, hats, petticoats, and fragments of wearing apparel were picked up.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0180.pt|Among the dead was a sailor lad whom no one knew;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0181.pt|he had his pockets filled with bread and cheese, and it was generally supposed that he had come a long distance to see the fatal show.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0182.pt|A tremendous crowd assembled when Bellingham was executed in eighteen twelve for the murder of Spencer Percival, at that time prime minister;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0183.pt|but there were no serious accidents, beyond those caused by the goring of a maddened, over-driven ox which forced its way through the crowd.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0184.pt|Precautions had been taken by the erection of barriers, and the posting of placards at all the avenues to the Old Bailey, on which was printed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0185.pt|Beware of entering the crowd! Remember thirty poor persons were pressed to death by the crowd when Haggerty and Holloway were executed!
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0186.pt|The concourse was very great, notwithstanding these warnings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0187.pt|It was still greater at Fauntleroy's execution in eighteen twenty-four, when no less than one hundred thousand persons assembled, it was said.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0188.pt|Every window and roof which could command a view of the horrible performance was occupied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0189.pt|All the avenues and approaches, places even whence nothing whatever could be seen of the scaffold,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0190.pt|were blocked by persons who had overflowed from the area in front of the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0191.pt|At Courvoisier's execution in eighteen forty it was the same, or worse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0192.pt|As early as six a.m. the number assembled already exceeded that seen on ordinary occasions;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0193.pt|by seven a.m. the whole space was so thronged that it was impossible to move one way or the other.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0194.pt|Some persons were kept for more than five hours standing against the barriers, and many nearly fainted from exhaustion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0195.pt|Every window had its party of occupants; the adjoining roofs were equally crowded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0196.pt|High prices were asked and paid for front seats or good standing room. As much as five pounds was given for the attic story
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0197.pt|of the Lamb's Coffee House;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0198.pt|two pounds was a common price for a window.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0199.pt|At the George public-house to the south of the drop, Sir W. Watkin Wynn, Baronet,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0200.pt|hired a room for the night and morning, which he and a large party of friends occupied before and during the execution;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0201.pt|in an adjoining house, that of an undertaker, was Lord Alfred Paget, also with several friends.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0202.pt|Those who had hired apartments spent the night in them, keeping up their courage with liquids and cigars.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0203.pt|Numbers of ladies were present, although the public feeling was much against their attendance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0204.pt|One well-dressed woman fell out of a first-floor window on to the shoulders of the crowd below, but neither she nor any one else was greatly hurt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0205.pt|The city authorities had endeavored to take all precautions against panic and excitement among the crowd,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0206.pt|and caused a number of stout additional barriers to be erected in front of the scaffold,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0207.pt|and although one of these gave way owing to the extraordinary pressure, no serious accident occurred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0208.pt|Some years later an eye-witness published a graphic account of one of these scenes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0209.pt|Soon after midnight on the Sunday night, for by this time the present practice of executing on Monday morning had been pretty generally introduced,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0210.pt|the crowd began to congregate in and about the Old Bailey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0211.pt|Gin-shops and coffee-houses were the first to open doors, and touts began to bid for tenants for the various rooms upstairs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0212.pt|Cries of "Comfortable room!" "Excellent situation!" "Beautiful prospect!" "Splendid view!" resounded on every side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0213.pt|By this time the workmen might be heard busily erecting the gallows;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0214.pt|the sounds of hammer and saw intermingled with the broad jeers and coarse jests of the rapidly increasing mob.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0215.pt|One by one the huge uprights of black timber were fitted together,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0216.pt|until presently the huge stage loomed dark above the crowd which was now ranged round the barriers;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0217.pt|a throng of people whom neither rain, snow, storm, nor darkness ever hindered from attending the show.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0218.pt|They were mainly members of the criminal classes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0219.pt|their conversation was of companions and associates of former years, long ago imprisoned, transported, hanged, while they,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0220.pt|hoary-headed and hardened in guilt, were still at large.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0221.pt|They talked of the days when the convicts were hung up a dozen or more in a row;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0222.pt|of those who had shown the white, and those who had died game.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0223.pt|The approaching ceremony had evidently no terrors for these "idolaters of the gallows."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0224.pt|With them were younger men and women:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0225.pt|the former already vowed to the same criminal career, and looking up to their elders with the respect due to successful practitioners;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0226.pt|the latter unsexed and brutalized by dissipation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0227.pt|slipshod and slovenly, in crushed bonnet and dirty shawl, the gown fastened by a single hook,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0228.pt|their harsh and half-cracked voices full of maudlin, besotted sympathy for those about to die.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0229.pt|Above the murmur and tumult of that noisy assembly, the lowing and bleating of cattle as they were driven into the stalls and pens of Smithfield
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0230.pt|fell with a strange unnatural sound upon the ear
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0231.pt|Hush! the unceasing murmur of the mob now breaks into a loud deep roar,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0232.pt|a sound as if the ocean had suddenly broken through some ancient boundary, against which its ever restless billows had for ages battered;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0233.pt|the wide dark sea of heads is all at once in motion;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0234.pt|each wave seems trying to overleap the other as they are drawn onwards towards this outlet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0235.pt|Every link in that great human chain is shaken, along the whole lengthened line has the motion jarred, and each in turn sees,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0236.pt|coiled up on the floor of the scaffold like a serpent, the hangman's rope!
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0237.pt|The human hand that placed it there was only seen for a moment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0238.pt|as it lay, white and ghastly, upon the black boards, and then again was as suddenly withdrawn, as if ashamed of the deed it had done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0239.pt|The loud shout of the multitude once more subsided, or only fell upon the abstracted ear like the dreamy murmur of an ocean shell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0240.pt|Then followed sounds more distinct and audible, in which ginger-beer, pies, fried fish, sandwiches, and fruit
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0241.pt|were vended under the names of notorious murderers, highwaymen, and criminals,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0242.pt|famous in the annals of Newgate for the hardihood they had displayed in the hour of execution, when they terminated their career of crime at the gallows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0243.pt|Threading his way among these itinerant vendors was seen the meek-faced deliverer of tracts, the man of good intentions, now bonneted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0244.pt|now laughed at, the skirt of his seedy black coat torn across; yet,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0245.pt|though pulled right and left, or sent headlong into the crowd by the swing of some brutal and muscular arm,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0246.pt|Never once from that pale face passed away its benign and patient expression.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0247.pt|but ever the same form moved along in the fulfillment of his mission, in spite of all persecution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0248.pt|Another fight followed the score which had already taken place; this time two women were the combatants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0249.pt|Blinded with their long hair, they tore at each other like two furies; their bonnets and caps were trodden underfoot in the kennel,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0250.pt|and lay disregarded beside the body of the poor dog which, while searching for its master in the crowd,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0251.pt|was an hour before kicked to death by the savage and brutal mob.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0252.pt|Another deep roar, louder than any which had preceded it, broke from the multitude.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0253.pt|Then came the cry of 'Hats off!' and 'Down in front!' as at a theatre.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0254.pt|It was followed by the deep and solemn booming of the death-bell from the church of St. Sepulchre
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0255.pt|the iron knell that rang upon the beating heart of the living man who was about to die;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0256.pt|and with blanched cheek, and sinking, we turned away from the scene.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0257.pt|In thus describing the saturnalia before the gallows I have been drawn on somewhat beyond the period with which I am at present dealing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0258.pt|Let me retrace my steps, and speak more in detail of the treatment of the condemned in those bloodthirsty and brutally indifferent days,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0259.pt|and of their demeanor after sentence until the last penalty was paid.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0260.pt|One of the worst evils was the terrible and long-protracted uncertainty as to the result.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0261.pt|In the case of convicted murderers only was prompt punishment inflicted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0262.pt|and with them indeed this dispatch amounted to undue precipitancy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0263.pt|Forty-eight hours was the limit of time allowed to the unhappy man to make his peace, and during that time he was still kept on a bare allowance of bread and water.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0264.pt|But the murderers formed only a small proportion of the total number sentenced to death, and for the rest there was a long period of anxious suspense,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0265.pt|although in the long run mercy generally prevailed, and very few capitally convicted for crimes less than murder actually suffered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0266.pt|Thus in the years between May first, eighteen twenty-seven, and thirtieth April, eighteen thirty-one,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0267.pt|no less than four hundred and fifty-one sentences of death for capital crimes were passed at the Old Bailey;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0268.pt|but of these three hundred and ninety-six were reversed by the king in council, and only fifty-two were really executed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0269.pt|Already the severity of our criminal code, and the number of capital felonies upon the statute book, had brought a reaction;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0270.pt|and while the courts adhered to the letter of the law, appeals were constantly made to the royal prerogative of mercy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0271.pt|This was more particularly the practice in London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0272.pt|Judges on assize were satisfied with simply recording a sentence of death against offenders whom they did not think deserved the extreme penalty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0273.pt|At the Old Bailey almost every one capitally convicted by a jury was sentenced to be hanged.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0274.pt|The result in the latter case was left in the first place to the king in council,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0275.pt|but there was a further appeal then, as now, to the king himself, or practically to the Home Secretary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0276.pt|Neither in town or country were cases entirely taken on their own merits.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0277.pt|Convicted offenders might have good or bad luck; they might be arraigned when their particular crime was uncommon, and were then nearly certain to escape;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0278.pt|or theirs might be one of many, and it might be considered necessary to "make an example."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0279.pt|In this latter it might fairly be said that a man was put to death less for his own sins than for the crimes of others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0280.pt|The absurdity of the system, its irregularity and cruelty, were fully touched upon by the inspectors of prisons in their first report.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0281.pt|They found at Newgate, under disgraceful conditions as already described,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0282.pt|seventeen capital convicts, upon all of whom the sentence of death had been passed. Eventually two only of the whole number suffered;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0283.pt|two others were sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and the balance to varying terms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0284.pt|Nothing could be more strongly marked than the contrast between the ultimate destiny of different individuals all abiding the same awful doom:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0285.pt|on the one hand the gallows, on the other a short imprisonment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0286.pt|The inspectors very properly desired to call attention to the inevitable tendency in this mode of dealing with "the most awful sanctions of the law,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0287.pt|to make those sanctions an object of contemptuous mockery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0288.pt|The consequences were plainly proved to the inspectors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0289.pt|Capitally convicted prisoners did, as a matter of fact, "treat with habitual and inexpressible levity the sentence of death."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0290.pt|Of this I have treated at length in the last chapter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0291.pt|The time thus spent varied considerably,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0292.pt|but it was seldom less than six weeks. It all depended upon the sovereign's disposition to do business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0293.pt|Sometimes the Privy Council did not meet for months, and during all that time the convicts languished with hope
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0294.pt|nearly indefinitely deferred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0295.pt|When the council had decided, the news was conveyed to Newgate by the Recorder, who made his "report," as it was called.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0296.pt|The time of the arrival of this report was generally known at Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0297.pt|and its contents were anxiously awaited by both convicts in the press-yard and their friends collected in a crowd outside the gates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0298.pt|Sometimes the report was delayed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0299.pt|On one occasion, Mr. Wakefield tells us, the Recorder, who had attended the council at Windsor, did not deliver the report till the following day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0300.pt|The prisoners and their friends, therefore, were kept in a state of the most violent suspense for many hours,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0301.pt|during which they counted the moments -- the prisoners in their cells as usual, and their friends in the street in front of Newgate, where they passed the night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0302.pt|I have heard the protracted agony of both classes described by those who witnessed it in terms so strong, that I am unwilling to repeat them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0303.pt|The crowd of men and women who passed the night in front of Newgate, began, as soon as the hour was passed when they had expected the report,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0304.pt|to utter imprecations against the Recorder, the Secretary of State, the Council, and the King;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0305.pt|they never ceased cursing until the passion of anger so excited was exchanged for joy in some and grief in others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0306.pt|I myself heard more than one of those whose lives were spared by that decision of the council,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0307.pt|afterwards express a wish to murder the Recorder for having kept them so long in suspense.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0308.pt|The Recorder's report generally reached Newgate late at night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0309.pt|Its receipt was immediately followed by the promulgation of its contents to the persons most closely concerned,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0310.pt|which was done with a sort of ceremony intended to be impressive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0311.pt|The whole of the convicts were assembled together in one ward, and made to kneel down.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0312.pt|To them entered the chaplain or ordinary of Newgate in full canonicals,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0313.pt|who in solemn tones communicated to each in turn the fate in store for him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0314.pt|The form of imparting the intelligence was generally the same.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0315.pt|"So-and-so, I am sorry to tell you that it is all against you;" or,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0316.pt|"A. B., your case has been taken into consideration by the king in council, and His Majesty has been mercifully pleased to spare your life."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0317.pt|The fatal news was not always received in the same way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0318.pt|The men who were doomed often fell down in convulsions upon the floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ008-0319.pt|Sometimes any who had had a narrow escape fainted, but the bulk of those respited looked on with unfeeling indifference.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section twelve: Executions, part two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0002.pt|It is satisfactory to be able to record that some consideration was shown the capital convict actually awaiting execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0003.pt|Even so severe a critic as Mr. Wakefield states that "a stranger to the scene
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0004.pt|would be astonished to observe the peculiar tenderness, I was going to add respect,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0005.pt|which persons under sentence of death obtain from all the officers of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0006.pt|Before sentence a prisoner has only to observe the regulations of the jail in order to remain neglected and unnoticed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0007.pt|Once ordered to the cells, friends of all classes suddenly rise up; his fellow-prisoners, the turnkeys, the chaplain,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0008.pt|the keepers, and the sheriffs all seem interested in his fate, and he can make no reasonable request that is not at once granted by whomsoever he may address.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0009.pt|This rule has some, but very few, exceptions; such as where a hardened offender behaves with great levity and brutality, as if he cared nought for his life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0010.pt|and thought every one anxious to promote his death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0011.pt|Mr. Wakefield goes on to remark that persons convicted of forgery "excited an extraordinary degree of interest in all who approached them."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0012.pt|This was noticeable with Fauntleroy, who, on account of his birth and antecedents, was allowed to occupy a turnkey's room,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0013.pt|and kept altogether separate from the other prisoners until the day of his death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0014.pt|It cannot be denied, however, that the ordinary's treatment was somewhat unfeeling, and in proof thereof
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0015.pt|I will quote an extract from the reverend gentleman's own journal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0016.pt|He seems to have improved the occasion when preaching the condemned sermon before Fauntleroy, by pointing a moral from that unhappy man's own case.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0017.pt|For this the chaplain was a few days later summoned before the jail committee of aldermen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0018.pt|and informed that the public would not in future be admitted to hear the condemned sermon. "I was also informed," writes Mr. Cotton,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0019.pt|that this resolution was in consequence of their (the aldermen's) disapproving of the last discourse delivered by me,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0020.pt|previous to the execution of Henry Fauntleroy for uttering a forged security
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0021.pt|in which it was said I had enlarged upon the heinous nature of his crime, and warned the public to avoid such conduct.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0022.pt|I was informed that this unnecessarily harassed his feelings, and that the object of such sermons was solely to console the prisoner,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0023.pt|and that from the time of his conviction nothing but what is consolatory should be addressed to a criminal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0024.pt|One of the aldermen, moreover, informed me that the whole court of aldermen were unanimous in their opinion on this subject.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0025.pt|As to the exclusion of strangers on these occasions,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0026.pt|the experience I have had convinces me that one, and perhaps the only, good of an execution, i. e. the solemn admonition to the public,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0027.pt|will thereby be lost.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0028.pt|Probably the reader will side with the aldermen against the ordinary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0029.pt|This episode throws some doubt upon the tenderness and proper feeling exhibited by the chaplain towards the most deserving members of his criminal flock;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0030.pt|and the idea will be strengthened by the following account of the Sunday service in the prison chapel on the occasion when the condemned sermon was preached.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0031.pt|The extract is from Mr. E. Gibbon Wakefield's brochure, the date eighteen twenty-eight, just three years after Fauntleroy's death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0032.pt|Strangers were now excluded, but the sheriffs attended in state, wearing their gold chains,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0033.pt|while behind their pew stood a couple of tall footmen in state liveries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0034.pt|The sheriffs were in one gallery;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0035.pt|in the other opposite were the convicts capitally convicted who had been respited.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0036.pt|Down below between the galleries was the mass of the prison population;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0037.pt|the schoolmaster and the juvenile prisoners being seated round the communion-table, opposite the pulpit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0038.pt|In the center of the chapel was the condemned pew, a large dock-like erection painted black.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0039.pt|Those who sat in it were visible to the whole congregation, and still more to the ordinary,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0040.pt|whose desk and pulpit were just in front of the condemned pew, and within a couple of yards of it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0041.pt|The occupants of this terrible black pew were the last always to enter the chapel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0042.pt|Upon the occasion which I am describing they were four in number; and here I will continue the narrative in Mr. Wakefield's own words:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0043.pt|First is a youth of eighteen, condemned for stealing in a dwelling-house goods valued above five pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0044.pt|His features have no felonious cast;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0045.pt|he steps boldly with head upright, looks to the women's gallery, and smiles. His intention is to pass for a brave fellow,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0046.pt|but the attempt fails; he trembles, his knees knock together, and his head droops as he enters the condemned pew.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0047.pt|The next convict is clearly and unmistakably a villain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0048.pt|He is a hardened offender, previously cast for life, reprieved, transported to Australia, and since returned without pardon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0049.pt|For this offense the punishment is death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0050.pt|He has, however, doubly earned his sentence, and is actually condemned for burglary committed since his arrival in England.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0051.pt|His look at the sheriffs and the ordinary is full of scorn and defiance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0052.pt|The third convict is a sheep-stealer, a poor ignorant fellow in whose crime are mitigating circumstances,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0053.pt|but who is left to die on the supposition that this is not his first conviction, and still more because a good many sheep have of late been stolen by other people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0054.pt|He is quite content to die;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0055.pt|indeed the chaplain and others have brought him firmly to believe that his situation is enviable, and that the gates of heaven are open to receive him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0056.pt|The last of the four is said to have been a clergyman of the Church of England, condemned for forgery, "a miserable old man in a tattered suit of black.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0057.pt|Already he is half dead.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0058.pt|Great efforts have been made to save his life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0059.pt|Friends, even utter strangers, have interceded for him, and to the last he has buoyed himself up by hope of reprieve.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0060.pt|Now his doom is sealed irrevocably, and he has given himself up to despair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0061.pt|He staggers towards the pew, reels into it, stumbles forward, flings himself on the ground, and, by a curious twist of the spine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0062.pt|buries his head under his body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0063.pt|The sheriffs shudder, their inquisitive friends crane forward, the keeper frowns on the excited congregation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0064.pt|the lately smirking footmen close their eyes and forget their liveries, the ordinary clasps his hands, the turnkeys cry 'Hush!'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0065.pt|and the old clerk lifts up his cracked voice, saying, 'Let us sing to the praise and glory of God.'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0066.pt|The morning hymn is sung first, as if to remind the condemned that next morning at eight a.m. they are to die.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0067.pt|The service proceeds. At last the burial service is reached.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0068.pt|The youth alone is able to read, but from long want of practice he is at a loss to find the place in his prayer-book.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0069.pt|The ordinary observes him, looks to the sheriffs, and says aloud, 'The service for the dead!'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0070.pt|The youth's hands tremble as they hold the book upside down.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0071.pt|The burglar is heard to mutter an angry oath.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0072.pt|The sheep-stealer smiles, and, extending his arms upwards, looks with a glad expression to the roof of the chapel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0073.pt|The forger has never moved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0074.pt|Let us pass on.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0075.pt|All have sung 'the Lamentation of a Sinner,' and have seemed to pray 'especially for those now awaiting the awful execution of the law.'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0076.pt|We come to the sermon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0077.pt|The ordinary of Newgate is an orthodox, unaffected, Church of England divine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0078.pt|who preaches plain, homely discourses, as fit as any religious discourse can be fit for the irritated audience.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0079.pt|The sermon of this day, whether eloquent or plain, useful or useless, must produce a striking effect at the moment of its delivery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0080.pt|The text, without another word, is enough to raise the wildest passions of the audience
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0081.pt|For a while the preacher addresses himself to the congregation at large, who listen attentively
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0082.pt|except the clergyman and the burglar, the former of whom is still rolled up at the bottom of the condemned pew,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0083.pt|while the eyes of the latter are wandering round the chapel, and one of them is occasionally winked impudently at some acquaintance amongst the prisoners for trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0084.pt|At length the ordinary pauses, and then, in a deep tone, which, though hardly above a whisper, is audible to all, says,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0085.pt|'Now for you, my poor fellow mortals, who are about to suffer the last penalty of the law.'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0086.pt|But why should I repeat the whole?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0087.pt|It is enough to say that in the same solemn tone he talks about the minutest of crimes, punishments, bonds, shame,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0088.pt|ignominy, sorrow, sufferings, wretchedness, pangs,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0089.pt|childless parents, widows and helpless orphans, broken and contrite hearts, and death tomorrow morning for the benefit of society.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0090.pt|The dying men are dreadfully agitated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0091.pt|The young stealer in a dwelling-house no longer has the least pretense to bravery. He grasps the back of the pew,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0092.pt|his legs give way, he utters a faint groan, and sinks on the floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0093.pt|Why does no one stir to help him? Where would be the use? The hardened burglar moves not, nor does he speak;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0094.pt|but his face is of an ashy paleness; and if you look carefully you may see the blood trickling from his lip,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0095.pt|which he has bitten unconsciously, or from rage, or to rouse his fainting courage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0096.pt|The poor sheep-stealer is in a frenzy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0097.pt|He throws his hands far from him, and shouts aloud, 'Mercy, good Lord! mercy is all I ask. The Lord in His mercy come!
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0098.pt|There! there! I see the Lamb of God! Oh! how happy! Oh! this is happy!
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0099.pt|Meanwhile the clergyman, still bent into the form of a sleeping dog,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0100.pt|struggles violently; his feet, legs, hands, and arms, even the muscles of his back,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0101.pt|move with a quick, jerking motion, not naturally, but, as it were, like the affected parts of a galvanized corpse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0102.pt|Suddenly he utters a short sharp scream, and all is still.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0103.pt|The silence is short. As the ordinary proceeds 'to conclude,'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0104.pt|the women set up a yell, which is mixed with a rustling noise, occasioned by the removal of those whose hysterics have ended in fainting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0105.pt|The sheriffs cover their faces, and one of their inquisitive friends blows his nose with his glove.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0106.pt|The keeper tries to appear unmoved, but his eye wanders anxiously over the combustible assembly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0107.pt|The children round the communion-table stare and gape with childish wonder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0108.pt|The two masses of prisoners for trial undulate and slightly murmur,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0109.pt|while the capital convicts who were lately in that black pew appear faint with emotion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0110.pt|This exhibition lasts for some minutes, and then the congregation disperses,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0111.pt|the condemned returning to the cells: the forger carried by turnkeys; the youth sobbing aloud convulsively, as a passionate child;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0112.pt|the burglar muttering curses and savage expressions of defiance; whilst the poor sheep-stealer shakes hands with the turnkeys,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0113.pt|whistles merrily, and points upwards with madness in his look.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0114.pt|Mr. Wakefield winds up his graphic but somewhat sensational account by describing another religious service, which may appropriately be inserted here.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0115.pt|He says, "On the day of execution there is no service in the chapel of Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0116.pt|On the following day the capital convicts, whose companions have been hanged, are required to return thanks for their narrow escape.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0117.pt|The firmest disbeliever in religion, if he had not lately been irritated by taking part in such a scene as the condemned service in Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0118.pt|could hardly witness this ceremony without being affected. The men, who were so lately snatched from the jaws of death,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0119.pt|kneel, whilst the rest of the congregation sit, and the ordinary, in a tone of peculiar solemnity, says,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0120.pt|Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0121.pt|for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us, and to all men;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0122.pt|particularly to those who desire now to offer up their praises and thanksgivings for thy late mercies vouchsafed unto them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0123.pt|Could any one, knowing the late situation of the kneeling men, looking as they do at the empty pew,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0124.pt|occupied when they saw it last, but a few hours ago, by their comrades who are now dead;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0125.pt|could any one, not disgusted with the religious ceremonials of Newgate, witness this scene without emotion?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0126.pt|Hardly any one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0127.pt|But what are the feelings of those who take part in it?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0128.pt|I have been present at the scene not less than twenty times, and have invariably observed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0129.pt|that many of the kneeling men or boys laughed while they knelt, pinched each other, and, when they could do so without fear of being seen by any officer of the prison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0130.pt|winked at other prisoners in derision of what was taking place; and I have frequently heard men and lads who had been of the kneeling party
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0131.pt|boast to their companions after the service that they had wiped their eyes during the thanksgiving, to make the ordinary believe they had been crying.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0132.pt|Although this misapplication of religious services still went on,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0133.pt|the outside public continued to be excluded from the Newgate chapel on the day the condemned sermon was preached.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0134.pt|This very proper rule was, however, set aside on the Sunday preceding Courvoisier's execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0135.pt|So many applications for admission were made to the sheriffs,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0136.pt|that they reluctantly agreed to open the gallery which had formerly been occupied by strangers on these occasions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0137.pt|Cards were issued, and to such an extent, that although the service was not to commence till half-past ten, by nine a.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0138.pt|all the avenues to the prison gates were blocked by ticket-holders.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0139.pt|In spite of the throng, owing to the excellent arrangements made by the sheriffs,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0140.pt|no inconvenience was suffered by the congregation, among whom were Lord Adolphus Fitz Clarence, Lord Coventry,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0141.pt|Lord Paget, Lord Bruce, several members of the House of Commons, and a few ladies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0142.pt|Contemporary accounts give a minute description of the demeanor of the convict upon this solemn occasion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0143.pt|He sat on a bench before the pulpit, -- the hideous condemned pew had been swept away, -- and never once raised his eyes during the service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0144.pt|In fact his looks denoted extreme sorrow and contrition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0145.pt|and he seemed to suffer great inward agitation when the ordinary particularly alluded to the crime for the perpetration of which he stood condemned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0146.pt|Mr. Carver, the ordinary, appears to have addressed himself directly to Courvoisier,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0147.pt|and to have dwelt with more emphasis than good taste upon the nature of the crime, and the necessity for repentance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0148.pt|But the chaplain admitted that the solitude of the convict's cell
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0149.pt|was more appropriate for serious reflection and profitable ministration than this exciting occasion before a large and public assembly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0150.pt|So far as I can find, Courvoisier was the last condemned criminal who was thus exhibited to a crowd of morbidly curious spectators.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0151.pt|The atrocity of the murder no doubt attracted extraordinary attention to it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0152.pt|The crowd outside Newgate on the day of execution has already been described; but there was also a select gathering of distinguished visitors within the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0153.pt|First came the sheriffs, the under-sheriffs, and several aldermen and city officials, then Lord Powerscourt and several other peers of the realm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0154.pt|Mr. Charles Kean the tragedian was also present,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0155.pt|drawn to this terrible exhibition by the example of his father, the more celebrated Edmund Kean, who had witnessed the execution of Thistlewood
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0156.pt|"with a view," as he himself said, "to his professional studies."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0157.pt|But there is little doubt that as executions became more rare they made more impression on the public mind.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0158.pt|Already a strong dislike to the reckless and almost indiscriminate application of the extreme penalty was apparent in all classes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0159.pt|and the mitigation of the criminal code, for which Romilly had so strenuously labored, was daily more and more of an accomplished fact.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0160.pt|In eighteen thirty-two
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0161.pt|capital punishment was abolished for forgery, except in cases of forging or altering wills or powers of attorney to transfer stock.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0162.pt|Nevertheless, after that date no person whatever was executed for this offense.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0163.pt|In the same year capital punishment was further restricted, and ceased to be the legal sentence for coining,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0164.pt|sheep or horse stealing, and stealing in a dwelling-house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0165.pt|House-breaking, as distinguished from burglary, was similarly exempted in the following year;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0166.pt|next, the offenses of returning from transportation, stealing post-office letters, and sacrilege were no longer punishable with death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0167.pt|In eighteen thirty-seven Lord John Russell's acts swept away a number of capital offenses, including cutting and maiming, rick-burning,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0168.pt|robbery, burglary, and arson.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0169.pt|Within a couple of years the number of persons sentenced to death in England had fallen from four hundred and thirty-eight in eighteen thirty-seven
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0170.pt|to fifty-six in eighteen thirty-nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0171.pt|Gradually the application of capital punishment became more and more restricted, and was soon the penalty for murder alone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0172.pt|While in London, for instance, in eighteen twenty-nine, twenty-four persons had been executed for crimes other than murder,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0173.pt|from eighteen thirty-two to eighteen forty-four not a single person had been executed in the metropolis except for this the gravest crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0174.pt|In eighteen thirty-seven the death penalty was practically limited to murder or attempts to murder,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0175.pt|and in eighteen forty-one this was accepted as the almost universally established rule.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0176.pt|Seven other crimes, however, were still capital by law, and so continued till the passing of the Criminal Consolidation Acts of eighteen sixty-one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0177.pt|With the amelioration of the criminal code, other cruel concomitants of execution also disappeared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0178.pt|In eighteen thirty-two the dissection of bodies cut down from the gallows, which had been decreed centuries previously, was abolished;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0179.pt|the most recent enactment in force was the ninth George the fourth cap. thirty-one, which directed the dissection of all bodies of executed murderers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0180.pt|the idea being to intensify the dread of capital punishment. That such dread was not universal or deep-seated may be gathered from the fact
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0181.pt|that authentic cases were known previous to the first cited act of criminals selling their own bodies to surgeons for dissection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0182.pt|This dissection was carried out for Newgate prisoners in Surgeons' Hall, adjoining Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0183.pt|the site of the present Sessions House of the Old Bailey, and the operation was witnessed by students and a number of curious spectators.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0184.pt|Lord Ferrers' body was brought to Surgeons' Hall after execution in his own carriage and six;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0185.pt|after the post mortem had been carried out, the corpse was exposed to view in a first-floor room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0186.pt|Pennant speaks of Surgeons' Hall as a handsome building, ornamented with Ionic pilasters, and with a double flight of steps to the first floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0187.pt|Beneath is a door for the admission of the bodies of murderers and other felons. There were other public dissecting rooms for criminals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0188.pt|One was attached to Hicks' Hall, the Clerkenwell Sessions House, built out of monies provided by Sir Baptist Hicks, a wealthy alderman of the reign of James the first
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0189.pt|Persons were still living in eighteen fifty-five who had witnessed dissections at Hicks' Hall, and
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0190.pt|whom the horrid scene, with the additional effect of some noted criminals hanging on the walls, drove out again sick and faint,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0191.pt|as we have heard some relate, and with pale and terrified features, to get a breath of air.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0192.pt|The dissection of executed criminals was abolished soon after the discovery of the crime of burking,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0193.pt|with the idea that ignominy would no longer attach to an operation which ceased to be compulsory for the most degraded beings;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0194.pt|and that executors or persons having lawful possession of the bodies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0195.pt|of people who had died friendless, would voluntarily surrender them for the advancement of medical science.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0196.pt|Another brutal practice had nearly disappeared about the time of the abolition of dissection. This was the public exhibition of the body,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0197.pt|as was done in the case of Mrs. Phipoe, the murderess, who was executed in front of Newgate in seventeen ninety-eight,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0198.pt|and her body publicly exhibited in a place built for the purpose in the Old Bailey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0199.pt|About this time I find that the bodies of two murderers, Clench and Mackay,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0200.pt|were publicly exposed in a stable in Little Bridge Street, near Apothecaries' Hall,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0201.pt|Surgeons' Hall being let to the lieutenancy of the county for the accommodation of the militia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0202.pt|In eighteen eleven Williams, who murdered the Marrs in Ratcliffe Highway, having committed suicide in jail to escape hanging,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0203.pt|it was determined that a public exhibition should be made of the body through the neighborhood which had been the scene of the monster's crimes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0204.pt|A long procession was formed, headed by constables, who cleared the way with their staves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0205.pt|Then came the newly-formed horse patrol, with drawn cutlasses,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0206.pt|parish officers, peace officers, the high constable of the county of Middlesex on horseback, and then the body of Williams,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0207.pt|extended at full length on an inclined platform
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0208.pt|erected on the cart, about four feet high at the head, and gradually sloping towards the horse, giving a full view of the body,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0209.pt|which was dressed in blue trousers and a blue-and-white striped waistcoat, but without a coat, as when found in the cell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0210.pt|On the left side of the head the fatal mall,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0211.pt|and on the right the ripping chisel, with which the murders had been committed, were exposed to view.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0212.pt|The countenance of Williams was ghastly in the extreme, and the whole had an appearance too horrible for description.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0213.pt|The procession traversed Ratcliffe twice, halting for a quarter of an hour in front of the victims' dwelling,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0214.pt|and was accompanied throughout by "an immense concourse of persons, eager to get a sight of the murderer's remains.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0215.pt|All the shops in the neighborhood were shut, and the windows and tops of the houses were crowded with spectators.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0216.pt|Hanging in chains upon the gibbet which had served for the execution,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0217.pt|or on another specially erected on some commanding spot, had fallen into disuse by eighteen thirty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0218.pt|But there was an attempt to revive it at that date, when the act for dispensing with the dissection of criminals was passed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0219.pt|A clause was inserted to the effect that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0220.pt|the bodies of all prisoners convicted of murder should either be hung in chains, or buried under the gallows on which they had been executed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0221.pt|according to the discretion of the court before whom the prisoners might be tried.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0222.pt|The revival of this barbarous practice caused much indignation in certain quarters,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0223.pt|but it was actually tried in two provincial towns, Leicester and Durham.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0224.pt|At the first-named the exhibition nearly created a tumult, and the body was taken down and buried,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0225.pt|but not before the greatest scandal had been caused by the unseemly proceedings of the crowd that flocked to see the sight. A sort of fair was held,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0226.pt|gaming-tables were set up, cards were played under the gibbet, to the disturbance of the public peace and the annoyance of all decent people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0227.pt|At Jarrow Stake, where the Durham murderer's body was exposed, there were similar scenes, mingled with compassion for the culprit's family,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0228.pt|and a subscription was set on foot for them then and there at the foot of the gibbet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0229.pt|Later on, after dark, some friends of the deceased stole the body and buried it in the sand, and this was the end of hanging in chains.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0230.pt|After this a law was passed which prescribed that the bodies of all executed murderers should be buried within the walls of the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0231.pt|Although these objectionable practices had disappeared,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0232.pt|there were still many shocking incidents at executions, owing to the bungling and unskilful way in which the operation was performed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0233.pt|The rope still broke sometimes, although it was not often that the horrid scene seen at Jersey at the beginning of the century was repeated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0234.pt|There the hangman added his weight to that of the suspended culprit,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0235.pt|and having first pulled him sideways, then got upon his shoulders, so that the rope broke.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0236.pt|To the great surprise of all who witnessed this dreadful scene,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0237.pt|the poor criminal rose straight upon his feet, with the hangman on his shoulders, and immediately loosened the rope with his fingers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0238.pt|After this the sheriffs sent for another rope, but the spectators interfered, and the man was carried back to jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0239.pt|The whole case was referred to the king, and the poor wretch, whose crime had been a military one, was eventually pardoned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0240.pt|A somewhat similar event happened at Chester not long afterwards; the ropes by which two offenders were turned off broke a few inches from their necks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0241.pt|They were taken back to jail, and were again brought out in the afternoon, by which time fresh and stronger ropes had been procured,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0242.pt|and the sentence was properly and completely carried out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0243.pt|Other cases might be quoted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0244.pt|especially that of William Snow, alias Sketch, who slipped from the gallows at Exeter and fell to the ground.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0245.pt|He soon rose to his feet, and hearing the sorrowful exclamations of the populace, coolly said,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0246.pt|Good people, do not be hurried; I am not, I can wait.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0247.pt|Similar cases were not wanting as regards the executions before Newgate. Others were not less horrible, although there was no failure of apparatus.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0248.pt|Sometimes the condemned man made a hard fight for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0249.pt|When Charles White was executed in eighteen twenty-three for arson, he arranged a handkerchief
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0250.pt|in such a way that the executioner found a difficulty in pinioning his hands.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0251.pt|White managed to keep his wrists asunder, and continued to struggle with the officials for some time. Eventually he was pinioned with a cord in the usual manner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0252.pt|On the scaffold he made a violent attempt to loosen his bonds, and succeeded in getting his hands free.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0253.pt|Then with a strong effort he pushed off the white cap, and tried to liberate his neck from the halter, which by this time had been adjusted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0254.pt|The hangman summoned assistance, and with help tied the cap over White's face with a handkerchief.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0255.pt|The miserable wretch during the whole of this time was struggling with the most determined violence, to the great horror of the spectators.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0256.pt|Still he resisted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0257.pt|and having got from the falling drop to the firm part of the platform, he nearly succeeded in tearing the handkerchief from his eyes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0258.pt|However, the ceremony went forward, and when the signal was given the drop sank.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0259.pt|The wretched man did not fall with it, but jumped on to the platform, and seizing the rope with his hands, tried to avoid strangulation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0260.pt|The spectacle was horrible;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0261.pt|the convict was half on the platform, half hanging, and the convulsions of his body were appalling.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0262.pt|The crowd vociferously yelled their disapproval, and at length
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0263.pt|the executioner forced the struggling criminal from the platform, so that the rope sustained his whole weight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0264.pt|His face was visible to the whole crowd, and was fearful to behold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0265.pt|Even now his sufferings were not at an end,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0266.pt|and his death was not compassed until the executioner terminated his sufferings by hanging on to his legs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0267.pt|When Luigi Buranelli was executed in eighteen fifty-five,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0268.pt|through the improper adjustment of the rope his sufferings were prolonged for five minutes;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0269.pt|his chest heaved, and it was evident that his struggle was a fearful one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0270.pt|A worse case still was that of William Bousfield, who, when awaiting execution for murder, about the same date,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0271.pt|had attempted to throw himself upon the fire in his condemned cell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0272.pt|He was in consequence so weak when brought out for execution, that he had to be carried by four men,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0273.pt|two supporting his body and two his legs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0274.pt|His wretched, abject condition, seated in a chair under the drop, was such as almost to unnerve the executioner Calcraft,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0275.pt|who bad been further upset by a letter threatening to shoot him when he appeared to perform his task.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0276.pt|Calcraft, the moment he had adjusted the cap and rope, ran down the steps, drew the bolt, and disappeared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0277.pt|For a second or two the body hung motionless, then, with a strength that astonished the attendant officials,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0278.pt|Bousfield slowly drew himself up, and rested with his feet on the right side of the drop.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0279.pt|One of the turnkeys rushed forward and pushed him off.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0280.pt|Again the wretched creature succeeded in obtaining foothold, but this time on the left side of the drop.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0281.pt|Calcraft was forced to return, and he once more pushed Bousfield off,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0282.pt|who for the fourth time regained his foothold. Again he was repelled,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0283.pt|this time Calcraft adding his weight to the body, and the strangulation was completed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0284.pt|It was stated in evidence before the Commission on Capital Punishment in eighteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0285.pt|that Calcraft's method of hanging was very rough, much the same as if he had been hanging a dog.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0286.pt|There has never been much science in the system of carrying out the extreme penalty in this country; the "finisher of the law"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0287.pt|has come more by chance than fitness or special education to exercise his loathsome office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0288.pt|Calcraft, of whom mention has just been made, was by trade a lady's shoemaker,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0289.pt|and before he took to hanging he was employed as a watchman at Reid's brewery in Liquorpond Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0290.pt|He was at first engaged as assistant to the executioner Tom Cheshire, but in due course rose to be chief.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0291.pt|He was always known as a mild-mannered man of simple tastes, much given to angling in the New River, and a devoted rabbit fancier.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0292.pt|He was well known in the neighborhood where he resided, and the street gamins cried "Jack Ketch" as he went along the street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0293.pt|While Calcraft was in office other aspirants to fame appeared in the field.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0294.pt|One was Askern,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0295.pt|who had been a convicted prisoner at York, but who consented to act as hangman when Calcraft was engaged, and no other functionary could be obtained.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0296.pt|It was not always easy to hire a hangman.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0297.pt|There is still extant a curious petition presented to the Treasury by Ralph Griffith, Esq., high sheriff of Flintshire,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0298.pt|which sets forth that the petitioner had been at great expense by sending clerks and agents to Liverpool and Shrewsbury to hire an executioner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0299.pt|The man to be hanged belonged to Wales, and no Welshman would do the job.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0300.pt|Traveling expenses of these agents cost fifteen pounds, and another ten pounds were spent in the hire of a Shropshire man,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0301.pt|who deserted, and was pursued, but without success.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0302.pt|Another man was hired, himself a convict, whose fees for self and wife were twelve guineas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0303.pt|Then came the cost of the gallows,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ009-0304.pt|four pounds, twelve shillings; and finally the funeral, cart, coffin, and other petty expenses, amounting to seven pounds ten
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section thirteen: Newgate notorieties, part one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0002.pt|In chapter two of the present volume I brought down the record of crime to the second decade of the present century.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0003.pt|I propose now to continue the subject, and to devote a couple of chapters to criminal occurrences of a more recent date,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0004.pt|only premising that as accounts become more voluminous I shall be compelled to deal with fewer cases,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0005.pt|taking in preference those which are typical and invested with peculiar interest. It is somewhat remarkable that a marked change soon comes over the Calendar.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0006.pt|Certain crimes, those against the person especially, diminished gradually. They became less easy or remunerative.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0007.pt|Police protection was better and more effective;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0008.pt|the streets of London were well lighted, the suburbs were more populous and regularly patrolled.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0009.pt|People, too, were getting into the habit of carrying but little cash about them, and no valuables but their watches or personal jewelery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0010.pt|Street robberies offered fewer inducements to depredators, and evil-doers were compelled to adopt other methods of preying upon their fellows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0011.pt|This led to a rapid and marked increase in all kinds of fraud;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0012.pt|and prominent in the criminal annals of Newgate in these later years will be found numerous remarkable instances of this class of offense --
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0013.pt|forgeries committed systematically, and for long periods, as in the case of Fauntleroy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0014.pt|to cover enormous defalcations; the fabrication of deeds, wills, and false securities
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0015.pt|for the purpose of misappropriating funds or feloniously obtaining cash;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0016.pt|thefts of bullion, bank-notes, specie, and gold-dust, planned with consummate ingenuity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0017.pt|eluding the keenest vigilance, and carried out with reckless daring;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0018.pt|jewel-boxes cleverly stolen under the very noses of owners or care-takers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0019.pt|As time passed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0020.pt|the extraordinary extension of all commercial operations led to many entirely novel and often gigantic financial frauds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0021.pt|The credulity of investors, the unscrupulous dishonesty of bankers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0022.pt|the slackness of supervision over wholly irresponsible agents, produced many terrible monetary catastrophes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0023.pt|and lodged men like Cole, Robson, and Redpath in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0024.pt|While the varying conditions of social life thus brought about many changes in the character of offenses against property,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0025.pt|those against the person became more and more limited to the most heinous, or those which menaced or destroyed life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0026.pt|There was no increase in murder or manslaughter; the number of such crimes remained pretty constant proportionately to population.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0027.pt|Nor did the methods by which they were perpetrated greatly vary from those in times past.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0028.pt|The causes also continued much the same. Passion, revenge, cupidity, sudden ebullitions of homicidal rage,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0029.pt|the cold-blooded, calculating atrocity born of self-interest, were still the irresistible incentives to kill.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0030.pt|The brutal ferocity of the wild beast once aroused, the same means, the same weapons were employed to do the dreadful deed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0031.pt|the same and happily often futile precautions taken to conceal the crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0032.pt|Pegsworth, and Greenacre, and Daniel Good merely reproduced types that had gone before, and that have since reappeared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0033.pt|Esther Hibner was as inhuman in her ill-usage of the parish apprentice she killed as Martha Brownrigg had been.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0034.pt|Thurtell and Hunt followed in the footsteps of Billings, Wood, and Catherine Hayes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0035.pt|Courvoisier might have lived a century earlier.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0036.pt|Hocker was found upon the scene of his crime, irresistibly attracted thither, as was Theodore Gardelle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0037.pt|Now and again there seemed to be a recurrence of a murder epidemic,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0038.pt|as there had been before; as in the year eighteen forty-nine, a year memorable for the Rush murders at Norwich,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0039.pt|the Gleeson Wilson murder at Liverpool, that of the Mannings in London, and of many more.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0040.pt|Men like Mobbs, the miscreant known as "General Haynau" on account of his blood-thirstiness, still murdered their wives;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0041.pt|or like Cannon the chimney-sweeper, who savagely killed the policeman.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0042.pt|A not altogether new crime, however, akin to murder,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0043.pt|although happily never passing beyond dastardly attempts, cropped up in these times, and was often frequently repeated within a short interval.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0044.pt|The present Queen very soon after her accession
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0045.pt|became the victim of the most cowardly and unmanly outrages, and the attempted murder of the sovereign by Oxford in eighteen forty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0046.pt|was followed in the very next year by those of Francis and of Bean in two consecutive months,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0047.pt|while in eighteen fifty Her Majesty was the victim of another outrage at the hands of one Pate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0048.pt|These crimes had their origin too often in the disordered brains of lunatics at large, like Captain Goode.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0049.pt|Their perpetrators were charged with high treason, but met with merciful clemency as irresponsible beings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0050.pt|But at various dates treason more distinct and tangible came to the front: attempts to levy war against the State.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0051.pt|The well-known Cato Street conspiracy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0052.pt|which grew out of disturbed social conditions after the last French war, amidst general distress,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0053.pt|and when the people were beginning to agitate for a larger share of political power, was among the earliest, and to some extent the most desperate, of these.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0054.pt|Its ringleaders, Thistlewood and the rest, were after capture honored by committal as State prisoners to the Tower,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0055.pt|but they came one and all to Newgate for trial at the Old Bailey, and remained there after conviction till they were hanged.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0056.pt|Later on, the Chartists agitated persistently for the concession embraced in the so-called People's Charter, many of which
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0057.pt|are by this time actually, and by more legitimate efforts, engrafted upon our Constitution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0058.pt|But the Chartists sought their ends by riot and rebellion, and gained only imprisonment for their pains.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0059.pt|Some five hundred in all were arrested, but as only three of these were lodged in Newgate, I shall not recur to them in my narrative.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0060.pt|The Cato Street conspiracy would have been simply ridiculous but for the recklessness of the desperadoes who planned it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0061.pt|That some thirty or more needy men should hope to revolutionize England is a sufficient proof of the absurdity of their attempt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0062.pt|But they proceeded in all seriousness, and would have shrunk from no outrage or atrocity in furtherance of their foolhardy enterprise.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0063.pt|The massacre of the whole of the Cabinet Ministers at one stroke was to be followed by an attack
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0064.pt|upon "the old man and the old woman," as they styled the Mansion House and the Bank of England.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0065.pt|At the former the "Provisional Government" was to be established,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0066.pt|which under Thistlewood as dictator was to rule the nation, by first handing over its capital to fire and pillage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0067.pt|This Thistlewood had seen many vicissitudes throughout his strange, adventurous career. The son of a respectable Lincolnshire farmer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0068.pt|he became a militia officer, and married a woman with ten thousand pounds, in which, however, she had only a life interest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0069.pt|She died early, and Thistlewood, left to his own resources,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0070.pt|followed the profession of arms, first in the British service, and then in that of the French revolutionary Government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0071.pt|It was during this period that he was said to have imbibed his revolutionary ideas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0072.pt|Returning to England,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0073.pt|he found himself rich in a small landed property, which he presently sold to a man who became bankrupt before he had paid over the purchase money.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0074.pt|After this he tried farming, but failed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0075.pt|He married again and came to London, where he soon became notorious as a reckless gambler and a politician holding the most extreme views.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0076.pt|In this way he formed the acquaintance of Watson and others, with whom he was arraigned for treasonable practices, and imprisoned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0077.pt|On his release he sent a challenge to Lord Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, and was again arrested and imprisoned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0078.pt|On his second release, goaded by his fancied wrongs, he began to plot a dark and dreadful revenge,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0079.pt|and thus the conspiracy in which he was the prime mover took shape, and came to a head.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0080.pt|The Government obtained early and full information of the nefarious scheme.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0081.pt|One of the conspirators, by name Edwards,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0082.pt|made a voluntary confession to Sir Herbert Taylor one morning at Windsor; after which Thistlewood and his accomplices were closely watched,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0083.pt|and measures taken to arrest them when their plans were so far developed that no doubt could remain as to their guilt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0084.pt|The day appointed for the murder and rising actually arrived before the authorities interfered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0085.pt|It was the day on which Lord Harrowby was to entertain his colleagues at dinner in Grosvenor Square.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0086.pt|The occasion was considered excellent by the conspirators for disposal of the whole Cabinet at one blow,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0087.pt|and it was arranged that one of their number should knock at Lord Harrowby's door on the pretense of leaving a parcel,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0088.pt|and that when it was opened the whole band should rush in.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0089.pt|While a few secured the servants, the rest were to fall upon Lord Harrowby and his guests.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0090.pt|Hand-grenades were to be thrown into the dining-room, and during the noise and confusion the assassination of the ministers was to be completed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0091.pt|the heads of Lord Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth being carried away in a bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0092.pt|Lord Harrowby's dinner-party was postponed, but the conspirators knew nothing of it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0093.pt|and those who watched his house were further encouraged in their mistake by the arrival of many carriages,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0094.pt|bound, as it happened, to the Archbishop of York's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0095.pt|Meanwhile the main body remained at their headquarters, a ruined stable in Cato Street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0096.pt|Edgeware Road, completing their dispositions for assuming supreme power after the blow had been struck.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0097.pt|Here they were surprised by the police, headed by a magistrate, and supported by a strong detachment of Her Majesty's Guards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0098.pt|The police were the first to arrive on the spot, the Guards having entered the street at the wrong end.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0099.pt|The conspirators were in a loft, approached by a ladder and a trap-door, access through which could only be obtained one by one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0100.pt|The first constable who entered Thistlewood ran through the body with a sword, but others quickly followed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0101.pt|the lights were extinguished, and a desperate conflict ensued.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0102.pt|The Guards, headed by Lord Adolphus Fitz Clarence, now reinforced the police, and the conspirators gave way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0103.pt|Nine of the latter were captured, with all the war material, cutlasses, pistols, hand-grenades, and ammunition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0104.pt|Thistlewood and fourteen more succeeded for the moment in making their escape, but most of them were subsequently taken.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0105.pt|Thistlewood was discovered next morning in a mean house in White Street, Moorfields.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0106.pt|He was in bed with his breeches on (in the pockets of which were found a number of cartridges), the black belt he had worn at Cato Street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0107.pt|and a military sash.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0108.pt|The trial of the conspirators came on some six weeks later, at the Old Bailey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0109.pt|Thistlewood made a long and rambling defense, the chief features of which were abuse of Lord Sidmouth, and the vilification of the informer Edwards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0110.pt|Several of the other prisoners took the same line as regards Edwards,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0111.pt|and there seems to have been good reason for supposing that he was a greater villain than any of those arraigned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0112.pt|He had been in a state of abject misery, and when he first joined "the reformers," as the Cato Street conspirators called themselves,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0113.pt|he had neither a bed to lie upon nor a coat to his back.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0114.pt|His sudden access to means unlimited was no doubt due to the profitable role he soon adopted of Government informer and spy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0115.pt|and it is pretty certain that for some time he served both sides;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0116.pt|on the one inveigling silly enthusiasts to join in the plot, and denouncing them on the other.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0117.pt|The employment of Edwards, and the manner in which the conspirators were allowed to commit themselves further and further before the law was set in motion against them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0118.pt|were not altogether creditable to the Government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0119.pt|It was asserted, not without foundation, at these trials, that Edwards repeatedly incited the associates he was betraying
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0120.pt|to commit outrage, to set fire to houses, throw hand-grenades into the carriages of ministers;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0121.pt|that he was, to use Thistlewood's words, "a contriver, instigator, and entrapper."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0122.pt|The Government were probably not proud of their agent, for Edwards, after the conviction had been assured, went abroad to enjoy, it was said,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0123.pt|an ample pension, so long as he did not return to England.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0124.pt|Five of the conspirators, Thistlewood, Ings, Brunt, Davidson, and Tidd, were sentenced to death,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0125.pt|and suffered in the usual way in front of Newgate, with the additional penalty of decapitation, as traitors, after they had been hanged.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0126.pt|A crowd as great as any known collected in the Old Bailey to see the ceremony, about which there were some peculiar features worth recording.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0127.pt|The reckless demeanor of all the convicts except Davidson was most marked. Thistlewood and Ings sucked oranges on the scaffold;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0128.pt|they with Brunt and Tidd scorned the ordinary's ministrations,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0129.pt|but Ings said he hoped God would be more merciful to him than men had been.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0130.pt|Ings was especially defiant. He sought to cheer Davidson, who seemed affected, crying out,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0131.pt|Come, old cock-of-wax, it will soon be over.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0132.pt|As the executioner fastened the noose, he nodded to a friend he saw in the crowd;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0133.pt|and catching sight of the coffins ranged around the gallows, he smiled at the show with contemptuous indifference.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0134.pt|He roared out snatches of a song about Death or Liberty, and just before he was turned off,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0135.pt|yelled out three cheers to the populace whom he faced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0136.pt|He told the executioner to "do it tidy," to pull it tight, and was in a state of hysterical exaltation up to the very last.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0137.pt|Davidson, who was the only one who seemed to realize his awful situation, listened patiently and with thankfulness to the chaplain,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0138.pt|and died in a manner strongly contrasting with that of his fellows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0139.pt|After the five bodies had hung for half-an-hour, a man in a mask came forward to complete the sentence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0140.pt|Contemporary reports state that from the skillful manner in which he performed the decapitation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0141.pt|he was generally supposed to be a surgeon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0142.pt|Be this as it may, the weapon used was only an ordinary axe, which rather indicates that force, not skill, was employed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0143.pt|This axe is still in existence, and is preserved at Newgate with various other unpleasant curiosities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0144.pt|but is only an ordinary commonplace tool.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0145.pt|These were the last executions for high treason, but not the last prisoners by many who passed through Newgate charged with sedition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0146.pt|Attacks upon the sovereign, as I have said, became more common after the accession of the young Queen Victoria in eighteen thirty-eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0147.pt|It was a form of high treason not unknown in earlier reigns. In seventeen eighty-six a mad woman, Margaret Nicholson,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0148.pt|tried to stab George the third as he was alighting from his carriage at the gate of St. James's Palace.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0149.pt|She was seized before she could do any mischief,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0150.pt|and eventually lodged in Bethlehem Hospital, where she died after forty years' detention, at the advanced age of one hundred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0151.pt|Again, a soldier, by name Hatfield, who had been wounded in the head, and discharged from the army for unsoundness of mind,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0152.pt|fired a pistol at George the third from the pit of Drury Lane theatre in eighteen hundred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0153.pt|William the fourth was also the victim of a murderous outrage on Ascot race-course in eighteen thirty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0154.pt|when John Collins, "a person in the garb of a sailor, of wretched appearance, and having a wooden leg,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0155.pt|threw a stone at the king, which hit him on the forehead, but did no serious injury.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0156.pt|Collins, when charged, pleaded that he had lost his leg in action, that he had petitioned without success for a pension,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0157.pt|and that, as he was starving, he had resolved on this desperate deed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0158.pt|feeling, as he said, that he might as well be shot or hanged as remain in such a state.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0159.pt|He was eventually sentenced to death, but the plea of lunacy was allowed, and he was confined for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0160.pt|None of the foregoing attempts were, however, so dastardly or determined as that made by Oxford upon our present gracious Queen
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0161.pt|two years after she ascended the throne.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0162.pt|The cowardly crime was probably encouraged by the fearless and confiding manner in which the Queen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0163.pt|secure as it seemed in the affections of her loyal people, freely appeared in public.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0164.pt|Oxford, who was only nineteen at the time his offense was committed, had been born at Birmingham,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0165.pt|but he came as a lad to London, and took service as a pot-boy to a publican.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0166.pt|From this he was promoted to barman, and as such had charge of the business in various public-houses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0167.pt|He left his last situation in April eighteen forty, and established himself in lodgings in Lambeth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0168.pt|after which he devoted himself to pistol practice in shooting-galleries, sometimes in Leicester Square,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0169.pt|sometimes in the Strand, or the West End.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0170.pt|His acquaintances often asked his object in this, but he kept his own counsel till the tenth June.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0171.pt|On that day Oxford was on the watch at Buckingham Palace.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0172.pt|He saw Prince Albert return there from a visit to Woolwich, and then passed on to Constitution Hill,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0173.pt|where he waited till four p.m., the time at which the Queen and Prince Consort usually took an afternoon drive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0174.pt|About six p.m. the royal carriage, a low open vehicle drawn by four horses, ridden by postilions, left the palace.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0175.pt|Oxford, who had been pacing backwards and forwards with his hands under the lapels of his coat, saw the carriage approach.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0176.pt|He was on the right or north side of the road. Prince Albert occupied the same side of the carriage, the Queen the left.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0177.pt|As the carriage came up to him Oxford turned, put his hand into his breast, drew a pistol, and fired at the Queen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0178.pt|The shot missed, and as the carriage passed on, Oxford drew a second pistol and fired again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0179.pt|The Queen saw this second movement, and stooped to avoid the shot;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0180.pt|the Prince too rose to shield her with his person. Again, providentially, the bullet went wide of the mark,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0181.pt|and the royal party drove back to Clarence House, the Queen being anxious to give the first news of the outrage and of her safety to her mother,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0182.pt|the Duchess of Kent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0183.pt|Meanwhile the pistol-shots had attracted the attention of the bystanders, of whom there was a fair collection, as usual, waiting to see the Queen pass.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0184.pt|Oxford was seized by a person named Lowe, who was at first mistaken for the assailant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0185.pt|But Oxford at once assumed the responsibility for his crime, saying, "It was I. I did it. I'll give myself up.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0186.pt|There is no occasion to use violence. I will go with you.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0187.pt|He was taken into custody, and removed first to a police cell, thence committed to Newgate, after he had been examined before the Privy Council.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0188.pt|Oxford expressed little anxiety or concern.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0189.pt|He asked more than once whether the Queen was hurt, and acknowledged that the pistols were loaded with ball.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0190.pt|A craze for notoriety, to be achieved at any cost, was the one absorbing idea in young Oxford's disordered brain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0191.pt|After his arrest he thought only of the excitement his attempt had raised, nothing of its atrocity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0192.pt|or of the fatal consequences which might have ensued.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0193.pt|When brought to trial he hardly realized his position,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0194.pt|but gazed with complacency around the crowded court, and eagerly inquired what persons of distinction were present.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0195.pt|He smiled continually, and when the indictment was read, burst into loud and discordant fits of laughter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0196.pt|These antics may have been assumed to bear out the plea of insanity set up in his defense,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0197.pt|but that there was madness in his family, and that he himself was of unsound mind, could not be well denied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0198.pt|His father, it was proved in evidence, had been at times quite mad; and Oxford's mental state might be inferred from his own proceedings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0199.pt|Among his papers was found a curious document, purporting to be the rules of an association called
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0200.pt|"Young England," which Oxford had evolved out of his own inflated self-conceit, and which had never any real corporeal existence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0201.pt|"Young England" was a secret society, with no aim or object.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0202.pt|Its sworn members, known only to Oxford, and all of them mere shadows,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0203.pt|were bound to provide themselves with sword, rifle, dagger, and a pair of pistols;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0204.pt|to wear a black crape mask, to obey punctually the orders of their commander-in-chief,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0205.pt|and to assume any disguise, if required to go into the country on the business of the association.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0206.pt|The officers of the society were to be known only by "factitious names."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0207.pt|Thus, among the presidents were those of Gowrie, Justinian, Aloman, Colsman, Kenneth, and Godfrey;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0208.pt|Hannibal and Ethelred were on the council; Anthony, Augustus, and Frederic were among the generals;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0209.pt|Louis and Amadeus among the captains; and Hercules, Neptune, and Mars among the lieutenants of the association.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0210.pt|The various grades were distinguished by cockades and bows of different colors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0211.pt|The society was supposed to meet regularly, and its proceedings, together with the speeches made, were duly recorded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0212.pt|With Oxford's other papers were found letters from the secretary, written as it seemed by Oxford to himself, after the manner of Mr. Toots,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0213.pt|all of which declared their approval of the commander-in-chief.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0214.pt|One expressed pleasure that Oxford improved so much in speaking, and declared that his (Oxford's) speech the last time "was beautiful."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0215.pt|This letter went on to say that a new member had been introduced by Lt. Mars, "a fine, tall, gentlemanly young man,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0216.pt|and it is said that he is a military officer, but his name has not yet transpired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0217.pt|Soon after he was introduced we were alarmed by a violent knocking at the door;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0218.pt|in an instant our faces were covered, we cocked our pistols, and with drawn swords stood waiting to receive the enemy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0219.pt|While one stood over the fire with the papers, another stood with lighted torch to fire the house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0220.pt|We then sent the old woman to open the door, and it proved to be some little boys who had knocked and ran away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0221.pt|Another letter directed Oxford to attend an extraordinary meeting of "Young England"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0222.pt|in consequence of having received some information of an important nature from Hanover.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0223.pt|You must attend; and if your master will not give you leave, you must come in defiance of him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0224.pt|No serious importance could be attached to these, the manifest inventions of a disordered intellect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0225.pt|The whole of the evidence pointed so strongly towards insanity, that the jury brought in a verdict of acquittal on that ground,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0226.pt|and Oxford was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0227.pt|He went from Newgate first to Bethlehem, from which he was removed to Broadmoor on the opening of the great criminal lunatic asylum at that place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0228.pt|He was released from Broadmoor in eighteen seventy-eight, and went abroad.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0229.pt|Within a couple of years a second attempt to assassinate the Queen was perpetrated in nearly the same spot, by a man named John Francis,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0230.pt|who was arrested in the very act, just as he had fired one shot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0231.pt|His motives for thus imitating the dastardly crime of Oxford are shrouded in obscurity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0232.pt|He could not plead insanity like his predecessor, and no attempt was made at his trial to prove him of unsound mind.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0233.pt|Here again probably it was partly the love of notoriety which was the incentive,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0234.pt|backed possibly with the hope that, as in a much more recent case,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0235.pt|he would be in some way provided for, he having been for some time previously in abject circumstances.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0236.pt|The deed was long premeditated, and would have been executed a day earlier had not his courage failed him at the last moment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0237.pt|A youth named Pearson had seen him present a pistol at the Queen's carriage,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0238.pt|but draw it back again, exclaiming presently, "I wish I had done it."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0239.pt|Pearson weakly allowed Francis to go off without securing his apprehension, but later he gave full information.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0240.pt|The Queen was apprised of the danger, and begged not to go abroad;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0241.pt|but she declared she would not remain a prisoner in her own palace, and next day drove out as usual in an open barouche.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0242.pt|Nothing happened till Her Majesty returned to Buckingham Palace about six p.m., when, on descending Constitution Hill,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0243.pt|with an equerry riding close on each side of her carriage, a man who had been leaning against the palace garden wall suddenly advanced,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0244.pt|leveled a pistol at the Queen, and fired. He was so close to the carriage that the smoke of his pistol enveloped the face of Colonel Wylde,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0245.pt|one of the equerries. The Queen was untouched, and at first, it is said, hardly realized the danger she had escaped.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0246.pt|Francis had already been seized by a policeman named Trounce, who saw his movement with the pistol, but too late to prevent its discharge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0247.pt|The prisoner was conveyed without delay to the Home Office, and there examined by the Privy Council, which had been hastily summoned for the purpose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0248.pt|On searching him the pistol was found in his pocket, the barrel still warm; also some loose powder and a bullet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0249.pt|There was some doubt as to whether the pistol when fired was actually loaded with ball, but the jury brought in a verdict of guilty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0250.pt|of the criminal intent to kill.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0251.pt|Francis was sentenced to be hanged, decapitated, and quartered,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0252.pt|the old traitor's doom, but was spared, and subsequently transported for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0253.pt|The enthusiasm of the people at the Queen's escape was uproarious, and her drive next day was one long triumphal progress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0254.pt|At the Italian Opera in the evening the audience, on the Queen's appearance, greeted her with loud cheers, and called for the national anthem.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0255.pt|This was in May eighteen forty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0256.pt|Undeterred by the well-merited punishment which had overtaken Francis,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0257.pt|a third miscreant made a similar but far less serious attempt in the month of July following.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0258.pt|As the Queen was driving from Buckingham Palace to the Chapel Royal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0259.pt|a deformed lad among the crowd was seen to present a pistol at Her Majesty's carriage,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0260.pt|in the Mall, about half-way between Buckingham and St. James's Palaces.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0261.pt|Only one person saw the movement, a lad named Dasset, who at once collared the cripple, and taking him up to two policemen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0262.pt|charged him with the offense.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0263.pt|The policemen treated the matter as a hoax, and allowed the culprit to make off.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0264.pt|Later on, however, Dasset was himself seized and interrogated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0265.pt|and on his information handbills were circulated, giving the exact description of the deformed youth, who had a hump-back,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0266.pt|and a long, sickly, pale face, with light hair;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0267.pt|his nose was marked with a scar or black patch, and he was altogether of a dirty appearance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0268.pt|It happened that a lad named Bean had absconded from his father's home some weeks before,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0269.pt|whose description, as given by his father to the police,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0270.pt|exactly tallied with that of the deformed person "wanted" for the assault on the Queen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0271.pt|A visit to the father's residence was followed by the arrest of the son, who had by this time returned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0272.pt|This son, John William Bean, was fully identified by Dasset, and presently examined by the Privy Council.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0273.pt|He was eventually charged with a misdemeanor, the capital charge having been abandoned, and committed for trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0274.pt|Much the same motives of seeking notoriety seem to have impelled Bean, who was perfectly sane, to his rash act;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0275.pt|but it was proved that the pistol was not loaded with ball,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0276.pt|and he was only convicted of an attempt "to harass, vex, and grieve the sovereign.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0277.pt|Lord Abinger sentenced him to eighteen months' imprisonment in Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0278.pt|but the place of durance was changed, to meet the existing law, to Millbank Penitentiary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0279.pt|I shall mention briefly one more case, in which, however, there was no murderous intent, before I pass on to other crimes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0280.pt|On June eighteen fifty the Queen was once more subjected to cowardly outrage, the offender being a Mr. Pate, a gentleman by birth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0281.pt|who had borne the Queen's commission, first as cornet, and then lieutenant, in the tenth Hussars.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0282.pt|Pate was said to be an eccentric person, given to strange acts and antics, such as mixing whiskey and camphor with his morning bath-water,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0283.pt|and walking for choice through prickly gorse bushes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0284.pt|He always kept the blinds down at his chambers in Jermyn Street; and as the St. James's clock chimed quarter-past three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0285.pt|invariably went out in a cab, for which he always paid the same fare,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0286.pt|nine shillings, all in shillings, and no other coin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0287.pt|But this was not sufficient to constitute lunacy, nor was his plea of "momentary uncontrollable impulse"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0288.pt|deemed valid as any palliation of his offense.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0289.pt|That offense was a brutal assault upon Her Majesty, whom he struck in the face with a small stick just as she was leaving Cambridge House.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0290.pt|The blow crushed the bonnet and bruised the forehead of the Queen, who was happily not otherwise injured.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0291.pt|Pate was found guilty, and sentenced to seven years' transportation, the judge, Baron Alderson, abstaining from inflicting the penalty of whipping,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0292.pt|which was authorized by a recent act, on account of Mr. Pate's family and position in life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0293.pt|I have already remarked that as violence was more and more eliminated from crimes against the person,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0294.pt|frauds indicating great boldness, extensive design, and ingenuity became more prevalent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0295.pt|The increase of bank forgeries, and its cause, I referred to in a previous chapter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0296.pt|At one session of the Old Bailey, in eighteen twenty-one, no less than thirty-five true bills were found for passing forged notes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0297.pt|But there were other notorious cases of forgery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0298.pt|That of Fauntleroy the banker, in eighteen twenty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0299.pt|caused much excitement at the time on account of the magnitude of the fraud, and the seeming probity of the culprit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0300.pt|Mr. Fauntleroy was a member of a banking firm, which his father had established in conjunction with a gentleman of the name of Marsh, and others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0301.pt|He had entered the house as clerk in eighteen hundred;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0302.pt|in eighteen oh seven, and when only twenty-two, he succeeded to his father's share in the business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0303.pt|According to Fauntleroy's own case, he found at once that the firm was heavily involved,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0304.pt|through advances made to various builders, and that it could only maintain its credit by wholesale discounting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0305.pt|Its embarrassments were greatly increased by the bankruptcy of two of its clients in the building trade,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0306.pt|and the bank became liable for a sum of one hundred seventy thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0307.pt|New liabilities were incurred to the extent of one hundred thousand pounds by more failures, and in eighteen nineteen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0308.pt|by the death of one of the partners, a large sum in cash had to be withdrawn from the bank to pay his heirs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0309.pt|"During these numerous and trying difficulties" -- it is Mr. Fauntleroy who speaks --
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0310.pt|the house was nearly without resources, and the whole burthen of management falling on me, I sought resources where I could;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0311.pt|in other words, he forged powers of attorney, and proceeded to realize securities lodged in his bank under various names.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0312.pt|Among the prisoner's private papers, one was found giving full details of the stock he had feloniously sold out,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0313.pt|the sum total amounting to some one hundred seventy thousand pounds, with a declaration in his own handwriting to the following effect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0314.pt|In order to keep up the credit of our house, I have forged powers of attorney for the above sums and parties,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0315.pt|and sold out to the amount here stated, and without the knowledge of my partners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0316.pt|I kept up the payments of the dividends, but made no entries of such payments in my books.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ010-0317.pt|The bank began first to refuse our acceptances, and to destroy the credit of our house; the bank shall smart for it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section fourteen: Newgate notorieties, part one
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0002.pt|Many stories were in circulation at the time of Fauntleroy's trial with regard to his forgeries. It was said that he had by means of them
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0003.pt|sold out so large an amount of stock, that he paid sixteen thousand pounds a year in dividends to escape detection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0004.pt|Once he ran a narrow risk of being found out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0005.pt|A lady in the country, who had thirteen thousand pounds in the stocks, desired her London agent to sell them out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0006.pt|He went to the bank, and found that no stocks stood in her name. He called at once upon Fauntleroy, his client's bankers, for an explanation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0007.pt|and was told by Mr. Fauntleroy that the lady had desired him to sell out, "which I have done," added the fraudulent banker, "and here are the proceeds,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0008.pt|whereupon he produced exchequer bills to the amount.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0009.pt|Nothing more was heard of the affair, although the lady declared that she had never instructed Fauntleroy to sell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0010.pt|On another occasion the banker forged a gentleman's name while the latter was sitting with him in his private room,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0011.pt|and took the instrument out to a clerk with the ink not dry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0012.pt|It must be added that the Bank of England, on discovering the forgeries,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0013.pt|replaced the stock in the names of the original holders, who might otherwise have been completely ruined.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0014.pt|A newspaper report of the time describes Fauntleroy as a well-made man of middle stature.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0015.pt|His hair, though gray, was thick, and lay smooth over his forehead.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0016.pt|His countenance had an expression of most subdued resignation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0017.pt|The impression which his appearance altogether was calculated to make was that of the profoundest commiseration.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0018.pt|The crime, long carried on without detection, was first discovered in eighteen twenty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0019.pt|when it was found that a sum of ten thousand pounds, standing in the name of three trustees, of whom Fauntleroy was one,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0020.pt|had been sold out under a forged power of attorney.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0021.pt|Further investigations brought other similar frauds to light,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0022.pt|and fixed the whole sum misappropriated at one hundred seventy thousand pounds, the first forgery dating back to eighteen fourteen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0023.pt|A run upon the bank immediately followed, which was only met by a suspension of payment and the closing of its doors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0024.pt|Meanwhile public gossip was busy with Fauntleroy's name,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0025.pt|and it was openly stated in the press and in conversation that the proceeds of these frauds had been squandered in chambering, gambling, and debauchery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0026.pt|Fauntleroy was scouted as a licentious libertine, a deep and determined gamester, a spendthrift whose extravagance knew no bounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0027.pt|The veil was lifted from his private life, and he was accused of persistent immorality.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0028.pt|In his defense
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0029.pt|he sought to rebut these charges, which indeed were never clearly made out, and it is pretty certain that his own account of the causes which led him into dishonesty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0030.pt|was substantially true
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0031.pt|He called many witnesses, seventeen in all, to speak of him as they had found him; and these, all respectable city merchants and business men,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0032.pt|declared that they had hitherto formed a high opinion of his honor, integrity, and goodness of disposition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0033.pt|deeming him the last person capable of a dishonorable action.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0034.pt|These arguments availed little with the jury, who after a short deliberation found Fauntleroy guilty, and he was sentenced to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0035.pt|Every endeavor was used, however, to obtain a commutation of sentence. His case was twice argued before the judges on points of law,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0036.pt|but the result in both cases was unfavorable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0037.pt|Appeals were made to the Home Secretary, and all possible political interest brought to bear, but without success.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0038.pt|Fauntleroy meanwhile lay in Newgate, not herded with other condemned prisoners, as the custom was,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0039.pt|but in a separate chamber, that belonging to one of the warders of the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0040.pt|I find in the chaplain's journal, under date eighteen twenty-four, various entries relative to this prisoner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0041.pt|Visited Mr. Fauntleroy. My application for books for him not having been attended, I had no prayer-book to give him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0042.pt|Visited Mr. Fauntleroy. The sheriffs have very kindly permitted him to remain in the turnkey's room where he was originally placed; nor can I omit expressing a hope
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0043.pt|that this may prove the beginning of a better system of confinement, and that every description of persons who may be unfortunately under sentence of death
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0044.pt|will no longer be herded indiscriminately together.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0045.pt|The kindliness of the city authorities to Fauntleroy was not limited to the assignment of a separate place of durance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0046.pt|As I have already said, they took the chaplain seriously to task for the bad taste shown in the condemned sermon preached before Fauntleroy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0047.pt|This was on the text,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0048.pt|Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," and was full of the most pointed allusions to the culprit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0049.pt|Fauntleroy constantly groaned aloud while the sermon proceeded, and contemporary reports declared
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0050.pt|that he appeared to feel deeply the force of the reverend gentleman's observations, especially when the chaplain spoke of
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0051.pt|the great magnitude of our erring brother's offense, one of the most dangerous description in a trading community.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0052.pt|The sermon ended with an appeal to the dying man, exhorting him to penitence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0053.pt|This "personality," and it can be called by no other name, is carefully excluded from prison pulpit utterances on the eve of an execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0054.pt|A very curious and, in its way, amusing circumstance in connection with this case was the offer of a certain Italian,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0055.pt|Edmund Angelini, to take Fauntleroy's place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0056.pt|Angelini wrote to the Lord Mayor to this effect,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0057.pt|urging that Fauntleroy was a father, a citizen: "his life is useful, mine a burthen, to the State."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0058.pt|He was summoned to the Mansion House, where he repeated his request, crying, "Accordez moi cette grâce," with much urgency.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0059.pt|There were doubts of his sanity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0060.pt|He wrote afterwards to the effect that the moment he had offered himself, an unknown assassin came to aim a blow at him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0061.pt|Let this monster give his name; I am ready to fight him. I am still determined to put myself in the place of Mr. Fauntleroy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0062.pt|If the law of this country can receive such a sacrifice, my death will render to heaven an innocent man, and to earth a repentant sinner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0063.pt|Fauntleroy was not entirely dependent upon the ordinary for ghostly counsel in his extremity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0064.pt|He was also attended by the Rev. Mr. Springett and the indefatigable Mr. Baker, whose name has already been mentioned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0065.pt|When led out on the morning of his execution, these two last-named gentlemen each took hold of one of his arms, and so accompanied him to the scaffold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0066.pt|The concourse in front of Newgate was enormous, but much sympathy was evinced for this unfortunate victim to human weakness and ruthless laws.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0067.pt|A report was, moreover, widely circulated, and the impression long prevailed, that he actually escaped death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0068.pt|It was said that strangulation had been prevented by the insertion of a silver tube in his wind-pipe,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0069.pt|and that after hanging for the regulated time he was taken down and easily restored to consciousness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0070.pt|Afterwards, according to the common rumor, he went abroad and lived there for many years; but the story is not only wholly unsubstantiated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0071.pt|but there is good evidence to show that the body after execution was handed over to his friends and interred privately.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0072.pt|Some years were still to elapse before capital punishment ceased to be the penalty for forgery, and in the interval
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0073.pt|several persons were sentenced to or suffered death for this crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0074.pt|There were two notable capital convictions for forgery in eighteen twenty-eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0075.pt|One was that of Captain Montgomery, who assumed the aliases of Colonel Wallace and Colonel Morgan.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0076.pt|His offense was uttering forged notes, and there was strong suspicion that he had long subsisted entirely by this fraud.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0077.pt|The act for which he was taken into custody was the payment of a forged ten-pound note for half-a-dozen silver spoons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0078.pt|Montgomery was an adept at forgery. He had gone wrong early. Although born of respectable parents, and gazetted to a commission in the army,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0079.pt|he soon left the service and betook himself to dishonest ways.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0080.pt|His first forgery was the marvelous imitation of the signature of the Hon. Mr. Neville, M.P., who wrote an extremely cramped and curious hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0081.pt|He was not prosecuted for this fraud on account of the respectability of his family, and soon after this escape
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0082.pt|he came to London, where he practiced as a professional swindler and cheat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0083.pt|For a long time justice did not overtake him for any criminal offense, but he was frequently in Newgate and in the King's Bench for debt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0084.pt|After three years' confinement in the latter prison he passed himself off as his brother, Colonel Montgomery,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0085.pt|a distinguished officer, and would have married an heiress had not the imposture been discovered in time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0086.pt|He then took to forging bank-notes, and was arrested as I have described above.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0087.pt|Montgomery was duly sentenced to death, but he preferred suicide to the gallows. After sentence his demeanor was serious yet firm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0088.pt|The night previous to that fixed for his execution he wrote several letters, one of them being to Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a fellow-prisoner,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0089.pt|and listened attentively to the ordinary, who read him the well-known address written and delivered by Dr. Dodd previous to his own execution for forgery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0090.pt|But next morning he was found dead in his cell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0091.pt|In one corner after much search a phial was found labeled "Prussic acid,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0092.pt|which it was asserted he had been in the habit of carrying about his person ever since he had taken to passing forged notes, as an antidote against disgrace.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0093.pt|This phial he had managed to retain in his possession in spite of the frequent searches to which he was subjected in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0094.pt|The second conviction for forgery in eighteen twenty-eight was that of the Quaker Joseph Hunton, a man of previously the highest repute in the city of London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0095.pt|He had prospered in early life, was a slop-seller on a large scale at Bury St. Edmunds, and a sugar-baker in the metropolis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0096.pt|He married a lady also belonging to the Society of Friends, who brought him a large fortune, which, and his own money, he put into a city firm,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0097.pt|that of Dickson and Co.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0098.pt|He soon, however, became deeply involved in Stock Exchange speculations,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0099.pt|and losing heavily, to meet the claims upon him he put out a number of forged bills of exchange or acceptances,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0100.pt|to which the signature of one Wilkins of Abingdon was found to be forged.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0101.pt|Hunton tried to fly the country on the detection of the fraud, but was arrested at Plymouth just as he was on the point of leaving England in the New York packet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0102.pt|He had gone on board in his Quaker dress, but when captured was found in a light-green frock,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0103.pt|a pair of light gray pantaloons, a black stock and a foraging cap.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0104.pt|Hunton was put upon his trial at the Old Bailey, and in due course sentenced to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0105.pt|His defense was that the forged acceptances would have been met on coming to maturity, and that he had no real desire to defraud.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0106.pt|Hunton accepted his sentence with great resignation, although he protested against the inhumanity of the laws which condemned him to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0107.pt|On entering Newgate he said,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0108.pt|I wish after this day to have communication with nobody; let me take leave of my wife, and family, and friends. I have already suffered an execution;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0109.pt|my heart has undergone that horrible penalty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0110.pt|He was, however, visited by and received his wife, and several members of the Society of Friends.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0111.pt|Two elders of the meeting sat up with him in the press yard the whole of the night previous to execution, and a third,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0112.pt|Mr. Sparks Moline, came to attend him to the scaffold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0113.pt|He met his death with unshaken firmness, only entreating that a certain blue handkerchief,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0114.pt|to which he seemed fondly attached, should be used to bandage his eyes, which request was readily granted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0115.pt|Hunton's execution no doubt aroused public attention to the cruelty and futility of the capital law against forgery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0116.pt|A society which had already been started against capital punishment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0117.pt|devoted its efforts first to a mitigation of the forgery statute, but could not immediately accomplish much.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0118.pt|In eighteen twenty-nine the gallows claimed two more victims for this offense.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0119.pt|One was Richard Gifford, a well-educated youth who had been at Christ's Hospital, and afterwards in the National Debt Office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0120.pt|Unfortunately he took to drink, lost his appointment, and fell from bad to worse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0121.pt|Suddenly, after being at the lowest depths, he emerged, and was found by his friends living in comfort in the Waterloo Road.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0122.pt|His funds, which he pretended came to him with a rich wife, were really the proceeds of frauds upon the Bank of England.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0123.pt|He forged the names of people who held stock on the Bank books, and got the value of the stock;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0124.pt|he also forged dividend receipts and got the dividends. He was only six-and-twenty when he was hanged.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0125.pt|The other and the last criminal executed for forgery in this country was one Maynard, who was convicted of a fraud upon the Custom House.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0126.pt|In conjunction with two others, one of whom was a clerk in the Custom House,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0127.pt|and had access to the official records, he forged a warrant for one thousand nine-hundred seventy-three pounds and was paid the money by the comptroller general.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0128.pt|Maynard was convicted of uttering the forged document, Jones of being an accessory; the third prisoner was acquitted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0129.pt|Maynard was the only one who suffered death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0130.pt|This was on the last day of eighteen twenty-nine. In the following session Sir Robert Peel brought in a bill to consolidate the acts relating to forgery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0131.pt|Upon the third reading of this bill Sir James Macintosh moved as an amendment that capital punishment should be abolished for all crimes of forgery,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0132.pt|except the forgery of wills and powers of attorney.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0133.pt|This amendment was strongly supported outside the House, and a petition in favor of its passing was presented,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0134.pt|signed by more than a thousand members of banking firms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0135.pt|Macintosh's amendment was carried in the Commons, but the new law did not pass the Lords, who re-enacted the capital penalty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0136.pt|Still no sentence of death was carried out for the offense, and in eighteen thirty-two
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0137.pt|the Attorney-General introduced a bill to abolish capital punishment entirely for forgery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0138.pt|It passed the Commons, but opposition was again encountered in the Lords.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0139.pt|This time they sent back the bill, re-enacting only the two penalties for will forging and the forging of powers of attorney;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0140.pt|in other words, they had advanced in eighteen thirty-two to the point at which the Lower House had arrived in eighteen thirty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0141.pt|There were at the moment in Newgate six convicts sentenced to death for forging wills.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0142.pt|The question was whether the Government would dare to take their lives at the bidding of the House of Lords,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0143.pt|and in defiance of the vote of the assembly which more accurately represented public opinion. It was indeed announced that their fate was sealed;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0144.pt|but Mr. Joseph Hume pressed the Government hard, and obtained an assurance that the men should not be executed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0145.pt|The new Forgery Act with the Lords' amendment passed into law, but the latter proved perfectly harmless,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0146.pt|and no person ever after suffered death for any variety of this crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0147.pt|I will include in this part of the present chapter almost one of the last instances of a crime which in time past
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0148.pt|had invariably been visited with the death penalty, and which was of a distinctly fraudulent nature.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0149.pt|The abduction of Miss Turner by the brothers Wakefield bore a strong resemblance to the carrying off and forcible marrying of heiresses as already described.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0150.pt|Miss Turner was a school-girl of barely fifteen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0151.pt|only child of a gentleman of large property in Cheshire, of which county he was actually high sheriff at the time of his daughter's abduction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0152.pt|The elder brother,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0153.pt|Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the prime mover in the abduction, was a barrister, not exactly briefless, but without a large practice.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0154.pt|He had, it was said, a good private income, and was already a widower with two children at the time of his committing the offense for which he was subsequently tried.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0155.pt|He had eloped with his first wife from school.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0156.pt|While on a visit to Macclesfield he heard by chance of Miss Turner, and that she would inherit all her father's possessions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0157.pt|He thereupon conceived an idea of carrying her off and marrying her willy nilly at Gretna Green.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0158.pt|The two brothers started at once for Liverpool, where Miss Turner was at school with a Mrs. Daulby.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0159.pt|At Manchester, en route, a traveling carriage was purchased, which was driven up to Mrs. Daulby's door at eight in the morning,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0160.pt|and a servant hurriedly alighted from it, bearing a letter for Miss Turner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0161.pt|This purported to be from the medical attendant of Mr. Turner, written at Shrigley, Mr. Turner's place of residence;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0162.pt|and it stated that Mrs. Turner had been stricken with paralysis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0163.pt|She was not in immediate danger, but she wished to see her daughter, "as it was possible she might soon become incapable of recognizing any one."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0164.pt|Miss Turner, greatly agitated, accompanied the messenger who had brought this news, a disguised servant of Wakefield's,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0165.pt|who had plausibly explained that he had only recently been engaged at Shrigley.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0166.pt|The road taken was via Manchester, where the servant said a Dr. Hull was to be picked up to go on with them to Shrigley.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0167.pt|At Manchester, however, the carriage stopped at the Albion Hotel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0168.pt|Miss Turner was shown into a private room, where Mr. Wakefield soon presented himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0169.pt|Miss Turner, not knowing him, would have left the room, but he said he came from her father, and she remained.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0170.pt|Wakefield, in reply to her inquiries, satisfied her that her mother was well, and that the real reason for summoning her from school
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0171.pt|was the state of her father's affairs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0172.pt|Mr. Turner was on the verge of bankruptcy. He was at that moment at Kendal, and wished her to join him there at once.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0173.pt|Miss Turner consented to go on, and they traveled night and day towards the north.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0174.pt|But at Kendal there was no Mr. Turner, and, to allay Miss Turner's growing anxiety,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0175.pt|Wakefield found it necessary to become more explicit regarding her father's affairs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0176.pt|He now pretended that Mr. Turner was also on his way to the border, pursued by sheriffs' officers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0177.pt|The fact was, Wakefield went on to say, an uncle of his had advanced Mr. Turner sixty thousand pounds, which had temporarily staved off ruin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0178.pt|But another bank had since failed, and nothing could save Mr. Turner but the transfer of some property to Miss Turner, and its settlement on her,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0179.pt|so that it might become the exclusive property of her husband, "whoever he might be."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0180.pt|Wakefield added that it had been suggested he should marry Miss Turner, but that he had laughed at the idea.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0181.pt|Wakefield's uncle took the matter more seriously, and declared that unless the marriage came off Mr. Turner must be sold up.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0182.pt|Miss Turner, thus pressed, consented to go on to Gretna Green.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0183.pt|Passing through Carlisle, she was told that Mr. Turner was in the town, but could not show himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0184.pt|Nothing could release him from his trouble but the arrival of the marriage certificate from Gretna Green.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0185.pt|Filial affection rose superior to all scruples, and Miss Turner, having crossed the border, was married to Wakefield
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0186.pt|by the blacksmith in the usual way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0187.pt|Returning to Carlisle, she now heard that her father had been set free, and had gone home to Shrigley, whither they were to follow him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0188.pt|They set out, but at Leeds Wakefield found himself called suddenly to Paris;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0189.pt|the other brother was accordingly sent on a pretended mission to Shrigley to bring Mr. Turner on to London, whither Wakefield and Miss Turner also proceeded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0190.pt|On arrival, Wakefield pretended that they had missed Mr. Turner, and must follow him over to France.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0191.pt|The strangely-married couple thereupon pressed on to Dover, and crossed over to Calais.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0192.pt|The fact of the abduction did not transpire for some days.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0193.pt|Then Mrs. Daulby learnt that Miss Turner had not arrived at Shrigley, but that she had gone to Manchester.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0194.pt|Friends went in pursuit and traced her to Huddersfield and further north.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0195.pt|The terror and dismay of her parents were soon intensified by the receipt of a letter from Wakefield, at Carlisle, announcing the marriage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0196.pt|Mr. Turner at once set off for London, where he sought the assistance of the police,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0197.pt|and presently ascertained that Wakefield had gone to the Continent with his involuntary bride.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0198.pt|An uncle of Miss Wakefield's, accompanied by his solicitor and a Bow Street runner, at once went in pursuit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0199.pt|Meanwhile, a second letter turned up from Wakefield at Calais, in which he assured Mrs. Turner that Miss Turner was fondly attached to him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0200.pt|and went on to say, "I do assure you, madam, that it shall be the anxious endeavor of my life to promote her happiness by every means in my power."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0201.pt|The game, however, was nearly up. Miss Turner was met by her uncle on Calais pier as she was walking with Wakefield.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0202.pt|The uncle claimed her. The husband resisted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0203.pt|Monsieur le Maire was appealed to, and decided to leave it to the young lady, who at once abandoned Wakefield.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0204.pt|As he still urged his rights over his wife, Miss Turner cried out in protest, "No, no, I am not his wife;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0205.pt|he carried me away by fraud and stratagem, and forced me to accompany him to Gretna Green
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0206.pt|By the same forcible means I was compelled to quit England, and to trust myself to the protection of this person,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0207.pt|whom I never saw until I was taken from Liverpool, and never want to see again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0208.pt|On this Wakefield gave in.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0209.pt|He surrendered the bride who had never been a wife, and she returned to England with her friends, while Wakefield went on alone to Paris.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0210.pt|Mr. William Wakefield was arrested at Dover, conveyed to Chester, and committed to Lancaster Jail for trial at the next assizes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0211.pt|when indictments were preferred against both brothers "for having carried away Ellen Turner, spinster,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0212.pt|then a maid and heir apparent unto her father, for the sake of the lucre of her substance; and for having afterwards unlawfully and against her will
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0213.pt|married the said Ellen Turner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0214.pt|They were tried in March of the following year, Edward Wakefield having apparently given himself up,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0215.pt|and found guilty, remaining in Lancaster Jail for a couple of months, when they were brought up to the court of King's Bench for judgment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0216.pt|The prosecution pressed for a severe penalty. Edward Wakefield pleaded that his trial had already cost him three thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0217.pt|Mr. Justice Bayley, in summing up,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0218.pt|spoke severely of the gross deception practiced upon an innocent girl, and sentenced the brothers each to three years' imprisonment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0219.pt|William Wakefield in Lancaster Jail, and Edward Gibbon Wakefield in Newgate, which sentences were duly enforced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0220.pt|The marriage was annulled by an Act of Parliament, although Wakefield petitioned against it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0221.pt|and was brought from Newgate, at his own request, to oppose the second reading of the bill.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0222.pt|He also wrote and published a pamphlet from the jail to show that Miss Turner had been a consenting party to the marriage, and was really his wife.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0223.pt|Neither his address nor his pamphlet availed much, for the bill for the divorce passed both Houses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0224.pt|That Mr. Wakefield was a shrewd critic and close observer of all that went on in the Newgate of those days,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0225.pt|will be admitted by those who have read his book on "the punishment of death,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0226.pt|which was based on his jail experiences, and of which I have availed myself in the last chapter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0227.pt|After their release from Lancaster and Newgate respectively, both Wakefields went abroad.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0228.pt|Mr. W. Wakefield served in a continental army, and rose to the rank of colonel,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0229.pt|after which he went to New Zealand, and held an important post in that colony.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0230.pt|Mr. E. G. Wakefield took part in the scheme for the colonization of North Australia, and for some years resided in that colony.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0231.pt|Miss Turner subsequently married Mr. Legh of Lym Hall, Cheshire.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0232.pt|It must not be imagined that although highway robbery was now nearly extinct, and felonious outrages in the streets were rare,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0233.pt|that thieves or depredators were idle or entirely unsuccessful.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0234.pt|Bigger "jobs" than ever were planned and attempted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0235.pt|as in the burglary at Lambeth Palace, when the thieves were fortunately disappointed, the archbishop having, before he left town,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0236.pt|sent his plate-chests, eight in number, to the silversmith's for greater security.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0237.pt|The jewelers were always a favorite prey of the London thieves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0238.pt|Shops were broken into, as when that of Grimaldi and Johnson, in the Strand, was robbed of watches to the value of six thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0239.pt|Where robbery with violence was intended, the perpetrators had now to adopt various shifts and contrivances to secure their victim.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0240.pt|No more curious instance of this ever occurred than the assault made by one Howard upon a Mr. Mullay, with intent to rob him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0241.pt|The latter had advertised, offering a sum of one thousand pounds to anyone who would introduce him to some mercantile equipment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0242.pt|Howard replied, desiring Mr. Mullay to call upon him in a house in Red Lion Square.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0243.pt|Mr. Mullay went, and a second interview was agreed upon, when a third person, Mr. Owen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0244.pt|through whose interest an appointment under Government was to be obtained for Mullay, would be present.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0245.pt|Mr. Mullay called again, taking with him five hundred pounds in cash. Howard discovered this, and his manner was very suspicious;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0246.pt|there were weapons in the room -- a long knife, a heavy trap-ball bat, and a poker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0247.pt|Mr. Mullay became alarmed, and as Mr. Owen did not appear, withdrew;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0248.pt|Howard, strange to say, making no attempt to detain him; probably because Mullay promised to return a few days later, and to bring more money.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0249.pt|On this renewed visit Mr. Owen was still absent, and Mr. Mullay agreed to write him a note from a copy Howard gave him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0250.pt|While thus engaged, Howard thrust the poker into the fire.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0251.pt|Mullay protested, and then Howard, under the influence of ungovernable rage, as it seemed, jumped up,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0252.pt|locked the door, and attacked Mullay violently with the trap-ball bat and knife.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0253.pt|Mullay defended himself, and managed to break the knife, but not before he had cut himself severely.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0254.pt|A life and death struggle ensued. Mullay cried "Murder!"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0255.pt|Howard swore he would finish him, but proved the weaker of the two, and Mullay got him down on the floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0256.pt|By this time the neighbors were aroused, and several people came to the scene of the affray.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0257.pt|Howard was secured, given into custody, and committed to Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0258.pt|The defense he set up was, that Mullay had used epithets towards him while they were negotiating a business matter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0259.pt|and that, being an irritable temper, he had struck Mullay, after which a violent scuffle took place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0260.pt|It was, however, proved that Howard was in needy circumstances, and that his proposals to Mr. Mullay could only have originated in a desire to rob him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0261.pt|He was found guilty of an assault with intent, and sentenced to transportation for fourteen years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0262.pt|A more complicated and altogether most extraordinary case of assault, with intent to extort money, occurred a few years later.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0263.pt|It was perpetrated upon a respectable country solicitor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0264.pt|Mr. Gee, of Bishop Stortford, who administered the estate of a certain Mr. Canning, deceased.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0265.pt|This Mr. Canning had left his widow a life interest in two thousand pounds so long as she remained unmarried.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0266.pt|The money went after her to her children.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0267.pt|Mr. Gee had invested one thousand two hundred pounds of this, and was seeking how best to place the remaining eight hundred pounds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0268.pt|when he was asked to meet a Mr. Heath in London with regard to the sale of certain lands at Bishop Stortford.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0269.pt|An appointment was made and kept by Mr. Gee,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0270.pt|but on arrival he was met by a young sailor with a letter which begged Mr. Gee to go to Heath's house, as the latter was not well.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0271.pt|Mr. Gee went in the coach sent for him, and alighted at twenty-seven, York Street, West, Commercial Road.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0272.pt|The coach immediately drove off; Mr. Gee entered the house, asked for Mr. Heath, was told he would find him in the back kitchen at breakfast.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0273.pt|He was about to descend the stairs when three persons, one of them the young sailor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0274.pt|fell upon him, and in spite of his resistance carried him into a sort of den partitioned off at the end of the back kitchen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0275.pt|There he was seated on some sort of wooden bench and securely fastened.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0276.pt|"A chain fixed to staples at his back passed round his chest under his arms, and was padlocked on the left side;"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0277.pt|his feet were bound with cords and made fast to rings in the floor. Thus manacled, one of the party, who pretended to be Mrs. Canning's brother,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0278.pt|addressed him, insisting that he should forthwith sign a cheque for the eight hundred pounds of the Canning inheritance still uninvested,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0279.pt|and write an order sufficient to secure the surrender of the other one thousand two hundred pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0280.pt|Mr. Gee at first stoutly refused.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0281.pt|Then, as they warned him that he would be kept a prisoner in total darkness in this horrible den until he agreed to their demands,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0282.pt|he gave in, and signed the documents thus illegally extorted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0283.pt|One was a cheque for eight hundred pounds on his bankers, the other an order to Mr. Bell of Newport, Essex, requesting the surrender of a deed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0284.pt|His captors having thus succeeded in their designs, left him, no doubt to realize the money.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0285.pt|The door of his place of durance stood open, and Mr. Gee began to consider whether he might not escape.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0286.pt|For three hours he struggled without success with his bonds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0287.pt|but at length managed to wriggle out of the chain which confined his body, and soon loosened the ropes round his feet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0288.pt|Thus free, he eluded the vigilance of two of the party, who were at dinner in the front kitchen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0289.pt|and creeping out into the garden at the back, climbed the wall, and got into the street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0290.pt|His first act was to send a messenger to stop the cheque and the order to Mr. Bell, his next to seek the help of the police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0291.pt|Two Bow Street runners were dispatched to the house in York Street, which had evidently been taken on purpose for the outrage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0292.pt|There was no furniture in the place, and the den in the kitchen had been recently and specially constructed of boards of immense strength and thickness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ011-0293.pt|It was a cell five feet by three, within another, the intervening being filled with rammed earth to deaden the sound.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section fifteen: Newgate notorieties, part three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0002.pt|On the arrival of the police the house was empty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0003.pt|The two men on guard had gone off immediately after Mr. Gee had escaped, but they returned later in the day, and were apprehended.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0004.pt|Inquiries set on foot also elicited the suspicion that the person who had represented Mrs. Canning's brother
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0005.pt|was a blind man named Edwards, who had taken this house in York Street, and who was known to be a frequent visitor at Mrs. Canning's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0006.pt|A watch was set on him at her house, where he was soon afterwards arrested.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0007.pt|Edwards, whom Mr. Gee easily identified with the others, at once admitted that he was the prime mover of the conspiracy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0008.pt|He had sought by all legal means to obtain possession of the two thousand pounds, but had failed, and had had recourse to more violent means.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0009.pt|It turned out that he was really married to Mrs. Canning,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0010.pt|both having been recognized by the clergyman who had performed the ceremony, and the assault had been committed to secure the money
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0011.pt|which Mrs. Canning had lost by remarriage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0012.pt|All three men were committed for trial, although Edwards wished to exculpate the others as having only acted under his order.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0013.pt|At the trial the indictment charging them with felony could not be sustained, but they were found guilty of conspiracy and assault.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0014.pt|Edwards was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0015.pt|Weedon and Lecasser to twelve and six months respectively in Coldbath Fields.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0016.pt|At no period could thieves in London or elsewhere have prospered had they been unable to dispose of their ill-gotten goods.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0017.pt|The trade of fence, or receiver, therefore, is very nearly as old as the crimes which it so obviously fostered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0018.pt|One of the most notorious, and for a time most successful practitioners in this illicit trade, passed through Newgate in eighteen thirty-one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0019.pt|The name of Ikey Solomons was long remembered by thief and thief-taker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0020.pt|He began as an itinerant street vendor at eight, at ten he passed bad money,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0021.pt|at fourteen he was a pickpocket and a "duffer," or a seller of sham goods.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0022.pt|He early saw the profits to be made out of purchasing stolen goods, but could not embark in it at first for want of capital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0023.pt|He was taken up when still in his teens for stealing a pocketbook, and was sentenced to transportation, but did not get beyond the hulks at Chatham.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0024.pt|On his release an uncle, a slop-seller in Chatham, gave him a situation as "barker," or salesman,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0025.pt|at which he realized one hundred fifty pounds within a couple of years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0026.pt|With this capital he returned to London and set up as a fence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0027.pt|He had such great aptitude for business, and such a thorough knowledge of the real value of goods,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0028.pt|that he was soon admitted to be one of the best judges known of all kinds of property, from a glass bottle to a five hundred guinea chronometer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0029.pt|But he never paid more than a fixed price for all articles of the same class, whatever their intrinsic value.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0030.pt|Thus, a watch was paid for as a watch, whether it was of gold or silver; a piece of linen as such, whether the stuff was coarse or fine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0031.pt|This rule in dealing with stolen goods continues to this day, and has made the fortune of many since Ikey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0032.pt|Solomons also established a system of provincial agency, by which stolen goods were passed on from London to the seaports, and so abroad.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0033.pt|Jewels were re-set,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0034.pt|diamonds refaced; all marks by which other articles might be identified, the selvages of linen, the stamps on shoes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0035.pt|the number and names on watches, were carefully removed or obliterated after the goods passed out of his hands.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0036.pt|On one occasion the whole of the proceeds of a robbery from a boot shop was traced to Solomons';
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0037.pt|the owner came with the police, and was morally convinced that it was his property,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0038.pt|but could not positively identify it, and Ikey defied them to remove a single shoe.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0039.pt|In the end the injured bootmaker agreed to buy back his stolen stock
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0040.pt|at the price Solomons had paid for it, and it cost him about a hundred pounds to re-stock his shop with his own goods.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0041.pt|As a general rule Ikey Solomons confined his purchases to small articles, mostly of jewelery and plate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0042.pt|which he kept concealed in a hiding-place with a trap-door just under his bed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0043.pt|He lived in Rosemary Lane, and sometimes he had as much as twenty thousand pounds worth of goods secreted on the premises.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0044.pt|When his trade was busiest he set up a second establishment, at the head of which, although he was married,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0045.pt|he put another lady, with whom he was on intimate terms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0046.pt|The second house was in Lower Queen Street, Islington, and he used it for some time as a depot for valuables.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0047.pt|But it was eventually discovered by Mrs. Solomons, a very jealous wife,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0048.pt|and this, with the danger arising from an extensive robbery of watches in Cheapside, in which Ikey was implicated as a receiver,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0049.pt|led him to think seriously of trying his fortunes in another land.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0050.pt|He was about to emigrate to New South Wales, when he was arrested at Islington and committed to Newgate on a charge of receiving stolen goods.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0051.pt|While thus incarcerated he managed to escape from custody, but not actually from jail, by an ingenious contrivance which is worth mentioning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0052.pt|He claimed to be admitted to bail, and was taken from Newgate on a writ of habeas before one of the judges sitting at Westminster.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0053.pt|He was conveyed in a coach driven by a confederate, and under the escort of a couple of turnkeys.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0054.pt|Solomons, while waiting to appear in court, persuaded the turnkeys to take him to a public-house, where all might "refresh."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0055.pt|While there he was joined by his wife and other friends.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0056.pt|After a short carouse the prisoner went into Westminster, his case was heard, bail refused, and he was ordered back to Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0057.pt|But he once more persuaded the turnkeys to pause at the public, where more liquor was consumed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0058.pt|When the journey was resumed, Mrs. Solomons accompanied her husband in the coach. Half-way to Newgate she was taken with a fit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0059.pt|One turnkey was stupidly drunk, and Ikey persuaded the other, who was not much better,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0060.pt|to let the coach change and pass Petticoat Lane en route to the jail, where the suffering woman might be handed over to her friends.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0061.pt|On stopping at a door in this low street, Ikey jumped out, ran into the house, slamming the door behind him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0062.pt|He passed through and out at the back, and was soon beyond pursuit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0063.pt|By-and-by the turnkeys, sobered by their loss, returned to Newgate alone, and pleaded in excuse that they had been drugged.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0064.pt|Ikey left no traces, and the police could hear nothing of him. He had in fact gone out of the country, to Copenhagen, whence he passed on to New York.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0065.pt|There he devoted himself to the circulation of forged notes. He was also anxious to do business in watches,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0066.pt|and begged his wife to send him over a consignment of cheap "righteous" watches, or such as had been honestly obtained, and not "on the cross."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0067.pt|But Mrs. Solomons could not resist the temptation to dabble in stolen goods, and she was found shipping watches of the wrong category to New York.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0068.pt|For this she received a sentence of fourteen years' transportation, and was sent to Van Diemen's Land.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0069.pt|Ikey joined her at Hobart Town, where they set up a general shop, and soon began to prosper.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0070.pt|He was, however, recognized, and ere long an order came out from home for his arrest and transfer to England,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0071.pt|which presently followed, and again found himself an inmate of Newgate, waiting trial as a receiver and a prison-breaker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0072.pt|He was indicted on eight charges, two only of which were substantiated, but on each of them he received a sentence of seven years' transportation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0073.pt|At his own request he was reconveyed to Hobart Town, where his son had been carrying on the business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0074.pt|Whether Ikey was "assigned" to his own family is not recorded, but no doubt he succeeded to his own property when the term of servitude had expired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0075.pt|No doubt, on the removal of Ikey Solomons from the scene, his mantle fell upon worthy successors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0076.pt|There was an increase rather than an abatement in jewel and bullion robberies in the years immediately following,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0077.pt|and the thieves seem to have had no difficulty in disposing of their spoil.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0078.pt|One of the largest robberies of its class was that effected upon the Custom House in the winter of eighteen thirty-four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0079.pt|A large amount of specie was nearly always retained here in the department of the Receiver of Fines.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0080.pt|This was known to some clerks in the office, who began to consider how they might lay hands on a lot of cash.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0081.pt|Being inexperienced, they decided to call in the services of a couple of professional housebreakers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0082.pt|Jordan and Sullivan, who at once set to work in a business-like way to obtain impressions of the keys of the strong room and chest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0083.pt|But before committing themselves to an attempt on the latter, it was of importance to ascertain how much it usually contained.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0084.pt|For this purpose Jordan waited on the receiver to make a small payment, for which he tendered a fifty-pound note.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0085.pt|The chest was opened to give change, and a heavy tray lifted out which plainly held some four thousand pounds in cash.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0086.pt|Some difficulty then arose as to gaining admission to the strong room, and it was arranged that a man, May, another Custom House clerk,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0087.pt|should be introduced into the building, and secreted there during the night to accomplish the robbery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0088.pt|May was smuggled in through a window on the esplanade behind an opened umbrella. When the place was quite deserted
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0089.pt|he broke open the chest and stole four thousand, seven hundred pounds in notes, with a quantity of gold and some silver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0090.pt|He went out next morning with the booty when the doors were re-opened, and attracted no attention.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0091.pt|The spoil was fairly divided; part of the notes were disposed of to a traveling "receiver," who passed over to the Continent and there cashed them easily.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0092.pt|This occurred in November eighteen thirty-four. The Custom House officials were in a state of consternation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0093.pt|and the police were unable at first to get on the track of the thieves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0094.pt|While the excitement was still fresh, a new robbery of diamonds was committed at a bonded warehouse in the immediate neighborhood, on Custom House Quay.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0095.pt|The jewels had belonged to a Spanish countess recently deceased, who had sent them to England for greater security on the outbreak of the first Carlist war.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0096.pt|At her death the diamonds were divided between her four daughters, but only half had been claimed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0097.pt|and at the time of the robbery there were still six thousand pounds worth in the warehouse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0098.pt|These were deposited in an iron chest of great strength on the second floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0099.pt|The thieves it was supposed had secreted themselves in the warehouse during business hours, and waited till night to carry out their plans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0100.pt|Some ham sandwiches, several cigar ends, and two empty champagne bottles were found on the premises next day, showing how they had passed their time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0101.pt|They had had serious work to get at the diamonds. It was necessary to force one heavy door from its hinges, and to cut through the thick panels of another.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0102.pt|The lock and fastenings of the chest were forced by means of a "jack," an instrument known to housebreakers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0103.pt|which if introduced into a keyhole, and worked like a bit and brace, will soon destroy the strongest lock.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0104.pt|The thieves were satisfied with the diamonds; they broke open other cases containing gold watches and plate, but abstracted nothing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0105.pt|The police were of opinion that these robberies were both the work of the same hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0106.pt|But it was not until the autumn that they traced some of the notes stolen from the Custom House to Jordan and Sullivan.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0107.pt|About this time also suspicion fell upon Huey, one of the clerks, who was arrested soon afterwards, and made a clean breast of the whole affair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0108.pt|There was a hunt for the two well-known house-breakers, who were eventually heard of at a lodging in Kennington.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0109.pt|But they at once made tracks, and took up their residence under assumed names in a tavern in Bloomsbury.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0110.pt|The police lost all trace of them for some days, but at length Sullivan's brother was followed from the house in Kennington to the above-mentioned tavern.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0111.pt|Both the thieves were now apprehended, but only a small portion of the lost property was recovered,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0112.pt|notwithstanding a minute search through the room they had occupied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0113.pt|After their arrest, Jordan's wife and Sullivan's brother came to the inn, and begged to be allowed to visit this room;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0114.pt|but their request, in spite of their earnest entreaties,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0115.pt|was refused, at the instigation of the police. A few days later a frequent guest at the tavern arrived, and had this same room allotted to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0116.pt|A fire was lit in it, and the maid in doing so threw a lot of rubbish, as it seemed, which had accumulated under the grate, on top of the burning coals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0117.pt|By-and-by the occupant of the room noticed something glittering in the center of the fire, which, to inspect more closely, he took out with the tongs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0118.pt|It was a large gold brooch set in pearls, but a portion of the mounting had melted with the heat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0119.pt|The fire was raked out, and in the ashes were found seven large and four dozen small brilliants, also seven emeralds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0120.pt|one of them of considerable size.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0121.pt|A part of the "swag" stolen from the bonded warehouse was thus recovered, but it was supposed that a number of the stolen notes had perished in the fire.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0122.pt|The condign punishment meted out to these Custom House robbers had no deterrent effect seemingly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0123.pt|Within three months, three new and most mysterious burglaries were committed at the West End, all in houses adjoining each other.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0124.pt|One was occupied by the Portuguese ambassador, who lost a quantity of jewelery from an escritoire, and his neighbors lost plate and cash.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0125.pt|Not the slightest clue to these large affairs was ever obtained, but it is probable that they were "put up" jobs, or managed with the complicity of servants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0126.pt|The next year twelve thousand sovereigns were cleverly stolen in the Mile End Road.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0127.pt|The gold-dust robbery of eighteen thirty-nine, the first of its kind, was cleverly and carefully planned with the assistance of a dishonest employee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0128.pt|A young man named Caspar, clerk to a steam-ship company,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0129.pt|learnt through the firm's correspondence that a quantity of gold-dust
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0130.pt|brought in a man-of-war from Brazil had been transhipped at Falmouth for conveyance to London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0131.pt|The letter informed him of the marks and sizes of the cases containing the precious metal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0132.pt|and he with his father arranged that a messenger should call for the stuff with forged credentials, and anticipating the rightful owner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0133.pt|The fraudulent messenger, by the help of young Caspar, established his claim to the boxes, paid the wharfage dues, and carried off the gold-dust.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0134.pt|Presently the proper person arrived from the consignees, but found the gold-dust gone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0135.pt|The police were at once employed, and after infinite pains they discovered the person, one Moss, who had acted as the messenger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0136.pt|Moss was known to be intimate with the elder Caspar,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0137.pt|father of the clerk to the steam-ship company, and these facts were deemed sufficient to justify the arrest of all three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0138.pt|They also ascertained that a gold-refiner,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0139.pt|Solomons, had sold bar gold to the value of one thousand two hundred pounds to certain bullion dealers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0140.pt|Solomons was not straightforward in his replies as to where he got the gold, and he was soon placed in the dock with the Caspars and Moss.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0141.pt|Moss presently turned approver,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0142.pt|and implicated "Money Moses," another Jew, for the whole affair had been planned and executed by members of the Hebrew persuasion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0143.pt|"Money Moses" had received the stolen gold-dust from Moss' father-in-law, Davis, or Isaacs, who was never arrested,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0144.pt|and passed it on to Solomons by his daughter, a widow named Abrahams.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0145.pt|Solomons was now also admitted as a witness, and his evidence, with that of Moss, secured the transportation of the principal actors in the theft.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0146.pt|In the course of the trial it came out that almost every one concerned except the Caspars had endeavored to defraud his accomplices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0147.pt|Moss peached because he declared he had been done out of the proper price of the gold-dust; but it was clear that he had tried to appropriate the whole of the stuff,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0148.pt|instead of handing it or the price of it back to the Caspars.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0149.pt|"Money Moses" and Mrs. Abrahams imposed upon Moss as to the price paid by Solomons;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0150.pt|Mrs. Abrahams imposed upon her father by abstracting a portion of the dust and selling it on her own account;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0151.pt|Solomons cheated the whole lot by retaining half the gold in his possession, and only giving an I. O. U. for it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0152.pt|which he refused to redeem on account of the row about the robbery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0153.pt|Moses, it may be added, was a direct descendant of Ikey Solomons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0154.pt|He was ostensibly a publican,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0155.pt|and kept the Black Lion in Vinegar Yard, Drury Lane, where secretly he did business as one of the most daring and successful fencers ever known in the metropolis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0156.pt|His arrest and conviction cast dismay over the whole gang of receivers, and for a time seriously checked the nefarious traffic.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0157.pt|It may be added that prison life did not agree with "Money Moses"; a striking change came over his appearance while in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0158.pt|Before his confinement he had been a sleek round person, addicted obviously to the pleasures of the table.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0159.pt|He did not thrive on prison fare,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0160.pt|now more strictly meager, thanks to the inspectors and the more stringent discipline, and before he embarked for Australia to undergo his fourteen years,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0161.pt|he was reported to have fallen away to a shadow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0162.pt|Having brought down the records of great frauds, forgeries, and thefts from about eighteen twenty-five to eighteen forty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0163.pt|I will now retrace my steps and give some account of the more remarkable murders during that period.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0164.pt|No murder has created greater sensation and horror throughout England than that of Mr. Weare by Thurtell, Hunt, and Probert.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0165.pt|As this was accomplished beyond the limits of the metropolis, and its perpetrators arraigned at Hertford,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0166.pt|where the principal actor suffered death, the case hardly comes within the limits of my subject.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0167.pt|But Probert, who turned king's evidence, and materially assisted conviction,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0168.pt|was tried at the Old Bailey the following year for horse-stealing, and hanged in front of Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0169.pt|The murder was still fresh in the memory of the populace, and Probert was all but lynched on his way to jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0170.pt|According to his statement, when sentenced to death, he had been driven to horse-stealing by the execration which had pursued him after the murder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0171.pt|Every door had been closed against him, every hope of future support blasted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0172.pt|Since the calamitous event," he went on, "that happened at Hertford, I have been a lost man."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0173.pt|The event which he styles calamitous we may well characterize as one of the most deliberately atrocious murders on record.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0174.pt|Thurtell was a gambler, and Weare had won a good deal of money from him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0175.pt|Weare was supposed to carry a "private bank" about with him in a pocket in his under waistcoat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0176.pt|To obtain possession of this, Thurtell with his two associates resolved to kill him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0177.pt|The victim was invited to visit Probert's cottage in the country near Elstree.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0178.pt|Thurtell drove him down in a gig, "to be killed as he traveled," in Thurtell's own words.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0179.pt|The others followed, and on overtaking Thurtell, found he had done the job alone in a retired part of the road known as Gill's Hill Lane.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0180.pt|The murderer explained that he had first fired a pistol at Weare's head, but the shot glanced off his cheek.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0181.pt|Then he attacked the other's throat with a penknife, and last of all drove the pistol barrel into his forehead.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0182.pt|After the murder the villains divided the spoil, and went on to Probert's cottage, and supped off pork-chops brought down on purpose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0183.pt|During the night they sought to dispose of the body by throwing it into a pond, but two days later had to throw it into another pond.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0184.pt|Meanwhile the discovery of pistol and knife spattered with human blood and brains
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0185.pt|raised the alarm, and suspicion fell upon the three murderers, who were arrested.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0186.pt|The crime was brought home to Thurtell by the confession of Hunt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0187.pt|one of his accomplices, who took the police to the pond, where the remains of the unfortunate Mr. Weare were discovered, sunk in a sack weighted by stones.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0188.pt|Probert was then admitted as a witness, and the case was fully proved against Thurtell, who was hanged in front of Hertford Jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0189.pt|Hunt, in consideration of the information he had given, escaped death, and was sentenced to transportation for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0190.pt|Widespread horror and indignation was evoked throughout the kingdom by the discovery of the series
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0191.pt|of atrocious murders perpetrated in Edinburgh by the miscreants Burke and Hare,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0192.pt|the first of whom has added to the British language a synonym for illegal suppression.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0193.pt|The crimes of these inhuman purveyors to medical science do not fall within the limits of this work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0194.pt|But Burke and Hare had their imitators further south,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0195.pt|and of these Bishop and Williams, who were guilty of many peculiar atrocities, ended their murderous careers in front of the debtors' door at Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0196.pt|Bishop, whose real name was Head, married a half-sister of Williams'. Williams was a professional resurrectionist, or body-snatcher,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0197.pt|a trade almost openly countenanced when "subjects" for the anatomy schools were only to be got by rifling graves, or worse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0198.pt|Bishop was a carpenter, but having been suddenly thrown out of work, he joined his brother-in-law in his line of business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0199.pt|After a little
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0200.pt|Bishop got weary of the dangers and fatigues of exhumation, and proposed to Williams that instead of disinterring they should murder their subjects.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0201.pt|Bishop confessed that he was moved to this by the example of Burke and Hare.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0202.pt|They pursued their terrible trade for five years without scruple and without detection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0203.pt|Eventually the law overtook them, but almost by accident.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0204.pt|They presented themselves about noon one day at the dissecting room of King's College Hospital, accompanied by a third man,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0205.pt|an avowed "snatcher" and habitué of the Fortune of War, a public-house in Smithfield frequented openly by men of this awful profession.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0206.pt|This man, May, asked the porter at King's College if "he wanted anything?" the euphemism for offering a body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0207.pt|The porter asked what he had got, and the answer was, a male subject.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0208.pt|Reference was made to Mr. Partridge, the demonstrator in anatomy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0209.pt|and after some haggling they agreed on a price, and in the afternoon the snatchers brought a hamper which contained a body in a sack.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0210.pt|The porter received it, but from its freshness became suspicious of foul play.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0211.pt|Mr. Partridge was sent for, and he with some of the students soon decided that the corpse had not died a natural death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0212.pt|The snatchers were detained, the police sent for, and arrest followed as a matter of course.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0213.pt|An inquest was held on the body, which was identified as that of an Italian boy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0214.pt|Carlo Ferrari, who made a living by exhibiting white mice about the streets,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0215.pt|and the jury returned a verdict of willful murder against persons unknown, expressing a strong opinion that Bishop,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0216.pt|Williams, and May had been concerned in the transaction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0217.pt|Meanwhile, a search had been made at Nova Scotia Gardens, Bethnal Green, where Bishop and Williams lived.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0218.pt|At first nothing peculiar was found; but at a second search the back-garden ground was dug up,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0219.pt|and in one corner, at some depth, a bundle of clothes were unearthed, which, with a hairy cap,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0220.pt|were known to be what Ferrari had worn when last seen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0221.pt|In another portion of the garden more clothing, partly male and partly female, was discovered,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0222.pt|plainly pointing to the perpetration of other crimes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0223.pt|These facts were represented before the police magistrate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0224.pt|who examined Bishop and his fellows, and further incriminating evidence adduced, to the effect that the prisoners had bartered for a coach to carry "a stiff 'un";
