Mr Briggs' Hat: The True Story of a Victorian Railway Murder (43 page)

39
avoiding the light from the windows:
For example,
Observer
, 17 July 1864, p. 7.

39
able to give a detailed description:
Robert Death’s deposition, second Bow warrants.

40
It appeared even to be smiling:
Shoreditch Advertiser
, 16 July 1864, p. 2 col. f.

40
thirteen local men:
The final inquest certificate (CRIM 41/681) lists the jurors’ names: James Whelan, William Thomas Dennis, Thomas Grills, Charles William Felgate, William Dunk, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Hudson, Alphonso Ker, Edwin William Woods, James Osborne, Charles King, James Lee and Henry Benjamin Savage.

40
great surprise has been expressed
:
The Times
, 12 July 1864, p. 11 col. c.

40
Briggs’ black bag:
Ibid.

40
something like those worn by foreigners
:
Liverpool Mercury
, 12 July 1864, p. 7 col. f.

41
we may walk unconsciously
:
Braddon,
Lady Audley’s Secret
, p. 113.

41
the
Daily Telegraph
:
The paper first appeared 1856 and within three years was outselling
The Times
, with a circulation of over 141,000 against its rival’s 65,000. See Boyle,
Black Swine in the Sewers of Hampstead
, p. 41.

41
If we can be murdered thus
:
Daily Telegraph
, 13 July 1864, p. 5 col. a.

41
Five doctors:
The Times
, 13 July 1864, p. 11 col. e. Post-mortem results taken mostly from the CCC trial transcripts, particularly the testimony of Francis Toulmin.

42
deep, jagged wound:
The Times
, 13 July 1864, p. 11 col. e.

42
a great quantity of effused blood
:
All descriptions from the second Bow warrants, testimony of Alfred Henry Brereton, 22 July 1864.

42
sub-cranial haemorrhage:
The Times
, 19 July 1864, p. 7 col. c.

CHAPTER 7: SOMETHING TO A STONISH THE PUBLIC

44
one of the foulest murders
:
The Times
, editorial, 13 July 1864, p. 10.

45
Mary Anne Moody:
The Times
, 16 July 1864, p. 7 col. c.

45
daintily murdered him
:
Quoted in Altick,
Victorian Studies in Scarlet
, p. 199.

45
swallowed up by the roar
:
The Globe
, 1863, quoted in Smullen,
Taken for a Ride
, p. 131.

46
no man is safe
:
The Times
, editorial, 13 July 1864, p. 10.

46
the look of a foreigner:
Ibid.

46
the horrid consciousness
:
Glasgow Herald
, 27 August 1864, p. 3 col. d.

46
One correspondent hinted:
MEPO 3/75.

47
height of the assassin:
Ibid.

47
the legal establishment was sceptical:
Evans,
The Father of Forensics
, p. 3.

48
reports of suspicious hats:
For example,
The Times
, 13 July 1864, p. 11 col. e.

49
put under surveillance:
MEPO 3/75: letter to Richard Mayne from the Liverpool Constabulary Force, 19 July 1864, confirming receipt of printed bills:
instructions have been given to the police of this borough to make every search as stopping offices and on board outward vessels also in the town.
See also
Reynolds’s Weekly Newspaper
, 17 July 1864, p. 8 col. a.

50
these huge new posters screamed horrid murder:
In the words of the
Daily Telegraph
,
all men knew that the death-hunt was afoot; that society, shocked by a hideous crime, was alert and eager to avenge it …
13 July 1864, no page, clip in MEPO 3/75.

50
equivalent to several years’ pay:
A skilled City tailor would earn on average fifty pounds a year, a cabman on the other hand might earn far more – variously reported at between eighty and several hundred pounds a year. See Booth’s 1889 report of the weekly average earnings of a hackney cabman as thirty shillings a week (
Life and Labour of the People
; Dickens’
All the Year Round
interview with a cabman corroborates this). But Mayhew (
London Labour and the London Poor
, 1864, p. 347
passim
) estimated it at ten pounds a week, and up to eighteen pounds a week in summer.

CHAPTER 8: IMPROBABLE HYPOTHESES

53
Somer’s Town:
White,
London in the Nineteenth Century
, p. 115.

53
this was not the customer:
‘The Atrocious Murder’,
Belfast Newsletter
, 15 July 1864, no page.

53
The London detectives are … upon their trial
:
Daily Telegraph
, 13 July 1864, p. 4 col. f.

54
thrumming to
the eternal tread
:
Dickens,
David Copperfield
, chapter 32.

