Not that I have anything to complain of; I have done my duty to the best of my ability, and if I fell short now and then, it was not from lack of willingness to do what was set down for me, but because I had gone to the extent of my powers and was unable to go further; up to this point only can you, with any sense of justice, make a man responsible. And this, mind you, opens a wide question, into which I am not going to enter—the question of responsibility for committed acts.
Under what circumstances you are born, how you are brought up, by what influences your earlier years have been surrounded—these form a succession of lessons, which you are bound to accept, because you know no better, and are taught no better.
Judges and legislators should take this into account, and pass judgment according; though I have observed that a gentleman or lady, who has broken the law of the land, is, as a rule, let off more lightly than the poor wretch, who has not had the advantage of good teaching and a proper education. In my opinion, it should be the other way.
My grandfather was a night watchman, and my father stepped into his shoes; and when he was too tired to walk in them any longer I put them on with a proud and cheerful heart, thinking it a fine thing to do, as my betters had done before me.
So that you see there were three generations of us, and as we were all steady men, confidence was placed in us. I often heard it said, “You may trust David Dix; he is like his father.”
In my father’s time, I have no doubt, they said the same of him. He was a good stamp of a man, and he gave me a home education, and taught me how to speak and write fair English, for which I say “God bless him.” By so doing, he took the locks off the caves of enchantment, we find in books. “Open, Sesame!” I cried, flourishing my spelling book—and I saw wonders.
I had both public and private duties to perform.
My public duties mainly were to see that the houses and shops were properly secured, to keep an eye on suspicious characters, and to take care that no place was broken into and robbed.
Poor as were the streets, I perambulated night after night, for seven nights in the week and three hundred and sixty-five nights in the year, very few burglaries took place in them. Thieves and cracksmen, when they got to know me, had a wholesome fear of my watchfulness, and fought shy of the premises I protected.
My private duties were chiefly to rouse people, who wanted to get up very early in the morning. A penny a week was my charge for this, and I sometimes had as many as thirty or forty people on my books.