CHAPTER IX.THE THIEF NON-PROFESSIONAL.

This is, indeed, a doleful summing up of our present position and future prospects as regards so large a percentage of those we build prisons for. It is somewhat difficult to avoid a feeling of exasperation when, as anhonest man, and one who finds it at times a sore pinch to pay rates and taxes, one contemplates the ugly, hopeless picture. Still, we should never forget that these are creatures who are criminal not by their own seeking. They are as they were born and bred and nurtured, and the only way of relieving society of the pest they are against it, is to take all the care we may to guard against the ravages of those we have amongst us, and adopt measures for the prevention of their breeding a new generation.

How this may be accomplished is for legislators to decide. Hitherto it has appeared as a phase of the criminal question that has attracted very little attention on the part of our law makers. They appear, however, to be waking up to its importance at last. Recently, in the House of Lords, Lord Romilly suggested that the experiment might be tried of taking away from the home of iniquity they were reared in the children of twice or thrice convicted thieves above the age of ten years; taking them away for good and all and placing them under State protection; educating them, and giving them a trade. If I rightly recollect, his lordship’s suggestion did not meet with a particularly hearty reception. Some of his hearers were of opinion that it was setting a premium on crime, by affording the habitual thief just that amount of domestic relief he in his selfishness would be most desirous of. But Lord Romilly combated this objection with the reasonable rejoinder, that by mere occupation the nature of the thief was not abased below that of the brute, and that it was fair to assume that so far from encouraginghim to qualify himself for State patronage, his dread of having his children taken from him might even check him in his iniquitous career.

One thing, at least, is certain; it would come muchcheaperto the country if these budding burglars and pickpockets were caught up, and caged away from the community at large, before their natures became too thoroughly pickled in the brine of rascality. Boy thieves are the most mischievous and wasteful. They will mount a house roof, and for the sake of appropriating the half-a-crown’s worth of lead that forms its gutter, cause such damage as only a builder’s bill of twenty pounds or so will set right. The other day a boy stole a family Bible valued at fifty shillings, and after wrenching off the gilt clasps, threw the book into a sewer; the clasps he sold to a marine store dealer fortwopence halfpenny! It may be fairly assumed that in the case of boy thieves, who are so completely in the hands of others, that before they can “make” ten shillings in cash, they must as a rule steal to the value of at least four pounds, and sometimes double that sum. But let us put the loss by exchange at its lowest, and say that he gets a fourth of the value of what he steals, before he can earn eighteenpence a day, he must rob to the amount of two guineas a week—a hundred and nine pounds a year! Whatever less sum it costs the State to educate and clothe and teach him, the nation would be in pocket.

It would be idle to attempt to trace back to its origin the incentive to crime in the class of small criminals here treated of. Innocent of the meaning of theterm “strict integrity,” they are altogether unconscious of offending against it. They may never repent, for they can feel no remorse for having followed the dictates of their nature. No possible good can arise from piecing and patching with creditable stuff the old cloak of sin they were clothed in at their birth, and have worn ever since, till it has become a second skin to them. ‘Before they can be of any real service as members of an honest community, they must bereformedin the strictest sense of the term. Their tainted morality must he laid bare to the very bones, as it were, and its rotten foundation made good from its deepest layer. The arduousness of this task it is hard to overrate; nothing, indeed, can be harder, except it be to weed out from an adult criminal the tough and gnarled roots of sin that grip and clasp about and strangle his better nature. And this should be the child criminal reformer’s comfort and encouragement.

It must not be imagined, however, that the growth of juvenile criminality is altogether confined to those regions where it is indigenous to the soil; were it so, our prospects of relief would appear much more hopeful than at present, for, as before stated, all that is necessary would be to sow the baleful ground with the saving salt of sound and wholesome teaching, and the ugly vegetation would cease.

But there are other and more formidable sources from which flow the tributary streams that feed and keep at full flood our black sea of crime; more formidable, because they do not take the shape of irrepressiblesprings that make for the surface, simply because they are impelled thereto by forces they have not the strength to combat against, but rather of well planned artificial aqueducts and channels, and on the development of which much of intellect is expended. It is much harder to deal with the boy who, well knowing right from wrong, chooses the latter, than with the boy who from the beginning has been wrong from not knowing what right is.

Moreover, the boy who has been taught right from wrong, the boy who has been sent to school and knows how to read, has this advantage over his poor brother of the gutter—an advantage that tells with inexpressible severity against the community at large; he has trainers who, discovering his weakness, make it their profit and business to take him by the hand and bring him along in that path of life to which his dishonest inclination has called him.

I allude to those low-minded, nasty fellows, the proprietors and promoters of what may be truthfully described as “gallows literature.” As a curse of London, this one is worthy of a special niche in the temple of infamy, and to rank first and foremost. The great difficulty would be to find a sculptor of such surpassing skill as to be able to pourtray in one carved stone face all the hideous vices and passions that should properly belong to it. It is a stale subject, I am aware. In my humble way, I have hammered at it both in newspapers and magazines, and many better men have done the same. Therefore it is stale. For no other reason. The iniquity in itself is as vigorous and hearty as ever, and every week renews itsbrimstone leaves (meanwhile rooting deeper and deeper in the soil that nourishes it), but unfortunately it comes under the category of evils, the exposure of which the public “have had enough of.” It is very provoking, and not a little disheartening, that it should be so. Perhaps this complaint may be met by the answer: The public are not tired of this one amongst the many abuses that afflict its soul’s health, it is only tired of being reminded of it. Explorers in fields less difficult have better fortune. As, for instance, the fortunate discoverer of a gold field is. Everybody would be glad to shake him by the hand—the hand that had felt and lifted the weight of the nuggets and the yellow chips of dust; nay, not a few would be willing to trim his finger nails, on the chance of their discovering beneath enough of the auriferous deposit to pay them for their trouble. But, to be sure, in a city of splendid commercial enterprise such as is ours, it can scarcely be expected that that amount of honour would be conferred on the man who would remove a plague from its midst as on the one whose magnificent genius tended to fatten the money-bags in the Bank cellars.

At the risk, however, of being stigmatized as a man with a weakness for butting against stone walls, I cannot let this opportunity slip, or refrain from firing yet once again my small pop-gun against this fortress of the devil. The reader may have heard enough of the abomination to suit his taste, and let him rest assured that the writer has written more than enough to suithis; but if every man set up his “taste” as the goal and summit of his striving, any tall fellow a tip-toe might, after all, see over the headsof most of us. The main difficulty is that the tens and hundreds of thousands of boys who stint a penny from its more legitimate use to purchase a dole of the pernicious trash in question, havenot“had enough of it.” Nothing can be worse than this, except it is that the purveyors of letter-press offal have not had enough of it either, but, grown prosperous and muscular on the good feeding their monstrous profits have ensured them, they are continually opening up fresh ground, each patch fouler and more pestilent than the last.

