boy had the impudence to come and offer his vials again, upon which
the gentleman not only bought of him as usual, but ordered two quarts of
milk to be set on the fire, put into it two ounces of glister sugar,
crumbled it with a couple of penny loaves, and obliged this
nimble-fingered youth to eat it every drop up before he went out of the
kitchen door, and then without farther correction hurried him about his
business.

This was the channel in which Jonathan's business usually ran, but to
support his credit with the magistrates, he was forced to add
thief-catching to it, and every sessions or two, strung up some of the
youths of his own bringing-up to the gallows. But this, however, did not
serve his turn; an honourable person on the Bench took notice of his
manner of acting, which being become at last very notorious, an Act of
Parliament was passed, levelled directly against such practices, whereby
persons who took money for the recovery of stolen goods, and did
actually recover such goods without apprehending the felon, should be
deemed guilty in the same degree of felony with those who committed the
fact in taking such goods as were returned. And after this became law,
the same honourable person sent to him to warn him of going on any
longer at his old rate, for that it was now become a capital crime, and
if he was apprehended for it, he could expect no mercy.

Jonathan received the reproof with abundance of thankfulness and
submission, but what was strange, never altered the manner of his
behaviour in the least; but on the contrary, did it more openly and
publicly than ever. Indeed, to compensate for this, he seemed to double
his diligence in apprehending thieves, and brought a vast number of the
most notorious amongst them to the gallows, even though he himself had
bred them up in the art of thieving, and given them both instructions
and encouragement to take that road which was ruinous enough in itself,
and by him made fatal.

Of these none were so open and apparent a case as that of Blake, _alias_
Blueskin. This fellow had from a child been under the tuition of
Jonathan, who paid for the curing his wounds, whilst he was in the
Compter, allowed him three and sixpence a week for his subsistence, and
afforded his help to get him out of there at last. Yet as soon after
this he abandoned him to his own conduct in such matters, and in a short
space caused him to be apprehended for breaking open the house of Mr.
Kne