again, and of incidents of painful retribution. Such an incident as
that recorded above deserves a fellow, and we find it in the painful
adventure in which Tom Taylor was the luckless sufferer. We do not
hear much of Tom Taylor, who was, indeed, more of a pickpocket than a
highwayman. We do learn, however, that he was the son of a clergyman,
and that "he was executed along with Moll Jones." Clearly, Tom
Taylor was an undesirable and the companion of undesirables. He was
accustomed to dress himself in smart clothes and attend theatres and
public entertainments, and there—an unsuspected fine gentleman—to pick
pockets. On one such occasion he emptied a gentleman's pocket of forty
guineas, and we are told that, in a disguise, he seated himself the
next night beside the same person, who recognised him but made no sign,
having this time come prepared. He had, in fact, baited his pocket with
a handful of guineas, which set up a pleasant jingling and made poor
Tom's mouth water. Poor Tom, we say advisedly, bearing in mind the
sequel. He began presently to "dive" for those guineas and found, to
his dismay, that the gentleman had really in the truest sense, "baited"
his pocket, for it had been sewn all round with fish-hooks, and the
wretched Taylor's hand was held fast.
Having in vain attempted to disentangle himself, he said to the
gentleman: "Sir, by a mistake, I have somehow put my hand into your
pocket, instead of into my own"; but, without taking the least notice,
that merciless person rose from his seat and made for the "Rose"
tavern, Tom helplessly along with him, his hand all the while remaining
in the pocket. Arrived there, it was no difficult matter to make him
cry "Mercy!" and to induce him to send for one of his comrades, to
bail him out, so to say. It cost the unfortunate Tom Taylor eighty
guineas to get free again. The account of these things then concludes
on the proper note of poetic justice: "Nor was the gentleman satisfied
with this, but caned him in a most unmerciful manner, and then turned
him out to the mob, who ducked him in a pond, and broke one of his
legs."
The succeeding chapters of Tom Taylor's chequered career do not concern
us, but we learn, without surprise, that this ferocious buffeting and
bruising—to say nothing of the fish-hooks—determined him to abandon the
"diving" trade.
JONATHAN WILD
To cheat that arch-rogue and cunning friend and betrayer of rogues,
Jonathan Wild, out of a place in these pages would be too mean an
action. He towers above the ordinary run of bad men as a very giant in
wickedness. Although he was himself no highwayman, he was friend of and
associate with all of their trade, and as such has a right here.
Jonathan Wild was a native of Wolverhampton, the son, according to
some, of a carpenter; but, by more trustworthy records, his father was
a wig-maker. He was born about 1682. His father apprenticed him to a
Birmingham buckle-maker. While at Birmingham he married, but, deserting
his wife and child, he made for London, and was for a short period a
gentleman's servant. Returning for a brief space to the buckle-making
trade, he soon found himself in debt, and then, by what was a natural
transition in those times, lodged in the Poultry Compter. The Compter
(it is also styled the Wood Street Compter) was something over and
above a prison for debtors and others: and was indeed nothing less than
an academy and forcing-house of villainies, where incipient scoundrels
were brought on early in season, like cucumbers under glass. It was
not singular in this, for all the prisons of that age shared the like
well-earned reputation. Something of the horrors of imprisonment for
debt, as then practised, may be judged by the fact that Wild was here
for four years; but for a portion of the time he had the advantage over
his fellow-prisoners of being appointed assistant-gaoler. Wild never at
any time lacked address and tact, and these qualities here stood him in
good stead.
It was in this abode of despair that he first met Mary Milliner, who
was ever afterwards associated with him. She was already old in crime,
though not in years, and was his initiator into the first practical
rogueries he knew. But he was a criminal by instinct, and needed only
introductions to the world of crime. Once shown the methods in vogue,
he not only became a master in their use, but speedily improved upon
them, to the wonderment and admiration of all the cross-coves in London.
Released at length from durance, he and Mary Milliner set up a vile
establishment in Lewkenor's Lane, and later took a low public-house, a
resort of the padding-culls of the City—the sign of the "Cock," in Cock
Alley, Cripplegate.