At the present writing I have before me half-a-dozen of these penny weekly numbers of “thrilling romance,” addressed to boys, and circulated entirely among them—and girls. It was by no means because the number of these poison pen’orths on sale is small that a greater variety was not procured. A year or so since, wishing to write a letter on the subject to a daily newspaper, I fished out of one little newsvendor’s shop, situated in the nice convenient neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, which, more than any other quarter of the metropolis, is crowded with working children of both sexes, the considerable number oftwenty-threesamples of this gallows literature. But if I had not before suspected it, my experience on that occasion convinced me that to buy more than a third of that number would be a sheer waste of pence. To be sure, to expect honest dealing on the part of such fellows as can dabble in “property” of the kind in question, is in the last degree absurd, but one would think that they would, for “business” reasons, maintain some show of giving a pen’orth for a penny.Such is not the case, however. In three instances in my twenty-three numbers, I found the self-same story publishedtwiceunder a different title, while for at least half the remainder the variance from their brethren is so very slight that nobody but a close reader would discover it.

The six-pen’orth before me include, “The Skeleton Band,” “Tyburn Dick,” “The Black Knight of the Road,” “Dick Turpin,” “The Boy Burglar,” and “Starlight Sall.” If I am asked, is the poison each of these papers contains so cunningly disguised and mixed with harmless-seeming ingredients, that a boy of shrewd intelligence and decent mind might be betrayed by its insidious seductiveness? I reply, no. The only subtlety employed in the precious composition is that which is employed in preserving it from offending the blunt nostrils of the law to such a degree as shall compel its interference. If it is again inquired, do I, though unwillingly, acknowledge that the artful ones, by a wonderful exercise of tact and ingenuity, place the law in such a fix that it would not be justified in interfering? I most distinctly reply, that I acknowledge nothing of the kind; but that, on the contrary, I wonder very much at the clumsiness of a legislative machine that can let so much scoundrelism slip through its cogs and snares.

The daring lengths these open encouragers of boy highwaymen and Tyburn Dicks will occasionally go to serve their villanous ends is amazing. It is not more than two or three years since, that a prosperous member of the gang, whose business premises were in, or within a fewdoors of Fleet Street, by way of giving a fair start to his published account of some thief and murderer, publicly advertised that the buyers of certain numbers would be entitled to a chance of a Prize in a grand distribution ofdaggers. Specimens of the deadly weapons (made, it may be assumed, after the same fashion as that one with which “flash Jack,” in the romance, pinned the police officer in the small of his back) were exhibited in the publisher’s shop window, and in due course found their way into the hands of silly boys, with minds well primed for “daring exploits,” by reading “numbers 2 and 3 given away with number 1.”

It is altogether a mistake, however, to suppose that the poison publisher’s main element of success consists in his glorification of robbers and cut-throats. To be sure he can by no means afford to dispense with the ingredients mentioned in the concoction of his vile brew, but his first and foremost reliance is on lewdness. Everything is subservient to this. He will picture to his youthful readers a hero of the highway, so ferocious in his nature, and so reckless of bloodshed, that he has earned among his comrades the flattering nick-name of “the Panther.” He will reveal the bold panther in all his glory, cleaving the skull of the obstinate old gentleman in his travelling carriage, who will not give up his money, or setting an old woman on the kitchen fire, as a just punishment for hiding her guineas in the oven, in fishing them out of which the panther burns his fingers; he will exhibit the crafty “panther” wriggling his way through the floor boards of his cell, into a sewer beneath, and throughwhich he is to make his escape to the river, and then by a flourish of his magic pen, he will convey the “panther” to the “boudoir” of Starlight Sall, and show you how weak a quality valour is in the presence of “those twin queens of the earth,” youth and beauty! The brave panther, when he has once crossed the threshold of that splendid damsel (who, by the way, is a thief, and addicted to drinking brandy by the “bumper”) is, vulgarly speaking, “nowhere.” The haughty curl of his lip, the glance of his eagle eye, “the graceful contour of his manly form,” a mere gesture of which is sufficient to quell rising mutiny amongst his savage crew, all fall flat and impotent before the queenly majesty of Sall. But there is no fear that the reader will lose his faith in Panther Bill, because of this weakness confessed. As drawn by the Author (does the pestiferous rascal so style himself, I wonder?) Starlight Sall is a creature of such exquisite loveliness, that Jupiter himself might have knelt before her. She is such a matchless combination of perfection, that it is found necessary to describe her charms separately, and at such length that the catalogue of the whole extends through at least six pages.

It is in this branch of his devilish business that the author of “Starlight Sall” excels. It is evident that the man’s mind is in his work, and he lingers over it with a loving hand. Never was there such a tender anatomist. He begins Sall’s head, and revels in her auburn tresses, that “in silken, snaky locks wanton o’er her shoulders, white as eastern ivory.” He is not profound in foreheads, and hers he passes over as “chaste as snow,”or in noses, Sall’s being described briefly as “finely chiselled;” but he is well up in the language of eyes—the bad language. He skirmishes playfully about those of Sall, and discourses of her eyebrows as “ebon brow,” from which she launches her excruciating shafts of love. He takes her by the eye-lashes, and describes them as the “golden fringe that screens the gates of paradise,” and finally he dips into Sall’s eyes, swimming with luscious languor, and pregnant with tender inviting to Panther Bill, who was consuming in ardent affection, as “the rippling waves of the bright blue sea to the sturdy swimmer.” It is impossible here to repeat what else is said of the eyes of Starlight Sall, or her teeth, “like rich pearls,” or of her “pouting coral lips, in which a thousand tiny imps of love are lurking.” Bear it in mind that this work of ours is designed for the perusal of thinking men and women; that it is not intended as an amusing work, but as an endeavour to pourtray to Londoners the curses of London in a plain and unvarnished way, in hope that they may be stirred to some sort of absolution from them. As need not be remarked, it would be altogether impossible to the essayer of such a task, if he were either squeamish or fastidious in the handling of the material at his disposal; but Idarenot follow our author any further in his description of the personal beauties of Starlight Sall. Were I to do so, it would be the fate of this book to be flung into the fire, and every decent man who met me would regard himself justified in kicking or cursing me; and yet, good fathers and mothers of England—and yet, elder brothers and grown sisters, tons of this bird-lime ofthe pit is vended in London every day of the Christian year.

Which of us can say thathischildren are safe from the contamination? Boys well-bred, as well as ill-bred, are mightily inquisitive about such matters, and the chances are very clear, sir, that if the said bird-lime were of a sort not more pernicious than that which sticks to the fingers, we might at this very moment find the hands of my little Tom and your little Jack besmeared with it. Granted, that it is unlikely, that it is in the last degree improbable, even; still, the remotest of probabilities have before now shown themselves grim actualities, and just consider for a moment the twinge of horror that would seize on either of us were it to so happen! Let us for a moment picture to ourselves our fright and bewilderment, if we discovered that our little boys were feasting off this deadly fruit in the secrecy of their chambers! Would it then appear to us that it was a subject the discussion of which we had “had enough of”? Should we be content,then, to shrug our shoulders after the old style, and exclaim impatiently against the barbarous taste of writers who were so tiresomely meddlesome? Not likely. The pretty consternation that would ensue on the appalling discovery!—the ransacking of boxes and cupboards, to make quite sure that no dreg of the poison, in the shape of an odd page or so, were hidden away!—the painful examination of the culprit, who never till now dreamt of the enormity of the thing he had been doing!—the reviling and threatening that would be directedagainst the unscrupulous news-agent who had supplied the pernicious pen’orth! Good heavens! the tremendous rumpus there would be! But, thank God, there is no fear ofthathappening.

