Implementing Abolitionist Strategies (2)

Use of Personal Notoriety to Defend the Discourse

     William Thackeray’s professional career primarily started with journalism, as a way of making a living. In the beginning of the Victorian era, that is to say in the late 1830s, he “contributed a total of more than five hundred articles to over twenty different periodicals” (Simons 64). He contributed to a variety of newspapers -published in England and overseas, and they did not all share the same political views, and did not have the same popularity: for instance, Fraser’s Magazine, in which was published “Going to see a man Hanged”, was a conservative newspaper, but he also wrote for the Morning Chronicle, a moderate liberal weekly [1], for The Times, also liberal, or for the Pictorial Times, a newspapers which was only published for five years [2]. He would write letters, essays and literary reviews, such as, for instance, one on Victor Hugo’s Rhine, published in April 1842 in the Foreign Quarterly Review (Simons 73).

    Thackeray was also an illustrator in his early career, he contributed to Punch, who “opened its columns” to him and let him publish for ten years after the publication of “Paris Sketch Book” in 1840 and “Irish Sketch Book” in 1843 (Wallace 36). Moreover, he started turning in more of his work to Punch than to Fraser’s Magazine around 1846 for economic reasons (Simons 91), as he had already achieved a certain amount of recognition through his many publications.

    Among his first literary publications was Catherine: A Story, a serial fiction written and published in Fraser’s Magazine between 1839 and 1840 -prior to witnessing Courvoisier’s execution. This novel was supposed to be a parody of Newgate novels, which were fictions that “glamorized the exploits of notorious criminals and were accused of encouraging vice” (Wood, under “A social ‘truth’”). Thackeray’s intent was to write a criminal story that was more than just portraying evildoers and containing graphic passages, he wanted to avoid writing a romanticised character. The story is based on a real criminal named Catherine Hayes, a woman who had been executed for killing her husband John Hayes in March 1729. It was supposed to be an unflattering portrayal of a particularly vile individual and his idea was to criticize the glorification of criminals, to sum up, not a positive representation. Nonetheless, the character as Thackeray wrote her did not appeal to him, and this caused him to dislike his work (Cabot 404). Although Catherine is neither the novel that made Thackeray’s career nor the work he is remembered for, he still received positive reviews for this work, for instance Thomas Carlyle expressed his admiration for this work (Colby 387). At times, Thackeray would sign some of his works with different pen names rather than his own name. He used “Titmarsh” more often than not (Wallace 36), but signed Catherine as “Ikey Solomons”. Ironically, there was a criminal named Isaac “Ikey” Solomon active throughout the 1810s and 1820s, who was known for being a receiver of stolen goods, and for having escaped from arrest (White, “Juvenile crime in the 19th century”, under ‘Popular fears’)

    He also made a name for himself with his traveling books and sketches, in particular concerning the history regarding Ireland and his pejorative depiction of the Catholics. He reached fame in the 1840s, and especially in the later years of the decade with the publication of the Snob Papers, and then Vanity Fair.

    Deborah A. Thomas made a connection between the death of a character of William Thackeray’s famous novel Vanity Fair, published as a serial from 1847 to 1848 in Punch, and his feeling on having been part of the crowd on Courvoisier’s execution in1840, making this experience relevant in his work years after. At the end of the last chapter of the novel, Joseph “Jos” Sedley, the older brother of one of the two protagonists, dies an unexpected death while being away in France, where the other protagonist, Rebecca “Becky” Sharp, had followed him. Because of Becky’s personality, her will to climb the social ladder, and because after his death, his assets were divided equally between his sister and her, there is a possibility that she may have murdered Jos. However, Thackeray remains vague on the circumstances of his death, and his own execution seems to be kept private, as it is only his death which is told by the narrator. Thackeray’s change of opinion is made perceptible with this work: while he seemed to oppose any execution in 1840, either public or within the prison walls (hence being against the death penalty), his position then evolved to “tolerating [capital punishment] if it were kept out of public view in 1845” (Thomas 6). This change of mind is also visible in Dickens’ letters, from the 1846 series, in which he expresses being against any execution, to the 1849 letter in which he favours executions carried out privately within prison walls.

    In a way, it can be said that Charles Dickens’ career began in his teenage years through his experience, as his life then more or less mirrored that of the characters he depicts in his stories: although he was born in a middle-class family, his father accumulated debts. By the time he was ten years old, he had to leave school because his family could not afford to pay for his education, and at twelve, he saw his father being arrested because of his debts, making him live at an aunt’s and work at a factory for a few months (Bowers Andrews 298). His work was thus inspired by his own life and by what he witnessed growing up.

    He started working for the Mirror of Parliament in 1828 through a relative, at age sixteen, later he also worked as a freelance court stenographer, and by 1831 he participated in the coverage of Parliamentary debates (Kaplan 42). In the late 1820s, he explored his appeal for the world of theatre, and tried his hand at acting and writing plays. Although he had given up on trying to become a professional actor in the 1830s, he began producing and directing plays, and his career in journalism went on (Kaplan 46-47). He became a reporter for various newspapers, like the Morning Chronicles and The Times, and grew critical of what he witnessed, especially regarding the corruption on the political scene.

