Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences
History
Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences
Crime -- Great Britain; Criminals -- Great Britain -- Biography
The scenes young Neal saw at the houses whither his father carried him,
filled him with such a liking to debauchery and such an irreclaimable
passion for sensual pleasures, as was the source from whence his
following misfortunes flowed. For what, as he himself complained, first
gave him occasion to repine at his condition, and filled him with
wandering inclinations of pursuing an idle and extravagant life, was the
forcing of him to go apprentice to a tailor, a trade for which he had
always the greatest aversion, and contempt. No sooner, therefore, was he
placed out apprentice, but the young fellows of that occupation whom he
had before derided and despised, now ridiculed him in their turns, and
laughed at the uneasiness which they saw his new employment caused him.
However, he lived about four years with his master, being especially
induced thereto by the company of a young man who worked there, and who
used to amuse him with stories of intrigues in London, to which Neal
listened with a very attentive ear.
This London companion more and more inclined him to vice, and the
history he gave of his living with a woman--who cheated her other
cullies to maintain him, and at last for the sake of a new sweetheart,
stripped him of all he had one night while he slept, and left him so
much in debt that he was obliged to fly into the country--the relation,
I say, of these adventures made such an impression on young Neal that he
was never at rest until he fell into a method of copying them. And as
ill-design seldom waits long for an opportunity, so the death of his
first master, and his being turned over to a second, much less careful
and diligent to his business, furnished Neal with the occasion he
wanted. This master he both cheated of his money and defrauded of his
goods, letting in loose and disorderly persons in the night, and finding
a way for their going out again in the morning before his master was
awake, and consequently without the least suspicion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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