Is there not? What are the assured grounds of safety? Is it because it stands to reason that all such coarse and vulgar trash finds its level amongst the coarse and vulgar, and could gain no footing above its own elevation? It may so stand in reason, but unfortunately it is the unreasonable fact that this same pen poison finds customers at heights above its natural low and foul water-line almost inconceivable. How otherwise is it accountable that at least aquarter of a millionof these penny numbers are sold weekly? How is it that in quiet suburban neighbourhoods, far removed from the stews of London, and the pernicious atmosphere they engender; in serene and peaceful semi-country towns where genteel boarding schools flourish, there may almost invariably be found some small shopkeeper who accommodatingly receives consignments of “Blue-skin,” and the “Mysteries of London,” and unobtrusively supplies his well-dressed little customer with these full-flavoured articles? Granted, my dear sir, that your young Jack, or my twelve years old Robert, have minds too pure either to seek out or crave after literature of the sort in question, but not unfrequently it is found without seeking. It is a contagious disease, just as cholera and typhus and the plague are contagious, and, as everybody is aware, it needs not personal contact with a body stricken to convey either of thesefrightful maladies to the hale and hearty. A tainted scrap of rag has been known to spread plague and death through an entire village, just as a stray leaf of “Panther Bill,” or “‘Tyburn Tree” may sow the seeds of immorality amongst as many boys as a town can produce.

The Registered and the Unregistered Thieves of the London Hunting-ground.—The Certainty of the Crop of Vice.—Omnibus Drivers and Conductors.—The“Watchers.”—The London General Omnibus Company.—The Scandal of their System.—The Shopkeeper Thief.—False Weights and Measures.—Adulteration of Food and Drink.—Our Old Law, “I am as honest as I can afford to be!”—Rudimentary Exercises in the Art of Pillage.

Thereare unregistered as well “registered” thieves. How many of the former make London their hunting-ground, it were much more difficult to enumerate. Nor is it so much out of place as might at first appear, to class both phases of rascality under one general heading. We have to consider the sources from which are derived our army of London thieves. It is not as though the plague of them that afflicts was like other plagues, and showed itself mild or virulent, according to well-defined and ascertained provocatives. On the contrary, the crop of our crime-fields is even more undeviating than our wheat or barley crops. A grain of corn cast into the ground may fail, but the seeds of vice implanted in kindly soil is bound to germinate, unless the nature of the soil itself is altered. As already stated, the numberof our London thieves has somewhat decreased of late years, but it is merely to the extent of six or seven per cent. If it is twenty thousand at the present time, this day twelvemonths, allowing for the increased population, it will be nineteen thousand, say.

Appalling as are the criminal returns for the city of London, it would be a vain delusion to imagine that when the “twenty thousand” have passed in review before us, the whole of the hideous picture has been revealed. The Government statistics deal only with “professional criminals;” that class of persons, that is to say, who have abandoned all idea of living honestly, and who, weighing the probable consequences, resign themselves to a life of systematic depredation, and study existing facilities, and likely new inventions, just as the ingenious joiner or engineer does in an honest way.

The all-important question being, what are the main sources from which are derived with such steadiness and certainty, recruits for the great criminal army, it would be as well to inquire how much of dishonesty is permitted amongst us unchecked, simply because it does not take precisely that shape and colour it must assume before it so offends us that we insist on the law’s interference. It should perhaps tend to make us more tender in our dealings with thieves denounced as such, and convicted, and sent to prison, when we consider the thousands of men of all grades who know honesty by name only, and who would at the merest push of adversity slip off the straight path on which for years past they have been no better than barefaced impostorsand trespassers, and plunge at once into the miry ways of the professed thieves. It ceases to be a wonder how constantly vacancies in the ranks of crime are filled when we reflect on the flimsy partition that screens so many seemingly honest men, and the accidental rending of which would disclose a thief long practised, and cool, and bold through impunity. There are whole communities of men, constituting complete branches of our social economy, on whom the taint of dishonesty rests, and their masters are fully aware of it, and yet year after year they are allowed to continue in the same employment. Nay, I think that I may go as far as to assert that so complete is the disbelief in the honesty of their servants by these masters, that to the best of their ability they provide against loss by theft by paying the said servants very little wages. A notable instance of this is furnished by the omnibus conductors in the service of the General Omnibus Company. It is not because the company in question conducts its business more loosely than other proprietors of these vehicles that I particularize it, but because it is a public company in the enjoyment of many privileges and monopolies, and the public have an undoubted right to expect fair treatment from it. I don’t know how many omnibuses, each requiring a conductor, are constantly running through the streets of London, but their number must be very considerable, judging from the fact that the takings of the London General Omnibus Company alone range from nine to ten thousand pounds weekly. Now it is well known to the company that their conductors rob them. A gentleman of my acquaintance once submitted to the secretary ofthe company an ingenious invention for registering the number of passengers an omnibus carried on each journey, but the secretary was unable to entertain it. “It is of no use to us, sir,” said he. “The machine we want is one that will make our menhonest, and that I am afraid is one we are not likely to meet with. Theywillrob us, and we can’t help ourselves.” And knowing this, the company pay the conductor four shillings a day, the said day, as a rule, consisting ofseventeen hours—from eight one morning till one the next. The driver, in consideration it may be assumed of his being removed from the temptation of handling the company’s money, is paid six shillings a day, but his opinion of the advantage the conductor still has over him may be gathered from the fact that he expects the latter to pay for any reasonable quantity of malt or spirituous liquor he may consume in the course of a long scorching hot or freezing cold day, not to mention a cigar or two and the invariable parting glass when the cruelly long day’s work is at an end.

It would likewise appear that by virtue of this arrangement between the omnibus conductor and his employers, the interference of the law, even in cases of detected fraud, is dispensed with. It is understood that the London General Omnibus Company support quite a large staff of men and women watchers, who spend their time in riding about in omnibuses, and noting the number of passengers carried on a particular journey, with the view of comparing the returns with the conductor’s receipts. It must, therefore, happen that the detections of fraud are numerous; but does the reader recollect everreading in the police reports of a conductor being prosecuted for robbery?

To be sure the Company may claim the right of conducting their business in the way they think best as regards the interests of the shareholders, but if that “best way” involves the countenancing of theft on the part of their servants, which can mean nothing else than the encouragement of thieves, it becomes a grave question whether the interests of its shareholders should be allowed to stand before the interests of society at large. It may be that to prosecute a dishonest conductor is only to add to the pecuniary loss he has already inflicted on the Company, but the question that much more nearly concerns the public is, what becomes of him when suddenly and in disgrace they turn him from their doors? No one will employ him. In a few weeks his ill-gotten savings are exhausted, and he, the man who for months or years, perhaps, has been accustomed to treat himself generously, finds himself without a sixpence, and, what is worse, with a mark against his character so black and broad that his chances of obtaining employment in the same capacity are altogether too remote for calculation. The respectable barber who declined to shave a coal-heaver on the ground that he was too vulgar a subject to come under the delicate operations of the shaver’s razor, and who was reminded by the grimy one that he had just before shaved a baker, justified his conduct on the plea that his professional dignity compelled him to draw a linesomewhere, and that he drew it at bakers. Just so the London General Omnibus Company. They draw theline at thieves rash and foolish. So long as a servant of theirs is content to prey on their property with enough of discretion as to render exposure unnecessary, he may continue their servant; but they make it a rule never again to employ a man who has been so careless as to be found out.

