Tea at Trianon: The Murderous Children of 19th Century Britain

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, March 26, 2023

The Murderous Children of 19th Century Britain

Anyone who has read Dickens is aware that the lot of the poor in Victorian England was dire, in spite of continuous efforts on the part of both church and state to give aid. While the Industrial Revolution brought many advantages to society in general, such as more efficient transportation, cheaper and plentiful food and personal amenities, the initial transformation of society from agricultural and rural to urban and mechanized caused great upheavals. Family life, religious custom, moral guidelines, were seemingly trampled in the maze of crowded slums of those whose new center of life was the factories where health and safety measures were practically unknown. No laws existed initially to protect children from working all day and so they labored at many jobs all over the country. One would not therefore be surprised at children turning to crime in the cities, like Oliver Twist and the Artful Dodger.

What surprised me about Christina Croft's carefully researched book about child murderers of the nineteenth century were how the children in the countryside seemed as depraved as those in the towns. Little children killing other little children just out of spite, curiosity, or for no apparent reason occurred in idyllic country villages as well as in thriving centers of commerce. Some people blamed the Penny Dreadfuls, which were serialized bloody and lurid tales aimed at a youthful audience, for giving violent ideas to unformed minds. Others blamed the fact that many poor families drank gin or ale when clean drinking water was absent, which it was most of the time. And so it seems many poor children, bereft of an adequate breakfast, were stumbling around intoxicated by mid-morning. In order to feed them, many destitute families sent their children, as soon as they were old enough, to work in service to middle class or wealthy families. It was in respectable and prosperous homes that many of the most infamous murder cases occurred, for the child servants were given the task of watching over the babies of the family. It seems the repressed or suppressed anger of some servant children manifested itself when they were supposed to be caring for helpless infants. England was shocked by such incidents, and the death penalty did not distinguish between adult and child criminals.

Besides willful murder, there were also children who raped other children, as well as children who enjoyed throwing rocks at strangers' heads and seeing them collapse. There were no gun laws regarding children; many curious young boys found it exciting to steal their fathers' firearms but then accidentally shoot innocent passersby or even their friends and family members. Christina Croft has recorded dozens of tragic cases of all varieties of crime which put one more in mind of twenty-first century Baltimore, Maryland than nineteenth century Great Britain. My Beatrix Potter-like visions of Victorian children having rustic tea parties in the garden along with bunnies, dolls and hedgehogs have been smashed forever.