The Great Train Robbery (33 page)

By October, 1855, The Great Train Robbery was no longer of interest to anyone in England. It had come full circle, from a topic of universal and endless fascination to a confused and embarrassing incident that nearly everyone wished very much to forget.

November 5th, known as Powder Plot Day or Guy Fawkes Day, had been a national holiday in England since 1605. But the celebration, observed the
News
in 1856, “has of late years been made subservient to the cause of charity as well as mere amusement. Here is a laudable instance. On Wednesday evening a grand display of fireworks took place on the grounds of the Merchant Seamen’s Orphan Asylum, Bow-road, in aid of the funds of the institution. The grounds were illuminated somewhat after the fashion adopted at Vauxhall, and a band of music was engaged. In the rear of the premises was a gibbet, to which was suspended an effigy of the Pope; and around it were several barrels of tar, which at the proper time were consumed in a most formidable blaze. The exhibition was attended by a large concourse of people, and the result promised to be of considerable benefit to the funds of the charity.”

Any combination of large crowds and distracting spectacles was, of course, also of considerable benefit to pickpockets, cut-purses, and dolly-mops, and the police at the orphan asylum that night were busy indeed. In the course of the evening, no fewer than thirteen “vagrants, vagabonds and petty villains” were apprehended by officers of the Metropolitan Force, including a female who was accused of robbing an intoxicated gentleman. This arrest was made by one Constable Johnson,
and the manner of it was sufficiently idiosyncratic to merit some explanation.

The major features are clear enough. Constable Johnson, a man of twenty-three, was walking the asylum grounds when, by the flaring light of the fireworks exploding overhead, he observed a female crouched over the prostrate form of a man. Fearing the gentleman might be ill, Constable Johnson went to offer help, but at his approach the girl took to her heels. Constable Johnson gave chase, apprehending the female a short distance away when she tripped on her skirts and tumbled to the ground.

Observing her at close hand to be “a female of lewd aspect and lascivious comportment,” he at once surmised the true nature of her attentions to the gentleman; namely, that she was robbing him, in his intoxicated stupor, and that she was the lowest form of criminal, a “bug-hunter.” Constable Johnson promptly arrested her.

The saucy minx put her hands on her hips and glared at him in open defiance. “There’s not a pogue upon me,” she declared, which words must surely have given Constable Johnson pause. He faced a serious dilemma.

In the Victorian view, proper male conduct demanded that all women, even women of the lowest sort, be treated with caution and consideration for the delicacy of their feminine nature. That nature, noted a contemporary policeman’s manual of conduct, “with its sacred emotional wellsprings, its ennobling maternal richness, its exquisite sensitivity and profound fragility, i.e. all those qualities which comprise the very
essence of womanly character
, derive from the biological or physio-logic principles which determine all the differences between the sexes of male and female. Thus it must be appreciated that the
essence of womanly character
resides in every member of that sex, and must be duly respected by an Officer, and this despite the appearance,
in certain vulgar personages, of the absence of said womanly character.”

The belief in a biologically determined personality in both men and women was accepted to some extent by nearly everyone at all levels of Victorian society, and that belief was held in the face of all sorts of incongruities. A businessman could go off to work each day, leaving his “unreasoning” wife to run an enormous household, a businesslike task of formidable proportions; yet the husband never viewed his wife’s activities in that way.

Of all the absurdities of the code, the most difficult was the predicament of the policeman. A woman’s inherent fragility created obvious difficulties in the handling of female lawbreakers. Indeed, criminals took advantage of the situation, often employing a female accomplice precisely because the police were so reluctant to arrest.

Constable Johnson, confronted by this dratted minx on the night of November 5th, was fully aware of his situation. The woman claimed to have no stolen goods on her person; and if this was true, she would never be convicted, despite his testimony that he had found her bug-hunting. Without a pocketwatch or some other indisputably masculine article, the girl would go free.

Nor could he search her: the very idea that he might touch the woman’s body was unthinkable to him. His only recourse was to escort her to the station, where a matron would be called to perform the search. But the hour was late; the matron would have to be roused from her bed, and the station was some way off. In the course of being escorted through dark streets, the little tart would have many opportunities to rid herself of incriminating evidence.

