Read Ebook: Charles Peace or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar by Anonymous

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Ebook has 3904 lines and 797395 words, and 79 pages

"'I said to Mrs. Thompson, "I must hook it," and, hastily dressing myself, I bolted through the window and dropped into a yard, where I encountered a man, who was surprised to see me. I told him there was a screw loose, and the bobbies were after me with a warrant for neglecting my wife and family. I asked him not to say I had gone that way. He promised he would not.

"'To leave the yard I had to go through the passage of a public-house, and at the door stood the landlady. She was frightened to see me without stockings or boots on; but when I told her the same tale as I had told the man in the yard she said it was all right, and I passed on.

"'I took refuge in a house not forty yards from that I had left, and in a short time I got the woman who kept it to go for my boots, and she brought them.

"'Soon after that I did a "big silk job" in Nottingham, and then, finding the place was getting too hot for me, I left it and went back to Hull. I had made several visits there before, and had given my wife money to maintain her.'

"Peace then told us how he paid no less than three visits to Sheffield after the murder, and more than once encountered one of the most astute and experienced inspectors of the force, but his disguise was so perfect that he passed unnoticed.

"Whilst in Sheffield he committed, he said, several robberies, and he particularly called attention to his adventures in a house at the corner of Havelock-square. 'Do you mean,' we asked, 'at Barnascone's,' and he said, 'Yes, that was the place. The family were out, and there I did very well. I got several rings, and brooches, and ?6 in gold. The policeman said he saw me, but he didn't. I saw him and blocked him, and he never saw me.'

"Peace declared to us that he was in Sheffield when the inquest was held on Mr. Dyson. Afterwards he returned to Nottingham, picked up with Mrs. Thompson, and went on to London with her, where his life and exploits are now matter of history.

"Peace went on to mention the names of several Sheffield people whom he met at different periods in London; and that part of his astonishing story has been confirmed in a remarkable degree by one of the persons himself.

"More than a quarter of a century ago he worked in Sheffield with Mr. William Fisher--in those days known as Bill Fisher--and they remembered each other very well. One day Mr. Fisher was walking across the Holborn-viaduct, when he saw the well-remembered figure approaching him.

"Their eyes met, and Mr. Fisher exclaimed--'That's Peace!' He turned to look again, but Peace had disappeared as if by magic, and was nowhere to be seen. About a week after, Mr. Fisher was going down the steps leading from Holborn to Farringdon-street, and about midway he again encountered Peace.

"Mr. Fisher gave information to the Sheffield police, and the news was sent to Scotland-yard that Peace was in London.

"'But what,' said Peace, 'was the use of that, when I could walk under their very noses and not be recognised?'

"Again a demoniacal grin overspread his face, and again he went through a series of pantomimic gestures, and set us all laughing.

"It has been conceded that he could be exceedingly good company when he liked, and we assure you he had our attention whilst he related these, the most extraordinary chapters in his history."

The personal appearance of Peace is thus described by one who paid a visit to Newgate while the burglar was awaiting his trial. He is a man about 5 ft. 3 in., with white hair on his head, cut very close, and bald in front of the head; but the razor had lately done this.

His eyebrows are heavy and overhanging the eyes, which are deeply sunk in their sockets; a chin standing very prominently--and, as if to make it more so, the head was thrown back with an air of half self-assertion, yet half-caution.

The lower part of his cheek-bones protruded more than was their wont in years gone by; but he had apparently some bruises recently, and had had his whiskers shaven off since he was last seen at Sheffield.

In addition he wore a pair of large brass-rimmed spectacles. Peace was professedly a religious man. The neighbourhood thought him so, and probably he thought so, too; so he associated with the good folk who congregated in the edifice, but never made himself conspicuous.

He trifled with Fate. She had made him rich in worldly goods, although they were not his own. Some idea of the magnitude of his operations may be gathered from the fact that there is evidence in the hands of the police that would convict him of no less than fifty burglaries.

The property he obtained is valued at several thousand pounds, but the burglar as a rule does not realise even one-fourth of the value of the property he appropriates.

The charges of "receivers" in every branch of the profession are of an unusual character, but it has been asserted upon reliable authority that he was a burglar years before the events which have made him so notorious.

It is quite twenty years since he worked at a rolling mill at Millsands, and it was while following this employment that he broke his leg. This accident appears to have thoroughly disgusted him with hard work, and as soon as the injuries were cured he went to Manchester.

Here he appears to have fallen into bad company, and to have been the leading spirit of a gang of burglars. In the small hours of the morning Peace and his confederates were tracked to a lonely house at Rusholme, and the police succeeded in obtaining an entrance.

After a desperate struggle Peace was secured, and a great quantity of the stolen property was recovered, but not before the officers had been severely handled. At Old Trafford he was sent to penal servitude, but he played the "good boy" and was let out on a ticket-of-leave.

After his Old Trafford sentence he returned to Sheffield and took a small shop in Kenyon-alley. Here he used to amuse his acquaintances by showing them the dexterity with which he could pick the most stubborn lock. He soon resumed his old courses, and made the acquaintance of Millbank.

