Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious BurglarAnonymous
General
Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar
Anonymous
Burglars -- England -- London -- Biography; Murderers -- England -- London -- Biography; Peace, Charles Frederick, 1832-1879
If any adventurous and high-spirited youth sees anything to admire in
our hero’s career he will do well to remember that the grandest
successes of a criminal course are at the best but wretched failures.
Peace had probably a far smoother life than most offenders of equal
activity.
Yet he spent some considerable part of his time in prison, and in the
full noontide of his prosperity hardly reaped as much fruit from his
misapplied talents as those talents would have yielded in any honest
walk of life.
Peace’s strongly marked preference for the revolver was fatal to the
picturesque development of his talents.
The truth is, that the particular offender had no special affection
for blood-shedding.
Strong as were the fascinations of a criminal life, he chiefly had an
eye to business.
In the heat of passion, or with a view to save himself, he was
thoroughly unscrupulous about taking life, but he was not anxious to
compromise himself by any needless slaughter.
Yet for coolness, promptitude, and self-reliance he has seldom been
surpassed.
He never suffered himself to be betrayed into any acts of overwhelming
fatuity and oversight such as those which have often led the most
skilful to their ruin.
In him there was an assemblage of qualities such as one man rarely
possesses.
Peace took great interest in carving, architecture, and works of art
of every conceivable description. While at Sheffield, during the few
months he remained a decent member of society, he paid frequent visits
to the museums and other institutions, and he promised to compete for
the prize in wood-carving in the forthcoming exhibition.
But the old feeling for change and adventure came over him, and he
determined upon leaving his native town for a while. Business was not
very brisk with him at this time――so he thought it advisable to shift
his quarters.
He had purchased a number of cheap, showy, attractive-looking prints,
together with a large collection of photographs, many of which were
copyright, being reproductions from well-known pictures.
In addition to these he had a number of other photographs, which it
would not have been advisable for anyone to sell, seeing that they
rendered the vendor liable to imprisonment under Lord Campbell’s Act.
But this Peace did not much care about.
He felt assured that he was well able to evade the law.
Having renewed his hawker’s licence and packed up his goods in as
small a compass as possible he bade adieu to his mother and friends at
Sheffield and set out on his pilgrimage.
A wandering life was consonant to his general disposition and
temperament.
Shouldering his pack with his stout oaken stick and his dog, “Gip,” he
commenced his journey.
It was only spring time, and he had the best part of the year before
him. He paid a visit to Worksop, Huddersfield, Marborough, and
Barnsley, calling at several hamlets and villages of lesser note.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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