The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-01-09 00:00:00

THE LONDON BLUE-COAT SCHOOL.

A London correspondent makes the following sensible
remarks on the Blue-coat School in London :
Christ's Hospital—the Blue-coat School--is an in-
stitution which, in quite another direction, bas been
perverted from the purpose for which its founders
intended it. The charter states it to be a school and
home for the sons of " decayed merchants," but all
the world knows that the parents of some of the boys
there are in anything lint a state of pecuniary decay,
while some of them are not, nor ever have been,
merchants at all. Professional gentlemen with large
families have managed to quarter some of them on
this charity, and in some nista ces to have them
passed as "Grecians" to one of terr great universities.
It is not an uncommon thing to see a Blue-coat boy
riding in his papa's carriage. Some changes for the
better have recently been effected in the management
of this establishment, and I believe other and still
more radical improvements will very soon be made
in it. A boy in('heist's Hospital, who, on
reaching the age of fifteen years, has not shown
a certain degree of proficiency, is obliged to quit.
Now, it wa the custom for the relatives and
friends to " tip '' the masters fur "coaching "the boys,
so that they might be at least up to the mark which
would keep them in Newgate-street. The result, of
course, was that any not very smart boy in whose
favour a "considerati, or" could not lie extended to the
Imasters, ra., a very el ,iisideral ic irkif being deprived
of the heivfits of the 'list; tutiu n at. about the age abet,
The Daily New , iii a leader, thus notices the case Ihe most required them, while lads whose people could
it is 01,0 et il.e carious it eonena ii the loutein tided well have kept them tintsid,. continued to enjoy all the
that io, a loge as the clow,os ° ii. ll*.re 111:111, licuetits of free board, lodging, and tint-class ethics-
individitid,, by far the lareest propel that of false are tiu .n. All ti at has been clanged. Instant dismiss id
alllOll,, 1110 which peeple make tvlautzt themselves A is the fate awaiting ally misstcr Vaal takes " tip "
writer la s persenal rectal. Ins of ad Byron ie a flew '
magazine, states that he has tra,sl many of the scandals now. I understand that the Government intend to
about 113 ran to their orivin, and Icti fOUII.I that they oriel- carry out this rule most rigidly, and as the present Head
fluted with Mined Be leet In morbid contempt for his Master is himself an old iihmetiat boy, he is no doubt
knot, and a wish to be thmedd rosily of by peopls lie prepare,' to second them, or rather to " prime" them
d Th morbid df-depr iathm t
by publicly bringing under their Sr tree any violati,in of
desised. e same s..e: someimes
.kes its appearance in our paten-courts. Police magistrates their very wilt ilsome order on tlie subject But a great
are trent long experience suspicious of self-accusations
There i's form of insanity which persecutes its victims with change is contemplated in reference to this charity. As
the idea that they have committed a crone ; and it is this decayed merchants of London are now to be found in
dbiess, of the brain far more colon than au overburdened other parts of the metropolis than that to the east of
coos •irace which drives self-accused criminals to the police- Temple-bar, it is proposed to break up the Newgate-
courts. In the olays when grave divines mel learned jurists stre.t establishment, and to form several schools in
believed in witch...ft it was no uncommon thing for a poor
dhove t to
various ',arts IA the Vixen, which will take the place
old woman, or eve. a young anl:none o,
the parish lie idle accine her-elf of comm maiden,erce witlt the of the one there. Tin reformers also speak of doing
Ent one, timagli such an accusation in those days was away with the ridiculous —Guy" uniform in which the
certain to meet with a predisposition to believe it, Blue-coat boys are now compelled to clothe themselves.
and a friehtful haste to muesli it. lit the transmit day The wonder is how the long time coats, yellow knee-
any murder which is imusually mysteritms, and which mu
Ich breeches, and mustard-colouredwaistcoatshave survived
excites the popular mind, will probably he confessed ty
as, sing. The "charitable grinder" habiliments of some
someiouly who had noth fig whatever to do with it, hut who
has 1 wonted over it till his diseased imagination itirs of the humbler city charity sch, ads are not nearly or.
