ey is gone, they are every moment
threatening to inform against us, if we will not get out to look for
more. If anything in this world be like Hell, as I have heard it
described by our clergy, the truest picture of it must be in the
back room of one of our alehouses at midnight, where a crew of
robbers and their whores are met together after a booty, and are
beginning to grow drunk, from that time until they are past their
senses, in such a continued horrible noise of cursing, blasphemy,
lewdness, scurrility, and brutish behaviour, such roaring and
confusion, such a clatter of mugs and pots at each other's heads,
that Bedlam in comparison is a sober and orderly place. At last they
all tumble from their stools and benches, and sleep away the rest of
the night, and generally the landlord or his wife, or some other
whore, who has a stronger head than the rest, picks their pockets
before they awake. The misfortune is, that we can never be easy
until we are drunk, and our drunkenness constantly exposes us to be
more easily betrayed and taken.

This is a short picture of the life I have led, which is more
miserable than that of the poorest labourer who works for fourpence
a day; and yet custom is so strong that I am confident, if I could
make escape at the foot of the gallows, I should be following the
same course this very evening. Upon the whole, we ought to be looked
upon as the common enemies of mankind, whose interest it is to root
us out like worms, and other mischievous vermin, against which no
fair play is required. If I have done service to men in what I have
said, I shall hope to have done service to God, and that will be
better than a silly speech made by me full of whining and canting,
which I utterly despise, and have never been used to yet such a one
I expect to have my ears tormented with as I am passing along the
streets.

Good people, fare ye well; bad as I am, I leave many worse behind
me, and I hope you shall see me die like a man, though a death
contrary.

E. E.

The Life of JAMES DALTON, a Thief

The character of this criminal is already so infamous, and his crimes so
notorious that I may spare myself any introductory observation which I
have made use of as to most of the rest with respect to his birth. He
was so unfortunate as to have the gallows hereditary to