aluable articles of jewelry, stretching multitudinously from one
extremity to the other of the window, consisting of gold and silver
watches, elegant and richly wrought seals, musical snuff-boxes, diamond
rings, diamond pins, &c. embracing, in vast variety, a property of
immense value, divided from the street by "thin and undefended squares
of glass only; and that the lure might prove still more attractive, each
article marked at its price, some 25, some 50, 75, 100, and 200 guineas
each! A dash and a grab might secure to the depredator possession of
wealth; and while such temptations are held out, the surprise is, not
that so many street robberies are, but that a great many more are not
committed. The many thousands in London out of employment, and of these
perhaps the greatest number unhoused and famishing, would it be much to
be wondered at if some of these sons of misery, goaded onwards to crime
by the extremity of human suffering, were to attempt the possession of
spoil, so carelessly exposed, and apparently so easily obtainable?{1}

1 Lord Mansfield once presided as Judge, when an unfortunate
man was tried for stealing an article of jewellery from a
shop-window, exposed by its unguarded state to depredation,
and more encouraging than otherwise, the hope of success.--
It proved differently, and the prosecutor seeming determined
to proceed against the wretched man, even to capital
punishment, Lord Mansfield, indignant at the severity of the
owner of the trinket, and compassionating the state of
misery and destitution, under the influence of which the
poor prisoner at the bar, stimulated too by its careless
exposure, had committed the felony, desired the Jury to
value the trinket in question at ten pence.--The prosecutor
started up in surprise, and exclaimed, "Tenpence, my Lord!
why the very fashion of it cost me ten times the sum!" "That
may be," returned his Lordship, "but we must not hang a man
for fashion's sake!"

~90~~"Here conies silly Tom and staggering Bob," exclaimed a fellow, as
he approached towards our pedestrians. Tallyho had grasped more firmly
his oaken sprig, with the intention of trying the crankness of the
observer's pericranium, when Dashall perceived that the obnoxious remark
was directed to a simple looking old man, dejectedly leading a horse
"done up," and apparently destined for the slaughter-house.

"Where now,