Chapter CL (2)

Now, as to the disposal of the property. If it was valuable, he used to send for those persons who bought of him, and obtain for them such a sum of money as he required.

I am not at liberty to say who those persons were, but Peace used to swear that if ever he was taken he would do for them, and confess as to his accomplices, but I hope I shall not be mixed up in that affair.

I always told him he would go to Blackheath once too often. I cannot say more than the persons to whom he disposed of the property were Jews.

Two I know of, certainly, and they will “Jew” me, I expect, if they get hold of me. One day I went with him while he disposed of some property.

He used to take the property wrapped up like drapers’ parcels――innocent and unsuspicious-looking enough. He used to treat me with great kindness when Mrs. Ward was nowhere about.

He seemed to be never so happy as when he could get me alone. We occupied the drawing-room floor, using the front room as a sitting-room and the back as a bedroom, the breakfast-room below being my private sitting-room or boudoir, and the rest of the house being devoted to our lodgers.

The care of Peace’s animals, of which, by the way, he was extremely fond, devolved upon myself.

It would be as well, I think, to say what they were, as the collection was heterogenous.

There were ten guinea pigs, every one of which I gave away when he was taken; a goat, two cats, two Maltese terriers, and a cockatoo; and in addition to these, Mrs. Ward kept a Maltese dog, a parrot, a dog, and four pigeons.

When Peace went out at night to work he always took with him a revolver, a “jemmy,” a sharp knife, and various-sized screws wherewith to fasten the doors of rooms in which he was “working,” so as to ensure his being able to thoroughly ransack them without being disturbed; but he never took skeleton keys, for he was so skilful that he would take out the panel of a door almost noiselessly and with great rapidity.

When the police caught him they caught the cleverest thief and the cleverest beast that I should think there ever was in human form.

Here, Mrs. Thompson, as I shall continue to call her (that being the name by which she is best known), produced to me an old pair of Peace’s trousers.

In addition to the usual side pockets, they were fitted with pockets behind on a level with the hip, and in these receptacles he used, she told me, to stow away his revolver, and whatever instruments he had to take with him.

The inside of the trousers on the left-hand side was filled with a piece of oilskin or glazed cloth, to prevent the iron from chafing the burglar’s skin.

Mrs. Thompson also showed me how, by turning in his left foot and by bending up his make-believe arm towards his shoulder, the little man used to assume deformity.

I also obtained from her a description of a burglar’s stick, as she called it, which Peace found useful in climbing, and an instrument still more remarkable which, she said he possessed, as a kind of portable step ladder of seventeen steps, which he was able to fold into so small a compass that he could go out with it underneath his coat without attracting attention.

It was provided with hooks, for the purpose of fastening to walls and window ledges, but she said he never used it, owing, I suppose, to the fact that it was a clumsy apparatus to affix noiselessly.

After that she continued her narrative as follows:――

Peace never went out without leaving me with a revolver which, I dare say, I should have the courage to use had occasion presented. He had four revolvers altogether, and the three he left at home I destroyed, when I found he had been taken. Yes, as you suggest, I sank them. When he came to London he ceased to appear as a one-armed man, except in the presence of a man whose name I will not mention.

PEACE’S CAPTURE――DISPOSAL OF PROPERTY.

When we saw in the papers that he had been taken Mrs. Ward cried out, “Oh, my poor Charlie――my poor Charlie! I must go――I dare not stay here; Willie, you must go too.”

I then asked her, “And what is to become of me then?”

“Oh,” she said, “You are young; you can fight your own battle.”

She was for selling everything, but I objected to my furniture being sold, as I thought I might be able to get a living by letting apartments.

My rooms were well furnished, though I had no carpets, and Jack bought every stick that was in them. We divided all the money that was in the house, about £5, and sold the trap, harness, cushions, and rug for £8, though he had given £14 for the trap alone.

It does not matter to whom they were sold, because the man who bought them did not know at that time that we were other than very respectable people, and I should not like to expose him as having had dealings with us.

Hannah took all the moveables. We divided the ready money, and parted.

I was very firm about the furniture, which Jack said he had bought to be my own. If I liked, he said, he would buy me more.

I was to have had a piano on the 14th December last, as a birthday present.

Heigho! I cannot help feeling that I have made a great mistake. It has blotted my life; but there, I am not going to be sentimental any more. I am not a sentimental sort.

