Bygones Worth Remembering Volume I Part 9

The impulsive and the ambitious of repute may overlook this consideration, but as I sought neither distinction nor martyrdom, I acted as I did because no other course was open, and no other person would take this.

II.

In the year following the prosecution in the Court of Exchequer, Her Majesty gave me further trouble in discharge of the odious duty imposed upon her as collector of debts for the Church. As few know to-day how hateful this impost was, it will be informing to see how the clerical case was officially stated to me. It began as follows:--

"Mr. George Jacob Holyoake,--Take Notice that in and by certain Rates or a.s.sessments made by virtue of and for the purposes mentioned in the Act of Parliament pa.s.sed in the 4th Year of the Reign of her late Majesty Queen Ann, Cap. 27, int.i.tuled, 'An Act for settling the Impropriate Tythes of the Parish of Saint Bridgett, alias Bride's, London,' You are a.s.sessed in respect of the Houses, Shops, Warehouses, Cellars, Stables, Tofts, Grounds, or other Tenements or Hereditaments, within the said Parish occupied by you, in four several Sums amounting to One pound four shillings and eightpence for four several Quarters of a Year commencing at the Feast of The Birth of our Lord Christ, 1854, and ending at the same Feast in the Year 1855, and that such a.s.sessments are made on a Rental of 74. Dated this 22nd day of May, 1856.

"John William Thomas,

"Collector of the said Rates."

These ecclesiastical cormorants took a hungry survey of every place containing property on which they could lay hands. After the Rathcormac ma.s.sacre, where two sons of the widow Ryan were shot by the soldiers, employed by the Church in collecting its rates--how appropriate and consoling it must be to a bereaved mother to read that the rates commenced to be due at "The Feast of the Birth of our Lord Christ!" Yet there are people who go about promoting prosecutions for blasphemy, and with a holy partiality leave untouched outrages like these. The summons sent to me speaks of the "late Queen Ann," who had been dead 140 years.

Her name being spelt "Ann" shows that she had been dead long enough to lose the final "e" of her name. The rent of the Fleet Street house was 74, 400 having been paid for the lease. Each time there came on the scene the local agent of the Church, who delivered an interesting intimation as follows:--

"Mr. George Jacob Holyoake,--I do hereby demand payment of One pound four shillings and eightpence, due from you for Rates made in pursuance of the Act of Parliament pa.s.sed in the 4th Year of the Reign of her late Majesty Queen Ann, Cap. 17, int.i.tuled, 'An Act for settling the Impropriate Tythes of the Parish of Saint Bridgett, alias Brides, London.' And take notice that unless the same be paid to me within Four Days next after the demand thereof hereby made, I shall Distrain your Goods and Chattels, and sell and dispose thereof, and out of the Monies arising thereby pay the said Sum of Money, and the Costs allowed by the Acts of Parliament in that case made and provided.

"Dated this 22nd day of May, 1856.

"John William Thomas,

"Collector of the said Rates."

The predatory Vicar of St. Bride's, for whose advantage the contemplated seizure was being made, remained in the background, praying for my soul while he picked my pocket, as I regarded his action.

After two or three seizures of property, I sent to the vicar payment "in kind"--the form in which the payment of t.i.the was originally contributed. The chief produce of my farm in Fleet Street consisted in volumes of the _Reasoner_. I sent the vicar three volumes, which exceeded in value his demand. He troubled me no more.

The last citation relates to a trial in which Lord Chief Justice Coleridge was concerned, and Henry Thomas Buckle made a splendid defence of a poor well-sinker who was afraid of killing the world.

III.

In a Cornish village in 1857 small patch advertis.e.m.e.nts broke out like small-pox, of which the following is a copy:--

"BLASPHEMY.

"Any person who has seen a man writing Blasphemous sentences on Gates or other places in the neighbourhood of Liskeard, is requested to communicate immediately with Messrs. Pedler and Grylls, Liskeard, or with the Rev. R. Hobhouse, St. Ive Rectory."

Whether the perturbed Rector of St Ive found out anything, or whether ashamed, as he might well be, at being mixed up in so miserable a business, he retired from it, and the Rev. Paul Bush appeared in his place as a spiritual detective on the pounce, and a poor, eccentric well-sinker, one Thomas Pooley, was accused of writing in chalk incoherent words in a hand only intelligible to the all-construing eyes of the policeman of the Church, who caused to be issued the following ponderous summons in her Majesty's name:--

"To Thomas Pooley, of the Borough of Liskeard in the County of Cornwall, Labourer.

"Cornwall to wit, Whereas Information and Complaint (a) hath this day been laid before the undersigned, one of Her Majesty's Justices of the Peace in and (b) for the said County of Cornwall by The Reverend Paul Bush of the Parish of Duloe, in the said County, for that you the said Thomas Pooley on the twenty-second of May last at the Parish of Duloe, in the said County, did unlawfully and wilfully compose, write and publish a certain scandalous, impious, blasphemous and profane Libel of and concerning the Holy Scriptures and the Christian Religion, and for having blasphemously spoken against G.o.d and profanely scoffed at the Holy Scripture, and exposed it to contempt and ridicule, and also for having spoken against Christianity and the established religion.

"These are therefore to command you in Her Majesty's name, to be and appear on Wednesday the 1st day of July next at 10 o'clock in the Forenoon, at Treean Gate in the Parish of Lanewath in the said County, before such said Justices of the Peace for the County as may then be there, to answer to the said Information and Complaint, and to be further dealt with according to Law.

"Given under my hand and Seal this 27th day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-seven, at Liskeard in the County aforesaid.

"James Glencross."

Notes on the summons were:--"(a) If upon Oath insert 'On Oath.' (b) Erase the words in italic when summons is issued by Justice acting out of jurisdiction in which he resides."