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0225.pt|they had also been seen to leave their cottage, carrying out a sack with something heavy inside. On this they were fully committed to Newgate for trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0226.pt|This trial came off in due course at the Central Criminal Court, where the prisoners were charged on two counts,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0227.pt|one that of the murder of the Italian boy, the other that of a boy unknown.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0228.pt|The evidence from first to last was circumstantial,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0229.pt|but the jury, after a short deliberation, did not hesitate to bring in a verdict of guilty, and all three were condemned to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0230.pt|Shortly before the day fixed for execution, Bishop made a full confession, the bulk of which bore the impress of truth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0231.pt|although it included statements that were improbable and unsubstantiated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0232.pt|He asserted that the victim was a Lincolnshire lad, and not an Italian boy, although the latter was fully proved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0233.pt|According to the confession, death had been inflicted by drowning in a well, whereas the medical evidence all pointed to violence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0234.pt|It was, however, pretty clear that this victim, like preceding ones, had been lured to Nova Scotia Gardens, and there drugged with a large dose of laudanum.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0235.pt|While they were in a state of insensibility the murder was committed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0236.pt|Bishop's confession was endorsed by Williams, and the immediate result was the respite of May.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0237.pt|A very painful scene occurred in Newgate when the news of his escape from death was imparted to May.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0238.pt|He fainted, and the warrant of mercy nearly proved his death-blow. The other two looked on at his agitation with an indifference amounting to apathy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0239.pt|The execution took place a week or two later, in the presence of such a crowd as had not been seen near Newgate for years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0240.pt|I will close this chapter with a brief account of another murder,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0241.pt|the memory of which is still fresh in the minds of Londoners, although half a century has passed since it was committed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0242.pt|The horror with which Greenacre's crime struck the town was unparalleled since the time when Catherine Hayes slew her husband.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0243.pt|There were many features of resemblance in these crimes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0244.pt|The decapitation and dismemberment, the bestowal of the remains in various parts of the town, the preservation of the head in spirits of wine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0245.pt|in the hope that the features might some day be recognized, were alike in both.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0246.pt|The murder in both cases was long a profound mystery. In this which I am now describing,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0247.pt|a bricklayer found a human trunk near some new buildings in the Edgeware Road, one morning in the last week of eighteen thirty-six.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0248.pt|The inquest on these remains, which medical examination showed to be those of a female,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0249.pt|returned a verdict of willful murder against some person unknown.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0250.pt|On the seventh July, eighteen thirty-seven,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0251.pt|the lockman of "Ben Jonson lock," in Stepney Fields, found a human head jammed into the lock gates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0252.pt|Closer investigation proved that it belonged to the trunk already discovered on the second February.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0253.pt|A further discovery was made in an osier bed near Cold Harbor Lane, Camberwell,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0254.pt|where a workman found a bundle containing two human legs, in a drain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0255.pt|These were the missing members of the same mutilated trunk,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0256.pt|and there was now evidence sufficient to establish conclusively that the woman thus collected piecemeal had been barbarously done to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0257.pt|But the affair still remained a profound mystery. No light was thrown upon it till, towards the end of March,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0258.pt|a Mr. Gay of Goodge Street came to view the head, and immediately recognized it as that of a widowed sister, Hannah Brown,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0259.pt|who had been missing since the previous Christmas Day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0260.pt|The murdered individual was thus identified. The next step was to ascertain where and with whom she had last been seen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0261.pt|This brought suspicion on to a certain James Greenacre,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0262.pt|whom she was to have married, and in whose company she had left her own lodgings to visit his in Camberwell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0263.pt|The police wished to refer to Greenacre, but as he was not forthcoming,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0264.pt|a warrant was issued for his apprehension, which was effected at Kennington on the twenty-fourth March.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0265.pt|A woman named Gale, who lived with him, was arrested at the same time. The prisoners were examined at the Marylebone police court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0266.pt|Greenacre, a stout, middle-aged man, wrapped in a brown greatcoat, assumed an air of insolent bravado;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0267.pt|but his despair must have been great, as was evident from his attempt to strangle himself in the station-house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0268.pt|Suspicion grew almost to certainty as the evidence was unfolded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0269.pt|Mrs. Brown was a washer-woman, supposed to be worth some money; hence Greenacre's offer of marriage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0270.pt|She had realized all her effects, and brought them with her furniture to Greenacre's lodgings. The two when married were to emigrate to Hudson's Bay.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0271.pt|Whether it was greed or a quarrel that drove Greenacre to the desperate deed remains obscure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0272.pt|They were apparently good friends when last seen together at a neighbor's, where they seemed "perfectly happy and sociable, and eager for the wedding day."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0273.pt|But Greenacre in his confession pretended that he and his intended had quarreled over her property or the want of it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0274.pt|and that in a moment of anger he knocked her down.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0275.pt|He thought he had killed her, and in his terror began at once to consider how he might dispose of the body and escape arrest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0276.pt|While she was senseless, but really still alive, he cut off her head, and dismembered the body in the manner already described.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0277.pt|It is scarcely probable that he would have gone to this extremity if he had had no previous evil intention,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0278.pt|and the most probable inference is that he inveigled Mrs. Brown to his lodgings with the set purpose of taking her life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0279.pt|His measures for the disposal of the corpus delicti remind us of those taken by Mrs. Hayes and her associates,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0280.pt|or of Gardelle's frantic efforts to conceal his crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0281.pt|The most ghastly part of the story is that which deals with his getting rid of the head.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0282.pt|This, wrapped up in a silk handkerchief,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0283.pt|he carried under his coat-flaps through the streets, and afterwards on his cap in a crowded city omnibus.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0284.pt|It was not until he left the bus, and walked up by the Regent's Canal, that he conceived the idea of throwing the head into the water.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0285.pt|Another day elapsed before he got rid of the rest of the body,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0286.pt|all of which, according to his own confession, made no doubt with the idea of exonerating Mrs. Gale, he accomplished without her assistance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0287.pt|On the other hand, it was adduced in evidence that Mrs. Gale had been at his lodgings the very day after the murder,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0288.pt|and was seen to be busily engaged in washing down the house with bucket and mop.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0289.pt|Greenacre, when tried at the Old Bailey, admitted that he had been guilty of manslaughter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0290.pt|While conversing with Mrs. Brown, he declared the unfortunate woman was rocking herself to and fro in a chair;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0291.pt|as she leant back he put his foot against the chair, and so tilted it over.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0292.pt|Mrs. Brown fell with it, and Greenacre, to his horror, found that she was dead.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0293.pt|But the medical evidence was clear that the decapitation had been effected during life, and the jury, after a short deliberation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0294.pt|without hesitation brought in a verdict of willful murder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0295.pt|The woman Gale was also found guilty, but sentence of death was only passed on Greenacre.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ012-0296.pt|The execution was, as usual, attended by an immense concourse, and Greenacre died amidst the loudest execrations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section sixteen: Newgate notorieties continued, part one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0002.pt|As the century advanced crimes of fraud increased.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0003.pt|They not only became more numerous, but they were on a wider scale.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0004.pt|The most extensive and systematic robberies were planned and carried out so as long to escape detection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0005.pt|One of the earliest of the big operators in fraudulent finance was Edward Beaumont Smith,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0006.pt|who was convicted in eighteen forty-one of uttering false exchequer bills to an almost fabulous amount.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0007.pt|A not entirely novel kind of fraud, but one carried out on a larger scale than heretofore,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0008.pt|came to light in this same year, eighteen forty-one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0009.pt|This was the willful shipwreck and casting away of a vessel which, with her supposed cargo, had been heavily insured.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0010.pt|The 'Dryad' was a brig owned principally by two persons named Wallace, one a seaman, the other merchant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0011.pt|She was freighted by the firm of Zulueta and Co. for a voyage to Santa Cruz.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0012.pt|Her owners insured her for a full sum of two thousand pounds, after which the Wallaces insured her privily
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0013.pt|with other underwriters for a second sum of two thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0014.pt|After this, on the faith of forced bills of lading, the captain, Loose by name,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0015.pt|being a party to the intended fraud, they obtained further insurances on goods never shipped.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0016.pt|It was fully proved in evidence that when the Dryad sailed she carried nothing but the cargo belonging to Zulueta and Co.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0017.pt|Yet the Wallaces pretended to have put on board quantities of flannels, cloths, cotton prints,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0018.pt|beef, pork, butter, and earthenwares, on all of which they effected insurances.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0019.pt|Loose had his instructions to cast away the ship on the first possible opportunity, and from the time of his leaving Liverpool
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0020.pt|he acted in a manner which excited the suspicions of the crew.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0021.pt|The larboard pump was suffered to remain choked up, and the long-boat was fitted with tackles and held ready for use at a moment's notice.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0022.pt|The ship, however, met with exasperatingly fine weather, and it was not until the captain reached the West India Islands
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0023.pt|that he got a chance of accomplishing his crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0024.pt|At a place called the Silver Keys he ran the ship on the reef.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0025.pt|But another ship, concluding that he was acting in ignorance, rendered him assistance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0026.pt|The 'Dryad' was got off, repaired, and her voyage renewed to Santa Cruz.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0027.pt|He crept along the coast close in shore, looking for a quiet spot to cast away the ship,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0028.pt|and at last, when within fifteen miles of port, with wind and weather perfectly fair, he ran her on to the rocks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0029.pt|Even then she might have been saved, but the captain would not suffer the crew to act. Nearly the whole of the cargo was lost as well as the ship.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0030.pt|The captain and crew, however, got safely to Jamaica, and so to England; the captain dying on the voyage home.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0031.pt|The crime soon became public.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0032.pt|Mate, carpenter, and crew were eager to disavow complicity, and voluntarily gave information.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0033.pt|The Wallaces were arrested, committed to Newgate, and tried at the Old Bailey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0034.pt|The case was clearly proved against them, and both were sentenced to transportation for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0035.pt|While lying in Newgate, awaiting removal to the convict ship, both prisoners made full confessions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0036.pt|According to their own statements the loss of the 'Dryad' was only one of six intentional shipwrecks with which they had been concerned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0037.pt|The crime of fraudulent insurance they declared was very common, and the underwriters must have lost great sums in this way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0038.pt|The merchant Wallace said he had been led into the crime by the advice and example of a city friend who had gone largely into this nefarious business;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0039.pt|this Wallace added that his friend had made several voyages with the distinct intention of superintending the predetermined shipwrecks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0040.pt|The other Wallace, the sailor, also traced his lapse into crime to evil counsel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0041.pt|He was an honest sea-captain, he said, trading from Liverpool, where once he had the misfortune to be introduced to a man of wealth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0042.pt|the foundations of which had been laid by buying old ships on purpose to cast them away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0043.pt|This person made much of Wallace, encouraged his attentions to his daughter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0044.pt|and tempted him to take to fraudulent insurance as a certain method of achieving fortune.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0045.pt|Wallace's relations warned him against his Liverpool friend,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0046.pt|but he would not take their advice, and developing his transactions, ended as we have seen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0047.pt|A clergyman nearly a century later followed in the steps of Dr. Dodd, but did not under more humane laws lose his life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0048.pt|The Rev. W. Bailey, LL.D., was convicted at the Central Criminal Court, in February eighteen forty-three, of forgery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0049.pt|A notorious miser, Robert Smith, had recently died in Seven Dials, where he had amassed a considerable fortune.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0050.pt|But among the charges on the estate he left
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0051.pt|was a promissory note for two thousand eight hundred seventy-five pounds, produced by Dr. Bailey, and purporting to be signed by Smith.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0052.pt|The executors to the estate disputed the validity of this document.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0053.pt|Miss Bailey, the doctor's sister, in whose favor the note was said to have been given,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0054.pt|then brought an action against the administrators, and at the trial Dr. Bailey swore that the note had been given him by Smith.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0055.pt|The jury did not believe him, and the verdict was for the defendants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0056.pt|Subsequently Bailey was arrested on a charge of forgery, and after a long trial found guilty. His sentence was transportation for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0057.pt|A gigantic conspiracy to defraud was discovered in the following year, when a solicitor named William Henry Barber,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0058.pt|Joshua Fletcher a surgeon, and three others were charged with forging wills for the purpose of obtaining unclaimed stock in the funds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0059.pt|There were two separate affairs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0060.pt|In the first a maiden lady, Miss Slack,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0061.pt|who was the possessor of two separate sums in consols, neglected through strange carelessness on her own part and that of her friends
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0062.pt|to draw the dividends on more than one sum.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0063.pt|The other, remaining unclaimed for ten years, was transferred at the end of that time to the commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0064.pt|Barber, it was said, became aware of this,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0065.pt|and that he gained access to Miss Slack on pretense of conveying to her some funded property left her by an aunt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0066.pt|By this means her signature was obtained; a forged will was prepared bequeathing the unclaimed stock to Miss Slack;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0067.pt|a note purporting to be from Miss Slack was addressed to the governor of the Bank of England, begging that the said stock might be handed over to her,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0068.pt|and a person calling herself Miss Slack duly attended at the bank, where the money was handed over to her in proper form.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0069.pt|A second will, also forged, was propounded at Doctors Commons as that of a Mrs. Hunt of Bristol.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0070.pt|Mrs. Hunt had left money in the funds which remained unclaimed, and had been transferred, as in Miss Slack's case.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0071.pt|Here again the money, with ten years' interest, was handed over to Barber and another calling himself Thomas Hunt, an executor of the will.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0072.pt|It was shown that the will must be a forgery,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0073.pt|as its signature was dated eighteen twenty-nine, whereas Mrs. Hunt actually died in eighteen oh six.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0074.pt|A third similar fraud to the amount of two thousand pounds was also brought to light.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0075.pt|Fletcher was the moving spirit of the whole business. It was he who had introduced Barber to Miss Slack,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0076.pt|and held all the threads of these intricate and nefarious transactions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0077.pt|Barber and Fletcher were both transported for life, although Fletcher declared that Barber was innocent, and had no guilty knowledge of what was being done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0078.pt|Barber was subsequently pardoned, but was not replaced on the rolls as an attorney till eighteen fifty-five,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0079.pt|when Lord Campbell delivered judgment on Barber's petition, to the effect that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0080.pt|the evidence to establish his (Barber's) connivance in the frauds was too doubtful for us to continue his exclusion any longer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0081.pt|Banks and bankers continued to be victimized.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0082.pt|In eighteen forty-four
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0083.pt|the Bank of England was defrauded of a sum of eight thousand pounds by one of its clerks, Burgess, in conjunction with an accomplice named Elder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0084.pt|Burgess fraudulently transferred consols to the above amount, standing in the name of Mr. Oxenford, to another party.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0085.pt|A person, Elder of course, who personated Oxenford, attended at the bank to complete the transfer and sell the stock.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0086.pt|Burgess, who was purposely on leave from the bank, effected the sale, which was paid for with a cheque for nearly the whole amount on Lubbock's Bank.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0087.pt|Burgess and Elder proceeded in company to cash this, but as they wanted all gold,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0088.pt|the cashier gave them eight Bank of England notes for one thousand pounds each, saying that they could get so much specie nowhere else.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0089.pt|Thither Elder went alone, provided with a number of canvas and one large carpet-bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0090.pt|But when the latter was filled with gold it was too heavy to lift,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0091.pt|and Elder had to be assisted by two bank porters, who carried it for him to a carriage waiting near the Mansion House.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0092.pt|The thieves, for Elder was soon joined by Burgess, drove together to Ben Caunt's, the pugilist's, public-house in St. Martin's Lane,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0093.pt|where the cash was transferred from the carpet-bag to a portmanteau.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0094.pt|The same evening both started for Liverpool, and embarking on board the mail steamer 'Britannia,' escaped to the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0095.pt|Burgess' continued absence was soon noticed at the bank.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0096.pt|Suspicions were aroused when it was found that he had been employed in selling stock for Mr. Oxenford, which developed into certainty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0097.pt|as soon as that gentleman was referred to.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0098.pt|Mr. Oxenford having denied that he had made any transfer of stock, the matter was at once put into the hands of the police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0099.pt|A smart detective, Forrester, after a little inquiry,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0100.pt|established the fact that the man who had personated Mr. Oxenford was a horse-dealer named Joseph Elder, an intimate acquaintance of Burgess'.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0101.pt|Forrester next traced the fugitives to Liverpool,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0102.pt|and thence to Halifax, whither he followed them, accompanied by a confidential clerk from the bank.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0103.pt|At Halifax Forrester learnt that the men he wanted had gone on to Boston, thence to Buffalo and Canada, and back to Boston.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0104.pt|He found them at length residing at the latter place, one as a landed proprietor, the other as a publican.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0105.pt|Elder, the former, was soon apprehended at his house, but he evaded the law by hanging himself with his pocket-handkerchief.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0106.pt|The inn belonging to Burgess was surrounded
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0107.pt|but he escaped through a back door on to the river, and rowed off in a boat to a hiding-place in the woods.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0108.pt|Next day a person betrayed him for the reward, and he was soon captured.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0109.pt|The proceeds of the robbery were lodged in a Boston bank,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0110.pt|but four hundred sovereigns were found on Elder, while two hundred more were found in Burgess' effects.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0111.pt|Burgess was eventually brought back to England, tried at the Central Criminal Court, and sentenced to transportation for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0112.pt|Within a month or two the bank of Messrs. Rogers and Co., Clement's Lane, was broken into.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0113.pt|Robberies as daring in conception as they were boldly executed were common enough.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0114.pt|One night a quantity of plate was stolen from Windsor Castle; another time Buckingham Palace was robbed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0115.pt|Of this class was the ingenious yet peculiarly simple robbery effected at the house of Lord Fitzgerald in Belgrave Square.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0116.pt|The butler, on the occasion of a death in the family, when the house was in some confusion, arranged with a burglar to come in,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0117.pt|and with another carry off the plate-chest in broad daylight, and as a matter of business. No one interfered or asked any questions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0118.pt|The thief walked into the house in Belgrave Square, and openly carried off the plate-chest, deposited it in a light cart at the door, and drove away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0119.pt|Howse, the steward, accused the other servants, but they retorted, declaring that he had been visited by the thief the day previous,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0120.pt|whom he had shown over the plate closet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0121.pt|Howse and his accomplice were arrested; the former was found guilty and sentenced to fifteen years, but the latter was acquitted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0122.pt|Stealing plate was about this period the crime of a more aristocratic thief.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0123.pt|The club spoons and other articles of plate were long a source of profitable income to a gentleman named Ashley,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0124.pt|who belonged to five good London clubs --
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0125.pt|the Junior United Service, the Union, Reform, Colonial, and Erechtheum clubs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0126.pt|When one of these clubs was taken in at the Army and Navy, that establishment also suffered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0127.pt|Suspicion fell at length upon Ashley, who was seen to handle the forks and spoons at table in a strange manner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0128.pt|A watch was set on his house, in Allington Street, Pimlico,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0129.pt|and one day a police constable tracked him to a silversmith's in Holborn Hill,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0130.pt|where Ashley produced four silver spoons, and begged that his initials might be engraved upon them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0131.pt|Ashley was arrested as he left the shop; the spoons were impounded, and it was found that the club monogram had been erased from them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0132.pt|On a search of the prisoner's lodgings in Allington Street, a silver fork was found,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0133.pt|a number of pawnbrokers' duplicates, and three small files. It was proved at the trial that Ashley had asked his landlady for brick-dust and leather,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0134.pt|and it was contended that these with the files were used to alter the marks on the plate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0135.pt|At most of the clubs the servants had been mulcted to make good lost plate, which had no doubt been stolen by the prisoner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0136.pt|Several pawnbrokers were subpoenaed and obliged to surrender plate, to the extent in some cases of a couple of dozen of spoons or forks,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0137.pt|which the various club secretaries identified as the property of their respective clubs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0138.pt|Ashley was the son of an army agent and banker,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0139.pt|and many witnesses were brought to attest to his previous good character, but he was found guilty and sentenced to seven years' transportation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0140.pt|A robbery of a somewhat novel kind was executed in rather a bungling fashion by Ker, a sea-captain,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0141.pt|whose ship brought home a mixed cargo from Bahia and other ports.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0142.pt|Part of the freight were four hundred rough diamonds valued at four thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0143.pt|These packages were consigned to Messrs. Shroeder of London; and as it was known that they were to arrive in Ker's ship,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0144.pt|one of the owners had met her at Deal, but the captain had already absconded with the packages of precious stones in his pocket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0145.pt|Ker came at once to London, and, by the help of the landlord of a public-house in Smithfield and others, disposed of the whole of the diamonds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0146.pt|A Jew named Benjamin effected the sale to certain merchants named Blogg and Martin,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0147.pt|who declared that the rough diamond market was in such a depressed condition that they could only afford to give one thousand seven fifty pounds for stones worth
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0148.pt|four thousand pounds
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0149.pt|The circumstances of this purchase of brilliants from a stranger at such an inadequate price was strongly commented upon at Ker's trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0150.pt|The moment it was discovered that the diamonds had disappeared, the affair was taken up by the police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0151.pt|Forrester, the detective who had pursued and captured Burgess at Boston, tracked Ker to France, and following him there, eventually captured him
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0152.pt|at Montreuil. He was arraigned at the Old Bailey, and the case fully proved. His sentence was seven years' transportation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0153.pt|The gravest crimes continued at intervals to inspire the town with horror, and concentrate public attention upon the jail of Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0154.pt|and the murderers immured within its walls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0155.pt|Courvoisier's case made a great stir. There was unusual atrocity in this murder of an aged, infirm gentleman,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0156.pt|a scion of the ducal house of Bedford, by his confidential valet and personal attendant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0157.pt|Lord William Russell lived alone in Norfolk Street, Park Lane. He was a widower, and seventy-three years of age.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0158.pt|One morning in May his lordship was found dead in his bed with his throat cut.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0159.pt|The fact of the murder was first discovered by the housemaid,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0160.pt|who, on going down early, was surprised to find the dining-room in a state of utter confusion;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0161.pt|the furniture turned upside down, the drawers of the escritoire open and rifled,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0162.pt|a bundle lying on the floor, as though thieves had been interrupted in the act.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0163.pt|The housemaid summoned the cook, and both went to call the valet, Courvoisier,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0164.pt|who came from his room ready dressed, a suspicious circumstance, as he was always late in the morning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0165.pt|The housemaid suggested that they should see if his lordship was all right, and the three went to his bedroom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0166.pt|While Courvoisier opened the shutters, the housemaid, approaching the bed, saw that the pillow was saturated with blood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0167.pt|The discovery of the murdered man immediately followed. The neighborhood was alarmed, the police sent for, and a close inquiry forthwith commenced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0168.pt|That Lord William Russell had committed suicide was at once declared impossible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0169.pt|It was also clearly proved that no forcible entry had been made into the house;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0170.pt|the fresh marks of violence upon the door had evidently been made inside, and not from outside;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0171.pt|moreover, the instruments, poker and chisel, by which they had no doubt been effected,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0172.pt|were found in the butler's pantry, used by Courvoisier.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0173.pt|The researches of the police soon laid bare other suspicious facts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0174.pt|The bundle found in the dining-room contained, with clothes, various small articles of plate and jewelery which a thief would probably have put into his pocket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0175.pt|Upstairs in the bedroom a rouleaux box for sovereigns had been broken open,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0176.pt|also the jewel-box and note-case, from the latter of which was abstracted a ten-pound note known to have been in the possession of the deceased.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0177.pt|His lordship's watch was gone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0178.pt|Further suspicion was caused by the position of a book and a wax candle by the bedside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0179.pt|The latter was so placed that it could throw no light on the former, which was a 'Life of Sir Samuel Romilly.'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0180.pt|The intention of the real murderer to shift the crime to burglars was evident although futile,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0181.pt|and the police, feeling convinced that the crime had been committed by some inmate of the house,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0182.pt|took Courvoisier into custody, and placed the two female servants under surveillance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0183.pt|The valet's strange demeanor had attracted attention from the first.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0184.pt|He had hung over the body in a state of dreadful agitation, answering no questions, and taking no part in the proceedings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0185.pt|Three days later a close search of the butler's pantry produced fresh circumstantial evidence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0186.pt|Behind the skirting board several of his lordship's rings were discovered;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0187.pt|near it was his Waterloo medal, and the above-mentioned ten-pound note.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0188.pt|Further investigation was rewarded by the discovery in the pantry of a split gold ring, used by Lord William to carry his keys on;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0189.pt|next, and in the same place, a chased gold key;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0190.pt|and at last his lordship's watch was found secreted under the leads of the sink.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0191.pt|All this was evidence sufficient to warrant Courvoisier's committal for trial;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0192.pt|but still he found friends, and a liberal subscription was raised among the foreign servants in London to provide funds for his defense.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0193.pt|Courvoisier, when put on his trial, pleaded not guilty;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0194.pt|but on the second day the discovery of fresh evidence, more particularly the recovery of some of Lord William's stolen plate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0195.pt|induced the prisoner to make a full confession of his crime to the lawyers who defended him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0196.pt|This placed them in a position of much embarrassment. To have thrown up their brief would have been to have secured Courvoisier's conviction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0197.pt|Mr. Phillips, who led in the case, went to the other extreme,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0198.pt|and in an impassioned address implored the jury not to send an innocent man to the gallows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0199.pt|It will be remembered that the question whether Mr. Phillips had not exceeded the limits usually allowed to counsel was much debated at the time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0200.pt|The jury without hesitation found Courvoisier guilty, and he was sentenced to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0201.pt|The prisoner's demeanor had greatly changed during the trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0202.pt|Coolness amounting almost to effrontery gave way to hopeless dejection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0203.pt|On his removal to Newgate after sentence,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0204.pt|he admitted that he had been justly convicted, and expressed great anxiety that his fellow-servants should be relieved from all suspicion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0205.pt|Later in the day he tried to commit suicide by cramming a towel down his throat, but was prevented.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0206.pt|Next morning he made a full confession in presence of his attorney, and the governor, Mr. Cope.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0207.pt|In this he gave as the motives of his crime a quarrel he had with his master, who threatened to discharge him without a character.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0208.pt|Lord William, according to the valet, was of a peevish, difficult temper;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0209.pt|he was annoyed with his man for various small omissions and acts of forgetfulness, and on the night of the murder had taken Courvoisier to task rather sharply.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0210.pt|Finally, on coming downstairs after bed-time, Lord William had found Courvoisier in the dining-room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0211.pt|"What are you doing here?" asked his lordship.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0212.pt|"You can have no good intentions; you must quit my service tomorrow morning."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0213.pt|This seems to have decided Courvoisier,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0214.pt|who took a carving-knife from the sideboard in the dining-room, went upstairs to Lord William's bedroom, and drew the knife across his throat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0215.pt|"He appeared to die instantly," said the murderer, in conclusion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0216.pt|His account of his acts and movements after the deed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0217.pt|varied so considerably in the several documents he left behind, that too much reliance cannot be placed upon his confession.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0218.pt|His last statement contains the words, "The public now think I am a liar, and they will not believe me when I say the truth."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0219.pt|This was no doubt the case, but this much truth his confession may be taken to contain:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0220.pt|that Courvoisier was idle, discontented, ready to take offense, greedy of gain;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0221.pt|that he could not resist the opportunity for robbery offered him by his situation at Lord William Russell's; that when vexed with his master
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0222.pt|he did not shrink from murder, both for revenge and to conceal his other crimes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0223.pt|Courvoisier wished to commit suicide in Newgate, but was prevented by the vigilant supervision to which he was subjected while in jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0224.pt|The attempt was to have been made by opening a vein and allowing himself to bleed to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0225.pt|The Sunday night before his execution he would not go to bed when ordered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0226.pt|The governor insisted, but Courvoisier showed great reluctance to strip.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0227.pt|The order was, however, at length obeyed, and the whole of the prisoner's clothes were minutely searched.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0228.pt|In the pocket of the coat Mr. Cope, the governor, found a neatly-folded cloth, and asked what it was for.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0229.pt|Courvoisier admitted that he had intended to bind it tightly round his arm and bleed himself to death in the night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0230.pt|The next inquiry was how he hoped to open a vein. "With a bit of sharpened stick picked out of the ordinary firewood."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0231.pt|"Where is it?" asked the governor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0232.pt|The prisoner replied that he had left it in the mattress of which he had just been deprived.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0233.pt|The bed was searched, but no piece of sharpened wood was found. It was thought that it might have been lost in changing the mattresses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0234.pt|The cloth above referred to belonged to the inner seam of his trousers, which he had managed to tear out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0235.pt|There is nothing to show that Courvoisier really contemplated self-destruction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0236.pt|A murder which reproduced many of the features of that committed by Greenacre soon followed, and excited the public mind even more than that of Courvoisier's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0237.pt|Daniel Good's crime might have remained long undiscovered but for his own careless stupidity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0238.pt|He was coachman to a gentleman at Roehampton. One day he went into a pawnbroker's at Wandsworth, and bought a pair of breeches on credit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0239.pt|At the same time he was seen to steal and secrete a pair of trousers. The shop-boy gave information.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0240.pt|Good was followed to his stables by a policeman, but obstinately denied the theft.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0241.pt|The policeman insisted on searching the premises, at which Good displayed some uneasiness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0242.pt|This increased when the officer, accompanied by two others, a neighbor and a bailiff, entered one of the stables.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0243.pt|Good now offered to go to Wandsworth and satisfy the pawnbroker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0244.pt|Just at this moment, however, the searchers found concealed under two trusses of hay a woman's headless and dismembered trunk.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0245.pt|At the constable's cry of alarm Good rushed from the stable and locked the door behind him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0246.pt|Some time elapsed before the imprisoned party could force open the doors, and by then the fugitive had escaped.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0247.pt|Medical assistance having been summoned, it was ascertained how the dismemberment had been effected.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0248.pt|At the same time an overpowering odor attracted them to the adjoining harness-room, where the missing remains were raked out
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0249.pt|half consumed in the ashes of a wood fire.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0250.pt|In the same room a large axe and saw were found covered with blood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0251.pt|Inquiry into the character of Good exposed him as a loose liver, who "kept company" with several women.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0252.pt|One called his sister, but supposed to be his wife, had occupied a room in South Street, Manchester Square,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0253.pt|with a son of Good's by a former wife. Another wife, real or fictitious, existed in Spitalfields,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0254.pt|and evidence was given of close relation between Good and a third woman, a girl named Butcher, residing at Woolwich.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0255.pt|The victim was the first of these three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0256.pt|Good had told her, much to her perturbation, that she was to move from South Street to Roehampton, and one day he fetched her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0257.pt|They were seen together on Barnes Common, and again in Putney Park Lane, where they were talking loud and angrily.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0258.pt|The poor creature was never seen again alive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0259.pt|The actual method of the murder was never exactly ascertained.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0260.pt|Good himself remained at large for some weeks. He had tramped as far as Tunbridge, where he obtained work as a bricklayer's laborer;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0261.pt|he there gave satisfaction for industry, but he was taciturn, and would hold no converse with his fellows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0262.pt|The woman where he lodged noticed that he was very restless at night, moaning and sighing much. Detection came unexpectedly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0263.pt|He was recognized by an ex-policeman who had known him at Roehampton, and immediately arrested.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0264.pt|In his effects were found the clothes he had on at the time of his escape from the stables, and under the jacket he was wearing
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0265.pt|was a piece of a woman's calico apron stained with blood, which he had used to save the pressure on his shoulder by the hod.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0266.pt|Good was committed to Newgate, and tried at the Central Criminal Court before a crowded court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0267.pt|He made a rambling defense, ending by saying,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ013-0268.pt|Good ladies and gentlemen all, I have a great deal more to say, but I am so bad I cannot say it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section seventeen: Newgate notorieties continued, part two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0002.pt|Hocker's murder is in its way interesting, as affording another proof of the extraordinary way in which the culprit returned to the scene of his guilt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0003.pt|The cries of his victim, a Mr. Delarue,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0004.pt|brought passers-by and policemen to the spot, a lonely place near a dead wall beyond Belsize Hall, Hampstead,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0005.pt|but too late to give substantial aid.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0006.pt|While the body lay there still warm, battered and bleeding from the cruel blows inflicted upon him by his cowardly assailant, a man came by singing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0007.pt|He entered into conversation with the policemen, and learnt, as it seemed for the first time, what had happened.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0008.pt|His remark was, "It is a nasty job;" he took hold of the dead hand, and confessed that he felt "queer" at the shocking sight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0009.pt|This sight was his own handiwork,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0010.pt|yet he could not overcome the strange fascination it had for him, and remained by the side of the corpse till the stretcher came.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0011.pt|Even then he followed it as far as Belsize Lane.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0012.pt|It was here that the others engaged in their dismal office in removing the dead first got a good look at the stranger's face.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0013.pt|He wanted a light for a cigar, and got it from a lantern which was lifted up and fully betrayed his features.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0014.pt|It was noticed that he wore a mackintosh. Next day the police, in making a careful search of the scene of the murder,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0015.pt|picked up a coat-button, which afterwards played an important part in the identification of the murderer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0016.pt|A letter, which afforded an additional clue, was also found in the pocket of the deceased. Still it was many weeks before any arrest was made.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0017.pt|In the mean time the police were not idle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0018.pt|It came out by degrees that the person who had been seen in Belsize Lane on the night the body was found was a friend of the deceased.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0019.pt|His name was Hocker; he was by trade a ladies' shoemaker; and it was also ascertained that after the day of the murder he was flush of money.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0020.pt|He was soon afterwards arrested on suspicion, and a search of his lodgings brought to light several garments saturated with blood;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0021.pt|a coat among them much torn and stained, with three buttons missing, one of which corresponded with that picked up at Hampstead.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0022.pt|The letter found in the pocket of the deceased was sealed with a wafer marked F,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0023.pt|and many of the same sort were found in the possession of the accused. This was enough to obtain a committal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0024.pt|after several remands; but the case contained elements of doubt, and the evidence at the trial was entirely circumstantial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0025.pt|A witness deposed to meeting Hocker, soon after the cries of murder were heard,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0026.pt|running at a dog-trot into London, and others swore that they plainly recognized him as the man seen soon afterwards in the lane.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0027.pt|A woman whom he called on the same evening declared he had worn a mackintosh, his coat was much torn, there was a stain of blood on his shirt-cuff,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0028.pt|and he was in possession, the first time to her knowledge, of a watch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0029.pt|This was Delarue's watch, fully identified as such, which Hocker told his brother Delarue had given him the morning of the murder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0030.pt|These were damnatory facts which well supported the prosecution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0031.pt|The prisoner made an elaborate defense, in which he sought to vilify the character of deceased
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0032.pt|as the seducer of an innocent girl to whom he (Hocker) had been fondly attached.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0033.pt|When her ruin was discovered her brother panted for revenge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0034.pt|Hocker, whose skill in counterfeiting handwriting was known, was asked to fabricate a letter making an assignation with Delarue
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0035.pt|in a lonely part of Hampstead.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0036.pt|Hocker and the brother went to the spot, where the latter left him to meet his sister's seducer alone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0037.pt|Soon afterwards Hocker heard cries of "murder,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0038.pt|and proceeding to where they came from, found Delarue dead, slain by the furious brother.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0039.pt|Hocker was so overcome, feeling himself the principal cause of the tragedy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0040.pt|that he rushed to a slaughterhouse in Hampstead and purposely stained his clothes with blood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0041.pt|Such an extravagant defense did not weigh with judge or jury;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0042.pt|the first summed up dead against the prisoner, and the latter, after retiring for ten minutes, found him guilty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0043.pt|Hocker's conduct in Newgate while under sentence of death was most extraordinary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0044.pt|He drew up several long statements, containing narratives purely fictitious, imputing crimes to his victim, and repeating his line of defense
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0045.pt|that Delarue had suffered by the hands of imaginary outraged brothers acting as the avengers of females deeply injured by him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0046.pt|Hocker made several pretended confessions and revelations, all of which were proved to be absolutely false by the police on inquiry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0047.pt|His demeanor was a strange compound of wickedness, falsehood, and deceit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0048.pt|But at the fatal hour his hardihood forsook him, and he was almost insensible when taken out of his cell for execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0049.pt|Restoratives were applied, but he was in a fainting condition when tied, and had to be supported by the assistant executioner
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0050.pt|while Calcraft adjusted the noose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0051.pt|There was an epidemic of murder in the United Kingdom about eighteen forty-eight to nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0052.pt|In November of the first-named year occurred the wholesale slaughter of the Jermys in their house, Stanfield Hall, by the miscreant Rush.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0053.pt|Soon afterwards, in Gloucestershire,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0054.pt|a maidservant, Sarah Thomas, murdered her mistress, an aged woman, by beating out her brains with a stone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0055.pt|Next year John Gleeson Wilson, at Liverpool, murdered a woman, Ann Henrichson, also a maidservant and two children;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0056.pt|while in Ireland a wife dashed out her husband's brains with a hammer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0057.pt|London did not escape the contagion, and prominent among the detestable crimes of the period stands that of the Mannings at Bermondsey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0058.pt|These great criminals suffered at Horsemonger Lane Jail, but they were tried at the Central Criminal Court, and were for some time inmates of Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0059.pt|Their victim was a man named Patrick O'Connor, a Custom-House gauger, who had been a suitor of Marie de Roux before she became Mrs. Manning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0060.pt|Marie de Roux up to the time of her marriage had been in service as lady's maid to Lady Blantyre, daughter of the Duchess of Sutherland,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0061.pt|and Manning hoped to get some small Government appointment through his wife's interest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0062.pt|He had failed in this as well as in the business of a publican, which he had at one time adopted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0063.pt|After the marriage a close intimacy was still maintained between O'Connor and the Mannings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0064.pt|He lived at Mile End, whence he walked often to call at three, Minver Place, Bermondsey, the residence of his old love.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0065.pt|O'Connor was a man of substance. He had long followed the profitable trade of a money-lender,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0066.pt|and by dint of usurious interest on small sums advanced to needy neighbors, had amassed as much as eight thousand pounds or ten thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0067.pt|His wealth was well known to "Maria," as he called Mrs. Manning, who made several ineffectual attempts to get money out of him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0068.pt|At last this fiendish woman made up her mind to murder O'Connor and appropriate all his possessions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0069.pt|Her husband, to whom she coolly confided her intention,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0070.pt|a heavy brutish fellow, was yet aghast at his wife's resolve, and tried hard to dissuade her from bad purpose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0071.pt|In his confession after sentence he declared that she plied him well with brandy at this period,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0072.pt|and that during the whole time he was never in his right senses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0073.pt|Meanwhile this woman, unflinching in her cold, bloody determination, carefully laid all her plans for the consummation of the deed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0074.pt|One fine afternoon in August, O'Connor was met walking in the direction of Bermondsey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0075.pt|He was dressed with particular care, as he was to dine at the Mannings and meet friends, one a young lady.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0076.pt|He was seen afterwards smoking and talking with his hosts in their back parlor, and never seen again alive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0077.pt|It came out in the husband's confession that Mrs. Manning induced O'Connor to go down to the kitchen to wash his hands, that she followed him to the basement,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0078.pt|that she stood behind him as he stood near the open grave she herself had dug for him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0079.pt|and which he mistook for a drain, and that while he was speaking to her she put the muzzle of a pistol close to the back of his head and shot him down.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0080.pt|She ran upstairs, told her husband, made him go down to look at her handiwork, and as O'Connor was not quite dead,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0081.pt|Manning gave the coup de grace with a crowbar.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0082.pt|After this Mrs. Manning changed her dress and went off in a cab to O'Connor's lodgings,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0083.pt|which, having possessed herself of the murdered man's keys, she rifled from end to end.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0084.pt|Returning to her own home, where Manning meantime had been calmly smoking and talking to the neighbors over the basement wall,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0085.pt|the corpse lying just inside the kitchen all the while, the two set to work to strip the body and hide it under the stones of the floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0086.pt|This job was not completed till the following day, as the hole had to be enlarged, and the only tool they had was a dust-shovel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0087.pt|A quantity of quicklime was thrown in with the body to destroy all identification.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0088.pt|This was on a Thursday evening.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0089.pt|For the remainder of that week and part of the next the murderers stayed in the house, and occupied the kitchen, close to the remains of their victim.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0090.pt|On the Sunday Mrs. Manning roasted a goose at this same kitchen fire, and ate it with relish in the afternoon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0091.pt|This cold-blooded indifference after the event was only outdone by the premeditation of this horrible murder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0092.pt|The hole must have been excavated and the quicklime purchased quite three weeks before O'Connor met his death,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0093.pt|and during that time he must frequently have stood or sat over his own grave.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0094.pt|Discovery of the murder came in this wise. O'Connor, a punctual and well-conducted official, was at once missed at the London Docks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0095.pt|On the third day his friends began to inquire for him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0096.pt|and at their request two police officers were sent to Bermondsey to inquire for him at the Mannings, with whom it was well known that he was very intimate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0097.pt|The Mannings had seen or heard nothing of him, of course. As O'Connor still did not turn up, the police after a couple of days returned to Minver Place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0098.pt|The house was empty, bare and stripped of all its furniture, and its former occupants had decamped.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0099.pt|The circumstance was suspicious, and a search was at once made of the whole premises.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0100.pt|In the back kitchen one of the detectives remarked that the cement between certain stones looked lighter than the rest, and on trying it with a knife,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0101.pt|he found that it was soft and new, while elsewhere it was set and hard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0102.pt|The stones were at once taken up;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0103.pt|beneath them was a layer of fresh mortar, beneath that a lot of loose earth, amongst which a stocking was turned up, and presently a human toe.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0104.pt|Six inches lower the body of O'Connor was uncovered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0105.pt|He was lying on his face, his legs tied up to his hips so as to allow of the body fitting into the hole.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0106.pt|The lime had done its work so rapidly that the features would have been indistinguishable but for the prominent chin and a set of false teeth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0107.pt|The corpse settled all doubts, and the next point was to lay hands upon the Mannings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0108.pt|It was soon ascertained that the wife had gone off in a cab with a quantity of luggage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0109.pt|Part of this she had deposited to be left till called for at one station, while she had gone herself to another, that at Euston Square.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0110.pt|At the first the boxes were impounded, opened, and found to contain many of O'Connor's effects.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0111.pt|At the second exact information was obtained of Mrs. Manning's movements. She had gone to Edinburgh.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0112.pt|A telegraphic message, then newly adapted to the purposes of criminal detection,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0113.pt|advised the Edinburgh police of the whole affair, and within an hour an answer was telegraphed, stating that Mrs. Manning was in custody.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0114.pt|She had been to brokers to negotiate the sale of certain foreign railway stock, with which they had been warned from London not to deal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0115.pt|and they had given information to the police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0116.pt|Her arrest was planned, and, when the telegram arrived from London, completed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0117.pt|An examination of her boxes disclosed a quantity of O'Connor's property.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0118.pt|Mrs. Manning was transferred to London and lodged in the Horsemonger Lane Jail, where her husband soon afterwards joined her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0119.pt|He had fled to Jersey, where he was recognized and arrested.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0120.pt|Each tried to throw the blame on the other; Manning declared his wife had committed the murder, Mrs. Manning indignantly denied the charge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0121.pt|The prisoners were in due course transferred to Newgate, to be put upon their trial at the Central Criminal Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0122.pt|A great number of distinguished people assembled as usual at the Old Bailey on the day of trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0123.pt|The Mannings were arraigned together; the husband standing at one of the front corners of the dock, his wife at the other end.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0124.pt|Manning, who was dressed in black, appeared to be a heavy, bull-necked, repulsive-looking man, with a very fair complexion and light hair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0125.pt|Mrs. Manning was not without personal charms;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0126.pt|her face was comely, she had dark hair and good eyes, and was above the middle height, yet inclined to be stout.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0127.pt|She was smartly dressed in a plaid shawl, a white lace cap;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0128.pt|her hair was dressed in long crepe bands. She had lace ruffles at her wrist, and wore primrose-colored kid gloves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0129.pt|The case rested upon the facts which have been already set forth, and was proved to the satisfaction of the jury, who brought in a verdict of guilty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0130.pt|Manning, when sentence of death was passed on him, said nothing;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0131.pt|but Mrs. Manning, speaking in a foreign accent, addressed the court with great fluency and vehemence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0132.pt|She complained that she had no justice; there was no law for her, she had found no protection either from judges, the prosecutor, or her husband.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0133.pt|She had not been treated like a Christian, but like a wild beast of the forest. She declared that the money found in her possession had been sent her from abroad;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0134.pt|that O'Connor had been more to her than her husband, that she ought to have married him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0135.pt|It was against common sense to charge her with murdering the only friend she had in the world;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0136.pt|the culprit was really her husband, who killed O'Connor out of jealousy and revengeful feelings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0137.pt|When the judge assumed the black cap
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0138.pt|Mrs. Manning became still more violent, shouting, "No, no, I will not stand it! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0139.pt|and would have left the dock had not Mr. Cope, the governor of Newgate, restrained her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0140.pt|After judgment was passed she repeatedly cried out Shame!
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0141.pt|and stretching out her hand, she gathered up a quantity of the rue which, following ancient custom dating from the days of the jail fever,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0142.pt|was strewn in front of the dock, and sprinkled it towards the bench with a contemptuous gesture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0143.pt|On being removed to Newgate from the court Mrs. Manning became perfectly furious.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0144.pt|She uttered loud imprecations, cursing judge, jury, barristers, witnesses, and all who stood around.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0146.pt|They had to handcuff her by force against the most violent resistance, and still she raged and stormed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0147.pt|shaking her clenched and manacled hands in the officers' faces.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0148.pt|From Newgate the Mannings were taken in separate cabs to Horsemonger Lane Jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0149.pt|On this journey her manner changed completely. She became flippant, joked with the officers, asked how they liked her "resolution" in the dock,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0150.pt|and expressed the utmost contempt for her husband, whom she never intended to acknowledge or speak to again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0151.pt|Later her mood changed to abject despair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0152.pt|On reaching the condemned cell she threw herself upon the floor and shrieked in an hysterical agony of tears.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0153.pt|After this, until the day of execution, she recovered her spirits, and displayed reckless effrontery,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0154.pt|mocking at the chaplain, and turning a deaf ear to the counsels of a benevolent lady who came to visit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0155.pt|Now she abused the jury, now called Manning a vagabond,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0156.pt|and through all ate heartily at every meal, slept soundly at nights, and talked with cheerfulness on almost any subject.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0157.pt|Nevertheless, she attempted to commit suicide by driving her nails, purposely left long, into her throat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0158.pt|She was discovered just as she was getting black in the face.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0159.pt|Manning's demeanor was more in harmony with his situation, and the full confession he made
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0160.pt|elucidated all dark and uncertain points in connection with the crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0161.pt|The actual execution, which took place at another prison than Newgate, is rather beyond the scope of this work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0162.pt|But it may be mentioned that the concourse was so enormous that it drew down the well-merited and trenchant disapproval of Charles Dickens,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0163.pt|who wrote to the 'Times,' saying that he believed "a sight so inconceivably awful
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0164.pt|as the wickedness and levity of the immense crowd collected at the execution this morning could be imagined by no man,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0165.pt|and presented by no heathen land under the sun.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0166.pt|faded in my mind before the atrocious bearing, looks, and language of the assembled spectators.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0167.pt|When I came upon the scene at midnight, the shrillness of the cries and howls that were raised from time to time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0168.pt|denoting that they came from a concourse of boys and girls already assembled in the best places, made my blood run cold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0169.pt|It will be in the memory of many that Mrs. Manning appeared on the scaffold in a black satin dress, which was bound tightly round her waist.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0170.pt|This preference brought the costly stuff into disrepute, and its unpopularity lasted for nearly thirty years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0171.pt|I will briefly describe one or two of the more remarkable murders in the years immediately following, then pass on to another branch of crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0172.pt|Robert Marley at the time of his arrest called himself a surgical instrument maker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0173.pt|It was understood also that he had served in the army as a private, and had, moreover, undergone a sentence of transportation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0174.pt|But it was supposed that he had been once in a good position, well born, and well educated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0175.pt|When lying under sentence of death in Newgate, he was visited by a lady, a gentlewoman in every sense of the word, who was said to be his sister.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0176.pt|His determined addiction to evil courses had led to his being cast off by his family,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0177.pt|and he must have been at the end of his resources when he committed the crime for which he suffered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0178.pt|His offense was the murder of Richard Cope,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0179.pt|a working jeweler, shopman to a Mr. Berry of Parliament Street. It was Cope's duty to stay in the shop till the last, close the shutters,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0180.pt|secure the stock of watches and jewelry, then lock up the place and take on the keys to Mr. Berry's private house in Pimlico.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0181.pt|Cope, a small man, crippled, and of weakly constitution, was alone in the shop about nine:thirty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0182.pt|the shutters were up, and he was preparing to close, when Marley entered and fell upon him with a life-preserver,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0183.pt|meaning to kill him and rifle the shop.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0184.pt|The noise of the struggle was heard outside in the street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0185.pt|and bystanders peeped in through the shutters, but no one entered or sought to interfere in what seemed only a domestic quarrel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0186.pt|A milliner's porter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0187.pt|Lerigo, was also attracted by the noise of the row, but after walking a few paces he felt dissatisfied, and returned to the spot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0188.pt|Pushing the shop-door open, he saw Marley finishing his murderous assault.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0189.pt|Lerigo turned for assistance to take the man into custody.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0190.pt|Marley, disturbed, picked up a cigar and parcel from the counter, then ran out, pursued by Lerigo only.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0191.pt|Marley ran along the street, down into Cannon Row
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0192.pt|then into Palace Yard, where the waterman of the cab-tank, in obedience to Lerigo's shouts, collared the fugitive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0193.pt|Escorted by his two captors, Marley was taken back into Parliament Street to the jeweler's shop.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0194.pt|The policemen were now in possession;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0195.pt|two of them supported Cope, who was still alive, although insensible, and Marley was apprehended. The evidence against him was completed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0196.pt|by his identification by Cope in Westminster Hospital, who survived long enough to make a formal deposition before Mr. Jardine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0197.pt|the police magistrate, that Marley was the man who had beaten him to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0198.pt|Marley at his trial was undefended, and the sheriffs offered him counsel; but he declined. The witnesses against him all spoke the truth, he said;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0199.pt|there was no case to make out; why waste money on lawyers for the defense? His demeanor was cool and collected throughout;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0200.pt|he seemed while in Newgate to realize thoroughly that there was no hope for him, and was determined to face his fate bravely.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0201.pt|After sentence, the Newgate officers who had special charge of him noticed that he slept well and ate well, enjoying all his meals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0202.pt|One of them went into his cell just at dinner-time;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0203.pt|the great clock of St. Sepulchre's close by was striking the hour, and Marley, who had his elbows on the table,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0204.pt|with his head resting on his hands, looked up and observed calmly, "Go along, clock; come along, gallows."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0205.pt|On the dread morning he came out to execution quite gaily, and tripped up the stairs to the scaffold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0206.pt|His captors, it may be added (Lerigo and Allen), were warmly commended by the judge for their courage and activity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0207.pt|The former was given a reward of twenty and the latter of ten pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0208.pt|A murderous assault on a police constable, which so nearly ended fatally that the culprit was sentenced to death, although not executed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0209.pt|was perpetrated in eighteen fifty-two. The case was accompanied with the most shocking brutality.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0210.pt|Cannon, by trade a chimney-sweep, had long been characterized by the bitterest hatred of the police force,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0211.pt|and had been repeatedly sentenced to imprisonment for most desperate and ferocious attacks upon various constables. His last victim was Dwyer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0212.pt|a fine young officer who had been summoned to take Cannon into custody when the latter was drunk and riotous in front of a public-house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0213.pt|Dwyer found Cannon bleeding profusely from a wound in the head, and persuaded him to go to a doctor's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0214.pt|They walked together quietly for some little distance, then Cannon, without the slightest warning,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0215.pt|threw the constable on his back, and violently assaulted him by jumping on his chest and stomach,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0216.pt|and by getting his hand inside Dwyer's stock, with the idea of strangling him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0217.pt|Dwyer managed to overpower his assailant, and got to his feet; but Cannon butted at him with his head, and again threw him to the ground,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0218.pt|after which he kicked his prostrate foe in the most brutal and cowardly manner, and until he was almost senseless, and bruised from head to foot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0219.pt|Once more Dwyer got to his feet, and managed, by drawing his staff, to keep Cannon at bay until a second constable came to his aid.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0220.pt|All this time not one of a numerous body of bystanders offered to assist the policeman in his extremity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0221.pt|On the contrary, many of them encouraged the brutal assailant in his savage attack.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0222.pt|To Cannon's infinite surprise, he was indicted for attempt to murder, and not for a simple assault, and found guilty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0223.pt|The judge, in passing sentence of death, told him he richly deserved the punishment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0224.pt|As Dwyer survived, Cannon escaped the death sentence, which was commuted to penal servitude for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0225.pt|A handsome sum was subscribed for the injured constable, who was disabled for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0226.pt|Only a few have vied with Cannon in fiendish cruelty and brutality.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0227.pt|One of these was Mobbs, who lived in the Minories,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0228.pt|generally known by the soubriquet of "General Haynau," a name execrated in England about this time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0229.pt|Mobbs systematically ill-used his wife for a long space of time, and at last cut her throat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0230.pt|For this he was executed in front of Newgate in eighteen thirty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0231.pt|Emmanuel Barthelemy again,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0232.pt|the French refugee, was a murderer of the same description, who dispatched his victim with a loaded cane, after which, to secure his escape,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0233.pt|he shot an old soldier who had attempted to detain him. He was convicted and executed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0234.pt|He died impenitent, declaring that he had no belief, and that it was idle to ask forgiveness of God.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0235.pt|I want forgiveness of man; I want those doors (of the prison) opened.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0236.pt|Barthelemy was generally supposed to have been a secret agent of the French police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0237.pt|I will now pass to grave but less atrocious crimes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0238.pt|In eighteen fifty occurred the first of a series of gigantic frauds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0239.pt|which followed each other at no long intervals, which had a strong family likeness, and originated all of them to make money easily,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0240.pt|without capital, and at railroad speed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0241.pt|Walter Watts was an inventor, a creator, who struck an entirely new and original line of crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0242.pt|Employed as a clerk in the Globe Assurance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0243.pt|he with unusual quickness of apprehension discovered and promptly turned to account an inexcusably lax system of management,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0244.pt|which offered peculiar chances of profit to an ingenious and unscrupulous man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0245.pt|It was the custom in this office to make the banker's passbook the basis of the entries in the company's ledgers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0246.pt|Thus, when a payment was made by the company, the amount disbursed was carried to account in the general books from its entry in the passbook,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0247.pt|and without reference to or comparison with the documents in which the payment was claimed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0248.pt|This passbook, when not at the bank, was in the exclusive custody of Watts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0249.pt|The cheques drawn by the directors also passed through his hands; to him too they came back to be verified and put by,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0250.pt|after they had been cashed by the bank.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0251.pt|In this way Watts had complete control over the whole of the monetary transactions of the company.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0252.pt|He could do what he liked with the passbook, and by its adoption, as described as the basis of all entries,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0253.pt|there was no independent check upon him if he chose to tamper with it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0254.pt|This he did to an enormous extent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0255.pt|continually altering, erasing, and adding figures to correspond with and cover the abstractions he made of various cheques as they were drawn.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0256.pt|It seems incredible that this passbook, which when produced in court
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0257.pt|was a mass of blots and erasures, should not have created suspicion of foul play either at the bank or at the company's board.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0258.pt|Implicit confidence appears to have been placed in Watts, who was the son of an old and trusted employee, and, moreover, a young man of plausible address.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0259.pt|Watts led two lives.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0260.pt|In the West End he was a man of fashion, with a town house, a house at Brighton, and a cellar full of good wine at both.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0261.pt|He rode a priceless hack in Rotten Row, or drove down to Richmond in a mail phaeton and pair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0262.pt|He played high, and spent his nights at the club, or in joyous and dissolute company.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0263.pt|When other pleasures palled he took a theatre, and posed as a munificent patron of the dramatic art.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0264.pt|Under his auspices several "stars" appeared on the boards of the Marylebone theatre,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0265.pt|and later he became manager of the newly rebuilt Olympic at Wych Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0266.pt|No one cared too closely to inquire into the sources of wealth. Some said he was a fortunate speculator in stocks,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0267.pt|others that he had had extraordinary luck as a gold-digger. Had his West End and little-informed associates followed him into the city,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0268.pt|whither he was taken every morning in a smart brougham, they would have seen him alight from it in Cornhill,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0269.pt|and walk forward on foot to enter as a humble and unpretending employee the doors of the Globe Assurance office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0271.pt|Nevertheless, in this position, through the culpable carelessness which left him unfettered, he managed between eighteen forty-four
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0272.pt|and eighteen fifty to embezzle and apply to his own purposes some seventy-one thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0273.pt|The detection of these frauds came while he was still prominently before the world as the lessee of the Olympic.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0274.pt|Rumors were abroad that serious defalcations had been discovered in one of the insurance offices,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0275.pt|but it was long before the public realized that the fraudulent clerk and the great theatrical manager were one and the same person.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0276.pt|Watts's crime was discovered by the secretary of the Globe Company, who came suddenly upon the extensive falsification of the passbook.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0277.pt|An inquiry was at once set on foot, and the frauds were traced to Watts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0278.pt|The latter, when first taxed with his offense, protested his innocence boldly, and positively denied all knowledge of the affair;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0279.pt|and he had so cleverly destroyed all traces that it was not easy to bring home the charge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0280.pt|But it was proved that Watts had appropriated one cheque for fourteen hundred pounds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0281.pt|which he had paid into his own bankers, and on this he was committed to Newgate for trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0282.pt|There were two counts in the indictment: one for stealing a cheque value fourteen hundred pounds, the second for stealing a bit of paper value one penny.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0283.pt|The jury found him guilty of the latter only, with a point of law reserved. This was fully argued before three judges,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0285.pt|and not for the slight offense as it appeared on the record.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0286.pt|The sentence of the court, one of ten years' transportation, struck the prisoner with dismay.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0287.pt|He had been led to suppose that twelve months' imprisonment was the utmost the law could inflict, and he broke down utterly under the unexpected blow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0288.pt|That same evening he committed suicide in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0289.pt|The details of the suicide were given at the inquest. Watts had been in ill-health from the time of his first arrest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0290.pt|In Giltspur Street Compter, where he was first lodged
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0291.pt|he showed symptoms of delirium tremens, and admitted that he had been addicted to the excessive use of stimulants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0292.pt|His health improved, but was still indifferent when he was brought up for sentence, and he was an occupant of the Newgate infirmary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0293.pt|He returned from court in a state of gloomy dejection,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0294.pt|and in the middle of the night one of the fellow-prisoners who slept in the same ward noticed that he was not in his bed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0295.pt|This man got up to look for him, and found him hanging from the bars of a neighboring room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0296.pt|He had made use of a piece of rope cut out from the sacking of his bedstead, and had tied his feet together with a silk pocket-handkerchief.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0297.pt|The prison officers were called, but Watts was quite cold and stiff when he was cut down.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0298.pt|Strange to say, a second suicide occurred in Newgate the same night,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0299.pt|that of a prize-fighter named Donovan, tried the same day, and convicted of manslaughter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0300.pt|Sentence of death had been recorded against Donovan, who, like Watts, had seemingly been overcome with sudden despair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0301.pt|In eighteen fifty-three a second case of gigantic fraud alarmed and scandalized the financial world.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0302.pt|It outshone the defalcations of Watts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0303.pt|Nothing to equal the excitement caused by the forgeries of Robert Ferdinand Pries had been known before in the city of London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0304.pt|He was a corn merchant who operated largely in grain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0305.pt|So enormous were his transactions, that they often affected the markets, and caused great fluctuations in prices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0306.pt|These had been attributed to political action; some thought that the large purchases in foreign grains, effected at losing prices,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0307.pt|were intended by the protectionists to depress the wheat market, and secure the support of the farmers at the forthcoming election;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0308.pt|others, that Napoleon the third, but recently proclaimed Emperor of the French, wished to gain the popularity necessary to secure the people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0309.pt|Few realized that these mysterious operations were the "convulsive attempt" of a ruined and dishonest speculator to sustain his credit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0310.pt|Pries, although enjoying a high reputation in the city, had long been in a bad way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0311.pt|His extensive business had been carried on by fraud.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0312.pt|His method was to obtain advances twice over on the same bills of lading or corn warrants. The duplicates were forged.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0313.pt|In this way he obtained vast sums from several firms, and one to which he was indebted upwards of fifty thousand pounds subsequently stopped payment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0314.pt|Pries at length was discovered
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0315.pt|through a dishonored cheque for three thousand pounds, paid over as an installment of eighteen thousand pounds owing for an advance on warrants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0316.pt|Inquiries were instituted when the cheque was protested, which led to the discovery of the forgeries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0317.pt|Pries was lodged in Newgate, tried at the Old Bailey, and transported for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0318.pt|Another set of frauds, which resembled those of Pries in principle, although not in practice, were soon afterwards discovered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0320.pt|proposed to gain the capital he needed for business purposes by raising money on dock warrants for imported goods which had no real existence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0321.pt|When such goods arrived they were frequently left at a wharf, paying rent until it suited the importer to remove them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0322.pt|The dock warrant was issued by the wharfinger as certificate that he held the goods.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0323.pt|The warrant thus represented money, and was often used as such, being endorsed and passed from hand to hand as other negotiable bills.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0324.pt|Cole's plan was to have a wharf of his own, nominally occupied by a creature trading as Maltby and Co.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0325.pt|Goods would be landed at this wharf;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0326.pt|Maltby and Co. would issue warrants on them deliverable to the importer, and the goods were then passed to be stored in neighboring warehouses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0327.pt|The owners of the latter would then issue a second set of warrants on these goods, in total ignorance of the fact that they were already pledged.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0328.pt|Cole quickly raised money on both sets of warrants. He carried on this game for some time with great success,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0329.pt|and so developed his business that in one year his transactions amounted to a couple of millions of pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0330.pt|He had several narrow escapes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0331.pt|Once a warrant-holder sent down a clerk to view certain goods, and the clerk found that these goods had already a "stop" upon them, or were pledged.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0332.pt|Cole escaped by throwing the blame on a careless partner, and at once removed the "stop."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0333.pt|Again, some of the duplicate and fictitious warrants were held by a firm which suspended payment, and there was no knowing into whose hands they might fall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0334.pt|Cole found out where they were, and redeemed them at a heavy outlay, thus obtaining business relations with the firm that held them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0335.pt|which were soon developed, much to that firm's subsequent anger and regret.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0336.pt|Last of all, the well-known bankers Overend and Gurney, whose own affairs created much excitement some years later,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0337.pt|wishing to verify the value of warrants they held, and sending to Maltby and Co.'s wharf, found out half the truth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0338.pt|These bankers, wishing for more specific information,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0339.pt|asked Davidson and Gordon, a firm with which Cole was closely allied, whether the warrants meant goods or nothing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ014-0340.pt|They could not deny that the latter was the truth, and were forthwith stigmatized by Mr. Chapman, Overend and Gurney's representative, as rogues.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0001.pt|Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section eighteen: Newgate notorieties continued, part three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0002.pt|The course of the swindlers was by no means smooth, but it was not till eighteen fifty-four that suspicion arose that anything was wrong.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0003.pt|A firm which held a lot of warrants suddenly demanded the delivery of the goods they covered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0004.pt|The goods having no existence, Cole of course could not deliver them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0005.pt|About this time Davidson and Gordon, the people above-mentioned,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0006.pt|who had fraudulent warrants out of their own to the extent of one hundred fifty thousand pounds, suspended payment and absconded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0007.pt|This affected Cole's credit, and ugly reports were in circulation charging him with the issue of simulated warrants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0008.pt|These indeed were out to the value of three hundred sixty-seven thousand, eight hundred pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0009.pt|Cole's difficulties increased more and more; warrant-holders came down upon him demanding to realize their goods.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0010.pt|Cole now suspended payment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0011.pt|Maltby, who had bolted, was pursued and arrested, to end his life miserably by committing suicide in a Newgate cell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0012.pt|Cole too was apprehended, and in due course tried at the Central Criminal Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0013.pt|He was found guilty, and sentenced to the seemingly inadequate punishment of four years' transportation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0014.pt|Davidson and Gordon were also sentenced to imprisonment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0015.pt|A more distressing case stands next on the criminal records --
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0016.pt|the failure and subsequent sentence of the bankers Messrs. Strahan, Paul, and Bates,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0017.pt|for the fraudulent disposal of securities lodged in their hands. This firm was one of the oldest banking establishments in the kingdom,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0018.pt|and dated back to the Commonwealth, when, under the title of Snow and Walton, it carried on business as pawnbrokers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0019.pt|The Strahan of the firm which came to grief was a Snow who changed his name for a fortune of two hundred thousand pounds;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0020.pt|he was a man esteemed and respected in society and the world of finance, incapable as it was thought of a dishonest deed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0021.pt|Sir John Dean Paul had inherited a baronetcy from his father, together with an honored name;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0022.pt|he was himself a prominent member of the Low Church, of austere piety, active in all good works.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0023.pt|Mr. Bates had been confidential managing clerk, and was taken into the firm not alone as a reward for long and faithful service
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0024.pt|but that he might strengthen it by his long experience and known business capacity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0025.pt|The bank enjoyed an excellent reputation, it had a good connection, and was supposed to be perfectly sound.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0026.pt|Moreover, the partners were sober, steady men, who paid unremitting attention to business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0027.pt|Yet even so early as the death of the first Sir John Paul,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0028.pt|the bank was insolvent, and instead of starting on a fresh life with a new name, it should then and there have closed its doors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0029.pt|In December eighteen fifty-one the balance sheet showed a deficiency of upwards of seventy thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0030.pt|The bank had been conducted on false principles;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0031.pt|it had assumed enormous responsibilities -- on one side by the ownership of the Mostyn collieries, a valueless property,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0032.pt|and on the other by backing up
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0033.pt|an impecunious and rotten firm of contractors with vast liabilities and pledged to impossible works abroad.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0034.pt|The engagements of the bank on these two heads amounting to nearly half a million of money,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0035.pt|produced immediate embarrassment and financial distress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0036.pt|The bank was already insolvent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0037.pt|and the partners had to decide between suspending payment or continuing to hold its head above water by flagitious processes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0038.pt|They chose, unhappily for themselves, the latter alternative.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0039.pt|Money they must have, and money they raised to meet their urgent necessities upon the balances and securities deposited with them by their customers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0040.pt|This borrowing continued, and on such a scale that their paper was soon at a discount,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0041.pt|and the various discount houses would not advance sufficient sums to relieve the necessities of the bank.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0042.pt|Then it was that instead of merely pledging securities, the bank sold them outright, and thus passed the Rubicon of fraud.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0043.pt|This went on for some time, and might never have been discovered had some good stroke of luck provided any of the partners
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0044.pt|with money enough to retrieve the position of the bank. But that passed from bad to worse;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0045.pt|the firm's paper went down further and further in value; an application to the Committee of Bankers for assistance was peremptorily refused,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0046.pt|then came a run on the bank, and it was compelled to stop payment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0047.pt|Its debts amounted to three-quarters of a million, and the dividend it eventually paid was three and twopence in the pound.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0048.pt|But worse than the bankruptcy was the confession made by the partners in the court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0049.pt|They admitted that they had made away with many of the securities entrusted to their keeping.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0050.pt|Following this, warrants were issued for their arrest,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0051.pt|the specific charge being the unlawful negotiation of Danish bonds and other shares belonging to the Rev. Dr. Griffiths of Rochester
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0052.pt|to the value of twenty thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0053.pt|Bates was at once captured in Norfolk Street, Strand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0054.pt|Police officers went down at night to Nutfield, near Reigate, and arrested Sir John Paul, but allowed the prisoner to sleep there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0055.pt|Next morning they only just saved the train to town, and left Sir John behind on the platform, but he subsequently surrendered himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0056.pt|Mr. Strahan was arrested at a friend's house in Bryanston Square.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0057.pt|All three were tried at the Central Criminal Court, and sentenced to fourteen years' transportation, passing some time in Newgate en route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0058.pt|Bates, the least guilty, was pardoned in eighteen fifty-eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0059.pt|Two cases of extensive embezzlement which were discovered almost simultaneously, those of Robson and Redpath,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0060.pt|will long be remembered both within and without the commercial world.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0061.pt|They both reproduced many of the features of the case of Watts, already described,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0062.pt|but in neither did the sums misappropriated reach quite the same high figure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0063.pt|But neither Robson nor Redpath would have been able to pursue their fraudulent designs with success had they not, like Watts,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0064.pt|been afforded peculiar facilities by the slackness of system and the want of methodical administration in the concerns by which they were employed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0065.pt|Robson was of humble origin, but he was well educated, and he had some literary abilities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0066.pt|His proclivities were theatrical, and he was the author of several plays,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0067.pt|one at least of which, 'Love and Loyalty,' with Wallack in a leading part, achieved a certain success.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0068.pt|He began life as a law-writer, earning thereby some fifteen or eighteen shillings a week;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0069.pt|but the firm he served got him a situation as clerk in the office of the Great Northern Railway,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0070.pt|whence he passed to a better position under the Crystal Palace Company.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0071.pt|He now married, although his salary was only a pound a week; but he soon got on.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0072.pt|He had a pleasant address, showed good business aptitudes, and quickly acquired the approval of his superiors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0073.pt|Within a year he was advanced to the post of chief clerk in the transfer department, at a salary of one hundred fifty pounds a year.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0074.pt|His immediate chief was a Mr. Fasson, upon whose confidence he gained so rapidly, through his activity, industry, and engaging manners,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0075.pt|that ere long the whole management of the transfer department was entrusted to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0076.pt|Some time elapsed before Robson succumbed to temptation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0077.pt|He was not the first man of loose morality and expensive tastes
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0078.pt|who preferred to risk his future reputation and liberty to the present discomfort of living upon narrow means.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0079.pt|The temptation was all the greater because the chances of successful fraud lay ready to hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0080.pt|Shares in the company were represented by certificates, which often enough never left the company's, or more exactly Robson's, hands.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0081.pt|He conceived the idea of transferring shares, bogus shares from a person who held none, to any one who would buy them in the open market.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0082.pt|He took it for granted that the certificates representing these bogus shares, and which practically did not exist, would never be called for.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0083.pt|This ingenious method of raising funds he adopted and carried on without detection,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0084.pt|till the defalcations from fraudulent transfers and fraudulent issues combined amounted to twenty-seven thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0085.pt|With the proceeds of these flagitious frauds Robson feasted and made merry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0086.pt|He kept open house at Kilburn Priory;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0087.pt|entertained literary, artistic, and dramatic celebrities; had a smart "turn out," attended all the race-meetings, and dressed in the latest fashion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0088.pt|To his wife, poor soul, he made no pretense of fidelity, and she enjoyed only so much of his company as was necessarily spent
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0089.pt|in receiving guests at home, or could be spared from two rival establishments in other parts of the town.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0090.pt|To account for his revenues he pretended to have been very lucky on the Stock Exchange, which was at one time true to a limited extent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0091.pt|and to have succeeded in other speculations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0092.pt|When his friends asked why he, a wealthy man of independent means, continued to slave on as a clerk on a pittance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0093.pt|he replied gaily that his regular work at the Crystal Palace office was useful as a sort of discipline, and kept him steady.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0094.pt|All this time his position was one of extreme insecurity. He was standing over a mine which at any moment might explode.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0095.pt|The blow fell suddenly, and when least expected. One morning Mr. Fasson asked casually for certain certificates,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0096.pt|whether representing real or fictitious shares does not appear; but they were certificates connected in some way with Robson's long practiced frauds
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0097.pt|and he could not produce them. His chief asked sternly where they were.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0098.pt|Robson said they were at Kilburn Priory.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0099.pt|"Let us go to Kilburn for them together," said Mr. Fasson, growing suspicious.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0100.pt|They drove there, and Robson on arrival did the honors of his house, rang for lunch to gain time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0101.pt|but at Mr. Fasson's pressing demands went upstairs to fetch the certificates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0102.pt|He came back to explain that he had mislaid them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0103.pt|Mr. Fasson, more and more ill at ease, would not accept this subterfuge, and declared they must be found.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0104.pt|Robson again left him, but only to gather together hastily all the money and valuables on which he could lay his hands, with which he left the house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0105.pt|Mr. Fasson waited and waited for his subordinate to re-appear, and at last discovered his flight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0106.pt|A reward was forthwith offered for Robson's apprehension.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0107.pt|Meanwhile the absconding clerk had coolly driven to a favorite dining-place in the West End,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0108.pt|where a fish curry and a brace of partridges were set before him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0109.pt|and he discussed the latter with appetite, but begged that they would never give him curry again, as he did not like it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0110.pt|After dinner he went into hiding for a day or two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0111.pt|then, accompanied by a lady, not Mrs. Robson, he took steamer and started for Copenhagen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0112.pt|But the continental police had been warned to look out for him, and two Danish inspectors got upon his track,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0113.pt|followed him over to Sweden, and arrested him at Helsingfors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0114.pt|Thence he was transferred to Copenhagen and surrendered in due course to a London police officer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0115.pt|Little more remains to be said about Robson. He appears to have accepted his position, and to have at once resigned himself to his fate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0116.pt|When brought to trial he took matters very coolly, and at first pleaded "Not Guilty," but subsequently withdrew the plea.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0117.pt|Sergeant Ballantine, who prosecuted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0118.pt|paid him the compliment of describing him as "a young man of great intelligence, considerable powers of mind,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0119.pt|and possessed of an education very much beyond the rank of life to which he originally belonged."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0120.pt|Robson was found guilty, and sentenced to two terms of transportation, one for twenty and one for fourteen years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0121.pt|Newgate officers who remember Robson still describe him as a fine young man, who behaved well as a prisoner,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0122.pt|but who had all the appearance of a careless, thoughtless, happy-go-lucky fellow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0123.pt|In many respects the embezzlement of which Leopold Redpath was guilty closely resembled that of Robson,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0124.pt|but it was based upon more extended and audacious forgeries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0125.pt|Redpath's crime arose from his peculiar and independent position as registrar of stock of the Great Northern Railway Company.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0126.pt|This offered him great facilities for the creation of artificial stock, its sale from a fictitious holder, and transfer to himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0127.pt|All the signatures in the transfer were forged. Not only did he thus transfer and realize "bogus" stock
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0128.pt|but he bought bona fide amounts, and increased their value by altering the figures,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0129.pt|by inserting say one before five hundred, and thus making it
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0130.pt|fifteen hundred pounds, which larger amount was duly carried to his credit on the register, and entered upon the certificates of transfer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0131.pt|By these means Redpath misappropriated vast sums during a period extending over ten years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0132.pt|The total amount was never exactly made out, but the false stock created and issued by him was estimated at two hundred twenty thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0133.pt|Even when the bubble burst Redpath, who had lived at the rate of twenty thousand a year,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0134.pt|had assets in the shape of land, house, furniture, pictures, and objets d'art to the value of fifty thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0135.pt|He began in a very small way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0136.pt|First a lawyer's clerk, he then got an appointment in the Peninsular and Oriental Company's office;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0137.pt|afterwards he set up as an insurance broker on his own account, but presently failed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0138.pt|His fault was generosity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0139.pt|an open-handed, unthinking charity which gave freely to the poor and needy the money which belonged to his creditors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0140.pt|After his bankruptcy he obtained a place as clerk in the Great Northern Railway office,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0141.pt|from which he rose to be assistant registrar, with the special duties of transferring shares.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0142.pt|He soon proved his ability, and by unremitting attention mastered the whole work of the office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0143.pt|Later on he became registrar, and in this more independent position
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0144.pt|developed to a colossal extent the frauds he had already practiced as a subordinate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0145.pt|Now he launched out into great expenditure, took a house in Chester Terrace, and became known as a Maecenas and patron of the arts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0146.pt|He had a nice taste in bric-à-brac, and was considered a good judge of pictures.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0147.pt|Leading social and artistic personages were to be met with at his house, and his hospitality was far famed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0148.pt|The choicest wines, the finest fruits,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0149.pt|peas at ten shillings a quart, five-guinea pines, and early asparagus were to be found on his table.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0150.pt|But his chief extravagance, his favorite folly, was the exercise of an ostentatious benevolence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0151.pt|The philanthropy he had displayed in a small way when less prosperous became now a passion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0152.pt|His name headed every subscription list; his purse was always open.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0153.pt|Not content with giving where assistance was solicited, he himself sought out deserving cases and personally afforded relief.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0154.pt|When the crash came there were pensioners and other recipients of his bounty who could not believe
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0155.pt|that so good a man had really been for years a swindler and a rogue.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0156.pt|Down at Weybridge, where he had a country place, his name was long remembered with gratitude by the poor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0157.pt|During the days of his prosperity he was a governor of Christ's Hospital,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0158.pt|of the St. Ann's Society, and one of the supporters and managers of the Patriotic Fund.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0159.pt|In his person he was neat and fastidious;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0160.pt|he patronized the best tailors, and had a fashionable coiffeur from Hanover Square daily to curl his hair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0161.pt|There was something dramatic in Redpath's detection
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0162.pt|Just after Robson's frauds had agitated the minds of all directors of companies, the chairman of the Great Northern (Mr. Denison)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0163.pt|was standing at a railway station talking to a certain well-known peer of the realm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0164.pt|Redpath passed and lifted his hat to his chairman; the latter acknowledged the salute.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0165.pt|But the peer rushed forward and shook Redpath warmly by the hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0166.pt|"What do you know of our clerk?" asked Mr. Denison of his lordship. "Only that he is a capital fellow, who gives the best dinners and balls in town."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0167.pt|Redpath had industriously circulated reports that he had prospered greatly in speculation;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0168.pt|but the chairman of the Great Northern could not realize that a clerk of the company could honestly be in the possession of unlimited wealth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0169.pt|It was at once decided at the board to make a thorough examination of all his books.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0170.pt|Redpath was called in and informed of the intended investigation. He tried to stave off the evil hour by declaring that everything was perfectly right;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0171.pt|but finding he could not escape, he said he would resign his post, and leaving the boardroom, disappeared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0172.pt|The inquiry soon revealed the colossal character of the frauds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0173.pt|Warrants were issued for Redpath's arrest, but he had flown to Paris.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0174.pt|Thither police officers followed, only to find that he had returned to London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0175.pt|A further search discovered him at breakfast at a small house in the New Road.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0176.pt|He was arrested, examined before a police magistrate, and committed to Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0177.pt|Great excitement prevailed in the city and the West End when Redpath's defalcations were made public.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0178.pt|The Stock Market was greatly affected, and society, more especially that which frequents Exeter Hall, was convulsed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0179.pt|The Central Criminal Court, when the trial came on,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0180.pt|was densely crowded, and many curious eyes were turned upon the somewhat remarkable man who occupied the dock.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0181.pt|He is described by a contemporary account as a fresh-looking man of forty years of age, slightly bald, inclined to embonpoint,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0182.pt|and thoroughly embodying the idea of English respectability.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0183.pt|His manner was generally self-possessed, but his face was marked with "uneasy earnestness,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0184.pt|and he looked about him with wayward, furtive glances.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0185.pt|When the jury found a verdict of guilty he remained unmoved. He listened without emotion to the judge's well-merited censures,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0186.pt|and received his sentence of transportation for life without much surprise.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0187.pt|Redpath passed away into the outer darkness of a penal colony, where he was still living a year or two back
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0188.pt|But his name lingers still in this country as that of the first swindler of his time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0189.pt|and the prototype of a class not uncommon in our later days
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0190.pt|that of dishonest rogues who assume piety and philanthropy as a cloak for their misdeeds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0191.pt|In Newgate Redpath is remembered by the prison officer as a difficult man to deal with.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0192.pt|From the moment of his reception he gave himself great airs, as a martyr and a man heavily wronged.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0193.pt|By-and-by, when escape seemed hopeless, and after sentence, he suddenly degenerated into the lowest stamp of criminal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0194.pt|and behaved so as to justify a belief that he had been a jail-bird all his life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0195.pt|It has been already remarked in these pages that with changed social conditions came a great change in the character of crimes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0196.pt|Highway robberies, for instance, had disappeared, if we except the spasmodic and severely repressed outbreak of "garotting,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0197.pt|which at one time spread terror throughout London. Thieves preferred now to use ingenuity rather than brute force.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0198.pt|It was no longer possible to stop a coach or carriage, or rob the postman who carried the mail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0199.pt|The improved methods of locomotion had put a stop to these depredations. People traveled in company, as a rule;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0200.pt|only when single and unprotected were they in any danger of attack, and that but rarely.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0201.pt|There were still big prizes, however, to tempt the daring, and none appealed more to the thievish instinct than the custom of transmitting gold by rail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0202.pt|The precious metal was sent from place to place carefully locked up and guarded, no doubt;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0203.pt|but were the precautions too minute, the vigilance too close to be eluded or overcome?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0204.pt|This was the question which presented itself to the fertile brain of one Pierce,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0205.pt|who had been concerned in various "jobs" of a dishonest character, and who for the moment was a clerk in a betting office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0206.pt|He laid the suggestion before Agar, a professional thief, who was of opinion it contained elements of success.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0207.pt|But the collusion and active assistance of employees of the railway carriers were indispensable, and together
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0208.pt|they sounded one Burgess, a guard on the South-Eastern Railway, a line by which large quantities of bullion were sent to the Continent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0209.pt|Burgess detailed the whole system of transmission.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0210.pt|The gold, packed in an iron-bound box, was securely lodged in safes locked with patent Chubbs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0211.pt|Each safe had three sets of double keys, all held by confidential servants of the company.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0212.pt|One pair was with the traffic superintendent in London, another with an official in Folkestone,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0213.pt|a third with the captain of the Folkestone and Boulogne boat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0214.pt|At the other side of the Channel the French railway authorities took charge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0215.pt|The safes while on the line en route between London and Folkestone were in the guard's van.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0216.pt|This was an important step, and they might easily be robbed some day when Burgess was the guard, provided only that they could be opened.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0217.pt|The next step was to get impressions and fabricate false keys.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0218.pt|A new accomplice was now needed within the company's establishment, and Pierce looked about long before he found the right person.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0219.pt|At last he decided to enlist one Tester, a clerk in the traffic department, whom he thought would prove a likely tool.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0220.pt|The four waited patiently for their opportunity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0221.pt|which came when the safes were sent to Chubbs' to be repaired; and Chubbs sent them back, but only with one key,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0222.pt|in such a way that Tester had possession of this key for a time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0223.pt|He lent it to Agar for a brief space, who promptly took an impression on wax. But the safes had a double lock;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0224.pt|the difficulty was to get a copy of the second key.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0225.pt|This was at length effected by Agar and Pierce.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0226.pt|After hanging about the Folkestone office for some time, they saw at last that the key was kept in a certain cupboard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0227.pt|Still watching and waiting for the first chance, they seized it when the clerks left the office empty for a moment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0228.pt|Pierce boldly stepped in, found the cupboard unlocked; he removed the key, handed it to Agar outside,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0229.pt|who quickly took the wax impression, handed it back to Pierce; Pierce replaced it, left the office, and the thing was done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0230.pt|After this nothing remained but to wait for some occasion when the amount transmitted would be sufficient to justify the risks of robbery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0231.pt|It was Tester's business, who had access to the railway company's books, to watch for this.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0232.pt|Meanwhile the others completed their preparations with the utmost care.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0233.pt|A weight of shot was bought and stowed in carpet bags ready to replace exactly the abstracted gold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0234.pt|Courier bags were bought to carry the "stuff" slung over the shoulders;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0235.pt|and last, but not least, Agar frequently traveled up and down the line to test the false keys he had manufactured with Pierce's assistance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0236.pt|Burgess admitted him into the guard's van, where he fitted and filed the keys till they worked easily and satisfactorily in the locks of the safe.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0237.pt|One night Tester whispered to Agar and Pierce, "All right," as they cautiously lounged about London Bridge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0238.pt|The thieves took first-class tickets, handed their bags full of shot to the porters, who placed them in the guard's van.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0239.pt|Just as the train was starting Agar slipped into the van with Burgess, and Pierce got into a first-class carriage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0240.pt|Agar at once got to work on the first safe.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0241.pt|opened it, took out and broke into the bullion box, removed the gold, substituted the shot from a carpet bag,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0242.pt|re-fastened and re-sealed the bullion box, and replaced it in the safe.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0243.pt|At Redhill Tester met the train and relieved the thieves of a portion of the stolen gold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0244.pt|At the same station Pierce joined Agar in the guard's van, and there were now three to carry on the robbery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0245.pt|The two remaining safes were attacked and nearly entirely despoiled in the same way as the first, and the contents transferred to the courier bags.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0246.pt|The train was now approaching Folkestone, and Agar and Pierce hid themselves in a dark part of the van.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0247.pt|At that station the safes were given out, heavy with shot, not gold; the thieves went on to Dover, and by-and-by,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0248.pt|with Ostend tickets previously procured, returned to London without mishap, and by degrees disposed of much of the stolen gold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0249.pt|The theft was discovered at Boulogne, when the boxes were found not to weigh exactly what they ought. But no clue was obtained to the thieves,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0250.pt|and the theft might have remained a mystery but for the subsequent bad faith of Pierce to his accomplice Agar.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0251.pt|The latter was ere long arrested on a charge of uttering forged cheques, convicted, and sentenced to transportation for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0252.pt|When he knew that he could not escape his fate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0253.pt|he handed over to Pierce a sum of three thousand pounds, his own, whether rightly or wrongly acquired never came out,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0254.pt|together with the unrealized part of the bullion, amounting in all to some fifteen thousand pounds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0255.pt|and begged his accomplice to invest it as a settlement on a woman named Kay, by whom he had had a child.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0256.pt|Pierce made Kay only a few small payments, then appropriated the rest of the money.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0257.pt|Kay, who had been living with Agar at the time of the bullion robbery,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0258.pt|went to the police in great fury and distress, and disclosed all she knew of the affair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0259.pt|Agar too, in Newgate, heard how Pierce had treated him, and at once readily turned approver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0260.pt|As the evidence he gave incriminated Pierce, Burgess, and Tester, all three were arrested and committed to Newgate for trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0261.pt|The whole strange story, the long incubation and the elaborate accomplishment of the plot,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0262.pt|came out at the Old Bailey, and was acknowledged to be one of the most extraordinary on record.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0263.pt|Scarcely had the conviction of these daring and astute thieves been assured, than another gigantic fraud was brought to light.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0264.pt|The series of boldly-conceived and cleverly-executed forgeries in which James Townshend Saward, commonly called "Jem the Penman,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0265.pt|was the prime mover,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0266.pt|has probably no parallel in the annals of crime. Saward himself is a striking and in some respects an unique figure in criminal history.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0267.pt|A man of birth and education, a member of the bar, and of acknowledged legal attainments, his proclivities were all downward.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0268.pt|Instead of following an honorable profession, he preferred to turn his great natural talents and ready wits to the most nefarious practices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0269.pt|He was known to the whole criminal fraternity as a high-class receiver of stolen goods, a negotiator more especially of stolen paper,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0270.pt|cheques and bills, of which he made a particular use.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0271.pt|He dealt too in the precious metals, when they had been improperly acquired,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0272.pt|and it was to him that Agar, Pierce, and the rest applied when seeking to dispose of their stolen bullion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0273.pt|But Saward's operations were mainly directed to the fabrication and uttering of forged cheques.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0274.pt|His method was comprehensive and deeply laid.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0275.pt|Burglars brought him the cheques they stole from houses, thieves what they got in pocketbooks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0276.pt|Cheques blank and canceled were his stock-in-trade. The former he filled up by exact imitation of the latter, signature and all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0277.pt|When he could get nothing but the blank cheque, he set in motion all sorts of schemes for obtaining signatures, such as
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0278.pt|commencing sham actions, and addressing formal applications, merely for the reply.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0279.pt|One stroke of luck which he turned to great account
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0280.pt|was the return from transportation of an old "pal" and confederate, who brought with him some bills of exchange.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0281.pt|Saward's method of negotiating the cheques was equally well planned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0282.pt|Like his great predecessor Old Patch, he never went to a bank himself, nor did any of his accomplices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0283.pt|The bearer of the cheque was always innocent and ignorant of the fraudulent nature of the document he presented.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0284.pt|In order to obtain messengers of this sort, Saward answered advertisements of persons seeking employment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0285.pt|and when these presented themselves, entrusted them as a beginning with the duty of cashing cheques.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0286.pt|A confederate followed the emissary closely,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0287.pt|not only to ensure fair play and the surrender of the proceeds if the cheque was cashed, but to give timely notice if it was not,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0288.pt|so that Saward and the rest might make themselves scarce.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0289.pt|As each transaction was carried out from a different address, and a different messenger always employed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0290.pt|the forgers always escaped detection. But fate overtook two of the gang,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0291.pt|partly through their own carelessness, when transferring their operations to Yarmouth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0292.pt|One named Hardwicke assumed the name of Ralph, and, to obtain commercial credit in Yarmouth, paid in two hundred fifty pounds to a Yarmouth bank
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0293.pt|as coming from a Mr. Whitney.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0294.pt|He forgot to add that it was to be placed to Ralph's credit, and when he called as Ralph,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0295.pt|he was told it was only at Mr. Whitney's disposal, and that it could be paid to no one else.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0296.pt|Hardwicke, or "Ralph," appealed to Saward in his difficulty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0297.pt|and that clever schemer sent an elaborate letter of instructions how to ask for the money.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0298.pt|But while Hardwicke was in communication with Saward, the bank was in communication with London
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0299.pt|and the circumstances were deemed sufficiently suspicious to warrant the arrest of the gentlemen at Yarmouth on a charge of forgery and conspiracy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0300.pt|Saward's letter to Hardwicke fell into the hands of the police and compromised him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0301.pt|While Hardwicke and Atwell were in Newgate awaiting trial, active search was made for Saward,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0302.pt|who was at length taken in a coffee-shop near Oxford Street, under the name of Hopkins. He resisted at first, and denied his identity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0303.pt|but on being searched, two blank cheques of the London and Westminster Bank were found in his pocket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0304.pt|He then confessed that he was the redoubtable Jem Saward, or Jem the Penman, and was conveyed to a police-court, and thence to Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0305.pt|At his trial Atwell and Hardwicke, two of his chief allies and accomplices, turned approvers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0306.pt|and the whole scheme of systematic forgery was laid bare.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0307.pt|The evidence was corroborated by that of many of the victims who had acted as messengers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0308.pt|and others who swore to the meetings of the conspirators and their movements. Saward was found guilty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0309.pt|and the judge, in passing sentence on him of transportation for life, expressed deep regret that "the ingenuity, skill, and talent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0310.pt|which had received so perverted and mistaken direction,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0311.pt|had not been guided by a sense of virtue, and directed to more honorable and useful pursuits.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0312.pt|The proceeds of these forgeries amounted, it was said, to some thousands per annum.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0313.pt|Saward spent all his share at low gaming houses, and in all manner of debaucheries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ015-0314.pt|He was in person a short, square-built man of gentlemanly address, sharp and shrewd in conversation and manner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section nineteen: Later Records
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0002.pt|The old notion always prevailed that Newgate was impregnable, so to speak, from within,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0003.pt|and that none of its inmates could hope to escape from its secure precincts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0004.pt|Yet the jail, in spite of its fortress-like aspect, was by no means really safe.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0005.pt|Year after year prisoners determined to get free, and occasionally succeeded in their efforts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0006.pt|The inspectors' reports mention many cases of evasion accomplished.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0007.pt|There were others less successful.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0008.pt|Charles Thomas White, awaiting execution for arson, made a desperate effort to escape from Newgate in eighteen twenty-seven.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0009.pt|He had friends and auxiliaries inside the jail and out. The cell he occupied was near the outer wall,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0010.pt|and had he but been able to remove its iron bars, he might have descended into Newgate Street by means of a rope ladder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0011.pt|The ladder was actually made, of black sewing-thread firmly and closely interwoven. But White could not remove the bars;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0012.pt|the instruments needed for the purpose never reached him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0013.pt|It was noticed that he was most anxious to receive a pair of shoes for which he had asked, and when they arrived they were closely examined.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0014.pt|Sewn in between the upper and lower leathers several spring saws were found, which would have easily cut through any bars.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0015.pt|White, when taxed with his attempt, admitted that the accusation was true, and spoke "with pride and satisfaction of the practicability of his scheme."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0016.pt|There is an attempt at escape mentioned in Mr. Wakefield's book, which might have been an intended suicide.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0017.pt|John Williams, a young fellow only twenty-three years of age, awaited execution in eighteen twenty-seven for stealing in a dwelling-house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0018.pt|On the very morning on which he was to suffer he eluded the vigilance, such as it was, of his officers
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0019.pt|and climbed up the pipe of a cistern in the corner of the press yard; some thought with the idea of drowning himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0020.pt|He never reached the cistern, but fell back into the yard, injuring his legs severely.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0021.pt|Although his execution was imminent, a surgeon attended to his wounds, and he was carried more dead than alive to the scaffold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0022.pt|A harrowing scene followed;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0023.pt|the wounds broke open and bled profusely while the last dread penalty was being performed, to the manifest excitement and indignation of the crowd.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0024.pt|A more daring and skilful escape was effected in eighteen thirty-six by the chimney-sweep Henry Williams,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0025.pt|who, while detained in the press-yard as a capital convict, under sentence of death for burglary,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0026.pt|managed to get away in the very same spot where his namesake had nine years before so miserably failed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0027.pt|Escape seemed absolutely hopeless,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0028.pt|and would certainly have been impossible to any one less nimble than a chimney-sweep, trained under the old system to ascend the most intricate flues.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0029.pt|Even after Williams had got out, persons were disposed to disbelieve that the escape had been accomplished in the manner indicated;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0030.pt|they preferred to credit it to carelessness or collusion from officers of the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0031.pt|Yet from the circumstantial account given by Williams after recapture, there can be little doubt that he got away as will be described.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0032.pt|Williams as a capital convict was lodged in the press-yard or condemned ward.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0033.pt|He had access to the airing yard, and there was for hours no kind of supervision.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0034.pt|In one corner of the airing yard stood a cistern at some height from the ground;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0035.pt|the wall beneath and above it was "rusticated," in other words, the granite surface had become roughened, and offered a sort of foothold.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0036.pt|About fifty feet from the ground level, and above the cistern, a revolving chevaux-de-frise of iron was fixed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0037.pt|with only a short interval between it and the wall, supported by a horizontal iron railing with upright points;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0038.pt|in the wall above the chevaux-de-frise projected a series of iron spikes sharp enough to forbid further ascent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0039.pt|Williams surveyed these formidable obstacles to evasion, and calmly proceeded to surmount them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0040.pt|His first task was to gain the top of the cistern; this he effected by keeping his back to one side of the angle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0041.pt|and working with his hands behind him, while he used his bare feet like claws upon the other side of the wall angle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0042.pt|The condition of the stone surface just mentioned assisted him in this, and he managed to get beyond the cistern to the railing below the chevaux-de-frise.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0043.pt|The least slip now would have been fatal to him. But he could not thrust his body in through the narrow space left by the chevaux-de-frise,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0044.pt|and was compelled to work along the railing round three-quarters of the square of the yard,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0045.pt|and at length reached a point opposite the top of the building containing the condemned wards. This had been a perilous and painful task;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0046.pt|the spikes of the railing penetrated his flesh and made progression slow and difficult.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0047.pt|But the worst part of the business was to jump from this irksome foothold of the iron grating on to the top of the building just mentioned,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0048.pt|a distance of eight or nine feet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0049.pt|He had here completed his ascent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0050.pt|His next job was to descend outside Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0051.pt|Clambering along the roof,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0052.pt|he passed to the top of the ordinary's residence, hoping to find an open sky-light by which he might enter and so work downstairs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0053.pt|If the worst came to the worst, he intended to have gone down some chimney, as he had often done before in the way of business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0054.pt|But he did not like the risk of entering a room by the fireplace, and the chances of detection it offered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0055.pt|He traversed vainly all the roofs in Newgate Street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0056.pt|running a great risk of discovery as he passed by a lot of workmen at Tyler's manufactory in Warwick Square, which had formerly been the College of Physicians.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0057.pt|As his coat was an encumbrance, he left it on the top of the third house in Newgate Street, and thus in shirt-sleeves, barefoot and bareheaded,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0058.pt|he worked along to the roofs in Warwick Lane.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0059.pt|Here he came upon a woman on the leads hanging out clothes to dry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0060.pt|Williams concealed himself behind a chimney till she had re-entered her garret,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0061.pt|and then following her down a step ladder into the house, told his story, appealed to and won her compassion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0062.pt|She suffered him to pass downstairs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0063.pt|Below he met another woman and a girl, both of whom were terrified at his appearance, but
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0064.pt|when he explained that he was running away from the gallows they left him the road clear.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0065.pt|To walk out into the street was an easy affair, and he was now free, with one and fourpence in his pocket and a shirt and trousers for all his clothing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0066.pt|Denied admission everywhere as a ragged, half-naked beggar,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0067.pt|he tramped across London Bridge to Wandsworth, where he refreshed himself with a pint of strong ale, the first sustenance he had taken since his escape,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0068.pt|and continued his march to Kingston, where he slept soundly under a hedge till next morning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0069.pt|Entering a town, he obtained employment at once as a chimney-sweep
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0070.pt|from a widow woman, who gave him "bub and grub," or food and one-and-sixpence, for every nine days' work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0071.pt|Dissatisfied with this remuneration, he again took to the road, and tramped into Hampshire,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0072.pt|where he presently committed a burglary at Lymington, was caught, and lodged in Winchester Jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0073.pt|Mr. Cope, the governor of Newgate, having been communicated with, proceeded to Winchester, where he at once identified Williams.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0074.pt|The success, although very short-lived, which attended him, no doubt inspired other inmates of Newgate to follow his example.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0075.pt|It was for some time after this a constant practice to go up the chimneys in the hopes of escaping by the flue.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0076.pt|Even then, however, irons across barred the ascent after a certain distance, and in no one case did a fugitive get clear away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0077.pt|A man named Lears, under sentence of transportation for an attempt at murder on board ship, got up part of the way,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0078.pt|but had to come down again covered with soot and filth just as the officers entered the ward.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0079.pt|Lears was rewarded by being obliged to wear cross irons on his legs, a punishment rarely inflicted in Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0080.pt|and probably one of the few cases of a recurrence, but under proper safeguards and limitations, to the old system of chains.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0081.pt|On another occasion Mr. Cope the governor came in and missed a man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0082.pt|The ward was one short of its number. What had become of the fellow?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0084.pt|the fugitive, uncomfortably ensconced in the flue, came down of his own accord, like Colonel Colt's raccoon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0085.pt|After this great iron guards, just as are to be seen in lunatic asylums,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0086.pt|were fixed over the fireplaces, and the prisoners had no longer access to the chimneys.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0087.pt|Among the escapes still remembered was one in eighteen forty-nine, accomplished by a man who had been employed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0088.pt|working at the roof of the chapel on the female side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0089.pt|He was engaged in whitewashing and cleaning; the officer who had him in charge left him on the stairs leading to the gallery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0090.pt|Taking advantage of being unobserved, he got out through the roof on to the leads, and traveled along them towards Number one, Newgate Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0091.pt|This was a public-house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0092.pt|He stepped in at a garret window, coolly walked downstairs, and entered the bar.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0093.pt|They asked him how he had cut his hand, which was bleeding, and he said he had done it while working up on the roof.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0094.pt|No further notice was taken of him; no one seemingly suspected that he was a prisoner, and he was suffered to walk off without let or hindrance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0095.pt|In eighteen fifty-three three men escaped in company from one of the wards in the middle yard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0096.pt|They were penal servitude men, their names Bell, Brown, and Barry, and they were awaiting transfer to Leicester,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0097.pt|which with Wakefield was utilized as a receptacle for convicts not going to Western Australia,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0098.pt|or any of the new establishments at home, at Portland, Dartmoor, or elsewhere.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0099.pt|These men managed to cut a hole in the ceiling of the ward near the iron cage on the landing, and so got access to the roof.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0100.pt|At that time rope mats were still used as beds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0101.pt|One of the three, shamming ill, remained all day in his ward, where he employed himself unraveling the rope from the sleeping-mats.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0102.pt|By evening he manufactured a good long length,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0103.pt|and after all was quiet the three got on to the roof through the hole, and so on to Tyler's manufactory close by,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0104.pt|whence they let themselves down into the street by the rope.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0105.pt|These men were all in prison dress at the time of their escape, but one of their number, Bell, sent back his clothes a few days later by parcel's delivery,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0106.pt|with a civil note to the governor, saying he had no further use for them. All three fugitives were recaptured,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0107.pt|Brown almost at once; then Barry, who was taken at the East End in a public-house where he had arranged to meet a pal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0108.pt|The Newgate officers obtained information of this, and went to the spot, where they effected the capture,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0109.pt|but not till they had had an exciting chase down the street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0110.pt|The third, Bell, remained longest at large. He too was run into at a lodging in the Kingsland Road.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0111.pt|The officers dropped on to him while he was still in bed, but as they came upstairs he jumped up and hid in a cupboard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0112.pt|All three after recapture passed on, as originally intended, to Leicester, where they did their "bit" and were released;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0113.pt|but only to be taken soon afterwards for a fresh offense, and again pass through Newgate with sentences of penal servitude.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0114.pt|A later case was still more remarkable, as it was effected after the alteration of the prison and its reconstruction on the newest lines.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0115.pt|A sailor, Krapps by name, occupied one of the upper cells in the new block.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0116.pt|The doors, through incomplete knowledge of prison needs, were not, as now, sheeted with iron.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0117.pt|The prisoner had nothing to deal with but wooden panels, and by dint of cutting and chopping he got both the lower panels out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0118.pt|Through the aperture he crept out on to the landing at the dead of night, and so down into the central space of the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0119.pt|Under superior orders all the doors and gates of this block were left open at night, to allow the night watchman to pass freely to all parts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0120.pt|This was considered safer than intrusting him with keys.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0121.pt|Krapps walked at once into the yard and across to the female side, where he found some of the washing still hanging out to dry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0122.pt|He made a strong rope with several of the sheets; then, returning to the male yard,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0123.pt|got hold of the step ladder used in lighting the gas, and which under our more careful supervision would have been, as now-a-days, chained up.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0124.pt|Cutting the cord which fastened the two legs of the step ladder, he opened them out and made one long length;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0125.pt|with this, placed against the wall near the chevaux-de-frise, he made an escalade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0126.pt|The top of the wall was gained without difficulty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0127.pt|Along this Krapps crawled, and then dropped down on to the cook-house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0128.pt|He now put in requisition the rope made of the sheets, and with its help lowered himself into the street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0129.pt|Down below were market-carts waiting for daylight, and among them Krapps found a refuge and friends.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0130.pt|The first intimation of his escape was afforded by the police, who informed the prison authorities next day that a rope was hanging down from the cook-house roof.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0131.pt|Nothing more was heard of Krapps. The curious thing in his case was that his offense was a trifling one;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0132.pt|he was still untried, but would almost certainly have escaped with a minor penalty, say of three or four months' imprisonment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0133.pt|There is, however, no explanation of the motives which prompt prisoners to attempt escapes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0134.pt|Cases well authenticated have been known of men who had all but completed their sentences, and for whom the prison gates would open within a few days,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0135.pt|who yet faced extraordinary risks to advance their enlargement by only a few hours.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0136.pt|On the other hand, at the great convict establishments, such is the moral restraint of a systematic discipline,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0137.pt|that numbers of men, "lifers," and others with ten, fourteen, or twenty years to do, can be trusted to work out of doors without bolts and bars
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0138.pt|at a distance from the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0139.pt|The last escape from Newgate was only three years ago, and occurred just before the final closing of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0140.pt|No report of it was made public, as the man was almost immediately recaptured.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0141.pt|He was at work under the supervision of the artisan warder of the prison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0142.pt|who permitted him to go up on to the roof of the old wards, in order to throw water for flushing purposes down a shoot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0143.pt|He was out of sight while so employed, and remained so long absent that the warder, becoming uneasy, went in search of him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0144.pt|He had disappeared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0145.pt|Encouraged by the shouts and signals of some workmen employed on a building outside, the prisoner made one of the most marvellous jumps on record,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0146.pt|from the building he was on to a distant wall, with a drop of sixty feet between.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0147.pt|Then he ran along the coping of the wall towards its angle with Tyler's manufactory, and dropped down on to the gridiron below.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0148.pt|This was not strong enough to carry him, and he fell through.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0149.pt|Suicides and executions were, however, always the most effectual methods of making exit from durance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0150.pt|Suicides at Newgate were numerous enough, but they seldom possessed any novel or unusual features;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0151.pt|prison suicides seldom do, except as regards ingenuity and determination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0152.pt|Only great resolution indeed, persisted in to the bitter end,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0153.pt|would make death a certainty, so limited and imperfect are the means generally available.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0154.pt|When a bit of rope carefully secreted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0155.pt|braces, shoe-strings, shirt torn into strips are the only instruments, and a bar or small hook
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0156.pt|at no elevation affords the only drop, strangulation would seldom supervene but for the resolution of the miserable felo de se.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0157.pt|One curious instance of a suicide carried out under the most adverse and extraordinary circumstances may be quoted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0158.pt|It was that of a "Long Firm" swindler, by name Johnson,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0159.pt|who contrived to hang himself from a hammock hook only eighteen inches from the ground.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0160.pt|The noose was one of his hammock straps, which he buckled round his throat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0161.pt|Having carefully spread out a blanket on the floor just below the hammock as it lay suspended,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0162.pt|he fastened one end of the strap above mentioned to the hook, and then fell down.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0163.pt|He might have saved himself at any moment by merely extending an arm; but he lay there patiently till death supervened.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0164.pt|When discovered next morning, quite dead, it was found that the strap actually did not touch his throat;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0165.pt|three fingers might have been inserted between it and the flesh; the pressure was all on the arteries behind the ears,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0166.pt|and surgical opinion stated that the stoppage of circulation was the cause of death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0167.pt|Probably dissolution came as easily and almost without pain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0168.pt|A laudable desire to invest executions with more and more solemnity and decorum gained ground as they became more rare.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0169.pt|As more humane principles were introduced into prison management,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0170.pt|greater attention was paid to the capital convicts, and the horrors of their situation while awaiting sentence
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0171.pt|were as far as possible mitigated and toned down. But there was little improvement in the ceremony itself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0172.pt|There were still untoward accidents occasionally at executions, and even the chief practitioner of recent times, Calcraft,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0173.pt|was not always to be trusted to do his fell work efficiently.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0174.pt|Having mentioned Calcraft's name,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0175.pt|I may be permitted to digress for a moment to give a few particulars concerning the last officially appointed hangman of the city of London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0176.pt|After Calcraft's resignation no successor was really appointed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0177.pt|Marwood, whose name is so familiar with the present generation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0178.pt|had no official status, and was merely an operator selected by the Corporation, and who, on the strength of it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0179.pt|contracted with sheriffs and conveners to work by the job.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0180.pt|But Calcraft regularly succeeded Foxen, who followed Botting, and Dennis, the actor in the seventeen eighty riots.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0181.pt|Calcraft was born at Baddow, in Essex, in eighteen hundred;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0182.pt|he was a shoemaker by trade, and settled in London after his marriage in eighteen twenty-five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0183.pt|The story goes, that about eighteen twenty-eight
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0184.pt|his attention was drawn early one morning to a man who leant against a lamp-post in Finsbury Square, coughing violently.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0185.pt|Calcraft, who, in spite of the dreadful calling he subsequently followed, was always reputed a kindly man,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0186.pt|invited the man with the cough to enter a neighboring house and try a little peppermint for it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0187.pt|The other accepted, and they got into conversation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0188.pt|He told Calcraft that he was Foxen the executioner, and that he was that moment on his way to Newgate to hang a man,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0189.pt|but that his cough was getting so much the master of him that he feared he would not be able to carry on his duties much longer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0190.pt|"I have no idea who the sheriffs will get to do the work after me," said Foxen, adding that his assistant, Tom Cheshire,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0191.pt|was given to drink, and not to be trusted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0192.pt|"I think I could do that sort of job," said Calcraft, on the spur of the moment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0193.pt|Foxen asked him his name and address, and went away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0194.pt|Calcraft thought no more of what had occurred till the next sessions at the Old Bailey, when the sheriffs sent for him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0195.pt|and offered him the post of executioner for the city of London and Middlesex.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0196.pt|He accepted, having at first Tom Cheshire as his assistant, then for a time, when Cheshire was dismissed for drunkenness, a man named Osborne.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0197.pt|After that he worked alone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0198.pt|I cannot find that Calcraft was sworn in when appointed, or any exact information when the old forbidding ceremony ceased to be practiced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0199.pt|It was customary to make the executioner take the Bible in his hand, and swear solemnly that he would dispatch every criminal condemned to die,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0200.pt|without favoring father or mother or any other relation or friend.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0201.pt|When he had taken the oath he was dismissed with the words, "Get thee hence, wretch!"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0202.pt|Calcraft's emoluments were a guinea per week, and an extra guinea for every execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0203.pt|He got besides half-a-crown for every man he flogged, and an allowance to provide cats or birch rods.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0204.pt|For acting as executioner of Horsemonger Lane Jail
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0205.pt|he received a retaining fee of five pounds, five shillings, with the usual guinea for each job;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0206.pt|he was also at liberty to engage himself in the country, where he demanded and was paid ten pounds on each occasion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0207.pt|It was not always easy to get a hangman so cheap, as I have already indicated on a previous page.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0208.pt|The onus and responsibility of carrying out the sentence is personal to the sheriff. A good story is told illustrating this.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0209.pt|Some wags in Scotland seized Calcraft and kept him in durance the night before the execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0210.pt|Meanwhile the convener or sheriff was in despair, expecting that, failing the executioner, he would have to do the job himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0211.pt|But, fortunately for him, just at the last moment Calcraft was set free.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0212.pt|Calcraft's salary was more than the proverbial "thirteenpence halfpenny -- hangman's wages."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0213.pt|The origin of this expression dates, it is said, from the time when the Scottish mark,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0214.pt|a silver coin bearing the same relation to the Scottish pound that an English shilling does to an English pound, was made to pass current in England.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0215.pt|The mark was valued at thirteenpence halfpenny, or rather more than the shilling, which from time immemorial had been the hangman's wages.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0216.pt|That very ancient perquisite the convict's clothes was never claimed by Calcraft, and it may be doubted whether he was entitled to it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0217.pt|On one particular occasion, however, he got them. A gentleman whose sins brought him to the gallows at Maidstone
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0218.pt|wished to do Calcraft a good turn, and sent to his London tailor for a complete new suit, in which he appeared at his execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0219.pt|He expressly bequeathed them to Calcraft, who was graciously pleased to accept them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0220.pt|On another occasion an importunate person begged Calcraft eagerly to claim his right to the clothes, and give them to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0221.pt|Calcraft consented, got and bestowed the clothes, only to find that the person he had obliged exhibited them publicly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0222.pt|It may be added that of late years the clothes in which a convict has suffered are invariably burnt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0223.pt|Capital convicts go to the gallows in their own clothing, and not in prison dress, unless the former is quite unfit to be worn.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0224.pt|Calcraft shared the odium which his office, not strangely, has always inspired. But he was admitted into the jail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0225.pt|which his predecessors were not, and who were paid their wages over the gate to obviate the necessity for letting them enter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0226.pt|To this curious etiquette was due the appointment of an official whose office has long since disappeared, "the yeoman of the halter,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0227.pt|whose business it was to provide the rope and do the pinioning, and who was paid a fee of five shillings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0228.pt|They did not dislike Calcraft, however, at Newgate. He was an illiterate, simple-minded man, who scarcely remembered what executions he had performed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0229.pt|He kept no record of them, and when asked questions, referred to the officers of the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0230.pt|His nature must have been kindly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0231.pt|When he came to the prison for his wages his grandchildren often accompanied him, affectionately clinging to his hands;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0232.pt|and he owned a pet pony which would follow him about like a dog.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0233.pt|In his own profession
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0234.pt|he was not unskilful, but he proceeded entirely by rule of thumb, leaving the result very much to chance and the strength of the rope.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0235.pt|He was so much in favor of short drops that his immediate successor, Marwood, stigmatized him as "short-drop" man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0236.pt|Marwood being, on the other hand, in favor of giving a man as much rope as possible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0237.pt|With Calcraft's method there were undoubtedly many failures, and it was a common custom for him to go below the gallows
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0238.pt|"just to steady their legs a little;" in other words, to add his weight to that of the hanging bodies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0239.pt|Marwood till latterly seemed to have done his work more effectually, and has been known to give as much as six feet fall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0240.pt|This generally produces instantaneous death, although cases where complete fracture of the spinal cord occurred are said to be rare.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0241.pt|Calcraft served the city of London till eighteen seventy-four, when he was pensioned at the rate of twenty-five shillings per week.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0242.pt|The last execution at which he acted was that of Godwin, on the twenty-fifth May, eighteen seventy-four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0243.pt|Marwood, who succeeded him, and who died while these sheets were in the press, was a Lincolnshire man, a native of Horncastle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0244.pt|who first took to the work from predilection, and the idea of being useful in his generation, as he himself assured the writer of these pages.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0245.pt|Until the time of his death he kept a small shop close to the church in Horncastle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0246.pt|Over the door, in gilt letters, were the words "Crown Office"; in the window was a pile of official envelopes, ostentatiously displayed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0247.pt|while round about were shoe-strings, boot-laces, and lasts. Marwood, strange to say, followed the same trade as Calcraft.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0248.pt|Marwood was proud of his calling, and when questioned as to whether his process was satisfactory, replied that he heard "no complaints."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0249.pt|The strange competition amongst hundreds to succeed Marwood is a strange fact too recently before the public to need mention here.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0250.pt|It may, however, be remarked that the wisdom of appointing any regular hangman is very open to question,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0251.pt|and must be strongly deprecated on moral grounds, as tending to the utter degradation of one individual.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0252.pt|Possibly such changes may be introduced into the method of execution
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0253.pt|that the ceremony may be made more mechanical, thus rendering the personal intervention of a skilled functionary unnecessary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0254.pt|Executions long continued to be in public, in spite of remonstrance and reprobation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0255.pt|The old prejudices, such as that which enlisted Dr. Johnson on the side of the Tyburn procession, still lingered and prevented any change.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0256.pt|It was thought that capital punishment would lose its deterrent effect if it ceased to be public,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0257.pt|and the raison d'être of the penalty, which in principle so many opposed, would be gone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0258.pt|This line of argument prevailed over the manifest horrors of the spectacle. These increased as time passed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0259.pt|The graphic and terrible account given by Charles Dickens of the awful scene before Horsemonger Lane Jail, at the execution of the Mannings,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0260.pt|has already been quoted. Again, the concourse of people collected in front of Newgate to witness the execution,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0261.pt|simultaneously, of the five pirates, part of the mutinous crew of the 'Flowery Land,' was greater than on any previous occasion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0262.pt|It was a callous, careless crowd of coarse-minded, semi-brutalized folk, who came to enjoy themselves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0263.pt|Few, if any, showed any feeling of terror, none were impressed with the solemnity, or realized the warning which the sight conveyed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0264.pt|The upturned faces of the eager spectators resembled those of the 'gods' at Drury Lane on Boxing Night;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0265.pt|the crowd had come to witness a popular and gratuitous public performance -- better than a prize-fight or a play.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0266.pt|No notion that they were assisting at a vindication of the law filled the minds of those present with dread.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0267.pt|On the contrary, the prevailing sentiment was one of satisfaction at the success of the spectacle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0268.pt|The remarks heard amongst the crowd were of coarse approval.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0271.pt|The reply evinced equal satisfaction, and the speaker, with a profane oath, declared that he would like to act as Jack Ketch to the whole lot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0272.pt|To the disgrace of the better-educated and better-bred public, executions could still command the attendance of curious aristocrats from the West End.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0273.pt|At Müller's execution there was great competition for front seats,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0274.pt|and the windows of the opposite houses, which commanded a good view, as usual fetched high prices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0275.pt|As much as twenty-five pounds was paid for a first-floor front on this occasion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0276.pt|Never, indeed, had an execution been more generally patronized.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0277.pt|This is proved by contemporary accounts, especially one graphic and realistic article which appeared in the 'Times,'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0278.pt|and which contributed in no small degree to the introduction of private executions. A great crowd was expected, and a great crowd came.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0279.pt|They collected over night in the bright light of a November moon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0280.pt|"There were well-dressed and ill-dressed, old men and lads, women and girls."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0281.pt|Rain fell heavily at intervals, but did not thin the concourse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0282.pt|"Till three o'clock it was one long revelry of songs and laughter, shouting, and often quarreling, though,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0283.pt|to do them mere justice, there was at least till then a half-drunken ribald gaiety among the crowd that made them all akin."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0284.pt|There were preachers among the crowd, but they could not get a patient hearing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0285.pt|Then one struck up the hymn of the Promised Land, and the refrain was at once taken up with a mighty chorus --
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0286.pt|Oh, my! Think I've got to die.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0287.pt|This was presently superseded by a fresh catch --
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0288.pt|"Müller, Müller, He's the man," till a diversion was created by the appearance of the gallows, which was received with continuous yells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0289.pt|As day broke the character of the crowd was betrayed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0290.pt|There were but few women, except of the most degraded sort; the men were mostly young men --
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0291.pt|sharpers, thieves, gamblers, betting men, the outsiders of the boxing ring,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0292.pt|bricklayers' laborers, dock workmen, German artisans and sugar-bakers
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0293.pt|with the rakings of cheap singing-halls and billiard-rooms, the fast young men of London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0294.pt|But all, whether young or old, men or women, seemed to know nothing, feel nothing, to have no object but the gallows, and to laugh,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0295.pt|curse, or shout, as in this heaving and struggling forward they gained or lost in their strong efforts to get nearer where Müller was to die.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0296.pt|The actual execution made some impression.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0297.pt|The crowd was for a moment awed and stilled by the quiet rapid passage from life to death!
