This lengthy and confusing series of Acts brought into existence that contemptible parasite, the Professional Informer. By those provisions, which awarded sometimes the whole penalty, and in other cases the half or two-thirds, or merely one-third, at the discretion of the magistrates, to those persons who would discover these infringements of the law to the authorities, the Sneak became an institution, wholly supported by the involuntary contributions of the coaching world. Informers swarmed on every road, and their operations were conducted with a legal astuteness and business acumen that would have made the fortunes of these gentry if they had directed their talents into more reputable channels. For although Parliament had created the Informer, it is not to be thought that he was liked by any class. He was held to be a necessary evil, as from fear of him offenders might be made to mend their ways, and so the roads be preserved. The end, it was thought, justified the means employed. No one knew the Acts of Parliament through and through, inside out and up and down, as this detested class. Informers sometimes worked singly; at others they constituted themselves into firms, with offices and tame attorneys, and staffs of travelling spies, whose travelling expenses were well repaid, with a handsome profit besides, by the materials for informations which they had obtained on the roads. Indeed, it was stated that on certain routes the waggoners paid annual sums to the informers, as a kind of quit-rent against prosecutions; for, as an informer in a confidential moment was heard to declare, the Acts were so many and so conflicting that it was impossible to travel without a breach of the law. The greatest of all informers was Byers, who combined the occupation with that of a small shopkeeper in the outskirts of London. The acts of Byers may be traced through many old files of newspapers, and even _then_ you shall not discover his Christian name; for in those records it is generally “Byers again!” or “Byers appeared before So-and-so charging What’s-his-name.” Thus do we speak of the great in war, in science, in literature; for custom tells only of a Wellington, a Newton, or a Thackeray. We know their titles and Christian names, but suppress them to gain a grand and monumental simplicity. To reduce the argument to a logical conclusion, Byers was a greater than these, for we do not even know his baptismal cognomen. He is a classic now, for Barham accorded him the honour of an allusion and an explanatory note in one of the _Ingoldsby Legends_--the “Lay of St. Nicholas,” where we read:-- The Accusing Byers “flew up to Heaven’s Chancery,” Blushing like scarlet with shame and concern.