vehicles. At the West End they chiefly operate upon cabs going to or
coming from the railway stations. As this kind of thieving is carried on
under the very eyes of the foot-passengers, it is rarely attempted except
in the dusk of the evening. The dragsman manages to hang on behind, as
though he were merely taking a surreptitious ride, but in reality to cut
leather thongs and undo fastenings, and be able at any convenient moment
to slip off a box or parcel unobserved. The carelessness of the public is
the best confederate of this sort of thief. In the case of Lady
Ellesmere's jewels, the box was put not _inside_, but _outside_, the cab
in which the valet rode, and not in the middle of other boxes, but the
_hindermost_ of all--just the place in which the dragsman would have
planted it. It is now known that the robbery was effected between Berkeley
Square and Grosvenor Square, as a man was seen with the package standing
at the corner of Mount Street, Davies Street, bargaining with a cabman to
take him to the City. The man and his booty were driven to a public-house,
but the box must have been shifted immediately, for in two hours from the
time it was lost it was found rifled of its contents in a waste piece of
ground in Shoreditch. It might perhaps for a moment be suspected that this
was a "put up" robbery, but we are precluded from adopting this view of
the case, as it is, we believe, suspected that the man sold the jewels,
which were worth perhaps 25,000_l._, for a very trifling sum. He must have
been entirely ignorant of their value, and having by a chance stroke
obtained a magnificent booty, threw it away for an old song. Not many
weeks after this extraordinary robbery, a plate-chest of her Majesty was
stolen from a van between Buckingham Palace and the Great Western Railway.
There were persons walking alongside the vehicle, and it seems marvellous
how it could be possible to remove unseen a heavy chest under such
conditions; but every facility was given in this case, as in the former,
for the plunderers to do their work unmolested. In the first place the box
was put in such a position that its bottom came flush with the ledge of
the van. Next, the journey from Buckingham Palace to Paddington was, in
the driver's idea, too far to go without baiting on the way; therefore
bait he did at a little public-house, and every person in charge of the
property went inside to drink. According to their own account, they did
not stop more than a minute; this minute was enough: like Laertes, the
thief might have said, "'Twill serve." In this instance also the box was
found empty in a field at Shoreditch, and it is believed that a
ticket-of-leave man had a hand in both robberies.
The habits of thieves have been somewhat modified since the institution of
the new police, and the adoption of the principle of prevention instead of
detection, in dealing with the criminal population. In the time of the old
Bow-street Runners the different classes of thieves had their houses of
call, in which they regularly assembled. The arrangement was winked at by
the magistrates, and approved by the officers, as useful to them in
looking after offenders that were wanted. John Townsend, when speaking of
the supposed advantage of these flash houses, said, "I know
five-and-twenty, or six-and-twenty years ago, there were four houses where
we could pop in, and I have taken three or four, or five or six of them at
a time, and three or four of them have been convicted, and yet the
public-house was tolerably well conducted too." Perhaps officers who lived
upon the capture of thieves had good reason for maintaining these flash
houses, in which most robberies were concocted; the case is far different
now that the police are paid by day rather than by piece-work, by weekly
salary rather than by blood-money, and all known flash houses have long
been discontinued. Some fifteen years since a few remained in the Borough,
but Superintendent Haynes broke them up, and rooted them out. Thieves
cannot meet now in respectable houses, for if they did, the constables
would become aware of the fact, and the landlord would speedily lose his
license. The passing of the Common Lodging-house Act has also assisted in
dispersing the desperate gangs, one of which, known under the name of "The
Forty Thieves," infested the town a few years since. It may be asked, what
sort of mutual fellowship exists among these outcasts who live below the
surface of "society"? Of the seven or eight thousand thieves in the
metropolis, very few are acquainted with each other; they are, in fact,
divided into as many sections as are to be found among honest men. Beyond
their own peculiar set they do not associate with their kind. The
swell-mobsman is as distinct a being from the cracksman as a Bond-street
dandy from a South-Sea islander; they do not even talk the same slang, and
could no more practise each other's art, than a shoemaker could make a
table. These natural divisions of the underground world of rogues
immensely facilitate the operations of the police. The manner in which
they do their work is also in some cases a pretty good guide to the
detectives. Skill and individuality is evinced in unlawful as well as in
lawful pursuits--in the manner in which a door is forced, as much as in
the style a picture is painted; and a clever officer, after carefully
examining a door or a window, will sometimes say, "This looks like
'Whiteheaded Bob's work,'" or "'Billy-go-Fast,' must have had a hand in
this job."