identified him Willi the deed. Is fact, a murder is much preposterous. It is to lie hoped that when the Christ's
more likely to be confessed by an innocent man than by the Hospital boys are otherwise got up in modern attire
criminal, for a guilty conscience may be borne without they will be furnished with a hat or a cap which they
imagi"ati"n can wear. No one has ever yet seen a London Blue-
driving a man actually mad, but a guilty
k the t e
cameo, for it is itself thwss
de t th Lambeth I
. We are obligd, therefore,
,ohoe. I coat Isiy with a head-covering in the street. It is said
to tae erange nm
elalfrssion ma ae
court on saturday last as by no means necessarily true. . . that one has occasionally been seen with a cap on
Piers the Daily Welts recapitulates the case of sheward.l , inside ; but the cap with which such boy is furnished,
Now whether this story is true or false, its tragic character ! being about the size of a very small saucer, evidently
is scarcely the less. The story is indeed wonderfully pathetic, is not intended for the use to which caps are ordinarily
presuming it to lie false. A man ,of sensitive nerves shocked applie,l The invariable custom of the boys is to wear
and unstrung by the frightful death of the womm he loved, . .
it in their pocket instead of on their head. have
brooding for years over the event, and dwelling on all its
eiremasiances of horror till thev link themselves in with his drawn attenti, in to this subject of metropolitan distress
own personatity, and gradually 'the horrible persuasion steals and the city charities because I know it will very soon
over him that lie Is the murderer—the history of niental be one of the topics of the day, and an unequalisation
idienation has nothing more terrible to show, But while iof the rates over so wide an area as the metropolis
this
ecret, wretched man lias b
trying epe een bearing about with lain
so mblhe a me sure to which the attentbm of the aysl,,
• burning s anti to sca from the mark of t'ain
111, had w kingdom insist be directed, because in the opinion of
t•itten °WI) 101,11 Call, event the very con-
, verse of his experience has happened in the west of Eitglauti. Many it would be but the foreninntr of a general rating
Last August a navvy was found murdered in a over a still Store extensive area.
hell near Wells, and two men and a woman were
arrested on sitspieion. One of the men, Bisgrove, was
tonal bending over the murdered man, and the other mut,
Sweet, HMI his paramour, Elizabeth Drew, were kvown to
have been in biserove's company both before and after the
ieurder. At the trial thew, who had turned Uneen's
evidence, was thought to favour Suveni, iv lwr evidenee
inormited him, but threw the actual murder en Fsiserove.
the theory which found acceptance with the pebble, and,
indeed, with all intelligent persons wile stoutest the ease,
was that Sweet w. the mur.lerer, and Iliserove an
accessory, lilt that the woman Drew idled to shelter the
man with whom she had livsst Isoth 11,•11 weie convicted,
and sentenced to de Ali. A few days after their c.mvicti. at
Itisgrove confessed to the murder, mei declare .I Ova Sweet
was not only innocent, but knew nett& is about it. Bin-woe
confession billies SO entirely with Drew a evnlein•e
that it is mtiversally believed to be true. and that
Sweet is entirely innocent of the crime for which lie h:rs
teen tried, convicted, and condemned to die. Vet SA eet's
own conduct on the night in upiestion lald him open to just I
suspicion. Be bad quarrelled with Bisgrove about I Wow. I
Our that night she haul tilayed vignette and tavouns I I liserove,
awl sweet haul waridered about all might in a restless angry
moral, and had even given vent to has passion in au exclama.
that that he should murkier somebody. For a long time he
4 s. sin the stile in the very field wlffrae the murder haul been
Car( fOrlfere.: ererd ,acalan, fi,thimsey
by the pace, he told different stories Ili his whereabouts ,
suit lions At the trial all these things told severally
against him, and he must have seen with Iv aver that his own I
actions—his passion, irreselutien and falschocd—had weven ,
a web around (non which it was impossible to escape. •
lie bad in lilt woven fal.leted into a halter fur his own
neck, anti weuld have been hinged by it had not Bisttrove's
vintession curs the cords.