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0298.pt|But before "the slight slow vibrations of the body had well ended,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0299.pt|robbery and violence, loud laughing, oaths, fighting, obscene conduct, and still more filthy language reigned round the gallows far and near.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0300.pt|Such too the scene remained with little change or respite till the old hangman (Calcraft) slunk again along the drop,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0301.pt|amid hisses and sneering inquiries of what he had had to drink that morning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0302.pt|He, after failing once to cut the rope, made a second attempt more successfully, and the body of Müller disappeared from view.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0303.pt|It was preposterous to claim for such a scene as this that it conveyed any great moral lesson, or had any deterring influence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0304.pt|Numbers of humane and thoughtful persons had long been convinced of this.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0305.pt|Already the urgent necessity for abolishing public executions had been brought before the House of Commons by Mr. Hibbert,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0306.pt|and the question, as part of the whole subject of capital punishment, had been referred to a royal commission in January eighteen sixty-four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0307.pt|Full evidence was taken on all points, and on that regarding public executions there was a great preponderance of opinion towards their abolition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0308.pt|yet the witnesses were not unanimous.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0309.pt|Some of the judges would have retained the public spectacle; the ordinary of Newgate was not certain that public executions were not the best.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0310.pt|Another distinguished witness feared
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0311.pt|that any secrecy in the treatment of the condemned would invest them with a new and greater interest, which was much to be deprecated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0312.pt|Foreign witnesses, too, were in favor of publicity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0313.pt|On the other hand, Lords Cranworth and Wensleydale recommended private executions; so did Mr. Spencer Walpole, M.P.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0314.pt|Sir George Grey thought there was a growing feeling in favor of executions within the prison precincts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0315.pt|Colonel (now Sir Edmund) Henderson was strongly in favor of them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0316.pt|based on his experience of them in Western Australia. He not only thought them likely to be more deterrent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0317.pt|but believed that a public ceremony destroyed the whole value of an execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0318.pt|Other officials, great lawyers, governors of prisons, and chaplains supported this view.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0319.pt|The only doubts expressed were as to the sufficiency of the safeguards, as to the certainty of death and its subsequent publication.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0320.pt|But these, it was thought, might be provided by the admission of the press and the holding of a coroner's inquest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0321.pt|Duly impressed with the weight of evidence in favor of abolition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0322.pt|the commission recommended that death sentences should be carried out within the jail, under such regulations as might be considered necessary
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0323.pt|to prevent abuse, and satisfy the public that the law had been complied with.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0324.pt|But it is curious to note that there were several dissentients among the commissioners to this paragraph of the report.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0325.pt|The judge of the Admiralty Court, the Right Hon. Stephen Lushington, the Right Hon. James Moncrieff,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0326.pt|Lord Advocate, Mr. Charles Neate, Mr. William Ewart, and last, but not least, Mr. John Bright
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0327.pt|declared that they were not prepared to agree to the resolution respecting private executions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0328.pt|Nevertheless, in the very next session
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0329.pt|a bill was introduced by Mr. Hibbert, M.P., and accepted by the Government, providing for the future carrying out of executions within prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0330.pt|It was read for the first time in March eighteen sixty-six, but did not become law till eighteen sixty-eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0331.pt|The last public execution in front of Newgate was that of the Fenian Michael Barrett,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0332.pt|who was convicted of complicity in the Clerkenwell explosion, intended to effect the release of Burke and Casey
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0333.pt|from Clerkenwell prison, by which many persons lost their lives.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0334.pt|Unusual precautions were taken upon this occasion, as some fresh outrage was apprehended.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0335.pt|There was no interference with the crowd, which collected as usual, although not to the customary extent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0336.pt|But Newgate and its neighborhood was carefully held by the police, both city and metropolitan.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0337.pt|In the houses opposite the prison numbers of detectives mixed with the spectators;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0338.pt|inside the jail was Colonel Frazer, the chief commissioner of the city police, and at no great distance, although in the background,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0339.pt|troops were held in readiness to act if required. Everything passed off quite quietly, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0340.pt|and Calcraft, who had been threatened with summary retribution if he executed Barrett, carried out the sentence without mishap.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0341.pt|The sufferer was stolid and reticent to the last.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0342.pt|The first private execution under the new law took place within the precincts of Maidstone Jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0343.pt|The sufferer was a porter on the London, Chatham, and Dover railway, sentenced to death for shooting the station-master at Dover.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0344.pt|The ceremony, which was witnessed by only a few officials and representatives of the press, was performed with the utmost decency and decorum.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0346.pt|a fact duly advertised as completed by the hoisting of the black flag over the jail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0347.pt|had undoubtedly a solemn, impressive effect upon those outside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0348.pt|The same was realized in the first private execution within Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0349.pt|that of Alexander Mackay, who murdered his mistress at Norton Folgate by beating her with a rolling-pin and furnace-rake,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0350.pt|and who expiated his crime on the eighth September, eighteen sixty-eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0351.pt|A more marked change from the old scene can hardly be conceived. Instead of the roar of the brutalized crowd,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0352.pt|the officials spoke in whispers; there was but little moving to and fro.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0353.pt|Almost absolute silence prevailed until the great bell began to toll its deep note, and broke the stillness with its regular and monotonous clangour,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0354.pt|and the ordinary, in a voice trembling with emotion, read the burial service aloud.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0355.pt|Mackay's fortitude, which had been great,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0356.pt|broke down at the supreme moment before the horror of the stillness, the awful impressiveness of the scene in which he was the principal actor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0357.pt|No time was lost in carrying out the dread ceremony; but it was not completed without some of the officials turning sick, and the moment it was over,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0358.pt|all who could were glad to escape from the last act of the ghastly drama at which they had assisted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0359.pt|Private executions at their first introduction were not popular with the Newgate officials, and for intelligible reasons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0360.pt|The change added greatly to the responsibilities of the governor and his subordinates. Hitherto the public had seemed to assist at the ceremony;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0361.pt|the moment too that the condemned man had passed through the debtors' door on to the scaffold the prison had done with him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0362.pt|and the great outside world shared in the completion of the sacrifice.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0363.pt|This feeling was the stronger because
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0364.pt|all the ghastly paraphernalia, the gallows itself and the process of erecting and removing it, rested with the city architect, and not with the prison officials.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0365.pt|Moreover, after the execution, under the old system, the latter had only to receive the body for burial after it had been cut down by the hangman,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0366.pt|and placed decently in a shell by the workmen who removed the gallows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0367.pt|Under the new system the whole of the arrangements from first to last fell upon the officers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0368.pt|It was they who formed the chief part of the small select group of spectators;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0369.pt|upon them devolved the painful duty of cutting down the body and preparing for the inquest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0370.pt|All that the hangman, whoever he may be, does under the new regime is to unhook the halter and remove the pinioning straps.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0371.pt|The interment in a shell filled with quicklime in the passage-way leading to the Old Bailey is also a part of the duty of the prison officials.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0373.pt|and for the greater security of prisoners it is roofed in with iron bars which gives it, at least overhead, the aspect of a huge cage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0374.pt|Underfoot and upon the walls roughly cut into the stones, are single initial letters, the brief epitaphs of those who lie below.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0375.pt|As this burial-ground leads to the adjacent Central Criminal Court, accused murderers, on going to and returning from trial,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0376.pt|literally walked over what, in case of conviction, would be their own graves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0377.pt|The older officers, with several of whom I have conversed, have thus had unusual opportunities of watching the demeanor of murderers both before trial
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0378.pt|and after sentence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0379.pt|All as a rule, unless poignant remorse has brought a desire to court their richly-merited retribution, are buoyed up
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0380.pt|with hope to the last. There is always the chance of a flaw in the indictment, of a missing witness, or extenuating circumstances.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0381.pt|Even when in the condemned cell, with a shameful death within measurable distance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0382.pt|many cling still to life, expecting much from the intercession of friends or the humanitarianism of the age.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0383.pt|All almost without exception sleep soundly at night, except the first after sentence,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0384.pt|when the first shock of the verdict and the solemn notification of the impending blow keeps nearly all awake, or at least disturbs their night's rest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0385.pt|But the uneasiness soon wears off. The second night sleep comes readily, and is sound;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0386.pt|many of the most abandoned murderers snore peacefully their eight hours, even on the night immediately preceding execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0387.pt|All too have a fairly good appetite, and eat with relish, up to the last moment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0388.pt|A few go further, and are almost gluttonous.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0389.pt|Giovanni Lanni, the Italian boy who murdered a Frenchwoman in the Haymarket,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0390.pt|and was arrested on board ship just as he was about to leave the country, had a little spare cash, which he devoted entirely to the purchase of extra food.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0391.pt|He ate constantly and voraciously after sentence, as though eager to cram as many meals as possible into the few hours still left him to live.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0392.pt|Jeffrey, who murdered his own child, an infant of six, by hanging him in a cellar in Seven Dials,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0393.pt|called for a roast duck directly he entered the condemned cell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0394.pt|The request was not granted, as the old custom of allowing capital convicts whatever they asked for in the way of food has not been the rule in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0395.pt|The diet of the condemned is the ordinary diet of the prison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0396.pt|but to which additions are sometimes made, chiefly of stimulants, if deemed necessary, by the medical officer of the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0397.pt|The craving for tobacco which so dominates the habitual smoker often leads the convicted to plead hard for a last smoke.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0398.pt|As a special favor
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0399.pt|Wainwright was allowed a cigar the night before execution, which he smoked in the prison yard, walking up and down with the governor, Mr. Sydney Smith.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0400.pt|Wainwright's demeanor was one of reckless effrontery steadily maintained to the last.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0401.pt|His conversation turned always upon his influence over the weaker sex, and the extraordinary success he had achieved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0402.pt|No woman could resist him, he calmly assured Mr. Smith that night as they walked together, and he recounted his villanies one by one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0403.pt|His effrontery was only outdone by his cool contempt for the consolations of religion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0404.pt|The man who had made a pious life a cloak for his misdeeds, the once exemplary young man and indefatigable Sunday School teacher,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0405.pt|went impenitent to the gallows. The only sign of feeling he showed was in asking to be allowed to choose the hymns on the Sunday
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0406.pt|the condemned sermon was preached in the prison chapel, and this was probably only that he might hear the singing of a lady with a magnificent voice
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0407.pt|who generally attended the prison services.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0408.pt|During the singing of these hymns Wainwright fainted, but whether from real emotion or the desire to make a sensation was never exactly known.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0409.pt|On the fatal morning he came gaily out of his cell,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0410.pt|nodded pleasantly to the governor, who stood just opposite, and then walked briskly towards the execution shed, smiling as he went along.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0411.pt|There was a smile on his face when it was last seen, and just as the terrible white cap was drawn over it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0412.pt|Wainwright's execution was within the jail, but only nominally private.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0413.pt|No less than sixty-seven persons were present, admitted by special permission of the sheriff.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0414.pt|Rumour even went so far as to assert that among the spectators were several women, disguised in male habiliments;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0415.pt|but the story was never substantiated, and we may hope that it rested only on the idle gossip of the day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0416.pt|Many, like Wainwright, were calm and imperturbable throughout their trying ordeal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0417.pt|Catherine Wilson, the poisoner, was reserved and reticent to the last, expressing no contrition, but also no fear --
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0418.pt|a tall, gaunt, repulsive-looking woman, who no more shrank from cowardly, secret crimes than from the penalty they entailed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0419.pt|Kate Webster, who was tried at the Central Criminal Court, and passed through Newgate, although she suffered at Wandsworth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0420.pt|is remembered at the former prison as a defiant,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0421.pt|brutal creature who showed no remorse, but was subject to fits of ungovernable passion, when she broke out into language the most appalling.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0422.pt|The man Marley displayed fortitude of a less repulsive kind. He acknowledged his guilt from the first.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0423.pt|When the sheriff offered him counsel for his defense, he declined, saying he wished to make none -- "the witnesses for the prosecution spoke the truth."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0424.pt|During the trial and after sentence he remained perfectly cool and collected.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0425.pt|When visited one day in the condemned cell, just as St. Sepulchre's clock was striking, he looked up and said laughingly, "Go along, clock;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0426.pt|come along, gallows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0427.pt|He tripped up the chapel-stairs to hear the condemned sermon, and came out with cheerful alacrity on the morning he was to die.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0428.pt|Some condemned convicts converse but little with the warders who have them unceasingly in charge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0429.pt|Others talk freely enough on various topics, but principally upon their own cases.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0430.pt|When vanity is strongly developed there is the keen anxiety to hear what is being said about them outside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0431.pt|One was vexed to think that his victims had a finer funeral than he would have.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0432.pt|The only subject another showed any interest in was the theatres and the new pieces that were being produced. A third, Christian Satler,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0433.pt|laughed and jested with the officers about "Jack Ketch," who, through the postponement of the execution, would lose his Christmas dinner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0434.pt|When they brought in the two watchers to relieve guard one night, Sattler said,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0435.pt|"Two fresh men! May I speak to them? Yes! I must caution you," he went on to the warders, "not to go to sleep, or I shall be off through that little hole,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0436.pt|pointing to an aperture for ventilating the cell. On the morning of execution he asked how far it was to the gallows, and was told it was quite close.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0438.pt|that the convict's clothes were still the executioner's perquisite.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0439.pt|Often the convicts give way to despair. They are too closely watched to be allowed to do themselves much mischief, or suicides would probably be more frequent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0440.pt|But it is neither easy to obtain the instruments of self-destruction nor to elude the vigilance of their guard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0441.pt|The man, Bousfield, however, whose execution was so sadly bungled,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0442.pt|made a determined effort to burn himself to death by throwing himself bodily on to the fire in the condemned ward.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0443.pt|He was promptly rescued from his perilous condition, but not before his face and hands were badly scorched.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0444.pt|They were still much swollen when he was led out to execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0445.pt|Miller, the Chelsea murderer, who packed his victim's body in a box, and tried to send it by parcels delivery, tried to kill himself,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ016-0446.pt|but ineffectively, by running his head against his cell wall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section twenty: Newgate Notorieties, part one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0002.pt|As these records draw to a close, the crimes I chronicle become so much more recent in date that they will be fresh in the memory of most of my readers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0003.pt|Nevertheless, in order to give completeness to the picture
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0004.pt|I have attempted to draw of crime in connection with Newgate, from first to last, I must make some mention, in this my penultimate chapter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0005.pt|of some of the most heinous offenses of modern times.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0006.pt|The crime of poisoning has always been viewed with peculiar loathing and terror in this country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0007.pt|It will be remembered that as far back as the reign of Henry the eighth a new and most cruel penalty was devised for the punishment of the Bishop of Rochester's cook,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0008.pt|who had poisoned his master and many of his dependents.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0009.pt|Sir Thomas Overbury was undoubtedly poisoned by Lord Rochester in the reign of James the first,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0010.pt|and it is hinted that James himself nearly fell a victim to a nefarious attempt of the Duke of Buckingham.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0011.pt|But secret poisoning on a wholesale scale such as was practiced in Italy and France was happily never popularized in England.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0012.pt|The well-known and lethal aqua Toffania,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0013.pt|so called after its inventress, a Roman woman named Toffana, and which was so widely adopted by ladies anxious to get rid of their husbands,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0014.pt|was never introduced into this country. Its admission was probably checked by the increased vigilance at the custom houses,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0015.pt|the necessity for which was urged by Mr. Addison, when Secretary of State, in seventeen seventeen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0016.pt|The cases of poisoning in the British calendars are rare, nor indeed was the guilt of the accused always clearly established.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0017.pt|It is quite possible that Catherine Blandy, who poisoned her father at the instigation of her lover,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0018.pt|was ignorant of the destructive character of the powders, probably arsenic, which she administered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0019.pt|Captain Donellan, who was convicted of poisoning his brother-in-law, Sir Theodosius Broughton, and executed for it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0020.pt|would probably have had the benefit in these days of the doubts raised at his trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0021.pt|A third case, more especially interesting to us as having passed through Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0022.pt|was that of Eliza Fenning, who was convicted of an attempt to poison a whole family
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0023.pt|by putting arsenic in the dumplings she had prepared for them. The charge rested entirely on circumstantial evidence,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0024.pt|and as Fenning, although convicted and executed, protested her innocence in the most solemn manner to the last,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0025.pt|the justice of the sentence was doubted at the time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0026.pt|Yet it was clearly proved that the dumplings contained arsenic, that she, and she alone, had made the dough,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0027.pt|that arsenic was within her reach in the house,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0028.pt|that she had had a quarrel with her mistress, and that the latter with all others who tasted the dumplings were similarly attacked, although no one died.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0029.pt|The crime of poisoning is essentially one which will be most prevalent in a high state of civilization,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0030.pt|when the spread of scientific knowledge places nefarious means at the disposal of many,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0031.pt|instead of limiting them, as in the days of the Borgias and Brinvilliers, to the specially informed and unscrupulously powerful few.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0032.pt|The first intimation conveyed to society of the new terror which threatened it was in the arrest and arraignment of William Palmer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0033.pt|a medical practitioner, charged with doing to death persons who relied upon his professional skill.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0034.pt|The case contained elements of much uncertainty, and yet it was so essential,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0035.pt|in the interests and for the due protection of the public, that the fullest and fairest inquiry should be made,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0036.pt|that the trial was transferred to the Central Criminal Court,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0037.pt|under the authority of an Act passed on purpose, known as the Trial of offenses Act, and sometimes as Lord Campbell's Act.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0038.pt|That the administration of justice should never be interfered with by local prejudice or local feeling
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0039.pt|is obviously of paramount importance, and the powers granted by this Act have been frequently put in practice since.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0040.pt|The trial of Catherine Winsor, the baby farmer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0041.pt|was thus brought to the Central Criminal Court from Exeter assizes, and that of the Stauntons from Maidstone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0042.pt|Palmer's trial caused the most intense excitement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0043.pt|The direful suspicions which surrounded the case filled the whole country with uneasiness and misgiving,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0044.pt|and the deepest anxiety was felt that the crime, if crime there had been, should be brought home to its perpetrator.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0045.pt|The Central Criminal Court was crowded to suffocation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0046.pt|Great personages occupied seats upon the bench;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0047.pt|the rest of the available space was allotted by ticket, to secure which the greatest influence was necessary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0048.pt|People came to stare at the supposed cold-blooded prisoner;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0049.pt|with morbid curiosity to scan his features and watch his demeanor through the shifting, nicely-balanced phases of his protracted trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0050.pt|Palmer, who was only thirty-one at the time of his trial, was in appearance short and stout, with a round head
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0051.pt|covered rather scantily with light sandy hair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0052.pt|His skin was extraordinarily fair, his cheeks fresh and ruddy; altogether his face, though commonplace, was not exactly ugly;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0053.pt|there was certainly nothing in it which indicated cruel cunning or deliberate truculence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0054.pt|His features were not careworn, but rather set, and he looked older than his age.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0055.pt|Throughout his trial he preserved an impassive countenance, but he clearly took a deep interest in all that passed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0056.pt|Although the strain lasted fourteen days, he showed no signs of exhaustion, either physical or mental.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0057.pt|On returning to jail each day he talked freely and without reserve to the warders in charge of him, chiefly on incidents in the day's proceedings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0058.pt|He was confident to the very last that it would be impossible to find him guilty;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0059.pt|even after sentence, and until within a few hours of execution, he was buoyed up with the hope of reprieve.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0060.pt|The conviction that he would escape had taken so firm a hold of him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0061.pt|that he steadily refused to confess his guilt, lest it should militate against his chances.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0062.pt|In the condemned cell he frequently repeated, quote, I go to my death a murdered man, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0063.pt|He made no distinct admissions even on the scaffold; but when the chaplain at the last moment exhorted him to confess,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0064.pt|he made use of the remarkable words, quote, If it is necessary for my soul's sake to confess this murder,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0065.pt|I ought also to confess the others: I mean my wife and my brother's. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0066.pt|Yet he was silent when specifically pressed to confess that he had killed his wife and his brother.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0067.pt|Palmer was ably defended, but the weight of evidence was clearly with the prosecution, led by Sir Alexander Cockburn,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0068.pt|and public opinion at the termination of the trial coincided with the verdict of the jury.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0069.pt|Originally a doctor in practice at Rugeley, in Staffordshire, he had gradually withdrawn from medicine, and devoted himself to the turf;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0070.pt|but his sporting operations did not prosper, and he became a needy man, always driven to desperate straits for cash.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0071.pt|To meet his liabilities, he raised large sums on forged bills of acceptance drawn upon his mother, a woman of some means,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0072.pt|whose signature he counterfeited.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0073.pt|In eighteen fifty-four he owed a very large sum of money, but he was temporarily relieved by the death of his wife,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0074.pt|whose life he had insured for thirteen thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0075.pt|There is every reason to suppose that he poisoned his wife to obtain possession of this sum upon her death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0076.pt|His brother was supposed to have been his next victim, upon whose life he had also effected an insurance for another thirteen thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0077.pt|The brother too died conveniently, but the life office took some exception to the manner of the death, and hesitated to disburse the funds claimed by Palmer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0078.pt|Palmer tried to get a new insurance on the life of a hanger-on, one Bates, but no office would accept it, no doubt greatly to Bates's longevity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0079.pt|Meanwhile the bill discounters who held the forged acceptances, with other promissory notes, began to clamor for payment, and talk of issuing writs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0080.pt|Palmer, alive to the danger he ran of a prosecution for forgery, should the fraud he had committed be brought to light,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0081.pt|sought about for a fresh victim to supply him with funds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0082.pt|He fixed upon a sporting friend, Mr. John Parsons Cook, who had been in luck at Shrewsbury races, both as a winner and a backer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0083.pt|whom he persuaded to go and stay at Rugeley in an hotel just opposite his own house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0084.pt|It was there that Cook was first taken ill with violent retchings and vomitings, all dating from visits of Palmer, who brought him medicines and food.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0085.pt|Palmer's plan was to administer poison in quantities insufficient to cause death, but enough to produce illness which would account for death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0086.pt|For this purpose he gave, or there was the strongest presumption that he gave,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0087.pt|antimony, which caused Cook's constant sickness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0088.pt|Quantities of antimony were found in the body after death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0089.pt|While Cook lay ill, Palmer in his name pocketed the proceeds of the Shrewsbury settling,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0090.pt|and so got the money for which he was prepared to barter his soul.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0091.pt|The last act now approached, and in order to avoid the detection of this last fraud, Palmer laid his plans for disposing of Cook.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0092.pt|He decided to use strychnia, or the vegetable poison otherwise known as nux vomica;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0093.pt|and one of the many links in the long chain of evidence was an entry in a book of Palmer's to the effect that Quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0094.pt|strychnia kills by causing tetanic fixing of the respiratory muscles. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0095.pt|The purchase by Palmer of strychnia was proved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0096.pt|The night he bought it, Cook, who had been taking certain pills under medical advice, not Palmer's, was seized with violent convulsions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0097.pt|He had swallowed his pills as usual, at least Palmer had administered them
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0098.pt|whether the ordinary or his own pills will never be known, except as may be inferred from the results, which indicate that he had taken the latter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0099.pt|Cook recovered this time; it was probably Palmer's intention that he should recover, wishing to encourage the supposition that Cook was in a bad way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0100.pt|Next night Cook had a second and a more violent attack.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0101.pt|That day Palmer had bought more strychnia, and had called in a fresh doctor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0102.pt|The second attack was fatal, and ended in Cook's death from tetanus.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0103.pt|This tetanus, according to the prosecution, was produced by strychnia, and followed the administration of pills by Palmer
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0104.pt|prescribed nominally by the fresh doctor, for which Palmer had substituted his own.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0105.pt|Cook's death was horrible
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0106.pt|fearful paroxysms and cramps, ending in suffocation by the tetanic rigor which caught the muscles of the chest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0107.pt|After Cook's death his stepfather, who was much attached to him, came to Rugeley.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0108.pt|He was struck with the appearance of the corpse, which was not emaciated, as after a long disease ending in death;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0109.pt|while the muscles of the fingers were tightly clenched, not open, as usual in a corpse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0110.pt|He said nothing, but began to feel uneasy when he found that Cook's betting-book was missing, and that Palmer put it forward
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0111.pt|that his friend had died greatly embarrassed, with bills to the amount of four thousand pounds out in his name.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0112.pt|Palmer too showed an indecent haste in preparing the body for interment, and in obtaining the usual certificate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0113.pt|After this the step-father insisted upon a post-mortem, which was conducted somewhat carelessly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0114.pt|The intestines were, however, preserved and sent for analysis,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0115.pt|but it was proved that Palmer tried hard to get possession of the jar containing them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0116.pt|and even sought to upset the vehicle by which they were being conveyed a part of the way to London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0117.pt|The examination of the stomach betrayed the presence of antimony in large quantities, but no strychnia,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0118.pt|and it was on the entire absence of the latter that the defense was principally based when Palmer was brought to trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0119.pt|All the circumstances were so suspicious that he could not escape the criminal charge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0120.pt|He had already been arrested on a writ issued at the instance of the money-lenders, and an action had been commenced against Mrs. Palmer on her acceptances.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0121.pt|It came out at once that these had been forged, and the whole affair at once took the ugliest complexion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0122.pt|A government prosecution was instituted, and Palmer was brought to Newgate for trial at the Central Criminal Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0123.pt|There was not much reserve about him when there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0124.pt|He frequently declared before and during the trial that it would be impossible to find him guilty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0125.pt|He never actually said that he was not guilty, but he was confident he would not be convicted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0126.pt|He relied on the absence of the strychnia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0127.pt|But the chain of circumstantial evidence was strong enough to satisfy the jury, who agreed to their verdict in an hour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0128.pt|At the last moment Palmer tossed a bit of paper over to his counsel, on which he had written, quote, I think there will be a verdict of Not Guilty, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0129.pt|Even after the death sentence had been passed upon him he clung to the hope that the Government would grant him a reprieve.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0130.pt|To the last, therefore, he played the part of a man wrongfully convicted, and did not abandon hope
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0131.pt|even when the high sheriff had told him there was no possibility of a reprieve, and within a few hours of execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0132.pt|He suffered at Stafford in front of the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0133.pt|Palmer speedily found imitators.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0134.pt|Within a few weeks occurred the Leeds poisoning case, in which the murderer undoubtedly was inspired by the facts made public at Palmer's trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0135.pt|Dove, a fiendish brute, found from the evidence in that case that he could kill his wife, whom he hated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0136.pt|with exquisite torture, and with a poison that would leave, as he thought, no trace.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0137.pt|In the latter hope he was happily disappointed. But as this case is beyond my subject, I merely mention it as one of the group already referred to.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0138.pt|Three years later came the case of Dr. Smethurst,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0139.pt|presenting still greater features of resemblance with Palmer's, for both were medical men, and both raised difficult questions of medical jurisprudence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0140.pt|In both the jury had no doubt as to the guilt of the accused, only in Smethurst's case the then Home Secretary, Sir George Cornewall Lewis,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0141.pt|could not divest his mind of serious doubt, and of which the murderer got the benefit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0142.pt|Smethurst's escape may have influenced the jury in the Poplar poisoning case,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0143.pt|which followed close on its heels, although in that the verdict of "Not Guilty" was excusable, as the evidence was entirely circumstantial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0144.pt|There was no convincing proof that the accused had administered the poison, although beyond question that poison had occasioned the death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0145.pt|Dr. Smethurst was long an inmate of Newgate, and was tried at the Central Criminal Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0146.pt|He had all the characteristics of the poisoner -- the calm deliberation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0147.pt|the protracted dissimulation, as with unshrinking, relentless wickedness the deadly work is carried on to the end.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0148.pt|Smethurst's victim was a Miss Bankes, with whom he had contracted a bigamous marriage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0149.pt|He had met her at a boarding-house, where he lived with his own wife, a person of "shady" antecedents,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0150.pt|and whom he left without scruple to join Miss Bankes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0151.pt|The latter seems to have succumbed only too willingly to his fascinations, and to have as readily agreed to marry him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0152.pt|in spite of the existence of the other Mrs. Smethurst.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0153.pt|Probably the doctor had told her the story he brought forward when tried for bigamy, namely,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0154.pt|that Mrs. Smethurst had no right to the name, but had a husband of her own, one Johnson, alive -- a story subsequently disproved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0155.pt|Miss Bankes seems to have counted upon some species of whitewashing, no less than the repudiation of the other marriage,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0156.pt|and told her sister as much when they last met.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0157.pt|For some months Smethurst and Miss Bankes lived together as man and wife, first in London, and then at Richmond.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0158.pt|She had a little fortune of her own, some one thousand seven hundred pounds or one thousand eight hundred pounds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0159.pt|and a life-interest in five thousand pounds, a fact on which Smethurst's counsel dwelt with much weight,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0160.pt|as indicating a motive for keeping her alive rather than killing her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0161.pt|But probably the lump sum was the bait, or perhaps Smethurst wished to return to his temporarily deserted first wife.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0162.pt|Whatever the exact cause which impelled him to crime, it seems certain that he began to give her some poison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0163.pt|either arsenic or antimony, or both, in small quantities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0164.pt|with the idea of subjecting her to the irritant poison slowly but surely until the desired effect, death, was achieved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0165.pt|As she became worse and worse, Smethurst called in the best medical advice in Richmond,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0166.pt|but was careful to prime them with his facts and lead them if possible to accept his diagnosis of the case.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0167.pt|Smethurst was found guilty by the jury, and sentenced to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0168.pt|But a long public discussion followed, and in consequence he was reprieved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0169.pt|The Home Secretary, in a letter to the Lord Chief Baron, stated that, quote, although the facts are full of suspicion against Smethurst,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0170.pt|there is not absolute and complete evidence of his guilt. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0171.pt|Smethurst was therefore given a free pardon for the offense of murder,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0172.pt|but he was subsequently again tried for bigamy, and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0173.pt|Catherine Wilson was a female poisoner who did business wholesale.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0174.pt|She was tried in April eighteen sixty-two on suspicion of having attempted to poison a neighbor with oil of vitriol.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0175.pt|The circumstances were strange. Mrs. Wilson had gone to the chemist's for medicine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0176.pt|and on her return had administered a dose of something which burnt the mouth badly, but did not prove fatal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0177.pt|Wilson was acquitted on this charge, but other suspicious facts cropped up while she was in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0178.pt|It appeared that several persons with whom she was intimate had succumbed suddenly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0179.pt|In all cases the symptoms were much the same,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0180.pt|vomiting, violent retching, purging, such as are visible in cholera, and all dated from the time when she knew a young man named Dixon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0181.pt|who had been in the habit of taking colchicum for rheumatism. Mrs. Wilson heard then casually from a medical man
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0182.pt|that it was a very dangerous medicine, and she profited by what she had heard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0183.pt|Soon afterwards Dixon died, showing all the symptoms already described.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0184.pt|Soon afterwards a friend, Mrs. Atkinson, came to London from Westmoreland, and stayed in Mrs. Wilson's house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0185.pt|She was in good health on leaving home, and had with her a large sum of money.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0186.pt|While with Mrs. Wilson she became suddenly and alarmingly ill, and died in great agony.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0187.pt|Her husband, who came up to town, would not allow a post-mortem, and again Mrs. Wilson escaped.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0188.pt|Mrs. Atkinson's symptoms had been the same as Dixon's. Then Mrs. Wilson went to live with a man named Taylor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0189.pt|who was presently attacked in the same way as the others, but, but, thanks to the prompt administration of remedies, he recovered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0190.pt|After this came the charge of administering oil of vitriol, which failed, as has been described.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0191.pt|Last of all Mrs. Wilson poisoned her landlady, Mrs. Soames, under precisely the same conditions as the foregoing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0192.pt|Here, however, the evidence was strong and sufficient.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0193.pt|It was proved that Mrs. Wilson had given Mrs. Soames something peculiar to drink,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0194.pt|that immediately afterwards Mrs. Soames was taken ill with vomiting and purging,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0195.pt|and that Mrs. Wilson administered the same medicine again and again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0196.pt|The last time Mrs. Soames showed great reluctance to take it, but Wilson said it would certainly do her good.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0197.pt|This mysterious medicine Wilson kept carefully locked up, and allowed no one to see it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0198.pt|but its nature was betrayed when this last victim also died.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0199.pt|The first post-mortem indicated death from natural causes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0200.pt|but a more careful investigation attributed it beyond doubt to over-doses of colchicum.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0201.pt|Dr. Alfred Taylor, the great authority and writer on medical jurisprudence, corroborated this, and in his evidence on the trial
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0202.pt|fairly electrified the court by declaring it his opinion that many deaths, supposed to be from cholera, were really due to poison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0203.pt|This fact was referred to by the judge in his summing up,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0204.pt|who said that he feared it was only too true that secret poisoning was at that time very rife in the metropolis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0205.pt|Wilson was duly sentenced to death, and suffered impenitent, hardened, and without any confession of her guilt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0206.pt|Although murder by insidious methods had become more common, cases where violence of the most deadly and determined kind was offered
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0207.pt|had not quite disappeared. I will mention two cases of this class, one accompanied with piracy on the high seas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0208.pt|the other perpetrated in a railway-carriage, and showing the promptitude with which criminals accept and utilize altered conditions of life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0209.pt|more particularly as regards locomotion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0210.pt|The first case was that of the 'Flowery Land,'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0211.pt|which left London for Singapore on the twenty-eighth July, eighteen sixty-three, with a cargo of wine and other goods.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0212.pt|Her captain was John Smith;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0213.pt|the first and second mates, Karswell and Taffir; there were two other Englishmen on board, and the rest of the crew were a polyglot lot,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0214.pt|most of them, as was proved by their subsequent acts, blackguards of the deepest dye.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0215.pt|Six were Spaniards, or rather natives of Manilla, and men of color; one was a Greek, another a Turk;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0216.pt|there were also a Frenchman, a Norwegian (the carpenter), three Chinamen, a "Sclavonian," and a black on board.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0217.pt|Navigation and discipline could not be easy with such a nondescript crew.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0218.pt|The captain was kindly but somewhat intemperate, the first mate a man of some determination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0219.pt|and punishment such as rope's-ending and tying to the bulwarks had to be applied to get the work properly done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0220.pt|The six Spaniards, the Greek, and the Turk were in the same watch,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0221.pt|eight truculent and reckless scoundrels, who, brooding over their fancied wrongs, and burning for revenge,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0222.pt|hatched amongst them a plot to murder their officers and seize the ship.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0223.pt|The mutiny was organized with great secrecy, and broke out most unexpectedly in the middle of the night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0224.pt|A simultaneous attack was made upon the captain and the first mate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0225.pt|The latter had the watch on deck.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0226.pt|One half of the mutineers fell upon him unawares with handspikes and capstan-bars.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0227.pt|He was struck down, imploring mercy, but they beat him about the head and face
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0228.pt|till every feature was obliterated, and then, still living, flung him into the sea.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0229.pt|Meanwhile the captain, roused from his berth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0230.pt|came out of the cabin, was caught near the 'companion' by the rest of the mutineers, and promptly dispatched with daggers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0231.pt|His body was found lying in a pool of blood in a night-dress, stabbed over and over again in the left side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0232.pt|The captain's brother, a passenger on board the 'Flowery Land,' was also stabbed to death and his body thrown overboard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0233.pt|The second mate, who had heard the hammering of the capstan-bars and the handspikes, with the first mate's and captain's agonized cries, had come out,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0234.pt|verified the murderers, and then shut himself up in his cabin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0235.pt|He was soon summoned on deck, but as he would not move, the mutineers came down and stood in a circle round his berth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0236.pt|Leon, or Lyons, who spoke English,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0237.pt|when asked said they would spare his life if he would navigate the ship for them to the River Plate or Buenos Aires.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0238.pt|Taffir, the second mate, agreed, but constantly went in fear of his life for the remainder of the voyage;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0239.pt|and although the mutineers spared him, they ill-treated the Chinamen, and cut one badly with knives.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0240.pt|Immediately after the murder cases of champagne, which formed part of the cargo, were brought on deck and broached;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0241.pt|the captain's cabin ransacked, his money and clothes divided amongst the mutineers, as well as much of the merchandise on board.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0242.pt|Leon wished to make every one on board share and share alike, so as to implicate the innocent with the guilty;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0243.pt|but Vartos, or Watto, the Turk, would not allow any but the eight mutineers to have anything.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0244.pt|The murders were perpetrated on the tenth September, and the ship continued her voyage for nearly three weeks, meeting and speaking one ship only.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0245.pt|On the second October they sighted land, ten miles distant;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0246.pt|the mutineers took command of the ship, put her about till night-fall, by which time they had scuttled her, got out the boats, and all left the ship.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0247.pt|The rest of the crew were also permitted to embark, except the Chinamen, one of whom was thrown into the water and drowned,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0248.pt|while the other two were left to go down in the ship, and were seen clinging to the tops until the waters closed over them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0249.pt|The boats reached the shore on the fourth October. Leon had prepared a plausible tale to the effect that they belonged to an American ship
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0250.pt|from Peru bound to Bordeaux, which had foundered at sea;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0251.pt|that they had been in the boats five days and nights, but that the captain and others had been lost.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0252.pt|The place at which they landed was not far from the entrance to the River Plate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0253.pt|A farmer took them in for the night, and drove them next day to Rocha, a place north of Maldonado.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0254.pt|Taffir, the mate, finding there was a man who could speak English at another place twenty miles off,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0255.pt|repaired there secretly, and so gave information to the Brazilian authorities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0256.pt|The mutineers were arrested, the case inquired into by a naval court-martial,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0257.pt|and the prisoners eventually surrendered to the British authorities, brought to England, and lodged in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0258.pt|Their trial followed at the Central Criminal Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0259.pt|Eight were arraigned at the same time: six Spaniards, Leon, Blanco, Duranno, Santos, and Marsolino;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0260.pt|Vartos the Turk, and Carlos the Greek.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0261.pt|Seven were found guilty of murder on the high seas, and one, Carlos, acquitted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0262.pt|Two of the seven, Santos and Marsolino, were reprieved, and their sentences commuted to penal servitude for life;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0263.pt|the remaining five were executed in one batch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0264.pt|They were an abject, miserable crew, cowards at heart; but some, especially Lopez, continued bloodthirsty to the last.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0265.pt|Lopez took a violent dislike to the officer of the ward in charge of them, and often expressed a keen desire to do for him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0266.pt|They none of them spoke much English except Leon, commonly called Lyons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0267.pt|After condemnation, as the rules now kept capital convicts strictly apart, they could not be lodged in the two condemned cells,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0268.pt|and they were each kept in an ordinary separate cell of the newly-constructed block, with the "traps," or square openings in the cell door,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0269.pt|let down. A full view of them was thus at all times obtainable by the officers who, without intermission, day and night patrolled the ward.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0270.pt|On the morning of execution the noise of fixing the gallows in the street outside awoke one or two of them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0271.pt|Lyons asked the time, and was told it was only five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0272.pt|"Ah!" he remarked, "they will have to wait for us then till eight."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0273.pt|Lopez was more talkative.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0274.pt|When the warder went in to call him he asked for his clothes. He was told he would have to wear his own.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0276.pt|Then he wanted to know when the policemen would arrive, and was told none would come.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0277.pt|The soldiers then?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0278.pt|No soldiers either.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0280.pt|The convicts were pinioned one by one and sent singly out to the gallows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0281.pt|As the first to appear would have some time to wait for his fellows, a difficult and painful ordeal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0282.pt|the seemingly most courageous was selected to lead the way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0283.pt|This was Duranno; but the sight of the heaving mass of uplifted, impassioned faces
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ017-0284.pt|was too much for his nerves, and he so nearly fainted that he had to be seated in a chair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section twenty-one: Newgate Notorieties, part two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0002.pt|In July eighteen sixty-four occurred the murder of Mr. Briggs, a gentleman advanced in years and chief clerk in Robarts' bank.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0003.pt|As the circumstances under which it was perpetrated were somewhat novel,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0004.pt|and as some time elapsed before the discovery and apprehension of the supposed murderer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0005.pt|the public mind was greatly agitated by the affair for several months. The story of the murder must be pretty familiar to most of my readers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0006.pt|Mr. Briggs left the bank one afternoon as usual, dined with his daughter at Peckham,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0007.pt|then returned to the city to take the train from Fenchurch Street home, traveling by the North London Railway.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0008.pt|He lived at Hackney, but he never reached it alive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0009.pt|When the train arrived at Hackney station, a passenger who was about to enter one of the carriages found the cushions soaked with blood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0010.pt|Inside the carriage was a hat, a walking-stick, and a small black leather bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0011.pt|About the same time a body was discovered on the line near the railway-bridge by Victoria Park.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0012.pt|It was that of an aged man, whose head had been battered in by a life-preserver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0013.pt|There was a deep wound just over the ear, the skull was fractured, and there were several other blows and wounds on the head.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0014.pt|Strange to say, the unfortunate man was not yet dead, and he actually survived more than four-and-twenty hours.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0015.pt|His identity was established by a bundle of letters in his pocket, which bore his full address:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0016.pt|T. Briggs, Esq., Robarts and Co., Lombard Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0017.pt|The friends of Mr. Briggs were communicated with, and it was ascertained that when he left home the morning of the murderous attack,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0018.pt|he wore gold-rimmed eye-glasses and a gold watch and chain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0019.pt|The stick and bag were his, but not the hat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0020.pt|A desperate and deadly struggle must have taken place in the carriage, and the stain of a bloody hand marked the door.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0021.pt|The facts of the murder and its object, robbery, were thus conclusively proved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0022.pt|It was also easily established that the hat found in the carriage had been bought at Walker's, a hatter's in Crawford Street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0023.pt|Marylebone; while within a few days Mr. Briggs' gold chain was traced to a jeweler's in Cheapside,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0024.pt|Mr. Death, who had given another in exchange for it to a man supposed to be a foreigner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0025.pt|More precise clues to the murderer were not long wanting; indeed the readiness with which they were produced and followed up
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0026.pt|showed how greatly the publicity and wide dissemination of the news regarding murder facilitate the detection of crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0027.pt|In little more than a week a cabman came forward and voluntarily made a statement which at once drew suspicion to a German, Franz Müller,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0028.pt|who had been a lodger of his. Müller had given the cabman's little daughter a jeweler's cardboard box bearing the name of Mr. Death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0029.pt|A photograph of Müller shown the jeweler was identified as the likeness of the man who had exchanged Mr. Briggs' chain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0030.pt|Last of all, the cabman swore that he had bought the very hat found in the carriage for Müller at the hatter's, Walker's of Crawford Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0031.pt|This fixed the crime pretty certainly upon Müller, who had already left the country, thus increasing suspicion under which he lay.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0032.pt|There was no mystery about his departure; he had gone to Canada, by the 'Victoria' sailing ship, starting from the London docks, and bound to New York.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0033.pt|Directly the foregoing facts were established, a couple of detective officers, armed with a warrant to arrest Müller,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0034.pt|and accompanied by Mr. Death the jeweler and the cabman, went down to Liverpool and took the first steamer across the Atlantic.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0035.pt|This was the 'City of Manchester,' which was expected to arrive some days before the 'Victoria,' and did so.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0036.pt|The officers went on board the 'Victoria' at once, Müller was identified by Mr. Death, and the arrest was made.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0037.pt|In searching the prisoner's box, Mr. Briggs' watch was found wrapped up in a piece of leather,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0038.pt|and Müller at the time of his capture was actually wearing Mr. Briggs' hat, cut down and somewhat altered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0039.pt|The prisoner was forthwith extradited and sent back to England, which he reached with his escort on the seventeenth September the same year.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0040.pt|His trial followed at the next sessions of the Central Criminal Court, and ended in his conviction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0041.pt|The case was one of circumstantial evidence, but, as Sir Robert Collyer the Solicitor-General pointed out,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0042.pt|it was the strongest circumstantial evidence which had ever been brought forward in a murder case.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0043.pt|It was really evidence of facts which could not be controverted or explained away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0044.pt|There was the prisoner's poverty, his inability to account for himself on the night of the murder, and his possession of the property of the murdered man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0045.pt|An alibi was set up for the defense, but not well substantiated, and the jury without hesitation returned a verdict of guilty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0046.pt|Müller protested after sentence of death had been passed upon him that he had been convicted on a false statement of facts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0047.pt|He adhered to this almost to the very last. His case had been warmly espoused by the Society for the Protection of Germans in this country,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0048.pt|and powerful influence was exerted both here and abroad to obtain a reprieve.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0049.pt|Müller knew that any confession would ruin his chances of escape.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0050.pt|His arguments were specious and evasive when pressed to confess. "Why should man confess to man?" he replied;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0051.pt|man cannot forgive man, only God can do so. Man is therefore only accountable to God.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0052.pt|But on the gallows, when the cap was over his eyes and the rope had been adjusted round his neck, and within a second of the moment when he would be launched into eternity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0053.pt|he whispered in the ear of the German pastor who attended him on the scaffold,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0054.pt|While in the condemned cell he conversed freely with the warders in broken English or through an interpreter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0055.pt|He is described as not a bad-looking man, with a square German type of face,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0056.pt|blue eyes which were generally half closed, and very fair hair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0057.pt|He was short in stature, his legs were light for the upper part of his body, which was powerful, almost herculean.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0058.pt|It is generally supposed that he committed the murder under a sudden access of covetousness and greed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0059.pt|He saw Mr. Briggs' watch-chain, and followed him instantly into the carriage, determined to have it at all costs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0060.pt|His crime under this aspect of it was less premeditated, and less atrocious therefore, than that of Lefroy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0061.pt|One other curious murder may be added to the two foregoing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0062.pt|Christian Sattler was by birth a German.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0063.pt|He had led a wild life; had left his native land and enlisted first in the French army in Algeria,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0064.pt|afterwards in the British German Legion raised for the Crimean War.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0065.pt|At the disbandment of the force, as he was without resources, he turned his attention to hotel robberies, by which he lived for some years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0066.pt|He at length stole a carpet-bag containing valuables, and fled to Hamburgh.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0067.pt|Thither, he was pursued by a detective officer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0068.pt|Inspector Thain, who, being unable to obtain his extradition legally, had him inveigled on board an English steamer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0069.pt|where the arrest was made.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0070.pt|Sattler was ironed for safe custody,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0071.pt|a proceeding which he vehemently resented, and begged that they might be removed, as the handcuffs hurt his wrists.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0072.pt|The inspector said that they could not be removed till he reached England.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0073.pt|This reply of his contained no promise of immediate release.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0074.pt|Sattler probably misunderstood, and he declared that the police officer had broken faith with him, having, moreover, stated that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0075.pt|while at sea the captain of the ship was responsible for the security of the prisoner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0076.pt|As Sattler brooded over his wrongs, his rage got the upper hand, and he resolved to wreak it upon Thain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0077.pt|Although manacled, he managed to get a pistol from his chest and load it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0078.pt|The next time Thain entered his cabin he fired at him point-blank, and lodged three bullets in his breast.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0079.pt|The unfortunate man survived till he landed, but died in Guy's Hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0080.pt|Sattler was tried for murder and convicted;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0081.pt|his defense being that he had intended to commit suicide, but that, on the appearance of this officer who had wronged him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0082.pt|he had yielded to an irresistible impulse to kill him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0083.pt|Sattler was a very excitable although not an ill-tempered man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0084.pt|While in Newgate awaiting trial he frequently tried to justify his murder by declaring that the police officer had broken faith with him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0085.pt|He would shoot any man or any policeman like a dog, or any number of them, who had treated him in that way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0086.pt|His demeanor immediately preceding his execution I have referred to in the last chapter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0087.pt|Several cases of gigantic fraud, rivaling any already recorded, were brought to light between eighteen fifty-six and eighteen seventy-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0088.pt|I propose next to describe the leading features of the most important of these.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0089.pt|Another case of long-continued successful forgery was brought to light two years after the convictions of Saward and his accomplices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0090.pt|This conspiracy was cleverly planned, but had scarcely so many ramifications as that of Saward. Its originators were a couple of men,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0091.pt|Wagner and Bateman, who had already been convicted of systematic forgery, and sentenced to transportation, but they had been released on ticket-of-leave
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0092.pt|in eighteen fifty-six.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0093.pt|As a blind for their new frauds, they set up as law-stationers in York Buildings, Adelphi, and at once commenced their nefarious traffic.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0094.pt|Forged cheques and bills were soon uttered in great numbers, as well as base coin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0095.pt|The police suspecting the house in York Buildings, put a watch on the premises, which they kept up for more than a year,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0096.pt|and thus obtained personal knowledge of all who passed in and out, but without obtaining any direct evidence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0097.pt|At length a man was caught in the act of passing a forged cheque at the Union Bank,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0098.pt|and recognized as one of the frequenters of the bogus law-stationers. His arrest led to that of others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0099.pt|Among them was a man named Chandler, formerly a bill discounter by profession, who by degrees, to meet his extravagant expenditure,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0100.pt|took to appropriating the bills intrusted to him, and so lost his business, after which he became a clerk to Messrs. Wagner and Bateman.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0101.pt|Chandler while in Newgate turned informer, and betrayed the whole conspiracy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0102.pt|Besides his employers, a jeweler named Humphreys was in the "swim," at whose shop in Red Lion Square was discovered a quantity of base gold
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0103.pt|and silver coins, with all the latest appliances for coining, including those of electroplating;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0104.pt|also a furniture dealer and one or two more commonplace rogues. The arch villain was never taken into custody.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0105.pt|He, like Saward, was an artist in penmanship.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0106.pt|He was a German named Kerp,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0107.pt|eighty years of age, who had spent his whole life in imitating other people's signatures, and had acquired the most consummate skill in the practice.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0108.pt|His copies were generally pronounced indistinguishable from and as good as the originals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0109.pt|The aged but wary Kerp, the moment the plot was discovered, vanished, and was never more heard of.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0110.pt|Much the same plan was adopted by these forgers as by Saward to get their cheques cashed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0111.pt|They advertised for clerks, and employed the most likely of the applicants by sending them to the bank.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0112.pt|It was one of these, Glendinning, who had allowed himself to be utilized for some time in this way, whose capture led to the breaking up of the gang.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0113.pt|The principals in this conspiracy, Wagner and Bateman, were sentenced to penal servitude for life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0114.pt|the others to twenty and ten years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0115.pt|It was stated in evidence that the monies obtained by these forgeries amounted to eight thousand pounds or ten thousand pounds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0116.pt|and that the forged cheques which had been presented, but refused, amounted to double the sum.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0117.pt|Wagner, after conviction, offered to reveal, for a reward of three thousand pounds
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0118.pt|a system which had long been in practice of defrauding the Exchequer of vast sums by means of forged stamps.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0119.pt|His offer was not, however, accepted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0120.pt|A more elaborate plot in many ways, more secretly, more patiently prepared than the preceding, or indeed than any in the calendar,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0121.pt|was the case of the forgeries upon the Bank of England discovered in eighteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0122.pt|but not before the forged paper had been put in circulation for more than a couple of years. In eighteen sixty-one,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0123.pt|a man named Burnett came with his wife and took up his residence at Whitchurch, Hampshire, at no great distance from Laverstock,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0124.pt|where are Messrs. Portal's mills for the manufacture of bank-note paper.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0125.pt|Burnett had only just come out of jail after completing a sentence of penal servitude.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0126.pt|His object in visiting Whitchurch was to undermine the honesty of some workman in the mills;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0127.pt|and he eventually succeeded, his wife making the first overtures, in persuading a lad named Brown to steal some of the bank paper.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0128.pt|Brown took several sheets, and then was detected by Brewer, a fellow-workman of superior grade,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0129.pt|who threatened to betray the theft. But Brewer, either before or after this, succumbed to temptation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0130.pt|and stole paper on a much larger scale than Brown.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0131.pt|All that was taken was handed over to Burnett, or a "woman in black" whom Brown met by appointment at Waterloo station.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0132.pt|To facilitate his operations, Brewer obtained a false master key from Burnett,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0133.pt|which gave him access to all parts of the mills, the packing-room included.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0134.pt|In this part of the mills a large quantity of bank-note paper was kept at the period of the robbery,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0135.pt|and in the states known as "water-leaf" and "sized," which are the penultimate processes of manufacture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0136.pt|One more remains, that of "glazing," without which no paper is issued for engraving.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0137.pt|None of the stolen paper was glazed, and this was an important clue to the subsequent discovery of the crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0138.pt|Some time in eighteen sixty-two, a large deficiency in stock of bank paper unglazed was discovered at the mills.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0139.pt|Soon afterwards the inspectors of bank-notes at the Bank of England detected the presentation at the bank of spurious notes on genuine paper.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0140.pt|The two facts taken in conjunction
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0141.pt|led to the employment of the police, and the offer of a reward of fifteen hundred pounds for the detection of the offenders.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0142.pt|By this time Brown alone had stolen three or four hundred sheets,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0143.pt|each containing two notes, many of the sheets suitable for engraving any kind of note from one thousand pounds downwards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0144.pt|The amount of Brewer's abstractions (who was eventually acquitted) was never exactly estimated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0145.pt|Suspicion appears to have rested on Brown, who had left Laverstock,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0146.pt|and he was soon approached by the police. Almost directly he was questioned he made a clean breast of the whole affair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0147.pt|The next step was to take the principals, and under such circumstances as would insure their conviction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0148.pt|A watch was set on Burnett, who was followed to the shop of one Buncher, a butcher in Strutton Ground.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0149.pt|Buncher was then tracked to North Kent Terrace, New Cross, where a Mr. and Mrs. Campbell resided,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0150.pt|with whom he did business in exchanging the false notes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0151.pt|The police officers now taxed Mrs. Campbell with complicity, and frightened her into collusion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0152.pt|With her assistance on a certain day a couple of bricks were taken out of the wall dividing her front and back parlors;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0153.pt|the officers ensconced themselves in the latter, and waited for Buncher's expected visit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0154.pt|He came to complete a sale of forged notes, and he wanted a couple of hundred pounds for what he had.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0155.pt|Mrs. Campbell offered him less, and there was an altercation, in the course of which Buncher became very violent, and at length,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0156.pt|after using much intemperate language, he left the place in a huff.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0157.pt|In the course of his remarks, however, he said,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0158.pt|I am the man that has got all the bank paper; I have thirty thousand pounds now, and the Bank of England cannot stop it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0159.pt|This was all the police wanted to know.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0160.pt|They next watched Buncher, and found that he paid frequent visits to Birmingham.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0161.pt|They also discovered that through the intermediacy of one Robert Cummings, well known as a reputed coiner,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0162.pt|he had been introduced to a man named Griffiths, an engraver and copper-plate printer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0163.pt|Griffiths was an unusually clever and skilful workman,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0164.pt|who had devoted all his talent and all his energies for some seventeen years to the fabrication of false bank-notes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0165.pt|On a certain day, the twenty-seventh October, eighteen sixty-two, the two were arrested simultaneously;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0166.pt|Buncher in London, and Griffiths in Birmingham.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0167.pt|Nothing was found in Buncher's premises in Strutton Ground, which were thoroughly searched,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0168.pt|but proofs of Griffiths' guilt were at once apparent on entering his work-room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0169.pt|In one corner was a printing-press actually in use, and on it were twenty-one forged Bank of England notes, without date or signature.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0170.pt|On the bed were twenty forged ten-pound notes complete and ready for use, and twenty-five five-pound notes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0171.pt|"Mother plates" for engraving the body of the notes lay about, and other plates for various processes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0172.pt|More than this, Griffiths took the police to a field where, in a bank, a number of other plates were secreted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0173.pt|Griffiths afterwards admitted that he had been employed in defrauding the bank since eighteen forty-six,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0174.pt|and the prominent part he played secured for him on conviction the heaviest sentence of the law.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0175.pt|This was penal servitude for life, Buncher's sentence being twenty-five, and Burnett's twenty years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0176.pt|Cummings, who had introduced Buncher to Griffiths, was also tried for being in possession of stolen bank paper for improper purposes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0177.pt|But as there was no independent corroboration of the informer's evidence, according to the custom of the British law,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0178.pt|the case was considered not proved, and he was acquitted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0179.pt|On his return to Newgate to be finally discharged, Cummings jumped up the stairs and fairly danced for joy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0180.pt|But he was not long at large; he was too active an evil-doer
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0181.pt|and was perpetually in trouble. Commencing life as a resurrection man, when that trade failed through the change in the law,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0182.pt|and no more bodies were to be bought
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0183.pt|he devoted his energies to coining and forgery, and in the latter line was a friend and associate of Saward's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0184.pt|One narrow escape he had, however, before he abandoned his old business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0185.pt|A Bow Street officer saw him leaving London in the evening by Camberwell Green, accompanied by two other men.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0186.pt|It was well known that they were resurrectionists, and a strict watch was kept at all the turnpike gates on the southern roads leading into London.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0187.pt|An officer was placed for this purpose at New Cross, Camberwell, and Kennington gates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0188.pt|Presently "Old Bob" drove up to Camberwell Gate in the same cart in which he had been seen to start.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0189.pt|The officers rushed out to detain him. "What have you got here? We must search the cart," they cry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0190.pt|"By all means," replies Bob, and a close investigation follows, without any detection of the corpse concealed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0191.pt|Bob was therefore allowed to pass on.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0192.pt|But they had the body, all the same; it had been dressed up in decent clothes and made to stand upright in the cart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0193.pt|With the police officers it had passed muster as a living member of the party.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0194.pt|Cummings was repeatedly "run in" for the offense of coining and uttering bad money, whether coin or notes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0195.pt|His regular trade, followed before he took to the life of resurrectionist, was that of an engraver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0196.pt|He was a notorious criminal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0197.pt|an habitual offender in his own particular line, one who would stick at no trifles to evade detection or escape capture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0198.pt|It is told of "Bob" Brennan, an official specially employed for years by the Mint
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0199.pt|to watch and prosecute coiners, that he received information that coining was carried on by Cummings and others at a place in Westminster.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0200.pt|He went there with a posse of officers and forced his way upstairs to the first floor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0201.pt|where the coiners, unexpectedly disturbed, fell an easy prey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0202.pt|But the police nearly paid the penalty of capture with their lives.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0203.pt|Proceeding cautiously down the stairs, they found that the flooring at the bottom had been taken up.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0204.pt|Where it had lain was a yawning gulf or trap sufficient to do for the whole body of police engaged in the capture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0205.pt|Cummings was caught shortly afterwards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0206.pt|He was a tall, slender man, with a long face and iron-gray hair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0207.pt|The community of coiners of which he was so notorious a member
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0208.pt|were a low lot, the lowest among criminals except, perhaps, the 'smashers,' or those who passed the counterfeit money.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0209.pt|It was not easy to detect coiners, or bring home their guilt to them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0210.pt|Those who manufactured and those who passed had no direct dealings with each other.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0211.pt|The false coin was bought by an agent from an agent, and dealings were carried on secretly at the "Clock House" in Seven Dials.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0212.pt|The annals of fraudulent crime probably contain nothing
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0213.pt|which in dramatic interest can compare with the conviction of William Roupell for forgery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0214.pt|As the case must still be well remembered by the present generation, it will be necessary to give here only the briefest summary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0215.pt|William Roupell was the eldest but illegitimate son of a wealthy man who subsequently married Roupell's mother, and had further legitimate issue.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0216.pt|William was brought up as an attorney, and became in due course his father's man of business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0217.pt|As such he had pretty general control over his father's estates and affairs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0218.pt|In eighteen fifty-five
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0219.pt|he instructed certain solicitors to prepare a deed of gift as from his father, conveying to him estates near Kingston.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0220.pt|The old gentleman's signature to this deed of gift was a forgery,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0221.pt|but upon this forged and false conveyance William Roupell, who had already embarked upon a career of wild extravagance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0222.pt|obtained a mortgage of seven thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0223.pt|In eighteen fifty-six the father died.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0224.pt|It had been supposed up to this date that he had willed his property, amounting in all to upwards of two hundred thousand pounds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0225.pt|but after the funeral William Roupell produced another and a later will,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0226.pt|leaving everything to the widow, and constituting William sole executor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0227.pt|This will was a deliberate forgery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0228.pt|Five or six years later, William Roupell minutely described how he had effected the fraud.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0229.pt|The day his father died he got the keys of his private bureau, opened it, and took out the authentic will.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0230.pt|After reading it, and finding this unfavorable to himself, he resolved to carry out his deliberate plan,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0231.pt|namely, to suppress it and substitute another.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0232.pt|He himself prepared it on a blank form which he had brought with him on purpose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0233.pt|To this fraudulent instrument he appended forged signatures, and in due course obtained probate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0234.pt|As he possessed nearly unbounded influence over his mother, her accession to the property meant that William could dispose of it as he pleased.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0235.pt|He embarked forthwith in a career of the wildest extravagance, and ere long he had parted in his mother's name with most of the landed estates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0236.pt|One large item of his expenditure was a contested election at Lambeth, which he gained at a cost of ten thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0237.pt|No fortune could stand the inroads he made into his mother's money,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0238.pt|and in eighteen sixty-two he was obliged to fly the country, hopelessly and irretrievably ruined.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0239.pt|His disappearance gave color and substance to evil reports already in circulation that the will and conveyance above referred to
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0240.pt|were fictitious documents. His next brother, who should have inherited under the authentic will,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0241.pt|forthwith brought an ejectment on the possessor of lands purchased on the authority of the forged conveyance and will.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0242.pt|The case was tried at Guildford Assizes, and caused intense excitement,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0243.pt|the hardship to the holders of these lands being plain, should the allegations of invalidity be made good.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0244.pt|The effect of establishing the forgeries would be to restore to the Roupell family lands for which a price had already been paid
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0245.pt|in all good faith to another, but a criminal member of the family.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0246.pt|At first the case was contested hotly, but, to the profound astonishment of every one inside and outside the court,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0247.pt|William Roupell himself was brought as a principal witness to clench the case by a confession altogether against himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0248.pt|He told his story with perfect coolness and self-possession, but in a grave and serious tone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0249.pt|Every word he uttered was said with consideration, and sometimes with a long pause,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0250.pt|but at the same time with an air of the most entire truthfulness and candor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0251.pt|He confessed himself a perjurer in having sworn to the false will, and a wholesale forger, having manufactured no less than ten false signatures
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0252.pt|to deeds involving on the whole some three hundred fifty thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0253.pt|For these crimes William Roupell was tried at the Central Criminal Court on the twenty-fourth September, eighteen sixty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0254.pt|He declined to plead, but a plea of "Not Guilty" was recorded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0255.pt|The case was easily and rapidly disposed of.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0256.pt|Roupell made a long statement more in exculpation than in his defense.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0257.pt|He complained that he had at first been the dupe of others, and admitted that he had too readily fallen astray.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0258.pt|But while repudiating the charges made against him of systematic extravagance and immorality,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0259.pt|he confessed that his whole life had been a gigantic mistake, and he was ready to make what atonement he could.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0260.pt|Mr. Justice Byles, in passing sentence, commented severely upon the commission of such crimes by a man in Roupell's position in life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0261.pt|and passed the heaviest sentence of the law, transportation for life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0262.pt|Roupell received the announcement with a cheerful countenance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0263.pt|and left the dock with evident satisfaction and relief at the termination of a most painful ordeal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0264.pt|Roupell was quiet and submissive while in Newgate, unassuming in manner, and ready to make the best of his position.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0265.pt|He carried this character with him into penal servitude, and after enduring the full severity of his punishment for several years,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0266.pt|was at length advanced to the comparative ease of a post much coveted by convicts, that of hospital nurse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0267.pt|His uniform good conduct gained him release from Portland on ticket-of-leave in eighteen eighty-two, just twenty years after his conviction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0268.pt|A daring and cleverly-planned robbery of diamonds was that of the Tarpeys, man and wife,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0269.pt|from an assistant of Loudon and Ryder's, the jewelers in Bond Street. The trick was an old one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0270.pt|The assistant called with the jewels on approbation at a house specially hired for the purpose in the West End,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0271.pt|and was rendered insensible by chloroform, after which he was bound and the precious stones stolen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0272.pt|Mrs. Tarpey was almost immediately captured and put on her trial, but she was acquitted on the plea that she had acted under the coercion of her husband.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0273.pt|Tarpey was caught through his wife,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0274.pt|who was followed, disguised, and with her hair dyed black, to a house in the Marylebone Road, where she met her husband.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0275.pt|On Tarpey's defense it was stated that the idea of the theft had been suggested to him by a novel, at a time he had lost largely on the turf.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0276.pt|The first plot was against Mr. Harry Emmanuel, but he escaped, and the attempt was made upon Loudon and Ryder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0277.pt|The last great case of fraud upon the Bank of England will fitly close this branch of the criminal records of Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0278.pt|This was the well and astutely devised plot of the brothers Bidwell,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0279.pt|assisted by Macdonell and Noyes, all of them citizens of the United States, by which the bank lost upwards of one hundred thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0280.pt|The commercial experience of these clever rogues was cosmopolitan.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0281.pt|Their operations were no less worldwide.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0282.pt|In eighteen seventy-one they crossed the Atlantic,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0283.pt|and by means of forged letters of credit and introduction from London, obtained large sums from continental banks, in Berlin,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0284.pt|Dresden, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Lyons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0285.pt|With this as capital they came back to England via Buenos Aires,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0286.pt|and Austin Bidwell opened a bona fide credit in the Burlington or West End branch of the Bank of England,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0287.pt|to which he was introduced by a well-known tailor in Saville Row.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0288.pt|After this the other conspirators traveled to obtain genuine bills and master the system of the leading houses at home and abroad.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0289.pt|When all was ready, Bidwell first "refreshed his credit" at the Bank of England, as well as disarmed suspicion,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0290.pt|by paying in a genuine bill of Messrs. Rothschilds' for forty-five hundred pounds, which was duly discounted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0291.pt|Then he explained to the bank manager
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0292.pt|that his transactions at Birmingham would shortly be very large, owing to the development of his business there in the alleged manufacture of Pullman cars.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0293.pt|The ground thus cleared, the forgers poured in from Birmingham numbers of forged acceptances,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0294.pt|all of which were discounted to the value of one hundred two thousand, two hundred seventeen pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0295.pt|The fraud was rendered possible by the absence of a check usual in the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0296.pt|There such bills would be sent to the drawer to be initialed, and the forgery would have been at once detected.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0297.pt|It was the discovery of this flaw in the banking system which had encouraged the Americans to attempt this crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0298.pt|Time was clearly an important factor in the fraud, hence the bills were sent forward in quick succession.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0299.pt|Long before they came to maturity the forgers hoped to be well beyond arrest. They had, moreover, sought to destroy all clue.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0300.pt|The sums obtained by Bidwell in the name of "Warren" at the Bank of England
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0301.pt|were lodged at once by drafts to "Horton," another alias, in the Continental Bank.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0302.pt|For these cash was obtained in notes; the notes were exchanged by one of the conspirators for gold at the Bank of England, and again the same day
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0303.pt|a second conspirator exchanged the gold for notes. But just as all promised well, the frauds were detected through the carelessness of the forgers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0304.pt|They had omitted to insert the dates in certain bills.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0305.pt|The bills were sent as a matter of form to the drawer to have the date added, and the forgery was at once detected.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0306.pt|Noyes was seized without difficulty, as it was a part of the scheme that he should act as the dupe, and remain on the spot in London till all the money was obtained.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0307.pt|Through Noyes the rest of the conspirators were eventually apprehended. Very little if any of the ill-gotten proceeds, however, was ever recovered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0308.pt|Large sums, as they were realized, were transmitted to the United States, and invested in various American securities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0309.pt|where probably the money still remains.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0310.pt|The prisoners, who were committed to Newgate for trial,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0311.pt|had undoubtedly the command of large funds while there, and would have readily disbursed it to effect their enlargement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0312.pt|A plot was soon discovered,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0313.pt|deep laid, and with many ramifications, by which some of the Newgate warders were to be bribed to allow the prisoners to escape from their cells at night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0314.pt|Certain friends of the prisoners were watched, and found to be in communication with these warders,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0315.pt|to whom it was said one hundred pounds apiece had been given down as the price of their infidelity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0316.pt|Further sums were to have been paid after the escape;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0317.pt|and one warder admitted that he was to have one thousand pounds more paid to him, and to be provided with a passage to Australia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0318.pt|The vigilance of the Newgate officials, assisted by the city police, completely frustrated this plot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0319.pt|A second was nevertheless set on foot,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0320.pt|in which the plan of action was changed, and the freedom of the prisoners was to be obtained by means of a rescue from the dock during the trial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0321.pt|An increase of policemen on duty sufficed to prevent any attempt of this kind.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0322.pt|Nor were these two abortive efforts all that were planned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0323.pt|A year or two after, when the prisoners were undergoing their life sentences of penal servitude,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0324.pt|much uneasiness was caused at one of the convict prisons by information that bribery on a large scale was again at work amongst the officials.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0325.pt|But extra precautions and close supervision have so far proved effectual, and the prisoners are still in custody after a lapse of ten years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0326.pt|I propose to end at this point the detailed account of the more prominent criminal cases which lodged their perpetrators in Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0327.pt|The most recent affairs are still too fresh in the public mind to need more than a passing reference.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0328.pt|Few of the Newgate notorieties of late years show any marked peculiarities;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0329.pt|their crimes follow in the lines of others already found, and often more than once, in the calendars.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0330.pt|Violent passions too easily aroused prompted the Frenchwoman Marguerite Dixblanc
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0331.pt|to murder her mistress, Madame Riel, in Park Lane, as Courvoisier, the Swiss, had been tempted to murder Lord William Russell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0332.pt|Greed in the latter case was a secondary motive;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0333.pt|it was the principal incentive with Kate Webster, that fierce and brutal female savage who took the life of her mistress at Richmond.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0334.pt|Webster, it may be mentioned here, was one of the worst prisoners ever remembered in Newgate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0335.pt|most violent in temper, and addicted to the most frightful language.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0336.pt|Webster's devices for disposing of the body of her victim will call to mind those of Theodore Gardelle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0337.pt|of Good, and Greenacre, and Catherine Hayes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0338.pt|Greed in another form led the Stauntons to make away with Mrs. Patrick Staunton, murdering her with devilish cruelty by slow degrees.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0339.pt|The judge, Sir Henry Hawkins, in passing sentence
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0340.pt|characterized this as a crime more black and hideous than any in the criminal annals of the country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0341.pt|But it was scarcely worse than that of Mrs. Brownrigg, or that of the Meteyards, both of whom did their helpless apprentices to death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0342.pt|It was to effect the rupture of an irksome tie that led Henry Wainwright to murder Harriet Lane deliberately and in cold blood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0343.pt|In this case the tie was unsanctified, but it was not more inconvenient than that which urged Greenacre to a similar crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0344.pt|In cold-blooded premeditation it rivaled that of the Mannings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0345.pt|As in that case, the grave had been dug long in anticipation, and the chloride of lime purchased to destroy the corpse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0346.pt|Henry Wainwright's attempt to get rid of the body was ingenious, but not original,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0347.pt|and the circumstances which led to detection were scarcely novel proofs of the old adage that murder will out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0348.pt|Henry Wainwright's impassioned denial of his crime, even after it had been brought fully home to him, has many parallels in the criminal records.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0349.pt|His disclaimer, distinct and detailed on every point, was intended simply for effect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0350.pt|He might swear he was not the murderer, that he never fired a pistol in his life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0351.pt|and that, in spite of the verdict of the jury, "he left the dock with a calm and quiet conscience;"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0352.pt|but there was no doubt of his guilt, as the Lord Chief Justice told him, while expressing great regret at his rash assertion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0353.pt|Wainwright's demeanor after sentence has been described in the last chapter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0354.pt|Doubts were long entertained whether Thomas Wainwright,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0355.pt|who was convicted as an accessory after the fact, had not really taken an active part in the murder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0356.pt|But a conversation overheard between the two brothers in Newgate satisfactorily exonerated Thomas Wainwright.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0357.pt|Poisoning has still its victims.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0358.pt|Christina Edmunds had resort to strychnia, the same lethal drug that Palmer used;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0359.pt|her object being first to dispose of the wife of a man for whom she had conceived a guilty passion,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0360.pt|then to divert suspicion from herself by throwing it on a confectioner, whose sweetmeats she bought,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0361.pt|tampered with, and returned to the shop.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0362.pt|The trial of Miss Edmunds was transferred to the Central Criminal Court under Lord Campbell's Act, already referred to.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0363.pt|She was found guilty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0364.pt|It will be remembered that she made a statement which led to the empaneling of a jury of matrons, who decided that there was no cause for an arrest of judgment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0365.pt|Kate Webster followed the same course; but these pleas of pregnancy are not common now-a-days.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0366.pt|Although sentence of death was passed on Edmunds, it was commuted to penal servitude for life;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0367.pt|but she eventually passed into Broadmoor Lunatic Asylum, where she busies herself with watercolor drawing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0368.pt|The still more recent cases of poisoning which have occurred were not connected with Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0369.pt|The mysterious Bravo case, that of Dr. Lamson, and that of Kate Dover
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0370.pt|unhappily show that society is more than ever at the mercy of the insidious and unscrupulous administration of poisonous drugs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0371.pt|A case reproducing many of the features of the 'Flowery Land' occurred twelve years later, when the crew of the 'Lennie'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0372.pt|mutinied, murdered the captain and mates, sparing the steward only on condition that he would navigate the ship to the Mediterranean.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0373.pt|The mutineers were of the same stamp as the crew of the 'Flowery Land'
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0374.pt|foreigners, vindictive, reckless, and truculent ruffians, easily moved to murderous rage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0375.pt|The 'Lennie's' men were all Greeks, except one known as French Peter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0376.pt|who was the ringleader, and who had long been an habitual criminal, a reputed murderer, and certainly an inmate more than once of a French bagne.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0377.pt|Conviction was obtained through the evidence of the steward and two of the least culpable of the crew.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0378.pt|In Newgate the 'Lennie' mutineers were extremely well behaved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0379.pt|Resolute, determined-looking men, their courage broke down in confinement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0380.pt|They paid close attention to the counsels of the archimandrite, and died quite penitent. A story is told of one of them, "Big Harry,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0381.pt|the wildest and most cut-throat looking of the lot, which proves that he could be grateful for kindness, and was not all bad.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0382.pt|He had steadfastly refused to eat meat on some religions scruples, and for the same reason would not touch soup.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0383.pt|He was glad, therefore, to get an extra allowance of bread,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0384.pt|and to show his gratitude to the warder who procured this privilege for him, he made him a present.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0385.pt|It was his own handiwork -- a bird pecking at a flower;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0386.pt|the whole manufactured while in the condemned cell of the crumb of bread made into paste.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0387.pt|The flower had berries also of bread fixed on stems made from the fiber drawn from the stuffing of his mattress,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0388.pt|and the bird's legs were a couple of teeth broken off the prisoner's comb.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0389.pt|Of the lesser criminals, forgers, thieves, swindlers, Newgate continued to receive its full share up to the last.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0390.pt|But there were few cases so remarkable as the great ones already recorded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0391.pt|Mr. Bamell Oakley made a rich harvest for a time, and was said at the time of his trial
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0392.pt|to have obtained as much as forty thousand pounds by false and fraudulent pretenses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0393.pt|Messrs. Swindlehurst, Saffery, and Langley cleared a large profit
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0394.pt|by swindling the Artisans' Dwellings Company; and Madame Rachel passed through Newgate on her way to Millbank
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0395.pt|convicted of obtaining jewelery under the false pretense of making silly women "beautiful for ever."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0396.pt|The greatest causes célèbre, however, of recent times were the turf frauds by which the Comtesse de Goncourt was swindled
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0397.pt|out of large sums in sham sporting speculations. The conviction of the principals in this nefarious transaction,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ018-0398.pt|Benson, the two Kurrs, Bale, and Murray, led to strange revelations of dishonest practices amongst the detective police,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0001.pt|The Chronicles of Newgate, Volume two. By Arthur Griffiths. Section twenty-two. Newgate Reformed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0002.pt|The time at length approached when a radical and complete change was to come over the old city jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0003.pt|It was impossible for Newgate to escape for ever the influences pressing so strongly towards prison reform.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0004.pt|Elsewhere the spirit had been more or less active, although not uniformly or always to the same extent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0005.pt|There had been a pause in legislation, except of a permissive kind. The second and third Victoria, cap. fifty-six
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0006.pt|laid it down that individuals might be confined separately and apart in single cells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0007.pt|By other acts local authorities were empowered to construct new jails or hire accommodation in the district;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0008.pt|but no steps had been taken in Parliament to enforce a better system of discipline,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0009.pt|or to insist upon the construction of prisons on the most approved plan.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0010.pt|As regards the first, however, Sir James Graham, when Home Secretary in eighteen forty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0011.pt|had appointed a committee of prison inspectors, presided over by the Under Secretary of State, to draw up rules and dietaries,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0012.pt|which were then recommended to and generally adopted by the visiting justices all over the kingdom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0013.pt|As regards the second, the Government had set a good example, and in deciding upon the erection of Pentonville prison
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0014.pt|had embarked on a considerable expenditure in order to provide a model prison for general imitation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0015.pt|The first stone of Pentonville prison was laid on the tenth April, eighteen forty, by the Marquis of Normanby,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0016.pt|then Home Secretary, and the prison, which contained five hundred and twenty cells, was occupied on the twenty-first December, eighteen forty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0017.pt|This building was a costly affair. The site was uneven, and had to be leveled;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0018.pt|moreover, the gross expenditure was increased "partly from its being considered necessary, as it was a national prison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0019.pt|to make a great archway, and to make the character of it more imposing than if it had been situated in the country, and had been an ordinary prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0020.pt|Up to the twenty-first December, eighteen forty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0021.pt|with the additions made to that date, the total expenditure amounted to nearly ninety thousand pounds, or about one hundred eighty pounds per cell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0022.pt|On the other hand, it must be admitted
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0023.pt|that this was an experimental construction, and that too strict a limitation of outlay would have militated seriously against the usefulness of the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0024.pt|Nor must it be overlooked that this, the first model prison, although obtained at a considerable cost, became actually what its name implied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0025.pt|Pentonville has really been the model on which all subsequent prison construction has been based. All prisons at home and abroad are but variations,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0026.pt|of course with the added improvements following longer experience, of the pattern originated by the architectural genius of Sir Joshua Jebb.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0027.pt|The internal arrangements of the new model were carefully supervised by a body of distinguished men, among which were many peers, Lord John Russell,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0028.pt|Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Benjamin Brodie,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0029.pt|Major Jebb, R.E., and the two prison inspectors, Messrs. Crawford and Russell, with whose names the reader is already familiar.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0030.pt|Major, afterwards Sir Joshua Jebb,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0031.pt|was the moving spirit among these commissioners, and he is now generally recognized as the originator of modern prison architecture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0032.pt|The movement thus laudably initiated by the Government soon spread to the provinces.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0033.pt|Some jurisdictions, greatly to their credit, strove at once to follow the lead of the central authority.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0034.pt|Within half-a-dozen years no less than fifty-four new prisons were built on the Pentonville plan, others were in progress,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0035.pt|and the total number of separate cells provided amounted to eleven thousand odd.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0036.pt|This list included Wakefield, Leeds, Kirkdale, Manchester, Birmingham, and Dublin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0037.pt|Liverpool was building a new prison with a thousand cells, the county of Surrey one with seven hundred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0038.pt|The cost in each varied considerably, the general average being from one hundred twenty pounds to one hundred thirty pounds per cell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0039.pt|At Pentonville the rate was higher, but there the expense had been increased by the site,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0040.pt|the difficulty of access, and the admitted necessity of giving architectural importance to this the national model prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0041.pt|Other jurisdictions were less prompt to recognize their responsibilities, the city of London among the number, as I shall presently show at length.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0042.pt|These were either satisfied with a makeshift, and modified existing buildings, without close regard to their suitability, or for a long time did nothing at all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0043.pt|Among the latter were notably the counties of Cheshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Nottinghamshire, the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0044.pt|The south and west of England were also very laggard, and many years were still to elapse before the prisons in these parts were properly reconstituted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0045.pt|Not less remarkable than this diverse interpretation of a manifest duty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0046.pt|was the variety of views as regards the discipline to be introduced in these new prisons. The time was one
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0047.pt|when thoughtful people who concerned themselves closely with social questions were greatly exercised as to the best system of treating the inmates of a jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0048.pt|A new and still imperfectly understood science had arisen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0049.pt|the principles of which were debated by disputants of widely opposite opinions with an earnestness that sometimes bordered upon acrimony.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0050.pt|One school were strongly in favor of the continuous separation of prisoners,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0051.pt|the other supported the theory of labor in association, but under a stringent rule of silence, with isolation only at night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0052.pt|Both systems came to us from the United States. The difference was really more in degree than in principle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0053.pt|and our modern practice has prudently tried to steer between the two extremes, accepting as the best system a judicious combination of both.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0054.pt|But about eighteen fifty the two sides were distinctly hostile, and the controversy ran high.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0055.pt|High authorities were in favor of continuous separation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0056.pt|Colonel Jebb preferred it; Messrs. Crawford and Whitworth Russell were convinced that the complete isolation of criminals from one another
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0057.pt|was the true basis of a sound system of prison discipline.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0058.pt|Prison chaplains of experience and high repute, such as Messrs. Field, Clay, Kingsmill, Burt, and Osborne, also advocated it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0059.pt|It was claimed for it that it was more deterrent;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0060.pt|that in districts where it was the rule, evil-doers especially dreaded coming under its irksome conditions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0061.pt|Another argument was, that it afforded more hope of the reformation of criminals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0062.pt|The system of associated labor in silence had also its warm supporters,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0063.pt|who maintained that under this system prisoners were more industrious and more healthy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0064.pt|that their condition was more natural, and approximated more nearly to that of daily life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0065.pt|Better industrial results were obtained from it, and instruction in trades was easier, and prisoners were more likely to leave jail
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0066.pt|with the means of earning an honest livelihood if so disposed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0067.pt|The opposing champions were not slow to find faults and flaws in the system they condemned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0068.pt|Separation was injurious to health, mental or physical, said one side; men broke down when subjected to it for more than a certain period,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0069.pt|and it was unsafe to fix this limit above twelve months, although some rash advocates were in favor of eighteen months, some indeed of two years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0070.pt|The other side retorted that the system of associated labor was most costly, so many officers being required to maintain the discipline of silence;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0071.pt|moreover, it was nearly impossible to prevent communication and mutual contamination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0072.pt|It is scarcely necessary to follow the controversy further. I have only introduced the subject as showing how little as yet the State
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0073.pt|was impressed with the necessity for authoritative interference.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0074.pt|The legislature was content to let local jurisdictions experimentalize for themselves; with the strange, anomalous result,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0075.pt|that a thief or other criminal might be quite differently treated according as he was incarcerated on one side or another of a border line.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0076.pt|This variety was often extended to all branches of prison economy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0077.pt|There was an absolute want of uniformity in dietaries; in some prisons it was too liberal, in others too low.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0078.pt|The amount of exercise varied from one or two hours daily to half the working day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0079.pt|The cells inhabited by prisoners were of very varying dimensions;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0080.pt|some were not sufficiently ventilated, others were warmed artificially, and were unwholesomely close.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0081.pt|The use of gas or some other means of lighting might be adopted, but more often was dispensed with.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0082.pt|In a great number of prisons no provision was made for the education of prisoners, in some others there was a sufficient staff of schoolmasters and instructors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0083.pt|The discipline also varied greatly, from the severely penal to the culpably lax.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0084.pt|The greatest pains might be taken to secure isolation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0085.pt|the prisoners might be supervised and watched at every step, and made liable to punishment for a trifling breach of an irksome code of regulations,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0086.pt|or they might herd together or communicate freely as in the old worst days. They might see each other when they liked, and converse sotto voce,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0087.pt|or make signs; or the chances of recognizing or being recognized were reduced to a minimum by the use of a mask.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0088.pt|There was no general rule of employment. Hard labor was often not insisted upon in separate confinement;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0089.pt|sometimes it embraced the tread-wheel or the newly-invented instruments known as cranks, which ground air.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0090.pt|The alternative between labor or idleness, or the selection of the form of labor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0091.pt|were mere matters of chance, and decided according to the views of the local magistracy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0092.pt|They were approved of and employed at some prisons, at others objected to because they were unproductive,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0093.pt|and because the machine was often so imperfect that the amount of effort could not be exactly regulated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0094.pt|Opinions differed greatly with regard to the tread-wheel; some authorities advocated it as a very severe and irksome punishment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0095.pt|which was yet under full control, and might be made to work corn-mills or prove otherwise productive;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0096.pt|other authorities as strongly condemned it as brutalizing, unequal in its operation, and altogether a "deplorable invention."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0097.pt|This want of uniformity in prison discipline became ere long an acknowledged evil pressing for some remedy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0098.pt|and the question was once more taken up in the House of Commons. In eighteen forty-nine Mr. Charles Pearson, M.P.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0099.pt|moved for a committee to report upon the best means of securing some uniform system which should be "punitive, reformatory, and self-supporting;"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0100.pt|but the session was far advanced, and the matter was relegated to the following year.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0101.pt|In eighteen fifty Sir George Grey brought forward a new motion to the same effect,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0102.pt|which was promptly carried, with the additional instruction to the committee to suggest any improvements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0103.pt|The latter had reference more especially to a proposal emanating from Mr. Charles Pearson himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0104.pt|That gentleman had come to the conclusion that the ordinary and hackneyed methods of treatment were practically inefficacious,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0105.pt|and that a new system of prison discipline should be introduced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0106.pt|His plan was to devote the whole labor of prisoners sentenced to any term between three months and four years to agriculture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0107.pt|District prisons were to be established for this purpose, each of which would be in the heart of a farm of a thousand acres.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0108.pt|The prisoners were to cultivate the land and raise sufficient produce for their own support.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0109.pt|Mr. Pearson backed up his recommendations by many sound arguments.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0110.pt|Field labor, he urged, and with reason, was a very suitable employment;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0111.pt|healthful, easily learnt, and well adapted to the circumstances of unskilled laborers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0112.pt|Such excellent returns might be counted upon, that a margin of profit would be left after the cost of the prisons had been defrayed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0113.pt|The scheme was no doubt fascinating, and in many respects feasible;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0114.pt|but Mr. Pearson overlooked some points in which a more practical mind would have foreseen difficulty, and perhaps forecasted failure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0115.pt|In his proposal he dwelt much upon the humanizing effects of healthful open-air toil,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0116.pt|anticipating the best results from a system which made earnings, and indeed release, dependent upon the amount of work done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0117.pt|That industry might thus be stimulated and encouraged was probable enough,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0118.pt|and later experience has fully proved the advantage of a judicious system of gratuities for labor;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0119.pt|but Mr. Pearson hardly considered the converse sufficiently, and
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0120.pt|omitted the fact that he might have to deal with that persistent idleness which is not an unknown characteristic of the criminal class.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0121.pt|The hope of reward might do much, but no system of penal discipline is complete unless it can also count upon the fear of punishment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0122.pt|Mr. Pearson seems to have taken for granted that all prisoners would behave well in his district prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0123.pt|On that account he made no provision to insure safe custody,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0124.pt|thinking perhaps that prisoners so well disposed would cheerfully remain in jail of their own accord.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0125.pt|But an open farm of a thousand acres would have offered abundant chances of escape, which some at least would have attempted, probably with success.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0126.pt|The creation of an expensive staff for supervision,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0127.pt|or the still more costly process of walling in the whole farm, would have greatly added to the charges of these establishments.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0128.pt|I have lingered too long perhaps over Mr. Pearson's proposal, but some reference was indispensable to a scheme
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0129.pt|which marked the growth of public interest in prison affairs, and which was the germ of the new system
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0130.pt|since admirably developed in the convict prisons of this country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0131.pt|Mr. Pearson and the committee of eighteen fifty have the more claim on our consideration, because,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0132.pt|in the inquiry which followed, attention was again attracted to Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0133.pt|The condition of that prison in eighteen fifty may be gathered from the pages of the report. Not much had been done to remedy the old defects;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0134.pt|radical improvement was generally considered impossible. The great evil, however, had been sensibly diminished.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0135.pt|There was no longer, or at worst but rarely, and for short periods, the same overcrowding.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0136.pt|This was obviated by the frequent sessions of the Central Criminal Court, and the utilization of the two subsidiary prisons in Giltspur Street and Southwark.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0137.pt|The prison population of Newgate was still subject to great fluctuations, but it seldom rose above two hundred and fifty or three hundred
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0138.pt|at the most crowded periods, or just before the sessional jail delivery; and at its lowest it fell sometimes to fifty or sixty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0139.pt|These numbers would have still further decreased, and the jail would have been almost empty, but for the misdemeanants who were still sent to Newgate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0140.pt|at times on long terms of imprisonment, and for the transports, whom the Home Office were often, as of old, slow to remove.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0141.pt|The old wards, day rooms and sleeping rooms combined, of which the reader has already heard so much,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0142.pt|now seldom contained more than ten or a dozen each. Some sort of decorum was maintained among the occupants in the day-time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0143.pt|Drinking and gaming,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0144.pt|the indiscriminate visitation of friends, and the almost unlimited admission of extra food, these more glaring defects had disappeared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0145.pt|But reformation was only skin deep. Below the surface many of the old evils still rankled.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0146.pt|There was as yet no control over the prisoners after locking-up time;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0147.pt|this occurred in summer at eight, but in the winter months it took place at dusk, and was often as early as four or five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0148.pt|The prisoners were still left to themselves till next morning's unlocking,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0149.pt|and they spent some fourteen or fifteen hours in total darkness, and almost without check or control.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0150.pt|Captain Williams, who was the inspector of prisons for the home district in succession to Messrs. Crawford and Russell,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0151.pt|stated in evidence that he was visiting Newgate one night, when he heard a great disturbance in one of the day and sleeping rooms,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0152.pt|and on entering it found the prisoners engaged in kicking bundles of wood from one end of the ward to the other.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0153.pt|Some attempt at supervision was exercised by the night watchman stationed on the leads, who might hear what went on inside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0154.pt|If any disturbance reached his ears, he reported the case to the governor, who next morning visited the ward in fault, and asked for the culprit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0155.pt|The enforcement of discipline depended upon the want of honor among thieves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0156.pt|Unless the guilty prisoner was given up, the whole ward was punished, either by the exclusion of visitors or the deprivation of fire,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0157.pt|sharp tests which generally broke down the fidelity of the inmates of the ward to one another.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0158.pt|Later on a more efficacious but still imperfect method of supervision was introduced. Iron cages, which are still to be seen in Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0159.pt|were constructed on the landings, ensconced in which warders spent the night, on duty, and alert to watch the sleepers below,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0160.pt|and check by remonstrance or threat of punishment all who broke the peace of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0161.pt|These disciplinary improvements were, however, only slowly and gradually introduced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0162.pt|Other changes affecting the condition and proper treatment of prisoners were not made until the inspector had urged and recommended them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0163.pt|Thus the wards, which, as I have said, were left in complete darkness, were now to be lighted with gas; and after this most salutary addition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0164.pt|the personal superintendence of night officers, as already described, became possible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0165.pt|The rule became general as regards the prison dress; hitherto clothing had been issued only to such as were destitute or in rags, and all classes of prisoners,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0166.pt|those for trial, and those sentenced for short terms or long
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0167.pt|wore no distinguishing costume, although its use was admitted, not only for cleanliness, but as a badge of condition, and a security against escape.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0168.pt|Renewed recommendations to provide employment resulted in the provision of a certain amount of oakum for picking,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0169.pt|and one or two men were allowed to mend clothes and make shoes. The rules made by the Secretary of State were hung up in conspicuous parts of the prison;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0170.pt|more officers were appointed, as the time of so many of those already on the staff was monopolized by attendance at the Central Criminal Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0171.pt|Another custom which had led to disorder was abolished;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0172.pt|prisoners who had been acquitted were not permitted to return to the prison to show their joy and receive the congratulations of their unfortunate fellows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0173.pt|The Corporation seems to have introduced these salutary changes without hesitation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0174.pt|It was less prompt apparently in dealing with structural alterations and improvements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0175.pt|Well-founded complaints had been made of the want of heating appliances in the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0176.pt|The wards had open fires, but the separate cells were not warmed at all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0177.pt|A scheme for heating the whole prison with hot-water pipes, after the system now generally adopted elsewhere, was considered,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0178.pt|and abandoned because of the expense. As to the entire reconstruction of Newgate, nothing had been done as yet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0179.pt|This, with a scheme for limiting the jail to untried prisoners, had been urgently recommended by Lord John Russell in eighteen thirty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0180.pt|His letter to the Corporation, under date fourth June,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0181.pt|is an interesting document, and shows that even at that date the Government contemplated the erection of a model prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0182.pt|Lord John Russell, commenting upon the offer of the Corporation to improve Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0183.pt|provided it was henceforth used only for untried prisoners, suggested that Newgate should be entirely reconstructed, and the new building adopted as a model.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0184.pt|The Corporation had agreed to spend twenty thousand pounds on alterations, but sixty thousand pounds would suffice to reconstruct.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0185.pt|Lord John, with great fairness, admitted that the whole of this burthen could not be imposed upon the city
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0186.pt|seeing that since the establishment of the Central Criminal Court, Newgate received prisoners for trial from several counties,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0187.pt|and he was therefore prepared to submit to Parliament a proposal that half the cost of reconstruction should be borne by public funds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0188.pt|He forwarded plans prepared by the inspectors of prisons, not for blind adoption, but as a guide.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0189.pt|This plan was on the principle of cellular separation, a system, according to Lord John Russell, desirable in all prisons,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0190.pt|"but in a metropolitan prison absolutely essential." The Corporation in reply demurred rather to accepting strict separation as a rule,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0191.pt|feeling that it approached too nearly to solitary confinement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0192.pt|The court was, however, prepared to consider Lord John Russell's proposal with regard to the cost of rebuilding;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0193.pt|but as the plan was "confessedly experimental, for the benefit of the country generally, the amount for which the city should be responsible should be distinctly limited
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0194.pt|not to exceed a certain sum to be agreed upon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0195.pt|A proviso was also made that the magistrates should continue to exercise full control over the new jail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0196.pt|free from any other interference than that of the inspectors on the part of Government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0197.pt|No doubt wiser counsels prevailed with Lord John Russell,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0198.pt|and on a more mature consideration he realized that the limited area of the existing Newgate site,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0199.pt|and the costliness of enlarging it, forbade all idea of entirely reconstructing the jail so as to constitute it a model prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0200.pt|It would be far better to begin at the beginning,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0201.pt|to select a sufficiently spacious piece of ground, and erect a prison which from foundations to roofs should be in conformity with the newest ideas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0202.pt|The preference given to the Pentonville system destroyed all hopes of a complete reformation of Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0203.pt|But the condition of the great city jail was evidently considered a reproach by the city authorities, and a year after the opening of the new "model" at Pentonville,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0204.pt|a serious effort was made to reconstruct Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0205.pt|In eighteen forty-five the Jail Committee brought forward a definite proposal to purchase ground in the immediate vicinity for the erection of a new jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0206.pt|This jail was nominally to replace the Giltspur Street Compter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0207.pt|The site of which was to be sold to Christ's Hospital, but the intention was of course to embody and absorb old Newgate in the new construction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0208.pt|The proposal made was to purchase some fifty thousand square feet between Newgate, Warwick Lane, and the Sessions House,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0209.pt|the situation having been proved by long experience to be salubrious.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0210.pt|But when this suggestion was brought before the court of aldermen, various amendments were proposed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0211.pt|It was urged that the area selected for purchase must be excessively costly to acquire, and still quite inadequate for the city needs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0212.pt|The Home Secretary had laid it down that at least five acres would be indispensable, and such an area it was impossible to obtain within the limits of the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0213.pt|Now for the first time the Tuffnell estate in Holloway was mentioned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0214.pt|The Corporation owned lands there covering from nineteen to twenty acres.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0215.pt|Why not move the city prison bodily into this more rural spot, with its purer air and greater breathing space?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0216.pt|Eventually Holloway was decided upon as a site for the new city prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0217.pt|The necessary preliminaries took some time, but the contracts for the new building were completed in eighteen forty-nine, when the works were commenced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0218.pt|The prison was to contain four hundred and four prisoners, and the estimated expenditure was seventy-nine thousand pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0219.pt|It was to accommodate only the convicted prisoners sentenced to terms short of penal servitude, and after its completion
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0220.pt|the uses of Newgate were narrowed almost entirely to those of a prison of detention.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0221.pt|It was intended as far as possible that, except awaiting trial, no prisoner should find himself relegated to Newgate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0222.pt|This principle became more and more generally the rule, although it has never been punctiliously observed. Now and again
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0223.pt|misdemeanants have found their way into Newgate, and within the last few years one offender against the privileges of the House of Commons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0224.pt|With the reduction of numbers to be accommodated, there was ample space in Newgate for its reconstruction on the most approved modern lines.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0225.pt|In eighteen fifty-seven
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0226.pt|the erection of a wing or large block of cells was commenced within the original walls of the prison, and upon the north or male side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0227.pt|This block contained one hundred and thirty cells, embracing every modern improvement;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0228.pt|it also contained eleven reception cells, six punishment cells, and a couple of cells for condemned criminals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0229.pt|This block was completed in eighteen fifty-nine, after which the hitherto unavoidable and long-continued promiscuous association of prisoners
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0230.pt|In eighteen sixty-one a similar work was undertaken to provide separate cellular accommodation for the female inmates of Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0231.pt|and by the following year forty-seven new cells had been built on the most approved plan.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0232.pt|During this reconstruction the female prisoners were lodged in Holloway,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0233.pt|and when it was completed, both sides of the prison were brought into harmony with modern ideas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0234.pt|The old buildings were entirely disused, and the whole of the inmates of Newgate were kept constantly in separate confinement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0235.pt|With the last re-edification of Newgate, a work executed some seven centuries after the first stone of the old jail was laid,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0236.pt|the architectural records of the prison end. Nothing much was done at Newgate in the way of building, outside or in, after eighteen sixty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0237.pt|The Act for private executions led to the erection of the gallows shed in the exercising yard, and at the flank of the passage from the condemned cells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0238.pt|The first "glass house," or room in which prisoners could talk in private with their attorneys, but yet be seen by the warder on the watch, had been constructed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0239.pt|and others were subsequently added.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0240.pt|But no structural alterations were made from the date first quoted until the time of closing the prison in eighteen eighty-one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0241.pt|But in the interval very comprehensive and, I think it must be admitted, salutary changes were successively introduced into the management of prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0242.pt|Newgate naturally shared in any advantages due to these reforms. I propose, therefore, to refer to them in the concluding pages of this work,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0243.pt|and thus bring the history of prison discipline down to our own times.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0244.pt|The last inquiry into the condition and management of our jails and houses of correction was that made by the Lords' Committee in eighteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0245.pt|The inquiry was most searching and complete, and the committee spoke plainly in its report.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0246.pt|It animadverted strongly on "the many and wide differences as regards construction, labor, diet, and general discipline"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0247.pt|which existed in the various prisons,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0248.pt|leading to an inequality, uncertainty, and inefficiency of punishment productive of the most prejudicial results.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0249.pt|The varieties in construction were still very marked.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0250.pt|In many prisons the prisoners were still associated, and, from the want of a sufficient number of cells, the principle of separation was still greatly neglected.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0251.pt|Yet this principle, as the committee pointed out, "must now be accepted as the foundation of prison discipline,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0252.pt|while its rigid maintenance was in its opinion vital to the efficiency of the jails.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0253.pt|Even where cells had been built
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0254.pt|they were frequently below the standard size, and were therefore not certified for occupation as was required by law.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0255.pt|Great numbers were not lighted at night, and were without means by which their inmates could communicate, in case of urgent necessity, with their keepers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0256.pt|Still greater were the differences with regard to employment. The various authorities held widely different opinions as to what constituted hard labor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0257.pt|Here the tread-wheel was in use, there cellular cranks, or hard-labor machines.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0258.pt|Both, however, varied greatly in mechanism and in the amount of energy they called forth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0259.pt|while the former was intended for the congregate labor of a number, and the latter, as its name implies, imposed continuous solitary toil.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0260.pt|At other prisons "shot-drill," the lifting and carrying of heavy round shot, was the favorite method of inflicting penal labor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0261.pt|With these differences were others as opposed concerning industrial occupation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0262.pt|The jail authorities often gave the highest, possibly undue, importance to the value of remunerative employment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0263.pt|and sought to make profitable returns from prisoners' labor the test of prison efficiency. In this view the committee could not coincide,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0264.pt|and it was decidedly of opinion that in all short sentences the hard labor of the tread-wheel, crank, and so forth should be the invariable rule.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0265.pt|In dietaries, again, the same wide diversity of practice obtained.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0266.pt|The efforts made by Sir James Graham years before to introduce uniformity in this particular had failed of effect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0267.pt|The Secretary of State's suggested scale of diet had seldom been closely followed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0268.pt|In some places the dietary was too full, in others too meager. Its constituents were not of the most suitable character.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0269.pt|More animal food was given than was necessary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0270.pt|Vegetables, especially the potato, that most valuable anti-scorbutic, was too often omitted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0271.pt|In a word, the value of diet as a part of penal discipline was still insufficiently recognized.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0272.pt|The prisons were still far from inflicting the three punishments, hard labor, hard fare, and a hard bed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0273.pt|which Sir Joshua Jebb told the committee he considered the proper elements of penal discipline.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0274.pt|It is interesting to note here
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0275.pt|that the committee of eighteen sixty-three fully endorsed Sir Joshua's recommendations as regards a "hard bed," and recommended that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0276.pt|during short sentences, or the earlier stages of a long confinement,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0277.pt|the prisoners should be made to dispense with the use of a mattress, and should sleep on planks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0278.pt|This suggestion was adopted in the Act of eighteen sixty-five, which followed the committee's report, and of which more directly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0279.pt|Clause ninety-two, Schedule one of that act authorized the use of plank beds, which were adopted in many prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0280.pt|They are now the universal rule,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0281.pt|introduced, as was erroneously supposed, by the prison commissioners appointed under the Prison Act of eighteen seventy-seven.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0282.pt|Their origin it will be seen dates back much further than that.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0283.pt|Beds might well be made hard and their use strictly limited.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0284.pt|According to this committee of eighteen sixty-three, beds in the smaller and most carelessly conducted prisons formed a large element in the life of a prisoner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0285.pt|In one jail fifteen hours were spent in bed out of the twenty-four. This was in keeping with other grave defects and omissions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0286.pt|The minor borough prisons were the worst blot on the still dark and imperfect system.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0287.pt|They were very numerous, very imperfect in construction and management, and they were very little required.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0288.pt|In them, according to the committee, the old objectionable practices were still in full force.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0289.pt|There was unrestrained association of untried and convicted, juvenile with adult prisoners, vagrants, misdemeanants, felons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0290.pt|There were dormitories without light, control, or regulation at night,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0291.pt|which warders, dreading assault, were afraid to enter after dark, even to check rioting and disturbance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0292.pt|Prisoners still slept two in a bed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0293.pt|In one prison the bedsteads had been removed lest the prisoners should break them up and convert them into weapons of offense.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0294.pt|The prison buildings were in many places out of repair; other houses often overlooked them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0295.pt|A single officer was the only custodian and disciplinary authority in the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0296.pt|Complete idleness was tolerated; there was neither penal labor nor light employment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0297.pt|The prisoners inter-communicated freely, and exercised the most injurious, corrupting influences upon one another.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0298.pt|The total want of administration was very marked,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0299.pt|but in one prison it was such that the prisoners' food was supplied daily from the neighboring inn, and the innkeeper's bill constituted the only accounts kept.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0300.pt|The committee might well suggest the abolition of these jails, or their amalgamation with the larger county establishments in their immediate neighborhood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0301.pt|Some idea of the comparative uselessness of these small borough prisons was conveyed by some figures quoted by the committee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0302.pt|In eighteen sixty-two there were in all one hundred and ninety-three jails in England and Wales;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0303.pt|of these, sixty-three gave admittance during the entire year to less than twenty-five prisoners;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0304.pt|twenty-two others received between eleven and twenty-five;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0305.pt|fourteen received less than eleven and more than six;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0306.pt|while twenty-seven received less than six prisoners, and were in some instances absolutely tenantless.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0307.pt|The result of the recommendation of the committee of eighteen sixty-two was the Prison Act of eighteen sixty-five,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0308.pt|the penultimate of such enactments, many of the provisions of which still remain in force.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0309.pt|The main object of this act was to compass that uniformity in discipline and treatment generally
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0310.pt|which had long been admitted as indispensable, and had never as yet been properly obtained.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0311.pt|The legislature was beginning to overcome its disinclination to interfere actively or authoritatively
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0312.pt|with the local jurisdictions, although still very leniently disposed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0313.pt|However, it now laid down in plain language and with precise details the requirements of a good jail system.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0314.pt|The separation of prisoners in cells duly certified by the inspectors was insisted upon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0315.pt|also their constant employment in labor appropriate to their condition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0316.pt|Hard labor of the first and second class was carefully defined.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0317.pt|The former, which consisted principally of the tread-wheel, cranks, capstans, shot-drill,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0318.pt|was to be the rule for all convicted prisoners throughout the early stages of their detention;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0319.pt|while the latter, which included various forms of industrial employment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0320.pt|was the boon to which willing industry extending over a long period established a certain claim.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0321.pt|The infliction of punishment more or less uniform was thus aimed at.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0322.pt|On the other hand, new and careful regulations were framed to secure the moral and material well-being of the inmates of the jails.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0323.pt|The law made it imperative that every prison should have a prison chapel, and that daily and Sunday services should be held.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0324.pt|The chaplain's duties were enlarged, and the principle of toleration accepted to the extent of securing to all prisoners
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0325.pt|the ministrations of ministers of their own form of belief.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0326.pt|Steps were taken to provide the illiterate with secular instruction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0327.pt|No less close was the care as regards preservation of health.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0328.pt|Stringent rules were prescribed for the prison surgeons;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0329.pt|every prison was ordered to keep up an infirmary, and the medical supervision was to be strict and continuous.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0330.pt|Dietaries were drawn up for adoption on the recommendation of a committee of experts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0331.pt|Baths were provided, ablutions ordered, and all appliances to insure personal cleanliness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0332.pt|The administration of good government was to be watched over by the local magistracy, certain of whom, styled visiting justices,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0333.pt|were elected to inspect the prisons frequently, to examine the prisoners, hear complaints, and check abuses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0334.pt|Under them the governor or jailer was held strictly responsible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0335.pt|The books and journals he was to keep were minutely specified, and his constant presence in or near the jail was insisted upon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0336.pt|His disciplinary powers were defined by the act, and his duties,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0337.pt|both in controlling his subordinates and in protecting the prisoners from petty tyranny and oppression, every one of whom he was to see once every twenty-four hours.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0338.pt|But discipline was to be maintained if necessary by punishment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0339.pt|while decency and good order were to be insured by the strict prohibition of gambling and drunkenness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0340.pt|The latter was rendered nearly impossible by the penalties imposed on persons bringing spirituous liquors into the jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0341.pt|The old custom, so fruitful of the worst evils, of keeping a tap inside the prison was made illegal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0342.pt|So was the employment of prisoners in any position of trust or authority;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0343.pt|they were not to be turnkeys or assistant turnkeys, neither wardsman nor yardsman, overseer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0344.pt|monitor, or schoolmaster, nor to be engaged in the service of any officer of the prison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0345.pt|The Act of eighteen sixty-five also encouraged and empowered the local authorities to "alter, enlarge, or rebuild" their prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0346.pt|They might raise funds for this purpose, provided a certificate for the necessity for the new works was given, either by the recorder
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0347.pt|chairman of quarter sessions, or even by a couple of justices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0348.pt|Every facility was promised. The sanction of the Secretary of State would not be withheld if plans and estimates were duly submitted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0349.pt|and they met with the approval of his professional adviser, the surveyor-general of prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0350.pt|The funds necessary would be advanced by the Public Works Loan Commissioners, and the interest might be charged against the county or borough rates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0351.pt|Nor were these the only inducements offered. Where local authorities were indisposed to set their prisons in order,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0352.pt|or hesitated to embark upon any considerable expenditure to alter or rebuild,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0353.pt|they were at liberty to hire suitable cell accommodation from any neighbors who might have it to spare; the only proviso,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0354.pt|That no such contract was valid between one jurisdiction and another unless the Secretary of State was satisfied that the prison it was intended to use
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0355.pt|came up in all respects to modern requirements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0356.pt|But the act was not limited to permissive legislation. Its provisions and enactments were backed up by certain penalties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0357.pt|The Secretary of State was empowered to deal rather summarily with "inadequate" prisons, in other words,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0358.pt|with those in which there was no separation, no proper enforcement of hard labor, no chapel, infirmary, and so forth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0359.pt|He could in the first place withhold the government grant in aid of prison funds by refusing the certificate to the Treasury upon which the allowance was paid.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0360.pt|This he might do on the representation of the inspector of prisons,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0361.pt|who was bound to report any deficiencies and abuses he might find at his periodical visits. The Secretary of State might go further.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0362.pt|Where the local authority had neglected to comply with the provisions of the eighteen sixty-five Act for four consecutive years,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0363.pt|he could close the "inadequate" prison, by declaring it unfit for the reception of prisoners.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0364.pt|His order would at the same time specify some neighboring and more satisfactory prison which the local authority would be compelled to utilize instead,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0365.pt|and with the concurrence of the other authority, and on payment. A few provisos governed these rather extensive powers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0366.pt|It was necessary, for instance, to give due notice when the government grant was to be withdrawn,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0367.pt|and with the warning a copy of the particular defects and allegations was to be sent to the local authority.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0368.pt|The latter too was to be laid before the House of Commons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0369.pt|In the same way, six months' notice was required in cases where the closing of a prison was contemplated;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0370.pt|but if these conditions were observed, the Secretary of State could deal sharply enough with the defaulting jurisdictions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0371.pt|Yet the law was seldom if ever enforced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0372.pt|It was practically inoperative as regards the penalties for neglect. It was no doubt as irksome and inconvenient to the Secretary of State
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0373.pt|to avail himself of his powers, as it was difficult to bring home the derelictions of duties and evasion of the acts. Too much was left to the inspectors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0374.pt|It was nearly impossible for them to exercise a very close supervision over the whole of the prisons of the country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0375.pt|There were only two of them, and they could not visit each prison more than once in each year, sometimes not oftener than once in eighteen months.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0376.pt|The task imposed upon them, tending as it did to the imposition of a fine upon the local authorities, was not a pleasant one,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0377.pt|and it is not strange if they did not very frequently hand up the offenders to the reproof and correction of the Secretary of State.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0378.pt|As the almost inevitable consequence, while the more glaring defects in prison management disappeared,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0379.pt|matters went on after the eighteen sixty-five Act much the same as they had done before. Districts differed greatly in the attention they paid to prison affairs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0380.pt|In one part the most praiseworthy activity prevailed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0381.pt|in another there was half-heartedness, even apathy and an almost complete contempt for the provisions of the act.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0382.pt|As the years passed, great want of uniformity continued to prevail throughout the prisons of the United Kingdom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0383.pt|The whole question assumed sufficient importance to become a part of the Government program when Lord Beaconsfield took office in eighteen seventy-four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0384.pt|The Home Secretary in that administration,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0385.pt|Mr. (now Sir Richard) Cross, having applied himself vigorously to the task of reorganizing the whole system, became convinced
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0386.pt|that no complete reform could be accomplished so long as the prisons were left under the jurisdiction of the local authorities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0387.pt|The Prisons Bill of eighteen seventy-six contemplated the transfer of the prisons to Government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0388.pt|This bill, reintroduced in eighteen seventy-seven, became law that year, after which the whole of the prisons, including Newgate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0389.pt|passed under the more direct control of the State.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0390.pt|Since then a strong central authority has labored steadfastly to compass concentration,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0391.pt|to close useless prisons, and to insure that uniformity of system which all thoughtful persons had long admitted to be of paramount importance
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0392.pt|in the administration of prisons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0393.pt|Three years after the advent of the prison commissioners, it was decided that Newgate was an excessively costly and redundant establishment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0394.pt|It was only filled at the periods when the sessions of the Central Criminal Court were in progress;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0395.pt|at others an expensive staff was maintained with little or nothing to do.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0396.pt|At a short distance stood another prison of detention, that of Clerkenwell,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0397.pt|with spare accommodation sufficient to receive all prisoners who were then committed to Newgate. These arguments were unanswerable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0398.pt|Accordingly, it was ordered by Sir William Harcourt, the present Secretary of State, that Newgate should cease to be used as a regular prison,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ019-0399.pt|and it is now, except during sessions or when the gallows is in requisition, practically and for ever closed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0001.pt|Marion Harland's Cookery for Beginners. Bread Sponge and Breakfast Breads.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0002.pt|Bread raised with what is known to bakers as a “sponge,” requires more time and a trifle more work than the simpler form for which I have just already given directions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0003.pt|But it keeps fresh longer, is softer and more nutritious, and a second-rate brand of flour thus treated produces a better loaf
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0004.pt|than when mixed up with yeast and water only.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0005.pt|Sponge-making is, therefore, an important if not an essential accomplishment in a cook, be she novice or veteran.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0006.pt|Three potatoes of fair size, peeled and boiled mealy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0007.pt|Five tablespoonfuls of yeast. One tablespoonful of white sugar.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0008.pt|One tablespoonful of butter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0009.pt|Three cups of lukewarm water in which the potatoes were boiled, strained through a coarse cloth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0010.pt|One heaping cup of sifted flour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0011.pt|Put the potatoes into a large bowl or tray and mash them to powder with a potato beetle, or a wooden spoon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0012.pt|While still hot, mix in the sugar and butter, beating all to a lumpless cream.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0013.pt|Add a few spoonfuls at a time, the potato-water alternately with the flour by the handful,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0014.pt|beating the batter smooth as you go on until all of the liquid and flour has gone in.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0015.pt|Beat hard one minute before pouring in the yeast.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0016.pt|it is well to stir into the yeast a bit of soda no larger than a grain of corn already wet up in a teaspoonful of boiling water.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0017.pt|Now whip up the batter with a wooden spoon for another minute, and the sponge is made.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0018.pt|Throw a cloth over the bowl and set by for five or six hours to rise.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0019.pt|If you intend to bake in the forenoon, make the sponge at bedtime. If in the afternoon, early in the morning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0020.pt|When the sponge is light sift a quart and a cup of flour into a bowl or tray with two teaspoonfuls of salt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0021.pt|Into a hollow, like a crater in the middle of the flour, empty your sponge-bowl, and work the flour down into it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0022.pt|Wash out the bowl with a little lukewarm water and add this to the dough. If it should prove too soft, work in, cautiously, a little more flour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0023.pt|If too stiff, warm water, a spoonful at a time until you can handle the paste easily. The danger is in getting it too stiff. Now.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0024.pt|knead and set for risings first and second, as you have already been instructed. This sponge will be found especially useful in making Graham Bread.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0025.pt|One quart of Graham flour, one cup of white flour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0026.pt|One half cup of Indian meal. One half cup of molasses. Two teaspoonfuls of salt. Soda, the size of a pea.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0027.pt|Half the quantity of sponge given in preceding receipt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0028.pt|Warm water for rinsing bowl -- about half a cup.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0029.pt|Put the brown or Graham flour unsifted into the bread-bowl.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0030.pt|Sift into it white flour, meal and salt, and stir up well while dry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0031.pt|Into the “crater” dug out in the middle, pour the sponge, warm water, the molasses, and soda dissolved in hot water.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0032.pt|Knead as you would white bread, and set aside for the rising.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0033.pt|It will not swell so fast as the white, so give yourself more time for making it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0034.pt|When light, knead well and long;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0035.pt|make into two loaves, then put into well-greased pans and leave for an hour, or until it becomes more than twice the original size of the dough.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0036.pt|Take care that it does not burn in baking. The molasses renders it liable to scorching.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0037.pt|The oven must be steady, but not so hot as for white bread, nor will the Graham bread be done quite so soon as that made of bolted flour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0038.pt|Turn the pans once while baking, moving them as gently as possible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0039.pt|If rudely shaken or jarred, there will be heavy streaks in loaves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0040.pt|Graham bread is wholesome and sweet, and ought to be eaten frequently in every family, particularly by young people whose bones and teeth are in forming.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0041.pt|The phosphates which the process of “bolting” removes to a large extent from white flour, go directly to the manufacture of bone,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0042.pt|and these also tend to nourish and strengthen the brain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0043.pt|After mixing your bread in the morning either with sponge or with yeast, divide the kneaded dough into two portions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0044.pt|Mould one into a round ball, and set aside for a loaf as already directed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0045.pt|Make a hole in the middle of the other batch and pour into it a tablespoonful of butter, just melted, but not hot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0046.pt|Close the dough over it, dust your hands and kneading-board with flour and work in the shortening until the dough is elastic and ceases to be sticky.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0047.pt|Put it into a floured bowl, cover with a cloth and set away out of draught and undue heat, for three hours.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0048.pt|Knead it again, then, and wait upon its rising for another three hours. The dough should be as soft as can be handled.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0049.pt|When it is light for the second time flour your board, rubbing in the flour and blowing lightly away what does not adhere to the surface.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0050.pt|Toss the lump dough upon it and knead thoroughly for five minutes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0051.pt|Flour a rolling-pin and roll the dough into a sheet not more than half an inch thick.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0052.pt|Cut this into round cakes with a biscuit-cutter or a sharp-edged tumbler and fold, not quite in the middle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0053.pt|in the form of turnovers, pinching the corners of the fold pretty hard to hinder the flap of dough from flying up as the rising proceeds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0054.pt|Rub the bottom and sides of a baking-pan with sweet lard or butter. Do this with a bit of clean soft rag or tissue-paper,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0055.pt|visiting every corner of the pan, but not leaving thick layers and streaks of grease after it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0056.pt|Arrange the rolls in regular rows in the pan about a quarter of an inch apart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0057.pt|Cover with a cloth and set nearer the fire than you dared trust the dough, and let them rise for an hour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0058.pt|Peep under the cloth two or three times to see whether they rise evenly, and turn the pan around once that all may be equally exposed to the heat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0059.pt|When the time is up and the rolls are puffy and promising, set them in a pretty quick oven and bake half an hour,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0060.pt|turning the pan once in this time, and covering with clean -- never printed -- paper, should they brown too fast.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0061.pt|Break the rolls apart from one another and eat warm. They are also good cold, and if the directions be followed implicitly, very good always.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0062.pt|Graham Rolls are made by treating the dough mixed for Graham bread as above and following the foregoing receipt in every section, but allowing more time for rising and baking.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0063.pt|They are even better when cold than hot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0064.pt|Breakfast Biscuit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0065.pt|Two cups of fresh milk slightly warmed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0066.pt|One quart and a cup of flour sifted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0067.pt|Five tablespoonfuls of yeast.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0068.pt|One even tablespoonful of white sugar.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0069.pt|One even teaspoonful of salt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0070.pt|Bit of soda as large as a pea, dissolved in hot water.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0071.pt|One tablespoonful of butter, just melted, not hot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0072.pt|Yolk of one egg beaten light.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0073.pt|Sift the flour, salt and sugar into a bowl,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0074.pt|hollow the heap in the center and pour in the milk, working down the flour into the liquid with a spoon or your hands until it is thoroughly melted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0075.pt|Into a second hollow pour the yeast and knead thoroughly for fifteen minutes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0076.pt|Wrap bowl and biscuit in a thick cloth and set to rise where it will neither become chilled nor sour over night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0077.pt|Study the temperature in different parts of the kitchen and kitchen closets to the end of finding the best places for raising dough and sponge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0078.pt|Do all this at bedtime. Early in the morning turn out the dough upon a floured board, work it for a minute into manageable shape;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0079.pt|drill several finger-holes in it and fill them with the melted butter, the dissolved soda and the beaten yolk of egg.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0080.pt|Pinch the dough hard to stop the mouths of these cavities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0081.pt|and knead for ten minutes, carefully at first, lest the liquids should be wasted, and more boldly when they are absorbed by the paste.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0082.pt|Roll out into a sheet half an inch thick with a floured rolling-pin; cut into round cakes, set these closely together in a well-greased pan;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0083.pt|prick each with a fork and let them rise near the fire for half an hour, covered with a light cloth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0084.pt|Bake from twenty to twenty-five minutes in a quick oven, turning the pan around once, quickly and lightly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0085.pt|Break apart from one another and pile on a plate, throwing a clean doily or a small napkin over them. Break open at table.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0086.pt|Hot rolls and muffins should never be cut.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0087.pt|One word with regard to getting up early in order to give dough a chance for the second rising.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0088.pt|It is not a wholesome practice for any woman -- least of all a young girl to be out of bed two hours before she eats her breakfast.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0089.pt|Studying upon an empty stomach provokes dyspepsia and injures the eyes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0090.pt|Active exercise in like circumstances tempts debility and disease.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0091.pt|Yet our bread and rolls must be looked after at the proper time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0092.pt|Have yourself called on biscuit mornings an hour earlier than usual.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0093.pt|Rise, wash face and hands, rinse the mouth out and brush back the hair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0094.pt|Put on stockings and slippers, such underclothing as may be needed to prevent cold, a wrapper and the kitchen apron.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0095.pt|Cover your hair entirely with a handkerchief or sweeping cap.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0096.pt|Before beginning operations downstairs eat a half-slice of dry bread or a biscuit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0097.pt|You will not relish it, but take it all the same to appease the empty, discontented stomach.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0098.pt|Having made out your rolls and tucked them up snugly for the final rise, return to your chamber for a comfortable bath and toilet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0099.pt|When habited for the day in all except the outer gown, collar, etc., slip on the wrapper again and run down to put the biscuits in the oven.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0100.pt|Unless it is too hot, they will get no harm while you finish dressing in ten minutes, just in season to turn the pan.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0101.pt|From the beginning of your apprenticeship in housewifery, learn how to "dovetail" your duties neatly into one another.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0102.pt|A wise accommodation of parts and angles, and compactness in the adjustment of "must-be-dones"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0103.pt|are better than mere personal strength in the accomplishment of such tasks as fall to women to perform.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0104.pt|Master these, and do not let them master you.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0105.pt|Weave the little duties in and under and among what seem to be the greater.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0106.pt|While your bread is taking a three hours’ rise, you are free in body and mind for other things.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0107.pt|The grand secret of keeping house well and without worry, lies in the art of packing and fitting different kinds of work and in picking up the minutes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ020-0108.pt|Other things besides rising dough get on quite as well without your standing by to watch them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0001.pt|The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by Franklin D Roosevelt, Section six.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0002.pt|September thirty, nineteen thirty-four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0003.pt|Three months have passed since I talked with you shortly after the adjournment of the Congress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0004.pt|Tonight I continue that report, though, because of the shortness of time, I must defer a number of subjects to a later date.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0005.pt|Recently the most notable public questions that have concerned us all
