THE DETECTIVE'S TALE.

THE CHANCE QUESTION.

It is not long since the cleverest of these strangely constituted men called detectives [entre nous myself] went up to his superintendent with a very rueful face, and told him that all his energies were vain in discovering a clue to an extensive robbery of plate which had occurred in —— Street some short time before.

"I confess myself fairly baffled," he said; and could say no more.

"With that singular foxhound organ of yours?" replied his superior. "The herring must have been well smoked."

"At the devil's own fire of pitch and brimstone," said the detective. "But the worst is, I have had no trail to be taken off. I never was so disconcerted before. Generally some object to point direction, if even only a dead crow or smothered sheep; but here, not even that."

"No trace of P—— or any of the English gang?"

"None; all beyond the bounds, or up chimneys, or down in cellars, or covered up in coal-bunkers. I am beginning to think the job to be of home manufacture."

"Generally a clumsy affair; and therefore very easy for a man of your parts. What reason have you?"

"Absolutely none."

"That is, I fancy," said the superintendent, "the thousand pounds of good silver, watches, and rings, are absolutely gone."

"You know my conditions," said the officer: "give me the thing stolen, and I will find to a living certainty the man who stole it; or give me the man who stole it, and I will find you to a dead certainty the thing stolen. But it's a deuced unfortunate thing that a man can't get even a sniff."

"Yes, especially when, as in your case, all his soul is in his nose."

"And with such a reward!" continued the chagrined officer; "scarcely anything so liberal has been offered in my time; but, after all, the reward is nothing—it is the honour of the force and one's character. It is well up for the night anyhow, and I rather think altogether, unless some flash come by telegraph."

"You have no other place you can go to now?" said the superintendent musingly, and not altogether satisfied.

"None," replied the officer resolutely. "I have been out of bed for ten nights—every den scoured, and every 'soup-kitchen'[2] visited, every swell watched and dogged, and every trull searched; I can do no more. It is now eleven, my eyes will hardly hold open, and I request to be allowed to go and rest for the present."

"As you like," replied the superintendent. "We are neither omniscient nor omnipotent."

"The people who get robbed think us both," said the officer; and taking his hat, left the office, and began to trudge slowly down the street. The orderly people had mostly retired to their homes. The midnight ghouls from the deep wynds and closes were beginning to form their gossiping clusters; the perambulators had begun their courses; and fast youths from the precincts of the College or the New Town were resuming their search for sprees, or determined to make them. There

were among them many clients of our officer, whom he knew, and had hopes of at some future day; but now he surveyed them with the eye of one whose occupation for the time was gone. His sadness was of the colour of Jacques', but there was a difference: the one wove out of his melancholy golden verses in the forest of Arden; our hero could not draw out of his even silver plate in the dens of Edinburgh. He had come to the Tron Kirk, and hesitated whether, after all, he should renounce his hunt for the night—true to the peculiarity of this species of men, whose game are wretched and wicked beings, always less or more between them and the wind's eye, and therefore always stimulating to pursuit; but again he resolved upon home, or, rather, his heavy eyes and worn-out spirits resolved him, in spite of himself, and he turned south, in which direction his residence was. So on he trudged till he came about the middle part of the street called the South Bridge, when he heard pattering behind him the feet of a woman. She came up to him, and passed him, or rather was in the act of passing him, when, from something no better than a desire to stimulate activity, or rather to free himself from the conviction that he was utterly and entirely defeated, he turned round to the girl, whom he saw in an instant was a street-walker, and threw carelessly a question at her.

"Where are you going?"

"Home," was the reply.

"Where do you live?"

"In Simon Square."

Here he was at first inclined to make a stop, having put the questions more as common routine than with any defined intention; but just as the girl came opposite to a lamp-post, and was on the eve of outstripping him, he said,

"Oh, by-the-bye, do you know any one thereabouts, or anywhere else, who mends rings?"

"Yes."

"Who is it?"

"Abram."

"What more?"

"I don't know his other name; we just call him Abram, and sometimes Jew Abram."

"Did you ever get anything mended by him?"

"No; but I bought a ring from him once."

"And what did you do with it?"

"I have it on my finger," she replied.

"Will you let me see it?" he continued.

"Oh yes."

And as they came forward to another lamp-post, he was shown the ring. He examined it carefully, taking from his waistcoat another, and comparing the two—"Won't do."

"How long is it since you made this purchase?"

"About ten days ago."

"And what did you pay for it?"

