an extent which roused the fears of mothers. The depradators were of
course women. My only doubts were, whether there were more than one;
for, as I have taken occasion to remark, all such peculiar and out of
the way offences are generally the work of some one ingenious artiste;
and if more are concerned, they are only parties to a league in which
the inventor is the leader. I confess I was more inclined to believe in
the single performer, but I was destined in this instance to find myself
wrong. I was at least determined to get at the bottom of the mystery,
and it wasn't long until I was gratified. In the month of May of the
year mentioned, the cases had accumulated, and as yet my inquiries had
been unsuccessful. In the new town the cases had been limited to the
narrow streets, and latterly they had increased about the foot of the
Canongate. In that quarter, accordingly, I found it necessary to be,
though not very expedient to be seen, and I soon got upon my proper
scent. One day I observed coming from the Watergate three or four women,
all of the lowest section of Conglomerates--not altogether a perfectly
applicable name here, in so much as my "clear grits" were not rounded by
healthy washings, but sharpened by the abrasion of vice and misery. They
were busy tying up a bundle, and after indulging in many stealthy looks
to the right and left, they made forward up the Canongate. I might
safely have stopped them and made inquiry into the contents of their
bundle, but I had something else in view, and was content with noting
them, all known to me as they were--cast-off Fancies, not genteel enough
for being leagued with respectable thieves, and yet below the summer
heat of love--trulls or trollops--troganmongers during day, and
troglodytes during night.
I have said I had hopes, and accordingly I had scarcely lost sight of
them when I encountered, a little on this side of the Abbey strand, a
small Cupid of a fellow standing in the middle of the street, (he had
crept from a stair foot,) having a little bit of a shirt on him coming
down to his knees, and crying lustily with beslubbered face.
That's my robbed traveller, said I to myself, as I made up to the young
sufferer who had so early fallen among thieves.
And just at the same time as the wondering women of the Watergate were
pouring in to see the interesting personage, up comes the mother, who
(as I afterwards learned) having sent out Johnny for a loaf of bread,
and finding he didn't return, issued forth to seek for him. One may
guess her astonishment at meeting him within so short a time, probably
not ten minutes, in a state approaching to nudity, but the guess would
hardly come up to the real thing. The notion of his having been robbed
and stripped didn't occur to her, and her amazement did not abate until
I told her the truth, whereupon the women--like so many hens whose
chickens had been seized by a hawk--broke into a scream of execration
which excited the wit of an Irishman, "Have the vagabonds taken the
watch from the gintleman? Why didn't they take the shirt too, and make a
naked shaim ov it?" And having taken the name of the mother, I made
after my strippers.
Nor was it long until I got them again within my vision. It seemed to be
a feasting-day with the ogresses. They met and parted, every one looking
out for some little Red Ridinghood, who was doubtless unconscious of the
tender mercies of the she-wolves. The league consisted of five, all of
whom had been through my hands for thefts and robberies--Catharine
Lang, Helen Duff, Mary Joice, Margaret Joice, and Robina Finnie. If you
have ever been among the wynds, you can form an idea of these hags; if
you haven't, you must excuse me--squalor-painting is at best a mud-daub.
Amongst all, mark this strange feature--that though some of them had
been mothers, the mother was here inverted, the natural feelings turned
upside down; the innocent creatures for whom some stray sympathy might
have been expected, changed into objects of rapine and cruelty for the
sake of a few rags. I soon not only marked their movements, but saw that
an opportunity waited them--for where in the old town will you not find
clots of children? and are not these, when engaged in play, artless and
confiding? Who, however degraded, will harm them? Nay, if there is any
creature secure from the drunkard, the libertine, or the thief, it is
the merry playmates of the pavement, whose gambols bring back to the
seared heart of the vicious the happiness and innocence they have so
long been strangers to. Yes, all true, though a little poetical; but I
suspect there is a depth even _below_ vice.
