Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Charles Mackay [best inspirational books TXT] 📗
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Not less familiar to the people of England is the career of Jack Sheppard, as brutal a ruffian as ever disgraced his country, but who has claims upon the popular admiration which are very generally acknowledged. He did not, like Robin Hood, plunder the rich to relieve the poor, nor rob with an uncouth sort of courtesy, like Turpin; but he escaped from Newgate with the fetters on his limbs. This achievement, more than once repeated, has encircled his felon brow with the wreath of immortality, and made him quite a pattern thief among the populace. He was no more than twenty-three years of age at the time of his execution, and he died much pitied by the crowd. His adventures were the sole topics of conversation for months; the print-shops were filled with his effigies, and a fine painting of him was made by Sir Richard Thornhill. The following complimentary verses to the artist appeared in the British Journal of November 28th, 1724:
“Thornhill! ’tis thine to gild with fame
Th’ obscure, and raise the humble name;
To make the form elude the grave,
And Sheppard from oblivion save!
Apelles Alexander drew—
Cæsar is to Aurelius due;
Cromwell in Lilly’s works doth shine,
And Sheppard, Thornhill, lives in thine!”
This was a very equivocal sort of compliment, and might have meant, that if Apelles were worthy to paint a monarch, Thornhill was worthy to paint a thief. But the artist did not view it in that light, nor did the public; for they considered the verses to be very neat, pointed, and flattering. So high was Jack’s fame, that he was thought a very fit subject for the stage; and a pantomime entertainment, called “Harlequin Jack Sheppard,” was devised by one Thurmond, and brought out with considerable success at Drury Lane Theatre. All the scenes were painted from nature, including the public-house that the robber frequented in Clare Market, and the condemned cell from which he had made his escape in Newgate.47
The Rev. Mr. Villette, the editor of the Annals of Newgate, published in 1754, relates a curious sermon, which he says a friend of his heard delivered by a street-preacher about the time of Jack’s execution. The orator, after animadverting on the great care men took of their bodies, and the little care they bestowed upon their souls, continued as follows, by way of exemplifying the position:—“We have a remarkable instance of this in a notorious malefactor, well known by the name of Jack Sheppard. What amazing difficulties has he overcome! what astonishing things has he performed! and all for the sake of a stinking, miserable carcass, hardly worth the hanging! How dexterously did he pick the chain of his padlock with a crooked nail! how manfully he burst his fetters asunder, climb up the chimney, wrench out an iron bar, break his way through a stone wall, make the strong door of a dark entry fly before him, till he got upon the leads of the prison, then, fixing a blanket to the wall with a spike, he stole out of the chapel! How intrepidly did he descend to the top of the turner’s house! how cautiously pass down the stair, and make his escape to the street-door!
“Oh, that ye were all like Jack Sheppard! Mistake me not, my brethren—I don’t mean in a carnal, but in a spiritual sense; for I propose to spiritualise these things. What a shame it would be if we should not think it worth our while to take as much pains, and employ as many deep thoughts to save our souls as he has done to preserve his body!
“Let me exhort ye, then, to open the locks of your hearts with the nail of repentance! Burst asunder the fetters of your beloved lusts, mount the chimney of hope, take from thence the bar of good resolution, break through the stone wall of despair, and all the strongholds in the dark entry of the valley of the shadow of death! Raise yourselves to the leads of divine meditation, fix the blanket of faith with the spike of the Church, let yourselves down to the turner’s house of resignation, and descend the stairs of humility! So shall you come to the door of deliverance from the prison of iniquity, and escape the clutches of that old executioner the devil!”
Jonathan Wild, whose name has been immortalised by Fielding, was no favourite with the people. He had none of the virtues which, combined with crimes, make up the character of the great thief. He was a pitiful fellow, who informed against his comrades, and was afraid of death. This meanness was not to be forgiven by the crowd; and they pelted him with dirt and stones on his way to Tyburn, and expressed their contempt by every possible means. How different was their conduct to Turpin and Jack Sheppard, who died in their neatest attire, with nosegays in their button-holes, and with the courage that a crowd expects. It was anticipated that the body of Turpin would have been delivered up to the surgeons for dissection; and the people seeing some men very busily employed in removing it, suddenly set upon them, rescued the body, bore it about the town in triumph, and then buried it in a very deep grave, filled with quicklime, to hasten the progress of decomposition. They would not suffer the corpse of their hero—of the man who had ridden from London to York in four-and-twenty hours—to be mangled by the rude hands of unmannerly surgeons.
