Probably the reader will side with the aldermen against the ordinary. This episode throws some doubt upon the tenderness and proper feeling exhibited by the chaplain towards the most deserving members of his criminal flock; and the idea will be strengthened by the following account of the Sunday service in the prison chapel on the occasion when the condemned sermon was preached. The extract is from Mr. E. Gibbon Wakefield's brochure, the date 1828, just three years after Fauntleroy's death. Strangers were now excluded, but the sheriffs attended in state, wearing their gold chains, while behind their pew stood a couple of tall footmen in state liveries. The sheriffs were in one gallery; in the other opposite were the convicts capitally convicted who had been respited. Down below between the galleries was the mass of the prison population; the schoolmaster and the juvenile prisoners being seated round the communion-table, opposite the pulpit. In the centre of the chapel was the condemned pew, a large dock-like erection painted black. Those who sat in it were visible to the whole congregation, and still more to the ordinary, whose desk and pulpit were just in front of the condemned pew, and within a couple of yards of it. The occupants of this terrible black pew were the last always to enter the chapel. Upon the occasion which I am describing they were four in number; and here I will continue the narrative in Mr. Wakefield's own words:--
"First is a youth of eighteen, condemned for stealing in a dwelling-house goods valued above five pounds. His features have no felonious cast; ... he steps boldly with head upright, looks to the women's gallery, and smiles. His intention is to pass for a brave fellow, but the attempt fails; he trembles, his knees knock together, and his head droops as he enters the condemned pew. The next convict is clearly and unmistakably a villain. He is a hardened offender, previously cast for life, reprieved, transported to Australia, and since returned without pardon. For this offence the punishment is death. He has, however, doubly earned his sentence, and is actually condemned for burglary committed since his arrival in England. His look at the sheriffs and the ordinary is full of scorn and defiance. The third convict is a sheep-stealer, a poor ignorant fellow in whose crime are mitigating circumstances, but who is left to die on the supposition that this is not his first conviction, and still more because a good many sheep have of late been stolen by other people. He is quite content to die; indeed the chaplain and others have brought him firmly to believe that his situation is enviable, and that the gates of heaven are open to receive him." The last of the four is said to have been a clergyman of the Church of England,[98] condemned for forgery, "a miserable old man in a tattered suit of black. Already he is half dead. Great efforts have been made to save his life. Friends, even utter strangers, have interceded for him, and to the last he has buoyed himself up by hope of reprieve. Now his doom is sealed irrevocably, and he has given himself up to despair. He staggers towards the pew, reels into it, stumbles forward, flings himself on the ground, and, by a curious twist of the spine, buries his head under his body. The sheriffs shudder, their inquisitive friends crane forward, the keeper frowns on the excited congregation, the lately smirking footmen close their eyes and forget their liveries, the ordinary clasps his hands, the turnkeys cry 'Hush!' and the old clerk lifts up his cracked voice, saying, 'Let us sing to the praise and glory of God.'