# The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard/Chapter 5

MULTITUDES OF MINOR CHEATS
Infest the doors of decent people of every degree in society, and some of them press forward even to your study, and infringe upon your retirement.
PRETENDERS TO LITERATURE,
And pretenders to superior sanctity, (teachers,) are the worst characters of this class, for they know just enough to feel that they are impostors, in their degree. French emigrants, partaking of both descriptions, a few years ago, overran the land; the queue of that safety-seeking race still inhabit here, and teach their doubtful morals, and a deference for their language it by no means deserves. The nobility and gentry were the chief dupes of those fawning hypocrites; but they descended also into the kitchen, and tasted in the pantries of middling tradesmen the good cheer of John Bull; while they des,iised his manners, and honest blunt prejudices, which has kept his more genuine offspring uncontaminated with the monkey-tricks and false philosophy which was imported with their fears. The consequences are, that our manners have undergone a change by no means for the better, (which they ought to have done when altered at all) and our language is contaminated to the last degree of Frenchification. At the tables of those who can afford to give them good dinners, we find those of our own (triple) nation in abundance, who pretend to an intimate acquaintance with ​modern, if not ancient, literature; but who are certainly impostors in just the same degree as they assume more than they know.
All those pretenders cheat ou out of every mouthful you permit them to devour; out of every shilling you may advance them by way of loan, or as payment for you own or your childrens' improvement, (if the becoming mere jargonists be improvement.) There is too much of argument in all our conversations, male and female, now-a-days, in consequence; and those were the sources of the hateful use of question and answer in the commonest occurrences of life.
PRETENDED CLERGYMEN.
Fellows who, without any previous preparation, or even the laying on of hands (so much vaunted) contrive to ingratiate themselves into the good graces of the daughters, wives, and widows of our more wealthy citizens, who would fain persuade you (as they have persuaded themselves) that their mission is from above, whereas nothing is better known, than that some few of them had pretty extensive dealings below. Every one must have heard of the Reverend John Church! Here I hope the truly pious clergyman will ​forgive me for using the word ironically; for there never could at any moment be a particle of real reverence borne towards a preacher, who laying under imputations of a heinous nature, should acknowledge them in the pulpit. His congregation seemed even to stick to him the closer, the more proof of his guilt there was adduced against him; until at length the inexorable fiat of the law took him from their sight into solitary imprisonment.
Who has not heard of O'Meara, who by dint of corruption, and a harlot's interest, sought to seat himself in one of the highest pinnacles of the church? Mrs. Clarke had another of the same cloth, who intermeddled in her dirty business; and the Reverend Mr, Williams, was only discharged from the custody of the sergeant at arms upon a plea of madness. Not so mad, either: he can play a rubber at whist, or a game at cribbage, as keenly as the best that ever lived; and although he seems lame, if he loses he can run away; if he wins he can threaten, hector, bully, and, it is believed, can fight. He can swear too; but once on a time the magistrate would not permit him.
The reverend Augustus B***y is no longer a clergyman, though he has undergone his degrees, and has advanced a step or two in the ​church: he is perpetual president of the butcher-meeting at the corner of Newgate Market. Another of the ir-reverends is a dabster at backgammon, attached to ale, loves a good dinner, talks jolly, sings a (bad) song; and has been found upon the lay, for which he caught quod. He gambles deep and long, and is always down upon the countryman: I know not to what kidney he belongs; but hear, he has tried three sorts of belief or of discipline, from which I conclude he must be a Trinitarran. I shall not tell his name outright, for two reasons: 1. because he has stood the putter; 2. because he was always civil, and once very kind to me when I was misused, like him: it very much resembles a brisk wind blowing in the dark.
Great numbers of such as we have described pervade town; but our readers must not permit their reverence for the cloth, to sway their judgment into the slightest deference for the men.
About twenty years ago, (and less by eight or ten,) there was a kind of house of call for journeymen parsons, who met at the King's Head near St. Paul's every Saturday. There you might see the Reverend Mr. Jones, and the Reverend Mr. Styles settling a change of service for to-morrow: a dispute between Dr. D——n and Denis Lawler, the ​playwright; scraps of Latin thrown out to bother the Reverend Mr. M——y, and to remind him of Inverness and Gibraltar,—together with a dozen other incongruities.
If those clergy, as they are improperly called, familiarize with your families, and under the garb of sanctity, obtain the ear and the —— of its females (all for pure christian love.) There are
PRETENDED DOCTORS,
Who are no less dangerous, if admitted into your friendship or that of the female part of your family. One of these, named, ——— was lately discovered debauching the wife of his benefactor under circumstances of the most aggravating nature. Many of them pay attention to the pecuniary concerns of your families, whilst pretending to administer to their corporeal evils: such fellows contrive to become executors to the wills of their dying patients, or to marry the daughters of such as are tolerably rich; and then they become (what is called) "regular;" though their previous education, in most cases, only qualify them for serving in a haberdasher's or a draper's shop, or probably the still more honourable employment of shaving and ​hair-cutting. We now know persons who have emerged out of those professions, and become regular; but can the lion change its skin or the leopard its spots?
Nostrum-mongers abound, who prepare some panacea, that will cure various and discordant disorders; thus playing with the lives perhaps, certainly with the health and happiness of those who hearken to their advice.
Hand-bills and advertisements are the chiefest means of obtaining notice, the details of which are too disgusting to be copied into these pages. Whoever have been unfortunate enough to contract a certain loathsome disease, should be upon their guard against pretended doctors, whose chief object is to keep them in hand a long time, in order to make more charges: the fellows who sell ready-made medicines (called patent) are arrant cheats, inasmuch as the same preparation* cannot effect a cure in two stages of the same disorder. The publican's paper (as it is called) is almost daily crowded with these filthy invitations, and bombastic pretentions. Ladies, persons of delicacy, the totally uninformed on libidinous subjects, have that undescirable propensity thus continually pressed upon their notice, by being put immediately into their hands. This part of ​our complaint has abated considerably of late; and ought to be put down altogether.
