I have only to add, in conclusion, that the unfortunate young man was found guilty, and sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation,—a life of misery entailed, and everything worth living for obscured and forfeited, by the unprincipled and criminal desire of display and prodigality. What a lesson for those holding confidential positions against listening for a moment to the insidious wiles of the tempter!
The Wrong Shop.
IT is only a state of civilisation that can produce so strange a relation as that between detectives and robbers. In any other condition of society it is inconceivable, for love is almost always mutual, and hatred reciprocal in rude states; and it is not very easy to conceive a condition where one party follows and seeks from a spirit of well-wishing, and another curses and flies from a spirit of hatred. If there is any one we wish to see more than another, it is a robber; and if there is any creature out of the place of four letters a robber wishes to be away from, it is an officer of the law. It may seem strange enough if I should be able to give a case where this was reversed, in a manner which has sometimes forced from me a laugh.
In 1847, a house in Minto Street, and another in Claremont Crescent, were broken into, and robbed of a vast number of portable articles of great value. The families had left the houses to go to the country; and the robbers, being aware that there was nobody to disturb them, had gone about their selection of articles with much artistic deliberation and skill, taking only those things which could be melted, such as silver utensils, or altered or dyed, such as silk dresses, shawls, and the like. We got intimation first of the Minto Street affair, for it was some time before it came to be known even to the proprietor that the house in Claremont Street had been disturbed. Having got my commission, I very soon came to the conclusion that, for a time at least, there could be no discovery by tracing the articles; and just as soon to another, that the whole were secreted, probably in a mass, in some of the lodging-houses resorted to by the gang—for that there was a gang I had no manner of doubt—nor was I at a loss about some of the component parts of the crew,—at least I knew that one or two well-known housebreakers had been seen in the city, and their affinities are almost a matter of course with us.
There was ingenuity, therefore, required in this affair beyond the mere care in dogging some of the artists to their dormitories, and this I soon accomplished by tracing Jane Walker, one of their callets, to the house of one Sim at the West Port. Other bits of intelligence contributed to the conclusion, that Sim’s house was the sleeping place of some of them, and the rendezvous of the whole pack. As I have already said, I have always had a craving for a full haul when I put out my net, and take my seat in the cobble to see the wily tribe get into the meshes. So on this occasion I made my arrangements with this view. At a late hour one night I took with me several constables and proceeded to Sim’s house. I arranged my men in such a way that egress was scarcely possible, while some one would be ready to help me inside in the event of an emergency; for it is no indifferent affair to go bang in upon an entire gang of desperate burglars, especially when there are women among them—a remark which requires merely this explanation, that the women egg up the men to resistance, and the men have often a desire to shew off their prowess before their dulcineas.
Having presented myself at Sim’s door, I heard a shout of merriment, indicative of a goodly company; and I confess the sound, though rough and brutal, was rather pleasant to me, for it satisfied me they were all there, and, moreover, off their guard, through the seduction of their tender dalliances. I am often fine in my self-introductions, but here I found my cue in bluntness. I opened the door with a sudden click of the sneck, and stood before as motley a crew of ruffians and viragoes as I ever remember to have seen. Nor was the effect all on one side. If I was amazed at seeing such a collection of celebrities, they were not less astonished at seeing me. Laughter did not need to hold her sides, nor Mockery to twist her chaps into mows, nor even Inebriety to flare up into a rage. All was quiet in an instant, with every eye fixed upon me as if by a charm. No placating subtlety was of any use among that gang. They were up to every manœuvre. Sim himself, James M‘Culloch, John Anderson, Hector M‘Sally, James Stewart, Agnes Hunter, Sarah Jack, Christian Anderson, and Jane Walker, had been all too well accustomed to such blandishments as mine, to be thrown off their guard beyond the instant of the working of the first charm. They simply took me for a devil, who might seize their bodies for punishment, but could not insist upon their pledges to be his for ever. In short, they knew the extent of my power, as well as their necessities to resist it, but only if resistance could be successful.
I had stopt their merriment;—but just allow me, as I stand for a moment before them, to say, it is no merriment that these strange beings enjoy: their hearts have no part in their laughter, which is a mere dry shaking of the lungs, and better named as a cackle, or sometimes a vociferation. It is almost always the result of a personal gibe; for there is no real friendship to restrain them, and their art is a deadly fly that kills at the first leap. They seem to find some relief from the tearing devil within, by tearing their brother devils without; and though it is done under the semblance of fun, it is as cruel and wicked as they can make it. But then the very cruelty in the personality gets applause; the laugh rings, and every one has his turn to be quizzed and gibed—the bearing of which, again, is a kind of stern virtue among them. It is all a heart-burning, with a flickering ebullition over the surface; and the effort seems to be to produce pain, and yet to make it pass as a kind of pleasure. I know them well; and could, at a distance, distinguish between the merriment of people with sound hearts, and that of these artificial beings, as well as I could do were I among them, and knew the two sets of characters.
A moment sufficed for my introduction.
“There are some things that have gone amissing,” said I, “and I want to know whether any of them are here.”
“Nothing,” said Sim; but the manner of his “nothing” shewed me it was a misnomer for “something.”