Sixteen-String Jack terrified
Bagnigge Wells with the dreadful announcement that he was a
highwayman, when his kindly, stupid heart would have shrunk from the
shedding of a drop of blood So they both blustered through the world,

A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
the one in deed, the other in word; and both played their parts with so little
refinement that they frightened the groundlings to a timid admiration
Here the resemblance is at an end In the essentials of their trade
Gilderoy was a professional, Rann a mere amateur They both bullied;
but, while Sixteen-String Jack was content to shout threats, and pick up
half-a-crown, Gilderoy breathed murder, and demanded a vast ransom
Only once in his career did the `disgraceful Scotsman' become gay and
debonair Only once did he relax the tension of his frown, and pick
pockets with the lightness and freedom of a gentleman It was on his
voyage to France that he forgot his old policy of arson and pillage, and
truly the Court of the Great King was not the place for his rapacious
cruelty Jack Rann, on the other hand, would have taken life as a
prolonged jest, if Sir John Fielding and http://www.ttluxury.com/scategory_28_Omega-Watches.html" target="_blank the sheriffs had not checked his
mirth He was but a bungler on the road, with no more resource than he
might have learned from the common chap-book, or from the dying
speeches, hawked in Newgate Street But he had a fine talent for
merriment; he loved nothing so well as a smart coat and a pretty woman
Thieving was no passion with him, but a necessity How could he dance
at a masquerade or court his Ellen with an empty pocket? So he took to
the road as the sole profession of an idle man, and he bullied his way from
Hounslow to Epping in sheer lightness of heart After all, to rob DrBell
of eighteenpence was the work of a simpleton It was a very pretty taste
which expressed itself in a pea-green coat and deathless strings; and Rann
will keep posterity's respect rather for the accessories of his art than for the
art itself On the other hand, you cannot imagine Gilderoy habited
otherwise than in black; you cannot imagine this monstrous matricide
taking pleasure in the smaller elegancies of life From first to last he was
the stern and beetle-browed marauder, who would have despised the
frippery of Sixteen-String Jack as vehemently as his sudden appearance
would have frightened the foppish lover of Ellen Roach
http://www.ttluxury.com/scategory_26_Chanel-Jewelry.html" target="_blank Their conduct with women is sufficient index of their character Jack
Rann was too general a lover for fidelity But he was amiable, even in
his unfaithfulness; he won the undying affection of his Ellen; he never
stood in the dock without a nosegay tied up by fair and nimble fingers; he

A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
was attended to Tyburn by a bevy of distinguished admirers Gilderoy,
on the other hand, approached women in a spirit of violence His Sadic
temper drove him to kill those whom he affected to love And his cruelty
was amply repaid While Ellen Roach perjured herself to save the lover,
to whose memory she professed a lifelong loyalty, it was Peg Cunningham
who wreaked her vengeance in the betrayal of Gilderoy He remained
true to his character, when he ripped up the belly of his betrayer This
was the closing act of his life
Rann, also, was consistent, even to the gallows The night before his
death he entertained seven women at supper, and outlaughed them all
The contrast is not so violent as it appears The one act is melodrama,
the other farce And what is farce, but melodrama in a happier http://www.ttluxury.com/scategory_28_Omega-Watches.html" target="_blank shape?
THOMAS PURENEY
THOMAS PURENEY
THOMAS PURENEY, Archbishop among Ordinaries, lived and
preached in the heyday of Newgate His was the good fortune to witness
Sheppard's encounter with the topsman, and to shrive the battered soul of
Jonathan Wild Nor did he fall one inch below his opportunity
Designed by Providence to administer a final consolation to the evil-doer,
he permitted no false ambition to distract his talent As some men are
born for the gallows, so he was born to thump the cushion of a prison
pulpit; and his peculiar aptitude was revealed to him before he had time to
spend his strength in mistaken endeavour
For thirty years his squat, stout figure was amiably familiar to all such
as enjoyed the Liberties of the Jug For thirty years his mottled nose and
the rubicundity of his cheeks were the ineffaceable ensigns of his
intemperance Yet there was a grimy humour in his forbidding aspect
The fusty black coat, which sat ill upon his shambling frame, was all
besmirched with spilled snuff, and the lees of a thousand quart pots The
bands of his profession were ever awry upon a tattered shirt http://www.ttluxury.com/categorys_32_Deville_1.html" target="_blank His ancient
wig scattered dust and powder as he went, while a single buckle of some
tawdry metal gave a look of oddity to his clumsy, slipshod feet A
caricature of a man, he ambled and chuckled and seized the easy pleasures

A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS
within his reach There was never a summer's day but he caught upon his
brow the few faint gleams of sunlight that penetrated the gloomy yard
Hour after hour he would sit, his short fingers hardly linked across his
belly, drinking his cup of ale, and puffing at a half-extinguished tobacco-
pipe Meanwhile he would reflect upon those triumphs of oratory which
were his supreme delight If it fell on a Monday that he took the air, a
smile of satisfaction lit up his fat, loose features, for still he pondered the
effect of yesterday's masterpiece On Saturday the glad expectancy of to-
morrow lent him a certain joyous dignity At other times his eye lacked
lustre, his gesture buoyancy, unless indeed he were called upon to follow
the cart to Tyburn, or to compose the Last Dying Speech of some
notorious malefactor
Preaching was the master passion of his http://www.ttluxury.com/categorys_28_Aqua-Terra-_1.html" target="_blank lif