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By Root 1639 0

professional member of the bar testified: “The prisoner was in my service as cook since March last. I missed fourteen forks and eleven silver spoons, on Saturday night, the 1st of December, after the prisoner and her daughter were gone to bed. Her daughter had the charge of the plate, but she had access to it. On the Sunday night her daughter came to me, and said her mother would drive her mad. I went down into the kitchen, and asked the prisoner what was the matter. She [Ludlow] said it was about the plate that was missing. I asked her where it was. She said she had pawned it, but she would get it back on Monday morning. I had said nothing to induce her to confess.”15

When pawnbroker Wentworth took the stand, Ludlow knew she was done for. His testimony was short and damning: “I have a bread basket, pawned on the first of December by the prisoner. This is the duplicate I gave for it. I have also eleven spoons, pawned by her at different times.”16

As Christmas approached, judges were sometimes inspired by the season of giving and imposed lighter sentences. The majority administered “justice” with casual indifference and were not held to consistency in punishment guidelines. Ludlow’s luck had run out. Judge Parke was not inclined to be merciful. Neither was the jury. The Crown demanded efficiency, so trials were conducted at lightning speed. Most sentences were preordained. On average, it took eight and a half minutes to go from accused to condemned.17 Once the evidence was presented, the all-male jury didn’t even bother to leave the courtroom. They huddled together and went through the motions of conferring from their box. In truth, many jurors cared very little about the law and simply followed the foreman’s judgment. Some read newspapers during the proceedings, while others dozed politely, with their chins resting on stiffened shirt collars.

The foreman for the fifth jury announced a swift verdict for Ludlow Tedder: “Guilty. Stealing on the first of December two spoons, value one shilling, and one bread basket, value ten shillings, the goods of Fitzowen Skinner, her master.”18 With a resounding thump of his gavel, Judge Parke pronounced the sentence: “Transported for Ten Years.” Amid the public buzz from the galleries, he took a moment and adjusted the great white wig that fell clumsily over his shoulders. But what was to be done with the child? Perhaps because it was nearly Christmas, Judge Parke informed Ludlow she would be allowed to take Arabella with her. She looked at her little girl and signed her name on the Sessions Papers. At least they would be together.

A Newgate Christmas

British justice was a hodgepodge of haphazard sentencing that thrived on corruption, prejudice, incompetence, and bribery. On the streets, the police were commonly in cahoots with the criminals. A cash payoff or sexual favor often bought a look in the other direction instead of an arrest. Judges were observed giving preferential treatment to the police and the pretty girls on trial. Inside the courtroom, gaolers, clerks, ushers, police sergeants, and barristers greased one another’s palms to get what they wanted. If a policeman didn’t like a certain lawyer, he could have him blacklisted and barred from entry to court. Barristers were busy bribing court clerks, who solicited business for them from the prisoners’ loved ones. Families with no savings were encouraged to pay the lawyer with wedding rings or family heirlooms, which could be pawned. Many attorneys barely understood the law and entered the profession as a way of earning easy money. Onetime barrister Sir William Gilbert, who became a famousnineteenth-century playwright, made this observation about the Central Criminal Court: “There are, among the thieves’ lawyers, men of acute intelligence and honourable repute, and who do their work extremely well; but the majority of them are sneaking, underhand, grovelling practitioners, who are utterly unrecognized by men of good standing.”19

Sir William went on to write: “Probably the first impression on the mind of a man who visits the