upper rooms. It was proposed by the Frenchman that his lady-love should
partake of some gin or brandy as refreshment, to which she consented.
He went out for the purpose of purchasing it, while she went down
stairs to the kitchen. On his going out he left the front-door open, by
which one of his confederates, a third party, entered the house, and
passed upstairs, broke open several lockfasts, and stole the whole of
the plate.
The Frenchman, meanwhile, returned with the liquor, and went downstairs
to the kitchen, where he made merry with his fair lady and her
companions. When they were seated regaling themselves over this liquor
the door-bell rang. One of the girls went to the door and found no
person there. This was a signal agreed on between the thieves. One
of the young men still pretending to feel unwell proposed to go home
with his companion, promising to call on a future occasion, when they
would be able to spend a more comfortable evening than they had done on
account of his illness.
One of the servants, on going upstairs after their departure, found the
plate stolen. Information was given to the police, when these agreeable
young men and their unknown friend were found to belong to a gang of
most expert thieves. They were tried at Westminster Sessions for this
offence, and sentenced to three years’ penal servitude.
About eighteen months ago, two desperate burglars attempted to enter a
fashionable dwelling-house at Westbourne Park, Paddington, belonging
to a merchant in the City. One of them was a tall, raw-boned, muscular
man, of about twenty-five years of age, dressed in a blue frock coat,
dark cord trousers, black vest and beaver hat. The other was a man
of thirty years of age, short and stout, nearly similarly attired.
The first had the appearance of a blacksmith, with a determined
countenance; the other had a more pleasing aspect, yet resolute. They
were armed with a long chisel and heavy crowbar.
They got over several walls, and came up along the back to this
dwelling-house in the centre of these villas, situated on the edge of
the Great Western Railway. On reaching the garden they went direct to
the window of the dining-room on the ground-floor.
As there had been several burglaries committed in the neighbourhood of
those villas about this time, an experienced and able detective officer
was sent out to watch.
While the detective, a tall, powerful, resolute man, was sitting alone
in the dusk under a tree in an adjoining garden, and another criminal
officer was stationed a short distance off, at about two o’clock in the
morning the former officer heard the shutters crash in the windows of
an adjoining house nearly in front of where he stood. The burglars had
approached so softly he did not hear their footsteps, and was not aware
of their presence till then. On hearing this noise he drew close to
the house, and was seen by one of the thieves--the shortest one called
Jack. The detective officer immediately sprung his rattle, rushed on
this man and seized him. His companion on this ran from the end of the
house and struck the officer across the back with a heavy crowbar. By
a sudden movement of his body the latter partially avoided the force
of the blow. Had it struck him on the head it would have killed him on
the spot; and being a strong muscular man he knocked the shorter man
down with a heavy walking-stick he had in his hand, and at the same
time rushed on his taller companion, seized him by the throat, and
endeavoured to wrench the iron bar from his grasp.
The other burglar had meantime made his escape into an adjoining
garden, and was captured, after a desperate struggle, by the other
criminal officer, who had come up.
During the scuffle between the officers and burglars the proprietor of
the house, in a panic, threw up his bedroom window looking into the
garden at the back of the house, and, without giving any call, fired
off a pistol. He did this to alarm the neighbourhood, not being aware
that the officers were so near him, and supposing that the burglars
were in his house.
The other burglar was secured after a determined struggle, and both
were with difficulty conveyed to the Marylebone police station by five
strong officers. They were next day taken before the magistrates, and
charged with attempting to enter this house, and with assaulting the
officers in the execution of their duty. They were sentenced to three
months each in Clerkenwell prison, with hard labour for the former
offence, and with a similar punishment for the latter.
About two years ago a burglary was committed in Charles Street,
Gloucester Terrace, Paddington, opposite the Cleveland Arms, by two
men and a woman. One of the men was about forty-six years of age, an
old desperate burglar, who had been twice transported, and was then
on ticket-of-leave. Shortly before, he had been apprehended in St.
