A Tale of Needle-and-Thread Street.
Originally published in Leigh Hunt's Journal (Edward Moxon) vol.2 #8 (25 Jan 1851).
Ten years ago there practised in the neighbourhood of Blackfriars, a solicitor of the name of Burton, bearing an unimpeachable character for integrity and professional uprightness. His practice was not of that select class which consists of conveyancing alone, neither was it of that low description which is chiefly confined to extricating metropolitan Barabbases from the jaws of the Old Bailey. Burton's practice was in the medium between these professional poles; he was not poor enough to be compelled to swell the number of Sampson Brasses; he was not rich enough to be enabled to scorn any legitimate legal business that fell in his way. It chanced that about that time a new client came to him, with some ordinary business, consisting of investment of capital, settling agreements with tenants, &c.; having casually encountered Burton before, and being struck with an honourable trait in that gentleman's professional conduct. Burton made inquiries as to his new client's character, and found him in excellent repute with all who knew him. Accordingly, the business was done, the regular office entries made, bill delivered and paid.
A year afterwards, Wilkinson, that is the client's name, calls again to employ Burton in obtaining letters of administration for a friend of his, who is entitled to some unclaimed wares in the great Needle-and-Thread establishment in the City. Burton has interviews with the person applying for these letters of administration, and obtains them for him. Entries of interviews, names of parties, nature of business, and the charges, are all made in the regular manner in the office books, and transcribed by the clerks. Wilkinson then tells Burton that a friend of his in the establishment is kind enough to tell him of various unclaimed goods lying there, and that he employs himself in searching out the owners, establishing their claim, and getting a per-centage for his remuneration. Professional aid is sometimes necessary, and he shall, if Burton has no objections, continue to employ him. Of course, Burton has no objection, Wilkinson bears an excellent character, forgotten goods, he knows, lie at Needle-and-Thread Street to an immense amount, an official furnishes the information, there can be no reasons of a moral or professional nature why Burton should object. Accordingly, Wilkinson brings him, in the course of time, six other such cases, requiring more or less professional assistance. For instance, the owner of the stock died and left no will, and a niece is his nearest heir; Burton must therefore get certificates of their respective death and births, and procure letters of administration. Wilkinson gives the parishes where the registers are to be found, so that Burton has but to pay the fees for a copy, and make the necessary use of them in the letters of administration.
In other cases, Wilkinson brings him a will, which he has but to get proved for the legatee, and then the unclaimed goods are handed over. In all these cases there is nothing suspicious, nothing required of Burton but what the most honourable attorney might conscientiously do. All the entries are made in the regular office books, and the bills drawn out by the clerks. There is nothing irregular in the minutest letter or other business transaction of Burton, that the most lynx-eyed lawyer can detect. On the 3rd of October 1842, Wilkinson calls on Burton and tells him that 3,500l. worth of Needles and Thread is standing to the credit of a lady, unclaimed; that he had found out the lady, and wishes Burton to inform her, that if she can prove her identity to a lady of the same name, who once resided in a specified street, she will hear something to her advantage. Burton writes accordingly. The lady's brother-in-law has an interview with Burton, and informs him that she did once live in the street specified, that she is alive, and is twenty-seven years of age. This is told to Wilkinson, who then shows Burton that she cannot be the lady in question, as the owner of the unclaimed goods executed a power of attorney twelve years before, which would be illegal in a girl of fifteen. He suggests, however, that Burton should write for her signature, that Wilkinson's friend at the establishment might compare it with the power of attorney. She does so, Wilkinson compares the writing; and they are not the same at all, he informs Burton. Burton now dismisses the matter, having made all the entries of interviews in regular official manner, patent to all his seven clerks. During all this time, Wilkinson had employed Burton in conveyancing and other ordinary professional duties. In March 1843, Wilkinson tells Burton that he has found the rightful owner. He produces her, a lady, who in her turn produces a will of her aunt, the owner of the unclaimed goods, in which the Needle-and-Thread stock is regularly devised to her, the lady producing the will. All that is therefore required of Burton is to get the will proved; he does so, he takes the lady to the Needle-and-Thread office, he her into her coach, receives her money in payment of his bill, and sees her hand over 5l. to Wilkinson for his trouble in the matter. Again, every interview is fully chronicled in the open diary, every letter copied, not one iota of business concealed from the clerks, or transacted out of the regular business routine.
