THE THIEF NON-PROFESSIONAL.
_The Registered and the Unregistered Thieves of the London
Hunting-ground_.—_The Certainty of the Crop of Vice_.—_Omnibus Drivers
and Conductors_.—_The_ “_Watchers_.”—_The London General Omnibus
Company_.—_The Scandal of their System_.—_The Shopkeeper Thief_.—_False
Weights and Measures_.—_Adulteration of Food and Drink_.—_Our Old Law_,
“_I am as honest as I can afford to be_!”—_Rudimentary Exercises in the
Art of Pillage_.
THERE are unregistered as well “registered” thieves. How many of the
former make London their hunting-ground, it were much more difficult to
enumerate. Nor is it so much out of place as might at first appear, to
class both phases of rascality under one general heading. We have to
consider the sources from which are derived our army of London thieves.
It is not as though the plague of them that afflicts was like other
plagues, and showed itself mild or virulent, according to well-defined
and ascertained provocatives. On the contrary, the crop of our
crime-fields is even more undeviating than our wheat or barley crops. A
grain of corn cast into the ground may fail, but the seeds of vice
implanted in kindly soil is bound to germinate, unless the nature of the
soil itself is altered. As already stated, the number of our London
thieves has somewhat decreased of late years, but it is merely to the
extent of six or seven per cent. If it is twenty thousand at the present
time, this day twelvemonths, allowing for the increased population, it
will be nineteen thousand, say.
Appalling as are the criminal returns for the city of London, it would be
a vain delusion to imagine that when the “twenty thousand” have passed in
review before us, the whole of the hideous picture has been revealed.
The Government statistics deal only with “professional criminals;” that
class of persons, that is to say, who have abandoned all idea of living
honestly, and who, weighing the probable consequences, resign themselves
to a life of systematic depredation, and study existing facilities, and
likely new inventions, just as the ingenious joiner or engineer does in
an honest way.
The all-important question being, what are the main sources from which
are derived with such steadiness and certainty, recruits for the great
criminal army, it would be as well to inquire how much of dishonesty is
permitted amongst us unchecked, simply because it does not take precisely
that shape and colour it must assume before it so offends us that we
insist on the law’s interference. It should perhaps tend to make us more
tender in our dealings with thieves denounced as such, and convicted, and
sent to prison, when we consider the thousands of men of all grades who
know honesty by name only, and who would at the merest push of adversity
slip off the straight path on which for years past they have been no
better than barefaced impostors and trespassers, and plunge at once into
the miry ways of the professed thieves. It ceases to be a wonder how
constantly vacancies in the ranks of crime are filled when we reflect on
the flimsy partition that screens so many seemingly honest men, and the
accidental rending of which would disclose a thief long practised, and
cool, and bold through impunity. There are whole communities of men,
constituting complete branches of our social economy, on whom the taint
of dishonesty rests, and their masters are fully aware of it, and yet
year after year they are allowed to continue in the same employment.
Nay, I think that I may go as far as to assert that so complete is the
disbelief in the honesty of their servants by these masters, that to the
best of their ability they provide against loss by theft by paying the
said servants very little wages. A notable instance of this is furnished
by the omnibus conductors in the service of the General Omnibus Company.
It is not because the company in question conducts its business more
loosely than other proprietors of these vehicles that I particularize it,
but because it is a public company in the enjoyment of many privileges
and monopolies, and the public have an undoubted right to expect fair
treatment from it. I don’t know how many omnibuses, each requiring a
conductor, are constantly running through the streets of London, but
their number must be very considerable, judging from the fact that the
takings of the London General Omnibus Company alone range from nine to
ten thousand pounds weekly. Now it is well known to the company that
their conductors rob them. A gentleman of my acquaintance once submitted
to the secretary of the company an ingenious invention for registering
the number of passengers an omnibus carried on each journey, but the
secretary was unable to entertain it. “It is of no use to us, sir,” said
he. “The machine we want is one that will make our men _honest_, and
that I am afraid is one we are not likely to meet with. They _will_ rob
us, and we can’t help ourselves.” And knowing this, the company pay the
conductor four shillings a day, the said day, as a rule, consisting of
_seventeen hours_—from eight one morning till one the next. The driver,
in consideration it may be assumed of his being removed from the
temptation of handling the company’s money, is paid six shillings a day,
but his opinion of the advantage the conductor still has over him may be
gathered from the fact that he expects the latter to pay for any
reasonable quantity of malt or spirituous liquor he may consume in the
course of a long scorching hot or freezing cold day, not to mention a
cigar or two and the invariable parting glass when the cruelly long day’s
work is at an end.
