CHAPTERCL.

CHAPTERCL.A VISIT TO NEWGATE—​IDENTIFICATION OF PEACE—​MRS. THOMPSON’S PERSONAL HISTORY—​RECEIVERS OF STOLEN GOODS.From what we have been able to gather from persons whose testimony is in every way reliable, Mrs. Peace made a precipitate retreat from Peckham after the arrest of her husband.The day after Police-constable Robinson bravely fought the burglar down, in spite of his wounded arm, and had Peace taken to gaol, the wife of the convict made preparations for flight. She packed up three boxes, and had them conveyed to Cleaves, the greengrocer, to Nunhead Station.She and her son followed them to the station, and took the train for Darnall, near Sheffield, the place where Peace lived before coming to London, and at which he was living when Dyson was shot.A month after the arrest some of the effects were sold, and the remainder were carted toNo.22, Philip’s-road, the residence of Mr. Brion, heretofore mentioned as the joint patentee of the invention for raising sunken ships.There is no question that the police were afterwards made aware of the departure of Mrs. Peace and of Mrs. Thompson’s change of abode.Mrs. Thompson, although she lived with Peace at Nottingham after the murder, and lived in company with Mrs. Peace at Peckham, was not called as a witness for obvious reasons.Peace was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, and it was unnecessary to try him for the burglary, as the sentence was penal servitude for life.The representative of the Press Association had an interview with Mr. Brion. His relationship with Peace was, he said, a purely business one.“But for me,” he said, “Peace’s connection with the murder would never have been discovered. It was I who gave the police the information that put them on the track. Those police would never have discovered anything themselves had not everything been told them and every step they took indicated. How did I become connected with Peace?“You will know all about that in my testimony at Bow-street, when Mrs. Peace was under examination. I am an inventor, a geographical engineer. I make maps. You know Donald McKenzie, who has gone to Africa to make surveys for letting the ocean flow into the Sahara?“That is my project. This is the map I exhibited at the Mansion House. (Mr. Brion unrolled a map 20 feet by 12 feet, whereon was delineated very broadly the Continent of Africa and on which was shown, in red dotted lines below the Canary Islands, a kind of gutter through which the ocean is to flow inland and flood the Sahara.)“Mrs. Thompson went away from here on Monday. I know where she is, but I cannot tell you of her whereabouts. That has all been arranged with the police. She came here with the full knowledge of the police, and all the goods in Peace’s house were brought here by their direction and consent.“The police are aware of everything I can tell them about Peace. I have spent three months in the interest of the public to bring this man to justice, and I was promised by the police that I should have my expenses paid, but here have I been during all that time running around the country and living at hotels, and spending money for the sake of getting at evidence, and now they refuse to pay me anything.“I have done with the police, although they know all that I have done, and now I have a memorial to the Treasury on the subject.“I am disgusted with the whole business, and annoyed that for any length of time I should have been associated in whatever degree with such a scoundrel as Peace.“He was a very interesting man, full of general information, and had acquired a great amount of ability in mechanics. He had an inventive faculty, and could readily understand anything in mechanism.“He was working away at this idea of his for lifting ships from the sea bottom, and it is now plain that he could not have obtained a patent himself.“As with all these men of smirched reputation, he had to look around for some one to assist him, and he fastened upon me.“I used to see him in the mornings, afternoons, and at nights, and he was always pleasant enough, and I never suspected he was what he is.“His left hand was always bare when I saw it, but when he went to Whitechapel he was accustomed to cover it and pretend that it was injured.“Whitechapel was where he went with his booty. I expended a considerable sum in my experiments with Peace on his invention.“I found that he had the idea of raising ships by air force, but that the appliance was faulty, and that no patent would be given for an idea.“I have a plan of my own for raising ships, and I have offered it to the Admiralty. They have not accepted it, and I intend to raise the ‘Vanguard,’ and sell it on my own account. The police are aware of everything that Mrs. Thompson has to say.“They have been cognisant of her movements from first to last, and they knew of her departure from this house, and where she has gone.”The reader will be at no loss to understand that the police were tolerably well informed as to the movements and whereabouts of Mrs. Peace. This is plainly evidenced by her arrest, the examination at the police-courts that followed, and her trial and acquittal at the Central Criminal Court.After this they confined their attentions to the convicted man who was at this time incarcerated in Newgate, and their chief aim was to prove him to be the murderer of Mr. Dyson.The capture and conviction of Peace was the universal topic of town talk. Never surely did a criminal create a greater amount of excitement both in the metropolis and the provinces.Officers were despatched both to Nottingham and Sheffield. The constabulary received information from the Park-road station of the K Division. It was put forth that the prisoner in Newgate was a man apparently about fifty years of age, dark, clean shaved, hair grey, large mouth, large scar on the side of the left leg, and the back of the thigh, three fingers on the left hand deficient, dress overcoat, with velvet collar, and black under coat.He wore a brown leather belt, low boots, and a brown felt hat.A Sheffield paper thus chronicles further proceedings:—Police-constable David Morris was dispatched to London, by Mr. Jackson, with a view to the identification of the criminal in custody at Newgate.Morris, who was at one time stationed at Darnall, lived for more than a year in the house directly opposite to that occupied by Charles Peace, and was therefore in the habit of seeing him every day, and frequently several times a day.Morris had with him a letter from his chief to the director of the Criminal Investigation Department, by means of which he obtained admission to the cell.At half-past one o’clock a telegram from our reporter was received at this office as follows:—“St.Martin’s-le-Grand, 1.30. p.m.“Peace has been further identified by a Sheffield constable, and there is no doubt he is the murderer.”The telegram, when posted in the window of our publishing department, excited much interest. Shortly after two o’clock the Chief Constable received a telegram from Police-constable Morris as follows:—“Man in custody is Peace. I am quite positive about his identity.”All doubt, if any existed, has now been removed. The man, John Ward, the notorious burglar of Blackheath—​the man who did all his villainies “single-handed,” and thus no doubt escaped detection for a longer time than he would otherwise have done—​is none other than Charles Peace, the murderer of Mr. Arthur Dyson, at Bannercross-terrace, that dark November night two years ago.Charles Peace, alias George Parker, alias Alexander Mann, alias Paganini, alias John Ward—​the man of many aliases—​is trapped at last, and the general hope is that now he is caught there may be evidence enough to make him suffer the penalty of his greatest crime—​that which startled this town and district so terribly in the winter of 1876.A journalist furnishes us with the following descriptive visit to Newgate and the scene at the identification:—That Charles Peace, the murderer of Mr. Arthur Dyson, of Bannercross, is at last caught there cannot now be the shadow of a doubt. He has been clearly identified by a Sheffield constable, who knew him most intimately.The result of my researches into the history of this man’s career reveals a depth of depravity, hypocrisy, daring, and low cunning, such as have scarcely ever been penned in the annals of crime.On entering Scotland-yard, and making known my errand—​that I desired to prosecute inquiries into the history of the man then in their custody, who was committed for trial from the Greenwich Police-court, on charges of attempted murder and burglary, a man who had given the name of John Ward, the replies given were certainly very courteous, but in no way satisfactory to a reporter in quest of information.The result was that after about an hour and a half’s waiting, and after being interviewed successively by some dozen or two very polite gentlemen, who were evidently “authorities,” I was ultimately told, with a smile, by one that they did not give information to members of the Press.“Why?” I asked.“Because it’s against regulations, and we are not allowed to answer questions.”“Well,” I said, “where is this man Ward or Peace confined, because I want to see him?”He had a short look at me, and after telling an untruth in the words “He’s not in town,” took his departure.However, I knew there had come up to London by the morning train a Sheffield constable whose errand was to see the man “Ward,” and that officer was one who had been on the most intimate terms with Charles Peace.He had seen the murderer daily for months before the commission of the crime, had had him in his house, and had further confided to him some of the “family troubles” of Peace.The officer was Police-constable (222) David Morris, of the Attercliffe division, and it is due to him that Peace has at length been identified beyond dispute.The police authorities of the metropolis are true to their word and traditions in this, that if they gain their information with difficulty they hold it with tenacity when they have obtained it. They appear to mistake reporters for Ishmaelites.After further trouble I succeeded in finding out that at about one o’clock a detective from Scotland-yard would be at the Old Bailey, otherwise well known as Newgate Gaol, and that he would there ask Morris if he could pick out the so-called Peace from a number of men.How to get it was the question, but I also thought it might be possiblefor meto identify him if I could see him, and so, with a little help from a friend, I got permission from the authorities to go inside and witness.The approaches to the Old Bailey are of a forbidding character, dark and repulsive. Even the inquiry door has massive iron spikes projecting from the top of it, and as you have to make your applications either through the spikes or over them, you stand a chance of having your chin perforated.On getting inside there are apparently nothing but bars and big doors, but over one of the doors on the shelf there are conspicuously displayed plaster casts of heads.These casts are the official representations of all the murderers who have interviewed the hangman within the walls of the prison, and a hideous-looking crew they are.Seeing that another candidate for the “long drop” has next to be interviewed the effect is not pleasing.However, there is another delay, and this is accounted for by the fact that the suspected culprit is being “mixed” with some more prisoners, the more to test anyone in the task of identification.At last the signal is given that all is ready, and after passing through a short corridor a yard is seen, rather capacious and surrounded with cell-doors.But between the yard and the corridor were double gates of iron, and anyone exercising in the yard had not a shadow of a chance of communication with the outer world.The iron gates were opened by the governor of the gaol; in front stood the constable and another who had come to see if Peace was in the hands of the police, and in front were twelve prisoners doing “the circular drill.”This is a performance best known to prison officials, and to those who have been “wanted.” It consists in this:—If there is a prisoner in the establishment whose identity needs to be established, and there is anyone attending for the purpose of viewing them, the prisoner is placed amongst others, and they follow each other in circle.The suspected prisoner must then be identified. Those who performed the “circular drill” on this occasion in the Old Bailey, were a curious lot.First came a young man, of some three or four-and-twenty years, with his neck half hidden in a muffler.His gait was upright, but there was that cowed look about him which showed him to be “an old prison bird.”Before the march commenced the prisoners took a look at us; they did not know who was “wanted,” and our visages were strange to all but one.Then the march began, and all the prisoners appeared to want to march the double, but they had only a short time of duty.The second man who passed was an old one, some forty years of age, who wore a swallow-tail coat, and looked most like a defaulting half-starved attorney’s clerk.He gave a searching look, knit up his brows, as if to see “who in creation there could be that he knew,” and then apparently satisfied that he was not “wanted,” passed on with a livelier tread.The third but a young man, with a bull neck, who held his head down and stared at the ground, as though afraid of seeing anyone strange, for fear they should recognise him.He had apparently gone through this class of inspection before.Two other young fellows passed, of lively mien, and then there cameONE WHO WAS WANTED.A man of about five feet three or four inches in height, with white hair on his head, cut very short, and bald in the front of his head, but the razor had lately done this.His eyebrows heavy and overhanging the eyes, which were deeply socketed.A chin standing very prominently, and, as if to make it more so, the head was thrown back with an air of half self-assertion, yet half caution, as though there was a degree of hesitancy in the action.The lower part of his cheek bones protruded more than was their wont in years gone by, but he had apparently had some bruises recently, and had had his whiskers shaven off since he was last seen in Sheffield.No.83.Illustration: THE IDENTIFICATION OF PEACETHE IDENTIFICATION OF PEACE BY THE SHEFFIELD OFFICER.In addition to that he wore a pair of large brass-rimmed spectacles, as if the more completely to make certain of his non-identification.Slightly bending himself this man approached those who were inspecting the prisoners, and then there was a sudden stop.“That’s Peace,” said Morris. “I’d know him anywhere,” and the man “Ward” stepped from the ranks and approaching the officer with a look which betokened the most earnest inquiry, asked, “What do you want me for?”The governor here very severely said, “Go on, sir, with your walk,” and Peace returned to his place in the ranks, which were no longer marching.The other prisoners were now staring at the identified man, and evidently wanted to ask, “What has he done?” but they dared not.Even Peace had had no intimation given to him that he was recognised as the Sheffield murderer, and until he saw the officer who had come to identify him he had no notion of why he was required to go on this special parade.The marks which were described as on the missing Peace are all distinctly on him. Before he can appear in the police court at Sheffield on the charge of murder, the Chief-constable for Sheffield will have to apply to a superior court for a writ ofhabeas corpus.Upon this he will be taken to answer the capital charge now made against him.After committing the murder on the night of the 26th November, 1876, Peace was completely lost sight of; his career in this life, it was said, was closed, for he had made away with himself.But Peace was not such a fool as that, for he had no sooner finished the murder than he took to his old game of burglary—​an avocation which appears to have had a curious attraction for him.Subsequent events have proved that Peace went to Hull, and there replaced his waning funds by breaking into a gentleman’s house, from which, he extracted a large quantity of plate and valuable jewellery.From thence, after realising on his spoil, he repaired to Nottingham, where a near relative resided, and with her he took up his quarters.Although it was well known that there was a heavy reward offered for his apprehension, it does not seem that any of his relatives considered it advisable to state who was in the midst of them.After effecting a very clever warehouse robbery, in which silk goods were the principal booty, Peace appears to have then considered that his proximity to Sheffield was dangerous, and he again changed his abode.Thus it will be seen that the Sheffield authorities were correct when they stated that they had traced the man to Hull, but there had lost sight of him.It was believed that he had escaped to the Continent. But not so; the fox had “doubled,” and in the Midland Counties, with Nottingham for his centre, was continuing his depreciations.On reaching London some four or five months after the murder, he was not very well off for money, and he took up his residence in Lambeth.The police in charge of this district then became aware that night after night the most audacious depredations were committed in the district.There was scarcely a night passed but a burglary was announced, and in as even a succession the statement followed that the thieves had not been caught.The value of the booty thus secured was exceedingly great, and the thieves—​for they were then believed to be a gang—​were said to be well rewarded for their audacity.But the place appears to have become too hot for him, and he then removed to Greenwich, where he occupied a beautiful house, and commenced to furnish it in a most expensive manner.Whatever Peace failed in, it was not in the want of self-assurance and the belief that he could pass through society as a gentleman.Though he had repulsive features he appears to have had winning ways in the eyes of some, for he now appears to have decided on engaging a lady to share his improving fortunes.This “lady” may perhaps figure elsewhere shortly, and her name will then be found in the police record. But the establishment could not be kept up without “means,” and again came the last resort.Peace had described himself to the new sphere of respectable neighbours—​among whom he now moved—​as a “gentleman of independent means,” and he was looked up to as one who had done well in the world.We have endeavoured, throughout this strange eventful history, to place before the reader the leading and most noticeable circumstances connected with the career of this sinful man. After his arrest for the burglary and attempted murder of Police-constable Robinson, there was but little chance of his escaping conviction for the Bannercross murder, but there are many who have attributed his identification and subsequent conviction upon the grave charge to the jealousy of a woman, as will be seen by the following extract from a journal of the time.It has been remarked by ancient as well as by modern writers that wherever there is a piece of outrageous mischief there is sure to be a woman at the bottom of it.The experience of the present civilised age does not present any instances to the contrary, but rather strengthens the opinions previously held. Charles Peace was clever in one thing, that he knew his “profession” and succeeded in it so long as he did it “single-handed;” but when he obtained a partner, like many others who have preceded him, his fortunes, though apparently improving, were really on the decrease.Whilst in Nottingham—​and this only happened within a month after the murder of Mr. Dyson—​he succeeded in securing to himself the affections of a young female relative.This young “lady” followed him through his many hazardous adventures until at length the two were in Lambeth, where they occupied a decent house, and to all intents and purposes were a well-conducted pair—​the lady being slightly younger than her husband, but as “Mr. Johnson” was well-to-do it was supposed that there had been a marriage of love.Business in Lambeth proved of a paying character, although those who did the paying were not always aware of the fact until before banking hours in the morning—​when the news was brought to their bedroom doors by the earliest risers in the house.On removing to Greenwich, Peace was accompanied by the young lady who had followed his fortunes, although she might not know the whole of his crimes and there were again commenced the robberies which, have made his name so notorious in the criminal annals of the country.Peace resumed his business; as he had not to press sales on the market he did not care what came to his hand, and being well versed in the legerdemain of the light-fingered fraternity he obtained access to the mansions of the rich around him, and their loss was his gain.As the aristocrats in his neighbourhood became more indignant, he became more pious, and his immediate neighbours, whilst looking out for the midnight thieves, relied