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 lady was so much confounded and confuted at these unaccountable
incidents, that she scarce knew what she did; at last recollecting
herself, _Well, Mr. Wild_, says she; _I think the least I can do is to
oblige you to accept of these ten guineas. No_, replied he, _nor of ten
farthings. I scorn all actions of such a sort as much as any man of
quality in the kingdom. All the reward I desire, Madam, is that you will
acknowledge I have acted like an honest man, and a man of honour._ He
had scarce pronounced these words, before he rose up, made her a bow,
and went immediately down stairs.
The reader may be assured there is not the least mixture of fiction in
this story, and yet perhaps there was not a more remarkable one which
happened in the whole course of Jonathan's life. I shall add but one
more relation of this sort, and then go on with the series of my
history. This which I am now going to relate happened within a few doors
of the place where I lived, and was transacted in this manner.
There came a little boy with vials in a basket to sell to a surgeon who
was my very intimate acquaintance. It was in the winter, and the weather
cold, when one day after he had sold the bottles that were wanted, the
boy complained he was almost chilled to death with cold, and almost
starved for want of victuals. The surgeon's maid, in compassion to the
child, who was not above nine or ten years old, took him into the
kitchen, and gave him a porringer of milk and bread, with a lump or two
of sugar in it. The boy ate a little of it, then said he had enough,
gave her a thousand blessings and thanks, and marched off with a silver
spoon, and a pair of forceps of the same mettle, which lay in the shop
as he passed through. The instrument was first missed, and the search
after it occasioned their missing the spoon; and yet nobody suspected
anything of the boy, though they had all seen him in the kitchen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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