Wild had also made acquaintance, while in the Wood Street Compter, of
a deep-dyed scoundrel, a certain Charles Hitchen, an ex-City marshal,
who had lost his post through irregular practices, and had become an
associate with and director of thieves, and an expert blackmailer.
Hitchen was his early instructor in the curious art of acting as
intermediary between the thieves and those persons who had been robbed
of goods, or had had their pockets picked of watches and other valuable
jewellery; but Wild was a genius in his own way, with a talent for
organisation never equalled in his line, before or since, except
perhaps by Moll Cutpurse, who flourished a century earlier. Moll,
however, was ever staunch to her friends and accomplices, but Wild was
always ready to sell his intimates and to send them to the cart, if it
were made worth his while. So their careers run parallel for only a
little distance and then widely separate.
Wild in a very little time broke with Hitchen. He left his instructor
far behind, and did business on so Napoleonic a scale that he speedily
aroused the furious jealousy of his sometime associate, who, unable
to contain himself at the thought of Wild, once his pupil, taking
nearly all his profitable business away, published a singular pamphlet,
intended to expose the trade. This was styled "The Regulator; or, a
Discovery of Thieves, Thief-takers, and Locks": "locks" being receivers
of stolen property. It had not the desired effect of spoiling his
rival's trade; and Jonathan continued to thrive amazingly. As a broker
and go-between in nearly all the felonies of his time committed in
and immediately around London, he speedily came to the front, and he
was exceptional in that he most adroitly and astonishingly doubled
the parts of Receiver-General of stolen property and self-styled
"Thief-catcher-General of Great Britain and Ireland."
It might at the first blush, and indeed even after long consideration,
seem impossible to pose with success at one and the same time as
the friend and the enemy of all who get their living on the cross,
but Jonathan Wild achieved the apparently impossible and flourished
exceedingly on the amazing paradox.
The first steps in this mesh of scoundrelism that Wild drew are not
sufficiently detailed, and Fielding's "History of the Late Mr. Jonathan
Wild the Great" is rather an effort in whimsical, satirical imagination
than in sheer biography. The considerable number of chap-book "Lives"
of this arch-villain are also absolutely untrustworthy. But it is
abundantly evident that he was a man of imagination and a master at
organising, for we find him the brain-centre of all the robberies
committed at that time in and around London, himself the secret,
supreme director of them all, and at the same time the apparently
"honest broker" who, for a consideration (quite after the old manner
of Moll Cutpurse), would undertake to restore missing property. This
self-appointed "Thief-taker" had numerous contingents, to each of which
was allotted its special work. One attended churches, another visited
the theatres, yet another detachment devoted their best energies to the
art of shop-lifting, and another still took situations as domestic
servants, and in that capacity made away with their employers' plate
and jewellery. It all seems like the fantastic imagining of a novelist,
but it is sufficiently real, and the theory of mutual benefits accruing
to Wild and his gang by this unnatural alliance is quite sound. He
received the stolen property and held it to ransom, dividing (more or
less unfairly) the amounts received with his thieves, who could not,
without running great risks, sell it. All concerned benefited: the
plundered citizens repurchased their valuables cheaply, Wild took an
excellent commission, and the thieves, pickpockets, and highwaymen made
a good living without much risk. The reverse of this charming picture
of distributed benefits was the alarming increase of robberies and the
decrease of arrests and convictions; and another serious outcome of
Wild's organisation was that he absolutely commanded the lives of those
who worked with him. None with impunity offended the great man, who was
merciless in his revenge, swearing away the lives of those who dared
cross him. Among the numerous satirical old prints relating to Jonathan
Wild there is a gruesome picture of devils lighting him with flaring
torches on the red way to Hell, together with a trophy of twenty-five
hanging persons, men and women, all duly named, whom he brought to the
gallows as a result of differences of opinion in the business matters
between them, or merely for the reason that they had outlasted their
use and had become inefficient thieves, and it would pay him better
to secure their conviction. And it is to be observed that in all this
while he was well known to be a director of robberies and receiver of
stolen goods. It was scandalously notorious that, while he advertised
himself in the newspapers as "Thief-catcher-General of Great Britain
and Ireland," he was colleague of those he professed to catch. And, as
the law then stood, he could not be brought to book. Everything was
possible to the cunning and daring of Jonathan Wild, who could not
merely bring a man to trial, but could snatch him from the very jaws of
death by making the prosecutor so drunk that he was not present to give
evidence at the trial; whereupon the accused was discharged.
