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are more gelid than those of the neighbouring rivers. It is one of the most delightful of the Sicilian streams. Fazzello terms it the Acis, and on account of classical recollections, I have done the same in my Sicilian fragment, but I fear there is no resisting the crowd of authorities brought forward by Cluverius, who is conclusive, and convicts honest Tommaso of error in this, as in several other instances. The Fiume Freddo has worn itself a bed to a considerable depth; it is rapid, limpid, and as clear as crystal: the banks are everywhere clothed with a profusion of aromatic herbs and flowers; altogether, it is one of the most beautiful streams I ever beheld.

(To be continued.)

SONG.

THE DAYS OF YORE!

BY MRS. CRAWFORD.

AWAKE the harp that slumbers,
The merry harp of old,
And tell, in lightsome numbers,
Of England's age of gold!
When honour won the guerdon,
And merit wore the crest,
And labour from its burden
Found sunny spots for rest

In the days of yore!

Oh! sing the days of glory,
When nobles graced their state,
By deeds that live in story;
When every castle gate
Was open to the stranger;
Then wassail flow'd for all,
And songs of love and danger
Rang through the feudal hall,
In the days of yore!
Wake England's harp to glory!
It will not waken now:
She has no mighty story,
Nor garland for her brow:
No wassail cups are flowing,

To cheer the stranger guest:
No earth with embers glowing,
Where pilgrim feet may rest
As in days of yore!

Bring sallow leaves, that wither
On autumn's chilling breast;
Bring cypress--bring them hither,
Till England's harp is drest.
Now strike the chords to anguish,

For glory past away,

Hark! how the sweet notes languish !

"Tis England's dying lay

For the days of yore!

THE LIFE, OPINIONS, AND PENSILE ADVENTURES OF JOHN KETCH.1

WITH RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS CONTEMPORARIES DURING THE LAST THREE REIGNS.

EDITED BY THE AUTHOR OF "OLD BAILEY EXPERIENCE."

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HAVING arrived at this period of my history, I submitted my writing to my friend the surgeon, who, after making a few corrections, advised me not to give a particular account of all the robberies in which I was concerned; because, in many instances, the circumstances were very similar; besides," as he said, "the principal interest of my life consisted in my having filled the office of hangman so long." For these reasons, therefore, I shall now, as briefly as expedient, slightly touch upon my various changes in life, and hasten on to my appointment to office.

If, indeed, I were to detail every affair in which I was engaged, it would swell this work to a most unconscionable size, and exhaust the patience of my readers. Many times, however, I had nothing to do for months together; but, as said before, I always drew money for my wants. After those two robberies, viz. the coach and the grazier, I was a good deal employed in fetching plate and jewels from noblemen and gentlemen's houses, both in town and country, in every case of which the plans were so well laid, that with common prudence none but a bungler could have failed to carry them with success. I was also employed in the plundering of two banks, and one other coach affair: this I will relate from the peculiar manner in which it was accomplished. One of the partners belonging to a banking-house in the west of England, having most likely heard of our former robbery, had determined, upon all occasions, to travel with the money himself, whether sending it up or bringing it from town. For better security he had a portable strong trunk made, peculiarly banded with brass, having his name and address engraved on it in large letters; in this trunk the money was locked, and then conveyed to the mail-coach by himself, putting it into the seat immediately under where he sate, a particular place always being reserved for him: whenever he had occasion to alight for refreshments, &c. he uniformly took his little trunk in his hand with him, replacing it in the same place when he came back. Our company having information of all his movements, procured a fac simile of the trunk, and learnt when he carried the most money, resolving to possess themselves of it; and this they accomplished in the following manner. The mail-coaches are all made to one pattern; a piece of board was therefore procured, which being placed at the bottom of the seat with a string attached to the end of it, and brought through a hole at the other end, could be drawn from one side of the coach to the other while it was in motion. On this piece of board, or false bottom, it was certain the banker would deposit his trunk, and

Continued from p. 99.