PRETENDED LAWYERS,
or those who propose to transact your affairs by way of agency, calling themselves "Law Agents;" and "Accomptants" partake somewhat of the character of the Sycophants or useful men whom we described higher up These gentry are mostly clerks of pettifogging lawyers, who permit them to sue in their names for debts, real or imaginary, actions for damages, assaults, &c. They are at times such as have been in good clerkships, but now out of employment; and they constantly talk of the respectable concerns to which they once belonged: "this was always the practice at B. and A.'s, when I was there;" "We never failed to get the money by these means," says the pettifogger, in order to give his advice an air of consequence. A great proportion of them know no more of law than what they have learnt "Over the water," or at "No. 9, Fleet Market." These are admirably fitted for "Agents" in the Debtors Court, under the ​Insolvent Act; but their charges are generally double or treble those of the more respectable regular practitioner. A few, however, have been actual practitioners; but some aberrations of conduct having offended "the Court," it has struck them off its rolls. They generally practise about the police-offices, and at the Old Bailey, "for the defence;" that is to say, for the prisoners; in which way they become the acquaintance and familiars of the blackest rogues and thieves in or about town. The history of one will serve for that of all; though we must premise, there are two persons of the same initial letter, which is all we shall say for distinctions' sake. Our hasty sketch of Mr. B. commences fifteen or sixteen years ago, when we find him standing in the pillory, at Blandford in Dorsetshire, for threatening to inform against a glover, on the stamp duty, and demanding money to forego the action! Then it was he was struck off, with some severe notice of the chief justice; and ever since he has lived by his wits, as an informer generally, but we have reason to believe we have seen him on the lay also; at least he has been present when things have been done. In summer time he visited Margate, Brighton, and other fashionable resorts, laying the gambling-tables under ​contribution, and threatening informations against illegal games of chance, then very prevalent; receiving in return for his trouble, and to purchase his silence, sums proportioned to business done;—this profitable trade continued as long as the evil lasted. Until Silver commenced auctioneer, to amuse his customers, and Bettison sung with the same view. Mr. B. with his pall, W——y, (then in practice as an attorney) went their rounds, collecting tribute with as much ease as the Dey of Algiers collects his,—and in a similar manner.
About the year 1803, these two Worthies went to work by wholesale, informing against eleven newspapers on the same day, for having inserted advertisements, in which it was proposed to take back a watch which had been lost at Stroud fair, without asking any questions. As this offer was liable to a fine of 50l under what is called Jonathan Wild's act, they had a good pull. However, the whole of the parties stood so firmly, that very little good came of it; on the contrary, one of them took the attempt so ill, that he contrived to upset their apple cart, when afterwards they laid a ​fill-away information against a coal merchant in Durham yard: they were almost ruined upon that occasion. For some years Mr. B. went by the name of Brown (and Colonel Brown) of Leicester square; old B*****d, of Gresse Street, being his nominal informer; that is to say, he whose name was inserted in the writ "Quæré clausum fregit," their favourite mode of proceeding. His companions never mention his real name, or, indeed, any other, contenting themselves invariably with the initials only, in the same way we have used it above. This did not arise from any dislike to naming the instrument with which house-maids excite the fire to burn, but merely to throw dust into the eyes of by-standers, and to avoid the painful recollections of Blandfoid, and of his lordship's emphatical conclusion, "henceforth let the name of B——s be infamous, for its present possessor has rendered it so."
Some real lawyers sit about at low public houses, (and as high ones as they can attain to) in order to obtain customers, fomenting differences, and setting friends by the ears.
We know a score or more of them, whose ​chiefest practice is picked up in shabby actions arising at public houses, and in markets, as Whitechapel, Leadenhall, Covent Garden and Newgate. So barefaced are they in this nefarious pursuit, that one of them at the last named market, hearing of the editor's intention in collecting materials for the present publication,—offered an indemnity under his hand, if his name and address could be inserted here at full length. As this, however, would but give publicity to his paltry mode of practice, we decline to pander to his notoriety: our duty to the public is paramount to every other consideration; and Lawyer —— may have back his inteuaed present by calling at the bar of the same house, where it has lain several weeks, and shall remain to eternity for aught we care for it or him. Had it suited our purpose, we should much rather have inserted a song concerning him which we saw at Pardy's last summer.
OBTAINING MONEY OF SERVANTS,
Under the guise of either bringing some article that has been ordered by the master, or with the false statement that they are sent by him for money or other matters of trade. At times they ​have a box or parcel to deliver from the —— stage coach or mail; the favourite being a basket of game, part of which is visible at one corner, such as the foot of a hare, or the neck of wild fowl. Upon laying open the cheatery, you have no other present than that I have just mentioned, besides a good hard stone or two, and a little hay, with which you may wipe down the perspiration which must hereupon necessarily supervene.
In all expositions such as these, there is nothing like adducing instances, or as we stiffly call them "cases," which have been decided; and although our word is not to be doubted, so far as we know, the names have been as constantly inserted as they appeared necessary, together with the dates, when they were known or appeared requisite.
Sir John Sylvester, our Recorder, himself underwent the master-do some two or three years ago, in manner following. Going to the Sessions House in the Old Bailey one morning, upon the grand patter, in much haste, he left his watch behind; and, vexed at the circumstance, he opened to Mr. Common Sergeant, "tut! tut! if I have not left my watch hanging against the bead of the bed!"
​A fellow overhearing this, who with a great number of others, was standing upon the steps (all being upon the kedge) runs off to Chancery lane with a made-up message, that he was come for the Recorder's watch, which would be found hanging up at head of the bed, and by this token he asked to be believed. What could be more convincing? There the watch hung; and it was delivered accordingly—but never reached the hands of its owner again.
Another plan is, to follow a master or mistress to the butcher's shop, and when they have bought and sent home their meat, to run into the shop with a plate or small basket, for some additional article, stating that the leg of mutton or ribs of beef (as the case may be) which was sent in just now, are not to be dressed to day. This scheme will do for any open shop trade, where the customers can be seen from the outide; and the only precaution against it is, for trades-people so exposed not to deliver their goods to the applicant, but to send them home.
It is not always, however, people can be aware of this imposture. A young woman, with a child in her arms, knocked at the door of, and enquired for, Mr. B———. He was not at home, she ​knew before hand; so she stated, that he had been at Mrs. Salmon's wax work exhibition, and ordered some little pricked pictures which lie there for sale, upon which he had left two shillings; the remainder of the purchase, eight shillings and sixpence, was to be paid to the bearer, she said, and became very importunate for the money. However, his maid servant was sufficiently awake to thwart her imposition concerning the pictures, as well as an attempt she made to leave the child and run off! but the butcher's man came into the kitchen with a tray of meat while she sat there, and she left the house soon after: going to the butcher's shop, she chose a piece of beef, which she took home, the man answering for its "being all right," as he had just seen her at the house. The child not having been employed upon the latter part of the transaction, induces a belief that she had a companion.
