procession looked really formidable as we marched towards the
Anglo-American Hotel. There were six gendarmes, a sergeant at their
head, Boggy in their rear, and two Englishmen in the rear of the British
consul's Frenchman.
As we passed along the quay, we observed, not far from the
Anglo-American Hotel, and with steam up, ready for her departure, a
vessel bound for a distant Atlantic port.
"He is going away by dat ship, is he?" chuckled the Frenchman. "See,
here he comes," the lively man continued to exclaim.
He was quite right. There, at a few yards' distance, was Mr. Abraham
Driver, merchant, dealer, and chapman, late of Liverpool, an absconded
bankrupt.
He was walking coolly down to the quay, smoking his cigar, and about to
take his departure in the vessel we had noticed.
At a suggestion from Boggy, the sergeant arrested the English bankrupt.
The creditor and the debtor exchanged a very few words, not of mutual
compliment.
"I guess you've made a grand mistake, my good gentleman," said Mr.
Driver, with a strong nasal accent (which had never been remarked in
Liverpool), as if anxious to supply the evidence of his nationality, and
save the trouble of being asked for it.
Up to this moment neither the creditor nor I had any idea that he was
not an Englishman and a subject of the Queen's.
"What do you mean, sir?" asked the sergeant of gendarmes, in tolerably
good English.
"Why, I guess you know that I am an American citizen; and mind now, I
warn, you, sir, not to annoy me for the delight of those confounded
Britishers."
The officer looked at us.
"He is an English bankrupt subject, to the jurisdiction of our laws, and
a felon," I observed.
"I calculate that's very tall talk, all that, and when you catch me back
in that old country of yours you may be all right, I dare say; but I
tell you, sir, that if you keep me here till after that ship's gone,
you'll have a very pretty penny to pay, that you will, I reckon."
"You must come with us to the _maire_," the sergeant said.
"Oh, I guess if you say I must, that I must; but here--look--here is my
passport. It's all fair and square, you see. Now, mind what you do to an
American citizen--that's all I tell you now."
The hissing of the steam increased.
"Now, I guess," he continued, "that you'll take me first to the
consulate of the United States, won't you?"
"No, to the _maire_."
He looked round wistfully, and took out a ten-franc piece from his
pocket.
"Who is there will go to the consul of the United States, and tell him
that an American citizen wants his protection. Ask him to come to the
_maire_ before that steam-ship there can go away."
Boggy grasped the piece of money.
"Here, I don't mind doing that. An Englishman in trouble would like to
have his consul's advice. That's only right."
Away Boggy ran to fetch the guardian of the stars and stripes, as
cheerfully as he had devoted himself to Mr. Driver's discovery.
Three minutes took us to the _maire_. The American consul was there as
soon as we were. The British consul was not there. The _maire_ heard
what the bankrupt and his consul had to say, and then ruled that there
was no ground to justify the further detention of the bankrupt, who was
protected by the passport of his nation. He could certainly not be given
up under the English warrant, and he should not detain him unless his
accusers could enter into sufficient recognisances, available in France,
to indemnify the accused.
We had nobody present to enter into the required bonds; the extent of
the risk was an unknown quantity, and the vagabond was set loose.
As he parted from us, he put his finger to his nose, and whistled a bar
of "Hail Columbia." He picked out a fusee from his pocket, then lit his
cigar, and, with a degree of speed compatible with an air of mock
stateliness, the blackguard walked down to the quay, then on board the
ship, as she let slip her hawser.
We were neither of us very well pleased at the result of this excursion.
It was impossible to resist the mortification of seeing the blackguard
slip through our hands, as we thought we had him effectually in our
grasp.
We did not return to the consulate of her Britannic Majesty. We stayed
only about another hour in France to refresh ourselves, as there was a
vessel then about to start for England, and we were desirous of getting
home.
* * * * *
There is a moral to this story which politicians may relish; and I am
therefore about to add material out of which a Member of Parliament
might make a reputation. I have disguised the names and localities of
the actors in this little international mercantile drama. It may,
however, be worth while to add, that the facts are substantially
and--with the specific exceptions I name--literally correct. If any
Member of Parliament or noble lord wants the real name and address of
the consul, I am at liberty to give it; if he wants the real names of
any other actors in this little drama, I can and am at liberty to supply
them.