It would likewise appear that by virtue of this arrangement between the
omnibus conductor and his employers, the interference of the law, even in
cases of detected fraud, is dispensed with. It is understood that the
London General Omnibus Company support quite a large staff of men and
women watchers, who spend their time in riding about in omnibuses, and
noting the number of passengers carried on a particular journey, with the
view of comparing the returns with the conductor’s receipts. It must,
therefore, happen that the detections of fraud are numerous; but does the
reader recollect ever reading in the police reports of a conductor being
prosecuted for robbery?
To be sure the Company may claim the right of conducting their business
in the way they think best as regards the interests of the shareholders,
but if that “best way” involves the countenancing of theft on the part of
their servants, which can mean nothing else than the encouragement of
thieves, it becomes a grave question whether the interests of its
shareholders should be allowed to stand before the interests of society
at large. It may be that to prosecute a dishonest conductor is only to
add to the pecuniary loss he has already inflicted on the Company, but
the question that much more nearly concerns the public is, what becomes
of him when suddenly and in disgrace they turn him from their doors? No
one will employ him. In a few weeks his ill-gotten savings are
exhausted, and he, the man who for months or years, perhaps, has been
accustomed to treat himself generously, finds himself without a sixpence,
and, what is worse, with a mark against his character so black and broad
that his chances of obtaining employment in the same capacity are
altogether too remote for calculation. The respectable barber who
declined to shave a coal-heaver on the ground that he was too vulgar a
subject to come under the delicate operations of the shaver’s razor, and
who was reminded by the grimy one that he had just before shaved a baker,
justified his conduct on the plea that his professional dignity compelled
him to draw a line _somewhere_, and that he drew it at bakers. Just so
the London General Omnibus Company. They draw the line at thieves rash
and foolish. So long as a servant of theirs is content to prey on their
property with enough of discretion as to render exposure unnecessary, he
may continue their servant; but they make it a rule never again to employ
a man who has been so careless as to be found out.
As has been shown, it is difficult to imagine a more satisfactory
existence than that of an omnibus conductor to a man lost to all sense of
honesty; on the other hand it is just as difficult to imagine a man so
completely “floored” as the same cad disgraced, and out of employ. It is
easy to see on what small inducements such a man may be won over to the
criminal ranks. He has no moral scruples to overcome. His larcenous
hand has been in the pocket of his master almost every hour of the day
for months, perhaps years past. He is not penitent, and if he were and
made an avowal to that effect, he would be answered by the incredulous
jeers and sneers of all who knew him. The best that he desires is to
meet with as easy a method of obtaining pounds as when he cheerfully
drudged for eighteen hours for a wage of four-shillings. This being the
summit of his ambition, presently he stumbles on what appears even an
easier way of making money than the old way, and he unscrupulously
appears not in a new character, but in that he has had long experience
in, but without the mask.
I should wish it to be distinctly understood, that I do not include _all_
omnibus conductors in this sweeping condemnation. That there are honest
ones amongst them I make no doubt; at the same time I have no hesitation
in repeating that in the majority of cases it is expected of them that
they will behave dishonestly, and they have no disinclination to
discredit the expectation. I believe too, that it is much more difficult
for a man to be honest as a servant of the company than if he were in the
employ of a “small master.” It is next to impossible for a man of
integrity to join and work harmoniously in a gang of rogues. The odds
against his doing so may be calculated exactly by the number that
comprise the gang. It is not only on principle that they object to him.
Unless he “does as they do,” he becomes a witness against them every time
he pays his money in. And he does as they do. It is so much easier to
do so than, in the condition of a man labouring hard for comparatively
less pay than a common road-scraper earns, to stand up single handed to
champion the cause of honesty in favour of a company who are
undisguisedly in favour of a snug and comfortable compromise, and has no
wish to be “bothered.”
It is a great scandal that such a system should be permitted to exist;
and a body of employers mean enough to connive at such bargain-making,
can expect but small sympathy from the public if the dishonesty it
tacitly encourages picks it to the bones. What are the terms of the
contract between employer and employed? In plain language these: “We are
perfectly aware that you apply to us well knowing our system of doing
business, and with the deliberate intention of robbing us all you safely
can; and in self-defence, therefore, we will pay you as what you may, if
you please, regard as wages, _two-pence three farthings an hour_, or four
shillings per day of seventeen hours. We know that the probabilities
are, that you will add to that four shillings daily to the extent of
another five or six. It is according to our calculation that you will do
so. Our directors have arrived at the conclusion, that as omnibus
conductors, of the ordinary type, you cannot be expected to rob us of a
less sum than that, and we are not disposed to grumble so long as you
remain so moderate; but do not, as you value your situation with all its
accompanying privileges, go beyond that. As a man who only robs us of
say, five shillings a day, we regard you as a fit and proper person to
wait on our lady and gentleman passengers; to attend to their convenience
and comfort, in short, as a worthy representative of the L. G. O. C. But
beware how you outstrip the bounds of moderation as we unmistakably
define them for you! Should you do so, we will kick you out at a
moment’s notice, and on no consideration will we ever again employ you.”
