John Crook: Employer of Sweeney Todd

My name is John Crook and I’m a cutler by profession. My job is to make, sell and
repair all kinds of cutting instruments, from kitchen knives to swords, but mostly I
specialize in razors. My shop is called “Pistol and C” and it’s located in Holborn,
London.

One day in winter, a new apprentice came to my shop. He was called Sweeney
Todd. He was a thin, sad-looking orphan boy of around 12 and he probably never
had a decent meal in his life. ‘My mother and father are dead, and there is no
written record of me anywhere,’ Sweeney explained to me. ‘I was baptized in a
church, but it burned down soon after that, and all the books were burned in it. The
people at the church said I should come and work for you. I agreed because I like
knives.’

While he was working for me, I learned a lot about the boy’s unhappy childhood.
His family was very poor. They all lived together in one room and had very little
furniture. From a very early age, Sweeney was forced to work. He helped his family
prepare silk for a clothes factory. In 1758, Sweeney and his father were at the Silk
Workers’ Riots. The workers were protesting against the import of cheap cotton
cloth from India, because this took away a lot of their earnings. The young boy saw
many angry and violent scenes there and they left a strong impression on him.

To escape his unhappy life, Sweeney spent a lot of time at the Tower of London,
not far from his home. In the past, British kings imprisoned their enemies and
unwanted wives in the Tower of London, but later it became a museum and the
Royal Zoo. Sweeney loved listening to the stories of the Tower workers and was
fascinated by the instruments of torture there.

After some time, Sweeney began to have confidence in me and tell me more about
his family. He had a terrible father. ‘He either hit me or ignored me,’ the boy said.
But his mother loved him very much. However, Sweeney did not return her
affection. ‘She kissed me and called me “a pretty boy” all the time,’ he told me. ‘But
later, I wanted to hit her. Why did she bring me into this world if she didn’t have
enough money to help me survive in it?’

It was one of the coldest winters in London, and hundreds of poor people were
freezing to death in their homes and on the streets. Two months before Sweeney’s
arrival in my shop, his parents went out and left him alone at home. They never
returned. They probably went to look for alcohol to help them get warm and then
froze to death while they were looking for it. But Sweeney never forgave them for
leaving him alone. The young orphan tried to survive on the streets of London.
Soon, he was taken to the local church and they suggested that he find work. I still
don’t know how he survived until his arrival at my shop because he never talked
about it. Of course, he didn’t become rich working for me either. Employers didn’t
pay their apprentices, because we taught them a profession.

Unfortunately, two years after his arrival, Sweeney was arrested for theft. He
probably also stole from me while he was working for me in my shop. I didn’t catch
him because he was very clever. I was sure the boy was going to be hanged for his
crime, like most thieves at that time. But the judge had compassion for the poor
orphan – he was only 14 years old – and sent him to Newgate Prison for five years.
Sweeney was very lucky because in those days children were hanged for as little
as the theft of a handkerchief.

2 Elmer Plummer: A Barber at Newgate Prison

Newgate Prison in London is a horrible, frightening place. There are all kinds
of prisoners there. Everybody inside the prison is corrupt. In fact, prisoners leave
Newgate much worse than when they entered. Only prisoners with money are
treated well by the prison workers. Prisoner pay bribes for the simplest things.
Somebody with no money is likely to find himself naked and starving in Newgate. I
know all about it. I’m Elmer Plummer, the prison barber, and I’m a prisoner myself.

People outside Newgate considered prisoners to be zoo animals. In fact,

Londoners paid money to get the chance to see some unhappy prisoners in their
small cells. Charles Dickens even wrote a book about us called Little Dorrit after his
first visit to Newgate.

I was serving a four year sentence for theft at the time of Sweeney Todd’s
arrival. I made a good living in the prison, thanks to the large number of rich
prisoners there. They still needed a good shave now and then. One day, Sweeney
came to me and asked me to teach him my profession. I agreed, and even gave
him some of my earnings.

Soon, we became good friends. I taught him how to be a barber and also
how to steal. One of my jobs was to shave prisoners before their hanging and
Sweeney often helped me in this job. We stole any coins from the pockets of the
prisoners while we were shaving them. Well, they certainly didn’t need them!

But Sweeney was an angry, violent person. He often thought of cutting the
throats of these poor men. The longer he stayed inside Newgate Prison, the angrier
he became towards the people outside. During his stay in Newgate, he promised to
take vengeance against society as soon as he was free.

Sweeney Todd left prison at the age of 19, and I saw him from time to time
outside. He started working as a travelling barber and practiced his trade in any
free space. Travelling barbers often got into fights over their territory – fights that
sometimes ended in bloodshed.

During his time as a travelling barber, Sweeney committed his first murder.
He was living with a woman at the time and he was a very jealous person. One
afternoon, a drunken man came to him for a shave and told him about his love
affair with a woman. He described her and she was very similar to Sweeney’s
woman. Sweeney could not control his anger and he used his razor to kill for the
first time. ‘My first one was a young Gent at Hyde Park Corner,’ Sweeney later
confessed to me. ‘I cut him from ear to ear.’