The leading swell-mobsmen are the only class of thieves who "touch," if we
may term it, the ordinary society of better men. The practitioner in this
line must dress and be as much like a gentleman as possible, in order to
pursue his avocation without suspicion. Accordingly, he lives with a
woman, who passes for his wife, in genteel lodgings, and generally in the
drawing-room floor. As his earnings are often very large, he has
everything about him of the most expensive kind; his style of living is
luxurious, and he drinks nothing less than hock and champagne. He
sometimes keeps a banking account, and one man named Brown, lately
apprehended, had a balance at his banker's of 800_l._! As the members of
this fraternity work wholly in the daytime, going out in the morning and
returning in the evening, the landlady believes that they are engaged in
mercantile pursuits, and have business in the City; and, as it is part of
their game to pay their way liberally, she esteems them to be model
lodgers!
The domestic habits of thieves are all pretty much alike; fluctuating
between the prison and the hulks, they exhibit the usual characteristics
of men engaged in dangerous enterprises. They mainly pass their time, when
not at "work," in gambling, smoking, and drinking, and in listening to the
adventures of their companions. It must be remembered, however, that the
professed thief, even if he drinks, is never _drunk_; he is employed in
desperate undertakings which require him to have his wits about him quite
as much, if not more than the honest man. When a pickpocket is flush of
money, he spends it in the most lavish manner,--takes a tour with his
female companion to the Isle of Wight, or to any other place he has a wish
to see, and puts up at the best hotels. In some of these trips he thinks
nothing of spending 30_l._ in a fortnight, and when the money is gone he
comes back again "to work." Thieves are generally faithful to each other;
indeed the community of danger in which they live develops this virtue to
an unusual extent. If a "pal" is apprehended, they cheerfully put down
their guinea apiece to provide him with counsel for his trial; and if he
should be imprisoned, they make a collection for him when he comes out. A
curious circumstance is the rapidity with which news of any of the body
having been arrested travels among his companions. We are assured that no
sooner is a young thief captured and taken to the station-house, although
he may have been plundering far away from his home, than some associate
brings him his dinner or tea, as a matter of course.
The best class of swell-mobsmen sometimes act upon the joint-stock
principle "with limited liabilities." When a good thing is in prospect--a
gold-dust robbery or a bank robbery--it is not unusual for several of them
to "post" as much as 50_l._ apiece in order to provide the sinews of war
to carry on the plan in a business-like manner. If in the end the job
succeeds, the money advanced is carefully paid back to the persons
advancing it--several of whom have lived for years on plunder thus
obtained, without the police being able to detect them. Often the
receivers make these adventures in crime, and plot the robbery of a
jeweller's shop with as much coolness and shrewdness as though it were an
ordinary mercantile speculation, and the produce is disposed of in the
same business-like manner. Watches are what is termed "re-christened,"
that is, the maker's names and numbers are taken out and fresh ones put
in; they are then exported in large quantities to America. All articles of
plate are immediately thrown into the crucible and melted down, so as to
place them beyond the hope of identification. In many cases, when the
receiver cannot thoroughly depend upon the thief, it is, we believe,
customary to employ intermediate receivers so as to render it impossible
to trace the property to its ultimate destination. It must not be supposed
that the passion for gain is always the sole incentive to robbery. "Oh,
how I do love thieving! If I had thousands, I'd still be thief;" such were
the words uttered by a youth in Coldbath-fields Prison, and overheard by
the governor.[49]
If the machinery for preventing and detecting crime has so vastly improved
within this present century, the same may be said for the method of
dispensing justice. Up to as late as 1792, the magistrates of
Bow-street--the first "police-office," as it was then termed--were paid in
that most obnoxious of all modes, by fees, which were often obtained in a
manner so disgraceful that the magistrates got the name of "trading
justices" and "basket justices." Our old friend John Townsend, whom we
must summon once more to our aid, gives an insight into their proceedings,
and he knew them well. He said, "The plan used to be to issue warrants,
and to take up all the poor devils in the streets, and then there was the
bailing them, 2_s._ 4_d._, which the magistrate had. _In taking up a
hundred girls_, that would make, at 2_s._ 4_d._, 11_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ They
sent none to jail, _for the bailing them was so much better_!" The old
Bow-street worthy then draws a picture of the magistrate settling the
amount of these ill-gotten fees with his clerk on the Monday morning. The
"basket justices" were so called, because they allowed themselves to be
bought over by presents of baskets of game. These enormities were so
glaring, that, according to Townsend, "they at last led to the Police
Bill, and it was a great blessing to the public to do away with these men,
for they were nothing better than the encouragers of blacklegs, vice, and
plunderers. There is no doubt about it." In 1792 seven other "offices"
were established, namely, Queen-square, Great Marlborough-street, Hatton
Garden, Worship-street, Lambeth, Shadwell, and Union-street, each office
having three magistrates, who did the duties alternately. These, by the
addition of the suburban courts, have since been augmented to eleven. They
form the judgment-seats to which all offenders in this great capital of
2,500,000 inhabitants are brought, either to be punished summarily, or to
be remanded to the sessions to take their trial.