Now the plot is discovered. Poor Burton has been living and moving over a mine he knew nothing of, it now springs and the innocent perishes. Wilkinson is a swindler by trade, and these recoveries of Needle-and-Thread are forgeries of the most artful character. He has three accomplices who impose on Burton and the Needle-and-Thread Company, by personating the rightful heir; he forges wills which impose upon Burton and the Company, by their legal accuracy and apparent straightforwardness; he has a confederate in the official alluded to, who receives his share in the booty. But all is now found out, by the real owner applying for the stock obtained by the assumed owner.
And now begins as lamentable and disgraceful a story of legal persecution and corruption in high places as ever disgraced the annals of any country pretending to be civilised, and to revere the name of Equity. Mr. Bow-wow, a Cerberus of the Needle-and-Thread Company, calls on Burton directly the forgery is discovered, and tells him how the case stands. "That implies forgery," said Burton innocently enough. Bow-wow then demands his client's name: Burton, following the strict rule of all honourable lawyers, declines to give it till he has consulted his client. The Bow-wows of that Company, if not patted immediately, and a sop flung to them, bite! Bow -wow in high dudgeon departs, places his little deputy bull-dogs to dog Burton's ins and outs for four-and-twenty days, and finally arrests him on a charge of forgery. A vow, inveterate as Shylock's, seems to have been made by the enraged Lady of Needle-and-Thread Street, that she would hunt down, by her vociferous tongue, by her secret influence, by her open force, this unhappy, innocent, unoffending man who had dared to omit falling on his knees and giving his choicest sop to her very important and infuriated Bow-wow. To an unbiassed mind there could be no doubt of Burton's innocence; everything, as we have said, was done in the usual manner, patent to all the clerks. Burton's partner knew of all the transactions, and even performed some of them himself. Wilkinson braved every risk of detection at the bank to keep Burton in ignorance of his frauds—everything that was brought forward tended to exculpate Burton, and the more the case was probed, the more fair and spotless his character became.
But he does not escape. Every legal dodge, every mean equivocation, every dishonest perversion of trial by jury and condemnation or acquittal by witness, is practised against him. He is refused a separate trial, so that he must appear in the dock with Wilkinson, and therefore cannot use the evidence of the man who could save him by a word,—and who has since spoken that word—his partner, who stated, that if Burton were guilty he must be guilty also, is neither indicted nor produced as a witness by the Needle-and-Thread prosecutors, though if Burton be guilty his partner could prove it; nor is Burton allowed to call his partner to speak to his acquittal, as said partner becomes mysteriously absent, this absence being the result of threats of Needle-and-Thread vengeance if he did appear. He is refused a copy of the indictments against him, so that his defence is one of memory,—of memory of 460 brief sheets of accusations! He is tried for connection with three forgeries of Wilkinson's, but is acquitted as regards two of them; one of the Bow-wow witnesses committing deliberate perjury in the open court, awed into perjury by Needle-and-Thread threats. That witness takes his oath on a matter that would convict Burton, could it not have been shown to be perjury. Happily, the man's own handwriting proves his falsehood, and he is dismissed, to his own chagrin and that of Bow-wow. Such be the witnesses that Needle-and-Thread employeth to slay the innocent!
But in the third forgery charge, Burton does not escape—as, indeed, how can a man when Needle-and-Thread's omnipotence can awe the witnesses, who could save him, into absence or perjury? Bow-wow triumphs. Burton is transported.
