addressed to Monsieur de Buffon, gives the following curious
particulars of the robbers of 1737, which are not without
interest at this day, if it were only to shew the vast
improvement which has taken place since that period. "It is
usual in travelling to put ten or a dozen guineas in a
separate pocket, as a tribute to the first that comes to
demand them the right of passport, which custom has
established here in favour of the robbers, who are almost the
only highway surveyors in England, has made this necessary;
and accordingly the English call these fellows the 'Gentlemen
of the Road,' the government letting them exercise their
jurisdiction upon travellers without giving them any great
molestation. To say the truth, they content themselves with
only taking the money of those who obey without disputing;
but notwithstanding their boasted humanity, the lives of
those who endeavour to get away are not always safe. They are
very strict and severe in levying their impost; and if a man
has not wherewithal to pay them, he may run the chance of
getting himself knocked on the head for his poverty.
"About fifteen years ago, these robbers, with the view of
maintaining their rights, fixed up papers at the doors of
rich people about London, expressly forbidding all persons,
of whatsoever quality or condition, from going out of town
without ten guineas and a watch about them, on pain of death.
In bad times, when there is little or nothing to be got on
the roads, these fellows assemble in gangs, to raise
contributions even in London itself, and the watchmen seldom
trouble themselves to interfere with them in their
vocation."
Not less familiar to the people of England is the career of Jack Sheppard,
as brutal a ruffian as ever disgraced his country, but who has claims upon
the popular admiration which are very generally acknowledged. He did not,
like Robin Hood, plunder the rich to relieve the poor, nor rob with an
uncouth sort of courtesy, like Turpin; but he escaped from Newgate with
the fetters on his limbs. This achievement, more than once repeated, has
encircled his felon brow with the wreath of immortality, and made him
quite a pattern thief among the populace. He was no more than twenty-three
years of age at the time of his execution, and he died much pitied by the
crowd. His adventures were the sole topics of conversation for months; the
print-shops were filled with his effigies, and a fine painting of him was
made by Sir Richard Thornhill. The following complimentary verses to the
artist appeared in the _British Journal_ of November 28th, 1724:
"Thornhill! 'tis thine to gild with fame
Th' obscure, and raise the humble name;
To make the form elude the grave,
And Sheppard from oblivion save!
Apelles Alexander drew--
Cæsar is to Aurelius due;
Cromwell in Lilly's works doth shine,
And Sheppard, Thornhill, lives in thine!"
This was a very equivocal sort of compliment, and might have meant, that
if Apelles were worthy to paint a monarch, Thornhill was worthy to paint a
thief. But the artist did not view it in that light, nor did the public;
for they considered the verses to be very neat, pointed, and flattering.
So high was Jack's fame, that he was thought a very fit subject for the
stage; and a pantomime entertainment, called "_Harlequin Jack Sheppard_,"
was devised by one Thurmond, and brought out with considerable success at
Drury Lane Theatre. All the scenes were painted from nature, including the
public-house that the robber frequented in Clare Market, and the condemned
cell from which he had made his escape in Newgate.[47]
[47] Since the publication of the first edition of this volume,
Jack Sheppard's adventures have been revived. A novel upon
the real or fabulous history of the burglar has afforded, by
its extraordinary popularity, a further exemplification of
the allegations in the text. The _Sixth Report of the
Inspector of Prisons for the Northern Districts of England_
contains a mass of information upon the pernicious effect of
such romances, and of the dramas founded upon them. The
Inspector examined several boys attending the prison school
in the New Bailey at Manchester, from whose evidence the
following passages bearing upon the subject are extracted:
"J. L. (aged 14). The first time I was ever at the theatre
was to see _Jack Sheppard_. There were two or three boys near
to the house who were going, and they asked me. I took
sixpence from the money I used to lay up weekly for clothes.
The next time I went, which was the week after, I borrowed
the money from a boy; I returned it to him the Saturday
after. I then went many times. I took the money from my
mother out of her pocket as she was sitting down, and I
beside her. There was more than sixpence in her pocket. I got
a great love for the theatre, and stole from people often to
get there. _I thought this Jack Sheppard was a clever fellow_
for making his escape and robbing his master. _If I could get
out of gaol, I think I should be as clever as him_: but,
after all his exploits, he got done at last. I have had the
book out of a library at Dole Field. I had paid two-pence a
book for three volumes. I also got _Richard Turpin_, in two
volumes, and paid the same. I have seen _Oliver Twist_, and
think the Artful Dodger is very like some of the boys here. I
am here for picking a pocket of 25l.