Taking this view of the case, the omnibus conductor, although entitled to
a foremost place in the ranks of thieves non-professional, can scarcely
be said to be the least excusable amongst the fraternity. There are many
who, looking down on the “cad” from their pinnacle of high
respectability, are ten times worse than he is. Take the shopkeeper
thief for instance. He is by far a greater villain than the half-starved
wretch who snatches a leg of mutton from a butcher’s hook, or some
article of drapery temptingly flaunting outside the shop of the clothier,
because in the one case the crime is perpetrated that a soul and a
woefully lean body may be saved from severance, and in the other case the
iniquity is made to pander to the wrong-doer’s covetous desire to grow
fat, to wear magnificent jewellery, and to air his unwieldy carcase
annually at Margate.
He has enough for his needs. His deservings, such as they are, most
liberally attend him; but this is not enough. The “honest penny” is very
well to talk about; in fact, in his cleverly assumed character of an
upright man, it is as well to talk about it loudly and not unfrequently,
but what fudge it is if you come to a downright blunt and “business” view
of the matter to hope ever to make a fortune by the accumulation of
“honest pennies!” Why, thirty of the shabby things make no more than
half-a-crown if you permit each one to wear its plain stupid face,
whereas if you plate it neatly and tender it—backed by your reputation
for respectability, which your banking account of course proves beyond a
doubt—it will pass as genuine silver, and you make two and five-pence at
a stroke! You don’t call it “making,” you robbers of the counter and
money-till, that is a vulgar expression used by “professional” thieves;
you allude to it as “cutting it fine.” Neither do you actually plate
copper pennies and pass them off on the unwary as silver half-crowns.
Unless you were very hard driven indeed, you would scorn so low and
dangerous a line of business. Yours is a much safer system of robbery.
You simply palm off on the unwary customer burnt beans instead of coffee,
and ground rice instead of arrowroot, and a mixture of lard and turmeric
instead of butter. You poison the poor man’s bread. He is a drunkard,
and you are not even satisfied to delude him of his earnings for so long
a time as he may haply live as a wallower in beer and gin, that is beer
and gin as originally manufactured; you must, in order to screw a few
halfpence extra and daily out of the poor wretch, put grains of paradise
in his gin and coculus indicus in his malt liquor! And, more insatiable
than the leech, you are not content with cheating him to the extent of
twenty-five per cent. by means of abominable mixtures and adulteration,
you must pass him through the mill, and cut him yet a little finer when
he comes to scale! You must file your weights and dab lumps of grease
under the beam, and steal an ounce or so out of his pound of bacon. If
you did this after he left your premises, if you dared follow him
outside, and stealthily inserting your hand into his pocket abstracted a
rasher of the pound he had just bought of you, and he caught you at it,
you would be quaking in the grasp of a policeman in a very short time,
and branded in the newspapers as a paltry thief, you would never again
dare loose the bar of your shop shutters. But by means of your dishonest
scales and weights, you may go on stealing rashers from morning till
night, from Monday morning till Saturday night that is, and live long to
adorn your comfortable church pew on Sundays.
I must be excused for sticking to you yet a little longer, Mr. Shopkeeper
Thief, because I hate you so. I hate you more than ever, and you will be
rejoiced when I tell you why. A few months since, there seemed a chance
that your long career of cruel robbery was about to be checked. An
excellent lord and gentleman, Lord E. Cecil, made it his business to call
the attention of the House of Commons to the state of the law with
respect to false weights and measures, and the adulterations of food and
drinks. His lordship informed honourable members that the number of
convictions for false weights and measures during the past year amounted
to the large number of _thirteen hundred_, and this was exclusive of six
districts, namely: Southwark, Newington, St. George’s, Hanover Square,
Paddington, and the Strand, which for reasons best known to the local
authorities, made no return whatever. In Westminster alone, and within
six months, a hundred persons were convicted, and it was found that of
these twenty-four or nearly one-fourth of the whole were licensed
victuallers, and forty-seven were dairymen, greengrocers, cheesemongers,
and others, who supplied the poor with food, making in all seventy per
cent. of provision dealers. In the parish of St. Pancras, the
convictions for false weights and measures exceed those of every other
parish. But in future, however much the old iniquity may prevail, the
rogue’s returns will show a handsome diminution. This has been managed
excellently well by the shrewd vestrymen themselves. When the last batch
of shopkeeper-swindlers of St. Pancras were tried and convicted, the ugly
fact transpired that not a few of them were gentlemen holding official
positions in the parish. This was serious. The meddlesome fellows who
had caused the disagreeable exposure were called a “leet jury,” whose
business it was to pounce on evil doers whenever they thought fit, once
in the course of every month. The vestry has power over this precious
leet jury, thank heaven! and after sitting in solemn council, the
vestrymen, some of them doubtless with light weights confiscated and
deficient gin and beer measures rankling in their hearts, passed a
resolution, that in future the leet jury was to stay at home and mind its
own business, until the vestry clerk gave it liberty to go over the
ground carefully prepared for it.
