84: “a woman named Merritt was sentenced to death upon your evidence...”: FJ May 17, 1871, 4.
85: “the character of Dr. Letheby is too high in this country...”: TE May 17, 1871, 3.
85: cell 33 of Maidstone Jail: T May 10, 1871, 11.
85: the books in the jail’s library were “dry.” T May 9, 1871, 12.
86: Her testimony was a crushing disappointment to him: For reporters’ transcripts of the fourth police court examination (May 19) see T May 20, 1871, 11; KM May 20, 1871, 4; TE May 20, 1871, 3; S May 20, 1871, 6; R May 20, 1871, 5.
86: “we did not part very good friends”: T May 20, 1871, 11.
86: “sit down, sir!”: S May 20, 1871, 6.
86: Edmund wrote an anxious letter to Thomas Pook: DN July 15, 1871, 6.
87: Sparshott had easily picked Edmund Pook from a dozen other men: KM May 20, 1871, 4.
87: “Now tell us: have you not seen a photograph of the prisoner?”: S May 20, 1871, 6.
87: The newspaper itself... apologized for the terrible likeness: IPN May 27, 1871, 2.
88: the police had run out of bombshells: For reporters’ transcripts of the fourth sitting of the inquest (May 25), see T May 26, 1871, 12; KM May 27, 1871, 5; TE May 26, 1871, 3; MP May 26, 1871, 7; S May 26, 1871, 6.
89: “very substantial and astounding”: T May 26, 1871, 12.
89: “not because they could not, but because they would not”: S May 26, 1871, 6.
90: “would be very unsatisfactory... for nothing”: T May 26, 1871, 12.
90: “If you return an open verdict... it will very much weaken the case...”: S May 26, 1871, 12.
91: Edmund Pook experienced the terror of a near lynching: DN May 31, 1871, 2.
91: Police and prosecution... offered up in Southwark five days before: For reporters’ transcripts of the sixth police court examination (May 30) see T May 31, 1871, 12; KM June 3, 1871, 5; TE May 31, 1871, 3; DN May 31, 1871, 2.
91: “been plentiful in indulging theories which had broken down”: KM June 3, 1871, 5.
91: Dr. Letheby himself shot off a letter that appeared in the Times: T June 2, 1871, 8.
92: “would not be deemed sufficient... 5s. in a County Court”: T May 31, 1871, 12.
CHAPTER FOUR: SOCIAL CONFUSION AND MORAL CORRUPTION
94: Newgate was no longer an emblem of hell on earth: Griffiths 562, 566.
94: Frederick Lloyd-Jones: ILN May 6, 1865, 427.
94: Lloyd-Jones apparently made sure that Pook was transferred: KM June 3, 1871, 5.
94: the Pooks... lost no time in feeding the news to the press: the PMG (June 3, 1871, 6) reported that “A great point is to be made of his having bitten his tongue while so seized.”
94: The last two of these were mainstays at the Old Bailey: T June 5, 1914, 10, in an obituary of Douglas Straight.
95: “admirable in the conduct of a cause...”: T Dec. 6, 1890, 9.
95: Huddleston declared himself eager to begin at once: SI June 8, 1871, 3.
95: a witness who could give “very material” evidence: T June 8, 1871, 11.
95: Poland scoffed at that last argument: BO June 8, 1871, 8.
96: twenty-six-year-old Perren managed his mother’s livery stables: London, England, Births and Baptisms 1813–1906, baptism record for Walter Richard Perren ; PMG June 10, 1871, 6; T July 14, 1871, 11.
96: The Times would later disparage him as a “donkey-driver”: T June 12, 1871, 10.
96: Perren said that for three or four years he had known Pook slightly: T July 14, 1871, 11.
96: Pook spoke first: TE July 14, 1871, 5.
97: Perren somehow realized that he might be a crucial eyewitness: S July 14, 1871, 5.
97: Detective Mulvany hustled him to the Old Bailey: DN July 14, 1871, 5.
97: He then went to the exercise yard at Newgate: TE July 14, 1871, 5.
97: He had, in other words, a “perfect answer” to Perren: T June 8, 1871, 11
98: “He is perfectly calm”: MEN July 3, 1871, 3.
98: a thousand pounds in all, by one estimate: TE June 10, 1871, 3.
98: A fund was quickly got up: GDC June 10, 1871, 3; MEN June 12, 1871, 2.
98: the Treasury submitted to Henry Pook a list of the witnesses: TE 3 July 1871, 3.
98: Mary Ann Love and Alice Langley... utterly inconclusive: DN July 15, 1871, 5; T July 15, 1871, 11.
