• PROGRESS OF INVERSE CIVILIZATION. , s irm •
TIIERE is a novelty in things stale : the free and iliesttithanner withl which old crimes come forth in the face of new lig * take• advantage of new imProyements, imparts a frealirteiei' , nq pudence unprecedented. The great geniuses of robber-y..44
- '
ling belong to the past ; Turpin and Law have no rivals day; but if we have no great men.perhips the light of intelligiiiiirll is more equally spread. The genius of modern roguery. seine deeive its strength less from individual daring or' fertile invention than from a certain barefaced directness. As 'Yankee mariners have caused a revolution in navigation by keeping to time in spite of bad weather and setting' sail in the face of a storm, so our harp gentry and rogues baffle Societies for the Prevention of Fraud, Trade Protection Societies, New Police and Detective Force, by going straight at their objects without Much regard to risk. Perhaps they instinctively adopt the nice calculation of the South American slaver, whO sends his ships straight across the Atlantic :7 as the whole slave fleet far outnumbers the blockade force, hi knoivis that if a few are captured the many must pass by-in that lottery there are more prizes than blanks.
It is only on this principle that we can account for the disclo-
suree in the case of James Henry Hance, an insolVent. Rance was professedly a money-lender : his first cipposing creditor confessed that he had givenHauce two acceptances for 150/. and 1001. reipec tively, to be discounted'; and he was to receive the consideration "part in cash, part in pictures": What he actually did receive was an anonymous picture of the " Virgin and Child," which was de scribed as being 'worth nearly 100/., and was set down inn bill of parcels at.4001.; but this pietere'the creditor left in the hands of Hance to sell for him, and, if we 'understand the evidence, he-never had either cash or picture. •Mr. CommissiOner Law pronouneedthiS transaction to be the softest thing' in his 'experience. But the softness does not end here. Mr. Hance seems to have been a money-lender without money; a mystery explained by another mystery, if we, accept the evidence of Mr Lewis Levi, who 'pro- fessed to have lost 10,0001. 'by Hance six years ago-5000/: in pies tares, 5000/. in cash, for which Hance gave bills—all unpaid to this day! Another gentleman who figares as an auxiliary to Hance is a Mr. David Leopold Lewis; he also flings,about accept" ances, or keeps them, with a charming- freedom. These open- handed transactions towards gentlemen, in difficulties would seem to indicate the most unbounded benevolence, or—something else. We have all read of a philosopher who carried hie ,benevolence so far that he made himself the passive prey of gnats, seas, and other vivacious epicures ; but we do not remember that he-belonged to "the Hebrew persuasion." The substantial benevolence which pre, vails in the better society of the Jewish race is undoubted ; it is both unostentatious and magnifieent; but in the ease of Hance7S friends it assumes a romantic form very different from the good works of Hannah Rothschild or Moses Montefiore.
Now burglary is 'not a new trade, and we have no JonathanWild or Jack Sheppard ; but perhaps no period could exhibit sueli an extraordinary number of, burglaries as the present, They haie become a commonplace in. London life. Soho. Square witnesses melodramatic struggles on the top of a portico ; Nensingtonsie lined with police, and people presume that " it is only the buns glass"; Messrs. lack and Wootton recount in the l'inzes how they have successfully repelled harglarS with bolts and guns from .thl Post-office in Mount Street,-Lambeth; and these are but specimen
of constant occurrences. 'a Gas and New Police do not keep the streets clear of highway/
nsen. Scarcely a week passes now without an adventure like tha. which happened to Mr. Thomas Coster Wiggs, who is.',/bUoc - down with a genteel kind of life-preserver .near his. Own heeise Walwortli. London streets are rivallingliounslow Ilea& of olds. The new idea of nuidoen times seems to be that teethe highwit publicity is ymat • sad thinfirificy. T:11 .rti;Irt P1144491:111X., clissioxpsa,quirwus ne for 06' leOlcitibed'Affit= dance of crime : economists tell us As at -competition is overstock- ing the thief's profession, like all odieie ; educationists say it is the want of elementary, instruction; chiaokeict?nsionists, the want of more curates and;SaripLure-readeist., 'plifillhilipists, the want of bread ankeinploniffiNjlaw3-ers, prof7tinftp, .:end lay, the efminal. Some want of more efieepfe ficrest and (10 want snredlyithema Y..11 g9)9flimatqi* {n iiii?Pg thornii tilf4f qdfe#1144 f.8n .ssa 1X go gra peves and r9=`,Pl. VO n ies-87 Igoe t :destruc t-IN-Ili II?, Tgit-qh, PlcaniPle,
e gat e r A paliR r '.)y, neglect ;
by:re 9 Rillifige p1.8.. uis,ylunis, like
rflthlii, ; her child, th BR3 ?
thrlOiti ,,,,fip.9q ,.., , 7, n Litikath of a Mill iflT11 ■ 'fir . 11P P.,:TiTh, PRF Yr life and . .fwAlt .%}tiF temrb miglesness 1414go Ro Pt% 9 ',IN TiP _ 9a,h419 33- Als T' 98,9;b„ , ,.
Previous page