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0006.pt|have had to do with industry and labor and with respect to these, certain developments have taken place which I consider of importance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0007.pt|I am happy to report that after years of uncertainty, culminating in the collapse of the spring of nineteen thirty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0008.pt|we are bringing order out of the old chaos
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0009.pt|with a greater certainty of the employment of labor at a reasonable wage and of more business at a fair profit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0010.pt|These governmental and industrial developments hold promise of new achievements for the nation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0011.pt|Men may differ as to the particular form of governmental activity
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0012.pt|with respect to industry and business, but nearly all are agreed that private enterprise in times such as these
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0014.pt|but also our processes of civilization.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0015.pt|The underlying necessity for such activity
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0016.pt|is indeed as strong now as it was years ago when Elihu Root said the following very significant words:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0017.pt|Instead of the give and take of free individual contract,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0018.pt|the tremendous power of organization has combined great aggregations of capital in enormous industrial establishments
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0019.pt|working through vast agencies of commerce and employing great masses of men in movements of production
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0020.pt|and transportation and trade, so great in the mass that each individual concerned in them is quite helpless by himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0021.pt|The relations between the employer and the employed, between the owners of aggregated capital and the units of organized labor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0022.pt|between the small producer, the small trader, the consumer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0023.pt|and the great transporting and manufacturing and distributing agencies,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0024.pt|all present new questions for the solution of which the old reliance upon the free action of individual wills appears quite inadequate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0025.pt|And in many directions, the intervention of that organized control which we call government
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0026.pt|seems necessary to produce the same result of justice and right conduct
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0027.pt|which obtained through the attrition of individuals before the new conditions arose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0028.pt|It was in this spirit thus described by Secretary Root
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0029.pt|that we approached our task of reviving private enterprise in March, nineteen thirty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0030.pt|Our first problem was, of course, the banking situation because, as you know, the banks had collapsed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0031.pt|Some banks could not be saved but the great majority of them, either through their own resources or with government aid,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0032.pt|have been restored to complete public confidence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0033.pt|This has given safety to millions of depositors in these banks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0034.pt|Closely following this great constructive effort we have, through various federal agencies,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0035.pt|saved debtors and creditors alike in many other fields of enterprise, such as loans on farm mortgages and home mortgages;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0036.pt|loans to the railroads and insurance companies and, finally, help for home owners and industry itself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0037.pt|In all of these efforts the government has come to the assistance of business
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0038.pt|and with the full expectation that the money used to assist these enterprises will eventually be repaid.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0039.pt|I believe it will be.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0040.pt|The second step we have taken in the restoration of normal business enterprise
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0041.pt|has been to clean up thoroughly unwholesome conditions in the field of investment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0042.pt|In this we have had assistance from many bankers and businessmen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0043.pt|most of whom recognize the past evils in the banking system, in the sale of securities, in the deliberate encouragement of stock gambling,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0044.pt|in the sale of unsound mortgages and in many other ways in which the public lost billions of dollars.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0045.pt|They saw that without changes in the policies and methods of investment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0046.pt|there could be no recovery of public confidence in the security of savings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0047.pt|The country now enjoys the safety of bank savings under the new banking laws,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0048.pt|the careful checking of new securities under the Securities Act
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0049.pt|and the curtailment of rank stock speculation through the Securities Exchange Act.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0050.pt|I sincerely hope that as a result
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0051.pt|people will be discouraged in unhappy efforts to get rich quick by speculating in securities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0052.pt|The average person almost always loses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0053.pt|Only a very small minority of the people of this country believe in gambling as a substitute for the old philosophy of Benjamin Franklin
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0054.pt|that the way to wealth is through work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0055.pt|In meeting the problems of industrial recovery the chief agency of the government has been the National Recovery Administration.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0056.pt|Under its guidance, trades and industries covering over ninety percent of all industrial employees
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0057.pt|have adopted codes of fair competition, which have been approved by the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0058.pt|Under these codes, in the industries covered, child labor has been eliminated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0059.pt|The work day and the work week have been shortened.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0060.pt|Minimum wages have been established and other wages adjusted toward a rising standard of living.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0061.pt|The emergency purpose of the N.R.A. was to put men to work and since its creation more than four million persons have been reemployed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0062.pt|in great part through the cooperation of American business brought about under the codes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0063.pt|Benefits of the Industrial Recovery Program have come,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0064.pt|not only to labor in the form of new jobs, in relief from overwork and in relief from underpay,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0065.pt|but also to the owners and managers of industry because,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0066.pt|together with a great increase in the payrolls, there has come a substantial rise in the total of industrial profits
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0067.pt|a rise from a deficit figure in the first quarter of nineteen thirty-three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0068.pt|to a level of sustained profits within one year from the inauguration of N.R.A.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0069.pt|Now it should not be expected that even employed labor and capital would be completely satisfied with present conditions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0070.pt|Employed workers have not by any means all enjoyed a return to the earnings of prosperous times,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0071.pt|although millions of hitherto underprivileged workers are today far better paid than ever before.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0072.pt|Also, billions of dollars of invested capital have today a greater security of present and future earning power than before.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0073.pt|This is because of the establishment of fair, competitive standards and because of relief from unfair competition
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0074.pt|in wage cutting which depresses markets and destroys purchasing power.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0075.pt|But it is an undeniable fact that the restoration of other billions of sound investments to a reasonable earning power
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0076.pt|could not be brought about in one year.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0077.pt|There is no magic formula,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0078.pt|no economic panacea, which could simply revive over-night the heavy industries and the trades dependent upon them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0079.pt|Nevertheless the gains of trade and industry, as a whole, have been substantial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0080.pt|In these gains and in the policies of the administration there are assurances that hearten all forward- looking men and women
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0081.pt|with the confidence that we are definitely rebuilding our political and economic system on the lines laid down by the New Deal
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0082.pt|lines which as I have so often made clear, are in complete accord with the underlying principles of orderly popular government
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0083.pt|which Americans have demanded since the white man first came to these shores.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0084.pt|We count, in the future as in the past, on the driving power of individual initiative
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0085.pt|and the incentive of fair private profit,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0086.pt|strengthened with the acceptance of those obligations to the public interest which rest upon us all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0087.pt|We have the right to expect that this driving power will be given patriotically and whole-heartedly to our nation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0088.pt|We have passed through the formative period of code making in the National Recovery Administration
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0089.pt|and have effected a reorganization of the N.R.A.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0090.pt|suited to the needs of the next phase, which is, in turn, a period of preparation for legislation which will determine its permanent form.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0091.pt|In this recent reorganization we have recognized three distinct functions:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0092.pt|first, the legislative or policy making function;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0093.pt|second, the administrative function of code making and revision; and, third, the judicial function, which includes enforcement,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0094.pt|consumer complaints and the settlement of disputes between employers and employees and between one employer and another.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0095.pt|We are now prepared to move into this second phase, on the basis of our experience in the first phase
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0096.pt|under the able and energetic leadership of General Johnson.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0097.pt|we shall watch carefully the working of this new machinery for the second phase of N.R.A.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0098.pt|modifying it where it needs modification and finally making recommendations to the Congress,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0099.pt|in order that the functions of N.R.A. which have proved their worth may be made a part of the permanent machinery of government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0100.pt|Let me call your attention to the fact that the national Industrial Recovery Act
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0101.pt|gave businessmen the opportunity they had sought for years to improve business conditions through what has been called self-government in industry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0102.pt|If the codes which have been written have been too complicated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0103.pt|if they have gone too far in such matters as price fixing and limitation of production,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0104.pt|let it be remembered that so far as possible, consistent with the immediate public interest of this past year
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0105.pt|and the vital necessity of improving labor conditions,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0106.pt|the representatives of trade and industry were permitted to write their ideas into the codes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0107.pt|It is now time to review these actions as a whole to determine through deliberative means in the light of experience,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0108.pt|from the standpoint of the good of the industries themselves, as well as the general public interest,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0109.pt|whether the methods and policies adopted in the emergency
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0110.pt|have been best calculated to promote industrial recovery and a permanent improvement of business and labor conditions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0111.pt|There may be a serious question as to the wisdom of many of those devices to control production,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0112.pt|or to prevent destructive price cutting which many business organizations have insisted were necessary,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0113.pt|or whether their effect may have been to prevent that volume of production which would make possible lower prices and increased employment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0114.pt|Another question arises as to whether in fixing minimum wages on the basis of an hourly or weekly wage
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0115.pt|we have reached into the heart of the problem which is to provide such annual earnings for the lowest paid worker as will meet his minimum needs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0116.pt|We also question the wisdom of extending code requirements suited to the great industrial centers and to large employers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0117.pt|to the great number of small employers in the smaller communities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0118.pt|During the last twelve months our industrial recovery has been to some extent retarded by strikes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0119.pt|including a few of major importance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0120.pt|I would not minimize the inevitable losses to employers and employees and to the general public through such conflicts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0121.pt|But I would point out that the extent and severity of labor disputes during this period
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0122.pt|has been far less than in any previous, comparable period.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0123.pt|When the businessmen of the country were demanding the right to organize themselves adequately to promote their legitimate interests;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0124.pt|when the farmers were demanding legislation which would give them opportunities and incentives to organize themselves for a common advance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0125.pt|it was natural that the workers should seek and obtain a statutory declaration of their constitutional right
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0126.pt|to organize themselves for collective bargaining as embodied in Section seven (a) of the national Industrial Recovery Act.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0127.pt|Machinery set up by the federal government has provided some new methods of adjustment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0128.pt|Both employers and employees must share the blame of not using them as fully as they should.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0129.pt|The employer who turns away from impartial agencies of peace,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0130.pt|who denies freedom of organization to his employees, or fails to make every reasonable effort at a peaceful solution of their differences,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0131.pt|is not fully supporting the recovery effort of his government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0132.pt|The workers who turn away from these same impartial agencies and decline to use their good offices to gain their ends
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0133.pt|are likewise not fully cooperating with their government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0134.pt|It is time that we made a clean-cut effort to bring about that united action of management and labor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0135.pt|which is one of the high purposes of the Recovery Act.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0136.pt|We have passed through more than a year of education.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0137.pt|Step by step we have created all the government agencies necessary to insure, as a general rule, industrial peace,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0138.pt|with justice for all those willing to use these agencies whenever their voluntary bargaining fails to produce a necessary agreement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0139.pt|There should be at least a full and fair trial given to these means of ending industrial warfare;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0140.pt|and in such an effort we should be able to secure for employers and employees and consumers
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0141.pt|the benefits that all derive from the continuous, peaceful operation of our essential enterprises.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0142.pt|Accordingly, I propose to confer within the coming month
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0143.pt|with small groups of those truly representative of large employers of labor and of large groups of organized labor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0144.pt|in order to seek their cooperation in establishing what I may describe as a specific trial period of industrial peace.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0145.pt|From those willing to join in establishing this hoped-for period of peace,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0146.pt|I shall seek assurances of the making and maintenance of agreements, which can be mutually relied upon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0147.pt|under which wages, hours and working conditions
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0148.pt|may be determined and any later adjustments shall be made either by agreement or, in case of disagreement,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0149.pt|through the mediation or arbitration of state or federal agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0150.pt|I shall not ask either employers or employees permanently to lay aside the weapons common to industrial war.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0151.pt|But I shall ask both groups to give a fair trial to peaceful methods of adjusting their conflicts of opinion and interest,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0152.pt|and to experiment for a reasonable time with measures suitable to civilize our industrial civilization.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0153.pt|Closely allied to the N.R.A.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0154.pt|is the program of Public Works provided for in the same Act and designed to put more men back to work,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0155.pt|both directly on the public works themselves, and indirectly in the industries supplying the materials for these public works.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0156.pt|To those who say that our expenditures for public works and other means for recovery are a waste that we cannot afford,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0157.pt|I answer that no country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0158.pt|Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0159.pt|Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0160.pt|Some people try to tell me that we must make up our minds that for the future we shall permanently have millions of unemployed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0161.pt|just as other countries have had them for over a decade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0162.pt|What may be necessary for those countries is not my responsibility to determine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0163.pt|But as for this country, I stand or fall by my refusal to accept as a necessary condition of our future
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0164.pt|a permanent army of unemployed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0165.pt|On the contrary,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0166.pt|we must make it a national principle that we will not tolerate a large army of unemployed and that we will arrange our national economy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0167.pt|to end our present unemployment as soon as we can and then to take wise measures against its return.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0168.pt|I do not want to think that it is the destiny of any American to remain permanently on relief rolls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0169.pt|Those, fortunately few in number, who are frightened by boldness and cowed by the necessity for making decisions,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0170.pt|complain that all we have done is unnecessary and subject to great risks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0171.pt|Now that these people are coming out of their storm cellars, they forget that there ever was a storm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0172.pt|They point to England.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0173.pt|They would have you believe that England has made progress out of her depression by a do-nothing policy, by letting nature take her course.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0174.pt|England has her peculiarities and we have ours
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0175.pt|but I do not believe any intelligent observer can accuse England of undue orthodoxy in the present emergency.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0176.pt|Did England let nature take her course? No.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0177.pt|Did England hold to the gold standard when her reserves were threatened?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0178.pt|Has England gone back to the gold standard today?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0179.pt|Did England hesitate to call in ten billion dollars of her war bonds bearing five percent interest,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0180.pt|to issue new bonds therefore bearing only three and one half percent interest,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0181.pt|thereby saving the British treasury one hundred and fifty million dollars a year in interest alone?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0182.pt|And let it be recorded that the British bankers helped.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0183.pt|Is it not a fact that ever since the year nineteen oh nine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0184.pt|Great Britain in many ways has advanced further along lines of social security than the United States?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0185.pt|Is it not a fact that relations between capital and labor on the basis of collective bargaining are much further advanced in Great Britain
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0186.pt|than in the United States?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0187.pt|It is perhaps not strange that the conservative British press has told us with pardonable irony
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0188.pt|that much of our New Deal program is only an attempt to catch up with English reforms that go back ten years or more.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0189.pt|Nearly all Americans are sensible and calm people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0190.pt|We do not get greatly excited nor is our peace of mind disturbed, whether we be businessmen or workers or farmers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0191.pt|by awesome pronouncements concerning the unconstitutionality of some of our measures of recovery and relief and reform.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0192.pt|We are not frightened by reactionary lawyers or political editors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0193.pt|All of these cries have been heard before.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0194.pt|More than twenty years ago, when Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were attempting to correct abuses in our national life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0195.pt|the great Chief Justice White said:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0196.pt|There is great danger it seems to me to arise from the constant habit which prevails where anything is opposed or objected to,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0197.pt|of referring without rhyme or reason to the Constitution as a means of preventing its accomplishment, thus creating the general impression
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0198.pt|that the Constitution is but a barrier to progress instead of being the broad highway through which alone true progress may be enjoyed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0199.pt|In our efforts for recovery
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0200.pt|we have avoided on the one hand the theory that business should and must be taken over into an all-embracing government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0201.pt|We have avoided on the other hand
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0202.pt|the equally untenable theory that it is an interference with liberty to offer reasonable help when private enterprise is in need of help.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0203.pt|The course we have followed fits the American practice of government -- a practice of taking action step by step,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0204.pt|of regulating only to meet concrete needs -- a practice of courageous recognition of change.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0205.pt|I believe with Abraham Lincoln, that "The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0206.pt|whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot do so well for themselves in their separate and individual capacities."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0207.pt|I am not for a return to that definition of liberty under which for many years a free people were being gradually regimented
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0208.pt|into the service of the privileged few.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0209.pt|I prefer and I am sure you prefer that broader definition of liberty under which we are moving forward to greater freedom,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ021-0210.pt|to greater security for the average man than he has ever known before in the history of America.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0001.pt|The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by Franklin D Roosevelt, Section seven.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0002.pt|April twenty-eight, nineteen thirty-five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0003.pt|Since my annual message to the Congress on January fourth, last, I have not addressed the general public over the air.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0004.pt|In the many weeks since that time the Congress has devoted itself to the arduous task of formulating legislation necessary to the country's welfare.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0005.pt|It has made and is making distinct progress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0006.pt|Before I come to any of the specific measures, however, I want to leave in your minds one clear fact.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0007.pt|The administration and the Congress are not proceeding in any haphazard fashion in this task of government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0008.pt|Each of our steps has a definite relationship to every other step.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0009.pt|The job of creating a program for the nation's welfare is, in some respects, like the building of a ship.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0010.pt|At different points on the coast where I often visit they build great seagoing ships.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0011.pt|When one of these ships is under construction and the steel frames have been set in the keel,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0012.pt|it is difficult for a person who does not know ships to tell how it will finally look when it is sailing the high seas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0013.pt|It may seem confused to some, but out of the multitude of detailed parts that go into the making of the structure
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0014.pt|the creation of a useful instrument for man ultimately comes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0015.pt|It is that way with the making of a national policy. The objective of the nation has greatly changed in three years
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0016.pt|Before that time individual self- interest and group selfishness were paramount in public thinking.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0017.pt|The general good was at a discount.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0018.pt|Three years of hard thinking have changed the picture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0019.pt|More and more people,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0020.pt|cause of clearer thinking and a better understanding, are considering the whole rather than a mere part relating to one section or to one crop,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0021.pt|or to one industry, or to an individual private occupation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0022.pt|That is a tremendous gain for the principles of democracy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0023.pt|The overwhelming majority of people in this country know how to sift the wheat from the chaff in what they hear and what they read.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0024.pt|They know that the process of the constructive rebuilding of America cannot be done in a day or a year,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0025.pt|but that it is being done in spite of the few who seek to confuse them and to profit by their confusion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0026.pt|Americans as a whole are feeling a lot better -- a lot more cheerful than for many, many years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0027.pt|The most difficult place in the world to get a clear open perspective of the country as a whole is Washington.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0028.pt|I am reminded sometimes of what President Wilson once said:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0029.pt|So many people come to Washington who know things that are not so,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0030.pt|and so few people who know anything about what the people of the United States are thinking about.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0031.pt|That is why I occasionally leave this scene of action for a few days
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0032.pt|to go fishing or back home to Hyde Park, so that I can have a chance to think quietly about the country as a whole.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0033.pt|"To get away from the trees", as they say, "and to look at the whole forest."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0034.pt|This duty of seeing the country in a long-range perspective
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0035.pt|is one which, in a very special manner, attaches to this office to which you have chosen me.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0036.pt|Did you ever stop to think that there are, after all, only two positions in the nation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0037.pt|that are filled by the vote of all of the voters -- the President and the Vice-President?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0038.pt|That makes it particularly necessary for the Vice- President and for me to conceive of our duty toward the entire country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0039.pt|I speak, therefore, tonight, to and of the American people as a whole.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0040.pt|My most immediate concern is in carrying out the purposes of the great work program just enacted by the Congress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0041.pt|Its first objective is to put men and women now on the relief rolls to work and, incidentally,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0042.pt|to assist materially in our already unmistakable march toward recovery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0043.pt|I shall not confuse my discussion by a multitude of figures. So many figures are quoted to prove so many things.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0044.pt|Sometimes it depends upon what paper you read and what broadcast you hear.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0045.pt|Therefore, let us keep our minds on two or three simple, essential facts in connection with this problem of unemployment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0046.pt|It is true that while business and industry are definitely better our relief rolls are still too large.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0047.pt|However, for the first time in five years the relief rolls have declined instead of increased during the winter months.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0048.pt|They are still declining.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0049.pt|The simple fact is that many million more people have private work today than two years ago today or one year ago today,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0050.pt|and every day that passes offers more chances to work for those who want to work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0051.pt|In spite of the fact that unemployment remains a serious problem
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0052.pt|here as in every other nation, we have come to recognize the possibility and the necessity of certain helpful remedial measures.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0053.pt|These measures are of two kinds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0054.pt|The first is to make provisions intended to relieve, to minimize, and to prevent future unemployment;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0055.pt|the second is to establish the practical means to help those who are unemployed in this present emergency.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0056.pt|Our social security legislation is an attempt to answer the first of these questions; our Works Relief program, the second.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0057.pt|The program for social security now pending before the Congress is a necessary part of the future unemployment policy of the government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0058.pt|While our present and projected expenditures for work relief are wholly within the reasonable limits of our national credit resources,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0059.pt|it is obvious that we cannot continue to create governmental deficits for that purpose year after year.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0060.pt|We must begin now to make provision for the future.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0061.pt|That is why our social security program is an important part of the complete picture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0062.pt|It proposes, by means of old age pensions,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0063.pt|to help those who have reached the age of retirement to give up their jobs and thus give to the younger generation greater opportunities for work
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0064.pt|and to give to all a feeling of security as they look toward old age.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0065.pt|The unemployment insurance part of the legislation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0066.pt|will not only help to guard the individual in future periods of lay-off against dependence upon relief,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0067.pt|but it will, by sustaining purchasing power, cushion the shock of economic distress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0068.pt|Another helpful feature of unemployment insurance is the incentive it will give to employers to plan more carefully
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0069.pt|in order that unemployment may be prevented by the stabilizing of employment itself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0070.pt|Provisions for social security, however, are protections for the future.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0071.pt|Our responsibility for the immediate necessities of the unemployed has been met by the Congress
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0072.pt|through the most comprehensive work plan in the history of the nation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0073.pt|Our problem is to put to work three and one-half million employable persons now on the relief rolls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0074.pt|It is a problem quite as much for private industry as for the government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0075.pt|We are losing no time getting the government's vast work relief program underway,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0076.pt|and we have every reason to believe that it should be in full swing by autumn.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0077.pt|In directing it, I shall recognize six fundamental principles:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0078.pt|one. The projects should be useful.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0079.pt|Projects shall be of a nature that a considerable proportion of the money spent will go into wages for labor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0080.pt|Projects will be sought which promise ultimate return to the federal treasury of a considerable proportion of the costs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0081.pt|Funds allotted for each project should be actually and promptly spent and not held over until later years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0082.pt|In all cases projects must be of a character to give employment to those on the relief rolls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0083.pt|six. Projects will be allocated to localities or relief areas in relation to the number of workers on relief rolls in those areas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0084.pt|I next want to make it clear exactly how we shall direct the work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0085.pt|I have set up a Division of Applications and Information
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0086.pt|to which all proposals for the expenditure of money must go for preliminary study and consideration.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0087.pt|After the Division of Applications and Information has sifted those projects,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0088.pt|they will be sent to an Allotment Division composed of representatives of the more important governmental agencies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0089.pt|charged with carrying on work relief projects.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0090.pt|The group will also include representatives of cities, and of labor, farming, banking and industry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0091.pt|This Allotment Division will consider all of the recommendations submitted to it
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0092.pt|and such projects as they approve will be next submitted to the President who under the Act is required to make final allocations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0093.pt|The next step will be to notify the proper government agency
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0094.pt|in whose field the project falls, and also to notify another agency which I am creating -- a Progress Division.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0095.pt|This Division will have the duty of coordinating the purchases of materials and supplies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0096.pt|and of making certain that people who are employed will be taken from the relief rolls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0097.pt|It will also have the responsibility of determining work payments in various localities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0098.pt|of making full use of existing employment services and to assist people engaged in relief work
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0099.pt|to move as rapidly as possible back into private employment when such employment is available.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0100.pt|Moreover, this Division will be charged with keeping projects moving on schedule.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0101.pt|I have felt it to be essentially wise and prudent to avoid, so far as possible,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0102.pt|the creation of new governmental machinery for supervising this work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0103.pt|The national government now has at least sixty different agencies with the staff
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0104.pt|and the experience and the competence necessary to carry on the two hundred and fifty or three hundred kinds of work that will be undertaken.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0105.pt|These agencies, therefore, will simply be doing on a somewhat enlarged scale the same sort of things that they have been doing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0106.pt|This will make certain that the largest possible portion of the funds allotted
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0107.pt|will be spent for actually creating new work and not for building up expensive overhead organizations here in Washington.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0108.pt|For many months preparations have been under way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0109.pt|The allotment of funds for desirable projects has already begun.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0110.pt|The key men for the major responsibilities of this great task already have been selected.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0111.pt|I well realize that the country is expecting before this year is out to see the "dirt fly", as they say, in carrying on the work,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0112.pt|and I assure my fellow citizens that no energy will be spared in using these funds effectively
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0113.pt|to make a major attack upon the problem of unemployment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0114.pt|Our responsibility is to all of the people in this country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0115.pt|This is a great national crusade to destroy enforced idleness which is an enemy of the human spirit
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0116.pt|generated by this depression
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0117.pt|Our attack upon these enemies must be without stint and without discrimination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0118.pt|No sectional, no political distinctions can be permitted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0119.pt|It must, however, be recognized that when an enterprise of this character is extended over more than three thousand counties throughout the nation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0120.pt|there may be occasional instances of inefficiency, bad management, or misuse of funds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0121.pt|When cases of this kind occur,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0122.pt|there will be those, of course, who will try to tell you that the exceptional failure is characteristic of the entire endeavor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0123.pt|It should be remembered that in every big job there are some imperfections.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0124.pt|There are chiselers in every walk of life; there are those in every industry who are guilty of unfair practices;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0125.pt|every profession has its black sheep, but long experience in government has taught me
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0126.pt|that the exceptional instances of wrong-doing in government are probably less numerous than in almost every other line of endeavor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0127.pt|The most effective means of preventing such evils in this Works Relief program will be the eternal vigilance of the American people themselves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0128.pt|I call upon my fellow citizens everywhere to cooperate with me
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0129.pt|in making this the most efficient and the cleanest example of public enterprise the world has ever seen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0130.pt|It is time to provide a smashing answer for those cynical men who say that a democracy cannot be honest and efficient.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0131.pt|If you will help, this can be done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0132.pt|I, therefore, hope you will watch the work in every corner of this Nation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0133.pt|Feel free to criticize. Tell me of instances where work can be done better, or where improper practices prevail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0134.pt|Neither you nor I want criticism conceived in a purely fault-finding or partisan spirit,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0135.pt|but I am jealous of the right of every citizen to call to the attention of his or her government
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0136.pt|examples of how the public money can be more effectively spent for the benefit of the American people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0137.pt|I now come, my friends, to a part of the remaining business before the Congress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0138.pt|It has under consideration many measures which provide for the rounding out of the program of economic and social reconstruction
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0139.pt|with which we have been concerned for two years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0140.pt|I can mention only a few of them tonight, but I do not want my mention of specific measures
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0141.pt|to be interpreted as lack of interest in or disapproval of many other important proposals that are pending.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0142.pt|The National Industrial Recovery Act expires on the sixteenth of June.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0143.pt|After careful consideration, I have asked the Congress to extend the life of this useful agency of government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0144.pt|As we have proceeded with the administration of this Act,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0145.pt|we have found from time to time more and more useful ways of promoting its purposes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0146.pt|No reasonable person wants to abandon our present gains
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0147.pt|we must continue to protect children,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0148.pt|to enforce minimum wages, to prevent excessive hours,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0149.pt|to safeguard, define and enforce collective bargaining, and, while retaining fair competition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0150.pt|to eliminate so far as humanly possible, the kinds of unfair practices by selfish minorities which unfortunately
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0151.pt|did more than anything else to bring about the recent collapse of industries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0152.pt|There is likewise pending before the Congress
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0153.pt|legislation to provide for the elimination of unnecessary holding companies in the public utility field.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0154.pt|I consider this legislation a positive recovery measure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0155.pt|Power production in this country is virtually back to the nineteen twenty-nine peak.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0156.pt|The operating companies in the gas and electric utility field are by and large in good condition, but
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0157.pt|under holding company domination the utility industry has long been hopelessly at war within itself and with public sentiment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0158.pt|By far the greater part of the general decline in utility securities had occurred before I was inaugurated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0159.pt|The absentee management of unnecessary holding company control
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0160.pt|has lost touch with, and has lost the sympathy of, the communities it pretends to serve.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0161.pt|Even more significantly it has given the country as a whole an uneasy apprehension of overconcentrated economic power.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0162.pt|A business that loses the confidence of its customers and the goodwill of the public cannot long continue to be a good risk for the investor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0163.pt|This legislation will serve the investor by ending the conditions which have caused that lack of confidence and goodwill.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0164.pt|It will put the public utility operating industry on a sound basis for the future,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0165.pt|both in its public relations and in its internal relations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0166.pt|This legislation will not only in the long run result in providing lower electric and gas rates to the consumer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0167.pt|but it will protect the actual value and earning power of properties now owned by thousands of investors
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0168.pt|who have little protection under the old laws against what used to be called frenzied finance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0169.pt|It will not destroy values.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0170.pt|Not only business recovery, but the general economic recovery of the nation will be greatly stimulated by the enactment of legislation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0171.pt|designed to improve the status of our transportation agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0172.pt|There is need for legislation providing for the regulation of interstate transportation by buses and trucks,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0173.pt|for the regulation of transportation by water, for the strengthening of our Merchant Marine and Air Transport,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0174.pt|for the strengthening of the Interstate Commerce Commission to enable it to carry out a rounded conception of the national transportation system
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0175.pt|in which the benefits of private ownership are retained while the public stake in these important services is protected by the public's government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0176.pt|Finally, the reestablishment of public confidence in the banks of the nation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0177.pt|is one of the most hopeful results of our efforts as a Nation to reestablish public confidence in private banking.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0178.pt|We all know that private banking actually exists by virtue of the permission of and regulation by the people as a whole,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0179.pt|speaking through their government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0180.pt|Wise public policy, however, requires not only that banking be safe
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0181.pt|but that its resources be most fully utilized in the economic life of the country
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0182.pt|To this end it was decided more than twenty years ago
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0183.pt|that the government should assume the responsibility of providing a means by which the credit of the nation might be controlled,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0184.pt|not by a few private banking institutions, but by a body with public prestige and authority.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0185.pt|The answer to this demand was the Federal Reserve System.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0186.pt|Twenty years of experience with this system have justified the efforts made to create it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0187.pt|but these twenty years have shown by experience definite possibilities for improvement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0188.pt|Certain proposals made to amend the Federal Reserve Act deserve prompt and favorable action by the Congress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0189.pt|They are a minimum of wise readjustments of our Federal Reserve System in the light of past experience and present needs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0190.pt|These measures I have mentioned are, in large part, the program which under my constitutional duty I have recommended to the Congress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0191.pt|They are essential factors in a rounded program for national recovery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0192.pt|They contemplate the enrichment of our national life
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0193.pt|by a sound and rational ordering of its various elements and wise provisions for the protection of the weak against the strong.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0194.pt|Never since my inauguration in March, nineteen thirty-three, have I felt so unmistakably the atmosphere of recovery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0195.pt|But it is more than the recovery of the material basis of our individual lives.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0196.pt|It is the recovery of confidence in our democratic processes and institutions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0197.pt|We have survived all of the arduous burdens and the threatening dangers of a great economic calamity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0198.pt|We have in the darkest moments of our national trials retained our faith in our own ability to master our destiny.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0199.pt|Fear is vanishing and confidence is growing on every side,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0200.pt|renewed faith in the vast possibilities of human beings to improve their material and spiritual status
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0201.pt|through the instrumentality of the democratic form of government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0202.pt|That faith is receiving its just reward.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ022-0203.pt|For that we can be thankful to the God who watches over America.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0001.pt|The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by Franklin D Roosevelt, Section nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0002.pt|March nine, nineteen thirty-seven. Part one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0003.pt|Last Thursday I described in detail certain economic problems which everyone admits now face the nation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0004.pt|For the many messages which have come to me after that speech, and which it is physically impossible to answer individually,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0005.pt|I take this means of saying "thank you."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0006.pt|Tonight, sitting at my desk in the White House, I make my first radio report to the people in my second term of office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0007.pt|I am reminded of that evening in March, four years ago, when I made my first radio report to you.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0008.pt|We were then in the midst of the great banking crisis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0009.pt|Soon after, with the authority of the Congress,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0010.pt|we asked the nation to turn over all of its privately held gold, dollar for dollar, to the government of the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0011.pt|Today's recovery proves how right that policy was.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0012.pt|But when, almost two years later, it came before the Supreme Court its constitutionality was upheld only by a five-to-four vote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0013.pt|The change of one vote would have thrown all the affairs of this great Nation back into hopeless chaos.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0014.pt|In effect, four Justices ruled that the right under a private contract
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0015.pt|to exact a pound of flesh was more sacred than the main objectives of the Constitution to establish an enduring Nation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0016.pt|In nineteen thirty-three you and I knew that we must never let our economic system get completely out of joint again
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0017.pt|that we could not afford to take the risk of another great depression.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0018.pt|We also became convinced that the only way to avoid a repetition of those dark days was to have a government with power to prevent
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0019.pt|and to cure the abuses and the inequalities which had thrown that system out of joint.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0020.pt|We then began a program of remedying those abuses and inequalities -- to give balance and stability to our economic system
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0021.pt|to make it bomb-proof against the causes of nineteen twenty-nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0022.pt|Today we are only part-way through that program
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0023.pt|and recovery is speeding up to a point where the dangers of nineteen twenty-nine are again becoming possible,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0024.pt|not this week or month perhaps, but within a year or two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0025.pt|National laws are needed to complete that program.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0026.pt|Individual or local or state effort alone cannot protect us in nineteen thirty-seven any better than ten years ago.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0027.pt|It will take time -- and plenty of time -- to work out our remedies administratively even after legislation is passed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0028.pt|To complete our program of protection in time, therefore,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0029.pt|we cannot delay one moment in making certain that our national government has power to carry through.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0030.pt|Four years ago action did not come until the eleventh hour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0031.pt|It was almost too late.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0032.pt|If we learned anything from the depression
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0033.pt|we will not allow ourselves to run around in new circles of futile discussion and debate, always postponing the day of decision.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0034.pt|The American people have learned from the depression.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0035.pt|For in the last three national elections
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0036.pt|an overwhelming majority of them voted a mandate that the Congress and the President begin the task of providing that protection
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0037.pt|not after long years of debate, but now.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0038.pt|The courts, however, have cast doubts on the ability of the elected Congress to protect us against catastrophe
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0039.pt|by meeting squarely our modern social and economic conditions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0040.pt|We are at a crisis in our ability to proceed with that protection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0041.pt|It is a quiet crisis. There are no lines of depositors outside closed banks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0042.pt|But to the far-sighted it is far-reaching in its possibilities of injury to America.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0043.pt|I want to talk with you very simply about the need for present action in this crisis
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0044.pt|the need to meet the unanswered challenge of one-third of a Nation ill-nourished, ill-clad, ill-housed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0045.pt|Last Thursday I described the American form of government as a three horse team provided by the Constitution to the American people
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0046.pt|so that their field might be plowed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0047.pt|The three horses are, of course, the three branches of government -- the Congress, the Executive and the courts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0048.pt|Two of the horses are pulling in unison today; the third is not.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0049.pt|Those who have intimated that the President of the United States is trying to drive that team
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0050.pt|overlook the simple fact that the President, as Chief Executive, is himself one of the three horses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0051.pt|It is the American people themselves who are in the driver's seat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0052.pt|It is the American people themselves who want the furrow plowed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0053.pt|It is the American people themselves who expect the third horse to pull in unison with the other two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0054.pt|I hope that you have re-read the Constitution of the United States in these past few weeks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0055.pt|Like the Bible, it ought to be read again and again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0056.pt|It is an easy document to understand when you remember that it was called into being
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0057.pt|because the Articles of Confederation under which the original thirteen States tried to operate after the Revolution
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0058.pt|showed the need of a national government with power enough to handle national problems.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0059.pt|In its Preamble, the Constitution states that it was intended to form a more perfect Union and promote the general welfare;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0060.pt|and the powers given to the Congress to carry out those purposes can be best described by saying
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0061.pt|that they were all the powers needed to meet each and every problem which then had a national character
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0062.pt|and which could not be met by merely local action.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0063.pt|But the framers went further.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0064.pt|Having in mind that in succeeding generations many other problems then undreamed of would become national problems
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0065.pt|they gave to the Congress the ample broad powers "to levy taxes
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0066.pt|and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0067.pt|That, my friends, is what I honestly believe
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0068.pt|to have been the clear and underlying purpose of the patriots who wrote a federal constitution to create a national government
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0069.pt|with national power, intended as they said, "to form a more perfect union
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0070.pt|for ourselves and our posterity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0071.pt|For nearly twenty years there was no conflict between the Congress and the Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0072.pt|Congress passed a statute which, in eighteen oh three, the Court said violated an express provision of the Constitution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0073.pt|The Court claimed the power to declare it unconstitutional and did so declare it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0074.pt|But a little later the Court itself admitted
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0075.pt|that it was an extraordinary power to exercise and through Mr. Justice Washington laid down this limitation upon it:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0076.pt|It is but a decent respect due to the wisdom, the integrity and the patriotism of the legislative body,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0077.pt|by which any law is passed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0078.pt|to presume in favor of its validity until its violation of the Constitution is proved beyond all reasonable doubt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0079.pt|But since the rise of the modern movement for social and economic progress through legislation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0080.pt|the Court has more and more often and more and more boldly
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0081.pt|asserted a power to veto laws passed by the Congress and state legislatures in complete disregard of this original limitation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0082.pt|In the last four years the sound rule of giving statutes the benefit of all reasonable doubt has been cast aside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0083.pt|The Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0084.pt|When the Congress has sought to stabilize national agriculture, to improve the conditions of labor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0085.pt|to safeguard business against unfair competition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0086.pt|to protect our national resources, and in many other ways, to serve our clearly national needs,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0087.pt|the majority of the Court has been assuming the power to pass on the wisdom of these acts of the Congress
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0088.pt|and to approve or disapprove the public policy written into these laws.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0089.pt|That is not only my accusation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0090.pt|It is the accusation of most distinguished justices of the present Supreme Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0091.pt|I have not the time to quote to you all the language used by dissenting justices in many of these cases.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0092.pt|But in the case holding the Railroad Retirement Act unconstitutional, for instance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0093.pt|Chief Justice Hughes said in a dissenting opinion that the majority opinion was "a departure from sound principles,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0094.pt|and placed "an unwarranted limitation upon the commerce clause."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0095.pt|And three other justices agreed with him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0096.pt|In the case of holding the A.A.A. unconstitutional,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0097.pt|Justice Stone said of the majority opinion that it was a "tortured construction of the Constitution."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0098.pt|And two other justices agreed with him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0099.pt|In the case holding the New York Minimum Wage Law unconstitutional, Justice Stone said
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0100.pt|that the majority were actually reading into the Constitution their own "personal economic predilections," and that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0101.pt|if the legislative power is not left free to choose the methods of solving the problems of poverty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0102.pt|subsistence, and health of large numbers in the community, then
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0103.pt|government is to be rendered impotent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0104.pt|And two other justices agreed with him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0105.pt|In the face of these dissenting opinions, there is no basis for the claim made by some members of the Court
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0106.pt|that something in the Constitution has compelled them regretfully to thwart the will of the people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0107.pt|In the face of such dissenting opinions, it is perfectly clear that, as Chief Justice Hughes has said,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0108.pt|We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0109.pt|The Court in addition to the proper use of its judicial functions has improperly set itself up as a third house of the Congress
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0110.pt|a super-legislature, as one of the justices has called it
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0111.pt|reading into the Constitution words and implications which are not there, and which were never intended to be there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0112.pt|We have, therefore,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0113.pt|reached the point as a nation where we must take action to save the Constitution from the Court and the Court from itself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0114.pt|We must find a way to take an appeal from the Supreme Court to the Constitution itself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0115.pt|We want a Supreme Court which will do justice under the Constitution -- not over it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0116.pt|In our courts we want a government of laws and not of men.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0117.pt|I want -- as all Americans want -- an independent judiciary as proposed by the framers of the Constitution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0118.pt|That means a Supreme Court that will enforce the Constitution as written
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0119.pt|that will refuse to amend the Constitution by the arbitrary exercise of judicial power -- amended by judicial say-so.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0120.pt|It does not mean a judiciary so independent that it can deny the existence of facts which are universally recognized.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0121.pt|How then could we proceed to perform the mandate given us?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0122.pt|It was said in last year's Democratic platform,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0123.pt|If these problems cannot be effectively solved within the Constitution,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0124.pt|we shall seek such clarifying amendment as will assure the power to enact those laws,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0125.pt|adequately to regulate commerce, protect public health and safety, and safeguard economic security.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0126.pt|In other words, we said we would seek an amendment only if every other possible means by legislation were to fail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0127.pt|When I commenced to review the situation with the problem squarely before me,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0128.pt|I came by a process of elimination to the conclusion that, short of amendments,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0129.pt|the only method which was clearly constitutional, and would at the same time carry out other much needed reforms,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0130.pt|was to infuse new blood into all our courts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0131.pt|We must have men worthy and equipped to carry out impartial justice.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0132.pt|But, at the same time, we must have judges who will bring to the courts a present-day sense of the Constitution
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0133.pt|judges who will retain in the courts the judicial functions of a court,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0134.pt|and reject the legislative powers which the courts have today assumed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0135.pt|In forty-five out of the forty-eight states of the Union, judges are chosen not for life but for a period of years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0136.pt|In many states judges must retire at the age of seventy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0137.pt|Congress has provided financial security
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0138.pt|by offering life pensions at full pay for federal judges on all courts who are willing to retire at seventy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0139.pt|In the case of Supreme Court justices, that pension is twenty thousand dollars a year.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0140.pt|But all federal judges, once appointed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ023-0141.pt|can, if they choose, hold office for life, no matter how old they may get to be.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0001.pt|The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, by Franklin D Roosevelt
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0002.pt|Section ten. March nine, nineteen thirty-seven. Part two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0003.pt|What is my proposal?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0004.pt|It is simply this: whenever a judge or justice of any federal court
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0005.pt|has reached the age of seventy and does not avail himself of the opportunity to retire on a pension,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0006.pt|a new member shall be appointed by the President then in office,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0007.pt|with the approval, as required by the Constitution, of the Senate of the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0008.pt|That plan has two chief purposes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0009.pt|By bringing into the judicial system a steady and continuing stream of new and younger blood, I hope, first,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0010.pt|to make the administration of all federal justice speedier and, therefore, less costly;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0011.pt|secondly, to bring to the decision of social and economic problems younger men who have had personal experience and contact
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0012.pt|with modern facts and circumstances under which average men have to live and work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0013.pt|This plan will save our national Constitution from hardening of the judicial arteries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0014.pt|The number of judges to be appointed would depend wholly on the decision of present judges now over seventy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0015.pt|or those who would subsequently reach the age of seventy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0016.pt|If, for instance, any one of the six justices of the Supreme Court now over the age of seventy should retire as provided under the plan,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0017.pt|no additional place would be created.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0018.pt|Consequently, although there never can be more than fifteen, there may be only fourteen, or thirteen, or twelve.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0019.pt|And there may be only nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0020.pt|There is nothing novel or radical about this idea.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0021.pt|It seeks to maintain the federal bench in full vigor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0022.pt|It has been discussed and approved by many persons of high authority
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0023.pt|ever since a similar proposal passed the House of Representatives in eighteen sixty-nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0024.pt|Why was the age fixed at seventy?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0025.pt|Because the laws of many states, the practice of the Civil Service, the regulations of the Army and Navy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0026.pt|and the rules of many of our universities and of almost every great private business enterprise,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0027.pt|commonly fix the retirement age at seventy years or less.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0028.pt|The statute would apply to all the courts in the federal system.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0029.pt|There is general approval so far as the lower federal courts are concerned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0030.pt|The plan has met opposition only so far as the Supreme Court of the United States itself is concerned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0031.pt|If such a plan is good for the lower courts it certainly ought to be equally good for the highest court from which there is no appeal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0032.pt|Those opposing this plan have sought to arouse prejudice and fear by crying that I am seeking to "pack" the Supreme Court
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0033.pt|and that a baneful precedent will be established.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0034.pt|What do they mean by the words "packing the Court"?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0035.pt|Let me answer this question with a bluntness that will end all honest misunderstanding of my purposes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0036.pt|If by that phrase "packing the Court" it is charged that I wish to place on the bench spineless puppets
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0037.pt|who would disregard the law and would decide specific cases as I wished them to be decided, I make this answer:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0038.pt|that no President fit for his office would appoint,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0039.pt|and no Senate of honorable men fit for their office would confirm, that kind of appointees to the Supreme Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0040.pt|But if by that phrase the charge is made
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0041.pt|that I would appoint and the Senate would confirm justices worthy to sit beside present members of the Court
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0042.pt|who understand those modern conditions,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0043.pt|that I will appoint justices who will not undertake to override the judgment of the Congress on legislative policy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0044.pt|that I will appoint justices who will act as justices and not as legislators
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0045.pt|if the appointment of such justices can be called "packing the Courts,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0046.pt|then I say that I and with me the vast majority of the American people favor doing just that thing -- now.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0047.pt|Is it a dangerous precedent for the Congress to change the number of the justices? The Congress has always had, and will have, that power.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0048.pt|The number of justices has been changed several times before,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0049.pt|in the administration of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson -- both signers of the Declaration of Independence
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0050.pt|Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0051.pt|I suggest only the addition of justices to the bench
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0052.pt|in accordance with a clearly defined principle relating to a clearly defined age limit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0053.pt|Fundamentally, if in the future, America cannot trust the Congress it elects to refrain from abuse of our Constitutional usages
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0054.pt|democracy will have failed far beyond the importance to it of any king of precedent concerning the judiciary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0055.pt|We think it so much in the public interest to maintain a vigorous judiciary
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0056.pt|that we encourage the retirement of elderly judges by offering them a life pension at full salary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0057.pt|Why then should we leave the fulfillment of this public policy to chance
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0058.pt|or make independent on upon the desire or prejudice of any individual justice?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0059.pt|It is the clear intention of our public policy to provide for a constant flow of new and younger blood into the judiciary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0060.pt|Normally every President appoints a large number of district and circuit court judges and a few members of the Supreme Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0061.pt|Until my first term practically every President of the United States has appointed at least one member of the Supreme Court.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0062.pt|President Taft appointed five members and named a Chief Justice;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0063.pt|President Wilson, three; President Harding, four, including a Chief Justice; President Coolidge, one;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0064.pt|President Hoover, three, including a Chief Justice.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0065.pt|Such a succession of appointments should have provided a Court well-balanced as to age.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0066.pt|But chance and the disinclination of individuals to leave the Supreme bench
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0067.pt|have now given us a Court in which five justices will be over seventy-five years of age before next June
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0068.pt|and one over seventy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0069.pt|Thus a sound public policy has been defeated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0070.pt|I now propose that we establish by law an assurance against any such ill-balanced court in the future.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0071.pt|I propose that hereafter, when a judge reaches the age of seventy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0072.pt|a new and younger judge shall be added to the court automatically.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0073.pt|In this way I propose to enforce a sound public policy by law
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0074.pt|instead of leaving the composition of our federal courts, including the highest,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0075.pt|to be determined by chance or the personal indecision of individuals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0076.pt|If such a law as I propose is regarded as establishing a new precedent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0077.pt|is it not a most desirable precedent?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0078.pt|Like all lawyers, like all Americans, I regret the necessity of this controversy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0079.pt|But the welfare of the United States, and indeed of the Constitution itself, is what we all must think about first.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0080.pt|Our difficulty with the Court today rises not from the Court as an institution but from human beings within it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0081.pt|But we cannot yield our constitutional destiny to the personal judgment of a few men who, being fearful of the future,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0082.pt|would deny us the necessary means of dealing with the present.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0083.pt|This plan of mine is no attack on the Court;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0084.pt|it seeks to restore the Court to its rightful and historic place in our constitutional government
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0085.pt|and to have it resume its high task of building anew on the Constitution "a system of living law."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0086.pt|The Court itself can best undo what the Court has done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0087.pt|I have thus explained to you the reasons that lie behind our efforts to secure results by legislation within the Constitution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0088.pt|I hope that thereby the difficult process of constitutional amendment may be rendered unnecessary. But,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0089.pt|let us examine the process.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0090.pt|There are many types of amendment proposed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0091.pt|Each one is radically different from the other.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0092.pt|There is no substantial groups within the Congress or outside it who are agreed on any single amendment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0093.pt|It would take months or years to get substantial agreement upon the type and language of the amendment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0094.pt|It would take months and years thereafter to get a two-thirds majority in favor of that amendment in both Houses of the Congress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0095.pt|Then would come the long course of ratification by three-fourths of all the states.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0096.pt|No amendment which any powerful economic interests or the leaders of any powerful political party have had reason to oppose
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0097.pt|has ever been ratified within anything like a reasonable time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0098.pt|And thirteen states which contain only five percent of the voting population can block ratification
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0099.pt|even though the thirty- five states with ninety-five percent of the population are in favor of it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0100.pt|A very large percentage of newspaper publishers, Chambers of Commerce,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0101.pt|Bar Association, Manufacturers' Associations, who are trying to give the impression that they really do want a constitutional amendment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0102.pt|would be the first to exclaim as soon as an amendment was proposed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0103.pt|Oh! I was for an amendment all right, but this amendment you proposed is not the kind of amendment that I was thinking about.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0104.pt|I am therefore, going to spend my time, my efforts and my money
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0105.pt|to block the amendment, although I would be awfully glad to help get some other kind of amendment ratified.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0106.pt|Two groups oppose my plan on the ground that they favor a constitutional amendment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0107.pt|The first includes those who fundamentally object to social and economic legislation along modern lines.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0108.pt|This is the same group who during the campaign last Fall tried to block the mandate of the people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0109.pt|Now they are making a last stand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0110.pt|And the strategy of that last stand is to suggest the time-consuming process of amendment in order to kill off by delay
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0111.pt|the legislation demanded by the mandate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0112.pt|To them I say: I do not think you will be able long to fool the American people as to your purposes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0113.pt|The other groups is composed of those who honestly believe the amendment process is the best
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0114.pt|and who would be willing to support a reasonable amendment if they could agree on one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0115.pt|To them I say: we cannot rely on an amendment as the immediate or only answer to our present difficulties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0116.pt|When the time comes for action,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0117.pt|you will find that many of those who pretend to support you will sabotage any constructive amendment which is proposed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0118.pt|Look at these strange bed-fellows of yours.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0119.pt|When before have you found them really at your side in your fights for progress?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0120.pt|And remember one thing more.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0121.pt|Even if an amendment were passed, and even if in the years to come it were to be ratified,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0122.pt|its meaning would depend upon the kind of justices who would be sitting on the Supreme Court bench.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0123.pt|An amendment, like the rest of the Constitution,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0124.pt|is what the justices say it is rather than what its framers or you might hope it is.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0125.pt|This proposal of mine will not infringe in the slightest upon the civil or religious liberties so dear to every American.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0126.pt|My record as Governor and President proves my devotion to those liberties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0127.pt|You who know me can have no fear that I would tolerate the destruction by any branch of government of any part of our heritage of freedom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0128.pt|The present attempt by those opposed to progress to play upon the fears of danger to personal liberty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0129.pt|brings again to mind that crude and cruel strategy tried by the same opposition
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0130.pt|to frighten the workers of America in a pay-envelope propaganda against the Social Security Law.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0131.pt|The workers were not fooled by that propaganda then. The people of America will not be fooled by such propaganda now.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0132.pt|I am in favor of action through legislation:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0133.pt|First, because I believe that it can be passed at this session of the Congress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0134.pt|Second, because it will provide a reinvigorated
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0135.pt|liberal-minded judiciary necessary to furnish quicker and cheaper justice from bottom to top.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0136.pt|Third, because it will provide a series of federal courts willing to enforce the Constitution as written,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0137.pt|and unwilling to assert legislative powers by writing into it their own political and economic policies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0138.pt|During the past half century the balance of power between the three great branches of the federal government,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0139.pt|has been tipped out of balance by the courts in direct contradiction of the high purposes of the framers of the Constitution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0140.pt|It is my purpose to restore that balance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0141.pt|You who know me will accept my solemn assurance that in a world in which democracy is under attack,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0142.pt|I seek to make American democracy succeed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ024-0143.pt|You and I will do our part.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0001.pt|The Science: History of the Universe, Volume five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0002.pt|Edited by Francis Rolt-Wheeler. Biology. Chapter seven. Organic Functions. Part One.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0003.pt|The facts dealing with the physiology of organisms, the activities associated with that which we call life
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0004.pt|are often designated Organic Functions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0005.pt|The terms animal physiology, plant physiology and human physiology are in common use and often suggest to the lay reader
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0006.pt|that the functions or workings of the organs of plants, animals or man are quite distinct,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0007.pt|so much so as to require discussion in different treatises.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0008.pt|This is true only as a matter of detail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0009.pt|for in the past fifty years it has been made evident that in general principles all living things are fundamentally similar.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0010.pt|One of the most important summaries of this similarity
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0011.pt|is Huxley's famous essay, "The Border Territory Between the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms," written in eighteen seventy-six,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0012.pt|extracts from which follow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0013.pt|In the second edition of the "Regne Animal," published in eighteen twenty-eight,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0014.pt|Cuvier devotes a special section to the Division of Organized Beings into Animals and Vegetables,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0015.pt|in which the question is treated with that comprehensiveness of knowledge and clear critical judgment which characterize his writings
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0016.pt|and justify biologists in regarding them as representative expressions of the most extensive, if not the profoundest, knowledge of his time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0017.pt|He affirms that living beings have been subdivided from the earliest times into animated beings, which possess sense and motion,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0018.pt|and inanimated beings, which are devoid of these functions and simply vegetable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0019.pt|Although the roots of plants direct themselves toward moisture and their leaves toward air and light,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0020.pt|although the parts of some plants exhibit oscillating movements without any perceptible cause and the leaves of others retract when touched,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0021.pt|yet none of these movements justify the ascription to plants of perception of will.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0022.pt|From the mobility of animals Cuvier, with his characteristic partiality for teleological reasoning,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0023.pt|reduces the necessity of the existence in them of an alimentary cavity, or reservoir of food,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0024.pt|whence their nutrition may be drawn by vessels, which are a sort of internal roots; and, in the presence of this alimentary cavity
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0025.pt|he naturally sees the primary and the most important distinction between animals and plants,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0026.pt|Following out his teleological argument, Cuvier remarks that the organization of this cavity
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0027.pt|and its appurtenances must needs vary according to the nature of the aliment and the operations which it has to undergo
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0028.pt|before it can be converted into substances fitted for absorption,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0029.pt|while the atmosphere and the earth supply plants with juices ready prepared and which can be absorbed immediately.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0030.pt|As the animal body required to be independent of heat and of the atmosphere,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0031.pt|there were no means by which the motion of its fluids could be produced by internal causes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0032.pt|Hence arose the second great distinctive character of animals, or the circulatory system, which is less important than the digestive,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0033.pt|since it was unnecessary, and therefore is absent, in the more simple animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0034.pt|Animals further needed muscles for locomotion and nerves for sensibility.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0035.pt|Hence, says Cuvier, it was necessary that the chemical composition of the animal body should be more complicated than that of the plant;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0036.pt|and it is so, inasmuch as an additional substance -- nitrogen -- enters into it as an essential element;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0037.pt|while in plants nitrogen is only accidentally joined with the three other fundamental constituents of organic beings
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0038.pt|carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0039.pt|he afterward affirms that nitrogen is peculiar to animals, and herein he places the third distinction between the animal and the plant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0040.pt|The soil and the atmosphere supply plants with water composed of hydrogen and oxygen
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0041.pt|and carbonic acid containing carbon and oxygen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0042.pt|They retain the hydrogen and the carbon, exhale the superfluous oxygen and absorb little or no nitrogen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0043.pt|The essential character of vegetable life is the exhalation of oxygen, which is effected through the agency of light.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0044.pt|Animals, on the contrary, derive their nourishment either directly or indirectly from plants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0045.pt|They get rid of the superfluous hydrogen and carbon and accumulate nitrogen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0046.pt|The relations of plants and animals to the atmosphere are therefore inverse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0047.pt|The plant withdraws water and carbonic acid from the atmosphere, the animal contributes both to it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0048.pt|Respiration -- that is, the absorption of oxygen and the exhalation of carbonic acid
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0049.pt|is the specially animal function of animals and constitutes their fourth distinctive character.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0050.pt|Thus wrote Cuvier in eighteen twenty-eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0051.pt|But in the fourth and fifth decades of this century
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0052.pt|the greatest and most rapid revolution which biological science has ever undergone was effected by the application of the modern microscope
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0053.pt|to the investigation of organic structure,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0054.pt|by the introduction of exact and easily manageable methods of conducting the chemical analysis of organic compounds and finally
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0055.pt|by the employment of instruments of precision for the measurement of the physical forces which are at work in the living economy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0056.pt|That the semi-fluid contents (which we now term protoplasm) of the cells of certain plants,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0057.pt|such as the Charae, are in constant and regular motion was made out by Bonaventura Corti a century ago;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0058.pt|but the fact, important as it was, fell into oblivion and had to be rediscovered by Treviranus in eighteen oh seven.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0059.pt|Robert Brown noted the more complex motions of the protoplasm in the cells of Tradescantia in eighteen thirty-one,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0060.pt|and now such movements of the living substance of plants are well known to be some of the most widely prevalent phenomena of vegetable life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0061.pt|Agardh and other of the botanists of Cuvier's generation who occupied themselves with the lower plants had observed that,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0062.pt|under particular circumstances, the contents of the cells of certain water-weeds were set free and moved about with considerable velocity
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0063.pt|and with all the appearances of spontaneity as locomotive bodies,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0064.pt|which, from their similarity to animals of simple organization, were called "zoospores."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0065.pt|Even as late as eighteen forty-five, however, a botanist of Schleiden's eminence dealt very skeptically with these statements,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0066.pt|and his skepticism was the more justified since Ehrenberg in his elaborate and comprehensive work on the infusoria,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0067.pt|had declared the greater number of what are now recognized as locomotive plants to be animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0068.pt|"At the present day," writes Huxley,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0069.pt|innumerable plants and free plant cells are known to pass the whole or part of their lives in an actively locomotive condition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0070.pt|in nowise distinguishable from that of one of the simpler animals, and
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0071.pt|while in this condition their movements are, to all appearances, as spontaneous -- as much the product of volition -- as those of such animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0072.pt|Hence the teleological argument for Cuvier's first diagnostic character
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0073.pt|the presence in animals of an alimentary cavity, or internal pocket, in which they can carry about their nutriment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0074.pt|has broken down, so far, at least, as his mode of stating it goes. And
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0075.pt|with the advance of microscopic anatomy, the universality of the fact itself among animals has ceased to be predicable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0076.pt|Many animals of even complex structure which live parasitically within others are wholly devoid of an alimentary cavity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0077.pt|Their food is provided for them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0078.pt|not only ready cooked but ready digested, and the alimentary canal, become superfluous, has disappeared, and, again,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0079.pt|the males of most Rotifers have no digestive apparatus.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0080.pt|Finally amid the lowest forms of animal life the speck of gelatinous protoplasm, which constitutes the whole body,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0081.pt|has no permanent digestive cavity or mouth, but takes in its food anywhere and digests, so to speak, all over its body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0082.pt|But although Cuvier's leading diagnosis of the animal from the plant will not stand a strict test,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0083.pt|it remains one of the most constant of the distinctive characters of animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0084.pt|And if we substitute for the possession of an alimentary cavity the power of taking solid nutriment into the body and there digesting it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0085.pt|the definition so changed will cover all animals, except certain parasites,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0086.pt|and the few and exceptional cases of non-parasitic animals which do not feed at all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0087.pt|On the other hand, the definition thus amended will exclude all ordinary vegetable organisms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0088.pt|Cuvier himself practically gives up his second distinctive mark when he admits that it is wanting in the simpler animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0089.pt|The third distinction is based on a completely erroneous conception of the chemical differences
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0090.pt|and resemblances between the constituents of animal and vegetable organisms, for which Cuvier is not responsible,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0091.pt|as it was current among contemporary chemists.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0092.pt|It is now established that nitrogen is as essential a constituent of vegetable as of animal living matter
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0093.pt|and that the latter is, chemically speaking, just as complicated as the former.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0094.pt|Starchy substances, cellulose and sugar,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0095.pt|once supposed to be exclusively confined to plants, are now known to be regular and normal products of animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0096.pt|Amylaceous and saccharine substances are largely manufactured, even by the highest animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0097.pt|Cellulose is widespread as a constituent of the skeletons of the lower animals
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0098.pt|and it is probable that amyloid substances are universally present in the animal organism, though not in the precise form of starch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0099.pt|Moreover, although it remains true that there is an inverse relation between the green plant in sunshine and the animal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0100.pt|in so far as under these circumstances the green plant
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0101.pt|decomposes carbonic acid and exhales oxygen while the animal absorbs oxygen and exhales carbonic acid,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0102.pt|yet the exact researches of the modern chemical investigators of the physiological processes of plants have clearly demonstrated the fallacy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0103.pt|of attempting to draw any general distinction between animals and vegetables on this ground. In fact, the difference vanishes with the sunshine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0104.pt|even in the case of the green plant, which in the dark absorbs oxygen and gives out carbonic acid like any animal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0105.pt|On the other hand, those plants, such as the fungi,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0106.pt|which contain no chlorophyll and are not green, are always, so far as respiration is concerned, in the exact position of animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0107.pt|They absorb oxygen and give out carbonic acid.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0108.pt|Thus, by the progress of knowledge, Cuvier's fourth distinction between the animal and the plant
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0109.pt|has been as completely invalidated as the third and second, and even the first can be retained only in a modified form
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0110.pt|and subject to exceptions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0111.pt|But has the advance of biology simply tended to break down old distinctions without establishing new ones?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0112.pt|With a qualification, to be considered presently, the answer to this question is undoubtedly in the affirmative.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0113.pt|The famous researches of Schwann and Schleiden in eighteen thirty-seven and the following years
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0114.pt|founded the modern science of histology or that branch of anatomy which deals with the ultimate visible structure of organisms as revealed by the microscope,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0115.pt|and from that day to this the rapid improvement of methods of investigation and the energy of a host of accurate observers
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0116.pt|have given greater and greater breadth and firmness to Schwann's great generalization
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0117.pt|that a fundamental unity of structure obtains in animals and plants,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0118.pt|and that, however diverse may be the fabrics or tissues of which their bodies are composed, all these varied structures result
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0119.pt|from the metamorphosis of morphological units (termed cells in a more general sense than that in which the word "cells" was at first employed),
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0120.pt|which are not only similar in animals and in plants respectively,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0121.pt|but present a close resemblance when those of animals and those of plants are compared together.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0122.pt|The contractility which is the fundamental condition of locomotion," continues Huxley,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0123.pt|has not only been discovered to exist far more widely among plants than was formerly imagined,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0124.pt|but in the plants the act of contraction has been found to be accompanied,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0125.pt|as Dr. Burdon Sanderson's interesting investigations have shown, by a disturbance of the electrical state of the contractile substance
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0126.pt|comparable to that which was found by Du Bois Reymond to be a concomitant of the activity of ordinary muscle in animals. Again,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0127.pt|I know of no test by which the reaction of the leaves of the Sundew and of other plants to stimuli, so fully and carefully studied by Mr. Darwin,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0128.pt|can be distinguished from those acts of contraction following upon stimuli, which are called "reflex" in animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0129.pt|On each lobe of the bi-lobed leaf of Venus flytrap are three delicate filaments which stand out at right angles from the surface of the leaf.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0130.pt|Touch one of them with the end of a fine human hair
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0131.pt|and the lobes of the leaf instantly close together in virtue of an act of contraction of part of their substance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0132.pt|just as the body of a snail contracts into its shell when one of its "horns" is irritated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0133.pt|The reflex action of the snail is the result of the presence of a nervous system in the animal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0134.pt|A molecular change takes place in the nerve of the tentacle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0135.pt|is propagated to the muscles by which the body is retracted, and causing them to contract, the act of retraction is brought about.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0136.pt|Of course the similarity of the acts does not necessarily involve the conclusion that the mechanism by which they are effected is the same
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0137.pt|but it suggests a suspicion of their identity which needs careful testing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0138.pt|The results of inquiries into the structure of the nervous system of animals
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0139.pt|converge toward the conclusion that the nerve fibers, which have been regarded as ultimate elements of nervous tissue,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0140.pt|are not such, but are simply the visible aggregations of vastly more attenuated filaments,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0141.pt|the diameter of which dwindles down to the limits of our present microscopic vision,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0142.pt|greatly as these have been extended by modern improvements of the microscope, and that a nerve is, in its essence,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0143.pt|nothing but a linear tract of specially modified protoplasm between two points of an organism
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0144.pt|one of which is able to affect the other by means of the communication so established.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0145.pt|Hence it is conceivable that even the simplest living being may possess a nervous system.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0146.pt|And the question whether plants are provided with a nervous system or not thus acquires a new aspect and presents the histologist and physiologist
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0147.pt|with a problem of extreme difficulty, which must be attacked from a new point of view and by the aid of methods which have yet to be invented.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0148.pt|"Thus it must be admitted," he says again, "that plants may be contractile and locomotive;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0149.pt|that, while locomotive, their movements may have as much appearance of spontaneity as those of the lowest animals,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0150.pt|and that many exhibit actions comparable to those which are brought about by the agency of a nervous system in animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0151.pt|And it must be allowed to be possible that further research may reveal the existence of something comparable to a nervous system in plants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0152.pt|So that I know not where we can hope to find any absolute distinction between animals and plants, unless we return to their mode of nutrition
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0153.pt|and inquire whether certain differences of a more occult character than those imagined to exist by Cuvier,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0154.pt|and which certainly hold good for the vast majority of animals and plants, are of universal application.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0155.pt|A bean may be supplied with water in which salts of ammonia and certain other mineral salts are dissolved in due proportion,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0156.pt|with atmospheric air containing its ordinary minute dose of carbonic acid and with nothing else but sunlight and heat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0157.pt|Under these circumstances, unnatural as they are, with proper management, the bean will thrust forth its radicle and its plumule;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0158.pt|the former will grow down into roots, the latter grow up into the stem and leaves of a vigorous bean-plant,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0159.pt|and this plant will, in due time, flower and produce its crop of beans just as if it were grown in the garden or in the field.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0160.pt|The weight of the nitrogenous protein compounds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0161.pt|of the oily, starchy, saccharine and woody substances contained in the full-grown plant and its seeds
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0162.pt|will be vastly greater than the weight of the same substances contained in the bean from which it sprang.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0163.pt|But nothing has been supplied to the bean save water, carbonic acid, ammonia, potash, lime,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0164.pt|iron and the like in combination with phosphoric, sulphuric and other acids.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0165.pt|Neither protein, nor fat, nor starch, nor sugar, nor any substance in the slightest degree resembling them has formed part of the food of the bean.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0166.pt|But the weights of the carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and other elementary bodies contained in the bean-plant
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0167.pt|and in the seeds which it produces are exactly equivalent to the weights of the same elements which have disappeared from the materials supplied to the bean during its growth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0168.pt|Whence it follows that the bean has taken in only the raw materials of its fabric and has manufactured them into bean-stuffs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0169.pt|The bean has been able to perform this great chemical feat by the help of its green coloring matter, or chlorophyll,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0170.pt|for it is only the green parts of the plant which, under the influence of sunlight, have the marvelous power of decomposing carbonic acid,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0171.pt|setting free the oxygen and laying hold of the carbon which it contains.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0172.pt|In fact, the bean obtains two of the absolutely indispensable elements of its substance from two distinct sources.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0173.pt|The watery solution, in which its roots are plunged, contains nitrogen but no carbon;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0174.pt|the air, to which the leaves are exposed, contains carbon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0175.pt|but its nitrogen is in the state of a free gas, in which condition the bean can make no use of it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ025-0176.pt|and the chlorophyll is the apparatus by which the carbon is extracted from the atmospheric carbonic acid, the leaves being the chief laboratories
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0001.pt|The Science: History of the Universe, Volume five. Edited by Francis Rolt-Wheeler. Biology. Chapter eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0002.pt|Life Processes. Part One.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0003.pt|Nutrition thus, as has been pointed out, makes it possible to classify most organisms as animals or plants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0004.pt|Yet there are many unicellular forms in which both kinds of nutrition go on at the same time;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0005.pt|that is, the forms may possess a mouth for the ingestion of solid food and green coloring matter, chlorophyll,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0006.pt|for the manufacture of starchy food from gaseous matter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0007.pt|Many of the lowest forms of life have long been puzzles
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0008.pt|and the beginner in biological study is surprised to find them described in textbooks of both botany and zoology.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0009.pt|The fact is that they are on the border line, are neither plants nor animals but simply organisms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0010.pt|Since they cannot be classified, it is necessary that they be listed both under botany and zoology, in order to make sure that they will not be omitted entirely.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0011.pt|Because of these uncertain forms of life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0012.pt|Haeckel proposed once to include all one-celled animals and plants in a third kingdom to be called Protista (meaning the first of all life).
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0013.pt|Parker's definition of animals and plants,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0014.pt|based on the foregoing considerations, is convenient for distinguishing between animals and plants in all cases except the doubtful unicellar forms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0015.pt|He says: Animals are organisms of fixed and definite form, in which the cell-body is not covered with a cellulose wall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0016.pt|They ingest solid proteinaceous food,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0017.pt|their nutritive processes result in oxidation, they have a definite organ of excretion and are capable of automatic movement
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0018.pt|Plants are organisms of constantly varying form in which the cell body is surrounded by a cellulose wall;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0019.pt|they cannot ingest solid food, but are nourished by a watery solution of nutrient materials.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0020.pt|If chlorophyll is present, the carbon dioxide of the air serves as a source of carbon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0021.pt|nitrogen is obtained from simple salts and the nutritive processes result in deoxidation;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0022.pt|if chlorophyll is absent, carbon is obtained from sugar or some similar compound,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0023.pt|nitrogen either from simple salts or from proteids, and the process of nutrition is one of oxidation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0024.pt|There is no special excretory organ, and, except in the case of certain reproductive bodies, there is usually no locomotion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0025.pt|The important point to recognize is that these boundaries are artificial and that there are no scientific frontiers in Nature.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0026.pt|As in the liquefaction of gases, there is a "critical point" at which the substance under experiment is neither gaseous nor liquid.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0027.pt|as in a mountainous country, it is impossible to say where mountain ends and valley begins; as in the development of an animal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0028.pt|it is futile to argue about the exact period when, for instance, the egg becomes a tadpole or the tadpole a frog,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0029.pt|so in the case under discussion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0030.pt|The distinction between the higher plants and animals is perfectly sharp and obvious,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0031.pt|but when the two groups are traced downward they are found gradually to merge,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0032.pt|as it were, into an assemblage of organisms which partake of the characters of both kingdoms and cannot without a certain violence
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0033.pt|be either included in or excluded from either.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0034.pt|When any given "protist" has to be classified the case must be decided on its individual merits;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0035.pt|the organism must be compared in detail with all those which resemble it closely in structure, physiology and life history,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0036.pt|and then a balance must be struck and the doubtful form placed in the kingdom with which it has, on the whole, most points in common.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0037.pt|It will no doubt occur to the reader that, on the theory of evolution,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0038.pt|the fact of the animal and vegetable kingdoms being related to one another like two trees united at the roots may be accounted for by the hypothesis that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0039.pt|the earliest organisms were protists and that from them animals and plants were evolved along divergent lines of descent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0040.pt|And in this connection the fact that some bacteria -- the simplest organisms known and devoid of chlorophyll
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0041.pt|may flourish in solutions wholly devoid of organic matter is very significant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0042.pt|The lower plants and animals referred to above are so far from everyday observation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0043.pt|and hence so unfamiliar that to most people the comparison made will mean little in terms of ordinary green flowering plants and common vertebrate animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0044.pt|In order to emphasize the fundamental similarity of organic function in higher and lower animals and plants, let us compare any higher plant
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0045.pt|e.g., a bean plant with a higher animal, e.g., frog or even man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0046.pt|In each the life is the sum total of a series of definite processes -- nutrition or food supply,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0047.pt|circulation, metabolism, excretion, oxygenation (part of respiration),
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0048.pt|movement, irritability (nervous activity) and reproduction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0049.pt|In turn these will be compared for the animal and the plant,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0050.pt|following in part the comparisons of certain animals and plants by Sedgwick and Wilson and others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0051.pt|These comparisons will, however, be translated into terms applicable to any species of higher plants or animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0052.pt|In the nutrition of the animal the most essential and characteristic part of the food supply is derived from vegetable
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0053.pt|or animal matter in the form of various organic compounds, of which the most important are proteids (protoplasm, albumen, etc.),
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0054.pt|carbohydrates (starch, cellulose) and fats.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0055.pt|These materials are used by the animal in the manufacture of new protoplasm to take the place of that which has been used up.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0056.pt|It is, however, impossible for the animal to build these materials directly into the substance of its own body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0057.pt|They must first undergo certain preparatory chemical changes known collectively as digestion
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0058.pt|and only after the completion of this process can all the food be absorbed into the circulation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0059.pt|For this purpose the food is taken not into the body proper, but into a kind of tubular chemical laboratory; called the alimentary canal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0060.pt|through which it slowly passes, being subjected meanwhile to the action of certain chemical substances or reagents, known as digestive ferments.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0061.pt|These substances, which are dissolved in a watery liquid to form the digestive fluid, are secreted by the walls of the alimentary tube.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0062.pt|Through their action the solid portions are liquefied and the food is rendered capable of absorption into the body proper.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0063.pt|The food supply of the higher plant, like that of the animal, is the source of the required matter and energy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0064.pt|but unlike that of the animal, it is not chiefly an income of foods, but only of the raw materials of food.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0065.pt|Matter enters the plant in the liquid or gaseous form by diffusion,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0066.pt|both from the soil through the roots (liquids) and from the atmosphere through the leaves (gases).
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0067.pt|We have here the direct absorption into the body proper of food-stuffs precisely as the animal takes in water and oxygen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0068.pt|Energy enters the plant, to a small extent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0069.pt|as the potential energy of foodstuffs, but comes in principally as the kinetic energy of sunlight absorbed in the leaves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0070.pt|Of the substances the solids (salts, etc.) must be dissolved in water before they can be taken in.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0071.pt|Water and dissolved salts continually pass by diffusion from the soil into the roots, where together they constitute the sap.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0072.pt|The sap travels throughout the whole plant, the main though not the only cause of movement
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0073.pt|being the constant transpiration (evaporation) of watery vapor from the leaves, especially through the stomata.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0074.pt|The gaseous matters (carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen) enter the plant mainly by diffusion from the atmosphere,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0075.pt|are dissolved by the sap in the leaves and elsewhere and thus may pass to every portion of the plant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0076.pt|The green plant owes its power of absorbing the energy of sunlight
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0077.pt|to the chlorophyll bodies or chromatophores, for plants which, like fungi, etc., are devoid of chlorophyll, are unable thus to acquire energy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0078.pt|Entering the chlorophyll bodies, the kinetic energy of sunlight is applied to the decomposition of carbon dioxide and water.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0079.pt|After passing through manifold but imperfectly known processes, the elements of these substances finally reappear as starch,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0080.pt|often in the form of granules embedded in the chlorophyll bodies and free oxygen, most of which is returned to the atmosphere.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0081.pt|Thus the leaf of a green plant in the light is continually absorbing carbon dioxide and giving forth free oxygen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0082.pt|Carbon dioxide and water contain no potential energy, since the affinities of their constituent elements are completely satisfied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0083.pt|Starch, however, contains potential energy, since the molecule is relatively unstable
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0084.pt|i.e., capable of decomposition into simpler, stabler molecules in which stronger affinities are satisfied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0085.pt|And this is due to the fact that in the manufacture of starch in the chlorophyll bodies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0086.pt|the kinetic energy of sunlight was expended in lifting the atoms into position of vantage, thus endowing them with energy of position.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0087.pt|In this way some of the radiant and kinetic energy of the sun comes to be stored up as potential energy in the starch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0088.pt|In short, the green plant is able by cooperation with sunlight to use simple raw materials (carbon dioxide, water, oxygen, etc.)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0089.pt|poor in energy or devoid of it, and out of them to manufacture food -- i.e. complex compounds rich in available potential energy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0090.pt|This power is possessed by green plants alone; all other organisms being dependent for energy upon the potential energy of ready-made food.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0091.pt|This must, in the first instance, be provided for them by green plants, and hence without chlorophyll-bearing plants,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0092.pt|animals (and colorless plants as well) apparently could not long exist.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0093.pt|The plant absorbs also a small amount of kinetic energy, independently of the sunlight, in the form of heat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0094.pt|This, however, is probably not a source of vital energy, but only contributes to the maintenance of the body temperature.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0095.pt|Food (starch) thus produced in the green leaves of higher plants and the inorganic foods
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0096.pt|water, nitrites or nitrates and various mineral substances in solution in water
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0097.pt|furnish the materials and energy required for the life and growth of the plant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0098.pt|The circulatory system distributes these foods. In animals foods prepared for absorption in the stomach and intestine (by digestion)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0099.pt|are absorbed by the circulating liquids (blood and lymph) and transported to all cells of the animal body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0100.pt|In the plant the inorganic matter in water from the soil are absorbed by the roots and carried up definite tubes in the woody part of the stem.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0101.pt|The causes of this ascent are not clear,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0102.pt|but root pressure due to osmosis, capillary action and evaporation from the leaves are factors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0103.pt|Just as the solid food of animals must be digested in preparation for absorption,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0104.pt|so starch manufactured in the leaves must be digested (dissolved) before it can be transported.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0105.pt|This is done by diastase, an enzyme of plant cells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0106.pt|The change is from starch to a sugar capable of diffusion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0107.pt|Dissolved in water, the sugar is transported down delicate tubes, chiefly in the growing bark region of the stem.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0108.pt|It is clear that there are upward and downward currents of water containing food (comparable to blood of an animal),
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0109.pt|but no system of complete circulation as in the blood vessels of a higher animal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0110.pt|However, the result in distributed food is the same in the plant and in the animal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0111.pt|In the cells the foods undergo metabolic changes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0112.pt|In an animal the foods in the circulating liquids, blood and lymph, are selected and absorbed by the cells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0113.pt|Only proteid foods form new protoplasm
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0114.pt|and even of proteids only a limited amount, seventy-five to one hundred grams a day for a man, is built into new protoplasm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0115.pt|The excess undergoes oxidation and forms nitrogen excretions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0116.pt|The foods containing only the elements carbon, hydrogen and oxygen (fats and carbohydrates)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0117.pt|are directly oxidized to excretions and, lacking nitrogen, cannot serve for making new animal protoplasm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0118.pt|Fat and carbohydrate foods, then, never become living matter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0119.pt|They may be stored, especially as fat, until needed for oxidation to supply energy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0120.pt|The building up of the protoplasm from proteids is anabolism, constructive metabolism.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0121.pt|The destruction of protoplasm, excess proteids or the fat and carbohydrate foods is catabolism, destructive metabolism.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0122.pt|Catabolism is probably due to enzyme action, but the final result is chiefly carbon dioxide and water,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0123.pt|which could be derived by the ordinary chemical evolution of protoplasm, proteid, sugar, starch or fats.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0124.pt|In the plant, starch, as has been seen, is first formed in the chlorophyll-bodies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0125.pt|But the formation of starch, all important as it is, is after all only the manufacture of food
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0126.pt|as a preliminary to the real processes of nutrition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0127.pt|These processes must take place everywhere in ordinary protoplasm,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0128.pt|for it is here that oxidation occurs and the need for a renewal of matter and energy consequently arises.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0129.pt|Sooner or later the starch grains are changed into a kind of sugar (glucose), which, unlike starch, dissolves in the sap
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0130.pt|and may thus be easily transported to all parts of the plant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0131.pt|Wherever there is need for new protoplasm, whether to repair previous waste or to supply materials for growth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0132.pt|after absorption into the cells the elements of the starch (or glucose) are, by the living protoplasm, in some unknown way
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0133.pt|combined with nitrogen and sulphur (probably also with salts, water, etc.) to form proteid matter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0134.pt|The particles of this newly formed compound are incorporated into the protoplasm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0135.pt|If a larger quantity of starch is formed in the chlorophyll bodies than is immediately needed by the protoplasm for purposes of repair or growth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0136.pt|it may be reconverted into starch after journeying as glucose through the plant
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0137.pt|and be laid down as "reserve starch" in the cells of root or stem or elsewhere.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0138.pt|Apparently when this reserve supply is finally needed at any point in the plant, it is again changed to glucose and transported thither.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0139.pt|It is probable that new leaves and new tissues generally are always formed in part from this reserve starch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0140.pt|In the plant as in the animal metabolism must consist of anabolic and catabolic processes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0141.pt|The construction in the cells of new proteid from the absorbed carbohydrate and the materials from the soil is true anabolism.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0142.pt|It is also clear that catabolism or oxidation for the liberation of energy occurs as in animals, but this process is slower.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0143.pt|Probably foods containing carbon, hydrogen and oxygen are the sources of energy in the higher plants as in animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0144.pt|In both plants and animals simple waste substances result from the catabolic processes in the cells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0145.pt|In the animal carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen compounds are the chief excretions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0146.pt|They are absorbed by the circulating liquids and carried to the eliminating organs, lungs and kidneys chiefly, for elimination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0147.pt|In the higher plants the excretions are carbon dioxide, which escapes through the epidermis of root, stem and leaf and through the stomata;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0148.pt|water which is lost by evaporation, especially from the leaf surface through the stomata;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0149.pt|excretions which are lost by osmosis through the roots and the accumulated but useless mineral substances which are eliminated by leaf fall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0150.pt|In both animals and plants oxygen is essential to the catabolic part of metabolism.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0151.pt|Hence oxygen must be supplied to the cells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0152.pt|Oxygenation is the term used to denote the oxygen-supplying part of respiration;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0153.pt|the other part of respiration, elimination of carbon dioxide, has been treated under excretions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0154.pt|In the animal oxygen is absorbed by the blood, in excess by the hemoglobin of the red cells of the blood
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0155.pt|and later is absorbed from the blood and lymph by all the living cells.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0156.pt|In the plant also oxygen is absorbed through the epidermis and stomata from the air.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0157.pt|This process is, however, obscured during the day because of the oxygen freed in the manufacture of starch which goes on at that time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0158.pt|Probably this freed oxygen is used for the purpose of oxygenation, but more is freed in the photosynthetic process than is needed for oxygenation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0159.pt|and hence the excess oxygen is eliminated while starch manufacture is in process.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0160.pt|In comparing a higher animal and a green plant confusion must be avoided regarding the part played by oxygen and carbon dioxide in true respiration
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0161.pt|with the part played by the same substances in starch formation (photosynthesis).
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0162.pt|In non-green plants like the Indian pipe and mushrooms the breathing of oxygen and the excretion of carbon dioxide are as in the animal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0163.pt|This is true also of green plants in darkness and even in the light of all parts of green plants except the chlorophyll-bodies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0164.pt|These constitute a sort of extra mechanism, enabling green plants to make their own carbohydrate food.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0165.pt|Imagine a higher animal with an attachment for turning the carbon dioxide and water excreted
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ026-0166.pt|back to starch usable as food and the comparison of the green plant and the animal would be complete.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0001.pt|The Science: History of the Universe, Volume five. Edited by Francis Rolt-Wheeler.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0002.pt|Biology. Chapter ten. Morphology and Embryology, Part One.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0003.pt|The facts of biology which admit of adequate explanation only in connection with the theory of descent
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0004.pt|are grouped by Romanes and other writers on organic evolution under the heads of morphology, embryology, classification,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0005.pt|paleontology, distribution and domestication.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0006.pt|In all these lines the facts are drawn together by a strong thread of unity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0007.pt|There are numberless similarities and correlations and surprising uniformities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0008.pt|The great variety of life as exhibited in the countless species of plants and animals has been referred to, and yet, great as this variety is,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0009.pt|there are, after all, only a few types of structure among all animals and plants, some three or four or eight or ten general modes of development,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0010.pt|and all the rest are modifications from these few types.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0011.pt|It is, moreover, true that all living forms are but series of modifications and extensions of one single plan of structure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0012.pt|All have the same ultimate substance
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0013.pt|the mysterious semi-fluid network of protoplasm, which is, so far as is known, the physical basis of all life;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0014.pt|and the equally mysterious nuclear substance or chromatin
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0015.pt|which in some fashion presides over all the movements of the protoplasm and is the physical basis of the phenomena of heredity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0016.pt|The same laws of heredity, variability and of response to outside stimulus hold in all parts of the organic world.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0017.pt|All organisms have the same need of reproduction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0018.pt|All are forced to make concession after concession to their surroundings, and in these concessions all progress in life consists.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0019.pt|And at last each organism or each alliance of organisms must come to the greatest concession of all, which is called death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0020.pt|The unity in life, then, is not less a fact than is life's great diversity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0021.pt|Whatever emphasis is laid upon the diversity of life, the essential unity of all organisms must not be forgotten.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0022.pt|An examination of the facts in each of the lines of evidence makes it clear
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0023.pt|that the only reasonable explanation for the existence of a fundamental unity in organic life
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0024.pt|is the theory of descent -- i.e., that similarities are due to blood relationship and that differences come from adaptive modifications.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0025.pt|The facts adduced from morphology, being the result of researches into the structure of adult animals and plants,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0026.pt|lead to a preview of certain principles of adaptation, necessary for their interpretation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0027.pt|First, it must be noted that some structures are not non-adaptive, that is, do not change to fit changed habits or conditions of life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0028.pt|Such structures or organs are most often found internally.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0029.pt|For illustration: a change in the locomotive habit of a bird from that of flying to that of an ostrich
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0030.pt|is associated with an adaptive modification of locomotor structures, legs and wings,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0031.pt|but not in any striking way is there change in the internal organs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0032.pt|Internal organs may persist unchanged and hence they offer good guides to classification.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0033.pt|On the other hand, external structures are likely to undergo adaptation when habits or conditions of life change.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0034.pt|Hence, as Jordan has said, "the inside of an animal tells the real history of its ancestry; the outside tells us only where its ancestors have been."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0035.pt|In the second place, it must be noted that adaptations to similar conditions may result in superficial resemblances.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0036.pt|For example, there is a superficial resemblance between the wing of an insect and the wing of a bird
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0037.pt|both adaptations to an aerial environment;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0038.pt|between the heart of an insect and the heart of a vertebrate animal
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0039.pt|both adaptations for pumping blood;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0040.pt|between the fin of a fish and the paddle of a whale
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0041.pt|both adaptive swimming organs, yet the resemblance in these cases does not go deeper than the surface -- it is one of function only.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0042.pt|All such cases of resemblance in function but not in detailed plan of structure are called "analogies,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0043.pt|and mean nothing more than similarity of environment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0044.pt|Turning to more fundamental resemblances, such as the wing of a bat and the wing of a bird,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0045.pt|careful study shows detailed internal as well as external similarities of structure. Such cases are "homologies".
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0046.pt|On the one hand, then, are found structures which are perfectly analogous and yet in no way homologous:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0047.pt|totally different structures are modified to perform the same functions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0048.pt|On the other hand are found structures which are perfectly homologous and yet in no way analogous:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0049.pt|the structural elements remain, but are profoundly modified to perform totally different functions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0050.pt|Homology thus means identity of structure which is the result of identity of parentage. It is the stamp of heredity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0051.pt|It means blood relationship.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0052.pt|These principles of homology are essential to a correct interpretation of the facts of morphology.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0053.pt|The most striking fact of similar structure among plants and among animals is the existence of a common general plan in any group.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0054.pt|Since backboned animals are best known to most readers, they may be taken as an illustration.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0055.pt|"All vertebrate animals, and none other," says Le Conte, "have an internal jointed skeleton worked by muscles on the outside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0056.pt|The relation of skeleton and muscle in arthropods is exactly the reverse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0057.pt|In all vertebrates, and in none other, the axis of this skeleton is a jointed backbone (vertebral column)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0058.pt|enclosing and protecting the nervous centers (cerebrospinal axis).
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0059.pt|These, therefore, may well be called backboned animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0060.pt|All vertebrates, and none other, have a number of their anterior vertebral joints enlarged and consolidated into a box to form the skull,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0061.pt|in order to enclose and protect a similar enlargement of the nervous center,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0062.pt|viz., the brain; and also usually, but not always, a number of posterior joints,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0063.pt|enlarged and consolidated to form the pelvis, to serve as a firm support to the hind-limbs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0064.pt|All vertebrates, and none other, have two cavities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0065.pt|enclosed and protected by the skeleton, viz., the neural cavity above, and the visceral or body cavity below, the vertebral column.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0066.pt|All vertebrates, with few exceptions, and no other animals, have two and only two pair of limbs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0067.pt|The exceptions are of two kinds, viz.: (a) some lowest fishes, amphioxus and lampreys,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0068.pt|which probably represent the vertebrate condition before limbs were acquired;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0069.pt|and (b) degenerate forms like snakes and some lizards, which have lost their limbs by disuse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0070.pt|So much concerns the general plan of skeletal structures and is strongly suggestive of -- in fact it is inexplicable without -- common origin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0071.pt|But much more remains which is not only suggestive, but demonstrative of such origin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0072.pt|By extensive comparison in the taxonomic and ontogenic series, the whole vertebrate structure in all its details in different animals
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0073.pt|may be shown to be modifications one of another.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0074.pt|Sometimes a piece is enlarged, sometimes diminished, or even becomes obsolete; sometimes several pieces are consolidated into one;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0075.pt|but, in spite of all these obscurations, corresponding parts usually may be made out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0076.pt|These remarkable similarities in the common general plan alone are convincing evidences of descent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0077.pt|but attention may be called to a like similarity extending to the details of structure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0078.pt|For example: the wings of a bat (a mammal), a bird and a fossil flying reptile all show the same bones adaptively modified;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0079.pt|a series of either fore or hind limbs of a mammal with one toe (horse),
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0080.pt|two toes (sheep), four toes (hog) and five toes (dog)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0081.pt|exhibit a remarkable series of homologies pointing to a five-toed ancestor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0082.pt|and any other series of organs of vertebrates would give the same evidence of fundamental resemblances (homologies).
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0083.pt|For such a series of facts the reader must be referred to special books like Wiedersheim's "Comparative Anatomy of the Vertebrates,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0084.pt|Romanes's "Darwin and After Darwin", and Le Conte's "Evolution."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0085.pt|The existence of great similarities in vertebrate structure is not always fully recognized.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0086.pt|To the superficial observer the bodies of animals of different classes seem to differ fundamentally in plan,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0087.pt|to be entirely different machines, made each for its own purposes, at once, out of hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0088.pt|Extensive comparison, on the contrary, shows them to be the same, although the essential identity is obscured by adaptive modifications.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0089.pt|The simplest, in fact the only scientific, explanation of the phenomena of vertebrate structure is the idea of a primal vertebrate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0090.pt|modified more and more through successive generations by the necessities of different modes of life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0091.pt|See, then, the difference between man's mode of working and Nature's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0092.pt|A man having made a steam-engine, and desiring to use it for a different purpose from that for which it was first designed and used,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0093.pt|will nearly always be compelled to add new parts not contemplated in the original machine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0094.pt|Nature rarely makes new parts -- never, if she can avoid it -- but, on the contrary, adapts an old part to the new function.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0095.pt|It is as if Nature were not free to use any and every device to accomplish her end, but were conditioned by her own plans of structure;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0096.pt|as, indeed, she must be according to the derivation theory.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0097.pt|Thus, in the fin of a fish, the fore-paw of a reptile or a mammal, the wing of a bird, and the arm and hand of a man
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0098.pt|is found the same part, variously modified for many purposes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0099.pt|Another striking class of the facts of morphology which admit of scientific explanation only along the line of homology
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0100.pt|are the thousands of cases of rudimentary or vestigial structures to be found.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0101.pt|Throughout both the animal and vegetable kingdoms dwarfed and useless representatives of organs are constantly met with,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0102.pt|which in other and allied kinds of animals and plants are of large size and functional utility.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0103.pt|Thus, for instance, the unborn whale has rudimentary teeth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0104.pt|which are never destined to cut the gums; and throughout its life this animal retains, in a similarly rudimentary condition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0105.pt|a number of organs which never could have been of use to any kind of creature save a terrestrial quadruped.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0106.pt|Other well-known examples among vertebrates are: Vestiges of hind limbs in certain snakes, reduced wings in the Apteryx and ostriches,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0107.pt|rudiments of eyes in cave fishes, hind limbs beneath the skin of whales, the vermiform appendix in man,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0108.pt|as well as useless muscles to move the ears and the skin, and also a very much reduced hairy covering over the surface of the body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0109.pt|Wiedersheim has recorded more than one hundred and eighty such structural reminiscences in man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0110.pt|Now, rudimentary organs of this kind are of such frequent occurrence, that almost every species of organism presents one or more of them
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0111.pt|usually, indeed, a considerable number.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0112.pt|How, then, are they to be accounted for?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0113.pt|Of course the theory of descent with adaptive modification has a simple answer to supply
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0114.pt|Namely that when from changed conditions of life, an organ which was previously useful becomes useless,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0115.pt|it will be suffered to dwindle away in successive generations, under the influence of certain natural causes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0116.pt|On the other hand, the theory of special creation can only maintain that these rudiments are formed for the sake of adhering to an ideal type.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0117.pt|"Now, here again the former theory appears to be triumphant over the latter," says Romanes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0118.pt|"for, without waiting to dispute the wisdom of making dwarfed and useless structures merely for the whimsical motive assigned,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0119.pt|surely if such a method were adopted in so many cases, we should expect that in consistency it would be adopted in all cases.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0120.pt|This reasonable expectation, however, is far from being realized.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0121.pt|In numberless cases, such as that of the fore-limbs of serpents, no vestige of a rudiment is present.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0122.pt|But the vacillating policy in the matter of rudiments does not end here; for it is shown in a still more aggravated form
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0123.pt|where within the limits of the same natural group of organisms a rudiment is sometimes present and sometimes absent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0124.pt|For instance, although in nearly all the numerous species of snakes there are no vestiges of limbs,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0125.pt|in the Python we find very tiny rudiments of the hindlimbs. Now,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0126.pt|is it a worthy conception of Deity that,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0127.pt|while neglecting to maintain his unity of ideal in the case of nearly all the numerous species of snakes, he should have added a tiny rudiment in the case of the Python
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0128.pt|and even in that case should have maintained his ideal very inefficiently, inasmuch as only two limbs, instead of four, are represented?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0129.pt|Convincing as are the evidences of descent recorded in the structure of plants and animals,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0130.pt|these evidences have been in the past thirty years somewhat overshadowed by the far more surprising evidences
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0131.pt|of descent discovered in the development of plant and animal embryos.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0132.pt|A dozen volumes would be necessary
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0133.pt|to present the mass of embryological evidence, but a few salient facts will illustrate the kind of evidence to be deduced from embryology.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0134.pt|Most remarkable of all the principles which have been discovered by embryologists is the "Recapitulation Doctrine"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0135.pt|which, briefly stated, is that individual development (ontogeny) recapitulates ancestral history (phylogeny).
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0136.pt|Illustrations quoted from the works of Romanes and Le Conte will make this principle clear.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0137.pt|"It is an observable fact," says Romanes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0138.pt|that there is often a close correspondence between developmental changes as revealed by any chronological series of fossils which may happen to have been preserved,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0139.pt|and developmental changes which may be observed during the life history of now existing individuals belonging to the same group of animals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0141.pt|is closely reproduced in the life-history of existing deer. Or, in other words,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0142.pt|the antlers of an existing deer furnish in their development a kind of "resume," or recapitulation, of the successive phases
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0143.pt|whereby the primitive horn was gradually superseded by horns presenting a greater and greater number of prongs in successive species of extinct deer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0144.pt|Now, it must be obvious
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0145.pt|that such a recapitulation in the life history of an existing animal of developmental changes successively distinctive of sundry allied,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0146.pt|though now extinct species, speaks strongly in favor of evolution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0147.pt|For as it is of the essence of this theory that new forms arise from older forms by way of hereditary descent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0148.pt|we should antecedently expect, if the theory is true,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0149.pt|that the phases of development presented by the individual organism would follow, in their main outlines, those phases of development
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0150.pt|through which their long line of ancestors had passed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0151.pt|The only alternative view is that as species of deer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0152.pt|for instance, were separately created, additional prongs were successively added to their antlers; and yet that,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0153.pt|in order to be so added to successive species, every individual deer belonging to later species was required to repeat in his own lifetime
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0154.pt|the process of successive additions which had previously taken place in a remote series of extinct species.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0155.pt|Now I do not deny that this view is a possible view; but I do deny that it is a probable one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0156.pt|According to the evolutionary interpretation of such facts, we can see a very good reason why the life-history of the individual
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0157.pt|is thus a condensed resume of the life history of its ancestral species.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0158.pt|But according to the opposite view no reason can be assigned why such should be the case.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0159.pt|"It is well known," likewise comments Le Conte,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0160.pt|that the embryo or larva of a frog or toad, when first hatched, is a legless, tail-swimming, water-breathing, gill-breathing animal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0161.pt|It is essentially a fish, and would be so classed if it remained in this condition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0162.pt|The fish retains permanently this form, but the frog passes on.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0163.pt|Next, it forms first one pair and then another pair of legs; and meanwhile it begins to breathe also by lungs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0164.pt|At this stage it breathes equally by lungs and by gills -- i.e., both air and water.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0165.pt|Now, the lower forms of amphibians, such as siredon, menobranchus, siren, etc.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0166.pt|retain permanently this form, and are therefore called "perennibranchs," but the frog still passes on.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0167.pt|Then the gills gradually dry up, as the lungs develop, and they now breathe wholly by lungs, but still retain the tail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0168.pt|Now this is the permanent, mature condition of many amphibians,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0169.pt|such as the triton, the salamander, etc., which are therefore called "caducibranchs," but the frog still passes on.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0170.pt|Finally, it loses the tail, or rather its tail is absorbed and its material used in further development, and it becomes a perfect frog,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0171.pt|the highest order (anoura) of this class. Thus, then, in ontogeny the fish goes no further than the fish stages.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0172.pt|The perennibranch passes through the fish stage to the perennibranch amphibian.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0173.pt|The caducibranch takes first the fish form, then the perennibranch form, and finally the caducibranch form, but goes no further.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0174.pt|Last, the anoura takes first the fish-form, then that of the perennibranch, then that of the caducibranch, and finally becomes anoura.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0175.pt|Now, this is undoubtedly the order of succession of forms in geological times -- i.e., in the phylogenic series.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0176.pt|Fishes first appeared in the Devonian and Upper Silurian in very reptilian or rather amphibian forms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0177.pt|Then in the Carboniferous, fishes still continuing, there appeared the lowest -- i.e., most fish-like forms of amphibians.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0178.pt|These were undoubtedly perennibranchs. In the Permian and Triassic higher forms appeared, which were certainly caducibranch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0179.pt|Finally, only in the Tertiary, so far as we yet know, do the highest form (anoura) appear.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ027-0180.pt|The general similarity of the three series is complete.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0001.pt|The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. By Edgar J. Banks. Chapter two. The Walls of Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0002.pt|In the old city of Damascus you climb to the hump of a tall fleet dromedary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0003.pt|With guides and guards about you, you ride through the covered bazaars crowded with dark-faced Arabs in strange costumes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0004.pt|and along the narrow winding lane which was once called the "Street Called Straight."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0005.pt|Leaving the city by the eastern gate, and passing a small village or two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0006.pt|you ascend the hill to the plateau, and before you, as far as the eye can reach, stretches the great Arabian Desert.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0007.pt|With mingling fear and wonder at the mystery always lying beyond the desert horizon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0008.pt|you tap gently with your heel upon the shoulder of the dromedary to urge her on.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0009.pt|At first, paying little heed to you, she hesitates and glances anxiously about the desert as if in search of an enemy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0010.pt|Now and then she reaches down to graze the thorny argool along the way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0011.pt|As the taps upon her shoulder are repeated, she stretches out her long neck, and with long strides makes for the eastern horizon;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0012.pt|she realizes that she is bound on the long journey across the desert. Hour after hour she bears you over the hard monotonous plain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0013.pt|The Damascus mosques and their minarets sink beneath the western sky.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0014.pt|The desert about you shows no signs of life;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0015.pt|only a tall column of whirling sand, rearing its head until it is lost in the blue above, moves majestically along.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0016.pt|In the distance your eyes detect a beautiful lake with shores fringed with trees,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0017.pt|but soon the phantom lake vanishes, while others, still farther beyond, appear and vanish in rapid succession.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0018.pt|Like a great ball of fire the sun sinks in the west.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0019.pt|The stars come out one by one and shine brighter than elsewhere as if to light you on your way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0020.pt|Late at night the weary dromedary kneels, and on the ground, close beside her, you lie down to sleep.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0021.pt|Again, long before the stars have been scattered by the morning sun, you are on your way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0022.pt|Day after day you travel on, scorched by the heat of noon-day, shivering in the chill winds of the night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0023.pt|Two weeks pass, and at last you stand on the eastern edge of the plateau
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0024.pt|gazing down upon the great Euphrates winding along the valley beneath.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0025.pt|You have crossed the Arabian Desert, the first stage of the long journey to the walls of Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0026.pt|Here in the valley the water is sweet and the food abundant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0027.pt|For ten days you follow down the river, through little villages and black tent encampments, among scenes of strange Arab life which never lose their charm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0028.pt|Everywhere the valley is dotted with the mounds of buried cities carefully guarding the secrets of the centuries of long ago.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0029.pt|At last you see before you a mound rising like a mountain from the level plain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0030.pt|Your journey is at an end. Before you is Babylon, the "Gate of God," as the old name means.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0031.pt|About you is all that remains of the second of the Seven Wonders of the World.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0032.pt|Babylon, even in the days of Nebuchadnezzar, was an old, old city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0033.pt|There is a Hebrew tradition that it was the oldest of all cities, but now we know that great empires flourished and passed away before Babylon was built.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0034.pt|Old King Sargon I., who may have lived as early as three thousand eight hundred B.C.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0035.pt|seems to have been the first to mention Babylon, and one of his inscriptions seems to say that he built the city and gave it its name.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0036.pt|But in those very early days Babylon was little more than a shrine, surrounded with mud huts and date palms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0037.pt|It was about twenty-two fifty B.C., when the great Hammurabi made it his capital, that it became the chief city of Babylonia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0038.pt|Its history for the next fifteen hundred years or more is obscure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0039.pt|We know the names of its kings, and the records speak of long wars with the Assyrians.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0040.pt|In the year six eighty-nine B.C., Sinacherib, King of Nineveh, captured Babylon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0041.pt|tore down its palaces and temples and walls, and scraped even the foundations of the city into the river.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0042.pt|The place where the old city had stood for three thousand years again became a desert.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0043.pt|Esarhaddon, the son of Sinacherib, was the next King of Nineveh.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0044.pt|He rebuilt Babylon that in accordance with the ancient custom he might be crowned in the sacred city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0045.pt|When Esarhaddon died, one of his sons, Samas-sum-yukin, was made King of Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0046.pt|Another son, Assurbanipal, or the great Sardanapalus of the Greeks, became the King of Nineveh.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0047.pt|War broke out between the two brothers, and again Babylon was captured.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0048.pt|In six twenty-six Assurbanipal died,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0049.pt|and in that same year Nabopolassar, the father of the great Nebuchadnezzar, became the King of Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0050.pt|The building of the Babylon so famous in history began with Nabopolassar.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0051.pt|He enlarged the old city, erected temples, and began the construction of its walls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0052.pt|In six oh six, Nineveh, the old enemy of Babylon, fell, never to rise again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0053.pt|The next year, in six oh five, Nabopolassar died, and Nebuchadnezzar succeeded him to the throne.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0054.pt|He continued the building operations of his father, until Babylon became the greatest city of its age,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0055.pt|and surrounded it with walls the like of which no other city has ever seen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0056.pt|Nebuchadnezzar, or Nebuchadrezzar, as his name should be spelled, was the greatest character in Babylonian history,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0057.pt|but about his name so many legends have grown that it is sometimes difficult to learn the facts of his life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0058.pt|Early he married Amuhia, a daughter of the Medean king.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0059.pt|His military career began while he was still the crown prince, and his father was on the throne.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0060.pt|In six oh five,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0061.pt|at the head of the Babylonian army, he defeated the Egyptians in the famous battle of Carchemish, the old Hittite capital,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0062.pt|and drove them from Asia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0063.pt|Then Syria and Palestine were added to his future empire.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0064.pt|In five ninety-seven, when he sent his army to Jerusalem, he won the hatred of the Jews by taking Jehoiakin, the King, captive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0065.pt|Eleven years later, in five eighty-six, he destroyed the sacred Hebrew city,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0066.pt|transported the Jews to Babylon, and brought the Hebrew kingdom to an end.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0067.pt|Centuries afterward, even to this day, Jewish mothers teach their children to hate his name.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0068.pt|They tell how he forced the exiles to carry heavy bags of sand across the desert to increase their burdens;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0069.pt|how he cast Hebrew lads into a fiery furnace and into the lions' den,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0070.pt|and how, in punishment for all his wickedness, he became a calf, and for seven years grazed the grass in the fields about the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0071.pt|Late in his life, in five sixty-seven, he invaded Egypt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0072.pt|During all his reign there was little peace in his great mixed turbulent empire.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0073.pt|The walls of the palaces of many of the Assyrian kings were lined with great stone slabs engraved with reliefs and sometimes with the portrait of a king.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0074.pt|But in Babylonia stone was difficult to obtain, and sculptures were very rare.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0075.pt|Therefore it was useless to hope that Nebuchadnezzar's portrait would be found on his palace walls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0076.pt|However, several decades ago, an Oriental appeared at the Berlin Museum,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0077.pt|offering for sale a small cameo engraved with a helmeted head of a Greek type.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0078.pt|About the head was an inscription in Greek characters saying that the face was that of Nebuchadnezzar.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0079.pt|The museum authorities believed that the cameo was one of the many spurious objects which the Eastern forgers were constantly sending to Europe,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0080.pt|yet they took an impression of it, and returned it to its owner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0081.pt|Years later, when the archaeologists could readily distinguish the false from the true,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0082.pt|it was recognized that the cameo was genuine, and that it bore the likeness of the great King.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0083.pt|Unfortunately, the little stone seal, perhaps the only one to preserve for us his features, appears to have been lost for ever.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0084.pt|Its impression shows the face of a beardless young man, intelligent and refined.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0085.pt|The eyes are suggestive of the Semitic; the nose is of the Greek type;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0086.pt|the lips are thin, the chin prominent; the neck is that of a strong vigorous man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0087.pt|Such was the appearance of the builder of the walls of Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0088.pt|Religion and cruelty frequently go hand in hand, and Nebuchadnezzar was exceedingly religious.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0089.pt|Though a great warrior, it was not for his military deeds that he was best known.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0090.pt|He was fond of restoring the ruined temples of the old Babylonian cities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0091.pt|and most of the records which have come from his time speak chiefly of his deeds of piety.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0092.pt|Read the introduction to any of his inscriptions, of which the following is one, and you will call him vain and proud,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0093.pt|but his scribe wrote it in the manner customary for the scribes of those days to write of their royal masters.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0094.pt|Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, the exalted prince, the favorite of Marduk, the lofty patesi,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0095.pt|the beloved of Nabu, the arbiter, the possessor of wisdom, who seeks out the path of their divinity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0096.pt|who reverences their lordship; the untiring governor, who ponders daily concerning the maintenance of Esagil and Ezida,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0097.pt|and is continually anxious for the shrines of Babylon and Borsippa;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0098.pt|the wise, the pious, the maintainer of Esagil and Ezida,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0099.pt|the first-born son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, am I.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0100.pt|However cruel and religiously intolerant Nebuchadnezzar may have been, he was undoubtedly the greatest builder the world has ever seen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0101.pt|There is scarcely one of the thousands of ruin mounds in Babylonia which does not contain bricks bearing his name.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0102.pt|There is scarcely a royal record from his reign which is not chiefly occupied with descriptions of his building operations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0103.pt|He rebuilt scores of the ancient temples, surrounded many cities with walls,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0104.pt|lined the shores of the rivers with embankments, and spanned the rivers with bridges.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0105.pt|Tradition says that to please his foreign wife from the mountainous country he built the famous hanging gardens, but that may be only a tradition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0106.pt|His palace in Babylon was one of the world's largest buildings, but the walls with which he protected his palace and city were the wonder of the whole world.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0107.pt|The ancients never tired of describing them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0108.pt|Fortunately in several of his long inscriptions, recently discovered in the Babylonian mounds, Nebuchadnezzar speaks of the building of the walls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0109.pt|In one of them he says:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0110.pt|I completed Imgur-Bel and Nimitti-Bel, the great walls of Babylon, the mighty city, the city of his exalted power.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0111.pt|At the entrance of the great gates I erected strong bulls of bronze, and terrible serpents standing upright.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0112.pt|My father did that which no previous king had done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0113.pt|With mortar and bricks he built two moat-walls about the city,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0114.pt|and I, with mortar and bricks, built a third great moat-wall, and joined it and united it closely with the moat-walls of my father.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0115.pt|I laid its foundation deep to the water level;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0116.pt|I raised its summit mountain high. I constructed a moat-wall of burned bricks about the west wall of Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0117.pt|My father built the moat-wall of the Arachtu canal securely with mortar and bricks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0118.pt|He built well the quays along the opposite shore of the Euphrates, but he did not finish all his work,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0119.pt|but I, his first-born, the beloved of his heart,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0120.pt|built the moat-walls of Arachtu with mortar and bricks, and, joining them together with those of my father, made them very solid.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0121.pt|A thing which no king before had ever done:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0122.pt|To the west of Babylon, at a greater distance from the outer wall, I constructed an enclosing wall four thousand cubits in length about the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0123.pt|I dug its moat to the water level.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0124.pt|I walled up its side with mortar and burned bricks, and I united it securely with the moat-walls of my father.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0125.pt|Along its edge I built a great wall of mortar and burned bricks mountain high.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0126.pt|Berossus, a priest of the temple of Bel at Babylon, writing about two fifty B.C.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0127.pt|was living in the city while the walls were still standing, though in a ruinous condition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0128.pt|His brief description of them should not be omitted. He says that Nebuchadnezzar
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0129.pt|built three walls round about the inner city, and three others about that which was the outer; and this he did with burnt brick.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0130.pt|And after he had walled the city, and adorned its gates, he built another palace before his father's palace; but so that they joined to it:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0131.pt|to describe whose vast height and immense riches it would perhaps be too much for me to attempt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0132.pt|Yet as large and lofty as they were, they were completed in fifteen days.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0133.pt|He also erected elevated places for walking, of stone; and made it resemble mountains: and built it so that it might be planted with all sorts of trees.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0134.pt|He also erected what is called a pensile paradise:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0136.pt|Of all the ancient descriptions of the famous walls and the city they protected, that of Herodotus is the fullest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0137.pt|Perhaps Herodotus had never been in Babylon;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0138.pt|perhaps the tales that travelers told him were exaggerated as travelers' tales are likely to be,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0139.pt|yet he at least tried to be accurate. He says:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0140.pt|The city stands on a broad plain, and is an exact square, a hundred and twenty furlongs in length each way,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0141.pt|so that the entire circuit is four hundred and eighty furlongs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0142.pt|While such is its size, in magnificence there is no other city that approaches to it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0143.pt|It is surrounded, in the first place, by a broad and deep moat, full of water, behind which rises a wall
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0144.pt|fifty royal cubits in width, and two hundred in height.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0145.pt|And here I may not omit to tell the use to which the mould dug out of the great moat was turned, nor the manner wherein the wall was wrought.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0146.pt|As fast as they dug the moat, the soil which they got from the cutting was made into bricks,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0147.pt|and when a sufficient number were completed they baked the bricks in kilns.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0148.pt|Then they set to building, and began by bricking the borders of the moat, after which they proceeded to construct the wall itself,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0149.pt|using throughout for their cement hot bitumen, and interposing a layer of wattled reeds at every thirtieth course of the bricks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0150.pt|On the top, along the edges of the wall, they constructed buildings of a single chamber facing one another,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0151.pt|leaving between them room for a four-horse chariot to turn.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0152.pt|In the circuit of the wall are a hundred gates, all of brass, with brazen lintels and sideposts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0153.pt|The bitumen used in the work was brought to Babylon from Is, a small stream which flows into the Euphrates
