Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-03-03

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mated, aud even terrorized, by his
vehementw will. | tisonly since his arrest
and conviction that one Of them has
begun to tell what she knows Of his
history. Making every deduction for
inaccuracies aud ex~aggerations, the
tale is in the main creditable, and yet
amazing enough. Peace was only a
boy Of fourteen, it is said, when he first
enlisted in the army of crime; but
even at that early age it was his
boast that he worked alone" He
thus steered clear of the reef on which
the majority of criminals have been
wrecked, the treachery of confede-
rates. At Sheffield, his native place,
he pursued his business of burglary
with success for some years; thence
he removed to Bradford, where he OBJ
tanned employment as a carver and
glider, and might have settled down,
if he had desired it, in an honest oc-
cupation, but he never apparently
used his respectable trade, except as
a cover for his criminal enterprises.
From Bradford Peace migrated sue
cessively to Leeds, Briston, Hull,
York, Birmingham and Manchester,
making a longer or shorter stay at
each place, according to the abund-
anc of the harvest. AT last, as was
inevitable, he fell into the grasp Of
the law, and was sentenced, as his
partner declared, to more than one
long term of penal servitude. In the
intervals Of his Imprisonment he did
not desist from his burglarious enter
prises, and he brought the art, doubt
less, to a degree of perfection that has
never been surpassed. Liverpool.
Hull, Bradford, Sheffield, Nottingham
and Bristol were visited and revisited,
but at length Peace settled down, so
far as any one of his cratic habits
could settle, in Darnall, where he
made the acquaintance of the unhappy
Dyson family. The amount of plum
der realized during these years Of
crime was enormous, and Peace usu-
ally lived upon the proceeds in a
coarse profusion, curiously colored by
his musical taste and skill and his
fondness for animal pets.
FAILURE AFTER ALL.
Though repeatedly convicted, he
was, on the whole, favored by fortune.
His recklessness in shooting at police
men and others who attempted to ar.
rest him brought him two or three
times to the verge of murder before
and after his flight from Banner Cross
His personal strength and agility mus
have been remarkable a weaker mar
would often have been captured where
he escaped, partly by audacity, partly
bypromptitudc and craft. A still moro
singular gift was his power of facia.
contortiOn, in which he appears tt
have equaled some of the greatest
actors, and on which he relied so con.
fdently that he ventured to face the
police in Sheffield after the murder O
Mr.. Dyson, and was never detected
The energy, the daring, the ingenuity
of the mar are neither to be denied
nor despised. The cool determination
with which he organized his lawlesi
expeditions, buying a pony and traT
with the proceeds of a lucrative rob
berry in order to " work the business :
more readily and rapidly in the future
will, no doubt, be regarded with gap.
ing admiration by less skillful practi.
TONERS in crime. Yet even these, i
they took thought, must see what {
miserable and hideous barren failure
such d career is after all. Peace wal
a very clever, a very strong-willed
criminal, but society conquered him
in the long run. Nay, before justice
laid her grasp upon him the iron had
already entered into his soul. He wa,
believed to be still under fifty year,
of age, yet as he appeared in court he
was a prematurely old and worn man
The anxietios of his long battle against
the world of honest men had been toe
much for his rugged force and bruta'
endurance. Even had the charge o
murder been never brought home to
him, he must have felt, when he was
brought a prisoner to Sheffield, that
the game was up. His mad leap from
the train within sight of his former
home at Darnall was not a foiled effort
to escape, but a deliberate attempt Al
suicide-a miserable confession, in
very deed, of the guilt and failure
which the sentence of death ha'
solemnly ratified.