The Express.
London, England, 1864-06-22 00:00:00

parrArrnit

THIS Evnario, The 3rd Act of HAMLET. Master and Wu
Roselle.—THE REGO ILA'S OPEL t. Woes Clara St. case
and E. Scott. —Tli E 1613 H Turon. Vaster and Was Bote"e.
—And ILOOARTH'S APPRENTICES.—Commence at*.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BEIDOL
TIM DAT Naming, 3h. Nra Atteloom. Di. Wm
To.moßsow Moran& ih. 12AL Ahdroooa. ad MA.

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22.

Br the general consent of moralists and satirists,
a great city is the peculiar haunt of those who
live by practising upon the simplicity of their fel-
lows ; not only as it affords them shelter and
concealment, but as providing them, in the con-
stant change and renewal of the population, a
perpetual supply of well-prepared victims. The
records of our police-courts show from day to day
that London at the present time deserves its cha-
racter as well as when JOHNSON described it as
" the needy villain's general home." Some of
our most popular writers have done their best to
remove the old reproach that one half of the world
does not know bow the other half lives, and the
newspaper is doing the rest. It records, however,
but a very small number of even that small pro-
portion of cases of fraud which are brought under
the eye of the magistrate. There are some kinds
of rascality, such as skittle-slurping, fictitious
betting, horse coping, and the like, which are so
stereotyped and familiar as to have lad
their power of exciting curiosity. It is other-
wise with the later kinds of fraud, of
which the recent growth of the cheap press
has enlarged the scope and supplied the medium.
The advertisement in our days has much to answer
for. Comparatively little harm is done when it
introduces Paterfamilias to an extraordinary
bargain in the form of a first-class piano in • mag-
nificent case, made only two months ago for •
professor, and now to be sold under peculiar cir-
cumstances for fifteen guineas ; or when an elderly
young gentleman,with a suddenly acquired taste for
horseflesh, gets a splendid chesnut cob for the price
of • butcher's hack. But there is one class of per-
sons which one would think even the needy villain
should spare. If there is one situation which
should command our sympathy and goodwill more
than another it is that of the young of either sex
who are trying for the first time to find a position in
this vast city —a place so eligible for the man of
wealth and connexions, sodesolate and lonely for the
stranger who arrives uncertain whether he shall be
allowed to earn his bread in it. The crowds who
throng our city thoroughfares during the hours
of business, and give them that appearance which
impresses strangers with the fierce energy of London
life, were recruited in a great measure from
the provinces. The places of • few of them in the
great system of commercial activity were secured
and fixed beforehand by the condition of their
parents; but as to the greater number, and probably
the most energetic, there was • time when they
were anxiously seeking a position in which to
recommend themse'ves to the confidence of em-
ployers, and had difficulty in finding it.
An investigation w hich is now going on at G uildhall
is disclosing the interior mechanism of a system of
means of preying upon young people at the very
time when they most need help. We have no fear of
prejudicing the case of Mr. ItlaoutioLe and Mr.
K MOSLEY, who will in good time have to answer
more charges of swindling than we have space to
record. But it appears on very sufficient evidence
that under various names and at various places,
and by different methods, • scheme for robbing
young men has been carried on for a long time,
and with no small success. The exaction from
inquirers fur situations of • heavy fee for •
worthless pretended registration has, it would
seem, supplied a revenue sufficient to satisfy ordi-
nary cupidity ; but the chief use of the registration-
office appears to have been to bring and keep •
body of young men under the eye of the chief operator,
who selects from the most promising among them
those who are to be his special and peculiar vic-
tims. As days pass on and no engagement offers
itself, they become restless and communicative,
and in this stage are in • proper condition to be
sounded as to their means and the resources of
their friends. If they have ready money, or can
borrow, they are sure not to be turned away.
Rather than that should happen, the man of
business will remember that he is himself in want
of a clerk, to whom he can pay a good salary, and
who will, of course, as • stranger, not object to
deposit • sum of money as • security to his em-
ployer. Or if this arrangement will not meet the
case, he is certain to have • friend in a large way
of business, in which the applicant with cash to
invest can be accommodated both with • salary
and with • share of the profit. At Guildhall, on
the 3rd inst., • young man named Gaovss de-
posed that he had parted with 3001., taken a house,
and married a wife on representations of this
latter kind which had proved wholly false, the
alleged business having no existence. Another
victim stated that the prisoner had ob-
tained 501. from him in a similar way.
A clerk from Srcaaa's Mercantile Agency de.