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0154.pt|at the point where the city of the same name stands, eight days' journey from Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0155.pt|Lumps of bitumen are found in great abundance in this river.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0156.pt|The city is divided into two portions by the river which runs through the midst of it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0157.pt|This river is the Euphrates, a broad, deep, swift stream, which rises in Armenia, and empties itself into the Erythraean Sea.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0158.pt|The city wall is brought down on both sides to the edge of the stream,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0159.pt|thence from the corners of the wall there is carried along each bank of the river a fence of burned bricks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0160.pt|The houses are mostly three and four stories high;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0161.pt|the streets all run in straight lines, not only those parallel to the river, but also the cross streets which lead down to the waterside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0162.pt|At the river end of these cross streets are low gates in the fence that skirts the stream,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0163.pt|which are, like the great gates in the outer wall, of brass, and open on the water.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0164.pt|The outer wall is the main defense of the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0165.pt|There is, however, a second inner wall, of less thickness than the first, but very little inferior to it in strength.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0166.pt|The center of each division of the town is occupied by a fortress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0167.pt|In the one stood the palace of the kings, surrounded by a wall of great strength and size;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0168.pt|in the other was the sacred precinct of Jupiter Belus,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0169.pt|a square enclosure two furlongs each way, with gates of solid brass; which was also remaining in my time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0170.pt|In the middle of the precinct there was a tower of solid masonry, a furlong in length and breadth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0171.pt|upon which was raised a second tower, and on that a third, and so on up to eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0172.pt|The ascent to the top is on the outside, by a path which winds round all the towers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0173.pt|When one is about halfway up, one finds a resting place and seats, where persons are wont to sit sometimes on their way to the summit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0174.pt|Other ancient descriptions of the walls have been left us by Ctesias of the fifth century B.C., and by Strabo of the beginning of the Christian era,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0175.pt|but they add little to our knowledge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0176.pt|Should we compare these ancient descriptions of the walls, we should find them hopelessly conflicting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0177.pt|However, they teach us that in those early days when most cities were surrounded by enormous walls,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0178.pt|the walls of Babylon were so long and wide and high that all who saw them were amazed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0179.pt|It is only from their ruins that we may hope to obtain accurate information of the strongest fortifications in the ancient world.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0180.pt|In the year five sixty-two, after a long reign of forty-three years, Nebuchadnezzar died.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0181.pt|He was followed by three kings whose reigns were short,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0182.pt|and in five fifty-five Nabonidus, the father of the Biblical Belshazzar, came to the throne.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0183.pt|Cyrus, the King of Persia, was rising to power, and after he had defeated the Medes
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0184.pt|he extended his empire to the Mediterranean and even to Egypt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0185.pt|Perhaps Babylon was so strongly fortified that at first he made no attempt to add it to his empire,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0186.pt|but when Nabonidus joined with the King of Egypt and with the wealthy Croesus of Lydia in an alliance against him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0187.pt|Cyrus decided that Babylon must be taken.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0188.pt|In five thirty-eight the city fell, and for a time it became the home of the Persian King.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0189.pt|The fall of Babylon with its lofty walls was a most important event in the history of the ancient world.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0190.pt|A great empire which had existed for more than three thousand years was brought to an end.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0191.pt|The old enemies of Babylon rejoiced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0192.pt|When the news came to the Hebrews, who were held there in exile, they excitedly rushed about the streets, crying: "Babylon is fallen,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0193.pt|and to them came hope of returning to Jerusalem.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0194.pt|But how did the "mighty city" fall? How could Cyrus take Babylon whose walls were strong enough to resist any army?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0195.pt|It is a long story. Poets have sung it. Historians have written it. Prophets have preached it. Legends have gathered about it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0196.pt|Every child knows the story of "the writing of the hand on the wall." It was the night that Babylon fell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0197.pt|Belshazzar, the King, he was really the King's son, gave a feast to a thousand of his nobles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0198.pt|In the great banquet hall of the palace, when the guests were drinking from the golden cups, and the revelry was at its highest,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0199.pt|there suddenly appeared upon the wall an armless hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0200.pt|High up, where all might see it, the armless hand wrote the King's fate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0201.pt|"Thou art weighed in the balances and art found wanting."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0202.pt|"In that night," so the story ends, "Belshazzar, the Chaldean King, was slain."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0203.pt|Less picturesque than this Hebrew legend is the royal record of Babylon, which fortunately was inscribed upon a clay cylinder from the ruins of the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0204.pt|It refers to the death of the King's son, possibly to Belshazzar of the Bible story.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0205.pt|In the month Tammuz, when Cyrus fought the troops of Akkad (Babylonia) at Opis on the river Salsallat,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0206.pt|he subdued the people, and wherever they collected, he slew them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0207.pt|On the fourteenth day Sippar was taken without a battle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0208.pt|Nabonidus fled.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0209.pt|On the sixteenth day the troops of Cyrus entered Babylon without a battle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0210.pt|Nabonidus was taken prisoner in Babylon. On the third of Marchesvan Cyrus entered Babylon and proclaimed peace to all the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0211.pt|He appointed Gobrias governor of Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0212.pt|On the night of the eleventh day Gobrias killed the son of the King.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0213.pt|Nor does the royal record of Babylon contain the only contemporary account of the fall of the city,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0214.pt|for upon a barrel-shaped cylinder of clay bearing a long inscription we have Cyrus's account of his capture of Babylon. Extracts from it are as follows:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0215.pt|Marduk, the great lord, looking with joy on his pious works and upright heart,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0216.pt|commanded him (Cyrus) to go forth to his city Babylon, and he went by his side as a friend and companion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0217.pt|His many troops, whose number, like the waters of the river, could not be counted, marched in full armor at his side,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0218.pt|Without a skirmish or a battle, he permitted them to enter Babylon, and, sparing the city, he delivered the King Nabonidus to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0219.pt|All the people of Babylon prostrated themselves before him, and, kissing his feet, rejoiced in his sovereignty, while happiness shone on their faces.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0220.pt|The inscription continues: I am Cyrus, king of the world.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0221.pt|When I made my gracious entry into Babylon, with exceeding joy I took up my abode in the royal palace.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0222.pt|My many troops marched peacefully into Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0223.pt|I gave heed to the needs of Babylon and its cities, and the servitude of the Babylonians, whatever was oppressive, I removed from them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0224.pt|I quieted their sighings and soothed their sorrows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0225.pt|A much longer account of the capture of Babylon by Cyrus appears in the writings of Herodotus.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0226.pt|Though Herodotus wrote nearly a hundred years after Babylon fell, his story seems to bear the stamp of truth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0227.pt|He certainly mentions details which neither Nabonidus nor Cyrus would care to have appear in their royal records. His story is as follows:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0228.pt|Cyrus, with the first approach of the ensuing spring, marched forward against Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0229.pt|The Babylonians, encamped without their walls, awaited his coming.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0230.pt|A battle was fought at a short distance from the city, in which the Babylonians were defeated by the Persian King,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0231.pt|whereupon they withdrew within their defenses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0232.pt|Here they shut themselves up and made light of his siege, having laid in a store of provision for many years in preparation against this attack;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0233.pt|for when they saw Cyrus conquering nation after nation, they were convinced that he would never stop, and their turn would come at last.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0234.pt|Cyrus was now reduced to great perplexity, as time went on and he made no progress against the place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0235.pt|In this distress either someone made this suggestion to him, or he bethought himself of a plan which he proceeded to put in execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0236.pt|He placed a portion of his army at the point where the river enters the city, and another body at the back of the place where it issues forth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0237.pt|with orders to march into the town by the bed of the stream, as soon as the water became shallow enough:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0238.pt|he then himself drew off with the unwarlike portion of his host, and made for the place where Nitocris dug the basin for the river,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0239.pt|where he did exactly what she had done formerly: he turned the Euphrates by a canal into the basin, which was then a marsh,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0240.pt|on which the river sank to such an extent that the natural bed of the stream became fordable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0241.pt|Hereupon the Persians who had been left for the purpose at Babylon by the river side
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0242.pt|entered the stream, which had now sunk so as to reach about midway up a man's thigh, and thus got into the town.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0243.pt|Had the Babylonians been apprised of what Cyrus was about, or had they noticed their danger, they would never have allowed the Persians to enter the city,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0244.pt|but would have destroyed them utterly; for they would have made fast all the street gates which gave upon the river,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0245.pt|and mounting upon the walls along both sides of the stream, would so have caught the enemy as it were in a trap.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0246.pt|But, as it was, the Persians came upon them by surprise and so took the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0247.pt|Owing to the vast size of the place, the inhabitants of the central parts (as the residents of Babylon declare),
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0248.pt|long after the outer portions of the town were taken, knew nothing of what had chanced, but as they were engaged in a festival,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0249.pt|continued dancing and reveling until they learned the capture but too certainly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0250.pt|Such, then, were the circumstances of the first taking of Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0251.pt|When Cyrus took Babylon, little or no force was employed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0252.pt|Only the King's son, Belshazzar, was killed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0253.pt|The city was spared; the great walls were left standing; the daily sacrifices were continued in the temples, and Cyrus made his home in the royal palace.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0254.pt|The people, enjoying the greater freedom which Cyrus permitted them, were contented, and life in Babylon went on about as before.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0255.pt|In five twenty-nine Cyrus died.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0256.pt|During the reigns of the two following Persian kings Babylon was slowly regaining its independence,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0257.pt|and in five twenty-one Nebuchadnezzar the third, a native Babylonian, was placed on the throne.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0258.pt|Then the Babylonians secretly plotted to throw off the Persian yoke.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0259.pt|That same year, when Darius Hystaspes came to the Persian throne, the Babylonians openly rebelled.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0260.pt|The following story from Herodotus tells the results:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0261.pt|At last when the time came for rebelling openly they did as follows:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0262.pt|having first set apart their mothers, each man chose besides out of his whole household one woman whomsoever he pleased;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0263.pt|these alone were allowed to live, while all the rest were brought to one place and strangled.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0264.pt|The women chosen were kept to make bread for the men; while the others were strangled that they might not consume the stores.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0265.pt|When tidings reached Darius of what had happened,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0266.pt|he drew together all his power and began the war by marching straight upon Babylon and laying siege to the place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0267.pt|The Babylonians, however, cared not a whit for his siege.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0268.pt|Mounting upon the battlements that crowned their walls, they insulted and jeered at Darius and his mighty host.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0269.pt|One even shouted to them and said, "Why sit ye there, Persians? Why do ye not go back to your homes? Till mules foal ye will not take our city!"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0270.pt|This was said by a Babylonian who thought that a mule would never foal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0271.pt|Now when a year and seven months had passed, Darius and his army were quite wearied out, finding that they could not anyhow take the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0272.pt|All stratagems and all arts had been used, and yet the King could not prevail
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0273.pt|not even when he tried the means by which Cyrus had made himself master of the place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0274.pt|The Babylonians were ever upon the watch, and he found no way of conquering them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0275.pt|At last, in the twentieth month,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0276.pt|a marvelous thing happened to Zopyrus, son of the Megabyzus who was among the seven men that overthrew the Magus.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0277.pt|One of his sumpter-mules gave birth to a foal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0278.pt|Zopyrus, when they told him, not thinking that it could be true, went and saw the colt with his own eyes;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0279.pt|after which he commanded his servants to tell no one what had come to pass, while he himself pondered the matter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0280.pt|Calling to mind then the words of the Babylonian at the beginning of the siege:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0281.pt|Till mules foal ye shall not take our city, he thought, as he reflected on this speech, that Babylon might now be taken,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0282.pt|for it seemed to him that there was a divine providence in the man having used the phrase, and then his mule having foaled.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0283.pt|As soon therefore as he felt within himself that Babylon was fated to be taken, he went to Darius and asked him if he set a very high value on its conquest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0284.pt|When he found that Darius did indeed value it highly, he considered further with himself how he might make the deed his own, and be the man to take Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0285.pt|Noble exploits in Persia are ever highly honored and bring their authors to greatness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0286.pt|He therefore reviewed all ways of bringing the city under,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0287.pt|but found none by which he could hope to prevail, unless he maimed himself and then went over to the enemy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0288.pt|To do this seeming to him a light matter, he mutilated himself in a way that was utterly without remedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0289.pt|For he cut off his own nose and ears, and then, clipping his hair close and flogging himself with a scourge,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0290.pt|he came in this plight before Darius.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0291.pt|Wrath stirred within the King at the sight of a man of his lofty rank in such a condition;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0292.pt|leaping down from his throne he exclaimed aloud and asked Zopyrus who it was that had disfigured him, and what he had done to be so treated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0293.pt|Zopyrus answered, "There is not a man in the world, but thou, O King, that could reduce me to such a plight
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0294.pt|no stranger's hands have wrought this work on me, but my own only.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0295.pt|I maimed myself because I could not endure that the Assyrians should laugh at the Persians. "Wretched man," said Darius,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0296.pt|thou coverest the foulest deeds with the fairest possible name, when thou sayest thy maiming is to help our siege forward.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0297.pt|How will thy disfigurement, thou simpleton, induce the enemy to yield one day sooner?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0298.pt|Surely thou hadst gone out of thy mind when thou didst so misuse thyself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0299.pt|"Had I told thee," rejoined the other, "what I was bent on doing, thou wouldst not have suffered it;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0300.pt|as it is, I kept my own counsel, and so accomplished my plans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0301.pt|Now, therefore, if there be no failure on thy part, we shall take Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0302.pt|I will desert to the enemy as I am, and when I get into their city I will tell them that it is by thee that I have been thus treated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0303.pt|I think they will believe my words and entrust me with a command of troops. Thou, on thy part, must wait
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0304.pt|till the tenth day after I am entered within the town, and then place near to the gates of Semiramis a detachment of thy army,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0305.pt|troops for whose loss thou wilt care little, a thousand men.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0306.pt|Wait, after that, seven days, and post me another detachment, two thousand strong, at the Nineveh gates;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0307.pt|then let twenty days pass, and at the end of that time station near the Chaldasan gates a body of four thousand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0308.pt|Let neither these nor the former troops be armed with any weapons but their swords those thou mayest leave them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0309.pt|After the twenty days are over, bid thy whole army attack the city on every side, and put me two bodies of Persians,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0310.pt|one at the Belian, the other at the Cissian gates; for I expect that, on account of my successes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0311.pt|the Babylonians will entrust everything, even the keys of their gates, to me. Then it will be for me and my Persians to do the rest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0312.pt|Having left these instructions, Zopyrus fled towards the gates of the town, often looking back, to give himself the air of a deserter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0313.pt|The men upon the towers, whose business it was to keep a lookout,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0314.pt|observing him, hastened down, and setting one of the gates slightly ajar, questioned him who he was, and on what errand he had come.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0315.pt|He replied that he was Zopyrus, and deserted to them from the Persians.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0316.pt|Then the doorkeepers, when they heard this, carried him at once before the Magistrates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0317.pt|Introduced into their assembly, he began to bewail his misfortunes, telling them that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0318.pt|Darius had maltreated him in the way they could see, only because he had given advice that the siege should be raised, since there seemed no hope of taking the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0319.pt|"And now," he went on to say, "my coming to you, Babylonians,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0320.pt|will prove the greatest gain that you could possibly receive, while to Darius and the Persians it will be the severest loss.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0321.pt|Verily he by whom I have been so mutilated shall not escape unpunished. And truly all the paths of his counsels are known to me.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0322.pt|Thus did Zopyrus speak.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0323.pt|The Babylonians, seeing a Persian of such exalted rank in so grievous a plight, his nose and ears cut off,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0324.pt|his body red with marks of scourging and with blood, had no suspicion but that he spoke the truth, and was really come to be their friend and helper.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0325.pt|They were ready, therefore, to grant him anything he asked;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0326.pt|and on his suing for a command, they entrusted to him a body of troops with the help of which he proceeded to do as he had arranged with Darius.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0327.pt|On the tenth day after his flight he led out his detachment, and surrounding the thousand men,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0328.pt|whom Darius according to agreement had sent first, he fell upon them and slew them all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0329.pt|Then the Babylonians, seeing that his deeds were as brave as his words, were beyond measure pleased, and set no bounds to their trust.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0330.pt|and when the next period agreed on had elapsed, again with a band of picked men he sallied forth, and slaughtered the two thousand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0331.pt|After this second exploit, his praise was in all mouths.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0332.pt|Once more, however, he waited till the interval appointed had gone by, and then leading the troops to the place where the four thousand were,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0333.pt|he put them also to the sword.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0334.pt|This last victory gave him the finishing stroke to his power and made him all in all with the Babylonians:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0335.pt|accordingly they committed to him the command of their whole army, and put the keys of their city into his hands.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0336.pt|Darius now, still keeping to the plan agreed upon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0337.pt|attacked the walls on every side, whereupon Zopyrus played out the remainder of his stratagem.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0338.pt|While the Babylonians, crowding to the walls, did their best to resist the Persian assault,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0339.pt|he threw open the Cissian and Belian gates, and admitted the enemy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0340.pt|Such of the Babylonians as witnessed the treachery took refuge in the temple of Jupiter Belus;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0341.pt|the rest who did not see it kept at their posts, till at last they too learned that they were betrayed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0342.pt|Thus was Babylon taken for the second time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0343.pt|Darius having become master of the place, destroyed the wall, and tore down all the gates;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0344.pt|for Cyrus had done neither the one nor the other when he took Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0345.pt|He then chose out near three thousand of the leading citizens and caused them to be crucified, while he allowed the remainder still to inhabit the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0346.pt|Further, wishing to prevent the race of the Babylonians from becoming extinct,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0347.pt|he provided wives for them in the room of those whom (as I explained before) they strangled to save their stores.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0348.pt|These he levied from the nations bordering on Babylonia,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0349.pt|who were each required to send so large a number to Babylon, that in all there were collected no fewer than fifty thousand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0350.pt|It is from these women that the Babylonians of our times are sprung.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0351.pt|As for Zopyrus he was considered by Darius to have surpassed, in the greatness of his achievements, all other Persians,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0352.pt|whether of former or of later times, except only Cyrus with whom no person ever yet thought himself worthy to compare.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0353.pt|Darius, as the story goes, would often say that "he had rather Zopyrus were unmaimed, than be master of twenty more Babylons."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0354.pt|And he honored Zopyrus greatly; year by year he presented him with all the gifts which are held in most esteem among the Persians;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0355.pt|he gave him likewise the government of Babylon for his life, free from tribute, and he also granted him many other favors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0356.pt|How much truth there may be in this interesting tale of Herodotus, we may never know,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0357.pt|yet we may be sure that Babylon was taken by Darius only by use of stratagem. Its walls were impregnable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0358.pt|Cyrus had permitted them to stand, and as long as he made Babylon his home, the city was as strongly protected as ever.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0359.pt|Darius, who besieged the rebellious city twice, weakened it by destroying some of its walls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0360.pt|During the reign of Xerxes again the city rebelled, and in four eighty-four B.C. he captured it, and completely demolished its defenses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0361.pt|Yet Babylon continued to live,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0362.pt|for history mentions the names of two of its later rulers. The palace of Nebuchadnezzar was occupied by Alexander the Great,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0363.pt|and there on June thirteen, three twenty-three B.C., he met his death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0364.pt|The city then fell to Seleucus,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0365.pt|one of Alexander's generals, who for a time made it his home, but he was a Greek and cared little for things Babylonian.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0366.pt|Therefore, to destroy the power of the old capital, he planned to build Seleucia on the Tigris about fifty miles to the east.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0367.pt|The priests of the temple of Bel, so a story tells us,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0368.pt|learned of his purpose, and when they were consulted as to the most favorable time for beginning the work upon the new city,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0369.pt|they intentionally mentioned a most unfavorable hour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0370.pt|The priests' deception was unavailing, and in two seventy-five B.C., the inhabitants of Babylon were transported to Seleucia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0371.pt|Then the world metropolis, stripped of most of its population, became a mere village.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0372.pt|The poor of the surrounding country occupied its dismantled palaces.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0373.pt|The Hebrew exiles, whose ancestors Nebuchadnezzar had brought from Jerusalem,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0374.pt|settled there, and finally the place was abandoned to the Arabs of the desert.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0375.pt|Slowly the few remaining walls fell, and were buried in their own ruins.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0376.pt|As the centuries passed the mounds into which the city had turned grew higher and higher with the ruins of the huts later built upon them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0377.pt|until at last the foundations of the temples and palaces were buried fully a hundred feet beneath the surface.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0378.pt|Even the shepherds ceased to graze their sheep there, and the wandering Arabs,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0379.pt|fearing the wild beasts and evil spirits which lurk among all old ruins, refused to pitch their tents there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0380.pt|The prophecy of the Hebrew Isaiah was fulfilled:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0381.pt|Wild beasts of the desert shall lie there;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0382.pt|and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures, and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0383.pt|and the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0384.pt|So Babylon was buried and forgotten.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0385.pt|It had become, as Dio Cassius said, "Mounds and legends and ruins."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0386.pt|But the walls of the old city had not yet served their full purpose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0387.pt|The Sassanian kings of Persia were fond of hunting, and Babylon, then overgrown with trees, was their game preserve.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0388.pt|The old walls were restored to a height sufficient to prevent the escape of the animals, and among the ruins the kings enjoyed their favorite sport.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0389.pt|St. Jerome said:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0390.pt|I was informed by a certain Elamite brother, who came from those regions, and now leads the life of a monk at Jerusalem,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0391.pt|that there is a royal hunting ground at Babylon, and that wild game of every kind is contained within the circuit of its walls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0392.pt|The statement of St. Jerome is confirmed by the following passage from Zosimus, a Greek writer of the fifth century A.D.:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0393.pt|As the Emperor Julian was marching forward through Babylonia,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0394.pt|he passed other unimportant fortresses, and came at last to a walled enclosure, which the natives pointed out as a royal hunting ground.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0395.pt|It was a low rampart, enclosing a wide space planted with trees of every sort, in which all kinds of beasts were shut up;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0396.pt|they were supplied with food by keepers, and gave the king the opportunity of hunting whenever he felt inclined.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0397.pt|When Julian saw this, he caused a large part of the wall to be overthrown, and as the beasts escaped they were shot down by his soldiers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0398.pt|The walls of Babylon were destined to serve still another purpose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0399.pt|The spread of Mohammedanism caused new cities to be built, and Babylon was the quarry for their building material.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0400.pt|The walls of Babylon were transformed into the sacred cities of Kerbela and Nejef.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0401.pt|In the eleventh century, on the site of the southern part of Babylon, the city of Hillah was built.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0402.pt|Hillah might be called a child of Babylon, for it is almost entirely constructed with Nebuchadnezzar's bricks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0403.pt|The walls of the houses are built of them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0404.pt|The courtyards and streets are paved with them, and as you walk about the city the name of Nebuchadnezzar everywhere meets your eye.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0405.pt|Many of the ten thousand people living in Hillah still gain their livelihood by digging the bricks from the ruins to sell to the modern builders.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0406.pt|The great irrigating dams across the Euphrates are constructed entirely of them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0407.pt|The people of Hillah, too, are a survival of Babylonian times.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0408.pt|Some are Arabs of the same tribes which used to roam the desert in Nebuchadnezzar's days. Some are the children of the Hebrew exiles of old.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0409.pt|Some, calling themselves Christians, are the descendants of Babylonians, perhaps of Nebuchadnezzar himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0410.pt|There among the ruins they still live in the same kind of houses,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0411.pt|dressing the same, eating the same food as did their ancestors when Nebuchadnezzar built the walls of Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0412.pt|Among the first of the modern travelers to describe the ruins of Babylon was Anthony Shirley, an Englishman who visited Mesopotamia in fifteen ninety-nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0413.pt|In his quaint way he says:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0414.pt|All the ground on which Babylon was spread is left now desolate; nothing standing in that Peninsula between the Euphrates and the Tigris,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0415.pt|but only part, and that a small part, of the great tower, which God hath suffered to stand
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0416.pt|(if man may speak so confidently of His great impenetrable counsels), for an eternal Testimony of His great work in the confusion of Man's pride,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0417.pt|and that Arke of Nebuchadnezzar for as perpetual a memory of his great idolatry and condigne punishment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0418.pt|About that same time Pietro della Valle, an Italian, visited Babylon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0419.pt|and digging from the wall an inscribed square brick bearing the name of Nebuchadnezzar, he took it to Rome where it may still be seen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0420.pt|That was the first object taken from Babylon to Europe;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0421.pt|it was the beginning of the great collections of Babylonian antiquities in the museums of the Western world.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0422.pt|Among the later visitors to Babylon was the great Niebuhr.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0423.pt|In eighteen twelve, James Claudius Rich, the British Resident at Baghdad, made the first complete examination of the ruins.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0424.pt|Porter, Layard, and Rawlinson followed him, but the real scientific exploration of Babylon and its walls
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0425.pt|was begun by the Deutsche Orientgesellschaft, in eighteen eighty-nine, and continued till the summer of nineteen fifteen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0426.pt|For fifteen years Dr. Koldewey and his assistants, with a force of two hundred native workmen, have labored there winter and summer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0427.pt|The enormous amount of debris which buried the palaces and temples and walls of Nebuchadnezzar's city, in places to the depth of a hundred feet,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0428.pt|has been removed, and the surrounding city walls have been traced.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0429.pt|The excavations have shown that Babylon, as the ancients told us, was nearly square.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0430.pt|The Euphrates flowed through it, but the greater part of the city was on the eastern shore.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0431.pt|The city walls, of which the ancients were so proud, appear here and there like low ridges far out on the plain;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0432.pt|other parts of them have disappeared entirely.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0433.pt|In the northern part of the enclosure to the east of the river,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0434.pt|the large high mound, which resembles a mountain from a distance, still bears the ancient name Babel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0435.pt|Arabs, searching for bricks, have burrowed their way down deep into it, revealing massive walls and arches.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0436.pt|The Germans maintain that it is the ruin of the Tower of Babel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0437.pt|Here, it has been suggested, were the famous hanging gardens which some ancient authors included among the Seven Wonders of the World.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0438.pt|However, it is possible that the hanging gardens existed only in the imagination of the Greek writers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0439.pt|for none of the many building inscriptions from Nebuchadnezzar mentions them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0440.pt|Possibly along the terraces of the walls, or upon the stages of some lofty temple tower,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0441.pt|trees and overhanging vines were planted, and thus the travelers' tales arose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0442.pt|At a distance of about two miles to the south of Babel is the larger and lower mound called the Kasr, or the Fortress,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0443.pt|because great masses of masonry used to project from its surface.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0444.pt|Deep down in the mound the Germans discovered the palace of Nebuchadnezzar with its hundreds of small chambers and its huge surrounding walls.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0445.pt|The mound still farther south is called Amran, because upon its summit stands the tomb of a Mohammedan saint of that name.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0446.pt|There lie the ruins of the famous temple of Esagil, sacred to Marduk.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0447.pt|Upon the little mound Jumjuma farther on, an Arab village has long stood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0448.pt|All of the ancient writers agree in saying that Babylon was surrounded with both inner and outer walls, and the ruins confirm their statements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0449.pt|Parts of the walls of Nineveh are still standing to the height of one hundred and twenty-five feet,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0450.pt|but the walls of Babylon have so long been used to supply bricks to the builders of the neighboring cities that only their bases remain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0451.pt|In places even the bases have disappeared, and their moats have long been filled with the drifting sand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0452.pt|The outer wall bore the name of Nimitti-Bel. Its direction was northeast and southwest, forming a triangle with the river.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0453.pt|The northeastern section may now be traced for a distance of less than three miles, and the southwestern "for more than a mile,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0454.pt|but both sections originally reached the river.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0455.pt|It seems that the circuit of the outer wall was about eleven miles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0456.pt|The small portions of it which have been excavated suffice to show its construction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0457.pt|The moat, ten feet deep, and of a width no longer known, ran close to its base. The wall was double.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0458.pt|Its outer part was about twenty-four feet in thickness, and its foundations, as Nebuchadnezzar said, were carried down to the water level.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0459.pt|Its bricks, measuring about thirteen inches square and three inches in thickness, were burned and stamped with the usual short inscription:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0460.pt|Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, the restorer of the temples Esagil and Ezida,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0461.pt|the first-born son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0462.pt|They were laid in bitumen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0463.pt|The inner part of the wall was constructed of unburned bricks, and at a distance of about thirty-six feet from the outer part.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0464.pt|The intervening space, which was filled with dirt probably to the upper inner edge of the outer part,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0465.pt|served as an elevated road where several chariots might have been driven abreast.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0466.pt|This inner part was about twenty-four feet wide, and at intervals of about one hundred and forty feet it was surmounted with towers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0467.pt|The entire width of the outer defense, not including the moat, was therefore about eighty-two feet;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0468.pt|its height was probably more than double its width, but that may never be determined.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0469.pt|The inner wall of Babylon was called Imgur-Bel, and like the outer wall, it was double.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0470.pt|Time has dealt even less kindly with it, for it may be traced only for the distance of about a mile along its eastern side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0471.pt|Nebuchadnezzar says that he built it of burned bricks, but only sun-dried bricks laid in mud now appear.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0472.pt|Its outer part, about twelve feet in width, was protected with towers at intervals of sixty-five feet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0473.pt|A space of about twenty-three feet separated it from its inner part, which was about twenty feet in width.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0474.pt|It too was surmounted with towers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0475.pt|No traces of its moat have appeared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0476.pt|The entire width of this inner defense was about fifty-five feet; its height is uncertain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0477.pt|To protect the sun-dried bricks of the inner wall from the winter rains
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0478.pt|there were drains of large burned bricks, some of which bore the following long inscription:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0479.pt|Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0480.pt|the exalted prince, the protector of Esagil and Ezida, son of Nabopolassar, King of Babylon, am I.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0481.pt|Nabopolassar, the father, my begetter, built Imgur-Bel, the great wall of Babylon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0482.pt|but I, the devout petitioner, the worshipper of the gods, built the moat, and made its wall of burned brick and bitumen mountain high.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0483.pt|O Marduk, great god, look joyfully upon the precious work of my hands. Be thou my protector.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0484.pt|Grant me as a gift a life of distant days.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0485.pt|The outer and inner defenses of Babylon were so strong and so high that no enemy could hope to take them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0486.pt|yet the palace of Nebuchadnezzar was protected by a third defense far stronger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0487.pt|Fortunately its walls have suffered less from the hands of the brick hunters, and the German excavators have been able to reconstruct their plan.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0488.pt|They may best be described by means of the accompanying diagram representing a cross section.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0489.pt|Had the enemy of Babylon succeeded in breaking through the outer and inner defenses of the city the royal palace would have still been far from his reach.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0490.pt|He would have had to cross a deep moat, to scale a wall of burned bricks about twenty feet in thickness and perhaps three times as high,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0491.pt|then a second wall still higher, a third and fourth and a fifth, each stronger and higher than the others,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0492.pt|and surmounted with towers, and then finally a sixth wall
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0493.pt|whose summit reached into the sky as far, perhaps, as the tallest of the modern buildings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0494.pt|Between the several sections were wide spaces where foot soldiers and charioteers might fight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0495.pt|It must have been an imposing sight to one standing without to have seen the walls, one after another,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0496.pt|rising higher and higher, like a great terraced, turreted mountain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0497.pt|We do not know their height, for the statements of the ancient writers disagree.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0498.pt|Herodotus says that it was three hundred and thirty-five feet;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0499.pt|Ctesias mentions three hundred feet; probably they were not far from the truth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0500.pt|The ruins reach the height of about forty feet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0501.pt|Nor were the walls about the palace a great mass of dull brick masonry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0502.pt|The Ishtar gateway leading to the palace was encased with beautiful blue glazed bricks,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0503.pt|and decorated here and there with large reliefs representing bulls and lions and dragons,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0504.pt|designed in colors of white and blue and yellow and black.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0505.pt|It seems that the bricks of the reliefs were molded and glazed separately and so accurately that when built into the wall they fitted perfectly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0506.pt|A modern artist would have difficulty in doing such accurate work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0507.pt|Some of these decorations, the most valuable objects found in the ruins of the great city, still remain in their places on the walls;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0508.pt|others have been taken to the Berlin Museum.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0509.pt|Nebuchadnezzar speaks of great bronze gates and of images of bronze, but none have been discovered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0510.pt|Probably their metal was far too valuable for the enemy to leave behind.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0511.pt|Should you walk along the shore of the Euphrates at Babylon, you would still see the embankments which Nebuchadnezzar constructed of bricks bearing his name,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0512.pt|but the river walls have disappeared, and the buttresses of the bridges have been torn or washed away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0513.pt|Should you cross the river to search for the western inner wall, you would find but a small fragment of it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0514.pt|The great outer wall seems to have disappeared completely beneath the desert surface.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0515.pt|Such were the walls of Babylon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0516.pt|the strongest, the thickest, the loftiest, the most intricate, perhaps the most beautiful that ever protected a city,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0517.pt|walls which no ancient army was ever able to take by storm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0518.pt|It is not strange, then, that they were included among the Seven Wonders of the World,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ028-0519.pt|or that the Babylonian soldier stood confidently upon their summit, and jeering at the Persian army encamped below, shouted:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0002.pt|Chapter two. The Assassination: Part one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0003.pt|This chapter describes President Kennedy's trip to Dallas, from its origin through its tragic conclusion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0004.pt|The narrative of these events is based largely on the recollections of the participants,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0005.pt|although in many instances documentary or other evidence has also been used by the Commission.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0006.pt|Beginning with the advance plans and Secret Service preparations for the trip,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0007.pt|this chapter reviews the motorcade through Dallas, the fleeting moments of the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0008.pt|the activities at Parkland Memorial Hospital, and the return of the Presidential party to Washington.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0009.pt|An evaluation of the procedures employed to safeguard the President, with recommendations for improving these procedures, appears in Chapter eight of the report.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0010.pt|Planning the Texas Trip
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0011.pt|President Kennedy's visit to Texas in November nineteen sixty-three had been under consideration for almost a year before it occurred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0012.pt|He had made only a few brief visits to the State since the nineteen sixty Presidential campaign and in nineteen sixty-two he began to consider a formal visit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0013.pt|During nineteen sixty-three, the reasons for making the trip became more persuasive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0014.pt|As a political leader, the President wished to resolve the factional controversy within the Democratic Party in Texas before the election of nineteen sixty-four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0015.pt|The party itself saw an opportunity to raise funds by having the President speak at a political dinner eventually planned for Austin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0016.pt|As Chief of State, the President always welcomed the opportunity to learn, firsthand, about the problems which concerned the American people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0017.pt|Moreover, he looked forward to the public appearances which he personally enjoyed. The basic decision on the November trip to Texas was made at a meeting of President Kennedy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0018.pt|Vice President Johnson, and Governor Connally on June fifth, nineteen sixty-three, at the Cortez Hotel in El Paso, Texas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0019.pt|The President had spoken earlier that day at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0020.pt|and had stopped in El Paso to discuss the proposed visit and other matters with the Vice President and the Governor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0021.pt|The three agreed that the President would come to Texas in late November nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0022.pt|The original plan called for the President to spend only one day in the State, making whirlwind visits to Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Houston.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0023.pt|In September, the White House decided to permit further visits by the President and extended the trip to run from the afternoon of November twenty-one
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0024.pt|through the evening of Friday, November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0025.pt|When Governor Connally called at the White House on October four to discuss the details of the visit,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0026.pt|it was agreed that the planning of events in Texas would be left largely to the Governor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0027.pt|At the White House, Kenneth O'Donnell, special assistant to the President, acted as coordinator for the trip.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0028.pt|Everyone agreed that, if there was sufficient time, a motorcade through downtown Dallas would be the best way for the people to see their President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0029.pt|When the trip was planned for only one day, Governor Connally had opposed the motorcade because there was not enough time. The Governor stated, however, that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0030.pt|once we got San Antonio moved from Friday to Thursday afternoon, where that was his initial stop in Texas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0031.pt|then we had the time, and I withdrew my objections to a motorcade. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0032.pt|According to O'Donnell, quote, we had a motorcade wherever we went, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0033.pt|particularly in large cities where the purpose was to let the President be seen by as many people as possible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0034.pt|In his experience, quote, it would be automatic, end quote, for the Secret Service to arrange a route which would, within the time allotted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0035.pt|bring the President, quote, through an area which exposes him to the greatest number of people, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0036.pt|Advance Preparations for the Dallas Trip
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0037.pt|Advance preparations for President Kennedy's visit to Dallas were primarily the responsibility of two Secret Service agents:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0038.pt|Special Agent Winston G. Lawson, a member of the White House detail who acted as the advance agent, and Forrest V. Sorrels,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0039.pt|special agent in charge of the Dallas office. Both agents were advised of the trip on November four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0040.pt|Lawson received a tentative schedule of the Texas trip on November eight from Roy H. Kellerman, assistant special agent in charge of the White House detail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0041.pt|who was the Secret Service official responsible for the entire Texas journey.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0042.pt|As advance agent working closely with Sorrels, Lawson had responsibility for arranging the timetable for the President's visit to Dallas
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0043.pt|and coordinating local activities with the White House staff, the organizations directly concerned with the visit, and local law enforcement officials.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0044.pt|Lawson's most important responsibilities were to take preventive action against anyone in Dallas considered a threat to the President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0045.pt|to select the luncheon site and motorcade route, and to plan security measures for the luncheon and the motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0046.pt|Preventive Intelligence Activities. The Protective Research Section (PRS) of the Secret Service
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0047.pt|maintains records of people who have threatened the President or so conducted themselves as to be deemed a potential danger to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0048.pt|On November eight, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0049.pt|after undertaking the responsibility for advance preparations for the visit to Dallas, Agent Lawson went to the PRS offices in Washington.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0050.pt|A check of the geographic indexes there revealed no listing for any individual deemed to be a potential danger to the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0051.pt|in the territory of the Secret Service regional office which includes Dallas and Fort Worth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0052.pt|To supplement the PRS files, the Secret Service depends largely on local police departments and local offices of other Federal agencies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0053.pt|which advise it of potential threats immediately before the visit of the President to their community.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0054.pt|Upon his arrival in Dallas on November twelve
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0055.pt|Lawson conferred with the local police and the local office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation about potential dangers to the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0056.pt|Although there was no mention in PRS files of the demonstration in Dallas against Ambassador Adlai Stevenson on October twenty-fourth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0057.pt|nineteen sixty-three, Lawson inquired about the incident and obtained through the local police photographs of some of the persons involved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0058.pt|On November twenty-two a Secret Service agent stood at the entrance to the Trade Mart, where the President was scheduled to speak, with copies of these photographs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0059.pt|Dallas detectives in the lobby of the Trade Mart and in the luncheon area also had copies of these photographs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0060.pt|A number of people who resembled some of those in the photographs were placed under surveillance at the Trade Mart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0061.pt|The FBI office in Dallas gave the local Secret Service representatives the name of a possibly dangerous individual in the Dallas area who was investigated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0062.pt|It also advised the Secret Service of the circulation on November twenty-one of a handbill sharply critical of President Kennedy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0063.pt|discussed in chapter six of this report.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0064.pt|Shortly before, the Dallas police had reported to the Secret Service that the handbill had appeared on the streets of Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0065.pt|Neither the Dallas police nor the FBI had yet learned the source of the handbill.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0066.pt|No one else was identified to the Secret Service through local inquiry as potentially dangerous,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0067.pt|nor did PRS develop any additional information between November twelve, when Lawson left Washington, and November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0068.pt|The adequacy of the intelligence system maintained by the Secret Service at the time of the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0069.pt|including a detailed description of the available data on Lee Harvey Oswald and the reasons why his name had not been furnished to the Secret Service,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0070.pt|is discussed in chapter eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0071.pt|An important purpose of the President's visit to Dallas was to speak at a luncheon given by business and civic leaders.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0072.pt|The White House staff informed the Secret Service
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0073.pt|that the President would arrive and depart from Dallas' Love Field; that a motorcade through the downtown area of Dallas to the luncheon site should be arranged;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0074.pt|and that following the luncheon the President would return to the airport by the most direct route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0075.pt|Accordingly, it was important to determine the luncheon site as quickly as possible, so that security could be established at the site and the motorcade route selected.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0076.pt|On November four, Gerald A. Behn, agent in charge of the White House detail, asked Sorrels to examine three potential sites for the luncheon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0077.pt|One building, Market Hall, was unavailable for November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0078.pt|The second, the Women's Building at the State Fair Grounds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0079.pt|was a one-story building with few entrances and easy to make secure, but it lacked necessary food-handling facilities
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0080.pt|and had certain unattractive features, including a low ceiling with exposed conduits and beams.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0081.pt|The third possibility, the Trade Mart, a handsome new building with all the necessary facilities, presented security problems. It had numerous entrances,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0082.pt|several tiers of balconies surrounding the central court where the luncheon would be held, and several catwalks crossing the court at each level.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0083.pt|On November four, Sorrels told Behn he believed security difficulties at the Trade Mart could be overcome by special precautions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0084.pt|Lawson also evaluated the security hazards at the Trade Mart on November thirteen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0085.pt|Kenneth O'Donnell made the final decision to hold the luncheon at the Trade Mart; Behn so notified Lawson on November fourteen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0086.pt|Once the Trade Mart had been selected, Sorrels and Lawson worked out detailed arrangements for security at the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0087.pt|In addition to the preventive measures already mentioned, they provided for controlling access to the building, closing off and policing areas around it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0088.pt|securing the roof and insuring the presence of numerous police officers inside and around the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0089.pt|Ultimately more than two hundred law enforcement officers, mainly Dallas police but including eight Secret Service agents,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0090.pt|were deployed in and around the Trade Mart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0091.pt|The Motorcade Route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0092.pt|On November eight, when Lawson was briefed on the itinerary for the trip to Dallas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0093.pt|he was told that forty-five minutes had been allotted for a motorcade procession from Love Field to the luncheon site.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0094.pt|Lawson was not specifically instructed to select the parade route, but he understood that this was one of his functions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0095.pt|Even before the Trade Mart had been definitely selected, Lawson and Sorrels began to consider the best motorcade route from Love Field to the Trade Mart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0096.pt|On November fourteen, Lawson and Sorrels attended a meeting at Love Field
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0097.pt|and on their return to Dallas drove over the route which Sorrels believed best suited for the proposed motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0098.pt|This route, eventually selected for the motorcade from the airport to the Trade Mart, measured ten miles and could be driven easily within the allotted forty-five minutes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0099.pt|From Love Field the route passed through a portion of suburban Dallas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0100.pt|through the downtown area along Main Street and then to the Trade Mart via Stemmons Freeway.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0101.pt|For the President's return to Love Field following the luncheon, the agents selected the most direct route, which was approximately four miles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0102.pt|After the selection of the Trade Mart as the luncheon site,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0103.pt|Lawson and Sorrels met with Dallas Chief of Police Jesse E. Curry, Assistant Chief Charles Batchelor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0104.pt|Deputy Chief N. T. Fisher, and several other command officers to discuss details of the motorcade and possible routes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0105.pt|The route was further reviewed by Lawson and Sorrels with Assistant Chief Batchelor and members of the local host committee on November fifteen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0106.pt|The police officials agreed that the route recommended by Sorrels was the proper one and did not express a belief that any other route might be better.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0107.pt|On November eighteen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0108.pt|Sorrels and Lawson drove over the selected route with Batchelor and other police officers, verifying that it could be traversed within forty-five minutes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0109.pt|Representatives of the local host committee and the White House staff were advised by the Secret Service of the actual route on the afternoon of November eighteen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0110.pt|The route impressed the agents as a natural and desirable one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0111.pt|Sorrels, who had participated in Presidential protection assignments in Dallas since a visit by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0112.pt|in nineteen thirty-six, as testified that the traditional parade route in Dallas was along Main Street, since the tall buildings along the street
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0113.pt|gave more people an opportunity to participate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0114.pt|The route chosen from the airport to Main Street was the normal one, except where Harwood Street was selected as the means of access to Main Street
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0115.pt|in preference to a short stretch of the Central Expressway, which presented a minor safety hazard
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0116.pt|and could not accommodate spectators as conveniently as Harwood Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0117.pt|According to Lawson, the chosen route seemed to be the best.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0118.pt|It afforded us wide streets most of the way, because of the buses that were in the motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0119.pt|It afforded us a chance to have alternative routes if something happened on the motorcade route. It was the type of suburban area a good part of the way
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0120.pt|where the crowds would be able to be controlled for a great distance, and we figured that the largest crowds would be downtown, which they were,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0121.pt|and that the wide streets that we would use downtown would be of sufficient width to keep the public out of our way.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0122.pt|Elm Street, parallel to Main Street and one block north,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0123.pt|was not used for the main portion of the downtown part of the motorcade because Main Street offered better vantage points for spectators.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0124.pt|To reach the Trade Mart from Main Street the agents decided to use the Stemmons Freeway (Route Number seventy-seven), the most direct route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0125.pt|The only practical way for westbound traffic on Main Street
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0126.pt|to reach the northbound lanes of the Stemmons Freeway is via Elm Street, which Route Number seventy-seven traffic is instructed to follow in this part of the city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0127.pt|Elm Street was to be reached from Main by turning right at Houston,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0128.pt|going one block north and then turning left onto Elm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0129.pt|On this last portion of the journey, only five minutes from the Trade Mart,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0130.pt|the President's motorcade would pass the Texas School Book Depository Building on the northwest corner of Houston and Elm Streets.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0131.pt|The building overlooks Dealey Plaza, an attractively landscaped triangle of three acres.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0132.pt|From Houston Street, which forms the base of the triangle, three streets -- Commerce, Main, and Elm --
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0133.pt|trisect the plaza, converging at the apex of the triangle to form a triple underpass beneath a multiple railroad bridge
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0134.pt|almost five hundred feet from Houston Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0135.pt|Elm Street, the northernmost of the three, after intersecting Houston curves in a southwesterly arc
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0136.pt|through the underpass and leads into an access road,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0137.pt|which branches off to the right and is used by traffic going to the Stemmons Freeway and the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0138.pt|The Elm Street approach to the Stemmons Freeway is necessary
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0139.pt|in order to avoid the traffic hazards which would otherwise exist if right turns were permitted from both Main and Elm into the freeway.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0140.pt|To create this traffic pattern, a concrete barrier between Main and Elm Streets presents an obstacle to a right turn
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0141.pt|from Main across Elm to the access road to Stemmons Freeway and the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0142.pt|This concrete barrier extends far enough beyond the access road to make it impracticable for vehicles to turn right from Main directly to the access road.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0143.pt|A sign located on this barrier instructs Main Street traffic not to make any turns.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0144.pt|In conformity with these arrangements, traffic proceeding west on Main is directed to turn right at Houston
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0145.pt|in order to reach the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike, which has the same access road from Elm Street as does the Stemmons Freeway.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0146.pt|The planning for the motorcade also included advance preparations for security arrangements along the route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0147.pt|Sorrels and Lawson reviewed the route in cooperation with Assistant Chief Bachelor and other Dallas police officials who took notes on the requirements
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0148.pt|for controlling the crowds and traffic, watching the overpasses, and providing motorcycle escort.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0149.pt|To control traffic, arrangements were made for the deployment of foot patrolmen and motorcycle police at various positions along the route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0150.pt|Police were assigned to each overpass on the route and instructed to keep them clear of unauthorized persons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0151.pt|No arrangements were made for police or building custodians
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0152.pt|to inspect buildings along the motorcade route since the Secret Service did not normally request or make such a check.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0153.pt|Under standard procedures, the responsibility for watching the windows of buildings was shared by local police stationed along the route
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0154.pt|and Secret Service agents riding in the motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0155.pt|As the date for the President's visit approached,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0156.pt|the two Dallas newspapers carried several reports of his motorcade route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0157.pt|The selection of the Trade Mart as the possible site for the luncheon first appeared in the Dallas Times-Herald on November fifteen, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0158.pt|The following day, the newspaper reported that the Presidential party
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0159.pt|quote, apparently will loop through the downtown area, probably on Main Street, en route from Dallas Love Field, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0160.pt|on its way to the Trade Mart. On November nineteen, the Times-Herald afternoon paper detailed the precise route:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0161.pt|From the airport, the President's party will proceed to Mockingbird Lane to Lemmon and then to Turtle Creek, turning south to Cedar Springs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0162.pt|The motorcade will then pass through downtown on Harwood
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0163.pt|and then west on Main, turning back to Elm at Houston and then out Stemmons Freeway to the Trade Mart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0164.pt|Also on November nineteen, the Morning News reported that the President's motorcade would travel from Love Field along specified streets, then
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0165.pt|Harwood to Main, Main to Houston, Houston to Elm, Elm under the Triple Underpass to Stemmons Freeway, and on to the Trade Mart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0166.pt|On November twenty a front page story reported that the streets on which the Presidential motorcade would travel included "Main and Stemmons Freeway."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0167.pt|On the morning of the President's arrival,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0168.pt|the Morning News noted that the motorcade would travel through downtown Dallas onto the Stemmons Freeway, and reported that, quote, the motorcade will move slowly
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0169.pt|so that crowds can get a good view of President Kennedy and his wife.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0170.pt|Dallas Before the Visit
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0171.pt|The President's intention to pay a visit to Texas in the fall of nineteen sixty-three aroused interest throughout the State.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0172.pt|The two Dallas newspapers provided their readers with a steady stream of information and speculation about the trip,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0173.pt|beginning on September thirteen, when the Times-Herald announced in a front page article that President Kennedy was planning a brief one-day tour of four Texas cities
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0174.pt|Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Houston
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0175.pt|Both Dallas papers cited White House sources on September twenty-six as confirming the President's intention to visit Texas on November twenty-one and twenty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0176.pt|with Dallas scheduled as one of the stops.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0177.pt|Articles, editorials, and letters to the editor in the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times-Herald after September thirteen
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0178.pt|reflected the feeling in the community toward the forthcoming Presidential visit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0179.pt|Although there were critical editorials and letters to the editors, the news stories reflected the desire of Dallas officials to welcome the President with dignity and courtesy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0180.pt|An editorial in the Times-Herald of September seventeen
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0181.pt|called on the people of Dallas to be "congenial hosts" even though "Dallas didn't vote for Mr. Kennedy in nineteen sixty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0182.pt|may not endorse him in 'sixty-four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0183.pt|On October three the Dallas Morning News quoted U.S. Representative Joe Pool's hope
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0184.pt|that President Kennedy would receive a "good welcome" and would not face demonstrations like those encountered
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0185.pt|by Vice President Johnson during the nineteen sixty campaign.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0186.pt|Increased concern about the President's visit was aroused by the incident involving the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai E. Stevenson.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0187.pt|On the evening of October twenty-four, nineteen sixty-three, after addressing a meeting in Dallas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0188.pt|Stevenson was jeered, jostled, and spat upon by hostile demonstrators outside the Dallas Memorial Auditorium Theater.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0189.pt|The local, national, and international reaction to this incident evoked from Dallas officials and newspapers strong condemnations of the demonstrators.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0190.pt|Mayor Earle Cabell called on the city to redeem itself during President Kennedy's visit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0191.pt|He asserted that Dallas had shed its reputation of the twenties as the, quote, Southwest hate capital of Dixie, end quote
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0192.pt|On October twenty-six the press reported Chief of Police Curry's plans
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0193.pt|to call in one hundred extra off-duty officers to help protect President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0194.pt|Any thought that the President might cancel his visit to Dallas was ended
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0195.pt|when Governor Connally confirmed on November eight that the President would come to Texas on November twenty-one and twenty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0196.pt|and that he would visit San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth, Dallas, and Austin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0197.pt|During November the Dallas papers reported frequently on the plans for protecting the President, stressing the thoroughness of the preparations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0198.pt|They conveyed the pleas of Dallas leaders that citizens not demonstrate or create disturbances during the President's visit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0199.pt|On November eighteen the Dallas City Council adopted a new city ordinance prohibiting interference with attendance at lawful assemblies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0200.pt|Two days before the President's arrival Chief Curry warned that the Dallas police would not permit improper conduct during the President's visit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0201.pt|Meanwhile, on November seventeen
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0202.pt|the president of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce referred to the city's reputation for being the friendliest town in America and asserted that citizens would, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0203.pt|greet the President of the United States with the warmth and pride that keep the Dallas spirit famous the world over, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0204.pt|Two days later, a local Republican leader called for a "civilized nonpartisan" welcome
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0205.pt|for President Kennedy, stating that "in many respects Dallas County has isolated itself from the main stream of life in the world in this decade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0206.pt|Another reaction to the impending visit -- hostile to the President -- came to a head shortly before his arrival.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0207.pt|On November twenty-one there appeared on the streets of Dallas the anonymous handbill mentioned above.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0208.pt|It was fashioned after the "wanted" circulars issued by law enforcement agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0209.pt|Beneath two photographs of President Kennedy, one full- face and one profile, appeared the caption, quote, Wanted for Treason,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0210.pt|end quote, followed by a scurrilous bill of particulars that constituted a vilification of the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0211.pt|And on the morning of the President's arrival, there appeared in the Morning News a full, black-bordered advertisement headed:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0212.pt|"Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas," sponsored by the American Fact-finding Committee, which the sponsor later testified was an ad hoc committee
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ029-0213.pt|quote, formed strictly for the purpose of having a name to put in the paper, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0002.pt|Chapter two. The Assassination: Part two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0003.pt|Visits to Other Texas Cities
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0004.pt|The trip to Texas began with the departure of President and Mrs. Kennedy from the White House
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0005.pt|by helicopter at ten:forty-five A.M., Eastern Standard Time, on November twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three, for Andrews Air Force Base.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0006.pt|They took off in the Presidential plane, Air Force One, at eleven a.m., arriving at San Antonio at one:thirty p.m., Eastern Standard Time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0007.pt|They were greeted by Vice President Johnson and Governor Connally, who joined the Presidential party in a motorcade through San Antonio.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0008.pt|During the afternoon, President Kennedy dedicated the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0009.pt|Late in the afternoon he flew to Houston where he rode through the city in a motorcade,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0010.pt|spoke at the Rice University Stadium, and attended a dinner in honor of U.S. Representative Albert Thomas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0011.pt|At Rice Stadium a very large, enthusiastic crowd greeted the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0012.pt|In Houston, as elsewhere during the trip, the crowds showed much interest in Mrs. Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0013.pt|David F. Powers of the President's staff later stated that when the President asked for his assessment of the day's activities, Powers replied
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0014.pt|quote, that the crowd was about the same as the one which came to see him before but there were one hundred thousand extra people on hand who came to see Mrs. Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0015.pt|Late in the evening, the Presidential party flew to Fort Worth where they spent the night at the Texas Hotel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0016.pt|On the morning of November twenty-two, President Kennedy attended a breakfast at the hotel and afterward addressed a crowd at an open parking lot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0017.pt|The President liked outdoor appearances because more people could see and hear him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0018.pt|Before leaving the hotel, the President, Mrs. Kennedy, and Kenneth O'Donnell talked about the risks inherent in Presidential public appearances.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0019.pt|According to O'Donnell, the President commented that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0020.pt|if anybody really wanted to shoot the President of the United States, it was not a very difficult job
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0021.pt|all one had to do was get a high building someday with a telescopic rifle, and there was nothing anybody could do to defend against such an attempt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0022.pt|Upon concluding the conversation, the President prepared to depart for Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0023.pt|Arrival at Love Field
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0024.pt|In Dallas the rain had stopped, and by midmorning a gloomy overcast sky had given way to the bright sunshine that greeted the Presidential party
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0025.pt|when Air Force One touched down at Love Field at eleven:forty a.m., Eastern Standard Time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0026.pt|Governor and Mrs. Connally and Senator Ralph W. Yarborough had come with the President from Fort Worth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0027.pt|Vice President Johnson's airplane, Air Force Two, had arrived at Love Field at approximately eleven:thirty-five a.m.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0028.pt|and the Vice President and Mrs. Johnson were in the receiving line to greet President and Mrs. Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0029.pt|After a welcome from the Dallas reception committee,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0030.pt|President and Mrs. Kennedy walked along a chain-link fence at the reception area greeting a large crowd of spectators that had gathered behind it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0031.pt|Secret Service agents formed a cordon to keep the press and photographers from impeding their passage and scanned the crowd for threatening movements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0032.pt|Dallas police stood at intervals along the fence and Dallas plain clothes men mixed in the crowd.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0033.pt|Vice President and Mrs. Johnson followed along the fence, guarded by four members of the Vice-Presidential detail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0034.pt|Approximately ten minutes after the arrival at Love Field, the President and Mrs. Kennedy went to the Presidential automobile to begin the motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0035.pt|Organization of the Motorcade
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0036.pt|Secret Service arrangements for Presidential trips, which were followed in the Dallas motorcade,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0037.pt|are designed to provide protection while permitting large numbers of people to see the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0038.pt|Every effort is made to prevent unscheduled stops, although the President may, and in Dallas did, order stops in order to greet the public.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0039.pt|Men the motorcade slows or stops, agents take positions between the President and the crowd.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0040.pt|The order of vehicles in the Dallas motorcade was as follows:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0041.pt|Motorcycles. -- Dallas police motorcycles preceded the pilot car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0042.pt|Manned by officers of the Dallas Police Department, this automobile preceded the main party by approximately quarter of a mile.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0043.pt|Its function was to alert police along the route that the motorcade was approaching and to check for signs of trouble.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0044.pt|Motorcycles. -- Next came four to six motorcycle policemen whose main purpose was to keep the crowd back.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0045.pt|The lead car. -- Described as a "rolling command car," this was an unmarked Dallas police car, driven by Chief of Police Curry
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0046.pt|and occupied by Secret Service Agents Sorrels and Lawson and by Dallas County Sheriff J. E. Decker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0047.pt|The occupants scanned the crowd and the buildings along the route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0048.pt|Their main function was to spot trouble in advance and to direct any necessary steps to meet the trouble.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0049.pt|Following normal practice, the lead automobile stayed approximately four to five car lengths ahead of the President's limousine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0050.pt|The Presidential limousine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0051.pt|The President's automobile was specially designed nineteen sixty-one Lincoln convertible
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0052.pt|with two collapsible jump seats between the front and rear seats.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0053.pt|It was outfitted with a clear plastic bubbletop which was neither bulletproof nor bullet resistant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0054.pt|Because the skies had cleared in Dallas, Lawson directed that the top not be used for the day's activities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0055.pt|He acted on instructions he had received earlier from Assistant Special Agent in Charge Roy H. Kellerman, who was in Fort Worth with the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0056.pt|Kellerman had discussed the matter with O'Donnell, whose instructions were, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0057.pt|If the weather is clear and it is not raining, have that bubbletop off, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0058.pt|Elevated approximately fifteen inches above the back of the front seat
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0059.pt|was a metallic frame with four handholds that riders in the car could grip while standing in the rear seat during parades.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0060.pt|At the rear on each side of the automobile were small running boards, each designed to hold a Secret Service agent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0061.pt|with a metallic handle for the rider to grasp.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0062.pt|The President had frequently stated that he did not want agents to ride on these steps during a motorcade except when necessary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0063.pt|He had repeated this wish only a few days before, during his visit to Tampa, Florida.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0064.pt|President Kennedy rode on the right-hand side of the rear seat with Mrs. Kennedy on his left.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0065.pt|Governor Connally occupied the right jump seat, Mrs. Connally the left.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0066.pt|Driving the Presidential limousine was Special Agent William R. Greer of the Secret Service;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0067.pt|on his right sat Kellerman.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0068.pt|Kellerman's responsibilities included maintaining radio communications with the lead and follow-up cars,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0069.pt|scanning the route, and getting out and standing near the President when the cars stopped.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0070.pt|Motorcycles. -- Four motorcycles, two on each side, flanked the rear of the Presidential car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0071.pt|They provided some cover for the President, but their main purpose was to keep back the crowd.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0072.pt|On previous occasions, the President had requested that, to the extent possible, these flanking motorcycles keep back from the sides of his car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0073.pt|Presidential follow-up car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0074.pt|This vehicle, a nineteen fifty-five Cadillac eight-passenger convertible especially outfitted for the Secret Service,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0075.pt|followed closely behind the President's automobile.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0076.pt|It carried eight Secret Service agents -- two in the front seat, two in the rear, and two on each of the right and left running boards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0077.pt|Each agent carried a thirty-eight-caliber pistol, and a shotgun and automatic rifle were also available.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0078.pt|Presidential Assistants David F. Powers and Kenneth O'Donnell sat in the right and left jump seats, respectively.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0079.pt|The agents in this car, under established procedure, had instructions to watch the route for signs of trouble,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0080.pt|scanning not only the crowds but the windows and roofs of buildings, overpasses, and crossings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0081.pt|They were instructed to watch particularly for thrown objects, sudden actions in the crowd, and any movements toward the Presidential car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0082.pt|The agents on the front of the running boards had directions to move immediately to positions just to the rear of the President and Mrs. Kennedy when the President's car slowed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0083.pt|to a walking pace or stopped,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0084.pt|or when the press of the crowd made it impossible for the escort motorcycles to stay in position on the car's rear flanks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0085.pt|The two agents on the rear of the running boards were to advance toward the front of the President's car whenever it stopped or slowed down sufficiently for them to do so.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0086.pt|Vice-Presidential car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0087.pt|The Vice-Presidential automobile, a four-door Lincoln convertible obtained locally for use in the motorcade,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0088.pt|proceeded approximately two to three car lengths behind the President's follow-up car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0089.pt|This distance was maintained so that spectators would normally turn their gaze from the President's automobile by the time the Vice President came into view.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0090.pt|Vice President Johnson sat on the right-hand side of the rear seat, Mrs. Johnson in the center, and Senator Yarborough on the left.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0091.pt|Rufus W. Youngblood, special agent in charge of the Vice President's detail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0092.pt|occupied the right-hand side of the front seat, and Hurchel Jacks of the Texas State Highway patrol was the driver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0093.pt|Vice-Presidential follow-up car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0094.pt|Driven by an officer of the Dallas Police Department,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0095.pt|this vehicle was occupied by three Secret Service agents and Clifton C. Garter, assistant to the Vice President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0096.pt|These agents performed for the Vice President the same functions that the agents in the Presidential follow-up car performed for the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0097.pt|Remainder of motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0098.pt|The remainder of the motorcade consisted of five cars for other dignitaries, including the mayor of Dallas and Texas Congressmen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0099.pt|telephone and Western Union vehicles, a White House communications car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0100.pt|three cars for press photographers, an official party bus for White House staff members and others, and two press buses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0101.pt|Admiral George G. Burkley, physician to the President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0102.pt|was in a car following those, quote, containing the local and national representatives, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0103.pt|Police car and motorcycles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0104.pt|A Dallas police car and several motorcycles at the rear kept the motorcade together and prevented unauthorized vehicles from joining the motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0105.pt|Communications in the motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0106.pt|A base station at a fixed location in Dallas operated a radio network which linked together the lead car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0107.pt|Presidential car, Presidential follow-up car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0108.pt|White House communications car, Trade Mart, Love Field, and the Presidential and Vice-Presidential airplanes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0109.pt|The Vice-Presidential car
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0110.pt|and Vice-Presidential follow-up car used portable sets with a separate frequency for their own car-to-car communication.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0111.pt|The Drive through Dallas
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0112.pt|The motorcade left Love Field shortly after eleven:fifty a.m. and drove at speeds up to twenty-five to thirty miles an hour
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0113.pt|through thinly populated areas on the outskirts of Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0114.pt|At the President's direction, his automobile stopped twice, the first time to permit him to respond to a sign asking him to shake hands.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0115.pt|During this brief stop, agents in the front positions on the running boards of the Presidential follow-up car came forward and stood beside the President's car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0116.pt|looking out toward the crowd, and Special Agent Kellerman assumed his position next to the car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0117.pt|On the other occasion, the President halted the motorcade to speak to a Catholic nun and a group of small children.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0118.pt|In the downtown area, large crowds of spectators gave the President a tremendous reception.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0119.pt|The crowds were so dense that Special Agent Clinton J. Hill
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0120.pt|had to leave the left front running board of the President's follow-up car four times to ride on the rear of the President's limousine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0121.pt|Several times Special Agent John D. Ready came forward from the right front running board of the Presidential follow-up car
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0122.pt|to the right side of the President's car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0123.pt|Special Agent Glen A. Bennett once left his place inside the follow-up car to help keep the crowd away from the President's car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0124.pt|When a teenage boy ran toward the rear of the President's car, Ready left the running board to chase the boy back into the crowd.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0125.pt|On several occasions when the Vice President's car was slowed down by the throng, Special Agent Youngblood stepped out to hold the crowd back.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0126.pt|According to plan, the President's motorcade proceeded west through downtown Dallas on Main Street
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0127.pt|to the intersection of Houston Street, which marks the beginning of Dealey Plaza.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0128.pt|From Main Street the motorcade turned right and went north on Houston Street, passing tall buildings on the right,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0129.pt|and headed toward the Texas School Book Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0130.pt|The spectators were still thickly congregated in front of the buildings which lined the east side of Houston Street, but the crowd thinned abruptly along Elm Street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0131.pt|which curves in a southwesterly direction as it proceeds downgrade toward the Triple Underpass and the Stemmons Freeway.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0132.pt|As the motorcade approached the intersection of Houston and Elm Streets, there was general gratification in the Presidential party about the enthusiastic reception.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0133.pt|Evaluating the political overtones, Kenneth O'Donnell was especially pleased
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0134.pt|because it convinced him that the average Dallas resident was like other American citizens in respecting and admiring the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0135.pt|Mrs. Connally, elated by the reception, turned to President Kennedy and said, quote, Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0136.pt|end quote, the President replied, "That is very obvious."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0137.pt|The Assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0138.pt|At twelve:thirty p.m., Eastern Standard Time, as the President's open limousine proceeded at approximately eleven miles per hour along Elm Street
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0139.pt|toward the Triple Underpass, shots fired from a rifle mortally wounded President Kennedy and seriously injured Governor Connally.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0140.pt|One bullet passed through the President's neck;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0141.pt|a subsequent bullet, which was lethal, shattered the right side of his skull.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0142.pt|Governor Connally sustained bullet wounds in his back, the right side of his chest, right wrist, and left thigh.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0143.pt|The exact time of the assassination was fixed by the testimony of four witnesses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0144.pt|Special Agent Rufus W. Youngblood observed that the large electric sign clock atop the Texas School Book Depository Building
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0145.pt|showed the numerals twelve:thirty as the Vice-Presidential automobile proceeded north on Houston Street, a few seconds before the shots were fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0146.pt|Just prior to the shooting, David F. Powers, riding in the Secret Service follow-up car, remarked to Kenneth O'Donnell
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0147.pt|that it was twelve:thirty p.m., the time they were due at the Trade Mart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0148.pt|Seconds after the shooting, Roy Kellerman, riding in the front seat of the Presidential limousine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0149.pt|looked at his watch and said "twelve:thirty" to the driver, Special Agent Greer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0150.pt|The Dallas police radio log reflects that Chief of Police Curry reported the shooting of the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0151.pt|and issued his initial orders at twelve:thirty p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0152.pt|Speed of the Limousine
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0153.pt|William Greer, operator of the Presidential limousine, estimated the car's speed at the time of the first shot as twelve to fifteen miles per hour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0154.pt|Other witnesses in the motorcade estimated the speed of the President's limousine from seven to twenty-two miles per hour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0155.pt|A more precise determination has been made from motion pictures taken on the scene by an amateur photographer, Abraham Zapruder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0156.pt|Based on these films, the speed of the President's automobile is computed at an average speed of eleven point two miles per hour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0157.pt|The car maintained this average speed over a distance of approximately one hundred eighty-six feet immediately preceding the shot which struck the President in the head.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0158.pt|While the car traveled this distance, the Zapruder camera ran one hundred fifty-two frames.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0159.pt|Since the camera operates at a speed of eighteen point three frames per second,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0160.pt|it was calculated that the car required eight point three seconds to cover the one hundred thirty-six feet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0161.pt|This represents a speed of eleven point two miles per hour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0162.pt|In the Presidential Limousine
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0163.pt|Mrs. John F. Kennedy, on the left of the rear seat of the limousine, looked toward her left and waved to the crowds along the route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0164.pt|Soon after the motorcade turned onto Elm Street, she heard a sound similar to a motorcycle noise and a cry from Governor Connally,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0165.pt|which caused her to look to her right.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0166.pt|On turning she saw a quizzical look on her husband's face as he raised his left hand to his throat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0167.pt|Mrs. Kennedy then heard a second shot and saw the President's skull torn open under the impact of the bullet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0168.pt|As she cradled her mortally wounded husband, Mrs. Kennedy cried, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0169.pt|Oh, my God, they have shot my husband. I love you, Jack.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0170.pt|Governor Connally testified that he recognized the first noise as a rifle shot
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0171.pt|and the thought immediately crossed his mind that it was an assassination attempt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0172.pt|From his position in the right jump seat immediately in front of the President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0173.pt|he instinctively turned to his right because the shot appeared to come from over his right shoulder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0174.pt|Unable to see the President as he turned to the right,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0175.pt|the Governor started to look back over his left shoulder, but he never completed the turn because he felt something strike him in the back.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0176.pt|In his testimony before the Commission, Governor Connally was certain that he was hit by the second shot, which he stated he did not hear.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0177.pt|Mrs. Connally, too, heard a frightening noise from her right.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0178.pt|Looking over her right shoulder, she saw that the President had both hands at his neck but she observed no blood and heard nothing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0179.pt|She watched as he slumped down with an empty expression on his face.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0180.pt|Roy Kellerman, in the right front seat of the limousine, heard a report like a firecracker pop.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0181.pt|Turning to his right in the direction of the noise, Kellerman heard the President say
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0182.pt|"My God, I am hit," and saw both of the President's hands move up toward his neck.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0183.pt|As he told the driver, quote, Let's get out of here; we are hit, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0184.pt|Kellerman grabbed his microphone and radioed ahead to the lead car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0185.pt|quote, we are hit. Get us to the hospital immediately, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0186.pt|The driver, William Greer, heard a noise which he took to be a backfire from one of the motorcycles flanking the Presidential car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0187.pt|When he heard the same noise again, Greer glanced over his shoulder and saw Governor Connally fall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0188.pt|At the sound of the second shot
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0189.pt|he realized that something was wrong, and he pressed down on the accelerator as Kellerman said, quote, Get out of here fast, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0190.pt|As he issued his instructions to Greer and to the lead car, Kellerman heard a flurry of shots within five seconds of the first noise.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0191.pt|According to Kellerman, Mrs. Kennedy then cried out, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0192.pt|What are they doing to you! end quote. Looking back from the front seat,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0193.pt|Kellerman saw Governor Connally in his wife's lap and Special Agent Clinton J. Hill lying across the trunk of the car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0194.pt|Mrs. Connally heard a second shot fired and pulled her husband down into her lap.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0195.pt|Observing his blood-covered chest as he was pulled into his wife's lap, Governor Connally believed himself mortally wounded.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0196.pt|He cried out, quote, Oh, no, no, no. My God, they are going to kill us all, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0197.pt|At first Mrs. Connally thought that her husband had been killed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0198.pt|but then she noticed an almost imperceptible movement and knew that he was still alive. She said, quote, It's all right. Be still, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0199.pt|The Governor was lying with his head on his wife's lap when he heard a shot hit the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0200.pt|At that point, both Governor and Mrs. Connally observed brain tissue splattered over the interior of the car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0201.pt|According to Governor and Mrs. Connally, it was after this shot that Kellerman issued his emergency instructions and the car accelerated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0202.pt|Reaction by Secret Service Agents
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0203.pt|From the left front running board of the President's follow-up car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0204.pt|Special Agent Hill was scanning the few people standing on the south side of Elm Street after the motorcade had turned off Houston Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0205.pt|He estimated that the motorcade had slowed down to approximately nine or ten miles per hour
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0206.pt|on the turn at the intersection of Houston and Elm Streets and then proceeded at a rate of twelve to fifteen miles per hour
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0207.pt|with the follow-up car trailing the President's automobile by approximately five feet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0208.pt|Hill heard a noise, which seemed to be a firecracker, coming from his right rear.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0209.pt|He immediately looked to his right, quote, and, in so doing, my eyes had to cross the Presidential limousine
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0210.pt|and I saw President Kennedy grab at himself and lurch forward and to the left, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0211.pt|Hill jumped from the follow-up car and ran to the President's automobile.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0212.pt|At about the time he reached the President's automobile,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0213.pt|Hill heard a second shot, proximately five seconds after the first, which removed a portion of the President's head.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0214.pt|At the instant that Hill stepped onto the left rear step of the President's automobile and grasped the handhold,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0215.pt|the car lurched forward, causing him to lose his footing. He ran three or four steps, regained his position and mounted the car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0216.pt|Between the time he originally seized the handhold and the time he mounted the car, Hill recalled:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0217.pt|quote, Mrs. Kennedy had jumped up from the seat and was, it appeared to me, reaching for something coming off the fight rear bumper of the car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0218.pt|the right rear tail, when she noticed that I was trying to climb on the car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0219.pt|She turned toward me and I grabbed her and put her back in the back seat, crawled up on top of the back seat and lay there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0220.pt|David Powers, who witnessed the scene from the President's follow-up car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0221.pt|stated that Mrs. Kennedy would probably have fallen off the rear end of the car and been killed if Hill had not pushed her back into the Presidential automobile.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0222.pt|Mrs. Kennedy had no recollection of climbing onto the back of the car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0223.pt|Special Agent Ready, on the right front running board of the Presidential follow-up car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0224.pt|heard noises that sounded like firecrackers and ran toward the President's limousine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0225.pt|But he was immediately called back by Special Agent Emory P. Roberts, in charge of the follow-up car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0226.pt|who did not believe that he could reach, the President's car at the speed it was then traveling.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0227.pt|Special Agent George W. Hickey, Jr., in the rear seat of the Presidential follow-up car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0228.pt|picked up and cocked an automatic rifle as he heard the last shot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0229.pt|At this point the cars were speeding through the underpass and had left the scene of the shooting,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0230.pt|but Hickey kept the automatic weapon ready as the car raced to the hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0231.pt|Most of the other Secret Service agents in the motorcade had drawn their sidearms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0232.pt|Roberts noticed that the Vice President's car was approximately one-half block
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0233.pt|behind the Presidential follow-up car at the time of the shooting and signaled for it to move in closer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0234.pt|Directing the security detail for the Vice President from the right front seat of the Vice-Presidential car, Special Agent Youngblood recalled, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0235.pt|As we were beginning to go down this incline, all of a sudden there was an explosive noise.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0236.pt|I quickly observed unnatural movement of crowds, like ducking or scattering, and quick movements in the Presidential follow-up car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0237.pt|So I turned around and hit the Vice President on the shoulder and hollered, get down,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0238.pt|and then looked around again and saw more of this movement, and so I proceeded to go to the back seat and get on top of him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0239.pt|Youngblood was not positive that he was in the rear seat before the second shot, but thought it probable because of President Johnson's statement
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0240.pt|to that effect immediately after the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0241.pt|President Johnson emphasized Youngblood's instantaneous reaction after the first shot:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0242.pt|I was startled by the sharp report or explosion,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0243.pt|but I had no time to speculate as to its origin because Agent Youngblood turned in a flash, immediately after the first explosion,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0244.pt|hitting me on the shoulder, and shouted to all of us in the back seat to get down.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0245.pt|I was pushed down by Agent Youngblood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0246.pt|Almost in the same moment in which he hit or pushed me, he vaulted over the back seat and sat on me.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0247.pt|I was bent over under the weight of Agent Youngblood's body, toward Mrs. Johnson and Senator Yarborough, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0248.pt|Clifton C. Carter, riding in the Vice President's follow-up car a short distance behind,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0249.pt|reported that Youngblood was in the rear seat using his body to shield the Vice President before the second and third shots were fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0250.pt|Other Secret Service agents assigned to the motorcade remained at their posts during the race to the hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0251.pt|None stayed at the scene of the shooting, and none entered the Texas School Book Depository Building at or immediately after the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0252.pt|Secret Service procedure requires that each agent stay with the person being protected
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0253.pt|and not be diverted unless it is necessary to accomplish the protective assignment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0254.pt|Forrest V. Sorrels, special agent in charge of the Dallas office, was the first Secret Service agent to return to the scene of the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ030-0255.pt|approximately twenty or twenty-five minutes after the shots were fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0002.pt|The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Chapter two. The Assassination: Part three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0003.pt|Parkland Memorial Hospital. The Race to the Hospital
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0004.pt|In the final instant of the assassination, the Presidential motorcade began a race to Parkland Memorial Hospital,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0005.pt|approximately four miles from the Texas School Book Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0006.pt|On receipt of the radio message from Kellerman to the lead car that the President had been hit,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0007.pt|Chief of Police Curry and police motorcyclists at the head of the motorcade led the way to the hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0008.pt|Meanwhile, Chief Curry ordered the police base station to notify Parkland Hospital that the wounded President was en route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0009.pt|The radio log of the Dallas Police Department shows that at twelve:thirty p.m. on November twenty-two
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0010.pt|Chief Curry radioed, quote, Go to the hospital -- Parkland Hospital. Have them stand by, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0011.pt|A moment later Curry added, quote, Looks like the President has been hit. Have Parkland stand by, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0012.pt|The base station replied, quote, They have been notified, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0013.pt|Traveling at speeds estimated at times to be up to seventy or eighty miles per hour down the Stemmons Freeway and Harry Hines Boulevard
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0014.pt|the Presidential limousine arrived at the emergency entrance of the Parkland Hospital at about twelve:thirty-five p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0015.pt|Arriving almost simultaneously were the President's follow-up car, the Vice President's automobile, and the Vice President's follow-up car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0016.pt|Admiral Burkley, the President's physician, arrived at the hospital, quote, between three and five minutes following the arrival of the President, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0017.pt|since the riders in his car, quote, were not exactly aware what had happened, end quote, and the car went on to the Trade Mart first.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0018.pt|When Parkland Hospital received the notification, the staff in the emergency area was alerted and trauma rooms one and two were prepared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0019.pt|These rooms were for the emergency treatment of acutely ill or injured patients. Although the first message mentioned an injury only to President Kennedy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0020.pt|two rooms were prepared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0021.pt|As the President's limousine sped toward the hospital, twelve doctors to the emergency area: surgeons, Drs. Malcolm O. Perry,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0022.pt|Charles R. Baxter, Robert N. McClelland, Ronald C. Jones; the chief neurologist, Dr. William Kemp Clark;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0023.pt|four anesthesiologists, Drs. Marion T. Jenkins, Adolph H. Giesecke, Jr., Jackie H. Hunt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0024.pt|Gene C. Akin;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0025.pt|urological surgeon, Dr Paul C. Peters; an oral surgeon, Dr. Don T. Curtis; and a heart specialist,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0026.pt|Dr. Fouad A. Bashour.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0027.pt|Upon arriving at Parkland Hospital,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0028.pt|Lawson jumped from the lead car and rushed into the emergency entrance, where he was met by hospital staff members wheeling stretchers out to the automobile.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0029.pt|Special Agent Hill removed his suit jacket and covered the President's head and upper chest to prevent the taking of photographs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0030.pt|Governor Connally, who had lost consciousness on the ride to the hospital, regained consciousness when the limousine stopped abruptly at the emergency entrance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0031.pt|Despite his serious wounds, Governor Connally tried to get out of the way so that medical help could reach the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0032.pt|Although he was reclining in his wife's arms, he lurched forward in an effort to stand upright and get out of the car, but he collapsed again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0033.pt|Then he experienced his first sensation of pain, which became excruciating.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0034.pt|The Governor was lifted onto a stretcher and taken into trauma room two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0035.pt|For a moment, Mrs. Kennedy refused to release the President, whom she held in her lap,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0036.pt|but then Kellerman, Greer, and Lawson lifted the President onto a stretcher and pushed it into trauma room one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0037.pt|Treatment of President Kennedy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0038.pt|The first physician to see the President at Parkland Hospital was Dr. Charles J. Carrico, a resident in general surgery.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0039.pt|Dr. Carrico was in the emergency area, examining another patient, when he was notified that President Kennedy was en route to the hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0040.pt|Approximately two minutes later, Dr. Carrico saw the President on his back, being wheeled into the emergency area.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0041.pt|He noted that the President was blue-white or ashen in color; had slow, spasmodic, agonal respiration without any coordination;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0042.pt|made no voluntary movements; had his eyes open with the pupils dilated without any reaction to light,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0043.pt|evidenced no palpable pulse; and had a few chest sounds which were thought to be heartbeats.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0044.pt|On the basis of these findings, Dr. Carrico concluded that President Kennedy was still alive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0045.pt|Dr. Carrico noted two wounds: a small bullet wound in the front lower neck,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0046.pt|and an extensive wound in the President's head where a sizable portion of the skull was missing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0047.pt|He observed shredded brain tissue and, quote, considerable slow oozing, end quote, from the latter wound,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0048.pt|followed by, quote, more profuse bleeding, end quote, after some circulation was established.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0049.pt|Dr. Carrico felt the President's back and determined that there was no large wound there which would be an immediate threat to life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0050.pt|Observing the serious problems presented by the head wound and inadequate respiration, Dr. Carrico directed his attention to improving the President's breathing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0051.pt|He noted contusions, hematoma to the right of the larynx, which was deviated slightly to the left,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0052.pt|and also ragged tissue which indicated a tracheal injury.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0053.pt|Dr. Carrico inserted a cuffed endotracheal tube past the injury, inflated the cuff, and connected it to a Bennett machine to assist in respiration.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0054.pt|At that point, direction of the President's treatment was undertaken by Dr. Malcolm O. Perry, who arrived at trauma room one a few moments after the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0055.pt|Dr. Perry noted the President's back brace as he felt for a femoral pulse, which he did not find.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0056.pt|Observing that an effective airway had to be established if treatment was to be effective, Dr. Perry performed a tracheotomy, which required three to five minutes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0057.pt|While Dr. Perry was performing the tracheotomy, Drs. Carrico and Ronald Jones made cutdowns on the President's right leg and left arm, respectively,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0058.pt|to infuse blood and fluids into the circulatory system.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0059.pt|Dr. Carrico treated the President's known ad-renal insufficiency by administering hydrocortisone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0060.pt|Dr. Robert N. McClelland entered at that point and assisted Dr. Perry with the tracheotomy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0061.pt|Dr. Fouad Bashour, chief of cardiology, Dr. M. T. Jenkins, chief of anesthesiology, and Dr. A. H. Giesecke, Jr.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0062.pt|then joined in the effort to revive the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0063.pt|When Dr. Perry noted free air and blood in the President's chest cavity, he asked that chest tubes be inserted to allow for drainage of blood and air.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0064.pt|Drs. Paul C. Peters and Charles R. Baxter initiated these procedures.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0065.pt|As a result of the infusion of liquids through the cutdowns, the cardiac massage, and the airway,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0066.pt|the doctors were able to maintain peripheral circulation as monitored at the neck (carotid) artery and at the wrist (radial) pulse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0067.pt|A femoral pulse was also detected in the President's leg.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0068.pt|While these medical efforts were in progress,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0069.pt|Dr. Clark noted some electrical activity on the cardiotachyscope attached to monitor the President's heart responses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0070.pt|Dr. Clark, who most closely observed the head wound,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0071.pt|described a large, gaping wound in the right rear part of the head, with substantial damage and exposure of brain tissue, and a considerable loss of blood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0072.pt|Dr. Clark did not see any other hole or wound on the President's head.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0073.pt|According to Dr. Clark, the small bullet hole on the right rear of the President's head discovered during the subsequent autopsy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0074.pt|quote, could have easily been hidden in the blood and hair, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0075.pt|In the absence of any neurological, muscular, or heart response, the doctors concluded that efforts to revive the President were hopeless.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0076.pt|This was verified by Admiral Burkley, the President's physician, who arrived at the hospital after emergency treatment was underway and concluded that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0077.pt|my direct services to him at that moment would have interfered with the action of the team which was in progress, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0078.pt|At approximately one p.m., after last rites were administered to the President by Father Oscar L. Huber, Dr. Clark pronounced the President dead.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0079.pt|He made the official determination because the ultimate cause of death, the severe head injury, was within his sphere of specialization.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0080.pt|The time was fixed at one p.m., as an approximation, since it was impossible to determine the precise moment when life left the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0081.pt|President Kennedy could have survived the neck injury, but the head wound was fatal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0082.pt|From a medical viewpoint, President Kennedy was alive when he arrived at Parkland Hospital;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0083.pt|the doctors observed that he had a heartbeat and was making some respiratory efforts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0084.pt|But his condition was hopeless, and the extraordinary efforts of the doctors to save him could not help but to have been unavailing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0085.pt|Since the Dallas doctors directed all their efforts to controlling the massive bleeding caused by the head wound, and to reconstructing an airway to his lungs,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0086.pt|the President remained on his back throughout his medical treatment at Parkland.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0087.pt|When asked why he did not turn the President over, Dr. Carrico testified as follows:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0088.pt|This man was in obvious extreme distress and any more thorough inspection would have involved several minutes -- well, several
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0089.pt|considerable time which at this juncture was not available.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0090.pt|A thorough inspection would have involved washing and cleansing the back, and this is not practical in treating an acutely injured patient.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0091.pt|You have to determine which things, which are immediately life threatening and cope with them, before attempting to evaluate the full extent of the injuries.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0092.pt|Did you ever have occasion to look at the President's back?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0093.pt|Answer: No, sir. Before -- well, in trying to treat an acutely injured patient, you have to establish an airway, adequate ventilation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0094.pt|and you have to establish adequate circulation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0095.pt|Before this was accomplished the President's cardiac activity had ceased and closed cardiac massage was instituted, which made it impossible to inspect his back.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0096.pt|Question: Was any effort made to inspect the President's back after he had expired? Answer: No, sir.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0097.pt|Question: And why was no effort made at that time to inspect his back? Answer:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0098.pt|I suppose nobody really had the heart to do it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0099.pt|Moreover, the Parkland doctors took no further action after the President had expired because they concluded that it was beyond the scope of their permissible duties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0100.pt|Treatment of Governor Connally
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0101.pt|While one medical team tried to revive President Kennedy, a second performed a series of operations on the bullet wounds sustained by Governor Connally.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0102.pt|Governor Connally was originally seen by Dr. Carrico and Dr. Richard Dulany.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0103.pt|While Dr. Carrico went on to attend the President, Dr. Dulany stayed with the Governor and was soon joined by several other doctors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0104.pt|At approximately twelve:forty-five p.m., Dr. Robert Shaw,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0105.pt|chief of thoracic surgery, arrived at trauma room two, to take charge of the care of Governor Connally,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0106.pt|whose major wound fell within Dr. Shaw's area of specialization.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0107.pt|Governor Connally had a large sucking wound in the front of the right chest which caused extreme pain and difficulty in breathing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0108.pt|Rubber tubes were inserted between the second and third ribs to reexpand the right lung, which had collapsed because of the opening in the chest wall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0109.pt|At one:thirty-five p.m., after Governor Connally had been moved to the operating room, Dr. Shaw started the first operation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0110.pt|by cutting away the edges of the wound on the front of the Governor's chest and suturing the damaged lung and lacerated muscles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0111.pt|The elliptical wound in the Governor's back, located slightly to the left of the Governor's right armpit approximately five-eighths inch (a centimeter and a half)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0112.pt|in its greatest diameter, was treated by cutting away the damaged skin and suturing the back muscle and skin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0113.pt|This operation was concluded at three:twenty p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0114.pt|Two additional operations were performed on Governor Connally for wounds which he had not realized he had sustained until he regained consciousness the following day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0115.pt|From approximately four p.m. to four:fifty p.m. on November twenty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0116.pt|Dr. Charles F. Gregory, chief of orthopedic surgery, operated on the wounds of Governor Connally's right wrist,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0117.pt|assisted by Drs. William Osborne and John Parker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0118.pt|The wound on the back of the wrist was left partially open for draining, and the wound on the palm side was enlarged, cleansed, and closed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0119.pt|The fracture was set, and a cast was applied with some traction utilized.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0120.pt|While the second operation was in progress,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0121.pt|Dr. George T. Shires, assisted by Drs. Robert McClelland, Charles Baxter, and Ralph Don Patman,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0122.pt|treated the gunshot wound in the left thigh.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0123.pt|This punctuate missile wound, about two-fifths inch in diameter (one centimeter) and located approximately five inches above the left knee,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0124.pt|was cleansed and closed with sutures; but a small metallic fragment remained in the Governor's leg.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0125.pt|Vice President Johnson at Parkland
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0126.pt|As President Kennedy and Governor Connally were being removed from the limousine onto stretchers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0127.pt|a protective circle of Secret Service agents surrounded Vice President and Mrs. Johnson
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0128.pt|and escorted them into Parkland Hospital through the emergency entrance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0129.pt|The agents moved a nurse and patient out of a nearby room, lowered the shades, and took emergency security measures to protect the Vice President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0130.pt|Two men from the President's follow-up car were detailed to help protect the Vice President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0131.pt|An agent was stationed at the entrance to stop anyone who was not a member of the Presidential party.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0132.pt|U.S. Representatives Henry B. Gonzalez,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0133.pt|Jack Brooks, Homer Thornberry, and Albert Thomas joined Clifton C. Carter and the group of special agents protecting the Vice President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0134.pt|On one occasion Mrs. Johnson, accompanied by two Secret Service agents, left the room to see Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Connally.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0135.pt|Concern that the Vice President might also be a target for assassination prompted the Secret Service agents to urge him to leave the hospital and return to Washington immediately.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0136.pt|The Vice President decided to wait until he received definitive word of the President's condition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0137.pt|At approximately one:twenty p.m., Vice President Johnson was notified by O'Donnell that President Kennedy was dead.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0138.pt|Special Agent Youngblood learned from Mrs. Johnson the location of her two daughters
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0139.pt|and made arrangements through Secret Service headquarters in Washington to provide them with protection immediately.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0140.pt|When consulted by the Vice President, O'Donnell advised him to go to the airfield immediately and return to Washington.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0141.pt|It was decided that the Vice President should return on the Presidential plane rather than on the Vice-Presidential plane because it had better communication equipment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0142.pt|The Vice President conferred with White House Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm Kilduff
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0143.pt|and decided that there would be no release of the news of the President's death until the Vice President had left the hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0144.pt|When told that Mrs. Kennedy refused to leave without the President's body, the Vice President said that he would not leave Dallas without her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0145.pt|On the recommendation of the Secret Service agents, Vice President Johnson decided to board the Presidential airplane, Air Force One,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0146.pt|and wait for Mrs. Kennedy and the President's body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0147.pt|Secret Service Emergency Security Arrangements
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0148.pt|Immediately after President Kennedy's stretcher was wheeled into trauma room one, Secret Service agents took positions at the door of the small emergency room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0149.pt|A nurse was asked to identify hospital personnel and to tell everyone, except necessary medical staff members, to leave the emergency room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0150.pt|Other Secret Service agents posted themselves in the corridors and other areas near the emergency room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0151.pt|Special Agent Lawson made certain that the Dallas police kept the public and press away from the immediate area of the hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0152.pt|Agents Kellerman and Hill telephoned the head of the White House detail, Gerald A. Behn, to advise him of the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0153.pt|The telephone line to Washington was kept open throughout the remainder of the stay at the hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0154.pt|Secret Service agents stationed at later stops on the President's itinerary of November twenty-two were redeployed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0155.pt|Men at the Trade Mart were driven to Parkland Hospital in Dallas police cars.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0156.pt|The Secret Service group awaiting the President in Austin were instructed to return to Washington.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0157.pt|Meanwhile, the Secret Service agents in charge of security at Love Field started to make arrangements for departure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0158.pt|As soon as one of the agents learned of the shooting, he asked the officer in charge of the police detail at the airport
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0159.pt|to institute strict security measures for the Presidential aircraft, the airport terminal, and the surrounding area.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0160.pt|The police were cautioned to prevent picture taking.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0161.pt|Secret Service agents working with police cleared the areas adjacent to the aircraft, including warehouses,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0162.pt|other terminal buildings and the neighboring parking lots, of all people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0163.pt|The agents decided not to shift the Presidential aircraft to the far side of the airport because the original landing area was secure
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0164.pt|and a move would require new measures.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0165.pt|When security arrangements at the airport were complete, the Secret Service made the necessary arrangements for the Vice President to leave the hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0166.pt|Unmarked police cars took the Vice President and Mrs. Johnson from Parkland Hospital to Love Field.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0167.pt|Chief Curry drove one automobile occupied by Vice President Johnson, U.S. Representatives Thomas and Thornberry, and Special Agent Youngblood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0168.pt|In another car Mrs. Johnson was driven to the airport accompanied by Secret Service agents and Representative Brooks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0169.pt|Motorcade policemen who escorted the automobiles were requested by the Vice President and Agent Youngblood not to use sirens.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0170.pt|During the drive Vice President Johnson, at Youngblood's instruction, kept below window level.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0171.pt|Removal of the President's Body
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0172.pt|While the team of doctors at Parkland Hospital tried desperately to save the life of President Kennedy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0173.pt|Mrs. Kennedy alternated between watching them and waiting outside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0174.pt|After the President was pronounced dead,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0175.pt|O'Donnell tried to persuade Mrs. Kennedy to leave the area, but she refused.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0176.pt|A casket was obtained and the President's body was prepared for removal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0177.pt|Before the body could be taken from the hospital,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0178.pt|two Dallas officials informed members of the President's start that the body could not be removed from the city until an autopsy was performed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0179.pt|Despite the protests of these officials, the casket was wheeled out of the hospital, placed in an ambulance, and transported to the airport shortly after two p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0180.pt|At approximately two:fifteen p.m. the casket was loaded, with some difficulty because of the narrow airplane door,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0181.pt|onto the rear of the Presidential plane where seats had been removed to make room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0182.pt|Concerned that the local officials might try to prevent the plane's departure, O'Donnell asked that the pilot take off immediately.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0183.pt|He was informed that takeoff would be delayed until Vice President Johnson was sworn in.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0184.pt|Swearing in of the New President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0185.pt|From the Presidential airplane, the Vice President telephoned Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0186.pt|who advised that Mr. Johnson take the Presidential oath of office before the plane left Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0187.pt|Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes hastened to the plane to administer the oath.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0188.pt|Members of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential parties filled the central compartment of the plane to witness the swearing in.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0189.pt|At two:thirty-eight p.m., Eastern Standard Time, Lyndon Baines Johnson took the oath of office as the thirty-sixth President of the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0190.pt|Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Johnson stood at the side of the new President as he took the oath of office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0191.pt|Nine minutes later, the Presidential airplane departed for Washington, D.C.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0192.pt|Return to Washington, D.C.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0193.pt|On the return flight, Mrs. Kennedy sat with David Powers, Kenneth O'Donnell, and Lawrence O'Brien.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0194.pt|At five:fifty-eight p.m. Eastern Standard Time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0195.pt|Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force Base, where President Kennedy had begun his last trip only thirty-one hours before.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0196.pt|Detailed security arrangements had been made by radio from the President's plane on the return flight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0197.pt|The public had been excluded from the base, and only Government officials and the press were permitted near the landing area.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0198.pt|Upon arrival, President Johnson made a brief statement over television and radio.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0199.pt|President and Mrs. Johnson were flown by helicopter to the White House, from where Mrs. Johnson was driven to her residence under Secret Service escort.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0200.pt|The President then walked to the Executive Office Building, where he worked until nine p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0201.pt|Given a choice between the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Maryland, and the Army's Walter Reed Hospital,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0202.pt|Mrs. Kennedy chose the hospital in Bethesda for the autopsy because the President had served in the Navy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0203.pt|Mrs. Kennedy and the Attorney General,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0204.pt|with three Secret Service agents, accompanied President Kennedy's body on the forty-five-minute automobile trip from Andrews Air Force Base to the hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0205.pt|On the seventeenth floor of the Hospital, Mrs. Kennedy and the Attorney General joined other members of the Kennedy family to await the conclusion of the autopsy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0206.pt|Mrs. Kennedy was guarded by Secret Service agents in quarters assigned to her in the naval hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0207.pt|The Secret Service established a communication system with the White House and screened all telephone calls and visitors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0208.pt|The hospital received the President's body for autopsy at approximately seven:thirty-five p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0209.pt|X-rays and photographs were taken preliminarily and the pathological examination began at about eight p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0210.pt|The autopsy report noted that President Kennedy was forty-six years of age, seventy-two and one half inches tall,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0211.pt|weighed one hundred seventy pounds, had blue eyes and reddish-brown hair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0212.pt|The body was muscular and well developed with no gross skeletal abnormalities except for those caused by the gunshot wounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0213.pt|Under "Pathological Diagnosis" the cause of death was set forth as "Gunshot wound, head."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0214.pt|The autopsy examination revealed two wounds in the President's head.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0215.pt|One wound, approximately one-fourth of an inch by five-eighths of an inch (six by fifteen millimeters),
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0216.pt|was located about an inch (two point five centimeters) to the right and slightly above the large bony protrusion
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0217.pt|(external occipital protuberance) which juts out at the center of the lower part of the back of the skull.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0218.pt|The second head wound measured approximately five inches (thirteen centimeters) in its greatest diameter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0219.pt|but it was difficult to measure accurately because multiple crisscross fractures radiated from the large defect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0220.pt|During the autopsy examination, Federal agents brought the surgeons three pieces of bone recovered from Elm Street and the Presidential automobile.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0221.pt|When put together, these fragments accounted for approximately three-quarters of the missing portion of the skull.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0222.pt|The surgeons observed, through X-ray analysis, thirty or forty tiny dustlike fragments of metal
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0223.pt|running in a line from the wound in the rear of the President's head toward the front part of the skull,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0224.pt|with a sizable metal fragment lying just above the right eye.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0225.pt|From this head wound two small irregularly shaped fragments of metal were recovered and turned over to the FBI.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0226.pt|The autopsy also disclosed a wound near the base of the back of President Kennedy's neck slightly to the right of his spine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0227.pt|The doctors traced the course of the bullet through the body and, as information was received from Parkland Hospital,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0228.pt|concluded that the bullet had emerged from the front portion of the President's neck that had been cut away by the tracheotomy at Parkland.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0229.pt|The nature and characteristics of this neck wound are discussed fully in the next chapter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0230.pt|After the autopsy was concluded at approximately eleven p.m., the President's body was prepared for burial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0231.pt|This was finished at approximately four a.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0232.pt|Shortly thereafter, the President's wife, family and aides left Bethesda Naval Hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ031-0233.pt|The President's body was taken to the East Room of the White House where it was placed under ceremonial military guard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0002.pt|Chapter four. The Assassin: Part one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0003.pt|The preceding chapter has established that the bullets which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0004.pt|were fired from the southeast corner window of the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0005.pt|and that the weapon which fired these bullets was a Mannlicher-Carcano
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0006.pt|six point five-millimeter Italian rifle bearing the serial number C two seven six six.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0007.pt|In this chapter the Commission evaluates the evidence upon which it has based its conclusion concerning the identity of the assassin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0008.pt|This evidence includes (one) the ownership and possession of the weapon used to commit the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0009.pt|(two) the means by which the weapon was brought into the Depository Building,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0010.pt|(three) the identity of the person present at the window from which the shots were fired,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0011.pt|(four) the killing of Dallas Patrolman J. D. Tippit within forty-five minutes after the assassination, (five)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0012.pt|the resistance to arrest and the attempted shooting of another police officer by the man (Lee Harvey Oswald) subsequently accused of assassinating President Kennedy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0013.pt|and killing Patrolman Tippit,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0014.pt|(six) the lies told to the police by Oswald, (seven)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0015.pt|the evidence linking Oswald to the attempted killing of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Resigned, U.S. Army) on April ten, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0016.pt|and (eight) Oswald's capability with a rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0017.pt|Ownership And Possession Of Assassination Weapon
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0018.pt|Purchase of Rifle by Oswald
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0019.pt|Shortly after the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building, agents of the FBI
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0020.pt|learned from retail outlets in Dallas that Crescent Firearms, Inc., of New York City,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0021.pt|was a distributor of surplus Italian six point five-millimeter military rifles. During the evening of November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0022.pt|a review of the records of Crescent Firearms revealed that the firm had shipped an Italian carbine, serial number C two seven six six,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0023.pt|to Klein's Sporting Goods Co., of Chicago, Illinois.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0024.pt|After searching their records from ten p.m. to four a.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0025.pt|the officers of Klein's discovered that a rifle bearing serial number C two seven six six had been shipped to one A. Hidell,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0026.pt|Post Office Box two nine one five, Dallas, Texas, on March twenty, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0027.pt|According to its microfilm records, Klein's received an order for a rifle on March thirteen, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0028.pt|on a coupon clipped from the February nineteen sixty-three issue of the American Rifleman magazine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0029.pt|The order coupon was signed, in handprinting, "A. Hidell, P.O. Box two nine one five, Dallas, Texas."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0030.pt|It was sent in an envelope bearing the same name and return address in handwriting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0031.pt|Document examiners for the Treasury Department and the FBI testified unequivocally
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0032.pt|that the bold printing on the face of the mail-order coupon was in the handprinting of Lee Harvey Oswald and that the writing on the envelope was also his.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0033.pt|Oswald's writing on these and other documents was identified by comparing the writing and printing on the documents in question
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0034.pt|with that appearing on documents known to have been written by Oswald, such as his letters, passport application, and endorsements of checks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0035.pt|In addition to the order coupon the envelope contained a. U.S. postal money order for twenty-one dollars, forty-five cents,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0036.pt|purchased as Number two two zero two one three zero four six two in Dallas, Texas, on March twelve, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0037.pt|The canceled money order was obtained from the Post Office Department.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0038.pt|Opposite the printed words "Pay To" were written the words "Kleins Sporting Goods,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0039.pt|and opposite the printed word "From"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0040.pt|were written the words "A. Hidell, P.O. Box two nine one five Dallas, Texas."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0041.pt|These words were also in the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0042.pt|From Klein's records it was possible to trace the processing of the order after its receipt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0043.pt|A bank deposit made on March thirteen, nineteen sixty-three, included an item of twenty-one dollars, forty-five cents. Klein's shipping order form
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0044.pt|shows an imprint made by the cash register which recorded the receipt of twenty-one dollars, forty-five cents on March thirteen, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0045.pt|This price included nineteen dollars, ninety-five cents for the rifle and the scope, and one dollar, fifty cents for postage and handling.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0046.pt|The rifle without the scope cost only twelve dollars, seventy-eight cents.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0047.pt|According to the vice president of Klein's, William Waldman,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0048.pt|the scope was mounted on the rifle by a gunsmith employed by Klein's, and the rifle was shipped fully assembled in accordance with customary company procedures.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0049.pt|The specific rifle shipped against the order had been received by Klein's from Crescent on February twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0050.pt|It bore the manufacturer's serial number C two seven six six.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0051.pt|On that date, Klein's placed an internal control number V C eight three six on this rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0052.pt|According to Klein's shipping order form, one Italian carbine six point five x four x scope,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0053.pt|control number V C eight three six, serial number C two seven six six, was shipped parcel post to
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0054.pt|"A. Hidell, P.O. Box two nine one five, Dallas, Texas," on March twenty, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0055.pt|Information received from the Italian Armed Forces Intelligence Service has established that this particular rifle was the only rifle of its type
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0056.pt|bearing serial number C two seven six six.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0057.pt|The post office box to which the rifle was shipped was rented to "Lee H. Oswald" from October nine, nineteen sixty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0058.pt|to May fourteen, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0059.pt|Experts on handwriting identification from the Treasury Department and the FBI
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0060.pt|testified that the signature and other writing on the application for that box were in the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0061.pt|as was a change-of-address card dated May twelve, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0062.pt|by which Oswald requested that mail addressed to that box be forwarded to him in New Orleans, where he had moved on April twenty-four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0063.pt|Since the rifle was shipped from Chicago on March twenty, nineteen sixty-three, it was received in Dallas during the period when Oswald rented and used the box.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0064.pt|It is not known whether the application for post office box two nine one five listed "A. Hidell" as a person entitled to receive mail at this box.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0065.pt|In accordance with postal regulations, the portion of the application which lists names of persons, other than the applicant, entitled to receive mail
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0066.pt|was thrown away after the box was closed in May nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0067.pt|Postal Inspector Harry D. Holmes of the Dallas Post Office testified, however, that when a package is received for a certain box,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0068.pt|a notice is placed in that box regardless of whether the name on the package is listed on the application as a person entitled to receive mail through that box.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0069.pt|The person having access to the box then takes the notice to the window and is given the package.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0070.pt|Ordinarily, Inspector Holmes testified, identification is not requested because it is assumed that the person with the notice is entitled to the package.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0071.pt|Oswald's use of the name "Hidell" to purchase the assassination weapon was one of several instances in which he used this name as an alias.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0072.pt|When arrested on the day of the assassination, he had in his possession a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight caliber revolver
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0073.pt|purchased by mail-order coupon from Seaport-Traders, Inc., a mail-order division of George Rose and Co., Los Angeles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0074.pt|The mail-order coupon listed the purchaser as "A. J. Hidell Age twenty-eight"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0075.pt|with the address of post office box two nine one five in Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0076.pt|Handwriting experts from the FBI and the Treasury Department testified that the writing on the mail-order form was that of Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0077.pt|Among other identification cards in Oswald's wallet at the time of his arrest were a Selective Service notice of classification,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0078.pt|a Selective Service registration certificate, and a certificate of service in the U.S. Marine Corps, all three cards being in his own name.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0079.pt|Also in his wallet at that time
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0080.pt|were a Selective Service notice of classification and a Marine certificate of service in the name of Alek James Hidell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0081.pt|On the Hidell Selective Service card there appeared a signature, "Alek J. Hidell,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0082.pt|and the photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0083.pt|Experts on questioned documents from the Treasury Department and the FBI testified that the Hidell cards were counterfeit photographic reproductions
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0084.pt|made by photographing the Oswald cards, retouching the resulting negatives, and producing prints from the retouched negatives.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0085.pt|The Hidell signature on the notice of classification was in the handwriting of Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0086.pt|In Oswald's personal effects found in his room at ten twenty-six North Beckley Avenue in Dallas
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0087.pt|was a purported international certificate of vaccination signed by "Dr. A. J. Hideel,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0088.pt|Post Office Box three zero zero one six, New Orleans
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0089.pt|It certified that Lee Harvey Oswald had been vaccinated for smallpox on June eight, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0090.pt|This, too, was a forgery. The signature of "A. J. Hideel" was in the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0091.pt|There is no "Dr. Hideel" licensed to practice medicine in Louisiana.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0092.pt|There is no post office box three zero zero one six in the New Orleans Post Office
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0093.pt|but Oswald had rented post office box three zero zero six one in New Orleans on June three, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0094.pt|listing Marina Oswald and A. J. Hidell
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0095.pt|as additional persons entitled to receive mail in the box. The New Orleans postal authorities had not discarded the portion of the application
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0096.pt|listing the names of those, other than the owner of the box, entitled to receive mail through the box.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0097.pt|Expert testimony confirmed that the writing on this application was that of Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0098.pt|Hidell's name on the post office box application was part of Oswald's use of a nonexistent Hidell
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0099.pt|to serve as president of the so-called New Orleans Chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0100.pt|Marina Oswald
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0101.pt|testified that she first learned of Oswald's use of the fictitious name "Hidell" in connection with his pro-Castro activities in New Orleans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0102.pt|According to her testimony, he compelled her to write the name "Hidell" on membership cards in the space designated for the signature of the "Chapter President."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0103.pt|The name "Hidell" was stamped on some of the "Chapter's" printed literature and on the membership application blanks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0104.pt|Marina Oswald testified,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0105.pt|quote, I knew there was no such organization. And I know Hidell is merely an altered Fidel, and I laughed at such foolishness.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0106.pt|end quote. Hidell was a fictitious president of an organization of which Oswald was the only member.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0107.pt|When seeking employment in New Orleans,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0108.pt|Oswald listed a "Sgt. Robert Hidell" as a reference on one job application and "George Hidell" as a reference on another.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0109.pt|Both names were found to be fictitious.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0110.pt|Moreover, the use of "Alek" as a first name for Hidell is a further link to Oswald because "Alek" was Oswald's nickname in Russia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0111.pt|Letters received by Marina Oswald from her husband signed "Alek" were given to the Commission.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0112.pt|Oswald's Palmprint on Rifle Barrel
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0113.pt|Based on the above evidence, the Commission concluded that Oswald purchased the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0114.pt|Additional evidence of ownership was provided in the form of palmprint identification which indicated that Oswald had possession of the rifle he had purchased.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0115.pt|A few minutes after the rifle was discovered on the sixth floor of the Depository Building
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0116.pt|it was examined by Lt. J. C. Day of the identification bureau of the Dallas police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0117.pt|He lifted the rifle by the wooden stock after his examination convinced him that the wood was too rough to take fingerprints.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0118.pt|Capt. J. W. Fritz then ejected a cartridge by operating the bolt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0119.pt|but only after Day viewed the knob on the bolt through a magnifying glass and found no prints.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0120.pt|Day continued to examine the rifle with the magnifying glass, looking for possible fingerprints.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0121.pt|He applied fingerprint powder to the side of the metal housing near the trigger, and noticed traces of two prints.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0122.pt|At eleven:forty-five p.m. on November twenty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0123.pt|the rifle was released to the FBI and forwarded to Washington where it was examined on the morning of November twenty-three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0124.pt|by Sebastian F. Latona, supervisor of the Latent Fingerprint Section of the FBI's Identification Division.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0125.pt|In his testimony before the Commission, Latona stated that when he received the rifle, the area where prints were visible was protected by cellophane.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0126.pt|He examined these prints, as well as photographs of them which the Dallas police had made, and concluded that:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0127.pt|the formations, the ridge formations and characteristics, were insufficient for purposes of either effecting identification
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0128.pt|or a determination that the print was not identical with the prints of people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0129.pt|Accordingly, my opinion simply was that the latent prints which were there were of no value, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0130.pt|Latona then processed the complete weapon but developed no identifiable prints.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0131.pt|He stated that the poor quality of the wood and the metal would cause the rifle to absorb moisture from the skin, thereby making a clear print unlikely.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0132.pt|On November twenty-two, however, before surrendering possession of the rifle to the FBI Laboratory,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0133.pt|Lieutenant Day of the Dallas Police Department had "lifted" a palmprint from the underside of the gun barrel
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0134.pt|quote, near the firing end of the barrel about three inches under the woodstock when I took the woodstock loose, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0135.pt|"Lifting" a print involves the use of adhesive material to remove the fingerprint powder which adheres to the original print.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0136.pt|In this way the powdered impression is actually removed from the object.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0137.pt|The lifting had been so complete in this case that there was no trace of the print on the rifle itself when it was examined by Latona.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0138.pt|Nor was there any indication that the lift had been performed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0139.pt|Day, on the other hand, believed that sufficient traces of the print had been left on the rifle barrel,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0140.pt|because he did not release the lifted print until November twenty-six, when he received instructions to send "everything that we had" to the FBI.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0141.pt|The print arrived in the FBI Laboratory in Washington on November twenty-nine, mounted on a card on which Lieutenant Day had written the words
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0142.pt|quote, off underside gun barrel near end of grip C two seven six six, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0143.pt|The print's positive identity as having been lifted from the rifle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0144.pt|was confirmed by FBI Laboratory tests which established that the adhesive material bearing the print
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0145.pt|also bore impressions of the same irregularities that appeared on the barrel of the rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0146.pt|Latona testified that this palmprint was the right palmprint of Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0147.pt|At the request of the Commission, Arthur Mandella,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0148.pt|fingerprint expert with the New York City Police Department, conducted an independent examination and also determined that this was the right palmprint of Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0149.pt|Latona's findings were also confirmed by Ronald G. Wittmus, another FBI fingerprint expert.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0150.pt|In the opinion of these experts, it was not possible to estimate the time which elapsed between the placing of the print on the rifle and the date of the lift.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0151.pt|Experts testifying before the Commission agreed that palmprints are as unique as fingerprints for purposes of establishing identification.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0152.pt|Oswald's palmprint on the underside of the barrel demonstrates that he handled the rifle when it was disassembled.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0153.pt|A palmprint could not be placed on this portion of the rifle, when assembled, because the wooden foregrip covers the barrel at this point.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0154.pt|The print is additional proof that the rifle was in Oswald's possession.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0155.pt|Fibers on Rifle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0156.pt|In a crevice between the butt plate of the rifle and the wooden stock
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0157.pt|was a tuft of several cotton fibers of dark blue, gray-black, and orange-yellow shades.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0158.pt|On November twenty-three, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0159.pt|these fibers were examined by Paul M. Stombaugh, a special agent assigned to the Hair and Fiber Unit of the FBI Laboratory.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0160.pt|He compared them with the fibers found in the shirt which Oswald was wearing when arrested in the Texas Theatre.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0161.pt|This shirt was also composed of dark blue, gray- black and orange-yellow cotton fibers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0162.pt|Stombaugh testified that the colors, shades, and twist of the fibers found in the tuft on the rifle matched those in Oswald's shirt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0163.pt|Stombaugh explained in his testimony that in fiber analysis, as distinct from fingerprint or firearms identification,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0164.pt|it is not possible to state with scientific certainty that a particular small group of fibers come from a certain piece of clothing
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0165.pt|to the exclusion of all others because there are not enough microscopic characteristics present in fibers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0166.pt|Judgments as to probability will depend on the number and types of matches.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0167.pt|He concluded, quote, There is no doubt in my mind that these fibers could have come from this shirt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0168.pt|There is no way, however, to eliminate the possibility of the fibers having come from another identical shirt, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0169.pt|Having considered the probabilities as explained in Stombaugh's testimony,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0170.pt|the Commission has concluded that the fibers in the tuft on the rifle most probably came from the shirt worn by Oswald when he was arrested,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0171.pt|and that this was the same shirt which Oswald wore on the morning of the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0172.pt|Marina Oswald testified that she thought her husband wore this shirt to work on that day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0173.pt|The testimony of those who saw him after the assassination was inconclusive about the color of Oswald's shirt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0174.pt|but Mary Bledsoe, a former landlady of Oswald, saw him on a bus approximately ten minutes after the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0175.pt|and identified the shirt as being the one worn by Oswald primarily because of a distinctive hole in the shirt's right elbow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0176.pt|Moreover, the bus transfer which he obtained as he left the bus was still in the pocket when he was arrested.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0177.pt|Although Oswald returned to his roominghouse after the assassination and when questioned by the police, claimed to have changed his shirt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0178.pt|the evidence indicates that he continued wearing the same shirt which he was wearing all morning and which he was still wearing when arrested.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0179.pt|In light of these findings the Commission evaluated the additional testimony of Stombaugh
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0180.pt|that the fibers were caught in the crevice of the rifle's butt plate, quote, in the recent past, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0181.pt|Although Stombaugh was unable to estimate the period of time the fibers were on the rifle he said that the fibers, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0182.pt|were clean, they had good color to them, there was no grease on them and they were not fragmented. They looked as if they had just been picked up, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0183.pt|The relative freshness of the fibers is strong evidence that they were caught on the rifle on the morning of the assassination or during the preceding evening.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0184.pt|For ten days prior to the eve of the assassination Oswald had not been present at Ruth Paine's house in Irving, Texas, where the rifle was kept.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0185.pt|Moreover, the Commission found no reliable evidence that Oswald used the rifle at any time between September twenty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0186.pt|when it was transported from New Orleans, and November twenty-two, the day of the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0187.pt|The fact that on the morning of the assassination Oswald was wearing the shirt from which these relatively fresh fibers most probably originated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0188.pt|provides some evidence that they were placed on the rifle that day
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0189.pt|since there was limited, if any, opportunity for Oswald to handle the weapon during the two months prior to November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0190.pt|On the other hand Stombaugh pointed out that fibers might retain their freshness if the rifle had been
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0191.pt|quote, put aside, end quote, after catching the fibers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0192.pt|The rifle used in the assassination probably had been wrapped in a blanket for about eight weeks prior to November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0193.pt|Because the relative freshness of these fibers might be explained by the continuous storage of the rifle in the blanket,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0194.pt|the Commission was unable to reach any firm conclusion as to when the fibers were caught in the rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0195.pt|The Commission was able to conclude, however, that the fibers most probably came from Oswald's shirt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0196.pt|This adds to the conviction of the Commission that Oswald owned and handled the weapon used in the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0197.pt|Photograph of Oswald With Rifle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0198.pt|During the period from March two, nineteen sixty-three, to April twenty-four, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0199.pt|the Oswalds lived on Neely Street in Dallas in a rented house which had a small back yard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0200.pt|One Sunday, while his wife was hanging diapers, Oswald asked her to take a picture of him holding a rifle, a pistol
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0201.pt|and issues of two newspapers later identified as the Worker and the Militant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0202.pt|Two pictures were taken. The Commission has concluded that the rifle shown in these pictures is the same rifle which was found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0203.pt|on November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three. One of these pictures, Exhibit Number one thirty-three A, shows most of the rifle's configuration.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0204.pt|Special Agent Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt, a photography expert with the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0205.pt|photographed the rifle used in the assassination, attempting to duplicate the position of the rifle and the lighting in Exhibit Number one thirty-three A.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0206.pt|After comparing the rifle in the simulated photograph with the rifle in Exhibit Number one thirty-three A, Shaneyfelt testified, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0207.pt|I found it to be the same general configuration. All appearances were the same, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0208.pt|He found, quote, one notch in the stock at this point that appears very faintly in the photograph, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0209.pt|He stated, however, that while he, quote, found no differences, end quote, between the rifles in the two photographs, he could not make a, quote, positive identification
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0210.pt|to the exclusion of all other rifles of the same general configuration, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0211.pt|The authenticity of these pictures has been established by expert testimony which links the second picture,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0212.pt|Commission Exhibit Number one thirty-three B, to Oswald's Imperial Reflex camera, with which Marina Oswald testified she took the pictures.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0213.pt|The negative of that picture, Commission Exhibit Number one thirty-three B, was found among Oswald's possessions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0214.pt|Using a recognized technique of determining whether a picture was taken with a particular camera,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0215.pt|Shaneyfelt compared this negative with a negative which he made by taking a new picture with Oswald's camera.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0216.pt|He concluded that the negative of Exhibit Number one thirty-three B was exposed in Oswald's Imperial Reflex camera to the exclusion of all other cameras.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0217.pt|He could not test Exhibit Number one thirty-three A in the same way because the negative was never recovered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0218.pt|Both pictures, however, have identical backgrounds and lighting and, judging from the shadows, were taken at the same angle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0219.pt|They are photographs of the same scene.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0220.pt|Since Exhibit Number one thirty-three B was taken with Oswald's camera,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0221.pt|it is reasonably certain that Exhibit Number one thirty-three A was taken by the same camera at the same time, as Marina Oswald testified.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0222.pt|Moreover, Shaneyfelt testified that in his opinion the photographs were not composites of two different photographs
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0223.pt|and that Oswald's face had not been superimposed on another body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0224.pt|One of the photographs taken by Marina Oswald was widely published in newspapers and magazines,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0225.pt|and in many instances the details of these pictures differed from the original, and even from each other, particularly as to the configuration of the rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0226.pt|The Commission sought to determine whether these photographs were touched prior to publication.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0227.pt|Shaneyfelt testified that the published photographs appeared to be based on a copy of the original which the publications had each retouched differently.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0228.pt|Several of the publications furnished the Commission with the prints they had used, or described by correspondence the retouching they had done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0229.pt|This information enabled the Commission to conclude
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0230.pt|that the published pictures were the same as the original except for retouching done by these publications, apparently for the purpose of clarifying the lines of the rifle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0231.pt|and other details in the picture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0232.pt|The dates surrounding the taking of this picture and the purchase of the rifle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0233.pt|reinforce the belief that the rifle in the photograph is the rifle which Oswald bought from Klein's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0234.pt|The rifle was shipped from Klein's in Chicago on March twenty, nineteen sixty-three, at a time when the Oswalds were living on Neely Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0235.pt|From an examination of one of the photographs, the Commission determined the dates of the issues of the Militant and the Worker which Oswald was holding in his hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0236.pt|By checking the actual mailing dates of these issues and the time it usually takes to effect delivery to Dallas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0237.pt|it was established that the photographs must have been taken sometime after March twenty-seven.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0238.pt|Marina Oswald testified that the photographs were taken on a Sunday about two weeks before the attempted shooting of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0239.pt|on April ten, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0240.pt|By Sunday, March thirty-one, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0241.pt|ten days prior to the Walker attempt, Oswald had undoubtedly received the rifle shipped from Chicago on March twenty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0242.pt|the revolver shipped from Los Angeles on the same date, and the two newspapers which he was holding in the picture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0243.pt|Rifle Among Oswald's Possessions
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0244.pt|Marina Oswald testified that the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building was the "fateful rifle of Lee Oswald."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0245.pt|Moreover, it was the only rifle owned by her husband following his return from the Soviet Union in June nineteen sixty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0246.pt|It had been purchased in March nineteen sixty-three, and taken to New Orleans where Marina Oswald saw it in their rented apartment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0247.pt|during the summer of nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0248.pt|It appears from his wife's testimony
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0249.pt|that Oswald may have sat on the screened-in porch at night practicing with the rifle by looking through the telescopic sight and operating the bolt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0250.pt|In September nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0251.pt|Oswald loaded their possessions into a station wagon owned by Ruth Paine, who had invited Marina Oswald and the baby to live at her home in Irving, Texas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0252.pt|Marina Oswald has stated that the rifle was among these possessions, although Ruth Paine testified that she was not aware of it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0253.pt|From September twenty-four, nineteen sixty-three, when Marina Oswald arrived in Irving from New Orleans, until the morning of the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0254.pt|the rifle was, according to the evidence, stored in a green and brown blanket in the Paines' garage among the Oswalds' other possessions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0255.pt|About one week after the return from New Orleans,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0256.pt|Marina Oswald was looking in the garage for parts to the baby's crib and thought that the parts might be in the blanket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0257.pt|When she started to open the blanket, she saw the stock of the rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0258.pt|Ruth and Michael Paine both noticed the rolled-up blanket in the garage during the time that Marina Oswald was living in their home.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0259.pt|On several occasions, Michael Paine moved the blanket in the garage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0260.pt|He thought it contained tent poles, or possibly other camping equipment such as a folding shovel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0261.pt|When he appeared before the Commission, Michael Paine lifted the blanket
