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TRIAL OF

DUNCAN TERIG ALIAS CLERK, AND ALEXANDER BANE MACDONALD,

FOR THE MURDER OF

ARTHUR DAVIS, SERGEANT IN GENERAL GUISE'S REGIMENT OF FOOT.

EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY. 1831.

THE MEMBERS OF THE BANNATYNE CLUB,

THIS COPY OF A TRIAL, INVOLVING A CURIOUS POINT OF EVIDENCE, IS PRESENTED

WALTER SCOTT.

Transcriber's Note: Letters that are printed as superscript are indicated by being preceeded by a caret .

THE BANNATYNE CLUB.

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BAR^T.

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE

SIR SAMUEL SHEPHERD,

THIS CURIOUS TRACT, RESPECTING PERHAPS THE ONLY SUBJECT OF LEGAL ENQUIRY WHICH HAS ESCAPED BEING INVESTIGATED BY HIS SKILL, AND ILLUSTRATED BY HIS GENIUS,

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED, BY HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND, AND MUCH OBLIGED HUMBLE SERVANT,

WALTER SCOTT.

INTRODUCTION.

Although the giving information concerning the unfair manner in which they were dismissed from life, is popularly alleged to have been a frequent reason why departed spirits revisit the nether world, it is yet only in a play of the witty comedian, Foote, that the reader will find their appearance become the subject of formal and very ingenious pleadings. In his farce called the Orators, the celebrated Cocklane Ghost is indicted by the name of Fanny the Phantom, for that, contrary to the King's peace, it did annoy, assault, and terrify divers persons residing in Cocklane and elsewhere, in the county of Middlesex. The senior counsel objects to his client pleading to the indictment, unless she is tried by her equals in rank, and therefore he moves the indictment be quashed, unless a jury of ghosts be first had and obtained. To this it is replied, that although Fanny the Phantom had originally a right to a jury of ghosts, yet in taking upon her to knock, to flutter, and to scratch, she did, by condescending to operations proper to humanity, wave her privileges as a ghost, and must consent to be tried in the ordinary manner. It occurs to the Justice who tries the case, that there will be difficulty in impanelling a jury of ghosts, and he doubts how twelve spirits who have no body at all, can be said to take a corporal oath, as required by law, unless, indeed, as in the case of the Peerage, the prisoner may be tried upon her honour. At length the counsel for the prosecution furnishes the list of ghosts for the selection of the jury, being the most celebrated apparitions of modern times, namely, Sir George Villiers, the evil genius of Brutus, the Ghost of Banquo, and the phantom of Mrs Veal. The counsel for the prosecution objects to a woman, and the court dissolves, under the facetious order, that if the Phantom should plead pregnancy, Mrs Veal will be admitted upon the jury of matrons.

This admirable foolery is carried by the English Aristophanes nearly as far as it will go; yet it is very contrary to the belief of those, who conceive that injured spirits are often the means of procuring redress for wrongs committed upon their mortal frames, to find how seldom in any country an allusion hath been made to such evidence in a court of justice, although, according to their belief, such instances must have frequently occurred. One or two cases of such apparition-evidence our researches have detected.

It is a popular story, that an evidence for the Crown began to tell the substance of an alleged conversation with the ghost of a murdered man, in which he laid his death to the accused person at the bar. "Stop," said the judge, with becoming gravity, "this will not do; the evidence of the ghost is excellent, none can speak with a clearer cause of knowledge to any thing which befell him during life. But he must be sworn in usual form. Call the ghost in open court, and if he appears, the jury and I will give all weight to his evidence; but in case he does not come forward, he cannot be heard, as now proposed, through the medium of a third party." It will readily be conceived that the ghost failed to appear, and the accusation was dismissed.

This is something like a decision of the great Frederick of Prussia. One of his soldiers, a Catholic, pretended peculiar sanctity, and an especial devotion to a particular image of the Virgin Mary, which, richly decorated with ornaments by the zeal of her worshippers, was placed in a chapel in one of the churches of the city where her votary was quartered. The soldier acquired such familiarity with the object of his devotion, and was so much confided in by the priests, that he watched for and found an opportunity of possessing himself of a valuable diamond necklace belonging to the Madonna. Although the defendant was taken in the manner, he had the impudence, knowing the case was to be heard by the King, to say that the Madonna herself had voluntarily presented him with her necklace, observing that, as her good and faithful votary, he had better apply it to his necessities, than that it should remain useless in her custody.

