The Story of Eugene Aram

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 219, 16 September 1939, Page 6

The Story of Eugene Aram

THE story of Eugene Aram affords confirmation to the Shakespearean saw that "Murder, tho' it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ." For nearly 200 years the usher of the ancient Grammar School of Lynn Regis has excited the interest and sympathy of a vast public who do not bother to know much about him, save that he is webbed about with some sort of romance by Bulwer and Hood. So that lie is in danger of becoming a legend rather than a somewhat unusual page in criminal history. Whenever a particularly callous and revolting crime is brought into the cold 1 itrht of day, all classes and all grades of intellect sit up and take a morbid delight in it. Homicide had a forceful fascination for the supersensitive De Quincey and Edgar Allan Poe. By--A. F. Bruno Everyone knows "The Dream of Eugene Aram," by Thomas Hood. 'Twas in the prime of summer time, An evening calm and cool. And four and twenty happy boys Came bounding out o£ school. And some did leap and some did run, Like trout lets in a pool. Pleasantly slionc the setting sun CWtr the town of Lynn. This was Lynn Regi3. The learned Aram was a>i usher there, whose most popular topic, it is learned, was homicide. But the usher sat remote from all, A melancholy man. Eugene Aram was never one for the social graces, though he fancied himself so far above his wife that he shunned her in public. (Later she provided the excuse for murder.) His studious habits set him apart from the butterlly existence. Based upon his merits as a scholar, Aram receives from the just critic fullest credit for his outstanding achievements in philology. He has (says Dr. Richard Garnett) the peculiar distinction to have lighted upon a truth of the greatest moment: the non-affinity of the Celtic to any other European language. Aram's fragment of the subject, though marred by forceful analogies between Celtic and Hebrew, shows that he had the power to grasp it. He was, perhaps, the only man of his age who disputed the direct derivation of Latin from Greek. Had he wealth and leisure he might have advanced the study of comparative philology by 50 years. So in the poem the melancholy usher comes upon "a little boy that pored upon a book." The book, upon inquiry, turns out to be "The Death of Abel." The usher starts, clutches his brow, wrings his hands (a circumstance hardly in keeping with Aram's callous character), and "down he sat beside the lad and talked to him of Cain." Xot cane, being a schoolmaster. He talked of "lonely folk cut off unseen and hid in sudden graves, of horrid stabs in groves forlorn, and murders done in caves. ..." The story of the murder of Daniel Clark has never fully been told. Interest suppressed some of the more salient facts, others were unaccountably oxerlooked, and there are certain lacunae in 4 .he evidence due, no doubt, to the iead_ng man's own natural reticence. Daniel Clark, shoemaker of Knaresborough, ki the county of York, is described ii> "God's Revenge Against Murther" as a weedy, stammering youth of 23, doing so well in business that he could afford a horse at the livery stables. He seems to have been as easier to advance his bank balance as the next man. With the schoolmaster Aram, one Richard Houseman, a "heckler or ilaxdresser," and Henry Terry, an "ale draper" (publican), he planned to borrow plate, jewels and money from all the substantial people in town. Clark was selected as the borrower because of his position in the town.

This seems to have been the second attempt at that sort of crime. There is a vague story of a Jew "fence" and his companion being murdered and secretly buried because they would not give the price asked for stolen goods. Dead men, thought the worthy quartet, tell no tales. Clark borrowed plate, watches, rings and other things of value, convincing each one from whom he borrowed that he was the only one whose goodness of heart made him ask for the loan. Aram and the heckler Houseman met Clark early the next morning by arrangement. The three went off to St. Robert's Cave, near Grimbald Ridge, to divide the "swag." That was on February 8, 1744. Clark never came out of the cave again. Sudden blows with a ragged stick, One with a heavy stone. One hurried gash with hasty knife— And then the deed was done. . . . Nothing but lifeless flesh and bone That could not do me ill. And yet I feared him all the more For lying 'here so still. . . . Whether he did or not, he shortly afterwards made to Lynn, where he obtained a position as usher in the grammar school. His undoubted talents in Chaldee, Hebrew, Arabic, Celtic dialects and his literary achievements seem all the more remarkable when it is recalled that he was a self-made and selftaught man, son of a humble gardener of Ramsgill. I knew my secret then was one That earth refused to keep.

So wills the fierce, avenging Sprite Till blood for blooo atones. Ay, tho' he's buried in a care And trodden down with stones And years have rotted off his flesh, The world shall see his bones. . . . The world did. On August 1, 1758—-14 years after the crime—a labourer, digging for stone to supply the lime kiln at Thistle Hill, struck human remains at the edge of the cliff. Investigations followed, and by clever detective work the battered skeleton was proved to be that of Daniel Clark. Followed further investigation. People had seen the four immediately prior to the disappearance of Clark. The missing valuables were never traced, but the people from whom Clark had borrowed talked loud and long. Henry Tcwy, the "ale draper," was arrested and acquitted, it being proved that he had little to do with either the robbery or the murder. HousemaD

A Wonderful Poem Ifas Written About A Murderer

was taken to Newgate; Eugene Aram that accomplished homicide, was traced to Lynn Regis Grammar School. Says the poem: That very nictht. while senile sleep The urchin eyelids kissed. Two stem-faced men set out from Lynn Thro' the cold and heavy mist; And Euienc Aram walked between. With gyves upon his wrist. Meagre reports of the trial, datin» from 175!), come down from a rare "Yotfc Pamphlet," published in the year of the trial —a sort of "yellow Press" of the period. In spite of Aram's defence, which was "too ingenious for innocence and eloquent enough to do credit even to that long premeditation which the interval between the deed and 'its discovery had afforded," the usher was con. victed upon many concurrent proofs and a number of strong circumstances. jury of 16 returned a verdict of guilt* although Aram swore that Clark hli alienated Mistress Aram's favours, justified his action. The night before his execution, he used a razor to cut a vein above his left elbow. Justice was not to be denied. Sw. geons patched him up, and the la* triumphed with Aram's execution at Tyburn on August 6, 1759, for a crime committed 14 years before. "In murder a finished artist; philology a true pioneer; a genuine scholar and a genuine rascal." That wai bis epitaph.