The wolves' eyes were, as I could see, on the merry Red Ridinghoods; and
as their number was five, I beckoned to a constable to get one or two of
his brethren and watch in the neighbouring close-mouths. As for myself,
I betook me to a stair-foot at the top of New Street, where, besides the
advantage of a look-out, I had the chance, according to my calculation,
of being on the very spot of the expected operation, for there were but
few convenient places about. The women were so intent upon their
victims, that they seemed to have forgotten that while they were
supervising they might themselves be supervised. Nor was it long before
I began to see that my expectations would be realised. Lang had almost
immediately the best dressed of the gambolers in her _motherly_ hand,
and the bit of sugar-candy was working its charm; so true it is that
there is awaiting every one a bait at the end of the standing line,
stretched out in the waters of life, about which we are always swimming
and flapping our tails, passing and repassing without ever dreaming of
the hook. Ay, there are big fish intent upon large enterprises among the
deeper places, who will snap at the dead worm even in the midst of
living gold-fish. And is it not a pleasure sometimes to see them caught
by the garbage when one can net the angler as well as the angled? My
moral applies not to the gudgeons, but the pikes.
Yes, I was right, Lang, with the girl in her hand, and followed by Duff
and one of the Joices, made right for my entry. I stepped up the stair a
few paces to be out of the way. I wanted for ardent reasons that the
operation should be as complete as possible, for the cancer had become
too deep for any good from mere skin-cutting. The moment they got the
confiding soul in, who no doubt thought herself in hands far more kindly
than her mother's, the sugar-candy of temptation was changed for the
aloes of force. The three, stimulated by the fear of some one coming in
upon them, either from below or above, flew at her like hawks pouncing
upon a gowdie. Did ever before the fingers of ogresses go with such
rapidity to strip the clothes that they might gobble up the body? The
little mouth, still stuffed with the sweet bait, was taken care of by a
rough hand. The plucking was the work of an instant--bonnet, pinny,
napkin, frock, petticoats, boots and stockings.
"It's a good shurt, Kate."
"Worth a shilling, Nell."
"Off wid it," cried Joice.
The little chemise is whirled over the head, and the minum "nude" is
left roaring alone--a chance living lay figure, which would have charmed
even Lord Haddo, if he had a palette and brush, with its exquisite
natural tints.
If I had had time to wait and see, I might have observed a bit of child
life also worthy of a Paton or a Faed; for just as I was hurrying down,
in came rushing the playmates, all with wondering eyes to see Phemy (I
ascertained her name afterwards) standing naked within a few minutes
after she had left their play. Do you think they would ever forget that
sight all their born days? But I had another sight in view more
interesting to me--even one in wolf-life, with some difference in
expression and tints--the grandmammas with the canines and long claws,
so formidable to the Ridinghoods. Nor was I disappointed. I had set my
trap so well that I had no need of the candy-bait. The instant the
constables had seen what was going on, they had laid hold of the other
Joice and Robina Finnie, and the three who had been engaged, having seen
their dear sisters in custody, turned down New Street, up which they had
gone a few steps, and were seized by me and another constable from
behind. Meanwhile the cries of the little nude, mixed with those of her
tiny sisterhood, brought a crowd, who, instantly ascertaining the cause
of all the uproar, showered their indignation on the culprits with a
severity that excluded even Irish humour. Nay, so furious were the
hen-mothers, that unless we had taken good care of our sparrow-hawks,
there would that day have been more stript than Phemy and her
brother-victim of the Watergate; nor would I have answered for
discolorations or broken bones. But care was also taken of the tender
chicken, who, rolled up in a shawl, became in the midst of the crowd a
little heroine, honoured with more endearing epithets and sympathetic
condolences than would perhaps ever fall to her portion again.
At the top of the street we collected our prisoners, and marched them
gallantly up the Canongate and High Street. One likes to possess the
favour of the female part of the people, and this day I got as much of
the incense of hero-worship as if I had stopped a massacre of the
innocents. I am not sure if some males, too, much given to baby-love,
did not glugger with reddened gills in anger at the spoilers of their
wives' darlings; all which was no doubt heightened by the impression
then in the public mind, produced by the repeated accounts of the
instances of this nefarious traffic. The prisoners had even during the
previous part of that day committed four strippings of the same kind
besides those I had witnessed.
It was not long till I ascertained that I had been wrong in my original
conjecture, and that the whole of these thefts had been perpetrated by a
gang. During their confinement, and when we expected that they would
hold out in their denial of guilt, it was quite a scene to witness the
identifications. The witnesses were, of course, the little victims
themselves, on whose minds the features of the women had been so
indelibly impressed, especially where, like the case of Phemy, "the
shurt was a good un," that they not only knew them, but screamed with
terror the moment they were brought before them. And to the women, no
doubt, they were of that kind of terrible infants so well described by
the French, the more by reason, perhaps, that among that people the
children have more strange things to see than in our decent country.