Jonathan Harris, formerly respectable as a ribbon dresser, in Foster lane, was examined at Guildhall, in August, 1817, on charges of having delivered baskets and other packages, purporting to have come by coaches, for which he demanded the carriage and porterage charges, at various ​sums. He was committed specifically for thus taking in a bookseller in Paternoster row; but was let off at the sessions following, through a mistaken act of lenity.
Women, and costermongers, who hawk about poultry, apples, butter, meat, &c. when they find trade rather slack, will at times make a finish of their day's work by pretending they have been ordered to call with their wares. Such as these seldom impose as to prices; but generally put off aged poultry, or meat that died by the hand of its maker. Plated butter—(i. e. fresh on the outside, tallow in the middle) and such other impositions as may suggest themselves to their ingenuity. Most costermongers are thieves, smashers, and the like. We might have said all of them; but choose to leave a hole for some one to creep out at.
Hay and straw salesmen are done out of a load or two occasionally, by a clumsy fellow, whom it is a disgrace not to have detected for a villain at his very first appearance, in this manner. He orders the hay to be sent to a respectable name, at a respectable mews, or a livery suible; where the driver is of course to be paid on delivery, but he retires into a neighbouring house to ​get the money, while the men unload, but never appears again.
REGISTER OFFICES
For servants, increase in number as they decrease in respectability. The very sight of some of them carry conviction to the coarser senses of the object they have in view: viz. the pilfering of the unwary. Can any servant be so besotted as to suppose, that a master or mistress would enter the nasty holes at which they pretend to supply them with situations? Boards are put up with "situations" marked on them, and "wanted," followed by the vague notice of "maid of all work, in a small family;" "As footman, where a boy is kept," and other such addenda, to make the matter palatable by the idea of little to do,—to gull the idle, and to draw the simple of a few shillings.
In walking from Smithfield in a straight line to Finsbury Square, you will find three offices of ​this description, all on the same side of the way; and these may serve as a sampler of a great proportion of all the rest.
Money is paid at most of them upon entering the name, but very few of the pilfered servants obtain what they seek,—a good place; most of them go without any, or are referred over to such as it would, be beneath them to accept of. This is done to amuse them; and the poor deluded creatures exhaust their little stocks in subsistence, and are driven on the town; whilst the shark, who pockets the deposit money, and laughs in his sleeve, sends them to houses which never thought of employing him, nor of discharging their present servants.
But there is reason to believe worse practices than these prevail at some of them: of one we can speak with certainty, that not long ago the same house was a b——y house, and a receptacle for female servants out of place, as well as a Register office for servants,—most of whom are females. We often pass the end of Maiden lane; and if upon enquiry we find there is cause to do so, this passage shall be softened before it goes to press.
Very few register offices for servants occur within the city of London proper; but among ​these, the most respectable, and piquinG itself upon being on the most "equitable plan," has been open to the shocking depravity of "the son;" who with our eyes have we seen, and with our ears have we heard, in libidinous intercourse with female servants, applying at his father's office;—we forbear saying more at present: four or five years may have worked mighty alterations; but wHat has happened may happen again, whatever the fatalist may say.
After all, these offices, properly conducted, are greatly convenient to servants as well as employers; therefore it is more especially the duty of moralists to take care they do not devolve into brothels, or worse. No doubt exists, that procuresses or bawds often hire female servants from register offices, for the purposes of their customers. Generally, the seduction goes on slowly; the victim of their delusion being engaged by some modest friend or middling tradesman; and,beingfcent to the bawdy-house with messages, is there entrapped. One of those many old bawds who live in splendour, keeps three bad houses and one modest one. She is lately married to a fellow, who at Deal sustained the nick name of "King of Prussia." Alie Street to wit.
LOTTERY OFFICES.—INSURANCES, AND GOES.
Concerning the first of these we must not say an adverse word: there is an act of parliament to make them legal; and who dares contravene the ordinances of a law so positive, though it sanctions crime, and renders that innocent, which is in itself altogether baleful and injurious? But we may be permitted to go into figures: we may calculate, that if for every thousand tickets the lottery contains, only ten thousand pounds are divided among the whole, (or ten pounds each,) then every pound paid for a ticket more than ten pounds, is taken out of the pockets of the purchaser; and is so much lost, thrown away, or cheated out of you. The half ticket would then be worth five pounds,—the quarter ticket two pounds ten shillings,—the eighth one pound five shillings,—and the sixteenth twelve shillings and sixpence. On the contrary, at present, the sixteenth is charged twenty-seven shillings, and the whole ticket twenty pounds! and what for?
Answer that ye knaves! Tell us how it comes to pass, that the capital prizes are never drawn until towards the latter end of the drawing?
​All that has been said hitherto about insurances upon lottery numbers, must undergo revision. We might as well talk of carrying Thames water a horse-back to Islington, or of the advantage of hand spinning over the machines, as to describe the methods of obtaining insurances. Their baleful effects on the deluded wretches who were the victims of the practice, or of the circumventing policy of those who by means of pigeons contrived to do the insurers. Nearly all the regularly licensed lottery offices used to become insurers: some of them did a great deal, and employed a great many "collectors of numbers;" of whose activity you might form some judgment, by placing your back against the Mansion-house on the first morning of drawing, and turning eyes right, note the buz at the back doors in Lombard Street, when the first drawn ticket is announced. Although very little insurance can now be effected, on account of the new mode in which for several years the lotteries have been drawn, yet that little is attempted; and we heard with surprise that P. D——ns, an amiable good sort of a regular foolish kind of a lottery office keeper, lost nearly all his property, by means of the old clumsy artifice of two poll one. ​That is, where two persons combine to cheat a third.
Peter's confidential man and collector reguiarly brought in his book at the proper minute; but by leaving a vacancy open a page or two back, he was enabled to insert the number of the first drawn ticket with the name of his confederate annexed to it, which number was brought to him, and dropped into the cellar by that confederate, after the doors had been long-locked up, according to act of parliament.