The death of Claude Duval would appear to have been no less triumphant. Claude was a gentlemanly thief. According to Butler, in the famous ode to his memory, he
“Taught the wild Arabs of the road
To rob in a more gentle mode;
Take prizes more obligingly than those
Who never had been bred filous;
And how to hang in a more graceful fashion
Than e’er was known before to the dull English nation.”
In fact, he was the pink of politeness, and his gallantry to the fair sex was proverbial. When he was caught at last, pent in “stone walls and chains and iron grates,” their grief was in proportion to his rare merits and his great fame. Butler says, that to his dungeon
“Came ladies from all parts,
To offer up close prisoners their hearts.
Which he received as tribute due—
* * * *
Never did bold knight to relieve
Distressed dames, such dreadful feats achieve,
As feeble damsels for his sake
Would have been proud to undertake,
And, bravely ambitious to redeem
The world’s loss and their own,
Strove who should have the honour to lay down,
And change a life with him.”
Among the noted thieves of France, there is none to compare with the famous Aimerigot Têtenoire, who flourished in the reign of Charles VI. This fellow was at the head of four or five hundred men, and possessed two very strong castles in Limousin and Auvergne. There was a good deal of the feudal baron about him, although he possessed no revenues but such as the road afforded him. At his death he left a singular will. “I give and bequeath,” said the robber, “one thousand five hundred francs to St. George’s Chapel, for such repairs as it may need; to my sweet girl, who so loyally loved me, I give two thousand five hundred; and the surplus I give to my companions. I hope they will all live as brothers, and divide it amicably among them. If they cannot agree, and the devil of contention gets among them, it is no fault of mine; and I advise them to get a good strong sharp axe, and break open my strong box. Let them scramble for what it contains, and the devil seize the hindmost.” The people of Auvergne still recount with admiration the daring feats of this brigand.
Of later years, the French thieves have been such unmitigated scoundrels as to have left but little room for popular admiration. The famous Cartouche, whose name has become synonymous with ruffian in their language, had none of the generosity, courtesy, and devoted bravery which are so requisite to make a robber-hero. He was born at Paris, towards the end of the seventeenth century, and broken alive on the wheel in November 1727. He was, however, sufficiently popular to have been pitied at his death, and afterwards to have formed the subject of a much-admired drama, which bore his name, and was played with great success in all the theatres of France during the years 1734, 5, and 6. In our own day the French have been more fortunate in a robber; Vidocq bids fair to rival the fame of Turpin and Jack Sheppard. Already he has become the hero of many an apocryphal tale—already his compatriots boast of his manifold achievements, and express their doubts whether any other country in Europe could produce a thief so clever, so accomplished, so gentlemanly, as Vidocq.
Germany has its Schinderhannes, Hungary its Schubry, and Italy and Spain a whole host of brigands, whose names and exploits are familiar as household words in the mouths of the children and populace of those countries.
The Italian banditti are renowned over the world; and many of them are not only very religious (after a fashion) but very charitable. Charity from such a source is so unexpected, that the people doat upon them for it. One of them, when he fell into the hands of the police, exclaimed, as they led him away, “Ho fatto più carità!”—“I have given away more in charity than any three convents in these provinces.” And the fellow spoke truth.
In Lombardy, the people cherish the memory of two notorious robbers, who flourished about two centuries ago under the Spanish government. Their story, according to Macfarlane, is contained in a little book well known to all the children of the province, and read by them with much more gusto than their Bibles.
Schinderhannes, the robber of the Rhine, is a great favourite on the banks of the river which he so long kept in awe. Many amusing stories are related by the peasantry48 of the scurvy tricks he played off upon rich Jews, or too-presuming officers of justice—of his princely generosity, and undaunted courage. In short, they are proud of him, and would no more consent to have the memory of
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