They Hanged My Saintly Billy (81 page)

When
Mr
Wright,
the
philanthropist,
visited
Dr
Palmer
a
few days
before,
the
rumour
went
around
that
he
had
elicited
a
confession.
But
a
warder
whom
we
questioned
at
the
time
shook
his head:
'Well,
Sir,
I
haven't
much
to
wager,
but
I'll
bet
every
stick and
stump
I
possess
that
Dr
Palmer
doesn't
confess
after
all.
Why, he
ate
half-a-pound
of
steak
last
night
for
his
tea,
and
complained of
the
milk
not
being
good!
I
shall
never
forget
the
scowl
he
gave us
when
we
took
away
his
brush
and
tortoise-shell
pocket
comb. We
thought,
you
know,
he
might
hurt
himself
with
the
comb. He
went
into
such
a
passion!
"Send
for
the
barber,"
he
said, "send
for
the
damned
b
arber!
I'll
have
every
bit
of
my
hair
cut off."
And
he
did,
too.
He
looks
so
different,
you
can't
imagine— sharp,
like.
He's
given
away
locks
to
all
his
family,
for
what
good
those
may
do
them.
.
.
.
Yes,
Mr
"Wright
may
be
a
very
pious man,
but
I
cannot
believe
that
Dr
Palmer
said
so
much
as
he
is supposed
to
have
done.
You
mark
my
words,
Sir—and
I've
seen a
deal
of
him—he'll
die
hardened,
and
a
coward.'

In
the
event,
the
warder's
prediction
proved
to
be
wrong.
Dr Palmer's
bearing
in
this
supreme
ordeal
amazed
all
who
witnessed it.
Just
before
eight
o'clock,
when
the
Prison
bell
tolled
and
the procession
was
formed
which
conducted
him
from
his
cell
to
the scaffold,
he
tripped
jauntily
along
between
his
guards.
Though, contrary
to
usage,
he
wore
prison
dress,
this
was
not
meant
as
an indignity;
it
happened
that
the
clothes
in
which
he
was
tried
were left
behind
in
London,
and
no
others
had
been
since
supplied. Despite
the
considerable
distance
he
must
traverse,
Dr
Palmer maintained
his
bold
front
to
the
last,
stepped
lightly
up
the
stairs leading
to
the
gallows,
took
his
place
on
the
drop,
and
cast
a
single look
at
the
vast
multitude
below,
not
without
emotion,
but
without
anything
like
bravado.

A
deafening
roar
greeted
him:
of
curses,
shouts,
hootings, shrieks,
groans,
and
execrations
from
nearly
thirty
thousand throats.
The
miners
and
colliers,
maddened
by
drink
and
enthusiasm,
clamoured:
'Murderer!',
'Poisoner!'
He
joined
in
a
brief prayer
with
the
Chaplain,
then
turned
and,
while
the
crowd
suddenly
stood
silent,
awaiting
the
speech
which,
in
fact,
he
did
not make,
had
the
rope
put
round
his
neck
and
the
long
cap
drawn over
his
face.
Finally
he
shook
hands
with
the
hangman
and
said in
a
low
voice:
'God
bless
you!'
As
he
spoke,
the
bolt
was
shot, the
drop
fell;
and
after
a
slight
convulsion
of
his
limbs,
Dr Palmer
hung
lifeless
from
the
gallows.
The
disappointed
colliers roared
again:
'Cheat!',
'Twister!',
not
having
had
their
money's worth.

Presentl
y
the
corpse
was
cut
down
and
carried
inside
the
Gaol, where
Mr
Bridges,
the
phrenologist
of
Liverpool,
took
a
cast
of the
head
which
is,
in
his
opinion,
decidedly
a
criminal
one.
Then, according
to
the
sentence,
Dr
Palmer's
body
was
buried
naked
in quicklime
within
the
Prison
precincts.

Rugeley
had
earned
so
infamous
a
reputation
because
of
Dr Palmer,
not
only
in
these
islands,
but
on
the
Continent,
that
there was
serious
talk
at
the
Town
Hall
of
changing
its
name.
The Mayor
even
approached
the
Prime
Minister,
through
Mr
Alderman
Sidney,
M.P.,
and
demanded
an
Act
of
Parliament
to
this
end. T
he Prime Minister, having recentl
y come to power at a time of immense national anxiety, felt the request to be frivolous; yet he replied obligingly enough: 'By all means, gentlemen; so long as you name your town after me.' They were out of the room before they realized what a joke he had played on them. It would hardly have suited their book to re-name Rugeley
‘Palmers-
ton
’
.
So 'Rugeley' it remains.

Here let us conclude our history with an interesting anecdote. An artist of our acquaintance, employed by Messrs Ward & Lock, Publishers, to make sketches of Rugeley for a
Life of Wm Palmer,
was busily at work the other day on the canal bank beside The Yard, when he became aware of a spirited elderly lady, dressed in the fashion, bearing down on him, a gay parasol held over her French bonnet. In politeness he asked her to inspect his sketch.

'That's well done,' she said.
'I
can see you're no slouch of an artist. By the bye, I'm Dr Palmer's mother, and not ashamed of it, neither. Yes, they hanged my saintly Billy! He was a bit of a scamp right enough, but a good son to me; the best of the brood, except Sarah, and no murderer. Yonder merry child riding on the swing is his son, my little grandson Willie, and I shall see he doesn't lack for money, poor creature! When the time comes, I'll send him abroad with Sarah, and have his name changed. Sarah promised Billy, that; she always loved Billy.
¹
Yes, the pretty nursemaid in charge of Willie is Eliza Tharm all right; she's a brave, good-natured girl, and I shan't forget her in my will.'

Our artist had the hardiness to ask Mrs Palmer whether she knew what her son had meant when he said:' I did not poison him by strychnine.'

'Why, that's plain,' she answered. 'It would have gone against his conscience to say
"I
didn't poison Cook"; he had got his own back on Cook—do you see?—for that ill-natured lark of George Bate's insurance, by giving the joker a drug to make him feel sick and sorry. It was tartar emetic, which contains antimony. Billy told Shee of it, which was why Shee believed in his innocence. He didn't make it a fatal dose, of course; but the devil of it was, Professor Taylor had pronounced, at first, that Cook died of antimony. That turned tartar emetic into a poison, which it never

¹
Old Mrs Palmer survived for another five years, outliving Jeremiah Smith by three. I cannot discover what happened to Sarah Palmer, who is not buried in the family vault at Rugeley. Little Willie in
herited the Brookes curse from h
is mother: he committed suicide in 1925.