"Three and sixpence."

By this time they had got opposite the square where the girl lived. She crossed, and he followed, in the meantime asking her name.

"There is Abram's house," she said; "there's light in the window."

And the officer, standing a little to see where she went, now began to examine the outside of Abram's premises. A chink in the shutters showed him a part of the person of some one inside, whom he conjectured to be Abram sitting at his work. He opened the door, and it was as he thought. An old man was sitting at a bench, with a pair of nippers in his hand, peering into some small object.

"Can you mend that?" said the officer abruptly, and, without a word of prelocution, pressing into his hands a ring.

"Anything," was the prompt reply.

But no sooner had the ring come under the glance of his far-ben eye—

"Yes—ah! ye-es—well—no—no."

And the peering eye came, as it were, forward out of its recess, and scanned the face of the officer, who, on the other hand, was busy watching every turn of the Jew's features.

"No; I cannot mend that."

"Why? You said you could mend anything."

"Ye-es, anything; but not that."

"No matter—no harm in asking," replied the officer, as he looked round the apartment, and fixed his eye on the back wall, where, in utter opposition to all convenience, let alone taste, and even to the exclusion of required space, there were battered two or three coarse engravings."

"Good night!"

"Goo-ood night!"

"Now what, in the name of decoration, are these prints hung up on that wall for?" asked the officer of himself, without making any question of the import of the Jew's look, and his yes and no. He was now standing in the middle of the square, and, turning round, he saw the light put out. Another thought struck him, but whatever it was, it was the cause of a laugh that took hold of him, even in the grasp of his anxiety; yea, he laughed, for a detective, greatly more heartily than could be authorized by anything I have recorded.

"Why, the lower print is absolutely the old Jewish subject of the cup in the sack," he muttered, and laughed again. "Was ever detective so favoured? —a representation of concealed treasure on the very wall where that treasure is! Were the brethren fools enough to put the representation of a cup on Benjamin's sack?"

"Robertson!" he called to one of his men, whom, by the light at the street-end of the entry, he saw passing, "send two men here upon the instant."

"Yes, sir."

And then he began to examine more thoroughly the premises, to ascertain whether there were any exit-openings besides the door and window. There were none. He had a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes to wait, and five of these had not passed before he observed some one go up and tap at Abram's door. A question, though he did not hear it, must have been put by the Jew, for an answer, in a low voice, responded,

"Slabberdash!"

"The crack name of that fellow Clinch, whom I've been after for a week," said the officer to himself, as he kept in the shadow of a cellar which jutted out from the other houses.

The Jew had again answered, for the visitor repeated to himself, as if in fear and surprise, "Red-light," and, looking cautiously about him, made off.

"It is not my cue to follow," muttered the detective; "but I will do next best."

And hurrying out of the mouth of the entry at the heels of the visitor, he caught the policeman on the Nicolson Street beat almost immediately.

"Track that fellow," he said; "there—there, you see him—'tis Slabberdash; do not leave him or the front of his den till sunrise. I'll get a man for your beat."

"Yes, sir," replied the policeman, adroitly blowing out his bull's-eye and making off at a canter.

The officer returned to his post, and within the time the two assistants arrived.

"Go you, Reid, to the office, and send a man to supply Nicolson Street beat till Ogilvy return; he's on commission; come back instantly."

The man obeyed with alacrity.

"And now, Jones, you and your neighbour take charge of that door—keep seeing it without it seeing; you understand? Keep watch; and if any one approach, scan him for Slabberdash, but take care he doesn't see you. I will relieve you at shutters-down in the morning; meanwhile, I'm at home for report or exigency."

"I comprehend," replied the man, "and will be careful."

The officer took for home, weary and drowsy, though a little awakened by the events of one half-hour. There was sight of game, as well as scent. The Jew's look by itself was not much, yet greatly more to the eye of a detective than even an expert physiognomist could imagine. The picture-plastered wall was more; the cup in the sack was merely an enlivening joke; but Slabberdash was no joke, as many a douce burgher in Edinburgh knew to his cost. The fellow was a match for the father of cheats and lies himself; and therefore it could be no dishonour to our clever detective that hitherto he had had no chance with him, any more than if he had been James Maccoul, or the great Mahoun.

