Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/100

84 poor devil, like himself, sometimes much more respectable than either, to embark in the same trade. Then comes the tragedy. The informers are in full possession of the names of all the purchasers, and the whole line of connections go to wreck. If they mean to go on again in the same career, they manage to get locked up at a Spunging house; and then inform against the Noodle they had first duped, who is brought to the same place, and the old Informer assumes the character of the "wolf in sheep's clothing," worms him of the remaining names of his customers, and informations are issued and penalties levied against the whole. Both parties express their sorrow, that the predicament in which they were placed should have driven them to such an act, and they are then at liberty to pursue their avocations at the same place. The more timid remove to great distances, even so far as from the Commercial road turnpike to Cork Street, Picadilly, others only into the city, about Newgate market, to Aldersgate Street, and such neighbourhoods.

In the summer of 1816, Brown obtained a list of persons likely to buy silk goods in the counties of Buckingham, Northampton, and parts adjacent from a gentleman of high