McLevy (8 page)

“And the breath of their nostrils shall find them out.”

❖

H
ow different are the estimates people form of mankind! Some say that the world is just very much as you take it—the old notion that truth is
just as you think it. If you wear a rough glove, you may think all those you shake hands with are rough in the palms; and if you wear a soft one, so in the other way; and no doubt if you grin in a
glass, you will get a grin in return—if you smile, you will be repaid with a smile. All very well this in the clever way; but I’ve a notion that there are depths of depravity not to be
gauged in this short plumb way, just as there are heights of perfection not to be got at by our own estimates of ourselves. As for the general “top-to-toe rottenness” so congenial to
some religious sects, why there’s a little truth there too—at least I would look sharp at a man who could turn his eye in and about his own heart, and just say, with a nice smirk,
“Well, I am glad to find that man is an angel after all.” It is as well for me anyhow that I am not given to making a kaleidoscope of my heart, turning up only varieties of beauty,
without considering that a few hard pebbles form the elements of the fine display, otherwise how could I have had any belief in the existence of such beings as Kate Lang and Nell Duff. I would as
readily have believed in M. Chaillu’s account of the Gorillas; only these optimist gentry do admit, with a smile of satisfaction, that a hungry tiger is not to be trusted with a live
infant—no more is Kate Lang, say I.

The practice of child-stripping, which is not so common now, is one of those depths of depravity to which I have alluded. It is not that there is so much cruelty done. It forms a fine subject
for very tender people who wail about the poor innocents left shivering in their shirts. But there is more fancy than fact here; they don’t shiver long in a crowded city; nay, the stripping
is sometimes productive of good, in so much as the neighbours contrive to get the victim pretty well supplied with even better clothes than those stolen. There is more sympathy due to the case
which happens sometimes where a heartless thief makes off with the clothes, shirt and all, of a bather, about the solitary parts of Granton; for here the situation of the victim is really terrible.
To run after the thief is nearly out of the question as regards success, even if he could make up his mind to a chase in his very
natural
condition; nor is his remaining remedy much
better—a walk so unlike that of Adam through Paradise to the nearest house, a mile off, where he must knock at a door, drive away the opener with a scream, bolt like a robber into a bed-room,
and get a walk home in a suit of clothes in which his friends cannot recognise him. Our feelings depend often upon such strange turns of thought, that a case of this latter kind, so replete with
even agony, can scarcely be told without something like a smile working among the gravely-disposed muscles of the face of the hearer; while that of the child, almost always left its
skin
linen, is viewed with indignation and pity. I cannot explain this difference; but it is not difficult to see how, independently of the rather exaggerated notions we entertain of the condition of
the victim, the crime of child-stripping should be visited with the execration it generally meets.

In 1838, and thereabouts, this offence of child-stripping increased to an extent which roused the fears of mothers. The depredators were of course women. My only doubts were, whether there were
more than one; for, as I have taken occasion to remark, all such peculiar and out of the way offences are generally the work of some one ingenious artiste; and if more are concerned, they are only
parties to a league in which the inventor is the leader. I confess I was more inclined to believe in the single performer, but I was destined in this instance to find myself wrong. I was at least
determined to get at the bottom of the mystery, and it wasn’t long until I was gratified. In the month of May of the year mentioned, the cases had accumulated, and as yet my inquiries had
been unsuccessful. In the New Town the cases had been limited to the narrow streets, and latterly they had increased about the foot of the Canongate. In that quarter, accordingly, I found it
necessary to be, though not very expedient to be seen, and I soon got upon my proper scent. One day I observed coming from the Watergate three or four women, all of the lowest section of
Conglomerates—not altogether a perfectly applicable name here, in so much as my “clear grits” were not rounded by healthy washings, but sharpened by the abrasion of vice and
misery. They were busy tying up a bundle, and after indulging in many stealthy looks to the right and left, they made forward up the Canongate. I might safely have stopped them and made inquiry
into the contents of their bundle, but I had something else in view, and was content with noting them, all known to me as they were—cast-off Fancies, not genteel enough for being leagued with
respectable thieves, and yet below the summer heat of love—trulls or trollops—trogganmongers during day, and troglodytes during night.

