ROGUES OF THE PAST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19792, 12 November 1927, Page 2 (Supplement)

ROGUES OF THE PAST.

LONDON'S "HAUNTED SPOT"

FfFTY THOUSAND DEATHS.

NOTORIOUS CRIMINALS.

DAYS OF "TYBURN FAIR."

" Is there a ' haunted ' spot in London ? If so, it must surely be a few square yards that lie a little west of Marble Arch, where, in the course of six centuries, more than 50,000 felons, traitors, and martyrs took a lasts' farewell of the world they were, either too bad or too good to live in."

This is the introduction to a remarkable book, " Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals" who were executed for murder, highway robbery, house-break-ing. street robberies, coining,, and other offenes, recently published in London. It is edited by Mr. Arthur L. Hay ward, and most of the material is taken from the papers of the Newgate chaplains. Execution Day, or " Tyburn Fair," as it was jocularly 'called, was not only a holiday for the ragamuffins and idlers of London; people of all glasses made their way to the Marble Arch of old to indulge their motbid desires of seeing ii fellow being put to death. There were, grand stands and scaffoldings from which to view the proceedings in comfort, and every inch of window space and room on the neighbouring roofs was let at considerable profit to their owners. Mm Alive After Hanging.

It is almost impossible in these day? of almost instanteous death for condemned criminals, to realise, as Mr. Hayward points out, that "after a traitor had hung six minutes, ho was cut down, and having life in him, the executioner gave him several blows on the breast which, not having the desireel effect, he immediately cut his throat! " This extraordinary book, with the exception of minor alterations in punctua tion and spelling, is a complete reprint of thrße volumes printed and sold in Paternoster Row in 1735. One of the most entertaining despera does whose escapades are related is John Levee, highwayman and footpad. This eighteenth century roguC, in order to avoid bringing disgrace npOn his honourable family, called himself "Junks.*' His father was a French gentleman who came over with Charles H., at the Res toration, and taught French to persons of distinction at Court. He kept a large boarding school in Pall Mall for the con venience of his scholars. . He afterward? went to Holland, and his son, John, was sent to sea, and eventually became a bookkeeper in the city. Very " Genteel " Highwayman.

" Junks " found keeping accounts too dull for his martial disposition, and it order to amuse himself he took to tl broad highway, where for a long time If practised robbing "in a very genteel manner," by placing his hafc in the coaches and inviting the passengers to contribute as they thought _pjroper. Once Levee and his companion, Blue skin, held up a coach in which were two ladies and a little girl. Levee ordered tha coachman and footman to jump the ditch or he would shoot them, and then proceeded t.o strip the ladies ol their valuables.

Levoe never nsed anybody cruelly in any of his adventures. Once he and his companions • were returning from an expedition with a considerable spm, when they encountersd a man On a sorse. They carried him behind a haystack, and they found he had only two shilling?" Levee's companions •'•werd; ignis# -Ift bind and beat him when, this gentlemanly highwayman intervened, and suceeded in getting the man liberated ami set on his way with his two shillings. He was convicted s 500n,.,, after this exploit, and handed at Tyburh. The book introduces the reader co such "stars" of the criminal stage of past days as Blueskin, Jack Sheppard," Ker nedy the Pirate, and Katherine Hayes.

Exploits or Jack Sheppard. The life of Abraham Deval, a. lottery ticket forger, which is included in tlw catalogue of crime, reveals the eunnirip ox the criminal. Abraham, who ban bean employed in the Lottery Office, at last took it into his head to coin tickets for himself, and such was his skill thai at one time he .forged certificates for £52 12s. He repeated his successes, but was eventually trapped and sent to-the gallows. The exploits of Jack Sheppard," the gaol-breaker, fill many chapters of the book. This is how Jack got out of the condemned cell, in the quaint narrative of his chronicler:—

"He prevailed upon one Fowls, who was also under sentence, to lift him up to the iron spikes placed over the door which looks into the lodge. A woman of large make attending without, and two others standing behind her in riding hoods. Jack no sooner got his head and shoulders through between the iron spikes than by a sudden spring of his body followed with ease, and the women tak ing him down gently, he was, without suspicion of the keepers—though some Of them were drinking at the upper end of the lodge—conveyed safely out of the lodge door."

The book is illustrated with many original plates from the Newgate Calender.