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0262.pt|with the rifle wrapped inside and testified that it appeared to be the same approximate weight and shape as the package in his garage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0263.pt|About three hours after the assassination, a detective and deputy sheriff saw the blanket-roll,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0264.pt|tied with a string, lying on the floor of the Paines' garage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0265.pt|Each man testified that he thought he could detect the outline of a rifle in the blanket, even though the blanket was empty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0266.pt|Paul M. Stombaugh, of the FBI Laboratory,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0267.pt|examined the blanket and discovered a bulge approximately ten inches long midway in the blanket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0268.pt|This bulge was apparently caused by a hard protruding object which had stretched the blanket's fibers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0269.pt|It could have been caused by the telescopic sight of the rifle which was approximately eleven inches long.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0270.pt|Having reviewed the evidence that (one) Lee Harvey Oswald purchased the rifle used in the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0271.pt|(two) Oswald's palmprint was on the rifle in a position which shows that he had handled it while it was disassembled,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0272.pt|(three) fibers found on the rifle most probably came from the shirt Oswald was wearing on the day of the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0273.pt|(four) a photograph taken in the yard of Oswald's apartment showed him holding this rifle, and (five)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0274.pt|the rifle was kept among Oswald's possessions from the time of its purchase until the day of the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ032-0275.pt|the Commission concluded that the rifle used to assassinate President Kennedy and wound Governor Connally was owned and possessed by Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0002.pt|Chapter four. The Assassin: Part two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0003.pt|The rifle in the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0004.pt|The Commission has evaluated the evidence tending to show how Lee Harvey Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, serial number C two seven six six,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0005.pt|was brought into the Depository Building, where it was found on the sixth floor shortly after the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0006.pt|In this connection the Commission considered (one)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0007.pt|the circumstances surrounding Oswald's return to Irving, Texas, on Thursday, November twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0008.pt|(two) the disappearance of the rifle from its normal place of storage, (three)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0009.pt|Oswald's arrival at the Depository Building on November twenty-two, carrying a long and bulky brown paper package,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0010.pt|the presence of a long handmade brown paper bag near the point from which the shots were fired, and (five) the palmprint,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0011.pt|fiber, and paper analyses linking Oswald and the assassination weapon to this bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0012.pt|The Curtain Rod Story
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0013.pt|During October and November of nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0014.pt|Lee Harvey Oswald lived in a roominghouse in Dallas while his wife and children lived in Irving, at the home of Ruth Paine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0015.pt|approximately fifteen miles from Oswald's place of work at the Texas School Book Depository.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0016.pt|Oswald traveled between Dallas and Irving on weekends in a car driven by a neighbor of the Paines, Buell Wesley Frazier,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0017.pt|who also worked at the Depository.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0018.pt|Oswald generally would go to Irving on Friday afternoon and return to Dallas Monday morning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0019.pt|According to the testimony of Frazier, Marina Oswald, and Ruth Paine, it appears that Oswald never returned to Irving in midweek
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0020.pt|prior to November twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three, except on Monday, October twenty-one, when he visited his wife in the hospital
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0021.pt|after the birth of their second child.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0022.pt|During the morning of November twenty-one, Oswald asked Frazier whether he could ride home with him that afternoon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0023.pt|Frazier, surprised, asked him why he was going to Irving on Thursday night rather than Friday.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0024.pt|Oswald replied, quote, I'm going home to get some curtain rods to put in an apartment, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0025.pt|The two men left work at four:forty p.m. and drove to Irving.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0026.pt|There was little conversation between them on the way home.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0027.pt|Mrs. Linnie Mae Randle, Frazier's sister, commented to her brother about Oswald's unusual midweek return to Irving.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0028.pt|Frazier told her that Oswald had come home to get curtain rods.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0029.pt|It would appear, however, that obtaining curtain rods was not the purpose of Oswald's trip to Irving on November twenty-one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0030.pt|Mrs. A. C. Johnson, his landlady, testified that Oswald's room at ten twenty-six North Beckley Avenue
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0031.pt|had curtains and curtain rods, and that Oswald had never discussed the subject with her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0032.pt|In the Paines' garage, along with many other objects of a household character,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0033.pt|there were two flat lightweight curtain rods belonging to Ruth Paine but they were still there on Friday afternoon after Oswald's arrest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0034.pt|Oswald never asked Mrs. Paine about the use of curtain rods,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0035.pt|and Marina Oswald testified that Oswald did not say anything about curtain rods on the day before the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0036.pt|No curtain rods were known to have been discovered in the Depository Building after the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0037.pt|In deciding whether Oswald carried a rifle to work in a long paper bag on November twenty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0038.pt|the Commission gave weight to the fact that Oswald gave a false reason for returning home on November twenty-one,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0039.pt|and one which provided an excuse for the carrying of a bulky package the following morning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0040.pt|Before dinner on November twenty-one, Oswald played on the lawn of the Paines' home with his daughter June.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0041.pt|After dinner Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald were busy cleaning house and preparing their children for bed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0042.pt|Between the hours of eight and nine p.m. they were occupied with the children in the bedrooms located at the extreme east end of the house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0043.pt|On the west end of the house is the attached garage, which can be reached from the kitchen or from the outside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0044.pt|In the garage were the personal belongings of the Oswald family including, as the evidence has shown, the rifle wrapped in the old brown and green blanket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0045.pt|At approximately nine p.m., after the children had been put to bed, Mrs. Paine, according to her testimony before the Commission, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0046.pt|went out to the garage to paint some children's blocks, and worked in the garage for half an hour or so.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0047.pt|I noticed when I went out that the light was on, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0048.pt|Mrs. Paine was certain that she had not left the light on in the garage after dinner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0049.pt|According to Mrs. Paine, Oswald had gone to bed by nine p.m.;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0050.pt|Marina Oswald testified that it was between nine and ten p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0051.pt|Neither Marina Oswald nor Ruth Paine saw Oswald in the garage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0052.pt|The period between eight and nine p.m., however, provided ample opportunity for Oswald to prepare the rifle for his departure the next morning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0053.pt|Only if disassembled could the rifle fit into the paper bag found near the window from which the shots were fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0054.pt|A firearms expert with the FBI assembled the rifle in six minutes using a ten-cent coin as a tool,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0055.pt|and he could disassemble it more rapidly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0056.pt|While the rifle may have already been disassembled when Oswald arrived home on Thursday, he had ample time that evening to disassemble the rifle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0057.pt|and insert it into the paper bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0058.pt|On the day of the assassination, Marina Oswald was watching television when she learned of the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0059.pt|A short time later Mrs. Paine told her that someone had shot the President, quote, from the building in which Lee is working, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0060.pt|Marina Oswald testified that at that time, quote, My heart dropped.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0061.pt|I then went to the garage to see whether the rifle was there and I saw that the blanket was still there and I said Thank God, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0062.pt|She did not unroll the blanket. She saw that it was in its usual position and it appeared to her to have something inside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0063.pt|Soon afterward, at about three p.m., police officers arrived and searched the house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0064.pt|Mrs. Paine pointed out that most of the Oswalds' possessions were in the garage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0065.pt|With Ruth Paine acting as an interpreter, Detective Rose asked Marina whether her husband had a rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0066.pt|Mrs. Paine, who had no knowledge of the rifle, first said "No," but when the question was translated, Marina Oswald replied "Yes."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0067.pt|She pointed to the blanket which was on the floor very close to where Ruth Paine was standing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0068.pt|Mrs. Paine testified, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0069.pt|As she [Marina] told me about it I stepped onto the blanket roll
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0070.pt|And she indicated to me that she had peered into this roll and saw a portion of what she took to be a gun she knew her husband to have, a rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0071.pt|And I then translated this to the officers that she knew that her husband had a gun that he had stored in here.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0072.pt|I then stepped off of it and the officer picked it up in the middle and it bent so.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0073.pt|Mrs. Paine had the actual blanket before her as she testified and she indicated that the blanket hung limp in the officer's hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0074.pt|Marina Oswald testified that this was her first knowledge that the rifle was not in its accustomed place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0075.pt|The Long and Bulky Package
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0076.pt|On the morning of November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0077.pt|Lee Harvey Oswald left the Paine house in Irving at approximately seven:fifteen a.m., while Marina Oswald was still in bed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0078.pt|Neither she nor Mrs. Paine saw him leave the house. About half-a-block away from the Paine house was the residence of Mrs. Linnie Mae Randle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0079.pt|sister of the man with whom Oswald drove to work -- Buell Wesley Frazier.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0080.pt|Mrs. Randle stated that on the morning of November twenty-two, while her brother was eating breakfast,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0081.pt|she looked out the breakfast-room window and saw Oswald cross the street and walk toward the driveway where her brother parked his car near the carport.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0082.pt|He carried a, quote, heavy brown bag, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0083.pt|Oswald gripped the bag in his right hand near the top, quote, It tapered like this as he hugged it in his hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0084.pt|It was more bulky toward the bottom, end quote, than toward the top.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0085.pt|She then opened the kitchen door and saw Oswald open the right rear door of her brother's car and place the package in the back of the car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0086.pt|Mrs. Randle estimated that the package was approximately twenty-eight inches long and about eight inches wide.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0087.pt|She thought that its color was similar to that of the bag found on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository after the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0088.pt|Frazier met Oswald at the kitchen door and together they walked to the car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0089.pt|After entering the car, Frazier glanced over his shoulder and noticed a brown paper package on the back seat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0090.pt|He asked, quote, What's the package, Lee? End quote. Oswald replied, quote, curtain rods, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0091.pt|Frazier told the Commission, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0092.pt|the main reason he was going over there that Thursday afternoon when he was to bring back some curtain rods, so I didn't think any more about it when he told me that, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0093.pt|Frazier estimated that the bag was two feet long, quote, give and take a few inches, end quote, and about five or six inches wide.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0094.pt|As they sat in the car, Frazier asked Oswald where his lunch was, and Oswald replied that he was going to buy his lunch that day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0095.pt|Frazier testified that Oswald carried no lunch bag that day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0096.pt|quote, when he rode with me, I say he always brought lunch except that one day on November twenty-two he didn't bring his lunch that day, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0097.pt|Frazier parked the car in the company parking lot about two blocks north of the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0098.pt|Oswald left the car first, picked up the brown paper bag, and proceeded toward the building ahead of Frazier.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0099.pt|Frazier walked behind and as they crossed the railroad tracks he watched the switching of the cars.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0100.pt|Frazier recalled that one end of the package was under Oswald's armpit and the lower part was held with his right hand
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0101.pt|so that it was carried straight and parallel to his body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0102.pt|When Oswald entered the rear door of the Depository Building, he was about fifty feet ahead of Frazier.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0103.pt|It was the first time that Oswald had not walked with Frazier from the parking lot to the building entrance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0104.pt|When Frazier entered the building, he did not see Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0105.pt|One employee, Jack Dougherty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0106.pt|believed that he saw Oswald coming to work, but he does not remember that Oswald had anything in his hands as he entered the door.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0107.pt|No other employee has been found who saw Oswald enter that morning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0108.pt|In deciding whether Oswald carried the assassination weapon in the bag which Frazier and Mrs. Randle saw,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0109.pt|the Commission has carefully considered the testimony of these two witnesses with regard to the length of the bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0110.pt|Frazier and Mrs. Randle testified
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0111.pt|that the bag which Oswald was carrying was approximately twenty-seven or twenty-eight inches long, whereas the wooden stock of the rifle, which is its largest component,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0112.pt|measured thirty-four point eight inches.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0113.pt|The bag found on the sixth floor was eighty-eight inches long.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0114.pt|When Frazier appeared before the Commission and was asked to demonstrate how Oswald carried the package, he said, quote, Like I said,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0115.pt|I remember that I didn't look at the package very much but when I did look at it he did have his hands on the package like that, end quote, and at this point
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0116.pt|Frazier placed the upper part of the package under his armpit and attempted to cup his right hand beneath the bottom of the bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0117.pt|The disassembled rifle was too long to be carried in this manner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0118.pt|Similarly, when the butt of the rifle was placed in Frazier's hand, it extended above his shoulder to ear level.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0119.pt|Moreover, in an interview on December one, nineteen sixty-three, with agents of the FBI, Frazier had marked the point on the back seat of his car
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0120.pt|which he believed was where the bag reached when it was laid on the seat with one edge against the door.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0121.pt|The distance between the point on the seat and the door was twenty-seven inches.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0122.pt|Mrs. Randle said, when shown the paper bag,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0123.pt|that the bag she saw Oswald carrying, quote, wasn't that long, I mean it was folded down at the top as I told you. It definitely wasn't that long, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0124.pt|And she folded the bag to length of about twenty-eight and a half inches.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0125.pt|Frazier doubted whether the bag that Oswald carried was as wide as the bag found on the sixth floor, although Mrs. Randle testified
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0126.pt|that the width was approximately the same.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0127.pt|The Commission has weighed the visual recollection of Frazier and Mrs. Randle against the evidence here presented
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0128.pt|that the bag Oswald carried contained the assassination weapon and has concluded that Frazier and Randle are mistaken as to the length of the bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0129.pt|Mrs. Randle saw the bag fleetingly
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0130.pt|and her first remembrance is that it was held in Oswald's right hand, quote, and it almost touched the ground as he carried it, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0131.pt|Frazier's view of the bag was from the rear. He continually advised that he was not paying close attention. For example, he said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0132.pt|I didn't pay too much attention the way he was walking because I was walking along there looking at the railroad cars and watching the men on the diesel switch them cars
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0133.pt|and I didn't pay too much attention on how he carried the package at all, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0134.pt|Frazier could easily have been mistaken when he stated that Oswald held the bottom of the bag cupped in his hand with the upper end tucked into his armpit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0135.pt|Location of Bag
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0136.pt|A handmade bag of wrapping paper and tape was found in the southeast corner of the sixth floor alongside the window from which the shots were fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0137.pt|It was not a standard type bag which could be obtained in a store and it was presumably made for a particular purpose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0138.pt|It was the appropriate size to contain, in disassembled form,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0139.pt|Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, serial Number C two seven six six, which was also found on the sixth floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0140.pt|Three cartons had been placed at the window apparently to act as a gun rest and a fourth carton was placed behind those at the window.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0141.pt|A person seated on the fourth carton could assemble the rifle without being seen from the rest of the sixth floor
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0142.pt|because the cartons stacked around the southeast corner would shield him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0143.pt|The presence of the bag in this corner is cogent evidence that it was used as the container for the rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0144.pt|At the time the bag was found, Lieutenant Day of the Dallas police wrote on it, quote, Found next to the sixth floor window gun fired from.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0145.pt|May have been used to carry gun. Lt. J. C. Day, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0146.pt|Scientific Evidence Linking Rifle and Oswald to Paper Bag
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0147.pt|Oswald's fingerprint and palmprint found on bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0148.pt|Using a standard chemical method involving silver nitrates
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0149.pt|the FBI Laboratory developed a latent palmprint and latent fingerprint on the bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0150.pt|Sebastian F. Latona, supervisor of the FBI's Latent Fingerprint Section,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0151.pt|identified these prints as the left index fingerprint and right palmprint of Lee Harvey Oswald
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0152.pt|The portion of the palm which was identified was the heel of the right palm, i.e., the area near the wrist, on the little finger side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0153.pt|These prints were examined independently by Ronald G. Wittmus of the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0154.pt|and by Arthur Mandella, a fingerprint expert with the New York City Police Department.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0155.pt|Both concluded that the prints were the right palm and left index finger of Lee Oswald. No other identifiable prints were found on the bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0156.pt|Oswald's palmprint on the bottom of the paper bag indicated, of course, that he had handled the bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0157.pt|Furthermore, it was consistent with the bag having contained a heavy or bulky object when he handled it since a light object is usually held by the fingers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0158.pt|The palmprint was found on the closed end of the bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0159.pt|It was from Oswald's right hand, in which he carried the long package as he walked from Frazier's car to the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0160.pt|Materials used to make bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0161.pt|On the day of the assassination, the Dallas police obtained a sample of wrapping paper and tape
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0162.pt|from the shipping room of the Depository and forwarded it to the FBI Laboratory in Washington.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0163.pt|James C. Cadigan, a questioned-documents expert with the Bureau, compared the samples with the paper and tape in the actual bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0164.pt|He testified, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0165.pt|In all of the observations and physical tests that I made I found the bag and the paper sample were the same, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0166.pt|Among other tests, the paper and tape were submitted to fiber analysis and spectrographic examination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0167.pt|In addition the tape was compared to determine whether the sample tape and the tape on the bag had been taken from the tape dispensing machine at the Depository.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0168.pt|When asked to explain the similarity of characteristics, Cadigan stated, quote, well briefly
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0169.pt|it would be the thickness of both the paper and the tape, the color under various lighting conditions of both the paper and the tape,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0170.pt|the width of the tape, the knurled markings on the surface of the fiber, the texture of the fiber, the letting pattern
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0171.pt|I found that the paper sack found on the sixth floor and the sample
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0172.pt|had the same observable characteristics both under the microscope and all the visual tests that I could conduct.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0173.pt|The papers I also found were similar in fiber composition, therefore, in addition to the visual characteristics,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0174.pt|microscopic and UV (ultra violet) characteristics, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0175.pt|Mr. Cadigan concluded that the paper and tape from the bag were identical in all respects to the sample paper and tape
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0176.pt|taken from the Texas School Book Depository shipping room on November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0177.pt|On December one, nineteen sixty-three, a replica bag was made from materials found on that date in the shipping room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0178.pt|This was done as an investigatory aid
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0179.pt|since the original bag had been discolored during various laboratory examinations and could not be used for valid identification by witnesses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0180.pt|Cadigan found that the paper used to make this replica sack had different characteristics from the paper in the original bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0181.pt|The science of paper analysis enabled him to distinguish between different rolls of paper even though they were produced by the same manufacturer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0182.pt|Since the Depository normally used approximately one roll of paper every three working days,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0183.pt|it was not surprising that the replica sack made on December one, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0184.pt|had different characteristics from both the actual bag and the sample taken on November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0185.pt|On the other hand, since two rolls could be made from the same batch of paper,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0186.pt|one cannot estimate when, prior to November twenty-two, Oswald made the paper bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0187.pt|However, the complete identity of characteristics between the paper and tape in the bag found on the sixth floor
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0188.pt|and the paper and tape found in the shipping room of the Depository on November twenty-two
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0189.pt|enabled the Commission to conclude that the bag was made from these materials.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0190.pt|The Depository shipping department was on the first floor to which Oswald had access in the normal performance of his duties filling orders.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0191.pt|Fibers in paper bag matched fibers in blanket
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0192.pt|When Paul M. Stombaugh of the FBI Laboratory examined the paper bag,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0193.pt|he found, on the inside, a single brown delustered viscose fiber and several light green cotton fibers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0194.pt|The blanket in which the rifle was stored was composed of brown and green cotton, viscose and woolen fibers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0195.pt|The single brown viscose fiber found in the bag matched some of the brown viscose fibers from the blanket in all observable characteristics.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0196.pt|The green cotton fibers found in the paper bag matched some of the green cotton fibers in the blanket
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0197.pt|quote, in all observable microscopic characteristics, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0198.pt|Despite these matches, however, Stombaugh was unable to render on opinion that the fibers which he found in the bag had probably come from the blanket,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0199.pt|because other types of fibers present in the blanket were not found in the bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0200.pt|He concluded, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0201.pt|All I would say here is that it is possible that these fibers could have come from this blanket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0202.pt|because this blanket is composed of brown and green woolen fibers, brown and green delustered viscose fibers, and brown and green cotton fibers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0203.pt|We found no brown cotton fibers, no green viscose fibers, and no woolen fibers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0204.pt|So if I found all of these then I would have been able to say these fibers probably had come from this blanket. But since I found so few,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0205.pt|then I would say the possibility exists, these fibers could have come from this blanket, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0206.pt|Stombaugh confirmed that the rifle could have picked up fibers from the blanket and transferred them to the paper bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0207.pt|In light of the other evidence linking Lee Harvey Oswald, the blanket, and the rifle to the paper bag found on the sixth floor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0208.pt|the Commission considered Stombaugh's testimony of probative value in deciding whether Oswald carried the rifle into the building in the paper bag.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0209.pt|The preponderance of the evidence supports the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald (one)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0210.pt|told the curtain rod story to Frazier to explain both the return to Irving on a Thursday
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0211.pt|and the obvious bulk of the package which he intended to bring to work the next day;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0212.pt|(two) took paper and tape from the wrapping bench of the Depository and fashioned a bag large enough to carry the disassembled rifle;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0213.pt|(three) removed the rifle from the blanket in the Paines' garage on Thursday evening;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ033-0214.pt|(four) carried the rifle into the Depository Building, concealed in the bag;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0002.pt|The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Chapter four. The Assassin: Part three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0003.pt|Oswald at Window
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0004.pt|Lee Harvey Oswald was hired on October fifteen, nineteen sixty-three, by the Texas School Book Depository as an "order filler."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0005.pt|He worked principally on the first and sixth floors of the building, gathering books listed on orders and delivering them to the shipping room on the first floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0006.pt|He had ready access to the sixth floor, from the southeast corner window of which the shots were fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0007.pt|The Commission evaluated the physical evidence found near the window after the assassination and the testimony of eyewitnesses
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0008.pt|in deciding whether Lee Harvey Oswald was present at this window at the time of the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0009.pt|Palmprints and Fingerprints on Cartons and Paper Bag
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0010.pt|Below the southeast corner window on the sixth floor was a large carton of books
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0011.pt|measuring approximately eighteen by twelve by fourteen inches which had been moved from a stack along the south wall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0012.pt|Atop this carton was a small carton marked "Rolling Readers," measuring approximately thirteen by nine by eight inches.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0013.pt|In front of this small carton and resting partially on the windowsill was another small "Rolling Readers" carton.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0014.pt|These two small cartons had been moved from a stack about three aisles away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0015.pt|The boxes in the window appeared to have been arranged as a convenient gun rest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0016.pt|Behind these boxes was another carton placed on the floor on which a man sitting
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0017.pt|could look southwesterly down Elm Street over the top of the "Rolling Readers" cartons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0018.pt|Next to these cartons was the handmade paper bag, previously discussed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0019.pt|on which appeared the print of the left index finger and right palm of Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0020.pt|The cartons were forwarded to the FBI in Washington.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0021.pt|Sebastian F. Latona, supervisor of the Latent Fingerprint Section,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0022.pt|testified that twenty identifiable fingerprints and eight palmprints were developed on these cartons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0023.pt|The carton on the windowsill and the large carton below the window contained no prints which could be identified as being those of Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0024.pt|The other "Rolling Readers" carton, however, contained a palmprint and a fingerprint which were identified by Latona
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0025.pt|as being the left palmprint and right index fingerprint of Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0026.pt|The Commission has considered the possibility that the cartons might have been moved in connection with the work that was being performed on the sixth floor on November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0027.pt|Depository employees were laying a new floor at the west end and transferring books from the west to the east end of the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0028.pt|The "Rolling Readers" cartons, however, had not been moved by the floor layers and had apparently been taken to the window from their regular position for some particular purpose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0029.pt|The "Rolling Readers" boxes contained, instead of books, light blocks used as reading aids.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0030.pt|They could be easily adjusted and were still solid enough to serve as a gun rest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0031.pt|The box on the floor, behind the three near the window,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0032.pt|had been one of these moved by the floor layers from the west wall to near the east side of the building in preparation for the laying of the floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0033.pt|During the afternoon of November twenty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0034.pt|Lieutenant Day of the Dallas police dusted this carton with powder and developed a palmprint on the top edge of the carton on the side nearest the window.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0035.pt|The position of this palmprint on the carton was parallel with the long axis of the box, and at right angles with the short axis;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0036.pt|the bottom of the palm rested on the box.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0037.pt|Someone sitting on the box facing the window would have his palm in this position if he placed his hand alongside his right hip.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0038.pt|This print which had been cut out of the box was also forwarded to the FBI and Latona identified it as Oswald's right palmprint.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0039.pt|In Latona's opinion, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0040.pt|not too long, end quote, a time had elapsed between the time that the print was placed on the carton and the time that it had been developed by the Dallas police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0041.pt|Although Bureau experiments had shown that twenty-four hours was a likely maximum time, Latona stated
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0042.pt|that he could only testify with certainty that the print was less than three days old.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0043.pt|The print, therefore, could have been placed on the carton at any time within this period.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0044.pt|The freshness of this print could be estimated only because the Dallas police developed it through the use of powder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0045.pt|Since cartons absorb perspiration, powder can successfully develop a print on such material only within a limited time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0046.pt|When the FBI in Washington received the cartons, the remaining prints, including Oswald's on the Rolling Readers carton,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0047.pt|were developed by chemical processes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0048.pt|The freshness of prints developed in this manner cannot be estimated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0049.pt|so no conclusions can be drawn as to whether these remaining prints preceded or followed the print developed in Dallas by powder.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0050.pt|Most of the prints were found to have been placed on the cartons by an FBI clerk
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0051.pt|and a Dallas police officer after the cartons had been processed with powder by the Dallas Police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0052.pt|In his independent investigation, Arthur Mandella of the New York City Police Department
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0053.pt|reached the same conclusion as Latona that the prints found on the cartons were those of Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0054.pt|In addition, Mandella was of the opinion that the print taken from the carton on the floor
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0055.pt|was probably made within a day or a day and a half of the examination on November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0056.pt|Another expert with the FBI, Ronald G. Wittmus, conducted a separate examination and also agreed with Latona that the prints were Oswald's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0057.pt|In evaluating the significance of these fingerprint and palmprint identifications,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0058.pt|the Commission considered the possibility that Oswald handled these cartons as part of his normal duties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0059.pt|Since other identifiable prints were developed on the cartons, the Commission requested that they be compared with the prints of the twelve warehouse employees
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0060.pt|who, like Oswald, might have handled the cartons. They were also compared with the prints of those law enforcement officials who might have handled the cartons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0061.pt|The results of this investigation are fully discussed in chapter six, page two forty-nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0062.pt|Although a person could handle a carton and not leave identifiable prints,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0063.pt|none of these employees except Oswald left identifiable prints on the cartons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0064.pt|This finding, in addition to the freshness of one of the prints and the presence of Oswald's prints on two of the four cartons and the paper bag
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0065.pt|led the Commission to attach some probative value to the fingerprint and palmprint identifications in reaching the conclusion
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0066.pt|that Oswald was at the window from which the shots were fired, although the prints do not establish the exact time he was there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0067.pt|Oswald's Presence on Sixth Floor Approximately thirty-five Minutes Before the Assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0068.pt|Additional testimony linking Oswald with the point from which the shots were fired
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0069.pt|was provided by the testimony of Charles Givens, who was the last known employee to see Oswald inside the building prior to the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0070.pt|During the morning of November twenty-two, Givens was working with the floor-laying crew in the southwest section of the sixth floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0071.pt|At about eleven:forty-five a.m. the floor-laying crew used both elevators to come down from the sixth floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0072.pt|The employees raced the elevators to the first floor. Givens saw Oswald standing at the gate on the fifth floor as the elevator went by.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0073.pt|Givens testified that after reaching the first floor, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0074.pt|I discovered I left my cigarettes in my jacket pocket upstairs, and I took the elevator back upstairs to get my jacket with my cigarettes in it, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0075.pt|He saw Oswald, a clipboard in hand, walking from the southeast corner of the sixth floor toward the elevator.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0076.pt|Givens said to Oswald, quote, Boy are you going downstairs? It's near lunch time, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0077.pt|Oswald said, quote, No, sir. When you get downstairs, close the gate to the elevator, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0078.pt|Oswald was referring to the west elevator which operates by pushbutton and only with the gate closed. Givens said, "Okay,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0079.pt|and rode down in the east elevator.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0080.pt|When he reached the first floor, the west elevator -- the one with the gate was not there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0081.pt|Givens thought this was about eleven:fifty-five a.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0082.pt|None of the Depository employees is known to have seen Oswald again until after the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0083.pt|The significance of Givens' observation that Oswald was carrying his clipboard
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0084.pt|became apparent on December two, nineteen sixty-three, when an employee, Frankie Kaiser,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0085.pt|found a clipboard hidden by book cartons in the northwest corner of the sixth floor at the west wall a few feet from where the rifle had been found.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0086.pt|This clipboard had been made by Kaiser and had his name on it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0087.pt|Kaiser identified it as the clipboard which Oswald had appropriated from him when Oswald came to work at the Depository.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0088.pt|Three invoices on this clipboard, each dated November twenty-two, were for Scott-Foresman books, located on the first and sixth floors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0089.pt|Oswald had not filled any of the three orders.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0090.pt|Eyewitness Identification of Assassin
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0091.pt|Howard L. Brennan was an eyewitness to the shooting. As indicated previously the Commission considered his testimony as probative
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0092.pt|in reaching the conclusion that the shots came from the sixth floor, southeast corner window of the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0093.pt|Brennan also testified that Lee Harvey Oswald,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0094.pt|whom he viewed in a police lineup on the night of the assassination, was the man he saw fire the shots from the sixth-floor window of the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0095.pt|When the shots were fired, Brennan was in an excellent position to observe anyone in the window. He was sitting on a concrete wall
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0096.pt|on the southwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets, looking north at the Depository Building which was directly in front of him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0097.pt|The window was approximately one hundred twenty feet away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0098.pt|In the six to eight minute period before the motorcade arrived, Brennan saw a man leave and return to the window, quote, a couple of times, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0099.pt|After hearing the first shot, which he thought was a motorcycle backfire, Brennan glanced up at the window. He testified that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0100.pt|this man I saw previously was aiming for his last shot. As it appeared to me he was standing up and resting against the left window sill, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0101.pt|Brennan saw the man fire the last shot and disappear from the window.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0102.pt|Within minutes of the assassination, Brennan described the man to the police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0103.pt|This description most probably led to the radio alert sent to police cars at approximately twelve:forty-five p.m., which described the suspect as white,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0104.pt|slender, weighing about one sixty-five pounds, about five foot ten inches tall, and in his early thirties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0105.pt|In his sworn statement to the police later that day,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0106.pt|Brennan described the man in similar terms, except that he gave the weight as between one hundred sixty-five and one hundred seventy-five pounds and the height was omitted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0107.pt|In his testimony before the Commission, Brennan described the person he saw as, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0108.pt|man in his early thirties, fair complexion, slender, but neat, neat slender, possible five foot ten
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0109.pt|one-sixty to one-seventy pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0110.pt|Oswald was five foot nine inches, slender and twenty-four years old.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0111.pt|When arrested, he gave his weight as one hundred forty pounds. On other occasions he gave weights of both one hundred forty and one hundred fifty pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0112.pt|The New Orleans police records of his arrest in August of nineteen sixty-three show a weight of one hundred thirty-six pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0113.pt|The autopsy report indicated an estimated weight of one hundred fifty pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0114.pt|Brennan's description should also be compared with the eyewitness description broadcast over the Dallas police radio at one:twenty-two p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0115.pt|of the man who shot Patrolman J. D. Tippit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0116.pt|The suspect was described as, quote, a white male about thirty, five foot eight, black hair, slender, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0117.pt|At one:twenty-nine p.m. the police radio reported
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0118.pt|that the description of the suspect in the Tippit shooting was similar to the description which had been given by Brennan in connection with the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0119.pt|Approximately seven or eight minutes later
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0120.pt|the police radio reported that, quote, an eyeball witness, end quote, described the suspect in the Tippit shooting as, quote, a white male,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0121.pt|twenty-seven, five foot eleven, one hundred sixty-five pounds, black wavy hair, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0122.pt|As will be discussed fully below, the Commission has concluded that this suspect was Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0123.pt|Although Brennan testified that the man in the window was standing when he fired the shots, most probably he was either sitting or kneeling.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0124.pt|The half-open window, the arrangement of the boxes, and the angle of the shots virtually preclude a standing position.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0125.pt|It is understandable, however, for Brennan to have believed that the man with the rifle was standing. A photograph of the building taken seconds after the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0126.pt|shows three employees looking out of the fifth-floor window directly below the window from which the shots were fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0127.pt|Brennan testified that they were standing, which is their apparent position in the photograph.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0128.pt|But the testimony of these employees, together with photographs subsequently taken of them at the scene of the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0129.pt|establishes that they were either squatting or kneeling.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0130.pt|Since the window ledges in the Depository Building are lower than in most buildings,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0131.pt|a person squatting or kneeling exposes more of his body than would normally be the case.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0132.pt|From the street, this creates the impression that the person is standing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0133.pt|Brennan could have seen enough of the body of a kneeling or squatting person to estimate his height.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0134.pt|Shortly after the assassination Brennan noticed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0135.pt|two of these employees leaving the building and immediately identified them as having been in the fifth-floor windows.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0136.pt|When the three employees appeared before the Commission, Brennan identified the two whom he saw leave the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0137.pt|The two men, Harold Norman and James Jarman, Jr., each confirmed that when they came out of the building,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0138.pt|they saw and heard Brennan describing what he had seen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0140.pt|Jarman heard Brennan, quote, talking to this officer about that he had heard these shots and he had seen the barrel of the gun sticking out the window,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0141.pt|and he said that the shots came from inside the building, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0142.pt|During the evening of November twenty-two, Brennan identified Oswald as the person in the lineup who bore the closest resemblance to the man in the window
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0143.pt|but he said he was unable to make a positive identification.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0144.pt|Prior to the lineup,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0145.pt|Brennan had seen Oswald's picture on television, and he told the Commission that whether this affected his identification, quote, is something I do not know.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0146.pt|In an interview with FBI agents on December seventeen, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0147.pt|Brennan stated that he was sure that the person firing the rifle was Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0148.pt|In another interview with FBI agents on January seven, nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0149.pt|Brennan appeared to revert to his earlier inability to make a positive identification,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0150.pt|but, in his testimony before the Commission, Brennan stated that his remarks of January seven were intended by him merely as an accurate report
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0151.pt|of what he said on November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0152.pt|Brennan told the Commission that he could have made a positive identification in the lineup on November twenty-two
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0153.pt|but did not do so because he felt that the assassination was, quote, a Communist activity,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0154.pt|and I felt like there hadn't been more than one eyewitness, and if it got to be a known fact that I was an eyewitness, my family or I, either one, might not be safe.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0155.pt|When specifically asked before the Commission
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0156.pt|whether or not he could positively identify the man he saw in the sixth-floor window as the same man he saw in the police station,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0157.pt|Brennan stated, quote, I could at that time -- I could, with all sincerity, identify him as being the same man, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0158.pt|Although the record indicates that Brennan was an accurate observer, he declined to make a positive identification of Oswald when he first saw him in the police lineup.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0159.pt|The Commission, therefore, does not base its conclusion concerning the identity of the assassin
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0160.pt|on Brennan's subsequent certain identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as the man he saw fire the rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0161.pt|Immediately after the assassination, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0162.pt|Brennan described to the police the man he saw in the window and then identified Oswald as the person who most nearly resembled the man he saw.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0163.pt|The Commission is satisfied that, at the least,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0164.pt|Brennan saw a man in the window who closely resembled Lee Harvey Oswald, and that Brennan believes the man he saw was in fact
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0165.pt|Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0166.pt|Two other witnesses were able to offer partial descriptions of a man they saw in the southeast corner window
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0167.pt|of the sixth floor approximately one minute before the assassination, although neither witness saw the shots being fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0168.pt|Ronald Fischer and Robert Edwards were standing on the curb at the southwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0169.pt|the same corner where Brennan was sitting on a concrete wall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0170.pt|Fischer testified that about ten or fifteen seconds before the motorcade turned onto Houston Street from Main Street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0171.pt|Edwards said, quote, Look at that guy there in that window, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0172.pt|Fischer looked up and watched the man in the window for ten or fifteen seconds and then started watching the motorcade, which came into view on Houston Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0173.pt|He said that the man held his attention until the motorcade came because the man, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0174.pt|appeared uncomfortable for one, and secondly, he wasn't watching. he didn't look like he was watching for the parade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0175.pt|He looked like he was looking down toward the Trinity River and the Triple Underpass down at the end -- toward the end of Elm Street. And
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0176.pt|all the time I watched him, he never moved his head, he never -- he never moved anything. Just was there transfixed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0177.pt|Fischer placed the man in the easternmost window on the south side of the Depository Building on either the fifth or the sixth floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0178.pt|He said that he could see the man from the middle of his chest to the top of his head, and that as he was facing the window the man was in the lower right-hand portion of the window
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0179.pt|and, quote, seemed to be sitting a little forward, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0180.pt|The man was dressed in a light-colored, open-neck shirt which could have been either a sports shirt or a T-shirt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0181.pt|and he had brown hair, a slender face and neck with light complexion, and looked to be twenty-two or twenty-four years old.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0182.pt|The person in the window was a white man and, quote, looked to me like he was looking straight at the Triple Underpass, end quote, down Elm Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0183.pt|Boxes and cases were stacked behind him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0184.pt|Approximately one week after the assassination, according to Fisher, policemen showed him a picture of Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0185.pt|In his testimony he said, quote, I told them that that could have been the man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0186.pt|That that could have been the man that I saw in the window in the School Book Depository Building, but that I was not sure, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0187.pt|Fischer described the man's hair as some shade of brown, quote, it wasn't dark, and it wasn't light, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0188.pt|On November twenty-two, Fischer had apparently described the man as, quote, light-headed, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0189.pt|Fischer explained that he did not mean by the earlier statement that the man was blond, but rather that his hair was not black.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0190.pt|Robert Edwards said that, while looking at the south side of the Depository Building shortly before the motorcade,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0191.pt|he saw nothing of importance, quote, except maybe one individual who was up there in the corner room of the sixth floor which was crowded in among boxes, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0192.pt|He said that this was a white man about average in size, quote, possibly thin, end quote, and that he thought the man had light-brown hair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0193.pt|Fischer and Edwards did not see the man clearly enough or long enough to identify him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0194.pt|Their testimony is of probative value, however, because their limited description is consistent with that of the man who has been found by the Commission,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0195.pt|based on other evidence, to have fired the shots from the window.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0196.pt|Another person who saw the assassin as the shots were fired was Amos L. Euins, age fifteen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0197.pt|who was one of the first witnesses to alert the police to the Depository as the source of the shots, as has been discussed in chapter three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0198.pt|Euins, who was on the southwest corner of Elm and Houston Streets testified that he could not describe the man he saw in the window.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0199.pt|According to Euins, however, as the man lowered his head in order to aim the rifle down Elm Street, he appeared to have a white bald spot, on his head.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0200.pt|Shortly after the assassination, Euins signed an affidavit describing the man as "white,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0201.pt|but a radio reporter testified that Euins described the man to him as, quote, colored, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0202.pt|In his Commission testimony
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0203.pt|Euins stated that he could not ascertain the man's race and that the statement in the affidavit was intended to refer only to the white spot on the man's head
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0204.pt|and not to his race.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0205.pt|A Secret Service agent who spoke to Euins approximately twenty to thirty minutes after the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0206.pt|confirmed that Euins could neither describe the man in the window nor indicate his race.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0207.pt|Accordingly, Euins' testimony is considered probative as to the source of the shots but is inconclusive as to the identity of the man in the window.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0208.pt|In evaluating the evidence that Oswald was at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor at the time of the shooting,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0209.pt|the Commission has considered the allegation that Oswald was photographed standing in front of the building when the shots were fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0210.pt|The picture which gave rise to these allegations was taken by Associated Press Photographer James W. Altgens,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0211.pt|who was standing on the south side of Elm Street between the Triple Underpass and the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0212.pt|As the motorcade started its descent down Elm Street., Altgens snapped a picture of the Presidential limousine with the entrance to the Depository Building in the background.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0213.pt|Just before snapping the picture Altgens heard a noise which sounded like the popping of a firecracker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0214.pt|Investigation has established that Altgens' picture was taken approximately two seconds after the firing of the shot
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0215.pt|which entered the back of the President's neck.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0216.pt|In the background of this picture were several employees watching the parade from the steps of the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0217.pt|One of these employees was alleged to resemble Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0218.pt|The Commission has determined that the employee was in fact Billy Lovelady, who identified himself in the picture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ034-0219.pt|Standing alongside him were Buell Wesley Frazier and William Shelley, who also identified Lovelady.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0002.pt|Chapter four. The Assassin: Part four. Oswald's Actions in Building After Assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0003.pt|In considering whether Oswald was at the southeast corner window at the time the shots were fired,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0004.pt|the Commission has reviewed the testimony of witnesses who saw Oswald in the building within minutes after the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0005.pt|The Commission has found that Oswald's movements, as described by these witnesses,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0006.pt|are consistent with his having been at the window at twelve:thirty p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0007.pt|The encounter in the lunchroom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0008.pt|The first person to see Oswald after the assassination was Patrolman M. L. Baker of the Dallas Police Department.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0009.pt|Baker was riding a two-wheeled motorcycle behind the last press car of the motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0010.pt|As he turned the corner from Main onto Houston at a speed of about five to ten miles per hour,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0011.pt|a strong wind blowing from the north almost unseated him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0012.pt|At about this time he heard the first shot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0013.pt|Having recently heard the sounds of rifles while on a hunting trip, Baker recognized the shots as that of a high-powered rifle; Quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0014.pt|it sounded high and I immediately kind of looked up,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0015.pt|and I had a feeling that it came from the building, either right in front of me [the Depository Building] or of the one across to the right of it, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0016.pt|He saw pigeons flutter upward. He was not certain, quote, but I am pretty sure they came from the building right on the northwest corner, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0017.pt|He heard two more shots spaced, quote, pretty well even to me.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0018.pt|end quote, After the third shot, he, quote, revved that motorcycle up, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0019.pt|drove to the northwest corner of Elm and Houston, and parked approximately ten feet from the traffic signal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0020.pt|As he was parking he noted that people were, quote, falling, and they were rolling around down there grabbing their children, end quote, and rushing about.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0021.pt|A woman screamed, quote, Oh, they have shot that man, they have shot that man, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0022.pt|Baker, quote, had it in mind that the shots came from the top of this building here, end quote, so he ran straight to the entrance of the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0023.pt|Baker testified that he entered the lobby of the building and, quote, spoke out and asked where the stairs or elevator was
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0024.pt|and this man, Mr. Truly, spoke up and says, it seems to me like he says,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0025.pt|I am a building manager. Follow me, officer, and I will show you, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0026.pt|Baker and building superintendent Roy Truly went through a second set of doors and stopped at a swinging door where Baker bumped into Truly's back.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0027.pt|They went through the swinging door and continued at, quote, a good trot, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0028.pt|to the northwest corner of the floor where Truly hoped to find one of the two freight elevators.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0029.pt|Neither elevator was there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0030.pt|Truly pushed the button for the west elevator which operates automatically if the gate is closed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0031.pt|He shouted twice, quote, Turn loose the elevator, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0032.pt|When the elevator failed to come, Baker said, quote, let's take the stairs, end quote, and he followed Truly up the stairway, which is to the west of the elevator.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0033.pt|The stairway is located in the northwest corner of the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0034.pt|The stairs from one floor to the next are "L-shaped," with both legs of the "L" approximately the same length.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0035.pt|Because the stairway itself is enclosed, neither Baker nor Truly could see anything on the second-floor hallway until they reached the landing at the top of the stairs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0036.pt|On the second-floor landing there is a small open area with a door at the east end.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0037.pt|This door leads into a small vestibule, and another door leads from the vestibule into the second-floor lunchroom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0038.pt|The lunchroom door is usually open, but the first door is kept shut by a closing mechanism on the door.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0039.pt|This vestibule door is solid except for a small glass window in the upper part of the door.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0040.pt|As Baker reached the second floor, he was about twenty feet from the vestibule door. He intended to continue around to his left toward the stairway going up
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0041.pt|but through the window in the door he caught a fleeting glimpse of a man walking in the vestibule toward the lunchroom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0042.pt|Since the vestibule door is only a few feet from the lunchroom door, the man must have entered the vestibule only a second or two before Baker arrived at the top of the stairwell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0043.pt|Yet he must have entered the vestibule door before Truly reached the top of the stairwell, since Truly did not see him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0044.pt|If the man had passed from the vestibule into the lunchroom, Baker could not have seen him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0045.pt|Baker said, quote, He [Truly] had already started around the bend to come to the next elevator going up,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0046.pt|I was coming out this one on the second floor, and I don't know, I was kind of sweeping this area as I come up, I was looking from right to left
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0047.pt|and as I got to this door here I caught a glimpse of this man, just, you know, a sudden glimpse. And it looked to me like he was going away from me.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0048.pt|I can't say whether he had gone on through that door [the lunchroom door] or not.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0049.pt|All I did was catch a glance at him, and evidently he was -- this door might have been, you know, closing and almost shut at that time, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0050.pt|With his revolver drawn, Baker opened the vestibule door and ran into the vestibule.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0051.pt|He saw a man walking away from him in the lunchroom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0052.pt|Baker stopped at the door of the lunchroom and commanded, quote, Come here, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0053.pt|The man turned and walked back toward Baker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0054.pt|He had been proceeding toward the rear of the lunchroom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0055.pt|Along a side wall of the lunchroom was a soft drink rending machine, but at that time the man had nothing in his hands.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0056.pt|Meanwhile, Truly had run up several steps toward the third floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0057.pt|Missing Baker, he came back to find the officer in the doorway to the lunchroom facing Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0058.pt|Baker turned to Truly and said, quote, Do you know this man, does he work here? end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0059.pt|Truly replied, "Yes."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0060.pt|Baker stated later that the man did not seem to be out of breath; he seemed calm. Quote, He never did say a word or nothing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0061.pt|In fact, he didn't change his expression one bit, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0062.pt|Truly said of Oswald: quote, He didn't seem to be excited or overly afraid or anything. He might have been a bit startled, like I might have been if somebody confronted me.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0063.pt|But I cannot recall any change in expression of any kind on his face, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0064.pt|Truly thought that the officer's gun at that time appeared to be almost touching the middle portion of Oswald's body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0065.pt|Truly also noted at this time that Oswald's hands were empty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0066.pt|In an effort to determine whether Oswald could have descended to the lunchroom
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0067.pt|from the sixth floor by the time Baker and Truly arrived, Commission counsel asked Baker and Truly to repeat their movements from the time of the shot
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0068.pt|until Baker came upon Oswald in the lunchroom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0069.pt|Baker placed himself on a motorcycle about two hundred feet from the corner of Elm and Houston Streets where he said he heard the shots.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0070.pt|Truly stood in front of the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0071.pt|At a given signal, they reenacted the event. Baker's movements were timed with a stopwatch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0072.pt|On the first test, the elapsed time between the simulated first shot and Baker's arrival on the second-floor stair landing
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0073.pt|was one minute and thirty seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0074.pt|The second test run required one minute and fifteen seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0075.pt|A test was also conducted to determine the time required to walk from the southeast corner of the sixth floor to the second-floor lunchroom by stairway.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0076.pt|Special Agent John Howlett of the Secret Service carried a rifle from the southeast corner of the sixth floor along the east aisle to the northeast corner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0077.pt|He placed the rifle on the floor near the site where Oswald's rifle was actually found after the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0078.pt|Then Howlett walked down the stairway to the second-floor landing and entered the lunchroom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0079.pt|The first test, run at normal walking pace, required one minute, eighteen seconds;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0080.pt|the second test, at a "fast walk" took one minute, fourteen seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0081.pt|The second test followed immediately after the first.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0082.pt|The only interval was the time necessary to ride in the elevator from the second to the sixth floor and walk back to the southeast corner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0083.pt|Howlett was not short winded at the end of either test run.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0084.pt|The minimum time required by Baker to park his motorcycle and reach the second-floor lunchroom was within three seconds of the time needed to walk
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0085.pt|from the southeast corner of the sixth floor down the stairway to the lunchroom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0086.pt|The time actually required for Baker and Truly to reach the second floor on November twenty-two was probably longer than in the test runs. For example,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0087.pt|Baker required fifteen seconds after the simulated shot to ride his motorcycle one hundred eighty to two hundred feet,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0088.pt|park it, and run forty-five feet to the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0089.pt|No allowance was made for the special conditions which existed on the day of the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0090.pt|possible delayed reaction to the shot, jostling with the crowd of people on the steps and scanning the area along Elm Street and the parkway.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0091.pt|Baker said, quote, We simulated the shots and by the time we got there, we did everything that I did that day,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0092.pt|and this would be the minimum, because I am sure that I, you know, it took me a little longer, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0093.pt|On the basis of this time test, therefore,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0094.pt|the Commission concluded that Oswald could have fired the shots and still have been present in the second-floor lunchroom when seen by Baker and Truly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0095.pt|That Oswald descended by stairway from the sixth floor to the second-floor lunchroom
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0096.pt|is consistent with the movements of the two elevators, which would have provided the other possible means of descent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0097.pt|When Truly, accompanied by Baker, ran to the rear of the first floor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0098.pt|he was certain that both elevators, which occupy the same shaft, were on the fifth floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0099.pt|Baker, not realizing that there were two elevators, thought that only one elevator was in the shaft and that it was two or three floors above the second floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0100.pt|In the few seconds which elapsed while Baker and Truly ran from the first to the second floor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0101.pt|neither of these slow elevators could have descended from the fifth to the second floor. Furthermore, no elevator was at the second floor when they arrived there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0102.pt|Truly and Baker continued up the stairs after the encounter with Oswald in the lunchroom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0103.pt|There was no elevator on the third or fourth floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0104.pt|The east elevator was on the fifth floor when they arrived; the west elevator was not.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0105.pt|They took the east elevator to the seventh floor and ran up a stairway to the roof where they searched for several minutes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0106.pt|Jack Dougherty, an employee working on the fifth floor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0107.pt|testified that he took the west elevator to the first floor after hearing a noise which sounded like a backfire.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0108.pt|Eddie Piper, the janitor, told Dougherty that the President had been shot,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0109.pt|but in his testimony Piper did not mention either seeing or talking with Dougherty during these moments of excitement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0110.pt|Both Dougherty and Piper were confused witnesses. They had no exact memory of the events of that afternoon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0111.pt|Truly was probably correct in stating that the west elevator was on the fifth floor when he looked up the elevator shaft from the first floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0112.pt|The west elevator was not on the fifth floor when Baker and Truly reached that floor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0113.pt|probably because Jack Dougherty took it to the first floor while Baker and Truly were running up the stairs or in the lunchroom with Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0114.pt|Neither elevator could have been used by Oswald as a means of descent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0115.pt|Oswald's use of the stairway is consistent with the testimony of other employees in the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0116.pt|Three employees -- James Jarman, Jr.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0117.pt|Harold Norman, and Bonnie Ray Williams -- were watching the parade from the fifth floor, directly below the window from which the shots were fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0118.pt|They rushed to the west windows after the shots were fired and remained there
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0119.pt|until after they saw Patrolman Baker's white helmet on the fifth floor moving toward the elevator.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0120.pt|While they were at the west windows their view of the stairwell was completely blocked by shelves and boxes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0121.pt|This is the period during which Oswald would have descended the stairs. In all likelihood
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0122.pt|Dougherty took the elevator down from the fifth floor after Jarman, Norman, and Williams ran to the west windows and were deciding what to do.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0123.pt|None of these three men saw Dougherty, probably because of the anxiety of the moment and because of the books which may have blocked the view.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0124.pt|Neither Jarman, Norman, Williams, or Dougherty saw Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0125.pt|Victoria Adams, who worked on the fourth floor of the Depository Building,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0126.pt|claimed that within about one minute following the shots she ran from a window on the south side of the fourth floor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0127.pt|down the rear stairs to the first floor, where she encountered two Depository employees -- William Shelley and Billy Lovelady.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0128.pt|If her estimate of time is correct, she reached the bottom of the stairs before Truly and Baker started up,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0129.pt|and she must have run down the stairs ahead of Oswald and would probably have seen or heard him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0130.pt|Actually she noticed no one on the back stairs. If she descended from the fourth to the first floor as fast as she claimed in her testimony,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0131.pt|she would have seen Baker or Truly on the first floor or on the stairs, unless they were already in the second-floor lunchroom talking to Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0132.pt|When she reached the first floor, she actually saw Shelley and Lovelady slightly east of the east elevator.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0133.pt|Shelley and Lovelady, however, have testified
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0134.pt|that they were watching the parade from the top step of the building entrance when Gloria Calverly, who works in the Depository Building,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0135.pt|ran up and said that the President had been shot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0136.pt|Lovelady and Shelley moved out into the street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0137.pt|About this time Shelley saw Truly and Patrolman Baker go into the building
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0138.pt|Shelley and Lovelady, at a fast walk or trot, turned west into the railroad yards and then to the west side of the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0139.pt|They reentered the building by the rear door several minutes after Baker and Truly rushed through the front entrance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0140.pt|On entering, Lovelady saw a girl on the first floor who he believes was Victoria Adams.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0141.pt|If Miss Adams accurately recalled meeting Shelley and Lovelady when she reached the bottom of the stairs,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0142.pt|then her estimate of the time when she descended from the fourth floor is incorrect,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0143.pt|and she actually came down the stairs several minutes after Oswald and after Truly and Baker as well.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0144.pt|Oswald's departure from building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0145.pt|Within a minute after Baker and Truly left Oswald in the lunchroom, Mrs. R. A. Reid, clerical supervisor for the Texas School Book Depository,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0146.pt|saw him walk through the clerical office on the second floor toward the door leading to the front stairway.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0147.pt|Mrs. Reid had watched the parade from the sidewalk in front of the building with Truly and Mr. O. V. Campbell, vice president of the Depository.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0148.pt|She testified that she heard three shots which she thought came from the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0149.pt|She ran inside and up the front stairs into the large open office reserved for clerical employees.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0150.pt|As she approached her desk, she saw Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0151.pt|He was walking into the office from the back hallway,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0152.pt|carrying a full bottle of Coca-Cola in his hand, presumably purchased after the encounter with Baker and Truly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0153.pt|As Oswald passed Mrs. Reid she said, quote, Oh, the President has been shot, but maybe they didn't hit him, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0154.pt|Oswald mumbled something and walked by. She paid no more attention to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0155.pt|The only exit from the office in the direction Oswald was moving was through the door to the front stairway.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0156.pt|Mrs. Reid testified that when she saw Oswald, he was wearing a T-shirt and no jacket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0157.pt|When he left home that morning, Marina Oswald, who was still in bed, suggested that he wear a jacket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0158.pt|A blue jacket, later identified by Marina Oswald as her husband's, was subsequently found in the building, apparently left behind by Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0159.pt|Mrs. Reid believes that she returned to her desk from the street about two minutes after the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0160.pt|Reconstructing her movements, Mrs. Reid ran the distance three times and was timed in two minutes by stopwatch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0161.pt|The reconstruction was the minimum time. Accordingly, she probably met Oswald at about twelve:thirty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0162.pt|approximately thirty to forty-five seconds after Oswald's lunchroom encounter with Baker and Truly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0163.pt|After leaving Mrs. Reid in the front office, Oswald could have gone down the stairs and out the front door by twelve:thirty-three p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0164.pt|three minutes after the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0165.pt|At that time the building had not yet been sealed off by the police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0166.pt|While it was difficult to determine exactly when the police sealed off the building,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0167.pt|the earliest estimates would still have permitted Oswald to leave the building by twelve:thirty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0168.pt|One of the police officers assigned to the corner of Elm and Houston Streets for the Presidential motorcade, W. E. Barnett,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0169.pt|testified that immediately after the shots he went to the rear of the building to check the fire escape.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0170.pt|He then returned to the corner of Elm and Houston where he met a sergeant who instructed him to find out the name of the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0171.pt|Barnett ran to the building, noted its name, and then returned to the corner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0172.pt|There he was met by a construction worker -- in all likelihood Howard Brennan, who was wearing his work helmet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0173.pt|This worker told Barnett that the shots had been fired from a window in the Depository Building,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0174.pt|where upon Barnett posted himself at the front door to make certain that no one left the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0175.pt|The sergeant did the same thing at the rear of the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0176.pt|Barnett estimated that approximately three minutes elapsed between the time he heard the last of the shots and the time he started guarding the front door.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0177.pt|According to Barnett, quote, there were people going in and out, end quote, during this period.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0178.pt|Sgt. D. V. Harkness of the Dallas police
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0179.pt|said that to his knowledge the building was not sealed off at twelve:thirty-six p.m. when he called in on police radio
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0180.pt|that a witness (Amos Euins) had seen shots fired from a window of the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0181.pt|At that time, Inspector Herbert V. Sawyer's car was parked in front of the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0182.pt|Harkness did not know whether or not two officers with Sawyer were guarding the doors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0183.pt|At twelve:thirty-four p.m. Sawyer heard a call over the police radio that the shots had come from the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0184.pt|He then entered the building and took the front passenger elevator as far as it would go -- the fourth floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0185.pt|After inspecting this floor, Sawyer returned to the street about three minutes after he entered the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0186.pt|After he returned to the street he directed Sergeant Harkness to station two patrolmen at the front door and not let anyone in or out;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0187.pt|he also directed that the back door be sealed off.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0188.pt|This was no earlier than twelve:thirty-seven p.m. and may have been later.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0189.pt|Special Agent Forrest V. Sorrels of the Secret Service, who had been in the motorcade,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0190.pt|testified that after driving to Parkland Hospital, he returned to the Depository Building about twenty minutes after the shooting,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0191.pt|found no police officers at the rear door and was able to enter through this door without identifying himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0192.pt|Although Oswald probably left the building at about twelve:thirty-three p.m., his absence was not noticed until at least one-half hour later.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0193.pt|Truly, who had returned with Patrolman Baker from the roof, saw the police questioning the warehouse employees.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0194.pt|Approximately fifteen men worked in the warehouse and Truly noticed that Oswald was not among those being questioned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0195.pt|Satisfying himself that Oswald was missing, Truly obtained Oswald's address, phone number, and description from his employment application card.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0196.pt|The address listed was for the Paine home in Irving.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0197.pt|Truly gave this information to Captain Fritz who was on the sixth floor at the time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0198.pt|Truly estimated that he gave this information to Fritz about fifteen or twenty minutes after the shots,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0199.pt|but it was probably no earlier than one:twenty-two p.m., the time when the rifle was found.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0200.pt|Fritz believed that he learned of Oswald's absence after the rifle was found.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0201.pt|The fact that Truly found Fritz in the northwest corner of the floor, near the point where the rifle was found, supports Fritz' recollection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0202.pt|Fingerprint and palmprint evidence establishes that Oswald handled two of the four cartons next to the window
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0203.pt|and also handled a paper bag which was found near the cartons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0204.pt|Oswald was seen in the vicinity of the southeast corner of the sixth floor approximately thirty-five minutes before the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0205.pt|and no one could be found who saw Oswald anywhere else in the building until after the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0206.pt|An eyewitness to the shooting immediately provided a description of the man in the window which was similar to Oswald's actual appearance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0207.pt|This witness identified Oswald in a lineup as the man most nearly resembling the man he saw and later identified Oswald as the man he observed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0208.pt|Oswald's known actions in the building immediately after the assassination are consistent with his having been at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0209.pt|at twelve:thirty p.m
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ035-0210.pt|On the basis of these findings the Commission has concluded that Oswald, at the time of the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0002.pt|Chapter four. The Assassin: Part five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0003.pt|The Killing of Patrolman J. D. Tippit
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0004.pt|After leaving the Depository Building at approximately twelve:thirty-three p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald proceeded to his roominghouse by bus and taxi.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0005.pt|He arrived at approximately one p.m. and left a few minutes later.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0006.pt|At about one:sixteen p.m., a Dallas police officer, J. D. Tippit, was shot less than one mile from Oswald's roominghouse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0007.pt|In deciding whether Oswald killed Patrolman Tippit the Commission considered the following:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0008.pt|(one) positive identification of the killer by two eyewitnesses who saw the shooting
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0009.pt|and seven eyewitnesses who heard the shots and saw the gunman flee the scene with the revolver in his hand,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0010.pt|(two) testimony of firearms identification experts establishing the identity of the murder weapon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0011.pt|(three) evidence establishing the ownership of the murder weapon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0012.pt|(four) evidence establishing the ownership of a zipper jacket
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0013.pt|found along the path of flight taken by the gunman from the scene of the shooting to the place of arrest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0014.pt|Oswald's Movements After Leaving Depository Building
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0015.pt|According to the reconstruction of time and events which the Commission found most credible,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0016.pt|Lee Harvey Oswald left the building approximately three minutes after the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0017.pt|He probably walked east on Elm Street for seven blocks to the corner of Elm and Murphy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0018.pt|where he boarded a bus which was heading back in the direction of the Depository Building, on its way to the Oak Cliff section of Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0019.pt|When Oswald was apprehended, a bus transfer marked for the Lakewood-Marsalis route was found in his shirt pocket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0020.pt|The transfer was dated "Friday November twenty-two, 'sixty-three" and was punched in two places by the bus driver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0021.pt|On the basis of this punchmark, which was distinctive to each Dallas driver,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0022.pt|the transfer was conclusively identified as having been issued by Cecil J. McWatters, a busdriver for the Dallas Transit Co.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0023.pt|On the basis of the date and time on the transfer, McWatters was able to testify that the transfer had been issued by him
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0024.pt|on a trip which passed a check point at St. Paul and Elm Streets at twelve:thirty-six p.m., November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0025.pt|McWatters was sure that he left the checkpoint on time
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0026.pt|and he estimated that it took him three to four minutes to drive three blocks west from the checkpoint to Field Street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0027.pt|which he reached at about twelve:forty p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0028.pt|McWatters' recollection is that he issued this transfer to a man who entered his bus just beyond Field Street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0029.pt|where a man beat on the front door of the bus, boarded it and paid his fare.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0030.pt|About two blocks later, a woman asked to get off to make a one o'clock train at Union Station
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0031.pt|and requested a transfer which she might use if she got through the traffic.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0032.pt|So I gave her a transfer and opened the door and she was going out the gentleman I had picked up about two blocks [back]
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0033.pt|asked for a transfer and got off at the same place in the middle of the block where the lady did.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0034.pt|It was the intersection near Lamar Street, it was near Poydras and Lamar Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0035.pt|The man was on the bus approximately four minutes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0036.pt|At about six:thirty p.m. on the day of the assassination, McWatters viewed four men in a police lineup.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0037.pt|He picked Oswald from the lineup as the man who had boarded the bus at the, quote, lower end of town on Elm around Houston, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0038.pt|and who, during the ride south on Marsalis, had an argument with a woman passenger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0039.pt|In his Commission testimony, McWatters said he had been in error and that a teenager named Milton Jones was the passenger he had in mind.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0040.pt|In a later interview, Jones confirmed that he had exchanged words with a woman passenger on the bus during the ride south on Marsalis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0041.pt|McWatters also remembered that a man received a transfer at Lamar and Elm Streets and that a man in the lineup was about the size of this man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0042.pt|However, McWatters' recollection alone was too vague to be a basis for placing Oswald on the bus.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0043.pt|Riding on the bus was an elderly woman, Mary Bledsoe, who confirmed the mute evidence of the transfer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0044.pt|Oswald had rented a room from Mrs. Bledsoe about six weeks before, on October seven, but she had asked him to leave at the end of a week.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0045.pt|Mrs. Bledsoe told him, quote, I am not going to rent to you any more, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0046.pt|She testified, quote, I didn't like his attitude. There was just something about him I didn't like or want him. Just didn't want him around me, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0047.pt|On November twenty-two, Mrs. Bledsoe came downtown to watch the Presidential motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0048.pt|She boarded the Marsalis bus at St. Paul and Elm Streets to return home. She testified further, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0049.pt|And, after we got past Akard, at Murphy -- I figured it out. Let's see. I don't know for sure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0050.pt|Oswald got on. He looks like a maniac. His sleeve was out here. His shirt was undone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0051.pt|Was a hole in it, hole, and he was dirty, and I didn't look at him. I didn't want to know I even seen him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0052.pt|he looked so bad in his face, and his face was so distorted. Hole in his sleeve right here.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0053.pt|End quote. As Mrs. Bledsoe said these words, she pointed to her right elbow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0054.pt|When Oswald was arrested in the Texas Theatre, he was wearing a brown sport shirt with a hole in the right sleeve at the elbow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0055.pt|Mrs. Bledsoe identified the shirt as the one Oswald was wearing and she stated she was certain that it was Oswald who boarded the bus.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0056.pt|Mrs. Bledsoe recalled that Oswald sat halfway to the rear of the bus which moved slowly and intermittently as traffic became heavy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0057.pt|She heard a passing motorist tell the driver that the President had been shot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0058.pt|People on the bus began talking about it. As the bus neared Lamar Street, Oswald left the bus and disappeared into the crowd.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0059.pt|The Marsalis bus which Oswald boarded traveled a route west on Elm,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0060.pt|south on Houston, and southwest across the Houston viaduct to service the Oak Cliff area along Marsalis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0061.pt|A Beckley bus which also served the Oak Cliff area,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0062.pt|followed the same route as the Marsalis bus through downtown Dallas, except that it continued west on Elm,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0063.pt|across Houston in front of the Depository Building, past the Triple Underpass into west Dallas, and south on Beckley.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0064.pt|Marsalis Street is seven blocks from Beckley.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0065.pt|Oswald lived at ten twenty-six North Beckley.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0066.pt|He could not reach his roominghouse on the Marsalis bus, but the Beckley bus stopped across the street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0067.pt|According to McWatters, the Beckley bus was behind the Marsalis bus, but he did not actually see it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0068.pt|Both buses stopped within one block of the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0069.pt|Instead of waiting there, Oswald apparently went as far away as he could and boarded the first Oak Cliff bus which came along
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0070.pt|rather than wait for one which stopped across the street from his roominghouse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0071.pt|In a reconstruction of this bus trip, agents of the Secret Service and the FBI walked the seven blocks from the front entrance of the Depository Building
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0072.pt|to Murphy and Elm three times, averaging six point five minutes for the three trips.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0073.pt|A bus moving through heavy traffic on Elm from Murphy to Lamar was timed at four minutes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0074.pt|If Oswald left the Depository Building at twelve:thirty-three p.m.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0075.pt|walked seven blocks directly to Murphy and Elm, and boarded a bus almost immediately,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0076.pt|he would have boarded the bus at approximately twelve:forty p.m. and left it at approximately twelve:forty-four p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0077.pt|Roger D. Craig, a deputy sheriff of Dallas County,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0078.pt|claimed that about fifteen minutes after the assassination he saw a man, whom he later identified as Oswald,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0079.pt|coming from the direction of the Depository Building and running down the hill north of Elm Street
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0080.pt|toward a light-colored Rambler station wagon, which was moving slowly along Elm toward the underpass:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0081.pt|The station wagon stopped to pick up the man and then drove off.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0082.pt|Craig testified that later in the afternoon he saw Oswald in the police interrogation room
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0083.pt|and told Captain Fritz that Oswald was the man he saw.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0084.pt|Craig also claimed that when Fritz pointed out to Oswald that Craig had identified him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0085.pt|Oswald rose from his chair, looked directly at Fritz, and said, quote, Everybody will know who I am now, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0086.pt|The Commission could not accept important elements of Craig's testimony.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0087.pt|Captain Fritz stated that a deputy sheriff whom he could not identify did ask to see him that afternoon
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0088.pt|and told him a similar story to Craig's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0089.pt|Fritz did not bring him into his office to identify Oswald but turned him over to Lieutenant Baker for questioning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0090.pt|If Craig saw Oswald that afternoon, he saw him through the glass windows of the office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0091.pt|And neither Captain Fritz nor any other officer can remember that Oswald dramatically arose from his chair
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0092.pt|and said, quote, Everybody will know who I am now, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0093.pt|If Oswald had made such a statement, Captain Fritz and others present would probably have remembered it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0094.pt|Craig may have seen a person enter a white Rambler station wagon fifteen or twenty minutes after the shooting and travel west on Elm Street
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0095.pt|but the Commission concluded that this man was not Lee Harvey Oswald,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0096.pt|because of the overwhelming evidence that Oswald was far away from the building by that time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0097.pt|The taxicab ride.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0098.pt|William Whaley, a taxicab driver, told his employer on Saturday morning, November twenty-three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0099.pt|that he recognized Oswald from a newspaper photograph as a man whom he had driven to the Oak Cliff area the day before.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0100.pt|Notified of Whaley's statement, the police brought him to the police station that afternoon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0101.pt|He was taken to the lineup room where, according to Whaley, five young teenagers, all handcuffed together, were displayed with Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0102.pt|He testified that Oswald looked older than the other boys.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0103.pt|The police asked him whether he could pick out his passenger from the lineup.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0104.pt|Whaley picked Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0105.pt|He said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0106.pt|You could have picked him out without identifying him by just listening to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0107.pt|because he was bawling out the policeman, telling them it wasn't right to put him in line with these teenagers and all of that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0108.pt|and they asked me which one and I told them. It was him all right, the same man. He showed no respect for the policemen,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0109.pt|he told them what he thought about them. They knew what they were doing and they were trying to railroad him and he wanted his lawyer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0110.pt|Whaley believes that Oswald's conduct did not aid him in his identification, quote, because I knew he was the right one as soon as I saw him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0111.pt|Whaley's memory of the lineup is inaccurate. There were four men altogether, not six men, in the lineup with Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0112.pt|Whaley said that Oswald was the man under Number two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0113.pt|Actually Oswald was under Number three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0114.pt|Only two of the men in the lineup with Oswald were teenagers: John T. Horn, aged eighteen, was Number one;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0115.pt|David Knapp, aged eighteen, was Number two;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0116.pt|Lee Oswald was Number three;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0117.pt|and Daniel Lujan, aged twenty-six, was Number four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0118.pt|When he first testified before the Commission,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0119.pt|Whaley displayed a trip manifest which showed a twelve o'clock trip from Travis Hotel to the Continental bus station,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0120.pt|unloaded at twelve:fifteen p.m.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0121.pt|a twelve:fifteen p.m. pickup at Continental to Greyhound, unloaded at twelve:thirty p.m.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0122.pt|and a pickup from Greyhound (bus station) at twelve:thirty p.m.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0123.pt|unloaded at five hundred North Beckley at twelve:forty-five p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0124.pt|Whaley testified that he did not keep an accurate time record of his trips but recorded them by the quarter hour,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0125.pt|and that sometimes he made his entry right after a trip while at other times he waited to record three or four trips.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0126.pt|As he unloaded his Continental bus station passenger in front of Greyhound, he started to get out to buy a package of cigarettes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0127.pt|He saw a man walking south on Lamar from Commerce.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0128.pt|The man was dressed in faded blue color khaki work clothes, a brown shirt, and some kind of work jacket that almost matched his pants.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0129.pt|The man asked, quote, May I have the cab?, end quote, and got into the front seat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0130.pt|Whaley described the ensuing events as follows, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0131.pt|And about that time an old lady, I think she was an old lady, I don't remember nothing but her sticking her head down past him in the door and said,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0132.pt|Driver, will you call me a cab down here? She had seen him get this cab and she wanted one, too,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0133.pt|and he opened the door a little bit like he was going to get out and he said, "I will let you have this one," and she says, "No, the driver can call me one."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0134.pt|I asked him where he wanted to go. And he said, "five hundred North Beckley. Well, I started up,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0135.pt|I started to that address, and the police cars, the sirens was going, running crisscrossing everywhere, just a big uproar in that end of town and I said,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0136.pt|What the hell. I wonder what the hell is the uproar?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0137.pt|And he never said anything. So I figured he was one of these people that don't like to talk so I never said any more to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0138.pt|But when I got pretty close to five hundred block at Neches and North Beckley which is the five hundred block, he said, "This will do fine," and I pulled over to the curb right there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0139.pt|He gave me a dollar bill, the trip was ninety-five cents.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0140.pt|He gave me a dollar bill and didn't say anything, just got out and closed the door and walked around the front of the cab over to the other side of the street
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0141.pt|[east side of the street]. Of course, the traffic was moving through there and I put it in gear and moved on, that is the last I saw of him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0142.pt|Whaley was somewhat imprecise as to where he unloaded his passenger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0143.pt|He marked what, he thought was the intersection of Neches and Beckley on a map of Dallas with a large "X."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0144.pt|He said, quote, Yes, sir; that is right, because that is the five hundred block of North Beckley, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0145.pt|However, Neches and Beckley do not intersect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0146.pt|Neches is within one-half block of the roominghouse at ten twenty-six North Beckley where Oswald was living.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0147.pt|The five hundred block of North Beckley is five blocks south of the roominghouse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0148.pt|After a review of these inconsistencies in his testimony before the Commission, Whaley was interviewed again in Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0149.pt|The route of the taxicab was retraced under the direction of Whaley.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0150.pt|He directed the driver of the car to a point twenty feet north of the northwest corner of the intersection of Beckley and Neely
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0151.pt|the point at which he said his passenger alighted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0152.pt|This was the seven hundred block of North Beckley
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0153.pt|The elapsed time of the reconstructed run from the Greyhound Bus Station to Neely and Beckley was five minutes and thirty seconds by stopwatch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0154.pt|The walk from Beckley and Neely to ten twenty-six North Beckley was timed by Commission counsel at five minutes and forty-five seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0155.pt|Whaley testified that Oswald was wearing either the gray zippered jacket or the heavy blue jacket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0156.pt|He was in error, however.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0157.pt|Oswald could not possibly have been wearing the blue jacket during the trip with Whaley, since it was found in the "domino" room of the Depository late in November.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0158.pt|Moreover, Mrs. Bledsoe saw Oswald in the bus without a jacket and wearing a shirt with a hole at the elbow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0159.pt|On the other hand, Whaley identified Commission Exhibit Number one fifty (the shirt taken from Oswald upon arrest) as the shirt his passenger was wearing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0160.pt|He also stated he saw a silver identification bracelet on his passenger's left wrist.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0161.pt|Oswald was wearing such a bracelet when he was arrested.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0162.pt|On November twenty-two, Oswald told Captain Fritz that he rode a bus to a stop near his home and then walked to his roominghouse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0163.pt|When queried the following morning concerning a bus transfer found in his possession at the time of his arrest, he admitted receiving it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0164.pt|And when interrogated about a cab ride, Oswald also admitted that he left the slow-moving bus and took a cab to his roominghouse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0165.pt|The Greyhound Bus Station at Lamar and Jackson Streets, where Oswald entered Whaley's cab,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0166.pt|is three to four short blocks south of Lamar and Elm. If Oswald left the bus at twelve:forty-four p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0167.pt|and walked directly to the terminal, he would have entered the cab at twelve:forty-seven or twelve:forty-eight p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0168.pt|If the cab ride was approximately six minutes, as was the reconstructed ride,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0169.pt|he would have reached his destination at approximately twelve:fifty-four p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0170.pt|If he was discharged at Neely and Beckley and walked directly to his roominghouse,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0171.pt|he would have arrived there about twelve:fifty-nine to one p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0172.pt|From the five hundred block of North Beckley, the walk would be a few minutes longer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0173.pt|but in either event he would have been in the roominghouse at about one p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0174.pt|This is the approximate time he entered the roominghouse, according to Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0175.pt|Arrival and departure from roominghouse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0176.pt|Earlene Roberts, housekeeper for Mrs. A. C. Johnson at ten twenty-six North Beckley
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0177.pt|knew Lee Harvey Oswald under the alias of O. H. Lee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0178.pt|She first saw him the day he rented a room at that address on October fourteen, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0179.pt|He signed his name as O. H. Lee on the roominghouse register.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0180.pt|Mrs. Roberts testified that on Thursday, November twenty-one, Oswald did not come home.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0181.pt|On Friday, November twenty-two, about one p.m., he entered the house in unusual haste.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0182.pt|She recalled that it was subsequent to the time the President had been shot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0183.pt|After a friend had called and told her, "President Kennedy has been shot," she turned on the television.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0184.pt|When Oswald came in she said, quote, Oh, you are in a hurry, end quote, but Oswald did not respond.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0185.pt|He hurried to his room and stayed no longer than three or four minutes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0186.pt|Oswald had entered the house in his shirt sleeves, but when he left, he was zipping up a jacket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0187.pt|Mrs. Roberts saw him a few seconds later standing near the bus stop in front of the house on the east side of Beckley.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0188.pt|Oswald was next seen about nine-tenths of a mile away
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0189.pt|at the southeast corner of tenth Street and Patton Avenue, moments before the Tippit shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0190.pt|If Oswald left his roominghouse shortly after one p.m. and walked at a brisk pace,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0191.pt|he would have reached tenth and Patton shortly after one:fifteen p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0192.pt|Tippit's murder was recorded on the police radio tape at about one:sixteen p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0193.pt|Description of Shooting
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0194.pt|Patrolman J. D. Tippit joined the Dallas Police Department in July nineteen fifty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0195.pt|He was described by Chief Curry as having the reputation of being "a very fine, dedicated officer."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0196.pt|Tippit patroled district Number seventy-eight in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas during daylight hours.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0197.pt|He drove a police car painted distinctive colors with Number ten prominently displayed on each side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0198.pt|Tippit rode alone, as only one man was normally assigned to a patrol car in residential areas during daylight shifts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0199.pt|At about twelve:forty-four p.m. on November twenty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0200.pt|the radio dispatcher on channel one ordered all downtown patrol squads to report to Elm and Houston, code three (emergency).
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0201.pt|At twelve:forty-five p.m. the dispatcher ordered Number seventy-eight (Tippit) to, quote, move into central Oak Cliff area, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0202.pt|At twelve:fifty-four p.m., Tippit reported that he was in the central Oak Cliff area at Lancaster and Eighth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0203.pt|The dispatcher ordered Tippit to be, quote, at large for any emergency that comes in, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0204.pt|According to Chief Curry, Tippit was free to patrol the central Oak Cliff area.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0205.pt|Tippit must have heard the description of the suspect wanted for the President's shooting; it was broadcast over channel one at twelve:forty-five p.m.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0206.pt|again at twelve:forty-eight p.m., and again at twelve:fifty-five p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0207.pt|The suspect was described as a, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0208.pt|white male, approximately thirty, slender build, height five foot ten inches, weight one hundred sixty-five pounds, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0209.pt|A similar description was given on channel two at twelve:forty-five p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0210.pt|At approximately one:fifteen p.m., Tippit, who was cruising east on tenth Street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0211.pt|passed the intersection of tenth and Patton, about eight blocks from where he had reported at twelve:fifty-four p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0212.pt|About one hundred feet past the intersection Tippit stopped a man walking east along the south side of Patton.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0213.pt|The man's general description was similar to the one broadcast over the police radio.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0214.pt|Tippit stopped the man and called him to his car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0215.pt|He approached the car and apparently exchanged words with Tippit through the right front or vent window.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0216.pt|Tippit got out and started to walk around the front of the car
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0217.pt|As Tippit reached the left front wheel the man pulled out a revolver and fired several shots.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ036-0218.pt|Four bullets hit Tippit and killed him instantly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0002.pt|Chapter four. The Assassin: Part six.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0003.pt|Eyewitnesses
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0004.pt|At least twelve persons saw the man with the revolver in the vicinity of the Tippit crime scene at or immediately after the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0005.pt|By the evening of November twenty-two, five of them had identified Lee Harvey Oswald in police lineups as the man they saw.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0006.pt|A sixth did so the next day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0007.pt|Three others subsequently identified Oswald from a photograph.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0008.pt|Two witnesses testified that Oswald resembled the man they had seen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0009.pt|One witness felt he was too distant from the gunman to make a positive identification.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0010.pt|A taxi driver, William Scoggins,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0011.pt|was eating lunch in his cab which was parked on Patton facing the southeast corner of tenth Street and Patton Avenue a few feet to the north.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0012.pt|A police car moving east on tenth at about ten or twelve miles an hour passed in front of his cab.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0013.pt|About one hundred feet from the corner the police car pulled up alongside a man on the sidewalk. This man, dressed in a light-colored jacket, approached the car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0014.pt|Scoggins lost sight of him behind some shrubbery on the southeast corner lot,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0015.pt|but he saw the policeman leave the car, heard three or four shots, and then saw the policeman fall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0016.pt|Scoggins hurriedly left his seat and hid behind the cab as the man came back toward the corner with gun in hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0017.pt|The man cut across the yard through some bushes, passed within twelve feet of Scoggins, and ran south on Patton.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0018.pt|Scoggins saw him and heard him mutter either "Poor damn cop" or "Poor dumb cop."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0019.pt|The next day Scoggins viewed a lineup of four persons and identified Oswald as the man whom he had seen the day before at tenth and Patton.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0020.pt|In his testimony before the Commission,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0021.pt|Scoggins stated that he thought he had seen a picture of Oswald in the newspapers prior to the lineup identification on Saturday.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0022.pt|He had not seen Oswald on television and had not been shown any photographs of Oswald by the police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0023.pt|Another witness, Domingo Benavides, was driving a pickup truck west on tenth Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0024.pt|As he crossed the intersection a block east of tenth and Patton, he saw a policeman standing by the left door of the police car parked along the south side of tenth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0025.pt|Benavides saw a man standing at the right side of the parked police car. He then heard three shots and saw the policeman fall to the ground.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0026.pt|By this time the pickup truck was across the street and about twenty-five feet from the police car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0027.pt|Benavides stopped and waited in the truck until the gunman ran to the corner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0028.pt|He saw him empty the gun and throw the shells into some bushes on the southeast corner lot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0029.pt|It was Benavides, using Tippit's car radio, who first reported the killing of Patrolman Tippit at about one:sixteen p.m.:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0030.pt|quote, We've had a shooting out here, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0031.pt|He found two empty shells in the bushes and gave them to Patrolman J. M. Poe who arrived on the scene shortly after the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0032.pt|Benavides never saw Oswald after the arrest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0033.pt|When questioned by police officers on the evening of November twenty-two, Benavides told them that he did not think that he could identify the man who fired the shots.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0034.pt|As a result, they did not take him to the police station.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0035.pt|He testified that the picture of Oswald which he saw later on television bore a resemblance to the man who shot Officer Tippit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0036.pt|Just prior to the shooting, Mrs. Helen Markham, a waitress in downtown Dallas, was about to cross tenth Street at Patton.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0037.pt|As she waited on the northwest corner of the intersection for traffic to pass, she noticed a young man as he was, quote, almost ready to get up on the curb, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0038.pt|at the southeast corner of the intersection, approximately fifty feet away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0039.pt|The man continued along tenth Street. Mrs. Markham saw a police car slowly approach the man from the rear and stop alongside of him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0040.pt|She saw the man come to the right window of the police car. As he talked, he leaned on the ledge of the right window with his arms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0041.pt|The man appeared to step back as the policeman, quote, calmly opened the car door, end quote, and very slowly got out and walked toward the front of the car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0042.pt|The man pulled a gun. Mrs. Markham heard three shots and saw the policeman fall to the ground near the left front wheel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0043.pt|She raised her hands to her eyes as the man started to walk back toward Patton.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0044.pt|She peered through her fingers, lowered her hands, and saw the man doing something with his gun. Quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0045.pt|He was just fooling with it. I didn't know what he was doing. I was afraid he was fixing to kill me. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0046.pt|The man, quote, in kind of a little trot, end quote, headed down Patton toward Jefferson Boulevard, a block away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0047.pt|Mrs. Markham then ran to Officer Tippit's side and saw him lying in a pool of blood.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0048.pt|Helen Markham was screaming as she leaned over the body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0049.pt|A few minutes later she described the gunman to a policeman.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0050.pt|Her description and that of other eyewitnesses led to the police broadcast at one:twenty-two p.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0051.pt|describing the slayer as, quote, about thirty, five foot eight inches, black hair, slender, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0052.pt|At about four:thirty p.m., Mrs. Markham,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0053.pt|who had been greatly upset by her experience, was able to view a lineup of four men handcuffed together at the police station.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0054.pt|She identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man who shot the policeman.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0055.pt|Detective L. C. Graves, who had been with Mrs. Markham before the lineup
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0056.pt|testified that she was, quote, quite hysterical, end quote, and was, quote, crying and upset, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0057.pt|He said that Mrs. Markham started crying when Oswald walked into the lineup room.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0058.pt|In testimony before the Commission, Mrs. Markham confirmed her positive identification of Lee Harvey Oswald
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0059.pt|as the man she saw kill Officer Tippit. In evaluating Mrs. Markham's identification of Oswald, the Commission considered certain allegations
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0060.pt|That Mrs. Markham described the man who killed Patrolman Tippit as, quote, short, a little on the heavy side, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0061.pt|and having, quote, somewhat bushy, end quote, hair.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0062.pt|The Commission reviewed the transcript of a phone conversation in which Mrs. Markham is alleged to have provided such a description.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0063.pt|A review of the complete transcript has satisfied the Commission
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0064.pt|that Mrs. Markham strongly reaffirmed her positive identification of Oswald and denied having described the killer
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0065.pt|as short, stocky and having bushy hair. She stated that the man weighed about one hundred fifty pounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0066.pt|Although she used the words, quote, a little bit bushy, end quote, to describe the gunman's hair,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0067.pt|the transcript establishes that she was referring to the uncombed state of his hair, a description fully supported by a photograph of Oswald
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0068.pt|taken at the time of his arrest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0069.pt|Although in the phone conversation she described the man as, quote, short, end quote, on November twenty-second,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0070.pt|within minutes of the shooting and before the lineup, Mrs. Markham described the man to the police as five foot eight inches tall.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0071.pt|During her testimony Mrs. Markham initially denied that she ever had the above phone conversation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0072.pt|She has subsequently admitted the existence of the conversation and offered an explanation for her denial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0073.pt|Addressing itself solely to the probative value of Mrs. Markham's contemporaneous description of the gunman
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0074.pt|and her positive identification of Oswald at a police lineup, the Commission considers her testimony reliable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0075.pt|However, even in the absence of Mrs. Markham's testimony, there is ample evidence to identify Oswald as the killer of Tippit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0076.pt|Two young women,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0077.pt|Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis, were in an apartment of a multiple-unit house on the southeast corner of tenth and Patton
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0078.pt|when they heard the sound of gunfire and the screams of Helen Markham.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0079.pt|They ran to the door in time to see a man with a revolver cut across their lawn and disappear around a corner of the house onto Patton.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0080.pt|Barbara Jeanette Davis assumed that he was emptying his gun as, quote, he had it open and was shaking it, end quote. She immediately called the police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0081.pt|Later in the day each woman found an empty shell on the ground near the house. These two shells were delivered to the police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0082.pt|On the evening of November twenty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0083.pt|Barbara Jeanette and Virginia Davis viewed a group of four men in a lineup and each one picked Oswald as the man who crossed their lawn while emptying his pistol.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0084.pt|Barbara Jeanette Davis testified that no one had shown her a picture of Oswald before the identification and that she had not seen him on television.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0085.pt|She was not sure whether she had seen his picture in a newspaper on the afternoon or evening of November twenty-two prior to the lineup.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0086.pt|Her reaction when she saw Oswald in the lineup was that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0087.pt|I was pretty sure it was the same man I saw. When they made him turn sideways, I was positive that was the one I seen, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0088.pt|Similarly, Virginia Davis had not been shown pictures of anyone prior to the lineup and had not seen either television or the newspapers during the afternoon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0089.pt|She identified Oswald, who was the Number two man in the lineup, as the man she saw running with the gun:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0090.pt|she testified, quote, I would say that was him for sure, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0091.pt|Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis were sitting alongside each other when they made their positive identifications of Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0092.pt|Each woman whispered Oswald's number to the detective. Each testified that she was the first to make the identification.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0093.pt|William Arthur Smith was about a block east of tenth and Patton when he heard shots.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0094.pt|He looked west on tenth and saw a man running to the west and a policeman falling to the ground.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0095.pt|Smith failed to make himself known to the police on November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0096.pt|Several days later he reported what he had seen and was questioned by FBI agents.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0097.pt|Smith subsequently told a Commission staff member
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0098.pt|that he saw Oswald on television the night of the murder and thought that Oswald was the man he had seen running away from the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0099.pt|On television Oswald's hair looked blond, whereas Smith remembered that the man who ran away had hair that was brown or brownish black.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0100.pt|Later, the FBI showed Smith a picture of Oswald. In the picture the hair was brown.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0101.pt|According to his testimony, Smith told the FBI, quote, It looked more like him than it did on television, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0102.pt|He stated further that from, quote, What I saw of him, end quote, the man looked like the man in the picture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0103.pt|Two other important eyewitnesses to Oswald's flight were Ted Callaway,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0104.pt|manager of a used-car lot on the northeast corner of Patton Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard, and Sam Guinyard, a porter at the lot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0105.pt|They heard the sound of shots to the north of their lot. Callaway heard five shots, and Guinyard three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0106.pt|Both ran to the sidewalk on the east side of Patton at a point about a half a block south of tenth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0107.pt|They saw a man coming south on Patton with a revolver held high in his right hand. According to Callaway, the man crossed to the west side of Patton.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0108.pt|From across the street Callaway yelled, quote, Hey, man, what the hell is going on? End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0109.pt|He slowed down, halted, said something, and then kept on going to the corner, turned right, and continued west on Jefferson.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0110.pt|Guinyard claimed that the man ran down the east side of Patton and passed within ten feet of him before crossing to the other side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0111.pt|Guinyard and Callaway ran to tenth and Patton and found Tippit lying in the street beside his car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0112.pt|Apparently he had reached for his gun; it lay beneath him outside of the holster.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0113.pt|Callaway picked up the gun.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0114.pt|He and Scoggins attempted to chase down the gunman in Scoggin's taxicab, but he had disappeared.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0115.pt|Early in the evening of November twenty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0116.pt|Guinyard and Callaway viewed the same lineup of four men from which Mrs. Markham had earlier made her identification of Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0117.pt|Both men picked Oswald as the man who had run south on Patton with a gun in his hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0118.pt|Callaway told the Commission, quote, So they brought four men in.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0119.pt|I stepped to the back of the room, so I could kind of see him from the same distance which I had seen him before. And when he came out I knew him, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0120.pt|Guinyard said, quote, I told them that was him right there. I pointed him out right there, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0121.pt|Both Callaway and Guinyard testified that they had not been shown any pictures by the police before the lineup.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0122.pt|The Dallas Police Department furnished the Commission with pictures of the men who appeared in the lineups with Oswald,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0123.pt|and the Commission has inquired into general lineup procedures used by the Dallas police as well as the specific procedures in the lineups involving Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0124.pt|The Commission is satisfied that the lineups were conducted fairly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0125.pt|As Oswald ran south on Patton Avenue toward Jefferson Boulevard he was moving in the direction of a used-car lot
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0126.pt|located on the southeast corner of this intersection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0127.pt|Four men -- Warren Reynolds, Harold Russell, Pat Patterson, and L. J. Lewis
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0128.pt|were on the lot at the time, and they saw a white male with a revolver in his hands running south on Patton.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0129.pt|When the man reached Jefferson, he turned right and headed west.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0130.pt|Reynolds and Patterson decided to follow him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0131.pt|When he reached a gasoline service station one block away he turned north and walked toward a parking area in the rear of the station.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0132.pt|Neither Reynolds nor Patterson saw the man after he turned off Jefferson at the service station.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0133.pt|These four witnesses were interviewed by FBI agents two months after the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0134.pt|Russell and Patterson were shown a picture of Oswald and they stated that Oswald was the man they saw on November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0135.pt|Russell confirmed this statement in a sworn affidavit for the Commission.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0136.pt|Patterson, when asked later to confirm his identification by affidavit said he did not recall having been shown the photograph.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0137.pt|He was then shown two photographs of Oswald and he advised that Oswald was, quote, unquestionably, end quote, the man he saw.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0138.pt|Reynolds did not make a positive identification when interviewed by the FBI, but
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0139.pt|he subsequently testified before a Commission staff member and, when shown two photographs of Oswald, stated that they were photographs of the man he saw.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0140.pt|L.J. Lewis said in an interview that because of the distance from which he observed the gunman he would hesitate to state whether the man was identical with Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0141.pt|When Oswald was arrested, he had in his possession a Smith and Wesson thirty-eight Special caliber revolver,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0142.pt|serial number V five one zero two one zero.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0143.pt|Two of the arresting officers placed their initials on the weapon and a third inscribed his name.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0144.pt|All three identified Exhibit Number one forty-three as the revolver taken from Oswald when he was arrested.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0145.pt|Four cartridge cases were found in the shrubbery on the corner of tenth and Patton by three of the eyewitnesses -- Domingo Benavides,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0146.pt|Barbara Jeanette Davis, and Virginia Davis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0147.pt|It was the unanimous and unequivocal testimony of expert witnesses before the Commission that these used cartridge cases were fired from the revolver
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0148.pt|in Oswald's possession to the exclusion of all other weapons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0149.pt|Cortlandt Cunningham, of the Firearms Identification Unit of the FBI Laboratory, testified
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0150.pt|that he compared the four empty cartridge cases found near the scene of the shooting with a test cartridge fired from the weapon in Oswald's possession when he was arrested.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0151.pt|Cunningham declared that this weapon fired the four cartridges to the exclusion of all other weapons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0152.pt|Identification was effected through breech face marks and firing pin marks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0153.pt|Robert A. Frazier and Charles Killion, other FBI firearms experts,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0154.pt|independently examined the four cartridge cases and arrived at the same conclusion as Cunningham.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0155.pt|At the request of the Commission, Joseph D. Nicol, superintendent of the Illinois Bureau of Criminal Identification Investigation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0156.pt|also examined the four cartridge cases found near the site of the homicide and compared them with the test cartridge cases fired from the Smith and Wesson revolver
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0157.pt|taken from Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0158.pt|He concluded that all of these cartridges were fired from the same weapon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0159.pt|Cunningham compared four lead bullets recovered from the body of Patrolman Tippit with test bullets fired from Oswald's revolver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0160.pt|He explained that the bullets were slightly smaller than the barrel of the pistol which had fired them. This caused the bullets to have an erratic passage through the barrel
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0161.pt|and impressed upon the lead of the bullets inconsistent individual characteristics which made identification impossible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0162.pt|Consecutive bullets fired from the revolver by the FBI experts could not be identified as having been fired from that revolver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0163.pt|Cunningham testified that all of the bullets were mutilated, one being useless for comparison purposes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0164.pt|All four bullets were fired from a weapon
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0165.pt|with five lands and grooves and a right twist which were the rifling characteristics of the revolver taken from Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0166.pt|He concluded, however, that he could not say whether the four bullets were fired from the revolver in Oswald's possession.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0167.pt|Quote: The only thing I can testify is they could have on the basis of the rifling characteristics -- they could have been, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0168.pt|Nicol differed with the FBI experts on one bullet taken from Tippit's body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0169.pt|He declared that this bullet was fired from the same weapon that fired the test bullets to the exclusion of all other weapons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0170.pt|But he agreed that because the other three bullets were mutilated, he could not determine if they had been fired from the same weapon as the test bullets.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0171.pt|The examination and testimony of the experts enabled the Commission to conclude that five shots may have been fired,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0172.pt|even though only four bullets were recovered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0173.pt|Three of the bullets recovered from Tippit's body were manufactured by Winchester-Western, and the fourth bullet by Remington-Peters,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0174.pt|but only two of the four discarded cartridge cases found on the lawn at tenth Street and Patton Avenue were of Winchester-Western manufacture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0175.pt|Therefore, one cartridge case of this type was not recovered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0176.pt|And though only one bullet of Remington-Peters manufacture was recovered, two empty cartridge cases of that make were retrieved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0177.pt|Therefore, either one bullet of Remington-Peters manufacture is missing
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0178.pt|or one used Remington-Peters cartridge case, which may have been in the revolver before the shooting,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0179.pt|was discarded along with the others as Oswald left the scene.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0180.pt|If a bullet is missing, five were fired. This corresponds with the observation and memory of Ted Callaway, and possibly Warren Reynolds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0181.pt|but not with the other eyewitnesses who claim to have heard from two to four shots.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0182.pt|Ownership of Revolver
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0183.pt|By checking certain importers and dealers after the assassination of President Kennedy and slaying of Officer Tippit,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0184.pt|agents of the FBI determined that George Rose and Co. of Los Angeles was a major distributor of this type of revolver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0185.pt|Records of Seaport Traders, Incorporated, a mail-order division of George Rose and Co.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0186.pt|disclosed that on January three, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0187.pt|the company received from Empire Wholesale Sporting Goods, Ltd., Montreal, a shipment of ninety-nine guns in one case.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0188.pt|Among these guns was a thirty-eight Special caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, serial Number V five one zero two one zero,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0189.pt|the only revolver made by Smith and Wesson with this serial number. When first manufactured, it had a five-inch barrel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0190.pt|George Rose and Co. had the barrel shortened by a gunsmith to two and one quarter inches.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0191.pt|Sometime after January twenty-seven, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0192.pt|Seaport Traders, Incorporated, received through the mail a mail-order coupon for one, quote, point three-eight
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0193.pt|S T. W. two inch BBL, unquote, cost twenty-nine dollars, ninety-five cents.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0194.pt|Ten dollars in cash was enclosed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0195.pt|The order was signed in ink by, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0196.pt|A. J. Hidell, aged twenty-eight, end quote. The date of the order was January twenty-seven. No year shown.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0197.pt|and the return address was Post Office Box two nine one five, Dallas, Texas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0198.pt|Also on the order form was an order, written in ink, for one box of ammunition and one holster, but a line was drawn through these items.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0199.pt|The mail-order form had a line for the name of a witness to attest that the person ordering the gun was a U.S. citizen and had not been convicted of a felony.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0200.pt|The name written in this space was D. F. Drittal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0201.pt|Heinz W. Michaelis, office manager of both George Rose and Co., Incorporated and Seaport Traders, Incorporated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0202.pt|identified records of Seaport Traders, Incorporated, which showed that a, quote, point three eight
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0203.pt|S and W Special two-inch Commando, serial number V five one zero two one zero, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0204.pt|was shipped on March twenty, nineteen sixty-three, to A. J. Hidell, Post Office Box two nine one five, Dallas, Texas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0205.pt|The invoice was prepared on March thirteen, nineteen sixty-three; the revolver was actually shipped on March twenty by Railway Express.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0206.pt|The balance due on the purchase was nineteen dollars, ninety-five cents.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0207.pt|Michaelis furnished the shipping copy of the invoice, and the Railway Express Agency shipping documents, showing that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0208.pt|nineteen dollars, ninety-five cents, plus one dollar, twenty-seven cents shipping charge, had been collected from the consignee, Hidell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0209.pt|Handwriting experts, Alwyn Cole of the Treasury Department and James C. Cadigan of the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0210.pt|testified before the Commission that the writing on the coupon was Oswald's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0211.pt|The signature of the witness, D. F. Drittal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0212.pt|who attested that the fictitious Hidell was an American citizen and had not been convicted of a felony, was also in Oswald's handwriting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0213.pt|Marina Oswald gave as her opinion that the mail-order coupon was in Oswald's handwriting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0214.pt|When shown the revolver, she stated that she recognized it as the one owned by her husband.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0215.pt|She also testified that this appeared to be the revolver seen in Oswald's belt
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0216.pt|in the picture she took in late March or early April nineteen sixty-three when the family was living on Neely Street in Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0217.pt|Police found an empty revolver holster when they searched Oswald's room on Beckley Avenue after his arrest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0218.pt|Marina Oswald testified that this was the holster which contained the revolver in the photographs taken on Neely Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0219.pt|Oswald's Jacket
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0220.pt|Approximately fifteen minutes before the shooting of Tippit, Oswald was seen leaving his roominghouse.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0221.pt|He was wearing a zipper jacket which he had not been wearing moments before when he had arrived home.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0222.pt|When Oswald was arrested, he did not have a jacket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0223.pt|Shortly after Tippit was slain, policemen found a light-colored zipper jacket along the route taken by the killer as he attempted to escape.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0224.pt|At one:twenty-two p.m. the Dallas police radio described the man wanted for the murder of Tippit as, quote, a white male about thirty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0225.pt|five foot eight inches, black hair, slender, wearing a white jacket, white shirt and dark slacks, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0226.pt|According to Patrolman Poe this description came from Mrs. Markham and Mrs. Barbara Jeanette Davis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0227.pt|Mrs. Markham told Poe
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0228.pt|that the man was a, quote, white male, about twenty-five, about five feet eight, brown hair, medium, end quote, and wearing a, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0229.pt|white jacket, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0230.pt|Mrs. Davis gave Poe the same general description: a, quote, white male in his early twenties, around five foot seven inches
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0231.pt|or eight inches, about one hundred forty-five pounds, end quote, and wearing a white jacket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0232.pt|As has been discussed previously,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0233.pt|two witnesses, Warren Reynolds and B. M. Patterson, saw the gunman run toward the rear of a gasoline service station on Jefferson Boulevard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0234.pt|Mrs. Mary Brock, the wife of a mechanic who worked at the station, was there at the time and she saw a white male,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0235.pt|five feet, ten inches, wearing light clothing, a light-colored jacket" walk past her at a fast pace with his hands in his pocket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0236.pt|She last saw him in the parking lot directly behind the service station.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0237.pt|When interviewed by FBI agents on January twenty-one, nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0238.pt|she identified a picture of Oswald as being the same person she saw on November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0239.pt|She confirmed this interview by a sworn affidavit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0240.pt|At one:twenty-four p.m., the police radio reported, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0241.pt|The suspect last seen running west on Jefferson from four hundred East Jefferson.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0242.pt|Police Capt. W. R. Westbrook and several other officers concentrated their search along Jefferson Boulevard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0243.pt|Westbrook walked through the parking lot behind the service station and found a light-colored jacket lying under the rear of one of the cars.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0244.pt|Westbrook identified Commission Exhibit Number one sixty-two as the light-colored jacket which he discovered underneath the automobile.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0245.pt|This jacket belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald. Marina Oswald stated that her husband owned only two jackets, one blue and the other gray.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0246.pt|The blue jacket was found in the Texas School Book Depository and was identified by Marina Oswald as her husband's.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0247.pt|Marina Oswald also identified Commission Exhibit Number one sixty-two, the jacket found by Captain Westbrook, as her husband's second jacket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0248.pt|The eyewitnesses vary in their identification of the jacket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0249.pt|Mrs. Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper at Oswald's roominghouse and the last person known to have seen him before he reached tenth Street and Patton Avenue,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0250.pt|said that she may have seen the gray zipper jacket but she was not certain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0251.pt|It seemed to her that the jacket Oswald wore was darker than Commission Exhibit Number one sixty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0252.pt|Ted Callaway, who saw the gunman moments after the shooting, testified that Commission Exhibit Number one sixty-two
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0253.pt|looked like the jacket he was wearing but, quote, I thought it had a little more tan to it, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0254.pt|Two other witnesses, Sam Guinyard and William Arthur Smith,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0255.pt|testified that Commission Exhibit Number one sixty-two was the jacket worn by the man they saw on November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0256.pt|Mrs. Markham and Barbara Davis thought that the jacket worn by the slayer of Tippit was darker than the jacket found by Westbrook.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0257.pt|Scoggins thought it was lighter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0258.pt|There is no doubt, however, that Oswald was seen leaving his roominghouse at about one p.m. wearing a zipper jacket,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0259.pt|that the man who killed Tippit was wearing a light-colored jacket,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0260.pt|that he was seen running along Jefferson Boulevard, that a jacket was found under a car in a lot adjoining Jefferson Boulevard
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0261.pt|that the jacket belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald, and that when he was arrested at approximately one:fifty p.m., he was in shirt sleeves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0262.pt|These facts warrant the finding that Lee Harvey Oswald disposed of his jacket as he fled from the scene of the Tippit killing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0263.pt|The foregoing evidence establishes that (one) two eyewitnesses who heard the shots and saw the shooting of Dallas Police Patrolman J. D. Tippit
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0264.pt|and seven eyewitnesses who saw the flight of the gunman with revolver in hand
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0265.pt|positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man they saw fire the shots or flee from the scene,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0266.pt|(two) the cartridge cases found near the scene of the shooting were fired from the revolver in the possession of Oswald at the time of his arrest,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0267.pt|to the exclusion of all other weapons,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0268.pt|(three) the revolver in Oswald's possession at the time of his arrest was purchased by and belonged to Oswald, and (four)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ037-0269.pt|Oswald's jacket was found along the path of flight taken by the gunman as he fled from the scene of the killing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0002.pt|The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Chapter four. The Assassin: Part seven.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0003.pt|Oswald's Arrest
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0004.pt|The Texas Theatre is on the north side of Jefferson Boulevard, approximately eight blocks from the scene of the Tippit shooting and six blocks
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0005.pt|from where several witnesses last saw Oswald running west on Jefferson Boulevard. Shortly after the Tippit murder,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0006.pt|police sirens sounded along Jefferson Boulevard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0007.pt|One of the persons who heard the sirens was Johnny Calvin Brewer, manager of Hardy's Shoestore, a few doors east of the Texas Theatre.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0008.pt|Brewer knew from radio broadcasts that the President had been shot and that a patrolman had also been shot in Oak Cliff.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0009.pt|When he heard police sirens, he, quote, looked up and saw the man enter the lobby, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0010.pt|a recessed area extending about fifteen feet between the sidewalk and the front door of his store.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0011.pt|A police car made a U-turn, and as the sirens grew fainter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0012.pt|the man in the lobby, quote, looked over his shoulder and turned around and walked up West Jefferson towards the theatre, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0013.pt|The man wore a T-shirt beneath his outer shirt and he had no jacket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0014.pt|Brewer said, quote, He just looked funny to me. His hair was sort of messed up and looked like he had been running, and he looked scared, and he looked funny, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0015.pt|Mrs. Julia Postal, selling tickets at the box office of the Texas Theatre,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0016.pt|heard police sirens and then saw a man as he, quote, ducked into, end quote, the outer lobby space of the theatre near the ticket office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0017.pt|Attracted by the sound of the sirens, Mrs. Postal stepped out of the box office and walked to the curb.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0018.pt|Shortly thereafter, Johnny Brewer, who had come from the nearby shoestore, asked Mrs. Postal whether the fellow that had ducked in had bought a ticket.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0019.pt|She said, quote, No; by golly, he didn't, end quote, and turned around, but the man was nowhere in sight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0020.pt|Brewer told Mrs. Postal that he had seen the man ducking into his place of business and that he had followed him to the theatre.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0021.pt|She sent Brewer into the theatre to find the man and check the exits, told him about the assassination, and said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0022.pt|I don't know if this is the man they want. But he is running from them for some reason, end quote, She then called the police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0023.pt|At one:forty-five p.m., the police radio stated, quote, Have information a suspect just went in the Texas Theatre on West Jefferson, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0024.pt|Patrol cars bearing at least fifteen officers converged on the Texas Theatre.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0025.pt|Patrolman M. N. McDonald, with Patrolmen R. Hawkins, T. A. Hutson, and C. T. Walker, entered the theatre from the rear.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0026.pt|Other policemen entered the front door and searched the balcony.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0027.pt|Detective Paul L. Bentley rushed to the balcony and told the projectionist to turn up the house lights.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0028.pt|Brewer met McDonald and the other policemen at the alley exit door,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0029.pt|stepped out onto the stage with them and pointed out the man who had come into the theatre without paying.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0030.pt|The man was Oswald. He was sitting alone in the rear of the main floor of the theatre near the right center aisle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0031.pt|About six or seven people were seated on the theatre's main floor and an equal number in the balcony.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0032.pt|McDonald first searched two men in the center of the main floor, about ten rows from the front.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0033.pt|He walked out of the row up the right center aisle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0034.pt|When he reached the row where the suspect was sitting, McDonald stopped abruptly and told the man to get on his feet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0035.pt|Oswald rose from his seat, bringing up both hands.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0036.pt|As McDonald started to search Oswald's waist for a gun, he heard him say, quote, Well, it's all over now, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0037.pt|Oswald then struck McDonald between the eyes with his left fist; with his right hand he drew a gun from his waist.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0038.pt|McDonald struck back with his right hand and grabbed the gun with his left hand. They both fell into the seats.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0039.pt|Three other officers, moving toward the scuffle, grabbed Oswald from the front, rear and side.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0040.pt|As McDonald fell into the seat with his left hand on the gun, he felt something graze across his hand and heard what sounded like the snap of the hammer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0041.pt|McDonald felt the pistol scratch his cheek as he wrenched it away from Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0042.pt|Detective Bob K. Carroll, who was standing beside McDonald, seized the gun from him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0043.pt|The other officers who helped subdue Oswald corroborated McDonald in his testimony
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0044.pt|except that they did not hear Oswald say, quote, It's all over now, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0045.pt|Deputy Sheriff Eddy R. Walthers recalled such a remark but he did not reach the scene of the struggle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0046.pt|until Oswald had been knocked to the floor by McDonald and the others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0047.pt|Some of the officers saw Oswald strike McDonald with his fist. Most of them heard a click which they assumed to be a click of the hammer of the revolver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0048.pt|Testimony of a firearms expert before the Commission established that the hammer of the revolver never touched the shell in the chamber.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0049.pt|Although the witnesses did not hear the sound of a misfire,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0050.pt|they might have heard a snapping noise resulting from the police officer grabbing the cylinder of the revolver and pulling it away from Oswald while he was attempting to pull the trigger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0051.pt|Two patrons of the theatre and John Brewer
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0052.pt|testified regarding the arrest of Oswald, as did the various police officers who participated in the fight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0053.pt|George Jefferson Applin, Jr., confirmed that Oswald fought with four or five officers before he was handcuffed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0054.pt|He added that one officer grabbed the muzzle of a shotgun, drew back, and hit Oswald with the butt end of the gun in the back.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0055.pt|No other theatre patron or officer has testified that Oswald was hit by a gun.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0056.pt|Nor did Oswald ever complain that he was hit with a gun, or injured in the back.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0057.pt|Deputy Sheriff Walthers brought a shotgun into the theatre but laid it on some seats before helping subdue Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0058.pt|Officer Ray Hawkins said
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0059.pt|that there was no one near Oswald who had a shotgun and he saw no one strike Oswald in the back with a rifle butt or the butt of a gun.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0060.pt|John Gibson, another patron in the theatre, saw an officer grab Oswald, and he claims that he heard the click of a gun misfiring.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0061.pt|He saw no shotgun in the possession of any policeman near Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0062.pt|Johnny Brewer testified he saw Oswald pull the revolver and the officers struggle with him to take it away
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0063.pt|but that once he was subdued, no officer struck him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0064.pt|He further stated that while fists were flying he heard one of the officers say, quote, Kill the President, will you, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0065.pt|It is unlikely that any of the police officers referred to Oswald as a suspect in the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0066.pt|While the police radio had noted the similarity in description of the two suspects, the arresting officers were pursuing Oswald for the murder of Tippit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0067.pt|As Oswald, handcuffed, was led from the theatre, he was, according to McDonald, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0068.pt|cursing a little bit and hollering police brutality, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0069.pt|At one:fifty-one p.m., police car two reported by radio that it was on the way to headquarters with the suspect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0070.pt|Captain Fritz returned to police headquarters from the Texas School Book Depository at two:fifteen after a brief stop at the sheriff's office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0071.pt|When he entered the homicide and robbery bureau office, he saw two detectives standing there with Sgt. Gerald L. Hill,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0072.pt|who had driven from the theatre with Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0073.pt|Hill testified that Fritz told the detective to get a search warrant, go to an address on Fifth Street in Irving,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0074.pt|and pick up a man named Lee Oswald. When Hill asked why Oswald was wanted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0075.pt|Fritz replied, quote, Well, he was employed down at the Book Depository and he had not been present for a roll call of the employees, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0076.pt|Hill said, quote, Captain, we will save you a trip. There he sits, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0077.pt|Statements of Oswald during Detention.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0078.pt|Oswald was questioned intermittently for approximately twelve hours between two:thirty p.m., on November twenty-two, and eleven a.m.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0079.pt|on November twenty-four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0080.pt|Throughout this interrogation he denied that he had anything to do either with the assassination of President Kennedy or the murder of Patrolman Tippit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0081.pt|Captain Fritz of the homicide and robbery bureau did most of the questioning, but he kept no notes and there were no stenographic or tape recordings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0082.pt|Representatives of other law enforcement agencies were also present, including the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0083.pt|They occasionally participated in the questioning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0084.pt|The reports prepared by those present at these interviews are set forth in appendix eleven.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0085.pt|A full discussion of Oswald's detention and interrogation is presented in chapter five of this report.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0086.pt|During the evening of November twenty-two, the Dallas Police Department performed paraffin tests on Oswald's hands and right cheek
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0087.pt|in an apparent effort to determine, by means of a scientific test, whether Oswald had recently fired a weapon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0088.pt|The results were positive for the hands and negative for the right cheek.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0089.pt|Expert testimony before the Commission
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0090.pt|was to the effect that the paraffin test was unreliable in determining whether or not a person has fired a rifle or revolver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0091.pt|The Commission has, therefore, placed no reliance on the paraffin tests administered by the Dallas police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0092.pt|Oswald provided little information during his questioning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0093.pt|Frequently, however, he was confronted with evidence which he could not explain, and he resorted to statements which are known to be lies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0094.pt|While Oswald's untrue statements during interrogation were not considered items of positive proof
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0095.pt|by the Commission, they had probative value in deciding the weight to be given to his denials that he assassinated President Kennedy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0096.pt|and killed Patrolman Tippit. Since independent evidence revealed that Oswald repeatedly and blatantly lied to the police,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0097.pt|the Commission gave little weight to his denials of guilt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0098.pt|Denial of Rifle Ownership
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0099.pt|From the outset, Oswald denied owning a rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0100.pt|On November twenty-three, Fritz confronted Oswald with the evidence that he had purchased a rifle under the fictitious name of "Hidell."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0101.pt|Oswald said that this was not true. Oswald denied that he had a rifle wrapped up in a blanket in the Paine garage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0102.pt|Oswald also denied owning a rifle and said that since leaving the Marine Corps he had fired only a small bore twenty-two rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0103.pt|On the afternoon of November twenty-three, Officers H. M. Moore,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0104.pt|R. S. Stovall, and G. F. Rose obtained a search warrant and examined Oswald's effects in the Paine garage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0105.pt|They discovered two photographs, each showing Oswald with a rifle and a pistol.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0106.pt|These photographs were shown to Oswald on the evening of November twenty-three and again on the morning of the twenty-fourth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0107.pt|According to Fritz, Oswald sneered, saying that they were fake photographs, that he had been photographed a number of times the day before by the police,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0108.pt|that they had superimposed upon the photographs a rifle and a revolver. He told Fritz a number of times that the smaller photograph
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0109.pt|was either made from the larger, or the larger photograph was made from the smaller and that at the proper time he would show that the pictures were fakes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0110.pt|Fritz told him that the two small photographs were found in the Paine garage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0111.pt|At that point, Oswald refused to answer any further questions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0112.pt|As previously indicated, Marina Oswald testified that she took the two pictures with her husband's Imperial Reflex camera
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0113.pt|when they lived on Neely Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0114.pt|Her testimony was fully supported by a photography expert who testified that in his opinion the pictures were not composites.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0115.pt|At the first interrogation, Oswald claimed that his only crime was carrying a gun and resisting arrest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0116.pt|When Captain Fritz asked him why he carried the revolver, he answered, quote, Well, you know about a pistol. I just carried it, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0117.pt|He falsely alleged that he bought the revolver in Fort Worth, when in fact he purchased it from a mail-order house in Los Angeles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0118.pt|The Aliases "Hidell" and "O. H. Lee"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0119.pt|The arresting officers found a forged selective service card with a picture of Oswald and the name "Alek J. Hidell"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0120.pt|in Oswald's billfold. On November twenty-two and twenty-three, Oswald refused to tell Fritz why this card was in his possession,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0121.pt|or to answer any questions concerning the card.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0122.pt|On Sunday morning, November twenty-four, Oswald denied that he knew A. J. Hidell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0123.pt|Captain Fritz produced the selective service card bearing the name "Alek J. Hidell."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0124.pt|Oswald became angry and said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0125.pt|Now, I've told you all I'm going to tell you about that card in my billfolds -- you have the card yourself and you know as much about it as I do, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0126.pt|At the last interrogation in November Oswald admitted to Postal Inspector Holmes that he had rented post office box two nine one five, Dallas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0127.pt|but denied that he had received a package in this box addressed to Hidell.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0128.pt|He also denied that he had received the rifle through this box.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0129.pt|Holmes reminded Oswald that A. J. Hidell was listed on post office box three zero zero six one, New Orleans,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0130.pt|as one entitled to receive mail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0131.pt|Oswald replied, quote, I don't know anything about that, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0132.pt|When asked why he lived at his roominghouse under the name O. H. Lee,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0133.pt|Oswald responded that the landlady simply made a mistake, because he told her that his name was Lee, meaning his first name.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0134.pt|An examination of the roominghouse register revealed that Oswald actually signed the name O. H. Lee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0135.pt|The Curtain Rod Story
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0136.pt|In concluding that Oswald was carrying a rifle in the paper bag on the morning of November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0137.pt|the Commission found that Oswald lied when he told Frazier that he was returning to Irving to obtain curtain rods.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0138.pt|When asked about the curtain rod story, Oswald lied again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0139.pt|He denied that he had ever told Frazier that he wanted a ride to Irving to get curtain rods for an apartment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0140.pt|He explained that a party for the Paine children had been planned for the weekend and he preferred not to be in the Paine house at that time;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0141.pt|therefore, he made his weekly visit on Thursday night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0142.pt|Actually, the party for one of the Paine's children was the preceding weekend, when Marina Oswald suggested that Oswald remain in Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0143.pt|When told that Frazier and Mrs. Randle had seen him carrying a long heavy package, Oswald replied, quote, Well, they was mistaken.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0144.pt|that must have been some other time he picked me up, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0145.pt|In one interview, he told Fritz that the only sack he carried to work that day
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0146.pt|was a lunch sack which he kept on his lap during the ride from Irving to Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0147.pt|Frazier testified before the Commission that Oswald carried no lunch sack that day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0148.pt|Actions During and After Shooting
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0149.pt|During the first interrogation on November twenty-two, Fritz asked Oswald to account for himself at the time the President was shot.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0150.pt|Oswald told him that he ate lunch in the first-floor lunchroom and then went to the second floor for a Coke which he brought downstairs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0151.pt|He acknowledged the encounter with the police officer on the second floor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0152.pt|Oswald told Fritz that after lunch he went outside, talked with Foreman Bill Shelley for five or ten minutes and then left for home.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0153.pt|He said that he left work because Bill Shelley said that there would be no more work done that day in the building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0154.pt|Shelley denied seeing Oswald after twelve noon or at any time after the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0155.pt|The next day, Oswald added to his story.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0156.pt|He stated that at the time the President was shot he was having lunch with "Junior" but he did not give Junior's last name.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0157.pt|The only employee at the Depository Building named "Junior" was James Jarman, Jr.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0158.pt|Jarman testified that he ate his lunch on the first floor around five minutes to twelve, and that he neither ate lunch with nor saw Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0159.pt|Jarman did talk to Oswald that morning: Quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0160.pt|he asked me what were the people gathering around on the corner for and I told him that the President was supposed to pass that morning,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0161.pt|and he asked me did I know which way he was coming, and I told him, yes, he probably come down Main and turn on Houston and then back again on Elm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0162.pt|Then he said, "Oh, I see," and that was all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0163.pt|Prior attempt to kill.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0164.pt|The Attempt on the Life of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0165.pt|At approximately nine p.m., on April ten, nineteen sixty-three, in Dallas, Texas, Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0166.pt|an active and controversial figure on the American political scene since his resignation from the U.S. Army in nineteen sixty-one
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0167.pt|narrowly escaped death when a rifle bullet fired from outside his home passed near his head as he was seated at his desk.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0168.pt|There were no eyewitnesses, although a fourteen-year-old boy in a neighboring house claimed that immediately after the shooting
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0169.pt|he saw two men, in separate cars, drive out of a church parking lot adjacent to Walker's home. A friend of Walker's testified that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0170.pt|two nights before the shooting he saw, quote, two men around the house peeking in windows, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0171.pt|General Walker gave this information to the police before the shooting, but it did not help solve the crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0172.pt|Although the bullet was recovered from Walker's house, in the absence of a weapon it was of little investigatory value.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0173.pt|General Walker hired two investigators to determine whether a former employee might have been involved in the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0174.pt|Their results were negative.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0175.pt|Until December three, nineteen sixty-three, the Walker shooting remained unsolved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0176.pt|The Commission evaluated the following evidence in considering whether Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shot which almost killed General Walker:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0177.pt|A note which Oswald left for his wife on the evening of the shooting,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0178.pt|(two) photographs found among Oswald's possessions after the assassination of President Kennedy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0179.pt|(three) firearm identification of the bullet found in Walker's home, and (four)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0180.pt|admissions and other statements made to Marina Oswald by Oswald concerning the shooting. Note left by Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0181.pt|On December two, nineteen sixty-three, Mrs. Ruth Paine turned over to the police some of the Oswalds' belongings,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0182.pt|including a Russian volume entitled, quote, Book of Useful Advice, end quote. In this book was an undated note written in Russian.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0183.pt|In translation, the note read as follows: one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0184.pt|This is the key to the mailbox which is located in the main post office in the city on Ervay Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0185.pt|This is the same street where the drugstore, in which you always waited is located.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0186.pt|You will find the mailbox in the post office which is located four blocks from the drugstore on that street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0187.pt|I paid for the box last month so don't worry about it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0188.pt|two. Send the information as to what has happened to me to the Embassy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0189.pt|and include newspaper clippings (should there be anything about me in the newspapers). I believe that the Embassy will come quickly to your assistance on learning everything.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0190.pt|three. I paid the house rent on the second so don't worry about it. four. Recently I also paid for water and gas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0191.pt|five. The money from work will possibly be coming. The money will be sent to our post office box. Go to the bank and cash the check.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0192.pt|six. You can either throw out or give my clothing, etc. away. Do not keep these.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0193.pt|However, I prefer that you hold on to my personal papers (military, civil, etc.).
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0194.pt|seven. Certain of my documents are in the small blue valise.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0197.pt|ten. I left you as much money as I could,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0198.pt|sixty dollars on the second of the month. You and the baby can live for another two months using ten dollars per week.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0199.pt|eleven. If I am alive and taken prisoner,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0200.pt|the city jail is located at the end of the bridge through which we always passed on going to the city (right in the beginning of the city after crossing the bridge).