That collector, whom it will be recollected we have not yet named [David] use to set at work a little go for several years just over his regular office; but a lady, whose losses were too much for her temper, took in dudgeon the sullen behaviour of the blind goddess who holds a wheel in her hand; so applied at the shrine of the blind "He who holds a sword in one hand and scales in the other:" they put down his table, and the office is extinguished.
At the west end of the town little goes are strewed about in great plenty, and in the season double their activity as well as their number. They are of various descriptions; the master of the house always taking a profit on the play, for ​which he finds refreshments of the most costly kind. In this providing, the houses vie with ewch other in sumptuousness; wines of all sorts, and viands of the costliest kinds, are always at hand. Five per cent. on all the money won, pays him well for this; which is the profit or allowance, on such games as Whist, Faro, Rouge et Noir, &c. At E. O., the bar E. bar O. falls to the master for the same purpose. When rank cheatery begins, tis called a do.
But if these are the regular profits of his trade, what do not they not amount to when he is game enough to provide a table with a false top? This is the modern method of fleecing, and the master is sure to be in it: this is the sine qua non of the speck; for who would be at the expence, and run the risque of discovery, were he not to divide the Cole?
GAME PUBLICANS.
Although numerous laws bear down and grind the publicans, and render the keeping a small or low house little better than slavery, there should not be one the less kept in force against them; but on the contrary it has been suggested, that they should be further compelled to aid the police in the detection of criminals, who take refuge ​under their roofs. No greater mischief can exist than a game publican; none more baleful to the morals of youth who may frequent his house, by the encouragement his smile gives to the theory, and the sanctuary his walls afford to the practice of thieving. Let a man of experience talk lightly of crime before a young man of acute disposition, and the bulwarks of his morals give way, then is he fit to be enlisted into the first knot of desperate fellows who may sally forth, to make a prey of the defenceless and the unsuspecting.
The major part of those who keep public houses of the second, third, and lower degrees, are men who have filled menial situations in life; of course they are not expected to exhibit much refinement of manners; civility being the nearest approach to it, they ever reach, and that is enough in the general way. It were well if 'twere no worse. Some are churls, and endeavour to controul those they cannot persuade to deal with them; others are unjust, and take advantage of those whom chance throws in their way; others again, cheat, by what is called chalking double, or charging more liquor than has been taken. Not a few of those combine also the Swindler with the other parts of their character, in learning to beat their ​customers at playing the usual games, as skittles or back-gammon, cards ordominos, by means of all the tricks and turns to be found in each, which they most sedulously acquire of pedestrian professors. Does it not savour strongly of the Swindler, for a man to sit hours upon the stretch at the Bagatelle board, to learn of a Sharper how to accomplish any given number? So that the next customer that comes to play with him is quite certain of losing, whatever the stakes may be?
But crying as are those evils for redress, they vanish into smoke before the superior magnitude of permitting public houses to be kept by men who have been had up for imputed crimes! Returned lags, though they are the best defined villains, are not more dangerous than those whose doings are known to subject them to the laws. They dare not object to any thing that may be proposed; witness he in High Holborn, who permitted the cart-load of hosiery to be unlade at his house of a Sunday morning, which had that night been stolen from a shop? and all this against his better judgment; for the adage is not a good one, which says "the more public the more private." Again, I know that Georgey C———n, in Tottenham Court Road, was desirous ​of leaving off several years, but could not (leastwise he told me so); but what was my surprise, after years of absence, (notwithstanding George died in the mean time) to find the house in the same line. Coming out of Bedford Square, eyes right! there I saw ten or twelve of the oldest hands on town, sunning themselves at the door! The new man I found had been one of those concerned in the affair respecting the buying of hay in Whitechapel, at Hill's public house, and is supposed to have sacked all the money.
Cripplegate is supposed to be that Ward in the city, the police of which is the best regulated of any, and most carefully watched; but I know two game publicans in it, whose houses are well-known haunts for night robbers—more or less. Standing with your back at the church-door, and stretching out your hands, not quite straight, you shall find one of them at fifty yards to the right; the other stands about two hundred and fifty yards to the left hand, having a small sinus or elbow still farther to the left. It is a strange coincidence that upon going into either of those four houses you step down (more or less) out of the street;—the last mentioned having two good steps;—with the two first the descent is but just perceptible.
​Will it not seem strange, that a public bouse should be a receptacle for rogues, two and twenty years, and its licence still continue; and this, although John Greatorex, at the other end of the road, lost his licence without cause assigned? The magistrate who said "that he granted a licence to a house which had been put down for a year, because he did not like to hurt the property; and because the house had been newly fitted up in a tasteful manner;" adding, that "the walls had committed no crime!" gave but a puerile excuse for one of his numerous partialities. I never go down Bethnal green without thinking of him, and his associates, with a grin.
THE PUBLIC BREWERS AND DISTILLERS
Are deserving of notice here, from the quantity of manœuvring they are always at with their customers, with the public, and with each other. Their conduct towards the publicans is of the most unjustifiable nature (we hope there are exceptions): these are accused of not filling their measures, which they attribute to the quantity of air that the machine forces into the beer; but one ​or two, more ingenious than the rest, conftss they are driven to adopt the fraudulent practice, because they do not themselves receive measure from the brewers. A late writer has exposed this matter fully, (and much praise is due to him for the exposition) by giving the particular modes in which the butts are so rendered deficient in their contents, which ought to be one hundred and eight gallons each, whereof two are expected to be ullage, or bottom. But Welby King says, he has measured butts out of which only ninety-nine gallons of proper porter could be drawn; and we understand, that through his representations, many cask-alterations have taken place,—though not to the full extent of the complaint.
What can the poor publican do? Should he complain, he loses his licence, if the brewer has the ear of the magistrates, as we have seen proved. That is, if he holds a free house, and the brewer holds the lease, and with it the customary "warrant of attorney," Messrs. Brewer and Co. enter ​up judgment, "Fi fa" his goods and chattek, and put in another man who will take it more kindly; one who more obsequiously draws their rot-gut stuff, and recommends his customers to cure themselves on the spot with cordial gin.
N.B. One scarcely ever gets a drop of good beer at a mere gin shop; these appear to me to choose the brewer who sells the worst article.