Furthermore, if Constable Johnson brought her in, called for the matron, raised all manner of fuss and stir, and then it was discovered the girl was clean, he would
look a proper fool and receive a stiff rebuke. He knew this; and so did the girl standing before him in a posture of brazen defiance.

Altogether it was a situation not worth the risk or the bother, and Constable Johnson would have liked to send her off with a scolding. But Johnson had recently been advised by his superiors that his arrest record left something to be desired; he had been told to be more vigilant in his pursuit of wrongdoing. And there was the strong implication that his job hung in the balance.

So Constable Johnson, in the intermittent, sputtering glow of the bursting fireworks, decided to take the bug-hunter in for a search—to the girl’s open astonishment, and despite his own rather considerable reluctance.

Dalby, the station sergeant, was in a foul humor, for he was called upon to work on the night of the holiday, and he resented missing the festivities that he knew were taking place all around him.

He glared at Johnson and the woman at his side. The woman gave her name as Alice Nelson, and stated her age was “eighteen or thereabouts.” Dalby sighed and rubbed his face sleepily as he filled in the forms. He sent Johnson off to collect the matron. He ordered the girl to sit in a corner. The station was deserted, and silent except for the distant pop and whistle of fireworks.

Dalby had a flask in his pocket, and at late hours he often took a daffy or two when there was no one about. But now this saucy little bit of no-good business was sitting there, and whatever else was the truth of her, she was keeping him from his nip; the idea irked him, and he frowned into space, feeling frustrated. Whenever he couldn’t have a daffy, he wanted it especially much, or so it seemed.

After a space of time, the judy spoke up. “If you granny I’ve a pink or two beneath me duds, see for yourself, and now.” Her tone was lascivious; the invitation
was unmistakable, and to make it clearer, she began to scratch her limbs through the skirt, in languorous fashion.

“You’ll be finding what you want, I reckon,” she added.

Dalby sighed.

The girl continued to scratch. “I know to please you,” she said, “and you may count on it, as God’s me witness.”

“And earn the pox for my troubles,” Dalby said. “I know your sort, dearie.”

“Here, now,” the girl protested, in a sudden shift from invitation to outrage. “You’ve no call to voker such-like. There’s not a touch of pox upon me, and never been.”

“Aye, aye, aye,” Dalby said wearily, thinking again of his flask. “There never is, is there.”

The little tart lapsed into silence. She ceased scratching herself, and soon enough sat up straight in her chair, adopting a proper manner. “Let’s us strike a bargain,” she said, “and I warrant it’ll be one to your liking.”

“Dearie, there’s no bargain to be made,” Dalby said, hardly paying attention. He knew this tedious routine, for he saw it played out, again and again, every night he worked at the station. Some little bit of goods would be tugged in on an officer’s arm, all protests of innocence. Then she’d settle in and make an advance of favors, and if that was not taken up, she’d soon enough talk a bribe.

It was always the same.

“Set me to go,” the girl said, “and you’ll have a gold guinea.”

Dalby sighed, and shook his head. If this creature had a gold guinea on her, it was sure proof she’d been bug-hunting, as young Johnson claimed.

“Well, then,” the girl said, “you shall have ten.” Her voice now had a frightened edge.

“Ten guineas?” Dalby asked. That at least was something
new; he’d never been offered ten guineas before. They must be counterfeit, he thought.

“Ten is what I promise you, right enough.”

Dalby hesitated. In his own eyes he was a man of principle, and he was a seasoned officer of the law. But his weekly wage was fifteen shillings, and sometimes it came none too promptly. Ten guineas was a substantial item and no mistake. He let his mind wander over the idea.

“Well, then,” the girl said, taking his hesitation for something else, “it shall be a hundred! A hundred gold guineas!”

Dalby laughed. His mood was broken, and his daydreams abruptly ended. In her anxiety the girl was obviously weaving an ever wilder story. A hundred guineas! Absurd.

“You don’t believe me?”

“Be still,” he said. His thoughts returned to the flask in his pocket.

There was a short silence while the tart chewed her lip and frowned. Finally she said, “I know a thing or two.”

Dalby stared at the ceiling. It was all so dreary and predictable. After the bribe failed, there came the offer of information about some crime or other. The progression was always the same. Out of boredom, as much as anything else, he said, “And what is this thing or two?”

“A ream sight of a flash pull, and no slang.”