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.
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.”