Amongst English trials, there is only mention of a ghost in a very incidental manner, in that of John Cole, fourth year of William and Mary, State Trials, vol. xii. The case is a species of supplement to that of the well-known trial of Henry Harrison, which precedes it in the same collection, of which the following is the summary.

A respectable doctor of medicine, Clenche, had the misfortune to offend a haughty, violent, and imperious woman of indifferent character, named Vanwinckle, to whom he had lent money, and who he wished to repay it. A hackney-coach, with two men in it, took up the physician by night, as they pretended, to carry him to visit a patient. But on the road they strangled him with a handkerchief, having a coal, or some such hard substance, placed against their victim's windpipe, and escaped from the coach. One Henry Harrison, a man of loose life, connected with this Mrs Vanwinckle, the borrower of the money, was tried, convicted, and executed, on pretty clear evidence, yet he died denying the crime charged. The case being of a shocking nature, of course interested the feelings of the common people, and another person was accused as an accessory, the principal evidence against whom was founded on this story.

A woman, called Millward, pretended that she had seen the ghost of her deceased husband, who told her that one John Cole had assisted him, the ghost, in the murder of Dr Clenche. Cole was brought to trial accordingly; but the charge was totally despised, both by judge and jury, and produced no effect whatever in obtaining conviction.

Such being the general case with respect to apparitions, really alluded to or quoted in formal evidence in courts of justice, an evidence of that kind gravely given and received in the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland, has some title to be considered as a curiosity.

The Editor's connexion with it is of an old standing, since, shortly after he was called to the bar in 1792, it was pointed out to him by Robert M'Intosh, Esq., one of the counsel in the case, then and long after remarkable for the interest which he took, and the management which he possessed, in the prolix and complicated affairs of the York Building Company.

The cause of the trial, bloody and sad enough in its own nature, was one of the acts of violence which were the natural consequences of the Civil War in 1745.

It was about three years after the battle of Culloden that this poor man, Sergeant Davis, was quartered, with a small military party, in an uncommonly wild part of the Highlands, near the country of the Farquharsons, as it is called, any, into still another and then another large, elaborately decorated and brilliantly lighted chapel. In one of these we ran upon a great crowd of several hundred people carrying lighted torches and accompanied by a brass band. They were peasants who were making an annual pilgrimage to the mine for the purpose of visiting the underground chapels, which have acquired a wide fame in the surrounding country.

For two or three hours we wandered on from one large chamber to another, going deeper and deeper into the mine, but never coming, as near as I could see, any nearer to the miners. Finally it began to dawn upon me that, so far from being in an actual salt mine, I was really in a sort of underground museum. There were chapels and monuments and crowds of people in holiday attire; there were lights and music and paper lanterns, but there was nothing that would in any way remind you of the actual daily life of the miners that I had come there to see; in fact, the only miners with whom I came in contact were those who acted as guides or played in the band. It was all very strange and very interesting, and there was, I learned, no possible means of escape.

From what I have already said I fear that some of my readers will feel, as a great many people whom I met abroad did, that in my journey across Europe I must have gained a very unfortunate and one-sided view of the countries and the peoples I visited. It will seem to them, perhaps, that I was looking for everything that was commonplace or bad in the countries I visited, and avoiding everything that was extraordinary or in any way worth looking at. My only excuse is that I was, in fact, not looking for the best, but for the worst; I was hunting for the man farthest down.

Most people who travel in Europe seem to me to be chiefly interested in two sorts of things: They want to see what is old, and they want to see what is dead. The regular routes of travel run through palaces, museums, art galleries, ancient ruins, monuments, churches, and graveyards.

I have never been greatly interested in the past, for the past is something that you cannot change. I like the new, the unfinished and the problematic. My experience is that the man who is interested in living things must seek them in the grime and dirt of everyday life. To be sure, the things one sees there are not always pleasant, but the people one meets are interesting, and if they are sometimes among the worst they are also frequently among the best people in the world. At any rate, wherever there is struggle and effort there is life.

