April 13th, 1829
On Friday last the Catholic Bill was read a third time, after a very dull debate. Lord Eldon attempted to rally, and made a long and wretched speech which lasted two hours. Nobody spoke well. The Duke in his reply dropped all the terms of courtesy and friendship he had hitherto used in speaking of old Eldon, and broke off with him entirely. He is disgusted at his opposition out of doors, and at his having been the constant adviser of the Duke of Cumberland and all the foolish Lords who have been pestering the King at Windsor; and he is acquainted with all his tricks and underhand proceedings, probably with more of them than we know of. He thanked the Opposition for their support—thanks which they well merit from him—but of course nobody is satisfied. He was before accused of ingratitude in never taking notice of their conduct, and even it is said that he gave them to understand he had no more need of their services, and wished to make them his bow. I don’t believe he meant any such thing; he intended to thank them simply, though it is probably true that he does not wish to continue in alliance with them, and is anxious to see the Tories put themselves under his orders again. On Saturday he sent the commission down to Windsor for the King’s signature, with other papers as a matter of course; he would not go himself, that there might be no fresh discussion between them.
I went on Friday morning to the Old Bailey to hear the trials, particularly that of the women for the murder of the apprentices; the mother was found guilty, and will be hanged to-day—has been by this time.15 The case exhibited a shocking scene of wretchedness and poverty, such as ought not to exist in any community, especially in one which pretends to be so flourishing and happy as this is. It is, I suppose, one case of many which may be found in this town, graduating through various stages of misery and vice. These wretched beings were described to be in the lowest state of moral and physical degradation, with scarcely rags to cover them, food barely sufficient to keep them alive, and working eighteen or nineteen hours a day, without being permitted any relaxation, or even the privilege of going to church on Sunday. I never heard more disgusting details than this THEATRICAL FUND DINNER. trial elicited, or a case which calls more loudly for an investigation into the law and the system under which such proceedings are possible. Poverty, and vice, and misery must always be found in a community like ours, but such frightful contrasts between the excess of luxury and splendour and these scenes of starvation and brutality ought not to be possible; but I am afraid there is more vice, more misery and penury in this country than in any other, and at the same time greater wealth. The contrasts are too striking, and such an unnatural, artificial, and unjust state of things neither can nor ought to be permanent. I am convinced that before many years elapse these things will produce some great convulsion.
After the Old Bailey I went and dined at the Covent Garden Theatrical Fund dinner. The Duke of Clarence could not come, so they put Lord Blessington in the chair, who made an ass of himself. Among other toasts he was to give ‘The memory of the Duke of York,’ who was the founder of the institution. He prefaced this with a speech, but gave ‘The health,’ &c., on which Fawcett, who sat opposite, called out in an agony, ‘The memory, my Lord!’ He corrected himself, but in a minute after said again ‘The health.’ ‘The memory, my Lord!’ again roared Fawcett. It was supremely ridiculous. Francis Leveson sat on his right, Codrington on his left, and Lawless the agitator just opposite; he is a pale, thin, common-looking little man, and has not at all the air of a patriot orator and agitator.
Notes
15 [Two wretched women named Hibner were tried, and one of them convicted for the murder of a parish apprentice named Francis Colepitts by savage ill-treatment. The elder prisoner was found guilty and executed on the 13th of April. No such concourse of people had assembled to witness an execution since that of Fauntleroy. The details of the crime were horrible, and had excited great sympathy for the victim amongst all classes.—Ann. Regist. for 1829, Chronicle, p. 71.]