Memoirs of James Hardy Vaux/Volume 2/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
HAVING withdrawn myself from my late companions, I now became very circumspect in my proceedings; and as Bromley had neither the appearance nor the manners of a gentleman, I only made use of him occasionally in the course of my practice, keeping him in the back ground to receive and carry any articles which I purloined, and never suffering him to converse with, or approach me except in private. I generally spent the mornings, that is, from about one o'clock to five P. M. (which are the fashionable hours for shopping) in visiting the shops of Jewellers, Watchmakers, Pawnbrokers, &c. Having conceived hopes that this species of robbery would turn to a good account, and depending upon my own address and appearance, I determined to make a circuit of the town, and not to omit a single shop in either of those branches: and this scheme I actually executed so fully, that I believe I did not leave ten untried in all London, for I made a point of commencing every day in a certain street and went regularly through it on both sides the way. My practice was to enter a shop and request to look at gold seals, chains, broaches, rings, or any other small articles of value; and while examining them, and looking the shopkeeper in the face, I contrived by slight of hand to conceal two or three (sometimes more) in the sleeve of my coat, which was purposely made wide. On some occasions I purchased a trifling article to save appearances; at other times I took a card of the shop, promising to call again; and as I generally saw the remaining goods returned to the window, or place from whence they were taken, before I left the shop, there was hardly a probability of my being suspected, or of the property being missed. In the course of my career I was never once detected in the fact, though on two or three occasions, so much suspicion arose, that I was obliged to exert all my effrontery, and to use very high language, in order, as the cant phrase is, to bounce the tradesman out of it; and my fashionable appearance, and affected anger at his insinuations, had always the effect of convincing him that he was mistaken, and inducing him to apologize for the affront put upon me. I have even sometimes carried away the spoil notwithstanding what had passed, and I have often gone a second and third time to the same shop, with as good success as at the first. To prevent accidents however, I made it a rule never to enter a second shop with any stolen property about me; for as soon as I quitted the first, I privately conveyed my booty to Bromley, who was attending my motions in the street, and herein I found him eminently useful. By this course of depredation I acquired on the average about ten pounds a week, though I sometimes neglected shopping for several days together. This was not, indeed, the only pursuit I followed, but was my principal morning's occupation; though if a favourable opportunity offered of getting a guinea by any other means, I never let it slip. In the evenings I generally attended one of the theatres, where I mixed with the best company in the boxes, and at the same time that I enjoyed the amusements of the place, I frequently conveyed pocket-books, snuff-boxes, and other portable articles, from the pockets of their proprietors into my own. Here I found the inconvenience of wanting a suitable companion, who might have received the articles I made prize of, in the same manner as Bromley did in the streets; but though I knew many of the light-fingered gentry, whose appearance fitted them for any company, yet, their faces being well known to the police-officers, who attend the Theatres, they would not have been suffered to enter the house: and herein I possessed an advantage which many of these gentry envied me; for being just arrived in England, and a new face upon the town, I carried on my depredations under the very noses of the officers, without suspicion. Having therefore, at first no associate, I was obliged to quit the Theatre and conceal my first booty in some private spot before I could make (with prudence) a second attempt. Upon the whole I was very successful in this pursuit also, at least as to the number of articles I filched, and had their value been reasonably proportionate to what I expected, I need not long have followed so hazardous an employment. I have very frequently obtained nine or ten pocket-books, besides other articles, in an evening; and these being taken from gentlemen evidently of fortune and fashion, I had reason to expect I should sometime meet with a handsome sum in Bank-notes; but fortune did not favour me therein, for during near twelve months almost nightly attendance at one or other of the public places, I never found more than twenty pounds in a book, and that only on one occasion. I several times got five, ten, or eleven pounds, but commonly one, two, or three pounds, and most generally four books out of five contained nothing but letters, memorandums, and other papers, useless to me. At the same time I knew frequent instances of the common street pick-pockets getting booty of fifty, one hundred and sometimes three or four hundred pounds. However, I never failed to pay the expenses of the night, and if I gained nothing, I enjoyed at least a fund of amusement, which was to me the highest gratification. It sometimes happened that the articles I got (particularly pocket-books) were advertised by the losers, within a few days, as "Lost" and a reward offered for their restoration: where this reward was worth notice, I frequently restored the property by means of a third person whom I could confide in, and whom I previously tutored for the purpose.