Mrs. Thompson then went on to state that when she found herself quite alone she had applied to a gentleman who had befriended her, and through whom she received the following letter from the wretched man in prison:――

“From John Ward,
“A prisoner in H.M. Prison, Newgate,
November 5, 1878.

“My dearly beloved Wife,

“Oh! do forgive me for what I have brought on myself, and
the disgrace upon you. Oh! have mercy on me all of you, and
do forgive me for my drunken madness and do all you can for
me on my trial, which I think will be about the 18th
November, so, my dear wife, do have pity upon me and do your
very best for me, for I think that you may do me a great
deal of good, that is by doing just as I tell you to do. You
must go and tell Mr. ―――― that I do very much want to see
him at once about him coming to speak as to my character. I
want to see Mr. ―――― to see if he will come to speak for me,
and I want you to go with Mr. ―――― to Mr. ―――― to see if he
will come forward to speak to my dealing with him in musical
instruments, and tell him that I only want him to come
forward and speak the truth of me. My dear wife, you must
also find everyone of my letters about my income, and also
every invoice about my dealing in musical instruments, and
give them to Mr. ―――― for him to take along with his letters
to my solicitor, now, at once, and also let them have some
of my cards. My darling dear wife, this must really be
attended to at once.

“My dear wife, I feel that there is one great favour, that
this has been my first offence, and never having been in
prison before, so that by your doing your best for me, and
with the help of God, hope it may be better for me than may
be expected, and as soon as ever this comes to your hands
you must come direct to see me, and never mind the disgrace
of your having come to see me in a prison, for I must really
see you, so do come to see me, and I want to see my
solicitor for something very particular, so that you must
tell him to come and see me, and give my dear love to Mr.
and Mrs. ―――― and also to my dear friends.

“I am, your ever loving husband,
“(Signed) JOHN WARD.”

This gentleman, as Mrs. Thompson further went on to state, had been engaged with Peace in the getting out of a patent for raising sunken vessels. To him she applied when Peace was taken, she stating that he had left her and gone off with another woman.

He took her into his house, and under his persuasion she disclosed what she knew of him――not, she said, for her own protection, for she would willingly have been taken herself, but because it was represented to her that she must forward the ends of justice.

I then tried to obtain from her some particulars of the past life of Peace, but as to these she was extremely reticent.

“How did he really escape on the night of the murder?” I asked.

Mrs. Thompson replied――

“I have never breathed this to any one. I have had people try and try, and try over again.

“According to what he has told me, he climbed over a wall opposite Mr. Dyson’s house, and walked deliberately over a field.

“He has told me the name, but I do not remember. I got a lot out of him through his dreams, but he never told me he had committed murder. He said it was something else he had to run away for.

“He went direct to his aunt’s house. Having first cut off his beard, he dressed himself in a fustian suit, and went across country, committing little depredations to help him on his journey, for he had no money until he arrived at Bradford.

“He did not personate a one-armed man then; that device he did not carry into effect until he was at Hull. He took a room at Bradford and kept two women there, who used to assist him in burglaries.

He has often boasted to me of his achievements in that town and others, and he seemed to find a particular sort of pride in the fact that in one case it took him and one of his accomplices three days to remove some things from a furnished house which the tenants had temporarily left, and which, so far as articles of value were concerned, he literally cleared out.

“He has told me a good deal about his earlier career, but I can’t recall it to mind just now. First of all, he told me he was a sort of worker in the iron trade; that ever since he was fourteen he was a thief. Sometime between 1852 and 1854 he resided with Mrs. Peace at Manchester. He was brooght up for trial on a charge of burglary about that time, and Mrs. Peace had to sell the things in the house they lived in――most of them being stolen――to procure him professional advice upon his trial. He was committed for seven years, and while he was in prison he communicated with her, and always know of her whereabouts.

“He managed to write more than the police officials knew of, for he had a way of pasting up his letters which he has shown me. When he had regained his liberty, which he told me was in 1858, he rejoined Hannah and resumed his old courses. When he went out on his exploits he wore stockings over his boots to conceal his footmarks.”

Mrs. Thompson made various other statements respecting the notorious man who was the subject of our conversation, but they were not calculated to add much to the existing stock of information concerning him.

Either she did not know much of Peace before she went to live with him, or she did not care to make any disclosures; but, as our interview lasted for something over five hours, she must have been tired and her memory confused.