I have referred to the way in which I tried and, to a reasonable extent, succeeded in confining my observations to a certain definite point of view. Aside from this I had certain other advantages upon this expedition in finding what I wanted to see and avoiding the things I did not want to see, without which I certainly could neither have covered the ground I did, nor have found my way to so many things that had for me special and peculiar interest. Some years ago I made the acquaintance, in Boston, of Dr. Robert E. Park, who has for some time past assisted me in my work at Tuskegee. At the time I first met him Doctor Park was interested in the movement to bring about a reform of the conditions then existing in the Congo Free State in Africa; in fact, he was at that time secretary of the Congo Reform Association, and it was through his efforts to interest me in that movement that I came to know him. He had a notion, as he explained to me, that the conditions of the natives in the Congo, as well as in other parts of Africa, could not be permanently improved only through a system of education, somewhat similar to that at Hampton and Tuskegee. The Congo Reform Association, as he explained, was engaged in a work of destruction, but what interested him chiefly was what should be done in the way of construction or reconstruction after the work of destruction was completed. We had frequent conversations upon the subject, and it was in this way that he finally became interested in the work that was being done for the Negro in the Southern States. Since that time he has spent the larger part of every year in the South, assisting me in my work at Tuskegee and using the opportunity thus offered to study what is called the Negro problem. The reason I make this statement here is because Doctor Park was not only my companion in all of my trip through Europe, but he also went to Europe some months in advance of me and thus had an opportunity to study the situation and make it possible for me to see more in a short space of time than I could otherwise have been able to do. In this and in other ways he has been largely responsible for what appears in this book.

For instance, it was Doctor Park who studied out the general plans and details of our trip. He acted, also, not merely as a companion but as a guide and interpreter. He assisted me also in getting hold of the documents and literature in the different countries we visited which enabled me to correct the impressions I had formed on the spot and to supplement them with the facts and statistics in regard to the conditions we had observed.

In several directions Doctor Park was peculiarly fitted for giving me this sort of assistance. In the first place, during the years he had been at Tuskegee he had become thoroughly acquainted with conditions in the Southern States and, in the course of the journey of observation and study on which he had accompanied me, we had become thoroughly acquainted with each other, so that he understood not only what I desired, but what it was important for me to see in Europe.

In the second place, shortly before I met him, Doctor Park had just returned from four years of study in Europe. He was familiar with much of the ground we intended to cover and at the same time spoke the language which was of greatest use in most of the countries we visited--namely, German.

Two people travelling together can, under any circumstances, see and learn a great deal more than one. When it comes to travelling in a new and unfamiliar country this is emphatically true. For this reason a large part of what I saw and learned about Europe is due directly to the assistance of Doctor Park. Our method of procedure was about as follows: When we reached a city or other part of the country which we wished to study we would usually start out together. I had a notebook in which I jotted down on the spot what I saw that interested me, and Doctor Park, who had had experience as a newspaper reporter, used his eyes and ears. Then in the course of our long stretches of railway travel we compared notes and comments and sifted, as thoroughly as we were able, the facts and observations we had been able to gather. Then as soon as we reached a large city I got hold of a stenographer and dictated, as fully as I was able, the story of what we had seen and learned. In doing this I used Doctor Park's observations, I suppose, quite as much as I did my own. In fact, I do not believe I am able to say now how much of what I have written is based upon my own personal observations and what is based upon those of Doctor Park. Thus, it should be remembered that although this book is written throughout in the first person it contains the observations of two different individuals.

In another direction Doctor Park has contributed to make this book what it is. While I was dictating my own account of our adventures he would usually spend the time hunting through the book stores and libraries for any books or information which would throw any light on the matter in which we were interested. The result was that we returned with nearly a trunk-ful of books, papers, and letters which we had obtained in different places and from different people we met. With these documents Doctor Park then set to work to straighten out and complete the matter that I had dictated, filling in and adding to what I had written. The chapters which follow are the result.

I set out from America, as I have said, to find the man farthest down. In a period of about six weeks I visited parts of England, Scotland, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Sicily, Poland, and Denmark. I spent some time among the poorer classes of London and in several cities in Austria and Italy. I investigated, to a certain extent, the condition of the agricultural populations in Sicily, in Bohemia, Poland, and Denmark. I saw much that was sad and depressing, but I saw much, also, that was hopeful and inspiring. Bad as conditions are in some places, I do not think I visited any place where things are not better now than they were some years ago.