Alluding to the scandalous adulteration of food, Lord E. Cecil remarked,
“The right hon. gentleman, the President of the Board of Trade, in one of
his addresses by which he had electrified the public and his
constituents, stated that the great panacea for the ills of the working
class was a free breakfast table. Now he, Lord E. Cecil, was the last
person in the world to object to any revision of taxation if it were
based upon really sound grounds. But with all due deference to the right
hon. gentleman, there was one thing of even more importance, namely, a
breakfast table free from all impurities.” And then his lordship
proceeded to quote innumerable instances of the monstrous and dangerous
injustice in question, very much to the edification of members assembled,
if reiterated “cheers,” and “hear, hear,” went for anything. This was
promising, and as it should be. As Lord Cecil remarked, “when I asked
myself why it is that this great nation which boasts to be so practical,
and which is always ready to take up the grievances of other people, has
submitted so tamely to this monstrous and increasing evil, the only
answer I could give was that what was everybody’s business had become
nobody’s business.” Doubtless this was the view of the case that every
member present on the occasion took, and very glad they must have been
when they found that what was everybody’s business had become somebody’s
business at last.
And what said the President of the Board of Trade when he came to reply
to the motion of Lord Cecil: “That in the opinion of the House it is
expedient that Her Majesty’s Government should give their earliest
attention to the wide-spread and most reprehensible practice of using
false weights and measures, and of adulterating food, drinks, and drugs,
with a view of amending the law as regards the penalties now inflicted
for those offences, and of providing more efficient means for the
discovery and prevention of fraud”? Did the right hon. President
promptly and generously promise his most cordial support for the laudable
object in view? No. Amazing as it may appear to the great host of
working men that furnish the shopkeeping rogue with his chief prey, and
who to a man are ready to swear by the right hon. gentleman, he did
nothing of the kind. He started by unhesitatingly expressing his opinion
that the mover of the question, quite unintentionally of course, had much
exaggerated the whole business. And further, that although there might
be particular cases in which great harm to health and much fraud might
possibly be shown, yet general statements of the kind in question were
dangerous, and almost certain to be unjust.
“Now, I am prepared to show,” continued the hon. gentleman, “that the
exaggeration of the noble lord—I do not say intentional exaggeration, of
course—is just as great in the matter of weights and measures as in that
of adulteration. Probably he is not aware that in the list of persons
employing weights that are inaccurate—I do not say fraudulent; no
distinction is drawn between those who are intentionally fraudulent and
those who are accidentally inaccurate, and that the penalty is precisely
the same and the offence is just as eagerly detected. Now the noble lord
will probably be surprised to hear that many persons are fined annually,
not because their weights are too small, but because they are too large.”
Probably, however, his lordship, who has evidently given much attention
to the subject, is master of this as well as all other branches of it,
and is not so much surprised as it may be assumed the less knowing
President of the Board of Trade was when the anomaly was brought under
his notice. Probably Lord Cecil is aware, that in a very large number of
businesses, articles are bought as well as sold by weight by the same
shopkeeper and at the same shop, in such case it is nothing very
wonderful to discover a weight of seventeen ounces to the pound.
Moreover, it may be unknown to Mr. Bright, but it is quite a common trick
with the dishonest shopkeeper to have means at hand for adjusting his
false weights at the very shortest notice. It is not a difficult
process. Weights are, as a rule, “justified” or corrected by means of
adding to, or taking from, a little of the lead that is for this purpose
sunk in the hollow in which the weight-ring is fixed. This leaden plug
being raised by the point of a knife, nothing is easier than to add or
withdraw a wedge of the same material. The knife point raises the leaden
lid, the knife handle forces it down at a blow, and the trick is done.
