Again, though he knows his subject, and can patter
flash with the best, his incorrigible respectability leads him to ape
the manner of a Grub Street hack, and to banish to a vocabulary those
pearls of slang which might have added vigour and lustre to his somewhat
tiresome page. However, the thief cannot escape his inevitable defects.
The vanity, the weakness, the sentimentality of those who are born
beasts of prey, yet have the faculty of depredation only half-developed,
are the foes of truth, and it is well to remember that the autobiography
of a rascal is tainted at its source. A congenial pickpocket, equipped
with the self-knowledge and the candour which would enable him to
recognise himself an outlaw and justice his enemy rather than an
instrument of malice, would prove a Napoleon rather than a Vaux. So that
we must e'en accept our Newgate Calendar with its many faults upon its
head, and be content. For it takes a man of genius to write a book,
and the thief who turns author commonly inhabits a paradise of the
second-rate.
GEORGE BARRINGTON
AS Captain Hind was master of the road, George Barrington was (and
remains for ever) the absolute monarch of pickpockets. Though the art,
superseding the cutting of purses, had been practised with courage and
address for half a century before Barrington saw the light, it was his
own incomparable genius that raised thievery from the dangerous valley
of experiment, and set it, secure and honoured, upon the mountain height
of perfection.
Pages:
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154