Shades of the Past

by Harold Williams

  As to whether Mrs. Carew did or did not murder her husband, I personally have never hesitated to accept the verdict of the jury of twelve good men and, true; I beg your pardon, five good men and true, who were in such a hurry to discharge their duties and get back to business, that after sitting for twenty-one days listening to highly complicated, technical, prolix and perplexing evidence—and circumstantial at that—they were able in just twenty-five minutes to reach a unanimous agreement that Mrs. Carew was guilty and so should be sent to the gallows. Later it was said in extenuation of their haste that their decision had long been made up, which, in fact, only made their position worse, for it amounted to an admission that a verdict was reached before the judge had summed up the evidence. But do not mistake me. They were all honourable men. Indeed one in later years became my boss, and a man whom I look back upon with respect and affection.

  Baroness d'Anethan in her book Fourteen Years of Diplomatic Life in Japan attempted to whitewash the jury by saying that they racked their brains for some loophole on Mrs. Carew's behalf. If that were the truth, the truth also was that the jury only permitted itself to suffer on the rack for precisely twenty-five minutes.

  Whatever may be the truth, and it can never now be known, I do admit that the thought is ever fleeting through my mind that no woman would commit murder for a man, who after all did nothing much more than write illegible love letters!

  MR.

  CAREW'S

  TOMBSTONE

  As soon

  Seek roses in December—ice in June;

  Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;

  Believe a woman or an epitaph,....

  Lord BYRON—"Don Juan"

  Fires and earthquakes have wiped out most of the Foreign Settlement records of the last century and most of the newspaper files also, but the patient researcher can still turn up from diaries and elsewhere forgotten pages of the past which, when pieced together, reveal scenes long since forgotten. And so it comes about that the following two scenes from Yokohama life of 1897, the year following that in which Mr. Walter Carew, manager of the Yokohama United Club, died of arsenic poisoning, can be presented.

  It was a Saturday evening, in October, 1897. Trade had been falling off. The silk market had been erratic. The various strata in the social pyramid of the Yokohama foreign community had each experienced a number of storms-in-a-tea-cup. The litigation among the foreign members of the community, quite apart from a rash of cases between foreigners and Japanese, had been unusually great, and the ranks of the taipans had become divided by a lawsuit that had developed between two of their most exalted members. There was a temporary shortage of liquor owing to the wreck of a P. & 0. vessel. It had been mail day with all the rush and bustle associated with mail in those early days. In short, tempers were frayed, and the gathering at the bar of those feeling in need of a stimulant was more numerous than usual.

  Gathered around one of the many tables were six men. There was the Anglican priest who had conducted the funeral service for Mr. Carew. There was a law clerk, named Burbles, of the law firm which had defended Mrs. Carew at the murder trial. He was a rather brilliant man, generally somewhat exhilarated of an evening, but invariably moderately inebriated throughout the whole of each week end. That being Saturday evening, the week end had well started! There was Cole Watson, the taipan of Findlay Richardson & Co., who had been one of the jurors at the Carew murder trial. He had had a very busy day! There was the editor of the Japan Gazette, who had again come off second best in a clash with Capt. Brinkley of the Japan Mail. There was a tourist who was about to commence a three months tour of Japan—that was the thorough way in which tourists in those days toured the country. He was a visitor at the club, and had brought with him a copy of Chamberlain's Things Japanese, Murray's Guide, and Johnson's Oriental Religions, in the optimistic belief that, in such a citadel of European culture, by spending an hour with residents of twenty or more years standing, he would learn more in an hour about Oriental religions than in a week's reading. All three books were at his elbow with strips of paper to mark the more complicated passages on which he hoped to receive advice and instruction. The sixth man was the manager of the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank.

  Cole Watson, the taipan, opened the conversation with the usual moan:

  "What a day! What a day! The godown loaded up with Manchester cottons and still more arrived to-day. I suppose, Burbles," said he, facetiously addressing the law clerk, "business with you is dull, now that the Carew case is forgotten and done with."