At the same time, the coolest rogue with a knowledge that the “leet” is
only next door, cannot always manage his conjuring deftly, and this may
in not a few instances account for the weight _more_ than just. Besides,
taking the most liberal view of the matter, it would be manifestly
dangerous to allow a system of “averages” to do duty for strict and rigid
justice. The relations between customer and shopkeeper would speedily
fall into a sad muddle if the latter were permitted to excuse himself for
selling fifteen ounces instead of a full pound of butter to-day, on the
ground that he has a seventeen ounce weight somewhere about, and the
probability that what he is short to-day the customer had over and above
in the pound of lard he bought yesterday.
Again, let us listen to Mr. Bright as an advocate of self-protection.
“If the corporations and the magistrates have not sufficient interest in
the matter, if the people who elect the corporation care so little about
it, I think that is fair evidence that the grievance is not near so
extensive and injurious and burdensome as it has been described by the
noble lord. My own impression with regard to adulteration is, that it
arises from the very great and, perhaps, inevitable competition in
business; and that to a large extent it is prompted by the ignorance of
customers. As the ignorance of customers generally is diminishing, we
may hope that before long the adulteration of food may also diminish. It
is quite impossible that you should have the oversight of the shops of
the country by inspectors, and it is quite impossible that you should
have persons going into shops to buy sugar, pickles, and cayenne pepper,
to get them analysed, and then to raise complaints against shopkeepers
and bring them before magistrates. If men in their private business were
to be tracked by government officers and inspectors every hour in the
day, life would not be worth having, and I should recommend them to
remove to another country where they would not be subject to such
annoyance.”
With a knowledge of the source from which this expression of opinion as
to commercial morality emanates, one is apt to mistrust once reading it.
Surely a line has been inadvertently skipped, a line that contains the
key of the puzzle, and reveals the refined sarcasm that lurks beneath the
surface. But no—twice reading, thrice reading, fails to shed any new
lights on the mystery. Here is Mr. John Bright, the President of the
Board of Trade, the working man’s champion, and the staunch upholder of
the right of those who sweat in honest toil, to partake plentifully of
untaxed food and drink, putting forth an extenuation for those who, under
guise of honest trading, filch from the working man, and pick and steal
from his loaf, from his beer jug, from his sugar basin, from his
milk-pot, in short, from all that he buys to eat or drink. “My own
impression is,” says the Right Hon. President, “that adulteration arises
from competition in business.” Very possibly, but does _that_ excuse it?
We are constantly reminded that “competition is the soul of trade,” but
we should be loth to think that such were the fact if the term
“competition” is to be regarded as synonymous with adulteration, or, in
plain language, robbery. “It is quite impossible that you should have
persons going about endeavouring to detect the dishonest tradesman in his
peculations, with a view to his punishment.” Why is it impossible? Must
not the repose of this sacred “soul of business” be disturbed, on so
trivial a pretext as the welfare of the bodies of a clodhopping people,
who are not commercial? So far from its being “impossible” to substitute
vigilant measures for the detection of the petty pilferer who robs the
poor widow of a ha’porth of her three penn’orth of coals, or the
fatherless child of a slice out of its meagre allowance of bread, it
should be regarded by the Government as amongst its chief duties. Other
nations find it not impossible. In France a commissary of police has the
right to enter any shop, and seize any suspected article, bearing of
course all the responsibility of wrongful seizure. In Prussia, as Lord
Cecil informed the House, “whoever knowingly used false weights and
measures was liable to imprisonment for three months, to be fined from
fifty to a thousand thalers, and to suffer the temporary loss of his
rights of citizenship. Secondly, where false weights and measures were
not regularly employed, a fine of thirty thalers may be imposed, or the
delinquent sent to prison for four weeks. Thirdly, the adulteration of
food or drink is punishable with a fine of 150 thalers, or six weeks’
imprisonment. Fourthly, if poisonous matter or stuff be employed, the
offender is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding ten years.
Fifthly, where adulteration was proved to have caused severe physical
injury, a sentence of from ten to twenty years’ imprisonment might be
passed. And yet in this country offences of this nature could only be
punished by the imposition of a penalty of a fine of £5, with costs.”
These are not laws of yesterday. They have stood the test of many years,
and French and Prussians find it not “impossible” to continue their
salutary enforcement. But it is curious the extraordinary view men in
authority amongst us at times take of the licence that should be
permitted the “trader.” I remember once being present at a County Court,
and a case tried was that between a wholesale mustard dealer and a
cookshop keeper. The cookshop keeper declined to pay for certain mustard
delivered to him on the ground that his customers would not eat it.
Indeed, it could hardly be called mustard at all, being little else than
flour coloured with turmeric, and, backed by medical testimony, the
defendant mainly relied on this point, _i.e._, that it was not mustard at
all, for a verdict. But the judge would not hear of this; in his summing
up he remarked that it was idle to contend that the stuff was _not_
mustard; _it was mustard in a commercial sense_, whatever might be its
quality, and thereon gave a verdict for the plaintiff, and for the amount
claimed.