In the mean time, the manner in which I spent my life, abstracted from the disgraceful means by which I supported myself, was (as I have formerly hinted,) perfectly regular and inoffensive. Though I lived by depredation, yet I did not like the abandoned class of common thieves, waste my money, and leisure time in profligate debauchery, but applied myself to the perusal of instructive and amusing books, my stock of which I daily increased. I occupied genteel apartments in a creditable house, the landlord of which understood me to hold a situation under Government, and every part of my conduct at home tended to confirm his opinion of my respectability. I was scrupulously exact in paying my rent, as well as the different tradesmen in the neighbourhood, with whom I had occasion to deal; nor did I ever suffer any person of loose character to visit me, but studiously concealed from those of my acquaintance my place of residence. I was sometimes, indeed, so imprudent as to resort, for company's sake, to some of those public-houses frequented by thieves and other dissolute characters, the landlord of which is himself commonly an experienced thief, or returned transport. When I had a mind to relax a little, or grew tired of domestication, I disguised my appearance as much as I could and repaired to a house of this description, sometimes taking my Dulcinea with me, whom I shall shortly introduce to the reader, and whose person and dress I was not a little proud of exhibiting in public. This fondness for flash-houses, as they are termed, is the rock on which most persons who live by depredation unhappily split, and will be found in the sequel to have brought me to my present deplorable condition; for the police officers, or traps, are in the daily habit of visiting these houses, where they drink with the thieves, &c., in the most familiar manner; and, I believe, often obtain secret information by various means from some parties respecting the names, characters, pursuits, &c., of others. By this imprudent conduct I also became personally known to many of the officers, which was productive of great danger to me in the exercise of my vocation; whereas, had I avoided such houses, I might have remained unknown and unsuspected by them for a series of years. I ought not to omit what may perhaps gratify the reader, as much as the act did myself, namely, that as soon as I became possessed of a moderate sum, I remembered the kindness shewn me by the good woman at Gosport, and wrote her a letter of thanks, enclosing a five-pound bank-note, which, no doubt, proved highly acceptable. I also from time to time assisted my aged mother, whose circumstances were extremely narrow, and her support derived solely from the earnings of my two sisters, whose success depending on the caprice of fashion and of milliners, both alike inconstant, was but precarious. They, as well as my other relations in Sshire, were indeed totally ignorant of my unhappy relapse into a life of infamy, but believed my assertion, that I had a liberal salary from Mr. Belt, and was still employed under that gentleman in the Crown-office.
About three months after my return to London, and whilst in the zenith of my success, I was introduced by one of my former dissolute companions to the acquaintance of a young woman, who, like myself, had been well and tenderly brought up, but having been seduced by a young man equally inexperienced with herself, to quit her friends and cohabit with him as his wife, she had thereby forfeited the countenance of her family, and her paramour having died after a year's cohabitation, she had been driven to the usual refuge in such cases, a life of prostitution. At the period of my introduction, however, she had been only a few months upon the town, and I clearly perceived that her mind was yet but very slightly contaminated. As there were many reasons which rendered a female companion in whom I could place confidence, desirable, and in fact necessary to me; and as this young woman's misfortunes had placed her in such circumstances, that I had no obstacles to surmount on the score of delicacy, I proposed to her, after a few days' acquaintance, that we should live together; to which, as she was heartily tired of her present course of life, she willingly consented. She knew enough of the world from her late experience, to surmise in what manner I obtained my living, of which, however, to avoid all duplicity, I fully possessed her. Having informed my landlord, that my wife, whom I had not before mentioned to him, was arrived in town from a visit she had been paying in the country, I accordingly took her home; and in a very few days we had arranged a pretty snug system of domestic economy, and provided every requisite for the family life I meant in future to live. My companion was the daughter of an industrious mechanic, who, having a numerous offspring, had only been enabled to give her a common education; but her mother had instructed her in the duties of housekeeping, and she was perfectly conversant in all the qualities requisite to form a good wife. She was about nineteen years of age, agreeable in her person, and of the sweetest disposition imaginable; and what was most gratifying, the company she had latterly mixed with, and the disgusting examples before her eyes, had not been able to eradicate an innate modesty which she naturally possessed; so that her manners and conversation were such as fitted her for any company to which I might be inclined to introduce her. I informed my mother and sisters that I was on the point of contracting a union with this young woman, and having made them personally acquainted, the three young ladies soon became very intimate. As my mother and sisters but rarely called at my lodgings, and then merely en passant, I had no difficulty in concealing the connexion from them until I could with propriety declare my marriage to have taken place. We had the happiness of finding ourselves mutually pleased with each other, and I considered my meeting with so amiable a friend as one of the greatest blessings of my life. In a few weeks after our junction, my partner discovered evident symptoms of pregnancy, which with her affectionate behaviour, and real attachment to my interest, endeared her still more to me. In a word, I now felt myself as happy as any man daily risking his liberty and life, and exposed to the reproaches of his own conscience, could possibly be.