The police-courts may be likened to so many shafts sunk in the smooth
surface of society, through which the seething mass of debauchery,
violence, and crime, are daily bubbling up before the public eye. A
spectator cannot sit beside the magistrate on the bench for a couple of
hours without feeling that there are currents of wickedness flowing among
the population as fixedly as the trade-winds in the tropics. A panorama
of sin passes before his eye which he shudders to think is only like a
single thread drawn from the fabric of vice which underlies the whole
system of elegant, punctilious, and accomplished metropolitan life. On
every case that comes before him the magistrate unassisted has to decide
rapidly and justly, unless he desires to call down upon his head the
thunders of an ever-watchful press. In addition to his judicial duties, he
has to answer numberless questions, and to give advice upon law points to
distressed persons: and all this amid a pestilential atmosphere which is
calculated to depress both body and mind. Nevertheless, the work is done
admirably, and justice, as speedy as that dispensed by cadis in Eastern
tales, and much more impartial, is dealt to the throng brought before him.
From an analysis of the Criminal Returns of the Metropolitan Police, it is
apparent that crimes have their peculiar seasons. Thus attempts to commit
suicide generally occur in the months of June, July, and August, and
rarely in November, according to the commonly accepted notion; comfort, it
is evident, is considered even in the accomplishment of this desperate
act. Common assaults and drunkenness also multiply wonderfully in the
dog-days. In the winter, on the contrary, burglaries increase, and, for
some unknown reason, the uttering of counterfeit coin.
The character of the cases brought before the police-courts varies, in
some degree, according to the neighbourhood and other causes. Bow-street
still maintains the pre-eminence over the other courts which it exercised
in the old days, when the horse-patrol and the detective police, known as
the Bow-street runners, were in existence; and this it does in consequence
of its special jurisdiction over persons who are amenable to foreign law.
The cases of this class--arson, murder, or bankruptcy--are heard in
private, generally by the chief magistrate, and the depositions are
forwarded direct to the Foreign Office. Ticket-of-leave men who have
committed fresh offences, are here deprived of their tickets and
apprehended by a warrant from the Home-Office. All Inland Revenue and
Post-Office cases, such as stealing from letters, are adjudicated upon
exclusively at Bow-street, which is, in fact, _the_ Government office.
The Thames police deals with mutinies and murders committed on the high
seas, and all disputes under the Mercantile Marine Act come as a matter of
course to this court, together with the major portion of the criminals,
the scene of whose offences is in the docks and on the river. Drunkenness,
the vice of the sailors, and the insubordination arising out of it, form a
very large portion of the charges of the district. Worship-street is
famous, or rather infamous, for wife-beaters. The reason is curious, and
supplies a hint to philanthropists to reform the dwellings of the poor,
rather than pass harsh acts of parliament against the husbands, which in
many cases only serve to aggravate the evils arising from their brutality.
The majority of the wife-beaters come from Bethnal-green, where there are
a great number of large old mansions let out to the working-classes in
floors or flats. Sometimes as many as twenty families live in the same
house. The children play about in the passages as a neutral ground,
disputes arise, and the mothers take the parts of their respective
offspring with discordant fierceness. This drives the men to the
public-houses, where they drink their porter _iced_ and listen to more
pleasant sounds in the shape of gratuitous concerts. The wives in turn are
driven to the tavern doors to seek their mates, with words not too
conciliatory, and are brutally assaulted by the drunken husbands, who are
taken up the next day and get six months' imprisonment, _the family being
in most instances irretrievably broken up and ruined thereby_. Some of the
magistrates, seeing the baleful working of the system, have attempted a
solution of the difficulty by making the husband promise to allow the wife
to receive his weekly wages from his master, whose consent to the
arrangement has been given. In many instances this plan has worked well,
since the husband knows that on the slightest infringement of the
agreement his spouse may give him six months' imprisonment, judgment in
the case having been only suspended. But this power, again, is often
abused by the woman, and it is a common thing for them on the least
threat of their mates to say, "Mind what you are about, or I will give you
'a sixer.'"
Cases of begging are principally heard at the Marlborough-street
police-court, as the rich streets in its neighbourhood are the main scenes
of the nuisance. Blind beggars especially affect Regent-street,
Oxford-street, and Piccadilly, the most thronged thoroughfares in the West
End. We warn our readers against their charitable tendencies for these
people. If the truth was known, the cry, "Pity the poor blind!" far from
exciting their pity, would arouse their disgust. Blind beggars, as a
class, are the most profligate scoundrels in the metropolis, thinking of
nothing but their grosser appetites, and plundering the charitable for
their satisfaction. One of these men lately taken into custody was
discovered seated at the breakfast-table with ham and fourteen poached
eggs before him! At the Westminster police-court the foot-guards are
continually visitors against their will; but it is remarked as
extraordinary that not one of the horse-guards has been charged here for
years.
