HISTORY OF KNAVERY.

A much more curious or entertaining miscellany can hardly be imagined, than a laborious compiler might collate from the frauds, tricks, and ingenious deceptions, by which villains and sharpers eke out, for a short time, their miserable existence, in the great towns and cities of Europe. London, there is reason to believe, stands foremost as a mart for this as well as every other kind of traffic. Thither flock the reprobates and vagabonds exiled by their offences from all parts of the earth; and there, it may be said, the two extremes of honesty and dishonesty have taken up their head quarters; there they confront each other, intrenched like lord Wellington and Massena, intent upon mutual annoyance and destruction, but unable to get the better, either of the other, or to do more than manœuvre and skirmish in out. posts. The honest are frequently robbed, and the dishonest frequently hanged-but the great body of either still maintains its stand without any diminution.

Idle and depraved wretches consider labour too painful to be endured, and therefore will steal, cheat, or even cut a throat rather than work to earn a livelihood, or acquire property. In every age and country, society has been infested with such beings, whom frequent detections have driven to the highest exertion of ingenuity to devise new and unsuspected modes of fraud and deception. Of all the inventions of man to live in idleness upon the labours ofhis fellow creatures, the most ancient, and in its effects the most comprehensive, is begging---a practice, which has struck forth in infinite ramifications to every part of the earth, and assumed as many shapes as there are objects to be feigned in the great miscellany of the living world. The fraternity of mendicants have resisted every attempt to dissolve their body, nor will they vanish till the last day shall remove every living creature from the earth. After the establishment of christianity, flocks of christians determined to devote themselves to the service of the Lord, in their way, and work no more; such were the pilgrims, friars and mendicants. In the mayoralty of sir Francis Child, 1732, 502 persons were indicted at the Old Bailey; 70 of whom received sentence of death; 208

of transportation; eight were fined, imprisoned, or pilloried; four were burnt in the hand; four whipped; and 288 acquitted.

In 1722, ten pounds reward was offered by the clerk of the New River Company, for the apprehension of persons who had wantonly tapped the pipes, and others that had cut the banks and let water on their own possessions.

Guinea-dropping was practised in 1700; and it was customary for thieves to carry cocks into retired or vacant places to throw at them, in order to collect spectators, and empty their pockets.

In so populous a city as London, no place is sacred from the contrivances of sharpers. Even the plate used at the coronation feast of queen Anne, in Westminster-hall, April 1702, was stolen, with table linen, and a great deal of pewter.

Mr. Sheridan in the Critic, forcibly exposes the various kinds of puffs used by tradesmen and authors; and he classes them very justly into the puff direct, indirect, &c. The first instance; which occurs of a case in point, after 1700, is the following, from a hair-dresser, which fraternity is notorious for extreme modesty and truth in their addresses to the public:--"Whereas a pretended hair cutter between the maypole in the Strand and st. Clement's church, hath without any provocation maliciously abused Jenkin Cuthbeartson,behind his back, at several persons' houses, and at his own shop, which hath been very much to his disadvantage, by saying, that he was a pitiful fellow and a blockhead, and that he did not understand how to cut hair or shave: I therefore the said Jenkin Cuthbeartson, think myself obliged to justify myself, and to let the world know thatI understand my trade so far, that I challenge the aforesaid pretended hair-cutter, or any that belongs to him, either to shave or cut hair, or any thing that belongs to the trade, for five or ten pounds, to be judged by two sufficent men of our trade, as witness my hand this 9th day of November, 1702. Jenkin Cuthbertson."

Fellows who pretended to calculate nativities were to be met with in several parts of London at the same period: they sold ridiculous inventions, which they termed sigils, and the possessor of those had but to fancy they would protect themselves and property, and the object of the conjuror was accomplished. Almanack John obtained great celebrity in this art; it appears

that he was a shoemaker, and resided in the Strand. This fellow and others of his fraternity, preyed upon fools or very silly people only; their losses were therefore of very little moment, and the turpitude of Almanack John was not quite so great as that of the villains who affected illness and deformity to rob the charitable, as will appear by the following notice in 1702:"That people may not be imposed upon by beggars who pretend to be lame, dumb, &c. which really are not so, this is to give notice, that the president and governors for the poor of London, pitying the case of one Richard Alegil, a boy of eleven years of age, who pretended himself lame of both his legs, so that he used to go shoving himself along on his breech: they ordered him to be taken into their work-house, intending to make him a taylor, upon which he confessed that his brother, a boy of seventeen years of age, about four years ago, by the advice of other beggars, contracted his legs, and turned them backwards, so that he never used them from that time to this, but followed the trade of begging; that he usually got five shillings a day, sometimes ten shillings; that he had been all over the counties, especially the west of England, where his brother carried him on a horse, and pretended that he was born so. He hath also given an account that he knows of other beggars that pretend to be dumb and lame, and of some that tie their arms in their breeches, and wear a wooden stump in their sleeve. The said president and governors have caused his legs to be set straight, and he now has the use of them and walks upright."

