30 chapters
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30 chapters
PREFACE.
PREFACE.
The gratifying success of my former experiences—25,000 copies having already been sold, and the demand steadily continuing—has induced me to put forth another volume. In doing so, I have again to thank numerous correspondents, as well as the reviewers of the public press, for their warm expressions of appreciation and approval. I have also to notice a graceful compliment from Berlin, in the translation of my works into German, by H. Ernst Duby; and another from Geneva, in the translation of a se
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A PEDESTRIAN’S PLOT.
A PEDESTRIAN’S PLOT.
“How is this race to go? Have you any money on it to force you to win?” Yorky, having already arranged to lose, modestly hinted that, for a substantial consideration, he would be willing to come in second. “Second? whew! then who’d be first?” said the patron, not looking greatly pleased with the proposal. “The Gander would walk off with the stakes. He’d be sure to come in first. Could you not let Birrel get to the front?” “It might be managed,” said Yorky, with a significant wink. “Then manage i
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BILLY’S BITE.
BILLY’S BITE.
The boy whose name I have put at the head of this paper was looked upon as a timid simpleton, perfectly under the power of the two men to whom his fate was linked. If Billy had been a dog they could not have looked upon him with more indifference—he was so small, and thin, and insignificant, and above all so quiet and submissive, that they felt that they could have crushed him at any moment with a mere finger’s weight. Rodie M c Kendrick, the first of his masters, was a big fellow with an arm li
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THE MURDERED TAILOR’S WATCH. (A CURIOSITY IN CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.)
THE MURDERED TAILOR’S WATCH. (A CURIOSITY IN CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.)
The case of the tailor, Peter Anderson, who was beaten to death near the Royal Terrace, on the Calton Hill, may not yet be quite forgotten by some, but, as the after-results are not so well known, it will bear repeating. Some working men, hurrying along a little before six in the morning, found Anderson’s body in a very steep path on the hill, and in a short time a stretcher was got and it was conveyed to the Head Office. The first thing I noticed when I saw the body was that one of the trousers
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THE STREET PORTER’S SON.
THE STREET PORTER’S SON.
The old street porter appeared at the Central Office one winter morning, but refused to reveal his business to any one but me. I had been delayed a little beyond my usual time by other work, but Corny Stephens patiently sat there the whole time. He appeared to know me, too, for the moment I entered the “reception-room” he rose and deferentially touched his forelock. He was an old man, very thin and bloodless, with poverty shining out of every bit of his meagre clothing and decayed boots. He wore
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A BIT OF TOBACCO PIPE.
A BIT OF TOBACCO PIPE.
Criminals vary in character and degree of guilt as much as the leaves of the forest do in form and colour, but there is always a large number whom no one of experience ever expects to reform. They are the descendants of generations of thieves; they have known nothing else from babyhood, and will know nothing else till they are shovelled into the earth. It would be far cheaper to the country to keep them in perpetual imprisonment, but so many objections can be raised to such a scheme that I quest
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THE BROKEN CAIRNGORM.
THE BROKEN CAIRNGORM.
I had to take Jess Murray for her share in a very bold robbery, in which a commercial traveller, peaceably walking home to his hotel, had been waylaid and stripped of pocket-book, purse, and watch, the haul altogether amounting to upwards of £100 in value, the greater part of which was not his own. The gentleman could give no description of the men, but remembered that they had been assisted at a critical moment by a woman, who, so far as he could judge, was tall and handsome, and not very old.
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THE ROMANCE OF A REAL CREMONA.
THE ROMANCE OF A REAL CREMONA.
A grand ball was being given one night in November at the mansion of the Earl of ———, a great castellated place a good bit within a hundred miles of this city. The dancing room was a perfect picture—the floor polished mahogany in mosaic work, the walls panelled in white flowered satin, with gold slips at the edges, and the whole lighted by hundreds of wax candles inserted in brackets and chandeliers of cut crystal, glittering with pendants, while flashing in the head-dresses and on the necks and
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THE SPIDER AND THE SPIDER-KILLER.
THE SPIDER AND THE SPIDER-KILLER.
In some of the isles of the Pacific, I have been told, it is not uncommon for a spider, while in the act of seizing and sucking the heart’s blood of a tender and juicy fly, to be himself pounced upon by a larger insect peculiar to the clime, having as keen a zest for raw spider as the spider has for fresh fly. Nature repeats itself in all its grades and conditions. Human spiders abound among my “bairns,” but then fortunately the spider-devourer occasionally crops up in the same class. In passing
36 minute read
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THE SPOILT PHOTOGRAPH.
THE SPOILT PHOTOGRAPH.
The photographer had put up a rickety erection in shape of a tent close to the grand stand at Musselburgh race-course. He was a travelling portrait-taker, and his “saloon” was a portable one, consisting of four sticks for the corners and a bit of thin cotton to sling round them. There was no roof, partly from poverty and partly to let in more light. It was the first day of the races, and masses of people had been coming into the place by every train and available conveyance. The photographer’s n
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THE STOLEN DOWRY.