I must confess that at the time I had my doubts as to this being sound
law, but after the declaration of the President of the Board of Trade, I
am bound to admit the possibility of my being mistaken. “Competition is
the soul of commerce;” competition is the parent of adulteration;
adulteration is theft as a rule,—murder as an exception. The loaf that
is composed of inferior flour, rice, potatoes, and alum, is the “wheaten
bread” of “commerce.” The poisonous liquid composed of a little malt and
hops, eked out with treacle and _coculus indicus_, is the beer of
“commerce.” And, according to the same ruling, a lump of lard stuck
under the butter-shop scale, or the inch snipped off the draper’s yard,
or the false bottom to the publican’s pot, constitute the weights and
measures of “commerce.” All these little harmless tricks of trade are,
it seems, within the scope of a tradesman’s “private business,” and
according to the President of the Board of Trade, if a tradesman in
pursuit of his private business is to be watched and spied over for the
malicious purpose of bringing him within the grasp of the law, why the
sooner he quits the country, and settles amongst a more easy-going
people, with elbow-room proper for his commercial enterprise, the better
for him.
Undoubtedly, the better for him and the better for us. I would make this
difference, however. When his iniquity was discovered, he should not go
altogether unrewarded for his past services. He should be assisted in
his going abroad. He should not be called on to pay one penny for his
outward passage, and, what is more, he should be supplied with
substantial linsey-wolsey clothing, and his head should be cropped quite
close, so that the scorching sun of Bermuda or Gibraltar might not upset
his brain for future commercial speculation.
It needs, however, something more persuasive than the “mustard of
commerce” to induce us to swallow with satisfaction the President’s
assertion, that “to a large extent adulteration is promoted by the
ignorance of customers,” nor are we immensely consoled by the suggestion
that “as the ignorance of the customer diminishes, the adulteration of
food will also diminish.” Decidedly this is a bright look out for the
ignorant customer! There is to be no help for him, no relief. He must
endure to be cheated in weight and measure, and slowly poisoned in the
beer he drinks, and the bread he eats, until he finds time and money to
provide himself with a scientific education, and becomes an accomplished
scholar in chemistry, able to detect adulteration at sight or smell. Is
this what the President of the Board of Trade means, or what is it? He
cannot mean that the imposture is endured because the consumer will not
take the trouble to avail himself of the laws made for his protection,
because he is distinctly informed that although there are such laws, they
are rendered inoperative because of the “impossibility” of having
inspectors and detectives going about prying into the “private business”
of the shopkeeper, and annoying him. If the ignorance of the honest man
is to be regarded as the fair opportunity of the rogue, then there
appears no reason why the immunity enjoyed by the fraudulent shopkeeper
should not likewise be the indulgence allowed to the professional thief.
It is the “ignorance of the customer” that enables the cheat to impose on
him bad money for good, or a forged signature for one that is genuine.
It is the ignorance of the green young man from the country as regards
the wicked ways of London, that enables the skittle sharper to fleece him
with ease and completeness. Undoubtedly, if we were all equally “wide
awake,” as the vulgar saying is, if no one had the advantage of his
neighbour as regards cunning, and shrewdness, and suspicion, and all the
other elements that constitute “a man of the world,” then the trade of
cheating would become so wretched a one that even ingrain rogues would
for their life-sake cultivate the sort of honesty that was prevalent as
the best policy, though very much against their natural inclination; but
it might possibly be found that there are thousands and tens of thousands
of simple people who would prefer to remain in “ignorance,” having no
desire to become “men of the world” in the sense above indicated, and
electing for their souls’-sake to be lambs with a fleece to lose, than
ravening wolves, whose existence depends on the fleecing of lambs.
_Apropos_ of the practice of cheating by means of the adulteration of
foods and drinks, it may not be out of place here to mention that during
the discussion a member in whom Mr. Bright expressed great confidence,
announced that the use of alum in bread, so far from being injurious, was
_positively beneficial_. Doctor Letheby, however, is of a somewhat
different opinion. Recently, at the Society of Arts, he read a paper on
the subject. Here are his opinions on the matter:
“By the addition of alum, inferior and even damaged flour may be made
into a tolerable looking loaf. It is the property of alum to make
the gluten tough, and to prevent its discoloration by heat, as well
as to check the action of the yeast or ferment upon it. When,
therefore, it is added to good flour, it enables it to hold more
water, and so to yield a larger number of loaves; while the addition
of it to bad flour prevents the softening and disintegrating effect
of the yeast on the poor and inferior gluten, and so enables it to
bear the action of heat in the progress of baking. According to the
quality of flour, will be the proportion of alum, and hence the
amount will range from 2 ozs. to 8 ozs. per sack of flour. These
proportions will yield from 9 to 37 grains of alum in the quartern
loaf, quantities which are easily detected by chemical means.