As has been shown, it is difficult to imagine a more satisfactory existence than that of an omnibus conductor to a man lost to all sense of honesty; on the other hand it is just as difficult to imagine a man so completely “floored” as the same cad disgraced, and out of employ. It is easy to see on what small inducements such a man may be won over to the criminal ranks. He has no moral scruples to overcome. His larcenous hand has been in the pocket of his master almost every hour of the day for months, perhaps years past. He is not penitent, and if he were and made an avowal to that effect, he would be answered by the incredulous jeers and sneers of all who knew him. The best that he desires is to meet with as easy a method of obtaining pounds as when he cheerfully drudged for eighteen hours for a wage of four-shillings. This being the summit of his ambition, presently he stumbles on what appears even an easier way of making money than the old way, and he unscrupulously appears not in a new character, but in that he has had long experience in, but without the mask.

I should wish it to be distinctly understood, that I do not includeallomnibus conductors in this sweeping condemnation. That there are honest ones amongst them I make no doubt; at the same time I have no hesitationin repeating that in the majority of cases it is expected of them that they will behave dishonestly, and they have no disinclination to discredit the expectation. I believe too, that it is much more difficult for a man to be honest as a servant of the company than if he were in the employ of a “small master.” It is next to impossible for a man of integrity to join and work harmoniously in a gang of rogues. The odds against his doing so may be calculated exactly by the number that comprise the gang. It is not only on principle that they object to him. Unless he “does as they do,” he becomes a witness against them every time he pays his money in. And he does as they do. It is so much easier to do so than, in the condition of a man labouring hard for comparatively less pay than a common road-scraper earns, to stand up single handed to champion the cause of honesty in favour of a company who are undisguisedly in favour of a snug and comfortable compromise, and has no wish to be “bothered.”

It is a great scandal that such a system should be permitted to exist; and a body of employers mean enough to connive at such bargain-making, can expect but small sympathy from the public if the dishonesty it tacitly encourages picks it to the bones. What are the terms of the contract between employer and employed? In plain language these: “We are perfectly aware that you apply to us well knowing our system of doing business, and with the deliberate intention of robbing us all you safely can; and in self-defence, therefore, we will pay you as what you may, if you please, regard as wages,two-pence three farthings an hour, or four shillings per day of seventeen hours. We know that the probabilities are, that you will add to that four shillings daily to the extent of another five or six. It is according to our calculation that you will do so. Our directors have arrived at the conclusion, that as omnibus conductors, of the ordinary type, you cannot be expected to rob us of a less sum than that, and we are not disposed to grumble so long as you remain so moderate; but do not, as you value your situation with all its accompanying privileges, go beyond that. As a man who only robs us of say, five shillings a day, we regard you as a fit and proper person to wait on our lady and gentleman passengers; to attend to their convenience and comfort, in short, as a worthy representative of the L. G. O. C. But beware how you outstrip the bounds of moderation as we unmistakably define them for you! Should you do so, we will kick you out at a moment’s notice, and on no consideration will we ever again employ you.”

Taking this view of the case, the omnibus conductor, although entitled to a foremost place in the ranks of thieves non-professional, can scarcely be said to be the least excusable amongst the fraternity. There are many who, looking down on the “cad” from their pinnacle of high respectability, are ten times worse than he is. Take the shopkeeper thief for instance. He is by far a greater villain than the half-starved wretch who snatches a leg of mutton from a butcher’s hook, or some article of drapery temptingly flaunting outside the shop of the clothier, because in the one case the crime is perpetratedthat a soul and a woefully lean body may be saved from severance, and in the other case the iniquity is made to pander to the wrong-doer’s covetous desire to grow fat, to wear magnificent jewellery, and to air his unwieldy carcase annually at Margate.

He has enough for his needs. His deservings, such as they are, most liberally attend him; but this is not enough. The “honest penny” is very well to talk about; in fact, in his cleverly assumed character of an upright man, it is as well to talk about it loudly and not unfrequently, but what fudge it is if you come to a downright blunt and “business” view of the matter to hope ever to make a fortune by the accumulation of “honest pennies!” Why, thirty of the shabby things make no more than half-a-crown if you permit each one to wear its plain stupid face, whereas if you plate it neatly and tender it—backed by your reputation for respectability, which your banking account of course proves beyond a doubt—it will pass as genuine silver, and you make two and five-pence at a stroke! You don’t call it “making,” you robbers of the counter and money-till, that is a vulgar expression used by “professional” thieves; you allude to it as “cutting it fine.” Neither do you actually plate copper pennies and pass them off on the unwary as silver half-crowns. Unless you were very hard driven indeed, you would scorn so low and dangerous a line of business. Yours is a much safer system of robbery. You simply palm off on the unwary customer burnt beans instead of coffee, and ground rice instead of arrowroot, and a mixture of lard and turmeric instead of butter. You poisonthe poor man’s bread. He is a drunkard, and you are not even satisfied to delude him of his earnings for so long a time as he may haply live as a wallower in beer and gin, that is beer and gin as originally manufactured; you must, in order to screw a few halfpence extra and daily out of the poor wretch, put grains of paradise in his gin and coculus indicus in his malt liquor! And, more insatiable than the leech, you are not content with cheating him to the extent of twenty-five per cent. by means of abominable mixtures and adulteration, you must pass him through the mill, and cut him yet a little finer when he comes to scale! You must file your weights and dab lumps of grease under the beam, and steal an ounce or so out of his pound of bacon. If you did this after he left your premises, if you dared follow him outside, and stealthily inserting your hand into his pocket abstracted a rasher of the pound he had just bought of you, and he caught you at it, you would be quaking in the grasp of a policeman in a very short time, and branded in the newspapers as a paltry thief, you would never again dare loose the bar of your shop shutters. But by means of your dishonest scales and weights, you may go on stealing rashers from morning till night, from Monday morning till Saturday night that is, and live long to adorn your comfortable church pew on Sundays.

I must be excused for sticking to you yet a little longer, Mr. Shopkeeper Thief, because I hate you so. I hate you more than ever, and you will be rejoiced when I tell you why. A few months since, there seemed a chance thatyour long career of cruel robbery was about to be checked. An excellent lord and gentleman, Lord E. Cecil, made it his business to call the attention of the House of Commons to the state of the law with respect to false weights and measures, and the adulterations of food and drinks. His lordship informed honourable members that the number of convictions for false weights and measures during the past year amounted to the large number ofthirteen hundred, and this was exclusive of six districts, namely: Southwark, Newington, St. George’s, Hanover Square, Paddington, and the Strand, which for reasons best known to the local authorities, made no return whatever. In Westminster alone, and within six months, a hundred persons were convicted, and it was found that of these twenty-four or nearly one-fourth of the whole were licensed victuallers, and forty-seven were dairymen, greengrocers, cheesemongers, and others, who supplied the poor with food, making in all seventy per cent. of provision dealers. In the parish of St. Pancras, the convictions for false weights and measures exceed those of every other parish. But in future, however much the old iniquity may prevail, the rogue’s returns will show a handsome diminution. This has been managed excellently well by the shrewd vestrymen themselves. When the last batch of shopkeeper-swindlers of St. Pancras were tried and convicted, the ugly fact transpired that not a few of them were gentlemen holding official positions in the parish. This was serious. The meddlesome fellows who had caused the disagreeable exposure were called a “leet jury,” whose business itwas to pounce on evil doers whenever they thought fit, once in the course of every month. The vestry has power over this precious leet jury, thank heaven! and after sitting in solemn council, the vestrymen, some of them doubtless with light weights confiscated and deficient gin and beer measures rankling in their hearts, passed a resolution, that in future the leet jury was to stay at home and mind its own business, until the vestry clerk gave it liberty to go over the ground carefully prepared for it.

