HOW HE LEARNED TO STEAL.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3220, 25 October 1881, Page 3

HOW HE LEARNED TO STEAL.

Without beating about the bush, I enquired of him how old he was when he began to steal, to which he replied, after some little reflection, that he couldn't say that there was any particular time to *date from —' he growed up to it.' It wasn't what you might call stealing at first. At all ovents, nobody called it so, not even those who suffered by it. It was called by lots of names —nicking, pinching, sneaking. It did not become stealing, in Master Shiser's opinion, until a policeman was sent for. Nobody in Turk's Head Court, where he was brought up, thought anything of stealing. All the boys did it, and the girls too, as soon as they were old enough to go about the streets. What they stole was mostly something they could eat, there being no ' grub' at home for them, except a bit of breakfast, and perhaps a slice of bread before they went to bed. They -were not expected to bring anything home when they were so young as that, six or seven years old, neither did their mothers or fathers tell them to go and steal. They might that there was no food in the house for them, and that they must go and ' furrage' for it. That was what Mrs Mumford used to tell Bill and Liz. When he (Shiser) was five or six yeai'3 old, they used to go generally to the markets at Covent Q-arden or Farringdon, and steal things off the stalls. _ They were not particular what it was—fruit, nuts, carrots, anything good to eat. ' Once,' said Master Shiser, his lively reaollecfcion roused by the mention of the last-named vegetable, ( we had more'n enough of carrots. Me and Bill and Liz was hunting roundFarringdon Market, on Saturday afternoon it was, and presently we saw a man unlock the door of the celler where they stored 'em for the winter, and go in and come out again, and go away, leaving the door open. So in we bundled, all three of us, to nick one or two each, and while we was abont it the man came back, and we heard him turning the key in the padlock, and there we were locked in. It was pitch dark, as though it was night, and we couldn't see each other, and we were afraid to holler out though we could hear the people outside, and there we was all sitting on the carrot-stack and crying so many hours that we fell asleep on 'em, and when we woke up it was pitch dark still,but we knew it must be somewheres about breakfast time, we was so jolly hungry. So we pitched into the carrots and ate a whole lot of 'em, and kep' on at it till Bill says, ' Don't you remember what the day is, Liz ? —it's Sunday, and there won't be anybody at market till to-morrow.' We was so frightened at being all these hours longer in the dark that we all began crying again, so that we couldn't eat any more carrots for a long while, and when we went at 'em again it was more 'cause we was thirsty than hungry. Bill ate the most. He was about eleven, and was always a good feeder—and he was took ill. It must have been early on Saturday night when he was seized, and he was awfnl bad. He got cramps in his inside, and groaned and rolled about so as'we could hardly hold him, and he got wus and took to crying out and shrieking, and we all began crying and shrieking till a policeman out in Stone-cutter-street heard us, and come with some more and wrenched off the padlock and let us out. Bill was so orful bad they took him to the hospital, and Liz and me didn't get anything done to vs —only what father gave us with his waist-strap. Now, I remember,' continued Master Shiser, 'it was along of Bill's illuess that I what you may call took to thieving. Just when he came home from out of the hospital, and was rery shaky and weak, mother she got jacked vp —sent to prison I mean —for something or the other, and everything had been pawned or sold in getting a lawyer for her. We was hard up, and hadn't got no wittles, and the doctor what come to see Bill, he says he must have all the nourishing things he can get —biled mutton, and that. We hadn't got no money, and the job was to get it. So Liz and me talked it over, and we went out when it got dark, and took mother's basket, and while Liz stopped outside with it I crawled into that large butcher's shop in Parringdon-streetand took a neck of mutton what was lying on a block inside, and got clear off with it, and Liz, she aid her share, and nicked some taters and onions, and by the time father came home we had a regular good stew all ready, and Bill and all of us sat down to it. And Liz made father laugh crawling on the floor, making believe to shake and tremble all the while, just like the crawl I did when I was crawling into the shop. And I cried at being made game of, and father told me not to mind what she eaid, and give me a ha'penny to spend. I got bolder after that, and me and Liz and Larry used to go out and do each other's ' dags ' —show which was most daring —in sneaking into shops of evenings before the gas was alight, and catching up any little thing that might be laying handy." " But you sometimes got caught, I suppose ? " " Oh, sometimes I did, but I was so little that they never sent for a policeman. They'd ■ give me a kick or a punch, and let me go. Or sometimes they would keep me and send for my father, and he'd make-believe to be awful cut up about it, and promise to give me such a beating that I wouldn't forget it in a hurry, but of course he never did it. Did father encourage me in stealing ? Well, in them times only in a playful sort of way —just for a lark sometimes with his pals, when they'd be up in our room, drinking and smoking in the evening. I don't know as he meant any wickedness in it. only he was kind of fon d of me for being so sharp at mj age, which wasn't more'n nine. Just like a man might have a dog that was clever, like some dogs are, at marking things in a shop their master has drawed their attention to, and going to fetch 'em afterwards when they're told. They'd make abet about itfather and his friends—of a pot of beer, or a quartern of gin. They'd stroll out by the shop in Turnmill-street or Cow Cross, and spot something they'd all know again when they saw it —some little thing—a bundle of wood, or a cabbage, or a newspaper at the paper Ehop, and then come back and describe it to me, and send me to fetch it. I used to like father to win, of course ; but I didn't think of it as being thieving. I did not go at it —not to work at it, till mother came home after doing her six months she started on when Bill came out of the hospital. They told her about the neck of mutton, and about how clever I was at doing the other 'dags,' and mother praised me up and said it was time I cut my own grass, and a little while after she began to take me out as her slipper.' ' As her what ?' 'Beg your pardon, sir,' resumed Master Shiser, reddening under the superintendent's reproving glance ; ' what I meant was that mother and me used to go out dressed quite respectable, and a good way from home, working the shops. We used to take the basket with us, and while she talked with the shopman and got him to turn his back to reach her things, she'd hand things down off the counter to me, and I'd slip 'em into the basket. I was so little, don't you see, that they never thought of my doing euch a thing, and, if they did bowl it out, mother was always ready to give me a spank and call me a silly little fool for