In fifteen years' activities of this kind, Wild amassed enormous sums.
He established himself in a fine house in the Old Bailey, conveniently
opposite Newgate, and there lived in fine style with his Molly, the
widow of a criminal who had been hanged at Tyburn. A footman followed
him in livery; he dined in state: "His table was very splendid, he
seldom dining under five Dishes, the Reversions whereof were generally
charitably bestow'd on the Commonside felons." Jewellery and valuables
not ransomed were shipped by him to Holland, in a sloop he regularly
maintained for the purpose, bringing contraband goods on the return
voyage.
There is this undoubted tribute to Jonathan Wild's greatness, that
Parliament was at last moved to pass an Act especially designed to
cope with his villainies, and to lay him by the heels. This was the
Act of 1718, "For the farther preventing Robberies, Burglaries, and
other Felonies, and for the more effectual transportation of Felons." A
portion of this measure constituted it a felony for any one to solicit
or to accept a reward on the pretence of restoring stolen property to
the owners, unless they prosecuted the thieves.
But this clause was evaded without much difficulty by the astute Wild.
He merely reconstituted his business, and made it an Enquiry Office,
where no money was accepted. Clients still came in numbers to him,
seeking their lost property, for it was certain, all the while, that
he had really a guilty knowledge of at least three-quarters of the
robberies committed in London. This revised procedure was for the
owners who called upon him to be informed that he had made enquiries,
and that he had heard the articles might be recovered if a reward was
despatched to a place named. The owners would then generally, acting on
his advice, send out, by the hands of a ticket-porter (ticket-porters
were the "commissionaires" of that period) the reward agreed upon.
The porter was instructed to wait at a street-corner until a person
delivered a package into his hands, whereupon he was to hand over the
reward. The celerity attending these transactions was remarkable.
In other instances Wild would advise his clients to advertise their
loss and to offer a reward payable to any person who should deliver the
lost property to Mr. Jonathan Wild, or at his office; and no questions
asked. Perhaps the most marvellous thing in these negotiations was the
assumed disinterestedness of Mr. Jonathan Wild himself, who, although
the most notorious evil-doer in London, posed delightfully as the
instrument of good, restoring the lost valuables of utter strangers
entirely without fee or reward, from the Christian love he bore the
human race. Fielding truly styled him "the Great Man."
Wild's impudence increased with his success, and he is found
petitioning the Corporation for the freedom of the City to be conferred
upon him, in recognition of his great services in bringing criminals to
justice. It does not appear that the City responded.
Wild's career first became seriously threatened early in 1724, when,
greatly alarmed for his own safety, he is found imploring the Earl
of Dartmouth to shield him from what he styles the "persecution" of
the magistrates, who, he declares, had procured thieves and other bad
characters to swear false evidence against him. The scandal of Wild's
continued existence had at last become too gross for even that age. But
his time was not yet come, and he continued as before; mindful perhaps
of the old adage, "threatened men live long." He nearly ended, however,
by a more summary process than any known to the law; and entirely
through his own bloodthirsty treatment of "Blueskin," one of his own
associates.
Joseph Blake, better known in all the stories of the highwaymen
as "Blueskin," who was hanged at Tyburn on November 11th, 1724,
was an expert highwayman, thief, and pickpocket—or, to speak in
the professional terms then in use among these fraternities, a
"bridle-cull," a "boman," and a "diver." He had long been a busy
servant of Jonathan, and frequently worked in company with Jack
Sheppard, but he would perhaps be little known in these later times
were it not for his having come very near sending the Great Man out of
the world, and thus cheating the gallows, already growing ripe for him.