54
There were the Irish:
White, op. cit., p. 148.

54
Wealthy Germans:
Ibid., p. 145.

55
half of all Germans in the country:
Sims (ed.),
Living London
, 1901.

55
the support system of ‘Little Germany’:
For more on Germans in mid-Victorian Britain, see Panayi (ed.),
Germans in Britain since 1500
, and Ashton,
Little Germany
.

57
etiquette manuals were divided:
Flanders,
The Victorian House
, p. 333.

58
a hoax:
The Times
, 11 July 1864, p. 11 col. f.

58
foul and brutal crime
:
Ibid.

59
combined daily circulation:
Flanders,
Consuming Passions
, p. 147 ff.

59
details of the brief:
For example, HO 65/25, letter, 10 November 1864.

59
driving the general increase of literacy:
Altick,
Victorian Studies in Scarlet
, pp. 282 and 288, and Flanders,
Consuming Passions
, p. 164.

59
The public mind
:
Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper
, 17 July 1864, p. 6 col. c.

60
Tomkins reported:
CCC transcript, evidence of Thomas Lee under cross-examination by the Solicitor General.

60
Thomas Lee admitted:
MEPO 3/75, Howie’s note.

61
sitting with his back to the engine
:
Bow warrants, 22 July 1864.

CHAPTER 9: SOMETHING TO TELL

63
a tall, dark man getting in and out of carriages:
Inquest report,
The Times
, 19 July 1864, p. 7 col. d.

64
the post-mortem results:
The Times
, 19 July 1864, p. 7 col. c.

64
threats … her uncle had received:
Full details of this inquest reported in e.g.
The Times
, 19 July 1864, p. 7 col. c and d.

65
five thousand metropolitan drivers:
Mayhew,
London Labour and the London Poor
, p. 347, though in Dickens’ interview with a cabman, published in
All the Year Round
in 1860, the driver believes there are eleven thousand drivers, three thousand of them of hansoms and the rest of hackney cabs.

65
was aiming to call it a day:
Charles Dickens, ‘Cab!’,
All the Year Round
, 25 February 1860, pp. 414–16

66
Turning to the police waterman:
CCC transcript, evidence of Jonathan Matthews.

67
a young German tailor from Chemnitz:
The Times
, 21 July 1864, p. 11 col. f. Also 20 July 1864, p. 9.

67
cramped rented rooms:
Inquest evidence reported in
The Times
, 9 August 1864, p. 7 col. c, and census information on the address at 68 Earl Street, 1861.

68
not wearing so greasy as the nap
:
CCC transcript evidence.

68
a mark on the inside brim:
See report of Matthews’ evidence,
Daily News
, 20 July 1864, p. 5 col. a.

68
He had replaced it:
CCC transcript, Matthews’ cross-examination by Parry.

69
twenty-five shillings a week:
Müller’s pay: CCC transcript. Another co-worker at Hodgkinson’s, John Henry Glass, told the court that he earned between thirty and thirty-six shillings a week. In 1858
The Times
argued that a middle-class household cost three hundred pounds a year (Maunder,
Varieties of Women’s Sensation Fiction
, p. 42 note 4). At around a pound a week, these tailors earned around a fifth of that, insufficient for much more than the outlay for food, board and clothing.

69
set out for the home:
The Times
, 21 July 1864, p. 11 col. f.

CHAPTER 10: THE WIND BLOWS FAIR

71
penny-gaffs:
Three-penny amusement galleries.

71
Occasionally they passed dustmen:
Descriptions of London night-workers are taken from Mayhew,
London Labour and the London Poor
.

71
hammered on the door of number 55:
Death’s residential address is not substantiated. In the 1861 census he lived with his brother and spinster sister in nearby St Luke’s and in 1871 in Bishopsgate, also in the City. Additionally, the 1861 census shows a silversmith shopman and his family living above the shop at 55 Cheapside. This shopman is not mentioned in any police statements or court testimony (by comparison to Mr Digance’s employee). Given Parry’s later attempts at trial to establish Müller’s presence at the shop prior to 11 July, it seems unlikely that this shopman worked for the Deaths and more likely that he was employed by a neighbouring jeweller in Cheapside. In the absence of a specific City address for the Deaths in July 1864 I have made a decision to locate the events of 19 July at 55 Cheapside. It does not materially alter either Tanner’s journey (both St Luke’s and Bishopsgate are a matter of minutes further on from Cheapside) or the reaction of John Death to the photograph he is shown by the inspector.

72
large groups of … immigrants:
For more on outsiders in the East End see Alderman and Holmes (ed.),
Outsiders and Outcasts
.