Indeed, there is a simple test by which much smaller quantities of it
may be readily discovered. You have only to dip a slice of the bread
into a weak solution of logwood in water, and if alum be present, the
bread will speedily acquire a red or purplish tint. Good bread
should not exhibit any black specks upon its upper crust; it should
not become sodden and wet at the lower part by standing; it should
not become mouldy by keeping in a moderately dry place; it should be
sweet and agreeable to the taste and smell; it should not give, when
steeped, a ropy, acid liquor; and a slice of it taken from the centre
of the loaf should not lose more than forty-five per cent. by
drying.”
Again, speaking of the cruelty and dishonesty of the various
“sophistications” practised by the vendors of food as regards the
inefficacy of the laws made for its suppression, the good doctor says:
“Parliament has attempted to deal with the matter by legislation, as
in the ‘Act for Preventing the Adulteration of Articles of Food or
Drink’ of 1860; but as the Act is only permissive, little or no
effect has been given to it. Even in those places, as in the City of
London, where it has been put into operation, and public analysts
have been appointed, no good has resulted from it; in fact, it stands
upon the statute-book as a dead letter. Speaking of the City, I may
say that every inducement has been offered for the effective working
of the Act, but nothing has come of it. In olden times, the remedies
for such misdemeanours were quick and effectual. In the _Assisa
panis_, for example, as set forth in _Liber Albus_, there are not
only the strictest regulations concerning the manner in which the
business of the baker is to be conducted, but there are also
penalties for failing in the same. ‘If any default,’ it says, ‘shall
be found in the bread of a baker in the city, the first time, let him
be drawn upon a hurdle from the Guildhall to his own house through
the great streets where there be most people assembled; and through
the great streets which are most dirty, with the faulty loaf hanging
about his neck. If a second time he shall be found committing the
same offence, let him be drawn from the Guildhall, through the great
street of Chepe in manner aforesaid to the pillory, and let him be
put upon the pillory and remain there at least one hour in the day;
and the third time that such default shall be found, he shall be
drawn, and the oven shall be pulled down, and the baker made to
forswear the trade within the city for ever.’ It further tells us,
that William de Stratford suffered this punishment for selling bread
of short weight, and John de Strode ‘for making bread of filth and
cobwebs.’ One hoary-headed offender was excused the hurdle on
account of his age and the severity of the season; and it would seem
that the last time the punishment was inflicted was in the sixteenth
year of the reign of Henry VI., when Simon Frensshe was so drawn. A
like punishment was awarded to butchers and vintners for fraudulent
dealings; for we are told that a butcher was paraded through the
streets with his face to the horse’s tail for selling measly bacon at
market, and that the next day he was set in the pillory with two
great pieces of his measly bacon over his head, and a writing which
set forth his crimes. In the judgments recorded in _Liber Albus_
there are twenty-three cases in which the pillory was awarded for
selling putrid meat, fish, or poultry; thirteen for unlawful dealings
of bakers, and six for the misdemeanours of vintners and wine
dealers. Verily we have degenerated in these matters.”
And while we are on the subject of thieves non-professional, and their
easy conversion to the article legally stamped and recognised, it may not
be amiss briefly to remark on the odd ideas of honesty entertained and
practised by thousands of our hard-fisted, and except for the singular
weakness hinted at, quite worthy and decent “journeymen.” It is curious
how much of hallucination prevails amongst us on the subject of “common
honesty.” It is as though there were several qualities of that virtue,
“common,” “middling,” and “superfine,” as there are in household bread;
and that, carrying out the simile, although the “superfine” is
undoubtedly nicer, and what one would always use if he could afford it,
the honesty dubbed “common” is equally wholesome, and on the whole the
only sort on which it is possible for a working man to exist.
“I am as honest as I can afford to be,” is an observation common in the
mouth of those who really and truly earn their bread and acquire a
creditable reputation by the sweat of their brow. It never seems to
occur to them that such an admission is equal to a confession of
dishonesty, and since it is simply a matter of degree, that the common
thief on the same grounds may claim the privilege of shaking them by the
hand as their equal. The man who fixes the standard of his honesty at no
greater height becomes an easy prey to temptation. “If he is as honest
as he can afford to be,” and no more, it simply means that his means not
being equal to his necessities he has already admitted the thin end of
the wedge of dishonesty to make good the gap, and that should the said
gap unhappily widen, the wedge must enter still further in until a total
splitting up of the system ensues, and the wedge itself becomes the only
steadfast thing to cling to.