Meanwhile, the other watch having arrived, the two kept up their surveillance; nor would they be without something to report to their officer, were it nothing more than that little Abram—for he was very diminutive—about one in the morning rather surprised one of the guard, who was incautiously too near the house, by slowly opening the door, and looking out with an inquiring eye, in his shirt; and upon getting a glimpse of the dark figure of the policeman, saying, as if to himself, though intended for the said dark figure, whoever it might be,

"I vash wondering if it vash moonlight."

And, shutting the door hurriedly, he disappeared. About an hour afterwards, a tall female figure, coming up the entry from North Richmond Street, made a full stop, at about three yards from Abram's door, and then darted off, but not before one of the guard had seen enough, as he thought, to enable him to swear that it was Slabberdash's companion, a woman known by the slang name of Four-toed Mary, once one of the most dashing and beautiful of the local street-sirens. About an hour after that the two guards forgathered to compare notes.

"The devil is surely in that little man," said the one who had heard the soliloquy about the moon; "for, whether or not he wanted light outside or in to drive away the shadows of his conscience, he served his purpose a few minutes since by lighting his lamp. I saw the light through the chinks, and venturing to listen, heard noises as of working. He is labouring at something, if not sweating."

"Perhaps melting," said the other, with a laugh.

"But here comes our officer; there is never rest for that man when there's a bird on the moor or a fox in the covert."

The truth was, as the man said, the detective had gone home to sleep; but no sooner had he lain down than the little traces he had discovered began to excite his imagination, and that faculty, so suggestive in his class, getting inflamed, developed so many images in the camera of his mind, that he soon found sleep an impossibility, and he was now there to know whether anything further had transpired. The men made their report, and he soon saw there was something more than ordinary in Abram's curiosity about the moon, and still more in the coincidence of the visits of Slabberdash and Four-toes. He had a theory, too, about the working, though it did not admit the melting. He knew better what to augur. But he had a fault to find, and he was not slow to find it.

"Why didn't one of you track Four-toes? One of you could have served here. She has been off the scene for three weeks, and is hiding. You ought to have known that a woman is a good subject for a detective. Her strength is her weakness, and her weakness our opportunity. But there's no help for it now. We must trace the links we have. If she come again, be more on the alert, and follow up the track. Keep your guard, and let not a circumstance escape you."

"The light is out again," remarked one of the men; "he has gone to bed."

"But not to sleep, I warrant," said his superior. "Look sharp and listen quick, and I will be with you when I promised."

He now proceeded to the office in the High Street, where he found the superintendent waiting for a report in another case. He recounted all he had seen and heard.

"You have a chance here," said the latter; "and, to confirm our hopes, I can tell you that Four-toes' mother gave yesterday to a shebeen-master in Toddrick's Close, one of the rings for a mutchkin of whisky; and, what is more, Clinch has been traced to the old woman's house in Blackfriars Wynd. I suspect that the picture's true after all. The cup is verily in Benjamin's sack."

Thus fortified, our detective sought his way again down the High Street; and as he had time to kill between that and the opening of the shutters in Simon Square, he paid a visit to Blackfriars Wynd, where he found his faithful myrmidon keeping watch over the old mother's house, like a Skye terrier at the mouth of a rat-hole. He here learned that Mary with the deficient toe had also been seen to go upstairs to her mother's garret, which circumstance accorded perfectly with the statement of the guard in the square, as no doubt she had returned home after being startled at the door of Abram. But then she was seen to go out again, about an hour before, though whither she went the watch could not say. The hour of appointment was now approaching. The day had broken amidst watery clouds, driven about by a fitful, gusty wind, and every now and then sending stiff showers of rain, sufficient to have cooled the enthusiasm of any one but a hunter after the doers of evil. He had been drenched two or three times, and now he felt that a glass of brandy was necessary as an auxiliary to internal resistance against external aggression. He was soon supplied, and, wending his way to the old rendezvous, he found his guard, but without any addition to their report of midnight. Abram was long of getting up, and it seemed that he was first roused by the clink of a milkwoman's tankard on the window-shutter. The door was slowly opened, but in place of the vendor of milk handing in to her solitary customer the small half-pint, she went in herself, pails, and tankard, and all. Our detective marked the circumstance as being unusual, and, more than unusual still, the door was partly closed upon her as she entered. Then he began to think that she had nothing about her of the appearance of that class of young women.

"Has not that woman the appearance of Four-toes?" said the officer.

"I'm blowed if she's not the very woman I saw in the dark," said one of the men.

"Split," said the lieutenant; "but be within sign."

