had been a highwayman, I would
have done so; I should have thought myself all the more safe; and,
moreover, shouldn't have despised myself. To curry favour with those you
are robbing, sometimes at the expense of your own comrades, as I have
known fellows do, why, it is the greatest--"

"So it is," interposed my friend the postillion, who chanced to be
present at a considerable part of the old ostler's discourse; "it is, as
you say, the greatest of humbug, and merely, after all, gets a fellow
into trouble; but no regular bred highwayman would do it. I say, George,
catch the Pope of Rome trying to curry favour with anybody he robs; catch
old Mumbo Jumbo currying favour with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Dean and Chapter, should he meet them in a stage-coach; it would be with
him, Bricconi Abbasso, as he knocked their teeth out with the butt of his
trombone; and the old regular-built ruffian would be all the safer for
it, as Bill would say, as ten to one the Archbishop and Chapter, after
such a spice of his quality, would be afraid to swear against him, and to
hang him, even if he were in their power, though that would be the proper
way; for, if it is the greatest of all humbug for a highwayman to curry
favour with those he robs, the next greatest is to try to curry favour
with a highwayman when you have got him, by letting him off."

Finding the old man so well acquainted with the history of highwaymen,
and taking considerable interest in the subject, having myself edited a
book containing the lives of many remarkable people who had figured on
the highway, I forthwith asked him how it was that the trade of
highwaymen had become extinct in England, as at present we never heard of
any one following it. Whereupon he told me that many causes had
contributed to bring about that result; the principal of which were the
following:--the refusal to license houses which were known to afford
shelter to highwaymen, which, amongst many others, had caused the inn at
Hounslow to be closed; the inclosure of many a wild heath in the country,
on which they were in the habit of lurking, and particularly the
establishing in the neighbourhood of London of a well-armed mounted
patrol, who rode the highwaymen down, and delivered them up to justice,
which hanged them without ceremony.

"And that would be the way to deal with Mumbo Jumbo and his gang," said
the postillion, "should they show their visages in these realms; and I
hear by