  "It's not done with. To-day I was ordering a tombstone. Mrs. Carew has now decided upon the inscription," replied the law clerk.

  "What? Mrs. Carew erecting a tombstone! From a loving wife, I suppose."

  "And why not, Watson," rejoined Burbles with some heat. "Not everybody believes the jury was right. Although most think you were in a hurry to get back to your Manchester cottons."

  "That's enough, Burbles." warned the editor.

  "And what a tombstone it will be," continued the irrepressible Burbles, "Don't ask me to tell you whether I chose the quotations in the epitaph:

  Twilight and evening star

  And one clear call for me

  And may there be no moaning of the bar

  When I put out to sea.

  "I say," said the Anglican priest, breaking into the conversation, " that's from Tennyson's "Crossing of the Bar." I recall Mrs. Carew was often reading poetry when I called on her in the Consular Jail. I do not think she would need your help, Mr. Burbles, in selecting an epitaph."

  "You have only heard half," said Burbles, "The next portion reads:

  A little trust that when we die

  We reap our sowing and so goodbye.

  "You may not recognise that quotation, Padre. It is from du Maurier's Trilby"

  "Sounds like a confession of guilt." said Watson, the taipan.

  The padre turned to the tourist who had been listening attentively and whispered:

  "They're talking about Mrs. Carew, who was sentenced to hard labour for life. She was declared guilty of the murder of her husband. He was manager of this club. You will not, of course, have heard of her."

  "On the contrary," replied the tourist in a much louder voice, "I knew Mrs. Carew quite well. I met her last July when I was travelling from Singapore to Colombo on the P. & O. ship 'Shanghai.' Shortly after I came on board I got speaking to her. She was very attractive. That same evening we spent an hour—maybe more—together on the boat deck. I remember it was a wonderful tropical night, and the moon was rising low on the Indian Ocean. Edith was certainly a fascinating woman. She told me she had lost her husband in Yokohama. She did not mention any details, but said it was a very sad affair. It might surprise you to know she warned me against this club. She said far too many men had broken their lives on this bar counter, and more still on that of the Kobe Club. She said the reason was that the Kobe Club bar was so much longer! She was travelling with a middle-aged woman, whom I imagined to be a travelling companion. Next morning I was told by the other passengers that she was a wardress who was escorting Mrs. Carew to the convict prison at Aylesbury in England. Before I disembarked at Colombo, Edith told me a great deal. I also learned that she was very fond of poetry, but she never mentioned any of Tennyson." Then turning to the taipan he said severely:

  "You, sir, consider the epitaph to be a confession of guilt, but I am not so sure. Have you considered the possible play on the word bar; and don't forget that Mrs. Carew sailed over the seas to England. I wonder whether it is not a bitter taunt directed at the Court by Mrs. Carew in the belief that there would have been moans of disapproval from the jury when she sailed overseas to serve life imprisonment, instead of hanging on the gallows where you, sir, had sought to place her. But, gentlemen, I do not care to pursue this topic further. So if you will excuse me, I shall depart and commence my tour of Japan." Terminating this long speech with a polite smile, he gathered up his books and departed.

  "
Well I'll be damned," burst out the law clerk. "Pardon my language, Padre, but what do you think of that?"

  "It is all very distressing," murmured the padre, "I might add that when Mrs. Carew was in the Consular Jail awaiting to be transported overseas I frequently called on her, and I believe I enjoyed her complete confidence. Beyond that I do not care to discuss the matter further, I think I shall take my departure. Good night, gentlemen."

  "Well there goes the second. We certainly would be learning things," continued Burbles, "if we only knew what everybody was talking about. What do you think, Cole Watson?"

  "You know very well, young man, what I think. You were in court. You heard the verdict."