The precaution was wise. In a few minutes Abram's face was peering out at the door, not this time looking for the moon—more probably for the enemies of her minions; and what immediately succeeded showed that he had got a glimpse of the men, for by-and-by the milk-maid came forth and proceeded along the square.

"Go and look into her pails," said the lieutenant to Reid, as he hastened up to him. "Jones and I will remain for a moment here."

Reid set off, and disappeared in the narrow passage leading to West Richmond Street; but he remained only a short time.

"Crumbie is yeld! there's not a drop of milk in her pitchers," said he, on his return; "and it's no other than Four-toes."

"Ah, we've been seen by Abram," said the officer; "and the pitchers are sent away empty, which otherwise would have contained something more valuable than milk. After her again, and track her. Jones and I will pay Abram a morning visit."

The man again set off; and the officer and Jones having hung about a few minutes till Abram came out to open the shutters and afford them light inside, they caught their opportunity, and, just as the Jew was taking down the shattered boards, they darted into the house. Abram was at their heels in a moment.

"Vat ish it, gentlemen?"

"A robbery of plate has been committed," said the officer at once; "and I am here, with your permission no doubt, to search this house."

"Very goo-ood; there ish nothing but vat ish my property."

The officer had even already seen a half of the bench—which had consisted of two parts put together, probably originally intended for some other purpose than mending jewellery—had been removed and placed against the wall where Joseph and his brethren were standing round the cup in the sack, so that it was more difficult to reach the wall, though the device was clearly only the half of an idea, as the prints still stood above the bench, and might, by a sharp eye, have still suggested the suspicion that they were intended for something else than decoration, or even the gratification of a Jew's love for the legends of his country. But the officer did not go first to the suspected part. He took a hammer from his pocket, and began rapping all round the wall. "Stone, stone—lath, lath; ah, a compact house."

"Very goo-ood. Vash only three weeks a tenant."

The officer recollected the estimate of the time given by the street-walker, the fons et origo of all, and his hammer went more briskly till he came to the patriarchs. "Good head, that, of Joseph," he said with a laugh; "hollow, eh?"

"Vash a good head—not hollow; the best at the court of Pharaoh."

In an instant, a long chisel was through the picture; and in another, the poker, driven into the chisel-hole, and wrenched to a side, sent a thin covering of fir lath into a dozen of splinters. The hand did the rest. A cupboard was exposed to the eyes of the apparently wondering Israelite, containing, closely packed, an array of plate, watches, rings, and bijouterie, sufficient to make any eye besides a Jew's leap for the wish of possession.

Abram held up his hands in affected wonderment as the lieutenant stood gazing at the treasure, and almost himself entranced. Jones was fixed to the ground; at one time looking at the costly treasure, at another at his superior, who had already, in this department of his art, acquired an envied reputation.

"Very goo-ood!" exclaimed Abram; "vash only here three weeks. What fools to leave here all this wonderful treasure!"

"Abram, will you be so good as take a walk up the High Street? Jones will show you the way. Breakfast will be waiting you. And do you," looking to Jones, "send down a box large enough to hold this silver, and two of our men to remove it to the office."

"Vash the other tenant," cried Abram, as he saw the plight he had got into—"vash not me, so help me the God of my forefathers, even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were just men, as I am a just man; it vash not me. Vash not the cup put in Benjamin's sack?"

The officer laughed—at this time inside, for it behoved him now to be grave—at the recollection of the strange coincidence of the picture and the stolen plate.

"Come," said Jones, "let us start;" and, clapping the Jew's old hat on the head of the little man, he took him under the arm to lead him out.

"After depositing him," whispered the officer into Jones' ear, "get help; proceed to Blackfriars, where Ogilvy is on the watch, and lay hold of Clinch. Some others will start in search of Reid, who may have tracked Four-toes, and seize her. You comprehend?"

"Perfectly. Come, Abram—unless you would like to walk at a safe distance?"

"Surely I would," replied Abram; "and so would every man who vash as innocent as the child vash born yesterday, or this minute."

When the prisoner had departed, the officer sat down on the Jew's stool to rest himself, previous to making a survey of the articles, with reference to an inventory he had in his pocket. In this attitude, he took up a pair of Abram's nippers to fasten a link in his watch chain, which threatened to give way, so that he might very well have represented the master of the establishment sitting at his work. This observation is here made, as explanatory of another circumstance which presently occurred in this altogether remarkable case. The door, which Jones had closed after him, was opened stealthily; an old woman, wrapped up in a duffle cloak, slipped quietly and timidly in, and going round the end of the bench, whispered into the ear of the lieutenant—

"You'll be Abram, nae doubt?"

