Messrs. Agnew, the picture dealers, have recovered th e great picture
by Gainsborongh of the Duchess of Devonshire which was stolen from them in 1878. It was on exhibition., and the thief, said to be of rank in his profession, outstayed the visitors, concealed himself behind the curtain, and eat the picture out of the frame. He took it to America, and there it has remained for twenty-five years, "hidden in the false bottom • of a trunk." Mr. W. Pinkerton, the well-known detective, while listening to the adventures of one "Pat Sheedy," heard of the picture at:4 existing in a Western town, and arranged that after it had been identified it should be restored to its owners, doubtless for a "consideration," though about that there seems to be some mystery, Messrs. Agnew declaring that they only paid "expenses." The picture has been brought to London, and will now be exhibited and then sold; and Messrs. Agnew, Who originally gave 210,000 for it, will, we imagine, find that owing to the rise in the value of all artistic luxuries, they have lost nothing by its detention. The theft was regarded at- the time as a triumph of professional skill, and its author is described even now as a "Napoleon of Crime," but we fail to perceive its special ingenuity. An empty room with a picture in it presents few difficulties to a practised house- breaker, and the object would seem to have been badly selected. The theft was sure to set the whole world agog, arid who would buy a picture as well known to every probable buyer as the Sistine Madonna? The only chance for the thief was ransom, and he had to wait- twenty-five years for that, and then accept a sum equal to a wage of 18s. a week during that time. Ordinary pocket-picking would have paid him better.
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