“Meantime I had been busy with these men, as usual going to Cheapside, St. Paul’s Churchyard, and Fleet Street. In the end of the year 1844 I was taken up for an attempt on a lady in St. Martin’s Lane, near Ben Caunt’s. The conviction was brought against me from the City, and I got six months in Tothill-fields Prison.
“This was my first real imprisonment of any length. At first I was a month in Tothill Fields, and afterwards three months in the City Bridewell, Blackfriars, where I had a good deal of indulgence, and did not feel the imprisonment so much. The silent system was strict, and being very wilful, I was often under punishment. It had such an effect on me, that for the last six weeks of my imprisonment I was in the infirmary. The men came down to meet me when my punishment expired, and I again accompanied them to their house.
“During the time I had been in prison they had got another boy, but they said they would willingly turn him away or give him to some other men; but I, being self-willed, said they might keep him. I had another reason for parting with them. When I went to prison I had property worth a good deal of money. On coming out I found they had sold it, and they never gave me value for it. They pretended it was laid out in my defence, which I knew was only a pretext.
“Before I was imprisoned my girl had parted from me, which was the beginning of my misfortunes.
“I would not go to work with them afterwards. I had a little money, and at a public-house I met with two men living down Gravel Lane, Ratcliffe Highway. I went down there, and commenced working with two of them on ladies’ pockets, but in a different part of the town. We went to Whitechapel and the Commercial Road; but had not worked six weeks with them before I was taken up again, and was tried at Old Arbour Square, and got three months’ imprisonment at Coldbath Fields. If I thought Tothill Fields was bad, I found the other worse.
“When I got out I had no one to meet me, and thought I would work by myself. It was about this time I commenced to steal gentlemen’s watches.
“The first I took was from the fob of a countryman in Smithfield on a market day. It was a silver watch, which we called a ‘Frying Pan.’ It had not a guard, but an old chain and seals. It fetched me about 18s. I took off one of the seals which was gold, which brought me as much as the watch, if not more. I sold it to a man I was acquainted with in Field Lane, where I first lodged, after leaving the coffee-shop when I first came to London, and where the landlady gave me several nights’ lodging gratuitously. I repaid her the small sum due her for her former kindness to me.
“I lodged there, and shortly after cohabited with another female. She was a big stout woman, ten years older than I; well-made, but coarse-featured. I did not live with her long—only three or four months. I was then only fifteen years of age. During that time I always worked by myself. Sometimes she would go out with me, but she was no help to me. I looked out for crowds at fairs, at fires, and on any occasion where there was a gathering of people, as at this time I generally confined myself to watches and pins from men.
“I was not so lucky then, and barely kept myself in respectability. My woman was very extravagant, and swallowed up all I could make. I lived with her about four months, when I was taken up in Exmouth Street, Clerkenwell, and got four months’ imprisonment in Coldbath Fields Prison.
“When my sentence was expired she came to meet me at the gate of the prison, and we remained together only two days, when I heard reports that she had been unfaithful to me. I never charged her with it, but ran away from her.