that the person who sate next to him could, by means of the string, draw it under himself. The next object was to place our trunk in the same place, instead of the one we should so remove, and in such a manner as to occasion his taking it for his own; if we had put our trunk at the bottom of the seat, it would have been in the way of removing the other, we therefore made two holes in the lid of the seat, placing another piece of thin board at the bottom; through these holes we brought two strings, by pulling of which we could raise our trunk, and let the other pass under it, then having a piece of string already attached to it, and passed through a hole reaching across the coach door, but on the floor to the person sitting opposite the banker, one pull brought the deceiving trunk into the place of the true one; this being done, it was only necessary to remove the string which was attached to the handle of the trunk, and this, by using a double or endless line, was accomplished in a minute, while in conversation with the owner of the property. If it be asked how we could make these preparations in a mail-coach, I answer, that we had only four holes to bore with a gimlet, the two pieces of board being ready cut to their lengths, and carried into the coach under a cloak; besides, we had secured all the places for thirty miles before the banker was taken up, and had the inside to ourselves. The first time the banker got out, which was to take some supper, one of our party left the coach with the real money trunk, while the owner of it was nursing our bastard between his legs as he used his knife and fork. Three thousand pounds were obtained, upon this occasion, in cash; and twenty thousand pounds in local notes and other securities, afterwards given up on the payment of two thousand more; a compromise the partners of the house thought themselves very fortunate in making.

The extent of this robbery was never made known to the public, for the times were ticklish with bankers, and the credit of the house not very good; prudence, therefore, prompted them to make as little stir as possible upon the occasion, well knowing the public are sure to magnify the amount lost, and therefrom predict the ruin of the house, especially if the parties have enemies; and who, it may be asked, in this money-disturbing country is without them?

Upon another occasion I was engaged in robbing a bank in Scotland. A person upon the spot took moulds in wax of all the keys connected with the premises, to which we had new keys made here in London by a smith kept for the purpose, all of which, when brought into use, were found to act as well as the original keys made to the locks. The banking premises were very strongly built and securely fastened, two clerks slept upon the premises, and a man was always day and night kept in the house to guard and watch the place. Under these circumstances our planning agent adopted the following course. He sent a young man of pleasing manners and vocal talents into the town to visit the coffee-rooms, and form an intimacy with the clerks, which a gentlemanly exterior and liberal conduct soon accomplished; he also sent an emissary to form an acquaintanceship with the man who lived in the house. Upon these occasions the usual plan is to find out the party's relations who are living at a distance, and the particular circumstances connected with their locality; these being known, an entire stranger may call, with their remembrances, as if he had just come from the place; when the introduction is made, and country cousinship is insisted on, a frank, manly air, and generosity in treating, seldom fail to establish a permanent intimacy.

In a few months every thing was ready for action, Sunday being fixed upon for the sacking of the bank. One partner, who resided next door to the offices and the iron room which contained the property, it was known would be at church; the two clerks had an engagement to spend

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the day a few miles from home with our colleague, and were therefore sure to be out of the way: but there was still the man upon the premises whom it would be hazardous to attempt to allure from his post, it was, ⚫ therefore, arranged that an opiate should be infused in two bottles of port wine, and that our man, who was now upon familiar terms of friendship, should call upon him in the course of the Sunday morning, and state that he had had a present of half a dozen of wine, and if he (the banker's man) had no objection as soon as dinner was over, he would put a couple of bottles in his pocket and spend the afternoon with him. All our plans succeeded: the man went to sleep, and we got clear off with the property, having seventeen hours before us to make good our retreat; because we had locked all up again, and left the place, bating only its emptiness, as we found it, rendering it improbable that the loss could be discovered until the banking hours of business on the Monday morning. Upon the subject of locks I will here remark, that all the much puffed-off talk about patent locks and their security over those of older times is all a delusion and a humbug. I have myself opened many of the patent locks, having a notched pipe and key to them with nothing but a new strong quill split a little way up, so as when pushed in to spread upwards and reach the works. And the man now employed at Newgate to look over the locks says, that there are few or none of his master's locks (Messrs. B. and Co.) which he could not open with nothing but the quill, if they be not over weighty and massive, wherein it is strength, not art, which resists the instrument used in picking them. I remember a convict who was on board the hulks with me, that told a committee of the House of Commons who examined him, he was willing to suffer death, if they could bring him any lock which he could not pick with his own instruments; in consequence of this declaration, he was shown some supposed to be the most difficult, which he opened instanter. Still the public continue to pay enormous prices for locks under a mistaken notion of having better security; but let no banker put faith in them or in their iron chests, for if any of our company come across them they are but walls of sand to defend their property. Our whitesmith has assured the partners in the concern, (I have been told,) that if they will but bring him the dimensions of a lock and an outside pattern of it, that he will make three keys, one of which he will warrant shall act as effectually as the key used by the owner of the lock. In support of this assertion, I may add, that I was never furnished with a key during the three years and a half I was in the company's service which did not suit the lock for which it was intended. I have long suspected that London, from the highest to the lowest, down to the man who writes the dying speeches for the malefactors, is made up of humbugs, but this patent-lock story I know to be one of the greatest among them all.

