A HUNDRED YEARS AGO
AFTER the drawing-room on Saturday afternoon, her Majesty, accom- panied by three of the children, left Buckingham Palace about five o'clock, in an open carriage, to drive round the Parks. On her ret.rn, a few minutes before six, a pistol was fired in the direction of the carriage, by, a man who stood within she railings of the Coen Park, damn half-way down Contionian Hill. The Queen's carriage was mapped only for a moment: her Majesty stood up, mad with mach 'coolness motioned the drivers onwards, while she engaged she attentien -of the chiltirm in conversation.
Under examination, the prisoner save his name as John Hamilton, of Mare, at the county Limerick. He came weer hum iteland fine wars ago as a bricklayer's labourer ; and rathserpiently he has obtained a pre- carious and scanty living by casual ,jobs. lie lived at the house of a countryman in Pimlico, and had got in debt to him some few pounds for lodging ; and the wife of this countryman, with another young woman, have mainly supported him by broken viands collected at the houses Of their milk-customers. On Saturday afternoon, he was seen making a sort of firework instrument, or mock pined, out of the spout of a tea- isettle and a piece of wood ; his object, as he professed to his landlord's
son, being to make "a sight an the air as the trees." His landlady lent him an old rusty pistol, "of no account," belonging to her husband ; he cleaned this, and scut the boy for a ha'p'orth of gunpowder , and he was heard to fire the pistol in the garden. He is next found in the Green Park, awaiting among the crowd of spectators the passing of the Queen's carriage, and inquiring of two or three persons when it would come.
The prisoner was committed far trial under the 5th and 6th Victoria, chapter 41. Hamilton will thus, in all probability, he transported for seven years, or imprisoned for three wars, and "publicly or privately whipped as often and in such manner as the Court shall order and direct, not exceeding three times:"
The police constable who guarded him on Saturday night deposed that Hamilton had protested to him that the pistol was only loaded with gunpowder, and that he Ad not mean to harm the QUeen ; that he was tired of his destitute life, and wanted to go to prison. He is about twenty-three years old.
(From the Spectator of May 26th, 1849)
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