collections, he quickly familiarised himself with
the forms and materials of urns, beads, fibulae,
seals, &c.; and to the fabrication of all kinds of
antiques he boldly set to work. The line of
life upon which Jack was now entering necessitated
the strictest secresy: to have had a
confederate or confidant would have risked the ruin
of all his plans. He was obliged to deny
himself the consolations of friendship and the
sweets of love. He spent long years without
a companion; unknown, except to those whom
he invariably duped at their first acquaintance;
avoiding all contact with "travellers" of less
ability, for Jack is a man of ability; and, as a
wanderer and an outcast, he is promising to end
his days.

Accordingly, at the beginning of 1844, we
find Jack at Bridlington, fairly astart in
imposture. In this locality, genuine British flints
are obtainable in the fields in surprising
quantities, and these Jack would sometimes pick up
–they were useful in leavening with a grain of
truth a whole bushelful of impudent falsehoods–
but he chiefly dealt in spurious flints of his own
working. Here he got introduced to a resident
antiquary, for whom–if his own statement be
reliable –he made a collection, six hundred in
number, and of course all warranted genuine, if
need be. At this period, so active was he in
prosecuting his trade, that he ordinarily walked
thirty or forty miles a day, vending his wares
and collecting materials. In the Wold country,
garden rockworks are even yet enriched by
specimens of ancient stone implements–all the
handiwork of clever Flint Jack.

The year 1844 was waning, when Jack
conceived the bright idea of adding to his trade the
manufacture of British and Roman urns. His
first pottery was made on the Bridlington clay.
This was an ancient British urn, which he sold
as genuine, asserting it to have been found
somewhere in the neighbourhood. For a time,
the urn-making business proved the best. But
this new branch of trade necessitated even still
more secresy and still greater knavery. Jack
betook himself to the cliffs, where he set up an
ancient pottery of his own. Here, after modelling
the urns, he placed them beneath the shelter
of an overhanging ledge of rock, out of the reach
of rain, but free to the winds, until dry. Then
came the bakings. These were only required
to be rude and partly effective; the roots, grass,
and brambles afforded the " fire-holding," and
with them he completed the manufacture of his
antiquities.

Jack, however, finding the clay cliff of
Bridlington Bay much too open and exposed,
repaired to the thickly wooded and solitary region
about Stainton Dale, between Whitby and
Scarborough; where he built himself a hut near
Raven's Hall, and used to spend a week at the
time there engaged in the making of urns and
stone implements. After a general "baking-day,"
he would set off, either to Whitby or
Scarborough, to dispose of his "collections"–all of
which he solemnly declared had been found in
(and taken by stealth from) tumuli (pronounced
by him toomoolo) on the moors; his great field of
discovery being the wild wastes between
Kirby-Moorside and Stokesley, where he declares a
man might pass a month without meeting
another human being. Delightful solitude! He
was monarch of all he surveyed; the fear of
detection was reduced to a minimum–and the
general knowledge of antiquities of the British
period was then but small. The urns were all
sold, without incurring the least suspicion.
"Now" (1866), he says, " they would be detected
at once;" being not only too thick in the walls, but
altogether of wrong material, ornament, shape,
and burning. " I often laugh," says Jack, " at
the recollection of the things I used to sell in
those days!" The force of boastful and swagger-ing
roguery can scarcely go much further than
this. Which of the two enjoyed the greater
pleasure–Jack Elint, the cheat, or his clients,
the cheated?

At Pickering, Jack got acquainted with Mr.
Kendall (a gentleman much occupied with
archaeological matters), who showed him a
collection of flints purchased as genuine. Of course
they were of Jack's make. On being asked for
his opinion, in a moment of weakness he frankly
declared that he knew where they came from.
He even set to work to show the method of
manufacture, initiating his patron into the mysteries of
forming " barbs," " hand-celts," and " hammers."
Jack states, in apology and explanation
of his erring for an instant into the ways of
honest men, that Mr. Kendall's kindness
overcame him, and that he resolved, for once, to
speak the truth. He did it, and had no occasion
for regret. He exposed the forgery, and retained
a friend to whom he could look for a trifle when
"hard up."

At Malton he found out the only antiquary
in the place, and immediately set to work to
deceive him. But he also found there a rival (a
barber) in the fabrication of ancient urns. Therefore,
as the hatchet was least understood, he sold
the antiquary one, formed out of a piece of
iron-stone, without the fraud being at the time
detected. This hatchet was alleged to have been
found at Snainton, where Jack said he had
stopped to help some people who were taking up
potatoes in a field near the church. While
digging there he had found the relic, and had refused
to sell it to the landlord of the inn, preferring to
dispose of it at Malton. This, if true, was a bad
speculation, for he sold it for a shilling only.
The hatchet was a very clever forgery indeed. In
order to come at its real history, inquiries were
subsequently made at Snainton; and it was
found that, near the church, there was no tillage
land at all. Hence suspicions of the
implement's genuineness. It is now in the collection
of Doctor Rooke, of Scarborough, and would
deceive the majority of antiquaries at the
present day.

On another visit, Jack played a still bolder
game, and succeeded. In Pickering he found
an old tea-tray, and out of this " valuable" he
set to work to fashion a piece of ancient armour.
His first idea was a shield, but the " boss"