"H. C. (aged 15). When we came to Manchester, I went to the
play, and saw _Jack Sheppard_ the first night it came out.
There were pictures of him about the streets on boards and on
the walls; one of them was his picking a pocket in the
church. I liked _Jack Sheppard_ much. I had not been in
prison there. I was employed in a warehouse at 6s. 6d.
a-week, and was allowed 6d. out of it for myself, and with
that I went regularly to the play. I saw _Jack Sheppard_
afterwards four times in one week. I got the money out of my
money-bag by stealth, and without my master's knowledge. I
once borrowed 10s. in my mother's name from Mrs. ----, a
shopkeeper, with whom she used to deal; I went to the play
with it.
"J. M'D. (aged 15). I have heard of _Jack Sheppard_: a lad
whom I know told me of it, who had seen it, and said it was
_rare fun_ to see him break out of prison.
"J. L. (aged 11). Has been to the play twice, and seen _Jack
Sheppard_. Went with his brother the first time, and by
himself the second. I took the money to go a second time out
of mother's house, off the chimney-piece, where she had left
a sixpence. It was the first night _Jack Sheppard_ was
played. There was great talk about it, and there were nice
pictures about it all over the walls. I thought him a very
clever fellow; but Blueskin made the most fun. I first went
to the markets, and begun by stealing apples. I also knew a
lad, ----, who has been transported, and went with him two or
three times. The most I ever got was 10s. out of a till."
The Inspector's _Report on Juvenile Delinquency at Liverpool_
contains much matter of the same kind; but sufficient has
been already quoted to shew the injurious effects of the
deification of great thieves by thoughtless novelists.
The Rev. Mr. Villette, the editor of the _Annals of Newgate_, published in
1754, relates a curious sermon, which he says a friend of his heard
delivered by a street-preacher about the time of Jack's execution. The
orator, after animadverting on the great care men took of their bodies,
and the little care they bestowed upon their souls, continued as follows,
by way of exemplifying the position:--"We have a remarkable instance of
this in a notorious malefactor, well known by the name of Jack Sheppard.
What amazing difficulties has he overcome! what astonishing things has he
performed! and all for the sake of a stinking, miserable carcass, hardly
worth the hanging! How dexterously did he pick the chain of his padlock
with a crooked nail! how manfully he burst his fetters asunder, climb up
the chimney, wrench out an iron bar, break his way through a stone wall,
make the strong door of a dark entry fly before him, till he got upon the
leads of the prison, then, fixing a blanket to the wall with a spike, he
stole out of the chapel! How intrepidly did he descend to the top of the
turner's house! how cautiously pass down the stair, and make his escape to
the street-door!
"Oh, that ye were all like Jack Sheppard! Mistake me not, my brethren--I
don't mean in a carnal, but in a spiritual sense; for I propose to
spiritualise these things. What a shame it would be if we should not think
it worth our while to take as much pains, and employ as many deep thoughts
to save our souls as he has done to preserve his body!
"Let me exhort ye, then, to open the locks of your hearts with the nail of
repentance! Burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts, mount the
chimney of hope, take from thence the bar of good resolution, break
through the stone wall of despair, and all the strongholds in the dark
entry of the valley of the shadow of death! Raise yourselves to the leads
of divine meditation, fix the blanket of faith with the spike of the
Church, let yourselves down to the turner's house of resignation, and
descend the stairs of humility! So shall you come to the door of
deliverance from the prison of iniquity, and escape the clutches of that
old executioner the devil!"