99: Henry Pook found three neighbors to the Durnfords willing to testify: DN July 15, 1871, 6; T July 15, 1871, 11; OB, testimony of Joseph and Mary Anne Eagle [sic].
99: There he had each one scrutinize two albums holding thirty photographs: DN July 15, 1871, 6; OB, testimony of Joseph Eagle [sic], Mary Anne Eagle [sic], and William Douglas.
99: he managed to engage in a spell of international diplomacy: KM June 24, 1871, 6; T June 19, 1871, 5; TE June 19, 1871, 6.
100: “The interest felt in this case...”: T June 12, 1871, 10.
101: The pilgrimage there reached its peak on Whit-Monday, May 29: DN May 30, 1871, 2; G June 2, 1871, 3; GDC June 3, 1871, 6.
102: foreign correspondents began to submit their dispatches not by post but by telegraph: Williams 114.
103: It was the worst civil bloodletting in all of Europe and during all of the nineteenth century: Tombs 10.
103: fifteen-year-old Agnes Norman: S April 14, 1871, 2.
104: Mullard revealed what he had learned at the inquest: PMG April 18, 1871, 6.
104: the coroner would not let any of them speak: RN Apr. 23, 1871, 6.
105: John William Beer angrily vowed to pursue the case further: PMG April 18, 1871, 6.
105: a detective arrested Norman for Beer’s murder: TE May 1, 1871, 2.
105: At every appearance Agnes Norman stood absolutely indifferent: S June 1, 1871, 7; TE May 8, 1871, 2, May 19, 1871, 3.
105: Agnes Norman obtained her first place in Camberwell in January 1869: DN May 19, 1871, 6.
105: Mrs. Milner worked away from home: DN May 19, 1871, 6. She worked as an envelope folder.
105: Less than a month after she had arrived, Agnes fetched a neighbor: S May 26, 1871, 7.
105: The neighbor found Tommy Milner on a bed: DN May 13, 1871, 3.
105: the jury ruled Tommy Milner’s death natural: DN May 13, 1871, 3.
105: Agnes, he said, had sent him away to buy a halfpenny sweet: S May 26, 1871, 7. Arthur Milner is misnamed “John” in this account. And according to Elizabeth Milner’s testimony, Arthur’s older brother, Ralph, apparently knew something about Agnes’s behavior on this day, as well, though he doesn’t appear in Arthur’s account.
106: “Minnie is dead”: S May 26, 1871, 7.
106: Agnes Norman obtained—without a reference—a place in nearby Brixton: DN May 19, 1871, 6.
106: Again, there was an inquest; again, the jury ruled the death natural: DN May 19, 1871, 6.
106: giving her a good reference, noting her “sobriety and civility”: DN May 19, 1871, 6.
106: By July Agnes had found a place as a maid-of-all-work for the Brown family: MP May 13, 1871, 3.
106: One parrot miraculously survived: S May 26, 1871, 7.
106: the boy awoke to find Agnes Norman kneeling upon him: DN May 19, 1871, 6.
107: with the recommendation of a neighbor’s servant-girl: S May 26, 1871, 7.
107: the Beers engaged Norman for three shillings a week: OB, testimony of John William Beer.
107: before the inquest could take place, a cat and a canary followed: MP May 13, 1871, 3.
107: nearly 30 percent of all English children never lived to see their tenth birthday: Mortality in England and Wales: Average Life Span, 2010, 7–8.
107: “Have you witnesses to say she murdered your child?”: RN April 23, 1871, 6.
108: “every charge must rest upon the specific evidence relating to it”: DN June 6, 1871, 3.
108: “No, not much”: DN May 19, 1871, 6.
109: “too well known to a large part of the London world...”: T July 17, 1871, 11.
109: a seven-inch poultry-carving knife: T May 30, 1871, 5.
109: “The person was in the house”: S May 26, 1871, 6.
109: wildly excited: S May 26, 1871, 6.
109: Futerall immediately told her to consider herself under arrest: OB, trial of Hannah Newington alias Flora Davey, testimony of William Fewtrell [sic].
109: She was thirty-eight years old, tall, stout, and muscular: T May 29, 1871, 6.
109: More than once she had stated that she thought she had done it: S May 26, 1871, 6; MP June 2, 1871, 3; T July 14, 1871, 6; TE July 14, 1871, 11.
109: George Lewis, solicitor of choice for London’s elite: Juxon 31, 92; McKenna 286.
110: the home, it turned out, that Captain Davy owned: T May 30, 1871, 5.
110: Mansfield declared he had been “grossly deceived”: T May 29, 1871, 6.
110: “I forfeited husband and character”: T June 17, 1871, 10.
