FRAUD CUTS HIS FINGERS WITH HIS OWN EDGED TOOLS.
Unpleasant as it is to feel obliged to be the usher of ill company, I
must now introduce to the fastidious public a brace of characters any
thing but reputable. It were possible indeed to slur them over with a
word; but I have deeper ends in view for a glance so superficial: we may
learn a lesson in charity, we may gain some schooling of the heart, even
from those "ladies-legatees."
Do you remember them, the supposititious nieces, aiders and abetters in
our stock-jobber's forged will? Two flashy, showy women, _not_ of easy
virtue, but of none at all--special intimates of John Dillaway, and the
genus of his like, and habitual frequenters of divers choice and
pleasant places of resort.
The reason of their introduction here is two-fold: first, they have to
play a part in our tale--a part of righteous retribution; and, secondly,
they have to instruct us incidentally in this lesson of true morals and
human charity--dread, denounce, and hate the sin, but feel a just
compassion for the sinner. Let us take the latter object first, and bear
with the brief epitome of facts which have blighted those unfortunates
to what they are.
Look at these two women, impudent brawlers, foul with vice: can there be
any excuses made for them, considered as distinct from their condition?
God knoweth: listen to their histories; and fear not that thy virtuous
glance will be harmed or misdirected, or a minute of thy precious time
ill-spent.
Anna Bates and Julia Manners (their latest _noms de guerre_ will serve
all nominative purposes as well as any other) had arrived at the same
lowest level of female degradation by very different downward roads.
Anna's father had been a country curate, unfortunate through life,
because utterly imprudent, and neither too wise a man nor too good a
one, or depend upon it his orphan could not have come to this: "Never
saw I the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread." But the
father died carelessly as he had lived--in debt, with all his little
affairs at sixes and sevens; and his widow with her budding daughter,
saving almost nothing from the wreck, set up for milliners at Hull. Then
did the mother pique herself upon playing her cards cleverly; for
gallant Captain Croker was quite smitten with the girl. Poor child--she
loved, listened, and was lost; a more systematic traitor of affection
never breathed than that fine man; so she left by night her soft
intriguing broken-spirited mother, followed her Lothario from barrack to
barrack, and at last--he flung her away! Who can wonder at the reckless
and dissolute result? Whom had she to care for her--whom had she to
love? She must live thus, or starve. Without credit, character, or hope,
or help, the friendless unprotected wretch was thrown upon the town.
When the last accounts are opened, oblivious General Croker will find an
ell-long score of crimes laid to his charge, whereof he little reckons
in his sear and yellow leaf. The trusting victim of seduction has a
legion of excuses for the wretched one she is.
Again; for another case whereon the better-favoured heart may ruminate
in charity. Miss Julia Manners had a totally different experience but
man can little judge how mainly the iron hand of circumstance confined
that life-long sinner to the ways and works of guilt. In the nervous
language of the Bible--(hear it, men and women, without shrinking from
the words)--that poor girl was "the seed of the adulterer and the
whore:" born in a brothel, amongst outcasts from a better mass of
life--brought up from the very cradle amid sounds and scenes of utter
vice (whereof we dare not think or speak one moment of the many years
she dwelt continuously among them)--educated solely as a profligate, and
ignorant alike of sin, righteousness, and a judgment to come--had she
then a chance of good, or one hopeful thought of being better than she
was? The water of holy baptism never bedewed that brow; the voice of
motherly counsel never touched those ears; her eyes were unskilled to
read the records of wisdom; her feet untutored to follow after holiness;
her heart unconscious of those evils which she never knew condemned; her
soul--she never heard or thought of one! Oh, ye well-born, well-bred, ye
kindly, carefully, prayerfully instructed daughters of innocence and
purity, pause, pause, ere your charity condemns: hate the sin, but love
the sinner: think it out further, for yourselves, in all those details
which I have not time to touch, skill to describe, nor courage to
encounter; think out as kindly as ye may this episode of just
indulgence; there is wisdom in this lesson of benevolence, and
after-sweetness too, though the earliest taste of it be bitter; think it
out; be humbler of your virtue, scarcely competent to err; be more
grateful to that Providence which hath filled your lot with good; and be
gentler-hearted, more generous-handed unto those whose daily life
is--all temptation.
Now, these two ladies (who extenuates their guilt, caviller? who
breathes one iota of excuse for their wicked manner of life? who does
not utterly denounce the foul and flagrant sin, whilst he leaves to a
secret-searching God the judgment of the sinner?)--these two ladies, I
say, had of late become very sore plagues to Mr. John Dillaway. They had
flared out their hush-money like duchesses, till the whole town rang
about their equipage and style; and now, that all was spent, they
pestered our stock-jobber for more. They came at an unlucky season, a
season of "ill luck!" such a miraculous run of it, as nothing could
explain to any rational mind but loaded dice, packed cards, contrivance
and conspiracy. Nevertheless, our worthy John went on staking, and
betting, and playing, resolute to break the bank, until it was no
wonder at all to any but his own shrewd genius, that he found himself
one feverish morning well nigh penniless. At such a moment then, called
our ladies-legatees, clamorous for hush-money.
As a matter most imperatively of course, not a farthing more should be
forthcoming, and many oaths avouched that stern determination. They
ought to be ashamed of themselves, after such an enormous bribe to
each--as if shame of any kind had part or lot in those feminine
accomplices: it was a sanguine thought of Mr. John Dillaway. But the
ladies were not ashamed, nor silenced, nor any thing like satisfied. So,
having thoroughly fatigued themselves with out-swearing and
out-threatening, our sneerful stock-jobber, they resolved upon exposing
him, come what might. For their own guilty part in that transaction of
Mrs. Jane Mackenzie's pseudo-will, good sooth, the wretched women had no
characters to lose, nor scarcely aught else on which one could set a
value. Danger and the trial would be an excitement to their pallid
spirits, possible transportation even seemed a ray of hope, since any
thing was better than the town; and in their sinful recklessness,
liberty or life itself was little higher looked on than a dice's stake.
Moreover, as to all manner of personal pains and penalties, there was
every chance of getting off scot-free, provided they lost no time, went
not one before the other, but doubly turned queen's evidence at once
against their worthy coadjutor and employer. In the hope, then, of
ruining him, if not of getting scathelessly off themselves, these
ladies-legatees mustered once more from the mazes of St. Giles's the
pack of competent Irish witnesses, collected whatever documentary or
other evidence looked likeliest to help their ends, and then one early
day presented themselves before the lord-mayor, eager to destroy at a
blow that pleasant Mr. Dillaway.
The proceedings were long, cautious, tedious, and secret: emissaries to
Belfast, Doctors' Commons, and the bank: the stamp office was stirred to
its foundations; and Canterbury staggered at the fraud. Thus within a
week the proper officials were in a condition to prosecute, and the
issue of immense examinations tended to that point of satisfaction, the
haling Mr. Dillaway to prison on the charge of having forged a will.