Sweeney Todd was never brought to justice for this crime. The incident,
however, ended his relationship with the young woman, and he was forced to
practice his profession in a different place for a while.
 Several years after his first murder, Sweeney earned enough money to buy
a shop in Fleet Street. The choice of Fleet Street for a barber’s shop was unusual
because there were not many barbers in that part of the city – this was the famous
street of the newspaper publishers.

Sweeney’s shop was located in Fleet Street, between St Dunstan’s Church

and a little street called Hen and Chicken Court. He hung out his sign: Easy
shaving for a penny! and he also advertised other things. For example, he put jars
with teeth in the window. You see, barbers often pulled teeth in those days. He also
showed jars of blood, because barbers also took blood from people to cure them of
different diseases. Along with the jars of teeth and blood, there were also wigs of
human hair. Sweeney made them himself.

The shop was a small, dark place with a single barber’s chair in the middle
of the floor, a bench for waiting customers and a shelf full of combs, scissors, and,
of course, razors. It was a building with two floors and a basement. Sweeney lived
above the shop and used the basement for evil purposes. It was a very sinister
business.

3 Thomas Peckett Prest: Writer for a Fleet Street Newspaper

My name is Thomas Peckett Prest and I work as a writer on Fleet Street. I

became interested in Sweeney Todd soon after his arrival on Fleet Street, and I
wrote a book about him later.

Todd was a very disagreeable character with heavy eyebrows and a lot of
black hair. he had an evil look in his eyes. he was never happy and often
complained about the criminals and drunks outside his door.

In 1875 the Daily Courant, a Fleet Street newspaper, wrote about a murder.

A Cut-Throat Barber

A young gentleman from the country was murdered in Fleet Street while on a visit to London.
During a walk through the city, the gentleman stopped to admire the clock of St Dunstan’s
Church and began to talk with a barber. The two men argued and suddenly, the barber took out
a razor and cut the throat of the young man. Then, the barber disappeared into Hen and
Chicken Court.

There was only one barber shop between St Dunstan’s and Hen and
Chicken Court – Sweeney Todd’s barber shop. How did he escape justice?

Soon after that incident, Sweeney’s name was mentioned again in

connection with another murder. An apprentice went to Sweeney’s shop for a
haircut and carelessly showed him a large sum of money belonging to his
employer. Sweeney could not resist the temptation. The employer came looking for
the poor boy, but never found him, or the money. Sweeney wasn’t arrested for that
crime, either.

Sweeney used his skills as a cutler’s apprentice to build an ingenious

mechanism to help him kill and hide his victims’ bodies. The customer sat in the
barber’s chair and Sweeney cut his throat with his razor. Then, he pressed a
special button and the poor victim fell through a hole in the floor to the basement far
below. After that, the barber’s chair jumped back into place, ready for the next
victim.

In 18th century London, many murders were mysteries. However, as more

people entered the demon barber’s shop and were never seen again, there began
to be rumours about Sweeney’s real activities. There were also problems in St
Dunstan’s, the old church next door. After Sweeney Todd’s arrival in the area, the
smell from there became intolerable. Ladies held perfumed handkerchiefs over
their noses during church services, and the vicar often sneezed during his sermon.
Finally, the vicar called Sir Richard Blunt, the chief of the police, to investigate the
problem.

Sir Richard Blunt didn’t immediately connect Sweeney Todd to the smell in
the church. But he looked into his records and discovered that a local woman once
accused Todd of stealing some silver shoe buckles. The police found the buckles in
his shop but he was not imprisoned because the buckles were very ordinary ones.
According to the woman, her husband wore those buckles the day of his
mysterious disappearance several months earlier.

Blunt was suspicious and decided to watch Sweeney’s shop closely. Over
the next few months, three policemen saw many men entering the shop for a shave
or haircut and never leaving it. The police became more convinced that Sweeney
was murdering customers, and somehow, St Dunstan’s Church was connected to
the crime.

Finally, Blunt and his men decided to go down into the tunnels under the
church. They were shocked to find an enormous pile of bodies there, lying one on
top of each other. The pile reached halfway to the ceiling. The policemen continued
walking along the tunnels. These led to Sweeney’s shop and from there to a bakery
in Bell Yard.

A widow, Margaret Lovett, owned the bakery. Her first husband died under
mysterious circumstances a few years earlier. After that, Sweeney helped her open
the bakery. Soon afterwards, Mrs Lovett began to sell “the most delicious meat pies
in London”. They became very popular on Fleet Street.

It took some time but the police finally understood the horrific connection
between Sweeney’s murders and the bakery: Sweeney Todd was murdering his
customers and he was taking the meat from the bodies to Mrs Lovett. She was
using the meat to fill her pies!