"Ay," replied he.

"Ye're early at wark."

"Ay."

"Weel, the milk-woman—ye ken wha I mean?"

"Oh yes; Four-toes."

"Ha! ha! ay, just Four-toes, that's Mary Burt; ah! she was a buxom lass in my kennin'. Weel, she has sent me to you, in a quiet way, ye ken, to tell ye that the p'lice have an e'e on you. That ill-lookin' scoondrel, the cleverest o' the 'tectives, as they ca' them—I never saw him mysel, but dootless you'll ken him—has been seen in the coort here, wi' twa o' his beagles, and you're to tak tent."

"Yes, I know the ill-looking Christian dog. Vat ish your name?"

"Chirsty Anderson."

"Where do you live, Christian?"

"In Wardrop's Coort, at the tap o' the lang stair. And the milk-maid—ha! ha!—says you're to shift the things to my room i' the dark'nin', whaur Geordie, my laddie, will hae a plank lifted, and you can stow them awa, ayont the ken o' the cleverest o' them."

"And where ish the milk-woman?"

"In my room, pitchers an' a'."

"Well, tell her to keep there, as vash a prisoner, till I come to her place."

"I will."

"Isn't Geordie, my good woman, called Squint?"

"Just the same," she replied with a laugh; "and, ye ken, he has a right to a silver jug or twa, for he risked his neck for't as weel as Clinch."

"Surely, surely."

"But you're to gie me a ring to tak to her, for she's hard up, and I'll try Mr. E——e wi' 't at night, and get some shillings on't."

"Certainly, Christian—not a good name that; but here," taking her by the shoulders, and turning sharply in the direction of the door—for he was afraid she might notice the wreck made in the recess,—"look out at the door, and be on the good watch for the ill-looking dog."

"Ah, Abram, ye're sae clever! The deil's in them if they put saut on your tail."

"Here, give that to Four-toes, and tell her to keep good prisoner till I come."

"Just sae—a bonny ring!"

"Quick! turn to your right, and go by the Pleasance, along St. Mary's Wynd, up the High Street, to your home."

"Ay," replied the woman as she departed.

Not five minutes elapsed, when Jones and the two assistants with the box arrived; when the officer cried—

"Jones, follow up an old woman, in a grey duffle cloak, Christian Anderson by name, who is this moment gone down by the Pleasance, to take St. Mary's Wynd and the High Street on her way to her room, in Wardrop's Court, at the top of the stair. Having seen her landed, stop five minutes at the door, to give her time to deliver a ring to Four-toes, then step in, and take the young woman to the office. You will find Geordie Anderson there also, the notorious Squint; so pick up a man as you go, and make Squint sure."

"At once, sir," replied the man, and was off.

By-and-by, and just as our officer was beginning to compare the plate with the inventory, the superintendent, who had got intelligence of the discovery, came hurrying in. They found, to their astonishment, that every article was there, excepting two rings—the one, probably, that offered to the shebeen-man by Four-toes' mother, and the other that which had been presently sent to Four-toes herself. A more complete recovery was perhaps never achieved; and it was all the more wonderful from the small beginning from which the trace had been detected. Having completed the examination and packed the treasure, which was presently removed to the office, the discoverer set about examining Abram's room; but so cunningly had the whole affair of the resettership been conducted, that there was not found a trace of any kind to show his connection with the burglars. The joke of the man in reference to the process of melting had, however, had a narrow escape from being realized; for a kind of furnace had been erected with bricks, and a large crucible, sufficient to hold a Scotch pint of the "silver soup," was lying in what had been used as a coal-bunker. Meanwhile, Reid hurried in in great dejection, because the milk-woman had baffled him by going into a house in one of the wynds, and emerging by the back, and escaping.

"She's provided for," said the officer, "and you may go. I don't need you here; but you may go to Wardrop's Court, top of stair, and help Jones to take care of Four-toes and George Anderson called Squint; you know him?"

"Who that has once seen him will ever forget him?" replied the other. "When will Jones be there?"

"Just when you will arrive, giving you time to walk slow, like a good detective."