George’s burying-ground, at the rear of some houses in the Bayswater
road, with a screw-driver, jemmy, and dark lantern, when he was
sentenced to three months’ imprisonment as a rogue and vagabond.
He was a stout man, with very bushy whiskers, of a coarse appearance.
The other was a young man about nineteen, dressed as a mechanic, of
a cheerful countenance, with brown hair and moustache. The woman was
about twenty-three years of age, short and stout, with an engaging
appearance.
During the night, they had forced open an iron grating in front of a
house in Charles Street, Paddington, and had let themselves down into
the area. They bored three holes with a centre-bit in the door of the
house, then cut the panel, and put their arm through, and undoing
the fastening of the door, got into the kitchen. From this they went
up to a door leading to the staircase, which was locked. They cut
several holes with the centre-bit, and made an opening in this door in
like manner. They then went upstairs to the first-floor, and stole a
quantity of wearing apparel, and some jewellery, such as rings, studs,
&c., and also a watch.
The inmates were sleeping at the top of the house, and had not been
disturbed by these operations. The property rifled amounted to about
15_l._
One of the burglars left his hat behind him and a pair of old boots.
The detective officer sent after them knew the hat to belong to this
old-returned convict; went to Lisson Grove and arrested both the men,
who happened to be together, and found part of the wearing apparel upon
them. The remaining part of the property was traced as having been
pledged by the woman, who was also apprehended. They were committed for
trial for the burglary, and tried at the Old Bailey. The old man being
an inveterate offender was sentenced to fifteen years’ penal servitude;
the others, who had been previously convicted, to four years’; and the
girl to twelve months’ imprisonment.
In the month of October, 1850, a burglary was committed by three men
in the Regent’s Park, which attracted considerable attention. One of
them, named William Dyson, called the Galloway Doctor, was five feet
six inches high, pockpitted, with pale face and red whiskers, and
about thirty-two years of age; James Mahon, alias Holmsdale, five feet
ten inches high, was robust in form, and aged thirty-four years; John
Mitchell was five feet six inches high, stout made, with a pug nose,
and aged forty years. They entered the house of Mr. Alford, an American
merchant, in Regent’s Park, at two o’clock in the morning. They climbed
over a back wall into the garden, and got in through a back parlour
window by pushing back the catch with a knife. They then forced the
shutters open with a jemmy, got into the back-parlour where the butler
was lying asleep, and unlocked the door to go through the house, as
it was known that Mr. Alford was very wealthy. When they got on the
staircase one of their feet slipped, which awoke the butler, who jumped
up, and seized Dyson and Mahon, and wrestled with them, at the same
time alarming the other inmates of the house. He was knocked down by a
blow from a life-preserver, on which the burglars made their escape by
jumping out of the back-parlour window again. The butler, on getting
up, seized his fowling-piece, which lay loaded beside him, and told
them as they were running away to stop, or he would fire upon them. He
fired, and shot Mitchell in the back near the shoulder with goose shot,
as he was getting over a back wall to make his escape.
The police, on hearing the report of the gun, came up and secured
Holmsdale and Dyson in the garden, when they were taken to Marylebone
police office.
Soon after an anonymous letter was sent to the police-station of the M
division stating there was a man in Surrey Street, Blackfriars Road,
lying in bed in a certain house, who had been shot in the back when
attempting a burglary in Regent’s Park. He had on a woman’s nightcap
and nightgown, so that if any one went into the room they would fancy
him to be a female. Inspector Berry of the M division went to the above
house, and found Mitchell in bed in female disguise. He was taken into
custody, and made to dress in his own clothes. On examining them there
were holes in his fustian frock-coat where the shot had passed through.
He was taken to Marylebone police court and put alongside the other
two prisoners, and identified as having been seen in the neighbourhood
of the Regent’s Park on the morning before the burglary was committed.