The police still needed more evidence to prove their theory. Sir Richard’s
men were ordered to accompany every customer into Sweeney’s shop to prevent
him killing anybody else.
Policemen soon found clothes and jewellery in Sweeney’s flat with the
victims’ names and initials written on some of them. Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett
were arrested immediately. After giving a full confession, Mrs Lovett poisoned
herself and Sweeney Todd was left to go on trial alone.

4 Frank Raymond: Reporter at the Trial of Sweeney Todd

 My name is Frank Raymond and I was the reporter for the Daily Courant
during the trial of Sweeney Todd. London was very excited as the trial approached
in December 1801. In my entire career as a reporter, I never saw such excitement
for a criminal trial.

Todd was actually on trial for the murder of one sailor, Francis Thornhill.
Despite the large number of bodies and the large amount of evidence at his home,
police could not identify any other victims. Although the barber was a serial killer,
one murder was enough for him to be executed.

The prosecutor, dressed in a black gown and a white wig, opened his case.
‘Mr Thornhill was ordered to take some Oriental pearls, worth £16,000, to a young
lady in London,’ he began. ‘Thornhill’s ship arrived, and he went into the city to
deliver the pearls. On his way, he entered the prisoner’s shop for a shave, and
nobody saw him again.’

Todd admitted shaving the sailor but said, ‘I completed the job and Thornhill
left.’
‘Gentlemen, those Oriental pearls soon appeared at the home of a man called Mr
John Mundel,’ the prosecutor continued. ‘Sweeney Todd sold them to him for
£1,000. Is that not enough evidence of his guilt?’

Then, the prosecutor described the scene under St Dunstan’s Church.

‘There was a pile of new bodies with hardly any meat on them, but enough to
produce the terrible smell in the church.’

After that, the prosecutor described the connecting tunnels between Fleet
Street and Bell Yard, and linked it all to the evidence in Sweeney Todd’s house.
‘His house was full of the possessions and clothing of 160 people,’ he said to the
shocked courtroom. ‘Yes, gentlemen of the jury, 160 people! And Francis
Thornhill’s jacket was among the clothing. Is a jacket enough evidence to imprison
a man? The law says no, and requires the body of the murdered man. We’ve got
that evidence because Mr Thornhill’s body was found among the skeletons under
the church.’

Sir Richard Blunt, the chief of the police, testified next. ‘In my investigations,
I discovered that ten out of 13 victims planned to have a shave or haircut,’ he said.
‘Then, I heard about the disappearance of Francis Thornhill. He also went to Todd’s
shop and nobody saw him leave it.’

The last witness for the prosecution was Thornhill’s doctor, Sylvester Steers.
He identified a leg bone under Todd’s shop as belonging to Thornhill.

‘How did you come to this conclusion?’ the prosecutor asked.

‘Mr Thornhill had an unusual and painful accident as a young man,’ the
doctor answered. ‘Although he was cured, his bone was still deformed. I was his
doctor and I recognized it.’

Then, it was the defence lawyer’s turn to speak. He had a difficult job, but he
tried his best. ‘There’s no evidence against my client, just strange stories about bad
smells in churches, ingenious chairs, secret tunnels and meat pies,’ he began.
‘Really, gentlemen of the jury, this evidence is an insult to your intelligence.’

Next, he attacked the prosecution’s evidence. ‘How could the disappearance

of respectable men have any connection to Sweeney Todd?’ he asked.
‘Respectable men like being shaved, and even Sir Richard Blunt had a shave
several times at my client’s shop, yet here he is, alive and well to give evidence
today.

‘And the smell of St Dunstan’s? Why not say my client committed a crime because
this courtroom is not well ventilated?’

The most serious evidence against Sweeney Todd was the disappearance
of Francis Thornhill. ‘Why should my client be declared guilty of this murder?’ the
defence lawyer said. ‘Hundreds of people may have seen him come out of the shop
– and no doubt they did – but they didn’t recognize him because he was a stranger.
As for the leg bone…the doctor says he recognizes it, but gentlemen of the jury,
imagine if a man brought a window to this courtroom and declared it belonged to a
certain house. Would you believe him?’

He concluded his defence by blaming Margery Lovett for all the murders and
saying her suicide clearly showed her guilt.

The judge summed up the case and then the jury returned a “guilty” verdict
after only five minutes.

‘Have you got anything to say before the sentence?’ the judge asked Todd.

‘I’m not guilty!’ Todd shouted.

‘It is now my painful responsibility to pass sentence upon you. You will be taken
from here to a place of execution and hanged by the neck until you are dead,’ the
judge declared. ‘Your dead body will be cut up. May heaven have compassion
upon you.’

On 25th January, 1582, in the prison yard at Newgate, Sweeney Todd was
hanged in front of a crowd of thousands, and after his execution, his body was cut
up.

So Sweeney Todd ended his life in the same way so many of his victims
did…as a pile of meat and bones.