Jonathan Wild, whose name has been immortalised by Fielding, was no
favourite with the people. He had none of the virtues which, combined with
crimes, make up the character of the great thief. He was a pitiful fellow,
who informed against his comrades, and was afraid of death. This meanness
was not to be forgiven by the crowd; and they pelted him with dirt and
stones on his way to Tyburn, and expressed their contempt by every
possible means. How different was their conduct to Turpin and Jack
Sheppard, who died in their neatest attire, with nosegays in their
button-holes, and with the courage that a crowd expects. It was
anticipated that the body of Turpin would have been delivered up to the
surgeons for dissection; and the people seeing some men very busily
employed in removing it, suddenly set upon them, rescued the body, bore it
about the town in triumph, and then buried it in a very deep grave, filled
with quicklime, to hasten the progress of decomposition. They would not
suffer the corpse of their hero--of the man who had ridden from London to
York in four-and-twenty hours--to be mangled by the rude hands of
unmannerly surgeons.
The death of Claude Duval would appear to have been no less triumphant.
Claude was a gentlemanly thief. According to Butler, in the famous ode to
his memory, he
"Taught the wild Arabs of the road
To rob in a more gentle mode;
Take prizes more obligingly than those
Who never had been bred _filous_;
And how to hang in a more graceful fashion
Than e'er was known before to the dull English nation."
In fact, he was the pink of politeness, and his gallantry to the fair sex
was proverbial. When he was caught at last, pent in "stone walls and
chains and iron grates," their grief was in proportion to his rare merits
and his great fame. Butler says, that to his dungeon
"Came ladies from all parts,
To offer up close prisoners their hearts.
Which he received as tribute due--
* * * * *
Never did bold knight to relieve
Distressed dames, such dreadful feats achieve,
As feeble damsels for his sake
Would have been proud to undertake,
And, bravely ambitious to redeem
The world's loss and their own,
Strove who should have the honour to lay down,
And change a life with him."
Among the noted thieves of France, there is none to compare with the
famous Aimerigot Têtenoire, who flourished in the reign of Charles VI.
This fellow was at the head of four or five hundred men, and possessed two
very strong castles in Limousin and Auvergne. There was a good deal of the
feudal baron about him, although he possessed no revenues but such as the
road afforded him. At his death he left a singular will. "I give and
bequeath," said the robber, "one thousand five hundred francs to St.
George's Chapel, for such repairs as it may need; to my sweet girl, who so
loyally loved me, I give two thousand five hundred; and the surplus I give
to my companions. I hope they will all live as brothers, and divide it
amicably among them. If they cannot agree, and the devil of contention
gets among them, it is no fault of mine; and I advise them to get a good
strong sharp axe, and break open my strong box. Let them scramble for what
it contains, and the devil seize the hindmost." The people of Auvergne
still recount with admiration the daring feats of this brigand.
Of later years, the French thieves have been such unmitigated scoundrels
as to have left but little room for popular admiration. The famous
Cartouche, whose name has become synonymous with ruffian in their
language, had none of the generosity, courtesy, and devoted bravery which
are so requisite to make a robber-hero. He was born at Paris, towards the
end of the seventeenth century, and broken alive on the wheel in November
1727. He was, however, sufficiently popular to have been pitied at his
death, and afterwards to have formed the subject of a much-admired drama,
which bore his name, and was played with great success in all the theatres
of France during the years 1734, 5, and 6. In our own day the French have
been more fortunate in a robber; Vidocq bids fair to rival the fame of
Turpin and Jack Sheppard. Already he has become the hero of many an
apocryphal tale--already his compatriots boast of his manifold
achievements, and express their doubts whether any other country in Europe
could produce a thief so clever, so accomplished, so gentlemanly, as
Vidocq.
Germany has its Schinderhannes, Hungary its Schubry, and Italy and Spain a
whole host of brigands, whose names and exploits are familiar as household
words in the mouths of the children and populace of those countries.
The Italian banditti are renowned over the world; and many of them are not
only very religious (after a fashion) but very charitable. Charity from
such a source is so unexpected, that the people doat upon them for it. One
of them, when he fell into the hands of the police, exclaimed, as they led
him away, "Ho fatto più carità!"--"I have given away more in charity than
any three convents in these provinces." And the fellow spoke truth.
In Lombardy, the people cherish the memory of two notorious robbers, who
flourished about two centuries ago under the Spanish government. Their
story, according to Macfarlane, is contained in a little book well known
to all the children of the province, and read by them with much more gusto
than their Bibles.
