accused party's asseverations that he had never been near the spot. This villany, however, having been detected in one or two instances, they adopted means afterwards to entice their victims to the scene of the pretended robbery. Sometimes they attended the Old Bailey sessions, and marked' such prisoners as they thought likely to suit their purpose, observing that they would be sure of him again in a sessions or two.' At other times, one of the party would accost three or four lads whose habits and character were such as to give colour to the charge, and after treating them to drink, invite them to take a walk, which he always contrived should be towards the locality already fixed on for a robbery. In the course of the day or evening, the lads were taken to a notorious tavern in Black Boy Alley, or to some lodging-house known to be frequented by thieves, where, at a preconcerted hour, the thieftakers came and apprehended the whole party. When before the magistrate, the confederates contrived to have their man admitted evidence, and scarcely ever failed of obtaining a conviction at the next sessions, with the reward of L.30 or L.40 for each conviction. Another plan of which these villains availed themselves for carrying on their designs with greater impunity, was to hire a room, and after placing in it a few articles of furniture or merchandise, entrap some unsuspicious victim into the robbing of it. Or they advertised the stoppage of stolen goods, with full description, which left the advertiser free from suspicion. The latter scheme, however, was only put in practice a day or two before the assizes, that the friends of the accused might be prevented, by want of time, from exposing the treachery. But the chances of discovery were braved; the fellows never hesitated to swear anything to carry their point; the real residence of the 'decoy-duck' was scrupulously concealed; but if by any chance he was arrested, the prosecutor swore he was not the thief. 'As for what the poor creatures themselves said,' writes Mr Cox, 'it stood for nothing, although they loudly declared their innocence, and with their dying breath would acknowledge they ought to die for the sins of an ill-spent life, but protested their being innocent of the fact for which they suffered.'

The ranks of the thief-takers, it is said, were continually recruited from the criminals annually discharged from Newgate, where they had received an apt education. In most cases the magistrates refused to hear informations against them, and the attempt to press these informations was exceedingly dangerous. In one year, 1749, they divided the enormous sum of L.6300, which had been paid to them for convictions in the county of Middlesex. If the robbery were laid in an adjoining county, the reward was greater; and we read of eight convictions producing L.1120. It is not surprising that the villains were unwilling to abandon so profitable a trade, one to which they were encouraged by short-sighted legislation. In some instances, however, their prey escaped them. One of the gang meeting Lyon Alexander, inquired if he wished to earn a shilling; the youth assented, and on going to the house indicated for a bundle, was shown into a room, where half-a-dozen men began to maltreat him. They dragged him through the streets to Wapping, bruising his fingers with their sticks whenever he attempted to cling to the railings; and crossing the river to Greenwich, gave him in charge to the constable for highway robbery. The lad was committed to Maidstone jail, where he found another youth accused by the same gang; and the assizes not coming on for a week, they wrote to their friends, who fortunately were able to employ counsel, on which the prosecution was abandoned. On another occasion, two youths, one of them not more than thirteen, were saved by the exertions of the foreman of the jury. Although unable to secure their acquittal, he suspected the falsehood of the charge, and by an appeal to the proper authorities, obtained a pardon; and the confederates, who had cunning enough to deceive the

court, jury, and nearly all concerned, were disappointed of their booty.

The manner in which these villanies were at last effectually exposed is worthy of record. A robbery was planned to take place at New Cross, near Greenwich, so as to insure the increased reward on conviction beyond the limit of Middlesex. Salmon, one of the gang, after drinking with two young men of indifferent character, persuaded them to bear him company in his walk down the Old Kent Road. Towards midnight he loitered behind, when Blee and Gahagan, two others of the gang, came up and robbed him of two pairs of leathern breeches, which he carried under his arm, with a tobacco box, and some other trifling articles. The thieves went off immediately to the rendezvous, where they were soon after followed by Salmon and his two unsuspecting companions. After further drinking, part of the stolen property was secreted on the persons of these two, when Macdaniel appeared and arrested them on a charge of highway robbery preferred by Salmon. Mr Cox's suspicions were first excited on learning that Macdaniel was well acquainted with Blee, who, although included in the charge, was yet at liberty. He therefore, with most praiseworthy perseverance, made a point of arresting Blee, the decoyduck, unknown to Macdaniel, the mock prosecutor. The decoy immediately made an open confession, on which warrants were issued for the arrest of the chief confederates, to be served as soon as they had given their evidence on the trial of the two men at Maidstone. The apprehension of Blee was kept a profound secret; and the shortness of the interval before the assizes proved fatal to the party, who, with their usual confidence, went down into Kent to attend the trial. On descending from the witness-box after giving evidence, each one was quietly secured and handcuffed, though not without risk, as Macdaniel always went armed. Salmon was immediately committed for contriving his own robbery; and the other three, in spite of the leader's subterfuges, as accessaries and abettors. It was, however, found, that through some defect in the law, they could not be tried on the capital charge. The case was argued during several days before the twelve judges, which ended in an indictment for conspiracy, by order of the lords of the treasury. The four criminals were soon after brought to trial, and condemned to imprisonment in Newgate for seven years, and to be set twice in the pillory. On their first public appearance, they were with difficulty saved from the fury of the mob. Gahagan was struck dead by a missile hurled from the crowd; and had it not been for the sheriffs, not one would have escaped popular vengeance.