"And now," said our officer, as he proceeded to fasten up the door, "so much for a casual question,—a good night's work, and a reward of a hundred for recovering a thousand. I think I am entitled to my breakfast. It's not often a man makes so much of a morning." And resuming his deliberate walk—a characteristic, as he himself acknowledged, of a true thief-catcher—he repaired to a coffee-house in Nicolson Street, and allayed his hunger by coffee and a pound of chops. It was about ten o'clock when he reached the office, where he had the pleasant scene presented to him of a well-assorted bag of game—the last victims, Four-toes and Squint, being in the act of being deposited as he entered. The principals secure, the accessories were of less consequence. There were there Abram, Slabberdash, Squint, and Four-toes.

"To complete our complement we must have Four-toes' mother and Mrs. Anderson," he said to the superintendent, "and Reid and Jones will go and fetch them."

In the course of an hour both these ladies were brought into the already considerable company. That they were all surprised at the unexpected meeting, belongs to reasonable conjecture; and that Christian Anderson was more surprised than any of them, when she discovered her mistake in trusting her secrets to the "ill-looking scoundrel" of a detective in place of Abram, is not less reasonable. Our officer was, in truth, too gallant a man to traverse those laws of etiquette which demand respect for the feelings of females, and he never once alluded to the contretemps. But Chirsty did not feel the same delicacy in regard to him, who she feared would hang her for misplaced confidence. She had no sooner recovered from her surprise than she cried out to him, in a shrill, piercing voice—

"I hope you'll hae mercy on me, sir. It wad do ye nae guid to stretch the wizzened craig o' an auld woman, because some silly words—I wish they had choket me—cam oot o't."

"They will never be brought against you," said he; "make yourself easy on that score."

"Then what am I here for?" she growled, as, relieved somewhat from her fear, she got into her natural temper.

"For agreeing to hide stolen property."

"Stolen property!" she replied. "And did ye no steal from me my secret about my puir laddie, that ye may string him to a wuddy? There's an auld sayin' that speech is silvern, but silence is gowden. Whaur is the difference between stealing frae me the siller o' my speech, and robbing a man o' the siller o' his jugs and teaspoons?"

"Quiet," he said calmly. "Abram, I want to speak with you. Separate these," he added, addressing one of the men.

And having got Abram by himself, he asked him if he was inclined to run the risk of a trial and condemnation, or tell the truth, and trust to the Royal mercy. The Jew hesitated; but our officer knew that a hesitating criminal is like a hesitating woman—each waits for an argument to resolve them against their faith and honour. He knew that misfortune breaks up the bonds of etiquette, even among the virtuous; and that the honour among themselves, of which thieves boast, and a portion of mankind, for some strange reason, secretly approve, becomes weak in proportion to the danger of retributive justice. Not much given to speculate, he yet sometimes wondered why it was that one should be despised and treated harshly because he comes forward to serve the ends of justice and benefit society; but a less acute mind may feel no difficulty in accounting for the anomaly. The king's-evidence, while he proves himself a coward and false to his faith, acts from pure selfishness; and though he offers a boon to society, it is in reality a bargain which he drives for self-preservation. These speculations certainly did not pass through the mind of Abram, if his prevailing thought was not more likely in the form—

"If I can't get my pound of silver out of the Christian, I can at least keep my own pound of flesh."

But whether he thought in this Jewish form or not, it is certain that he was not long in making as clean a breast as a Jew might be expected to make of the whole secret of the robbery. It was planned and executed, he said, by Slabberdash and Squint, and he agreed to become resetter on the condition of being allowed to retain a half of the proceeds. Four-toes brought the plate to him at half a dozen courses of her pitchers, and he had intended on that very day to melt all that was meltable. The watches and rings were to be reserved for opportunities, as occasions presented.

I give this story by way of an example of those strange workings in a close society, whereby often great events are discovered from what is termed chance. Such occurrences, however they may startle us, are all explainable by the laws of probabilities. They occur often just in proportion to the increase of ramifications in civilised conditions. More people come into the plot; the increased activity drives the culprits to shifts, and these shifts are perilous from the very circumstance of being forced. We thus find detection often more easy and certain in populous towns, with a good staff of criminal officers, than in quieter places, where both plotters and shifts are proportionally fewer. If nature is always true to her purpose, so art, which is second nature, is equally true to hers, and man is better provided for than he deserves. I do not concern myself with the vulgar subject of punishments, never very agreeable to polite minds, and not at all times useful to those who gloat over descriptions of them. It is enough to say that the law was justly applied. Two got clear off—the mothers of Squint and Four-toes; and I may add that Chirsty Anderson probably afterwards acted up more to her own proverb, that "speech is silvern, but silence is golden."