That this melancholy consummation is not more frequently attained is the
great wonder, and would tend to show that many men adopt a sort of
hobbling compromise, walking as it were with one foot on the path of
rectitude, and the other in the miry way of petty theft, until they get
to the end of life’s tether and both feet slip into the grave.
It is a fact at once humiliating, but there it stands stark and stern,
and will not be denied, that there are daily pursuing their ordinary
business, and passing as honest, hundreds and thousands of labouring
folk, who, if their various malversations were brought to light, and they
were prosecuted, would find themselves in prison ere they were a day
older. Nor should this startle us very much, as we are well aware of it,
and mayhap are in no small degree responsible for it, since it is mainly
owing to our indolent disregard that the evil has become so firmly
established; at the same time it should be borne in mind, that this no
more excuses those who practise and profit on our indifference to small
pilferings than a disinclination to prosecute a professional pickpocket
mitigates the offence of the delinquent.
The species of dishonesty alluded to, as not coming within the official
term “professional,” has many aliases. Ordinarily it is called by the
cant name of “perks,” which is a convenient abbreviation of the word
“perquisites,” and in the hands of the users of it, it shows itself a
word of amazing flexibility. It applies to such unconsidered trifles as
wax candle ends, and may be stretched so as to cover the larcenous
abstraction by our man-servant of forgotten coats and vests. As has been
lately exposed in the newspapers, it is not a rare occurrence for your
butler or your cook to conspire with the roguish tradesman, the latter
being permitted to charge “his own prices,” on condition that when the
monthly bill is paid, the first robber hands over to the second
two-shillings or half-a-crown in the pound. It is not, however, these
sleek, and well-fed non-professional thieves that I would just now speak
of, but rather of the working man—the journeyman tailor for example.
Did anyone ever yet hear of a working tailor who was proof against
misappropriation of his neighbour’s goods, or as he playfully designates
it, “cabbage?” Is it not a standard joke in the trade this “cabbage?”
Did one ever hear of a tailor being shunned by his fellow-workmen, or
avoided by his neighbours, on account of his predilection for “cabbage?”
Yet what is it but another word for “theft?” If I entrust a builder with
so much timber, and so much stone, and so many bricks, to build me a
house, and I afterwards discover that by clever dodging and scheming he
has contrived to make me believe that all the material I gave him has
been employed in my house, whereas he has managed to filch enough to
build himself a small cottage, do I accept his humorous explanation that
it is only “cabbage,” and forgive him? No. I regard it as my duty to
afford him an opportunity of explaining the matter to a magistrate. But
if I entrust my tailor with stuff for a suit, and it afterwards comes to
my knowledge that he has “screwed” an extra waistcoat out of it, which he
keeps or sells for his own benefit, do I regard it as a serious act of
robbery? I am ashamed to say that I do not; I may feel angry, and
conceive a contempt for tailors, but I take no steps to bring the rogue
to justice. I say to myself, “It is a mean trick, but they all do it,”
which is most unjust to the community of tailors, because though I may
suspect that they all do it, I have no proof of the fact, whereas I have
proof that there is a dishonest tailor in their guild, and I have no
right to assume but that they would regard it as a favour if I would
assist them in weeding him out.
And it is almost as good a joke as the calling downright theft by the
comical name of “cabbage,” that the tailor will do this and all the time
insist on his right to be classed with honest men. He insists on this
because he was never known to steal anything besides such goods as
garments are made out of. As he comes along bringing your new suit home
he would think it no sin to call at that repository for stolen goods the
“piece broker’s,” and sell there a strip of your unused cloth for a
shilling, but you may safely trust him in the hall where the hats and
umbrellas and overcoats are. He would as soon think of breaking into
your house with crowbars and skeleton keys, as of abstracting a
handkerchief he saw peeping out of a pocket of one of the said coats.
As with the tailor, so it is with the upholsterer, and the dressmaker,
and the paperhanger, and the plumber, and all the rest of them. I don’t
say that every time they take a shred of this, or a pound weight of that,
that they have before their eyes the enormity of the offence they are
about to commit. What they do they see no great harm in. Indeed, point
out to them and make it clear that their offence has but to be brought
fairly before the criminal authorities to ensure them a month on the
treadmill, and they would as a rule be shocked past repeating the
delinquency. And well would it be if they were shocked past it, ere
misfortune overtake them. It is when “hard up” times set in, and it is
difficult indeed to earn an honest penny, that these rudimentary
exercises in the art of pillage tell against a man. It is then that he
requires his armour of proof against temptation, and lo! it is full of
holes and rust-eaten places, and he falls at the first assault of the
enemy.