On our return homewards we discussed the conduct of the consul--our own
consul--in this affair. We were led to doubt the propriety of his
taking that money from us. We suspected that he wanted it, not to pay
the French police any fees, but to put in his own pocket. We thought
that, if our suspicions were accurate, the conduct of the consul was
scandalous.
I made inquiries. In a letter from the commissary of police I was
informed that the French officers were not permitted to take fees, and
that not one sou had been paid to a gendarme out of the 20_l._ taken
from us. By direction of the French local authorities, proceedings
against the British consul were taken in a local court. He disputed the
jurisdiction of the French tribunals. He set up his consulship in bar of
the suit. On this purely technical point--the merits of the case being
taken from under the control of the court--an appeal went up to a court
of appeal. The consul's plea in bar of jurisdiction was held to be a
good one. The French judges held that the defrauded person being an
Englishman, and the alleged offender being an English consul, the remedy
was by an application to the Foreign Office in London. Memorials,
setting forth all the merits or demerits of the case, and setting forth
the miscarriage of justice in the French courts, accompanied by
newspaper reports of the arguments and the decisions, were laid before a
late Foreign Secretary. The answer to this memorial and evidence was,
that, as the case had been taken before the French courts, and decided
upon, his lordship saw no reason to interfere. Further explanations were
offered, rearguing that the merits of the case against the consul had
not been heard, that he took effectual means to prevent these merits
from being touched by the French courts, and that the case was indeed
remitted from French law to British diplomacy. Still, almost word for
word, and to the same precise effect, was the answer. A third
application, further endeavours to show the Foreign Office its duty,
elicited only an answer, almost word for word, and to the same precise
effect. So the matter was dropped, and it now lies where it was dropped
a few years since.
WHO WAS THE GREATEST CRIMINAL?
About six years ago a detective officer, in the employ of the regularly
constituted authorities whose local habitation is Scotland Yard,
Westminster, was directed to track a young delinquent who had, it was
said, forged the autograph of his master, a tradesman in the borough of
Southwark.
The search was not a very difficult one. The culprit, who had only
defrauded some one of 50_l._ by that operation, I dare say, thought he
had got possession of an inexhaustible fortune; or I should rather say
that he acted as if he thought so.
It is said that thieves (I mean strictly professional thieves), who have
either been born and bred to the craft of robbery, or who have served an
irregular apprenticeship thereto, look with cool deliberation at the
risks and contingencies of every enterprise, weigh its profit or loss,
and are careful not to load the adverse scale of probabilities by
rashness or indiscretion. This is, I believe, the case with regular
thieves. It is not the case with those who are betrayed by impulse or
necessity into the commission of a single crime. Fast men (clerks,
shopmen, and the like), when they rob a till, steal a few pounds' worth
of goods, or even perpetrate a forgery, act in the most foolish way
imaginable. In most cases they aid the task of their discovery, if they
do not entirely lay open the secret of their crime.
The case I am describing illustrates one half of my theory, and shows
the truth of an old saw which affirms that ill-gotten money does no good
to the possessor.