The career of the notorious culprit whose doings are chronicled in this work furnishes the novelist with a moral. It will be clearly demonstrated to those who peruse these pages that, sooner or later, justice overtakes the guilty, and that it is impossible for the most astute and cunning scoundrel--such as Peace has proved himself to be--to escape punishment.

A life of crime is always a life of care, for the hearts of the guilty tremble for the past, for the present, and for the future. The author of the "Life of Peace" reprobates in the strongest degree that species of literature whose graduates do their best to cast a dignity upon the gallows, and strive to shed the splendour of fascinating romance upon the paths of crime that lead to it--to make genius tributary to murder, and literature to theft, to dignify not the mean but the guilty.

Let crime and its perpetrators be depicted as conscience sees them, as morality brands them; let them stand out in prominent but repulsive relief. There is yet wanted a picture of crime and its consequences true to nature and conscience, and it is hoped that the present serial will, in some measure, supply that want.

The author proposes to present to his readers the felon as he really is--to describe facts as they were found--to present pure pictures of guilt and its accompaniments.

He does not desire to make use of artificial colouring, believing that the interest in the work lies in its reality. The felon appears just as he is, as crime makes him, and as Newgate receives him--successful, it may be, for a season, but arrested, condemned, scourged by conscience, and cut off from society as unfit for its walks.

Of all the members of the family of man few have been so rapidly forgotten as those who have been swept from the face of the world by the fiat of the law and the hands of the public executioner. Yet the guilty and the unfortunate have left biographies behind them that speak to future generations in awful and impressive tones.

If they were inflictions on the past generation, they may be made useful in the present age as beacons to the reckless voyager--voices lifted up from the moral wrecks of the world speaking audibly to listening men "of righteousness, and temperance, and judgment."

OAKFIELD FARMHOUSE--THE BURGLARY--DESPERATE ENCOUNTER--VILLAGERS TO THE RESCUE.

Our first scene opens at a picturesque-looking farmhouse situated on the outskirts of a pretty little village within a few miles of Hull. Oakfield Farmhouse--so called from a number of patriarchal oaks poising their lofty heads in the rear of the establishment--was in the occupation of two substantial yeomen named respectively John and Richard Ashbrook, their only sister Maude being mistress of the bright and cheerful abode.

In the earlier portion of the day our two Yorkshire farmers had been out on a shooting expedition. They brought back with them two friends--fellow-sportsmen. They were driven home by the rain, which fell in torrents, and rendered further sport impracticable.

"I knowed how it would be," said Richard Ashbrook to his companions. "These beastly river fogs always bring wet, and the clouds have been as 'bengy' for some time--as bengy as could be."

When the party reached Oakfield their garments were saturated with wet, and clung to them like a second skin.

"I have got a fire in the big bedroom--a good blazing fire--for I guessed how it would be," said Maude Ashbrook, as she received her guests at the door. "You'll all of you have to change your things. Mercy on us, you are dripping wet, John!" she exclaimed, placing her hand on her brother's shoulder.

"Our friends will stop and have a morsel of something to eat and drink for the matter o' that," observed Richard.

"Indeed no--I think not," said Mr. Jamblin, one of the farmer's companions.

"Ah, but he will," returned the farmer. "None of yer think nots. Come, friends, get thee in. We don't intend to part with thee so easily."

Mr. Jamblin smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and obeyed. The other friend of the farmer's, a Mr. Cheadle by name, followed Jamblin.

After dinner had been served, "clean glasses and old corks" were festively proposed by the host. Some bottles of genuine spirits and a box of Havannas were placed on the board; an animated discussion on things agricultural and political followed, while ever and anon Jamblin and Cheadle would rise from their seats, repair to the window, and, flattening their noses against the panes thereof, would endeavour to distinguish a star in the sky, or the first beams of the rising moon.

But the sky remained black and gloomy, and continual pattering of the rain was distinctly heard.

"It's no good, my fine fellows," observed Richard Ashbrook. "You are in for it. The rain has set in for good, so you had better make up your minds to stop where you are. 'Any port in a storm,' as my uncle the captain used to say. Nobody will ever expect you home, such a night as this."

"Oh, bother your buts! I tell you I've got a couple of beds for ye. They are small iron bedsteads, both in the same room; but you don't mind roughing it for one night, surely."

The farmer's two friends accepted the offer, and prepared themselves to pass the hours merrily. This they had no difficulty in doing.

Several games of whist were played, after which the host was called upon for a song. He was not quite in tune, but that did not matter. The other singers were equally deficient in that respect; but what was wanting in skill was made up by noise.

Most of the ditties had a good, rattling chorus, which each singer interpreted according to his own fancy. After sundry libations, and much protestation of friendship and good-fellowship, the hour arrived for repose, and the two farmers, their visitors, and Maude betook themselves to their respective sleeping apartments.

As Richard, who was the last, was about to ascend the stairs, he was touched gently on the elbow by a tall long-haired young woman, who was one of the domestics in the establishment.

"Well, Jane, what's up now, lass?" inquired the farmer.

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