He had been seen by the police to leave a notorious public-house
frequented by burglars, at the Old Mint in the Borough. They were
committed at the Central Criminal Court, tried on 25th November, 1850,
convicted, and sentenced to be transported for life. Holmsdale having
been previously transported for ten years, and Mitchell and Dyson also
having been formerly convicted.
We took the particulars of the following burglary from the lips of a
man who was a few years ago one of the most experienced and expert
burglars in the metropolis, and give it as an instance of the ingenuity
and daring of this class of London brigands:--
In the year 1850 a burglary was attempted to be committed at a
furrier’s at the corner of Regent Street near Oxford Street by
three cracksmen. One of them, Henry Edgar, was about five feet seven
inches high, of fair complexion, with large features, brown hair, and
gentlemanly appearance, dressed in elegant style, with jewellery,
rings, and chain, and frilled shirt. A second party, Edward Edgar
Blackwell, was the son of a respectable cutler in Soho, about five feet
two inches high, of fair complexion, teeth out in front, with sullen
look, also fashionably dressed, though inferior to the other. The third
person was slim made, about five feet six inches high, dark complexion,
with dark whiskers and genteel appearance, a gentle, but keen dark eye,
and elegantly dressed.
They went to a public-house between ten and eleven o’clock, when the
two former went back into a yard with the pretence of going to the
water-closet. The publican did not miss them. The house was closed at
twelve o’clock, and they were not discovered. The third party went
out to give them their signals at the time formerly arranged between
them. He did not give them any signal, but they, being impatient and
accustomed to the work, thought they would try it themselves. They
went up by a fire-escape, and got on to the parapet of the furrier’s
house, at the corner of Regent Street. Here they cut two panes of
glass in a garret window, with a knife, at the same time removing the
division between them. The servant going to bed in the dark, discovered
the two men. Giving no alarm, she went down stairs to her master. The
master came up, with two loaded pistols in his hand, presented them at
the garret-window, telling them if they attempted to escape he would
shoot them. Edward Edgar Blackwell was so frightened that he lost his
presence of mind, and fell from the parapet into the yard, a height
of three storeys, and was killed on the spot. Henry Edgar, being more
courageous, made a desperate leap to the top of a house in Regent
Street, and got through a trap-door, and made his way into a second
floor front in Argyle Street, where people were sleeping, and alarmed
them. To prevent their taking him, he leaped from a second floor
window. Some people, passing-by, saw him jump from the window, and gave
information to the police. He was, thereupon, arrested, and conveyed in
a cab, with the dead body of his “pal,” to Vine Street police station.
It was afterwards ascertained that his ankle was dislocated, and he
was removed to Middlesex Hospital, where he was watched eight hours
by successive policemen. His friends were allowed to see him, and
by ingenious means one of them contrived to effect his escape. They
conveyed him from the hospital in a cab to Green Street, Friars Street,
Blackfriars Road; then removed him in a cab to the Commercial Road
near Whitechapel. Soon after, his companions took a house for him in
Corbett’s Place, Spitalfields, when he was given into the hands of
the police by a brother of one of his “pals,” who went to Vine Street
station, and lodged information. He was arrested before he could lay
his hand on his pistols, committed for trial, and sentenced to penal
servitude.
We give the following as an illustration of the ingenuity and
perseverance of the cracksmen of the metropolis--
A burglary was committed some years since, at a warehouse in the City,
where the premises were securely fastened in front, and the servants
were let out by a strong door at the back, secured by three strong
locks. There was no one sleeping on the premises. The burglars had
first to make keys to get through the outer door into the premises, and
had then to get a key to a patent lock for an iron door into a private
counting-house. They made another key for a very strong safe which,
when opened, had a recess at the bottom enclosed with folding doors
also secured by a patent lock. Before they got to the booty they had to
make six keys of patent locks.