A shocking instance of depravity occurred in March, 1718. A Quaker potter of the name of Oades, who resided in Gravellanc, Southwark, had four sons, whom he admitted into partnership with him, and at the same time suffered them to carry on business on their own account. This method of proceeding naturally led to jealousies and envy on both sides, which increased to such a degree of rancour, that the father and sons appear to have acted towards each other as if no connection subsisted between them. The immediate cause of the horrid event that renders the tale odious, was the arrest of Oades by his sons, for the violation of the peace, which they had bound him ΤΙ

VOL. II.

in a penalty to observe, and the consequent expulsion of their mother from her dwelling. This act attracted the notice of the populace, who seldom fail to adopt the right side of a question of justice, and as usual they began to execute summary vengeance on the house. The sons, an attorney, and another person, secured themselves within it, whence they read the riot act, and fired immediately after; a bullet entered the head of a woman, who fell dead; the assault then became more furious; and persons were sent for Mr. Lade, a justice: that gentleman bailed the father, and commanded the sons to submit in vain; he therefore found it necessary to send for a guard of soldiers, who arrived and commenced a regular siege; but the fortress was not stormed till two o'clock in the morning, when a courageous fellow scaled a palisade on the back part of the house, and admitted his party, who rushed in, and secured the garrison. The son of Oades who shot the woman, was tried for the murder, found guilty, but pardoned on his father's intercession, provided he banished himself.

An extraordinary escape was accomplished in 1716, by a highwayman named Goodman, who had been apprehended with great exertion and difficulty, and brought to trial at the Old Bailey, where the jury pronounced him guilty, but at the instant the verdict was given, he sprang over the enclosure, and eluded every endeavour to arrest his progress. Such was the daring folly of this man, that he frequently appeared in public, and presuming on is supposed security, actually went to Mackerel's Quaker coffee-house, in Bartlet's buildings, for the purpose of procuring the arrest of a carrier, to whom he had entrusted 16 pounds, to be conveyed to his wife in the country, and who supposing Goodman would be hanged, had converted it to his own use: there he met an attorney by appointment, and stationed four desperadoes at the door, armed with pistols, in order to repel any attempt at seizing him. The attorney, aware of his precaution, listened to the case of the carrier, and studiously avoided betraying him; but the instant Goodman departed, he declared who his client was, upon which several persons watched the wretch to his place of concealment, where they attacked him, and he them, with the utmost resolution. After a severe

conflict, in which the assailants were compelled to bruise him dreadfully, he was secured; but throwing himself down in the street, they were at last compelled to bind and carry him in a cart to prison: he was hanged not long after.

The mistress of Child's coffee-house, was defrauded of a considerable sum in September, 1716, by an artful stratagem. She received a note by the penny post, which appeared to come from Dr. Mead, who frequented her house, saying, that a parcel would be sent there for him from Bristol, containing choice drugs, and begging her to pay the sum of 6 pounds 11 shillings. to the bearer. The reader will probably anticipate the denouement; the bundle was brought, the money paid; the doctor declared his ignorance of the transaction, the parcel was opened, and the contents found to be rags.

It is not often that thefts can be narrated which are calculated to produce a smile; and yet we are much mistaken if the reader doth not relax his risible faculties, when he is informed of a singular method of stealing wigs, practised in 1717. This we present him verbatim, from the Weekly Journal of March 30-" The thieves have got such a villainous way now of robbing gentlemen, that they cut holes through the back of hackney coaches, and take away their wigs, or fine head dresses of gentlewomen; so a gentleman was served, last Sunday, in Tooley-street, and another but last Tuesday in Fenchurchstreet; wherefore this may serve for a caution to gentlemen or gentlewomen that ride single in the night time, to sit in the foreseat, which will prevent that way of robbing."

Immediately after the disclosure of the shocking villainy practised by stock jobbers and the south sea directors, another impostor was exposed to public view, and the charity, that had voluntarily flown into his pocket, turned to more worthy channels. It is true the fellow was a little villain, but his arts may serve as a beacon to the unwary. The wretch pretended to be subject to epileptic fits, and would fall purposely into some dirty pool, whence he never failed to be conveyed to a dry place, or to receive handsome donations; sometimes he terrified the spectators with frightful gestures and convulsive motions, as if he would beat his head and limbs to pieces; and, gradually recover