One of the most dangerous passions which can enter the breasts of young
people, though at the same time it be one of the most common, is the
love of finery and a mean and foolish ambition to appear better dressed
than becomes their station, in hopes of imposing upon the world as
persons of much higher rank than they really are. This inconsiderate,
ridiculous pride brings along with it such a numerous train of bad
consequences that of necessity it makes the person inflamed by it
unhappy and often miserable for life. In the case now before us a was
still more fatal by adding a violent and ignominious death.
John Turner was the son of a person in tolerable circumstances, in the
county of Cornwall, where he received an education proper for that
condition of life in which he was likely to pass through the world. His
father was a man of good sense, and of a behaviour much more courteous
and genteel than is usual among persons of ordinary condition in a
county so remote from London. He was extremely desirous that his son
should be like him in this respect, and therefore he continually
cautioned him against falling into that rough boorish manner of behaving
which is natural to uneducated clowns, and makes them shocking to
everybody but themselves. In this respect John was very compliant with
his father's temper, and being put out apprentice to a peruke-maker, his
obliging carriage endeared him so much, not only to his master and the
family but also to the gentlemen on whom, as customers to the shop, he
sometimes waited, that they took a peculiar liking to the boy and were
continually giving him money as a reward for his diligence and
assiduity.
But John's obliging temper took a turn very fatal to himself, as well as
very little suspected by his friends and relations. For having been made
use of by some young sparks at Exeter (the place where he served his
time) to carry messages to their mistresses, he from thence conceived so
strong an inclination to become a beau and a gallant that, in order to
it, he broke open his master's escritoire and took away a considerable
sum of money. With this he came up to London and went to live as a
journeyman with an eminent peruke-maker at the Court end of the town.
There his easy and obsequious temper made him very agreeable to
everybody, and his behaviour was so just and open that nobody in the
neighbourhood had a better character than himself. Yet he was far from
giving over those extravagancies the earnest desire of committing which
had brought him to town; for nobody in his station made so handsome a
figure as Mr. Turner.
His amours with the wenches in the neighbourhood were very numerous,
though out of a point of honour he was careful enough in endeavouring to
conceal them. But as they naturally led him into an expensive way of
living, which what he got by his trade could in no degree support, he
quickly found himself obliged to take to new methods, and thought none
so concise and convenient as going upon the road. This he did for some
time without arousing the least suspicion, behaving himself towards
those whom he robbed with such gentleness and good manners, putting his
hat into the coach and taking what money they thought fit to give him,
nay, sometimes returning a part of that, if the dress or aspect of the
person gave him room to suspect that their wants were as great as his.
From this extraordinary conduct he obtained the name of Civil John, by
which he was very well known to the stage coachmen, wagoners, and other
such persons who travelled the Western road.
Common fame, which ordinarily multiplies the adventures of men of his
profession, circulated a multitude of stories about him which had not
the least foundation in fact, and served only to make the poor man more
remarkable, and consequently the more easy to be taken; which was,
accordingly, the effect of those foolish encomiums which the vulgar
bestowed upon so genteel a robber. About six weeks after he had taken to
this unfortunate course of life; and while he yet preserved an unstained
reputation in the neighbourhood in which he lived, he was apprehended
for a robbery committed on Mr. Air, from whom he took but an
inconsiderable sum; yet the fact being clearly proved against him at the
next session at the Old Bailey, he was convicted, and having no
relations capable of making interest sufficient to obtain a reprieve, he
lost all hopes of life. Under sentence he conducted himself with much
calmness, penitence, and resignation, confessing the truth of that
charge which had been laid against him, acknowledging the justice of the
Law in this sentence, and disposing himself to submit to it with much
cheerfulness and alacrity.
This great change in his circumstance and manner of living, added to
his own uneasy reflections upon those misfortunes into which vanity and
ostentation had brought him, soon reduced him by sickness to so weak a
state that he was incapable, almost, of coming to chapel alone.
Notwithstanding this, he continued to frequent it, some of the people
about the prison being so kind as to help him upstairs. As his vices
arose rather from the imitation of those fine gentlemen on whom he had
waited while a lad, so he did not carry them to that height which most
of these unhappy persons are wont to do; on the contrary he was very
sober, little addicted to gambling, and never followed the common women
of the town. But dress, dancing bouts, and the necessary entertainments
for carrying on his amours were the follies which involved him in these
expenses, for the supply of which he thus hazarded his soul and
forfeited his life.
When the death warrant came down his sickness had brought him so low
that Nature seemed inclined to supersede the severity of the Law; but
too short a time which intervened between it and its execution, and so
he came to suffer a violent death at Tyburn a day or two before,
perhaps, he would otherwise have yielded up his breath in his bed.
Little could be expected of a person in his weak condition, at the place
of execution, where, when he arrived he was utterly unable to stand up.
However, with a faint voice he desired the prayers both of the minister
who attended them and of the spectators of his execution, which happened
on the 20th of November, 1727, in the twenty-sixth year of his age.