somewhat on his perception and assurances that nothing would be wrong.But all this time there was in Peace’s well-furnished household a young woman who had been misled and wronged.She had been led to believe that Peace, with whom she had associated in Nottingham, was a steady, hardworking man. Peace had given to her a number of costly goods, he was to her a man of sterling honesty, and then it transpired that he was a burglar.Then came her time of trial.The man with whom she was associated was a thief, a burglar, and more than that—​and she knew it.He was a murderer.But what could she do? It was this man upon whom she was dependent for a subsistence—​it was this man who had committed murder once, and whom she knew would not hesitate to commit it again.So she helped to get rid of the goods which were brought by his nightly marauds, and like other sensible people who are in a mess, she held her peace.But when Peace and this housekeeper had got to the new home at Peckham, “a cloud came o’er the scene,” and the cloud was a woman.This “cloud” took up her residence in the house of Mr. Peace—​otherwise “Johnson,” by which latter cognomen he was well known—​and then commenced the beginning of the end.The first victim of Peace’s duplicity dared not speak, and the second admirer of him dared not—​so between the rivals the burglar had a fair chance of bidding for favouritism.But when the last “throw” came from the dice-box of criminal ingenuity and the thrower lost, there were left in the house in Peckham a couple of rivals.One, the latest comer, “realised,” and the older and much-injured one gave information which resulted in the disclosures which had now been made public.By the aid of “the first love” valuable goods were traced to Nottingham and others to Sheffield.She told the detectives where to work and where tofind, and she disclosed the name of her rival, Mrs. Thompson, who was asked to give her address.Charles Peace, as we have had occasion to observe before, was by no means a man of retiring character, but in respect to audacity and assurance he was certainly able to hold his own with any of those great criminals in whose footsteps he so long and persistently followed. It must, however, be admitted that there was one bright spot in his character.It was this: after his arrest and conviction he strove by every means in his power to prove the innocence of his wife.It is certain that he only sought to become acquainted with those who were, in his estimation, likely to be useful to him in an emergency, and this statement has been fully borne out by the latest phase of the case.A gentleman in Sheffield some years ago bestowed some favours on a member of the miscreant’s family, and his name and address had been treasured up, with a view to still further calls upon the benevolence that was once exercised in his behalf.The gentleman in question was infinitely surprised one morning to receive a letter, which was directed in an unknown hand.Tearing open the cover he saw a mass of cramped and crooked lines, which ran higgledy-piggledy over the paper, and showed that the hand which had written them might have been more familiar with the “jemmy” and the skeleton key than with the pen.A further consideration of the document revealed that the author was either a most illiterate man, or that, to suit his own purpose, he would fain appear to be such.The simple rules of grammar were set at defiance, and the attempts to decipher the letter were so painful that it would have been tossed impatiently aside had not the eye been caught by the signature, “Charles Peace or Ward.”The gentleman at once made all efforts to decipher the letter, which was from no other person than the notorious Bannercross murderer, who was at that time in Newgate.The purport of the letter was to supplicate the receiver to become bail for Mrs. Peace, who for some time had been in custody in consequence of the vast quantity of stolen property found in her possession by Inspectors Phillips and Twibell.He coolly went on to ask that counsel should be obtained for her defence, and declared that his wife had no guilty knowledge when she received the goods, but that he forwarded them to her in order that she might convert them into money to supply her needs.He again and again with some vehemence asserted that Mrs. Peace was an innocent woman, and that the misfortunes into which she had fallen were not attributable to any fault of her own.It was much to Peace’s credit that he thus endeavoured to exculpate his wife, and it is pleasant to record this one good trait in his otherwise debased and odious character; but he made a fatal mistake in forming a connection with the other lady of his establishment.Mrs. Thompson (who may be known by some by the name of Susan Gray), the woman with whom Peace was living at the time of his arrest for the Blackheath burglaries, made a long statement as to her own career, and her connection with our hero.As this forms part of the history of the notorious criminal the reader would be in no way pleased by our suppressing it.The following is a tolerably accurate description of her personal appearance.In person she is tall, and considerably above the middle height. Her figure is not robust. Her complexion is fair, and was no doubt at one time good. Her hair is dark and plentiful, and her eyes of a deep blue, what is known as a violet hue.Mrs. Thompson, at the time I saw her, was dressed in a brown robe, trimmed with velvet to match; and wore a cloth jacket and round hat, becoming and neat. Both of these articles she removed in the course of conversation.Her manner was at first frank and agreeable, but as our interview lasted it changed to a fitful moroseness, which was difficult to deal with. Both in person and in manner Mrs. Thompson may be said to be decidedly prepossessing—​what may be called a taking woman.She is manifestly a fairly well-educated woman, and writes a pretty, ladylike Italian hand. The statement she made to me in answer to questions and in course of conversation was as follows:—​MRS. THOMPSON’S PERSONAL HISTORY.My maiden name is Susan Gray, and I was born in the year 1842, at Nottingham. My parents are very respectable people, and carry on a small business in that town. I am heartily sorry to have brought this disgrace upon them.In my childhood I went to various schools in Nottingham—​to the Trinity School when I was a youngster, when I was also picked out as a singer in the choir.I continued to attend the Trinity Schools until I was eight or nine years of age, when my parents removed me to the College School.There I remained until I was fourteen, when I went out to work.I should not like to state where I was employed, as it might give pain to persons living, but there are those alive who know that this statement is true.After I left my first situation I stayed at home and assisted my father in his business as his bookkeeper.When I was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old, a Mr. Bailey one day came for purposes of business to my father’s house.He had occasion to see my handwriting, and asked me if I would make out some bills for him. I obliged him, and from that day I kept his books, and did all the writing he required.One day he asked me if I would marry him, and, in a spirit of vexation, I having had some little disturbance with a brother of mine, I said “Yes.”We were married on the 10th of October, 1872, but three months after that I left him, on finding out what was his true character, and that it would be impossible for me to live happily with him.I went next to live with my married sister at Nottingham.I then worked for my living, employing my time in the manufacture of caps such as ladies and servants wear.One Sunday evening, perhaps six months afterwards, as I was going to chapel, I met Bailey again. He stopped and spoke to me, and finally induced me to return to live with him.I stayed with him for nearly a year, when I again left him, and since that time I have not spoken to him, except to obtain from him a weekly allowance, which I continued to enjoy until I met the man Peace, but on my becoming connected with him that allowance was forfeited.HER FIRST MEETING PEACE.I met Peace in January, 1877, I think it was. He came to the house where I was living at Nottingham about that time.One evening, just as I was returning from work, when I entered the house, I saw him there. I shall never forget the impression he made upon me.I thought him of very singular appearance, and, from what I saw at first sight, I had reason to believe that he was a one-armed man; but that appearance was only the result of one of his tricks and deceptions.When I went in he said to the landlady, “Is this your daughter?”I was not living with my sister then. I had left home, and had not spoken to any of my family for a long time.In answer to Peace’s question, my landlady, after some hesitation, gave an affirmative reply.Some conversation in subdued tones then took place between Peace and my landlady. I ought to have said that this occurred in a house in a district known as “The Marsh,” at Nottingham—​a very low neighbourhood indeed. Peace had brought my landlady some boxes of cigars for sale.She said to him, in reference to myself, “You can speak before her; she won’t say anything.”Peace then asked her if she would go and see if she could sell the cigars.This woman, who is since dead, was an accomplice of his, and used to assist him in the disposal of stolen property. Her name was Adamson.She thereupon went out and sold them, and when she returned gave him 18s., of which sum he returned her 6s.by way of commission.After that he became a constant visitor, and we always spoke of him as the one-armed old man. He not unfrequently had there his breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper, and at last it became known to me what his real character was.At first he gave out that he was a hawker, and dealt in various little articles such as pedlars invariably travel with—​spectacles, cheap finery, and jewellery, and miscellaneous goods of that description.At last he openly showed himself in his true character—​I mean as a most daring burglar. He brought things into the house which it must be evident to anybody were stolen property.There were articles of silver plate, timepieces, watches, and even quantities of tea, sugar, and other perishable articles.I do not know at all where he got these from; but I am perfectly satisfied that they were the proceeds of robberies or burglaries.This knowledge was kept from me at first. I was led to suppose he was what he seemed to be—​viz., a hawker, and a quiet, respectable man.On one occasion he went out of town, saying he had to go and see his mother at Hull. By his mother he meant Hannah Peace.Peace on that occasion took £5 to Mrs. Ward at Hull, and stayed there three weeks.During that time he committed several robberies either at Hull or in the neighbourhood.I know that to be the case, because when I have been in Hull he has shown me the houses at which the burglaries were committed, and he also told me that on one occasion he had to run for it, when he “fired wide” at a policeman by whom he was in imminent danger of being captured.The property was disposed of in Hull. He returned after a while to Nottingham. I was out at the time of his return, having business in the evening, for I was still at work and getting my own living in an honest way. I was not earning very much, for work was short, but still it was honest.On this particular night, on my return home, Mrs. Adamson said to me, “Oh, Mrs. Bailey, who do you think has come back?”I replied I did not know, to which she made answer, “Why, the one-armed old man, and he has asked for you. He swears he will shoot you unless you go to him.”He was in the house of our next-door neighbour, and previously to that the lady of the house came in, and said, “Oh, Mrs. Bailey, do come in, the old man’s gone mad; he wants to see you so bad. He won’t be satisfied with anyone until you go.”When I went in I found him “drunk on Irish whiskey.”He said, “Is that you, pet (for by that name he used to call me), I am so glad you have come, where have you been?”I told him I had just come in from business.He said, “Oh, I am so glad you have come. I thought you were never coming back. Are you not pleased to see me?”I said, “Oh, particularly, very; I like you so much.”People must not think by that that I loved him, or because he said in his last letter to me that I did. I got him home, and made him a cup of tea, after which he seemed better.He went back to the place where he was then residing, for he did not, as I have already said, live in the house with me.The following day he came to me very early. That day I was rather short of work.He said he was sorry he had been in such a bad way and had behaved so rudely. He next asked me to stay at home for the day.I said “No, that would not do. I should lose my work.”“Never mind that,” said he. He reckoned up how much I was earning, and said, “Look here, darling! If you will promise me not to go to work again, I will pay for your board and lodging. And if Mrs. Adamson likes, I will give her 14s.a week for my board, and come and stay, but not sleep here.”There was no accommodation for him in the house. Eventually my better feelings were overruled, and I submitted myself to him. He was invariably very kind to me, and I did not live with him unhappily.I knew that he made a living on the proceeds of burglaries which he committed, but I never had any of the goods so stolen; and my dresses were bought for me by him.He said one day he would have given me a splendid ostrich feather, but he had not got them, because the woman of the house at which he used to lodge would not give them up.I said “It is very strange if you have things where you used to lodge and cannot get them if you don’t owe them anything.”He replied “Never mind; I will buy you one.”One Monday night he brought home a black silk dress, polonaise, and a long jacket, which he said he thought would fit me.I told him I did not wear such things. He offered to buy me some like them, but this offer I also declined.If I remember rightly, these things were the proceeds of a burglary at Hull, and I believe they have been given up to the police. I have since worn dresses that were stolen, but they have all been given up now to the police.Mrs. Adamson went with him one day to look at a pawnbroker’s shop, into which she wanted him one night to force an entry, but the project never came to a head.I believe he thought the premises whereon was so much valuable property were pretty sure to be watched.Mrs. Adamson would have found means of getting rid of the spoil, but he never did enter the place.I would rather not mention the name of the street in which the shop was situated.After that he committed a great cloth robbery at one of the factories, and in the course of a week he went again and stole a great number of coats.He brought several rolls of cloth and the coats to Mrs. Adamson, who disposed of a great portion of the property to persons whom one would have thought to be of unblemished respectability.In June, 1877, Mrs. Adamson wanted some blankets, and Peace said he could get her any amount.He went to get some, or, at any rate, to try, but was detected in the act of entering the house.He made his escape through a stable and through a woodyard.Resistance was offered by a man on the premises, but Peace pulled out his revolver and threatened to shoot him; and the man, intimidated, let him get clear away.PEACE’S FLIGHT FROM NOTTINGHAM.After that he was constantly concerned in robberies until the occasion of the great silk robbery, for the perpetrator of which £50 reward was offered. That was just before we came to London.The silk was disposed of by Mrs. Adamson, and the detectives came to her house two or three days after. Ward, as I then called him, and I were sitting together. We were living together you know, sir, then——the fact is we were in bed together. I was asleep, but the noise the officers made on entering awoke me.I said, “Oh, Mr. G.,” that is the name of the officer who first entered the room. He stood astonished when he saw me. “Oh, Mr. G.,” I said, “let me get out of this.”He said, “I am surprised to see you, Mrs. Bailey.”The men turned to the convict Peace and said to him, “What is your name?”“John Ward,” was the rather sullen reply.“What do you do for a living?” the officer next asked.“I hawk spectacles.”“Where is your licence?”“I will show it to you when I come down.”“Get up and dress,” said one of the officers.“I shan’t before you,” was the reply, in the same sullen tone and manner, “but I will be down directly.” They went downstairs, leaving Ward in the room.I said to Peace, “Let me go out,” whereupon he permitted me to leave the room, and went to my next-door neighbour’s, where I was very much hurt indeed at the thought of what had happened.They asked me what was the matter, and I said, “I do not know.”No sooner had I left the room, than Peace slipped on his clothes, and made his escape through the window, squeezing himself between two iron bars which I am sure were not more than six or eight inches apart.He ran across the road into the house of a neighbour, whom he got to fetch his boots for him, the detectives being at the time in the house waiting for him to come downstairs.At last one of them shouted out, “Come, young man, you are a long time coming.”No answer being returned, a move was made upstairs; the door was thrust open, and the discovery made that the bird had flown.Away from the neighbour’s house he went to the Trent side, where he walked for a considerable distance.When he considered himself safe from recognition, he entered a public-house, where he gave a man 1s.and a note for me.The note was one asking me to go to him at the place where he was staying, but I declined, and the daughter of the house where I was living went to see him in my stead.I sent him some money by her, and the answer he made me was that he did not care for all the detectives in England; that he would not lose sight of me; that he would not go away from the place without me.I belonged, he said, to him, and he would not leave the neighbourhood without me.He sent yet again, and then I met him by appointment in the evening time, and from that time we have always been together.We came to London together, and took apartments in the Lambeth district, where he began again that career of crime which has made him so notorious.But here again his character to the outside world was the same as it had ever been.Though he was always regarded as a passionate man, he was at the same time looked upon as quiet, peaceable, and inoffensive, and in the highest degree respectable.As a performer upon the violin he was anything but a mean proficient. He mixed very little with his neighbours, to my knowledge, in this locality, and but little was known of that wonderful fund of ingenuity which he undoubtedly possessed.Often and often have I said to him what a pity it was that he had not turned his abilities to a better account than for the purpose of committing depredations upon the property of his fellow-creatures; but though his manner to me was kind, he would always jeer and scoff at my rebukes.It would be utterly impossible for me to enumerate all the robberies he has committed. He has told me at times of his having been into as many as four and even six houses in a single night, sometimes with success, and sometimes, of course, without.During the day it was his custom to remain in bed, preparing himself for his work in the following evening, when he would regularly go out upon his housebreaking exploits.Sometimes he came in with a great deal of valuable plunder, consisting chiefly of silver and gold watches, rings, and various other articles. After a while I became tired of living at apartments. Some of his friends from Darnall used to stay there.We only had one room, though it was comfortable and nicely furnished; and as I did not think it decent for them to come and live with us, I insisted upon Peace providing me with a home that I could call my own; and as he was uniformly good to me at that time, and gave me nearly everything that I asked, he promised that I should have one.He had just previously committed a great robbery, and he asked me if I would take some money for him to some friends of his at a distance, as he dared not write letters. I consented to this, and several times I took money for him to Hull.Hannah was living in that town at the time, and kept a shop there. I particularly wish that fact to be stated. Several times I took money to Hull, and never less than £5 at a time. Often I took a great deal more.MRS. PEACE GOES TO LONDON.One Sunday evening a knock came at the door at the house where we lived at Lambeth. I answered the door; and saw before me a little elderly woman.“Does Mrs. Thompson live here?” she asked.I replied, “Yes.”She then said that she was Hannah.I called to Peace and said, “Jack, you’re wanted.”“Who is it?” he asked.“Come and see,” I replied.He did, and he found to his surprise, I believe, that it was Hannah.