For unblushing effrontery and insolence, so to speak, in criminal daring, the case of King the police-officer and detective, is almost without parallel. Although supposed to be a thief-taker by profession, he was really an instigator and supporter of crime. He formed by degrees a small gang of pickpockets, and employed them to steal for him, giving them full instruction and ample advice. He took them to the best hunting-grounds, and not only covered them while at work, but gave them timely warning in case of danger, or if the neighbourhood became too hot to hold them. His pupils were few in number, but they were industrious and seemingly highly successful. One boy stated his earnings at from £90 to £100 a week. King was a kind and liberal master to his boys. They lived on the fat of the land. Reeves, who gave information of the system pursued by King, said he had a pony to ride in the park, and that they all went to theatres and places of amusement whenever they pleased. The rascally ingenuity of King in turning to his own advantage his opportunities as an officer of the law savours somewhat of Vidocq and the _escrocs_ of Paris. King got fourteen years. But the most notorious prisoners in Millbank were not always to be found on the “male side.” Equally famous in their own way were some of the female convicts—women like Alice Grey, whose career of imposture at the time attracted great attention, and was deservedly closed by committal to Millbank on a long sentence of transportation. Alice Grey was a young lady of artless appearance and engaging manners. Her favourite form of misconduct was to bring false charges against unfortunate people who had never seen her in their lives. Thus, she accused two boys of snatching a purse from her hand in the street, and when a number were paraded for her inspection she readily picked out the offenders. “Her evidence was so ingenuous,” says the report, “that her story was implicitly believed, and the boys were remanded for trial.” As a sort of compensation to Miss Grey (her real name was “Brazil,” but she had several—among others, Anastasia Haggard, Felicia Macarthy, Jane Tureau, Agnes Hemans, etc.) she was given a good round sum from the poor-box. But she was not always so successful. She was sentenced to three months in Dublin for making a false charge, and eighteen months soon afterwards at Greenock. At Stafford she accused a poor working man of stealing her trunk, value £8; when put into the box she was taxed with former mistakes of this kind, whereupon she showed herself at once in her true colours and reviled every one present in a long tirade of abuse. Her cleverness was, however, sufficient to have made her fortune if she had turned her talents to honest account.