“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, the Daily Telegraph writes:—
“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.