It is usually estimated that seven-eighths of the structures in Victorian London were actually Georgian. The face of the city and its general architectural character were legacies of that earlier era; the Victorians did not begin to rebuild their capital in any substantial way until the 1880s. This reluctance reflected the economics of urban building. For most of the century, it simply was not profitable to tear down old structures, even those badly suited to their modern functions. Certainly the reluctance was not aesthetic--- the Victorians loathed the Georgian style, which Ruskin himself termed "the ne plus ultra of ugliness."
Thus it is perhaps not surprising that the Times, in reporting that a convict had escaped from Newgate Prison, observed that "the virtues of this edifice have been clearly overstated. Not only is escape from its confines possible, it is mere child's play, for the fleeing villian had not yet attained his majority. It is time for this public disgrace to be torn down."
The article went on to comment that "the Metropolitan Police has dispatched groups of armed officers into the rookeries of the town, in order to flush out the escaped man, and there is every expectation of his apprehension."
There were no follow-up reports. One must remember that during this period, jailbreaks were, in the words of one commentator, "quite as common as illegitimate births," and nothing so ordinary was really newsworthy. At a time when the curtains of the windows of Parliament were being soaked in lime to protect the members against the cholera epidemic while they debated the conduct of the Crimean campaign, the newspapers could not be bothered with a minor felon from the dangerous classes who had been lucky enough to make a clean getaway.
A month later, the body of a young man was found floating in the Thames, and police authorities identified him as the escaped convict from Newgate. It received barely a paragraph in the Evening Standard; the other newspapers did not mention it at all.
Chapter 15 The Pierce Household
After his escape, Clean Willy was taken to Pierce's house in Mayfair, where he spent several weeks in seclusion while his wounds healed. It is from his later testimony to police that we first learn of the mysterious woman who was Pierce's mistress, and known to Willy as "Miss Miriam"
Willy was placed in an upstairs room, and the servants were told that he was a relative of Miss Miriam's who had been run down by a cab on New Bond Street. From time to time, Willy was tended by Miss Miriam. He said of her that she was "well carried, a good figure, and well-spoke, and she walked here and there slow, never hurrying." This last sentiment was echoed by all the witnesses, who were impressed by the ethereal aspect of the young woman; her eyes were said to be especially captivating, and her grace in movement was called "dreamlike" and "phantasmagorical."
Apparently this woman lived in the house with Pierce, although she was often gone during the day. Clean Willy was never very clear about her movements, and in any case he was often sedated with opium, which may also account for the ghostly qualities he saw in her.
Willy recalled only one conversation with her. He asked, "Are you his canary, then?" Meaning was she Pierce's accomplice in burglary.
"Oh no," she said, smiling. "I have no ear for music."
From this he assumed she was not involved in Pierce's plans, although this was later shown to be wrong. She was an integral part of the plan, and was probably the first of the thieves to know Pierce's intentions.
At the trial, there was considerable speculation about Miss Miriam and her origins. A good deal of evidence points to the conclusion that she was an actress. This would explain her ability to mimic various accents and manners of different social classes; her tendency to wear make-up in a day when no respectable woman would let cosmetics touch her flesh; and her open presence as Pierce's mistress. In those days, the dividing line between an actress and a prostitute was exceedingly fine. And actors were by occupation itinerant wanderers, likely to have connections with criminals, or to be criminals themselves. Whatever the truth of her past, she seems to have been his mistress for several years.
Pierce himself was rarely in the house, and on occasion he was gone overnight. Clean Willy recalled seeing him once or twice in the late afternoon, wearing riding clothes and smelling of horses, as if he had returned from an equestrian excursion.
"I didn't know you were a horse fancier," Willy once said.
"I'm not," Pierce replied shortly. "Hate the bloody beasts."
Pierce kept Willy indoors after his wounds were healed, waiting for his "terrier crop" to grow out. In those days, the surest way to identify an escaped convict was by his short haircut. By late September, his hair was longer, but still Pierce did not allow him to leave. When Willy asked why, Pierce said, "I am waiting for you to be recaptured, or found dead."
This statement puzzled Willy, but he did as he was told. A few days later, Pierce came in with a newspaper under his arm and told him he could leave. That same evening Willy went to the Holy Land, where he expected to find his mistress, Maggie. He found that Maggie had taken up with a footpad, a rough sort who made his way by "swinging the stick"--- that is, by mugging. Maggie showed no interest in Willy.
Willy then took up with a girl of twelve named Louise, whose principal occupation was snowing. She was described in court as "no gofferer, mind, and no clean-starcher, just a bit of plain snow now and then for the translator. Simple, really." What was meant by this passage, which required considerable explanation to the presiding magistrates, was that Willy's new mistress was engaged in the lowest form of laundry stealing. The better echelons of laundry stealers, the gofferers and clean-starchers, stole from high-class districts, often taking clothes off the lines. Plain, ordinary snowing was relegated to children and young girls, and it could be lucrative enough when fenced to "translators," who sold the clothing as second-hand goods.