Schinderhannes, the robber of the Rhine, is a great favourite on the banks
of the river which he so long kept in awe. Many amusing stories are
related by the peasantry[48] of the scurvy tricks he played off upon rich
Jews, or too-presuming officers of justice--of his princely generosity,
and undaunted courage. In short, they are proud of him, and would no more
consent to have the memory of his achievements dissociated from their
river than they would have the rock of Ehrenbreitstein blown to atoms by
gunpowder.
[48] For a full account of this noted robber, and indeed of
European thieves and banditti in general, see the very
amusing work upon the subject by Mr. Charles Macfarlane.
There is another robber-hero, of whose character and exploits the people
of Germany speak admiringly. Mausch Nadel was captain of a considerable
band that infested the Rhine, Switzerland, Alsatia, and Lorraine, during
the years 1824, 5, and 6. Like Jack Sheppard, he endeared himself to the
populace by his most hazardous escape from prison. Being confined at
Bremen, in a dungeon on the third story of the prison of that town, he
contrived to let himself down without exciting the vigilance of the
sentinels, and to swim across the Weser, though heavily laden with irons.
When about half-way over, he was espied by a sentinel, who fired at him,
and shot him in the calf of the leg: but the undaunted robber struck out
manfully, reached the shore, and was out of sight before the officers of
justice could get ready their boats to follow him. He was captured again
in 1826, tried at Mayence, and sentenced to death. He was a tall, strong,
handsome man, and his fate, villain as he was, excited much sympathy all
over Germany. The ladies especially were loud in their regret that nothing
could be done to save a hero so good-looking, and of adventures so
romantic, from the knife of the headsman.
Mr. Charles Macfarlane, in speaking of Italian banditti, remarks, that the
abuses of the Catholic religion, with its confessions and absolutions,
have tended to promote crime of this description. But he adds more truly,
that priests and monks have not done half the mischief which has been
perpetrated by ballad-mongers and story-tellers. If he had said
playwrights also, the list would have been complete. In fact, the theatre,
which can only expect to prosper, in a pecuniary sense, by pandering to
the tastes of the people, continually recurs to the annals of thieves and
banditti for its most favourite heroes. These theatrical robbers, with
their picturesque attire, wild haunts, jolly, reckless, devil-may-care
manners, take a wonderful hold upon the imagination, and whatever their
advocates may say to the contrary, exercise a very pernicious influence
upon public morals. In the Memoirs of the Duke of Guise upon the
Revolution of Naples in 1647 and 1648, it is stated, that the manners,
dress, and mode of life of the Neapolitan banditti were rendered so
captivating upon the stage, that the authorities found it absolutely
necessary to forbid the representation of dramas in which they figured,
and even to prohibit their costume at the masquerades. So numerous were
the banditti at this time, that the duke found no difficulty in raising an
army of them, to aid him in his endeavours to seize on the throne of
Naples. He thus describes them:[49] "They were three thousand five hundred
men, of whom the oldest came short of five-and-forty years, and the
youngest was above twenty. They were all tall and well made, with long
black hair, for the most part curled; coats of black Spanish leather, with
sleeves of velvet, or cloth of gold; cloth breeches with gold lace, most
of them scarlet; girdles of velvet, laced with gold, with two pistols on
each side; a cutlass hanging at a belt, suitably trimmed, three fingers
broad and two feet long; a hawking-bag at their girdle, and a powder-flask
hung about their neck with a great silk riband. Some of them carried
firelocks, and others blunderbusses; they had all good shoes, with silk
stockings, and every one a cap of cloth of gold, or cloth of silver, of
different colours, on his head, which was very delightful to the eye."
[49] See also _Foreign Quarterly Review_, vol. iv. p. 398.