It would Inc interesting to contrast the feelings of men in
the circumstances 111Shewant aika sweet. It is hard to say
which sitnati”it ir the worse, th it,.! a man who I ilsoly be-
list lereself gihsy f murder, tins, of 4mire Sri:' irrr been
falsely acensett mid the no [bete is the
c.•nseiod-itess of inuoren e aubling a Nag te the certaiety
that ever j body around him is, le-ves him to !re gnlty—in the
other there is the secret pet suasiu Sr ui liii guilt ni.,king
the smile of friends sharper Mound g, cr, and tic co dciessee
alai trust it the medic secin Ilk thc nioclevy of Its
Impale Tine one fives in perpetud Isar oi bring found
out—the other ill perpetual hope that something may weer
te rat e his innueettee_ ill lilt` nix man a tap sin the
stinted, in the sliest, a staid it exclanmti, in, is s !avelitg
le it Nom a pas...lima ovcrwl elms him with the fear that
the rem ukr is ent ; in the Itie man a nn the wanter'a
face as lie conies to his 1,11, Or V 111.443 tlOlIl 11,111 iiiS,
14 Step at he approaches it, CaaS, t• ti
that a is mticare.g le one the,
the two n,e'l differ, and thc nluii lie e 14 far, is
of the than who is tinj..ly ceialce.n.. 1. Ilc lonw
hims, if tut be innocent, and in ver entirely cease- to h.q.,.
that the werld will know it ban. the can talk about
the wlmie question with sympai hi iurg fr,eads, and undiesent
himself to tin m and wh..n he IL. got i.et r tile bitterness Of
death, he may anticipate with seine satisfaction that justice
will be done te his memory. The self-accuser on the con-
trary, dares not tell his secret ti :l it has loceome too heavy to
he hurtle. lie has to go through all tire worst of Ow real
murderer's experience. Ile rehearses in his intagination the
whole scene bf the trial and the execution, till Inc has pro-
bably suffered all the bittern°. .1 death over and toter
again. At length he confes,cs, and it is with a sense of
relief that he finds the runnier to be out, aniuf his frightful
seoret to be in the possessimi of the world From that time,
too, may date his cure. He ands that butte° simply demon-
strates his Innocence to the wont, and he probably learns to
believe in that innocence himself. And both men lawn they
have e.,me through such a storm and tempest of calamity
probably look back on it an a nightmare era dream,

After the first week in July, 1/-lrol, the interest felt
it the matter gradually sidisided, and the occurrence
of another mitnicr at Ilolkham, Norfolk, about the
middle f July, 1851, ,rved to Ilistract the atten-
tion of the local public from the circumstances. A
great many theories were ventilated in attempted ex-
planation of the discoveries ata,:e. This .....on to have
diverted attenti, in from Slim-ward, who passed among
his neighbours fir a quiet, iinnfensive man, and who
explained the disappearanc.• of his wife by stating that
she had left home on along journey.
After July, time matter avrears to have
excited se,r.viv imy notice. and it luel berm., almost
forgotten mail a communicathni wa, rec,ived on
Sunday la 4, by Mr. Hitehman, fron Impect..r Davis,
of the division of the metropolitan police. Mr.
Hitchman seas not superintendent ,if the Norwich
;maw, IR 15,51; but sevend members of the lone are
stil left si ho a,sisted in the inveAlgaGiu—now so
strangely renewed—lrA years since ; ant there will lie
no ddliculty in adducing a mass of evil .nce in support
of the narrative now given. In c.aceyemce of time
communications which have passed between Mr.
Rachman and themetropelitan police, it was arranged
'bat Sheward shmmuld be talon to Norwich for examin
tion before the local magistrat, s.