Was the Highwayman really a Hero?
"Guyenan History op tue Lives. AND Romentes or tHe Most NovoRiovs Hicuwaveex, FoorrAns, SHoPLirrs, AnD. Citeats 'oP Dorit SEXES."—Dy Cape. Alex, "Smith, aited Hayward." Messrs, Roatedge, London. 16s.
Another illusion shattered One The Indy, to show she, was not afraid took a foveolet out of her pocket, and. played; Clu Vell s iim, play also and. excellently well "upon. hig posture hho ro "Sin" said the tothe Keright In. the coach, "your excellently, and T doubt: not will you please to walk out of the conch, and 1 have the honour to. dane nto with her en the heath?" "Sir;" said the Knight: in the coach, dare' not den; anything. to one of your quality an Good mien; you seem x gentleman, an request is. very reasonable said, the footman, opened. the by one the romantic figures of the out came. the. knight, Da Vall past go down like ninepins before Teaped Tightly off his horse, find handed [the assaults of modern criticism. Now the lady out of the coxch,. They danced and haze ft was that Clu Vall performed. the highwaymen—Turpin, Duval, Tarcels, the best ming ters in London, and the rest—are shown except thor thut are French, not being third-rate petty criminals, and th ble to thow such footing as ho did in by one of their contemporaries, his' great French riding. boots.
Captain Alexander Smith, whose 'The dineing being over, he waited on "Generat History of the Lives and the Indy te' her coach, Aa the knight Yeas going in Clu Vail said to Moy, "Bi Robberies of the Most Notorious You have forgotten to pay the musie Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts, No, T have not," replied the knight, id Ckeats of Both Sexes" has re and" putting hin hard under the seat jeontly reappeared, edited by Mr, A. of the conch, he pulled gut £100, ina Hayward. The work was first fine and delivered'i: to him, which Vait took with very gre published in 1719. I recommend it heartily to there cast-iron cynics who profess to believe that human nature jand social conditions have not improved during the last 200 veras, Biche tal ase lith What a crow! one reflects, teasing. this racy anthology of infamous carvers. Captain" Smith does not jevoke one single flash of Romance. No doubt he delighted. unduly in the but glamour would surely there been any about those rascal Restoration period. The women were as bad as the men: in fact, the less said about them the better. The: totality and lewdness of criminal London in those days is almost past It is a pretty picture, quite in the Wardour Street manner, Then tha relentless Smith goes on to tell how mei ie Wala seating ai ase earnest, be wrought tupan the child's tears, nor the ladies!
upon to restore it." Really, one can't admire a steriler of sucking bottles.
The Road to Tyburn Duval was hanged at Tyburn "A Fair Mark" due course, travelling the well-worn road of malefactors. The gibbet What strikes one as most curious stood roughly about where th is the fact that horrible severity and Marble Arch stands to-day; nic graft in the prisons was a feature of the times. Unless you, could the No, 60 bus traverse the site of "square" the jailer, you died by Tyburn Tree, A tablet on the rail-hanging for anything more than "petit lareeny"—that is, the theft of and a triangular stone in the road-an article under the value of 12 peneo—and even the punishment for legs of the gallows rested, Hither petit larceny was ferocious:—The law, which was net repeated unt bellman of St. Sepulchro's near i822," required. that "they, should. be Newgate had already spoken his Surned with a, red-hot iron'in the mo Sisible part The more." The. har.ds ded, and before ling acntenced at out arts tary Old Tniley, thief was required {o Sold up his had that the Court might seo. whether he had been. already" cone Victed acd branded, 'The sentence was cuna. Avie mers Estried' out' in. the "presence of, the saivetion of out dge, and the houeman, where duty it ten onl through. the monte, thy was to apply. the tron, fter: atampine Sind. pension of deans Christ who now culprit reith a herve CPhe mark, my Tord! intsretssion forme fanny' of your ight hand of Go"
the "prsare wth "which Penitentiy reten unto Man lated by the fattes OE the fee the Lov hive meres upon 'Christ have merey cing had) already' slipped into His) and live merey ten Yous And yst it wax not the ferocity of christ Rave isetey oon you." this sort of punishment that caused The Ghastly End rime to decrease. Crime flourished) jay atone w rection' were particularly severe. yr po ing feet te calve the 'The paradox is worth, consideration money and make suitable avvonn even now. foftn. An for dose Claude Davat ome' part on their shroud tion, others went attired The excellent Captain Smith, to be biods." But. whatever the 60 sure, specialized in biographies of Eractonse addition rix alwnss Exshion "the herapen erava™ uitead the baser sort of thief, so that one netted round the neck, 4 is led to the conclusion that there About the gallows crowds had was precious little romantic crime gathered, some of the more prose ito write about. His highwaymen are Derous on the sallevies of seats let few and far between, and they apat half a crown or thereabouts by pear but sorry brutes in his "Mammy Douglas, the Tyburn pow chronicle. Even Claude Duval of opener." Under the crors-beams of the glorious legend—"Du Val the gibbet the executioner stopped Captain Smith calls him—fell very his cart. Perhaps the condemned far short of the Hollywood standards person had a "dying speech" to de-for heroes, iver. but the hangman bad little Duval seems to have been born in Domfront in Normandy—though time to spare. A crack of his whip, and the cart moved off from under there were those who say he sprang from no farther afield than Smock the fect of the wretch who had, pertolen a sheep, and left kim Alley, without Bishopsgate. At alli events, he fol-owed a party of young English gentlemen to Paris in his that was criminal procedure boyhood, was employed as an errand-in the 18h eeptury, boy in that city, and, on the restora-ald days, forsoati tion of Charles LI, came as a lackey
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.