  "I entirely agree, Watson," said the editor, "there has been far too much loose talk about this case, and I suspect my unworthy contemporary on the Japan Mail is behind it all. There is a telegram from London in the Shanghai papers just received. Here, I have a copy:

  Important evidence in favour of Mrs. Edith Carew who poisoned her husband in Japan has been discovered and an influentially signed petition to the Queen asking for a retrial in England is preparing.

  Somebody, and I suspect Brinkley, is engineering this."

  "I certainly agree there has been too much loose talk." said the bank manager breaking into the conversation for the first time. "I didn't like at all the idea of Brinkley describing in his paper one of my staff as a renegade lover, even if Dickinson was that and worse. I have been telling my Head Office for years that this is no place for a single man. I can't be expected to watch every amorous young man, like a wife watches her husband. For the past year I have been hearing about this case from my Head Office every mail and from my wife every day. I'm tired of it. That reminds me, my wife is spending the night with friends in Tokio. I shall go home early. Goodnight."

  "Now we are three! But getting back to the tombstone," said the prophetic Burbles, "the words will be engraved in granite and half a century later foreign residents in Japan may still be arguing this case, and still speculating whether Mrs. Carew really did poison her husband as our worthy jurymen did declare."

  The club door-porter approached the editor.

  "Your phaeton is waiting outside, sir."

  "Come, Watson," said the editor "let's go. I've heard more than enough."

  Burbles, left on his own, looked into his glass and mumbled: "There'll be no moaning at this bar when I put out to sea."

  Let us now leave the Yokohama United Club and attend one of the regular social meetings of the Women's Auxiliary of the Bluff Church held two months later in December, 1897. It followed the devotional hour at which the leader had developed the theme: Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone.

  As soon as the tea had been served a voice of gossip was heard above the murmur of conversation.

  "I was passing through the Yokohama Cemetery this morning and saw the tombstone that has just been erected over Mr. Carew's grave. Really I do not know what to think of it. You must see it."

  With the mention of the word "Carew" voices were stilled as all listened.

  "Yes," said another. "So extraordinary—may there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea and when we die we reap our sowing. I think that is intended as a message from the grave, an admission by Mr. Carew that he had lived the life he chose and had died from the consequences of the wild oats he had sowed."

  "In that case," said her friend, "we might be expected to understand that Mr. Carew is deriding the Court for all the sadness and bitterness that had been stirred up when he put out to sea."

  "Nonsense! Certainly not!" said a fourth. "I was speaking to Mrs. Brown-Brown yesterday evening, and she says it is a clear admission of guilt by Mrs. Carew. Poor Mrs. Brown-Brown, she is most distressed. There have been terrible differences of opinion between her and her husband, whom she thinks has been a secret admirer of Mrs. Carew. The whole thing is most disgraceful. It is even said that Capt. Brinkley is at the bottom of it all. More likely it is just another of Mrs. Carew's frauds and deceptions."

  "Well," said the padre's wife, "My husband claims that there is no doubt in his mind as to the real intent of the quotations, but he just refuses to discuss the matter with me. Really it is so maddening. But he did mention that the quotation from Tennyson is not quite accurate."

  "Frankly," said another "I never did like Mrs. Carew. I did not like the way she eyed my Hiram when she met us in the street. I believe that the whole tombstone is intended as nothing more than a dramatic exit with which Mrs. Carew chose to leave Yokohama—a stage on which she had played the part of a popular, an attractive, and a so-called refined lady."

  In the corner there was sitting a very small but very old lady with silvery white hair. She had been knitting quietly with downcast eyes. When a lapse finally occurred in the conversation, which was not for quite a time, she raised her eyes and gently remarked:

  "I have been in Yokohama longer than any of you. As you know I first came here on the same ship as Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Hepburn. That was back in 1859. I know more of life here perhaps than any of you, and some things in my own life I wish I could forget. Can't we all just pray and hope that the message which the tombstone sets out to convey is the truth; and let us leave those who are without sin to cast the stones."