110: she had placed herself under the protection of Captain Davy: S May 30, 1871, 7.
110: Apparently, neither man quite knew the extent of the involvement of the other: S June 9, 1871, 6; T May 30, 1871, 5.
111: “a sort of quicksand of social confusion and moral corruption”: T July 17, 1871, 11.
111: for a time, she could pretend to be “Mrs. Moon.” MP June 2, 1871, 3.
111: the aliases she adopted: S May 30, 1871, 7.
111: long separated from Mr. Toynbee: Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871, for Anne M. Toynbee and for Thomas Toynbee.
111: she served Davy as a friend and not a hireling: S May 30, 1871, 7; OB, trial of Hanna Newington alias Flora Davy, testimony of Ann Marsden Toynbee.
111: Mrs. Davy shared her bed with two men: T May 29, 1871, 6.
111: “found there no one knows how or why”: T July 17, 1871, 11.
111: they were the daughter and niece of a woman with whom Flora Davy had once lodged: T June 2, 1871, 8; OB, trial of Hanna Newington alias Flora Davy, testimony of Catherine Dulin. Laura Pook, the niece, was of no relation to either Pook family of Greenwich.
111: a not quite respectable flirtation: T June 17, 1871, 10.
112: Flora Davy was volatile and imperious: S June 16, 1871, 7, May 30, 1871, 7; T June 2, 1871, 8.
112: a dipsomaniac, according to her doctors: T May 30, 1871, 5; TE June 2, 1871, 3.
112: Captain Davy, for whatever reason, began to spend less and less time at 23 Newton Road: T May 30, 1871, 5.
112: vowed to pay her off and have done with her: T June 17, 1871, 10.
112: “No, you are not... and what is more, you never will be...”: T June 2, 1871, 8; DN June 2, 1871, 2.
112: that evening Moon came to the house in a dark mood: T June 17, 1871, 10.
112: in self-defense, she claimed: T June 17, 1871, 10.
112: “He was my very all”: T June 17, 1871, 10.
113: its ability to generate a full-fledged popular movement: McWilliam 172.
113: “Great numbers of persons believe... imposed upon...”: DN Nov. 16, 1866, 3.
114: The last time that the indisputable Roger Charles Tichborne had been seen alive: general details about the Tichborne Claimant and his case can be found in Gilbert’s, Maugham’s, McWilliam’s, and Woodruff’s accounts.
114: the dowager Lady Tichborne, a temperamental—many thought unbalanced—Frenchwoman: Gilbert 33.
114: promising “A handsome reward”: Gilbert 34.
115: a hundred or so witnesses prepared to testify in favor of the Claimant’s claim, and more than 250 prepared to testify against it: Woodruff 189.
116: “he would pull at the organ stop labelled ‘pathos...’”: Woodruff 168.
116: “a stream of silvery mediocrity”: Woodroffe 237.
116: the record-setting twenty-one-day opening speech for the defense: Gilbert 172.
116: Coleridge’s cross-examination of the Claimant established a record for length: Gilbert 170.
116: his relentless protestations of “I don’t know” and “I have forgotten”: Gilbert 152.
117: “would it surprise you to know”: Woodruff 199.
117: the “ruffian’s ignorance”: Coleridge 2.417.
117: “It is Greek to you, anyhow”: TE June 14, 1871, 6.
117: “Do you mean to swear before the Judge and jury... that you seduced this lady?” TE June 6, 1871, 5.
118: “I pity you, Mr. Solicitor”: TE July 1, 1871, 5.
118: “He will kill me before I do him”: Coleridge 2.418.
118: public consensus held that this trial helped kill him: DN November 3, 1873, 2.
118: “the honest opinion of lawyers concerning the lamented judge...”: “Sir W. Bovill” 27.
118: He was notorious, for one thing, for his partiality: Hamilton; Woodruff 166.
118: Bovill gave a speech at a Lord Mayor’s dinner: TE June 9, 1871, 5.
118: a “patent want of sympathy with the Bar”: DN Nov. 3, 1873, 2.
119: “I have not a moment’s peace of mind from morning till night...”: TE June 6, 1871, 5.
119: “the arduous and unaccustomed duties of master of the ceremonies”: Ballantine 421.
119: “It weighs upon me”: Woodruff 393.
119: “I am only enabled to attend to this case by going down to Brighton to get a little fresh air”: TE June 29, 1871, 6.
120: he declared himself “utterly exhausted”: TE July 8, 1871, 6.
CHAPTER FIVE: TALLY-HO
121: “excellent as the utterly inadequate accommodation of the Court will permit”: TE July 13, 1871, 5.
121: those inside the courtroom were discernibly better dressed: T July 13, 1871, 11.