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0201.pt|James C. Cadigan, FBI handwriting expert, testified that this note was written by Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0202.pt|Prior to the Walker shooting on April ten, Oswald had been attending typing classes on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday evenings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0203.pt|He had quit these classes at least a week before the shooting, which occurred on a Wednesday night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0204.pt|According to Marina Oswald's testimony, on the night of the Walker shooting, her husband left their apartment on Neely Street shortly after dinner.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0205.pt|She thought he was attending a class or was on his own business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0206.pt|When he failed to return by ten or ten:thirty p.m., Marina Oswald went to his room and discovered the note. She testified: quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0207.pt|When he came back I asked him what had happened. He was very pale.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0208.pt|I don't remember the exact time, but it was very late. And he told me not to ask him any questions. He only told me he had shot at General Walker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0209.pt|Oswald told his wife that he did not know whether he had hit Walker;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0210.pt|according to Marina Oswald when he learned on the radio and in the newspapers the next day that he had missed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0211.pt|he said that he, quote, was very sorry that he had not hit him, end quote. Marina Oswald's testimony was fully supported by the note itself
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0212.pt|which appeared to be the work of a man expecting to be killed, or imprisoned, or to disappear.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0213.pt|The last paragraph directed her to the jail
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0214.pt|and the other paragraphs instructed her on the disposal of Oswald's personal effects and the management of her affairs if he should not return.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0215.pt|It is clear that the note was written while the Oswalds were living in Dallas before they moved to New Orleans in the spring of nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0216.pt|The references to house rent and payments for water and gas
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0217.pt|indicated that the note was written when they were living in a rented apartment; therefore it could not have been written while Marina Oswald was living with the Paines.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0218.pt|Moreover, the reference in paragraph three to paying, quote, the house rent on the second, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0219.pt|would be consistent with the period when the Oswalds were living on Neely Street since the apartment was rented on March three, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0220.pt|Oswald had paid the first month's rent in advance on March two, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0221.pt|and the second month's rent was paid on either April two or April three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0222.pt|The main post office, quote, on Ervay Street, end quote, refers to the post office where Oswald rented box two nine one five
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0223.pt|from October nine, nineteen sixty-two, to May fourteen, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0224.pt|Another statement which limits the time when it could have been written is the reference, quote, you and the baby, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0225.pt|which would indicate that it was probably written before the birth of Oswald's second child on October twenty, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0226.pt|Oswald had apparently mistaken the county jail for the city jail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0227.pt|From Neely Street the Oswalds would have traveled downtown on the Beckley bus, across the Commerce Street viaduct
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0228.pt|and into downtown Dallas through the Triple Underpass.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0229.pt|Either the viaduct or the underpass might have been the "bridge" mentioned in the last paragraph of the note.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0230.pt|The county jail is at the corner of Houston and Main Streets, quote, right in the beginning of the city, end quote, after one travels through the underpass.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0231.pt|In her testimony before the Commission in February nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0232.pt|Marina Oswald stated that when Oswald returned home on the night of the Walker shooting, he told her that he had been planning the attempt for two months.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0233.pt|He showed her a notebook three days later containing photographs of General Walker's home and a map of the area where the house was located.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0234.pt|Although Oswald destroyed the notebook, three photographs found among Oswald's possessions after the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0235.pt|were identified by Marina Oswald as photographs of General Walker's house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0236.pt|Two of these photographs were taken from the rear of Walker's house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0237.pt|The Commission confirmed, by comparison with other photographs, that these were, indeed, photographs of the rear of Walker's house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0238.pt|An examination of the window at the rear of the house, the wall through which the bullet passed, and the fence behind the house
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0239.pt|indicated that the bullet was fired from a position near the point where one of the photographs was taken.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0240.pt|The third photograph identified by Marina Oswald depicts the entrance to General Walker's driveway from a back alley.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0241.pt|Also seen in the picture is the fence on which Walker's assailant apparently rested the rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0242.pt|An examination of certain construction work appearing in the background of this photograph revealed that the picture was taken between March eight
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0243.pt|and twelve, nineteen sixty-three, and most probably on either March nine or March ten.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0244.pt|Oswald purchased the money order for the rifle on March twelve, the rifle was shipped on March twenty, and the shooting occurred on April ten.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0245.pt|A photography expert with the FBI
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0246.pt|was able to determine that, this picture was taken with the Imperial Reflex camera owned by Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0247.pt|A fourth photograph, showing a stretch of railroad tracks,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0248.pt|was also identified by Marina Oswald as having been taken by her husband, presumably in connection with the Walker shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0249.pt|Investigation determined that this photograph was taken approximately seven-tenths of a mile from Walker's house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0250.pt|Another photograph of railroad tracks found among Oswald's possessions was not identified by his wife,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0251.pt|but investigation revealed that it was taken from a point slightly less than half a mile from General Walker's house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0252.pt|Marina Oswald stated that- when she asked her husband what be had done with the rifle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0253.pt|he replied that he had buried it in the ground or hidden it in some bushes and that he also mentioned a railroad track in this connection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0254.pt|She testified that several days later Oswald recovered his rifle and brought it back to their apartment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0255.pt|Firearms identification.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0256.pt|In the room beyond the one in which General Walker was sitting on the night of the shooting the Dallas police recovered a badly mutilated bullet
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0257.pt|which had come to rest on a stack of paper.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0258.pt|The Dallas City-County Investigation Laboratory tried to determine the type of weapon which fired the bullet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0259.pt|The oral report was negative because of the battered condition of the bullet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0260.pt|On November thirty, nineteen sixty-three, the FBI requested the bullet for ballistics examination;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0261.pt|the Dallas Police Department forwarded it on December two, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0262.pt|Robert A. Frazier, an FBI ballistics identification expert, testified that he was, quote, unable to reach a conclusion, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0263.pt|as to whether or not the bullet recovered from Walker's house had been fired from the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0264.pt|He concluded that, quote, the general rifling characteristics of the rifle are of the same type as those found on the bullet
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0265.pt|and, further, on this basis the bullet could have been fired from the rifle on the basis of its land and groove impressions, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0266.pt|Frazier testified further that the FBI avoids the category of "probable" identification.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0267.pt|Unless the missile or cartridge case can be identified as coming from a particular weapon to the exclusion of all others,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0268.pt|the FBI refuses to draw any conclusion as to probability.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0269.pt|Frazier testified, however, that he found no microscopic characteristics or other evidence
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0270.pt|which would indicate that the bullet was not fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle owned by Lee Harvey Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0271.pt|It was a six point five-millimeter bullet
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0272.pt|and, according to Frazier, "relatively few" types of rifles could produce the characteristics found on the bullet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0273.pt|Joseph D. Nicol,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0274.pt|superintendent of the Illinois Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, conducted an independent examination of this bullet
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0275.pt|and concluded, quote, that there is a fair probability, end quote, that the bullet was fired from the rifle used in the assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0276.pt|In explaining the difference between his policy and that of the FBI on the matter of probable identification, Nicol said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0277.pt|I am aware of their position. This is not, I am sure, arrived at without careful consideration.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0278.pt|However, to say that because one does not find sufficient marks for identification that it is a negative,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0279.pt|I think is going overboard in the other direction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0280.pt|And for purposes of probative value, for whatever it might be worth,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0281.pt|in the absence of very definite negative evidence, I think it is permissible to say that in an exhibit such as five seven three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0282.pt|there is enough on it to say that it could have come, and even perhaps a little stronger, to say that it probably came from this,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0283.pt|without going so far as to say to the exclusion of all other guns. This I could not do, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0284.pt|Although the Commission recognizes that neither expert was able to state
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0285.pt|that the bullet which missed General Walker was fired from Oswald's rifle to the exclusion of all others, this testimony was considered probative
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0286.pt|when combined with the other testimony linking Oswald to the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0287.pt|Additional corroborative evidence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0288.pt|The admissions made to Marina Oswald by her husband are an important element in the evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shot at General Walker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0289.pt|As shown above, the note and the photographs of Walker's house and of the nearby railroad tracks
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0290.pt|provide important corroboration for her account of the incident.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0291.pt|Other details described by Marina Oswald coincide with facts developed independently of her statements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0292.pt|She testified that her husband had postponed his attempt to kill Walker
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0293.pt|until that Wednesday because he had heard that there was to be a gathering at the church next door to Walker's house on that evening.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0294.pt|He indicated that he wanted more people in the vicinity at the time of the attempt so that his arrival and departure would not attract great attention.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0295.pt|An official of this church told FBI agents that services are held every Wednesday at the church except during the month of August.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0296.pt|Marina Oswald also testified that her husband had used a bus to return home.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0297.pt|A study of the bus routes indicates that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0298.pt|Oswald could have taken any one of several different buses to Walker's house or to a point near the railroad tracks where he may have concealed the rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0299.pt|It would have been possible for him to take different routes in approaching and leaving the scene of the shooting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0300.pt|Based on (one) the contents of the note which Oswald left for his wife on April ten, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0301.pt|(two) the photographs found among Oswald's possessions,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0302.pt|(three) the testimony of firearms identification experts, and (four) the testimony of Marina Oswald,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0303.pt|the Commission has concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to take the life of Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Resigned, U.S. Army)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0304.pt|on April ten, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0305.pt|The finding that Lee Harvey Oswald attempted to murder a public figure in April nineteen sixty-three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ038-0306.pt|was considered of probative value in this investigation, although the Commission's conclusion concerning the identity of the assassin
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0001.pt|For more information, or to volunteer, please visit librivox dot org.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0002.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0003.pt|The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0004.pt|Chapter four. The Assassin: Part eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0005.pt|Richard M. Nixon Incident
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0006.pt|Another alleged threat by Oswald against a public figure involved former Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0007.pt|In January nineteen sixty-four, Marina Oswald and her business manager, James Martin,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0008.pt|told Robert Oswald, Lee Harvey Oswald's brother, that Oswald had once threatened to shoot former Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0009.pt|When Marina Oswald testified before the Commission on February three to six, nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0010.pt|she had failed to mention the incident when she was asked whether Oswald had ever expressed any hostility
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0011.pt|toward any official of the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0012.pt|The Commission first learned of this incident when Robert Oswald related it to FBI agents on February nineteen, nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0013.pt|and to the Commission on February twenty-one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0014.pt|Marina Oswald appeared before the Commission again on June eleven, nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0015.pt|and testified that a few days before her husband's departure from Dallas to New Orleans on April twenty-four, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0016.pt|he finished reading a morning newspaper, quote, and put on a good suit. I saw that he took a pistol.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0017.pt|I asked him where he was going, and why he was getting dressed. He answered Nixon is coming. I want to go and have a look, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0018.pt|He also said that he would use the pistol if the opportunity arose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0019.pt|She reminded him that after the Walker shooting he had promised never to repeat such an act.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0020.pt|Marina Oswald related the events which followed, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0021.pt|I called him into the bathroom and I closed the door and I wanted to prevent him and then I started to cry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0022.pt|And I told him that he shouldn't do this, and that he had promised me.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0023.pt|I remember that I held him. We actually struggled for several minutes and then he quieted down. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0024.pt|She stated that it was not physical force which kept him from leaving the house. Quote, I couldn't keep him from going out if he really wanted to, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0025.pt|After further questioning
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0026.pt|she stated that she might have been confused about shutting him in the bathroom, but that, quote, there is no doubt that he got dressed and got a gun, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0027.pt|Oswald's revolver
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0028.pt|was shipped from Los Angeles on March twenty, nineteen sixty-three, and he left for New Orleans on April twenty-four, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0029.pt|No edition of either Dallas newspaper during the period January one, nineteen sixty-three, to May fifteen, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0030.pt|mentioned any proposed visit by Mr. Nixon to Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0031.pt|Mr. Nixon advised the Commission that the only time he was in Dallas in nineteen sixty-three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0032.pt|was on November twenty to twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0033.pt|An investigation failed to reveal any invitation extended to Mr. Nixon during the period when Oswald's threat reportedly occurred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0034.pt|The Commission has concluded, therefore, that regardless of what Oswald may have said to his wife
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0035.pt|he was not actually planning to shoot Mr. Nixon at that time in Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0036.pt|On April twenty-three, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0037.pt|Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was in Dallas for a visit which had been publicized in the Dallas newspapers
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0038.pt|throughout April. The Commission asked Marina Oswald whether she might have misunderstood the object of her husband's threat. She stated, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0039.pt|there is no question that in this incident it was a question of Mr. Nixon, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0040.pt|When asked later whether it might have been Mr. Johnson, she said, quote, Yes, no.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0041.pt|I am getting a little confused with so many questions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0042.pt|I was absolutely convinced it was Nixon and now after all these questions I wonder if I am right in my mind? End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0043.pt|She stated further that Oswald had only mentioned Nixon's name once during the incident. Marina Oswald might have misunderstood her husband.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0044.pt|Mr. Johnson was the then Vice President and his visit took place on April twenty-third.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0045.pt|This was one day before Oswald left for New Orleans and Marina appeared certain that the Nixon incident, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0046.pt|wasn't the day before. Perhaps three days before, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0047.pt|Marina Oswald speculated that the incident may have been unrelated to an actual threat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0048.pt|She said, quote, It might have been that he was just trying to test me.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0049.pt|He was the kind of person who could try and wound somebody in that way. Possibly he didn't want to go out at all but was just doing this all as a sort of joke,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0050.pt|not really as a joke but rather to simply wound me, to make me feel bad, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0051.pt|In the absence of other evidence that Oswald actually intended to shoot someone at this time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0052.pt|the Commission concluded that the incident, as described by Marina Oswald,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0053.pt|was of no probative value in the Commission's decision concerning the identity of the assassin of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0054.pt|Oswald's Rifle Capability
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0055.pt|In deciding whether Lee Harvey Oswald fired the shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0056.pt|the Commission considered whether Oswald, using his own rifle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0057.pt|possessed the capability to hit his target with two out of three shots under the conditions described in chapter three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0058.pt|The Commission evaluated (one) the nature of the shots, (two) Oswald's Marine training in marksmanship,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0059.pt|(three) his experience and practice after leaving the Marine Corps, and (four) the accuracy of the weapon and the quality of the ammunition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0060.pt|The Nature of the Shots
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0061.pt|For a rifleman situated on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0062.pt|the shots were at a slow-moving target proceeding on a downgrade in virtually a straight line
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0063.pt|with the alinement of the assassin's rifle, at a range of one hundred seventy-seven to two hundred sixty-six feet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0064.pt|An aerial photograph of Dealey Plaza shows that Elm Street runs at an angle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0065.pt|so that the President would have been moving in an almost straight line away from the assassin's rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0066.pt|In addition, the three degree downward slope of Elm Street was of assistance in eliminating at least some of the adjustment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0067.pt|which is ordinarily required when a marksman must raise his rifle as a target moves farther away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0068.pt|Four marksmanship experts testified before the Commission.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0069.pt|Maj. Eugene D. Anderson, assistant head of the Marksmanship Branch of U.S. Marine Corps
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0070.pt|testified that the shots which struck the President in the neck and in the head were, quote, not particularly difficult, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0071.pt|Robert A. Frazier, FBI expert in firearms identification and training, said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0072.pt|From my own experience in shooting over the years,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0073.pt|when you shoot at one hundred seventy-five feet or two hundred sixty feet, which is less than a hundred yards, with a telescopic sight,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0074.pt|you should not have any difficulty in hitting your target. I mean it requires no training at all to shoot a weapon with a telescopic sight
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0075.pt|once you know that you must put the crosshairs on the target and that is all that is necessary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0076.pt|Ronald Simmons, chief of the U.S. Army Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch of the Ballistics Research Laboratory, said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0077.pt|Well, in order to achieve three hits, it would not be required that a man be an exceptional shot. A proficient man with this weapon, yes, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0078.pt|The effect of a four-power telescopic sight on the difficulty of these shots was considered in detail
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0079.pt|by Master Sgt. James A. Zahm, noncommissioned officer in charge of the Marksmanship Training Unit in the Weapons Training Battalion
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0080.pt|of the Marine Corps School at Quantico, Virginia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0081.pt|Referring to a rifle with a four-power telescope, Sergeant Zahm said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0082.pt|this is the ideal type of weapon for moving targets
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0083.pt|Using the scope, rapidly working a bolt and using the scope to relocate your target quickly and at the same time when you locate that target
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0084.pt|you identify it and the crosshairs are in close relationship to the point you want to shoot at,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0085.pt|it just takes a minor move in aiming to bring the crosshairs to bear, and then it is a quick squeeze.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0086.pt|I consider it a real advantage, particularly at the range of one hundred yards, in identifying your target.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0087.pt|It allows you to see your target clearly, and it is still of a minimum amount of power that it doesn't exaggerate your own body movements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0088.pt|It just is an aid in seeing in the fact that you only have the one element, the crosshair,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0089.pt|in relation to the target as opposed to iron sights with aligning the sights and then aligning them on the target, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0090.pt|Characterizing the four-power scope as, quote, a real aid, an extreme aid, end quote, in rapid fire shooting,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0091.pt|Sergeant Zahm expressed the opinion that the shot which struck President Kennedy in the neck at one hundred seventy-six point nine
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0092.pt|to one hundred ninety point eight feet was, quote, very easy, end quote, and the shot which struck the President in the head
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0093.pt|at a distance of two hundred sixty-five point three feet was, quote, an easy shot, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0094.pt|After viewing photographs depicting the alignment of Elm Street in relation to the Texas School Book Depository Building,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0095.pt|Zahm stated further, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0096.pt|This is a definite advantage to the shooter, the vehicle moving directly away from him and the downgrade of the street, and he being in an elevated position
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0097.pt|made an almost stationary target while he was aiming in, very little movement if any, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0098.pt|Oswald's Marine Training
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0099.pt|In accordance with standard Marine procedures, Oswald received extensive training in marksmanship.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0100.pt|During the first week of an intensive eight-week training period he received instruction in sighting, aiming, and manipulation of the trigger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0101.pt|He went through a series of exercises called dry firing where he assumed all positions which would later be used in the qualification course.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0102.pt|After familiarization with live ammunition in the twenty-two rifle and the twenty-two pistol,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0103.pt|Oswald, like all Marine recruits, received training on the rifle range at distances up to five hundred yards,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0104.pt|firing fifty rounds each day for five days.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0105.pt|Following that training, Oswald was tested in December of nineteen fifty-six, and obtained a score of two hundred twelve,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0106.pt|which was two points above the minimum for qualifications as a "sharpshooter" in a scale of marksman, sharpshooter, expert.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0107.pt|In May of nineteen fifty-nine, on another range, Oswald scored one hundred ninety-one, which was one point over the minimum for ranking as a "marksman."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0108.pt|The Marine Corps records maintained on Oswald further show that he had fired and was familiar with the Browning Automatic rifle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0109.pt|forty-five caliber pistol, and twelve-gauge riot gun.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0110.pt|Based on the general Marine Corps ratings, Lt. Col. A. G. Folsom, Jr.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0111.pt|head, Records Branch, Personnel Department, Headquarters U.S. Marine Corps,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0112.pt|evaluated the sharpshooter qualification as a, quote, fairly good shot, end quote, and a low marksman rating
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0113.pt|as a, quote, rather poor shot, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0114.pt|When asked to explain the different scores achieved by Oswald on the two occasions when he fired for record,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0115.pt|Major Anderson said, quote, when he fired that two twelve
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0116.pt|he had just completed a very intensive preliminary training period.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0117.pt|He had the services of an experienced highly trained coach.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0118.pt|He had high motivation. He had presumably a good to excellent rifle and good ammunition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0119.pt|We have nothing here to show under what conditions the B course was fired. It might well have been a bad day for firing the rifle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0120.pt|windy, rainy, dark. There is little probability that he had good, expert coach,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0121.pt|and he probably didn't have as high a motivation because he was no longer in recruit training and under the care of the drill instructor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0122.pt|There is some possibility that the rifle he was firing might not have been as good a rifle as the rifle that he was firing in his A course firing,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0123.pt|because he may well have carried this rifle for quite some time, and it got banged around in normal usage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0124.pt|End quote. Major Anderson concluded, quote, I would say that as compared to other Marines receiving the same type of training,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0125.pt|that Oswald was a good shot, somewhat better than or equal to -- better than the average let us say.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0126.pt|As compared to a civilian who had not received this intensive training, he would be considered as a good to excellent shot. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0127.pt|When Sergeant Zahm was asked whether Oswald's Marine Corps training would have made it easier to operate a rifle with a four-power scope, he replied, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0128.pt|Based on that training, his basic knowledge in sight manipulation and trigger squeeze and what not, I would say that he would be capable of sighting that rifle in well,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0129.pt|firing it, with ten rounds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0130.pt|After reviewing Oswald's marksmanship scores,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0131.pt|Sergeant Zahm concluded, quote, I would say in the Marine Corps he is a good shot, slightly above average,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0132.pt|and as compared to the average male of his age throughout the civilian, throughout the United States, that he is an excellent shot, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0133.pt|Oswald's Rifle Practice Outside the Marines
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0134.pt|During one of his leaves from the Marines, Oswald hunted with his brother Robert,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0135.pt|using a twenty-two caliber bolt-action rifle belonging either to Robert or Robert's in-laws.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0136.pt|After he left the Marines and before departing for Russia, Oswald, his brother, and a third companion went hunting for squirrels and rabbits.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0137.pt|On that occasion Oswald again used a bolt-action twenty-two caliber rifle; and according to Robert,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0138.pt|Lee Oswald exhibited an average amount of proficiency with that weapon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0139.pt|Oswald obtained a hunting license, joined a hunting club and went hunting about six times, as discussed more fully in chapter six.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0140.pt|Soon after Oswald returned from the Soviet Union
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0141.pt|he again went hunting with his brother, Robert, and used a borrowed twenty-two caliber bolt-action rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0142.pt|After Oswald purchased the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, he told his wife that he practiced with it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0143.pt|Marina Oswald testified that on one occasion she saw him take the rifle, concealed in a raincoat, from the house on Neely Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0144.pt|Oswald told her he was going to practice with it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0145.pt|According to George De Mohrenschildt, Oswald said that he went target shooting with that rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0146.pt|Marina Oswald testified that in New Orleans in May of nineteen sixty-three, she observed Oswald sitting with the rifle on their screened porch at night,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0147.pt|sighting with the telescopic lens and operating the bolt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0148.pt|Examination of the cartridge cases found on the sixth floor of the Depository Building
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0149.pt|established that they had been previously loaded and ejected from the assassination rifle,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0150.pt|which would indicate that Oswald practiced operating the bolt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0151.pt|Accuracy of Weapon
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0152.pt|It will be recalled from the discussion in chapter three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0153.pt|that the assassin in all probability hit two out of the three shots during the maximum time span of
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0154.pt|four point eight to five point six seconds if the second shot missed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0155.pt|or, if either the first or third shots missed, the assassin fired the three shots during a minimum time span of seven point one
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0156.pt|to seven point nine seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0157.pt|A series of tests were performed to determine whether the weapon and ammunition used in the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0158.pt|were capable of firing the shots which were fired by the assassin on November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0159.pt|The ammunition used by the assassin was manufactured by Western Cartridge Co. of East Alton, Illinois.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0160.pt|In tests with the Mannlicher-Carano C twenty-seven sixty-six rifle, over one hundred rounds of this ammunition were fired by the FBI
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0161.pt|and the Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch of the U.S. Army. There were no misfires.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0162.pt|In an effort to test the rifle under conditions which simulated those which prevailed during the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0163.pt|the Infantry Weapons Evaluation Branch of the Ballistics Research Laboratory had expert riflemen fire the assassination weapon
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0164.pt|from a tower at three silhouette targets at distances of one hundred seventy-five, two hundred forty, and two hundred sixty-five feet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0165.pt|The target at two hundred sixty-five feet was placed to the right of the two hundred forty-foot target
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0166.pt|which was in turn placed to the right of the closest silhouette.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0167.pt|Using the assassination rifle mounted with the telescopic sight, three marksmen, rated as master by the National Rifle Association,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0168.pt|each fired two series of three shots.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0169.pt|In the first series the firers required time spans of four point six, six point seven five,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0170.pt|and eight point two five seconds respectively.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0171.pt|On the second series they required five point one five, six point four five, and seven seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0172.pt|None of the marksmen had any practice with the assassination weapon except for exercising the bolt for two or three minutes on a dry run.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0173.pt|They had not even pulled the trigger because of concern about breaking the firing pin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0174.pt|The marksmen took as much time as they wanted for the first target and all hit the target.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0175.pt|For the first four attempts, the firers missed the second shot by several inches.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0176.pt|The angle from the first to the second shot
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0177.pt|was greater than from the second to the third shot and required a movement in the basic firing position of the marksmen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0178.pt|This angle was used in the test because the majority of the eyewitnesses to the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0179.pt|stated that there was a shorter interval between shots two and three than between shots one and two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0180.pt|As has been shown in chapter three, if the three shots were fired within a period of from four point eight to five point six seconds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0181.pt|the shots would have been evenly spaced and the assassin would not have incurred so sharp an angular movement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0182.pt|Five of the six shots hit the third target where the angle of movement of the weapon was small.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0183.pt|On the basis of these results, Simmons testified that in his opinion the probability of hitting the targets at the relatively short range at which they were hit
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0184.pt|Considering the various probabilities which may have prevailed during the actual assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0185.pt|the highest level of firing performance which would have been required of the assassin and the C two seven six six rifle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0186.pt|would have been to fire three times and hit the target twice within a span of four point eight to five point six seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0187.pt|In fact, one of the firers in the rapid fire test in firing his two series of three shots,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0188.pt|hit the target twice within a span of four point six and five point one five seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0189.pt|The others would have been able to reduce their times if they had been given the opportunity to become familiar with the movement of the bolt and the trigger pull.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0190.pt|Simmons testified that familiarity with the bolt could be achieved in dry practice and, as has been indicated above,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0191.pt|Oswald engaged in such practice. If the assassin missed either the first or third shot,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0192.pt|he had a total of between four point eight and five point six seconds between the two shots which hit
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0193.pt|and a total minimum time period of from seven point one to seven point nine seconds for all three shots.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0194.pt|All three of the firers in these tests
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0195.pt|were able to fire the rounds within the time period which would have been available to the assassin under those conditions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0196.pt|Three FBI firearms experts tested the rifle in order to determine the speed with which it could be fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0197.pt|The purpose of this experiment was not to test the rifle under conditions which prevailed at the time of the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0198.pt|but to determine the maximum speed at which it could be fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0199.pt|The three FBI experts each fired three shots from the weapon at fifteen yards in six, seven, and nine seconds,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0200.pt|and one of these agents, Robert A. Frazier,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0201.pt|fired two series of three shots at twenty-five yards in four point six and four point eight seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0202.pt|At fifteen yards each man's shots landed within the size of a dime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0203.pt|The shots fired by Frazier at the range of twenty-five yards landed within an area of two inches and five inches respectively.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0204.pt|Frazier later fired four groups of three shots at a distance of one hundred yards in five point nine, six point two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0205.pt|five point six, and six point five seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0206.pt|Each series of three shots landed within areas ranging in diameter from three to five inches.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0207.pt|Although all of the shots were a few inches high and to the right of the target,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0208.pt|this was because of a defect in the scope which was recognized by the FBI agents and which they could have compensated for if they were aiming to hit a bull's-eye.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0209.pt|They were instead firing to determine how rapidly the weapon could be fired and the area within which three shots could be placed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0210.pt|Frazier testified that while he could not tell when the defect occurred, but that a person familiar with the weapon could compensate for it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0211.pt|Moreover, the defect was one which would have assisted the assassin aiming at a target which was moving away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0212.pt|Frazier said, quote, The fact that the crosshairs are set high would actually compensate for any lead which had to be taken
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0213.pt|So that if you aimed with this weapon as it actually was received at the laboratory, it would not be necessary to take any lead whatsoever
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0214.pt|in order to hit the intended object. The scope would accomplish the lead for you, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0215.pt|Frazier added that the scope would cause a slight miss to the right.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0216.pt|It should be noted, however, that the President's car was curving slightly to the right when the third shot was fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0217.pt|Based on these tests the experts agreed that the assassination rifle was an accurate weapon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0218.pt|Simmons described it as, quote, quite accurate, end quote, in fact, as accurate as current military rifles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0219.pt|Frazier testified that the rifle was accurate, that it had less recoil than the average military rifle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0220.pt|and that one would not have to be an expert marksman to have accomplished the assassination with the weapon which was used.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0221.pt|The various tests showed that the Mannlicher-Carcano was an accurate rifle and that the use of a four-power scope
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0222.pt|was a substantial aid to rapid, accurate firing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0223.pt|Oswald's Marine training in marksmanship, his other rifle experience and his established familiarity with this particular weapon
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0224.pt|show that he possessed ample capability to commit the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0225.pt|Based on the known facts of the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0226.pt|the Marine marksmanship experts, Major Anderson and Sergeant Zahm, concurred in the opinion that Oswald had the capability to fire three shots,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0227.pt|with two hits, within four point eight and five point six seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0228.pt|Concerning the shots which struck the President in the back of the neck,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0229.pt|Sergeant Zahm testified, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0230.pt|With the equipment he [Oswald] had and with his ability I consider it a very easy shot, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0231.pt|Having fired this slot
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0232.pt|the assassin was then required to hit the target one more time within a space of from four point eight to five point six seconds.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0233.pt|On the basis of Oswald's training and the accuracy of the weapon as established by the tests,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0234.pt|the Commission concluded that Oswald was capable of accomplishing this second hit even if there was an intervening shot which missed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0235.pt|The probability of hitting the President a second time would have been markedly increased if, in fact, he had missed either the first or third shots
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0236.pt|thereby leaving a time span of four point eight to five point six seconds between the two shots which struck their mark.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0237.pt|The Commission agrees with the testimony of Marine marksmanship expert Zahm
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0238.pt|that it was an easy shot to hit some part of the President's body, and that the range where the rifleman would be expected to hit
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0239.pt|would include the President's head.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0240.pt|On the basis of the evidence reviewed in this chapter, the Commission has found that Lee Harvey Oswald (one)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0241.pt|owned and possessed the rifle used to kill President Kennedy and wound Governor Connally,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0242.pt|(two) brought this rifle into the Depository Building on the morning of the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0243.pt|(three) was present, at the time of the assassination, at the window from which the shots were fired
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0244.pt|killed Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit in an apparent attempt to escape,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0245.pt|(five) resisted arrest by drawing a fully loaded pistol and attempting to shoot another police officer,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0246.pt|(six) lied to the police after his arrest concerning important substantive matters,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0247.pt|(seven) attempted, in April nineteen sixty-three, to kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker, and (eight)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ039-0248.pt|possessed the capability with a rifle which would have enabled him to commit the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0002.pt|Chapter seven. Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motives, Part one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0003.pt|The evidence reviewed above identifies Lee Harvey Oswald as the assassin of President Kennedy and indicates that he acted alone in that event.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0004.pt|There is no evidence that he had accomplices or that he was involved in any conspiracy directed to the assassination of the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0005.pt|There remains the question of what impelled Oswald to conceive and to carry out the assassination of the President of the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0006.pt|The Commission has considered many possible motives for the assassination, including those which might flow from Oswald's commitment to Marxism or communism,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0007.pt|the existence of some personal grievance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0008.pt|a desire to effect changes in the structure of society or simply to go down in history as a well publicized assassin.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0009.pt|None of these possibilities satisfactorily explains Oswald's act if it is judged by the standards of reasonable men.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0010.pt|The motives of any man, however, must be analyzed in terms of the character and state of mind of the particular individual involved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0011.pt|For a motive that appears incomprehensible to other men may be the moving force of a man whose view of the world has been twisted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0012.pt|possibly by factors of which those around him were only dimly aware.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0013.pt|Oswald's complete state of mind and character are now outside of the power of man to know.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0014.pt|He cannot, of course, be questioned or observed by those charged with the responsibility for this report or by experts on their behalf.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0015.pt|There is, however, a large amount of material available in his writings
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0016.pt|and in the history of his life which does give some insight into his character and, possibly, into the motives for his act.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0017.pt|Since Oswald is dead,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0018.pt|the Commission is not able to reach any definite conclusions as to whether or not he was, quote, sane, unquote, under prevailing legal standards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0019.pt|Under our system of justice no forum could properly make that determination unless Oswald were before it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0020.pt|It certainly could not be made by this Commission which, as has been pointed out above,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0021.pt|ascertained the facts surrounding the assassination but did not draw conclusions concerning Oswald's legal guilt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0022.pt|Indications of Oswald's motivation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0023.pt|may be obtained from a study of the events, relationships and influences which appear to have been significant in shaping his character and in guiding him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0024.pt|Perhaps the most outstanding conclusion of such a study is that Oswald was profoundly alienated from the world in which he lived.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0025.pt|His life was characterized by isolation, frustration, and failure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0026.pt|He had very few, if any, close relationships with other people and he appeared to have great difficulty in finding a meaningful place in the world.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0027.pt|He was never satisfied with anything.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0028.pt|When he was in the United States he resented the capitalist system which he thought was exploiting him and others like him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0029.pt|He seemed to prefer the Soviet Union and he spoke highly of Cuba.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0030.pt|When he was in the Soviet Union, he apparently resented the Communist Party members,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0031.pt|who were accorded special privileges and who he thought were betraying communism, and he spoke well of the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0032.pt|He accused his wife of preferring others to himself and told her to return to the Soviet Union without him but without a divorce.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0033.pt|At the same time he professed his love for her and said that he could not get along without her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0034.pt|Marina Oswald thought that he would not be happy anywhere, quote, Only on the moon, perhaps, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0035.pt|While Oswald appeared to most of those who knew him as a meek and harmless person, he sometimes imagined himself as, quote, the Commander, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0036.pt|and, apparently seriously, as a political prophet -- a man who said that after twenty years he would be prime minister.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0037.pt|His wife testified that he compared himself with great readers of history.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0038.pt|Such ideas of grandeur were apparently accompanied by notions of oppression.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0039.pt|He had a great hostility toward his environment, whatever it happened to be,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0040.pt|which he expressed in striking and sometimes violent acts long before the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0041.pt|There was some quality about him that led him to act with an apparent disregard for possible consequences.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0042.pt|He defected to the Soviet Union, shot at General Walker, tried to go to Cuba and even contemplated hijacking an airplane to get there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0043.pt|He assassinated the President, shot Officer Tippit, resisted arrest and tried to kill another policeman in the process.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0044.pt|Oswald apparently started reading about communism when he was about fifteen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0045.pt|In the Marines, he evidenced a strong conviction as to the correctness of Marxist doctrine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0046.pt|which one associate described as, quote, irrevocable, end quote, but also as, quote, theoretical, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0047.pt|That associate did not think that Oswald was a Communist.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0048.pt|Oswald did not always distinguish between Marxism and communism.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0049.pt|He stated several times that he was a Communist but apparently never joined any Communist Party.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0050.pt|His attachment to Marxist and Communist doctrine was probably, in some measure, an expression of his hostility to his environment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0051.pt|While there is doubt about how fully Oswald understood the doctrine which he so often espoused, it seems clear
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0052.pt|that his commitment to Marxism was an important factor influencing his conduct during his adult years.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0053.pt|It was an obvious element in his decision to go to Russia and later to Cuba and it probably influenced his decision to shoot at General Walker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0054.pt|It was a factor which contributed to his character and thereby might have influenced his decision to assassinate President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0055.pt|The discussion below will describe the events known to the Commission which most clearly reveals the formation and nature of Oswald's character.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0056.pt|It will attempt to summarize the events of his early life, his experience in New York City and in the Marine Corps, and his interest in Marxism.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0057.pt|It will examine his defection to the Soviet Union in nineteen fifty-nine, his subsequent return to the United States and his life here
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0058.pt|after June of nineteen sixty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0059.pt|The review of the latter period will evaluate his personal and employment relations, his attempt to kill General Walker, his political activities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0060.pt|and his unsuccessful attempt to go to Cuba in late September of nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0061.pt|Various possible motives will be treated in the appropriate context of the discussion outlined above.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0062.pt|The Early Years
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0063.pt|Significant in shaping the character of Lee Harvey Oswald was the death of his father, a collector of insurance premiums.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0064.pt|This occurred two months before Lee was born in New Orleans on October eighteen, nineteen thirty-nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0065.pt|That death strained the financial fortunes of the remainder of the Oswald family.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0066.pt|It had its effect on Lee's mother, Marguerite, his brother Robert, who had been born in nineteen thirty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0067.pt|and his half-brother John Pic, who had been born in nineteen thirty-two during Marguerite's previous marriage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0068.pt|It forced Marguerite Oswald to go to work to provide for her family.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0069.pt|Reminding her sons that they were orphans and that the family's financial condition was poor,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0070.pt|she placed John Pic and Robert Oswald in an orphans' home.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0071.pt|From the time Marguerite Oswald returned to work until December twenty-six, nineteen forty-two, when Lee too was sent to the orphans' home,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0072.pt|he was cared for principally by his mother's sister, by babysitters and by his mother, when she had time for him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0073.pt|Marguerite Oswald withdrew Lee from the orphans' home and took him with her to Dallas when he was a little over four years old.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0074.pt|About six months later she also withdrew John Pic and Robert Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0075.pt|Apparently that action was taken in anticipation of her marriage to Edwin A. Ekdahl, which took place in May of nineteen forty-five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0076.pt|In the fall of that year John Pic and Robert Oswald went to a military academy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0077.pt|where they stayed, except for vacations, until the spring of nineteen forty-eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0078.pt|Lee Oswald remained with his mother and Ekdahl, to whom he became quite attached.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0079.pt|John Pic testified that he thought Lee found in Ekdahl the father that he never had.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0080.pt|That situation, however, was short-lived,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0081.pt|for the relations between Marguerite Oswald and Ekdahl were stormy and they were finally divorced, after several separations and reunions,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0082.pt|in the summer of nineteen forty-eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0083.pt|After the divorce Mrs. Oswald complained considerably about how unfairly she was treated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0084.pt|dwelling on the fact that she was a widow with three children.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0085.pt|John Pic, however, did not think her position was worse than that of many other people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0086.pt|In the fall of nineteen forty-eight she told John Pic and Robert Oswald
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0087.pt|that she could not afford to send them back to the military school and she asked Pic to quit school entirely to help support the family.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0088.pt|which he did for four months in the fall of nineteen forty-eight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0089.pt|In order to supplement their income further she falsely swore that Pic was seventeen years old so that he could join the Marine Corps Reserves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0090.pt|Pic did turn over part of his income to his mother,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0091.pt|but he returned to high school in January of nineteen forty-nine, where he stayed until three days before he was scheduled to graduate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0092.pt|when he left school in order to get into the Coast Guard. Since his mother did not approve of his decision to continue school
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0093.pt|he accepted the responsibility for that decision himself and signed his mother's name to all his own excuses and report cards.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0094.pt|Pic thought that his mother overstated her financial problems and was unduly concerned about money.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0095.pt|Referring to the period after the divorce from Ekdahl, which was apparently caused in part by Marguerite's desire to get more money from him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0096.pt|Pic said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0097.pt|Lee was brought up in this atmosphere of constant money problems, and I am sure it had quite an effect on him, and also Robert, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0098.pt|Marguerite Oswald worked in miscellaneous jobs after her divorce from Ekdahl.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0099.pt|When she worked for a time as an insurance saleslady,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0100.pt|she would sometimes take Lee with her, apparently leaving him alone in the car while she transacted her business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0101.pt|When she worked during the school year, Lee had to leave an empty house in the morning,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0102.pt|return to it for lunch and then again at night, his mother having trained him to do that rather than to play with other children.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0103.pt|An indication of the nature of Lee's character at this time was provided in the spring of nineteen fifty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0104.pt|when he was sent to New Orleans to visit the family of his mother's sister, Mrs. Lillian Murret, for two or three weeks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0105.pt|Despite their urgings, he refused to play with the other children his own age.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0106.pt|It also appears that Lee tried to tag along with his older brothers
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0107.pt|but apparently was not able to spend as much time with them as he would have liked, because of the age gaps of five and seven years,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0108.pt|which became more significant as the children grew older.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0109.pt|Whatever problems may have been created by Lee's home life in Louisiana and Texas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0110.pt|he apparently adjusted well enough there to have had an average, although gradually deteriorating, school record
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0111.pt|with no behavior or truancy problems.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0112.pt|That was not the case, however, after he and his mother moved to New York in August of nineteen fifty-two, shortly before Lee's thirteenth birthday.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0113.pt|They moved shortly after Robert joined the Marines; they lived for a time with John Pic who was stationed there with the Coast Guard.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0114.pt|Relations soon became strained, however, so in late September Lee and his mother moved to their own apartment in the Bronx.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0115.pt|Pic and his wife would have been happy to have kept Lee, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0116.pt|who was becoming quite a disciplinary problem for his mother, having struck her on at least one occasion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0117.pt|The short-lived stay with the Pics was terminated after an incident in which Lee allegedly pulled out a pocket knife during an argument
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0118.pt|and threatened to use it on Mrs. Pic.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0119.pt|When Pic returned home, Mrs. Oswald tried to play down the event but Mrs. Pic took a different view and asked the Oswalds to leave.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0120.pt|Lee refused to discuss the matter with Pic, whom he had previously idolized, and their relations were strained thereafter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0121.pt|On September thirty, nineteen fifty-two, Lee enrolled in P.S. one seventeen
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0122.pt|a junior high school in the Bronx, where the other children apparently teased him because of his, quote, western clothes and Texas accent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0123.pt|He began to stay away from school, preferring to read magazines and watch television at home by himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0124.pt|This continued despite the efforts of the school authorities and, to a lesser extent, of his mother to have him return to school.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0125.pt|Truancy charges were brought against him alleging that he was, quote, beyond the control of his mother insofar as school attendance is concerned, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0126.pt|Oswald was remanded for psychiatric observation to Youth House, an institution in which children are kept for psychiatric observation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0127.pt|or for detention pending court appearance or commitment to a child-caring or custodial institution such as a training school.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0128.pt|He was in Youth House from April sixteen to May seven, nineteen fifty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0129.pt|during which time he was examined by its Chief Psychiatrist, Dr. Renatus Hartogs,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0130.pt|and interviewed and observed by other members of the Youth House staff.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0131.pt|Marguerite Oswald visited her son at Youth House, where she recalled that she waited in line, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0132.pt|with Puerto Ricans and Negroes and everything, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0133.pt|She said that her pocketbook was searched, quote, because the children in this home were such criminals, dope fiends, and had been in criminal offenses,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0134.pt|that anybody entering this home had to be searched in case the parents were bringing cigarettes or narcotics or anything, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0135.pt|She recalled that Lee cried and said, quote, Mother, I want to get out of here.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0136.pt|There are children in here who have killed people, and smoke. I want to get out, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0137.pt|Marguerite Oswald said that she had not realized until then in what kind of place her son had been confined.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0138.pt|On the other hand, Lee told his probation officer, John Carro, that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0139.pt|while he liked Youth House, he missed the freedom of doing what he wanted. He indicated that he did not miss his mother, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0140.pt|Mrs. Evelyn D Siegel, a social worker who interviewed both Lee and his mother while Lee was confined in Youth House,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0141.pt|reported that Lee, quote, confided that the worse thing about Youth House was the fact that he had to be with other boys all the time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0142.pt|was disturbed about disrobing in front of them, taking showers with them etc., end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0143.pt|Contrary to reports that appeared after the assassination, the psychiatric examination did not indicate that Lee Oswald was a potential assassin,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0144.pt|potentially dangerous, that, quote, his outlook on life had strongly paranoid overtones, end quote, or that he should be institutionalized.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0145.pt|Dr. Hartogs did find Oswald to be a tense, withdrawn, and evasive boy who intensely disliked talking about himself and his feelings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0146.pt|He noted that Lee liked to give the impression that he did not care for other people but preferred to keep to himself,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0147.pt|so that he was not bothered and did not have to make the effort of communicating.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0148.pt|Oswald's withdrawn tendencies and solitary habits were thought to be the result of, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0149.pt|intense anxiety, shyness, feelings of awkwardness and insecurity, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0150.pt|He was reported to have said, quote, I don't want a friend and I don't like to talk to people, end quote, and, quote, I dislike everybody, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0151.pt|He was also described as having a, quote, Vivid fantasy life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0152.pt|turning around the topics of omnipotence and power, through which he tries to compensate for his present shortcomings and frustrations, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0153.pt|Dr. Hartogs summarized his report by stating:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0154.pt|Quote, this thirteen year old well built boy has superior mental resources and functions only slightly below his capacity level
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0155.pt|in spite of chronic truancy from school which brought him into Youth House.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0156.pt|No finding of neurological impairment or psychotic mental changes could be made.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0157.pt|Lee has to be diagnosed as, quote, personality pattern disturbance with schizoid features and passive-aggressive tendencies, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0158.pt|Lee has to be seen as an emotionally, quite disturbed youngster
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0159.pt|who suffers under the impact of really existing emotional isolation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0160.pt|and deprivation, lack of affection, absence of family life and rejection by a self involved and conflicted mother.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0161.pt|Dr. Hartogs recommended that Oswald be placed on probation on condition that he seek help and guidance through a child guidance clinic.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0162.pt|There, he suggested, Lee should be treated by a male psychiatrist who could substitute for the lack of a father figure.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0163.pt|He also recommended that Mrs. Oswald seek, quote, psychotherapeutic guidance through contact with a family agency, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0164.pt|The possibility of commitment was to be considered only if the probation plan was not successful.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0165.pt|Lee's withdrawal was also noted by Mrs. Siegel, who described him as a, quote, seriously detached, withdrawn youngster, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0166.pt|She also noted that there was, quote, a rather pleasant, appealing quality about this emotionally starved, affectionless youngster
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0167.pt|which grows as one speaks to him, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0168.pt|She thought that he had detached himself from the world around him because, quote, no one in it ever met any of his needs for love, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0169.pt|She observed that since Lee's mother worked all day, he made his own meals and spent all his time alone
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0170.pt|because he didn't make friends with the boys in the neighborhood. She thought that he, quote, withdrew into a completely solitary and detached existence
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0171.pt|where he did as he wanted and he didn't have to live by any rules or come into contact with people, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0172.pt|Mrs. Siegel concluded that Lee, quote, just felt that his mother never gave a damn for him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0173.pt|He always felt like a burden that she simply just had to tolerate, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0174.pt|Lee confirmed some of those observations by saying that he felt almost as if there were a veil between him and other people
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0175.pt|through which they could not reach him, but that he preferred the veil to remain intact.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0176.pt|He admitted to fantasies about being powerful and sometimes hurting and killing people, but refused to elaborate on them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0177.pt|He took the position that such matters were his own business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0178.pt|A psychological human figure-drawing test corroborated the interviewer's findings that Lee was insecure and had limited social contacts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0179.pt|Irving Sokolow, a Youth House psychologist reported that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0180.pt|The Human Figure Drawings are empty, poor characterizations of persons approximately the same age as the subject.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0181.pt|They reflect a considerable amount of impoverishment in the social and emotional areas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0182.pt|He appears to be a somewhat insecure youngster exhibiting much inclination for warm and satisfying relationships to others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0183.pt|There is some indication that he may relate to men more easily than to women in view of the more mature conceptualisation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0184.pt|He appears slightly withdrawn and in view of the lack of detail within the drawings this may assume a more significant characteristic.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0185.pt|He exhibits some difficulty in relationship to the maternal figure suggesting more anxiety in this area than in any other.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0186.pt|Lee scored an I.Q. of one eighteen on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0187.pt|According to Sokolow, this indicated a, quote, present intellectual functioning in the upper range of bright normal intelligence, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0188.pt|Sokolow said that although Lee was, quote, presumably disinterested in school subjects he operates on a much higher than average level, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0189.pt|On the Monroe Silent Reading Test, Lee's score indicated no retardation in reading speed and comprehension;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0190.pt|he had better than average ability in arithmetical reasoning for his age group.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0191.pt|Lee told Carro, his probation officer, that he liked to be by himself because he had too much difficulty in making friends.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0192.pt|The reports of Carro and Mrs. Siegel also indicate an ambivalent attitude toward authority on Oswald's part.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0193.pt|Carro reported that Lee was disruptive in class after he returned to school on a regular basis in the fall of nineteen fifty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0194.pt|He had refused to salute the flag and was doing very little, if any, work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0195.pt|It appears that he did not want to do any of the things which the authorities suggested in their efforts to bring him out of the shell
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0196.pt|into which he appeared to be retreating.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0197.pt|He told Mrs. Siegel that he would run away if sent to a boarding school.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0198.pt|On the other hand he also told her that he wished his mother had been more firm with him in her attempts to get him to return to school.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0199.pt|The reports of the New York authorities indicate that Lee's mother gave him very little affection and did not serve as any sort of substitute for a father.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0200.pt|Furthermore she did not appear to understand her own relationship to Lee's psychological problems.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0201.pt|After her interview with Mrs. Oswald,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0202.pt|Mrs. Siegel described her as a smartly dressed, gray haired woman, very self-possessed and alert and superficially affable,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0203.pt|but essentially a, quote, defensive, rigid, self-involved person
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0204.pt|who had real difficulty in accepting and relating to people, end quote, and who had, quote, little understanding, end quote, of Lee's behavior
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0205.pt|and of the, quote, protective shell he has drawn around himself, end quote. Dr. Hartogs reported that Mrs. Oswald did not understand
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0206.pt|that Lee's withdrawal was a form of, quote, violent but silent protest against his neglect by her
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0207.pt|and represents his reaction to a complete absence of any real family life, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0208.pt|Carro reported that when questioned about his mother Lee said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0209.pt|well I've got to live with her. I guess I love her, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0210.pt|It may also be significant that, as reported by John Pic, quote, Lee slept with my mother until I joined the service in nineteen fifty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0211.pt|This would make him approximately ten, well, almost eleven years old. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0212.pt|The factors in Lee Oswald's personality which were noted by those who had contact with him in New York indicate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0213.pt|that he had great difficulty in adapting himself to conditions in that city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0214.pt|His usual reaction to the problems which he encountered there was simply withdrawal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0215.pt|Those factors indicated a severe inability to enter into relationships with other people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0216.pt|In view of his experiences when he visited his relatives in New Orleans in the spring of nineteen fifty, and his other solitary habits,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0217.pt|Lee had apparently been experiencing similar problems before going to New York,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0218.pt|and as will be shown below, this failure to adapt to his environment was a dominant trait in his later life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0219.pt|It would be incorrect, however, to believe that those aspects of Lee's personality which were observed in New York
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0220.pt|could have led anyone to predict the outburst of violence which finally occurred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0221.pt|Carro was the only one of Oswald's three principal observers who recommended that he be placed in a boy's home or similar institution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0222.pt|But Carro was quite specific that his recommendation was based primarily on the adverse factors in Lee's environment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0223.pt|his lack of friends, the apparent unavailability of any agency assistance and the ineffectualness of his mother
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0224.pt|and not on any particular mental disturbance, in the boy himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0225.pt|Carro testified that, quote, There was nothing that would lead me to believe when I saw him at the age of twelve that them would be seeds of destruction for somebody.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0226.pt|I couldn't in all honesty sincerely say such a thing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0227.pt|Mrs. Siegel concluded her report with the statement that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0228.pt|Despite his withdrawal, he gives the impression that he is not so difficult to reach as he appears and patient, prolonged effort
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0229.pt|in a sustained relationship with one therapist might bring results.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0230.pt|There are indications that he has suffered serious personality damage but if he can receive help quickly this might be repaired to some extent, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0231.pt|Lee Oswald never received that help.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0232.pt|Few social agencies even in New York were equipped to provide the kind of intensive treatment that he needed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0233.pt|and when one of the city's clinics did find room to handle him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0234.pt|for some reason the record does not show, advantage was never taken of the chance afforded to Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0235.pt|When Lee became a disciplinary problem upon his return to school in the fall of nineteen fifty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0236.pt|and when his mother failed to cooperate in any way with school authorities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0237.pt|authorities were finally forced to consider placement in a home for boys.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0238.pt|Such a placement was postponed, however, perhaps in part at least because Lee's behavior suddenly improved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0239.pt|Before the court took any action, the Oswalds left New York in January of nineteen fifty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ040-0240.pt|and returned to New Orleans where Lee finished the ninth grade before he left school to work for a year.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0002.pt|Chapter seven. Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motives, Part two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0003.pt|Return to New Orleans and Joining the Marine Corps
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0004.pt|After his return to New Orleans Oswald was teased at school because of the northern accent which he had acquired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0005.pt|He concluded that school had nothing to offer him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0006.pt|His mother exercised little control over him and thought he could decide for himself whether to go on in school.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0007.pt|Neighbors and others who knew him at that time recall an introverted boy who read a great deal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0008.pt|He took walks and visited museums, and sometimes rode a rented bicycle in the park on Saturday mornings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0009.pt|Mrs. Murret believes that he talked at length with a girl on the telephone, but no one remembers that he had any dates.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0010.pt|A friend, Edward Voebel, testified that, quote, he was more bashful about girls than anything else, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0011.pt|Several witnesses testified that Lee Oswald was not aggressive. He was, however, involved in some fights.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0012.pt|Once a group of white boys beat him up for sitting in the Negro section of a bus, which he apparently did simply out of ignorance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0013.pt|Another time, he fought with two brothers who claimed that he had picked on the younger of them, three years Oswald's junior.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0014.pt|Two days later, quote, some big guy, probably from a high school -- he looked like a tremendous football player, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0015.pt|accosted Oswald on the way home from school and punched him in the mouth, making his lip bleed and loosening a tooth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0016.pt|Voebel took Oswald back to the school to attend to his wounds, and their, quote, mild friendship, end quote, stemmed from that incident.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0017.pt|Voebel also recalled that Oswald once outlined a plan to cut the glass in the window of a store on Rampart Street and steal a pistol,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0018.pt|but he was not sure then that Oswald meant to carry out the plan, and in fact they never did.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0019.pt|Voebel said that Oswald, quote, wouldn't start any fights, but if you wanted to start one with him, he was going to make sure that he ended it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0020.pt|or you were going to really have one, because he wasn't going to take anything from anybody, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0021.pt|In a space for the names of, quote, close friends, end quote, on the ninth grade personal history record,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0022.pt|Oswald first wrote, quote, Edward Vogel, end quote, an obvious misspelling of Voebel's name,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0023.pt|and, quote, Arthor Abear, end quote, most likely Arthur Hebert, a classmate who has said that he did not know Oswald well.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0024.pt|Oswald erased those names, however, and indicated that he had no close friends.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0025.pt|It has been suggested that this misspelling of names, apparently on a phonetic basis, was caused by a reading-spelling disability
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0026.pt|from which Oswald appeared to suffer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0027.pt|Other evidence of the existence of such a disability is provided by the many other misspellings that appear in Oswald's writings, portions of which are quoted below.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0028.pt|Sometime during this period, and under circumstances to be discussed more fully below,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0029.pt|Oswald started to read Communist literature, which he obtained from the public library.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0030.pt|One of his fellow employees, Palmer McBride, stated that Oswald said he would like to kill President Eisenhower because he was exploiting the working class.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0031.pt|Oswald praised Khrushchev and suggested that he and McBride join the Communist Party, quote, to take advantage of their social functions, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0032.pt|Oswald also became interested in the New Orleans Amateur Astronomy Association, an organization of high school students.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0033.pt|The association's then president, William E. Wulf, testified that he remembered an occasion when Oswald, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0034.pt|started expounding the Communist doctrine and saying that he was highly interested in communism, that communism was the only way of life for the worker, et cetera,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0035.pt|and then came out with a statement that he was looking for a Communist cell in town to join but he couldn't find any.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0036.pt|He was a little dismayed at this, and he said that he couldn't find any that would show any interest in him as a Communist,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0037.pt|and subsequently, after this conversation, my father came in and we were kind of arguing back and forth about the situation, and my father came in the room,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0038.pt|heard what we were arguing on communism, and that this boy was loud-mouthed, boisterous, and my father asked him to leave the house and politely put him out of the house,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0039.pt|and that is the last I have seen or spoken with Oswald. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0040.pt|Despite this apparent interest in communism, Oswald tried to join the Marines when he was sixteen years old.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0041.pt|This was one year before his actual enlistment and just a little over two point five years after he left New York.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0042.pt|He wrote a note in his mother's name to school authorities in New Orleans saying that he was leaving school because he and his mother were moving to San Diego.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0043.pt|In fact, he had quit school in an attempt to obtain his mother's assistance to join the Marines.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0044.pt|While he apparently was able to induce his mother to make a false statement about his age
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0045.pt|he was nevertheless unable to convince the proper authorities that he was really seventeen years old.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0046.pt|There is evidence that Oswald was greatly influenced in his decision to join the Marines by the fact that his brother Robert had done so
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0047.pt|approximately three years before. Robert Oswald had given his Marine Corps manual to his brother Lee,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0048.pt|who studied it during the year following his unsuccessful attempt to enlist until, quote, He knew it by heart, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0049.pt|According to Marguerite Oswald, quote, Lee lived for the time that he would become seventeen years old to join the Marines -- that whole year, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0050.pt|In John Pic's view,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0051.pt|Oswald was motivated to join the Marines in large part by a desire, quote, to get from out and under the yoke of oppression from my mother, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0052.pt|Oswald's inability or lack of desire to enter into meaningful relationships with other people
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0053.pt|continued during this period in New Orleans (nineteen fifty-four to nineteen fifty-six).
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0054.pt|It probably contributed greatly to the general dissatisfaction which he exhibited with his environment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0055.pt|a dissatisfaction which seemed to find expression at this particular point
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0056.pt|in his intense desire to join the Marines and get away from his surroundings and his mother.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0057.pt|His study of Communist literature,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0058.pt|which might appear to be inconsistent with his desire to join the Marines, could have been another manifestation of Oswald's rejection of his environment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0059.pt|His difficulty in relating to other people and his general dissatisfaction with the world around him continued while he was in the Marine Corps.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0060.pt|Kerry Thornley, a marine associate,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0061.pt|who, shortly after Oswald's defection, wrote an as yet unpublished novel based in considerable part on Oswald's life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0062.pt|testified that, quote, definitely the Marine Corps was not what he had expected it to be when he joined, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0063.pt|He said that Oswald, quote, seemed to guard against developing real close friendships, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0064.pt|Daniel Powers, another marine who was stationed with Oswald for part of his marine career,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0065.pt|testified that Oswald seemed, quote, always to be striving for a relationship, but whenever he did
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0066.pt|his general personality would alienate the group against him, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0067.pt|Other marines also testified that Oswald had few friends and kept very much to himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0068.pt|While there is nothing in Oswald's military records to indicate that he was mentally unstable or otherwise psychologically unfit for duty in the Marine Corps,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0069.pt|he did not adjust well to conditions which he found in that service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0070.pt|He did not rise above the rank of private first class, even though he had passed a qualifying examination for the rank of corporal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0071.pt|His Marine career was not helped by his attitude
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0072.pt|that he was a man of great ability and intelligence and that many of his superiors in the Marine Corps were not sufficiently competent to give him orders.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0073.pt|While Oswald did not seem to object to authority in the abstract, he did think that he should be the one to exercise it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0074.pt|John E. Donovan, one of his former officers, testified that Oswald thought, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0075.pt|that authority, particularly the Marine Corps, ought to be able to recognize talent such as his own, without a given magic college degree,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0076.pt|and put them in positions of prominence, end quote. Oswald manifested this feeling about authority by baiting his officers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0077.pt|He led them into discussions of foreign affairs about which they often knew less than he did, since he had apparently devoted considerable time to a study of such matters.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0078.pt|When the officers were unable to discuss foreign affairs satisfactorily with him, Oswald regarded them as unfit to exercise command over him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0079.pt|Nelson Delgado, one of Oswald's fellow Marines, testified that Oswald tried to, quote, cut up anybody that was high ranking, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0080.pt|in those arguments, quote, and make himself come out top dog, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0081.pt|Oswald probably engaged his superiors in arguments on a subject that he had studied
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0082.pt|in an attempt to attract attention to himself and to support his exaggerated idea of his own abilities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0083.pt|Thornley also testified that he thought that Oswald's extreme personal sloppiness in the Marine Corps, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0084.pt|fitted into a general personality pattern of his: to do whatever was not wanted of him, a recalcitrant trend in his personality, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0085.pt|Oswald, quote, seemed to be a person who would go out of his way to get into trouble, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0086.pt|and then used the, quote, special treatment, end quote, he received as an example of the way in which he was being picked on and, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0087.pt|as a means of getting or attempting to get sympathy, end quote. In Thornley's view, Oswald labored under a persecution complex
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0088.pt|which he strove to maintain and, quote, felt the Marine Corps kept a pretty close watch on him because of his subversive activities, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0089.pt|Thornley added, quote, I think it was kind of necessary to him to believe that he was being picked on.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0090.pt|It wasn't anything extreme. I wouldn't go as far as to call it, call him a paranoid, but a definite tendency there was in that direction, I think, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0091.pt|Powers considered Oswald to be meek and easily led
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0092.pt|an, quote, individual that you would brainwash, and quite easy, but I think once he believed in something, he stood in his beliefs, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0093.pt|Powers also testified that Oswald was reserved and seemed to be, quote, somewhat the frail, little puppy in the litter, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0094.pt|He had the nickname, quote, Ozzie Rabbit, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0095.pt|Oswald read a good deal, said Powers, but, quote, he would never be reading any of the shoot-em-up westerns or anything like that.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0096.pt|Normally, it would be a good type of literature; and the one that I recall was "Leaves of Grass," by Walt Whitman, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0097.pt|According to Powers, Oswald said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0098.pt|All the Marine Corps did was to teach you to kill and after you got out of the Marines you might be good gangsters, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0099.pt|Powers believed that when Oswald arrived in Japan he acquired a girlfriend, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0100.pt|finally attaining a male status or image in his own eyes, end quote. That apparently caused Oswald to become more self-confident,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0101.pt|aggressive and even somewhat pugnacious, although Powers, quote, wouldn't say that this guy is a troublemaker, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0102.pt|Powers said, quote, now he was Oswald the man rather than Oswald the rabbit, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0103.pt|Oswald once told Powers that he didn't care if he returned to the United States at all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0104.pt|While in Japan, Oswald's new found apparent self confidence and pugnaciousness
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0105.pt|led to an incident in which he spilled a drink on one of his sergeants and abusively challenged him to fight.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0106.pt|At the court-martial hearing which followed, Oswald admitted that he had been rather drunk when the incident occurred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0107.pt|He testified that he had felt the sergeant had a grudge against him and that he had unsuccessfully sought a transfer from the sergeant's unit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0108.pt|He said that he had simply wanted to discuss the question with the sergeant and the drink had been spilled accidentally.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0109.pt|The hearing officer agreed with the latter claim but found Oswald guilty of wrongfully using provoking words and sentenced him to twenty-eight days,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0110.pt|canceling the suspension of a twenty-day sentence that Oswald had received in an earlier court-martial
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0111.pt|for possessing an unauthorized pistol with which he had accidentally shot himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0112.pt|At his own request,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0113.pt|Oswald was transferred from active duty to the Marine Corps Reserve under honorable conditions in September of nineteen fifty-nine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0114.pt|three months prior to his regularly scheduled separation date, ostensibly to care for his mother who had been injured in an accident at her work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0115.pt|He was undesirably discharged from the Marine Corps Reserve, to which he had been assigned on inactive status following his transfer from active duty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0116.pt|after it was learned that he had defected to the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0117.pt|In an attempt to have this discharge reversed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0118.pt|Oswald wrote to then Secretary of the Navy Connally on January thirty, nineteen sixty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0119.pt|stating that he would, quote, employ all means to right this gross mistake or injustice, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0120.pt|Governor Connally had just resigned to run for Governor of Texas, so he advised Oswald that he had forwarded the letter to his successor.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0121.pt|It is thus clear that Oswald knew that Governor Connally was never directly concerned with his discharge
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0122.pt|and he must have known that President Kennedy had had nothing to do with it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0123.pt|In that connection, it does not appear that Oswald ever expressed any dissatisfaction of any kind with either the President or Governor Connally.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0124.pt|Marina Oswald testified that she, quote, had never heard anything bad about Kennedy from Lee. And he never had anything against him, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0125.pt|Mrs. Oswald said that her husband did not say anything about Governor Connally after his return to the United States. She testified, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0126.pt|But while we were in Russia he spoke well of him. Lee said that when he would return to the United States he would vote for him for Governor, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0127.pt|Oswald must have already learned that the Governor could not help him with his discharge because he was no longer Secretary of the Navy, at the time he made that remark.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0128.pt|Even though Oswald apparently did not express any hostility against the President or Governor Connally,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0129.pt|he continued to be concerned about his undesirable discharge. It is clear that he thought he had been unjustly treated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0130.pt|Probably his complaint was due to the fact that his discharge was not related to anything he had done while on active duty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0131.pt|and also because he had not received any notice of the original discharge proceedings, since his whereabouts were not known.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0132.pt|He continued his efforts to reverse the discharge by petitioning the Navy Discharge Review Board,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0133.pt|which finally declined to modify the discharge and so advised him in a letter dated July nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0134.pt|Governor Connally's connection with the discharge, although indirect, caused the Commission to consider whether he might have been Oswald's real target.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0135.pt|In that connection, it should be noted that Marina Oswald testified on September six, nineteen sixty-four, that she thought her husband, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0136.pt|was shooting at Connally rather than President Kennedy, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0137.pt|In support of her conclusion Mrs. Oswald noted her husband's undesirable discharge
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0138.pt|and that she could not think of any reason why Oswald would want to kill President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0139.pt|It should be noted, however, that at the time Oswald fired the shots at the Presidential limousine the Governor occupied the seat in front of the President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0140.pt|and it would have been almost impossible for Oswald to have hit the Governor without hitting the President first.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0141.pt|Oswald could have shot the Governor as the car approached the Depository or as it was making the turn onto Elm Street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0142.pt|Once it had started down Elm Street toward the Triple Underpass, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0143.pt|the President almost completely blocked Oswald's view of the Governor prior to the time the first shot struck the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0144.pt|Oswald would have had other and more favorable opportunities to strike at the Governor than on this occasion when, as a member of the President's party,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0145.pt|he had more protection than usual. It would appear, therefore, that to the extent Oswald's undesirable discharge affected his motivation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0146.pt|it was more in terms of a general hostility against the government and its representatives rather than a grudge against any particular person.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0147.pt|Interest in Marxism
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0148.pt|As indicated above, Oswald started to read Communist literature after he and his mother left New York and moved to New Orleans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0149.pt|He told Aline Mosby, a reporter who interviewed him after he arrived in Moscow, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0150.pt|I'm a Marxist. I became interested about the age of fifteen. From an ideological viewpoint.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0151.pt|An old lady handed me a pamphlet about saving the Rosenbergs. I looked at that paper and I still remember it for some reason, I don't know why. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0152.pt|Oswald studied Marxism after he joined the Marines and his sympathies in that direction and for the Soviet Union appear to have been widely known,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0153.pt|at least in the unit to which he was assigned after his return from the Far East.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0154.pt|His interest in Russia led some of his associates to call him "comrade" or "Oswaldskovitch."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0155.pt|He always wanted to play the red pieces in chess because, as he said in an apparently humorous context,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0156.pt|he preferred the, quote, Red Army, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0157.pt|He studied the Russian language, read a Russian language newspaper and seemed interested in what was going on in the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0158.pt|Thornley, who thought Oswald had an "irrevocable conviction" that his Marxist beliefs were correct, testified, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0159.pt|I think you could sit down and argue with him for a number of years, and I don't think you could have changed his mind on that unless you knew why he believed it in the first place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0160.pt|I certainly don't. I don't think with any kind of formal argument you could have shaken that conviction. And that is why I say irrevocable.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0161.pt|It was just -- never getting back to looking at things from any other way once he had become a Marxist, whenever that was, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0162.pt|Thornley also testified about an incident which grew
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0163.pt|out of a combination of Oswald's known Marxist sympathies and George Orwell's book "nineteen eighty-four," one of Oswald's favorite books
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0164.pt|which Thornley read at Oswald's suggestion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0165.pt|Shortly after Thornley finished reading that book the Marine unit to which both men were assigned was required to take part in a Saturday morning parade
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0166.pt|in honor of some retiring noncommissioned officers, an event which they both approached with little enthusiasm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0167.pt|While waiting for the parade to start they talked briefly about "nineteen eighty-four"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0168.pt|even though Oswald seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. After a brief period of silence Oswald remarked on the stupidity of the parade
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0169.pt|and on how angry it made him, to which Thornley replied, quote, Well, comes the revolution you will change all that, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0170.pt|Thornley testified, quote, At which time he looked at me like a betrayed Caesar and screamed, screamed definitely, "Not you, too, Thornley!"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0171.pt|And I remember his voice cracked as he said this. He was definitely disturbed at what I had said and I didn't really think I had said that much.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0172.pt|I never said anything to him again and he never said anything to me again, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0173.pt|Thornley said that he had made his remark only in the context of "nineteen eighty-four"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0174.pt|and had not intended any criticism of Oswald's political views which is the way in which, Thornley thought, Oswald took his remarks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0175.pt|Lieutenant Donovan testified that Oswald thought that, quote, there were many grave injustices concerning the affairs in the international situation, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0176.pt|He recalled that Oswald had a specific interest in Latin America, particularly Cuba,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0177.pt|and expressed opposition to the Batista regime and sympathy for Castro, an attitude which, Donovan said, was, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0178.pt|not unpopular, end quote, at that time. Donovan testified
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0179.pt|that he never heard Oswald express a desire personally to take part in the elimination of injustices anywhere in the world and that he, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0180.pt|never heard him in any way, shape or form confess that he was a Communist, or that he ever thought about being a Communist, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0181.pt|Delgado testified that Oswald was, quote, a complete believer that our way of government was not quite right, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0182.pt|and believed that our Government did not have, quote, too much to offer, end quote, but was not in favor of, quote, the Communist way of life, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0183.pt|Delgado and Oswald talked more about Cuba than Russia, and sometimes imagined themselves as leaders in the Cuban Army or Government,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0184.pt|who might, quote, lead an expedition to some of these other islands and free them too, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0185.pt|Thornley also believed that Oswald's Marxist beliefs led to an extraordinary view of history under which, quote, He looked upon the eyes of future people
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0186.pt|as some kind of tribunal,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0187.pt|and he wanted to be on the winning side so that ten thousand years from-now people would look in the history books and say, "Well, this man was ahead of his time."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0188.pt|The eyes of the future became the eyes of God.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0189.pt|He was concerned with his image in history and I do think that is why he chose the particular method of defecting he chose and did it in the way he did.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0190.pt|It got him in the newspapers. It did broadcast his name out, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0191.pt|Thornley thought that Oswald not only wanted a place in history but also wanted to live comfortably in the present.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0192.pt|He testified that if Oswald could not have that, quote, degree of physical comfort that he expected or sought,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0193.pt|I think he would then throw himself entirely on the other thing he also wanted, which was the image in history.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0194.pt|I think he wanted both if he could have them. If he didn't, he wanted to die with the knowledge that, or with the idea that he was somebody, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0195.pt|Oswald's interest in Marxism led some people to avoid him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0196.pt|even though as his wife suggested, that interest may have been motivated by a desire to gain attention. He used his Marxist and associated activities
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0197.pt|as excuses for his difficulties in getting along in the world, which were usually caused by entirely different factors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0198.pt|His use of those excuses to present himself to the world as a person who was being unfairly treated
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0199.pt|is shown most clearly by his employment relations after his return from the Soviet Union. Of course, he made his real problems worse to the extent
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0200.pt|that his use of those excuses prevented him from discovering the real reasons for and attempting to overcome his difficulties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0201.pt|Of greater importance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0202.pt|Oswald's commitment to Marxism contributed to the decisions which led him to defect to the Soviet Union in nineteen fifty-nine, and later
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ041-0203.pt|to engage in activities on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in the summer of nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0002.pt|The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Chapter seven. Lee Harvey Oswald:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0003.pt|Background and Possible Motives, Part three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0004.pt|Defection to the Soviet Union
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0005.pt|After Oswald left the Marine Corps in September of nineteen fifty-nine, ostensibly to care for his mother,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0006.pt|he almost immediately left for the Soviet Union where he attempted to renounce his citizenship.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0007.pt|At the age of nineteen, Oswald thus committed an act which was the most striking indication he had yet given
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0008.pt|of his willingness to act on his beliefs in quite extraordinary ways.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0009.pt|While his defection resulted in part from Oswald's commitment to Marxism,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0010.pt|it appears that personal and psychological factors were also involved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0011.pt|On August seventeen, nineteen sixty-three, Oswald told Mr. William Stuckey,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0012.pt|who had arranged a radio debate on Oswald's activities on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0013.pt|that while he had begun to read Marx and Engels at the age of fifteen, the conclusive thing that made him decide that Marxism was the answer
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0014.pt|was his service in Japan.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0015.pt|He said living conditions over there convinced him something was wrong with the system, and that possibly Marxism was the answer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0016.pt|He said it was in Japan that he made up his mind to go to Russia
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0017.pt|and see for himself how a revolutionary society operates, a Marxist society.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0018.pt|On the other hand, at least one person who knew Oswald after his return thought that his defection had a more personal and psychological basis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0019.pt|The validity of the latter observation is borne out by some of the things Oswald wrote in connection with his defection
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0020.pt|indicating that his motivation was at least in part a personal one. On November twenty-six, nineteen fifty-nine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0021.pt|shortly after he arrived in the Soviet Union, and probably before Soviet authorities had given him permission to stay indefinitely,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0022.pt|he wrote to his brother Robert that the Soviet Union was a country which, quote, I have always considered to be my own, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0023.pt|and that he went there, quote, only to find freedom. I could never have been personally happy in the U.S., end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0024.pt|He wrote in another letter that he would, quote, never return to the United States which is a country I hate, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0025.pt|His idea that he was to find, quote, freedom, end quote, in the Soviet Union was to be rudely shattered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0026.pt|Whatever Oswald's reasons for going to the Soviet Union might have been, however, there can be little doubt that his desire to go was quite strong.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0027.pt|In addition to studying the Russian language while he was in the Marines,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0028.pt|Oswald had managed to save enough money to cover the expenses of his forthcoming trip.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0029.pt|While there is no proof that he saved fifteen hundred dollars, as he claimed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0030.pt|it would have taken considerable discipline to save whatever amount was required to finance his defection out of the salary of a low ranking enlisted man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0031.pt|The extent of Oswald's desire to go to the Soviet Union
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0032.pt|and of his initial commitment to that country can best be understood, however, in the context
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0033.pt|of his concomitant hatred of the United States, which was most clearly expressed in his November twenty-six,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0035.pt|and communist's would like to see the present capitalist government of the U.S. overthrown, end quote, Oswald stated
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0036.pt|that that government supported an economic system, quote, which exploits all its workers, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0037.pt|and under which, quote, art, culture and the sprit of man are subjected to commercial enterprising,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0038.pt|and religion and education are used as a tool to suppress what would otherwise be a population questioning their government's unfair
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0039.pt|economic system and plans for war, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0040.pt|He complained in his letter about segregation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0041.pt|unemployment, automation, and the use of military forces to suppress other populations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0042.pt|Asking his brother why he supported the American Government and what ideals he put forward, Oswald wrote, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0043.pt|Ask me and I will tell you I fight for communism.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0044.pt|I will not say your grandchildren will live under communism, look for yourself at history, look at a world map! America is a dicing country,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0045.pt|I do not wish to be a part of it, nor do I ever again wish to be used as a tool in its military aggressions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0046.pt|This should answer your question, and also give you a glimpse of my way of thinking. So you speak of advantages. Do you think that is why I am here?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0047.pt|For personal, material advantages? Happiness is not based on oneself, it does not consist of a small home, of taking and getting,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0048.pt|Happiness is taking part in the struggle, where there is no borderline between one's own personal world, and the world in general.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0049.pt|I never believed I would find more material advantages at this stage of development in the Soviet Union than I might of had in the U.S.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0050.pt|I have been a pro-communist for years and yet I have never met a communist, instead I kept silent and observed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0051.pt|and what I observed plus my Marxist learning brought me here to the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0052.pt|I have always considered this country to be my own. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0053.pt|Responding to Robert's statement that he had not "renounced" him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0054.pt|Oswald told his brother, quote, on what terms I want this arrangement, end quote. He advised Robert that: one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0055.pt|In the event of war I would kill any American who put a uniform on in defense of the American government -- any American.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0056.pt|two. That in my own mind I have no attachments of any kind in the U.S.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0057.pt|three. That I want to, and I shall, live a normal happy and peaceful life here in the Soviet Union for the rest of my life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0058.pt|That my mother and you are (in spite of what the newspaper said) not objects of affection, but only examples of workers in the U.S.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0059.pt|Despite this commitment to the Soviet Union
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0060.pt|Oswald met disappointments there just as he had in the past. At the outset the Soviets told him that he could not remain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0061.pt|It seems that Oswald immediately attempted suicide -- a striking indication of how much he desired to remain in the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0062.pt|It shows how willing he was to act dramatically and decisively when he faced an emotional crisis
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0063.pt|with few readily available alternatives at hand. He was shocked to find that the Soviet Union did not accept him with open arms.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0064.pt|The entry in his self-styled, quote, Historic Diary, end quote, for October twenty-one, nineteen fifty-nine, reports, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0065.pt|I am shocked! My dreams! I have waited for two years to be accepted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0066.pt|My fondest dreams are shattered because of a petty official. I decide to end it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0067.pt|Soak fist in cold water to numb the pain. Then slash my left wrist. Than plunge wrist into bathtub of hot water.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0068.pt|Somewhere, a violin plays, as I watch my life whirl away.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0069.pt|I think to myself "How easy to Die" and "A Sweet Death, (to violins), end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0070.pt|Oswald was discovered in time to thwart his attempt at suicide.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0071.pt|He was taken to a hospital in Moscow where he was kept until October twenty-eight, nineteen fifty-nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0072.pt|Still intent, however, on staying in the Soviet Union,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0073.pt|Oswald went on October thirty-one, to the American Embassy to renounce his U.S. citizenship.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0074.pt|Mr. Richard E. Snyder, then Second Secretary and senior consular official at the Embassy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0075.pt|testified that Oswald was extremely sure of himself and seemed, quote, to know what his mission was.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0076.pt|He took charge, in a sense, of the conversation right from the beginning, end quote. He presented the following signed note:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0077.pt|Quote, I Lee Harvey Oswald do hereby request that my present citizenship in the United States of America, be revoked.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0078.pt|I have entered the Soviet Union for the express purpose of applying for citizenship in the Soviet Union, through the means of naturalization.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0079.pt|My request for citizenship is now pending before the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. I take these steps for political reasons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0080.pt|My request for the revoking of my American citizenship
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0081.pt|is made only after the longest and most serious considerations. I affirm that my allegiance is to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0082.pt|End quote. As his, quote, principal reason, end quote, for renouncing his citizenship
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0083.pt|Oswald stated, quote, I am a Marxist, end quote. He also alluded to hardships endured by his mother as a worker,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0084.pt|referring to them as experiences that he did not intend to have himself, even though he stated that he had never held a civilian job.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0085.pt|He said that his Marine service in Okinawa and elsewhere had given him, quote, a chance to observe American imperialism, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0086.pt|but he also displayed some sensitivity at not having reached a higher rank in the Marine Corps.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0087.pt|He stated that he had volunteered to give Soviet officials any information that he had concerning Marine Corps operations, and intimated
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0088.pt|that he might know something of special interest. Oswald's "Historic Diary" describes the event in part as follows, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0089.pt|I leave Embassy, elated at this showdown, returning to my hotel I feel now my energies are not spent in vain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0090.pt|I'm sure Russians will accept me after this sign of my faith in them, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0091.pt|The Soviet authorities finally permitted Oswald to remain in their country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0092.pt|No evidence has been found that they used him for any particular propaganda or other political or informational purposes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0093.pt|They sent him to Minsk to work in a radio and television factory as a metal worker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0094.pt|The Soviet authorities denied Oswald permission
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0095.pt|to attend a university in Moscow, but they gave him a monthly allowance of seven hundred rubles a month
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0096.pt|(old exchange rate) in addition to his factory salary of approximately equal amount
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0097.pt|and considerably better living quarters than those accorded to Soviet citizens of equal age and station.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0098.pt|The subsidy, apparently similar to those sometimes given to foreigners allowed to remain in the Soviet Union, together with his salary,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0099.pt|gave Oswald an income which he said approximated that of the director of the factory in which he worked.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0100.pt|Even though he received more money and better living quarters than other Russians doing similar work,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0101.pt|he envied his wife's uncle, a colonel in the MVD, because of the larger apartment in which he lived.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0102.pt|Reminiscent of his attitude toward his superiors in the Marine Corps,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0103.pt|Oswald apparently resented the exercise of authority over him and the better treatment afforded to Communist Party officials.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0104.pt|After he returned to the United States
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0105.pt|he took the position that the Communist Party officials in the Soviet Union were opportunists who were betraying their positions for personal gain.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0106.pt|He is reported to have expressed the conclusion that they had, quote, fat stinking politicians over there just like we have over here, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0107.pt|Oswald apparently continued to have personal difficulties while he was in Minsk.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0108.pt|Although Marina Oswald told the Commission that her husband had good personal relationships in the Soviet Union, Katherine Ford,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0109.pt|one of the members of the Russian community in Dallas with which the Oswalds became acquainted upon their arrival in the United States,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0110.pt|stated that Mrs. Oswald told her everybody in Russia, quote, hated him, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0111.pt|Jeanne De Mohrenschildt, another member of that group,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0112.pt|said that Oswald told her that he had returned because, quote, I didn't find what I was looking for, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0113.pt|George De Mohrenschildt thought that Oswald must have become disgusted with life in the Soviet Union as the novelty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0114.pt|of the presence of an American wore off and he began to be less the center of attention.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0115.pt|The best description of Oswald's state of mind, however, is set forth in his own "Historic Diary."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0116.pt|Under the entry for May one, nineteen sixty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0117.pt|he noted that one of his acquaintances, quote, relates many things I do not know about the U.S.S.R.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0118.pt|I begin to feel uneasy inside, its true! End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0119.pt|Under the entry for August to September of that year he wrote, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0120.pt|As my Russian improves I become increasingly conscious of just what sort of a society I live in.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0121.pt|Mass gymnastics, compulsory afterwork meeting, usually political information meeting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0122.pt|Compulsory attendance at lectures and the sending of the entire shop collective (except me) to pick potatoes on a Sunday, at a state collective farm
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0123.pt|A "patriotic duty" to bring in the harvest. The opinions of the workers (unvoiced) are that it's a great pain in the neck:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0124.pt|they don't seem to be especially enthusiastic about any of the "collective" duties, a natural feeling.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0125.pt|I am increasingly aware of the presence, in all thing, of Lebizen, shop party secretary, fat, fortyish, and jovial on the outside.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0126.pt|He is a no-nonsense party regular.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0127.pt|Finally, the entry of January four to thirty-one of nineteen sixty-one, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0128.pt|I am stating to reconsider my desire about staying. The work is drab. The money I get has nowhere to be spent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0129.pt|No night clubs or bowling alleys, no places of recreation except the trade union dances. I have had enough.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0130.pt|Shortly thereafter, less than eighteen months after his defection, about six weeks before he met Marina Prusakova,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0131.pt|Oswald opened negotiations with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow looking toward his return to the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0132.pt|Return to the United States. In view of the intensity of his earlier commitment to the Soviet Union,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0133.pt|a great change must have occurred in Oswald's thinking to induce him to return to the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0134.pt|The psychological effects of that change must have been highly unsettling. It should be remembered
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0135.pt|that he was not yet twenty years old when he went to the Soviet Union with such high hopes and not quite twenty-three when he returned bitterly disappointed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0136.pt|His attempt to renounce his citizenship had been an open expression of hostility against the United States and a profound rejection of his early life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0137.pt|The dramatic break with society in America now had to be undone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0138.pt|His return to the United States publicly testified to the utter failure of what had been the most important act of his life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0139.pt|Marina Oswald confirmed the fact that her husband was experiencing psychological difficulties at the time of his return.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0140.pt|She said that, quote, immediately after coming to the United States, Lee changed. I did not know him as such a man in Russia, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0141.pt|She added that while he helped her as he had done before, he became more of a recluse, that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0142.pt|He was very irritable, sometimes for a trifle, end quote, and that, quote, Lee was very unrestrained and very explosive, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0143.pt|during the period from November nineteen, nineteen sixty-two to March of nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0144.pt|After the assassination she wrote that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0145.pt|In general, our family life began to deteriorate after we arrived in America.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0146.pt|Lee was always hot-tempered, and now this trait of character more and more prevented us from living together in harmony.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0147.pt|Lee became very irritable, and sometimes some completely trivial thing would drive him into a rage.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0148.pt|I myself do not have a particularly quiet disposition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0149.pt|but I had to change my character a great deal in order to maintain a more or less peaceful family life. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0150.pt|Marina Oswald's judgment of her husband's state of mind may be substantiated by comparing material which he wrote in the Soviet Union
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0151.pt|with what he wrote while on the way back to the United States and after his return.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0152.pt|While in the Soviet Union he wrote his longest and clearest piece of work, "The Collective."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0153.pt|This was a fairly coherent description of life in that country, basically centered around the radio and television factory in which he worked.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0154.pt|While it was apparently intended for publication in the United States, and is in many respects critical of certain aspects of life in the Soviet Union,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0155.pt|it appears to be the work of a fairly well organized person.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0156.pt|Oswald prefaced his manuscript with a short autobiographical sketch which reads in part as follows, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0157.pt|Lee Harvey Oswald was born in October nineteen thirty-nine in New Orleans, Louisiana, the son of a Insurance Salesmen whose early death
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0158.pt|left a far mean streak of independence brought on by neglect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0159.pt|entering the US Marine corp at seventeen, this streak of independence was strengthened by exotic journeys to Japan,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0160.pt|the Philippines, and the scores of odd islands in the Pacific.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0161.pt|Immediately after serving out his three years in the U.S. Marine Corps, he abandoned his American life to seek a new life in the USSR.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0162.pt|Full of optimism and hope, he stood in Red Square in the Fall of nineteen fifty-nine, vowing to see his chosen course through,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0163.pt|After, however, two years and a lot of growing up, I decided to return to the USA.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0164.pt|"The Collective" contrasts sharply with material which Oswald seems to have written after he left the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0165.pt|which appears to be more an expression of his own psychological condition than of a reasoned analysis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0166.pt|The latter material expresses great hostility to both communism and capitalism. He wrote, that to a person knowing both of those systems, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0167.pt|There can be no mediation between those systems as they exist today, and that person
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0168.pt|He must be opposed to their basic foundations and representatives, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0169.pt|And yet, it is immature to take the sort of attitude which says, quote, a curse on both your houses! End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0170.pt|There are two great representatives of power in the world,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0171.pt|simply expressed, the left and right, and their offspring factions and concerns. Any practical attempt at one alternative
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0172.pt|must have as its nucleus the traditional ideological best of both systems, and yet be utterly opposed to both systems.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0173.pt|Such an alternative was to be opposed both to capitalism and communism because, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0174.pt|No man, having known, having lived, under the Russian Communist and American capitalist system,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0175.pt|could possibly make a choice between them, there is no choice,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0176.pt|One offers oppression, the other poverty. Both offer imperialistic injustice, tinted with two brands of slavery, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0177.pt|Oswald actually did attempt to formulate such an alternative which he planned to, quote, put forward, end quote, himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0178.pt|He thought the new alternative would have its best chance to be accepted after, quote, conflict between the two world systems leaves the world country
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0179.pt|without defense or foundation of government, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0180.pt|after which the survivors would, quote, seek an alternative opposed to those systems which have brought them misery, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0181.pt|Oswald realized that, quote, their thinking and education will be steeped in the traditions of those systems
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0182.pt|and they would never accept a new order complete beyond their understanding, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0183.pt|As a result he thought it would be, quote, necessary to oppose the old systems but at the same time support their cherished traditions, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0184.pt|Expanding on his ideas on how his alternative to communism and capitalism might be introduced, he wrote of a, quote, readily foreseeable
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0185.pt|economic, political, or military crisis, internal or external,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0186.pt|which will bring about the final destruction of the capitalist system, and indicated that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0187.pt|preparation in a special party could safeguard an independent course of action after the debacle, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0188.pt|which would achieve the goal, which was, quote, the emplacement of a separate, democratic, pure communist society
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0189.pt|but one with union communes,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0190.pt|democratic socializing of production, and without regard to the twisting apart of Marxism Marxist Communism by other powers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0191.pt|While, quote, resourcefulness and patient working towards the aforesaid goals
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0192.pt|are preferred rather than loud and useless manifestations of protest, end quote, Oswald went on to note, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0193.pt|But these preferred tactics now may prove to be too limited in the near future,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0194.pt|they should not be confused with slowness, indecision or fear. Only the intellectually fearless could even be remotely attracted to our doctrine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0195.pt|and yet this doctrine requires the utmost, utmost restraint, a state of being in itself majestic in power, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0196.pt|Oswald's decided rejection of both capitalism and communism
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0197.pt|seemed to place him in a situation in which he could not live with satisfaction either in the United States or in the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0198.pt|The discussion above has already set forth examples of his expression of hatred for the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0199.pt|He also expressed hatred of the Soviet Union and of the Communist Party, U.S.A.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0200.pt|even though he later referred to the latter as, quote, trusted long time fighters for progress, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0201.pt|He wrote, quote, The Communist Party of the United States has betrayed itself!
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0202.pt|It has turned itself into the traditional lever of a foreign power to overthrow the government of the United States;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0203.pt|not in the name of freedom or high ideals,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0204.pt|but in servile conformity to the wishes of the Soviet Union and in anticipation of Soviet Russia's complete domination of the American continent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0205.pt|There can be no sympathy for those who have turned the idea of communism into a vile curse to Western man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0206.pt|The Soviets have committed crimes unsurpassed even by their early day capitalist counterparts, the imprisonment of their own peoples,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0207.pt|with the mass extermination so typical of Stalin, and the individual suppression and regimentation under Khrushchev.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0208.pt|The deportations, the purposeful curtailment of diet in the consumer slighted population of Russia,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0209.pt|the murder of history, the prostitution of art and culture, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0210.pt|A suggestion that Oswald hated more than just capitalism and communism
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0211.pt|is provided by the following, which was apparently written either on the ship coming back, or after his return from the Soviet Union, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0212.pt|I have often wondered why it is that the communist, anarchist capitalist, and even the fascist and anarchist elements in American,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0213.pt|always profess patriotism toward the land and the people, if not the government; although their ideals movements must surely lead
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0214.pt|to the bitter destruction of all and everything. I am quite sure these people must hate not only the government
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0215.pt|but our, the people, culture, traditions, heritage, and very people itself, and yet
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0216.pt|they stand up and piously pronounce themselves patriots, displaying their war medals that they gained in conflicts long past between themselves.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0217.pt|I wonder what would happen it somebody was to stand up and say he was utterly opposed not only to the governments, but to the people,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0218.pt|to the entire land and complete foundations of his society, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0219.pt|Oswald demonstrated his thinking in connection with his return to the United States by preparing two sets of identical questions of the type which he might have thought
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0220.pt|he would be asked at a press conference when he returned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0221.pt|With either great ambivalence, or cold calculation he prepared completely different answers to the same questions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0222.pt|Judged by his other statements and writings, however, he appears to have indicated his true feelings in the set of answers first presented
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0223.pt|and to have stated in the second what he thought would be least harmful to him as he resumed life in the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0224.pt|For example, in response to his questions about his decision to go to the Soviet Union, his first draft answered, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0225.pt|as a mark of discuss and protest against American political policies in foreign countries, my personal sign of discontent
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0226.pt|and horror at the misguided line of reasoning of the United States Government, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0227.pt|His second answer was that he, quote, went as a citizen of the U.S. (as a tourist) residing in a foreign country which I have a perfect right to do.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0228.pt|I went there to see the land, the people and how their system works, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0229.pt|To the question of, quote, Are you a Communist? End quote, he first answered "Yes,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0230.pt|basically, although I hate the USSR and socialist system I still think marxism can work under different circumstances, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0231.pt|His second answer to this question was, quote, No of course not,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0232.pt|I have never even know a communist, outside of the ones in the USSR but you can't help that, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0233.pt|His first set of questions and answers indicated his belief that there were no outstanding differences between the Soviet Union and the United States,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0234.pt|quote, except in the US, the living standard is a little higher.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0235.pt|Freedoms are about the same. Medical aid and the educational system in the USSR is better than in the USA, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0236.pt|In the second simulated transcript which ended with the statement, quote, Newspapers thank you, sir. You are a real patriot! End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0237.pt|He apparently concluded that the United States offered, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0238.pt|freedom of speech, travel outspoken opposition to unpopular policies, freedom to believe in god, end quote, while the Soviet Union did not.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0239.pt|Despite the hatred that Oswald expressed toward the Soviet Union after his residence there,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0240.pt|he continued to be interested in that country after he returned to the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0241.pt|Soon after his arrival he wrote to the Soviet Embassy in Washington
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0242.pt|requesting information on how to subscribe to Russian newspapers and magazines and asked for, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0244.pt|Oswald subsequently did subscribe to several Soviet journals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0245.pt|While Marina Oswald tried to obtain permission to return to the Soviet Union, she testified that she did so at her husband's insistence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0246.pt|In July of nineteen sixty-three, Oswald also requested the Soviet Union to provide a visa for his return to that country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0247.pt|In August of nineteen sixty-three, he gave the New Orleans police as a reason for refusing to permit his family to learn English,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0248.pt|that, quote, he hated America and he did not want them to become Americanized, and that his plans were to go back to Russia, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0249.pt|Even though his primary purpose probably was to get to Cuba,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0250.pt|He sought an immediate grant of visa on his trip to Mexico City in late September of nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ042-0251.pt|He also inquired about visas for himself and his wife
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0002.pt|The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Chapter seven. Lee Harvey Oswald:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0003.pt|Background and Possible Motives, Part four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0004.pt|Personal Relations
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0005.pt|Apart from his relatives, Oswald had no friends or close associates in Texas when he returned there in June of nineteen sixty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0006.pt|and he did not establish any close friendships or associations, although it appears that he came to respect George De Mohrenschildt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0007.pt|Somewhat of a nonconformist,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0008.pt|De Mohrenschildt was a peripheral member of the so-called Russian community, with which Oswald made contact through Mr. Peter Gregory,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0009.pt|a Russian-speaking petroleum engineer whom Oswald met as a result of his contact with the Texas Employment Commission office in Fort Worth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0010.pt|Some of the members of that group saw a good deal of the Oswalds through the fall of nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0011.pt|and attempted to help Mrs. Oswald particularly, in various ways. In general, Oswald did not like the members of the Russian community.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0012.pt|In fact, his relations with some of them, particularly George Bouhe, became quite hostile.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0013.pt|Part of the problem resulted from the fact that, as Jeanne De Mohrenschildt testified,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0014.pt|Oswald was, quote, very, very disagreeable and disappointed, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0015.pt|He also expressed considerable resentment at the help given to his wife by her Russian-American friends.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0016.pt|Jeanne De Mohrenschildt said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0017.pt|Marina had a hundred dresses given to her, and he objected to that lavish help, because Marina was throwing it into his face.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0018.pt|He was offensive with the people. And I can understand why, because that hurt him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0019.pt|He could never give her what the people were showering on her no matter how hard he worked -- and he worked very hard, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0020.pt|The relations between Oswald and his wife became such that Bouhe wanted to "liberate" her from Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0021.pt|While the exact sequence of events is not clear because of conflicting testimony,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0022.pt|it appears that De Mohrenschildt and his wife actually went to Oswald's apartment early in November of nineteen sixty-two
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0023.pt|and helped to move the personal effects of Marina Oswald and the baby.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0024.pt|Even though it appears that they may have left Oswald a few days before, it seems that he resisted the move as best he could.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0025.pt|He even threatened to tear up his wife's dresses and break all the baby things. According to De Mohrenschildt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0026.pt|Oswald submitted to the inevitable, presumably because he was, quote, small, you know, and he was rather a puny individual, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0027.pt|De Mohrenschildt said that the whole affair made him nervous since he was, quote, interfering in other people's affairs, after all, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0028.pt|Oswald attempted to get his wife to come back and, over Bouhe's protest, De Mohrenschildt finally told him where she was.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0029.pt|De Mohrenschildt admitted that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0030.pt|If somebody did that to me, a lousy trick like that, to take my wife away, and all the furniture, I would be mad as hell, too.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0031.pt|I am surprised that he didn't do something worse, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0032.pt|After about a two-week separation, Marina Oswald returned to her husband.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0033.pt|Bouhe thoroughly disapproved of this and as a result almost all communication between the Oswalds and members of the Russian community ceased.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0034.pt|Contacts with De Mohrenschildt and his wife did continue and they saw the Oswalds occasionally until the spring of nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0035.pt|Shortly after his return from the Soviet Union, Oswald severed all relations with his mother;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0036.pt|he did not see his brother Robert from Thanksgiving of nineteen sixty-two until November twenty-three, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0037.pt|At the time of his defection, Oswald had said that neither his brother, Robert,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0038.pt|nor his mother were objects of his affection, quote, but only examples of workers in the U.S., end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0039.pt|He also indicated to officials at the American Embassy in Moscow that his defection was motivated at least in part
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0040.pt|by so-called exploitation of his mother by the capitalist system.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0041.pt|Consistent with this attitude
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0042.pt|He first told his wife that he did not have a mother, but later admitted that he did but that, quote, he didn't love her very much, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0043.pt|When they arrived from the Soviet Union, Oswald and his family lived at first with his brother Robert.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0044.pt|The latter testified that they, quote, were just together again, end quote, as if his brother, quote, had not been to Russia, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0045.pt|He also said that he and his family got along well with Marina Oswald and enjoyed showing her American things.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0046.pt|After about a month with his brother,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0047.pt|Oswald and his family lived for a brief period with his mother at her urging, but Oswald soon decided to move out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0048.pt|Marguerite Oswald visited her son and his family at the first apartment which he rented after his return, and tried to help them get settled there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0049.pt|After she had bought some clothes for Marina Oswald and a highchair for the baby, Oswald emphatically told her to stop.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0050.pt|As Marguerite Oswald testified, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0051.pt|he strongly put me in my place about buying things for his wife that he himself could not buy, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0052.pt|Oswald objected to his mother visiting the apartment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0053.pt|and became quite incensed with his wife when she would open the door for her in spite of his instructions to the contrary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0054.pt|Oswald moved to Dallas on about October eight, nineteen sixty-two, without telling his mother where he was going.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0055.pt|He never saw or communicated with her in any way again until she came to see him after the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0056.pt|Even though Oswald cut off relations with his mother,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0057.pt|he attempted for the first time to learn something about his family background when he went to New Orleans in April of nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0058.pt|He visited some of his father's elderly relatives and the cemetery where his father was buried in an effort to develop the facts of his genealogy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0059.pt|While it does not appear that he established any new relationships as a result of his investigation, he did obtain a large picture of his father
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0060.pt|from one of the elderly relatives with whom he spoke. Oswald's interest in such things presents a sharp contrast with his attitude
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0061.pt|at the time of his defection, when he evidenced no interest in his father and hardly mentioned him, even when questioned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0062.pt|Oswald's defection, his interest in the Soviet Union, and his activities on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0063.pt|not only caused him difficulties in his employment relations, but they also provided him with excuses for employment failures
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0064.pt|which were largely of his own making.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0065.pt|Oswald experienced some difficulty finding employment. Perhaps this was partially because of his lack of any specific skill or training.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0066.pt|Some of his acquaintances, feeling that Oswald tried to impress people with the fact that he had lived and worked in Russia, were led to the belief
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0067.pt|that his employment difficulties were caused by his telling prospective employers that he had last been employed in Minsk.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0068.pt|While he might have expected difficulty from such an approach, in fact
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0069.pt|the evidence indicates that Oswald usually told his prospective employers and employment counselors that he had recently been discharged from the Marine Corps.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0070.pt|Oswald obtained a job in July of nineteen sixty-two as a sheet metal worker with a company in Fort Worth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0071.pt|His performance for that company was satisfactory.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0072.pt|Even though he told his wife that he had been fired, he voluntarily left on October eight, nineteen sixty-two, and moved to Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0073.pt|On October nine, nineteen sixty-two he went to the Dallas office of the Texas Employment Commission
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0074.pt|where he expressed a reluctance to work in the industrial field.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0075.pt|He indicated an interest in writing. An employment counselor testified, on the basis of a general aptitude test Oswald had taken,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0076.pt|that he had some aptitude in that area, quote, because the verbal score is high and the clerical score is high, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0077.pt|While that counselor found that he was qualified to handle many different types of jobs,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0078.pt|because of his need for immediate employment she attempted to obtain for him any job that was available at the time. Oswald made qualifying marks
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0079.pt|in nineteen of twenty-three categories included on the general aptitude examination and scored one hundred twenty-seven on the verbal test, as compared
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0080.pt|with fifty percent of the people taking it who score less than one hundred.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0081.pt|The counselor testified that there was some indication that Oswald was capable of doing college work
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0082.pt|and noted that Oswald's verbal and clerical potential was, quote, outstanding, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0083.pt|Employment Commission records concerning Oswald stated, quote, Well-groomed and spoken,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0084.pt|business suit, alert replies -- Expresses self extremely well, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0085.pt|Oswald said that he hoped eventually to develop qualifications for employment as a junior executive
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0086.pt|through a work-study program at a local college.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0087.pt|He indicated, however, that he would have to delay that program because of his immediate financial needs and responsibilities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0088.pt|On October eleven, nineteen sixty-two, the Employment Commission referred Oswald
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0089.pt|to a commercial advertising photography firm in Dallas, where he was employed as a trainee starting October twelve, nineteen sixty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0090.pt|Even though Oswald indicated that he liked photographic work, his employer found that he was not an efficient worker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0091.pt|He was not able to produce photographic work
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0092.pt|which adhered with sufficient precision to the job specifications and as a result too much of his work had to be redone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0093.pt|He also had difficulty in working with the other employees.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0094.pt|This was at least in part because of the close physical confines in which some of the work had to be done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0095.pt|He did not seem to be able to make the accommodations necessary when people work under such conditions and as a result
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0096.pt|became involved in conflicts, some of which were fairly heated, with his fellow employees.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0097.pt|In February or March of nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0098.pt|it began to appear that Oswald was having considerable difficulty doing accurate work and in getting along with the other employees.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0099.pt|It appears that his discharge was hastened by the fact that he brought a Russian language newspaper to work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0100.pt|It is not possible to tell whether Oswald did this to provide an excuse for his eventual discharge,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0101.pt|or whether he brought the Russian language newspaper with him one day after his other difficulties became clear.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0102.pt|It is possible that his immediate supervisor noticed the newspaper at that time because his attention had otherwise been drawn more directly to Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0103.pt|In any event, Oswald was discharged on April six, nineteen sixty-three, ostensibly because of his inefficiency and difficult personality.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0104.pt|His supervisor admitted, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0105.pt|that while he did not fire Oswald because of the newspaper incident or even weigh it heavily in his decision, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0106.pt|it didn't do his case any good, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0107.pt|Upon moving to New Orleans on April twenty-four, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0108.pt|Oswald's employment problems became more difficult. He left his wife and child at the home of a friend, Mrs. Ruth Paine, of Irving, Texas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0109.pt|In New Orleans he obtained work as a greaser and oiler of coffee processing machines for the William B. Reily Co.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0110.pt|beginning May ten, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0111.pt|After securing this job and an apartment, Oswald asked his wife to join him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0112.pt|Mrs. Paine brought Oswald's family to New Orleans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0113.pt|Refusing to admit that he could only get work as a greaser,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0114.pt|Oswald told his wife and Mrs. Paine that he was working as a commercial photographer.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0115.pt|He lost his job on July nineteen, nineteen sixty-three, because his work was not satisfactory
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0116.pt|and because he spent too much time loitering in the garage next door, where he read rifle and hunting magazines.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0117.pt|Oswald apparently concluded that his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities were not related to his discharge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0118.pt|The correctness of that conclusion is supported by the fact that he does not seem to have been publicly identified with that organization until August nine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0119.pt|nineteen sixty-three, almost a month after he lost his job.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0120.pt|His Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities, however, made it more difficult for him to obtain other employment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0121.pt|A placement interviewer of the Louisiana Department of Labor
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0122.pt|who had previously interviewed Oswald, saw him on television and heard a radio debate in which he engaged on August twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0123.pt|He consulted with his supervisor and, quote, it was determined that we should not undertake to furnish employment references for him, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0124.pt|Ironically, he failed to get a job in another photographic firm after his return to Dallas in October of nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0125.pt|because the president of the photographic firm for which he had previously worked
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0126.pt|told the prospective employer that Oswald was, quote, kinda peculiar sometimes and that he had some knowledge of the Russian language, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0127.pt|and that he, quote, may be a damn Communist. I can't tell you. If I was you, I wouldn't hire him, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0128.pt|The plant superintendent of the new firm testified that, one of the employees of the old firm, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0129.pt|implied that Oswald's fellow employees did not like him because he was propagandizing
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0130.pt|and had been seen reading a foreign newspaper, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0131.pt|As a result Oswald was not hired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0132.pt|He subsequently found a job with the Texas School Book Depository for which he performed his duties satisfactorily.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0133.pt|Attack on General Walker
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0134.pt|The Commission has concluded that on April ten, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0135.pt|Oswald shot at Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Resigned, U.S. Army),
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0136.pt|demonstrating once again his propensity to act dramatically and, in this instance violently, in furtherance of his beliefs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0137.pt|The shooting occurred two weeks before Oswald moved to New Orleans and a few days after he had been discharged by the photographic firm.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0138.pt|As indicated in chapter four, Oswald had been planning his attack on General Walker for at least one and perhaps as much as two months.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0139.pt|He outlined his plans in a notebook and studied them at considerable length before his attack.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0140.pt|He also studied Dallas bus schedules to prepare for his later use of buses to travel to and from General Walker's house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0141.pt|Sometime after March twenty-seven, but according to Marina Oswald, prior to April ten, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0142.pt|Oswald posed for two pictures
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0143.pt|with his recently acquired rifle and pistol, a copy of the March twenty-four, nineteen sixty-three, issue of the Worker,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0144.pt|and the March eleven, nineteen sixty-three, issue of the Militant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0145.pt|He told his wife that he wanted to send the pictures to the Militant and he also asked her to keep one of the pictures for his daughter, June.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0146.pt|Following his unsuccessful attack on Walker, Oswald returned home.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0147.pt|He had left a note for his wife telling her what to do in case he were apprehended, as well as his notebook and the pictures of himself holding the rifle.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0148.pt|She testified that she was agitated because she had found the note in Oswald's room,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0149.pt|where she had gone, contrary to his instructions, after she became, worried about his absence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0150.pt|She indicated that she had no advance knowledge of Oswald's plans,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0151.pt|that she became quite angry when Oswald told her what he had done, and that she made him promise never to repeat such a performance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0152.pt|She said that she kept the note to use against him, quote, if something like that should be repeated again, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0153.pt|When asked if Oswald requested the note back she testified that, quote, He forgot about it. But apparently
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0154.pt|after he thought that what he had written in his book might be proof against him, and he destroyed it (the book), end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0155.pt|She later gave the following testimony. Question:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0156.pt|After he brought the rifle home, then, he showed you the book?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0157.pt|Answer: Yes. Question: And you said it was not a good idea to keep this book? Answer: Yes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0158.pt|Question: And then he burned the book?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0159.pt|Answer: Yes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0160.pt|Question: Did you ask him why he had not destroyed the book before he actually went to shoot General Walker?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0161.pt|Answer: It never came to me, myself, to ask him that question.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0162.pt|Marina Oswald's testimony indicates that her husband was not particularly concerned about his continued possession of the most incriminating sort of evidence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0163.pt|If he had been successful and had been apprehended even for routine questioning, his apartment would undoubtedly have been searched,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0164.pt|and his role would have been made clear by the evidence which he had left behind.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0165.pt|Leaving the note and picture as he did would seem to indicate that he had considered the possibility of capture.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0166.pt|Possibly he might have wanted to be caught, and wanted his involvement made clear if he was in fact apprehended.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0167.pt|Even after his wife told him to destroy the notebook
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0168.pt|he removed at least some of the pictures which had been pasted in it and saved them among his effects, where they were found after the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0169.pt|His behavior was entirely consistent with his wife's testimony that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0170.pt|I asked him what for he was making all these entries in the book and he answered that he wanted to leave a complete record so that all the details would be in it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0171.pt|I am guessing that perhaps he did it to appear to be a brave man in case he were arrested, but that is my supposition, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0172.pt|The attempt on General Walker's life deserves close attention in any consideration of Oswald's possible motive for the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0173.pt|and the trail of evidence he left behind him on that occasion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0174.pt|While there are differences between the two events as far as Oswald's actions and planning are concerned, there are also similarities that should be considered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0175.pt|The items which Oswald left at home when he made his attack on Walker suggest a strong concern for his place in history.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0176.pt|If the attack had succeeded and Oswald had been caught, the pictures showing him with his rifle
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0177.pt|and his Communist and Socialist Worker's Party newspapers would probably have appeared on the front pages of newspapers or magazines all over the country,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0178.pt|as, in fact, one of them did appear after the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0179.pt|The circumstances of the attack on Walker coupled with other indications that Oswald was concerned about his place in history
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0180.pt|and with the circumstances surrounding the assassination, have led the Commission to believe
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0181.pt|that such concern is an important factor to consider in assessing possible motivation for the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0182.pt|In any event, the Walker incident indicates that in spite of the belief among those who knew him that he was apparently not dangerous,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0183.pt|Oswald did not lack the determination and other traits required
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0184.pt|to carry out a carefully planned killing of another human being and was willing to consummate such a purpose if he thought there was sufficient reason to do so.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0185.pt|Some idea of what he thought was sufficient reason for such an act may be found in the nature of the motive that he stated for his attack on General Walker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0186.pt|Marina Oswald indicated that her husband had compared General Walker to Adolph Hitler.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0187.pt|She testified that Oswald said that General Walker, quote, was a very bad man, that he was a fascist,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ043-0188.pt|that he was the leader of a fascist organization, and when I said that even though all of that might be true, just the same he had no right to take his life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0002.pt|The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Chapter seven.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0003.pt|Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motives, Part five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0004.pt|Political Activities
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0005.pt|Oswald's political activities after his return to the United States center around his interest in Cuba and in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0006.pt|Although, as indicated above, the Commission has been unable to find any credible evidence
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0007.pt|that he was involved in any conspiracy, his political activities do provide insight into certain aspects of Oswald's character
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0008.pt|and into his possible motivation for the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0009.pt|While it appears that he may have distributed Fair Play for Cuba Committee materials on one uneventful occasion in Dallas sometime during the period
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0010.pt|April six to twenty-four, nineteen sixty-three Oswald's first public identification with that cause was in New Orleans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0011.pt|There, in late May and early June of nineteen sixty-three, under the name Lee Osborne,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0012.pt|he had printed a handbill headed in large letters, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0013.pt|Hands Off Cuba, end quote, an application form for, and a membership card in,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0014.pt|the New Orleans branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0015.pt|He first distributed his handbills and other material uneventfully in the vicinity of the U.S.S. Wasp,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0016.pt|which was berthed at the Dumaine Street wharf in New Orleans, on June sixteen, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0017.pt|He distributed literature in downtown New Orleans on August nine, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0018.pt|and was arrested because of a dispute with three anti-Castro Cuban exiles, and again on August sixteen, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0019.pt|Following his arrest, he was interviewed by the police, and at his own request, by an agent of the FBI.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0020.pt|On August seventeen, nineteen sixty-three, he appeared briefly on a radio program and on August twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0021.pt|he debated over radio station WDSU, New Orleans, with Carlos Bringuier,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0022.pt|one of the Cuban exiles who had been arrested with him on August nine. Bringuier claimed that on August five, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0023.pt|Oswald had attempted to infiltrate an anti-Castro organization with which he was associated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0024.pt|While Oswald publicly engaged in the activities described above, his, quote, organization, end quote, was a product of his imagination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0025.pt|The imaginary president of the nonexistent chapter was named A. J. Hidell, the name that Oswald used when he purchased the assassination weapon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0026.pt|Marina Oswald said she signed that name, apparently chosen because it rhymed with "Fidel,"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0027.pt|to her husband's membership card in the New Orleans chapter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0028.pt|She testified that he threatened to beat her if she did not do so. The chapter had never been chartered by the national FPCC organization.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0029.pt|It appears to have been a solitary operation on Oswald's part in spite of his misstatements to the New Orleans police that it had thirty-five members,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0030.pt|five of which were usually present at meetings which were held once a month.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0031.pt|Oswald's Fair Play for Cuba activities may be viewed as a very shrewd political operation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0032.pt|in which one man single handedly created publicity for his cause or for himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0033.pt|It is also evidence of Oswald's reluctance to describe events accurately
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0034.pt|and of his need to present himself to others as well as to himself in a light more favorable than was justified by reality.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0035.pt|This is suggested by his misleading and sometime untruthful statements in his letters to Mr. V. T. Lee,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0036.pt|then national director of FPCC. In one of those letters, dated August one, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0037.pt|Oswald wrote that an office which he had previously claimed to have rented for FPCC activities had been, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0038.pt|promptly closed three days later for some obscure reasons by the renters,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0039.pt|they said something about remodeling, etc. I'm sure you understand, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0040.pt|He wrote that, quote, thousands of circulars were distributed, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0041.pt|and that he continued to receive inquiries through his post office box which he endeavored, quote, to keep answering to the best of my ability, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0042.pt|In his letter to V. T. Lee,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0043.pt|he stated that he was then alone in his efforts on behalf of FPCC, but he attributed his lack of support
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0044.pt|to an attack by Cuban exiles in a street demonstration and being, quote, officialy cautioned, end quote, by the police.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0045.pt|events which, quote, robbed me of what support I had leaving me alone, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0047.pt|that anyone ever attacked any street demonstration in which Oswald was involved, except for the Bringuier incident mentioned above,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0048.pt|which occurred eight days after Oswald wrote the above letter to V. T. Lee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0049.pt|Bringuier, who seemed to be familiar with many anti-Castro activities in New Orleans, was not aware of any such incident.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0050.pt|Police reports also fail to reflect any activity on Oswald's part prior to August nine, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0051.pt|except for the uneventful distribution of literature at the Dumaine Street wharf in June.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0052.pt|Furthermore, the general tenor of Oswald's next letter to V. T. Lee,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0053.pt|in which he supported his report on the Bringuier incident with a copy of the charges made against him
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0054.pt|and a newspaper clipping reporting the event, suggests that his previous story of an attack by Cuban exiles was at least greatly exaggerated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0055.pt|While the legend, quote, FPCC, five four four Camp Street New Orleans, Louisiana, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0056.pt|was stamped on some literature that Oswald had in his possession at the time of his arrest in New Orleans,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0057.pt|extensive investigation was not able to connect Oswald with that address, although it did develop the fact
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0058.pt|that an anti-Castro organization had maintained offices there for a period ending early in nineteen sixty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0059.pt|The Commission has not been able to find any other indication that Oswald had rented an office in New Orleans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0060.pt|In view of the limited amount of public activity on Oswald's part before August nine, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0061.pt|there also seems to be no basis for his claim that he had distributed, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0062.pt|thousands, end quote, of circulars, especially since he had claimed to have printed only two thousand
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0063.pt|and actually had only one thousand printed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0064.pt|In addition, there is no evidence that he received any substantial amount of materials from the national headquarters.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0065.pt|In another letter to V. T. Lee, dated August seventeen, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0066.pt|Oswald wrote that he had appeared on Mr. William Stuckey's fifteen-minute television program over WDSU-TV called, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0067.pt|Latin American Focus, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0068.pt|as a result of which he was, quote, flooded with callers and invitations to debates, etc. as well as people interested in joining the F.P.C.C.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0069.pt|New Orleans branch, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0070.pt|WDSU has no program of any kind called, quote, Latin American Focus, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0071.pt|Stuckey had a radio program called, quote, Latin Listening Post, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0072.pt|on which Oswald was heard for less than five minutes on August seventeen, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0073.pt|It appears that Oswald had only one caller in response to all of his FPCC activities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0074.pt|an agent of Bringuier's attempting to learn more about the true nature
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0075.pt|of the alleged FPCC, quote, organization, end quote, in New Orleans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0076.pt|Oswald's statements suggest that he hoped to be flooded with callers and invitations to debate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0077.pt|This would have made him a real center of attention as he must have been when he first arrived in the Soviet Union
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0078.pt|and as he was to some extent when he returned to the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0079.pt|The limited notoriety that Oswald received as a result of the street fracas and in the subsequent radio debate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0080.pt|was apparently not enough to satisfy him. He exaggerated in his letters to V. T. Lee in an apparent attempt
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0081.pt|to make himself and his activities appear far more important than they really were.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0082.pt|His attempt to express himself through his Fair Play for Cuba activities, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0083.pt|was greatly impeded by the fact that the radio debate over WDSU on August twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0084.pt|brought out the history of his defection to the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0085.pt|The basic facts of the event were uncovered independently by William Stuckey, who arranged the debate, and Edward Butler,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0086.pt|executive director of the Information Council of the Americas, who also appeared on the program.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0087.pt|Oswald was confronted with those facts at the beginning of the debate and was so thrown on the defensive by this that he was forced to state that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0088.pt|Fair Play for Cuba was, quote, not at all Communist controlled regardless of the fact that I had the experience of living in Russia, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0089.pt|Stuckey testified that uncovering Oswald's defection was very important, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0090.pt|I think that we finished him on that program because we had publicly linked the Fair Play for Cuba Committee
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0091.pt|with a fellow who had lived in Russia for three years and who was an admitted Marxist.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0092.pt|The interesting thing, or rather the danger involved, was the fact that Oswald seemed like such a nice, bright boy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0093.pt|and was extremely believable before this. We thought the fellow could probably get quite a few members if he was really indeed serious about getting members.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0094.pt|We figured after this broadcast of August twenty-one, why, that was no longer possible, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0095.pt|In spite of the fact that Oswald had been surprised and was on the defensive throughout the debate, according to Stuckey, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0096.pt|Mr. Oswald handled himself very well, as usual, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0097.pt|Stuckey thought Oswald, quote, appeared to be a very logical, intelligent fellow, end quote, and, quote, was arrested by his cleancutness, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0098.pt|He did not think Oswald looked like the, quote, type, end quote, that he would have expected to find associating with a group such as the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0099.pt|Stuckey thought that Oswald acted very much as would a young attorney.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0100.pt|Following the disclosure of his defection, Oswald sought advice from the Communist Party, U.S.A., concerning his Fair Play for Cuba activity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0101.pt|He had previously sent, apparently unsolicited, to the Party newspaper, the Worker,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0102.pt|samples of his photographic work, offering to contribute that sort of service without charge.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0103.pt|The Worker replied, quote, Your kind offer is most welcomed and from time to time we shall call on you, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0104.pt|He later wrote to another official of the Worker, seeking employment, and mentioning the praise he had received for submitting his photographic work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0105.pt|He presented Arnold Johnson, Gus Hall,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0106.pt|and Benjamin J. Davis honorary membership cards in his nonexistent New Orleans chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0107.pt|and advised them of some of his activities on behalf of the organization.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0108.pt|Arnold Johnson, director of the information and lecture bureau of the Communist Party, U.S.A., replied stating, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0109.pt|It is good to know that movements in support of fair play for Cuba has developed in New Orleans as well as in other cities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0110.pt|We do not have any organizational ties with the Committee, and yet there is much material that we issue from time to time that is important
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0111.pt|for anybody who is concerned about developments in Cuba, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0112.pt|Marina Oswald said that such correspondence from people he considered important meant much to Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0113.pt|After he had begun his Cuban activity in New Orleans, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0114.pt|he received a letter from somebody in New York, some Communist -- probably from New York -- I am not sure from where -- from some Communist leader and he was very happy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0115.pt|he felt that this was a great man that he had received the letter from, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0116.pt|Since he seemed to feel that no one else understood his political views, the letter was of great value to him for it, quote, was proof
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0117.pt|that there were people who understood his activity, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0118.pt|He anticipated that the full disclosure of his defection would hinder him in, quote, the struggle for progress and freedom in the United States, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0119.pt|into which Oswald, in his own words, had, quote, thrown himself. He sought advice from the central committee of the Communist Party, U.S.A.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0120.pt|in a letter dated August twenty-eight, nineteen sixty-three, about whether he could, quote, continue to fight,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0121.pt|handicapped as it were, by my past record and compete with anti-progressive forces, above-ground or whether in your opinion
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0122.pt|I should always remain in the background, i.e. underground, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0123.pt|Stating that he had used his "position" with what he claimed to be the local branch of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee to, quote, foster communist ideals, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0124.pt|Oswald wrote that he felt that he might have compromised the FPCC and expressed concern lest, quote, Our opponents could use my background
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0125.pt|of residence in the U.S.S.R. against any cause which I join, by association,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0126.pt|they could say the organization of which I am a member, is Russian controlled, etc, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0127.pt|In reply Arnold Johnson advised Oswald that, while as an American citizen he had a right to participate in such organizations as he wished, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0128.pt|there are a number of organizations, including possibly Fair Play, which are of a very broad character,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0129.pt|and often it is advisable for some people to remain in the background, not underground, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0130.pt|By August of nineteen sixty-three, after a short three months in New Orleans, the city in which he had been born and had lived most of his early life,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0131.pt|Oswald had fallen on difficult times.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0132.pt|He had not liked his job as a greaser of coffee processing machinery and he held it for only a little over two months.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0133.pt|He had not found another job. His wife was expecting their second child in October and there was concern about the cost which would be involved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0134.pt|His brief foray on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee had failed to win any support.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0135.pt|While he had drawn some attention to himself and had actually appeared on two radio programs, he had been attacked by Cuban exiles and arrested,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0136.pt|an event which his wife thought upset him and as a result of which, quote, he became less active, he cooled off a little, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0137.pt|More seriously, the facts of his defection had become known, leaving him open to almost unanswerable attack by those who opposed his views.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0138.pt|It would not have been possible to have followed Arnold Johnson's advice to remain in the background,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0139.pt|since there was no background to the New Orleans FPCC, quote, organization, end quote, which consisted solely of Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0140.pt|Furthermore, he had apparently not received any letters from the national headquarters of FPCC since May twenty-nine, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0141.pt|even though he had written four detailed letters since that time to Mr. V. T. Lee and had also kept the national headquarters informed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0142.pt|of each of his changes of mailing address.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0143.pt|Those events no doubt had their effects on Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0144.pt|Interest in Cuba
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0145.pt|By August of nineteen sixty-three, Oswald had for some time been considering the possibility of leaving the United States again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0146.pt|On June twenty-four, nineteen sixty-three, he applied for a new passport
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0147.pt|and in late June or early July he told his wife that he wanted to return to the Soviet Union with her. She said that he was extremely upset,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0148.pt|very unhappy, and that he actually wept when he told her that.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0149.pt|He said that nothing kept him in the United States, that he would not lose anything if he returned to the Soviet Union, that he wanted to be with her
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0150.pt|and that it would be better to have less and not have to be concerned about tomorrow.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0151.pt|As a result of that conversation, Marina Oswald wrote the Soviet Embassy in Washington concerning a request she had first made
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0152.pt|on February seventeen, nineteen sixty-three, for permission for herself and June to return to the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0153.pt|While that first request, made according to Marina Oswald at her husband's insistence, specifically stated that Oswald was to remain in the United States,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0154.pt|she wrote in her letter of July nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0155.pt|that things are improving due to the fact that my husband expresses a sincere wish to return together with me to the USSR. Unknown to his wife, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0156.pt|Oswald apparently enclosed a note with her letter of July in which
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0157.pt|he requested the Embassy to rush his wife's entrance visa because of the impending birth of the second child but stated that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0158.pt|As for my return entrance visa please consider it separately. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0159.pt|Thus while Oswald's real intentions, assuming that they were known to himself, are not clear,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0160.pt|he may not have intended to go to the Soviet Union directly, if at all. It appears that he really wanted to go to Cuba.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0161.pt|In his wife's words, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0162.pt|I only know that his basic desire was to get to Cuba by any means, and that all the rest of it was window dressing for that purpose. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0163.pt|Marina Oswald testified that her husband engaged in Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0164.pt|primarily for purposes of self-advertising.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0165.pt|He wanted to be arrested. I think he wanted to get into the newspapers, so that he would be known. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0166.pt|According to Marina Oswald, he thought that would help him when he got to Cuba.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0167.pt|He asked his wife to help him to hijack an airplane to get there, but gave up that scheme when she refused.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0168.pt|During this period Oswald may have practiced opening and closing the bolt on his rifle in a screened porch in his apartment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0169.pt|In September he began to review Spanish.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0170.pt|He approved arrangements for his family to return to Irving, Texas, to live with Mrs. Ruth Paine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0171.pt|On September twenty, nineteen sixty-three, Mrs. Paine and her two children arrived in New Orleans from a trip to the East Coast
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0172.pt|and left for Irving with Marina Oswald and June and most of the Oswalds' effects three days later.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0173.pt|While Marina Oswald knew of her husband's plan to go to Mexico and thence to Cuba if possible, Mrs. Paine was told that Oswald was going to Houston
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0174.pt|and possibly to Philadelphia to look for work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0175.pt|Oswald left for Mexico City on September twenty-five, nineteen sixty-three, and arrived on September twenty-seven, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0176.pt|He went almost directly to the Cuban Embassy and applied for a visa to Cuba in transit to Russia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0177.pt|Representing himself as the head of the New Orleans branch of the, quote, organization called Fair Play for Cuba, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0178.pt|he stated his desire that he should be accepted as a friend of the Cuban Revolution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0179.pt|He apparently based his claim for a visa in transit to Russia
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0180.pt|on his previous residence, his work permit for that country, and several unidentified letters in the Russian language.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0181.pt|The Cubans would not, however, give him a visa until he had received one from the Soviets, which involved a delay of several months.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0182.pt|When faced with that situation Oswald became greatly agitated, and although he later unsuccessfully attempted
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0183.pt|to obtain a Soviet visa at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, he insisted that he was entitled to the Cuban visa because of his background,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0184.pt|partisanship, and personal activities on behalf of the Cuban government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0185.pt|He engaged in an angry argument with the consul who finally told him that, quote, as far as he was concerned
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0186.pt|he would not give him a visa, end quote, and that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0187.pt|a person like him (Oswald) in place of aiding the Cuban Revolution, was doing it harm, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0188.pt|Oswald must have been thoroughly disillusioned when he left Mexico City on October two, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0189.pt|In spite of his former residence in the Soviet Union and his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities he had been rebuffed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0190.pt|by the officials of both Cuba and the Soviet Union in Mexico City.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0191.pt|Now there appeared to be no chance to get to Cuba, where he had thought he might find his communist ideal. The U.S. Government would not permit travel there
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0192.pt|and as far as the performance of the Cubans themselves was concerned, he was, quote, disappointed at not being able to get to Cuba
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0193.pt|and he didn't have any great desire to do so any more because he had run into, as he himself said -- into bureaucracy and red tape, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0194.pt|Oswald's attempt to go to Cuba
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0195.pt|was another act which expressed his hostility toward the United States and its institutions as well as a concomitant attachment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0196.pt|to a country in which he must have thought were embodied the political principles to which he had been committed for so long.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0197.pt|It should be noted that his interest in Cuba seems to have increased along with the sense of frustration which must have developed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0198.pt|as he experienced successive failures in his jobs, in his political activity, and in his personal relationships.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0199.pt|In retrospect his attempt to go to Cuba or return to the Soviet Union may well have been Oswald's last escape hatch,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0200.pt|his last gambit to extricate himself from the mediocrity and defeat which plagued him throughout most of his life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0201.pt|Oswald's activities with regard to Cuba raise serious questions as to how much he might have been motivated in the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0202.pt|by a desire to aid the Castro regime, which President Kennedy so outspokenly criticized.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0203.pt|For example, the Dallas Times Herald of November nineteen, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0204.pt|prominently reported President Kennedy as having, quote, all but invited the Cuban people today to overthrow Fidel Castro's Communist regime
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0205.pt|and promised prompt U.S. aid if they do, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0206.pt|The Castro regime severely attacked President Kennedy in connection with the Bay of Pigs affair, the Cuban missile crisis, the ban on travel to Cuba,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0207.pt|the economic embargo against that country, and the general policy of the United States with regard to Cuba.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0208.pt|An examination of the Militant, to which Oswald subscribed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0209.pt|for the three-month period prior to the assassination reflects an extremely critical attitude toward President Kennedy and his administration
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0210.pt|concerning Cuban policy in general as well as on the issues of automation and civil rights, issues which appeared to concern Oswald a great deal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0211.pt|The Militant also reflected a critical attitude toward President Kennedy's attempts to reduce tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0212.pt|It also dealt with the fear of the Castro regime that such a policy might result in its abandonment by the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0213.pt|The October seven, nineteen sixty-three, issue of the Militant
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0214.pt|reported Castro as saying Cuba could not accept a situation where at the same time the United States was trying to ease world tensions
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0215.pt|it also was increasing its efforts to tighten the noose around Cuba.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0217.pt|was also reported in the October one, nineteen sixty-three, issue of the Worker, to which Oswald also subscribed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0218.pt|In this connection it should be noted that in speaking of the Worker, Oswald told Michael Paine, apparently in all seriousness, that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0219.pt|you could tell what they wanted you to do by reading between the lines, reading the thing and doing a little reading between the lines, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0220.pt|The general conflict of views between the United States and Cuba was, of course, reflected in other media to such an extent
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0221.pt|that there can be no doubt that Oswald was aware generally of the critical attitude that Castro expressed about President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0222.pt|Oswald was asked during the New Orleans radio debate in which he engaged on August twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0223.pt|whether or not he agreed with Castro that President Kennedy was a, quote, ruffian and a thief, end quote. He replied that he, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0224.pt|would not agree with that particular wording, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0225.pt|It should also be noted, however, that one witness testified that shortly before the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0226.pt|Oswald had expressed approval of President Kennedy's active role in the area of civil rights.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0227.pt|Although Oswald could possibly have been motivated in part by his sympathy for the Castro government,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0228.pt|it should be remembered that his wife testified that he was disappointed with his failure to get to Cuba
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0229.pt|and had lost his desire to do so because of the bureaucracy and red tape which he had encountered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0230.pt|His unhappy experience with the Cuban consul seems thus to have reduced his enthusiasm for the Castro regime and his desire to go to Cuba.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0231.pt|While some of Castro's more severe criticisms of President Kennedy might have led Oswald to believe that he would be well received in Cuba
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0232.pt|after he had assassinated the American President, it does not appear that he had any plans to go there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0233.pt|Oswald was carrying only thirteen dollars, eighty-seven cents at the time of his arrest, although he had left, apparently by design,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0234.pt|one hundred seventy dollars in a wallet in his wife's room in Irving.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0235.pt|If there was no conspiracy which would help him escape, the possibility of which has been considered in chapter six,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0236.pt|it is unlikely that a reasoning person would plan to attempt to travel from Dallas, Texas to Cuba
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0237.pt|with thirteen dollars, eighty-seven cents when considerably greater resources were available to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0238.pt|The fact that Oswald left behind the funds which might have enabled him to reach Cuba suggests the absence of any plan to try to flee there
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ044-0239.pt|and raises serious questions as to whether or not he ever expected to escape.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0002.pt|Chapter seven. Lee Harvey Oswald: Background and Possible Motives, Part six.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0003.pt|Possible Influence of Anti-Kennedy Sentiment in Dallas
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0004.pt|It has been suggested that one of the motivating influences operating on Lee Oswald was the atmosphere in the city of Dallas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0005.pt|especially an atmosphere of extreme opposition to President Kennedy that was present in some parts of the Dallas community
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0006.pt|and which received publicity there prior to the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0007.pt|Some of that feeling was expressed in the incident involving then vice-presidential candidate Johnson during the nineteen sixty campaign,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0008.pt|in the treatment of Ambassador Adlai Stevenson late in October of nineteen sixty-three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0009.pt|and in the extreme anti-Kennedy newspaper advertisement and handbills that appeared in Dallas at the time of the President's visit there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0010.pt|The Commission has found no evidence that the extreme views expressed toward President Kennedy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0011.pt|by some rightwing groups centered in Dallas or any other general atmosphere of hate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0012.pt|or rightwing extremism which may have existed in the city of Dallas had any connection with Oswald's actions on November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0013.pt|There is, of course, no way to judge what the effect of the general political ferment present in that city might have been, even though Oswald was aware of it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0014.pt|His awareness is shown by a letter that he wrote to Arnold Johnson of the Communist Party U.S.A.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0015.pt|which Johnson said he did not receive until after the assassination. The letter said in part, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0016.pt|On October twenty-third, I had attended a ultra-right meeting headed by General Edwin A. Walker, who lives in Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0017.pt|This meeting preceded by one day the attack on A. E. Stevenson at the United Nations Day meeting at which he spoke
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0018.pt|As you can see, political friction between "left" and "right" is very great here.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0019.pt|Could you advise me as to the general view we have on the American Civil Liberties Union? End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0020.pt|In any event, the Commission has been unable to find any credible evidence that Oswald had direct contact or association with
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0021.pt|any of the personalities or groups epitomizing or representing the so-called right wing,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0022.pt|even though he did, as he told Johnson, attend a meeting at which General Walker spoke to approximately thirteen hundred persons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0023.pt|Oswald's writings and his reading habits indicate that he had an extreme dislike of the right wing, an attitude most clearly reflected by his attempt
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0024.pt|to shoot General Walker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0025.pt|Relationship With Wife
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0026.pt|The relations between Lee and Marina Oswald are of great importance in any attempt to understand Oswald's possible motivation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0027.pt|During the period from Oswald's return from Mexico to the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0028.pt|he and his wife spent every weekend but one together at the Irving, Texas home of Mrs. Ruth Paine, who was then separated from her husband.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0029.pt|The sole exception was the weekend of November sixteen to seventeen, nineteen sixty-three, the weekend before the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0030.pt|when his wife asked Oswald not to come to Irving.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0031.pt|During the week, Oswald lived in a roominghouse in Dallas, but he usually called his wife on the telephone twice a day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0032.pt|She testified that after his return from Mexico Oswald, quote, changed for the better.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0033.pt|He began to treat me better. He helped me more -- although he always did help. But he was more attentive, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0034.pt|Marina Oswald attributed that to their living apart and to the imminent birth of their second child.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0035.pt|She testified that Oswald, quote, was very happy, end quote, about the birth of the child.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0036.pt|While those considerations no doubt had an effect on Oswald's attitude toward his family it would seem that the need for support and sympathy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0037.pt|after his recent rebuffs in Mexico City
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0038.pt|might also have been important to him. It would not have been the first time that Oswald sought closer ties with his family in time of adversity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0039.pt|His past relationships with his wife had been stormy, however, and it did not seem that she respected him very much.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0040.pt|They had been married after a courtship of only about six weeks, a part of which Oswald spent in the hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0041.pt|Oswald's diary reports that he married his wife shortly after his proposal of marriage to another girl had been rejected.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0042.pt|He stated that the other girl rejected him partly because he was an American, a fact that he said she had exploited. He stated that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0043.pt|In spite of fact I married Marina to hurt Ella (the girl that had rejected him) I found myself in love with Marina, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0044.pt|Many of the people with whom the Oswalds became acquainted after their arrival in the United States thought that Marina Oswald had married her husband primarily in the hope
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0045.pt|that she would be able to leave the Soviet Union. Marina Oswald has denied this.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0046.pt|Marina Oswald expressed one aspect of her husband's attitude toward her when she testified that, quote, Lee wanted me to go to Russia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0047.pt|and I told him that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0048.pt|if he wanted me to go then that meant that he didn't love me, and that in that case what was the idea of coming to the United States in the first place.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0049.pt|Lee would say that it would be better for me if I went to Russia. I did not know why. I did not know what he had in mind.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0050.pt|He said he loved me but that it would be better for me if I went to Russia, and what he had in mind I don't know. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0051.pt|On the other hand, Oswald objected to the invitation that his wife had received to live with Mrs. Ruth Paine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0052.pt|which Mrs. Paine had made in part to give her an alternative to returning to the Soviet Union. Marina Oswald wrote to Mrs. Paine that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0053.pt|Many times Oswald has recalled this matter to me and said that I am just waiting for an opportunity to hurt him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0054.pt|It has been the cause of many of our arguments. End quote. Oswald claimed that his wife preferred others to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0055.pt|He said this about members of the Russian-speaking group in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, whom she said he tried to forbid her from seeing,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0056.pt|and also about Mrs. Paine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0057.pt|He specifically made that claim when his wife refused to come to live with him in Dallas as he asked her to do on the evening of November twenty-one,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0058.pt|nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0059.pt|The instability of their relations was probably a function of the personalities of both people. Oswald was overbearing in relations with his wife.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0060.pt|He apparently attempted to be "the Commander" by dictating many of the details of their married life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0061.pt|While Marina Oswald said that her husband wanted her to learn English,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0062.pt|he made no attempt to help her and there are other indications that he did not want her to learn that language.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0063.pt|Oswald apparently wished to continue practicing his own Russian with her. Lieutenant Martello of the New Orleans police testified
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0064.pt|that Oswald stated that he did not speak English in his family because he did not want them to become Americanized.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0065.pt|Marina Oswald's inability to speak English also made it more difficult for her to have an independent existence in this country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0066.pt|Oswald struck his wife on occasion,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0067.pt|did not want her to drink, smoke or wear cosmetics and generally treated her with lack of respect in the presence of others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0068.pt|The difficulties which Oswald's problems would have caused him in any relationship were probably not reduced by his wife's conduct.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0069.pt|Katherine Ford, with whom Marina Oswald stayed during her separation from her husband in November of nineteen sixty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0070.pt|thought that Marina Oswald was immature in her thinking and partly responsible for the difficulties that the Oswalds were having at that time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0071.pt|Mrs. Ford said that Marina Oswald admitted that she provoked Oswald on occasion.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0072.pt|There can be little doubt that some provocation existed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0073.pt|Oswald once struck his wife because of a letter which she wrote to a former boyfriend in Russia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0074.pt|In the letter Marina Oswald stated that her husband had changed a great deal and that she was very lonely in the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0075.pt|She was, quote, sorry that I had not married him (the Russian boyfriend) instead, that it would have been much easier for me, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0076.pt|The letter fell into Oswald's hands when it was returned to his post office box
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0077.pt|because of insufficient postage, which apparently resulted from an increase in postal rates of which his wife had been unaware.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0078.pt|Oswald read the letter, but refused to believe that it was sincere, even though his wife insisted to him that it was.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0079.pt|As a result Oswald struck her, as to which she testified, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0080.pt|Generally, I think that was right, for such things that is the right thing to do. There was some grounds for it. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0081.pt|Although she denied it in some of her testimony before the Commission,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0082.pt|it appears that Marina Oswald also complained that her husband was not able to provide more material things for her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0083.pt|On that issue George De Mohrenschildt, who was probably as close to the Oswalds as anyone else during their first stay in Dallas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0084.pt|said that, quote, She was annoying him all the time
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0085.pt|Why don't you make some money? Poor guy was going out of his mind. We told her she should not annoy him -- poor guy, he is doing his best, "Don't annoy him so much."