    Dickens was already famous entering the 1840s, his latest work at the time being Oliver Twist in 1838, in which he already offered a certain vision of criminality, yet everything was not fiction there as he took inspiration from everyday London life and highlighted social issues in his works -not only this novel, making him a precursor and “honorary “social worker”” (Bowers Andrews 297). Before this, he had published Sketches by Boz (his pen name), a collection of short stories published between 1833 and 1836, which was a success and allowed him to earn enough renown to be commissioned a novel by a publisher, and wrote The Pickwick Papers which was published as a serial between 1836 and 1837.

    In Oliver Twist, most of the main characters are criminals, but Dickens does not fail to portray them in a good light -or at least as evildoers with qualities. His thief and leader of a gang of criminal children, the Artful Dodger, is capable of showing sympathy towards Oliver and can be “resourceful and streetwise, even cheeky, survivor” (Slater 285); the readers are made to have concerns about Oliver, who is left to fend for himself at the bottom of the food chain; and Nancy, another pickpocket and “ill-fated prostitute” (Bowers Andrews 301), tries to have Olivier stay away from the kind of life Fagin wants to drag him into, to such an extent that she eventually dies as a result. Dickens gives attributes to his criminal characters, they are not completely utterly evil, but only perform evil deeds, and this more nuanced representation overshadows the usual Manichaean duality. It is especially visible with Nancy, a supposedly immoral character who ultimately redeems herself. This idea of individuals evolving towards goodness appears in Dickens’ series of letters published in the Daily News, in which he explores alternatives to (public) executions in order to allow criminals a chance at some kind of redemption. It is not so much on the public aspect of executions, but more on the lethal and irreversible aspect of it.

    Both of these authors were thus not entirely new to expressing themselves on criminal matters, yet at the same time, they also contributed to feeding this rising interest for crime-related stories, only through fictional works. 

 

Implementing Abolitionist Strategies (1)

The Will to Affect Public Opinion

 

    All throughout the nineteenth century, it was common for writers to manage a career in journalism (they would write articles and reviews about other works for example) as well as writing fiction, and to publish some of their works in newspapers or magazines. For instance, fragments of story would appear regularly in new issues as installments, making a novel serial. This practice was popular even outside of Great Britain: in France, Alexandre Dumas’ Le Comte de Monte-Cristo was published in the Journal des Débats over a period of seven weeks in 1844 and then four weeks in 1846; in the United States, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin appeared during forty weeks from 1851 to 1852 in The National Era; in Russia, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov was published in The Russian Messenger from January 1879 to November 1880. Charles Dickens had not only already worked for a newspaper before publishing his open letters, he had also published a number of his literary works in a serial format. There were several advantages to this practice: a wider and more diverse audience was to be reached, poorer people having access to some of these works. A certain amount of suspense could also be produced through serials, therefore a readership was created and could grow, maybe have an impact on the circulation of a newspaper itself.
 

    The letters in Dickens' series published in the Daily News are supposed to be read together, and, as a whole, his work can be regarded as a sort of essay published like a serial novel, but in the form of open letters. His series is therefore the product of a combination of various devices. There is a continuity in his development, and the author acknowledges this practice as he alludes to more letters to come in his first letter published on February 23rd, 1846: “I choose this time for addressing to you, the first of two or three letters on the subject of Capital Punishment”, although four were to be published in addition to this one, as on the third letter (published on March 9th), Dickens mentions that he was going to “reserve another letter” to the effect of public executions on preventing crime, and on the fourth letter (published on March 13th), he announces a “next, concluding, letter”, published three days later, marking the last letter of the series and the end of his address. A sixth letter on secondary punishments was supposed to be written, but Dickens had other works to focus on (Slater 249). By the time the first letter was published, he had already resigned from the editorship of the Daily News, and his close friend John Forster took the helm of the newspaper.
 

    The series is structured: the first letter can be seen as an introduction of the topic Dickens wants to discuss, on the second letter he suggests an alternative to public executions that would not overlap a certain set of values, the third deals with the “commission” of murder and the life (and representations) of murderers, the fourth deals with whether or not crime can be prevented, and its efficiency, and the fifth and final letter concludes on the state of criminal law in Britain. His tone is overall serious, while setting the topic clearly from the beginning of his series and expressing his mind on the subject, Dickens relates precise examples of various executions to illustrate and structure his comments, recounting some cases, and he provides figures on the efficiency of public executions (Dickens DN 13 March 1846, 3). He also carefully states that he did not write these letters with the intent to either show or encourage sympathy towards criminals, and he precisely highlights that, according to him, it is as hurtful as the death penalty itself: “the morbid and odious sentimentality which has been exhibited of late years [...] is one of the evil concomitants of the Punishment of Death” (Dickens, 23 February 1846, 1).

    While the series of letters in the Daily News had for subject capital punishment as a whole, and only tended to deal with public executions specifically, Dickens’ single open letter published on November 13th, 1849 on The Times is an account on the public execution he and another 30 000 people attended [1] -as a witness. Here again, the choice of making this letter open is to reach a wider audience: “I simply wish to turn this dreadful experience to some account for the general good, by taking the readiest and most public means of adverting”. Indeed, the circulation of The Times was much bigger than that his rival liberal newspaper The Daily News, and was gradually increasing and becoming more and more popular.
 