The means of the fraud or forgery were procured by the criminal on the
Monday afternoon. On the Tuesday morning he made use of them. He did not
on that day put in an appearance at his situation, and his absence was
immediately remarked. An inquiry was made, by his master's directions,
at his lodgings, and it was ascertained that he had not slept there
since the Monday night. His landlady was as uneasy about him as his
master--perhaps more so. She was starting to make inquiries concerning
him, when inquiries were made of her on the subject. The good woman, a
widow, who was the mother of a family (all grown up to man and woman's
estate, and off her hands), dreaded that some harm had come to her
lodger. These forebodings of evil took no definite shape,--that is to
say, a hundred different forms of peril, misadventure, and suffering
crowded so rapidly on the kind-hearted woman's brain, that they became
merged and confused; but her suspicions never traced the fact, nor any
thing like the reality. The master of the young man, so far unlike the
landlady, was not troubled by many thoughts about his clerk. All that
gentleman said or thought about him may be put into a few short
sentences. He said he was a blackguard, and that he should never have a
character from him; that it was a rascally shame to leave him in the
lurch, without the slightest notice; that he ought to be punished (as
artisans are in the manufacturing districts) for neglecting his work,
and breaking his contract for service. Yet, argued the master, "there
are plenty of fish in the sea as good as were ever caught. I dare say I
can get another clerk, after all, any day, at 15_s._ per week, quite as
good as that fellow. When Mr. Thinshanks comes back whining for me to
employ him, he'll find that I won't, that's all. No, it isn't all
either. I shall just tell him a bit of my mind as well. I'll kick him
out of my counting-house, and tell him to go to ----" Well, never mind
where, my readers; it wasn't Botany Bay, nor Woolwich, nor Portsmouth,
nor Millbank, nor Pentonville, that the metaphor or expletive assigned
as his destination. Perhaps your imagination, reader, will spare me all
excuse for sullying my pages by mentioning the locality, which some
original mind has said is not fit to name or write to ears or eyes
polite.
In Wednesday morning's _Times_ there appeared an advertisement, which
informed the readers of the leading journal that Mr. Crapp wanted, as
clerk, a single young man, of good education, quick at accounts, who
wrote a superior hand, of unquestionable sobriety, strict honesty, and
enjoying one or two minor qualities. These must must be vouched by
undeniable references. The salary offered by Mr. Crapp was 15_s._ per
week. Three hundred applicants wrote to J. C. (Mr. Crapp's initials), at
the post-office adjacent to his place of business, in the course of
Wednesday. On Thursday morning the employer selected from the lot half a
dozen letters, and saw as many young men that evening. On Friday an
applicant who had passed through "the ordeal by reference" whole and
unscathed in body and reputation, was given the stool on which Mr.
Thinshanks had been long perched with honour.
That day the new clerk received a numerous body of commands. He had been
called upon to solemnly declare before Mr. Crapp that he wasn't afraid
of work; and the truth of such averment was tested, as far as it could
be, in a single day--on the Friday.
Among the numerous directions Mr. Crapp gave his new clerk were
instructions to write to Messrs. Clockwork and Rigid, politely asking
the reason why they had not acknowledged the receipt of the cheque for
50_l._ 4_s._ 1½_d._, which had been sent them in due course on the
previous Monday afternoon?
This firm carried on business in the neighbourhood of Shoreditch. It did
not take long for Mr. Thinshanks's successor to write that and a dozen
other letters of equal brevity, and it, with the others, was posted by
eleven o'clock on Friday morning.
Messrs. Clockwork and Rigid were astonished. They had not received any
such cheque, although they had expected to receive one for such an
amount from Mr. Crapp. They also knew that the cheque could not have
been delivered at, and lost or mislaid in, their establishment. The
extreme regularity of all their proceedings, the elaborate system of
check and counter-check which their genius had many years ago devised
and set in motion, enabled them to say at once that the error or
accident or wrong, of whatever kind it might be, was not to be laid
inside their doors. Further than this they did not care to inquire. The
loss, if there was to be a loss, would not be theirs. As a matter of
fairness and good-will as between tradesmen, Messrs. Clockwork and Co.
thought it their duty to inform Mr. Crapp as speedily as they could that
his cheque had never reached the firm in Shoreditch. A letter was
immediately written and despatched to Mr. Crapp, apprising him of that
untoward fact.
Mr. Crapp saw at a glance, as any fool might have done, that between the
non-receipt of his cheque by Messrs. Clockwork and Rigid and the
disappearance of Mr. Thinshanks there was a link. The money which ought
to have passed from his bankers to the bankers of his correspondents was
that link. He had been robbed of 50_l._ 4_s._ 1½_d._ by that villain
Thinshanks! Such base, black, vile ingratitude, after the kind manner in
which he had treated that vagabond! He deserved to be hung, quoth his
late master, in token of the remnant of that same loving kindness of
which he had just spoken.
Mr. Crapp dismissed the messenger from Messrs. Clockwork with a formal
expression of thanks, which, out of the frame of mind he then enjoyed,
it was hard to extract.