Eventually the woman, Mary Jones, came in for her share of the punishment. A poor wretch named Kidden had been tried and convicted on her accusation of robbing her on the highway between Tottenham and London. Notwithstanding the prisoner's protestations of innocence, and the appeals of his friends to the secretary of state, he was condemned to be hanged. Some passages in the letters he wrote, while waiting for execution, mark the harsh treatment of prisoners at that period. In one, he informs his sister that he has no fire; and though black and blue with lying on the floor, is to be double-ironed. In another, he thanks her for sixpence, which she sent him, 'for,' he adds, we have nothing allowed us but one penny loaf a-day.' Blee afterwards confessed that Kidden was entirely innocent, and Mary Jones was committed to Newgate for wilful murder; on which Mr Cox concludes, 'I could not entertain the thoughts of relinquishing the pursuit, till I found these monsters fixed in those dreadful apartments appointed for the reception of the delighters in the shedding of blood-the destroyers of the repose and tranquillity of the human race.'

An attempt to revive the blood-money system appears to have been made about the year 1816; but its promoters-Vaughan, a police officer, with some otherswere sentenced to five years' imprisonment in Newgate;

to what extent they had carried it was never known. Since that period, as far as we can learn, it has not reappeared; and any efforts to put it in practice at the present time would certainly fail of success. We could wish, for the sake of humanity, that the annals of crime were not made blacker by such fearful records; and though such deeds may not be committed now, places still exist in London where individuals may be hired to perjure themselves-to swear to anything for a consideration. Such blots can only be removed from our social condition by a true education-which, while informing the mind, improves and regulates the moral feelings.

GUTTA PERCH A.

THERE are some substances in nature which appear expressly intended to fill a sphere of utility peculiar to themselves, and for which no substitutes, or virtually none, seem capable of being discovered. Caoutchouc was one of these, gutta percha is another. This substance is of recent introduction into England, having been first brought under the notice of the Society of Arts in the autumn of 1843. The history of its discovery is thus given by Dr Montgomerie:-'While at Singapore in 1842, I on one occasion observed, in the hands of a Malayan woodsman, the handle of a parang made of a substance which appeared quite new to me. My curiosity was excited, and on inquiry, I found it was made of the gutta percha, and that it could be moulded into any form, by simply dipping it in boiling water until it became heated throughout, when it became plastic as clay, and when cold, regained, unchanged, its original hardness and rigidity. I immediately possessed myself of the article, and desired the man to fetch me as much more of it as he could get. On making some experiments with it, I at once discovered that, if procurable in large quantities, it would become extensively useful.' The discovery was communicated to the Medical Board of Calcutta, and subsequently to the Society of Arts in London, and the announcement met with immediate attention in both quarters. Orders for considerable quantities were transmitted, and the gutta percha trade, for such it has become, assumed a definite organisation. The tree from which it is procured is stated by Sir W. J. Hooker to belong to the natural order Sapotacea. It is found in abundance in many places in the island of Singapore, and in some dense forests at the extremity of the Malayan peninsula. The discoverer having applied to the celebrated and enterprising Mr Brook, requesting him to make inquiries for the tree at Sarawak, and on the west coast of Borneo, received the following communication from that gentleman:-The tree is called Niato by the Sarawak people, but they are not acquainted with the properties of the sap: it attains a considerable size, even as large as six feet diameter; is plentiful in Sarawak, and most probably all over the island of Borneo.' The tree is stated to be one of the largest in the forests in which it is found, frequently attaining to the diameter of three or four feet, and occasionally to that above-mentioned. The timber is valueless for building purposes, on account of the loose and open character of its tissue; but the tree bears a fruit which yields a concrete oil, used for food by the natives. Gutta percha is contained in the sap, and is thus procured:-A magnificent tree of fifty, or perhaps one hundred years' growth, is felled; the bark is stripped off, and a milky juice, which exudes from the lacerated surfaces, is collected, and poured into a trough, formed by the hollow stem of the plantain leaf. On exposure to the air, the juice quickly coagulates. From twenty to thirty pounds is the average produce of one tree. This wasteful, sinful procedure, is adopted to a very large extent, as may be conceived from the amount of the gutta now imported reaching many hundreds of tons annually. The inevitable consequence of such an extravagant short-sightedness it is not difficult to predict; and we may confidently expect,

that if measures are not taken to remedy the evil, gutta percha will in time cease to form an article of commerce, and exist only as a rarity in the cabinets of the curious, or in the hands of the instrument-maker. There is every reason to believe, could this greedy spirit be restrained, that an abundant supply might be obtained by simply making incisions in the bark of the tree, as in the case of the caoutchouc trees, and thus a perennial supply would be insured.