Bad goods disgust the public, and that with short measure, hastens the ruin of the suffering publican; hence the great number of moves (removals) that happen daily, to the great surprise of every one who does not trace effects up to their sources; and to the advantage chiefly of the brokers of spirits, and the appraisers of goods—who alone reap the harvest that is produced by bad beer. Moreover, that brewing concern, however rich, is sure to go to wreck, sooner or later, which serves the public with a bad article, behaves harshly to its retailers, or disingenuously to their fellow brewers. We know them. This latter description of conduct is the least interesting to the public; for, who cares when two tigers tear each other's hides? But we cannot help thinking, that the brewer, who carneys with, fawns to, or, by hook or by crook pays a magistrate, to act unl'airly towards another brewer, will ​do any dirty work. The employer and employed being' equally bad.
The distillers play an under-game generally, unless where a gin shop has a great trade, and then they are the chief creditors. For more on this subject see under the head "smuggling," "private distillery."
SYCOPHANTS,
Or useful men, as they are called, abound now more than ever, in consequence of the recently depressed state of our manufactures. They arose out of the latter description of people on the town; for, as a bad trade produced Jobbers and Mock-auctions, with the Duffers and the Barkers, so the whole combined gave life to a race of men hitherto undefined, who ought to be termed "Sycophants," because they are so. These, notwithstanding they seem to have much knowledge of the world, owe their depressed situation in life to the very want of that knowledge being carried into practice; and yet it is by the tender of their services in the way of information and advice, that they prey upon the unsuspecting part of the community. Whatever is to be done, they tender their advice, and offer their assistance, asking in return to fill a glass out of your bowl, or to ​partake of your dish; at least, if they do not put the question, their gentle hints it is impossible to mistake.
Of all qualities and all pretensions, they are to be found at every public house, tavern, and dining-house; where, if you tell ever so inane a story, they are the first to commend, and they laugh at what is meant for a joke, although it should be egregious nonsense. Make a display of your purse, and these fellows will lick the dust from your feet; though you mistake so palpable a matter as the hour of the day, they are ready to swear you are right; their politeness is fulsome, their panegyrics nauseate. Sam. Ireland's definition of them was a good one: he termed them "toad-eaters," who would swallow any one's poison.
Are you in doubt what road to take, or how to fashion your taste for vertu? The sycophant can direct you better, according to his own shewing, than any one alive. They are to be found plying at the hotel, as well as the watering-house; and although I am not admitted at either the Blenheim or Long's, yet I have seen them at places standing equally high with those fashionable houses. I have met with them at the Old Bailey Eating houses, at the Chick-lane soup ​houses, and in eveiy gradation thence upwards; but, they are my readers of the middling classes, who are the likeliest to be exposed to their malignant influence, when they enter the houses of refreshment adapted to their respective circumstances. Unless they mean to be willing dupes, let them reject the proffered civilities of such gentry: the rough-hewn contradictions of the blunt countryman, or the man of strong mental powers, are to be prized ten-fold before them.
And yet, though these sycophants may be despised for their servility, they are not to be reprobated too deeply: they have bought a knowledge of the world, and they would sell it again, and those who have a wish to become purchasers are merely cautioned not to pay too dearly for what they receive. Undoubtedly, much town-talk information from men retired from trade, is very desirable, always entertaining, and sometimes profitable; yet the chances are so much against the latter, that 'tis two to one the stranger gets done out of his property—more or less. The thoroughbred sycophant may be known by his carney or small talk, or by his whining; by his mouth being always open, either to communicate something, or to partake of your refreshments.
Generally, they have little second rate ​tradesmen at hand, whom they recommend you to make purchases of; these put their heads together, the one to impress you with a good idea of the goods and the vender, and the latter to put on extra profits, the better to divide with the sycophant, a decent sum at your expense. Another set are actually in trade at the moment, if that can be called a trade, which consists of a shop of all sorts; these are called "general dealers," and partake much of the character of the jobbers; only that the latter for a shop, keep a "warehouse," upstairs in a garret; or their lodging room at the public house serves the purpose of a warehouse! I have known one of these, at the same time a dealer in cutlery, coffins, pictures, paper, hose, books, bandanas, and other heterogeneous articles; while he could recommend you "to the best brandy merchant in town,"—"a capital good woollen-draper"—"the man that makes the best boots you ever wore"—and "the tightest fit for a pair of breeches, ever heard of." With the whole of these, he has "dealt largely for years; and all his friends who have bought of them were perfectly satisfied."
Such is the exact portraiture of a man whom we have particularly noticed; and we know as certainly that the same genus of traders abound, ​who, though they are far from crimmal, ought to be avoided, as indeed should the whole class of sycophants from top to bottom. These fellows, or rather another species of them, have been, not unaptly termed
SPONGERS,
Because they lick, or suck up, whatsoever they may touch. They are bolder, and more forward than the preceding, who are thus termed: they are a lower-bred set; will accost you in the street with a proffer of their services; the same in a watch house (if you get into a row), they can show you to a lodging, where previous to going to bed, a supper is ordered, and you must pay the shot. They also differ from the former class, inasmuch as they can perform none but puerile services, such as administer to your sensual appetites; and unblushingly partake, without even the pretence of bearing a part of the expense. For the most part they can sing a good song, which they set a going; or tell a hundred good stories to increase the jollification. If you would have a bit of spree, they can help you into it; but in helping you out again, they manage to keep something for themselves out of the necessary fees to the watchmen and constables, ​with whom the sponge is the chief negociator next morning.
Should you ask for a song, appoint a meeting, or applaud any thing he has said or done, the Sponge will turn round sharply and ask for the loan of a few shillings. He will pimp for you, while talking of his independence; he will brush your coat, or carry your umbrella, while boasting of his connections, and exult that "he enjoys a moderate competency, in which he feels more real happiness, than with the comparative splendour of former days, accompanied by the shackles of his relations' narrow prejudices." Lest this should not give you sufficient confidence in his exalted origin, he pulls off his hat to the carriages of nobility and gentry as they pass along, of the owners of which he knows no more than you do.
One of these gentry walking up the Haymarket with his new-found companion, was carrying the umbrella of the latter as well as his own, whilst the countryman was buttoning his great coat, the better to resist a threatening storm: Our Sponge called out, as a carriage drove past, "I'll die if I shall not hear of this again! Lady T—— will wonder what I am a doing with two umbrellas at once. But I shall give her as good as she ​brings; the truth, indeed, the truth will serve my turn best: I shall tell her that I was accompanying a friend from the country, whom I esteemed, (which is truth) to see the Panorama, and the Museum, and so on. She cannot fail to recollect seeing you walking at my side; yes, yes, she will recollect the colour of your coat; Aye, aye, yes, yes; Oh, she, Sir! Slie is a good,—as good a creature! God bless you! Lady T—— against the world,—if I had money."