From searches we got the evidence of the little wardrobes themselves,
chiefly through pawns, shewing the immense extent of their assiduous
labours. Nor had it been an unprofitable traffic to them; many of the
dresses were taken from well-dressed youngsters in the new town, and you
have only to buy those things to know what money it costs to rigg out a
little man or woman in our day, when the children are taught pride and a
love of finery with the supping of porridge. But, after all, it came out
that we didn't need these evidences. The vagabonds broke down in the end
under the accumulation of proof, and admitted to I do not know how many
strippings. They each got eighteen months' imprisonment, and the
community was relieved from the cold-blooded and unfeeling practice of
child-stripping for a long period afterwards.
The Tobacco-Glutton.
It is almost a peculiarity of the thief that he is in his furtive
appetite omnivorous. Everything that can be reduced to the chyle of
money is acceptable to him. While others have predilections, he has
absolutely none. It is not that he is always, however, or even often in
need, and therefore glad to seize whatever comes in his way. I have
known instances where he was by no means driven to his calling by
necessity, and yet not only was the passion to appropriate strong in
him, but he was at same time regardless of the kind of prey. Yes; it
would seem as if his passion sprang out of an inverted view of property,
so that the word "yours" incited him to change its meaning. As a certain
valorous bird becomes ready for war the moment a brother of the same
species is placed opposite to him on the barn-floor, so the
regularly-trained "appropriator" gluggers and burns to be at a
"possessor," as representing in his person some actual commodity. As a
consequence of this strange feeling I have found, however unlikely it
may appear, that thieves have really nothing of the common sense of
property--that is, love to it--after they obtain it. Unless for the
supply of a want, they often treat what they have stolen as if they not
only did not care for it, but absolutely wished it out of their
possession,--not from fear of being detected by its presence, but for
some _loathing_ not easily accounted for. I have a case, however, of a
real predilective _artiste_, the more curious that it stands in my books
almost alone.
The way in which I became acquainted with Peter Sutherland was singular
enough. I was, in April 1837, walking in the Meadows, where I have more
than once met wandering stagers whom I could turn to account of my
knowledge of mankind. I came up to a young man very busy sending from a
black pipe large clouds of tobacco smoke. Always on the alert to add to
my number of profiles, I felt some curiosity about this lover of the
weed, and going up to him, I made my very usual request for a light.
"By all means," said he, as he drew out his matchbox (and matches were
then dear, sometime after Jones's monopoly) and struck for me what I
wanted; "and I can fill your pipe too," said he, "for I like a smoker."
"Very well," said I, as I handed him my pipe, which was not out of the
need of a supply; "I like a smoke, though I cannot very well tell why."
"Why, just because, like me, you like it," said he laughing; "it makes
one comfortable. I deny the half of the rhyme--
'Tobacco and tobacco reek,
It maks me weel when I'm sick;
Tobacco and tobacco reek,
When I'm weel it maks me sick.'
It never makes me sick,--I smoke at all times, sick or well, night or
day, in or out, working or idle."
"You carry it farther than I do," said I, "or, I rather think, than any
body I ever knew. I cannot touch the pipe when I'm unwell."
"I never found myself in that way yet," replied he. "I believe if death
could take a cutty within those grinning teeth of his, I would smoke a
pipe with him."
"But it must cost you much money," said I, as I glanced at his seedy
coat and squabashed hat.
"Oh, I can keep it off the price of my dinner," was the reply.
"But does it not dry your throat and make you yearn for ale?"
"Never a bit; though water, I admit, is a bad smoking drink. I take the
ale when I can get it, and if you'll stand a pot, this minute I'm ready.
If I can't get it, I stick to the tobacco."
"And if you can't get the tobacco," said I, with more meaning perhaps
than he wotted, "what do you do?"
"That never happened yet," replied he, with a chuckle, "and it never
will."
"You wouldn't steal it, would you?"--a question much in my way.