Gutta percha comes to us in two forms: the one in which it is in thin films or scraps, something similar to clippings of white leather; the other is in rolls, which, on a cross section, show that they are formed by rolling the thin layers together in a soft state. When pure, the slips are transparent, and somewhat elastic, varying in colour from a whitish-yellow to a pink. In the mass it is seldom free from some impurities such as sawdust, pieces of leaves, &c.-which must be removed before it is applicable for some of the more delicate uses proposed for the substance. It is purified by a process called 'devilling,' or kneading, which is done in hot water: the water soon dissolves some of the foreign matters, and washes out others, until after a short time the gutta percha is left in a mass, ductile, soft, and plastic, of a whitish-gray colour. Or this is more simply effected by dividing the substance into fragments, and then submitting them to a slightly-prolonged boiling in water. From the docile nature of the material, neither of these processes is attended with the difficulties attaching to the manipulation requisite for caoutchouc. Gutta percha thus prepared for use possesses very curious properties. Below the temperature of 50 degrees, it is as hard as wood, but it will receive an indentation from the finger nail. It is excessively tough, and only flexible in the condition of thin slips: in the mass, it has a good deal the appearance, and something of the feel, of horn; its texture is somewhat fibrous; and from the resistance it offers to anything rubbed across it, it appears that it was first used as a substitute for horn for the handles of knives and choppers. By an increase of heat, it becomes more flexible, until, at a tem-perature considerably below the boiling point of water, the once rigid, tough, and obdurate mass becomes like so much softened bees'-wax. It is now easily cut and divided in any manner by a knife, and may be moulded into all varieties of form with the greatest ease; or may be cut and united again so perfectly, as scarcely to exhibit even the appearance of a joint, and possessing all the strength of an undivided mass. From a number of very small fragments it is quite easy to form a coherent mass, as firm as if no division had taken place. Whatever be the shape into which the gutta percha is now formed, it will retain precisely the same form as it cools, hardening again to its previous state of rigidity. A ball one inch in diameter was completely softened by boiling for ten minutes, and regained its hardness entirely in half an hour. It is an important fact, that these processes may be alternated any number of times without injury to the material. It is in a great measure devoid of elasticity, offering a striking contrast to caoutchouc, but its tenacity is little less than wonderful: a thin slip, an eighth of an inch substance, sustained a weight of forty-two pounds, and only broke with the pressure of fifty-six pounds. It offers great resistance to an extending power; but when drawn out, it remains without contracting in the same position. When in its hard state, it is cut with incredible difficulty by the knife or saw. Like caoutchouc, it burns brightly when lighted, disengaging the peculiar odour accompanying the combustion of that substance; like it also, it is soluble with difficulty in ether and other caoutchouc solvents, but very readily in oil of turpentine.

We may now properly consider the applications of this substance. The solution appears to be as well adapted as that of India-rubber for the manufacture of waterproof cloth, and for the other purposes to which that liquid is now applied. In the solid state, it is in use among the Malays principally for the purpose be

winter, we very properly wear dark, and in summer light colours; and in most tropical countries the natives are clothed exclusively in white.

Our correspondent mentions a case in which a woodturner was absolutely driven from his business by the heat for two or three hours in the day. His workshop had a slated roof slanting to the south; and there being a small steam-engine within the building, the heat from this source, added to the heat from the roof (for there was no ceiling or plaster inside), raised the thermometer to 104 degrees, when it was 80 degrees out of doors in the shade. The remedy recommended was simply to whitewash the roof; and this had the effect of equalising the temperature within and without. The slates,' he adds, which before were so hot on the under side that they burnt the hand, were scarcely warmed by the sun after the whitewashing.' The materials, we are told, will not cost sixpence for a roof sixteen feet square; and if well sized, even a fortnight's continued rain will have little effect. Such a surface, therefore, might be renewed once or twice in the heat of summer, at a very trifling expense; while, if greater permanence were desired, the same result would be obtained by means of two coats of white oil-paint. The published paper of our correspondent concludes thus: While writing on the subject of cooling upper rooms, allow me to suggest an additional means of cooling all rooms, upper or lower, by means of a hole made in the wall, as near the ceiling as possible, with a sliding wooden shutter working horizontally in a frame, which may be opened or closed at pleasure. An opening one foot square, with frame and shutter complete, may be made for eighteenpence.

