Curiosities of Street Literature. Various
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sensation at the time, and the trial and subsequent appeal were printed and published in a separate form, and occupies 120 pages in double columns, “with a correct plan of the spot where the rape and murder were committed, and a portrait of Thornton drawn and engraved by G. Cruikshank.”
The acquittal of Thornton in the atrocious rape and murder of Mary Ashford excited the most undisguised feelings of disappointment in all classes of persons throughout the kingdom, and various provincial newspapers began to canvass the subject with vigour, freedom, and research. This aroused most of the London papers, and the Independent Whig on Sunday, August 17th after fully commenting on the case, cited several instances where individuals, who, after having been arraigned under the charge of murder and acquitted, were tried a second time for the same offence, in consequence of an appeal by the next of kin of the deceased against the verdict of the jury, and wound up their remarks by that—“If ever there was a case of brutality, violation and murder, that had greater claims upon the sympathy of the world than another, and demands a second trial, we think it is exhibited in that of the unfortunate Mary Ashford.” This gave the “key-note,” a very large section of the press adopted the same view of the case, and a subscription was immediately set on foot—Mary’s friends being in indigent circumstances—to defray the necessary expenses. And Abraham Thornton was apprehended a second time, on a Writ of Appeal, for the murder of Mary Ashford, which excited an interest in the public mind altogether unprecedented—an interest that was heightened by the unusual recurrence of the obsolete proceedings necessary in the case by the Saxon Writ of Appeal, together with the staggering fact of Thornton having challenged his appellant—William, the eldest brother of the deceased Mary Ashford—to a solemn trial by battle, and avowing himself ready to defend his innocence with his body.
The challenge was formally given by throwing down a glove upon the floor of the Court of King’s Bench, whence the case had been removed by “Writ of Habeas Corpus,” to be heard before Lord Ellenborough. But the combat did not take place, and the prisoner escaped. An Act of Parliament was then passed abolishing the trial by battle in any suit, as a mode unfit to be used.
Mary Ashford was buried in the Churchyard of Sutton Colefield, and over her remains is placed a stone with the following inscription, written by the Rev. Luke Booker:—
“As a warning to female virtue, and a humble
Monument to female chastity,
This stone marks the grave of
MARY ASHFORD,
Who, in the 20th year of her age,
Having incautiously repaired to a
Scene of amusement, without proper protection,
Was brutally violated and murdered
On the 27th of October, 1817.”
The artist who paints the patterers’ boards, must address his art plainly to the eye of the spectator. He must use the most striking colours, be profuse in the application of scarlet, light blue, orange—not yellow—that not being a good candle-light colour—and must leave nothing to the imagination. Perspective and back-grounds are things but of minor consideration, everything must be sacrificed for effect. These paintings are in water colours, and are rubbed over with a solution of gum-resin to protect them from the influence of rainy weather.
The charge of the popular street-artist for the painting of a board is 2s. or 3s. 6d., according to the simplicity or elaborateness of the details; the board itself is provided by the artist’s employer. The demand for this peculiar branch of street art is very irregular, depending entirely upon whether there has or has not been perpetrated any act of atrocity, which has rivetted, as it is called, the public attention. And so great is the uncertainty felt by the street-folk whether “the most beautiful murder will take or not,” that it is rarely the patterer will order, or the artist will speculate, in anticipation of a demand, upon preparing the painting of any event, until satisfied that it has become “popular.” A deed of more than usual daring, deceit, or mystery, may be at once hailed by those connected with murder-patter as “one that will do,” and some speculation maybe ventured upon, as it was in such cases as Greenacre, Rush, Tawell, and the Mannings, but these are merely exceptional, so uncertain, it appears, is all that depends, without intrinsic merit, on mere popular applause.
It is stated that Catnach cleared over £500 by Weare’s murder and Thurtell’s trial and execution, and was so loth to leave it, that when a wag put him up to a joke, and showed him how he might set the thing a-going again, he could not withstand it, so about a fortnight after Thurtell had been hanged “Jemmy” brought out a startling broad-sheet, headed “WE ARE ALIVE AGAIN!” He put so little space between the two words “we” and “are,” that it looked at first sight like “WEARE.” Many thousands were bought by the ignorant and gullible public, but those who did not like the trick called it a “CATCHPENNY,” and this gave rise to this peculiar term, which ever afterwards stuck to the issues of the “Seven Dials Press.”
For the use of the first two wood cuts in our collection of “Cocks” and “Catchpennies” we are indebted to the kindness of Messrs. Charles Griffin and Co., of Stationers’ Hall Court, the present proprietors of Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor—a work which, of all others, gives by far the best description of London Street-Folk; and is of itself a complete cyclopædia of the condition and earnings of—those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work. We had intended to have used the originals of “Jemmy” Catnach, but Mr. W. S. Fortey, his successor, writes to inform us that, after a lengthened and active service, the cuts in question were worked and worked until they fell to pieces.
With these remarks we now introduce our readers to a genuine Catnachian “Cock,” and one that is said to have “fought well in its day,” entitled, “Horrid Murder Committed by a Young Man on a Young Woman.”
HORRID MURDER,
George Caddell became acquainted with Miss Price and a degree of intimacy subsisted between them, and Miss Price, degraded as she was by the unfortunate step she had taken, still thought herself an equal match for one of Mr. Caddell’s rank of life. As pregnancy was shortly the result of their intimacy, she repeatedly urged him to marry her, but he resisted her importunities for a considerable time. At length she heard of his paying his addresses to Miss Dean, and threatened, in case of his non-compliance, to put an end to all his prospects with that young lady, by discovering everything that had passed between them. Hereupon he formed a horrid resolution of murdering her, for he could neither bear the thought of forfeiting the esteem of a woman who he loved, nor of marrying one who had been as condescending to another as to himself. So he called on Miss Price on a Saturday and requesting her to walk with him in the fields on the following day, in order to arrange a plan for their intended marriage. Miss Price met him at the time appointed, on the road leading to Burton, at a house known by the name of “The Nag’s Head.” Having accompanied her supposed lover into the fields, and walked about till towards evening, they sat down under a hedge, where, after a little conversation, Caddell suddenly pulled out a knife and cut her throat, and made his escape, but not before he had waited till she was dead. In the distraction of his mind he left behind him the knife with which he had perpetrated the deed, and his case of instruments. On the following morning, Miss Price being found murdered in the field, great numbers went to take a view of the body, among whom was the woman of the house where she lodged, who recollected that she said she was going to walk with Mr. Caddell, on which the instruments were examined and sworn to have belonged to him. He was accordingly taken into custody.
J. Catnach, Printer, Monmouth Court.