Not satisfied with this, they made a key for the patent lock of another
iron door, leading to another portion of the premises where there was a
second iron safe.
They were occupied four months getting the whole of these keys to fit,
and had to watch favourable opportunities when the police were absent
from that portion of their beat.
The thieves, during the night, carried off two iron boxes containing
railway-shares, bills, and similar property to the extent of
13,000_l._, besides other valuable articles.
Through the ingenuity of certain police-officers employed to trace the
robbery, the whole of the scrip and documents were recovered while
certain unprincipled Jews were negotiating to purchase them.
Some burglars, after they have secured valuable booty, do not attempt
another burglary for a time. Others go out the very next night, and
commit other depredations, as they are avaricious for money. Some of
them lose it by keeping it loosely in the house, or placing it in the
bank, when the women they cohabit with reap the benefit. These females
often try to induce them to save money and place it in their name in
the bank, so that if their paramour gets apprehended, they have the
pleasure of spending his ill-gotten wealth.
Some cracksmen succeed occasionally in rifling large quantities of
valuable property or money. In such instances they live luxuriously,
and spend large sums on pleasure, women, wine, and gambling. Some
of them keep their females in splendid style, and live in furnished
apartments in quiet respectable streets. Others are afraid to keep
women, as the latter are frequently the cause of their being brought to
justice.
There are some old burglars at present, keeping cabs, omnibuses, and
public houses, whose wealth has been secured chiefly from plunder
they have rifled from premises with their own hands, or received from
burglars since they have abandoned their midnight work. They had the
self-command to abandon their criminal courses after a time, while the
most of the others have been more shortsighted. Some of these persons,
though abounding in wealth, receive stolen goods, and are ready to open
their houses at any hour of the night.
There are great numbers of expert cracksmen known to the police in
different parts of the metropolis. Many of these reside on the Surrey
side, about Waterloo Road and Kent Road, in the Borough, Hackney
and Kingsland Roads, and other localities. Some of them have a fine
appearance, and are fashionably dressed, and would not be known, except
by persons personally acquainted with them.
A number of most expert cracksmen belonging to the felon class of
Irish cockneys, have learned no trade, and have no fixed occupation.
Others come to their ranks who have been carpenters and smiths,
brass-finishers, shoemakers, mechanics, and even tailors. Sometimes
fast young men have taken to this desperate mode of life. Some
pickpockets, daring in disposition, or driven to extremity have become
burglars. In a short time they learn to use their tools with great
expertness; great numbers have been trained by a few leading burglars;
some are as young as sixteen or seventeen years; others as old as forty
or forty-five--incorrigible old convicts.
Tools are secretly made for them in London, Sheffield, Manchester,
Birmingham, and other places. Some burglars keep a set of fine tools of
considerable value. Others have indifferent instruments, and are not so
expert.
They find very convenient agents in some of the cab-drivers of the
metropolis, who for a piece of money are very ready to assist in
conveying them at night to the neighbourhood of the houses where they
perpetrate their burglaries, and in carrying off the stolen property,
and some of the employers of these cab-drivers are as willing to
receive it at an underprice.
They have no difficulty in finding unprincipled people to open their
houses to receive the stolen property temporarily or otherwise. There
are many houses of well-known receivers; then there are hundreds of low
public-houses, beer-shops, coffee-shops, brothels, and other places
of bad character, where they can leave it for a few hours, or for
days, placing one of their gang in the house for a time, until they
have arranged with the receivers to purchase it. There are certain
well-known beer-shops and public-houses where the burglars meet
with the receivers. They meet them in beer-shops in the purlieus of
Whitechapel, and in the quieter public-houses and splendid gin-palaces
of the West-end.
There are a number of French burglars in London, who are as ingenious,
daring, and expert as the English. There are also some Germans and a
few Italians, but who are not considered so clever.
Few of the cracksmen in the metropolis are married--though some are.