"Blueskin," rebelling, it may be presumed, against Wild on
some question of money, was promptly arrested by that astute
Director-General of Thieves, in his character of thief-taker, and
committed to Newgate on a charge of house-breaking. It was almost
invariably fatal to quarrel, or even to have a mere difference of
opinion, with that powerful and revengeful man. Wild was in court at
the Old Bailey, to give evidence, when "Blueskin" beckoned him over to
the dock. Inclining his ear to gather what the prisoner was pretending
to whisper, Wild instantly found himself seized in "Blueskin's"
frenzied grasp, and the court with horror saw his throat cut from ear
to ear. The deed was done with a penknife, and the wound was severe
and dangerous, but Wild eventually recovered, much to the surprise
of those who saw the ferocity of the attack, and greatly to the sorrow
of the criminal classes of London, who knew right well that they were
suffered to live only as long as they were useful and profitable to
Wild, and careful to exercise a due subservience to him.
[Illustration: JONATHAN WILD IN THE CONDEMNED CELL.
_From an old Print._]
Indeed, it was at first thought that Wild must certainly die, and Swift
at that moment wrote the famous _Blueskin's Ballad_, of which here are
two verses:
Then, hopeless of life,
He drew his penknife,
And made a sad widow of Jonathan's wife.
But forty pounds paid her, her grief shall appease,
And ev'ry man round me may rob, if he please.
Some rob in the customs, some cheat in the 'xcise,
But he who robs both is esteemèd most wise.
Churchwardens, who always have dreaded the halter,
As yet only venture to steal from the altar.
But now to get gold
They may be more bold
And rob on the highway, since honest Wild's cold;
For Blueskin's sharp penknife has set you at ease,
And ev'ry man round me may rob, if he please.
Swift, however, was in too great a hurry: Jonathan Wild did not die
then, and the thieves were not yet released from his iniquitous
bondage. His wife was not then made a "sad widow," although she was
soon to become one; and thus earned the remarkable distinction of
having been twice a "hempen widow."
In January of the following year, 1725, the captain of Wild's sloop,
a man named Roger Johnson, who had been arrested on a charge of
contraband trading with Holland, sent hurriedly to him. Wild, never at
a moment's loss, assembled a mob, and provoked a riot, by which the
prisoner was rescued.
Himself arrested at his own house in the Old Bailey, on February 15th,
1725, on a charge of being concerned in the theft of fifty yards of
lace from the shop of Catherine Stetham, in Holborn, on January 22nd,
he was, after considerable delay, put upon his trial at the Old Bailey
on May 15th. The lace stolen was valued at £50.
He was further charged with feloniously receiving of Catherine Stetham
"ten guineas on account, and under colour of helping the said Catherine
Stetham to the said lace again; and that he did not then, nor at any
time since, discover or apprehend, or cause to be apprehended and
brought to Justice, the persons that committed the said felony."
The evidence adduced at the trial is first-hand information of Wild's
method in organising a robbery. Henry Kelly, one of the chief witnesses
against him, told how he went on that day to see a Mrs. Johnson who
then lived at the prisoner's house. He found her at home, and with her
the great Jonathan and his Molly, and they drank a quartern of gin
together. By-and-by, in came a certain woman named Peg Murphy with a
pair of brocaded clogs, which she presented to Mrs. Wild. After two or
three more quarterns of gin had passed round, Murphy and Henry Kelly
rose to leave.
"Which way are you going?" asked Wild.
"To my lodging in 'Seven Dials,'" replied Kelly.
"I suppose," remarked Wild, "you go along Holborn?"
Both Kelly and Murphy answered that they did.
"Why, then," he said, "I'll tell you what: there's an old blind bitch
that keeps a shop within twenty yards of Holborn Bridge and sells fine
Flanders lace, and her daughter is as blind as herself. Now, if you'll
take the trouble of calling upon her, you may speak with a box of lace.
I'll go along with you, and show you the door."
The Judge at this moment intervened with the question, "What do you
understand by 'speaking with a box of lace'?"
Even in our own day judges are commonly found enquiring the meaning
of phrases whose significance is common knowledge which one might
reasonably suppose to be shared even on the Olympian heights of the
King's Bench and other exalted divisions of the High Court. Every one
in Jonathan Wild's day understood perfectly well that to "speak with" a
thing was to steal it, and this was duly expounded to his lordship.
