an officer at Whitechapel Court, where he got
into debt and difficulty from being too lenient
to poor persons he arrested. He then
became acquainted with several gangs of thieves,
who persuaded him to rob on the highway.
Turning king's evidence, he was confined in
the Fleet for debt, and, being allowed the
liberty of the rules, opened an alehouse in
the Old Bailey. He then turned false witness,
and eventually was thrown into Newgate;
on coming out, he took to the road. While
under sentence he preserved an outward
decorum in chapel, but at other times flew
into passions, and threatened to murder the
keepers.

There is scarcely any trial that does not
contain some touch of human interest, or that
does not at least serve to show how much
safer London streets and suburban roads are
now than they were a little more than a
hundred years ago. For instance, in February,
1730, Ferdinand Shrimpton and Robert Drummond
were indicted for robbing Jonathan
Collings, a carrier, in the Hampstead-road, of a
bay gelding, and two panniers full of pork. The
highwaymen were tracked to the Anchor Inn at
Weybridge, there locked into their room by
stratagem, and disarmed. They had some time
before stopped a gentleman in the Kingsland-
road, and shot his servant. They were found
guilty, and hung at Tyburn, April 17, 1730.
They owned to nine or ten robberies a night.
Shrimpton was the son of a highwayman, who
had been hung for murder. He himself had been
a soldier, and died impenitent, laughing and
jesting to the last moment. Drummond had
been a dealer in hardwares at Sunderland, and
had recently returned from transportation.
His brother was also executed for highway
robbery.

Our next dip into the Session Papers brings
us a highway robbery in the very centre of
London. In October, 1730, Hugh Morris,
Robert Johnson, and James O'Brien, stopped a
coach near the Savoy Gate, and robbed two
ladies of a snuff-box, and several valuable
rings. Just as they were cutting the ladies'
outside pockets off, three soldiers came up,
but, on being threatened, they went away.
These men were hung at Tyburn, November 16,
1730.

One of these men was the son of an appraiser
in Drury-lane; the two others had been sailors.
They owned to numerous robberies of gold
watches, silver-hilted swords, and gold-headed
canes, in Holborn, New Bond-street, &c. A
night or two before their arrest, they had stopped
a gentleman in Bloomsbury-square; he had drawn
his sword to kill one of them, when Morris fired
a pistol at him, and alarmed the watch; and they
were thus compelled to run off. They had
also stopped gentlemen in Golden-square,
Hanover-square, Lincoln's Inn-fields, and Hatton-
garden. Their career, however, lasted only two
months.

In 1731, highway robberies assumed a still
more alarming character. In July of that
year, William Gates, John Armstrong, and
Nathaniel Lampree, were indicted for stopping
a coach near the Bull and Gate in Holborn, and
stealing a gentleman's hat. They then went to
St. Giles's, and stopped another coach: Gates
going into it with a drawn hanger, and holding
out his hat for guineas and watches. On
the same night these men stopped a chaise at
Hockley-in-the-Hole, and stole a gold watch,
a silver-hilted sword, and some money. The
prisoners were traced to a public-house near St.
Giles's Pound, where they showed the watches,
quarrelled about the division of the money,
drank a good deal of "twopenny," and then
ordered rum punch. These men were all hung
at Tyburn, July 26, 1731. In their confessions,
they owned to the most audacious robberies.
They had robbed a Roman Catholic priest at
his own door in Hanover-street, and, being seen
by two servant girls from a window, had
threatened to shoot them if they did not pull
down their blinds.

Of course in those wild times there were
perpetual murders accompanying such robberies.
In July, 1731, John Davis was indicted for
robbing William Walker, of hat, wig, and sword.
The robbers fell upon Mr. Walker and a friend,
near Old-street church, Islington, at ten o'clock
at night. Mr. Walker drew his sword, made a
pass, and ran one of the highwaymen through the
body: upon which he fell into a ditch, dragging
his assailant with him, and there stabbing him.
The other man then came up, overpowered Mr.
Walker, beat him, stripped him, and threw
away his shoes. He also demanded his sword,
but Mr. Walker contrived to throw it far off
into the high grass. The prisoner was afterwards
arrested and identified by Mr. Walker,
who had been searching for him in all the prisons
of London.

Davis was hung at Tyburn, July 26, 1731.
This Davis had been a stone-sawyer and a small-
beer brewer, and had deserted from one of
the king's regiments. He owned to four years
of incessant thieving. He had joined some
highwaymen a year before his arrest, in robbing
a carrier's waggon near Marylebone. A
highwayman on horseback, who had first stopped
the waggon, claimed shares, saying, "Brethren,
I'm very poor, pray have pity on me;" but they
had replied, according to Davis's confession,
"No, brother of the trade, there is nothing
due to you; for such goods as these belong
not to your way of business;" but, as he went
on importuning, they flung him two fowls,
saying, "There, go and cram yourself with
those."

It is useless to search further among our old
Session Papers for crimes which are so
monotonous in their character. We have, however,
we think, selected sufficient to show the state of
London little more than a century ago, and to
prove that in the time of our grandfathers the
suburban roads and streets were as dangerous
as the roads of a mediæval city. Sufficient also
to convince the most inveterate praiser of the
past, that, inadequate as our present police