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n-n. r^A^ GOLP-SEEKERS TN ENGLAND
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studied consular law with a view to his oto advancement in that line of business , and that he is master of the Asian mastery , and is in other respects the ' Coming man . Perhaps these facts explain the allusion to " consular wisdom ?*' » We do not wonder , however , ab the distress of the clerical orders , since their stock is not at present rising . "Witness their plaintive colls for * additional' curates . Witness Dr . Shobtt ' s avowal that they build churches as fast as gin-palaces , "but leave them unendowed . In fact , the religion of the country , as at present administered , is not * self-supporting- '
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GOLP-SEEKEUS riST ENGLAND . "We possess , as yet , only some passages from the autobiography of Edwaud AaA . ii . ! N ~ or cam it be hoped that the most rigorous crossexamination will elicit the entire story . "What yaa he doing " several times '' in America ? ¦ Wheat did he begin to share the profits of embezzlement and forgery ? "Would he have scorned to turn highwayman ? "Would the earn © passion for money which made him a professional thief , have sufficed to render him , under other circumstances , a poisoner ? Connected with questions of this sort , are not a
few eireumatances which curiously illustrate the theory of diverse talents and divided labour as applied to crime . One man hungers for a purse of sovereigns , and clashes out your Brains on the highway , to obtain it , or breaks through your shutters , and iilches your plate at the risk of a pistol-shot , or perpetual exile . Another pursues a loftier aim by a more gentle method , and robs—transfer , the wise it oalLr- ? -upon a magnificent scale , giving from his abundance to the poor , but relentlesaly prosecutiug a burglar , and transporting him foT ten years . For a far inferior object the Bugeley surgeon poisons his friejad . The Dublin murderer makes one
gash in the throat of a cashier , and stakes hi * game on that . But Aa ab adopts for life the business of fraud ; and when persuasively interrogated by Mr . Bodkin , discloses the companionships of his profession—the agents , middlemen , and retaiL-dealers of larceny . He has his account at private banks ; he keeps part of his money , for safety , at the Bank of England ; he invests it iu the public
securities ; but he does not care to become an ornament of the "West End . No ; lie has his little suburban villa , and seems to live for embezzlement , as well as by it . So far as the facts of his career have been stated , it appears that he generally kept to the forger ' s level , n , ever condescending to petty abstractions of watches and coin , and never daring to flea ! with human life , as with , property , eitKer in the Greenjlcre or Palmie fashion .
Nor was he , like many criminals , of an improvident disposition , devouring the fruits of one adventure before plotting another . On thexjontrary , before his last visit to America , having some information concerning the transit of bullion on the South-Eastern Railway he observed to Pieece , in the ticket printing-office , that a gold robbery "would be an advantageous undertaking . Now , what had ho previously known of Pujbce ? Why did ho trust him with this
Buggeation ? They must have been confederate * before ; or , at least , their confidences must have been mutual . Upon returning to ** ngland , he revived the topic , and held several interviews with the official . Then , alter some coquetry , he consented to act as principal m the affair . BiraGEsa , the railway guard was introduced , and the plan was organized . We must again , remark upon the intimate knowledge these men seemto have a < L respecting one another ' s character . Agak
Office ; yet he paid tho price of one felony without breathing a syllable of the other , and was only induced to offer his evidence when stung by the treachery of "William Pierce , and by tho wrongs of Eanny Kay . He may hope to be rewarded for his
testiinoreover , reposed unlimited confidence in his accomplices . ¦ He left 200 ? . of his own property with Pieece , and , after coming to grief himself , "trusted that individual with the fortune he had bequeathed , at his civil death , to poor iFAKirr Kay . But it is an old story how justice comes by her own because there is not honour among thieves . These were not impatient robbers . They prepared a policy , and kept to it . They took more pains to reconnoitre the bullion chest ,
before attacking it , than the British Government too ] t to reconnoitre the Crimea . They spent a fortnight or three weeks at Polkestone mastering all the details about the arrival of the treasure , tbe locks , the keys , the methods , and the personal character of the individuals whose duty it was to guard the golden ark . They lived in private apartments at the hotel , played billiards , separated when the police seemed suspicious , and secured the alliance of Tester
the check-clerk , who had charge of the key . One impression in wax was then obtained ; but for the other they waited upon chance . Chance , with , the aid of some adroitness , favoured their scheme , and though their attempt to obtain the key by hiring the safe to convey money of their own was a failure , A gab , always provided with was , was enabled , during the momentary absence of a clerk , to possess himself of the lockmaker's secret . From what took place afterwards , it might
be supposed that Agar had been accustomed to housebreaking . It was he who manufactured the keys , who secreted himself in the van to fit them , wlio provided the box-wood wedges and the wooden mallet , to . avoid the sound that would be made by iron tools , who unlocked the safe , and drew the nails out of the iron-bound boxes . All this proved a burglarious proficiency in the ' opening ' art . Pierce proposed the purchase of the shot ; but it is not stated who devised that