_The Beggar's Opera_, in our own country, is another instance of the
admiration that thieves excite upon the stage. Of the extraordinary
success of this piece, when first produced, the following account is given
in the notes to _The Dunciad_, and quoted by Johnson in his _Lives of the
Poets_: "This piece was received with greater applause than was ever
known. Besides being acted in London sixty-three days without
interruption, and renewed the next season with equal applause, it spread
into all the great towns of England; was played in many places to the
thirtieth and fortieth time; at Bath and Bristol, &c. fifty. It made its
progress into Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, where it was performed
twenty-four days successively. The ladies carried about with them the
favourite songs of it in fans, and houses were furnished with it in
screens. The fame of it was not confined to the author only. The person
who acted Polly, till then obscure, became all at once the favourite of
the town;[50] her pictures were engraved and sold in great numbers; her
life written, books of letters and verses to her published, and pamphlets
made even of her sayings and jests. Furthermore, it drove out of England,
for that season, the Italian Opera, which had carried all before it for
ten years." Dr. Johnson, in his life of the author, says, that Herring,
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, censured the opera, as giving
encouragement, not only to vice, but to crimes, by making the highwayman
the hero, and dismissing him at last unpunished; and adds, that it was
even said, that after the exhibition the gangs of robbers were evidently
multiplied. The Doctor doubts the assertion, giving as his reason that
highwaymen and housebreakers seldom frequent the playhouse, and that it
was not possible for any one to imagine that he might rob with safety,
because he saw Macheath reprieved upon the stage. But if Johnson had
wished to be convinced, he might very easily have discovered that
highwaymen and housebreakers did frequent the theatre, and that nothing
was more probable than that a laughable representation of successful
villany should induce the young and the already vicious to imitate it.
Besides, there is the weighty authority of Sir John Fielding, the chief
magistrate of Bow Street, who asserted positively, and proved his
assertion by the records of his office, that the number of thieves was
greatly increased at the time when that opera was so popular.
[50] Lavinia Fenton, afterwards Duchess of Bolton.
We have another instance of the same result much nearer our own times.
Schiller's _Räuber_, that wonderful play, written by a green youth,
perverted the taste and imagination of all the young men in Germany. An
accomplished critic of our own country (Hazlitt), speaking of this play,
says it was the first he ever read, and such was the effect it produced on
him, that "it stunned him, like a blow." After the lapse of
five-and-twenty years, he could not forget it; it was still, to use his
own words, "an old dweller in the chambers of his brain," and he had not
even then recovered enough from it to describe how it was. The
high-minded, metaphysical thief, its hero, was so warmly admired, that
several raw students, longing to imitate a character they thought so
noble, actually abandoned their homes and their colleges, and betook
themselves to the forests and the wilds to levy contributions upon
travellers. They thought they would, like Moor, plunder the rich, and
deliver eloquent soliloquies to the setting sun or the rising moon;
relieve the poor when they met them, and drink flasks of Rhenish with
their free companions in rugged mountain passes, or in tents in the
thicknesses of the forests. But a little experience wonderfully cooled
their courage; they found that real, everyday robbers were very unlike the
conventional banditti of the stage, and that three months in prison, with
bread and water for their fare, and damp straw to lie upon, was very well
to read about by their own firesides, but not very agreeable to undergo in
their own proper persons.
Lord Byron, with his soliloquising, high-souled thieves, has, in a slight
degree, perverted the taste of the juvenile rhymers of his country. As
yet, however, they have shewn more good sense than their fellows of
Germany, and have not taken to the woods or the highways. Much as they
admire Conrad the Corsair, they will not go to sea, and hoist the black
flag for him. By words only, and not by deeds, they testify their
admiration, and deluge the periodicals and music-shops of the land with
verses describing pirates' and bandits' brides, and robber adventures of
every kind.
But it is the playwright who does most harm; and Byron has fewer sins of
this nature to answer for than Gay or Schiller. With the aid of scenery,
fine dresses and music, and the very false notions they convey, they
vitiate the public taste, not knowing,
"Vulgaires rimeurs!
Quelle force ont les arts pour demolir les moeurs."
In the penny theatres that abound in the poor and populous districts of
London, and which are chiefly frequented by striplings of idle and
dissolute habits, tales of thieves and murderers are more admired, and
draw more crowded audiences, than any other species of representation.
There the footpad, the burglar, and the highwayman are portrayed in their
natural colours, and give pleasant lessons in crime to their delighted
listeners. There the deepest tragedy and the broadest farce are
represented in the career of the murderer and the thief, and are applauded
in proportion to their depth and their breadth. There, whenever a crime of
unusual atrocity is committed, it is brought out afresh, with all its
disgusting incidents copied from the life, for the amusement of those who
will one day become its imitators.