[Sidenote: No. 84.]

I was not such a barbarian as not to have offered her some refreshment during that period. She took it in the form of steak and onions, rinsed down with brandy and water.

“When we parted we were the best friends in the world; she shook me warmly by the hand, and her last remark was, “I have my own character to redeem, and if I have my health and strength I hope to do it.”

The foregoing is a faithful chronicle of the account given by the woman Thompson.

We have on more than one occasion given the reader an insight of the mode in which Peace disposed of his stolen property. He did not, however, confine his business transactions in this respect to one receiver, or “fence.”

This has been already demonstrated. He had several confederates to whom he disposed of the goods he had so dexterously purloined, but in most cases he had to part with them at what drapers are accustomed to term “a ruinous sacrifice.”

This is invariably the case with burglars and robbers of every description. The receiver has always the best of the bargain.

The property must be got rid of, and this the “fence” knows perfectly well.

Peace, in addition to the two other Israelites already introduced to the reader had a Petticoat-lane confederate, who during his London career bought largely of him. This personage was interviewed by one of the special correspondents of the press. We subjoin a graphic account of his visit.

“That’s my name, and you’re quite right about my keeping a tobacco shop in this lane, and about my buying and selling ’most all kinds of old stores.”

This was the reply given to a comprehensive interrogatory addressed by a Sheffield reporter to a middle-aged keeper of a public-house in Petticoat-lane, whose name indicated that he was “of the order of Melchisedeck,” and who, rumour said, knew something of the manner in which the convict Peace had invested some of the money it is supposed he must have been possessed of shortly before his arrest.

If the police with their finished machinery and well-trained inquisitors have been able to discover nothing, it was hardly to be expected that the astute Hebrew dealer would allow himself to be trapped into any prejudicial admissions by a newspaper emissary, even though he was simply charged with the high and philanthropic duty of affording that dealer opportunity for clearing from his character aspersions which had been unjustly cast upon it.

Having informed the “old stores” man of the charitable nature of his mission, said the “special”:――

“Now, I suppose you never knew or had any dealings with Peace?”

“Me, dealings with Peace! Why, I never heard or seen ’im, except when I was bound over to keep it for six months, ’cause I give a cove a knock in the eye.”

At this sally the rowdy-looking congregation in the bar who had evinced a lively interest in the interview, delivered themselves of a unanimous guffaw. The special smiled blandly, and went on:

“I suppose you have seen what the papers have been saying about your supposed connection with Peace?”

“Oh, yes; I’ve seen it all. It’s all wrong. I’m quite innocent o’ this thing. Besides, it aint nothing to do with me. It aint me they mean. It’s the other man with the same name that keeps the ‘knell’ down the lane. If they wrote about me I should ’a took it up; but as they didn’t, I shall not trouble about it.”

“Glad to find you’re so clear of this nasty business; but have you heard much about the rumours here in the lane?”

“No; nothing except what there’s bin in the newspapers.”

“Ah! then I think I’ll call on the man at the ‘knell,’ and hear what he’s got to say.”

“Yes, that’ll be ’sgood a thing as you can do,” said the store dealer; and as the special passed the threshold sounds of merry cachinnation reached him from the idlers at the bar.

Trudging through the snow-slush, with pipe in mouth as an antidote to the many-flavoured, fever-charged atmosphere, the interviewer in a few minutes found himself outside the “knell.”

The proprietor having been inquired for, he was summoned from upstairs, and in about five minutes presented himself. He was a very young man. He was in his shirt sleeves.

He was short, but had good shoulders and breadth of chest, and his face, which had a puffiness betokening free application to the pewter pot, was adorned with a nose off one side of which the skin had been almost entirely scraped. A smile was as foreign to him apparently as vegetation to an iceberg.

The interviewer made no attempt to smile upon this young and promising vendor of Old Tom. He did not make another.

There was not the remotest smirk of sympathy or approbation in the countenance of his _vis-à-vis_.

He listened stoically to a few introductory original observations by the special, such as, “Very unexpected fall of snow this.”

“Quite an old-fashioned winter.”

“Spring will soon be here now, though.”

But on learning the nature of the caller’s business he was no longer passive.

His eyes brightened and jumped a bit, and he became loquacious, but continued cynical.