'As the above suggestions are not the offspring of theory or imagination, but the results of practical experiment, and as their immediate adoption would greatly increase the health and comfort of thousands of your readers, without putting them to any inconvenient expense, I have no doubt you will kindly give them

insertion.'

GRANDMOTHER HOOK.

A FEW evenings ago, I was at one of those old-world houses in Edinburgh where a man may actually invite himself to tea, and, without being stared at as a curiosity, take his place in a circle round a round table, dominated by a steaming urn. I would describe this tea-drinking as a relic of the olden time; but just now I have something else to do. Suffice it, that besides myself, there were at table an old maid, a young maid, the father and mother of the latter, and a gentlemanlike man somewhere on the wrong side of forty. This man was the lion of the party, and performed wonderfully well. He was not like the caged animal, strutting up and down to show his paces, and growling, grinning, or yawning at the spectators; but resembled rather the free denizen of the forest, leaping and romping by turns, dignified or playful as occasion called; now making the room ring with his voice, and now roaring you 'an 'twere any nightingale.' In short, I was prepared to like the man very much; and seeing likewise that he was unusually good-looking for a male animal, you may imagine that I was not a little startled to hear that he had very recently been made a Benedict, and, strange to say, with a lady recognised under the appellation of Grandmother Hook!

The company, however, made themselves very merry with the poor gentleman's calamity; and the old maid especially was never weary of asking questions, seeming to derive a certain savage comfort from the idea of a lady getting married in her very grandmotherhood. The gentleman was at first a little embarrassed; but his tormentors being his near relations, it was necessary to answer; and at length, making up his mind to what

could not be avoided, he pulled a desperately grave face, and began to tell them all about it.'

I

'You may wonder,' said he, 'that at my mature years had fallen so completely into my uncle's power as to give him the almost absolute disposal of my hand; but such was the fact. I was brought up, you know, to the very worst thing under the sun-expectations; and, consequently, I was good for nothing else but to keep on expecting. I spent many years as a walking gentleman of society in London, and many more in wandering to and fro upon the continent; but at length, when actually within hail of forty, I found myself once more with my legs under the mahogany of the Athenæum, and with nothing to pay for the good things above it but what came out of the pockets of a tough, and somewhat peremptory old man.

'He had never before insisted upon my marrying; but the reason was, that he had remained in constant expectation of the occurrence taking place through my own connivance. Indeed it had been his business for many years to interpose gently between me and the catastrophe; suggesting now that I did not know enough of the lady, and again that I knew too much; and so forth. The fact is, I had never been without expectations of that sort; always voluntarily abandoned, till my first crop of gray hairs appeared. After this, the difficulty was on the side of the lady; and I was at length so much disgusted by the unreasonableness of the sex, that I determined to live and die a bachelor. Just at this moment I received a letter from my uncle, which I can repeat from memory, as it was short, and to the purpose. "DEAR NEPHEW-I am glad to hear of what you call the vacancy in your heart, as you will thus have no difficulty in fulfilling my wishes, and obeying my solemn injunctions. You have promised several times to marry, and you must now do so. I never interfered with your choice, and you are not to interfere with mine. The widow and heiress of my old comrade Hook is in the market. Our estates run into each other in such a way, that you might comprise them both in the same ring fence. She is a healthy woman, and not too young; and the arrangement is, that you are to be married at the end of her year of mourning, if she can fancy you."

'If she could fancy me! The widow of old Hook! and a healthy woman indeed! That touch was horrible. I thought my uncle must have intended it to try the extent of my loyalty; and I do not know that I had ever a fit of more bitter reflection than while conjuring up the idea it conveyed.' Here the lion paused, and wiped his forehead. The old maid bridled and tossed her head, as much as to say that, in her opinion, the like of him was not so mighty a catch for ladies beyond their girlhood; while the young maid trusted, sympathisingly, that as aged men have sometimes youthful wives, the case might not have turned out so very dreadful after all.

'That,' said the gentleman, 'did not fail to occur to me, and it gave me considerable comfort; for owing, I suppose, to the idle life I had led, I had not yet got rid of the ideas of romance that are so unfit for mature years like mine. It was one thing to indulge my despair in old bachelorhood, and quite another to carry my broken heart into the domestic society of an old woman. I confess I did hope that Mrs Hook owed her good condition at least to some lingering remains of youth; but a second letter from my uncle, in reply to my remonstrances, dissipated at once the fond illusion, by informing me that the widow's family could be no