He determined--although, as he said, it was a painful duty--to prosecute
the villain with the utmost rigour of the law. He put on his hat, and,
to speak exactly, he may be described as having rushed to his
attorney's office. That gentleman had left for the day. He was able to
quit the dingy office for a cheerful home at an early hour just now. The
incidents I have described took place during that portion of the year so
obnoxious to plaintiffs and pleasant to defendants (always except
debtors on bills of exchange, who come under the purview of a statute
designated by some gloomy wag as the Sudden Death Act), the Long
Vacation. The business on which the client wanted the advice and
guidance of his attorney would not justify an invasion of the home of
the latter; so he must necessarily wait until to-morrow.
While pausing for the interview between Mr. Crapp and Mr. Croak (the
solicitor), will the reader ask himself, Had the clerk robbed _his
master_ of the 50_l._ 4_s._ 1½_d._ in question?
Perhaps the reader has a judicial mind. I hope he has. Some day he may
have to sit on a jury, as no doubt he has already had to do. That frame
of mind has enabled him, and will enable him, to discharge his important
duties to society as a juryman in a sagacious manner. Well, then, the
reader, having a judicial mind, can't exactly say. The evidence is
insufficient. He will wait and hear what other facts I have to disclose,
before he gives his decision on the issue I have raised. A wise
reservation.
Mr. Crapp went home again after his fruitless visit to the attorney's
office.
He looked critically and suspiciously at his new clerk, to see whether
_he_ looked like a thief or not; and he did many other things, which, as
they do not touch the issue just raised, or that raised by the question
at the head of this narrative, the reader need not ask me to relate.
Mr. Crapp, it may, however, be as well to say, was impatient for the
capture of the thief. He reasoned much and seriously with himself on the
subject, and came to the conclusion that, if he delayed all action in
the matter until the morning, he might be neglecting his duty to society
at large. The culprit might escape in the course of that very night to
America, or some other sanctuary for crime. Too much time had already
been given him for defeating the pursuit of British justice. The police
ought to be instructed at once. Yes, he would go to the nearest
station-house and inform the police. He did so. The inspector on duty
introduced him to Mr. Sergeant Downey, and that expert thief-catcher and
mystery-prober took from Mr. Crapp a full, true, and particular account
of the matter--as far as the prosecutor could relate it.
Sergeant Downey had not much doubt about catching the offender. The
young man had the good or ill fortune to possess a marked and
individualised countenance and gait. The offence was, in all
probability, his first crime. The officer did not think the thief had
left the country; nor had he, as the next incidents will show.
That night a row took place in one of the haunts of pleasure and vice at
the West End of the metropolis. A robbery was committed upon a young man
from the country in one of the night-houses of the Haymarket, during a
squabble between some "social evils" and fast men who had there
congregated. The police, on being called in, seized two men on suspicion
of having perpetrated the offence. One of them next morning was
liberated by the sitting magistrate. His pocket-book, his card-case, and
his own explanations, warranted his declaration that he was "a
gentleman," and innocent of the robbery. Another, and a young man, was
not so fortunate. Having, he said, the fear of the reporter and the
newspapers before his eyes; being, he added, unwilling to disgrace his
respectable friends; and being withal sure to lose his situation if it
transpired that he had spent an evening in such disreputable
society,--he refused to give his name and address. The victim of the
affray could not identify the reticent person as the thief, and was
ready to admit the reasonableness of his excuse for secrecy; but the
magistrate thought the police ought to know something more than they did
about him before he was set at large. "It was," the learned gentleman
said, "very strange that a young man should have about him, in such a
place, in bank-notes and gold, about three-and-twenty pounds."
Notwithstanding his appeals and protestations, and in despite the air of
injured innocence he put on, and although the police knew nothing to his
disadvantage except his presence at the scene of the robbery and the
possession of this money, he was remanded, in order that further
inquiries might be made about him.
