"MARLBOROUGH-STREET.--There is a class of persons now known, called 'Mouchers,' who go about in gangs, plundering the licensed victuallers, eating-house and coffee-shop keepers, to an extent that would be deemed impossible, did not the records of police courts afford sufficient evidence of the fact. _The Mouchers are mostly of the lower order of Irish._"--_London Morning Paper, 12th April, 1847._ "HORRIBLE MURDER--(_Particulars_). Every possible search has been made for the murderers, but unfortunately without effect. However, _it is positively known that four Irish harvesters passed through the village the day before, and there cannot be a doubt the dreadful deed was committed by them_!" Such are the kind of announcements seen frequently, particularly in provincial papers. In the latter case, the facts impressed themselves strongly upon my mind. A horrible murder had been committed, as well as I recollect, in Lancashire. The widow of a farmer, much beloved in the neighbourhood, and known to possess considerable property, was barbarously murdered in her bed at night, and her presses and strong box thoroughly rifled; nothing, however, having been taken but money, of which it was known she had received a considerable sum a few days previously. Much sensation was created by the fearful occurrence; and it was fully believed that "the four Irishmen" had committed the murder--why? _because they had been seen in the neighbourhood!_ verifying most fully the adage, that "one man may steal a horse without being suspected, while another dare not look over the hedge." So it eventually turned out. A month elapsed; the four Irishmen could never be traced; but luckily the real murderer was. A labouring man offered a £20. note to be changed in a town some miles distant from the scene of the murder, and suspicion having arisen as to how he obtained it, he was taken up: eventually turning out to be the confidential farm servant of the unfortunate woman, still continuing to live unsuspected where the murder had been actually committed by himself; and he was subsequently executed. But did this clear "_the four Irishmen_" from the imputation, or retrieve the character of their class? Not an iota. The journalist who accused them was not the fool to proclaim his own injustice; and perhaps, even if he did, the refutation would never have met the same eye that read the condemnation. No; "the four Irishmen" continued as thoroughly guilty in the public mind as if twelve jurors on their oaths had declared them so. The editorial pen had signed the death warrant of _character_, if not of life, as it has done in many and many instances with just as much foundation.