“What brought you here?” he asked.I interrupted jocosely with the remark, “I suppose the train.”Hannah, however, said, “Didn’t you get my letter? I have been waiting two hours on the look out for you.”I said, “We received no letter. There is no delivery here on a Sunday morning.”Jack said, “Come in,” and she came in. Having looked round our apartment, she said, “You have a nice place here.”Jack asked her if she would have some supper.She replied in the affirmative, and this I had to get ready. She then began to talk about his friends and of the people whom they both knew, and I learned in the course of conversation that the shop at Hull had been given up, and that she had realised the proceeds.Peace asked my permission to have Mrs. Ward and the boy Willie in London.I could not do otherwise than consent, and eventually they came.Shortly after their arrival we moved to a house at Greenwich, but as we did not live comfortable in the same house, we moved into separate habitations adjoining each other, Mrs. Ward and her son living in one, and I and Peace in the other.Whilst we were living in this manner Peace made a journey into the provinces—​a thing which he now very seldom did. Whilst upon this excursion he committed a great burglary at Southampton.The police say that the affair took place at Portsea, but I know better; it was at Southampton. By this robbery Peace cleared something like £200—​£60 of the money being in gold and silver, and the remainder in Bank of England notes.These he found no difficulty in getting rid of. There is a place, I am told, where all Bank of England notes can be disposed of without inquiries being made, but I do not feel justified in stating where it is. That is reserved for the Bank of England authorities.It was upon the proceeds of that excursion that he started his pony and trap, the expenses of maintaining which he found to be great.In the first place we had no stable accommodation connected with the house we occupied. This had to be paid for, and the cost of the food for the pony was again a very considerable item.One day I said to him:“I don’t like this neighbourhood; let us remove from here and get where there is a stable connected with the house.”He told me he had seen a place in the Evalina-road, Peckham, and if I would put my things on we would go and see it, which we did.We inquired next door as to who was the agent or the landlord of the house, and the lady whom we saw kindly referred us to Mr. Smith. We looked over the house, which we both liked very much. Smith and Peace came to an agreement as to the building of a stable.When Smith asked for references, Peace said to him:“Oh, come down and see my house.”Smith did so, dined with us, and went away perfectly satisfied, for a few days afterwards we received a note to say that the house was at our disposal.Shortly afterwards we removed to the houseNo.5, East Terrace, Evalina-road, Peckham, where my troubles commenced.Mrs. Ward and the boy Willie came to live in the same house with myself and Peace, and her presence occasioned much trouble between us. When we were settled, Peace began his system of robberies again.Oh! many a time have I, by my tears and by my entreaties, kept that man at home.I was not allowed to move from the house without either one or the other being with me; but though they were so afraid of me, I should never have breathed a syllable against them.I have been threatened, and he latterly at times ill-used me.I have had a pistol pointed at my head and more than once he has threatened to kill me. Peace used occasionally to ill-use Hannah cruelly, and in a way I shudder to think about.On one occasion he threatened me because I had pawned a silk dress, and he was afraid that it might be traced.Racked by jealousy, a prey to remorse, and the object of constant suspicion, is it to be wondered that I at last took to drinking?In this respect Peace was again indulgent, for though he jealously guarded me when I went out, at home I could have what I liked, and with drink I deadened my senses, and fled from my shame and despair.Peace, as a rule, went out nightly, unless he got a good haul, when he would stop at home for a night or two.What I call a “good haul” was when he was able to show me plenty of jewellery and silver-plate. I have know him bring home sixty-six ounces at a time. His method of procedure being this: he used to be driven of an evening to within a certain distance of the house where he intended to “work.”If the nights were light, Peace used to be concealed all night and return home, say, between six and seven o’clock in the morning, when some one would go out and meet him.He was very good to his horse, for I should like people to give him his due; and it was only occasionally that he worked it hard.He often went to his destination by train or by tram, and some one would go with the trap to meet him at the hour and place appointed. When he has come home haggard and black, as I have often seen him, he has said to me, “Well, pet, have you not got a smile for me?”According as he had been successful, or the reverse, he would say, “Well, I have not done much, my girl or, “I have done pretty well;” and then he would proceed to sort out the property, preparatory to its disposal.I have seen him shake his head sometimes over the proceeds of the night’s takings, and say, “I don’t think they will fetch much.” Then he would tell me of his struggles and his escapes, and the number of houses he had been into.Once he told me that, in order to get a gold watch and chain from under a lady’s pillow, he had to shift her position slightly.The lady, he told me, muttered something fond, and turned over to her husband, whom she believed to have been the cause of the very slight disturbance occasioned.Peace abstracted the watch and chain, and came away. I verily believe that, when such adventures occurred to him, he used to come back sick at heart, for, notwithstanding the profession which he followed, and the fact that he had always firearms which he would not have hesitated to use had he been disturbed, he was generally very kind to me, and I am sure he felt such things.Now, as to the disposal of the property. If it was valuable, he used to send for those persons who bought of him, and obtain for them such a sum of money as he required.I am not at liberty to say who those persons were, but Peace used to swear that if ever he was taken he would do for them, and confess as to his accomplices, but I hope I shall not be mixed up in that affair.I always told him he would go to Blackheath once too often. I cannot say more than the persons to whom he disposed of the property were Jews.Two I know of, certainly, and they will “Jew” me, I expect, if they get hold of me. One day I went with him while he disposed of some property.He used to take the property wrapped up like drapers’ parcels—​innocent and unsuspicious-looking enough. He used to treat me with great kindness when Mrs. Ward was nowhere about.He seemed to be never so happy as when he could get me alone. We occupied the drawing-room floor, using the front room as a sitting-room and the back as a bedroom, the breakfast-room below being my private sitting-room or boudoir, and the rest of the house being devoted to our lodgers.The care of Peace’s animals, of which, by the way, he was extremely fond, devolved upon myself.It would be as well, I think, to say what they were, as the collection was heterogenous.There were ten guinea pigs, every one of which I gave away when he was taken; a goat, two cats, two Maltese terriers, and a cockatoo; and in addition to these, Mrs. Ward kept a Maltese dog, a parrot, a dog, and four pigeons.When Peace went out at night to work he always took with him a revolver, a “jemmy,” a sharp knife, and various-sized screws wherewith to fasten the doors of rooms in which he was “working,” so as to ensure his being able to thoroughly ransack them without being disturbed; but he never took skeleton keys, for he was so skilful that he would take out the panel of a door almost noiselessly and with great rapidity.When the police caught him they caught the cleverest thief and the cleverest beast that I should think there ever was in human form.Here, Mrs. Thompson, as I shall continue to call her (that being the name by which she is best known), produced to me an old pair of Peace’s trousers.In addition to the usual side pockets, they were fitted with pockets behind on a level with the hip, and in these receptacles he used, she told me, to stow away his revolver, and whatever instruments he had to take with him.The inside of the trousers on the left-hand side was filled with a piece of oilskin or glazed cloth, to prevent the iron from chafing the burglar’s skin.Mrs. Thompson also showed me how, by turning in his left foot and by bending up his make-believe arm towards his shoulder, the little man used to assume deformity.I also obtained from her a description of a burglar’s stick, as she called it, which Peace found useful in climbing, and an instrument still more remarkable which, she said he possessed, as a kind of portable step ladder of seventeen steps, which he was able to fold into so small a compass that he could go out with it underneath his coat without attracting attention.It was provided with hooks, for the purpose of fastening to walls and window ledges, but she said he never used it, owing, I suppose, to the fact that it was a clumsy apparatus to affix noiselessly.After that she continued her narrative as follows:—Peace never went out without leaving me with a revolver which, I dare say, I should have the courage to use had occasion presented. He had four revolvers altogether, and the three he left at home I destroyed, when I found he had been taken. Yes, as you suggest, I sank them. When he came to London he ceased to appear as a one-armed man, except in the presence of a man whose name I will not mention.PEACE’S CAPTURE—​DISPOSAL OF PROPERTY.When we saw in the papers that he had been taken Mrs. Ward cried out, “Oh, my poor Charlie—​my poor Charlie! I must go—​I dare not stay here; Willie, you must go too.”I then asked her, “And what is to become of me then?”“Oh,” she said, “You are young; you can fight your own battle.”She was for selling everything, but I objected to my furniture being sold, as I thought I might be able to get a living by letting apartments.My rooms were well furnished, though I had no carpets, and Jack bought every stick that was in them. We divided all the money that was in the house, about £5, and sold the trap, harness, cushions, and rug for £8, though he had given £14 for the trap alone.It does not matter to whom they were sold, because the man who bought them did not know at that time that we were other than very respectable people, and I should not like to expose him as having had dealings with us.Hannah took all the moveables. We divided the ready money, and parted.I was very firm about the furniture, which Jack said he had bought to be my own. If I liked, he said, he would buy me more.I was to have had a piano on the 14th December last, as a birthday present.Heigho! I cannot help feeling that I have made a great mistake. It has blotted my life; but there, I am not going to be sentimental any more. I am not a sentimental sort.Mrs. Thompson then went on to state that when she found herself quite alone she had applied to a gentleman who had befriended her, and through whom she received the following letter from the wretched man in prison:—“From John Ward,“A prisoner inH.M.Prison, Newgate,November 5, 1878.“My dearly beloved Wife,“Oh! do forgive me for what I have brought on myself, and the disgrace upon you. Oh! have mercy on me all of you, and do forgive me for my drunken madness and do all you can for me on my trial, which I think will be about the 18th November, so, my dear wife, do have pity upon me and do your very best for me, for I think that you may do me a great deal of good, that is by doing just as I tell you to do. You must go and tell Mr. —— that I do very much want to see him at once about him coming to speak as to my character. I want to see Mr. —— to see if he will come to speak for me, and I want you to go with Mr. —— to Mr. —— to see if he will come forward to speak to my dealing with him in musical instruments, and tell him that I only want him to come forward and speak the truth of me. My dear wife, you must also find everyone of my letters about my income, and also every invoice about my dealing in musical instruments, and give them to Mr. —— for him to take along with his letters to my solicitor, now, at once, and also let them have some of my cards. My darling dear wife, this must really be attended to at once.“My dear wife, I feel that there is one great favour, that this has been my first offence, and never having been in prison before, so that by your doing your best for me, and with the help of God, hope it may be better for me than may be expected, and as soon as ever this comes to your hands you must come direct to see me, and never mind the disgrace of your having come to see me in a prison, for I must really see you, so do come to see me, and I want to see my solicitor for something very particular, so that you must tell him to come and see me, and give my dear love to Mr. and Mrs. —— and also to my dear friends.“I am, your ever loving husband,“(Signed)John Ward.”This gentleman, as Mrs. Thompson further went on to state, had been engaged with Peace in the getting out of a patent for raising sunken vessels. To him she applied when Peace was taken, she stating that he had left her and gone off with another woman.He took her into his house, and under his persuasion she disclosed what she knew of him—​not, she said, for her own protection, for she would willingly have been taken herself, but because it was represented to her that she must forward the ends of justice.I then tried to obtain from her some particulars of the past life of Peace, but as to these she was extremely reticent.“How did he really escape on the night of the murder?” I asked.Mrs. Thompson replied—“I have never breathed this to any one. I have had people try and try, and try over again.“According to what he has told me, he climbed over a wall opposite Mr. Dyson’s house, and walked deliberately over a field.“He has told me the name, but I do not remember. I got a lot out of him through his dreams, but he never told me he had committed murder. He said it was something else he had to run away for.“He went direct to his aunt’s house. Having first cut off his beard, he dressed himself in a fustian suit, and went across country, committing little depredations to help him on his journey, for he had no money until he arrived at Bradford.“He did not personate a one-armed man then; that device he did not carry into effect until he was at Hull. He took a room at Bradford and kept two women there, who used to assist him in burglaries.He has often boasted to me of his achievements in that town and others, and he seemed to find a particular sort of pride in the fact that in one case it took him and one of his accomplices three days to remove some things from a furnished house which the tenants had temporarily left, and which, so far as articles of value were concerned, he literally cleared out.“He has told me a good deal about his earlier career, but I can’t recall it to mind just now. First of all, he told me he was a sort of worker in the iron trade; that ever since he was fourteen he was a thief. Sometime between 1852 and 1854 he resided with Mrs. Peace at Manchester. He was brooght up for trial on a charge of burglary about that time, and Mrs. Peace had to sell the things in the house they lived in—​most of them being stolen—​to procure him professional advice upon his trial. He was committed for seven years, and while he was in prison he communicated with her, and always know of her whereabouts.“He managed to write more than the police officials knew of, for he had a way of pasting up his letters which he has shown me. When he had regained his liberty, which he told me was in 1858, he rejoined Hannah and resumed his old courses. When he went out on his exploits he wore stockings over his boots to conceal his footmarks.”Mrs. Thompson made various other statements respecting the notorious man who was the subject of our conversation, but they were not calculated to add much to the existing stock of information concerning him.Either she did not know much of Peace before she went to live with him, or she did not care to make any disclosures; but, as our interview lasted for something over five hours, she must have been tired and her memory confused.No.84.Illustration: A MOTHER SEEKING HER SONA MOTHER SEEKING HER SON IN THE THIEVES’ KITCHEN.I was not such a barbarian as not to have offered her some refreshment during that period. She took it in the form of steak and onions, rinsed down with brandy and water.“When we parted we were the best friends in the world; she shook me warmly by the hand, and her last remark was, “I have my own character to redeem, and if I have my health and strength I hope to do it.”The foregoing is a faithful chronicle of the account given by the woman Thompson.We have on more than one occasion given the reader an insight of the mode in which Peace disposed of his stolen property. He did not, however, confine his business transactions in this respect to one receiver, or “fence.”This has been already demonstrated. He had several confederates to whom he disposed of the goods he had so dexterously purloined, but in most cases he had to part with them at what drapers are accustomed to term “a ruinous sacrifice.”This is invariably the case with burglars and robbers of every description. The receiver has always the best of the bargain.The property must be got rid of, and this the “fence” knows perfectly well.Peace, in addition to the two other Israelites already introduced to the reader had a Petticoat-lane confederate, who during his London career bought largely of him. This personage was interviewed by one of the special correspondents of the press. We subjoin a graphic account of his visit.“That’s my name, and you’re quite right about my keeping a tobacco shop in this lane, and about my buying and selling ’most all kinds of old stores.”This was the reply given to a comprehensive interrogatory addressed by a Sheffield reporter to a middle-aged keeper of a public-house in Petticoat-lane, whose name indicated that he was “of the order of Melchisedeck,” and who, rumour said, knew something of the manner in which the convict Peace had invested some of the money it is supposed he must have been possessed of shortly before his arrest.If the police with their finished machinery and well-trained inquisitors have been able to discover nothing, it was hardly to be expected that the astute Hebrew dealer would allow himself to be trapped into any prejudicial admissions by a newspaper emissary, even though he was simply charged with the high and philanthropic duty of affording that dealer opportunity for clearing from his character aspersions which had been unjustly cast upon it.Having informed the “old stores” man of the charitable nature of his mission, said the “special”:—“Now, I suppose you never knew or had any dealings with Peace?”“Me, dealings with Peace! Why, I never heard or seen ’im, except when I was bound over to keep it for six months, ’cause I give a cove a knock in the eye.”At this sally the rowdy-looking congregation in the bar who had evinced a lively interest in the interview, delivered themselves of a unanimous guffaw. The special smiled blandly, and went on:“I suppose you have seen what the papers have been saying about your supposed connection with Peace?”“Oh, yes; I’ve seen it all. It’s all wrong. I’m quite innocent o’ this thing. Besides, it aint nothing to do with me. It aint me they mean. It’s the other man with the same name that keeps the ‘knell’ down the lane. If they wrote about me I should ’a took it up; but as they didn’t, I shall not trouble about it.”“Glad to find you’re so clear of this nasty business; but have you heard much about the rumours here in the lane?”“No; nothing except what there’s bin in the newspapers.”“Ah! then I think I’ll call on the man at the ‘knell,’ and hear what he’s got to say.”“Yes, that’ll be ’sgood a thing as you can do,” said the store dealer; and as the special passed the threshold sounds of merry cachinnation reached him from the idlers at the bar.Trudging through the snow-slush, with pipe in mouth as an antidote to the many-flavoured, fever-charged atmosphere, the interviewer in a few minutes found himself outside the “knell.”The proprietor having been inquired for, he was summoned from upstairs, and in about five minutes presented himself. He was a very young man. He was in his shirt sleeves.He was short, but had good shoulders and breadth of chest, and his face, which had a puffiness betokening free application to the pewter pot, was adorned with a nose off one side of which the skin had been almost entirely scraped. A smile was as foreign to him apparently as vegetation to an iceberg.The interviewer made no attempt to smile upon this young and promising vendor of Old Tom. He did not make another.There was not the remotest smirk of sympathy or approbation in the countenance of hisvis-à-vis.He listened stoically to a few introductory original observations by the special, such as, “Very unexpected fall of snow this.”