Before leaving the country he sends a fuller defence than could be offered on his trial to the Home-office, then presided over by one to whom sealing-wax has no sanctity. It is unread by the genius loci, but, as works by critics, is condemned, nevertheless. He must sail, and sail he does. He arrives at Norfolk Island, but, though at the very antipodes, Needle-and-Thread influence still persecutes him. A gentleman, and used to a sedentary life, he is put in close confinement, to hard and ignominious labour, while housebreakers on their second visit receive free passes, and have light work allotted them. Wilkinson himself is allowed to act as doctor to the settlement. Burton's heart does not faint however; he writes home to justify himself; the chaplain writes on his behalf to Sir Robert Peel; for all who examine his case see that he is innocent; but the letters are arrested by the authorities; they do not reach their destination. Even the Norfolk Island officials shiver, and letters pause in then delivery, when Bow-wow barks.
But a change of ministry takes place in England; the guardian of the Home-office is now one to whom sealing wax is sacred; and Burton's letters and those of his friends at Norfolk Island reach the authorities here. Sir George Grey can see the right; he grants a pardon to Burton on the condition that he does not return to England. He is freed—and penniless and half-naked he sets out for Hobart Town. Thence he proceeds to Sydney, where he lays his case before the bar there. They appoint a committee to investigate it, and finally decide that Burton is blameless in everything, that Mr. Bow-wow and the Needle-and-Thread Company are unjustifiably wrong. By their kind contribution he reaches Calcutta; thence, on charity, by painful stages, he gains Paris. There he draws up a fuller, clearer statement of his case, and lays it before Lord Normanby, our ambassador. To the honour of that nobleman, he receives his poor, wronged countryman with courtesy; reads his case; masters it; decides as the Sydney bar decided, and sends on the paper to Sir George Grey. Sir George also reads and masters, and bravely, honestly, and fully acknowledges the error of the tribunal that convicted Burton. Her Majesty, at his recommendation, grants Burton a full pardon, declaring him innocent of the slightest shadow of a crime. Burton now returns to England to recover his fallen fortunes by recommencing practice.
He applies for his license, but the Law Oligarch Association decline to grant it. They laugh to scorn Sir George Grey's wisdom and justice; they pooh-pooh her Majesty's pardon. "We," say they, "sublime Law Oligarechs as we are, are higher, wiser, more powerful than Home Secretary or Queen. We bow to Bow-wow—we will not admit you." Burton appeals to a higher tribunal, but the genius of Bow-wow outmanœuvres him again. They try him on several small matters, knowing that the papers that would prove his innocence have been seized; they obtain documents under a pledge that they shall still be at the service of Burton during the trial, and afterwards refuse to let his solicitor have access to them; they promise that they will proceed against him on the charge of professional negligence alone, and then suddenly turn round on him and try him on the ground of forgery, to rebut which no evidence, they know, had been prepared; and so, unworthily and basely, they triumph. The refusal of Burton's license is confirmed; he is left in debt and difficulties of all kinds to earn a miserable pittance as a copying clerk, an innocent man, yet paying the heaviest penalty of guilt; declared by the Home-Secretary to be free from any imputation whatever, yet languishing under the legal consequences of forgery; pardoned by her Majesty, but condemned, persecuted, and punished by the Law Oligarch Society. In this state he now remains, and there is no hope for him unless Parliament step in to vindicate him, and to curb the insolence of bloated, pride-blown Bow-wows, to censure the corrupt influence of the Needle-and-Thread Company, to support the jurisdiction of a generous and wise statesman, and to repudiate the interference with her Majesty's free pardon, by which means the benign will of our Queen is made of no effect to her own subjects, and rendered a by-word and a folly to all the nations of the world. Z.
[Has not Z. sent us a translation from the French? This cannot be true of our country. We know of no Needle-and-Thread Company in this city or in any other. Does the reader?]—S.