“Again a demoniacal grin overspread his face, and again he went through a series of pantomimic gestures, and set us all laughing.
“It has been conceded that he could be exceedingly good company when he liked, and we assure you he had our attention whilst he related these, the most extraordinary chapters in his history.”
The personal appearance of Peace is thus described by one who paid a visit to Newgate while the burglar was awaiting his trial. He is a man about 5 ft. 3 in., with white hair on his head, cut very close, and bald in front of the head; but the razor had lately done this.
His eyebrows are heavy and overhanging the eyes, which are deeply sunk in their sockets; 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.
The lower part of his cheek-bones protruded more than was their wont in years gone by; but he had apparently some bruises recently, and had had his whiskers shaven off since he was last seen at Sheffield.
In addition he wore a pair of large brass-rimmed spectacles. Peace was professedly a religious man. The neighbourhood thought him so, and probably he thought so, too; so he associated with the good folk who congregated in the edifice, but never made himself conspicuous.
He trifled with Fate. She had made him rich in worldly goods, although they were not his own. Some idea of the magnitude of his operations may be gathered from the fact that there is evidence in the hands of the police that would convict him of no less than fifty burglaries.
The property he obtained is valued at several thousand pounds, but the burglar as a rule does not realise even one-fourth of the value of the property he appropriates.
The charges of “receivers” in every branch of the profession are of an unusual character, but it has been asserted upon reliable authority that he was a burglar years before the events which have made him so notorious.
It is quite twenty years since he worked at a rolling mill at Millsands, and it was while following this employment that he broke his leg. This accident appears to have thoroughly disgusted him with hard work, and as soon as the injuries were cured he went to Manchester.