“Quite an old-fashioned winter.”“Spring will soon be here now, though.”But on learning the nature of the caller’s business he was no longer passive.His eyes brightened and jumped a bit, and he became loquacious, but continued cynical.“I haven’t got nothing to say about the matter. All I know is that I don’t know nothing about Peace or about his money, or his loan society, or anything else. Besides, the newspapers know all about the case already. If they knows s’much, what do they want to send to me about it for?”“Well, the fact is,” answered the special, “the function of a newspaper is to put the public in possession of reliable information. Reports which compromise your honour have been given currency, and although minute inquiry has been made no particle of foundation has been found for them. What I want is to get hold of the facts necessary to put the publicau courantwith things as they really are, and at the same time afford a much-injured party a means of retrieving his good name.”The short man with the broad shoulders, stuck his hands in his breeches pockets, spread his legs, swung his head to and fro, lifted his eyelashes, and remarked, “Ah! you do—​do you?”Then he turned round to his wife and inquired of her in surly tones why she had called him down, and muttered something to her not at all complimentary to newspaperdom or its labourers.“Well, look here, Mister. I don’t care for what the newspapers say. Let ’em find out what they can. I aint got nothin’ to say. All I knows is that if the papers says anything about me they’ll be sorry for it, that’s all.”“Ah! but they have done so already. They have mentioned both your name and that of your house.”“Well, what if they have? What good have they done?” rejoined the innkeeper, and then he continued, “I’ve been bothered enough over this matter already, and I don’t want to be bothered any more.” So saying he left the special in dudgeon.The rumours which have been afloat anent Peace’s confederates in Petticoat-lane have been sufficiently weighty to justify a descent by the police on the houses of the suspected parties.Nothing criminating was, however, forthcoming, and the probability is that, wanting divulgence by Peace, the public will remain ignorant what has become of whatever money he has stored.Inspired by the extraordinary statements circulated at this time as to the enormous amount of property alleged to have been disposed of by Peace, and by the reported “finds” of hidden spoil in London, theDaily Telegraphwrites:—“For a precedent to the curious museum of plunder now in police custody at Bethnal-green we must go back to the days of that very eminent ‘fence,’ Jonathan Wild.“The real character of this remarkable scoundrel has been unfortunately obscured, first in Fielding’s masterly ‘Jonathan Wild the Great,’ which is fundamentally a satire upon the statesmen of his time; and next in Mr. Ainsworth’s foolish and mischievous romance of ‘Jack Sheppard.’“We must peruse the straightforward and dispassionate Old Bailey sessions papers to study Jonathan in his true aspect as a cunning, adroit, and not ill-educated rascal, who first reduced robbing to a system, and organised a detailed scheme for receiving and disposing of stolen goods.“He started in business on a very small scale as the landlord of a little alehouse in Cock-alley, Cripplegate, where he surreptitiously purchased the ‘takings’ of the juvenile pickpockets from Moorfields.“At night he would perambulate the brandy shops of Fleet-street, and traffic with the women who had contrived to rob drunken people of their watches or pocket-books.“Growing bolder with success, it is on positive criminal record that he convened a meeting at his house of the most notorious thieves in London, and represented to them that if they took their booty to such of the pawnbrokers as were known not to be troubled with scruples of conscience, they—​the thieves—​would scarcely receive a fifth of the value of the goods which they had stolen; whereas if they could agree to bring their prizes to him he would make much more liberal terms for them.“The penalty for failing to constitute Jonathan Wild their receiver-general was simply death. Bad faith was immediately resented by the denunciation of the thief to justice; and unless he could come to an arrangement with Wild the chances were overwhelming in favour of the robber going to Tyburn.“Thus Jonathan Wild was not only a preceptor of thieves and a ‘putter-up’ of robberies, but also a receiver of stolen goods, and a thieftaker to boot.“Removing from Cock-alley to a house in the Old Bailey, he found at length that he had accumulated an embarrassingly heavy stock of stolen property, and he absolutely purchased a sloop in order to transport his plunder to Holland and Flanders.“The command of this vessel was entrusted to one Roger Johnson, a noted river pirate; and Wild’s factor at Ostend, and general Continental agent, was a superannuated thief called Randall.“The sloop—​her name, unfortunately, is not mentioned in the records of rascality—​having discharged her cargo at Ostend, brought back to England such commodities as lace, wine, and brandy, which were landed at night, and, it is almost needless to say, without the custom-house authorities being troubled in the matter.“Smuggling and dealing in stolen goods are operations possibly, no longer carried on in conjunction; still, who shall say that our modern Jonathan Wilds have not their favourite lines of steamers—​it is not now necessary that they should buy ships of their own—​and that they have not their factors and agents at Continental ports and in Continental cities?“Many thousands of pounds’ worth of jewellery and bank-note—​to name only two sorts of plunder—​are stolen every year.“There must be a mart for this precious merchandise, a mart the whereabouts of which must be perfectly familiar to professional burglars and thieves.“Bank robbers and pickpockets have been known coolly to admit that the market price for a stolen five-pound note is three pounds ten shillings. Who buys stolen bank notes at this rate? Who melts down the stolen plate? Who wrenches the stolen gems out of their settings? Who sends the unset jewels to Amsterdam and elsewhere?“If the police are unable to find out the wholesale dealers in stolen property, and trust to chance to make such a haul as they made the other day in the Commercial-road, might it not be expedient to allow the next professional burglar we catch to turn Queen’s evidence against the receivers?“No terms can be made with a murderer, and Peace must be left to the gallows; but most useful revelations might be obtained from a professional housebreaker permitted to turn approver.“Such a witness, if his evidence proved trustworthy, should receive—​strictly or once in away—​a full pardon.“Convicts sentenced to penal servitude are not apt to be very grateful for a partial remission of their term of durance; and, indeed, in the case of Mr. Harry Benson, the Government, it appears, does not conceive that it is under any obligation at all to the convict for having made an exhibition of the old detective force in its full iniquity.”In tracing the criminal career of a desperate character like Peace, it is curious to note how prone to wrong-doing he was from his earliest youth. His first theft is thus described:—An apple of beautiful hue tempted Eve to her first sin, and it is said that fruit of a similar name first induced Peace to commit a serious theft. In the year 1830 he lived close to the orchard of theRev.Joseph Smith, whose residence was known as the Plantation.“Therev.gentleman was the pastor of the flock who worshipped at the Nether Chapel in Norfolk-street. But the ‘Plantation’ on Langsett-road had a different prospect to what is now the case.“Then it was in the country really; on the banks behind the houses were farms and orchards; beneath the house were meadows sloping to the River Don, which was then alive with fish, trout being plentiful in the waters, and at times a salmon or sea-trout strayed into these higher regions from the Ouse.“The railway connecting Sheffield with Manchester had not made its black streak across the opposite Old Park-hill, and a pleasant place was the residence of the Independent minister of those days.“Behind the good man’s house was a goodly orchard, and within the enclosure fruit trees which carried crops of heavy, golden fruit.“The lads of the neighbourhood viewed those crops with envy, and one of the leading spirits among them was Charles Peace, a well-instructed lad, fearless, venturesome, and domineering in spirit.“He planned the robbery of the pastor’s orchard, but being inexperienced, was captured—​whilst in an apple tree.“He had not learnt in those days the wiles and deceits which have since come so naturally to him.“But he had not to cope with detectives, inspectors, constables, and other professional men, who render life obnoxious to a thief. His captor was actually the parish beadle.“Had that man lived until these days how proudly he might have said—“‘I caught Peace!’“But the youthful aspirant to future honours did not obtain the reward he should have had for his speculation.“He bargained for apples, and instead was taken before the wrathful owner of the fruit, Mr. Smith. The beadle shortly afterwards had a task to undertake which left no mark in local history, but did on the young man who stole the apples.“Such was the commencement in ‘active’ life of him who now occupies a cell in Newgate, from thence to be taken to answer a record of crime the which has not been paralleled by Claude Duval, Thomas King, Richard Turpin, or others of that ilk.“Those men had not the telegraph to compete with, yet failed; Peace had the widespread information of modern days to watch, and yet for a time succeeded.“The marauders of the old shool, above mentioned, defeated justice for a time because on their thoroughbred horses they could outride the messengers of justice.“Peace had to fight against the magnificent apparatus of science by which information is flashed across a thousand miles in a second of time, and yet he succeeded in baffling all who sought to track him.”The blow that had fallen on Peace and his domestic circle was a terrible one, and in a short space of time, after his conviction, the house in the Evalina-road was tenantless.A visit to the locality is thus described by an eye-witness:—“Peckham approached from Greenwich, with a suggestion of sunshine in the sky, looked much prettier to-day. There are some goodly houses along Queen’s-road, but as one climbs the hill to Peace’s part, the houses taper away till long lines of modest brick buildings meet the eye. Where Peace lived may be called the tail-end of Peckham.“His house is still to let, and though nobody that I can hear of has been to visit it—​except members of the Press—​the gentleman who has the letting of it thinks he will get a couple of pounds extra now that it has sprung into notoriety.“Well, he may. I don’t know so much about the peculiarities of the Peckham people; but on this point I am inclined to agree with the lady who lives next door. She wants to let her front room, and has ‘Apartments’ in the window.“That card appeals in vain to the eligible young gentlemen who usually want comfortable chambers, and she is afraid that respectable people will not care to come into such a ‘dreadful’ neighbourhood.“She considers it a bad day for her when she came there, which she did a week before Peace was found out. Indeed, it was from Peace she had the keys to look over the house. An ominous introduction truly.“Her idea is that before that house lets again £2 will have to be taken off, instead of being put on, the rent. I agree with her, for I can hear of nobody who has a good word for the house, except perhaps the postman, who told me, as we trudged together through the mud, that ‘it wasn’t a bad place in his view of it. The Thompsons did not trouble him much—​they had very few letters.’“A neighbour says that when the Thompsons came their house was a treat to look at, Mr. Thompson filling all the front windows with choice and costly flowers, which he carefully tended and watered with his own hands.“People at Peckham are beginning to be a trifle impatient with inquisitive strangers who want to know about their most famous character. On my first visit to Peckham I looked in on the gentleman who combines the duties connected with her Majesty’s mails with dispensing flour and other household necessities to her Majesty’s females.“I asked him if he knew and could tell me where ‘Mr. Smith’ lived—​the party who had let the house to Mr. Thompson? This gentleman shut me up very sharp.“‘I know where Mr. Smith lives, but I don’t think I would be justified in telling you, as you would only be bothering him like the rest.’“I left that establishment with a feeling that my introduction to the natives of Peckham was not encouraging. A few yards further on I saw Mr. Smith’s address ln the windows of half-a-dozen empty houses, the notices inviting people to apply to ‘Mr. Smith, Ryde Villas,St.Mary’s-road.’“I accepted the invitation, and found Mr. Smith a most obliging and very communicative gentleman.HOW PEACE WAS FOUND OUT.“I find the police scout the idea that the man ‘Ward’ was discovered through the jealousy of Mrs. Thompson, the younger of the ‘housekeepers’ at Peckham, and the professed wife of Peace.“Those who had to do with the case told me that they had no information whatever from Mrs. Thompson, who never communicated with them, but disappeared as she sniffed danger.“‘How then,’ I asked, ‘did it occur to you to connect the Blackheath burglar with the Bannercross murderer?’“‘Well,’ was the reply, ‘we can scarcely tell you. We could not get our evidence so complete as we could wish, and we were obliged to wait for a time. That waiting served us well. Trifles, mere trifles, such as we can scarcely repeat to you, made us believe that this man was ‘somebody.’ We watched those who came about our place at Greenwich; then we watched those who came about Newgate. We got, after great trouble, a hint or two; we acted upon what we received, and were ultimately able to connect the man ‘Ward’ with Peckham; then from Peckham we worked Nottingham and Sheffield, and then the case gradually worked itself into shape.’“For the police it was a lucky thing Mrs. ‘Ward’ took those two boxes to Sheffield.“That, I believe, was really the first indication that Blackheath and Bannercross were connected.“It suddenly flashed across one of the Greenwich division that this mysterious man, who called himself a ‘half-caste,’ resembled in every respect except one the man so urgently ‘wanted’ at Sheffield.“That exception was his hair, particularly the absence of beard and whiskers. Height, breadth, eyes, manner of talking, singularity of fingers, and wide, straddling walk—​to quote the police description, ‘walking with his legs apart’—​all tallied. Put beard and whiskers upon that face, and it was—​Peace.“Inspector Bonny went to Nottingham; Inspector Phillips to Sheffield.“Phillips was shown a portrait of Peace. He was confirmed in his suspicions. The photograph resembled the man in Newgate so closely that he had no doubt as to the identity.“The rest of the story you know. How Phillips and Twibell found the property at Darnall in the possession of Mrs. Peace, how the property was identified as part of the proceeds of the Blackheath burglaries, how Police-constable Morris came to London and identified Peace in Newgate, and (as I telegraphed to you) how the Treasury, appreciating the importance of the case in the light of the identification, undertook the prosecution on its own account.“To Police-officer Robinson undoubtedly belongs in the first instance the credit of capturing Peace. He unquestionably risked his life in his courageous encounter with the desperate convict, and well deserves such recognition as has been suggested by your correspondent.“Let it not be forgotten, however, that Robinson’s share in the transaction terminated there. Without him nothing would have been done; yet after Peace’s bullet pierced his arm and the two constables came to his help, Robinson dropped the thread, which was picked up by Inspector Phillips and Inspector Bonny.“These officers have been indefatigable in their exertions to bring home the graver charge against Peace. Day by day, and night after night they have laboured, and many a night since the memorable evening when Peace was caught in the act, they have slept not, neither have they rested, so anxious have they been to close once for all the career of the dreadful villain whose escape made everybody so uneasy.“But it should not be forgotten (observed a writer at the time) if testimonials are spoken of, to remember these two officers.“Robinson was a brave fellow, and acted like a hero; yet if Bonny and Phillips had not used their brains, and set their highly-trained wits to work, ‘John Ward’ might have been convicted of the Blackheath burglary and the shooting of the intrepid Robinson, and he might have been sentenced to penal servitude for life; but in Sheffield the Bannercross murder would have been regarded as an undiscovered crime.“To Bonny and Phillips belong the credit of proving that Ward was Peace, that Blackheath meant Bannercross, that burglary was overshadowed by the bigger crime of murder. A wave of relief swept over Sheffield when it was known that Peace had really been captured at last. To Phillips and Bonny was due the fact that he was thought of at all as the man who shot Dyson two years before.THE TROUBLES OF THE PEACES.“There is really no peace for the Peaces. Now that Charles Peace, the man of Bannercross, has been caught there are dozens of persons who are anxious to tell all they know about him and his family.“Several of them have got it into their heads that there is only one family of Peace, the head and front of which now awaits in Newgate the reward of his desperate misdeeds.“Thus it comes about that several most excellent people are getting uneasy about the name they bear, particularly when they find it connected with some of the early doings of “the insignificant-looking” gentleman who has recently sprung into so much significance.“The latest instance is that of a family of Peace who lived some time ago in Philadelphia—​not the Philadelphia which figures in Sacred Writ, but the exceedingly secular locality of that name which figures in Sheffield.“Mr. Charles Peace, of George-street, Philadelphia, has no connection whatever with the Charles Peace of the many aliases, burglar and murderer; neither is it right that his son, who also bears the (in these days) somewhat burdensome name of Charles Peace, should be associated with the person who has proved himself so eligible a candidate for the last attentions of the law.“It is certainly a trifle too bad, even when people are thirsting for every particle of information about that extraordinary character, that the respectable member of a respectable firm of file manufacturers in Pea-croft, or his son who earns his livelihood in an honourable way in the file trade at Rotherham, should have themselves brought up in public as connected in even the remotest degree with the ruffian who had the misfortune to call himself by their name.“So that, once for all, readers will understand the Philadelphia Peace and the Bannercross Peace are wide as the poles asunder.“This incident reminds one of the trouble and suspicion to which many people were put shortly after the murder.“Peace, it will be remembered, was described as a ‘little, insignificant-looking man, with grey hair.’“There was at once an eager look-out kept for people who answered that somewhat general description. It was a bad time for ‘little insignificant-looking men,’ and as our local world has a good many people who come fairly within that description, several estimable and other citizens were frequently the object of glances which were not at all flattering in their meaning.“Two elderly gentlemen were pointed out as greatly resembling the notorious Peace, and enjoyed a reputation on that account only a shade less comfortable than other gentlemen in this district, of most substantial proportions, who up to a short time ago were repeatedly referred to as remarkably like the Claimant.“Even when a more specific description of Peace appeared mistakes were freely made, though not with the provoking results of a double apprehension, as in the case of that poor tramp at Barrow-in-Furness, who was subsequently apprehended at Hexham, and who complained bitterly—​and not unnaturally—​to our reporter who interviewed him in prison, that he should have been arrested a second time ‘when the police had already let him go once.’“This poor fellow, to put matters right once for all, made a pilgrimage to Sheffield and called upon the Chief Constable, who, of course, had no more to do with his arrest at Barrow-in-Furness and Hexham than the poor tramp had to do with the arrest of the real Peace by Police-constable Robinson in that garden at Blackheath.”