Alluding to the scandalous adulteration of food, Lord E. Cecil remarked, “The right hon. gentleman, the President of the Board of Trade, in one of his addresses by which he had electrified the public and his constituents, stated that the great panacea for the ills of the working class was a free breakfast table. Now he, Lord E. Cecil, was the last person in the world to object to any revision of taxation if it were based upon really sound grounds. But with all due deference to the right hon. gentleman, there was one thing of even more importance, namely, a breakfast table free from all impurities.” And then his lordship proceeded to quote innumerable instances of the monstrous and dangerous injustice in question, very much to the edification of members assembled, if reiterated “cheers,” and “hear, hear,” went for anything. This was promising, and as it should be. As Lord Cecil remarked, “when I asked myself why it is that this great nation which boasts to be so practical, and which is always ready to take up the grievances of other people, has submitted so tamely to this monstrous and increasing evil,the only answer I could give was that what was everybody’s business had become nobody’s business.” Doubtless this was the view of the case that every member present on the occasion took, and very glad they must have been when they found that what was everybody’s business had become somebody’s business at last.

And what said the President of the Board of Trade when he came to reply to the motion of Lord Cecil: “That in the opinion of the House it is expedient that Her Majesty’s Government should give their earliest attention to the wide-spread and most reprehensible practice of using false weights and measures, and of adulterating food, drinks, and drugs, with a view of amending the law as regards the penalties now inflicted for those offences, and of providing more efficient means for the discovery and prevention of fraud”? Did the right hon. President promptly and generously promise his most cordial support for the laudable object in view? No. Amazing as it may appear to the great host of working men that furnish the shopkeeping rogue with his chief prey, and who to a man are ready to swear by the right hon. gentleman, he did nothing of the kind. He started by unhesitatingly expressing his opinion that the mover of the question, quite unintentionally of course, had much exaggerated the whole business. And further, that although there might be particular cases in which great harm to health and much fraud might possibly be shown, yet general statements of the kind in question were dangerous, and almost certain to be unjust.

“Now, I am prepared to show,” continued the hon.gentleman, “that the exaggeration of the noble lord—I do not say intentional exaggeration, of course—is just as great in the matter of weights and measures as in that of adulteration. Probably he is not aware that in the list of persons employing weights that are inaccurate—I do not say fraudulent; no distinction is drawn between those who are intentionally fraudulent and those who are accidentally inaccurate, and that the penalty is precisely the same and the offence is just as eagerly detected. Now the noble lord will probably be surprised to hear that many persons are fined annually, not because their weights are too small, but because they are too large.”

Probably, however, his lordship, who has evidently given much attention to the subject, is master of this as well as all other branches of it, and is not so much surprised as it may be assumed the less knowing President of the Board of Trade was when the anomaly was brought under his notice. Probably Lord Cecil is aware, that in a very large number of businesses, articles are bought as well as sold by weight by the same shopkeeper and at the same shop, in such case it is nothing very wonderful to discover a weight of seventeen ounces to the pound. Moreover, it may be unknown to Mr. Bright, but it is quite a common trick with the dishonest shopkeeper to have means at hand for adjusting his false weights at the very shortest notice. It is not a difficult process. Weights are, as a rule, “justified” or corrected by means of adding to, or taking from, a little of the lead that is for this purpose sunk in the hollow in which the weight-ring is fixed. This leaden plug beingraised by the point of a knife, nothing is easier than to add or withdraw a wedge of the same material. The knife point raises the leaden lid, the knife handle forces it down at a blow, and the trick is done. At the same time, the coolest rogue with a knowledge that the “leet” is only next door, cannot always manage his conjuring deftly, and this may in not a few instances account for the weightmorethan just. Besides, taking the most liberal view of the matter, it would be manifestly dangerous to allow a system of “averages” to do duty for strict and rigid justice. The relations between customer and shopkeeper would speedily fall into a sad muddle if the latter were permitted to excuse himself for selling fifteen ounces instead of a full pound of butter to-day, on the ground that he has a seventeen ounce weight somewhere about, and the probability that what he is short to-day the customer had over and above in the pound of lard he bought yesterday.

Again, let us listen to Mr. Bright as an advocate of self-protection. “If the corporations and the magistrates have not sufficient interest in the matter, if the people who elect the corporation care so little about it, I think that is fair evidence that the grievance is not near so extensive and injurious and burdensome as it has been described by the noble lord. My own impression with regard to adulteration is, that it arises from the very great and, perhaps, inevitable competition in business; and that to a large extent it is prompted by the ignorance of customers. As the ignorance of customers generally is diminishing, we may hope thatbefore long the adulteration of food may also diminish. It is quite impossible that you should have the oversight of the shops of the country by inspectors, and it is quite impossible that you should have persons going into shops to buy sugar, pickles, and cayenne pepper, to get them analysed, and then to raise complaints against shopkeepers and bring them before magistrates. If men in their private business were to be tracked by government officers and inspectors every hour in the day, life would not be worth having, and I should recommend them to remove to another country where they would not be subject to such annoyance.”