122: He was certain that spirits in the millions swarmed the metropolis: for Crosland’s particular spiritualist beliefs, see his Apparitions in both its original (1856) and revised (1873) editions, as well as his autobiography, Rambles Round My Life (1898).
122: “To doubt the reality of these manifestations”: Crosland, Apparitions [1856] 6.
122: Newtonian physics Crosland thought “old-fashioned, clumsy, mechanical, vulgar”: Crosland, Apparitions [1873] 33.
122: “the most colossal, dazzling, infidel mass of ignorance...”: Crosland, Rambles 29.
123: “They are certainly very curious”: Crosland, Rambles 276.
123: “a great deal that was very unpleasant”: Crosland, Rambles 276.
123: six for the prosecution—four barristers, two solicitors: MP July 13, 1871, 3.
125: “nothing of the hang-dog, cowering look...”: TE July 13, 1871, 5.
125: Pook calmly but emphatically pleaded that he was not guilty: T July 13, 1871, 11.
125: “some observations were made by Jane Clouson...”: T July 13, 1871, 11.
126: The first, written to Edmund from Wales by an aunt: TE July 13, 1871, 6. Edmund’s aunt was named Rebecca Winston; his cousin, Louisa Parton Stevens. The letter was written from Sennybridge, on the Welsh border. It is clear from trial testimony that police and prosecution did not know any of these things.
126: “If I am remanded... of course I must ‘grin and bear it’”: TE July 13, 1871, 6.
127: “I don’t think he was on duty up to 10 o’clock”: OB, testimony of Donald Gunn.
127: “So that this lonely place is left without a policeman till a quarter-past two?”: TE July 13, 1871, 6.
128: “Where there are such wounds as these, I should expect blood to spurt forth”: OB, testimony of Michael Harris.
128: “She was not dirty, quite different to that altogether...”: OB, testimony of Elizabeth Trott.
128: her daughter agreed: TE July 13, 1871, 6.
128: “she told me where she was going” OB, testimony of Fanny Hamilton.
128: Huddleston objected immediately, citing the then-standard argument against hearsay: The Queen v. Edmund Walter Pook, day 1, 133; OB.
129: “the
question,” he noted, “was not ably argued.” Crosland, Eltham Tragedy Reviewed 22.
129: “It seems to me... that the question asked...”: WDP July 13, 1871, 3.
130: “He seemed... out of condition, irritable, nervous...”: Crosland, The Eltham Tragedy Reviewed 18.
131: The Judge (angrily): “Might have been!...”: Crosland, The Eltham Tragedy Reviewed 18.
131: “This unjust aspersion upon Mr. Mulvany soon became epidemic”: Crosland, The Eltham Tragedy Reviewed 19.
131: Edmund “had made no reply”: T May 31, 1871, 12.
131: “I do not remember his saying ‘It is not true’”: OB, testimony of James Griffin.
132: “How could you possibly say upon your oath... matter referred to.” S July 13, 1871, 6.
132: The Chief Justice (to Witness): You are the principal officer: TE July 13, 1871, 6.
133: Bovill’s humble opinion was a patent legal absurdity: Legal scholar David Bentley actually cites R v. Pook and Bovill’s opinion here as the nineteenth century’s most extreme expression of the concept of legal discovery. (Bentley mistakenly attributes the opinion not to Bovill but to Alexander Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Queen’s Bench.) The doctrine, Bentley notes, did not take root. Bentley 40.
133: “I must say that Crown prosecutions ought not to be conducted in this manner”: TE July 13, 1871, 11.
134: “I hope never again... in this country”: Crosland, The Eltham Tragedy Reviewed 28.
134: “deeply pained”: TE July 14, 1871, 5.
134: “I protest... kept back in this case.”: TE July 14, 1871, 5.
134: “I did not intend to imply the slightest imputation upon you, Mr. Solicitor”: TE July 14, 1871, 5.
135: “I have no doubt whatever that he is the man”: S July 14, 1871, 5.
136: it was a “sort of sensational Newgate Calendar”: DN July 14, 1871, 5.
136: “It was most improper that portraits should be given...”: TE July 14, 1871, 5.
136: “Her Majesty’s government are now engaged in very arduous duties”: KM July 15, 1871, 3. According to the Telegraph, however, Coleridge’s reply was acquiescent rather than sarcastic: “There cannot be two opinions as to the impropriety of such publications” [TE July 14 1871, 5].
136: “He had on a lightish pair of trousers”: OB, testimony of Rowland Renneson.
136: “Light trousers; I remember that”: OB, testimony of Alfred Sparshott.
Pretty Jane and the Viper of Kidbrooke Lane Page 27