    Because it is his own account of an event which he witnessed with his own eyes and because it was written the same day as the execution took place, Dickens might appears more involved, his address seems to be more of an immediate reaction, and it contrasts a little with the structure of his series of letters published almost four years earlier. His gaze, alongside his account, is focused more on the crowd gathered for the execution and its actions and behaviour rather than on the Mannings and the crime for which they were punished, which gives rise to Dickens’ own message against the public dimension of executions. His tone is rather straightforward as he presents the scene he witnessed in a disparaging way.

    Unlike Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray did not separate his essay in distinct fragments, but his work was published in one piece in Fraser’s Magazine, an “Ultra-Tory in politics and antisentimental in literary taste” monthly magazine, in August 1840 (Leary 105). On July 16th, 1840, Thackeray attended François Benjamin Courvoisier’s execution, a Swiss man who had confessed the murder of his employer. This execution was also attended by Charles Dickens, and an estimated 40 000 people were gathered to see him executed outside of Newgate Prison in London. Thackeray begins his essay telling about the day of the execution, starting very early in the morning with a detailed account of his own day. He then switches focus to imagine Courvoisier's morning, and then it goes back to himself leaving his house and arriving early outside Newgate. Most of his essay deals with the crowd, gradually growing, and the variety of people he observed, the discussions he took part in or overheard. He shares his own reflection on the radical shift of the situation once Courvoisier was brought out of the prison walls and up on the gallows. His account is thus not meant to be about the individual condemned to death but rather about the British crowd gathered to witness it and the aftermath of the execution, including the media response and its portrayal. There is an ambivalence in Thackeray’s essay, in his description of the crowd. First, he reports the crowd as a diverse entity, composed both of “gentlemen of good fortune” discussing politics (Thackeray 4), but also of “several tipsy dissolute-looking young men” and “debauched crew” (Thackeray 5), each group enjoying themselves. He especially puts an emphasis on the diversity of the people making up the mob, on a social level and regarding their age: “blackguards of sixteen and seventeen”, “a considerable number of girls” (Thackeray 6), “many young dandies”, “simple honest tradesmen and their wives”, “ruffians” (Thackeray 7), “mechanics, gentlemen, pickpockets, members of both House of Parliament, street-walkers, newspaper-writers” (Thackeray 8). He then points out that most of these people -the educated and the masses- seem to rejoice from such events, bringing the parties to the same level.
 

    The Northern Star’s popularity had already decreased since its higher peak in 1839, as the Chartist movement was soon to come to an end, and Feargus O’Connor was facing economic difficulties to try to keep publishing his newspaper (Epstein 58-59). The unsigned article is an account relating the crime and botched execution of John Gleeson Wilson, and the report is perhaps the most factual out of the articles on the corpus, the news writer does not only focus on the audience of the public execution, but states the crime, presents the convict’s background, recount his last days in a matter-of-factly way, mentioning that he “strongly maintained that he was an innocent man” (Northern Star 1), until the moment of his belated and somewhat graphic death, due to a late change of hangman, the newly appointed executioner being “short in stature and an old man”. There are very few passages on which the distinct voice of the writer is perceptible: the use of “usually” with the convict sitting “on the chair usually appropriated for criminals”, which suggests that the writer goes against the verdict and concedes a sense of innocence to Gleeson Wilson, who never confessed to the four murders he was accused of; and the sentence “Altogether, it is hardly possible to conceive a more disgustingly painful accident”, which has to do with the writer’s own perception and appreciation of the execution. At the end of the article, Gleeson Wilson is considered as “the wretched”, this term is ambiguous as it can be interpreted as an unfortunate person, or as a despicable being.
 

    In order to find its place in Britain, the Punch had to appeal to the masses. It was described as a family-friendly entertainment that published satirical cartoons, and its “optimistic, good-natured humour was deliberately constructed against existing popular satirical papers like the Age, the Town, and the Satirist which Punch competed with in the 1840s” (Miller 269), as those tended to be more virulent. The cartoon represents a scene outside of an opera house, a small crowd is gathered to see the spectacle -men and women, there is also someone selling tickets in a booth, someone up on a small stage, most likely trying to draw even more people, behind him is a large poster representing a trial scene. It is not exactly violent in its form, but the comparison of crime and the consumption of entertainment is significant enough to create irony.

    The broadside on the execution of Catherine Foster is also ironic, and different from other broadsides about public executions, where an engraving, ballads and accounts on a crime would be found. Broadsides would be sold a few days before an execution and was often referred to as “street literature”11. On this one, there are phrases that were printed bigger and catch attention: "Grand moral spectacle", "A young girl", "publicly strangled", and "the great moral teacher", "strangles her". The way the author of this broadside wrote almost incriminates the hangman, painting him guilty of an incoming murder. Moreover, it appears that public executions are made fun of with the emphasis on the greatness of the execution.