There is more untruth and holy malevolence in this summons than Pooley was ever known to be guilty of in all his life. Mr. Bush charges Mr.

Pooley with "wilfully composing" the words complained of. Everybody in the parish knew that he had not the mental coherence to "compose"

anything. He had neither spoken against G.o.d--for he was a believer in Him--nor was he a preacher either in pulpit or on street corner. Nor did he "speak" about G.o.d, except when he was being stripped in gaol. His "scoffing against the Holy Scriptures" merely meant that he was incensed against priests. The charge that he had published a "scandalous, impious, blasphemous, and profane libel" was simply the reckless, false, professional language of the clergyman and lawyer who drew up the summons, which would be counted unscrupulous and venomous in other persons. In this summons we have the same profanation of the Queen's name as we have already seen. How can a monarch expect his office or character to be held in esteem who permits his or her name to be cited for the purposes of any bigot who has spite in his heart and falsehood on his lips? People cease to respect a monarch who has no respect for himself.

There was more of the evil spirit of untruth in the charges in the summons than in all Mr. Pooley's vague and honest anger. I went down to Duloe to see Mr. Bush, and found him residing in a s.p.a.cious house, with a pleasant outlook of roads and fields before it, while poor Pooley lived in wells. Why should one so well-placed as the Rev. Paul Bush conspire to procure twenty-one months' imprisonment for this friendless, half-demented parishioner? Very likely Mr. Bush was by nature a kind-hearted clergyman in whom theology generated--

"Words, Which turned the milk of kindness into curds."

At the trial Pooley, who was entirely undefended received a sentence of twenty-one months' imprisonment. The son of the judge, Sir John Duke Coleridge, who prosecuted, said, "It was not the prosecution of opinion in any sense, but society was to be protected from outrage and indecency." If so, six weeks' imprisonment was more than sufficient in a case in which there was no wantonness and only half-insane conviction in it Mr. Thomas Henry Buckle, the famous historian of Civilisation, wrote in _Fraser_ an indignant and generous denunciation of the sentence, and those concerned in it. It was the last great letter of a philosopher in defence of the mental liberty of a poor man, and no equal to it appeared in the century. I published an account of Pooley's case, which Buckle saw. Sir John Duke (who afterwards became Lord Chief Justice Coleridge) had behaved, as prosecuting counsel, better than I knew, as I admitted when I did know it. Still, the sentence (twenty-one months'

imprisonment) will always stand on record as atrocious, apart from the irresponsible condition of the offender. The words said to be "spoken,"

and which were made a count in his indictment, were mere exclamations, provoked by the irritation of gaolers, which the prisoner had neither means nor intent of publishing. A barrister in court was struck by the signs of insanity in Pooley, unnoticed by the preoccupied eyes of the judge and his son.

Pooley, as we have said, was a well-sinker, a tall, strongly-built man of honest aspect and of good courage and fidelity, who had descended into a deep well and rescued his master from death. Though not a philosopher, Pooley, like some who were, was a wild sort of Pantheist.

He thought this world to be an organism, and believed it to be alive; and such was the tenderness and reverence of his devotion that nothing could persuade him to dig a well beyond a certain depth, lest he should wound the heart of the world.

Some years later Lord Coleridge informed me that he did not press the case against Pooley, and that he had no idea he was of uncertain mind, nor did his father suspect it. I thought it was impossible they could be unaware of it, as it was well known to all Liskeard. In justice to Lord Coleridge's father, I ought to say, that when he subsequently became aware of Pooley's condition of mind, he at once consented to his liberation, and Pooley was taken home, after four months' imprisonment, in the carriage of the governor of the gaol, who had sympathy for him.

Sir William Molesworth and Sir Erskine Perry were, after Mr. Buckle, the chief instruments of his liberation. The facts I have related of the Coleridges were not known to me when I first saw Mr. Buckle, who wrote upon the information I gave him. Pooley was a resolute man, who had self-respect and would not wear the prison dress. When it was put upon him he tore it to shreds, and he was left naked in the dark cell in which he was confined. He would have been made quite mad had he not been released when he was.

IV.

The last case in which I supply doc.u.mentary evidence is that concerning the limelight placed on the Clock Tower at Westminster. No member of Parliament had thought of it, nor should I, had I not needed it for my own convenience. I was then secretary to Mr. (afterwards Sir) Joseph Cowen. When he wished to take part in a division he would ask me to ascertain whether the House was sitting. In those days there were two lamp-posts in Palace Yard with three lights each, which were kept in while the "House was sitting," but when the "House was up" two of the lights were extinguished. There was no other sign, and I had often to ride from Redcliffe Square, Brompton, to Palace Yard before the signal-light could be seen. The limelight had just been perfected, and it occurred to me that if an effective light was placed on the Clock Tower it would be conspicuous for miles around, and members of Parliament, dining in the suburbs, could learn by that sign when the House was sitting and its absence would indicate that the House was up. I wrote to Lord John Manners, giving reasons of Parliamentary convenience for the inst.i.tution of such a light Lord John was then First Commissioner of Works. The following is a copy of the letter directed to be sent to me:--

"Office of Works, 12, Whitehall Place, S.W." It is requested that any answer to this letter may be directed to The Private Secretary to the First Commissioner of H.M. Works.

"8--1--68.

"Sir,--I am desired by Lord John Manners to acknowledge with thanks the receipt of your letter, and suggestions.

"Your faithful servant,

"H. Stuart Wortlev.

"G. J. Holyoake, Esq."

Nothing was done during Lord John Manners' reign as Commissioner of Works, but when Mr. A. S. Ayrton became Commissioner of the Board, he found the letter in the archives of the office, and had the light erected.

CHAPTER XII. UNFORESEEN QUALITIES IN PUBLIC MEN