A Book of Scoundrels | Page 4

brilliant, thievery could not but flourish, and when the Stuarts sat upon the throne it was already lifted above the level of questioning experiment.
Every art is shaped by its material, and with the variations of its material it must perforce vary. If the skill of the cutpurse compelled the invention of the pocket, it is certain that the rare difficulties of the pocket created the miraculous skill of those crafty fingers which were destined to empty it. And as increased obstacles are perfection's best incentive, a finer cunning grew out of the fresh precaution. History does not tell us who it was that discovered this new continent of roguery. Those there are who give the credit to the valiant Moll Cutpurse; but though the Roaring Girl had wit to conceive a thousand strange enterprises, she had not the hand to carry them out, and the first pickpocket must needs have been a man of action. Moreover, her nickname suggests the more ancient practice, and it is wiser to yield the credit to Simon Fletcher, whose praises are chanted by the early historians.
Now, Simon, says his biographer, was `looked upon to be the greatest artist of his age by all his contemporaries.' The son of a baker in Rosemary Lane, he early deserted his father's oven for a life of adventure; and he claims to have been the first collector who, stealing the money, yet left the case. The new method was incomparably more subtle than the old: it afforded an opportunity of a hitherto unimagined delicacy; the wielders of the scissors were aghast at a skill which put their own clumsiness to shame, and which to a previous generation would have seemed the wildest fantasy. Yet so strong is habit, that even when the picking of pockets was a recognised industry, the superfluous scissors still survived, and many a rogue has hanged upon the Tree because he attempted with a vulgar implement such feats as his unaided forks had far more easily accomplished.
But, despite the innovation of Simon Fletcher, the highway was the glory of Elizabeth, the still greater glory of the Stuarts. `The Lacedmonians were the only people,' said Horace Walpole, `except the English who seem to have put robbery on a right foot.' And the English of the seventeenth century need fear the rivalry of no Lacedmonian. They were, indeed, the most valiant and graceful robbers that the world has ever known. The Civil War encouraged their profession, and, since many of them had fought for their king, a proper hatred of Cromwell sharpened their wits. They were scholars as well as gentlemen; they tempered their sport with a merry wit; their avarice alone surpassed their courtesy; and they robbed with so perfect a regard for the proprieties that it was only the pedant and the parliamentarian who resented their interference.
Nor did their princely manner fail of its effect upon their victims. The middle of the seventeenth century was the golden age, not only of the robber, but of the robbed. The game was played upon either side with a scrupulous respect for a potent, if unwritten, law. Neither might nor right was permitted to control the issue. A gaily attired, superbly mounted highwayman would hold up a coach packed with armed men, and take a purse from each, though a vigorous remonstrance might have carried him to Tyburn. But the traveller knew his place: he did what was expected of him in the best of tempers. Who was he that he should yield in courtesy to the man in the vizard? As it was monstrous for the one to discharge his pistol, so the other could not resist without committing an outrage upon tradition. One wonders what had been the result if some mannerless reformer had declined his assailant's invitation and drawn his sword. Maybe the sensitive art might have died under this sharp rebuff. But none save regicides were known to resist, and their resistance was never more forcible than a volley of texts. Thus the High- toby-crack swaggered it with insolent gaiety, knowing no worse misery than the fear of the Tree, so long as he followed the rules of his craft. But let a touch of brutality disgrace his method, and he appealed in vain for sympathy or indulgence. The ruffian, for instance, of whom it is grimly recorded that he added a tie-wig to his booty, neither deserved nor received the smallest consideration. Delivered to justice, he speedily met the death his vulgarity merited, and the road was taught the salutary lesson that wigs were as sacred as trinkets hallowed by association.
With the eighteenth century the highway fell upon decline. No doubt in its silver age, the century's beginning, many a brilliant deed was done. Something of the old policy survived, and men