From what we have been able to gather from persons whose testimony is in every way reliable, Mrs. Peace made a precipitate retreat from Peckham after the arrest of her husband.

The day after Police-constable Robinson bravely fought the burglar down, in spite of his wounded arm, and had Peace taken to gaol, the wife of the convict made preparations for flight. She packed up three boxes, and had them conveyed to Cleaves, the greengrocer, to Nunhead Station.

She and her son followed them to the station, and took the train for Darnall, near Sheffield, the place where Peace lived before coming to London, and at which he was living when Dyson was shot.

A month after the arrest some of the effects were sold, and the remainder were carted toNo.22, Philip’s-road, the residence of Mr. Brion, heretofore mentioned as the joint patentee of the invention for raising sunken ships.

There is no question that the police were afterwards made aware of the departure of Mrs. Peace and of Mrs. Thompson’s change of abode.

Mrs. Thompson, although she lived with Peace at Nottingham after the murder, and lived in company with Mrs. Peace at Peckham, was not called as a witness for obvious reasons.

Peace was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, and it was unnecessary to try him for the burglary, as the sentence was penal servitude for life.

The representative of the Press Association had an interview with Mr. Brion. His relationship with Peace was, he said, a purely business one.

“But for me,” he said, “Peace’s connection with the murder would never have been discovered. It was I who gave the police the information that put them on the track. Those police would never have discovered anything themselves had not everything been told them and every step they took indicated. How did I become connected with Peace?

“You will know all about that in my testimony at Bow-street, when Mrs. Peace was under examination. I am an inventor, a geographical engineer. I make maps. You know Donald McKenzie, who has gone to Africa to make surveys for letting the ocean flow into the Sahara?

“That is my project. This is the map I exhibited at the Mansion House. (Mr. Brion unrolled a map 20 feet by 12 feet, whereon was delineated very broadly the Continent of Africa and on which was shown, in red dotted lines below the Canary Islands, a kind of gutter through which the ocean is to flow inland and flood the Sahara.)

“Mrs. Thompson went away from here on Monday. I know where she is, but I cannot tell you of her whereabouts. That has all been arranged with the police. She came here with the full knowledge of the police, and all the goods in Peace’s house were brought here by their direction and consent.

“The police are aware of everything I can tell them about Peace. I have spent three months in the interest of the public to bring this man to justice, and I was promised by the police that I should have my expenses paid, but here have I been during all that time running around the country and living at hotels, and spending money for the sake of getting at evidence, and now they refuse to pay me anything.

“I have done with the police, although they know all that I have done, and now I have a memorial to the Treasury on the subject.

“I am disgusted with the whole business, and annoyed that for any length of time I should have been associated in whatever degree with such a scoundrel as Peace.

“He was a very interesting man, full of general information, and had acquired a great amount of ability in mechanics. He had an inventive faculty, and could readily understand anything in mechanism.

“He was working away at this idea of his for lifting ships from the sea bottom, and it is now plain that he could not have obtained a patent himself.

“As with all these men of smirched reputation, he had to look around for some one to assist him, and he fastened upon me.

“I used to see him in the mornings, afternoons, and at nights, and he was always pleasant enough, and I never suspected he was what he is.

“His left hand was always bare when I saw it, but when he went to Whitechapel he was accustomed to cover it and pretend that it was injured.

“Whitechapel was where he went with his booty. I expended a considerable sum in my experiments with Peace on his invention.

“I found that he had the idea of raising ships by air force, but that the appliance was faulty, and that no patent would be given for an idea.

“I have a plan of my own for raising ships, and I have offered it to the Admiralty. They have not accepted it, and I intend to raise the ‘Vanguard,’ and sell it on my own account. The police are aware of everything that Mrs. Thompson has to say.

“They have been cognisant of her movements from first to last, and they knew of her departure from this house, and where she has gone.”

The reader will be at no loss to understand that the police were tolerably well informed as to the movements and whereabouts of Mrs. Peace. This is plainly evidenced by her arrest, the examination at the police-courts that followed, and her trial and acquittal at the Central Criminal Court.

After this they confined their attentions to the convicted man who was at this time incarcerated in Newgate, and their chief aim was to prove him to be the murderer of Mr. Dyson.

The capture and conviction of Peace was the universal topic of town talk. Never surely did a criminal create a greater amount of excitement both in the metropolis and the provinces.

Officers were despatched both to Nottingham and Sheffield. The constabulary received information from the Park-road station of the K Division. It was put forth that the prisoner in Newgate was a man apparently about fifty years of age, dark, clean shaved, hair grey, large mouth, large scar on the side of the left leg, and the back of the thigh, three fingers on the left hand deficient, dress overcoat, with velvet collar, and black under coat.

He wore a brown leather belt, low boots, and a brown felt hat.

A Sheffield paper thus chronicles further proceedings:—

Police-constable David Morris was dispatched to London, by Mr. Jackson, with a view to the identification of the criminal in custody at Newgate.

Morris, who was at one time stationed at Darnall, lived for more than a year in the house directly opposite to that occupied by Charles Peace, and was therefore in the habit of seeing him every day, and frequently several times a day.

Morris had with him a letter from his chief to the director of the Criminal Investigation Department, by means of which he obtained admission to the cell.

At half-past one o’clock a telegram from our reporter was received at this office as follows:—

“St.Martin’s-le-Grand, 1.30. p.m.

“Peace has been further identified by a Sheffield constable, and there is no doubt he is the murderer.”

The telegram, when posted in the window of our publishing department, excited much interest. Shortly after two o’clock the Chief Constable received a telegram from Police-constable Morris as follows:—

“Man in custody is Peace. I am quite positive about his identity.”

All doubt, if any existed, has now been removed. The man, John Ward, the notorious burglar of Blackheath—​the man who did all his villainies “single-handed,” and thus no doubt escaped detection for a longer time than he would otherwise have done—​is none other than Charles Peace, the murderer of Mr. Arthur Dyson, at Bannercross-terrace, that dark November night two years ago.

Charles Peace, alias George Parker, alias Alexander Mann, alias Paganini, alias John Ward—​the man of many aliases—​is trapped at last, and the general hope is that now he is caught there may be evidence enough to make him suffer the penalty of his greatest crime—​that which startled this town and district so terribly in the winter of 1876.

A journalist furnishes us with the following descriptive visit to Newgate and the scene at the identification:—

That Charles Peace, the murderer of Mr. Arthur Dyson, of Bannercross, is at last caught there cannot now be the shadow of a doubt. He has been clearly identified by a Sheffield constable, who knew him most intimately.

The result of my researches into the history of this man’s career reveals a depth of depravity, hypocrisy, daring, and low cunning, such as have scarcely ever been penned in the annals of crime.

On entering Scotland-yard, and making known my errand—​that I desired to prosecute inquiries into the history of the man then in their custody, who was committed for trial from the Greenwich Police-court, on charges of attempted murder and burglary, a man who had given the name of John Ward, the replies given were certainly very courteous, but in no way satisfactory to a reporter in quest of information.

The result was that after about an hour and a half’s waiting, and after being interviewed successively by some dozen or two very polite gentlemen, who were evidently “authorities,” I was ultimately told, with a smile, by one that they did not give information to members of the Press.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s against regulations, and we are not allowed to answer questions.”

“Well,” I said, “where is this man Ward or Peace confined, because I want to see him?”

He had a short look at me, and after telling an untruth in the words “He’s not in town,” took his departure.

However, I knew there had come up to London by the morning train a Sheffield constable whose errand was to see the man “Ward,” and that officer was one who had been on the most intimate terms with Charles Peace.

He had seen the murderer daily for months before the commission of the crime, had had him in his house, and had further confided to him some of the “family troubles” of Peace.

The officer was Police-constable (222) David Morris, of the Attercliffe division, and it is due to him that Peace has at length been identified beyond dispute.

The police authorities of the metropolis are true to their word and traditions in this, that if they gain their information with difficulty they hold it with tenacity when they have obtained it. They appear to mistake reporters for Ishmaelites.

After further trouble I succeeded in finding out that at about one o’clock a detective from Scotland-yard would be at the Old Bailey, otherwise well known as Newgate Gaol, and that he would there ask Morris if he could pick out the so-called Peace from a number of men.

How to get it was the question, but I also thought it might be possiblefor meto identify him if I could see him, and so, with a little help from a friend, I got permission from the authorities to go inside and witness.

The approaches to the Old Bailey are of a forbidding character, dark and repulsive. Even the inquiry door has massive iron spikes projecting from the top of it, and as you have to make your applications either through the spikes or over them, you stand a chance of having your chin perforated.

On getting inside there are apparently nothing but bars and big doors, but over one of the doors on the shelf there are conspicuously displayed plaster casts of heads.

These casts are the official representations of all the murderers who have interviewed the hangman within the walls of the prison, and a hideous-looking crew they are.

Seeing that another candidate for the “long drop” has next to be interviewed the effect is not pleasing.

However, there is another delay, and this is accounted for by the fact that the suspected culprit is being “mixed” with some more prisoners, the more to test anyone in the task of identification.

At last the signal is given that all is ready, and after passing through a short corridor a yard is seen, rather capacious and surrounded with cell-doors.

But between the yard and the corridor were double gates of iron, and anyone exercising in the yard had not a shadow of a chance of communication with the outer world.

The iron gates were opened by the governor of the gaol; in front stood the constable and another who had come to see if Peace was in the hands of the police, and in front were twelve prisoners doing “the circular drill.”

This is a performance best known to prison officials, and to those who have been “wanted.” It consists in this:—

If there is a prisoner in the establishment whose identity needs to be established, and there is anyone attending for the purpose of viewing them, the prisoner is placed amongst others, and they follow each other in circle.

The suspected prisoner must then be identified. Those who performed the “circular drill” on this occasion in the Old Bailey, were a curious lot.

First came a young man, of some three or four-and-twenty years, with his neck half hidden in a muffler.

His gait was upright, but there was that cowed look about him which showed him to be “an old prison bird.”

Before the march commenced the prisoners took a look at us; they did not know who was “wanted,” and our visages were strange to all but one.

Then the march began, and all the prisoners appeared to want to march the double, but they had only a short time of duty.

The second man who passed was an old one, some forty years of age, who wore a swallow-tail coat, and looked most like a defaulting half-starved attorney’s clerk.

He gave a searching look, knit up his brows, as if to see “who in creation there could be that he knew,” and then apparently satisfied that he was not “wanted,” passed on with a livelier tread.

The third but a young man, with a bull neck, who held his head down and stared at the ground, as though afraid of seeing anyone strange, for fear they should recognise him.

He had apparently gone through this class of inspection before.

Two other young fellows passed, of lively mien, and then there came

ONE WHO WAS WANTED.

A man of about five feet three or four inches in height, with white hair on his head, cut very short, and bald in the front of his head, but the razor had lately done this.

His eyebrows heavy and overhanging the eyes, which were deeply socketed.

A chin standing very prominently, and, as if to make it more so, the head was thrown back with an air of half self-assertion, yet half caution, as though there was a degree of hesitancy in the action.

The lower part of his cheek bones protruded more than was their wont in years gone by, but he had apparently had some bruises recently, and had had his whiskers shaven off since he was last seen in Sheffield.

No.83.

Illustration: THE IDENTIFICATION OF PEACETHE IDENTIFICATION OF PEACE BY THE SHEFFIELD OFFICER.

THE IDENTIFICATION OF PEACE BY THE SHEFFIELD OFFICER.

In addition to that he wore a pair of large brass-rimmed spectacles, as if the more completely to make certain of his non-identification.

Slightly bending himself this man approached those who were inspecting the prisoners, and then there was a sudden stop.

“That’s Peace,” said Morris. “I’d know him anywhere,” and the man “Ward” stepped from the ranks and approaching the officer with a look which betokened the most earnest inquiry, asked, “What do you want me for?”

The governor here very severely said, “Go on, sir, with your walk,” and Peace returned to his place in the ranks, which were no longer marching.

The other prisoners were now staring at the identified man, and evidently wanted to ask, “What has he done?” but they dared not.

Even Peace had had no intimation given to him that he was recognised as the Sheffield murderer, and until he saw the officer who had come to identify him he had no notion of why he was required to go on this special parade.

The marks which were described as on the missing Peace are all distinctly on him. Before he can appear in the police court at Sheffield on the charge of murder, the Chief-constable for Sheffield will have to apply to a superior court for a writ ofhabeas corpus.

Upon this he will be taken to answer the capital charge now made against him.

After committing the murder on the night of the 26th November, 1876, Peace was completely lost sight of; his career in this life, it was said, was closed, for he had made away with himself.

But Peace was not such a fool as that, for he had no sooner finished the murder than he took to his old game of burglary—​an avocation which appears to have had a curious attraction for him.

Subsequent events have proved that Peace went to Hull, and there replaced his waning funds by breaking into a gentleman’s house, from which, he extracted a large quantity of plate and valuable jewellery.

From thence, after realising on his spoil, he repaired to Nottingham, where a near relative resided, and with her he took up his quarters.

Although it was well known that there was a heavy reward offered for his apprehension, it does not seem that any of his relatives considered it advisable to state who was in the midst of them.

After effecting a very clever warehouse robbery, in which silk goods were the principal booty, Peace appears to have then considered that his proximity to Sheffield was dangerous, and he again changed his abode.

Thus it will be seen that the Sheffield authorities were correct when they stated that they had traced the man to Hull, but there had lost sight of him.

It was believed that he had escaped to the Continent. But not so; the fox had “doubled,” and in the Midland Counties, with Nottingham for his centre, was continuing his depreciations.

On reaching London some four or five months after the murder, he was not very well off for money, and he took up his residence in Lambeth.

The police in charge of this district then became aware that night after night the most audacious depredations were committed in the district.

There was scarcely a night passed but a burglary was announced, and in as even a succession the statement followed that the thieves had not been caught.

The value of the booty thus secured was exceedingly great, and the thieves—​for they were then believed to be a gang—​were said to be well rewarded for their audacity.

But the place appears to have become too hot for him, and he then removed to Greenwich, where he occupied a beautiful house, and commenced to furnish it in a most expensive manner.

Whatever Peace failed in, it was not in the want of self-assurance and the belief that he could pass through society as a gentleman.

Though he had repulsive features he appears to have had winning ways in the eyes of some, for he now appears to have decided on engaging a lady to share his improving fortunes.

This “lady” may perhaps figure elsewhere shortly, and her name will then be found in the police record. But the establishment could not be kept up without “means,” and again came the last resort.

Peace had described himself to the new sphere of respectable neighbours—​among whom he now moved—​as a “gentleman of independent means,” and he was looked up to as one who had done well in the world.

We have endeavoured, throughout this strange eventful history, to place before the reader the leading and most noticeable circumstances connected with the career of this sinful man. After his arrest for the burglary and attempted murder of Police-constable Robinson, there was but little chance of his escaping conviction for the Bannercross murder, but there are many who have attributed his identification and subsequent conviction upon the grave charge to the jealousy of a woman, as will be seen by the following extract from a journal of the time.

It has been remarked by ancient as well as by modern writers that wherever there is a piece of outrageous mischief there is sure to be a woman at the bottom of it.

The experience of the present civilised age does not present any instances to the contrary, but rather strengthens the opinions previously held. Charles Peace was clever in one thing, that he knew his “profession” and succeeded in it so long as he did it “single-handed;” but when he obtained a partner, like many others who have preceded him, his fortunes, though apparently improving, were really on the decrease.

Whilst in Nottingham—​and this only happened within a month after the murder of Mr. Dyson—​he succeeded in securing to himself the affections of a young female relative.

This young “lady” followed him through his many hazardous adventures until at length the two were in Lambeth, where they occupied a decent house, and to all intents and purposes were a well-conducted pair—​the lady being slightly younger than her husband, but as “Mr. Johnson” was well-to-do it was supposed that there had been a marriage of love.

Business in Lambeth proved of a paying character, although those who did the paying were not always aware of the fact until before banking hours in the morning—​when the news was brought to their bedroom doors by the earliest risers in the house.

On removing to Greenwich, Peace was accompanied by the young lady who had followed his fortunes, although she might not know the whole of his crimes and there were again commenced the robberies which, have made his name so notorious in the criminal annals of the country.

Peace resumed his business; as he had not to press sales on the market he did not care what came to his hand, and being well versed in the legerdemain of the light-fingered fraternity he obtained access to the mansions of the rich around him, and their loss was his gain.

As the aristocrats in his neighbourhood became more indignant, he became more pious, and his immediate neighbours, whilst looking out for the midnight thieves, relied somewhat on his perception and assurances that nothing would be wrong.

But all this time there was in Peace’s well-furnished household a young woman who had been misled and wronged.

She had been led to believe that Peace, with whom she had associated in Nottingham, was a steady, hardworking man. Peace had given to her a number of costly goods, he was to her a man of sterling honesty, and then it transpired that he was a burglar.

Then came her time of trial.

The man with whom she was associated was a thief, a burglar, and more than that—​and she knew it.

He was a murderer.

But what could she do? It was this man upon whom she was dependent for a subsistence—​it was this man who had committed murder once, and whom she knew would not hesitate to commit it again.

So she helped to get rid of the goods which were brought by his nightly marauds, and like other sensible people who are in a mess, she held her peace.

But when Peace and this housekeeper had got to the new home at Peckham, “a cloud came o’er the scene,” and the cloud was a woman.