THE STOLEN DOWRY.
In a public-house in the Saltmarket of Glasgow there had been a leak in a barrel of spirits which stood in a dark corner inside the counter. The whisky was pure and unreduced as it came from the distillery. Before being retailed it would have been mixed with water in certain proportions, according, to the price labelled on the fancy-painted casks ranged along the wall, to which it would have been partly transferred on the day after its arrival. As it happened, however, that particular barrel was
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McSWEENY AND THE MAGIC JEWELS.
McSWEENY AND THE MAGIC JEWELS.
A kick from a brute having iron toe-plates on his boots had placed me on the sick, or rather the lame, list, and so the scientific gentleman, with his strange story of robbery, was referred to M c Sweeny. The gentleman, who was well known as an author and student, and whom I may here name Mr Hew Stafford, insisted that none but the very cleverest and most acute detective on the staff could properly follow and understand the almost supernatural events connected with the robbery of the jewels, and
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BENJIE BLUNT’S CLEVER ALIBI.
BENJIE BLUNT’S CLEVER ALIBI.
How Benjie Blunt came to get his name I never could discover—possibly it was prompted by the law of contrariety, because Benjie was so sharp. His real name had not the remotest resemblance to this, but as he refused to answer to that, he was always put down in the prison books as Benjamin Blunt. Benjie’s vanity was much greater than his acquisitiveness. He liked to boast of the feats he had done, hence the cases in which he was mixed up generally showed a superlative degree of ingenuity and cunn
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JIM HUTSON’S KNIFE.
JIM HUTSON’S KNIFE.
Jim’s mother touched me on the arm as I ushered him into the Police Court for the first time. I remember it all as well as if it had happened yesterday. She had been loitering about the lobby, tearful and oppressed, but was roused as by an electric shock when “James Hutson!” was shouted out, and echoed through the corridor. She gripped my arm as I was hurrying him in at the door, and the whole arm attached to those rigid fingers shook as with an ague. The tearful eyes brimmed over freely, and th
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THE HERRING SCALES.
THE HERRING SCALES.
The hawker of the herrings was not of the class usually seen in the streets of Edinburgh, where they seldom own more than the wheel-barrow containing the fish. He was a man of some substance, having a donkey to draw his cart, and a number of pigs, and a big garden, in which he worked during his spare hours. The place in which he lived is a town some miles from Edinburgh, and the time when the quarrel began the month of July. The quarrellers were a baker named Dan Coglin, and the herring hawker a
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ONE LESS TO EAT.
ONE LESS TO EAT.
The number of mysterious disappearances in great cities can be calculated upon with almost the same certainty as the death rate. A very few of these are accounted for; a body is found and identified, or a man vanished is found to have been in difficulties, and it is shrewdly or rashly surmised that he has fled to escape the consequences; but the majority of the cases pass into the great unknown, so far as either police or public are concerned. No. 7 Hill Place, at the South Side, leads to a back
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THE CAPTAIN’S CHRONOMETER.
THE CAPTAIN’S CHRONOMETER.
The captain had come home with honours—that is, he had saved the ship and a very valuable cargo under his care by sheer bravery and indomitable energy, and been presented with the chronometer by the combined owners in token of their appreciation of his labours. That pleasing memento he carried in his pocket, enclosed in a little chamois leather cover to keep it from dust and wear. It was a ship chronometer, and therefore not meant for use on land or carrying in the pocket; but the captain was pr
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THE TORN TARTAN SHAWL.
THE TORN TARTAN SHAWL.
A servant in a house at the outskirts of the city had been tempted by the clear air and dry frost to leave a whole “washing” of things out over night. She wanted them to get a nip of the frost, she said, but instead they got a nip of another kind. The girl woke at four o’clock in the morning and happened to look out at the green, when the clothes were there all right. She rose again at six, and, looking out, had to rub her eyes to make sure that she was not still in bed and dreaming. Nearly the
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A LIFT ON THE ROAD.
A LIFT ON THE ROAD.
A curious difficulty sometimes faces the administrators of the law in dealing with some of that numerous class known as swindlers. A man calls at various houses and represents that he is a clergyman in want or distress, and thus gets money. Some one sharper than the rest runs him down, and he is caught and charged; when, lo! it turns out that the so-called rogue—and rogue he generally is—has actually been a clergyman, and of course is, in common with all broken men, actually in want. The result
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THE ORGAN-GRINDER’S MONEY-BAG.
THE ORGAN-GRINDER’S MONEY-BAG.
When the organ-grinder appeared in a distracted state at the Office, his face was quite familiar to me through seeing him on the streets and at race-courses and other gatherings with his organ. He was a big-bodied, swarthy man, with a full black beard, and, of course, till that moment I had taken him for an Italian. To hear the Irish brogue come pouring in a torrent out of his mouth, therefore, was a little startling. His very grief, and earnestness, and evident unconsciousness of anything ludic
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THE BERWICK BURR.