A man cannot own a worse property than a bad character; it will always be bringing him into the most perplexing scrapes against his inclinations; besides, none will ever step forward to help him out of them. I was now living all but the life of a gentleman, and if I had never known any other should, like most of the members of our society, have remained in it most likely all my days undisturbed; but my destiny would have it otherwise. I one night went to the theatre, taking a place in the centre of the pit with a female who accompanied me there. When the curtain dropped at the end of the first piece, a little fat citizen called out most lustily that he had just been robbed of his gold repeater, not forgetting to tell all the persons around him that it was capped and jewelled, and that upon his word and honour it was worth fifty-five guineas. The noise occasioned by this circumstance brought in several officers, one of whom knew me, when seeing none other of the family of thieves about, he seized me, declaring aloud that I was a known character; and, although

the watch was never found, locked me up for the night; the next morning, when placed before the magistrate, I protested my innocence; but one of the runners then in the office told the magistrate that I was an old lag and had been on the town all my days; this information, together with the punchy prosecutor's declaration, that he thought he saw me several times reaching over to the place where he sate, occasioned me, contrary to all evidence and known rules of justice, to be committed for trial.

I had a fortnight to stay in Newgate before the sessions came on, which was a period of terrible suspense, because I well knew that all who go up to the bar of the Old Bailey with a character similar to mine are already found guilty and condemned beforehand by the judges who preside there; and it must be a very determined and strong-minded jury which can overcome their influence, when, summing up, they labour so hard for a conviction, right or wrong, when they have an old hand in the trap. The officer who apprehended me had taken from my pockets upwards of forty pounds and a gold watch, he therefore had an interest in buffing it home against me; that is to say, giving the most unfair evidence in order to effect my conviction, in which case he meant to have pocketed my property. Notwithstanding all the unfair treatment I received from the judge, counsellor, and witnesses, the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty, and I obtained my discharge with the loss of ten pounds, the officer protesting that he took only thirty pounds from me in the first instance; and I had no means of disproving his statement, so he plundered me, as many thousands have been in the same manner before and since that day.

Upon my emancipation from prison I was in hopes of returning to my former employment, which I now considered as good as an annuity to me; but whether they thought me guilty, or that the circumstance had brought me too much before the public for their purposes, I know not, but I never afterwards could obtain a line from them, while my purse was fast upon the wane, and at length grew so thin, that I was forced to think of some cure for the disease. Resolving in my own mind never more, if possible, to relapse into the habit of petty or desperate acts of robbery, I, for some time, subsisted upon the sale of my wardrobe, which was rather a substantial one at the time of my apprehension. The people of the house where I lodged were pork-butchers, and soon noticed my change of appearance, to account for which I told them I had lost my father and my income together, but shortly expected to have some money from a relative.

Things every day getting worse, my landlord told me if I liked to be employed that he would, for the present, make me useful in his trade; this being the first opportunity which had in my whole life offered itself of earning an honest shilling, I accepted it, and went to work at sausage cutting, there being no machines for the purpose at that time; I, however, soon got out of this and took to the killing department, in which capacity I remained six months, giving my master great satisfaction. The truth is, that I paid great attention to his business, because I flattered myself that I should now have a trade and be able to set up for myself, so sanguine had I always been that I should at some time become a master and live by honesty; but the sudden death of my employer, who died of apoplexy in consequence of over eating, frustrated all my hopes, and threw me again upon the world of chance: his goods were all sold off by auction, and I was once more sent adrift with only half-a-crown in my pocket, and no other clothes than those upon my back. Not knowing what course to steer, and my mind being fatigued with the fruitless exertion it had made to find out some prudent mode of proceeding, I walked involuntarily to a well-known public-house, where I thought I might obtain

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