They often live with prostitutes, or with servants, and other females
they have seduced. Some have children whom they send to school, but
many of them have none. They frequently train up some of their boys to
enter the fanlights or windows, and to assist them in their midnight
villanies.
While most of the burglars are city-trained, a number come from
Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, and Bristol. These
occasionally work with the London thieves, and the London thieves go
occasionally to the provinces to work with them. This is done in the
event of their being well known to the police.
For example, a gang of Liverpool thieves might know a house there
where valuable property could be conveniently reached. Their being in
the neighbourhood might excite suspicion. Under these circumstances
they sometimes send to thieves they are acquainted with in London,
who proceed thither and plunder the house. Sometimes, in similar
circumstances, the London burglars get persons from the provinces to
commit robberies in the metropolis--both parties sharing in the booty.
In a place where they are not known, they do it themselves.
[Illustration: CELL, WITH PRISONER AT “CRANK-LABOUR,” IN THE SURREY
HOUSE OF CORRECTION.]
The burglars in our day are not in general such desperate men as those
in former times. They are better known to the police than formerly,
and are kept under more strict surveillance. Many of the cracksmen have
been repeatedly subjected to prison discipline, and have their spirits
in a great measure subdued. The crime of our country is not so bold
and open as in the days of the redoubtable men whose dark deeds are
recorded in the Newgate Calendar. It has assumed more subtle forms,
instead of bold swagger and defiance--and has more of the secret,
restless, and deceitful character of our great arch-enemy.
Number of burglaries in the Metropolitan
districts for 1860 192
Ditto ditto in the City 12
---
204
Value of property abstracted in the Metropolitan
districts £2,852
Ditto ditto in the City 332
------
£3,184
NARRATIVE OF A BURGLAR.
The following narrative was given us by an expert burglar and returned
convict we met one evening in the West-end of the metropolis. For a
considerable number of years he had been engaged in a long series of
burglaries connected with several gangs of thieves, and had been so
singularly cunning and adroit in his movements he had never been caught
in the act of plunder; but was at last betrayed into the hands of the
police by one of his confederates, who had quarrelled with him while
indulging rather freely in liquor. He was often employed as a putter up
of burglaries in various parts of the metropolis, and was generally an
outsider on the watch while some of his pals were rifling the house.
We visited him at his house in one of the gloomiest lanes in a very
low neighbourhood, inhabited chiefly by thieves and prostitutes, and
took down from his lips the following recital. In the first part of his
autobiography he was very frank and candid, but as he proceeded became
more slow and calculating in his disclosures. We hinted to him he was
“timid.” “No,” he replied, “I am not timid, but I am cautious, which
you need not be surprised at.” He was then seated by the fire beside
his paramour, a very clever woman, whose history is perhaps as wild and
romantic as his own. He is a slim-made man, beneath the middle size,
with a keen dark intelligent eye, and about thirty-six years of age.
He is good-looking, and very smart in his movements, and was in the
attire of a well-dressed mechanic.
“I was born in the city of London in the year 1825. My father was
foreman to a coach and harness-maker in Oxford Street. My mother,
before her marriage, was a milliner. They had eleven children, and
I was the youngest but two. I had six brothers and four sisters. My
father had a good salary coming in to support his family, and we lived
in comfort and respectability up to his death. He died when I was only
about eight years old. My mother was left with eleven children, with
very scanty means. Having to support so large a family she soon after
became reduced in circumstances. My eldest brother was subject to fits,
and died at the age of twenty-four years. He occupied my father’s place
while he lived. My second brother went to work at the same shop, but
got into idle and dissipated habits, and was thrown out of employment.
He afterwards got a situation in a lacemaker’s shop, and had to leave
for misconduct. He then went to a druggist’s, and had to leave for the
same cause. After this he got a situation as potman to a public-house,
which completed his ruin. He took every opportunity to lead his younger
brothers astray instead of setting us a good example.