ingenious variety of bags , the carpet-bags stufled with hay , the black wig and whiskers , and broad-brimmed hafc of Pierce , the dramatic arrangement by which Burgess was to raise his cap and wipe his face as a signal that " the gold was there . " Perhaps , however , the most remarkable of the prudence with which theso alchemists conducted their operations was exhibited
within the railway van , when Burgess and A gar were loading themselves with bullion . After emptying one chest , and refilling it with shot , they opened another and found a bright mass " of Californian gold in bars of a different colour . " But , instead of appropriating tho whole , they only took " as much as they had brought shot to make up the weight—and swept the floor . "
Then camo tbe process of removal , the melting , the division of tho spoil , Patstny Kay being kept carefully ignorant of the whole transaction . Prom first to last , from the reconnoissance at ^ Folkestone to the disposal of the gold in London , the conspirators acted with perfect coolness , unanimity , and foresight , forgetting nothing , hurrying nothing , never once shrinking from the perils
of their position , and ultimately distributing the proceeds with apparent fairness , and even generosity . Agar himself , when convicted of forgery , and sentenced to transportation for life , could scarcely have been unaware that , by offering to disclose the facts of the great gold robbery of May , 1855 , he must havo secured for himself tho favourable consideration of the Home
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COMMISSIONER PHILLIPS ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT . We have never counted Mr . Charles PJiiiiLiPS among Solomons . If the late Lord Mayor was the parallel of Lycurgtis , as he was , according to Dattiel O'Cornell's ' relative , ' Mr . Commissioner Phillips certainly is not . The dim litigious light of the Insolvent Debtors' Court is admirably suited to him . He'is licensed there to rebuke all
extravagance except that of the orator , and all immorality except that of the advocate . And it is his undeniable privilege to enjoy a vacation , and to turn , it to what use he pleaso 3 , remembering always , however , that he , Mr . Charles Phillips , A . B ., is a
Comer . Mr . Commissioner Phillips , then , lias devoted his vacation to tho writiug of a pamphlet * against Capital Punishment . The discussion is , in one sense , timely . There have been heard , within the last few months , certain mutterings against the mercy of the law . Indignation against garotters has taken the form of a cry that such ruffians should lie hanged out of the way . If the garotteis > vere the only persons concerned , few would be inclined to plead on the other side of the
question the strangler ' s objection to beiflg strangled . But the best reason urged agains t increasing the scope of capital punishment tf oontained broadly in tho bankers' petition previous to tho act of 1832 . In that document , seven hundred and seventy-one bankers declared that the infliction of death , or tin ) possibility of its infliction , in cases of forgery nctdd us a prevention of punishment , and thus " endangered the property which tho law 33 intended to protect . " This is the strong part of the argument , and its soundness is demonstrated by a scries of unanswerable facts .
"When stealing from a dwelling-house to tho amount of forty shillings was ft c ^ l ) lta offence , judges and furors conspired to dctea the law . Juries , on their oaths , _ 'J ^
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mony , should ife result in the conviction of the prisoners—that is , supposing it to be corroborated , aa far as corroboration is pog . sible ; but there is not the slightest ground for believing that he has been tempted to accuse his partners by any feeling less respectable than that of revenge for the despn " tion of « Fanny and the child . " ¦
Meanwhile , the public lias learned some thing from the convict Agab , as it has learned many other things from the criminals of -185 $ . Not to speak of what yova physician or your banker may be doing with your life or your property , you have received a-hint about your neighbours . Don ' t be too ansious to secure the Uedpath of your neighbourhood as a director of your new
company . If you send gold by rail to Folkestone don't be too sure that it will ever arrive ! Wlien you see a gentleman with a particularly heavy carpet-bag , fancy , if you please , that it has been filled by felony with bullion . When a person with small visible means of existence lives at an extravagant rate , be Blow to
believe that he is running into debt ; but think of your scrip and your banker ' s account . These are among the lessons of the year . Ton may escape "Willia : m Paimee ; you may even avoid Rouebt Mabley ; but you must look to it , seeing how professionally persevering is Edward Agab , who is all his lifo a felon , who crosses the Atlantic
repeatedly in the pursuit of his calling , who has 200 Z . to spare for an experiment ( " 1 don't recollect where I got this gold from" ) , and wlio , when lie is transported , leaves 7 OQ 0 Z . ia the hands of a partner " for Eatsny . "
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U 18 T W E , li . fl A D ! E B , [ No . 348 , S ato ^ da ^ " ' ¦ - _— - — ^^^^^ l ^ fc ^^ M ^^ i ^^^^^^ W ^^ W ^^**^ " ^^*^^^*^^^^^^**^^^^^^^ " ^^^^^™^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ m j , ^ j m ^^ ^ ^ m , ^_ . . ^ ^ . ' ' ^ F
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* Vaontlon Thoughts on Capital Puniahment . » Charles Phillips , A . B . I ^ ongrnan and Co .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 22, 1856, page 1118, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2168/page/14/
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