Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Notes on contributors
- Preface
- Notes on references
- PART I LIFE AND AFTERLIFE
- PART II SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
- 12 Popular culture
- 13 The rise of celebrity culture
- 14 The newspaper and periodical market
- 15 Authorship and the professional writer
- 16 The theatre
- 17 Melodrama
- 18 The Bildungsroman
- 19 Visual culture
- 20 The historical novel
- 21 The illustrated novel
- 22 Christmas
- 23 Childhood
- 24 Work
- 25 Europe
- 26 The Victorians and America
- 27 Educating the Victorians
- 28 London
- 29 Politics
- 30 Political economy
- 31 The aristocracy
- 32 The middle classes
- 33 Urban migration and mobility
- 34 Financial markets and the banking system
- 35 Empires and colonies
- 36 Race
- 37 Crime
- 38 The law
- 39 Religion
- 40 Science
- 41 Transport
- 42 Illness, disease and social hygiene
- 43 Domesticity
- 44 Sexuality
- 45 Gender identities
- Further reading
- Index
38 - The law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Notes on contributors
- Preface
- Notes on references
- PART I LIFE AND AFTERLIFE
- PART II SOCIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
- 12 Popular culture
- 13 The rise of celebrity culture
- 14 The newspaper and periodical market
- 15 Authorship and the professional writer
- 16 The theatre
- 17 Melodrama
- 18 The Bildungsroman
- 19 Visual culture
- 20 The historical novel
- 21 The illustrated novel
- 22 Christmas
- 23 Childhood
- 24 Work
- 25 Europe
- 26 The Victorians and America
- 27 Educating the Victorians
- 28 London
- 29 Politics
- 30 Political economy
- 31 The aristocracy
- 32 The middle classes
- 33 Urban migration and mobility
- 34 Financial markets and the banking system
- 35 Empires and colonies
- 36 Race
- 37 Crime
- 38 The law
- 39 Religion
- 40 Science
- 41 Transport
- 42 Illness, disease and social hygiene
- 43 Domesticity
- 44 Sexuality
- 45 Gender identities
- Further reading
- Index
Summary
According to John Forster's Life, Charles Dickens was empanelled to serve on a coroner's jury sometime in 1840 for an inquest on the body of a young baby allegedly murdered by its mother. Dickens's ‘persevering exertion’ and ‘the humane help of the coroner, Mr Wakley … combined to ensure she was only charged with concealing the birth’ instead of the capital crime of murder:
‘The poor desolate creature dropped upon her knees before us with protestations that we were right (protestations among the most affecting that I have ever heard in my life), and was carried away insensible. I caused some extra care to be taken of her in the prison, and counsel to be retained for her defence when she was tried at the Old Bailey; and her sentence was lenient, and her history and conduct proved that it was right’. How much [Dickens] felt the little incident, at the actual time of its occurrence, may be judged from the few lines written next morning: ‘Whether it was the poor baby, or its poor mother, or the coffin, or my fellow-jurymen, I can't say, but last night I had a most violent attack of sickness and indigestion, which not only prevented me from sleeping, but even from lying down.’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Charles Dickens in Context , pp. 310 - 317Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011