This “cloud” took up her residence in the house of Mr. Peace—​otherwise “Johnson,” by which latter cognomen he was well known—​and then commenced the beginning of the end.

The first victim of Peace’s duplicity dared not speak, and the second admirer of him dared not—​so between the rivals the burglar had a fair chance of bidding for favouritism.

But when the last “throw” came from the dice-box of criminal ingenuity and the thrower lost, there were left in the house in Peckham a couple of rivals.

One, the latest comer, “realised,” and the older and much-injured one gave information which resulted in the disclosures which had now been made public.

By the aid of “the first love” valuable goods were traced to Nottingham and others to Sheffield.

She told the detectives where to work and where tofind, and she disclosed the name of her rival, Mrs. Thompson, who was asked to give her address.

Charles Peace, as we have had occasion to observe before, was by no means a man of retiring character, but in respect to audacity and assurance he was certainly able to hold his own with any of those great criminals in whose footsteps he so long and persistently followed. It must, however, be admitted that there was one bright spot in his character.

It was this: after his arrest and conviction he strove by every means in his power to prove the innocence of his wife.

It is certain that he only sought to become acquainted with those who were, in his estimation, likely to be useful to him in an emergency, and this statement has been fully borne out by the latest phase of the case.

A gentleman in Sheffield some years ago bestowed some favours on a member of the miscreant’s family, and his name and address had been treasured up, with a view to still further calls upon the benevolence that was once exercised in his behalf.

The gentleman in question was infinitely surprised one morning to receive a letter, which was directed in an unknown hand.

Tearing open the cover he saw a mass of cramped and crooked lines, which ran higgledy-piggledy over the paper, and showed that the hand which had written them might have been more familiar with the “jemmy” and the skeleton key than with the pen.

A further consideration of the document revealed that the author was either a most illiterate man, or that, to suit his own purpose, he would fain appear to be such.

The simple rules of grammar were set at defiance, and the attempts to decipher the letter were so painful that it would have been tossed impatiently aside had not the eye been caught by the signature, “Charles Peace or Ward.”

The gentleman at once made all efforts to decipher the letter, which was from no other person than the notorious Bannercross murderer, who was at that time in Newgate.

The purport of the letter was to supplicate the receiver to become bail for Mrs. Peace, who for some time had been in custody in consequence of the vast quantity of stolen property found in her possession by Inspectors Phillips and Twibell.

He coolly went on to ask that counsel should be obtained for her defence, and declared that his wife had no guilty knowledge when she received the goods, but that he forwarded them to her in order that she might convert them into money to supply her needs.

He again and again with some vehemence asserted that Mrs. Peace was an innocent woman, and that the misfortunes into which she had fallen were not attributable to any fault of her own.

It was much to Peace’s credit that he thus endeavoured to exculpate his wife, and it is pleasant to record this one good trait in his otherwise debased and odious character; but he made a fatal mistake in forming a connection with the other lady of his establishment.

Mrs. Thompson (who may be known by some by the name of Susan Gray), the woman with whom Peace was living at the time of his arrest for the Blackheath burglaries, made a long statement as to her own career, and her connection with our hero.

As this forms part of the history of the notorious criminal the reader would be in no way pleased by our suppressing it.

The following is a tolerably accurate description of her personal appearance.

In person she is tall, and considerably above the middle height. Her figure is not robust. Her complexion is fair, and was no doubt at one time good. Her hair is dark and plentiful, and her eyes of a deep blue, what is known as a violet hue.

Mrs. Thompson, at the time I saw her, was dressed in a brown robe, trimmed with velvet to match; and wore a cloth jacket and round hat, becoming and neat. Both of these articles she removed in the course of conversation.

Her manner was at first frank and agreeable, but as our interview lasted it changed to a fitful moroseness, which was difficult to deal with. Both in person and in manner Mrs. Thompson may be said to be decidedly prepossessing—​what may be called a taking woman.

She is manifestly a fairly well-educated woman, and writes a pretty, ladylike Italian hand. The statement she made to me in answer to questions and in course of conversation was as follows:—​

MRS. THOMPSON’S PERSONAL HISTORY.

My maiden name is Susan Gray, and I was born in the year 1842, at Nottingham. My parents are very respectable people, and carry on a small business in that town. I am heartily sorry to have brought this disgrace upon them.

In my childhood I went to various schools in Nottingham—​to the Trinity School when I was a youngster, when I was also picked out as a singer in the choir.

I continued to attend the Trinity Schools until I was eight or nine years of age, when my parents removed me to the College School.

There I remained until I was fourteen, when I went out to work.

I should not like to state where I was employed, as it might give pain to persons living, but there are those alive who know that this statement is true.

After I left my first situation I stayed at home and assisted my father in his business as his bookkeeper.

When I was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old, a Mr. Bailey one day came for purposes of business to my father’s house.

He had occasion to see my handwriting, and asked me if I would make out some bills for him. I obliged him, and from that day I kept his books, and did all the writing he required.

One day he asked me if I would marry him, and, in a spirit of vexation, I having had some little disturbance with a brother of mine, I said “Yes.”

We were married on the 10th of October, 1872, but three months after that I left him, on finding out what was his true character, and that it would be impossible for me to live happily with him.

I went next to live with my married sister at Nottingham.

I then worked for my living, employing my time in the manufacture of caps such as ladies and servants wear.

One Sunday evening, perhaps six months afterwards, as I was going to chapel, I met Bailey again. He stopped and spoke to me, and finally induced me to return to live with him.

I stayed with him for nearly a year, when I again left him, and since that time I have not spoken to him, except to obtain from him a weekly allowance, which I continued to enjoy until I met the man Peace, but on my becoming connected with him that allowance was forfeited.

HER FIRST MEETING PEACE.

I met Peace in January, 1877, I think it was. He came to the house where I was living at Nottingham about that time.

One evening, just as I was returning from work, when I entered the house, I saw him there. I shall never forget the impression he made upon me.

I thought him of very singular appearance, and, from what I saw at first sight, I had reason to believe that he was a one-armed man; but that appearance was only the result of one of his tricks and deceptions.

When I went in he said to the landlady, “Is this your daughter?”

I was not living with my sister then. I had left home, and had not spoken to any of my family for a long time.

In answer to Peace’s question, my landlady, after some hesitation, gave an affirmative reply.

Some conversation in subdued tones then took place between Peace and my landlady. I ought to have said that this occurred in a house in a district known as “The Marsh,” at Nottingham—​a very low neighbourhood indeed. Peace had brought my landlady some boxes of cigars for sale.

She said to him, in reference to myself, “You can speak before her; she won’t say anything.”

Peace then asked her if she would go and see if she could sell the cigars.

This woman, who is since dead, was an accomplice of his, and used to assist him in the disposal of stolen property. Her name was Adamson.

She thereupon went out and sold them, and when she returned gave him 18s., of which sum he returned her 6s.by way of commission.

After that he became a constant visitor, and we always spoke of him as the one-armed old man. He not unfrequently had there his breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper, and at last it became known to me what his real character was.

At first he gave out that he was a hawker, and dealt in various little articles such as pedlars invariably travel with—​spectacles, cheap finery, and jewellery, and miscellaneous goods of that description.

At last he openly showed himself in his true character—​I mean as a most daring burglar. He brought things into the house which it must be evident to anybody were stolen property.

There were articles of silver plate, timepieces, watches, and even quantities of tea, sugar, and other perishable articles.

I do not know at all where he got these from; but I am perfectly satisfied that they were the proceeds of robberies or burglaries.

This knowledge was kept from me at first. I was led to suppose he was what he seemed to be—​viz., a hawker, and a quiet, respectable man.

On one occasion he went out of town, saying he had to go and see his mother at Hull. By his mother he meant Hannah Peace.

Peace on that occasion took £5 to Mrs. Ward at Hull, and stayed there three weeks.

During that time he committed several robberies either at Hull or in the neighbourhood.

I know that to be the case, because when I have been in Hull he has shown me the houses at which the burglaries were committed, and he also told me that on one occasion he had to run for it, when he “fired wide” at a policeman by whom he was in imminent danger of being captured.

The property was disposed of in Hull. He returned after a while to Nottingham. I was out at the time of his return, having business in the evening, for I was still at work and getting my own living in an honest way. I was not earning very much, for work was short, but still it was honest.

On this particular night, on my return home, Mrs. Adamson said to me, “Oh, Mrs. Bailey, who do you think has come back?”

I replied I did not know, to which she made answer, “Why, the one-armed old man, and he has asked for you. He swears he will shoot you unless you go to him.”

He was in the house of our next-door neighbour, and previously to that the lady of the house came in, and said, “Oh, Mrs. Bailey, do come in, the old man’s gone mad; he wants to see you so bad. He won’t be satisfied with anyone until you go.”

When I went in I found him “drunk on Irish whiskey.”

He said, “Is that you, pet (for by that name he used to call me), I am so glad you have come, where have you been?”

I told him I had just come in from business.

He said, “Oh, I am so glad you have come. I thought you were never coming back. Are you not pleased to see me?”

I said, “Oh, particularly, very; I like you so much.”

People must not think by that that I loved him, or because he said in his last letter to me that I did. I got him home, and made him a cup of tea, after which he seemed better.

He went back to the place where he was then residing, for he did not, as I have already said, live in the house with me.

The following day he came to me very early. That day I was rather short of work.

He said he was sorry he had been in such a bad way and had behaved so rudely. He next asked me to stay at home for the day.

I said “No, that would not do. I should lose my work.”

“Never mind that,” said he. He reckoned up how much I was earning, and said, “Look here, darling! If you will promise me not to go to work again, I will pay for your board and lodging. And if Mrs. Adamson likes, I will give her 14s.a week for my board, and come and stay, but not sleep here.”

There was no accommodation for him in the house. Eventually my better feelings were overruled, and I submitted myself to him. He was invariably very kind to me, and I did not live with him unhappily.

I knew that he made a living on the proceeds of burglaries which he committed, but I never had any of the goods so stolen; and my dresses were bought for me by him.

He said one day he would have given me a splendid ostrich feather, but he had not got them, because the woman of the house at which he used to lodge would not give them up.

I said “It is very strange if you have things where you used to lodge and cannot get them if you don’t owe them anything.”

He replied “Never mind; I will buy you one.”

One Monday night he brought home a black silk dress, polonaise, and a long jacket, which he said he thought would fit me.

I told him I did not wear such things. He offered to buy me some like them, but this offer I also declined.

If I remember rightly, these things were the proceeds of a burglary at Hull, and I believe they have been given up to the police. I have since worn dresses that were stolen, but they have all been given up now to the police.

Mrs. Adamson went with him one day to look at a pawnbroker’s shop, into which she wanted him one night to force an entry, but the project never came to a head.

I believe he thought the premises whereon was so much valuable property were pretty sure to be watched.

Mrs. Adamson would have found means of getting rid of the spoil, but he never did enter the place.

I would rather not mention the name of the street in which the shop was situated.

After that he committed a great cloth robbery at one of the factories, and in the course of a week he went again and stole a great number of coats.

He brought several rolls of cloth and the coats to Mrs. Adamson, who disposed of a great portion of the property to persons whom one would have thought to be of unblemished respectability.

In June, 1877, Mrs. Adamson wanted some blankets, and Peace said he could get her any amount.

He went to get some, or, at any rate, to try, but was detected in the act of entering the house.

He made his escape through a stable and through a woodyard.

Resistance was offered by a man on the premises, but Peace pulled out his revolver and threatened to shoot him; and the man, intimidated, let him get clear away.

PEACE’S FLIGHT FROM NOTTINGHAM.

After that he was constantly concerned in robberies until the occasion of the great silk robbery, for the perpetrator of which £50 reward was offered. That was just before we came to London.

The silk was disposed of by Mrs. Adamson, and the detectives came to her house two or three days after. Ward, as I then called him, and I were sitting together. We were living together you know, sir, then——the fact is we were in bed together. I was asleep, but the noise the officers made on entering awoke me.

I said, “Oh, Mr. G.,” that is the name of the officer who first entered the room. He stood astonished when he saw me. “Oh, Mr. G.,” I said, “let me get out of this.”

He said, “I am surprised to see you, Mrs. Bailey.”

The men turned to the convict Peace and said to him, “What is your name?”

“John Ward,” was the rather sullen reply.

“What do you do for a living?” the officer next asked.

“I hawk spectacles.”

“Where is your licence?”

“I will show it to you when I come down.”

“Get up and dress,” said one of the officers.

“I shan’t before you,” was the reply, in the same sullen tone and manner, “but I will be down directly.” They went downstairs, leaving Ward in the room.

I said to Peace, “Let me go out,” whereupon he permitted me to leave the room, and went to my next-door neighbour’s, where I was very much hurt indeed at the thought of what had happened.

They asked me what was the matter, and I said, “I do not know.”

No sooner had I left the room, than Peace slipped on his clothes, and made his escape through the window, squeezing himself between two iron bars which I am sure were not more than six or eight inches apart.

He ran across the road into the house of a neighbour, whom he got to fetch his boots for him, the detectives being at the time in the house waiting for him to come downstairs.

At last one of them shouted out, “Come, young man, you are a long time coming.”

No answer being returned, a move was made upstairs; the door was thrust open, and the discovery made that the bird had flown.

Away from the neighbour’s house he went to the Trent side, where he walked for a considerable distance.

When he considered himself safe from recognition, he entered a public-house, where he gave a man 1s.and a note for me.

The note was one asking me to go to him at the place where he was staying, but I declined, and the daughter of the house where I was living went to see him in my stead.

I sent him some money by her, and the answer he made me was that he did not care for all the detectives in England; that he would not lose sight of me; that he would not go away from the place without me.

I belonged, he said, to him, and he would not leave the neighbourhood without me.

He sent yet again, and then I met him by appointment in the evening time, and from that time we have always been together.

We came to London together, and took apartments in the Lambeth district, where he began again that career of crime which has made him so notorious.

But here again his character to the outside world was the same as it had ever been.

Though he was always regarded as a passionate man, he was at the same time looked upon as quiet, peaceable, and inoffensive, and in the highest degree respectable.

As a performer upon the violin he was anything but a mean proficient. He mixed very little with his neighbours, to my knowledge, in this locality, and but little was known of that wonderful fund of ingenuity which he undoubtedly possessed.

Often and often have I said to him what a pity it was that he had not turned his abilities to a better account than for the purpose of committing depredations upon the property of his fellow-creatures; but though his manner to me was kind, he would always jeer and scoff at my rebukes.

It would be utterly impossible for me to enumerate all the robberies he has committed. He has told me at times of his having been into as many as four and even six houses in a single night, sometimes with success, and sometimes, of course, without.

During the day it was his custom to remain in bed, preparing himself for his work in the following evening, when he would regularly go out upon his housebreaking exploits.

Sometimes he came in with a great deal of valuable plunder, consisting chiefly of silver and gold watches, rings, and various other articles. After a while I became tired of living at apartments. Some of his friends from Darnall used to stay there.

We only had one room, though it was comfortable and nicely furnished; and as I did not think it decent for them to come and live with us, I insisted upon Peace providing me with a home that I could call my own; and as he was uniformly good to me at that time, and gave me nearly everything that I asked, he promised that I should have one.

He had just previously committed a great robbery, and he asked me if I would take some money for him to some friends of his at a distance, as he dared not write letters. I consented to this, and several times I took money for him to Hull.

Hannah was living in that town at the time, and kept a shop there. I particularly wish that fact to be stated. Several times I took money to Hull, and never less than £5 at a time. Often I took a great deal more.

MRS. PEACE GOES TO LONDON.

One Sunday evening a knock came at the door at the house where we lived at Lambeth. I answered the door; and saw before me a little elderly woman.

“Does Mrs. Thompson live here?” she asked.

I replied, “Yes.”

She then said that she was Hannah.

I called to Peace and said, “Jack, you’re wanted.”

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Come and see,” I replied.

He did, and he found to his surprise, I believe, that it was Hannah.

“What brought you here?” he asked.

I interrupted jocosely with the remark, “I suppose the train.”

Hannah, however, said, “Didn’t you get my letter? I have been waiting two hours on the look out for you.”

I said, “We received no letter. There is no delivery here on a Sunday morning.”

Jack said, “Come in,” and she came in. Having looked round our apartment, she said, “You have a nice place here.”

Jack asked her if she would have some supper.

She replied in the affirmative, and this I had to get ready. She then began to talk about his friends and of the people whom they both knew, and I learned in the course of conversation that the shop at Hull had been given up, and that she had realised the proceeds.

Peace asked my permission to have Mrs. Ward and the boy Willie in London.

I could not do otherwise than consent, and eventually they came.

Shortly after their arrival we moved to a house at Greenwich, but as we did not live comfortable in the same house, we moved into separate habitations adjoining each other, Mrs. Ward and her son living in one, and I and Peace in the other.

Whilst we were living in this manner Peace made a journey into the provinces—​a thing which he now very seldom did. Whilst upon this excursion he committed a great burglary at Southampton.