The countryman stared at the carriage pointed out, as it turned round in the street to take up its fare a few doors above where they stood: a nursery maid and child were in it; the mother of the child, perhaps, and mistress of the carriage, having alighted to make some purchases at the druggist's shop. This was a complete explosion of the Sponger's pretensions, and his character stood fully exposed.
SWINDLERS.
Their arts and boldness assume so many Protean features, that we despair of giving the reader any thing like so complete an idea of their practices as we have of some (if not most] other modes of taking money out of the pockets of the honester parts of the community. Our chief difficulty ​lies in not being able to give our proofs, or instances, of their evil deeds, with the names attached to them; for these two reasons, among a multitude of others: 1. That the endeavours of hoaest men, to extricate themselves from difficulties into which they have unavoidably fallen, partake so much of the arts and practices of the swindlers to get into them, that we might by possibility confound one of the former with a hundred of the latter,—a thing by no means congenial to our feelings: 2. That those rogues-ingrain not unfrequently experience such reverses of fortune, that they face about in the world, look up, and bring actions to recover damages for defamation against their detractors. We seek none of these.
To swindle,—to take away by undue means, not to be called robbery, but which is, in effect, robbery, is the detinition of the term which designates the men we are going to treat of.
They are known, in the various situations into which they are thrown, from the honest fair trader, by the presumption of their views, as regards trade in particular; to which they are almost (but not quite) exclusively attached; but in fact, to whatever they pretend, it is in a fever;—in manner boisterous, forward, petulant, and ​assuming. In short, all that is disagreeable to the sedate, discriminating, part of the commercial world, is to he found in the swindler. He not only talks higher, but dresses higher; his pretensions to the commonest intelligence, upon the commonest topics, is always overcharged, and disgusting to moderate men. He has a warehouse,—or a counting house; perhaps chambers in the city—(those doubtful progeny of declining trade)! "How are they furnished? or how filled? Whereabout does he live, or lodge, or lie?" Answer 1. Empty shelves; few books, but none of magnitude or long standing; and as for the chambers, what are the other occupiers on the same spot; and how long have they been in their present state, or he an occupier of them? To the second I answer, that he lives upon his wits, lodges any where, and lies every where.
How nearly do these approximate to the other cheats we have described! viz. Smugglers, Duffers, Mock auctioneers? Only differing in this, that these latter are sellers, for money; the Swindler is a buyer of goods without money, (for which he substitutes "his own bills:") the one sells in detail, at a careful price, the other buys at any price; credit being all he looks for.
Swindlers generally take a shop, counting ​house, or warehouse, the door of which is always fastened. When you enter it, a certain degree of consternation sits upon the countenance of the person placed there to take in messages. The master is never in the way; most frequently at a neighbouring tavern or public house; or the attendant directs you to Change, where you may perhaps find him outside the door of Tom's or Batsou's,—unless he has a bill overdue, and then he is at a porter house, in a corner, taking a sneaking chop by himself. And yet, after you have come at all those particulars, and drawn your conclusions; having made up your mind, and told him your reasons for discredit, he will fly at the imputation put upon his character, (for it is tender) talk of his bills in the market, and other overcharged stuff; and ultimately succeeds in hermetically sealing your mouth with the threat of an action. And the more certainly would he have recourse to law, as he was more sure of the imputation being just. This is the case even with houses of honour and probity, when under difficulties, but not otherwise. Fear exists in proportion to the degree of danger apprehended: if there be no danger impressed upon the mind, no fear can exist in the heart.
We will adduce two cases in point, of ​mercantile houses, as honourable and as upright as ever were unfortunate. We should name them with regret were it not that the feeling of our duty is paramount to our ideas of delicacy; when men choose to make their concerns the subject of a newspaper squabble, or of argumentation in a court of law, they must not complain at being quoted in the evanescent publication now under hand. Their cases, and their names, must pass away with the occasion that gave them birth, to make room for other newer and better recognised instances of the overweening care usually bestowed upon that which is of small value: Nurses usually take the most care of sickly children.
From five to nine years ago was a tune of trial for the strongest mercantile houses in this country. The successes of the enemy, the burning decrees, the shutting up of one continent, and the warlike attitude of another, with its lucky hits at sea, promised fair to ruin the best prospects of the most firmly established merchants here, who looked to those points for the return of their capital, with its attendant profits.
Under these circumstances, we heard without surprise of the stoppages that were daily announced or hourly predicted; but we certainly ​saw with grief, in the Times newspaper a dispute between a Mr. H———re of Bishopsgate and Mr. S———s, of the house of P. and S., as to some expressions used by the former respecting the stability of the latter. The slander was rebutted, and the utterer swallowed his words. But the house stopped soon after!
At Guildhall, an action for words spoken, so as to hurt the character of Messrs. W——d and Co., was brought against Mr. ——, and a verdict obtained with commensurate damages. These were scarcely paid, however, when that house offered a composition and paid it.
We repeat it, these instances are adduced in order to illustrate our subject, in the same manner as diamonds are best seen in the dark, which they almost render visible, or at least make us know its existence.
No man feels the want of character so much as the Swindler; or laments its absence in his speculations when foiled, or is more waspish in defence of its latent particles, as they fly off in the prosecution of his negotiations. The man of sterling credit, on the contrary, upon finding the least let or hindrance to the completion of a bargain, relinquishes the purchase with silent ​indignation, and says (or thinks) "you may keep it yourself" for aught he cares about you. The Swindler on the other hand defends himself, and his credit (creditableness) most pertinacoiusly; demands the grounds of refusal; offers more references as to character, and shows the cloven foot of his calling, by insolent insinuations against the vender.