I have said I had hopes, and accordingly I had scarcely lost sight of them when I encountered, a little on this side of the Abbey strand, a small Cupid of a fellow standing in the middle of the
street, (he had crept from a stair foot,) having a little bit of a shirt on him coming down to his knees, and crying lustily with beslubbered face.

That’s my robbed traveller, said I to myself, as I made up to the young sufferer who had so early fallen among thieves.

And just at the same time as the wondering women of the Watergate were pouring in to see the interesting personage, up comes the mother, who (as I afterwards learned) having sent out Johnny for
a loaf of bread, and finding he didn’t return, issued forth to seek for him. One may guess her astonishment at meeting him within so short a time, probably not ten minutes, in a state
approaching to nudity, but the guess would hardly come up to the real thing. The notion of his having been robbed and stripped didn’t occur to her, and her amazement did not abate until I
told her the truth, whereupon the women—like so many hens whose chickens had been seized by a hawk—broke into a scream of execration which excited the wit of an Irishman, “Have
the vagabonds taken the watch from the gintleman? Why didn’t they take the shirt too, and make a naked shaim ov it?” And having taken the name of the mother, I made after my
strippers.

Nor was it long until I got them again within my vision. It seemed to be a feasting-day with the ogresses. They met and parted, every one looking out for some little Red Riding-hood, who was
doubtless unconscious of the tender mercies of the she-wolves. The league consisted of five, all of whom had been through my hands for thefts and robberies—Catharine Lang, Helen Duff, Mary
Joice, Margaret Joice, and Robina Finnie. If you have ever been among the wynds, you can form an idea of these hags; if you haven’t, you must excuse me—squalor-painting is at best a
mud-daub. Amongst all, mark this strange feature—that though some of them had been mothers, the mother was here inverted, the natural feelings turned upside down; the innocent creatures for
whom some stray sympathy might have been expected, changed into objects of rapine and cruelty for the sake of a few rags. I soon not only marked their movements, but saw that an opportunity waited
them—for where in the Old Town will you not find clots of children? and are not these, when engaged in play, artless and confiding? Who, however degraded, will harm them? Nay, if there is any
creature secure from the drunkard, the libertine, or the thief, it is the merry playmates of the pavement, whose gambols bring back to the seared heart of the vicious the happiness and innocence
they have so long been strangers to. Yes, all true, though a little poetical; but I suspect there is a depth even
below
vice.

The wolves’ eyes were, as I could see, on the merry Red Riding-hoods; and as their number was five, I beckoned to a constable to get one or two of his brethren and watch in the
neighbouring close-mouths. As for myself, I betook me to a stair-foot at the top of New Street, where, besides the advantage of a look-out, I had the chance, according to my calculation, of being
on the very spot of the expected operation, for there were but few convenient places about. The women were so intent upon their victims, that they seemed to have forgotten that while they were
supervising they might themselves be supervised. Nor was it long before I began to see that my expectations would be realised. Lang had almost immediately the best dressed of the gambolers in her
motherly
hand, and the bit of sugar-candy was working its charm; so true it is that there is awaiting every one a bait at the end of the standing line, stretched out in the waters of life,
about which we are always swimming and flapping our tails, passing and repassing without ever dreaming of the hook. Ay, there are big fish intent upon large enterprises among the deeper places, who
will snap at the dead worm even in the midst of living gold-fish. And is it not a pleasure sometimes to see them caught by the garbage when one can net the angler as well as the angled? My moral
applies not to the gudgeons, but the pikes.

