For gold, his sword the hireling ruffian draws;
For gold, the hireling judge distorts the laws;
Wealth heap'd on wealth, nor truth, nor safety buys;
And dangers gather as the treasures rise."
And at every one of these dens, what a crowd of victims were collected! "A motley company indeed—black-legs, and would-be-gentlemen—the cheater and the cheated." The widow parting with her last trinkets, or, perchance, her last disposable article of dress, to procure one more meal for her famishing children! A poor consumptive girl, with the hectic flush upon her wasting cheek, applying for the same purpose; and the griping miser—very likely a woman too!—without a spark of generosity, or an emotion of pity—reading the condition of the sufferers from their countenances, with the coolest imaginable calculation—thus ascertaining from their looks the urgency of their respective cases, that the utmost possible advantage might be taken, and the intended cheat be made the greater. The pick-pocket, moreover, the thief, and the purloining servant, received with equal readiness, and the spoils divided between them, with the fullest understanding that no questions were to be asked! O 'tis monstrous! "The offence is rank, and smells to heaven!"
But my visits to these establishments were fruitful of incidents, the recollection of which is too vivid to be passed lightly over. And as the present chapter is already of sufficient length, it is proposed to appropriate a separate one as a record of some of those reminiscences—one of which may better suffice as a temperance lecture, than a sermon, while another may perhaps interest the reader from its aspect of romance. If the reader chooses, he can pass it over altogether.
CHAPTER XV.
SCENES IN THE LOMBARDS.
"A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,