We shall conclude this paper by one or two instances which show that thieving has also its comic side.
A fire was raging fiercely in a grocery store, and the owner, accompanied by an active staff of assistants, was trying to rescue some of the goods by removing them to one side. Immense cheeses and hams were lying about in tempting profusion. A keen-eyed thief had just secured a large Gouda, and was marching off with it, when he found himself face to face with a policeman. The rogue grasped the situation instantly. ‘Here, policeman!’ cried he, planting the cheese in X’s arms before that officer knew what he was about; ‘you had better take charge of that, or somebody’ll be carrying it off;’ and in an instant the nimble rascal disappeared in the crowd.
One morning, a merchant who had come by rail from his country residence was hurrying along the street to his counting-house in a pouring rain. He had forgotten his umbrella; but spying, as he thought, a friend with a large one a little before him, he hastened up, and seizing the handle of the umbrella, jocularly observed: ‘Hillo! is this mine you’ve got?’ He had just had time to observe that the man was a complete stranger to him, and was about to apologise in some embarrassment, when the unknown saved him the trouble, by saying coolly: ‘Oh, it’s yours, is it? Pardon me; I did not know.’ And he hurried off, leaving the astonished merchant in full possession.
About two years ago, a constable in a business part of London found a horse and van, about midnight, standing at the door of a grocer’s shop. He approached, and saw several men in aprons, apparently carrying chests of tea into the shop. Remarking that they were late at work, one of the men replied: ‘O yes; we’re preparing for Christmas;’ and the constable, thinking all was right, walked on. Next morning it was found the shop had been entered by thieves, who had carried off what they evidently took to be twenty-two half-chests of tea, most of which had been standing in the shop-window. The rogues had gone leisurely to work, and being caught by the constable, had employed themselves in carrying in some of the boxes, till he should pass. The reader may judge the surprise and disgust of the thieves, when they found that only one of the chests contained tea, and a second tea-dust, the remaining twenty boxes being merely ‘dummies’ filled with sawdust, with a sprinkling of tea on the top!
Nothing tends more to root out and lessen the number of nests of thieves than the exercise of the power vested in corporations to pull down old houses, which, densely populated with the poorer classes, become at last the abodes of filth, disease, and crime. The former inmates cannot stand the new sanitary and social atmosphere introduced by wider streets and purer air. They gradually betake themselves to other and more honest modes of employment, or seek for ‘fresh woods and pastures new.’ On the other hand, the exercise of a little prudence and common-sense by the general public would prevent an opportunity being given for the commission of a large number of petty but often very annoying thefts.
ST JOHN’S GATE.
A short distance from the very heart of London, stands—for it has not yet been swept away by the builder’s hand—one of the finest remaining relics of the ancient city. It is a heavy fortified gate, built of large blocks of freestone, and flanked by bastions. It has a fine groined Norman arch; and though it is now old and decayed, it is still strong, and shows us what its strength and stability have been in days gone by. It was built by, and belonged to, at one time, that famous order of chivalry, ‘The Knights Hospitallers,’ or ‘Knights of St John of Jerusalem,’ the great rivals of the Templars, and who did such good service in the Holy Land in the time of the crusades; and when Palestine was hopelessly lost, kept up their incessant war against the Infidel in Rhodes, and when driven from that island by the Turks—in Malta.
This order had at one time many religious houses scattered over Europe; and their London priory, that of St John of Clerkenwell, has quite a history of its own to tell. It was founded in the year 1100 by a devout baron named Jordan Briset, this being the time that the first crusade, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, was going on. For a considerable time after this, we know little of the priory, save that the knights were growing in riches and arrogance, and thus were making themselves obnoxious to the people, although some of the old chroniclers tell us that ‘they tended the sick and the needy.’ In fact, they got to be so disliked by the common people, that in the riots which took place in the reign of Richard II.—in which Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, and John Ball took so prominent a part, the last-named being a clergyman, who, in his harangues to the multitude, took for his text the rhyme,
When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then a gentleman?