34. ‘How Frightened I Should Have Been!’
Whatever the public’s perception of Boy Jones as a lovable tramp, Queen Victoria was not amused. As she put it in her journal: “Supposing he had come into the Bedroom, how frightened I should have been!” He was rearrested, retried, and got three months’ probation. Soon thereafter, he was arrested again, while trying to break into the palace. This time, he got three months of hard labor.
The authorities were stumped. Jones’ crimes were not felonies, so a lengthy stint behind bars was not an option. After he was arrested for a fourth, and then a fifth time, when caught loitering near the palace, they finally shipped him to Brazil, where he was kept in an offshore prison ship for six years. He returned to Britain, and was deported to Australia, but snuck back to London. He finally returned to Australia, where he became Perth’s town crier. He died in 1893, after falling off a bridge while drunk.