With a knowledge of the source from which this expression of opinion as to commercial morality emanates, one is apt to mistrust once reading it. Surely a line has been inadvertently skipped, a line that contains the key of the puzzle, and reveals the refined sarcasm that lurks beneath the surface. But no—twice reading, thrice reading, fails to shed any new lights on the mystery. Here is Mr. John Bright, the President of the Board of Trade, the working man’s champion, and the staunch upholder of the right of those who sweat in honest toil, to partake plentifully of untaxed food and drink, putting forth an extenuation for those who, under guise of honest trading, filch from the working man, and pick and steal from his loaf, from his beer jug, from his sugar basin, from his milk-pot, in short, from all that he buys to eat or drink. “My own impression is,” says the Right Hon. President, “that adulteration arises from competition in business.” Very possibly, but doesthatexcuseit? We are constantly reminded that “competition is the soul of trade,” but we should be loth to think that such were the fact if the term “competition” is to be regarded as synonymous with adulteration, or, in plain language, robbery. “It is quite impossible that you should have persons going about endeavouring to detect the dishonest tradesman in his peculations, with a view to his punishment.” Why is it impossible? Must not the repose of this sacred “soul of business” be disturbed, on so trivial a pretext as the welfare of the bodies of a clodhopping people, who are not commercial? So far from its being “impossible” to substitute vigilant measures for the detection of the petty pilferer who robs the poor widow of a ha’porth of her three penn’orth of coals, or the fatherless child of a slice out of its meagre allowance of bread, it should be regarded by the Government as amongst its chief duties. Other nations find it not impossible. In France a commissary of police has the right to enter any shop, and seize any suspected article, bearing of course all the responsibility of wrongful seizure. In Prussia, as Lord Cecil informed the House, “whoever knowingly used false weights and measures was liable to imprisonment for three months, to be fined from fifty to a thousand thalers, and to suffer the temporary loss of his rights of citizenship. Secondly, where false weights and measures were not regularly employed, a fine of thirty thalers may be imposed, or the delinquent sent to prison for four weeks. Thirdly, the adulteration of food or drink is punishable with a fine of 150 thalers, or six weeks’ imprisonment. Fourthly, if poisonous matteror stuff be employed, the offender is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years. Fifthly, where adulteration was proved to have caused severe physical injury, a sentence of from ten to twenty years’ imprisonment might be passed. And yet in this country offences of this nature could only be punished by the imposition of a penalty of a fine of £5, with costs.” These are not laws of yesterday. They have stood the test of many years, and French and Prussians find it not “impossible” to continue their salutary enforcement. But it is curious the extraordinary view men in authority amongst us at times take of the licence that should be permitted the “trader.” I remember once being present at a County Court, and a case tried was that between a wholesale mustard dealer and a cookshop keeper. The cookshop keeper declined to pay for certain mustard delivered to him on the ground that his customers would not eat it. Indeed, it could hardly be called mustard at all, being little else than flour coloured with turmeric, and, backed by medical testimony, the defendant mainly relied on this point,i.e., that it was not mustard at all, for a verdict. But the judge would not hear of this; in his summing up he remarked that it was idle to contend that the stuff wasnotmustard;it was mustard in a commercial sense, whatever might be its quality, and thereon gave a verdict for the plaintiff, and for the amount claimed.

I must confess that at the time I had my doubts as to this being sound law, but after the declaration of the President of the Board of Trade, I am bound to admit the possibility of my being mistaken. “Competition isthe soul of commerce;” competition is the parent of adulteration; adulteration is theft as a rule,—murder as an exception. The loaf that is composed of inferior flour, rice, potatoes, and alum, is the “wheaten bread” of “commerce.” The poisonous liquid composed of a little malt and hops, eked out with treacle andcoculus indicus, is the beer of “commerce.” And, according to the same ruling, a lump of lard stuck under the butter-shop scale, or the inch snipped off the draper’s yard, or the false bottom to the publican’s pot, constitute the weights and measures of “commerce.” All these little harmless tricks of trade are, it seems, within the scope of a tradesman’s “private business,” and according to the President of the Board of Trade, if a tradesman in pursuit of his private business is to be watched and spied over for the malicious purpose of bringing him within the grasp of the law, why the sooner he quits the country, and settles amongst a more easy-going people, with elbow-room proper for his commercial enterprise, the better for him.

Undoubtedly, the better for him and the better for us. I would make this difference, however. When his iniquity was discovered, he should not go altogether unrewarded for his past services. He should be assisted in his going abroad. He should not be called on to pay one penny for his outward passage, and, what is more, he should be supplied with substantial linsey-wolsey clothing, and his head should be cropped quite close, so that the scorching sun of Bermuda or Gibraltar might not upset his brain for future commercial speculation.

It needs, however, something more persuasive than the“mustard of commerce” to induce us to swallow with satisfaction the President’s assertion, that “to a large extent adulteration is promoted by the ignorance of customers,” nor are we immensely consoled by the suggestion that “as the ignorance of the customer diminishes, the adulteration of food will also diminish.” Decidedly this is a bright look out for the ignorant customer! There is to be no help for him, no relief. He must endure to be cheated in weight and measure, and slowly poisoned in the beer he drinks, and the bread he eats, until he finds time and money to provide himself with a scientific education, and becomes an accomplished scholar in chemistry, able to detect adulteration at sight or smell. Is this what the President of the Board of Trade means, or what is it? He cannot mean that the imposture is endured because the consumer will not take the trouble to avail himself of the laws made for his protection, because he is distinctly informed that although there are such laws, they are rendered inoperative because of the “impossibility” of having inspectors and detectives going about prying into the “private business” of the shopkeeper, and annoying him. If the ignorance of the honest man is to be regarded as the fair opportunity of the rogue, then there appears no reason why the immunity enjoyed by the fraudulent shopkeeper should not likewise be the indulgence allowed to the professional thief. It is the “ignorance of the customer” that enables the cheat to impose on him bad money for good, or a forged signature for one that is genuine. It is the ignorance of the green young man from the country as regards the wickedways of London, that enables the skittle sharper to fleece him with ease and completeness. Undoubtedly, if we were all equally “wide awake,” as the vulgar saying is, if no one had the advantage of his neighbour as regards cunning, and shrewdness, and suspicion, and all the other elements that constitute “a man of the world,” then the trade of cheating would become so wretched a one that even ingrain rogues would for their life-sake cultivate the sort of honesty that was prevalent as the best policy, though very much against their natural inclination; but it might possibly be found that there are thousands and tens of thousands of simple people who would prefer to remain in “ignorance,” having no desire to become “men of the world” in the sense above indicated, and electing for their souls’-sake to be lambs with a fleece to lose, than ravening wolves, whose existence depends on the fleecing of lambs.

Aproposof the practice of cheating by means of the adulteration of foods and drinks, it may not be out of place here to mention that during the discussion a member in whom Mr. Bright expressed great confidence, announced that the use of alum in bread, so far from being injurious, waspositively beneficial. Doctor Letheby, however, is of a somewhat different opinion. Recently, at the Society of Arts, he read a paper on the subject. Here are his opinions on the matter:

“By the addition of alum, inferior and even damaged flour may be made into a tolerable looking loaf. It is the property of alum to make the gluten tough, and to prevent its discoloration by heat, as well as to check the action of theyeast or ferment upon it. When, therefore, it is added to good flour, it enables it to hold more water, and so to yield a larger number of loaves; while the addition of it to bad flour prevents the softening and disintegrating effect of the yeast on the poor and inferior gluten, and so enables it to bear the action of heat in the progress of baking. According to the quality of flour, will be the proportion of alum, and hence the amount will range from 2 ozs. to 8 ozs. per sack of flour. These proportions will yield from 9 to 37 grains of alum in the quartern loaf, quantities which are easily detected by chemical means. Indeed, there is a simple test by which much smaller quantities of it may be readily discovered. You have only to dip a slice of the bread into a weak solution of logwood in water, and if alum be present, the bread will speedily acquire a red or purplish tint. Good bread should not exhibit any black specks upon its upper crust; it should not become sodden and wet at the lower part by standing; it should not become mouldy by keeping in a moderately dry place; it should be sweet and agreeable to the taste and smell; it should not give, when steeped, a ropy, acid liquor; and a slice of it taken from the centre of the loaf should not lose more than forty-five per cent. by drying.”

