Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/162

146 fellows, habited as clergyman, have been convicted of impositions with begging petitions.



Abound most in dark winter nights; on which account we seldom hear of the commission of burglary in the line of streets where the newly invented gas-lights are put up. This shows the advantage of burning a light in your house all night; the thieves drawing a conclusion from that circumstance (unless they have previous confidential communication) that part of the family are stirring.

Like all other forceful robbers, they are prone to commit murder, if resisted; and it must be in every one's recollection who reads, the "police examinations," or attend to the disclosures of the "Old Bailey Sessions" that they never go unarmed,—mostly with fire arms.

We will not pretend to enumerate all the various methods of entering the premises of others, which the law ever presumes to be "with intent to steal." Was it possible this could be done, and a complete exposition made of every manœuvre that has been tried up to the present day, new, and yet unheard of, inventions would immediately be resorted to. Even on the day we