putting things into the basket before she'd bought and paid for 'em.' ' But,' remarked Mr Superintendent, ' didn't you think it a very dreadful thing that your mother should teach you and encourage you to be a thief ?' ' Ah, but at that time I know'd that she wasn't my mother, though. I used to call her so, and he wasn't my father,' returned Master Shiser; ' and I knew they had no call to keep me without I helped to get my own living. That made all the difference. Besides, there wasn't nobody that I came across to point out the dreadfulness of it. Father didn't, and taint likely that Bill and Liz would. And Larry, he was doing nine months at Coldbath for taking lead off a roof. Father and me worked together off and on right up to the time when father got lumbered —sent away T mean—for that hindigo, and mother, she pot into trouble like what I told you, and Liz and the rest of 'em followed. I was left and went into lodgings in Spitalfields, and worked on my own hook.' ' Set tip as thief on your own account, you mean ?' said the superintendent. ' That's it, sir.' ' And how old were you then ?' ' Going on nigh twlve, sir. Leastways, when I say I worked on my own hook, a young boy can't do that. He might have pluck, and he might have luck, gentlemen, but ttat ain't anything if he don't know where to put off what he makes. There's places enough that buy what you take 'em, but they take advantage of a young boy, and give him next to nothing for what he brings, so that he's hard at it every day prigging from 'and to mouth, if you'll excuse me saying it, sir, and they getting all the pull. ' Here agin, the magistrate says," continued Master Shison, growing quite warm with indignation. " Course he's there agin, and them that don't run any risk is never there at all. But you don't like to split on 'em. I've been atHolloway, and at Coldbath, to ; and I've had the gaolers and them trying to get out of me the names of ' fences,' and where they live ; but a boy that's always in and out don't like to tell. It mightn't be good for him. But I've done with it all now," said the boy, looking up resolutely and with a bright face. " I mean to stick hard, sir, to the trade I'm learning here, which is shoemaking, and when I've served my time at it I'm going to Canada to follow it." " And if you continue here as you have begun," remarked the superintendent, encouragingly, " there is no reason why you should not become a respectable and prosporous man." And I could fancy Master Shiser suddenly grown two inches taller when he heard these words; and I shook hands with him, and wished him well. —Telegraph.