"I hope not," said he; "but if I did, 'twould only be the starved wretch
taking a roll out of the baker's basket, and you know that's not
punishable. My roll is just of another kind."
"You'd better not try the experiment."
"Never fear," said he; "I intend always to smoke my own twist, and have
a bit to give to a friend in need."
And under the influence of this generous sentiment, he sent forth a
cloud worthy of Jove's breath to send it away into thin air, and leaving
me, he struck off in the direction of the links, probably to see the
golfers. As I looked after him, there he was blowing away in the
distance, and apparently not less happy than King Coil, albeit that king
was of a nation that loved another weed. I have known great smokers, but
never found that the passion, like that of opium, goes on without a
term. It has a conservative way about it, I think, and cures its own
excess by producing a reaction in the stomach somehow. I have noticed,
too, that the greatest smokers give up at some period of their lives,
almost always--at least much oftener than the moderate-cloud compellers.
But be all that as it may, it is certain that I looked upon my friend as
a kind of tobacco-glutton, only a curiosity not in my way, nor did I
expect that he would ever be so. I say not, being unaware that I have
learned my readers a bad habit in looking for some ingenious connexion
where none as yet exists--just as if I were a weaver of a cunning web,
where the red thread is taken up where it suits me. By no means so, I
may say; but will I thereby prevent you throwing your detective vision
before my narrative, when I begin to tell you that some considerable
time after this interview with my tobacco-fancier, I got information of
a robbery of a grocer's shop at Ratho, from which a great many articles
were taken, among the rest several rolls of tobacco, besides a number of
ounces? Just the man, you will say, and so said I, as I went over the
description of the thief as given to the grocer by some neighbours who
saw him hanging about the shop. I recollected my friend perfectly; but
in order to abate your wonder at such coincidences, please to remember
that I was in the habit of going up to every lounger I met, and that I
have so retentive a remembrance of faces, that I have a hundred times
picked out my man from impressions derived from these casual encounters.
I had never seen my tobacco-lover before nor after, and knew no more
where to go for him, than where to look for another such jolly smoker
out of Holland.
One night (just the old way) I was walking, with Mulholland behind me,
down towards the west end of West Crosscauseway. My object at the time,
I recollect, was to observe what was going on about Flinn's house in
that quarter; and I frankly confess, that so little hope had I of ever
seeing my old friend of the Meadow Walk, that I was thinking nothing
about him; nor when I saw a lounging-like fellow--it was in the
gloaming--standing at the turn of the street speaking to a woman, had I
the slightest suspicion that he was one on whom I had any claims for
attention; and perhaps if there is to be a miracle in the matter, by
hook or crook, it consisted in this, that with a view to get a nearer
look of him to see whether he belonged to Flinn's, I again went up to
ask, what I did not want, a light. My first glance satisfied me that I
had my tobacco-fancier before me; but I was perfectly satisfied he had
no recollection of his friend of the Meadow Walk, and with this
confidence I could enjoy a little fun. He took my pipe quite frankly.
"Why, there's nothing in it," said he, with the old generosity, "I will
fill it for you, for I don't like to see a smoker with his pipe not only
out, but empty."
And taking out a pretty large piece of tobacco, he twisted off a bit,
took out a knife, and bidding me hold my hand, he cut it into shreds,
filled my pipe, and lighted it.
"You seem to have plenty of tobacco," said I.
"Oh yes," said he; "and since you seem to be smoked out, I'll give you a
quid for supper."
And to be sure he was not slack in giving me at least a quarter of an
ounce.
"Capital stuff," said I, as I blew away; "where do you get it?"
"Special shops," said he; "I won't have your small green-shop article."
I admit to have been a little cruel in this case, for I felt an
inclination to play with my old friend, and straightway gave him the end
of the thread he had drawn in the Meadows. By and by he got on in the
old strain in praise of the object of his passion.
"It makes me comfortable," and so forth, reverting again to the rhyme,
to the half of which he again demurred, and which I really rejoiced to
hear, nor can help repeating--
"Tobacco and tobacco reek,
It maks me weel when I'm sick;
Tobacco and tobacco reek,
When I'm weel it maks me sick."
Restraining my laughter, and recurring again to the subject of the shop
where such excellent stuff was to be got,
"In Edinburgh?" said I.
