THIEF-HUNTING.
WHEN TOWNSEND died, the reporters for the Police Courts were inconsolable. In him the old race of Bow Street runners was ex- tinct, and England was never more to see thiefcatchers worthy of the name. The mechanical drilling of the New Police was de- structive of genius : it was only when natural talent was left to force its way through difficulties that really great men were pro- duced. Every minute incident of the deceased's public career was recalled and dwelt upon with all the fondness which men are wont to lavish on the relics of one whose like they can never hope to see again. TOWNSEND'S pursuits and captures of redoubted vagabonds —TOWNSEND'S bland address in preserving order at Almack's- TOWNSEND'S bluff, hearty, English enjoyment of repose and a good dinner—TowNsmais intercourse with the great ones of the earth— all were rehearsed in elegiac prose. The shadows of Beau BRUSIE MELL, the Duke of YORK, and GEORGE the Fourth, were evoked from the tomb to grace the exequies of TOWNSEND — of him whom in life they bad delighted to honour. So wailed the penny- a-liners their TOWNSEND dead ; and all the surviving retired Bow Street runners, from the taprooms where they had grown fat by vending one half of their liquor and drinking the other, grunted hoarse applause.
Even so at the death of FREDERICK the Great the amateurs of the art military proclaimed the extinction of the race of great cap- tains by the very perfection of their art. And as then a NAPOLEON soon arose to show that genius was eternal—that its instinct of action sought in a wider sphere the difficulties which art had ob- viated in a more limited one—so now a FORRESTER has arisen to dim the lustre of TOWNSEND'S memory. TOWNSEND never ran a swindler to ground and bagged him beyond the Atlantic—pouncing upon him before he could give one bite at his prey—in the style that FORRESTER has done.
There is an intense interest in the narrative of a well-managed thief-chase. It is far beyond fox-hunting. One of COOPER'S sea- chases, which make us follow breathlessly through seven consecu- tive chapters, is nothing to it. Let us take, for example, Fog- RESTER'S last achievement. At the outset, we see him puzzling on the cold scent about the purlieus of the Bank. Of a sudden he starts away to Liverpool—why, none but a thiefcatcher can imagine, perhaps few of them. Here a faint sniff of the game is caught, over the vacant space in the dock where an American steamer had lain ; but it seems to die away again. Without a moment's pause, Fos- RESTER throws himself into the first steam-packet for America. On landing, the scent of the fugitives comes strong and steady against him. Breast-high he runs them down. He bursts into their retreat ; and then comes the tragic interest. One culprit hangs himself; and the other, after a bootless attempt at escape— scrambling through bush, brake, and pool—crouching behind stones on the bare moor while the officer's clothes almost brush his face— runs blindly into the pursuers' grasp, and, grown apathetic from hopeless exhaustion, submits to his fate.
There is no repose in this life for great men. FORRESTER has scarcely had time to pull off his boots since his return from Ame- rica, when he is desired to put them on again, as there is a chance that he will be wanted to follow a still fainter and more hopeless trace to the Continent. But the public have no misgivings : confident in the genius of FORRESTER, they look forward to the successful de- nouement of this plot with as much certainty as if they already held it in their hands in the shape of a three-volume novel. They know that FORRESTER Will bring back another tale of triumphant prompti- tude and sagacity to give a relish to the breakfast in the morning paper, or relieve the drowsy monotony of a thousand taprooms in the evening. However it may be with the illustrious head of the house in St. Clement's Lane, the public look forward with gleeful anticipation to an addition to their "pleasures of memory."
Thief-hunting, it is true, has become tame and commonplace as partridge-shooting within the range of tt e new and the rural police : but as there is still deer-stalking in the Highlands, so there is still the pursuit of swindlers and bank-robbers beyond the Atlantic and the Gerinan Ocean. With the progress of treaties between nations for the mutual delivery of criminals, and with FORRESTERS to give them effect, there appears to be some risk that even these wide hunting-grounds may grow barren of game : but it is consoling to think that this can scarcely happen in our day. There is enough of rascality in human nature to insure a supply of winter-evening tales for the present generation ; and let those care who come after.
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