his family, his
father, who was by birth an Irishman, and in the late Wars in Flanders a
sergeant, coming over here was indicted and hanged for a street robbery.
After his death, Dalton's mother married a butcher, who, not long before
Dalton's death, was transported, and she herself for a like crime shared
in the same punishment.

This unhappy young man himself went between his father's legs in the
cart when he made his fatal exit at Tyburn. It has, indeed, remained a
doubt whether Dalton the father were a downright thief or not; his own
friends say that he was only a cheat, and one of the most dexterous
sharpers at cards in England. It seems he fell in with some people of
his own profession, who thought he got their money too much easily, and
therefore made bold to fix him with a downright robbery.

As for James Dalton the younger, from his infancy he was a thief and
deserved the gallows almost as soon as he wore breeches. He began his
pranks with robbing the maid where he went to school. By eleven years
old he got himself into the company of Fulsom and Field, who were
evidences against Jonathan Wild and Blueskin, and in their company
committed villainies of every denomination, such as picking pockets,
snatching hats and wigs, breaking open shops, filching bundles at dusk
of the evening. All the money they got by these practices was spent
among the common women of the town, whose company they frequented. Then
the Old Bailey and Smithfield Cloisters became the place of their
resort, from whence they carried away goods to a considerable quantity,
sold them at under-rates, and squandered away the money upon strumpets.

Towards Smithfield and the narrow lanes and allies about it, are the
chief houses of entertainment for such people, where they are
promiscuously admitted, men or women, and have places every way fitted
for both concealing and entertainment. The man and woman of the house
frequently take their commodities off their hand at low prices, and the
women who frequent these sort of places help them off with what trifling
sums of money they receive; for though they are utterly devoid of
education, yet dinning and flattery are so perfectly practised by them,
that these bewitched young robbers make no scruple of venturing soul and
body to acquire wherewith to purchase their favours, which are
frequently attended with circumstances that would send them rotten to
their graves, if the gallows did not intercept and take