TO Haggart, who babbled on the Castle Rock of Willie Wallace and
was only nineteen when he danced without the music; to Simms, alias
Gentleman Harry, who showed at Tyburn how a hero could die; to George
Barrington, the incomparably witty and adroit--to these a full meed of
honour has been paid. Even the coarse and dastardly Freney has achieved,
with Thackeray's aid (and Lever's) something of a reputation. But
James Hardy Vaux, despite his eloquent bid for fame, has not found his
rhapsodist. Yet a more consistent ruffian never pleaded for mercy. From
his early youth until in 1819 he sent forth his Memoirs to the world, he
lived industriously upon the cross. There was no racket but he worked it
with energy and address. Though he practised the more glorious crafts of
pickpocket and shoplifter, he did not despise the begging-letter, and
he suffered his last punishment for receiving what another's courage had
conveyed. His enterprise was not seldom rewarded with success, and for a
decade of years he continued to preserve an appearance of gentility; but
it is plain, even from his own narrative, that he was scarce an
artist, and we shall best understand him if we recognise that he was
a Philistine among thieves. He lived in an age of pocket-picking, and
skill in this branch is the true test of his time. A contemporary of
Barrington, he had before him the most brilliant of examples, which
might properly have enforced the worth of a simple method. But, though
he constantly brags of his success at Drury Lane, we take not his
generalities for gospel, and the one exploit whose credibility
is enforced with circumstance was pitiful both in conception and
performance. A meeting of freeholders at the 'Mermaid Tavern,' Hackney,
was the occasion, and after drawing blank upon blank, Vaux succeeded at
last in extracting a silver snuff-box. Now, his clumsiness had suggested
the use of the scissors, and the victim not only discovered the scission
in his coat, but caught the thief with the implements of his art upon
him. By a miracle of impudence Vaux escaped conviction, but he deserved
the gallows for his want of principle, and not even sympathy could have
let drop a tear, had justice seized her due. On the straight or on
the cross the canons of art deserve respect; and a thief is great,
not because he is a thief, but because, in filling his own pocket, he
preserves from violence the legitimate traditions of his craft.
But it was in conflict with the jewellers that Vaux best proved his
mettle. It was his wont to clothe himself 'in the most elegant attire,'
and on the pretence of purchase to rifle the shops of Piccadilly.
For this offence--'pinching' the Cant Dictionary calls it--he did his
longest stretch of time, and here his admirable qualities of cunning
and coolness found their most generous scope. A love of fine clothes
he shared with all the best of his kind, and he visited Mr Bilger--the
jeweller who arrested him--magnificently arrayed. He wore a black coat
and waistcoat, blue pantaloons, Hessian boots, and a hat 'in the extreme
of the newest fashion.' He was also resplendent with gold watch and
eye-glass. His hair was powdered, and a fawney sparkled on his dexter
fam. The booty was enormous, and a week later he revisited the shop
on another errand. This second visit was the one flash of genius in a
somewhat drab career: the jeweller was so completely dumfounded, that
Vaux might have got clean away. But though he kept discreetly out of
sight for a while, at last he drifted back to his ancient boozing-ken,
and was there betrayed to a notorious thief-catcher. The inevitable
sentence of death followed. It was commuted after the fashion of the
time, and Vaux, having sojourned a while at the Hulks, sought for a
second time the genial airs of Botany Bay.
His vanity and his laziness were alike invincible. He believed himself
a miracle of learning as well as a perfect thief, and physical toil
was the sole 'lay' for which he professed no capacity. For a while
he corrected the press for a printer, and he roundly asserts that his
knowledge of literature and of foreign tongues rendered him invaluable.
It was vanity again that induced him to assert his innocence when he
was lagged for so vulgar a crime as stealing a wipe from a tradesman
in Chancery Lane. At the moment of arrest he was on his way to purchase
base coin from a Whitechapel bit-faker: but, despite his nefarious
errand, he is righteously wrathful at what he asserts was an unjust
conviction, and henceforth he assumed the crown of martyrdom. His first
and last ambition during the intervals of freedom was gentility, and so
long as he was not at work he lived the life of a respectable grocer.
Although the casual Cyprian flits across his page, he pursued the one
flame of his life for the good motive, and he affects to be a very model
of domesticity. The sentiment of piety also was strong upon him, and if
he did not, like the illustrious Peace, pray for his jailer, he rivalled
the Prison Ordinary in comforting the condemned. Had it only been his
fate to die on the gallows, how unctuous had been his croak!
The text of his 'Memoirs' having been edited, it is scarce possible
to define his literary talent. The book, as it stands, is an excellent
piece of narrative, but it loses somewhat by the pretence of style. The
man's invulnerable conceit prevented an absolute frankness, and there is
little enough hilarity to correct the acid sentiment and the intolerable
vows of repentance. Again, though he knows his subject, and can patter
flash with the best, his incorrigible respectability leads him to ape
the manner of a Grub Street hack, and to banish to a vocabulary those
pearls of slang which might have added vigour and lustre to his somewhat
tiresome page. However, the thief cannot escape his inevitable defects.
The vanity, the weakness, the sentimentality of those who are born
beasts of prey, yet have the faculty of depredation only half-developed,
are the foes of truth, and it is well to remember that the autobiography
of a rascal is tainted at its source. A congenial pickpocket, equipped
with the self-knowledge and the candour which would enable him to
recognise himself an outlaw and justice his enemy rather than an
instrument of malice, would prove a Napoleon rather than a Vaux. So that
we must e'en accept our Newgate Calendar with its many faults upon its
head, and be content. For it takes a man of genius to write a book,
and the thief who turns author commonly inhabits a paradise of the
second-rate.