“One night on my return from transportation I met two old associates. They asked me how I was, and told me they were glad to see me. They inquired how I was getting on. I told them I was not getting along very well. They asked me if I was associated with any one. I told them I was not, and was willing to go out with them to a bit of work. These men were burglars, and wished me to join them in plundering a shop in the metropolis. I told them I did not mind going with them. They arranged I should enter the shop along with another ‘pal,’ and the other was to keep watch. On the night appointed for the work we met an old watchman, and asked him what o’clock it was. One of our party pretended to be drunk, and said he would treat him to two or three glasses of rum. Meantime I and my companion entered the house by getting over a back wall and entering a window there by starring the glass, and pulling the catch back. When we got in we did not require to break open any lockfast. We packed up apparel of the value of 60l. We remained in the shop till six o’clock, when the change of officers took place. The door was then unbolted—a cab was drawn up to the shop. I shut the door and went off in one direction on foot, while one ‘pal’ went off in a cab, and the other to the receiver at Whitechapel.
“I have been engaged in about eighteen burglaries besides other depredations, some of them in fashionable shops and dwelling-houses in the West-end. Some of them have been effected by skeleton keys, others by climbing waterspouts, at which I am considered to be extraordinary nimble, and others by obtaining an entry through the doors or windows. I have been imprisoned seven times in London and elsewhere, and have been twice transported. Altogether I have been in prison for about fourteen years.
“My first wife died broken-hearted the second time I was transported. Since I came home this last time I have lived an honest, industrious life with my second wife and family.”
PROSTITUTE THIEVES.
On taking up this subject, although it is treated comprehensively in another part of this work, we found it impossible to draw an exact distinction between prostitution and the prostitute thieves. Even at the risk of a little repetition we now give a short resumé of the whole subject, dwelling particularly on the part more especially in our province—the Prostitute Thieves of London.
The prostitution of the metropolis, so widely ramified like a deadly upas tree over the length and breadth of its districts, may be divided into four classes, determined generally by the personal qualities, bodily and mental, of the prostitute, by the wealth and position of the person who supports her, and by the localities in which she resides and gains her ignoble livelihood.
The first class consists of those who are supported by gentlemen in high position in society, wealthy merchants and professional men, gentry and nobility, and are kept as seclusives.
The second class consists of the better educated and more genteel girls, who live in open prostitution, some of them connected with respectable middle-class families.
The third class is composed of domestic servants and the daughters of labourers, mechanics, and others in the humbler walks in life.
The fourth class comprises old worn-out prostitutes sunk in poverty and debasement.