Again, speaking of the cruelty and dishonesty of the various “sophistications” practised by the vendors of food as regards the inefficacy of the laws made for its suppression, the good doctor says:

“Parliament has attempted to deal with the matter by legislation, as in the ‘Act for Preventing the Adulterationof Articles of Food or Drink’ of 1860; but as the Act is only permissive, little or no effect has been given to it. Even in those places, as in the City of London, where it has been put into operation, and public analysts have been appointed, no good has resulted from it; in fact, it stands upon the statute-book as a dead letter. Speaking of the City, I may say that every inducement has been offered for the effective working of the Act, but nothing has come of it. In olden times, the remedies for such misdemeanours were quick and effectual. In theAssisa panis, for example, as set forth inLiber Albus, there are not only the strictest regulations concerning the manner in which the business of the baker is to be conducted, but there are also penalties for failing in the same. ‘If any default,’ it says, ‘shall be found in the bread of a baker in the city, the first time, let him be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house through the great streets where there be most people assembled; and through the great streets which are most dirty, with the faulty loaf hanging about his neck. If a second time he shall be found committing the same offence, let him be drawn from the Guildhall, through the great street of Chepe in manner aforesaid to the pillory, and let him be put upon the pillory and remain there at least one hour in the day; and the third time that such default shall be found, he shall be drawn, and the oven shall be pulled down, and the baker made to forswear the trade within the city for ever.’ It further tells us, that William de Stratford suffered this punishment for selling bread of short weight, and John de Strode ‘for making bread of filth andcobwebs.’ One hoary-headed offender was excused the hurdle on account of his age and the severity of the season; and it would seem that the last time the punishment was inflicted was in the sixteenth year of the reign of Henry VI., when Simon Frensshe was so drawn. A like punishment was awarded to butchers and vintners for fraudulent dealings; for we are told that a butcher was paraded through the streets with his face to the horse’s tail for selling measly bacon at market, and that the next day he was set in the pillory with two great pieces of his measly bacon over his head, and a writing which set forth his crimes. In the judgments recorded inLiber Albusthere are twenty-three cases in which the pillory was awarded for selling putrid meat, fish, or poultry; thirteen for unlawful dealings of bakers, and six for the misdemeanours of vintners and wine dealers. Verily we have degenerated in these matters.”

And while we are on the subject of thieves non-professional, and their easy conversion to the article legally stamped and recognised, it may not be amiss briefly to remark on the odd ideas of honesty entertained and practised by thousands of our hard-fisted, and except for the singular weakness hinted at, quite worthy and decent “journeymen.” It is curious how much of hallucination prevails amongst us on the subject of “common honesty.” It is as though there were several qualities of that virtue, “common,” “middling,” and “superfine,” as there are in household bread; and that, carrying out the simile, although the “superfine” is undoubtedly nicer, and what one would always use if he could afford it, the honestydubbed “common” is equally wholesome, and on the whole the only sort on which it is possible for a working man to exist.

“I am as honest as I can afford to be,” is an observation common in the mouth of those who really and truly earn their bread and acquire a creditable reputation by the sweat of their brow. It never seems to occur to them that such an admission is equal to a confession of dishonesty, and since it is simply a matter of degree, that the common thief on the same grounds may claim the privilege of shaking them by the hand as their equal. The man who fixes the standard of his honesty at no greater height becomes an easy prey to temptation. “If he is as honest as he can afford to be,” and no more, it simply means that his means not being equal to his necessities he has already admitted the thin end of the wedge of dishonesty to make good the gap, and that should the said gap unhappily widen, the wedge must enter still further in until a total splitting up of the system ensues, and the wedge itself becomes the only steadfast thing to cling to.

That this melancholy consummation is not more frequently attained is the great wonder, and would tend to show that many men adopt a sort of hobbling compromise, walking as it were with one foot on the path of rectitude, and the other in the miry way of petty theft, until they get to the end of life’s tether and both feet slip into the grave.

It is a fact at once humiliating, but there it stands stark and stern, and will not be denied, that there are dailypursuing their ordinary business, and passing as honest, hundreds and thousands of labouring folk, who, if their various malversations were brought to light, and they were prosecuted, would find themselves in prison ere they were a day older. Nor should this startle us very much, as we are well aware of it, and mayhap are in no small degree responsible for it, since it is mainly owing to our indolent disregard that the evil has become so firmly established; at the same time it should be borne in mind, that this no more excuses those who practise and profit on our indifference to small pilferings than a disinclination to prosecute a professional pickpocket mitigates the offence of the delinquent.

The species of dishonesty alluded to, as not coming within the official term “professional,” has many aliases. Ordinarily it is called by the cant name of “perks,” which is a convenient abbreviation of the word “perquisites,” and in the hands of the users of it, it shows itself a word of amazing flexibility. It applies to such unconsidered trifles as wax candle ends, and may be stretched so as to cover the larcenous abstraction by our man-servant of forgotten coats and vests. As has been lately exposed in the newspapers, it is not a rare occurrence for your butler or your cook to conspire with the roguish tradesman, the latter being permitted to charge “his own prices,” on condition that when the monthly bill is paid, the first robber hands over to the second two-shillings or half-a-crown in the pound. It is not, however, these sleek, and well-fed non-professional thieves that I would just now speak of, butrather of the working man—the journeyman tailor for example.

Did anyone ever yet hear of a working tailor who was proof against misappropriation of his neighbour’s goods, or as he playfully designates it, “cabbage?” Is it not a standard joke in the trade this “cabbage?” Did one ever hear of a tailor being shunned by his fellow-workmen, or avoided by his neighbours, on account of his predilection for “cabbage?” Yet what is it but another word for “theft?” If I entrust a builder with so much timber, and so much stone, and so many bricks, to build me a house, and I afterwards discover that by clever dodging and scheming he has contrived to make me believe that all the material I gave him has been employed in my house, whereas he has managed to filch enough to build himself a small cottage, do I accept his humorous explanation that it is only “cabbage,” and forgive him? No. I regard it as my duty to afford him an opportunity of explaining the matter to a magistrate. But if I entrust my tailor with stuff for a suit, and it afterwards comes to my knowledge that he has “screwed” an extra waistcoat out of it, which he keeps or sells for his own benefit, do I regard it as a serious act of robbery? I am ashamed to say that I do not; I may feel angry, and conceive a contempt for tailors, but I take no steps to bring the rogue to justice. I say to myself, “It is a mean trick, but they all do it,” which is most unjust to the community of tailors, because though I may suspect that they all do it, I have no proof of the fact, whereas I have proof that there is a dishonest tailor in theirguild, and I have no right to assume but that they would regard it as a favour if I would assist them in weeding him out.

And it is almost as good a joke as the calling downright theft by the comical name of “cabbage,” that the tailor will do this and all the time insist on his right to be classed with honest men. He insists on this because he was never known to steal anything besides such goods as garments are made out of. As he comes along bringing your new suit home he would think it no sin to call at that repository for stolen goods the “piece broker’s,” and sell there a strip of your unused cloth for a shilling, but you may safely trust him in the hall where the hats and umbrellas and overcoats are. He would as soon think of breaking into your house with crowbars and skeleton keys, as of abstracting a handkerchief he saw peeping out of a pocket of one of the said coats.

As with the tailor, so it is with the upholsterer, and the dressmaker, and the paperhanger, and the plumber, and all the rest of them. I don’t say that every time they take a shred of this, or a pound weight of that, that they have before their eyes the enormity of the offence they are about to commit. What they do they see no great harm in. Indeed, point out to them and make it clear that their offence has but to be brought fairly before the criminal authorities to ensure them a month on the treadmill, and they would as a rule be shocked past repeating the delinquency. And well would it be if they were shocked past it, ere misfortune overtake them. It is when “hard up” times set in, and it is difficult indeedto earn an honest penny, that these rudimentary exercises in the art of pillage tell against a man. It is then that he requires his armour of proof against temptation, and lo! it is full of holes and rust-eaten places, and he falls at the first assault of the enemy.