I found also that the connection between Europe and America is much closer and more intimate than I had imagined. I am sure that very few persons in this country realize the extent to which America has touched and influenced the masses of the people in Europe. I think it is safe to say that no single influence which is to-day tending to change and raise the condition of the working people in the agricultural regions of southern Europe is greater than the constant stream of emigration which is pouring out of Europe into America and back again into Europe. It should be remembered that not only do large numbers of these people emigrate to America, but many of these emigrants return and bring with them not only money to buy lands, but new ideas, higher ambitions, and a wider outlook on the world.

Everywhere that I went, even in the most distant parts of the country, where as yet the people have been almost untouched by the influences of modern civilization, I met men who spoke in broken English, but with genuine enthusiasm, of America. Once, when I had made a half-day's journey by rail and wagon into a distant village in Poland, in order to see something of life in a primitive farming village, I was enthusiastically welcomed at the country tavern by the proprietor and two or three other persons, all of whom had lived for some time in America and were able to speak a little English.

At another time, when I visited the sulphur mines in the mountains of central Sicily, I was surprised and delighted to encounter, deep down in one of these mines, several hundred feet below the surface, a man with whom I was able to speak familiarly about the coal mines of West Virginia, where each of us, at different times, had been employed in mine labour.

There seemed to be no part of Europe so distant or so remote that the legend of America had not penetrated to it; and the influence of America, of American ideas, is certainly making itself felt in a very definite way in the lowest strata of European civilization.

The thing that impressed me most, however, was the condition of the labouring women of Europe. I do not know the statistics, but if I am permitted to judge by what I saw I should say that three fourths of the work on the farms, and a considerable part of the heavy work in the cities of Europe, is performed by women. Not only that, but in the low life of great cities, like London, it seems to me that the women suffer more from the evil influences of slum life than the men. In short, if I may put it that way, the man farthest down in Europe is woman. Women have the narrowest outlook, do the hardest work, stand in greatest need of education, and are farthest removed from influences which are everywhere raising the level of life among the masses of the European people.

THE MAN AT THE BOTTOM IN LONDON

As I drove from the railway station in the gray of the early morning my attention was attracted by a strange, shapeless and disreputable figure which slunk out of the shadow of a building and moved slowly and dejectedly down the silent and empty street. In that quarter of the city, and in comparison with the solid respectability and comfort represented by the houses around him, the figure of this man seemed grotesquely wretched. In fact, he struck me as the most lonely object I had ever laid my eyes on. I watched him down the street as far as I could see. He turned neither to the left nor to the right, but moved slowly on, his head bent toward the ground, apparently looking for something he did not hope to find. In the course of my journey across Europe I saw much poverty, but I do not think I saw anything quite so hopeless and wretched.

I had not been long in London before I learned that this man was a type. It is said that there are ten thousand of these homeless and houseless men and women in East London alone. They are, however, not confined to any part of the city. They may be found in the fashionable West End, lounging on the benches of St. James's Park, as well as in the East End, where the masses of the labouring people live. The Salvation Army has erected shelters for them in many of the poorer parts of the city, where, for anything from two to eight cents, they may get a room for the night, and sometimes a piece of bread and a bowl of soup. Thousands of them are not able to compass the small sum necessary to obtain even this minimum of food and comfort. These are the outcasts and the rejected, the human waste of a great city. They represent the man at the bottom in London.

Later, in the course of my wanderings about the city, I met many of these hopeless and broken men. I saw them sitting, on sunshiny days, not only men but women also, crumpled up on benches or stretched out on the grass of the parks. I discovered them on rainy nights crouching in doorways or huddled away in dark corners where an arch or a wall protected them from the cold. I met them in the early morning hours, before the city was awake, creeping along the Strand and digging with their hands in the garbage-boxes; and again, late at night, on the Thames Embankment, where hundreds of them sleep--when the night watchman permits--on the benches or stretched out on the stone pavements. After a time I learned to distinguish the same type under the disguise of those street venders who stand on street corners and sell collar-buttons, matches, and other trifles, stretching out their hands in a pitiful sort of supplication to passers-by to buy their wares.

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