Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/248

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EFFECT OF EXAMPLE.

liberate those four villains, who had contributed by their example,—but more by their impunity,—to induce that equally graceless villain, Finney, to take away the two boys (17 and 15 respectively) by the same species of villainy as they had practised.

When the keeper of Newgate opened the six pieces of paper which contained his directions respecting the disposal of the six men under his care, he must have resembled much the drawer of the state lottery, "just two blanks to a prize;" only the fortune he unfolded was of deeper interest, and replete with more painful sensations of grief, national shame, disgust and horror, at every turn up, whether these were the blanks or prizes of the unseemly envelopes which contained—death to the innocent, or life to the guilty.

Let us ask ourselves a question.—What would have been the conduct of Limbrick, if one or more of the five hellish scoundrels had undergone the sentence of the law? Would he have kept in tow this new scoundrel Finney? When the latter was known to him as a passer of bad notes for many months, did nothing pass upon the subject? Yes, most assuredly; and we might venture to predict the words of the conversation, which