For some time he led a more creditable life; he worked for Closer’s, in Gibraltar-street, and afterwards he was manager for Peters, in Westbar-green. Then he engaged a workshop at the end of Kenyon-alley, and found so much to do that from having only a boy he employed two journeymen to help him.
In this way he got a good business together, and the place being too small, he made the unfortunate venture of taking a shop in West-street, two doors from Rockingham-street.
The moment he got there his luck seemed to turn, and the takings were not so great in a week as they had been in Kenyon-alley in a day.
This exasperated him, for he was not a man who could ever do upon a small income. What he did with all the money he obtained by his extensive robberies must for ever remain a mystery.
Not satisfied with the business in West-street he gave the shop up, and migrated, with his family, to Manchester. He took with him a stock of frames, but he had not been there a fortnight when he was once more in the hands of the officers of the law for doing a job at a house in Lower Broughton. He was caught in the act, and his excuse for such clumsiness was that he, who was usually strictly temperate, had partaken of several glasses of whiskey and water, and did not know what he was doing.
We subjoin an extract from a Manchester paper, containing a brief report of the trial and conviction of Peace:—
George Parker, alias Charles Peace, was indicted for breaking into the dwelling-house of Mr. W. R. Gemmell, Addison-terrace, Victoria Park, on the night of the 20th of August. Mr. Gorst prosecuted; and Mr. Torr defended.
The servants and Mr. Gemmell were disturbed about 4 o’clock in the morning by a noise outside the house. On going downstairs they found that some person had got in through the scullery window, and that £3 7s. 4d. in money, an opera glass, a pipe, and other things, had been stolen from the dining-room. The prisoner was arrested near the house, about five o’clock, by Police-constable Norris, who found upon him the whole of the stolen property, and several burglarious tools.
Mr. Torr raised a point as to whether the case was one of burglary or of simple robbery from a dwelling-house. It appeared that the scullery window was a horizontal sliding one; and his lordship ruled that the mere sliding back of the window, whether fastened or not, was sufficient to constitute a burglary. It was not necessary that anything should be broken—the mere act of removing anything that prevented an entrance was enough. The jury found the prisoner guilty of burglary.
The prisoner, a grey-headed man, begged in piteous accents for mercy for himself and his children.