Then Kelly went on to explain how Wild, himself, and Murphy went along
Holborn Hill until they came within sight of the lace-shop, which Wild
pointed out to them.
"You go," he said, "and I'll wait here and bring you off, in case of
any disturbance."
[Illustration:
_To all the Thieves,
Whores, Pick-pockets,
Family Fellons &c.
in Great Brittain & Ireland,
Gentlemen & Ladies
You are hereby desir'd to
accompany y^r worthy friend y^e
Pious Mr. I——W—d from his
Seat at Whittingtons Colledge
to y^e Tripple Tree, where he's
to make his last Exit
on, and his
Corps to be Carry'd from thence
to be decently Interr'd amongst
his Ancestors._
_Pray bring this Ticket with you_
SATIRICAL INVITATION-CARD TO EXECUTION OF JONATHAN WILD.]
Murphy and Kelly accordingly entered, in the character of purchasers,
and turned over several kinds of lace, pretending to be very difficult
to please. This piece was too broad, that too narrow, and t'other not
fine enough. At last the old woman went upstairs to fetch a finer
piece, when Kelly took a tin box of lace and gave it to Murphy, who
hid it under her cloak. Then the old woman came down with another box
and showed them several more pieces, but the confederates made as if
they could not agree about the price, and so left the shop and joined
Wild, where they had parted from him. They told him they had "spoke";
whereupon they all returned to his house and opened the box, in which
they found eleven pieces of lace. "Would they have ready money?" asked
Wild, "or would they wait until the advertisement for the stolen lace
came out?"
Funds were very low at the time with Murphy and Kelly, and they asked
for ready money, Wild then giving them about four guineas.
"I can't afford to give any more," he said, "for she's a hard-mouthed
old bitch, and I shall never get above ten guineas out of her."
Kelly took the lion's share of the money—three guineas—and Murphy had
the remainder.
Wild was acquitted on the first charge, of being concerned in the
actual theft, but for feloniously receiving the ten guineas the trial
was continued.
Catherine Stetham the elder said that on January 22nd she had a box
of lace, valued at £50, stolen out of her shop. She went, that same
night, to the prisoner's house to enquire after it; but, not finding
him at home, she advertised the stolen goods, offering a reward of
fifteen guineas, and no questions to be asked. There was no reply to
her advertisement, and she went again to the prisoner's house, and
saw him there. He asked her to give a description of the persons she
suspected, which she did, as nearly as she could, and he promised to
make enquiries, and suggested she should call again in three days.
She did so, when he said he had heard something of her lace, and
expected to hear more in a little time. Even as they were talking a man
came in and said that, by what he had learned, he believed a man named
Kelly, who had already stood his trial for passing gilded shillings,
had been concerned in stealing the lace.
She then went away, and returned on the day the prisoner was
apprehended. She had told him that, although she had advertised a
reward of only fifteen guineas for the lace, she would be prepared to
give twenty, or even five-and-twenty, rather than lose it.
"Don't be in such a hurry, good woman," he rejoined; "perhaps I may
help ye to it for less, and if I can, I will. The persons that have got
your lace are gone out of town; I shall set them quarrelling about it,
and then I shall get it the cheaper."
On March 10th he sent her word that if she would go to him at Newgate,
with ten guineas in her pocket, he would he able to help her to
her lace. She went. He asked her to call a porter, but she told him
she did not know where to find one, so he sent out and obtained a
ticket-porter. The porter was given ten guineas, to call upon the
person who was said to have the lace, and he returned in a little while
with a box which was said to contain all the lace, with the exception
of one piece.
"Now, Mr. Wild," said she, "what must I give you for your trouble?"
"Not a farthing, madam," said he. "I don't do these things for worldly
interest, but for the benefit of poor people who have met with
misfortunes. As for the piece of lace that is missing, I would not
have ye be uneasy, for I hope to get it for you ere long; nay, and I
don't know but in a little time I may not only help ye to your ten
guineas again, but to the thief too. And if I can, much good may it
do you; and as you are a widow and a good Christian, I desire nothing
of ye but your prayers; and for them I shall be thankful. I have a
great many enemies, and God knows what may be the consequences of this
imprisonment."