Yes, I was right; Lang, with the girl in her hand, and followed by Duff and one of the Joices, made right for my entry. I stepped up the stair a few paces to be out of the way. I wanted for
ardent reasons that the operation should be as complete as possible, for the cancer had become too deep for any good from mere skin-cutting. The moment they got the confiding soul in, who no doubt
thought herself in hands far more kindly than her mother’s, the sugar-candy of temptation was changed for the aloes of force. The three, stimulated by the fear of some one coming in upon
them, either from below or above, flew at her like hawks pouncing upon a gowdie. Did ever before the fingers of ogresses go with such rapidity to strip the clothes that they might gobble up the
body? The little mouth, still stuffed with the sweet bait, was taken care of by a rough hand. The plucking was the work of an instant—bonnet, pinny, napkin, frock, petticoats, boots and
stockings.

“It’s a good shurt, Kate.”

“Worth a shilling, Nell.”

“Off wid it,” cried Joice.

The little chemise is whirled over the head, and the minum “nude” is left roaring alone—a chance living lay figure, which would have charmed even Lord Haddo, if he had a
palette and brush, with its exquisite natural tints.

If I had had time to wait and see, I might have observed a bit of child life also worthy of a Paton or a Faed; for just as I was hurrying down, in came rushing the playmates, all with wondering
eyes to see Phemy (I ascertained her name afterwards) standing naked within a few minutes after she had left their play. Do you think they would ever forget that sight all their born days? But I
had another sight in view more interesting to me—even one in wolf-life, with some difference in expression and tints—the grandmammas with the canines and long claws, so formidable to
the Riding-hoods. Nor was I disappointed. I had set my trap so well that I had no need of the candy-bait. The instant the constables had seen what was going on, they had laid hold of the other
Joice and Robina Finnie, and the three who had been engaged, having seen their dear sisters in custody, turned down New Street, up which they had gone a few steps, and were seized by me and another
constable from behind. Meanwhile the cries of the little nude, mixed with those of her tiny sisterhood, brought a crowd, who, instantly ascertaining the cause of all the uproar, showered their
indignation on the culprits with a severity that excluded even Irish humour. Nay, so furious were the hen-mothers, that unless we had taken good care of our sparrow-hawks, there would that day have
been more stript than Phemy and her brother-victim of the Watergate; nor would I have answered for discolorations or broken bones. But care was also taken of the tender chicken, who, rolled up in a
shawl, became in the midst of the crowd a little heroine, honoured with more endearing epithets and sympathetic condolences than would perhaps ever fall to her portion again.

At the top of the street we collected our prisoners, and marched them gallantly up the Canongate and High Street. One likes to possess the favour of the female part of the people, and this day I
got as much of the incense of hero-worship as if I had stopped a massacre of the innocents. I am not sure if some males, too, much given to baby-love, did not glugger with reddened gills in anger
at the spoilers of their wives’ darlings; all which was no doubt heightened by the impression then in the public mind, produced by the repeated accounts of the instances of this nefarious
traffic. The prisoners had even during the previous part of that day committed four strippings of the same kind besides those I had witnessed.

It was not long till I ascertained that I had been wrong in my original conjecture, and that the whole of these thefts had been perpetrated by a gang. During their confinement, and when we
expected that they would hold out in their denial of guilt, it was quite a scene to witness the identifications. The witnesses were, of course, the little victims themselves, on whose minds the
features of the women had been so indelibly impressed, especially where, like the case of Phemy, “the shurt was a good un,” that they not only knew them, but screamed with terror the
moment they were brought before them. And to the women, no doubt, they were of that kind of terrible infants so well described by the French, the more by reason, perhaps, that among that people the
children have more strange things to see than in our decent country. From searches we got the evidence of the little wardrobes themselves, chiefly through pawns, showing the immense extent of their
assiduous labours. Nor had it been an unprofitable traffic to them; many of the dresses were taken from well-dressed youngsters in the New Town, and you have only to buy those things to know what
money it costs to rigg out a little man or woman in our day, when the children are taught pride and a love of finery with the supping of porridge. But, after all, it came out that we didn’t
need these evidences. The vagabonds broke down in the end under the accumulation of proof, and admitted to I do not know how many strippings. They each got eighteen months’ imprisonment, and
the community was relieved from the cold-blooded and unfeeling practice of child-stripping for a long period afterwards.