A custom has grown up of making the police magistrates the almoners of the
public in cases which have attracted the attention of the charitable
through the medium of the press. Many a poor forsaken creature has
suddenly found himself not only famous, but comparatively rich, by the
simple process of telling his tale in one of these courts. The news of it
flies through the country in the pages of the _Times_, and in the course
of two or three mornings the magistrate is oppressed with post-office
orders for the benefit of the sufferer, the donors simply requesting that
their gifts should be acknowledged in the public journals. The annual
receipts at the different courts for special cases must amount to a large
sum; and there is in addition a constant flow of small sums towards the
poor-box, the contents of which are distributed at the discretion of the
magistrate. The annual income from this latter source is about 300_l._ per
annum at Marlborough-street, and at Bow-street respectively, the greater
portion of which is given to deserving objects whose cases have come
before the court, and the remainder is dispensed at Christmas to the poor
of the neighbourhood in the shape of coals and candles. We are
particularly anxious to make this fact known, in order that the charitable
may be aware that their gifts are well bestowed. The magistrates do not,
we believe, encourage these donations, as they consider that the
distribution of alms is incompatible with their office; but, on the other
hand, it cannot be denied that a vast amount of temporary aid is thus
given to persons whose needs cannot be satisfied by the union workhouse.
Deserving people are often furnished with the means of obtaining a
livelihood, workmen whose tools have been burned in a conflagration
supplied with new ones, and in some cases women left behind by their
husbands, under circumstances of peculiar hardship, have been provided
with a passage to Australia. The thousands in England who only want to
know where genuine misfortune exists to hasten to its relief, have a
greater guarantee that they will not be imposed upon by these cases at the
police-courts than by private solicitations, as the magistrates have the
means of sifting the statements of applicants. Nevertheless, even these
astute public servants are now and then deceived, and comparatively large
sums have been received by them for persons who have afterwards been
ascertained to be unworthy of relief; and in instances where the discovery
took place in time, the money, by the direction of the donors, has been
transferred to truer objects of charity.
The fees, penalties, and forfeitures received at the eleven metropolitan
police-courts and by the justices of the exterior police districts are
very considerable; in 1855 they amounted to 11,315_l._ 16_s._ 6_d._ This
sum goes towards defraying the expenses of the courts, which, together
with the salaries of the officers, and other items, amounted in the same
year to 63,021_l._ 0_s._ 5_d._ The expenditure may be considered
reasonable, when it is remembered that 60,000 cases are annually disposed
of, many of which require a minute knowledge of statute and of common law.
The chief improvement required is the improvement of the buildings. The
Thames police-court is the only one at all suitable for its purpose. An
enclosed yard is attached to it, in which the police-van can draw up and
discharge its prisoners without exposing them to the public gaze, an
important point in times of public excitement. Clerkenwell and Westminster
are the next best-arranged courts, but both want space and air; Lambeth,
though lately built, is a complete failure; many of the other courts are
held in small private houses; and in those of Marlborough Street and
Hammersmith, the business is transacted up stairs. In the latter court it
is a common thing to hear it said of persons who have been taken before
the magistrates--"he has been up the forty steps." With the common people,
with whom these institutions have mainly to deal, justice should be
dispensed with regard to appearances; there should be the formality of the
superior courts, and somewhat of their show. A magistrate sitting in a
plain black dress like an ordinary gentleman, and a lawyer dispensing
justice in his wig and gown, are two very different things to the lower
classes, whatever they may be to educated persons; and the want of all
official costume, and the huddled style of doing business, inseparable
from the present confined space, is not calculated to inspire the people
with much respect. The police should at least be put upon a level with the
county-courts. The latter have to deal with less momentous interests.
Questions of paltry debt cannot be put in comparison with questions
involving the liberty of the subject; the power of committing to prison
for six months with hard labour is far more important than that of
adjudicating in money disputes under five pounds. It is not enough that
justice is administered; it is the opinion which the people have of it
that produces the effect, and until the judgment-seat is rendered
dignified, and those who sit on it are clothed with the habiliments which
distinguish the magistrate from the man, the law, by losing most of its
impressiveness, will lose its moral power over delinquents. The vulgar
terror of punishment may remain, but the lesson which is conveyed to the
feelings by the solemn stateliness of the tribunal is entirely gone.
MORTALITY IN TRADES AND PROFESSIONS.