The police say that the affair took place at Portsea, but I know better; it was at Southampton. By this robbery Peace cleared something like £200—​£60 of the money being in gold and silver, and the remainder in Bank of England notes.

These he found no difficulty in getting rid of. There is a place, I am told, where all Bank of England notes can be disposed of without inquiries being made, but I do not feel justified in stating where it is. That is reserved for the Bank of England authorities.

It was upon the proceeds of that excursion that he started his pony and trap, the expenses of maintaining which he found to be great.

In the first place we had no stable accommodation connected with the house we occupied. This had to be paid for, and the cost of the food for the pony was again a very considerable item.

One day I said to him:

“I don’t like this neighbourhood; let us remove from here and get where there is a stable connected with the house.”

He told me he had seen a place in the Evalina-road, Peckham, and if I would put my things on we would go and see it, which we did.

We inquired next door as to who was the agent or the landlord of the house, and the lady whom we saw kindly referred us to Mr. Smith. We looked over the house, which we both liked very much. Smith and Peace came to an agreement as to the building of a stable.

When Smith asked for references, Peace said to him:

“Oh, come down and see my house.”

Smith did so, dined with us, and went away perfectly satisfied, for a few days afterwards we received a note to say that the house was at our disposal.

Shortly afterwards we removed to the houseNo.5, East Terrace, Evalina-road, Peckham, where my troubles commenced.

Mrs. Ward and the boy Willie came to live in the same house with myself and Peace, and her presence occasioned much trouble between us. When we were settled, Peace began his system of robberies again.

Oh! many a time have I, by my tears and by my entreaties, kept that man at home.

I was not allowed to move from the house without either one or the other being with me; but though they were so afraid of me, I should never have breathed a syllable against them.

I have been threatened, and he latterly at times ill-used me.

I have had a pistol pointed at my head and more than once he has threatened to kill me. Peace used occasionally to ill-use Hannah cruelly, and in a way I shudder to think about.

On one occasion he threatened me because I had pawned a silk dress, and he was afraid that it might be traced.

Racked by jealousy, a prey to remorse, and the object of constant suspicion, is it to be wondered that I at last took to drinking?

In this respect Peace was again indulgent, for though he jealously guarded me when I went out, at home I could have what I liked, and with drink I deadened my senses, and fled from my shame and despair.

Peace, as a rule, went out nightly, unless he got a good haul, when he would stop at home for a night or two.

What I call a “good haul” was when he was able to show me plenty of jewellery and silver-plate. I have know him bring home sixty-six ounces at a time. His method of procedure being this: he used to be driven of an evening to within a certain distance of the house where he intended to “work.”

If the nights were light, Peace used to be concealed all night and return home, say, between six and seven o’clock in the morning, when some one would go out and meet him.

He was very good to his horse, for I should like people to give him his due; and it was only occasionally that he worked it hard.

He often went to his destination by train or by tram, and some one would go with the trap to meet him at the hour and place appointed. When he has come home haggard and black, as I have often seen him, he has said to me, “Well, pet, have you not got a smile for me?”

According as he had been successful, or the reverse, he would say, “Well, I have not done much, my girl or, “I have done pretty well;” and then he would proceed to sort out the property, preparatory to its disposal.

I have seen him shake his head sometimes over the proceeds of the night’s takings, and say, “I don’t think they will fetch much.” Then he would tell me of his struggles and his escapes, and the number of houses he had been into.

Once he told me that, in order to get a gold watch and chain from under a lady’s pillow, he had to shift her position slightly.

The lady, he told me, muttered something fond, and turned over to her husband, whom she believed to have been the cause of the very slight disturbance occasioned.

Peace abstracted the watch and chain, and came away. I verily believe that, when such adventures occurred to him, he used to come back sick at heart, for, notwithstanding the profession which he followed, and the fact that he had always firearms which he would not have hesitated to use had he been disturbed, he was generally very kind to me, and I am sure he felt such things.

Now, as to the disposal of the property. If it was valuable, he used to send for those persons who bought of him, and obtain for them such a sum of money as he required.

I am not at liberty to say who those persons were, but Peace used to swear that if ever he was taken he would do for them, and confess as to his accomplices, but I hope I shall not be mixed up in that affair.

I always told him he would go to Blackheath once too often. I cannot say more than the persons to whom he disposed of the property were Jews.

Two I know of, certainly, and they will “Jew” me, I expect, if they get hold of me. One day I went with him while he disposed of some property.

He used to take the property wrapped up like drapers’ parcels—​innocent and unsuspicious-looking enough. He used to treat me with great kindness when Mrs. Ward was nowhere about.

He seemed to be never so happy as when he could get me alone. We occupied the drawing-room floor, using the front room as a sitting-room and the back as a bedroom, the breakfast-room below being my private sitting-room or boudoir, and the rest of the house being devoted to our lodgers.

The care of Peace’s animals, of which, by the way, he was extremely fond, devolved upon myself.

It would be as well, I think, to say what they were, as the collection was heterogenous.

There were ten guinea pigs, every one of which I gave away when he was taken; a goat, two cats, two Maltese terriers, and a cockatoo; and in addition to these, Mrs. Ward kept a Maltese dog, a parrot, a dog, and four pigeons.

When Peace went out at night to work he always took with him a revolver, a “jemmy,” a sharp knife, and various-sized screws wherewith to fasten the doors of rooms in which he was “working,” so as to ensure his being able to thoroughly ransack them without being disturbed; but he never took skeleton keys, for he was so skilful that he would take out the panel of a door almost noiselessly and with great rapidity.

When the police caught him they caught the cleverest thief and the cleverest beast that I should think there ever was in human form.

Here, Mrs. Thompson, as I shall continue to call her (that being the name by which she is best known), produced to me an old pair of Peace’s trousers.

In addition to the usual side pockets, they were fitted with pockets behind on a level with the hip, and in these receptacles he used, she told me, to stow away his revolver, and whatever instruments he had to take with him.

The inside of the trousers on the left-hand side was filled with a piece of oilskin or glazed cloth, to prevent the iron from chafing the burglar’s skin.

Mrs. Thompson also showed me how, by turning in his left foot and by bending up his make-believe arm towards his shoulder, the little man used to assume deformity.

I also obtained from her a description of a burglar’s stick, as she called it, which Peace found useful in climbing, and an instrument still more remarkable which, she said he possessed, as a kind of portable step ladder of seventeen steps, which he was able to fold into so small a compass that he could go out with it underneath his coat without attracting attention.

It was provided with hooks, for the purpose of fastening to walls and window ledges, but she said he never used it, owing, I suppose, to the fact that it was a clumsy apparatus to affix noiselessly.

After that she continued her narrative as follows:—

Peace never went out without leaving me with a revolver which, I dare say, I should have the courage to use had occasion presented. He had four revolvers altogether, and the three he left at home I destroyed, when I found he had been taken. Yes, as you suggest, I sank them. When he came to London he ceased to appear as a one-armed man, except in the presence of a man whose name I will not mention.

PEACE’S CAPTURE—​DISPOSAL OF PROPERTY.

When we saw in the papers that he had been taken Mrs. Ward cried out, “Oh, my poor Charlie—​my poor Charlie! I must go—​I dare not stay here; Willie, you must go too.”

I then asked her, “And what is to become of me then?”

“Oh,” she said, “You are young; you can fight your own battle.”

She was for selling everything, but I objected to my furniture being sold, as I thought I might be able to get a living by letting apartments.

My rooms were well furnished, though I had no carpets, and Jack bought every stick that was in them. We divided all the money that was in the house, about £5, and sold the trap, harness, cushions, and rug for £8, though he had given £14 for the trap alone.

It does not matter to whom they were sold, because the man who bought them did not know at that time that we were other than very respectable people, and I should not like to expose him as having had dealings with us.

Hannah took all the moveables. We divided the ready money, and parted.

I was very firm about the furniture, which Jack said he had bought to be my own. If I liked, he said, he would buy me more.

I was to have had a piano on the 14th December last, as a birthday present.

Heigho! I cannot help feeling that I have made a great mistake. It has blotted my life; but there, I am not going to be sentimental any more. I am not a sentimental sort.

Mrs. Thompson then went on to state that when she found herself quite alone she had applied to a gentleman who had befriended her, and through whom she received the following letter from the wretched man in prison:—

“From John Ward,

“A prisoner inH.M.Prison, Newgate,

November 5, 1878.

“My dearly beloved Wife,

“Oh! do forgive me for what I have brought on myself, and the disgrace upon you. Oh! have mercy on me all of you, and do forgive me for my drunken madness and do all you can for me on my trial, which I think will be about the 18th November, so, my dear wife, do have pity upon me and do your very best for me, for I think that you may do me a great deal of good, that is by doing just as I tell you to do. You must go and tell Mr. —— that I do very much want to see him at once about him coming to speak as to my character. I want to see Mr. —— to see if he will come to speak for me, and I want you to go with Mr. —— to Mr. —— to see if he will come forward to speak to my dealing with him in musical instruments, and tell him that I only want him to come forward and speak the truth of me. My dear wife, you must also find everyone of my letters about my income, and also every invoice about my dealing in musical instruments, and give them to Mr. —— for him to take along with his letters to my solicitor, now, at once, and also let them have some of my cards. My darling dear wife, this must really be attended to at once.

“My dear wife, I feel that there is one great favour, that this has been my first offence, and never having been in prison before, so that by your doing your best for me, and with the help of God, hope it may be better for me than may be expected, and as soon as ever this comes to your hands you must come direct to see me, and never mind the disgrace of your having come to see me in a prison, for I must really see you, so do come to see me, and I want to see my solicitor for something very particular, so that you must tell him to come and see me, and give my dear love to Mr. and Mrs. —— and also to my dear friends.

“I am, your ever loving husband,

“(Signed)John Ward.”

This gentleman, as Mrs. Thompson further went on to state, had been engaged with Peace in the getting out of a patent for raising sunken vessels. To him she applied when Peace was taken, she stating that he had left her and gone off with another woman.

He took her into his house, and under his persuasion she disclosed what she knew of him—​not, she said, for her own protection, for she would willingly have been taken herself, but because it was represented to her that she must forward the ends of justice.

I then tried to obtain from her some particulars of the past life of Peace, but as to these she was extremely reticent.

“How did he really escape on the night of the murder?” I asked.

Mrs. Thompson replied—

“I have never breathed this to any one. I have had people try and try, and try over again.

“According to what he has told me, he climbed over a wall opposite Mr. Dyson’s house, and walked deliberately over a field.

“He has told me the name, but I do not remember. I got a lot out of him through his dreams, but he never told me he had committed murder. He said it was something else he had to run away for.

“He went direct to his aunt’s house. Having first cut off his beard, he dressed himself in a fustian suit, and went across country, committing little depredations to help him on his journey, for he had no money until he arrived at Bradford.

“He did not personate a one-armed man then; that device he did not carry into effect until he was at Hull. He took a room at Bradford and kept two women there, who used to assist him in burglaries.

He has often boasted to me of his achievements in that town and others, and he seemed to find a particular sort of pride in the fact that in one case it took him and one of his accomplices three days to remove some things from a furnished house which the tenants had temporarily left, and which, so far as articles of value were concerned, he literally cleared out.

“He has told me a good deal about his earlier career, but I can’t recall it to mind just now. First of all, he told me he was a sort of worker in the iron trade; that ever since he was fourteen he was a thief. Sometime between 1852 and 1854 he resided with Mrs. Peace at Manchester. He was brooght up for trial on a charge of burglary about that time, and Mrs. Peace had to sell the things in the house they lived in—​most of them being stolen—​to procure him professional advice upon his trial. He was committed for seven years, and while he was in prison he communicated with her, and always know of her whereabouts.

“He managed to write more than the police officials knew of, for he had a way of pasting up his letters which he has shown me. When he had regained his liberty, which he told me was in 1858, he rejoined Hannah and resumed his old courses. When he went out on his exploits he wore stockings over his boots to conceal his footmarks.”

Mrs. Thompson made various other statements respecting the notorious man who was the subject of our conversation, but they were not calculated to add much to the existing stock of information concerning him.

Either she did not know much of Peace before she went to live with him, or she did not care to make any disclosures; but, as our interview lasted for something over five hours, she must have been tired and her memory confused.

No.84.

Illustration: A MOTHER SEEKING HER SONA MOTHER SEEKING HER SON IN THE THIEVES’ KITCHEN.

A MOTHER SEEKING HER SON IN THE THIEVES’ KITCHEN.

I was not such a barbarian as not to have offered her some refreshment during that period. She took it in the form of steak and onions, rinsed down with brandy and water.

“When we parted we were the best friends in the world; she shook me warmly by the hand, and her last remark was, “I have my own character to redeem, and if I have my health and strength I hope to do it.”

The foregoing is a faithful chronicle of the account given by the woman Thompson.

We have on more than one occasion given the reader an insight of the mode in which Peace disposed of his stolen property. He did not, however, confine his business transactions in this respect to one receiver, or “fence.”

This has been already demonstrated. He had several confederates to whom he disposed of the goods he had so dexterously purloined, but in most cases he had to part with them at what drapers are accustomed to term “a ruinous sacrifice.”

This is invariably the case with burglars and robbers of every description. The receiver has always the best of the bargain.

The property must be got rid of, and this the “fence” knows perfectly well.

Peace, in addition to the two other Israelites already introduced to the reader had a Petticoat-lane confederate, who during his London career bought largely of him. This personage was interviewed by one of the special correspondents of the press. We subjoin a graphic account of his visit.

“That’s my name, and you’re quite right about my keeping a tobacco shop in this lane, and about my buying and selling ’most all kinds of old stores.”

This was the reply given to a comprehensive interrogatory addressed by a Sheffield reporter to a middle-aged keeper of a public-house in Petticoat-lane, whose name indicated that he was “of the order of Melchisedeck,” and who, rumour said, knew something of the manner in which the convict Peace had invested some of the money it is supposed he must have been possessed of shortly before his arrest.

If the police with their finished machinery and well-trained inquisitors have been able to discover nothing, it was hardly to be expected that the astute Hebrew dealer would allow himself to be trapped into any prejudicial admissions by a newspaper emissary, even though he was simply charged with the high and philanthropic duty of affording that dealer opportunity for clearing from his character aspersions which had been unjustly cast upon it.

Having informed the “old stores” man of the charitable nature of his mission, said the “special”:—

“Now, I suppose you never knew or had any dealings with Peace?”

“Me, dealings with Peace! Why, I never heard or seen ’im, except when I was bound over to keep it for six months, ’cause I give a cove a knock in the eye.”

At this sally the rowdy-looking congregation in the bar who had evinced a lively interest in the interview, delivered themselves of a unanimous guffaw. The special smiled blandly, and went on:

“I suppose you have seen what the papers have been saying about your supposed connection with Peace?”

“Oh, yes; I’ve seen it all. It’s all wrong. I’m quite innocent o’ this thing. Besides, it aint nothing to do with me. It aint me they mean. It’s the other man with the same name that keeps the ‘knell’ down the lane. If they wrote about me I should ’a took it up; but as they didn’t, I shall not trouble about it.”

“Glad to find you’re so clear of this nasty business; but have you heard much about the rumours here in the lane?”

“No; nothing except what there’s bin in the newspapers.”

“Ah! then I think I’ll call on the man at the ‘knell,’ and hear what he’s got to say.”

“Yes, that’ll be ’sgood a thing as you can do,” said the store dealer; and as the special passed the threshold sounds of merry cachinnation reached him from the idlers at the bar.

Trudging through the snow-slush, with pipe in mouth as an antidote to the many-flavoured, fever-charged atmosphere, the interviewer in a few minutes found himself outside the “knell.”

The proprietor having been inquired for, he was summoned from upstairs, and in about five minutes presented himself. He was a very young man. He was in his shirt sleeves.

He was short, but had good shoulders and breadth of chest, and his face, which had a puffiness betokening free application to the pewter pot, was adorned with a nose off one side of which the skin had been almost entirely scraped. A smile was as foreign to him apparently as vegetation to an iceberg.

The interviewer made no attempt to smile upon this young and promising vendor of Old Tom. He did not make another.

There was not the remotest smirk of sympathy or approbation in the countenance of hisvis-à-vis.

He listened stoically to a few introductory original observations by the special, such as, “Very unexpected fall of snow this.”

“Quite an old-fashioned winter.”

“Spring will soon be here now, though.”

But on learning the nature of the caller’s business he was no longer passive.

His eyes brightened and jumped a bit, and he became loquacious, but continued cynical.

“I haven’t got nothing to say about the matter. All I know is that I don’t know nothing about Peace or about his money, or his loan society, or anything else. Besides, the newspapers know all about the case already. If they knows s’much, what do they want to send to me about it for?”