Sergeant Downey paid a visit to the house of detention, and was allowed
to see the reticent prisoner. The sergeant asked him if his name was not
Thinshanks? The prisoner said, "No, it wasn't." The officer shook his
head in token of doubt about the truthfulness of that denial, and
grinned sardonically. He went direct from the house of detention to the
abode of Mr. Crapp. Both afterwards visited the temporary prison. The
plausible sufferer was at once identified by the tradesman as his
absconded clerk. Mr. Thinshanks, although sullen and as reticent as
ever, was humiliated and crushed by the terrible eye of his late master.
Mr. Crapp's solicitor, when first consulted by his client, advised him
not to think of prosecuting. Such a step was, he said, unsatisfactory.
If the thief were caught, the affair would cost his prosecutor a tidy
sum of money, in addition to his present loss, and a world of trouble to
boot. The prosecution could not be left in the hands of the police. If
so, the scoundrel would, in all probability, escape; and who could tell
that he might not then turn upon the kind master he had robbed, and
bring an action against him for false imprisonment? If, on the other
hand, the prosecution were conducted by Mr. Croak with proper vigour and
skill, so as to secure a conviction, as the scoundrel merited, Mr. Crapp
would have to pay a bill of costs; he would have to kick his heels for
several days about the Surrey Sessions-House (the atmosphere of which
was physically deleterious); he would sustain discomfort, lose his
temper, and impair his digestion, or perhaps his health, in addition to
the loss of his money. Mr. Crapp inveighed against the rules and
practice of British criminal jurisprudence, because it did not bear all
the cost of prosecutions, liberally pay witnesses for their time and
trouble, and hold out premiums to loyal men for their energetic pursuit
of justice. But, at any necessary cost, and any unnecessary
inconvenience or annoyance, he said he was prepared to do his duty by
hunting this forger as near to the gallows as such a culprit might be
driven.
When Mr. Croak was informed that the criminal had been taken, and that
upon him nearly half the proceeds of the cheque had been found, the
legal gentleman's objections to a prosecution were not so pointed and
decided as they had been. He merely observed to his client that the
fellow must now be so prosecuted as to insure his conviction; and he
thought, although he did not so say, that the money which Mr. Thinshanks
had not dissipated would suffice, in addition to the scanty allowance of
the Home Office, to pay the cost of his judicial condemnation. Mr.
Crapp, who ostentatiously grieved over the wickedness of the foolish
young man, withal begged that, in the interests of outraged justice, Mr.
Croak would employ all his eminent skill; and at the same time wished it
to be understood that when the trial came off he desired the counsel for
the prosecution would inform the judge, the jury, the spectators, the
reporters, the readers of newspapers, and the outer world, that he, Mr.
Crapp, the prisoner's kind-hearted master, recommended him to mercy.
James Thinshanks was in due course taken before one of the magistrates
of Southwark on the accusation for which he had _not_ been arrested, and
the one for which he had been taken up was dropped.
At the first examination of the prisoner Mr. Crapp was represented by a
counsel in a stuff gown, and very learned in the criminal law of his
country. The reader will not care to have a report of his speech when I
tell him that it was not worth reporting. Of this scene and its
incidents it is enough to say, that Mr. Snayke, the learned counsel
(then attired in stuff, but who now wears silk), did not trouble himself
to examine the charge-sheet, and took the accusation as it had been
framed by the police, without inquiring about its accuracy. The evidence
was yet, however, of the flimsiest character, and scandalously
incomplete. The cheque was not in court; and so many other essential
ingredients of the case were only conspicuous by their absence, that Mr.
Snayke should merely ask the bench to remand the prisoner. An
insignificant fact or two were then given in evidence, and the prisoner,
who offered no objection, was remanded for seven days. He would have
acquiesced in a remand for seven or ten times seventy months. Much as
the stupid and mean thief disliked the house of detention, its diet, and
its restraints, he had an intenser dread of what is called "a trial,"
with its inevitable sequel, a conviction. He drew a species or a degree
of comfort from the philosophy of Hamlet. He would very much rather bear
the ills he had, than fly to others which appalled by their very
uncertainty. He had not yet arrived at that other stage of criminal
philosophy (which a genteel villain named William Roupell found, it is
said, in Spain) that draws its only consolation out of knowing the
worst.