Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/163

Rh are writing, the last sad sentence of the law has been carried into execution upon Attel, a Shoreditch lad, who had found out a new method of safely and securely robbing the next-door premises to his own for many months, and to a ruinous amount for the poor sufferer. He removed a stair, both the front and tread of it, in such a manner, as that each piece should slide out of, and into its groove at pleasure. Through this aperture he let himself down, and conveyed away the goods when the family were asleep. His detection was attended with the singular atrocity of attempting uselessly to murder the victims of his robberies; but in which he was foiled by the more humane interposition of his accomplice!—thus, no longer leaving to the mere invention of fable, "The story of the two hired villains, the one insatiate of blood, the other relenting, &c." The children in the Wood, a tale and play.

There will be no reason, however, why we should not describe those means which have been hitherto in use for house-breaking; that so, the yet tininformed reader may know how to guard aoainst a repetition of the same, nor have to reproach himself for neglecting to take all the possible precautions for securing his bouse and premises against ordinary thieves.