This sort of reference for character is their favourite mode of bolstering up each other. It frequently happens, however, that the party referred to is not a whit better known, or of longer standing, than the referror; at times they open two or three such counting houses on purpose to carry on the farce of reference. But he must be a dolt indeed who is duped by ever so many such references, where the aspect of (no) business is so much akin to each other. The upshot of such undertakings is either the King's Bench, the London Gazette, or a voyage to America; the latter being of rarest occurrence, as it always is for deep game, or large consignments to that quarter; and the former of daily recurrence, being for numerous smaller debts, or in case wherein the effects are so completely swept away, that scarcely enough remains to pay for working ​the commission: Such "take the benefit," as it is too briefly called.
Goods obtained in the manner we have before alluded to, and paid for in their "own acceptances," they sell for cash, at thirty, forty, or fifty per cent, loss, to auctioneers, to Jews, and the receivers of stolen goods, unless when they are shipped off to America, there to wait the Swindler's coming, annong congenial minds to dwell.
However strange it may seem to our readers, there live in great apparent respectability, not to say splendour, man}^ men who deal largely in stolen goods; and we could walk all the way from London Bridge to Limehouse-hole without once losing sight of some one or other great man's house, who, before the formation of the Docks, was not a great rogue in that way,—knowingly guilty. People may be found in every rank and station, who do not resist the temptation of buying cheap, without reflecting how the goods were come by; or if the reflection does arise, they stiffle it at the birth in the abundance of their cupidity. Wholesale dealers, too, of high and untouchable character, there are, who do ​not blush to make purchases at such prices and amounts as can not leave a doubt for what end the goods were obtained. We know of one house in the linen trade, with whom this culpable practice is so palpable, that their conduct has undergone investigation in a court of law. In the same street (one of the newest built in London) is a hosier of the same stamp; with whom, if a manufacturer at Nottingham or Derby is known to do business, the poor wretch loses his credit for wool and for cotton and every needful et cetera.
When one of those is upon the go, that is to say, must shortly decamp, his acceptances become at any body's command; and it not unfrequently happens, that a shabby fellow has more of these moon-shine bills proved under the commission against him, than he could possibly have the address to put forth in five years "for value received." Twenty per cent is sometimes paid for such pseudo acceptances, which are often given before the bill is drawn (upon blank stamps)—but ten per cent, or less contents them; and it happens frequently that the poor devil only gets laughed at for his pains before the ink is dry. An honest man's acceptances, who having stood for years, yet, who is "upon the go," are sought after with avidity, at twenty per cent. paid down. He is to ​be pitied who get into such trammels; but failing into one difficulty, draws him on to another; and the endeavour to extricate himself by one factitious acceptance but brings on a second and a third. The forced endeavours to negociate these, bring his condition to the knowledge of the Swindlers; who, taking advantage of his situation, demand peremptorily, under pain of disclosure—other and more copious sacrifices of his real creditors' property; and the disgraceful alliance (as it is considered) attaches to his character through life. When he has gone through the Alembic of the Gazette, or the Insolvent Debtor's Court, he is not (as he ought to be) estimated among the honest but unfortunate victims of the times in which we live, but is driven by the universal ill opinion of his former friends, companions, and associates, to join the deprecated set among whom mere accident had thrown him, in the hour of his distress. All our readers must know how little commiseration fails to the lot of the poor insolvent, against whom no imputation can by possibility be raised, [the hand that holds this pen hath signed to the fact] how then can he expect to come back into society, against whom malignity can thus point her finger? He is driven out, to add one more to ​the miscreant number, and to perform his part in the ruin and seduction of others, and to perpetuate a disreputable set, who piey upon the commercial distresses of the country, and take advantage of the ill-disguised necessity there is for the distressed manufacturers making sale of their goods to any bidders.
Some swindlers set up their banks in town and country, issuing their notes payable to bearer on demand and otherwise. One of them, very celebrated for advertising "money advanced on annuities," and for his debaucheries, kept a —— bank (so written over his door) for twenty years at Hyde Park wall, at the sight of which any reasonable persons might burst their sides with laughter; but within the low walls whereof, many unthinking persons have been duped of their property. But that bank, without capital, which promised fairest in modern times, was that of Hartsinck, and Co., the corner of Birchin Lane, Cornhill, called the "security bank." Next in high sounding firm was the Piccadilly bank, Sir John William Thomas Lathrop Murray, Bart, and Co. who is now on his journey across "the herring pond" for no good. If that be not enough for the reader, let him be told that Jew King was concerned in the transaction.
​These attempts were made fifteen and twenty years ago, respectively; but were surpassed in conduct, ingenuity, judgment, and do, by one which was opened at Ipswich half that time since; as the whole are in burlesque by that which was set up at Hammersmith, that drew upon its founder—a coal-shed man in Fleet Lane!
We forbear to put names to these latter ridiculous, but not unsuccessful attempts; but the Ipswich peoples' fracas about their character;—the regularity with which their notes were paid for a time by the agent, or accomplice, in Change Alley,—his theatrical demeanour, and shew of business, which went even to the fittings up—show altogether that this was not the plan of a half witted fellow.
Bankers issue their own notes with the most laboured assiduity, and much expence, in order to make a show of business at their correspondent's in town, or to obtain an evanescent character for their names. A Welch banker, one Fr——s F——e kept a traveller at vast expense to journey from London to the Land's-End, solely to disseminate his cash notes for bills on London. Vide John S*m*rs.
At times the industrious efforts of Swindlers ​Devolve into blacker crimes, for which they undergo charges of various hue, from petty larceny up to capital.
Not many years ago, a gang of miscreants, who rented a house in Hatton Garden, for the purpose of reference, and were connected with one or two other establishments of the same nature in the city, were found to have locked a man in the cellar, and decamped. When the cries of the poor fellew brought assistance, he turned out to be a banker's clerk, who calling with a bill for payment, they seized and bound him, taking away all the money and assets which he had in charge. They were never discovered.
A clergyman (of the thump craw kidney) who was F. R. S. (i. e. Fellow Remarkably Sharp,) and who was over fond of learning, had a call. This was not the call from above, but one from below, and inappropriately he put it in experience upon Parsons of Fleet Street. Here he looked out as many books as filled a bag, with which the boy was to accompany him to a house, he should direct; "it was only in New Bridge Street." When the pair arrived at the door of an empty house, our clergy knocked at it, and ordered the boy to fetch a certain other book: As nobody answered his application at the empty ​house he bolted with the bag, which became good prize. This was made a criminal charge of, but would not stand good; nor would the lesser one, of "obtaining goods under false pretences;" for he took the precaution of obtaining an account of the books, in which he was made debtor for every article, and he afterwards served his time out in the Fleet.
