BETWEEN POETS and prigs, though seemingly "wide as the poles asunder" in
character, a strong analogy exists--and that list of "petty larceny
rogues" would certainly be incomplete, which did not include the
Parnassian professor. The difference, however, between Prigs and Poets
appears to be--that the former hold the well-known maxim of "Honor among
thieves" in reverence, and steal only from the public, while the latter,
less scrupulous, steal unblushingly from one another. This truth is as
old as Homer, and its proofs are as capable of demonstration as a
mathematical axiom. Should the alliance between the two professions be
questioned, the following case will justify our assertion.
Mike Smith, a ragged urchin, who, though hardly able to peep over a
police bar, has been in custody more than a dozen times for petty
thefts, was charged by William King, an industrious cobbler and
ginger-beer merchant, with having stolen a bottle of "ginger-pop" from
his stall.
The prosecutor declared the neighborhood in which his stall was
situated--that more than Cretan Labyrinth called the "Dials"--was so
infested with "young _warmint_" that he found it utterly impossible to
turn one honest penny by his ginger-pop, for if his eyes were off his
board for an instant, the young brigands who were eternally on the
look-out, took immediate advantage of the circumstance, and on his next
inspection, he was sure to discover that a bottle or two had vanished.
While busily employed on a pair of boots that morning, he happened to
cast his eyes where the ginger-pop stood, when, to his very great
astonishment, he saw a bottle move off the board just for all the world
as if it had possessed the power of locomotion. A second was about to
follow the first, when he popped his head out at the door and the
mystery was cleared up, for there he discovered the young delinquent
making a rapid retreat on all-fours, with the "ginger-pop," the cork of
which had flown out, fizzing from his breeches-pocket. After a smart
administration of the strappado, he proceeded to examine the contents of
his pinafore, which was bundled round him. This led to the discovery
that the young urchin had been on a most successful forage for a dinner
that morning. He had a delicate piece of pickled pork, a couple of eggs,
half a loaf, part of a carrot, a china basin, and the lid of a teapot;
all of which, on being closely pressed, he admitted were the result of
his morning's legerdemain labor.
Mr. Dyer inquired into the parentage of the boy, and finding that they
were quite unable, as well as unwilling, to keep him from the streets,
ordered that he should be detained for the present.
The boy when removed to the lock-up room--a place which familiarity with
had taught him to regard with indifference--amused himself by giving
vent to a poetical inspiration in the following admonitory distich,
which he scratched on the wall:
"Him as prigs wot isn't _his'n_--
Ven he's cotched--vill go to _pris'n_."