PAST CRIMESThe focus of punishment had moved from revenge and the infliction of
judicious suffering to a desire to discipline, correct and reform the wrongdoer.
Public executions came to an end, not least because they were occasions for
public riots and disorder. So popular had some hangings been that Thomas
Cook ran excursion trains to them, and Charles Dickens was among 30,000
people watching a hanging in 1849. Executions became the focus for political
speechmaking too, and before long it was deemed necessary by the authorities
that all hangings should take place behind closed prison doors. Some of these
closed execution chambers survive, such as that at Bodmin Gaol.
Public appetite for sensationalist stories about crime did not disappear,
however. The most notorious publication (and voted the‘worst newspaper in
England’in 1886) was theIllustrated Police News,founded in 1863. With a
price of one penny, this newspaper carried lurid stories and pictures of crimes
and bizarre events, not only in England but abroad and across the Empire. It
had a regular circulation of between 100,000 and 150,000 copies, with
‘special’ issues being even more popular. The editor, George Purkess,
commissioned artists to record crime scenes, and commented that on several
occasions he had been complimented by criminals on the excellent portraits of
themselves that he had published.
The Victorian era also saw the rise of fictional accounts of crime and
detection. Stories were often published in serial form. Perhaps the first truly
popular tale came in 1841 with the publication of Edgar Allen Poe’sThe
Murders in the Rue Morgue. Charles Dickens introduced both criminals and
detectives into his works, such as inBleak House, Wilkie Collins wrote the
famous mysteryThe Woman in White, and many other less well known novels
became extremely popular. In 1887, the most famous detective of them all was
created by Arthur Conan Doyle– Sherlock Holmes. Holmes’methods of
detection foreshadowed the forensic approach of modern crime detection–an
emphasis on material clues rather than testimony, and on the gathering and
analysis of physical evidence, such as various types of cigar ash, to identify
criminals.
Great strides were made in the development of the forensic sciences in the
later half of the nineteenth century. Several cases were landmarks in the use of
scientific means of detection, a theme that Doyle often used in his stories and
novels.
The case of Sarah Dazley is an example of advances in the detection and
identification of poisons. Daughter of a barber, who died while in prison for
debt and a mother who was known for entertaining a number of gentlemen,
Sarah, who had been born in 1819, was a pretty girl with many admirers. In