information of the place to which the goods had been conveyed. The shoemaker sent a man to watch the premises, while he went to seek for two officers; the man was in time to see the goods removed to the house of Solomon. When the shoemaker and the officers arrived they entered the premises, but Ikey defied them to touch an article, so carefully had the marks been removed. The shoemaker was compelled to admit that he could not swear to them, and at once saw that he stood no chance of procuring the restoration of his goods. Solomon then said that he had purchased them fairly, but, out of mere compassion for his loss, whether the goods had been his or not, he would sell them for the price which he had paid for them. The robbed man was glad to accept of these terms, and it cost him upwards of one hundred pounds to re-stock his shop with his own goods.
Solomon was allowed to be a most ready and superior judge of the intrinsic value of all kinds of property, from a glass bottle to a five hundred guinea chronometer; how it could be disposed of, and what was the value thieves generally estimated it at. He established among the rogues a regular rule of dealing, which is continued to this day, namely, to give a fixed price for all articles of the same denomination. For instance, a piece of linen was in his view a piece of linen, whether fine or coarse; the same with a piece of print, a silver watch, or a gold one: taking the good, as he used to tell the young and inexperienced thief, with the bad vons. By this plan he sometimes obtained very valuable watches at a moderate rate. He, however, outbid all his opponents in the purchase of stolen bank-notes; this he was for a long time enabled to do, in consequence of his connection with Jews in Holland. All stolen bank-notes which come into the hands of those who buy them, are sent to the Continent, to pass in the way of purchases through some regular mercantile house, when they find their way, by remittances to London houses, into the Bank, where they must be paid. The price given by Solomon for large notes, was 15s. in the pound; and he calculated that on an average he could send them their circuit of safety for 1s. in the pound: thus securing for himself 4s. profit on each 20s., that is twenty per cent., and this is now the regular price for stolen notes with the London fences.
At the time of Solomon’s apprehension his chief store was in Rosemary-lane, and he was reported to have had goods of the value of 20,000l. then collected there. A very great proportion of this property was seized, and Solomon bitterly complained of the manner in which he was deprived of his goods. A great portion of the articles were restored to their owners; but as late as the year 1832, a considerable amount was sold, which was avowed to have belonged to this notorious offender.
WILLIAM GILCHRIST, GEORGE GILCHRIST, and JAMES BROWN.
TRIED FOR A COACH ROBBERY.
THE ingenuity of thieves has been frequently referred to in the course of this work, and many instances have been afforded by a perusal of its pages of the extreme perseverance with which the practitioners in this dishonest calling carry on their proceedings. In the case of Huffey White a striking instance is afforded of the laborious determination of men, whose object was to rob the Glasgow bank; in the instance with which we are now about to present our readers no less ingenuity and determination are exhibited than by that case; and the daring effrontery with which the robbery, the circumstances of which we are about to detail, was committed, must strike them with astonishment.
It was on Thursday, the 24th of March, 1831, that this most impudent robbery was committed; and the circumstance of its occurrence was first notified to the public in a Glasgow newspaper in a paragraph, of which the following is a copy, which being compared with the real facts of the case as they were proved at the trial, will sufficiently inform our readers of the remarkable measures adopted by thieves at this time, first to commit robberies, and then so to conceal the real circumstances attending their commission, as to mislead the public and the police as to the persons, or even the description of the persons concerned in the depredation:—“Another of those dexterous tricks in abstracting a bank parcel from one of the public coaches was on Thursday week successfully practised in a somewhat novel manner. The following is an account of the transaction:—The parcel in question, which contained notes and gold to the amount of 5,700l., had been entrusted by the Commercial Bank’s branch in Glasgow, to be forwarded to the head office in Edinburgh, by the Prince Regent coach, which left Glasgow at noon on the Thursday. The parcel had been put into a tin box, which was, as usual, placed in the boot of the coach, but was missed by the coachman who drives the last stage. It was then found that the stuffing inside had been cut, and a hole made in the body of the coach by piercing it first by a brace-bit, and then cutting out the piece with a saw, by which means the thieves got at the box, which they forced open and rifled of its contents. The paper in which the parcel was packed, with part of one of the notes, were left. After committing the robbery, in order to elude observation, the lining of the coach, which had been cut, was pinned neatly together. We understand that the whole of the inside seats had been taken in Glasgow, four in the name of Mrs. Gordon, and two in the name of Mr. Johnston, but no inside passengers came forward when the coach started. When about three miles from Glasgow, however, two passengers, a man and a woman, were taken up, who continued to travel with the coach until within three miles from Airdrie, and no suspicion was raised against them when they left the conveyance. The notes were principally of the Commercial Bank, and consisted of 20l., 5l., and 1l. notes. A number of them had blue borders of a peculiar description, not generally in circulation, and which will easily be detected. It is said there were about 300l. in gold. Immediately on the intelligence of this daring robbery reaching Glasgow, an officer, accompanied by one of the gentlemen of the Branch Bank at that place, set off in the direction of Airdrie in search of the robbers, but hitherto without success. The driver of the coach is quite unable to give any account of the appearance or dress of the man and woman who were in the coach; but we believe the passenger who assisted them out, has been able partially to furnish one.” The latter part of this paragraph is peculiarly worthy of notice, for it turns out that Brown was the outside passenger, and he, no doubt, affecting ignorance of the persons within, endeavoured to gull the police by giving an erroneous description of the thieves.
A long and searching inquiry into all the circumstances of the affair took place, and at length, through the arduous and persevering exertions of the Glasgow police-officer named Nish, the three prisoners whose names head this article, together with a man named Simpson, were committed for trial.
During the period which intervened before the inquiry took place before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh, the investigation which had been commenced was carried on by Mr. Nish; but the main evidence at the trial was that of Simpson, who was admitted a witness against his accomplices.
The trial came on at Edinburgh on Wednesday, July the 14th, 1831. It was then proved that the prisoner George Gilchrist was a coach-proprietor residing on the road between Glasgow and Edinburgh; and that being aware of the frequent transmission of money by the coach from one place to the other, he formed the design of abstracting the parcel containing it from the boot, and carrying it off. He communicated his object to his brother, and to Brown and Simpson, as well as to two other persons who were to assist them. The parcel of the 24th of March was fixed upon to be attempted; and in order to render their operations secure from observation, the whole of the inside of the coach was taken for the use of the party.