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0086.pt|The De Mohrenschildts also testified that, quote, right in front, end quote, of Oswald Marina Oswald complained about Oswald's inadequacy as a husband.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0087.pt|Mrs. Oswald told another of her friends that Oswald was very cold to her, that they very seldom had sexual relations
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0088.pt|and that Oswald, quote, was not a man, end quote. She also told Mrs. Paine that she was not satisfied with her sexual relations with Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0089.pt|Marina Oswald also ridiculed her husband's political views, thereby tearing down his view of his own importance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0090.pt|He was very much interested in autobiographical works of outstanding statesmen of the United States, to whom his wife thought he compared himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0091.pt|She said he was different from other people in, quote, At, least his imagination, his fantasy, which was quite unfounded,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0092.pt|as to the fact that he was an outstanding man, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0093.pt|She said that she, quote, always tried to point out to him that he was a man like any others who were around us. But he simply could not understand that? End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0094.pt|Jeanne De Mohrenschildt, however, thought that Marina Oswald, quote, said things that will hurt men's pride, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0095.pt|She said that if she ever spoke to her husband the way Marina Oswald spoke to her husband, quote, we would not last long, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0096.pt|Mrs. De Mohrenschildt thought that Oswald,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0097.pt|whom she compared to, quote, a puppy dog that everybody kicked, end quote, had a lot of good qualities, in spite of the fact that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0098.pt|Nobody said anything good about him. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0099.pt|She had, quote, the impression that he was just pushed, pushed, pushed, and she Marina Oswald was probably nagging, nagging, nagging, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0100.pt|She thought that he might not have become involved in the assassination if people had been kinder to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0101.pt|In spite of these difficulties, however, and in the face of the economic problems that were always with them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0102.pt|things apparently went quite smoothly from the time Oswald returned from Mexico until the weekend of November sixteen to seventeen, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0103.pt|Mrs. Paine was planning a birthday party for one of her children on that weekend and her husband, Michael, was to be at the house.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0104.pt|Marina Oswald said that she knew her husband did not like Michael Paine and so she asked him not to come out that weekend, even though he wanted to do so.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0105.pt|She testified that she told him, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0106.pt|that he shouldn't come every week, that perhaps it is not convenient for Ruth that the whole family be there, live there, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0107.pt|She testified that he responded, quote, As you wish. If you don't want me to come, I won't, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0108.pt|Ruth Paine testified that she heard Marina Oswald tell Oswald about the birthday party.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0109.pt|On Sunday, November seventeen, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0110.pt|Ruth Paine and Marina Oswald decided to call Oswald at the place where he was living, unbeknownst to them, under the name of O. H. Lee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0111.pt|They asked for Lee Oswald who was not called to the telephone because he was known by the other name.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0112.pt|When Oswald called the next day his wife became very angry about his use of the alias. He said that he used it because, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0113.pt|he did not want his landlady to know his real name because she might read in the paper of the fact that he had been in Russia and that he had been questioned, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0114.pt|Oswald also said that he did not want the FBI to know where he lived, quote, Because their visits were not very pleasant for him
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0115.pt|and he thought that he loses jobs because the FBI visits the place of his employment, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0116.pt|While the facts of his defection had become known in New Orleans as a result of his radio debate with Bringuier,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0117.pt|it would appear to be unlikely that his landlady in Dallas
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0118.pt|would see anything in the newspaper about his defection, unless he engaged in activities similar to those
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0119.pt|which had led to the disclosure of his defection in New Orleans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0120.pt|Furthermore, even though it appears that at times Oswald was really upset by visits of the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0121.pt|it does not appear that he ever lost his job because of its activities, although he may well not have been aware of that fact.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0122.pt|While Oswald's concern about the FBI had some basis in fact, in that FBI agents had interviewed him in the past and had renewed their interest
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0123.pt|to some extent after his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities had become known, he exaggerated their concern for him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0124.pt|Marina Oswald thought he did so in order to emphasize his importance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0125.pt|For example, in his letter of November nine, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0126.pt|to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, he asked about the entrance visas for which he and his wife had previously applied.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0127.pt|He absolved the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City of any blame for his difficulties there. He advised the Washington Embassy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0128.pt|that the FBI was, quote, not now, end quote, interested in his Fair Play for Cuba Committee activities, but noted that the FBI, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0129.pt|has visited us here in Dallas, Texas, on November one. Agent James P. Hasty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0130.pt|warned me that if I engaged in F.P.C.C. activities in Texas the F.B.I. will again take an interest in me, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0131.pt|Neither Hosty nor any other agent of the FBI spoke to Oswald on any subject from August ten, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0132.pt|to the time of the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0133.pt|The claimed warning was one more of Oswald's fabrications.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0134.pt|Hosty had come to the Paine residence on November one and five, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0135.pt|but did not issue any such warning or suggest that Marina Oswald defect from the Soviet Union and remain in the United States under FBI protection,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0136.pt|as Oswald went on to say. In Oswald's imagination, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0137.pt|I and my wife strongly protested these tactics by the notorious F.B.I., end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0138.pt|In fact, his wife testified that she only said that she would prefer not to receive any more visits from the Bureau
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0139.pt|because of the, quote, very exciting and disturbing effect, end quote, they had upon her husband, who was not even present at that time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0140.pt|The arguments he used to justify his use of the alias suggest that Oswald may have come to think that the whole world was becoming involved
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0141.pt|in an increasingly complex conspiracy against him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0142.pt|He may have felt he could never tell when the FBI was going to appear on the scene or who else was going to find out about his defection
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0143.pt|and use it against him as had been done in New Orleans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0144.pt|On the other hand, the concern he expressed about the FBI may have been just another story to support the objective he sought in his letter.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0145.pt|Those arguments, however, were not persuasive to Marina Oswald,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0146.pt|to whom, quote, it was nothing terrible if people were to find out that he had been in Russia, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0147.pt|She asked Oswald, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0148.pt|After all, when will all your foolishness come to an end? All of these comedies. First one thing and then another. And now this fictitious name, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0149.pt|She said, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0150.pt|On Monday, November eighteen, nineteen sixty-three, he called several times, but after I hung up on him and didn't want to talk to him he did not call again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0151.pt|He then arrived on Thursday, November twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0152.pt|The events of that evening can best be appreciated through Marina Oswald's testimony
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0153.pt|Question: Did your husband give any reason for coming home on Thursday?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0154.pt|Answer: He said that he was lonely because he hadn't come the preceding weekend, and he wanted to make his peace with me.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0155.pt|Question: Did you say anything to him then?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0156.pt|Answer: He tried to talk to me but I would not answer him, and he was very upset. Question: Were you upset with him?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0157.pt|Answer: I was angry, of course. He was not angry -- he was upset. I was angry. He tried very hard to please me.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0158.pt|He spent quite a bit of time putting away diapers and played with the children on the street.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0159.pt|Question: How did you indicate to him that you were angry with him? Answer: By not talking to him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0160.pt|Question: And how did he show that he was upset?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0161.pt|He was upset over the fact that I would not answer him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0162.pt|He tried to start a conversation with me several times, but I would not answer. And he said that he didn't want me to be angry at him because this upsets him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0163.pt|On that day, he suggested that we rent an apartment in Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0164.pt|He said that he was tired of living alone and perhaps the reason for my being so angry was the fact that we were not living together.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0165.pt|That if I want to he would rent an apartment in Dallas tomorrow -- that he didn't want me to remain with Ruth any longer, but wanted me to live with him in Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0166.pt|He repeated this not once but several times, but I refused. And he said that once again I was preferring my friends to him, and that I didn't need him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0167.pt|Question: What did you say to that?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0168.pt|Answer: I said it would be better if I remained with Ruth until the holidays, he would come, and we would all meet together.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0169.pt|That this was better because while he was living alone and I stayed with Ruth, we were spending less money. And I told him to buy me a washing machine, because two children
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0170.pt|it became too difficult to wash by hand.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0171.pt|What did he say to that?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0172.pt|Answer: He said he would buy me a washing machine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0173.pt|Question: What did you say to that? Answer:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0174.pt|Thank you. That it would be better if he bought something for himself -- that I would manage. End quote. That night Oswald went to bed before his wife retired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0175.pt|She did not speak to him when she joined him there, although she thought that he was still awake.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0176.pt|The next morning he left for work before anyone else arose.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0177.pt|For the first time
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0178.pt|he left his wedding ring in a cup on the dresser in his room. He also left one hundred seventy dollars in a wallet in one of the dresser drawers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0179.pt|He took with him thirteen dollars, eighty-seven cents and the long brown package that Frazier and Mrs. Randle saw him carry
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0180.pt|and which he was to take to the School Book Depository. The Unanswered Questions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0181.pt|No one will ever know what passed through Oswald's mind during the week before November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0182.pt|Instead of returning to Irving on November fifteen for his customary weekend visit, he remained in Dallas at his wife's suggestion because of the birthday party.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0183.pt|He had argued with her over the use of an alias and had not called her after that argument, although he usually telephoned once or twice a day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0184.pt|Then on Thursday morning, November twenty-one,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0185.pt|he asked Frazier for a ride to Irving that night, stating falsely that he wanted to pick up some curtain rods to put in an apartment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0186.pt|He must have planned his attack at the very latest prior to Thursday morning when he spoke to Frazier.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0187.pt|There is, of course, no way to determine the degree to which he was committed to his plan at that time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0188.pt|While there is no way to tell when he first began to think specifically of assassinating the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0189.pt|it should be noted that mention of the Trade Mart as the expected site of the Presidential luncheon
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0190.pt|appeared in The Dallas Times Herald on November fifteen, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0191.pt|The next day that paper announced the final approval of the Trade Mart as the luncheon site and stated that the motorcade, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0192.pt|apparently will loop through the downtown area, probably on Main Street,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0193.pt|en route from Dallas Love Field, end quote, on its way to the Trade Mart on Stemmons Freeway.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0194.pt|Anyone who was familiar with that area of Dallas would have known that the motorcade would probably pass the Texas School Book Depository to get from Main Street
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0195.pt|onto the Stemmons Freeway.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0196.pt|That fact was made precisely clear in subsequent news stories on November nineteen, twenty, and twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0197.pt|On November fifteen, nineteen sixty-three, the same day that his wife told him not to come to Irving, Oswald could have assumed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0198.pt|that the Presidential motorcade would pass in front of his place of work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0199.pt|Whether he thought about assassinating the President over the weekend can never be known, but it is reasonably certain
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0200.pt|that over the weekend he did think about his wife's request that he not come to Irving, which was prompted by the birthday party being held at the Paine home.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0201.pt|Oswald had a highly exaggerated sense of his own importance, but he had failed at almost everything he had ever tried to do.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0202.pt|He had great difficulty in establishing meaningful relations with other people. Except for his family he was completely alone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0203.pt|Even though he had searched -- in the Marine Corps, in his ideal of communism, in the Soviet Union and in his attempt to get to Cuba
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0204.pt|he had never found anything to which he felt he could really belong.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0205.pt|After he returned from his trip to Mexico where his application to go to Cuba had been sharply rejected,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0206.pt|it must have appeared to him that he was unable to command even the attention of his family.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0207.pt|He could not keep them with him in Dallas, where at least he could see his children whom, several witnesses testified, he seemed to love.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0208.pt|His family lived with Mrs. Paine, ostensibly because Oswald could not afford to keep an apartment in Dallas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0209.pt|but it was also, at least in part, because his wife did not want to live there with him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0210.pt|Now it appeared that he was not welcome at the Paine home,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0211.pt|where he had spent every previous weekend since his return from Mexico and his wife was once again calling into question his judgment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0212.pt|this time concerning his use of an alias.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0213.pt|The conversation on Monday, November eighteen, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0214.pt|ended when Marina Oswald hung up and refused to talk to him. Although he may long before have decided on the course he was to follow
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0215.pt|and may have told his wife the things he did on the evening of November twenty-one,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0216.pt|nineteen sixty-three, merely to disarm her and to provide a justification of sorts,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0217.pt|both she and Mrs. Paine thought he had come home to make up after the fight on Monday.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0218.pt|Thoughts of his personal difficulties must have been at least partly on his mind when he went to Irving on Thursday night and told his wife that he was lonely,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0219.pt|that he wanted to make peace with her and bring his family to Dallas where they could live with him again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0220.pt|The Commission does not believe that the relations between Oswald and his wife caused him to assassinate the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0221.pt|It is unlikely that the motivation was that simple.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0222.pt|The feelings of hostility and aggression which seem to have played such an important, part in Oswald's life
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0223.pt|were part of his character long before he met his wife
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0224.pt|and such a favorable opportunity to strike at a figure as great as the President would probably never have come to him again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0225.pt|Oswald's behavior after the assassination throws little light on his motives.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0226.pt|The fact that he took so little money with him when he left Irving in the morning indicates that he did not expect to get very far from Dallas on his own
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0227.pt|and suggests the possibility, as did his note to his wife just prior to the attempt on General Walker, that he did not expect to escape at all.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0228.pt|On the other hand, he could have traveled some distance with the money he did have and he did return to his room where he obtained his revolver.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0229.pt|He then killed Patrolman Tippit when that police officer apparently tried to question him after he had left his roominghouse and he vigorously resisted arrest
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0230.pt|when he was finally apprehended in the Texas Theatre. Although it is not fully corroborated by others who were present,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0231.pt|two officers have testified that at the time of his arrest Oswald said something to the effect that, quote, it's all over now, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0232.pt|Oswald was overbearing and arrogant throughout much of the time between his arrest and his own death.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0233.pt|He consistently refused to admit involvement in the assassination or in the killing of Patrolman Tippit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0234.pt|While he did become enraged at at least one point in his interrogation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0235.pt|the testimony of the officers present indicates that he handled himself with considerable composure during his questioning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0236.pt|He admitted nothing that would damage him but discussed other matters quite freely.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0237.pt|His denials under questioning, which have no probative value in view of the many readily demonstrable lies he told at that time
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0238.pt|and in the face of the overwhelming evidence against him
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0239.pt|which has been set forth above, only served to prolong the period during which he was the center of the attention of the entire world.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0240.pt|Many factors were undoubtedly involved in Oswald's motivation for the assassination, and the Commission does not believe
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0241.pt|that it can ascribe to him any one motive or group of motives.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0242.pt|It is apparent, however, that Oswald was moved by an overriding hostility to his environment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0243.pt|He does not appear to have been able to establish meaningful relationships with other people. He was perpetually discontented with the world around him.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0244.pt|Long before the assassination he expressed his hatred for American society and acted in protest against it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0245.pt|Oswald's search for what he conceived to be the perfect society was doomed from the start.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0246.pt|He sought for himself a place in history -- a role as the "great man" who would be recognized as having been in advance of his times.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0247.pt|His commitment to Marxism and communism appears to have been another important factor in his motivation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0248.pt|He also had demonstrated a capacity to act decisively and without regard to the consequences when such action would further his aims of the moment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0249.pt|Out of these and the many other factors which may have molded the character of Lee Harvey Oswald
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ045-0250.pt|there emerged a man capable of assassinating President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0002.pt|The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Chapter eight. The Protection of the President. Part one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0003.pt|In the one hundred years since eighteen sixty-five
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0004.pt|four Presidents of the United States have been assassinated
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0005.pt|Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0006.pt|During this same period there were three other attacks on the life of a President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0007.pt|a President-elect, and a candidate for the Presidency, which narrowly failed:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0008.pt|on Theodore Roosevelt while campaigning in October of nineteen twelve; on President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0009.pt|when visiting Miami on February fifteen, nineteen thirty-three; and on President Harry S. Truman on November one, nineteen fifty,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0010.pt|when his temporary residence, Blair House, was attacked by Puerto Rican Nationalists.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0011.pt|One out of every five Presidents since eighteen sixty-five has been assassinated;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0012.pt|there have been attempts on the lives of one out of every three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0013.pt|Prompted by these dismaying statistics, the Commission has inquired into the problems and methods of Presidential protection in effect
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0014.pt|at the time of President Kennedy's assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0015.pt|This study has led the Commission to conclude that the public interest might be served by any contribution it can make to the improvement of protective arrangements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0016.pt|The Commission has not undertaken a comprehensive examination of all facets of this subject;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0017.pt|rather, it has devoted its time and resources to those broader aspects of Presidential protection
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0018.pt|to which the events of last November called attention.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0019.pt|In this part of its inquiry the Commission has had full access to a major study of all phases of protective activities
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0020.pt|prepared by the Secret Service for the Secretary of the Treasury following the assassination. As a result of this study,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0021.pt|the Secretary of the Treasury has prepared a planning document dated August twenty-seven, nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0022.pt|which recommends additional personnel and facilities to enable the Secret Service to expand its protection capabilities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0023.pt|The Secretary of the Treasury submitted this planning document on August thirty-one, nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0024.pt|to the Bureau of the Budget for review and approval.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0025.pt|This planning document has been made a part of the Commission's published record; the underlying staff and consultants' reports reviewed by the Commission have not,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0026.pt|since a disclosure of such detailed information relating to protective measures might undermine present methods of protecting the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0027.pt|However, all information considered by the Commission which pertains to the protective function as it was carried out in Dallas has been published as part of this report.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0028.pt|The protection of the President of the United States is an immensely difficult and complex task.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0029.pt|It is unlikely that measures can be devised to eliminate entirely the multitude of diverse dangers that may arise,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0030.pt|particularly when the President is traveling in this country or abroad.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0031.pt|The protective task is further complicated by the reluctance of Presidents to take security precautions which might interfere with the performance of their duties,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0032.pt|or their desire to have frequent and easy access to the people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0033.pt|The adequacy of existing procedures can fairly be assessed only after full consideration of the difficulty of the protective assignment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0034.pt|with particular attention to the diverse roles which the President is expected to fill.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0035.pt|After reviewing this aspect of the matter this chapter will set forth the Commission's conclusions
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0036.pt|regarding certain protective measures in force at the time of the Dallas trip and propose recommendations for improvements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0037.pt|The nature of the protective assignment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0038.pt|The President is Head of State, Chief Executive, Commander in Chief, and leader of a political party.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0039.pt|As the ceremonial head of the Government the President must discharge a wide range of public duties, not only in Washington but throughout the land.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0040.pt|In this role he appears to the American people, in the words of William Howard Taft, as, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0041.pt|the personal embodiment and representative of their dignity and majesty, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0042.pt|As Chief Executive, the President controls the exercise of the vast, almost incalculable powers of the executive branch of the Federal Government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0043.pt|As Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, he must maintain ultimate authority over the development and disposition of our military power.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0044.pt|in accordance with George Washington's maxim that Americans have a government, quote, of accommodation as well as a government of laws, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0045.pt|it is the President's right and duty to be the active leader of his party, as when he seeks to be reelected or to maintain his party in power.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0046.pt|In all of these roles the President must go to the people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0047.pt|Exposure of the President to public view through travel among the people of this country is a great and historic tradition of American life.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0048.pt|Desired by both the President and the public, it is an indispensable means of communication between the two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0049.pt|More often than not, Presidential journeys have served more than one purpose at the same time: ceremonial,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0050.pt|administrative, political.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0051.pt|From George Washington to John F. Kennedy, such journeys have been a normal part of the President's activities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0052.pt|To promote nationwide acceptance of his administration Washington made grand tours that served also to excite interest in the Presidency.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0053.pt|In recent years, Presidential journeys have been frequent and extensive,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0054.pt|partly because of the greater speed and comfort of travel and partly because of the greater demands made on the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0055.pt|It is now possible for Presidents to travel the length and breadth of a land far larger than the United States
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0056.pt|in seventeen eighty-nine in less time than it took George Washington to travel from New York to Mount Vernon
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0057.pt|or Thomas Jefferson from Washington to Monticello.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0058.pt|During his Presidency, Franklin D. Roosevelt made almost four hundred journeys and traveled more than three hundred fifty thousand miles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0059.pt|Since nineteen forty-five, Roosevelt's successors have ranged the world,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0060.pt|and their foreign journeys have come to be accepted as normal rather than extraordinary.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0061.pt|John F. Kennedy's journey to Texas in November nineteen sixty-three was in this tradition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0062.pt|His friend and Special Assistant Kenneth O'Donnell, who accompanied him on his last visit to Dallas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0063.pt|stated the President's views of his responsibilities with simplicity and clarity, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0064.pt|The President's views of his responsibilities as President of the United States were that he meet the people, that he go out to their homes and see them,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0065.pt|and allow them to see him, and discuss, if possible, the views of the world as he sees it, the problems of the country as he sees them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0066.pt|And he felt that leaving Washington for the President of the United States was a most necessary -- not only for the people, but for the President himself,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0067.pt|that he expose himself to the actual basic problems that were disturbing the American people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0068.pt|It helped him in his job here, he was able to come back here with a fresh view of many things.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0069.pt|I think he felt very strongly that the President ought to get out of Washington, and go meet the people on a regular basis. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0070.pt|Whatever their purposes Presidential journeys have greatly enlarged and complicated the task of protecting the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0071.pt|The Secret Service and the Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies which cooperate with it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0072.pt|have been confronted in recent years with increasingly difficult problems, created by the greater exposure of the President during his travels
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0073.pt|and the greater diversity of the audiences he must face in a world torn by conflicting ideologies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0074.pt|If the sole goal were to protect the life of the President, it could be accomplished with reasonable assurance despite the multiple roles he must play.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0075.pt|But his very position as representative of the people prevents him from effectively shielding himself from the people.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0076.pt|He cannot and will not take the precautions of a dictator or a sovereign.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0077.pt|Under our system, measures must be sought to afford security without impeding the President's performance of his many functions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0078.pt|The protection of the President must be thorough but inconspicuous to avoid even the suggestion of a garrison state.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0079.pt|The rights of private individuals must not be infringed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0080.pt|If the protective job is well done, its performance will be evident only in the unexceptional fact of its success.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0081.pt|The men in charge of protecting the President, confronted by complex problems and limited as they are in the measures they may employ,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0082.pt|must depend upon the utmost cooperation and understanding from the public and the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0083.pt|The problem and the reasonable approach to its solution were ably stated in a memorandum prepared by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0084.pt|for the President soon after the assassination, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0085.pt|The degree of security that can be afforded the President of the United States
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0086.pt|is dependent to a considerable extent upon the degree of contact with the general public desired by the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0087.pt|Absolute security is neither practical nor possible. An approach to complete security would require the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0088.pt|to operate in a sort of vacuum, isolated from the general public and behind impregnable barriers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0089.pt|His travel would be in secret; his public appearances would be behind bulletproof glass. A more practical approach necessitates compromise.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0090.pt|Any travel, any contact with the general public, involves a calculated risk on the part of the President and the men responsible for his protection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0091.pt|Such risks can be lessened when the President recognizes the security problem,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0092.pt|has confidence in the dedicated Secret Service men who are ready to lay down their lives for him
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0093.pt|and accepts the necessary security precautions which they recommend.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0094.pt|Many Presidents have been understandably impatient with the security precautions which many years of experience dictate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0095.pt|because these precautions reduce the President's privacy and the access to him of the people of the country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0096.pt|Nevertheless the procedures and advice should be accepted if the President wishes to have any security.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0097.pt|Evaluation Of Presidential Protection At The Time Of The Assassination Of President Kennedy
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0098.pt|The history of Presidential protection shows growing recognition over the years that the job must be done by able, dedicated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0099.pt|thoroughly professional personnel, using the best technical equipment that can be devised.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0100.pt|The assassination of President Kennedy demands an examination of the protective measures employed to safe guard him
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0101.pt|and an inquiry whether improvements can be made which will reduce the risk of another such tragedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0102.pt|This section considers first the means used to locate potential sources of danger to the President in time to take appropriate precautions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0103.pt|In this connection the information available to Federal agencies about Lee Harvey Oswald
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0104.pt|is set out and the reasons why this information was not furnished to the Secret Service appraised.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0105.pt|Second, the adequacy of other advance preparations for the security of the President, during his visit to Dallas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0106.pt|largely measures taken by the Secret Service, is considered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0107.pt|Finally, the performance of those charged with the immediate responsibility of protecting the President on November twenty-two is reviewed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0108.pt|Intelligence Functions Relating to Presidential Protection at the Time of the Dallas Trip
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0109.pt|A basic element of Presidential protection
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0110.pt|is the identification and elimination of possible sources of danger to the President before the danger becomes actual.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0111.pt|The Secret Service has attempted to perform this function through the activities of its Protective Research Section
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0112.pt|and requests to other agencies, Federal and local, for useful information.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0113.pt|The Commission has concluded that at the time of the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0114.pt|the arrangements relied upon by the Secret Service to perform this function were seriously deficient.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0115.pt|Adequacy of preventive intelligence operations of the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0116.pt|The main job of the Protective Research Section (PRS)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0117.pt|is to collect, process, and evaluate information about persons or groups who may be a danger to the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0118.pt|In addition to this function, PRS is responsible for such tasks
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0119.pt|as obtaining clearance of some categories of White House employees and all tradesmen who service the White House,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0120.pt|the security processing of gifts sent to the President, and technical inspections against covert listening devices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0121.pt|At the time of the assassination PRS was a very small group, comprised of twelve specialists and three clerks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0122.pt|Many persons call themselves to the attention of PRS by attempting to visit, the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0123.pt|for bizarre reasons or by writing or in some other way attempting to communicate with him in a threatening or abusive manner
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0124.pt|or with undue persistence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0125.pt|Robert I. Bouck, special agent in charge of PRS,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0126.pt|estimated that most of the material received by his office originated in this fashion
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0127.pt|or from the occasional investigations initiated by the Secret Service,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0128.pt|while the balance was furnished to PRS by other Federal agencies, with primary source being the FBI.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0129.pt|The total volume of information received by PRS has risen steadily.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0130.pt|In nineteen forty-three PRS received approximately nine thousand items of information;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0131.pt|in nineteen fifty-three this had increased to more than seventeen thousand items;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0132.pt|in nineteen sixty-three the total exceeded thirty-two thousand items.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0133.pt|Since many items may pertain to a single case, these figures do not show the caseload.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0134.pt|In the period from November nineteen sixty-one to November nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0135.pt|PRS received items in eight thousand, seven hundred nine cases.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0136.pt|Before the assassination of President Kennedy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0137.pt|PRS expressed its interest in receiving information on suspects in very general terms. For example,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0138.pt|PRS instructed the White House mailroom, a source of much PRS data,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0139.pt|to refer all communications on identified existing cases and, in addition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0140.pt|any communication, quote, that in any way indicates anyone may have possible intention of harming the President, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0141.pt|Slightly more specific criteria were established for PRS personnel processing White House mail referred by the White House mailroom,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0142.pt|but again the standards were very general.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0143.pt|These instructions to PRS personnel appear to be the only instance where an effort was made to reduce the criteria to writing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0144.pt|When requested to provide a specific statement of the standards employed by PRS in deciding what information to seek and retain,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0145.pt|The Secret Service responded, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0146.pt|The criteria in effect prior to November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three, for determining whether to accept material for the PRS general files
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0147.pt|were broad and flexible. All material is and was desired, accepted, and filed if it indicated or tended to indicate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0148.pt|that the safety of the President is or might be in danger, either at the present or in the future.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0149.pt|There are many actions, situations, and incidents that may indicate such potential danger. Some are specific, such as threats;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0150.pt|danger may be implied from others, such as membership or activity in an organization which believes in assassination as a political weapon.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0151.pt|All material received by PRS was separately screened
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0152.pt|and a determination made as to whether the information might indicate possible harm to the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0153.pt|If the material was evaluated
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0154.pt|as indicating some potential danger to the President -- no matter how small -- it was indexed in the general PRS files
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0155.pt|under the name of the individual or group of individuals to whom that material related. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0156.pt|The general files of PRS consist of folders on individuals, card indexed by name.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0157.pt|The files are manually maintained, without use of any automatic data-processing techniques.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0158.pt|At the time of the assassination, the active PRS general files contained approximately fifty thousand cases
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0159.pt|accumulated over a twenty-year period, some of which included more than one individual.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0160.pt|A case file was established if the information available suggested that the subject might be a danger to the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0161.pt|Many of these cases were not investigated by PRS.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0162.pt|The case file served merely as a repository for information until enough had accumulated to warrant an investigation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0163.pt|During the period November nineteen sixty-one to November nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0164.pt|PRS investigated thirty-four newly established or reactivated cases concerning residents of Texas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0165.pt|Most of these cases involved persons who used threatening language in communications to or about the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0166.pt|An additional one hundred fifteen cases concerning Texas residents were established but not investigated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0167.pt|When PRS learns of an individual whose conduct warrants scrutiny, it requests an investigation by the closest Secret Service field office,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0168.pt|of which there are sixty-five throughout the country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0169.pt|If the field office determines that the case should be subject to continuing review, PRS establishes a file
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0170.pt|which requires a checkup at least, every six months.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0171.pt|This might involve a personal interview or interviews with members of the person's household. Wherever possible,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0172.pt|the Secret Service arranges for the family and friends of the individual, and local law enforcement officials,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0173.pt|to advise the field office if the subject displays signs of increased danger or plans to leave his home area.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0174.pt|At the time of the assassination there were approximately four hundred persons throughout the country who were subject to periodic review.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0175.pt|If PRS concludes after investigation
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0176.pt|that an individual presents a significant danger to the life of the President, his name is placed in a "trip index file"
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0177.pt|which is maintained on a geographical field office basis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0178.pt|At the time of the assassination the names of about one hundred persons were in this index, all of whom were included in the group of four hundred
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0179.pt|being reviewed regularly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0180.pt|PRS also maintains an album of photographs and descriptions of about twelve to fifteen individuals who are regarded as clear risks to the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0181.pt|and who do not have a fixed place of residence. Members of the White House detail of the Secret Service have copies of this album.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0182.pt|Individuals who are regarded as dangerous to the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0183.pt|and who are in penal or hospital custody are listed only in the general files of PRS,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0184.pt|but there is a system for the immediate notification of the Secret Service by the confining institution when a subject is released or escapes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0185.pt|PRS attempts to eliminate serious risks by hospitalization or, where necessary,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0186.pt|the prosecution of persons who have committed an offense such as threatening the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0187.pt|In June nineteen sixty-four PRS had arrangements to be notified about the release or escape of approximately one thousand persons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0188.pt|In summary, at the time of the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0189.pt|PRS had received, over a twenty-year period, basic information on some fifty thousand cases;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0190.pt|it had arrangements to be notified about release from confinement in roughly one thousand cases;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0191.pt|it had established periodic regular review of the status of four hundred individuals;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0192.pt|it regarded approximately one hundred of these four hundred cases as serious risks
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0193.pt|and twelve to fifteen of these cases as highly dangerous risks.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0194.pt|Members of the White House detail were expected to familiarize themselves with the descriptions and photographs of the highest risk cases.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0195.pt|The cases subject to periodic review and the one hundred or so cases in the higher risk category
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0196.pt|were filed on a geographic basis, and could conveniently be reviewed by a Secret Service agent preparing for a Presidential trip
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0197.pt|to a particular part of the country. These were the files reviewed by PRS on November eight, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0198.pt|at the request of Special Agent Lawson, advance agent for President Kennedy's trip to Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0199.pt|The general files of PRS were not indexed by geographic location and were of little use in preparing for a Presidential visit to a specific locality.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0200.pt|Secret Service requests to other agencies for intelligence information
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0201.pt|were no more specific than the broad and general instructions its own agents and the White House mailroom.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0202.pt|The head of PRS testified that the Secret Service requested other agencies to provide, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0203.pt|any and all information that they may come in contact with that would indicate danger to the President, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0204.pt|These requests were communicated in writing by the Secret Service; rather, the Service depended on the personal liaison maintained by PRS
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0205.pt|with the headquarters of the Federal intelligence agencies, particularly the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0206.pt|and at the working level with personnel of the field offices of the various agencies. The Service frequently participated
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0207.pt|in the training programs of other law enforcement agencies, and agents from other agencies attended the regular Secret Service training schools.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0208.pt|Presidential protection was an important topic in these training programs.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0209.pt|In the absence of more specific instructions, other Federal agencies interpreted the Secret Service's informal requests
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0210.pt|to relate principally to overt threats to harm the President or other specific manifestations of hostility.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0211.pt|For example, at the time of the assassination, the FBI Handbook, which is in the possession of every Bureau special agent, provided, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0212.pt|Threats against the President of the U.S.,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0213.pt|members of his immediate family, the President-elect, and the Vice-President. Investigation of threats against the President of the United States,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0214.pt|members of his immediate family, the President-Elect, and the Vice-President is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the U.S. Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0215.pt|Any information indicating the possibility of an attempt against the person or safety of the President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0216.pt|members of the immediate family of the President, the President-Elect or the Vice-President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0217.pt|must be referred immediately by the most expeditious means of communication to the nearest office of the U.S. Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0218.pt|Advise the Bureau at the same time by teletype of the information so furnished to the Secret Service and the fact that it has been so disseminated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0219.pt|The above action should be taken without delay in order to attempt to verify the information and no evaluation of the information should be attempted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0220.pt|When the threat is in the form of a written communication, give a copy to local Secret Service and forward the original to the Bureau
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0221.pt|where it will be made available to Secret Service headquarters in Washington.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0222.pt|The referral of the copy to local Secret Service should not delay the immediate referral of the information by the fastest available means of communication
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0223.pt|to Secret Service locally, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0224.pt|The State Department advised the Secret Service of all crank and threat letter mail
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0225.pt|or crank visitors and furnished reports concerning any assassination or attempted assassination of a ruler or other major official anywhere in the world.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0226.pt|The several military intelligence agencies reported crank mail and similar threats involving the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0227.pt|According to Special Agent in Charge Bouck,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0228.pt|the Secret Service had no standard procedure for the systematic review of its requests for and receipt of information from other Federal agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0229.pt|The Commission believes that the facilities and procedures of the Protective Research Section of the Secret Service
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0230.pt|prior to November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three, were inadequate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0231.pt|Its efforts appear to have been too largely directed at the "crank" threat.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0232.pt|Although the Service recognized that its advance preventive measures must encompass more than these most obvious dangers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0233.pt|it made little effort to identify factors in the activities of an individual
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0234.pt|or an organized group, other than specific threats, which suggested a source of danger against which timely precautions could be taken.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0235.pt|Except for its special "trip index" file of four hundred names,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0236.pt|none of the cases in the PRS general files was available for systematic review on a geographic basis when the President planned a particular trip.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0237.pt|As reported in chapter two, when the special file was reviewed on November eight,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0238.pt|it contained the names of no persons from the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0239.pt|notwithstanding the fact that Ambassador Stevenson had been abused by pickets in Dallas less than a month before.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0240.pt|Bouck explained the failure to try to identify the individuals involved in the Stevenson incident after it occurred on the ground that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0241.pt|PRS required a more direct indication of a threat to the President, and that there was no such indication until the President's scheduled visit to that area became known.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0242.pt|Such an approach seriously undermines the precautionary nature of PRS work;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0243.pt|if the presence in Dallas of the Stevenson pickets might have created a danger for the President on a visit to that city,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0244.pt|PRS should have investigated and been prepared to guard against it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0245.pt|Other agencies occasionally provided information to the Secret Service concerning potentially dangerous political groups.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0246.pt|This was done in the case of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico, for example, but only after members of the group had resorted to political violence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0247.pt|However, the vague requests for information which the Secret Service made
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0248.pt|to Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies were not well designed to elicit information from them
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0249.pt|about persons other than those who were obvious threats to the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0250.pt|The requests shifted the responsibility for evaluating difficult cases from the Service, the agency most responsible for performing that task,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0251.pt|to the other agencies. No specific guidance was provided.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0252.pt|Although the CIA had on file requests from the Treasury Department for information on the counterfeiting of U.S. currency and certain smuggling matters,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0253.pt|it had no written specification of intelligence information collected by CIA abroad which was desired by the Secret Service
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ046-0254.pt|in advance of Presidential trips outside the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0002.pt|Chapter eight. The Protection of the President. Part two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0003.pt|Information known about Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0004.pt|No information concerning Lee Harvey Oswald appeared in PRS files before the President's trip to Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0005.pt|Oswald was known to other Federal agencies with which the Secret Service maintained intelligence liaison.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0006.pt|The FBI had been interested in him, to some degree at least, since the time of his defection in October nineteen fifty-nine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0007.pt|It had interviewed him twice shortly after his return to the United States, again a year later at his request
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0008.pt|and was investigating him at the time of the assassination. The Commission has taken the testimony of Bureau agents
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0009.pt|who interviewed Oswald after his return from the Soviet Union and prior to November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0010.pt|the agent who was assigned his case at the time of the assassination, the Director of the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0011.pt|and the Assistant to the Director in charge of all investigative activities under the Director and Associate Director. In addition,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0012.pt|the Director and Deputy Director for Plans of the CIA testified concerning that Agency's limited knowledge of Oswald before the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0013.pt|Finally, the Commission has reviewed the complete files on Oswald, as they existed at the time of the assassination, of the Department of State,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0014.pt|the Office of Naval Intelligence, the FBI and the CIA. The information known to the FBI is summarized below.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0015.pt|From defection to return to Fort Worth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0016.pt|The FBI opened a file on Oswald in October nineteen fifty-nine, when news reports appeared of his defection to the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0017.pt|The file was opened, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0018.pt|for the purpose of correlating information inasmuch as he was considered a possible security risk in the event he returned to this country, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0019.pt|Oswald's defection was also the occasion for the opening of files by the Department of State, CIA, and the Office of Naval Intelligence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0020.pt|Until April nineteen sixty, FBI activity consisted of placing in Oswald's file
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0021.pt|information regarding his relations with the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and background data relating largely to his prior military service,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0022.pt|provided by other agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0023.pt|In April nineteen sixty, Mrs. Marguerite Oswald and Robert Oswald were interviewed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0024.pt|in the course of a routine FBI investigation of transfers of small sums of money from Mrs. Oswald to her son in Russia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0025.pt|During the next two years the FBI continued to accumulate information,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0026.pt|and kept itself informed on Oswald's status by periodic reviews of State Department and Office of Naval Intelligence files.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0027.pt|In this way, it learned that when Oswald had arrived in the Soviet Union
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0028.pt|he had attempted to renounce his U.S. citizenship and applied for Soviet citizenship,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0029.pt|had described himself as a Marxist, had said he would give the Soviet Union any useful information he had acquired
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0030.pt|as a marine radar technician and had displayed an arrogant and aggressive attitude at the U.S. Embassy;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0031.pt|it learned also that Oswald had been discharged from the Marine Corps Reserve as undesirable in August nineteen sixty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0032.pt|In June nineteen sixty-two, the Bureau was advised by the Department of State of Oswald's plan to return to the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0033.pt|The Bureau made arrangements to be advised by immigration authorities of his return,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0034.pt|and instructed the Dallas office to interview him when he got back to determine whether he had been recruited by a Soviet intelligence service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0035.pt|Oswald's file at the Department of State Passport Office was reviewed in June nineteen sixty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0036.pt|It revealed his letter of January thirty, nineteen sixty-two, to Secretary of the Navy Connally,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0037.pt|in which he protested his discharge and declared that he would use, quote, all means, end quote, to correct it.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0038.pt|The file reflected the Department's determination that Oswald had not expatriated himself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0039.pt|From return to Fort Worth to move to New Orleans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0040.pt|Oswald was first interviewed by FBI Agents John W. Fain and B. Tom Carter on June twenty-six, nineteen sixty-two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0041.pt|Agent Fain reported to headquarters that Oswald was impatient and arrogant,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0042.pt|and unwilling to answer questions regarding his motive for going to the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0043.pt|Oswald, quote, denied that he had ever denounced his U.S. citizenship, and that he had ever applied for Soviet citizenship specifically, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0044.pt|Oswald was, however, willing to discuss his contacts with Soviet authorities. He denied having any involvement with Soviet intelligence agencies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0045.pt|and promised to advise the FBI if he heard from them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0046.pt|Agent Fain was not satisfied by this interview and arranged to see Oswald again on August sixteen, nineteen sixty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0047.pt|According to Fain's contemporaneous memorandum and his present recollection,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0048.pt|while Oswald remained somewhat evasive at this interview, he was not antagonistic and seemed generally to be settling down.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0049.pt|Marina Oswald, however, recalled that her husband was upset by this interview.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0050.pt|Oswald again agreed to advise the FBI if he were approached under suspicious circumstances; however, he deprecated the possibility of this happening,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0051.pt|particularly since his employment did not involve any sensitive information.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0052.pt|Having concluded that Oswald was not a security risk or potentially dangerous or violent,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0053.pt|Fain determined that nothing further remained to be done at that time and recommended that the case be placed in a closed status.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0054.pt|This is an administrative classification indicating that no further work has been scheduled.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0055.pt|It does not preclude the agent in charge of the case from reopening it if he feels that further work should be done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0056.pt|From August nineteen sixty-two
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0057.pt|until March nineteen sixty-three, the FBI continued to accumulate information regarding Oswald but engaged in no active investigation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0058.pt|Agent Fain retired from the FBI in October nineteen sixty-two, and the closed Oswald case was not reassigned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0059.pt|However, pursuant to a regular Bureau practice of interviewing certain immigrants from Iron Curtain countries,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0060.pt|Fain had been assigned to see Marina Oswald at an appropriate time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0061.pt|This assignment was given to Agent James P. Hosty, Jr. of the Dallas office upon Fain's retirement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0062.pt|In March nineteen sixty-three, while attempting to locate Marina Oswald,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0063.pt|Agent Hosty was told by Mrs. M. F. Tobias, a former landlady of the Oswalds at six oh two Elsbeth Street in Dallas,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0064.pt|that other tenants had complained because Oswald was drinking to excess and beating his wife.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0065.pt|This information led Hosty to review Oswald's file, from which he learned that Oswald had become a subscriber to the Worker,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0066.pt|a Communist Party publication.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0067.pt|Hosty decided that the Lee Harvey Oswald case should be reopened because of the alleged personal difficulties and the contact with the Worker,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0068.pt|and his recommendation was accepted. He decided, however, not to interview Marina Oswald at that time, and merely determined
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0069.pt|that the Oswalds were living at two one four Neely Street in Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0070.pt|On April twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three, the FBI field office in New York
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0071.pt|was advised that Oswald was in contact with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New York, and that he had written to the committee
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0072.pt|stating that he had distributed its pamphlets on the streets of Dallas. This information did not reach Agent Hosty in Dallas until June.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0073.pt|Hosty considered the information to be, quote, stale, unquote, by that time, and did not attempt to verify Oswald's reported statement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0074.pt|Under a general Bureau request to be on the alert for activities of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0075.pt|Hosty had inquired earlier and found no evidence that it was functioning in the Dallas area.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0076.pt|In New Orleans. In the middle of May of nineteen sixty-three, Agent Hosty checked Oswald's last known residence and found that he had moved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0077.pt|Oswald was tentatively located in New Orleans in June,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0078.pt|and Hosty asked the New Orleans FBI office to determine Oswald's address and what he was doing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0079.pt|The New Orleans office investigated and located Oswald, learning his address and former place of employment on August five, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0080.pt|A confidential informant advised the FBI that Oswald was not known to be engaged in Communist Party activities in New Orleans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0081.pt|On June twenty-four, Oswald applied in New Orleans for a passport, stating that he planned to depart by ship
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0082.pt|for an extended tour of Western European countries, the Soviet Union, Finland, and Poland.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0083.pt|The Passport Office of the Department of State in Washington had no listing for Oswald requiring special treatment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0084.pt|and his application was approved on the following day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0085.pt|The FBI had not asked to be informed of any effort by Oswald to obtain a passport,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0086.pt|as it might have under existing procedures, and did not know of his application.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0087.pt|According to the Bureau, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0088.pt|We did not request the State Department to include Oswald on a list which would have resulted in advising us of any application for a passport
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0089.pt|inasmuch as the facts relating to Oswald's activities at that time did not warrant such action.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0090.pt|Our investigation of Oswald had disclosed no evidence that Oswald was acting under the instructions or on behalf of
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0091.pt|any foreign government or instrumentality thereof. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0092.pt|On August nine, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0093.pt|Oswald was arrested and jailed by the New Orleans Police Department for disturbing the peace, in connection with a street fight which broke out when he was accosted
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0094.pt|by anti-Castro Cubans while distributing leaflets on behalf of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0095.pt|On the next day, he asked the New Orleans police to arrange for him to be interviewed by the FBI.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0096.pt|The police called the local FBI office and an agent, John L. Quigley, was sent to the police station.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0097.pt|Agent Quigley did not know of Oswald's prior FBI record when he interviewed him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0098.pt|inasmuch as the police had not given Oswald's name to the Bureau when they called the office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0099.pt|Quigley recalled that Oswald was receptive when questioned about his general background
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0100.pt|but less than completely truthful or cooperative when interrogated about the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0101.pt|Quigley testified, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0102.pt|When I began asking him specific details with respect to his activities in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans as to where meetings were held,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0103.pt|who was involved, what occurred, he was reticent to furnish information,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0104.pt|reluctant and actually as far as I was concerned, was completely evasive on them. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0105.pt|In Quigley's judgment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0106.pt|Oswald, quote, was probably making a self-serving statement in attempting to explain to me why he was distributing this literature, and for no other reason,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0107.pt|and when I got to questioning him further then he felt that his purpose had been served and he wouldn't say anything further, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0108.pt|During the interview Quigley obtained background information from Oswald which was inconsistent with information already in the Bureau's possession.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0109.pt|When Quigley returned to his office, he learned
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0110.pt|that another Bureau agent, Milton R. Knack, had been conducting a background investigation of Oswald at the request of Agent Hosty in Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0111.pt|Quigley advised Knack of his interview and gave him a detailed memorandum.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0112.pt|Knack was aware of the facts known to the FBI and recognized Oswald's false statements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0113.pt|For example, Oswald claimed that his wife's maiden name was Prossa
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0114.pt|and that they had been married in Fort Worth and lived there until coming to New Orleans. He had told the New Orleans arresting officers that he had been born in Cuba.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0115.pt|Several days later, the Bureau received additional evidence that Oswald had lied to Agent Quigley.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0116.pt|On August twenty-two, it learned that Oswald had appeared on a radio discussion program on August twenty-one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0117.pt|William Stuckey, who had appeared on the radio program with Oswald, told the Bureau on August thirty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0118.pt|that Oswald had told him that he had worked and been married in the Soviet Union.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0119.pt|Neither these discrepancies nor the fact that Oswald had initiated the FBI interview
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0120.pt|was considered sufficiently unusual to necessitate another interview. Alan H. Belmont, Assistant to the Director of the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0121.pt|stated the Bureau's reasoning in this way, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0122.pt|Our interest in this man at this point was to determine whether his activities constituted a threat to the internal security of the country.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0123.pt|It was apparent that he had made a self-serving statement to Agent Quigley. It became a matter of record in our files as a part of the case,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0124.pt|and if we determined that the course of the investigation required us to clarify or face him down with this information, we would do it at the appropriate time.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0125.pt|In other words, he committed no violation of the law by telling us something that wasn't true, and unless this required further investigation at that time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0126.pt|we would handle it in due course, in accord with the whole context of the investigation. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0127.pt|On August twenty-one, nineteen sixty-three, Bureau headquarters instructed the New Orleans and Dallas field offices
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0128.pt|to conduct an additional investigation of Oswald in view of the activities which had led to his arrest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0129.pt|FBI informants in the New Orleans area, familiar with pro-Castro or Communist Party activity there,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0130.pt|advised the Bureau that Oswald was unknown in such circles.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0131.pt|In early September nineteen sixty-three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0132.pt|the FBI transferred the principal responsibility for the Oswald case from the Dallas office to the New Orleans office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0133.pt|Soon after, on October one, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0134.pt|The FBI was advised by the rental agent for the Oswalds' apartment in New Orleans that they had moved again.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0135.pt|According to the information received by the Bureau
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0136.pt|they had vacated their apartment, and Marina Oswald had departed with their child in a station wagon with Texas registration.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0137.pt|On October three, Hosty reopened the case in Dallas to assist the New Orleans office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0138.pt|He checked in Oswald's old neighborhood and throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area but was unable to locate Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0139.pt|The next word about Oswald's location was a communication from the CIA to the FBI on October ten,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0140.pt|advising that an individual tentatively identified as Oswald had been in touch with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0141.pt|in early October of nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0142.pt|The Bureau had no earlier information suggesting that Oswald had left the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0143.pt|The possible contact with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico intensified the FBI's interest in learning Oswald's whereabouts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0144.pt|The FBI representative in Mexico City arranged to follow up this information with the CIA and to verify Oswald's entry into Mexico.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0145.pt|The CIA message was sent also to the Department of State where it was reviewed by personnel of the Passport Office, who knew from Oswald's file
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0146.pt|that he had sought and obtained a passport on June twenty-five, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0147.pt|The Department of State did not advise either the CIA or the FBI of these facts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0148.pt|On October twenty-five,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0149.pt|the New Orleans office of the FBI learned that in September Oswald had given a forwarding address of two five one five
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0150.pt|West Fifth Street, Irving, Texas. After receiving this information on October twenty-nine, Agent Hosty attempted to locate Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0151.pt|On the same day Hosty interviewed neighbors on Fifth Street and learned that the address was that of Mrs. Ruth Paine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0152.pt|He conducted a limited background investigation of the Paines, intending to interview Mrs. Paine and ask her particularly about Oswald's whereabouts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0153.pt|Having determined that Mrs. Paine was a responsible and reliable citizen, Hosty interviewed her on November one.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0154.pt|The interview lasted about twenty to twenty-five minutes. In response to Hosty's inquiries, Mrs. Paine, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0155.pt|readily admitted that Mrs. Marina Oswald and Lee Oswald's two children were staying with her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0156.pt|She said that Lee Oswald was living somewhere in Dallas. She didn't know where. She said it was in the Oak Cliff area but she didn't have his address.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0157.pt|I asked her if she knew where he worked.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0158.pt|After a moment's hesitation, she told me that he worked at the Texas School Book Depository near the downtown area of Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0159.pt|She didn't have the exact address, and it is my recollection that we went to the phone book and looked it up,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0160.pt|found it to be four one one Elm Street. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0161.pt|Mrs. Paine told Hosty also
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0162.pt|that Oswald was living alone in Dallas because she did not want him staying at her house, although she was willing to let Oswald visit his wife and children.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0163.pt|According to Hosty, Mrs. Paine indicated that she thought she could find out where Oswald was living and would let him know.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0164.pt|At this point in the interview, Hosty gave Mrs. Paine his name and office telephone number on a piece of paper.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0165.pt|At the end of the interview, Marina Oswald came into the room. When he observed that she seemed, quote, quite alarmed, end quote, about the visit,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0166.pt|Hosty assured her, through Mrs. Paine as interpreter, that the FBI would not harm or harass her.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0167.pt|On November four, Hosty telephoned the Texas School Book Depository and learned that Oswald was working there
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0168.pt|and that he had given as his address Mrs. Paine's residence in Irving.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0169.pt|Hosty took the necessary steps to have the Dallas office of the FBI, rather than the New Orleans office, reestablished as the office with principal responsibility.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0170.pt|On November five, Hosty was traveling near Mrs. Paine's home and took the occasion to stop by to ask whether she had any further information.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0171.pt|Mrs. Paine had nothing to add to what she had already told him, except that during a visit that past weekend,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0172.pt|Oswald had said that he was a, quote, Trotskyite Communist, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0173.pt|and that she found this and similar statements illogical and somewhat amusing. On this occasion Hosty was at the Paine residence for only a few minutes.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0174.pt|During neither interview did Hosty learn Oswald's address
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0175.pt|or telephone number in Dallas. Mrs. Paine testified that she learned Oswald's telephone number at the Beckley Street roominghouse in the middle of October
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0176.pt|shortly after Oswald rented the room on October fourteen.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0177.pt|As discussed in chapter six, she failed to report this to Agent Hosty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0178.pt|because she thought the FBI was in possession of a great deal of information and certainly would find it very easy to learn where Oswald was living.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0179.pt|Hosty did nothing further in connection with the Oswald case until after the assassination. On November one, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0180.pt|he had received a copy of the report of the New Orleans office which contained Agent Quigley's memorandum of the interview in the New Orleans jail on August ten,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0181.pt|and realized immediately that Oswald had given false biographic information. Hosty knew that he would eventually have to investigate this, and, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0182.pt|was quite interested in determining the nature of his contact with the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0183.pt|When asked what his next step would have been, Hosty replied, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0184.pt|Well, as I had previously stated, I have between twenty-five and forty cases assigned to me at any one time. I had other matters to take care of.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0185.pt|I had now established that Lee Oswald was not employed in a sensitive industry.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0186.pt|I can now afford to wait until New Orleans forwarded the necessary papers to me to show me I now had all the information.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0187.pt|It was then my plan to interview Marina Oswald in detail concerning both herself and her husband's background. Question:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0188.pt|Had you planned any steps beyond that point?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0189.pt|Answer: No. I would have to wait until I had talked to Marina to see what I could determine, and from there I could make my plans.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0190.pt|Question: Did you take any action on this case between November five and November twenty-two? Answer: No, sir.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0191.pt|The official Bureau files confirm Hosty's statement that from November five until the assassination, no active investigation was conducted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0192.pt|On November eighteen the FBI learned that Oswald recently had been in communication with the Soviet Embassy in Washington
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0193.pt|and so advised the Dallas office in the ordinary course of business.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0194.pt|Hosty received this information on the afternoon of November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0195.pt|Nonreferral of Oswald to the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0196.pt|The Commission has considered carefully the question whether the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0197.pt|in view of all the information concerning Oswald in its files, should have alerted the Secret Service to Oswald's presence in Dallas
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0198.pt|prior to President Kennedy's visit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0199.pt|The Secret Service and the FBI differ
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0200.pt|as to whether Oswald fell within the category of, quote, threats against the President, end quote, which should be referred to the Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0201.pt|Robert I Bouck, special agent in charge of the Protective Research Section,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0202.pt|testified that the information available to the Federal Government about Oswald before the assassination would, if known to PRS,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0203.pt|have made Oswald a subject of concern to the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0204.pt|Bouck pointed to a number of characteristics besides Oswald's defection the cumulative effect of which would have been to alert the Secret Service
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0205.pt|to potential danger, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0206.pt|I would think his continued association with the Russian Embassy after his return,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0207.pt|his association with the Castro groups would have been of concern to us, a knowledge that he had, I believe,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0208.pt|been courtmartialed for illegal possession of a gun, of a handgun in the Marines,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0209.pt|that he had owned a weapon and did a good deal of hunting or use of it, perhaps in Russia, plus a number of items about his disposition and unreliability of character,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0210.pt|I think all of those, if we had them all together,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0211.pt|would have added up to pointing out a pretty bad individual, and I think that, together, had we known that he had a vantage point
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0212.pt|would have seemed somewhat serious to us, even though I must admit, that none of these in themselves would be
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0213.pt|would meet our specific criteria, none of them alone. But, it is when you begin adding them up to some degree that you begin to get criteria that, are meaningful.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0214.pt|End quote. Mr. Bouck pointed out, however, that he had no reason to believe that any one Federal agency had access to all this information,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0215.pt|including the significant fact that Oswald was employed in a building which overlooked the motorcade route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0216.pt|Agent Hosty testified that he was fully aware of the pending Presidential visit to Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0217.pt|He recalled that the special agent in charge of the Dallas office of the FBI, J. Gordon Shanklin,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0218.pt|had discussed the President's visit on several occasions, including the regular biweekly conference on the morning of November twenty-two
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0219.pt|Quote, Mr. Shanklin advised us, among other things,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0220.pt|that in view of the President's visit to Dallas, that if anyone had any indication of any possibility of any acts of violence or any demonstrations against the President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0221.pt|or Vice President, to immediately notify the Secret Service and confirm it in writing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0222.pt|He had made the same statement about a week prior at another special conference which we had held.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0223.pt|I don't recall the exact date. It was about a week prior. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0224.pt|In fact, Hosty participated in transmitting to the Secret Service two pieces of information pertaining to the visit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0225.pt|Hosty testified that he did not know until the evening of Thursday, November twenty-one, that there was to be a motorcade, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0226.pt|and never realized that the motorcade would pass the Texas School Book Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0227.pt|He testified that he did not read the newspaper story describing the motorcade route in detail, since he was interested only in the fact
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0228.pt|that the motorcade was coming up Main Street, quote, where maybe I could watch it if I had a chance, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0229.pt|Even if he had recalled that Oswald's place of employment was on the President's route,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0230.pt|Hosty testified that he would not have cited him to the Secret Service as a potential threat to the President. Hosty interpreted his instructions as requiring, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0231.pt|some indication that the person planned to take some action against the safety of the President of the United States or the Vice President. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0232.pt|In his opinion, none of the information in the FBI files -- Oswald's defection, his Fair Play for Cuba activities in New Orleans,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0233.pt|his lies to Agent Quigley, his recent visit to Mexico City -- indicated that Oswald was capable of violence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0234.pt|Hosty's initial reaction on hearing that Oswald was a suspect in the assassination, was, quote, shock
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0235.pt|complete surprise, end quote, because he had no reason to believe that Oswald, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0236.pt|was capable or potentially an assassin of the President of the United States, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0237.pt|Shortly after Oswald was apprehended and identified, Hosty's superior sent him to observe the interrogation of Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0238.pt|Hosty parked his car in the basement of police headquarters and there met an acquaintance, Lt. Jack Revill of the Dallas police force.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0239.pt|The two men disagree about the conversation which took place between them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0240.pt|They agree that Hosty told Revill
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0241.pt|that the FBI had known about Oswald and, in particular, of his presence in Dallas and his employment at the Texas School Book Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0242.pt|Revill testified that Hosty said also that the FBI had information that Oswald was, quote, capable of committing this assassination, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0243.pt|According to Revill, Hosty indicated that he was going to tell this to Lieutenant Wells of the homicide and robbery bureau.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0244.pt|Revill promptly made a memorandum of this conversation in which the quoted statement appears.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0245.pt|His secretary testified that she prepared such a report for him that afternoon and Chief of Police Jesse E. Curry
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0246.pt|and District Attorney Henry M. Wade both testified that they saw it later that day.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0247.pt|Hosty has unequivocally denied, first by affidavit and then in his testimony before the Commission,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0248.pt|that he ever said that Oswald was capable of violence, or that he had any information suggesting this.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0249.pt|The only witness to the conversation was Dallas Police Detective V. J. Brian, who was accompanying Revill.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ047-0250.pt|Brian did not hear Hosty make any statement concerning Oswald's capacity to be an assassin
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0002.pt|Chapter eight. The Protection of the President. Part three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0003.pt|Hosty's interpretation of the prevailing FBI instructions on referrals to the Secret Service was defended before the Commission by his superiors.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0004.pt|After summarizing the Bureau's investigative interest in Oswald prior to the assassination, J. Edgar Hoover concluded that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0005.pt|There was nothing up to the time of the assassination that gave any indication that this man was a dangerous character who might do harm to the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0006.pt|or to the Vice President, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0007.pt|Director Hoover emphasized that the first indication of Oswald's capacity for violence
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0008.pt|was his attempt on General Walker's life, which did not become known to the FBI until after the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0009.pt|Both Director Hoover and his assistant, Alan H. Belmont,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0010.pt|stressed also the decision by the Department of State that Oswald should be permitted to return to the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0011.pt|Neither believed that the Bureau investigation of him up to November twenty-two revealed any information which would have justified referral to the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0012.pt|According to Belmont, when Oswald returned from the Soviet Union, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0013.pt|he indicated that he had learned his lesson,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0014.pt|was disenchanted with Russia, and had a renewed concept -- I am paraphrasing, a renewed concept -- of the American free society.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0015.pt|We talked to him twice.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0016.pt|He likewise indicated he was disenchanted with Russia.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0017.pt|We satisfied ourselves that we had met our requirement, namely to find out whether he had been recruited by Soviet intelligence. The case was closed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0018.pt|We again exhibited interest on the basis of these contacts with The Worker, Fair Play for Cuba Committee, which are relatively inconsequential.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0019.pt|His activities for the Fair Play for Cuba Committee in New Orleans, we knew, were not of real consequence as he was not connected with any organized activity there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0020.pt|The interview with him in jail is not significant from the standpoint of whether he had a propensity for violence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0021.pt|Question: This is the Quigley interview you are talking about?
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0022.pt|Answer: Yes. It was a self-serving interview. The visits with the Soviet Embassy were evidently for the purpose of securing a visa,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0023.pt|and he had told us during one of the interviews that he would probably take his wife back to Soviet Russia some time in the future.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0024.pt|He had come back to Dallas. Hosty had established that he had a job, he was working,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0025.pt|and had told Mrs. Paine that when he got the money he was going to take an apartment, when the baby was old enough, he was going to take an apartment, and the family would live together.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0026.pt|He gave evidence of settling down.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0027.pt|Nowhere during the course of this investigation or the information that came to us from other agencies was there any indication of a potential for violence on his part.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0028.pt|Consequently, there was no basis for Hosty to go to Secret Service and advise them of Oswald's presence. End quote
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0029.pt|As reflected in this testimony,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0030.pt|the officials of the FBI believed that there was no data in its files which gave warning that Oswald was a source of danger to President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0031.pt|While he had expressed hostility at times toward the State Department, the Marine Corps, and the FBI as agents of the Government,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0032.pt|so far as the FBI knew he had not shown any potential for violence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0033.pt|Prior to November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0034.pt|no law enforcement agency had any information to connect Oswald with the attempted shooting of General Walker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0035.pt|It was against this background and consistent with the criteria followed by the FBI prior to November twenty-two
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0036.pt|that agents of the FBI in Dallas did not consider Oswald's presence in the Texas School Book Depository Building
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0037.pt|overlooking the motorcade route as a source of danger to the President and did not inform the Secret Service of his employment in the Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0038.pt|The Commission believes, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0039.pt|that the FBI took an unduly restrictive view of its responsibilities in preventive intelligence work, prior to the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0040.pt|The Commission appreciates the large volume of cases handled by the FBI
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0041.pt|six hundred thirty-six thousand, three hundred seventy-one investigative matters during fiscal year nineteen sixty-three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0042.pt|There were no Secret Service criteria which specifically required the referral of Oswald's case to the Secret Service;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0043.pt|nor was there any requirement to report the names of defectors. However, there was much material in the hands of the FBI about Oswald:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0044.pt|the knowledge of his defection, his arrogance and hostility to the United States,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0045.pt|his pro-Castro tendencies, his lies when interrogated by the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0046.pt|his trip to Mexico where he was in contact with Soviet authorities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0047.pt|his presence in the School Book Depository job and its location along the route of the motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0048.pt|All this does seem to amount to enough to have induced an alert agency, such as the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0049.pt|possessed of this information to list Oswald as a potential threat to the safety of the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0050.pt|This conclusion may be tinged with hindsight, but
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0051.pt|it stated primarily to direct the thought of those responsible for the future safety of our Presidents to the need for a more imaginative
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0052.pt|and less narrow interpretation of their responsibilities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0053.pt|It is the conclusion of the Commission that, even in the absence of Secret Service criteria
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0054.pt|which specifically required the referral of such a case as Oswald's to the Secret Service,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0055.pt|a more alert and carefully considered treatment of the Oswald case by the Bureau might have brought about such a referral.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0056.pt|Had such a review been undertaken by the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0057.pt|there might conceivably have been additional investigation of the Oswald case between November five and November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0058.pt|Agent Hosty testified
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0059.pt|that several matters brought to his attention in late October and early November, including the visit to the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0060.pt|required further attention.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0061.pt|Under proper procedures knowledge of the pending Presidential visit might have prompted Hosty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0062.pt|to have made more vigorous efforts to locate Oswald's roominghouse address in Dallas and to interview him regarding these unresolved matters.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0063.pt|The formal FBI instructions to its agents outlining the information to be referred to the Secret Service were too narrow at the time of the assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0064.pt|While the Secret Service bears the principal responsibility for this failure,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0065.pt|the FBI instructions did not reflect fully the Secret Service's need for information regarding potential threats.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0066.pt|The handbook referred thus to, quote, the possibility of an attempt against the person or safety of the President, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0067.pt|It is clear from Hosty's testimony that this was construed, at least by him,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0068.pt|as requiring evidence of a plan or conspiracy to injure the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0069.pt|Efforts made by the Bureau since the assassination, on the other hand,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0070.pt|reflect keen awareness of the necessity of communicating a much wider range of intelligence information to the Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0071.pt|Most important, notwithstanding that both agencies have professed to the Commission that the liaison between them was close and fully sufficient,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0072.pt|the Commission does not believe that the liaison between the FBI and the Secret Service prior to the assassination was as effective as it should have been.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0073.pt|The FBI Manual of Instructions provided, quote, Liaison With Other Government Agencies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0074.pt|To insure adequate and effective liaison arrangements,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0075.pt|each SAC should specifically designate an Agent (or Agents) to be responsible for developing
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0076.pt|and maintaining liaison with other Federal Agencies. This liaison should take into consideration
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0077.pt|FBI-agency community of interests, location of agency head quarters, and the responsiveness of agency representatives.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0078.pt|In each instance, liaison contacts should be developed to include a close friendly relationship,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0079.pt|mutual understanding of FBI and agency jurisdictions, and an indicated willingness by the agency representative
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0080.pt|to coordinate activities and to discuss problems of mutual interest.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0081.pt|Each field office should determine those Federal agencies which are represented locally and with which liaison should be conducted. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0082.pt|The testimony reveals that liaison responsibilities in connection with the President's visit
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0083.pt|were discussed twice officially by the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Dallas. As discussed in chapter two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0084.pt|some limited information was made available to the Secret Service. But there was no fully adequate liaison between the two agencies. Indeed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0085.pt|the Commission believes that the liaison between all Federal agencies responsible for Presidential protection should be improved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0086.pt|Other Protective Measures and Aspects of Secret Service Performance
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0087.pt|The President's trip to Dallas called into play many standard operating procedures of the Secret Service in addition to its preventive intelligence operations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0088.pt|Examination of these procedures shows that in most respects they were well conceived and ably executed by the personnel of the Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0089.pt|Against the background of the critical events of November twenty-two, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0090.pt|certain shortcomings and lapses from the high standards which the Commission believes should prevail in the field of Presidential protection are evident.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0091.pt|Advance preparations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0092.pt|The advance preparations in Dallas by Agent Winston G. Lawson of the White House detail have been described in chapter two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0093.pt|With the assistance of Agent in Charge Sorrels of the Dallas field office of the Secret Service,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0094.pt|Lawson was responsible for working out a great many arrangements for the President's trip.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0095.pt|The Service prefers to have two agents perform advance preparations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0096.pt|In the case of Dallas, because President Kennedy had scheduled visits to five Texas cities
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0097.pt|and had also scheduled visits to other parts of the country immediately before the Texas trip,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0098.pt|there were not enough men available to permit two agents to be assigned to all the advance work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0099.pt|Agent Lawson did the advance work alone from November thirteen to November eighteen, when he was joined by Agent David B. Grant,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0100.pt|who had just completed advance work on the President's trip to Tampa.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0101.pt|The Commission concludes that the most significant advance arrangements for the President's trip were soundly planned.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0102.pt|In particular, the Commission believes that the motorcade route selected by Agent Lawson, upon the advice of Agent in Charge Sorrels
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0103.pt|and with the concurrence of the Dallas police, was entirely appropriate, in view of the known desires of the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0104.pt|There were far safer routes via freeways directly to the Trade Mart,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0105.pt|but these routes would not have been in accordance with the White House staff instructions given the Secret Service for a desirable motorcade route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0106.pt|Much of Lawson's time was taken with establishing adequate security over the motorcade route and at the two places where the President would stop,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0107.pt|Love Field and the Trade Mart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0109.pt|by these Secret Service agents with the cooperation of the Dallas police and other local law enforcement agents, were carefully executed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0110.pt|Since the President was to be at the Trade Mart longer than at any other location in Dallas and in view of the security hazards presented by the building,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0111.pt|the Secret Service correctly gave particular attention in the advance preparations to those arrangements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0112.pt|The Commission also regards the security arrangements worked out by Lawson and Sorrels at Love Field as entirely adequate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0113.pt|The Commission believes, however,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0114.pt|that the Secret Service has inadequately defined the responsibilities of its advance agents, who have been given broad discretion
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0115.pt|to determine what matters require attention in making advance preparations and to decide what action to take.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0116.pt|Agent Lawson was not given written instructions concerning the Dallas trip or advice about any peculiar problems which it might involve;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0117.pt|all instructions from higher authority were communicated to him orally.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0118.pt|He did not have a checklist of the tasks he was expected to accomplish, either by his own efforts or with the cooperation of local authorities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0119.pt|The only systematic supervision of the activities of the advance agent
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0120.pt|has been that provided by a requirement that he file interim and final reports on each advance assignment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0121.pt|The interim report must be in the hands of the agent supervising the protective group traveling with the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0122.pt|long enough before his departure to apprise him of any particular problems encountered and the responsive action taken.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0123.pt|Agent Lawson's interim report was received by Agent Kellerman on November twenty, the day before departure on the Texas trip.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0124.pt|The Secret Service has advised the Commission that no unusual precautions were taken for the Dallas trip, and that, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0125.pt|the precautions taken for the President's trip were the usual safeguards employed on trips of this kind in the United States during the previous year, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0126.pt|Special Agent in Charge Sorrels testified that the advance preparations followed on this occasion were, quote, pretty much the same, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0127.pt|as those followed in nineteen thirty-six during a trip to Dallas by President Roosevelt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0128.pt|which was Sorrels' first important assignment in connection with Presidential work.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0129.pt|In view of the constant change in the nature of threats to the President and the diversity of the dangers which may arise in the various cities within the United States,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0130.pt|the Commission believes that standard procedures in use for many years and applied in all parts of the country may not be sufficient.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0131.pt|There is, for example, no Secret Service arrangement for evaluating before a trip particular difficulties that might be anticipated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0132.pt|which would bring to bear the judgment and experience of members of the White House detail other than the advance agent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0133.pt|Constant reevaluation of procedures, with attention to special problems and the development of instructions specific to particular trips
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0134.pt|would be a desirable innovation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0135.pt|Liaison with local law enforcement authorities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0136.pt|In the description of the important aspects of the advance preparations,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0137.pt|there have been references to the numerous discussions between Secret Service representatives and the Dallas Police Department.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0138.pt|The wholehearted support of these local authorities was indispensable to the Service in carrying out its duties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0139.pt|The Service had twenty-eight agents participating in the Dallas visit.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0140.pt|Agent Lawson's advance planning called for the deployment of almost six hundred members of the Dallas Police Department,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0141.pt|Fire Department, County Sheriff's Department, and the Texas Department of Public Safety.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0142.pt|Despite this dependence on local authorities, which would be substantially the same on a visit by the President to any large city,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0143.pt|the Secret Service did not at the time of the assassination have any established procedure governing its relationships with them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0144.pt|It had no prepared checklist of matters to be covered with local police on such visits to metropolitan areas
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0145.pt|and no written description of the role the local police were expected to perform.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0146.pt|Discussions with the Dallas authorities and requests made of them were entirely informal.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0147.pt|The Commission believes
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0148.pt|that a more formal statement of assigned responsibilities, supplemented in each case to reflect the peculiar conditions of each Presidential trip
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0149.pt|is essential. This would help to eliminate varying interpretations of Secret Service instructions by different local law enforcement representatives. For example,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0150.pt|while the Secret Service representatives in Dallas
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0151.pt|asked the police to station guards at each overpass to keep, quote, unauthorized personnel, end quote, off, this term was not defined.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0152.pt|At some overpasses all persons were excluded
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0153.pt|while on the overpass overlooking the assassination scene railroad and yard terminal workmen were permitted to remain under police supervision,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0154.pt|as discussed in chapter three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0155.pt|Assistant Chief Batchelor of the Dallas police noted the absence of any formal statement by the Secret Service of specific work assigned to the police
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0156.pt|and suggested the desirability of such a statement.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0157.pt|Agent Lawson agreed that such a procedure would assist him and other agents in fulfilling their responsibilities as advance agents.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0158.pt|Check of buildings along route of motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0159.pt|Agent Lawson did not arrange for a prior inspection of buildings along the motorcade route,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0160.pt|either by police or by custodians of the buildings, since it was not the usual practice of the Secret Service to do so.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0161.pt|The Chief of the Service has provided the Commission a detailed explanation of this policy, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0162.pt|Except for inauguration or other parades involving foreign dignitaries accompanied by the President in Washington,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0163.pt|it has not been the practice of the Secret Service to make surveys or checks of buildings along the route of a Presidential motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0164.pt|For the inauguration and certain other parades in Washington where the traditional route is known to the public long in advance of the event,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0165.pt|buildings along the route can be checked by teams of law enforcement officers, and armed guards are posted along the route as appropriate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0166.pt|But on out-of-town trips where the route is decided on and made public only a few days in advance,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0167.pt|buildings are not checked either by Secret Service agents or by any other law enforcement officers at the request of the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0168.pt|With the number of men available to the Secret Service and the time available, surveys of hundreds of buildings and thousands of windows is not practical.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0169.pt|In Dallas the route selected necessarily involved passing through the principal downtown section between tall buildings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0170.pt|While certain streets thought to be too narrow could be avoided and other choices made,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0171.pt|it was not practical to select a route where the President could not be seen from roofs or windows of buildings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0172.pt|At the two places in Dallas where the President would remain for a period of time, Love Field and the Trade Mart,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0173.pt|arrangements were made for building and roof security by posting police officers where appropriate.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0174.pt|Similar arrangements for a motorcade of ten miles, including many blocks of tall commercial buildings is not practical.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0175.pt|Nor is it practical to prevent people from entering such buildings, or to limit access in every building to those employed or having business there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0176.pt|Even if it were possible with a vastly larger force of security officers to do so, many observers have felt
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0177.pt|that such a procedure would not be consistent with the nature and purpose of the motorcade to let the people see their President and to welcome him to their city.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0178.pt|In accordance with its regular procedures, no survey or other check was made by the Secret Service, or by any other law enforcement agency at its request,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0179.pt|of the Texas School Book Depository Building or those employed there prior to the time the President was shot. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0180.pt|This justification of the Secret Service's standing policy is not persuasive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0181.pt|The danger from a concealed sniper on the Dallas trip was of concern to those who had considered the problem.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0182.pt|President Kennedy himself had mentioned it that morning, as had Agent Sorrels when he and Agent Lawson were fixing the motorcade route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0183.pt|Admittedly, protective measures cannot ordinarily be taken with regard to all buildings along a motorcade route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0184.pt|Levels of risk can be determined, however, as has been confirmed by building surveys made since the assassination for the Department of the Treasury.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0185.pt|An attempt to cover only the most obvious points of possible ambush along the route in Dallas might well have included the Texas School Book Depository Building.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0186.pt|Instead of such advance precautions, the Secret Service depended in part on the efforts of local law enforcement personnel stationed along the route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0187.pt|In addition, Secret Service agents riding in the motorcade were trained to scan buildings as part of their general observation of the crowd of spectators.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0188.pt|These substitute measures were of limited value. Agent Lawson was unable to state whether he had actually instructed
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0189.pt|the Dallas police to scan windows of buildings lining the motorcade route, although it was his usual practice to do so.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0190.pt|If such instructions were in fact given, they were not effectively carried out.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0191.pt|Television films taken of parts of the motorcade by a Dallas television station
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0192.pt|show the foot patrolmen facing the passing motorcade, and not the adjacent crowds and buildings, as the procession passed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0193.pt|Three officers from the Dallas Police Department were assigned to the intersection of Elm and Houston
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0194.pt|during the morning of November twenty-two prior to the motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0195.pt|All received their instructions early in the morning from Capt. P. W. Lawrence of the traffic division.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0196.pt|According to Captain Lawrence, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0197.pt|I then told the officers that their primary duty was traffic and crowd control and that they should be alert for any persons who might attempt to throw anything
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0198.pt|and although it was not a violation of the law to carry a placard, that they were not to tolerate any actions such as the Stevenson incident
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0199.pt|and arrest any person who might attempt to throw anything or try to get at the President and his party;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0200.pt|paying particular attention to the crowd for any unusual activity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0201.pt|I stressed the fact that this was our President and he should be shown every respect due his position and that it was our duty to see that this was done.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0202.pt|End quote. Captain Lawrence was not instructed to have his men watch buildings along the motorcade route and did not mention the observation of buildings to them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0203.pt|The three officers confirm that their primary concern was crowd and traffic control,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0204.pt|and that they had no opportunity to scan the windows of the Depository or any other building in the vicinity of Elm and Houston when the motorcade was passing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0205.pt|They had, however, occasionally observed the windows of buildings in the area before the motorcade arrived, in accordance with their own understanding of their function.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0206.pt|As the motorcade approached Elm Street
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0207.pt|there were several Secret Service agents in it who shared the responsibility of scanning the windows of nearby buildings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0208.pt|Agent Sorrels, riding in the lead car, did observe the Texas School Book Depository Building as he passed by,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0209.pt|at least for a sufficient number of seconds to gain a, quote, general impression, end quote, of the lack of any unusual activity.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0210.pt|He was handicapped, however, by the fact that he was riding in a closed car whose roof at times obscured his view.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0211.pt|Lawson, also in the lead car, did not scan any buildings since an important part of his job was to look backward at the President's car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0212.pt|Lawson stated that he, quote, was looking back a good deal of the time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0213.pt|watching his car, watching the sides, watching the crowds, giving advice or asking advice from the Chief
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0214.pt|and also looking ahead to the known hazards like overpasses, under-passes, railroads, et cetera, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0215.pt|Agent Roy H. Kellerman, riding in the front seat of the Presidential car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0216.pt|stated that he scanned the Depository Building, but not sufficiently to be alerted by anything in the windows or on the roof.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0217.pt|The agents in the follow-up car also were expected to scan adjacent buildings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0218.pt|However, the Commission does not believe that agents stationed in a car behind the Presidential car,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0219.pt|who must concentrate primarily on the possibility of threats from crowds along the route, provide a significant safeguard against dangers in nearby buildings.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0220.pt|Conduct of Secret Service agents in Fort Worth on November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0221.pt|In the early morning hours on November twenty-two, nineteen sixty-three,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0222.pt|in Fort Worth, there occurred a breach of discipline by some members of the Secret Service who were officially traveling with the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0223.pt|After the President had retired at his hotel,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0224.pt|nine agents who were off duty went to the nearby Fort Worth Press Club at midnight or slightly thereafter, expecting to obtain food;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0225.pt|they had little opportunity to eat during the day. No food was available at the Press Club.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0226.pt|All of the agents stayed for a drink of beer, or in several cases, a mixed drink.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0227.pt|According to their affidavits, the drinking in no case amounted to more than three glasses of beer or one and a half mixed drinks,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0228.pt|and others who were present say that no agent was inebriated or acted improperly.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0229.pt|The statements of the agents involved are supported by statements of members of the Fort Worth press who accompanied or observed them
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0230.pt|and by a Secret Service investigation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0231.pt|According to their statements, the agents remained at the Press Club for periods varying from thirty minutes to an hour and a half,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0232.pt|and the last agent left the Press Club by two a.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0233.pt|Two of the nine agents returned to their rooms. The seven others proceeded to an establishment called the Cellar Coffee House,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0234.pt|described by some as a beatnik place and by its manager as, quote, a unique showplace with continuous light entertainment all night
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0235.pt|serving only coffee, fruit juices and no hard liquors or beer, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0236.pt|There is no indication that any of the agents who visited the Cellar Coffee House had any intoxicating drink at that establishment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0237.pt|Most of the agents were there from about one:thirty or one:forty-five a.m. to about two:forty-five or three a.m.;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0238.pt|one agent was there from two until five a.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0239.pt|The lobby of the hotel and the areas adjacent to the quarters of the President were guarded during the night
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0240.pt|by members of the midnight to eight a.m. shift of the White House detail.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0241.pt|These agents were each relieved for a half hour break during the night.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0242.pt|Three members of this shift separately took this opportunity to visit the Cellar Coffee House.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0243.pt|Only one stayed as long as a half hour, and none had any beverage there.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0244.pt|Chief Rowley testified that agents on duty in such a situation usually stay within the building during their relief,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0245.pt|but that their visits to the Cellar were, quote, neither consistent nor inconsistent, end quote, with their duty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0246.pt|Each of the agents who visited the Press Club or the Cellar Coffee House (apart from the three members of the midnight shift)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0247.pt|had duty assignments beginning no later than eight a.m. that morning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0248.pt|President Kennedy was scheduled to speak across the street from his hotel in Fort Worth at eight:thirty a.m.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0249.pt|and then at a breakfast, after which the entourage would proceed to Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0250.pt|In Dallas, one of the nine agents was assigned to assist in security measures at Love Field, and four had protective assignments at the Trade Mart.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0251.pt|The remaining four had key responsibilities as members of the complement of the follow-up car in the motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0252.pt|Three of these agents occupied positions on the running boards of the car, and the fourth was seated in the car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0253.pt|The supervisor of each of the off-duty agents who visited the Press Club or the Cellar Coffee House
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0254.pt|advised, in the course of the Secret Service investigation of these events, that each agent reported for duty on time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0255.pt|with full possession of his mental and physical capabilities and entirely ready for the performance of his assigned duties. Chief Rowley testified that,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0256.pt|as a result of the investigation he ordered, he was satisfied that each of the agents performed his duties in an entirely satisfactory manner
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0257.pt|and that their conduct the night before did not impede their actions on duty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0258.pt|or in the slightest way prevent them from taking any action that might have averted the tragedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0259.pt|However, Chief Rowley did not condone the action of the off-duty agents, particularly since it violated a regulation of the Secret Service,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0260.pt|which provides, quote, Liquor, use of
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0261.pt|a. Employees are strictly enjoined to refrain from the use of intoxicating liquor
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0262.pt|during the hours they are officially employed at their post of duty, or when they may reasonably expect that they may be called upon to perform an official duty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0263.pt|During entire periods of travel status,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0264.pt|the special agent is officially employed and should not use liquor, until the completion of all of his official duties for the day,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0265.pt|after which time a very moderate use of liquor will not be considered a violation. However, all members of the White House Detail
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0266.pt|and special agents cooperating with them on Presidential and similar protective assignments are considered to be subject to call for official duty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0267.pt|at any time while in travel status.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0268.pt|Therefore, the use of intoxicating liquor of any kind, including beer and wine, by members of the White House Detail
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0269.pt|and special agents cooperating with them, or by special agents on similar assignments, while they are in a travel status, is prohibited. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0270.pt|The regulations provide further that, quote, violation or slight disregard, end quote, of these provisions, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0271.pt|will be cause for removal from the Service, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0272.pt|Chief Rowley testified
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0273.pt|that under ordinary circumstances he would have taken disciplinary action against those agents who had been drinking in clear violation of the regulation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0274.pt|However, he felt that any disciplinary action might have given rise
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0275.pt|to an inference that the violation of the regulation had contributed to the tragic events of November twenty-two.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0276.pt|Since he was convinced that this was not the case, he believed that it would be unfair to the agents and their families to take explicit disciplinary measures.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0277.pt|He felt that each agent recognized the seriousness of the infraction and that there was no danger of a repetition.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0278.pt|The Commission recognizes that the responsibilities of members of the White House detail of the Secret Service are arduous.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0279.pt|They work long, hard hours, under very great strain, and must travel frequently.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0280.pt|It might seem harsh to circumscribe their opportunities for relaxation.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0281.pt|Yet their role of protecting the President is so important to the well-being of the country
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0282.pt|that it is reasonable to expect them to meet very high standards of personal conduct,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0283.pt|so that nothing can interfere with their bringing to their task the finest qualities and maximum resources of mind and body.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0284.pt|This is the salutary goal to which the Secret Service regulation is directed,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0285.pt|when it absolutely forbids drinking by any agent accompanying the President on a trip.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0286.pt|Nor is this goal served when agents remain out until early morning hours, and lose the opportunity to get a reasonable amount of sleep.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0287.pt|It is conceivable that those men who had little sleep, and who had consumed alcoholic beverages, even in limited quantities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0288.pt|might have been more alert in the Dallas motorcade if they had retired promptly in Fort Worth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ048-0289.pt|However, there is no evidence that these men failed to take any action in Dallas within their power that would have averted the tragedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0001.pt|Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0002.pt|The Warren Commission Report. By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0003.pt|Chapter eight. The Protection of the President. Part four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0004.pt|The motorcade in Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0005.pt|Rigorous security precautions had been arranged at Love Field with the local law enforcement authorities by Agents Sorrels and Lawson.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0006.pt|These precautions included reserving a ceremonial area for the Presidential party,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0007.pt|stationing police on the rooftops of all buildings overlooking the reception area,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0008.pt|and detailing police in civilian clothes to be scattered throughout the sizable crowd.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0009.pt|When President and Mrs. Kennedy shook hands with members of the public along the fences surrounding the reception area, they were closely guarded by Secret Service agents
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0010.pt|who responded to the unplanned event with dispatch.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0011.pt|As described in chapter two, the President directed that his car stop on two occasions during the motorcade so that he could greet members of the public.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0012.pt|At these stops, agents from the Presidential follow-up car stood between the President and the public,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0013.pt|and on one occasion Agent Kellerman left the front seat of the President's car to take a similar position.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0014.pt|The Commission regards such impromptu stops as presenting an unnecessary danger,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0015.pt|but finds that the Secret Service agents did all that could have been done to take protective measures.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0016.pt|The Presidential limousine.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0017.pt|The limousine used by President Kennedy in Dallas was a convertible with a detachable, rigid plastic "bubble" top
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0018.pt|which was neither bulletproof nor bullet resistant.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0019.pt|The last Presidential vehicle with any protection against small-arms fire left the White House in nineteen fifty-three.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0020.pt|It was not then replaced because the state of the art did not permit the development of a bulletproof top of sufficiently light weight
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0021.pt|to permit its removal on those occasions when the President wished to ride in an open car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0022.pt|The Secret Service believed that it was very doubtful that any President would ride regularly in a vehicle with a fixed top, even though transparent.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0023.pt|Since the assassination, the Secret Service, with the assistance of other Federal agencies and of private industry,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0024.pt|has developed a vehicle for the better protection of the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0025.pt|Access to passenger compartment of Presidential car.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0026.pt|On occasion the Secret Service has been permitted to have an agent riding in the passenger compartment with the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0027.pt|Presidents have made it clear, however, that they did not favor this or any other arrangement which interferes with the privacy of the President and his guests.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0028.pt|The Secret Service has therefore suggested this practice only on extraordinary occasions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0029.pt|Without attempting to prescribe or recommend specific measures which should be employed for the future protection of Presidents,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0030.pt|the Commission does believe that there are aspects of the protective measures employed in the motorcade at Dallas which deserve special comment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0031.pt|The Presidential vehicle in use in Dallas, described in chapter two,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0032.pt|had no special design or equipment which would have permitted the Secret Service agent riding in the driver's compartment
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0033.pt|to move into the passenger section without hindrance or delay. Had the vehicle been so designed it is possible that an agent riding in the front seat
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0034.pt|could have reached the President in time to protect him from the second and fatal shot to hit the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0035.pt|However, such access to the President was interfered with both by the metal bar some fifteen inches above the back of the front seat
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0036.pt|and by the passengers in the jump seats.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0037.pt|In contrast, the Vice Presidential vehicle, although not specially designed for that purpose,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0038.pt|had no passenger in a jump seat between Agent Youngblood and Vice President Johnson to interfere with Agent Youngblood's ability
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0039.pt|to take a protective position in the passenger compartment before the third shot was fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0040.pt|The assassination suggests that it would have been of prime importance
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0041.pt|in the protection of the President if the Presidential car permitted immediate access to the President by a Secret Service agent at the first sign of danger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0042.pt|At that time the agents on the framing boards of the follow-up car were expected to perform such a function.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0043.pt|However, these agents could not reach the President's car when it was traveling at an appreciable rate of speed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0044.pt|Even if the car is traveling more slowly, the delay involved in reaching the President may be crucial.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0045.pt|It is clear that at the time of the shots in Dallas, Agent Clinton J. Hill leaped to the President's rescue as quickly as humanly possible.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0046.pt|Even so, analysis of the motion picture films taken by amateur photographer Zapruder
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0047.pt|reveals that Hill first placed his hand on the Presidential car at frame three forty-three, thirty frames
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0048.pt|and therefore approximately one point six seconds after the President was shot in the head.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0049.pt|About three point seven seconds after the President received this wound,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0050.pt|Hill had both feet on the car and was climbing aboard to assist President and Mrs. Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0051.pt|Planning for motorcade contingencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0052.pt|In response to inquiry by the Commission regarding the instructions to agents in a motorcade
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0053.pt|of emergency procedures to be taken in a contingency such as that which actually occurred, the Secret Service responded, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0054.pt|The Secret Service has consistently followed two general principles in emergencies involving the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0055.pt|All agents are so instructed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0056.pt|The first duty of the agents in the motorcade is to attempt to cover the President as closely as possible and practicable
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0057.pt|and to shield him by attempting to place themselves between the President and any source of danger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0058.pt|Secondly, agents are instructed to remove the President as quickly as possible from known or impending danger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0059.pt|Agents are instructed that it is not their responsibility to investigate or evaluate a present danger,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0060.pt|but to consider any untoward circumstances as serious and to afford the President maximum protection at all times.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0061.pt|No responsibility rests upon those agents near the President for the identification or arrest of any assassin or an attacker.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0062.pt|Their primary responsibility is to stay with and protect the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0063.pt|Beyond these two principles the Secret Service believes a detailed contingency or emergency plan is not feasible
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0064.pt|because the variations possible preclude effective planning.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0065.pt|A number of steps are taken, however, to permit appropriate steps to be taken in an emergency.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0066.pt|For instance, the lead car always is manned by Secret Service agents familiar with the area and with local law enforcement officials;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0067.pt|the radio net in use in motorcades is elaborate and permits a number of different means of communication with various local points.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0068.pt|A doctor is in the motorcade.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0069.pt|This basic approach to the problem of planning for emergencies is sound.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0070.pt|Any effort to prepare detailed contingency plans might well have the undesirable effect of inhibiting quick and imaginative responses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0071.pt|If the advance preparation is thorough, and the protective devices and techniques employed are sound,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0072.pt|those in command should be able to direct the response appropriate to the emergency. The Commission finds that the Secret Service agents in the motorcade
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0073.pt|who were immediately responsible for the President's safety reacted promptly at the time the shots were fired.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0074.pt|Their actions demonstrate that the President and the Nation can expect courage and devotion to duty from the agents of the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0075.pt|Recommendations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0076.pt|The Commission's review of the provisions for Presidential protection at the time of President Kennedy's trip to Dallas demonstrates the need for substantial improvements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0077.pt|Since the assassination, the Secret Service and the Department of the Treasury
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0078.pt|have properly taken the initiative in reexamining major aspects of Presidential protection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0079.pt|Many changes have already been made and others are contemplated, some of them in response to the Commission's questions and informal suggestions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0080.pt|Assassination a Federal Crime
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0081.pt|There was no Federal criminal jurisdiction over the assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0082.pt|Had there been reason to believe that the assassination was the result of a conspiracy, Federal jurisdiction could have been asserted;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0083.pt|it has long been a Federal crime to conspire to injure any Federal officer, on account of, or while he is engaged in, the lawful discharge of the duties of his office.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0084.pt|Murder of the President has never been covered by Federal law, however, so that once it became reasonably clear that the killing was the act of a single person,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0085.pt|the State of Texas had exclusive jurisdiction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0086.pt|It is anomalous that Congress has legislated in other ways touching upon the safety of the Chief Executive or other Federal officers,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0087.pt|without making an attack on the President a crime. Threatening harm to the President is a Federal offense,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0088.pt|as is advocacy of the overthrow of the Government by the assassination of any of its officers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0089.pt|The murder of Federal judges, U.S. attorneys and marshals, and a number of other specifically designated
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0090.pt|Federal law enforcement officers is a Federal crime.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0091.pt|Equally anomalous are statutory provisions which specifically authorize the Secret Service to protect the President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0092.pt|without authorizing it to arrest anyone who harms him. The same provisions authorize the Service to arrest without warrant
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0093.pt|persons committing certain offenses, including counterfeiting and certain frauds involving Federal checks or securities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0094.pt|The Commission agrees with the Secret Service that it should be authorized to make arrests without warrant
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0095.pt|for all offenses within its jurisdiction, as are FBI agents and Federal marshals.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0096.pt|There have been a number of efforts to make assassination a Federal crime, particularly after the assassination of President McKinley
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0097.pt|and the attempt on the life of President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0098.pt|In nineteen oh two bills passed both Houses of Congress but failed of enactment when the Senate refused to accept the conference report.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0099.pt|A number of bills were introduced immediately following the assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0100.pt|The Commission recommends to the Congress that it adopt legislation which would:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0101.pt|Punish the murder or manslaughter of, attempt or conspiracy to murder, kidnaping of and assault upon
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0102.pt|the President, Vice President, or other officer next in the order of succession to the Office of President, the President-elect and the Vice-President-elect,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0103.pt|whether or not the act is committed while the victim is in the performance of his official duties or on account of such performance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0104.pt|Such a statute would cover the President and Vice President or, in the absence of a Vice President, the person next in order of succession.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0105.pt|During the period between election and inauguration, the President-elect and Vice-President-elect would also be covered.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0106.pt|Restricting the coverage in this way would avoid unnecessary controversy over the inclusion or exclusion of other officials who are in the order of succession
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0107.pt|or who hold important governmental posts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0108.pt|In addition, the restriction would probably eliminate a need for the requirement which has been urged as necessary for the exercise of Federal power,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0109.pt|that the hostile act occur while the victim is engaged in or because of the performance of official duties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0110.pt|The governmental consequences of assassination of one of the specified officials give the United States ample power to act for its own protection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0111.pt|The activities of the victim at the time an assassination occurs and the motive for the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0112.pt|bear no relationship to the injury to the United States which follows from the act.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0113.pt|This point was ably made in the nineteen oh two debate by Senator George F. Hoar, the sponsor of the Senate bill, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0114.pt|what this bill means to punish is the crime of interruption of the Government of the United States and the destruction of its security by striking down the life
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0115.pt|of the person who is actually in the exercise of the executive power, or
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0116.pt|of such persons as have been constitutionally and lawfully provided to succeed thereto in case of a vacancy. It is important to this country
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0117.pt|that the interruption shall not take place for an hour, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0118.pt|Enactment of this statute would mean that the investigation of any of the acts covered and of the possibility of a further attempt
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0119.pt|would be conducted by Federal law enforcement officials, in particular, the FBI with the assistance of the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0120.pt|At present, Federal agencies participate only upon the sufferance of the local authorities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0121.pt|While the police work of the Dallas authorities in the early identification and apprehension of Oswald was both efficient and prompt,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0122.pt|FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who strongly supports such legislation, testified that the absence of clear Federal jurisdiction
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0123.pt|over the assassination of President Kennedy led to embarrassment and confusion in the subsequent investigation by Federal and local authorities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0124.pt|In addition, the proposed legislation will insure
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0125.pt|that any suspects who are arrested will be Federal prisoners, subject to Federal protection from vigilante justice and other threats.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0126.pt|Committee of Cabinet Officers. As our Government has become more complex,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0127.pt|agencies other than the Secret Service have become involved in phases of the overall problem of protecting our national leaders.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0128.pt|The FBI is the major domestic investigating agency of the United States,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0129.pt|while the CIA has the primary responsibility for collecting intelligence overseas to supplement information acquired by the Department of State.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0130.pt|The Secret Service must rely in large part
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0132.pt|The Commission believes that it is necessary to improve the cooperation among these agencies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0133.pt|and to emphasize that the task of Presidential protection is one of broad national concern.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0134.pt|The Commission suggests that consideration might be given to assigning to a Cabinet-level committee or the National Security Council
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0135.pt|(which is responsible for advising the President respecting the coordination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0136.pt|of departmental policies relating to the national security) the responsibility to review and oversee the protective activities of the Secret Service
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0137.pt|and the other Federal agencies that assist in safeguarding the President. The Committee should include the Secretary of the Treasury and the Attorney General,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0138.pt|and, if the Council is used, arrangements should be made for the attendance of the Secretary of the Treasury
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0139.pt|and the Attorney General at any meetings which are concerned with Presidential protection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0140.pt|The Council already includes, in addition to the President and Vice President, the Secretaries of State and Defense and has a competent staff.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0141.pt|The foremost assignment of the Committee would be to insure that the maximum resources of the Federal Government are fully engaged in the job of protecting the President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0142.pt|by defining responsibilities clearly and overseeing their execution.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0143.pt|Major needs of personnel or other resources might be met more easily on its recommendation than they have been in the past.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0144.pt|The Committee would be able to provide guidance in defining the general nature of domestic and foreign dangers to Presidential security.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0145.pt|As improvements are recommended for the advance detection of potential threats to the President, it could act as a final review board.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0146.pt|The expert assistance and resources which it could draw upon would be particularly desirable in this complex and sensitive area.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0147.pt|This arrangement would provide a continuing high-level contact for agencies that may wish to consult respecting particular protective measures.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0148.pt|For various reasons the Secret Service has functioned largely as an informal part of the White House staff, with the result
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0149.pt|that it has been unable, as a practical matter, to exercise sufficient influence over the security precautions which surround Presidential activities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0150.pt|A Cabinet-level committee which is actively concerned with these problems would be able to discuss these matters more effectively with the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0151.pt|Responsibilities for Presidential Protection
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0152.pt|The assignment of the responsibility of protecting the President to an agency of the Department of the Treasury was largely an historical accident.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0153.pt|The Secret Service was organized as a division of the Department of the Treasury in eighteen sixty-five, to deal with counterfeiting.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0154.pt|In eighteen ninety-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0155.pt|while investigating a plot to assassinate President Cleveland, the Service assigned a small protective detail of agents to the White House.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0156.pt|Secret Service men accompanied the President and his family to their vacation home in Massachusetts
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0157.pt|and special details protected him in Washington, on trips, and at special functions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0158.pt|These informal and part-time arrangements led to more systematic protection in nineteen oh two, after the assassination of President McKinley;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0159.pt|the Secret Service, then the only Federal investigative agency, assumed full-time responsibility for the safety of the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0160.pt|Since that time, the Secret Service has had and exercised responsibility for the physical protection of the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0161.pt|and also for the preventive investigation of potential threats against the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0162.pt|Although the Secret Service has had the primary responsibility for the protection of the President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0163.pt|the FBI, which was established within the Department of Justice in nineteen oh eight, has had in recent years an increasingly important role to play.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0164.pt|In the appropriations of the FBI there has recurred annually an item for the, quote, protection of the person of the President of the United States, end quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0165.pt|which first appeared in the appropriation of the Department of Justice in nineteen ten under the heading, quote, Miscellaneous Objects, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0166.pt|Although the FBI is not charged with the physical protection of the President, it does have an assignment, as do other Government agencies,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0167.pt|in the field of preventive investigation in regard to the President's security.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0168.pt|As discussed above, the Bureau has attempted to meet its responsibilities in this field by spelling out in its Handbook
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0169.pt|the procedures which its agents are to follow in connection with information received, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0170.pt|indicating the possibility of an attempt against the person or safety of the President, end quote, or other protected persons.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0171.pt|With two Federal agencies operating in the same general field of preventive investigation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0172.pt|questions inevitably arise as to the scope of each agency's authority and responsibility.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0173.pt|As the testimony of J. Edgar Hoover and other Bureau officials revealed, the FBI did not believe that its directive required the Bureau
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0174.pt|to notify the Secret Service of the substantial information about Lee Harvey Oswald which the FBI had accumulated
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0175.pt|before the President reached Dallas.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0176.pt|On the other hand, the Secret Service had no knowledge whatever of Oswald, his background, or his employment at the Book Depository,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0177.pt|and Robert I. Bouck, who was in charge of the Protective Research Section of the Secret Service, believed that the accumulation of the facts known to the FBI
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0178.pt|should have constituted a sufficient basis to warn the Secret Service of the Oswald risk.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0179.pt|The Commission believes that both the FBI and the Secret Service have too narrowly construed their respective responsibilities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0180.pt|The Commission has the impression
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0181.pt|that too much emphasis is placed by both on the investigation of specific threats by individuals and not enough on dangers from other sources.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0182.pt|In addition, the Commission has concluded that the Secret Service particularly tends to be the passive recipient of information
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0183.pt|regarding such threats and that its Protective Research Section is not adequately staffed or equipped
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0184.pt|to conduct the wider investigative work that is required today for the security of the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0185.pt|During the period the Commission was giving thought to this situation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0186.pt|the Commission received a number of proposals designed to improve current arrangements for protecting the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0187.pt|These proposals included suggestions to locate exclusive responsibility for all phases of the work
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0188.pt|in one or another Government agency, to clarify the division of authority between the agencies involved, and to retain the existing system
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0189.pt|but expand both the scope and the operations of the existing agencies, particularly those of the Secret Service and the FBI.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0190.pt|It has been pointed out that the FBI, as our chief investigative agency,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0191.pt|is properly manned and equipped to carry on extensive information gathering functions within the United States.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0192.pt|It was also suggested that it would take a substantial period of time for the Secret Service to build up the experience and skills necessary to meet the problem.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0193.pt|Consequently the suggestion has been made, on the one hand, that all preventive investigative functions relating to the security of the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0194.pt|should be transferred to the FBI,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0195.pt|leaving with the Secret Service only the responsibility for the physical protection of the President, that is, the guarding function alone.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0196.pt|On the other hand, it is urged that all features of the protection of the President and his family should be committed to an elite and independent corps.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0197.pt|It is also contended that the agents should be intimately associated with the life of the Presidential family
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0198.pt|in all its ramifications and alert to every danger that might befall it,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0199.pt|and ready at any instant to hazard great danger to themselves in the performance of their tremendous responsibility.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0200.pt|It is suggested that an organization shorn of its power to investigate all the possibilities of danger to the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0201.pt|and becoming merely the recipient of information gathered by others would become limited solely to acts of physical alertness and personal courage
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0202.pt|incident to its responsibilities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0203.pt|So circumscribed, it could not maintain the esprit de corps or the necessary alertness for this unique and challenging responsibility.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0204.pt|While in accordance with its mandate
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0205.pt|this Commission has necessarily examined into the functioning of the various Federal agencies concerned with the tragic trip of President Kennedy to Dallas
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0206.pt|and while it has arrived at certain conclusions in respect thereto, it seems clear
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0207.pt|that it was not within the Commission's responsibility to make specific recommendations as to the long-range organization of the President's protection,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0208.pt|except as conclusions flowing directly from its examination of the President's assassination can be drawn.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0209.pt|The Commission was not asked to apply itself as did the Hoover Commission in nineteen forty-nine,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0210.pt|for examples to a determination of the optimum organization of the President's protection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0211.pt|It would have been necessary for the Commission to take considerable testimony, much of it extraneous to the facts of the assassination of President Kennedy,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0212.pt|to put it in a position to reach final conclusions in this respect.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0213.pt|There are always dangers of divided responsibility,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0214.pt|duplication, and confusion of authority where more than one agency is operating in the same field; but on the other hand
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0215.pt|the protection of the President is in a real sense a Government-wide responsibility which must necessarily assumed by the Department of State,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0216.pt|the FBI, the CIA, and the military intelligence agencies as well as the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0217.pt|Moreover, a number of imponderable questions have to be weighed if any change in the intimate association now established
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0218.pt|between the Secret Service and the President and his family is contemplated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0219.pt|These considerations have induced the Commission to believe
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0220.pt|that the determination of whether or not there should be a relocation of responsibilities and functions should be left to the Executive and the Congress,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0221.pt|perhaps upon recommendations based on further studies by the Cabinet-level committee recommended above or the National Security Council.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0222.pt|Pending any such determination, however, this Commission is convinced of the necessity of better coordination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0223.pt|and direction of the activities of all existing agencies of Government which are in a position to and do, furnish information
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0224.pt|and services related to the security of the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0225.pt|The Commission feels the Secret Service and the FBI, as well as the State Department and the CIA when the President travels abroad,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0226.pt|could improve their existing capacities and procedures so as to lessen the chances of assassination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0227.pt|Without, therefore, coming to final conclusions respecting the long-range organization of the President's security,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0228.pt|the Commission believes that the facts of the assassination of President Kennedy point to certain measures which,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0229.pt|while assuming no radical relocation of responsibilities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ049-0230.pt|can and should be recommended by this Commission in the interest of the more efficient protection of the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0001.pt|For more information, or to volunteer, please visit librivox dot org. Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0002.pt|The Warren Commission Report.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0003.pt|By The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. Chapter eight. The Protection of the President. Part five.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0004.pt|General Supervision of the Secret Service
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0005.pt|The intimacy of the Secret Service's relationship to the White House
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0006.pt|and the dissimilarity of its protective functions to most activities of the Department of the Treasury
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0007.pt|have made it difficult for the Treasury to maintain close and continuing supervision.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0008.pt|The Commission believes that the recommended Cabinet-level committee will help to correct many of the major deficiencies of supervision
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0009.pt|disclosed by the Commission's investigation. Other measures should be taken as well to improve the overall operation of the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0010.pt|Daily supervision of the operations of the Secret Service within the Department of the Treasury should be improved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0011.pt|The Chief of the Service now reports to the Secretary of the Treasury
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0012.pt|through an Assistant Secretary whose duties also include the direct supervision of the Bureau of the Mint
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0013.pt|and the Department's Employment Policy Program, and who also represents the Secretary of the Treasury on various committees and groups.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0014.pt|The incumbent has no technical qualifications in the area of Presidential protection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0015.pt|The Commission recommends that the Secretary of the Treasury appoint a special assistant with the responsibility of supervising the Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0016.pt|This special assistant should be required to have sufficient stature and experience in law enforcement, intelligence, or allied fields
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0017.pt|to be able to provide effective continuing supervision
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0018.pt|and to keep the Secretary fully informed regarding all significant developments relating to Presidential protection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0019.pt|This report has already pointed out several respects
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0020.pt|in which the Commission believes that the Secret Service has operated with insufficient planning or control.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0021.pt|Actions by the Service since the assassination indicate its awareness of the necessity for substantial improvement in its administration.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0022.pt|A formal and thorough description of the responsibilities of the advance agent is now in preparation by the Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0023.pt|Work is going forward
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0024.pt|toward the preparation of formal understandings of the respective roles of the Secret Service and other agencies with which it collaborates
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0025.pt|or from which it derives assistance and support.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0026.pt|The Commission urges that the Service continue this effort to overhaul and define its procedures.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0027.pt|While manuals and memoranda are no guarantee of effective operations,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0028.pt|no sizable organization can achieve efficiency without the careful analysis and demarcation of responsibility
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0029.pt|that is reflected in definite and comprehensive operating procedures.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0030.pt|The Commission also recommends
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0031.pt|that the Secret Service consciously set about the task of inculcating and maintaining the highest standard of excellence and esprit, for all of its personnel.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0032.pt|This involves tight and unswerving discipline as well as the promotion of an outstanding degree of dedication and loyalty to duty.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0033.pt|The Commission emphasizes that it finds no causal connection between the assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0034.pt|and the breach of regulations which occurred on the night of November twenty-one at Fort Worth.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0035.pt|Nevertheless, such a breach, in which so many agents participated,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0036.pt|is not consistent with the standards which the responsibilities of the Secret Service require it to meet.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0037.pt|Preventive Intelligence
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0038.pt|In attempting to identify those individuals who might prove a danger to the President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0039.pt|the Secret Service has largely been the passive recipient of threatening communications to the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0040.pt|and reports from other agencies which independently evaluate their information for potential sources of danger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0041.pt|This was the consequence of the Service's lack of an adequate investigative staff,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0042.pt|its inability to process large amounts of data, and its failure to provide specific descriptions of the kind of information it sought.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0043.pt|The Secret Service has embarked upon a complete overhaul of its research activities. The staff of the Protective Research Section (PRS)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0044.pt|has been augmented, and a Secret Service inspector has been put in charge of this operation. With the assistance of the President's Office of Science and Technology,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0045.pt|and of the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0046.pt|it has obtained the services of outside consultants, such as the Rand Corporation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0047.pt|International Business Machines Corporation, and a panel of psychiatric and psychological experts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0048.pt|It has received assistance also from data processing experts at the CIA
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0049.pt|and from a specialist in psychiatric prognostication at Walter Reed Hospital.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0050.pt|As a result of these studies, the planning document submitted by the Secretary of the Treasury to the Bureau of the Budget on August thirty-one,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0051.pt|nineteen sixty-four, makes several significant recommendations in this field.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0052.pt|Based on the Commission's investigation, the following minimum goals for improvements are indicated:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0053.pt|Broader and more selective criteria
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0054.pt|Since the assassination, both the Secret Service and the FBI have recognized
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0055.pt|that the PRS files can no longer be limited largely to persons communicating actual threats to the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0056.pt|On December twenty-six, nineteen sixty-three, the FBI circulated additional instructions to all its agents,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0057.pt|specifying criteria for information to be furnished to the Secret Service in addition to that covered by the former standard,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0058.pt|which was the possibility of an attempt against the person or safety of the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0059.pt|he new instructions require FBI agents to report immediately information concerning, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0060.pt|Subversives, ultrarightists, racists and fascists (a) possessing emotional instability or irrational behavior,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0061.pt|(b) who have made threats of bodily harm against officials or employees of Federal, state or local government or officials of a foreign government,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0062.pt|(c) who express or have expressed strong or violent anti-U.S. sentiments
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0063.pt|and who have been involved in bombing or bomb-making or whose past conduct indicates tendencies toward violence, and (d)
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0064.pt|whose prior acts or statements depict propensity for violence and hatred against organized government, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0065.pt|Alan H. Belmont, Assistant to the Director of the FBI, testified that this revision was initiated by the FBI itself.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0066.pt|The volume of references to the Secret Service has increased substantially since the new instructions went into effect;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0067.pt|more than five thousand names were referred to the Secret Service in the first four months of nineteen sixty-four.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0068.pt|According to Chief Rowley, by mid-June nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0069.pt|the Secret Service had received from the FBI some nine thousand reports on members of the Communist Party.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0070.pt|The FBI now transmits information on all defectors, a category which would, of course, have included Oswald.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0071.pt|Both Director Hoover and Belmont expressed to the Commission the great concern of the FBI, which is shared by the Secret Service,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0072.pt|that referrals to the Secret Service under the new criteria might, if not properly handled,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0073.pt|result in some degree of interference with the personal liberty of those involved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0074.pt|They emphasized the necessity that the information now being furnished be handled with judgment and care.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0075.pt|The Commission shares this concern.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0076.pt|The problem is aggravated by the necessity that the Service obtain the assistance of local law enforcement officials in evaluating the information which it receives
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0077.pt|and in taking preventive steps.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0078.pt|In June nineteen sixty-four, the Secret Service sent to a number of Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0079.pt|guidelines for an experimental program to develop more detailed criteria.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0080.pt|The suggestions of Federal agencies for revision of these guidelines were solicited.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0081.pt|The new tentative criteria are useful in making clear that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0082.pt|the interest of the Secret Service goes beyond information on individuals or groups threatening to cause harm or embarrassment to the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0083.pt|Information is requested also concerning individuals or groups who have demonstrated an interest in the President
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0084.pt|or, quote, other high government officials in the nature of a complaint coupled with an expressed or implied determination to use a means,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0085.pt|other than legal or peaceful, to satisfy any grievance, real or imagined.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0086.pt|Under these criteria, whether the case should be referred to the Secret Service depends on the existence of a previous history of mental instability,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0087.pt|propensity toward violent action, or some similar characteristic, coupled with some evaluation of the capability of the individual or group
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0088.pt|to further the intention to satisfy a grievance by unlawful means.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0089.pt|While these tentative criteria are a step in the right direction,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0090.pt|they seem unduly restrictive in continuing to require some manifestation of animus against a Government official.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0091.pt|It is questionable whether such criteria would have resulted in the referral of Oswald to the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0092.pt|Chief Rowley believed that they would,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0093.pt|because of Oswald's demonstrated hostility toward the Secretary of the Navy in his letter of January thirty, nineteen sixty-two. Quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0094.pt|I shall employ all means to right this gross mistake or injustice to a bona fide U.S. citizen and ex-service man.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0095.pt|The U.S. government has no charges or complaints against me.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0096.pt|I ask you to look into this case and take the necessary steps to repair the damage done to me and my family. End quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0097.pt|Even with the advantage of hindsight, this letter does not appear to express or imply Oswald's, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0098.pt|determination to use a means, other than legal or peaceful, to satisfy his grievance, end quote, within the meaning of the new criteria.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0099.pt|It is apparent that a good deal of further consideration and experimentation will be required before adequate criteria can be framed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0100.pt|The Commission recognizes that no set of meaningful criteria will yield the names of all potential assassins. Charles J. Guiteau,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0101.pt|Leon F. Czolgosz,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0102.pt|John Schrank, and Guiseppe Zangara -- four assassins or would-be assassins
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0103.pt|were all men who acted alone in their criminal acts against our leaders. None had a serious record of prior violence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0104.pt|Each of them was a failure in his work and in his relations with others, a victim of delusions and fancies which led to the conviction
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0105.pt|that society and its leaders had combined to thwart him. It will require every available resource of our Government
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0106.pt|to devise a practical system which has any reasonable possibility of revealing such malcontents.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0107.pt|Liaison with other agencies regarding intelligence.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0108.pt|The Secret Service's liaison with the agencies that supply information to it has been too casual.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0109.pt|Since the assassination, the Service has recognized that these relationships must be far more formal
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0110.pt|and each agency given clear understanding of the assistance which the Secret Service expects.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0111.pt|Once the Secret Service has formulated its new standards for collection of information, it should enter into written agreements with each Federal agency
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0112.pt|and the leading State and local agencies that might be a source of such information.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0113.pt|Such agreements should describe in detail the information which is sought, the manner in which it will be provided to the Secret Service,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0114.pt|and the respective responsibilities for any further investigation that may be required.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0115.pt|This is especially necessary with regard to the FBI and CIA,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0116.pt|which carry the major responsibility for supplying information about potential threats,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0117.pt|particularly those arising from organized groups, within their special jurisdiction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0118.pt|Since these agencies are already obliged constantly to evaluate the activities of such groups,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0119.pt|they should be responsible for advising the Secret Service if information develops indicating the existence of an assassination plot
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0120.pt|and for reporting such events as a change in leadership or dogma which indicate that the group may present a danger to the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0121.pt|Detailed formal agreements embodying these arrangements should be worked out between the Secret Service and both of these agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0122.pt|It should be made clear that the Secret Service will in no way seek to duplicate the intelligence
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0123.pt|and investigative capabilities of the agencies now operating in this field but will continue
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0124.pt|to use the data developed by these agencies to carry out its special duties.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0125.pt|Once experience has been gained in implementing such agreements with the Federal and leading State and local agencies,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0126.pt|the Secret Service, through its field offices,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0127.pt|should negotiate similar arrangements with such other State and local law enforcement agencies as may provide meaningful assistance.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0128.pt|Much useful information will come to the attention of local law enforcement agencies in the regular course of their activities,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0129.pt|and this source should not be neglected by undue concentration on relationships with other Federal agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0130.pt|Finally, these agreements with Federal and local authorities will be of little value
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0131.pt|unless a system is established for the frequent formal review of activities thereunder. In this regard
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0132.pt|the Commission notes with approval several recent measures taken and proposed by the Secret Service to improve its liaison arrangements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0133.pt|In his testimony Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon informed the Commission
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0134.pt|that an interagency committee has been established to develop more effective criteria.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0135.pt|According to Secretary Dillon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0136.pt|the Committee will include representatives of the President's Office of Science and Technology, Department of Defense, CIA,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0137.pt|FBI, and the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0138.pt|In addition, the Department of the Treasury has requested five additional agents for its Protective Research Section
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0139.pt|to serve as liaison officers with law enforcement and intelligence agencies. On the basis of the Department's review during the past several months,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0140.pt|Secretary Dillon testified that the use of such liaison officers is the only effective way to insure that adequate liaison is maintained.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0141.pt|As a beginning step to improve liaison with local law enforcement officials, the Secret Service on August twenty-six, nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0142.pt|directed its field representatives to send a form request for intelligence information to all local,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0143.pt|county, and State law enforcement agencies in their districts.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0144.pt|Each of these efforts appears sound,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0145.pt|and the Commission recommends that these and the other measures suggested by the Commission be pursued vigorously by Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0146.pt|Automatic data processing
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0147.pt|Unless the Secret Service is able to deal rapidly and accurately with a growing body of data,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0148.pt|the increased information supplied by other agencies will be wasted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0149.pt|PRS must develop the capacity to classify its subjects on a more sophisticated basis than the present geographic breakdown.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0150.pt|Its present manual filing system is obsolete;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0151.pt|it makes no use of the recent developments in automatic data processing which are widely used in the business world and in other Government offices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0152.pt|The Secret Service and the Department of the Treasury now recognize this critical need.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0153.pt|In the planning document currently under review by the Bureau of the Budget, the Department recommends that it be permitted to hire five qualified persons, quote,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0154.pt|to plan and develop a workable and efficient automated file and retrieval system, end quote.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0155.pt|Also the Department requests the sum of one hundred thousand dollars to conduct a detailed feasibility study;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0156.pt|this money would be used to compensate consultants, to lease standard equipment or to purchase specially designed pilot equipment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0157.pt|On the basis of such a feasibility study,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0158.pt|the Department hopes to design a practical system which will fully meet the needs of the Protective Research Section of the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0159.pt|The Commission recommends that prompt and favorable consideration be given to this request.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0160.pt|The Commission further recommends that the Secret Service coordinate its planning as closely as possible with all of the Federal agencies from which it receives information.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0161.pt|The Secret Service should not and does not plan to develop its own intelligence gathering facilities to duplicate the existing facilities of other Federal agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0162.pt|In planning its data processing techniques,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0163.pt|the Secret Service should attempt to develop a system compatible with those of the agencies from which most of its data will come. Note:
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0164.pt|In evaluating data processing techniques of the Secret Service,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0165.pt|the Commission had occasion to become informed, to a limited extent, about the data processing techniques of other Federal intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0166.pt|The Commission was struck by the apparent lack of effort, on an interagency basis,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0167.pt|to develop coordinated and mutually compatible systems, even where such coordination would not seem inconsistent
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0168.pt|with the particular purposes of the agency involved. The Commission recognizes that this is a controversial area
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0169.pt|and that many strongly held views are advanced in resistance to any suggestion that an effort be made to impose any degree of coordination.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0170.pt|This matter is obviously beyond the jurisdiction of the Commission,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0171.pt|but it seems to warrant further study before each agency becomes irrevocably committed to separate action.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0172.pt|The Commission, therefore, recommends that the President consider ordering an inquiry into the possibility
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0173.pt|that coordination might be achieved to a greater extent than seems now to be contemplated, without interference with the primary mission of each agency involved.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0174.pt|Protective Research participation in advance arrangements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0175.pt|Since the assassination, Secret Service procedures have been changed to require that a member of PRS accompany each advance survey team
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0176.pt|to establish liaison with local intelligence gathering agencies and to provide for the immediate evaluation of information received from them.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0177.pt|This PRS agent will also be responsible for establishing an informal local liaison committee
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0178.pt|to make certain that all protective intelligence activities are coordinated.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0179.pt|Based on its experience during this period, the Secret Service now recommends that additional personnel be made available to PRS
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0180.pt|so that these arrangements can be made permanent without adversely affecting the operations of the Service's field offices.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0181.pt|The Commission regards this as a most useful innovation and urges that the practice be continued.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0182.pt|Liaison With Local Law Enforcement Agencies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0183.pt|Advice by the Secret Service to local police in metropolitan areas relating to the assistance expected in connection with a Presidential visit
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0184.pt|has hitherto been handled on an informal basis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0185.pt|The Service should consider preparing formal explanations of the cooperation anticipated during a Presidential visit to a city,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0186.pt|in formats that can be communicated to each level of local authorities.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0187.pt|Thus, the local chief of police could be given a master plan, prepared for the occasion, of all protective measures to be taken during the visit;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0188.pt|each patrolman might be given a prepared booklet of instructions explaining what is expected of him. The Secret Service has expressed concern
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0189.pt|that written instructions might come into the hands of local newspapers, to the prejudice of the precautions described.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0190.pt|However, the instructions must be communicated to the local police in any event and can be leaked to the press whether or not they are in writing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0191.pt|More importantly, the lack of carefully prepared and carefully transmitted instructions for typical visits to cities
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0192.pt|can lead to lapses in protection, such as the confusion in Dallas about whether members of the public were permitted on overpasses.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0193.pt|Such instructions will not fit all circumstances, of course,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0194.pt|and should not be relied upon to the detriment of the imaginative application of judgment in special cases.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0195.pt|Inspection of Buildings
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0196.pt|Since the assassination of President Kennedy, the Secret Service has been experimenting with new techniques in the inspection of buildings along a motorcade route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0197.pt|According to Secretary Dillon,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0198.pt|the studies indicate that there is some utility in attempting to designate certain buildings as involving a higher risk than others.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0199.pt|The Commission strongly encourages these efforts to improve protection along a motorcade route.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0200.pt|The Secret Service should utilize the personnel of other Federal law enforcement offices
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0201.pt|in the locality to assure adequate manpower for this task, as it is now doing.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0202.pt|Lack of adequate resources is an unacceptable excuse for failing to improve advance precautions
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0203.pt|in this crucial area of Presidential protection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0204.pt|Secret Service Personnel and Facilities
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0205.pt|Testimony and other evidence before the Commission
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0206.pt|suggest that the Secret Service is trying to accomplish its job with too few people and without adequate modern equipment.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0207.pt|Although Chief Rowley does not complain about the pay scale for Secret Service agents,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0208.pt|salaries are below those of the FBI and leading municipal police forces.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0209.pt|The assistant to the Director of the FBI testified that
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0210.pt|the caseload of each FBI agent averaged twenty to twenty-five, and he felt that this was high.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0211.pt|Chief Rowley testified that the present workload of each Secret Service agent averages one hundred ten point one cases.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0212.pt|While these statistics relate to the activities of Secret Service agents stationed in field offices and not the White House detail,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0213.pt|field agents supplement those on the detail, particularly when the President is traveling.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0214.pt|Although the Commission does not know whether the cases involved are entirely comparable,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0215.pt|these figures suggest that the agents of the Secret Service are substantially overworked.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0216.pt|In its budget request for the fiscal year beginning July one, nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0217.pt|the Secret Service sought funds for twenty-five new positions, primarily in field offices. This increase has been approved by the Congress.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0218.pt|Chief Rowley explained that this would not provide enough additional manpower to take all the measures which he considers required.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0219.pt|However, the nineteen sixty-four to sixty-five budget request was submitted in November nineteen sixty-three
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0220.pt|and requests for additional personnel were not made because of the studies then being conducted.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0221.pt|The Secret Service has now presented its recommendations to the Bureau of the Budget. The plan proposed by the Service
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0222.pt|would take approximately twenty months to implement and require expenditures of approximately three million dollars during that period.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0223.pt|The plan provides for an additional two hundred five agents for the Secret Service. Seventeen of this number are proposed for the Protective Research Section;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0224.pt|one hundred forty-five are proposed for the field offices to handle the increased volume of security investigations
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0225.pt|and be available to protect the President or Vice President when they travel;
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0226.pt|eighteen agents are proposed for a rotating pool which will go through an intensive training cycle and also be available to supplement the White House detail
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0227.pt|in case of unexpected need; and twenty-five additional agents are recommended to provide the Vice President full protection.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0228.pt|The Commission urges that the Bureau of the Budget review these recommendations with the Secret Service and authorize a request for the necessary supplemental appropriation,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0229.pt|as soon as it can be justified. The Congress has often stressed that it will support any reasonable request for funds for the protection of the President.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0230.pt|Manpower and Technical Assistance From Other Agencies
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0231.pt|Before the assassination the Secret Service infrequently requested other Federal law enforcement agencies to provide personnel
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0232.pt|to assist in its protection functions.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0233.pt|Since the assassination, the Service has experimented with the use of agents borrowed for short periods from such agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0234.pt|It has used other Treasury law enforcement agents on special experiments in building and route surveys in places to which the President frequently travels.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0235.pt|It has also used other Federal law enforcement agents during Presidential visits to cities in which such agents are stationed.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0236.pt|Thus, in the four months following the assassination,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0237.pt|the FBI, on sixteen separate occasions, supplied a total of one hundred thirty-nine agents to assist in protection work during a Presidential visit,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0238.pt|which represents a departure from its prior practice.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0239.pt|From February eleven through June thirty, nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0240.pt|the Service had the advantage of nine thousand, five hundred hours of work by other enforcement agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0241.pt|The FBI has indicated that it is willing to continue to make such assistance available,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0242.pt|even though it agrees with the Secret Service that it is preferable for the Service to have enough agents to handle all protective demands.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0243.pt|The Commission endorses these efforts to supplement the Service's own personnel by obtaining, for short periods of time,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0244.pt|the assistance of trained Federal law enforcement officers.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0245.pt|In view of the ever-increasing mobility of American Presidents, it seems unlikely that the Service could or should increase its own staff to a size
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0246.pt|which would permit it to provide adequate protective manpower for all situations.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0247.pt|The Commission recommends that the agencies involved determine how much periodic assistance they can provide, and that each such agency
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0248.pt|and the Secret Service enter into a formal agreement defining such arrangements.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0249.pt|It may eventually be desirable to codify the practice in an Executive order.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0250.pt|The Secret Service will be better able to plan its own long-range personnel requirements if it knows with reasonable certainty
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0251.pt|the amount of assistance that it can expect from other agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0252.pt|The occasional use of personnel from other Federal agencies to assist in protecting the President has a further advantage. It symbolizes the reality
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0253.pt|that the job of protecting the President has not been and cannot be exclusively the responsibility of the Secret Service.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0254.pt|The Secret Service in the past has sometimes guarded its right to be acknowledged as the sole protector of the Chief Executive.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0255.pt|This no longer appears to be the case.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0256.pt|Protecting the President is a difficult and complex task which requires full use of the best resources of many parts of our Government.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0257.pt|Recognition that the responsibility must be shared increases the likelihood that it will be met.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0258.pt|Much of the Secret Service work requires the development and use of highly sophisticated equipment,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0259.pt|some of which must be specially designed to fit unique requirements. Even before the assassination, and to a far greater extent thereafter,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0260.pt|the Secret Service has been receiving full cooperation in scientific research and technological development
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0261.pt|from many Government agencies including the Department of Defense and the President's Office of Science and Technology.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0262.pt|Even if the manpower and technological resources of the Secret Service are adequately augmented,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0263.pt|it will continue to rely in many respects upon the greater resources of the Office of Science and Technology and other agencies.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0264.pt|The Commission recommends that the present arrangements
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0265.pt|with the Office of Science and Technology and the other Federal agencies that have been so helpful to the Secret Service be placed on a permanent and formal basis.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0266.pt|The exchange of letters dated August thirty-one, nineteen sixty-four,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0267.pt|between Secretary Dillon and Donald F. Hornig, Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, is a useful effort in the right direction.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0268.pt|The Service should negotiate a memorandum of understanding with each agency that has been assisting it and from which it can expect to need help in the future.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0269.pt|The essential terms of such memoranda might well be embodied in an Executive order.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0270.pt|This Commission can recommend no procedures for the future protection of our Presidents which will guarantee security.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0271.pt|The demands on the President in the execution of His responsibilities in today's world are so varied and complex
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0272.pt|and the traditions of the office in a democracy such as ours are so deep-seated as to preclude absolute security.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0273.pt|The Commission has, however, from its examination of the facts of President Kennedy's assassination
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0274.pt|made certain recommendations which it believes would, if adopted,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0275.pt|materially improve upon the procedures in effect at the time of President Kennedy's assassination and result in a substantial lessening of the danger.
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0276.pt|As has been pointed out, the Commission has not resolved all the proposals which could be made. The Commission nevertheless is confident that,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0277.pt|with the active cooperation of the responsible agencies and with the understanding of the people of the United States in their demands upon their President,
|
||
LJSpeech-1.1/mels/LJ050-0278.pt|the recommendations we have here suggested would greatly advance the security of the office without any impairment of our fundamental liberties.
|