“Who are you, then?” both inquired, astonished beyond measure.

And “Bartlett,” having completed his mission, quietly informed the lady, whom he had been watching, and the next-of-kin, who was really his employer, that he was the detective engaged to unravel the case.

With such men as this on the side of law and justice, long-continued fraud, however astutely prepared, becomes almost impossible. The private inquiry agent is generally equal to any emergency.

Part IV.
CAPTAINS OF CRIME.

CHAPTER XIV.
SOME FAMOUS SWINDLERS.

Recurrence of Criminal Types—Heredity and Congenital Instinct—The Jukes and Other Families of Criminals—John Hatfield—Anthelme Collet’s Amazing Career of Fraud—The Story of Pierre Cognard: Count Pontis de St. Hélène: Recognised by an Old Convict Comrade: Sent to the Galleys for Life—Major Semple: His many Vicissitudes in Foreign Armies: Thief and Begging-Letter Writer: Transported to Botany Bay.

THE regular recurrence of certain crimes and the reappearance of particular types of criminals have been often remarked by those who deal with judicial records; the fact is established by general experience, and is capable of abundant proof. It is to be explained in part by heredity. The child follows the father, and on a stronger influence than that of mere imitativeness; and these transmitted tendencies to crime can be illustrated by many well-authenticated cases, where whole families have been criminals generation after generation. There is the famous, or infamous, family of the Jukes, a prolific race of criminals, starting from a vagabond father and five of his disreputable daughters. The Jukes descendants in less than a hundred years numbered twelve hundred individuals, all of them more or less evincing the criminal taint. These facts have been brought out by the patient investigation of Mr. Dugdale, an American scientist. An old case is recorded of a Yorkshire family, the Dunhills, the head of which, Snowdon Dunhill, spread terror through the East Riding as the chief of a band of burglars. This Snowdon Dunhill was convicted in 1813 of robbing a granary, and sentenced to seven years’ transportation. He returned from the Antipodes to earn a second sentence of exile, and his son was at the same time sentenced to transportation. One of his sisters, Rose Dunhill, was twice imprisoned for larceny; another, Sarah, had been repeatedly convicted of picking pockets, and was finally sent across the water for seven years. It may be incidentally stated, as showing the contamination of evil, that nearly all who came into association with the Dunhills felt the baneful influence of the family. Dunhill’s wife was transported; so were Rose Dunhill’s two husbands and Sarah’s three.

In 1821 a wide district of Northern France known as that of Santerre, between Peronne and Montdidier, was the scene of numerous and repeated crimes. There was no mystery about their perpetrators; the thieves and their victims lived side by side, yet the latter only spoke of them with bated breath, and shrank from denouncing them to the police. At last the authorities interposed and arrested the malefactors, who were tried and disposed of in due course of law. It was found that they were all of one family, which had started originally in one village and ramified gradually into neighbouring districts. Eleven years later, in 1832, a second generation had come to manhood, and these true sons of their fathers perpetrated exactly the same offences. Yet again, in 1852, a fresh wave of depredation passed over the district, and again the same families were responsible for the crimes. The last manifestation was perhaps the worst of all. Thefts, arson, and murder had been of repeated occurrence, but no arrests were made until a knife found in the possession of a villager was identified as one of a lot stolen from a travelling cheap-Jack. The man who had it was a Hugot. Through him others were implicated, a Villet and a Lemaire. These three names, Hugot, Villet, and Lemaire, were full of sinister significance in the neighbourhood, and recalled a long series of dark deeds, perpetrated by the ancestors of these very criminals.

Lombroso has collected a number of cases showing how the criminal tendency has reappeared in successive generations. Dumollard, the wholesale murderer of women, was the son of a murderer; Patetot, another murderer, was the grandson and great-grandson of a criminal. There was a family named Nathan, of which, on one particular day, there were fourteen members in the same gaol. These Nathans were a band of thieves entirely made up