"No," said he, grandly, "there's no such thing in Edinburgh. It's made
by a special manufacturer, who uses the best young leaf from Virginia,
and who wouldn't put a piece of common continental stuff in--no an' it
were to make his fortune. Ah, he likes a good smoke himself, and that's
the reason, as I take it."
"It's so wonderfully good stuff," said I, preparing for my last whiff,
"that if I knew where to send for half a pound, I would be at the
expense of the carriage. I see no reason why you should keep it a
secret; such a manufacturer deserves encouragement. Come, is it at
Leith, where so much of the real thing is smuggled?"
"Never uses smuggled tobacco," said he, as he looked to the woman with
complacent smile, as if, according to my thought, he wanted to appear
big in her presence--a little simple even I myself in this thought, as
you will see immediately. "I find no use," he added, "in blowing in the
Queen's face."
"Ratho?" said I.
And the word was no sooner out, than the girl went off like a flash,
proving thereby that she was an accomplice, and he at the same instant;
and, before I could seize him, he made up the Potterrow like a Cherokee
Indian throwing away his calumet of peace in escaping from war. I made
instantly after him, quickened by the conviction of my folly in uttering
the charmed _word_ without using at the same time my _hand_. Being
supple in those days, and, though I say it, a first-rate runner,
sufficient to have coped with Lapsley himself--whom I had afterwards
something to do with, though not in the running line--I made up with
my man in the entry leading from the Potterrow to Nicolson Square,
where, collaring him, I brought him to a stand. He became quite
peaceful, and as I walked him to the Office, I let him up to our old
acquaintanceship--the recollection of the part he took in which, so like
the conversation into which I had so playfully led him, made him bite
his lip for his stupidity.
"I fear you will now know," said I, "whether your case of the starved
wretch and the roll is applicable to your _roll_. I put you on your
guard at the time, and you see what you have made of it."
"Tobacco!" said the poor fellow with a groan, which went to my heart
like so many other groans necessitated to be shut out. "I began to smoke
when a mere child. I imitated my father. The passion grew upon me by
degrees, till I came to spend more money on't than I did upon meal. I
was never happy unless I was steeped in the beloved lethargy, and always
miserable when I could not get it. It has been to me what drink is to so
many. I would have pawned my coat for a pipeful; ay, and I _have_ pawned
for it. Surely this is God's work following the devil's."
And letting his head drop upon his breast, he groaned again deeper than
before.
"Yes," said I, "you have been upon the sliding scale. You began with a
_whiff_, and you will end with a _blast_ that will carry you to Botany
Bay."
"Yes, yes," he responded, "I now see that a very small gratification
may be fed up into a passion, and that passion to a crime, and then the
burst." And after some time he added, "But maybe the judges may have
pity on me, when they know how I was pushed on from less to more."
"Then they would pity all that come before them," said I; "all crimes
have small beginnings and big endings."
And so I took him to the Office, where I proceeded to search him, and
here is something curious: He wore a kind of bonnet--a Gilmerton bonnet,
because it is usually worn by the carters of that village. The article
has often a hoop in it, to keep it light on the head; and concealed in
the case of the hoop there were a number of plies of the stolen twist.
Nor was this all. On pulling up the legs of his trousers, there were
discovered three or four ply on each leg, serving the purpose of
garters. Then within his neckcloth there were so many plies, that he
might have been said to have had a tobacco neckerchief. You might have
called him a tobacco idol, fitted for being set up to be worshipped by
the votaries of the leaf.
No doubt he admitted afterwards that he had stolen from the shop the
other articles amissing, but he asserted that it was the desire to
possess the tobacco that urged him to the robbery, and that once being
in he had laid hold of whatever came to his hand. I cannot help
remarking, that my poor tobacco-fancier paid dear for his quid, in
giving for it seven long years of servitude in Botany Bay. I have
sometimes wondered whether, when there, he ever took a pipe into his
mouth. Not unlikely.
The Thieves' Wedding.
I have already alluded to the subject of the flinty-heartedness of the
fraternity among whom I have so long laboured, and I may illustrate the
same feature by another case, which is calculated as well to shew a
peculiarity somewhat better known--the elasticity of their enjoyments,
if the rant and roar of their mirth can go by a name expressive of a
heartfelt affection.