one of these men is afterwards caught and
identified, and beyond distinct personal
recognition a peculiarity in the nailing of his
heavy boots is found to match exactly with
one set of footprints in the garden, he
declares that he can prove an alibi. Of
course he can. Offence and defence are alike
of the most elementary description. It is
not every one who has mastered the mere
elements of the art here discussed, who will
be found able to advance to the practice of
its higher branches.

SECTION THE FOURTH. OF THIEVES.

We descend as we advance on the broad
highway of gain by depredation. It is baser
to thieve than to rob; it is yet baser to
swindle than to thieve. The child who tears
openly the sugar from the mother's hand and
eats it, commits a robbery, which is, in the
act, a theft without a lie. The child who
steals the sugar from the basin, when the
mother looks another way, in being a thief,
adds to robbery the lie of concealment.
The child who gets the sugar from the
mother by presenting a forged order from
the father, in being a swindler, adds to
robbery the utmost lie. Few children are
swindlers. When society is in its infancy the
Predatory Art advances but a little way
beyond some general diffusion of a rude
habit of robbery. In the middle ages we
read of the forcible descent of knights, from
castles upon hill-tops, whence they spy the
coming of the caravan of traders,—of the
wresting of possessions from each other by
kings and commoners.

The art has advanced greatly of late. It
has, like natural and mechanical philosophy,
made rapid strides during the last thirty or
forty years. A knight is now able to plunder
traders and wayfarers, from a bank in the
city, much more quietly, although indeed
more cruelly, than from a castle in the desert;
great potentates can aim at the conquest of
ground by treatise based on maps conveniently
incorrect, and commoners now plunder
one another by the use of such weapons as
were scarcely known in days when the billmen
went with the bowmen, and portended to
cross-bills broken heads rather than broken
hearts.

Theft is achieved by sleight of hand,
swindling by sleight of wit. A thief may
yet have principle enough to make it impossible
for him to descend or advance—descent
being advance in this art, as I have repeated
frequently—impossible for him to advance
to the position of a swindler. He may steal
secretly from a pocket, a till, or a house, and
use much skill in concealment. I leave him
hidden among his ways. Let it suffice to
mention Agar; who, by dexterity, obtained the
keys of a great gold chest, and who, having
taken out the gold, sent lead across the waters.

SECTION THE FIFTH. OF SWINDLING.

Sawardus, commonly known as the lawyer,
or as Jem the Penman, was a barrister-at-law
of the Inner Temple, and of the Home Circuit.
Dissatisfied with the slow course of
prosperity as a junior barrister, he betook
himself to the Predatory Art, and, in the first
instance, practised only as a thief's assistant.
He kept a large number of skeleton keys for
the use of thieves, and afterwards advanced
to the very low position which he now takes
among foremost swindlers. Sawardus, being
clever with his pen, could, in half-an-hour,
perfect an imitation of whatever signature
was placed before him. Common thieves,
having obtained blank cheques by any chance
from houses or from pockets, would leave
those cheques to be dealt with by the penman.
He would find out some person keeping
an account with the firm to whose banking
business the cheques might pertain; he
would, by help of an accomplice, and of many
false names borne in many lodgings taken for
the nonce, obtain a letter from such person,
and then, filling the cheque up with an imitation
of his handwriting and signature, would,
in his name, demand of the bank in question
pounds by the hundred. Upon this principle
a cheque and bill business was established by
a firm of swindlers, with Sawardus at its
head. Sawardus was the forger, but
another was the sender, and it was the
sender's business to find innocent persons
who should be used as the presenters of
the cheques. The heels of the presenter
were dogged by a member of the firm, who
served as follower; and, if any hitch occurred,
this person gave timely notice to his partners,
or when the cheque was cashed,
followed the bearer of the money to insure
its due delivery to those who had earned it
by their predatory skill. The money so
delivered was divided fairly among the
respective members of the firm, a double share
being allowed to the person bringing the
cheque, of which use was made. If
Sawardus had obtained, in course of business,
not a blank cheque, but a good commercial
signature, he would find out in what
banker's eyes the signature was good, and
would engage a common pickpocket, working
in such case by the job, to find some blank
cheques on that banking firm. On one occasion
arrest was made of an innocent presenter,
who was tried by mistake for a member of
the firm, and sentenced to transportation.
The firm met and consulted on the subject.
It was decided that it might produce unpleasant
consequences were one of them to
interfere with the appointed course of law,
but, paying a sovereign a-piece, they sent out
of their secret charity five pounds to the wife
of the man whom they had ruined.
Hardwiccus—a distinguished member of this firm—
kept an account of his own at Coutts's.

Happy is that professor of the Predatory
Art who can direct a predatory bank or company,
or who has been trusted with the books
and money of trustworthy associations.