“Well, the fact is,” answered the special, “the function of a newspaper is to put the public in possession of reliable information. Reports which compromise your honour have been given currency, and although minute inquiry has been made no particle of foundation has been found for them. What I want is to get hold of the facts necessary to put the publicau courantwith things as they really are, and at the same time afford a much-injured party a means of retrieving his good name.”

The short man with the broad shoulders, stuck his hands in his breeches pockets, spread his legs, swung his head to and fro, lifted his eyelashes, and remarked, “Ah! you do—​do you?”

Then he turned round to his wife and inquired of her in surly tones why she had called him down, and muttered something to her not at all complimentary to newspaperdom or its labourers.

“Well, look here, Mister. I don’t care for what the newspapers say. Let ’em find out what they can. I aint got nothin’ to say. All I knows is that if the papers says anything about me they’ll be sorry for it, that’s all.”

“Ah! but they have done so already. They have mentioned both your name and that of your house.”

“Well, what if they have? What good have they done?” rejoined the innkeeper, and then he continued, “I’ve been bothered enough over this matter already, and I don’t want to be bothered any more.” So saying he left the special in dudgeon.

The rumours which have been afloat anent Peace’s confederates in Petticoat-lane have been sufficiently weighty to justify a descent by the police on the houses of the suspected parties.

Nothing criminating was, however, forthcoming, and the probability is that, wanting divulgence by Peace, the public will remain ignorant what has become of whatever money he has stored.

Inspired by the extraordinary statements circulated at this time as to the enormous amount of property alleged to have been disposed of by Peace, and by the reported “finds” of hidden spoil in London, theDaily Telegraphwrites:—

“For a precedent to the curious museum of plunder now in police custody at Bethnal-green we must go back to the days of that very eminent ‘fence,’ Jonathan Wild.

“The real character of this remarkable scoundrel has been unfortunately obscured, first in Fielding’s masterly ‘Jonathan Wild the Great,’ which is fundamentally a satire upon the statesmen of his time; and next in Mr. Ainsworth’s foolish and mischievous romance of ‘Jack Sheppard.’

“We must peruse the straightforward and dispassionate Old Bailey sessions papers to study Jonathan in his true aspect as a cunning, adroit, and not ill-educated rascal, who first reduced robbing to a system, and organised a detailed scheme for receiving and disposing of stolen goods.

“He started in business on a very small scale as the landlord of a little alehouse in Cock-alley, Cripplegate, where he surreptitiously purchased the ‘takings’ of the juvenile pickpockets from Moorfields.

“At night he would perambulate the brandy shops of Fleet-street, and traffic with the women who had contrived to rob drunken people of their watches or pocket-books.

“Growing bolder with success, it is on positive criminal record that he convened a meeting at his house of the most notorious thieves in London, and represented to them that if they took their booty to such of the pawnbrokers as were known not to be troubled with scruples of conscience, they—​the thieves—​would scarcely receive a fifth of the value of the goods which they had stolen; whereas if they could agree to bring their prizes to him he would make much more liberal terms for them.

“The penalty for failing to constitute Jonathan Wild their receiver-general was simply death. Bad faith was immediately resented by the denunciation of the thief to justice; and unless he could come to an arrangement with Wild the chances were overwhelming in favour of the robber going to Tyburn.

“Thus Jonathan Wild was not only a preceptor of thieves and a ‘putter-up’ of robberies, but also a receiver of stolen goods, and a thieftaker to boot.

“Removing from Cock-alley to a house in the Old Bailey, he found at length that he had accumulated an embarrassingly heavy stock of stolen property, and he absolutely purchased a sloop in order to transport his plunder to Holland and Flanders.

“The command of this vessel was entrusted to one Roger Johnson, a noted river pirate; and Wild’s factor at Ostend, and general Continental agent, was a superannuated thief called Randall.

“The sloop—​her name, unfortunately, is not mentioned in the records of rascality—​having discharged her cargo at Ostend, brought back to England such commodities as lace, wine, and brandy, which were landed at night, and, it is almost needless to say, without the custom-house authorities being troubled in the matter.

“Smuggling and dealing in stolen goods are operations possibly, no longer carried on in conjunction; still, who shall say that our modern Jonathan Wilds have not their favourite lines of steamers—​it is not now necessary that they should buy ships of their own—​and that they have not their factors and agents at Continental ports and in Continental cities?

“Many thousands of pounds’ worth of jewellery and bank-note—​to name only two sorts of plunder—​are stolen every year.

“There must be a mart for this precious merchandise, a mart the whereabouts of which must be perfectly familiar to professional burglars and thieves.

“Bank robbers and pickpockets have been known coolly to admit that the market price for a stolen five-pound note is three pounds ten shillings. Who buys stolen bank notes at this rate? Who melts down the stolen plate? Who wrenches the stolen gems out of their settings? Who sends the unset jewels to Amsterdam and elsewhere?

“If the police are unable to find out the wholesale dealers in stolen property, and trust to chance to make such a haul as they made the other day in the Commercial-road, might it not be expedient to allow the next professional burglar we catch to turn Queen’s evidence against the receivers?

“No terms can be made with a murderer, and Peace must be left to the gallows; but most useful revelations might be obtained from a professional housebreaker permitted to turn approver.

“Such a witness, if his evidence proved trustworthy, should receive—​strictly or once in away—​a full pardon.

“Convicts sentenced to penal servitude are not apt to be very grateful for a partial remission of their term of durance; and, indeed, in the case of Mr. Harry Benson, the Government, it appears, does not conceive that it is under any obligation at all to the convict for having made an exhibition of the old detective force in its full iniquity.”

In tracing the criminal career of a desperate character like Peace, it is curious to note how prone to wrong-doing he was from his earliest youth. His first theft is thus described:—

An apple of beautiful hue tempted Eve to her first sin, and it is said that fruit of a similar name first induced Peace to commit a serious theft. In the year 1830 he lived close to the orchard of theRev.Joseph Smith, whose residence was known as the Plantation.

“Therev.gentleman was the pastor of the flock who worshipped at the Nether Chapel in Norfolk-street. But the ‘Plantation’ on Langsett-road had a different prospect to what is now the case.

“Then it was in the country really; on the banks behind the houses were farms and orchards; beneath the house were meadows sloping to the River Don, which was then alive with fish, trout being plentiful in the waters, and at times a salmon or sea-trout strayed into these higher regions from the Ouse.

“The railway connecting Sheffield with Manchester had not made its black streak across the opposite Old Park-hill, and a pleasant place was the residence of the Independent minister of those days.

“Behind the good man’s house was a goodly orchard, and within the enclosure fruit trees which carried crops of heavy, golden fruit.

“The lads of the neighbourhood viewed those crops with envy, and one of the leading spirits among them was Charles Peace, a well-instructed lad, fearless, venturesome, and domineering in spirit.

“He planned the robbery of the pastor’s orchard, but being inexperienced, was captured—​whilst in an apple tree.

“He had not learnt in those days the wiles and deceits which have since come so naturally to him.

“But he had not to cope with detectives, inspectors, constables, and other professional men, who render life obnoxious to a thief. His captor was actually the parish beadle.

“Had that man lived until these days how proudly he might have said—

“‘I caught Peace!’

“But the youthful aspirant to future honours did not obtain the reward he should have had for his speculation.

“He bargained for apples, and instead was taken before the wrathful owner of the fruit, Mr. Smith. The beadle shortly afterwards had a task to undertake which left no mark in local history, but did on the young man who stole the apples.

“Such was the commencement in ‘active’ life of him who now occupies a cell in Newgate, from thence to be taken to answer a record of crime the which has not been paralleled by Claude Duval, Thomas King, Richard Turpin, or others of that ilk.

“Those men had not the telegraph to compete with, yet failed; Peace had the widespread information of modern days to watch, and yet for a time succeeded.

“The marauders of the old shool, above mentioned, defeated justice for a time because on their thoroughbred horses they could outride the messengers of justice.

“Peace had to fight against the magnificent apparatus of science by which information is flashed across a thousand miles in a second of time, and yet he succeeded in baffling all who sought to track him.”

The blow that had fallen on Peace and his domestic circle was a terrible one, and in a short space of time, after his conviction, the house in the Evalina-road was tenantless.

A visit to the locality is thus described by an eye-witness:—

“Peckham approached from Greenwich, with a suggestion of sunshine in the sky, looked much prettier to-day. There are some goodly houses along Queen’s-road, but as one climbs the hill to Peace’s part, the houses taper away till long lines of modest brick buildings meet the eye. Where Peace lived may be called the tail-end of Peckham.

“His house is still to let, and though nobody that I can hear of has been to visit it—​except members of the Press—​the gentleman who has the letting of it thinks he will get a couple of pounds extra now that it has sprung into notoriety.

“Well, he may. I don’t know so much about the peculiarities of the Peckham people; but on this point I am inclined to agree with the lady who lives next door. She wants to let her front room, and has ‘Apartments’ in the window.

“That card appeals in vain to the eligible young gentlemen who usually want comfortable chambers, and she is afraid that respectable people will not care to come into such a ‘dreadful’ neighbourhood.

“She considers it a bad day for her when she came there, which she did a week before Peace was found out. Indeed, it was from Peace she had the keys to look over the house. An ominous introduction truly.

“Her idea is that before that house lets again £2 will have to be taken off, instead of being put on, the rent. I agree with her, for I can hear of nobody who has a good word for the house, except perhaps the postman, who told me, as we trudged together through the mud, that ‘it wasn’t a bad place in his view of it. The Thompsons did not trouble him much—​they had very few letters.’

“A neighbour says that when the Thompsons came their house was a treat to look at, Mr. Thompson filling all the front windows with choice and costly flowers, which he carefully tended and watered with his own hands.

“People at Peckham are beginning to be a trifle impatient with inquisitive strangers who want to know about their most famous character. On my first visit to Peckham I looked in on the gentleman who combines the duties connected with her Majesty’s mails with dispensing flour and other household necessities to her Majesty’s females.

“I asked him if he knew and could tell me where ‘Mr. Smith’ lived—​the party who had let the house to Mr. Thompson? This gentleman shut me up very sharp.

“‘I know where Mr. Smith lives, but I don’t think I would be justified in telling you, as you would only be bothering him like the rest.’

“I left that establishment with a feeling that my introduction to the natives of Peckham was not encouraging. A few yards further on I saw Mr. Smith’s address ln the windows of half-a-dozen empty houses, the notices inviting people to apply to ‘Mr. Smith, Ryde Villas,St.Mary’s-road.’

“I accepted the invitation, and found Mr. Smith a most obliging and very communicative gentleman.

HOW PEACE WAS FOUND OUT.

“I find the police scout the idea that the man ‘Ward’ was discovered through the jealousy of Mrs. Thompson, the younger of the ‘housekeepers’ at Peckham, and the professed wife of Peace.

“Those who had to do with the case told me that they had no information whatever from Mrs. Thompson, who never communicated with them, but disappeared as she sniffed danger.

“‘How then,’ I asked, ‘did it occur to you to connect the Blackheath burglar with the Bannercross murderer?’

“‘Well,’ was the reply, ‘we can scarcely tell you. We could not get our evidence so complete as we could wish, and we were obliged to wait for a time. That waiting served us well. Trifles, mere trifles, such as we can scarcely repeat to you, made us believe that this man was ‘somebody.’ We watched those who came about our place at Greenwich; then we watched those who came about Newgate. We got, after great trouble, a hint or two; we acted upon what we received, and were ultimately able to connect the man ‘Ward’ with Peckham; then from Peckham we worked Nottingham and Sheffield, and then the case gradually worked itself into shape.’

“For the police it was a lucky thing Mrs. ‘Ward’ took those two boxes to Sheffield.

“That, I believe, was really the first indication that Blackheath and Bannercross were connected.

“It suddenly flashed across one of the Greenwich division that this mysterious man, who called himself a ‘half-caste,’ resembled in every respect except one the man so urgently ‘wanted’ at Sheffield.

“That exception was his hair, particularly the absence of beard and whiskers. Height, breadth, eyes, manner of talking, singularity of fingers, and wide, straddling walk—​to quote the police description, ‘walking with his legs apart’—​all tallied. Put beard and whiskers upon that face, and it was—​Peace.

“Inspector Bonny went to Nottingham; Inspector Phillips to Sheffield.

“Phillips was shown a portrait of Peace. He was confirmed in his suspicions. The photograph resembled the man in Newgate so closely that he had no doubt as to the identity.

“The rest of the story you know. How Phillips and Twibell found the property at Darnall in the possession of Mrs. Peace, how the property was identified as part of the proceeds of the Blackheath burglaries, how Police-constable Morris came to London and identified Peace in Newgate, and (as I telegraphed to you) how the Treasury, appreciating the importance of the case in the light of the identification, undertook the prosecution on its own account.

“To Police-officer Robinson undoubtedly belongs in the first instance the credit of capturing Peace. He unquestionably risked his life in his courageous encounter with the desperate convict, and well deserves such recognition as has been suggested by your correspondent.

“Let it not be forgotten, however, that Robinson’s share in the transaction terminated there. Without him nothing would have been done; yet after Peace’s bullet pierced his arm and the two constables came to his help, Robinson dropped the thread, which was picked up by Inspector Phillips and Inspector Bonny.

“These officers have been indefatigable in their exertions to bring home the graver charge against Peace. Day by day, and night after night they have laboured, and many a night since the memorable evening when Peace was caught in the act, they have slept not, neither have they rested, so anxious have they been to close once for all the career of the dreadful villain whose escape made everybody so uneasy.

“But it should not be forgotten (observed a writer at the time) if testimonials are spoken of, to remember these two officers.

“Robinson was a brave fellow, and acted like a hero; yet if Bonny and Phillips had not used their brains, and set their highly-trained wits to work, ‘John Ward’ might have been convicted of the Blackheath burglary and the shooting of the intrepid Robinson, and he might have been sentenced to penal servitude for life; but in Sheffield the Bannercross murder would have been regarded as an undiscovered crime.

“To Bonny and Phillips belong the credit of proving that Ward was Peace, that Blackheath meant Bannercross, that burglary was overshadowed by the bigger crime of murder. A wave of relief swept over Sheffield when it was known that Peace had really been captured at last. To Phillips and Bonny was due the fact that he was thought of at all as the man who shot Dyson two years before.

THE TROUBLES OF THE PEACES.

“There is really no peace for the Peaces. Now that Charles Peace, the man of Bannercross, has been caught there are dozens of persons who are anxious to tell all they know about him and his family.

“Several of them have got it into their heads that there is only one family of Peace, the head and front of which now awaits in Newgate the reward of his desperate misdeeds.

“Thus it comes about that several most excellent people are getting uneasy about the name they bear, particularly when they find it connected with some of the early doings of “the insignificant-looking” gentleman who has recently sprung into so much significance.

“The latest instance is that of a family of Peace who lived some time ago in Philadelphia—​not the Philadelphia which figures in Sacred Writ, but the exceedingly secular locality of that name which figures in Sheffield.

“Mr. Charles Peace, of George-street, Philadelphia, has no connection whatever with the Charles Peace of the many aliases, burglar and murderer; neither is it right that his son, who also bears the (in these days) somewhat burdensome name of Charles Peace, should be associated with the person who has proved himself so eligible a candidate for the last attentions of the law.

“It is certainly a trifle too bad, even when people are thirsting for every particle of information about that extraordinary character, that the respectable member of a respectable firm of file manufacturers in Pea-croft, or his son who earns his livelihood in an honourable way in the file trade at Rotherham, should have themselves brought up in public as connected in even the remotest degree with the ruffian who had the misfortune to call himself by their name.

“So that, once for all, readers will understand the Philadelphia Peace and the Bannercross Peace are wide as the poles asunder.

“This incident reminds one of the trouble and suspicion to which many people were put shortly after the murder.

“Peace, it will be remembered, was described as a ‘little, insignificant-looking man, with grey hair.’

“There was at once an eager look-out kept for people who answered that somewhat general description. It was a bad time for ‘little insignificant-looking men,’ and as our local world has a good many people who come fairly within that description, several estimable and other citizens were frequently the object of glances which were not at all flattering in their meaning.

“Two elderly gentlemen were pointed out as greatly resembling the notorious Peace, and enjoyed a reputation on that account only a shade less comfortable than other gentlemen in this district, of most substantial proportions, who up to a short time ago were repeatedly referred to as remarkably like the Claimant.

“Even when a more specific description of Peace appeared mistakes were freely made, though not with the provoking results of a double apprehension, as in the case of that poor tramp at Barrow-in-Furness, who was subsequently apprehended at Hexham, and who complained bitterly—​and not unnaturally—​to our reporter who interviewed him in prison, that he should have been arrested a second time ‘when the police had already let him go once.’

“This poor fellow, to put matters right once for all, made a pilgrimage to Sheffield and called upon the Chief Constable, who, of course, had no more to do with his arrest at Barrow-in-Furness and Hexham than the poor tramp had to do with the arrest of the real Peace by Police-constable Robinson in that garden at Blackheath.”

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