Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/593

 12 s. ix. DEC. IT, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 487 Georgian Wapping was not a paradise that smuggling and river theft, for instance, were two of the most nourishing industries there- about, alike in times of peace and war. The numbers of those who were hanged, trans- ported to the plantations of Virginia and Maryland, or forced into the Navy, the East India Company's military and shipping services, &c., for participation in or conni- vance with these transactions, must have run up to many thousands. It is a most significant fact that the common people in- dustrials included in the maritime hamlets eastward of the Tower, and inland hamlets to boot, were experts in dodging the often fatuous schemes of magistrates and revenue officers to restore law and fiscal order ; and, before the great dock system was established, it was admitted that there were few of the better classes who could resist the lure of smuggled goods silk, tea, brandy, rum, hollands, sugar, spices " collected " from vessels lying astream, swinging on " chains " with every tide for weeks before obtaining lighters or barges to accomplish clearance to quays and warehouses, where they were still in danger of pilferage. It is needless to add that innkeepers alongshore were not exempt from this universal cupidity ; in- deed some of the inns were constructed with special facilities for ' the secret delivery of commodities as was shown to Charles Dickens as a wondering child and, later, as an understanding young man. In 1796 it was estimated that on the choked quays alone many thousands- of pounds a year were lost to merchants in these adventures, although this was but a trifle to the pecula- tions of the middle eighteenth century. Beyond all doubt the effect upon the manners and morals in the conventional " Wapping " was tremendous. Walter Besant scarcely exaggerates when he de- clares there was drunkenness and immorality alongshore "more rampant than the bestiality of a temporary settlement of pirates on a West Indian islet." The frequent cadi-like observations of the stipendiary magistrates in the Port of London attest that river-theft and maulage of goods in transit are far from extinct in the twentieth century and still involve great losses to the commercial community and grievous restraint of trade. And Mr. Routh, at " Thames," after a number of men and women had appeared before him recently charged with being found helplessly driuik on the pavements, wearily mentioned that on any Saturday night, in" the area of his jurisdiction, "one has to pick one's way very carefully for fear of trampling on somebody." Me. OWEN O'NEILL AT ARRAS. THE article on Owen Roe O'Neill in the ' D.N.B.' consists of five-and-a-half columns, but is almost entirely concerned with its subject's career in his own country from 1642 to the time of his death. Of the first fifty years of O'Neill's life we are told simply that he " entered the Spanish military ser- vice about 1610," and that " after a dis- tinguished service of about thirty years he conducted the defence of Arras in 1640, surrendering it to the French after a notable resistance." Touching these earlier years of O'Neill's life, references are given to Sir J. T. Gilbert's ' Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland ' (published at Dublin in 1879-80), but as the book is not easily accessible to the general reader I should like to be informed of any other sources of in- formation concerning O'Neill's Spanish career. O'Neill's name appears as " Eugenio Buel " in Renaudot's Gazette of 1640, where, under date June 25, it is stated : Le siege d' Arras continue vigoureusement. Eugenio Buel, Colonel Irlandois, chef de grande experience, commande dans la place : pour 1'ab- sence du Comte d'Isembourg qui en est Gouver- neur, lequel est ant sort! peu de jours avant le siege, avec des trouppes qu'il jetta dans Bethune, que les nostres faisoient mine de vouloir assieger, n'a pu rentrer depuis dans la dite place : oii les bourgeois ne rendent pas grande obeissance a ce colonel et oii Ton croid qu'il n'y a pas abondance de munitions. A month later, however (July 24), the name becomes " Oneil," the reference this time being : Quelque ordre que Eugenio Oneil, Colonel Irlandois, apporte centre nos bombes, elles causent de grands maux dams la ville. Arras capitulated to the French on Aug. 9, 1640, articles of surrender being accorded by the generals of the King's army to " Eugenio Oneil, Mestre de camp d'un regiment Irlandois pour le service de sa Majeste Catholique, et commandant les gens de guerre dans Arras." The first of these articles states that " le dit Mestre de camp Dom Eugenio Oneil et autres Mestres de camp, gouverneurs, capi- taines " and others shall be conducted to Douai on the following day by the shortest way, along with four cannons and a mortar.