Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay (read book txt) 📖

“J. M’D. (aged 15). I have heard of Jack Sheppard: a lad whom I know told me of it, who had seen it, and said it was rare fun to see him break out of prison.

“J. L. (aged 11). Has been to the play twice, and seen Jack Sheppard. Went with his brother the first time, and by himself the second. I took the money to go a second time out of mother’s house, off the chimney-piece, where she had left a sixpence. It was the first night Jack Sheppard was played. There was great talk about it, and there were nice pictures about it all over the walls. I thought him a very clever fellow; but Blueskin made the most fun. I first went to the markets, and begun by stealing apples. I also knew a lad, ——, who has been transported, and went with him two or three times. The most I ever got was 10s. out of a till.”

The Inspector’s Report on Juvenile Delinquency at Liverpool contains much matter of the same kind; but sufficient has been already quoted to shew the injurious effects of the deification of great thieves by thoughtless novelists.

For a full account of this noted robber, and indeed of European thieves and banditti in general, see the very amusing work upon the subject by Mr. Charles Macfarlane.

See also Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. iv. p. 398.

Lavinia Fenton, afterwards Duchess of Bolton.

Esprit des Loix, liv. xxviii. chap. xvii.

Very similar to this is the fire-ordeal of the modern Hindoos, which is thus described in Forbes’s Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. c. xi.:—“When a man, accused of a capital crime, chooses to undergo the ordeal trial, he is closely confined for several days; his right hand and arm are covered with thick wax-cloth, tied up and sealed, in the presence of proper officers, to prevent deceit. In the English districts the covering was always sealed with the Company’s arms, and the prisoner placed under an European guard. At the time fixed for the ordeal, a caldron of oil is placed over a fire; when it boils, a piece of money is dropped into the vessel; the prisoner’s arm is unsealed and washed in the presence of his judges and accusers. During this part of the ceremony the attendant Brahmins supplicate the Deity. On receiving their benediction, the accused plunges his hand into the boiling fluid, and takes out the coin. The arm is afterwards again sealed up until the time appointed for a re-examination. The seal is then broken; if no blemish appears, the prisoner is declared innocent; if the contrary, he suffers the punishment due to his crime.”… On this trial the accused thus addresses the element before plunging his hand into the boiling oil:—“Thou, O fire! pervadest all things. O cause of purity! who givest evidence of virtue and of sin, declare the truth in this my hand!” If no juggling were practised, the decisions by this ordeal would be all the same way; but as some are by this means declared guilty, and others innocent, it is clear that the Brahmins, like the Christian priests of the middle ages, practise some deception in saving those whom they wish to be thought guiltless.

An ordeal very like this is still practised in India. Consecrated rice is the article chosen, instead of bread and cheese. Instances are not rare in which, through the force of imagination, guilty persons are not able to swallow a single grain. Conscious of their crime, and fearful of the punishment of Heaven, they feel a suffocating sensation in their throat when they attempt it, and they fall on their knees, and confess all that is laid to their charge. The same thing, no doubt, would have happened with the bread and cheese of the Roman Church, if it had been applied to any others but ecclesiastics. The latter had too much wisdom to be caught in a trap of their own setting.

Histoire de Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, par Paul Hay du Chastelet, liv. i. ch. xix.

Esprit des Loix, liv. xxviii. ch. xxv.

Mémoires de Brantôme touchant les Duels.

Histoire de Messire Bertrand du Guesclin, liv. i. ch. xix.

Mémoires de Brantôme touchant les Duels.

Although Francis shewed himself in this case an enemy to duelling, yet in his own case he had not the same objection. Every reader of history must remember his answer to the challenge of the Emperor Charles V. The Emperor wrote that he had failed in his word, and that he would sustain their quarrel single-handed against him. Francis replied, that he lied—qu’il en avait menti par la gorge, and that he was ready to meet him in single combat whenever and wherever he pleased.

Le Père Matthias, tome ii. livre iv.

Elémens de l’Histoire de France, vol. iii. p. 219.

Mercure de France, vol. xiii.

Brydone’s Tour in Malta, 1772.

See Life and Character of Lord Bacon, by Thomas Martin, Barrister-at-Law.

See History of the House and Clan of Mackay.

See Spectator, Nos. 84, 97, and 99; and Tatler, Nos. 25, 26, 29, 31, 38, and 39; and Guardian, No. 20.

Post-Boy, December 13th, 1712.

Raleigh at one period of his life appeared to be an inveterate duellist, and it was said of him that he had been engaged in more encounters of the kind than any man of note among his contemporaries. More than one fellow-creature he had deprived of life; but he lived long enough to be convinced of the sinfulness of his conduct, and made a solemn vow never to fight another duel. The following anecdote of his forbearance is well known, but it will bear repetition:

A dispute arose in a coffee-house between him and a young man on some trivial point, and the latter, losing his temper, impertinently spat in the face of the veteran. Sir Walter, instead of running him through the body, as many would have done, or challenging him to mortal combat, coolly took out his handkerchief, wiped his face, and said, “Young man, if I could as easily wipe from my conscience the stain of killing you, as I can this spittle from my face, you should not live another minute.” The young man immediately begged his pardon.

Vide the Letters of Joseph II. to distinguished Princes and Statesmen, published for the first time in England in The Pamphleteer for 1821. They were originally published in Germany a few years previously, and throw a great light upon the character of that monarch and the events of his reign.

Encyclopedia Americana, art. Duelling.

Voltaire, Siècle de Louis XIV.