Lord Romilly’s Suggestion concerning the Education of the Children of Criminals.—Desperate Criminals.—The Alleys of the Borough.—The worst Quarters not,as a rule,the most Noisy.—The Evil Example of“Gallows Heroes,” “Dick Turpin,” “Blueskin,”&c.—The Talent for“Gammoning Lady Green.”—A worthy Governor’s Opinion as to the best way of“Breaking”a Bad Boy.—Affection for“Mother.”—The Dark Cell and its Inmate.—An Affecting Interview.

Noless an authority than Lord Romilly, discoursing on the alarming prevalence and increase of crime, especially amongst the juveniles of the criminal class, remarks: “It is a recognised fact, that there is a great disposition on the part of children to follow the vocation of their father, and in the case of the children of thieves there is no alternative. They become thieves, because they are educated in the way, and have no other trade to apply themselves to. To strike at the root of the evil, I would suggest, that if a man committed felony, all his children under the age, say of ten, should be taken from him, and educated at the expense of the State. It might perhaps be said, that a man who wanted to provide for his children, need in that case only to commit felony toaccomplish his object, but I believe that the effect would be just the contrary. I believe that no respectable person would commit felony for such a purpose, and that if we knew more about the feelings of thieves, we should find that they had amongst them a species of morality, and displayed affection for their children. My opinion is, that to take their children away from them would be an effectual mode of punishment; and though the expense might be great, it would be repaid in a few years by the diminution in crime.”

Although Lord Romilly’s opinions on this subject may be somewhat in advance of those commonly prevalent, there can be no question that they tend in the right direction. Crime may be suppressed, but it can never be exterminated by simply lopping the flourishing boughs and branches it puts forth; it should be attacked at the root, and the thief child is the root of the adult growth, tough, strong-limbed, and six feet high. Precisely the same argument as that used as regards the abolition of neglected children applies in the case of the infant born in crime. The nest in which for generations crime has bred should be destroyed. It is only, however, to the initiated that the secluded spots where these nests may be found is known. A correspondent of theTimeslately made an exploration, from the report of which the following is an extract.

“I was shown in the east and south sides of London what I may almost say were scores of men, about whom the detectives, who accompanied me, expressed grave doubts as to my life being safe among themfor a single hour, if it were known I had £20 or £30 about me; and above all, if the crime of knocking me on the head could be committed under such circumstances as would afford fair probabilities of eluding detection. I don’t mean to say that these desperate criminals are confined to any particular quarter of London; unfortunately they are not, or if they were, there is only one particular quarter in which we should wish to see them all confined, and that is Newgate. But no matter how numerous they may be elsewhere, there is certainly one quarter in which they are pre-eminently abundant, and that is around the alleys of the Borough. Here are to be found, not only the lowest description of infamous houses, but the very nests and nurseries of crime. The great mass of the class here is simply incorrigible. Their hand is against every man; their life is one continuous conspiracy against the usages of property and safety of society. They have been suckled, cradled and hardened in scenes of guilt, intemperance, and profligacy. Here are to be found the lowest of the low class of beershops in London, and probably in the world, the acknowledged haunts of “smashers,” burglars, thieves and forgers. There is hardly a grade in crime, the chief representatives of which may not be met among the purlieus of the Borough. There are people who have been convicted over and over again, but there are also hundreds of known ruffians who are as yet unconvicted, and who, by marvellous good luck, as well as by subtle cunning, have managed up to the present time to elude detection. It is the greatest error to suppose that all, or even a majority of the criminalclasses are continually passing through the hands of justice. Griffith, the hank-note forger, who was tried, I think, in 1862, stated in prison that he had carried on the printing of counterfeit notes for more than 15 years. Of course this man was sedulous in concealing his occupation from the police, but there are hundreds of others who almost openly follow equally criminal and far more dangerous pursuits with whom the police cannot interfere. Our present business should be to look up these vagabonds, and our future vocation to destroy their recognised haunts. It is no good killing one wasp when we leave the nest untouched. Thieves, it must be remembered, are a complete fraternity, and have a perfect organization among themselves. The quarter round Kent Street, in the Borough, for instance, is almost wholly tenanted by them, and the houses they occupy are very good property, for thieves will pay almost any amount of rent, and pay it regularly, for the sake of keeping together. The aspect of this quarter is low, foul and dingy. Obscurity of language and conduct is of course common to all parts of it, but it is not as a rule a riotous neighbourhood. Thieves do not rob each other, and they have a wholesome fear of making rows, lest it should bring the police into their notorious territory. These haunts are not only the refuges and abiding places of criminals, but they are the training colleges for young thieves. Apart from the crimes which arise, I might say almost naturally from passion or poverty—apart also from the mere relaxation of moral culture, caused by the daily exhibition of apparent success in crime, it is known that an organized corruptionis carried on by the adult thieves among the lads of London.”

It is by laying hands on these children, and providing them with employment, the pleasurable exercise of which shall of itself convince them how infinitely superior as a “policy” honesty is to be preferred to that which consigned their father to Portland, that we may do more good than by the concoction of as many legislative enactments as have had birth since Magna Charta. Of the children who are not the progeny of thieves, but who somehow find their way into the criminal ranks, it is undoubtedly true that pernicious literature, more than once alluded to in these pages, does much to influence them towards evil courses. This is a belief that is justified, not alone by observation and inference, but by the confession of juvenile prisoners themselves. It is a fact that at least fifty per cent. of the young thieves lodged in gaol, when questioned on the subject, affect that it was the shining example furnished by such gallows heroes as “Dick Turpin” and “Blueskin,” that first beguiled them from the path of rectitude, and that a large proportion of their ill-gotten gains was expended in the purchase of such delectable biographies.

This, however, is ground that should be trod with caution. Useful as such revelations may be in guiding us towards conclusions on which vigorous action may be based, it should be constantly borne in mind that it is not all pure and untainted truth that proceeds from the mouths of the juvenile habitual criminal in gaol any more than from his elders under the same conditions. A talentfor gammoning “Lady Green,” as the prison chaplain is irreverently styled, is highly appreciated amongst the thieving fraternity. Boys are as quick-witted as men in their way, and on certain matters much quicker. They are less doggedly obstinate than most adults of the same class, and more keenly alive to mischief, especially when its practice may bring them some benefit. I have witnessed several instances of this, and many others have been brought under my notice by prison officials. As, for instance, in a certain gaol that shall be nameless, the governor has a fixed conviction that the one huge fountain head of juvenile depravity is the tobacco pipe. And ample indeed are his grounds for such conclusion, since almost every boy that comes into his custody testifies to his sagacity. His old customers never fail. He invariably questions the male delinquent on the subject, and as invariably he gets the answer he expects, and which favours his pet theory: “It is all through smoking, sir; I never knowed what bad ’abits was afore I took to ‘bacca.’” The probabilities, however, are that the little villains are aware of the governor’s weakness, and humour it.

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