Advertisements in the newspapers, of the most captivating kind, are meant to entrap the unwary by their apparently ingenuous offers. At times they offer loans of money, or want to borrow at extravagant interest; oftener they have a trade or well accustomed shop to dispose of, or an invention for which a patent has been obtained;—all these may be known by the eagerness they evince to get hold of the deposit, which is usually demanded; their hurried manner, pompous pretensions, and volubility, declare at once their views. Some years ago, one of them (named a few pages higher up) opened an office for forming matrimonial alliances; a bugbear that soon became exposed by the baseness of its conductor, whose views were directed towards the pockets of his dupes so flagrantly, as to approach the character of crime to that robbery,—only with more finesse.
RECEIVERS
Of stolen goods (or, as they are better called by their nick name, Fences and Hedges) are pretty well known to the police officers, as well as the thieves. But as those of them who deal in the least bulky articles, change their places of call, neither the one nor the other ever nose the snoozing ken, where they inhabit. It is the poor devils who are "dealers in marine stores," that are made obnoxious by act of parliament. There is an adage that says, "the receiver is worse than the stealer," and so they are, more especially in these times of refined depravity; not merely because "there would be no thieves if there were no receivers," but for the more proveable reason that the receivers often incite others to robbery, to obtain the very articles they stand in need of, or of which they can make the readiest sale. In proof, whereof, we adduce the case of Mr. Hunter, silk manufacturer, of Paternoster row, who having sold and delivered five pieces of silk, various colours, to Messrs. ——— and ——— in Wood Street, called upon their neighbour in the same street, with the offer of others of the same article; but what was his surprise to hear, that they had been offered goods precisely similar, at prices very little more ​than the cost of the raw material? He was still more astonished on calling two or three days afterwards in order to renew the negotiation, to find among the bargains, some three pieces of his own making, part of the identical five above mentioned.
Mr. Lazarus of Brick lane, Whitechapel, was the vender of the cheap commodity, and he bought them of some of his own tribe, who had robbed the warehouse at which Mr. Hunter sold them. The losers showed good reasons to the receiver why he should pay down the whole amount of the goods stolen. Lazarus being happy thus to compromise the felony in lieu of his character, which then stood very high in all money transactions and purchases, and will do so to the moment of this publication.
N.B. Never compromise felony with a receiver, or before an officer (the thief himself would be a safer man); for a penalty of fifty pounds attaches itself to the mistaken lenity by act of parliament, therefore, dear reader, beware how you fall into it.
Watches, being a ticklish article, are never held by the theives a moment longer than they can help it; they are therefore sent off to the Fence at once, who in this case is generally a watchmaker. He sets at work instantly in transmogrifying it, ​so as that the owner himself would not recognize his property again. There are two or more who live in and about Spitalfields, and others beyond the Tower: of the latter I hear from oft-repeated report; the former came to my knowledge in this way. Coming from roost one morning, the winter before last, I met old acquaintance, B——e, in Barbican. "Where going so early?" I enquired. "To Bethnal Green," was the re-ply. I wanted very much to know whereabout there; but he was extremely costive of commucation, which only served to raise my curiosity still higher. He went off at his usual pace: I could not follow personally [it would look so ——ish]; so I sent my eyes after him, counting the steps he took: they were thirty-eight per minute by my watch; and I resolved to wait until he came back, which I knew must be by that route, as it turned out, being the nearest way to Drury lane. Multiplying the minutes of his absence by thirty-eight, allowing two minutes for taking a glass of gin, and two more to speak to the Fence. I found it brought me so far as Fashion Street on the right, and on the left it might extend to Bacon Street; for I afterwards paced the same number of steps on the ​ground, and found he had taken a whet (of gin) in Spitalfields market.
What was the precise nature of his business remained to be solved. I went to Covent Garden, and upon enquiry found that two watches had passed through the hands of a neighbouring ——— housekeeper, where I knew he was sweet, not to say nutty, upon the covess. But I learnt no more for nearly a month, when I met him again in the same line of march: we took our drops together at the first vaults we came to. Here I suddenly demanded of him "What is o'clock?" He would have evaded the question, but I taxed him with having a watch, for that "I heard it beating." This, although a lie, puzzled his canister, and he pulled it forth like a gaby, acknowledged that he was "taking it to the Transmuter," and I sucked him of two dollars for quietness sake.
Of other little offences, we have seen a good deal that was written formerly, and reprinted latterly, about Kidnappers and Crimps, of Pimps, Procuresses, and Waggon-hunters, Bawdy Houses, and Conjurors, which, if ever they did exist as there set down, exist no longer; the method of doing having greatly altered like most ​other things in modern times. We are inclined to think those reveries proceeded from the fertile brain of one Harry Lemoine, well known upon the town twenty years ago, in the lowest walks. Time has rendered the whole book obsolete, shewing things as they were, probably—not as they are, certainly.
From what we have said, and seen, and know of the Police of this Metropolis, as well as that of a neighbouring nation, we do not hesitate to say, that the whole arcana must undergo alteration here, and approximate itself nearer to the foreign one,—as near as is congenial to the difference of character of the two people. More energy, greater unity of action, less confidence in individuals, and a corresponding degree of secrecy, comprise the outline sketch we would endeavour to impress upon those in whom the humane task is confided, of lessening the quality of crime, as well the number of the guilty. A sober, silent, and steady regulation of the present alarming system, will do more than an act of parliament.
* ↑ The King's Bench and Fleet Prisons are thus quaintly described.
* ↑ "Upset his apple-cart," said of one whose whole pecuniary concern is ruined.
* ↑ "Fill-away;" to fill the sacks without first measuring tlic coals, according to the act.
* ↑ The earliest establishment of this nature appears to have been situated opposite Cecil Street, Strand, about the year 1740, and called the Universal Register, partaking much of the nature of our modern "Echo Office," embracing every object of useful intelligence.
* ↑ See Police Report of Examinations bsfore the House of Commons' committee.
* ↑ In the New Monthly Magazine for 1 January, 1818.
* ↑ Vide Police Report of the House of Commons; which ought to be read by everybody, and studied by all concerned in public house licences.
* ↑ ——"of the Act for the relief of Insolvent debtors," should be understood; but cramp words and half sentences are generally used to soften down crime.