THE BERWICK BURR.
The first time my attention was directed to Will Smeaton, was by a telegram from a Border town which described his appearance, and stated—a little late, however—that he had escaped in the direction of Edinburgh. The message called for Smeaton’s arrest on suspicion of a very deliberate attempt at murder, the victim being a sweetheart, named Jessie Aimers. The full particulars followed the telegram, and they seemed to leave little doubt of Smeaton’s guilt. Jessie Aimers was a girl of superior educ
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THE WRONG UMBRELLA.
THE WRONG UMBRELLA.
A gentleman drove up to a Princes Street jeweller’s in a carriage or a cab—the jeweller was not sure which, but inclined to think that it was a private carriage—in broad daylight, and at the most fashionable hour. He was rather a pretty-faced young man, of the languid Lord Dundreary type, with long, soft whiskers, which he stroked fondly during the interview with the tradesman, and wore fine clothes of the newest cut with the air of one who was utterly exhausted with the trouble of displaying hi
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A WHITE SAVAGE.
A WHITE SAVAGE.
The woman had a queer and almost crazed look; was miserably clad, with no bonnet on her head, and her hair covered with the “fluff” which flies about factories and covers the workers. I am not sure if she had any covering on her feet; if she had, it must have been some soft material which gave out no more noise than her bare soles would have done. Added to this, she smelled strongly of whisky, though she was not in any way intoxicated. She had come into the Office at the breakfast hour, and pati
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THE BROKEN MISSIONARY.
THE BROKEN MISSIONARY.
The place was called a church, but it was really little more than a mission-house thrown out and partly supported by a religious body in Edinburgh wishing to extend its connection. The town is a few miles from Edinburgh, and the building used for the church had at one time been used as a school, then as a slaughter-house for pigs, and at last, with a little painting and fitting up, as a church or meeting-house. It is not necessary to name the particular sect of which this small church was a part
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A MURDERER’S MISTAKE.
A MURDERER’S MISTAKE.
A toll-keeper on the main road some miles south of Edinburgh was standing at his open door watching the gambols of his two children, when a weary traveller approached and arrested his gaze. There was something uncommon about the dusty tramp when his appearance could rouse interest in an old toll-keeper, accustomed to look with indifference on every kind of wanderer that God’s earth can produce. This one was an old man, tall and gaunt and white-haired. So far there was a bond of interest between
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A HOUSE-BREAKER’S WIFE.
A HOUSE-BREAKER’S WIFE.
Going down the Canongate one day I was accosted by a little treacherous rascal known as Dirty Dick. I suppose he had followed me down the street for the purpose of so addressing me, but at the moment I did not think much of the circumstance. Dick was not particularly dirty in his appearance or person, so it is possible he had got the name rather for some dirty trick or act of treachery. He had the distinction of being heartily despised by every one who knew him, myself included. After a little p
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McSWEENY AND THE CHIMNEY-SWEEP.
McSWEENY AND THE CHIMNEY-SWEEP.
The things were missed from one of the rooms in a house in George Square not many hours after the sweeps had been there, and of course suspicion at once fell upon these men. Who ever trusted a chimney-sweep the length of his own nose? The blackness of their faces is supposed to be nothing to that of their souls, and what was the old and popular portrait of the devil but a chimney-sweep with a tail tacked on? There were three articles taken—a gold bracelet, a very valuable necklet and pendant, an
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THE FAMILY BIBLE.
THE FAMILY BIBLE.
To men of business or wealth, accustomed to handle large sums of money, bank-notes for large sums—such as £50 or £100—suggest nothing but convenience of handling and counting. With those who never owned £50 in their lives it is very different. The sum represented seems fabulously great—a fortune in itself. And then the thing is so small—a little oblong square of paper—so compressible—so thin—that the second stage—that of temptation—easily follows. Fifty or a hundred pounds in gold would be a goo
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CONSCIENCE MONEY.
CONSCIENCE MONEY.
An old man, a jobbing gardener, named Alexander Abercorn, stopped one of the day policemen at the West End one morning in July, and said in great concern and agitation— “Man, I’m afraid this house has been robbed in the night time. And the worst of it is I have the keys, and they’ll be sure to say it’s been done by me.” The house in question was a big one known as the Freelands, and occupied by a Mr Arthurlie and his family. The family were gone to country quarters, and the house was empty even
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A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING.
A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING.
“Once a criminal, always a criminal,” is a pretty safe maxim. When a man—and more especially one of education—is degraded into a thief and a liar, who would believe him if he expressed a wish for a better life? Nay, if he actually did change, and became a very anchorite or saint, would not the whole world howl out “Hypocrite?” In the present case there was neither the profession of repentance nor the desire for a different life. The “Rev. Alfred Johnston,” already alluded to in “A Lift on the Ro
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