  She lowered her eyes and quietly resumed her knitting.

  The veracity of epitaphs has long been suspected. The graven word is all too frequently a device to secure immortality for one who will soon be forgotten by his best friends, and a deception to perpetuate affectionate memories that never existed. May, however, those who walk through the Yokohama Foreign Cemetery forget such human frailties when they come upon the gravestone reading:

  WALTER RAYMOND HALLOWELL CAREW

  In Loving Memory

  of

  My Husband

  Who Died October 22nd 1896 aged 43 years

  Twilight and evening star,

  And one clear call for me,

  And may there be no moaning of the bar

  When I put out to sea.

  A little trust that when we die

  We reap our sowing and so goodbye.

  LIFE AND STRIFE

  IN THE

  FOREIGN

  CONCESSIONS

  Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shall not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery: farewell.

  Shakespeare—"Hamlet"

  Mud slinging has been popular right from the time millions of years ago when fishes first emerged from the river mud, wagged their tails and entered upon an amphibian life!

  In most countries around a hundred years ago, and less, there was a fair amount of mud slinging, also rotten eggs and overripe tomatoes which were considered a more effective argument than reasoned words. Such times have not entirely passed. If now I rake up some of the mud that was flung around in Japan during the early days of the Foreign Settlements, it will at the most only demonstrate that there was possibly more restraint here on both sides than in many other countries.

  If the editors of the early foreign newspapers did not conduct their feuds with the same vigour as did the New York Sewer and the Rotwdy Journal, of Charles Dickens fame there was at least a fair amount of sniping and sufficient libel suits to enliven even those dull days.

  The feuds between the Japan Mail, edited by Capt. F. Brinkley and some of the more independent foreign newspapers continued during his lifetime and well after his death. Brinkley, originally an English army officer, came to Japan in 1867 with a military detachment for the British Legation Guard. Later he was appointed gunnery instructor at the Japanese Naval College, but he soon forsook his military career for journalism and writing. As it was generally known that his paper, the Japan Mail, received some form of financial assistance from the Japanese Government, he was an easy mark for the independent papers, but nevertheless a formidable opponent.

  In those times rarely a day passed without one of the papers hurling insults at the other. The chief target of th
e Japan Daily Herald was the Tokio Times.

  ... the tedious verbosity and mawkish insipidity of that puny periodical... the Tokio Times, whose mission appears to be principally that of fulsome and illimitable adulations of the government.

  The Tokio Times was edited by Edward H. House the first American propagandist employed by the Japanese Government, and its mission, to use House's own words, was "to write Sir Harry Parkes out of Japan"—a mission incidentally in which it failed, for Sir Harry remained in Japan for several years after the Tokio Times passed out. Even Capt. Brinkley found himself repeatedly at variance with its editor and described the paper as a

  pharasaical print whose weekly task it is to poison as far as its feeble powers permit the minds of the people against foreign intercourse.

  But such comment was mild compared to some of the compliments that those editors bestowed on one another. For example Brinkley's obituary notice of the Japan Herald, when it folded up, read in part:

  It has been a disgrace to foreign journalism. Its methods have been the methods of the thug. The Japan Herald has been as effective and annoying as the viperish shrillings of some side-way slut.

  The Tokio Times each week carried on its war with some section of the foreign community. At one time it attacked the German Legation to such a degree that His German Majesty's representative in Japan asked that "the paper be no longer sent to the Legation," whereupon the editor announced to his readers that the subscription having been paid in advance he would continue to deliver the paper, and the German Minister could do with it what he wished. He then added the sly quip that he had no doubt the Minister would continue to read it as diligently as before.

  In the next issue he was charging the French Minister with executing a scheme of plunder in a squabble that had arisen in connection with the French Post Office which was maintained in Yokohama in those privileged days.

  Then he lashed at the Kobe Settlement Foreign Municipal Council, which he claimed was "pugnacious and self-assertive":