“I haven’t got nothing to say about the matter. All I know is that I don’t know nothing about Peace or about his money, or his loan society, or anything else. Besides, the newspapers know all about the case already. If they knows s’much, what do they want to send to me about it for?”

“Well, the fact is,” answered the special, “the function of a newspaper is to put the public in possession of reliable information. Reports which compromise your honour have been given currency, and although minute inquiry has been made no particle of foundation has been found for them. What I want is to get hold of the facts necessary to put the public _au courant_ with things as they really are, and at the same time afford a much-injured party a means of retrieving his good name.”

The short man with the broad shoulders, stuck his hands in his breeches pockets, spread his legs, swung his head to and fro, lifted his eyelashes, and remarked, “Ah! you do――do you?”

Then he turned round to his wife and inquired of her in surly tones why she had called him down, and muttered something to her not at all complimentary to newspaperdom or its labourers.

“Well, look here, Mister. I don’t care for what the newspapers say. Let ’em find out what they can. I aint got nothin’ to say. All I knows is that if the papers says anything about me they’ll be sorry for it, that’s all.”

“Ah! but they have done so already. They have mentioned both your name and that of your house.”

“Well, what if they have? What good have they done?” rejoined the innkeeper, and then he continued, “I’ve been bothered enough over this matter already, and I don’t want to be bothered any more.” So saying he left the special in dudgeon.

The rumours which have been afloat anent Peace’s confederates in Petticoat-lane have been sufficiently weighty to justify a descent by the police on the houses of the suspected parties.

Nothing criminating was, however, forthcoming, and the probability is that, wanting divulgence by Peace, the public will remain ignorant what has become of whatever money he has stored.

Inspired by the extraordinary statements circulated at this time as to the enormous amount of property alleged to have been disposed of by Peace, and by the reported “finds” of hidden spoil in London, the _Daily Telegraph_ writes:――

“For a precedent to the curious museum of plunder now in police custody at Bethnal-green we must go back to the days of that very eminent ‘fence,’ Jonathan Wild.

“The real character of this remarkable scoundrel has been unfortunately obscured, first in Fielding’s masterly ‘Jonathan Wild the Great,’ which is fundamentally a satire upon the statesmen of his time; and next in Mr. Ainsworth’s foolish and mischievous romance of ‘Jack Sheppard.’

“We must peruse the straightforward and dispassionate Old Bailey sessions papers to study Jonathan in his true aspect as a cunning, adroit, and not ill-educated rascal, who first reduced robbing to a system, and organised a detailed scheme for receiving and disposing of stolen goods.

“He started in business on a very small scale as the landlord of a little alehouse in Cock-alley, Cripplegate, where he surreptitiously purchased the ‘takings’ of the juvenile pickpockets from Moorfields.

“At night he would perambulate the brandy shops of Fleet-street, and traffic with the women who had contrived to rob drunken people of their watches or pocket-books.

“Growing bolder with success, it is on positive criminal record that he convened a meeting at his house of the most notorious thieves in London, and represented to them that if they took their booty to such of the pawnbrokers as were known not to be troubled with scruples of conscience, they――the thieves――would scarcely receive a fifth of the value of the goods which they had stolen; whereas if they could agree to bring their prizes to him he would make much more liberal terms for them.

“The penalty for failing to constitute Jonathan Wild their receiver-general was simply death. Bad faith was immediately resented by the denunciation of the thief to justice; and unless he could come to an arrangement with Wild the chances were overwhelming in favour of the robber going to Tyburn.

“Thus Jonathan Wild was not only a preceptor of thieves and a ‘putter-up’ of robberies, but also a receiver of stolen goods, and a thieftaker to boot.

“Removing from Cock-alley to a house in the Old Bailey, he found at length that he had accumulated an embarrassingly heavy stock of stolen property, and he absolutely purchased a sloop in order to transport his plunder to Holland and Flanders.

“The command of this vessel was entrusted to one Roger Johnson, a noted river pirate; and Wild’s factor at Ostend, and general Continental agent, was a superannuated thief called Randall.

“The sloop――her name, unfortunately, is not mentioned in the records of rascality――having discharged her cargo at Ostend, brought back to England such commodities as lace, wine, and brandy, which were landed at night, and, it is almost needless to say, without the custom-house authorities being troubled in the matter.

“Smuggling and dealing in stolen goods are operations possibly, no longer carried on in conjunction; still, who shall say that our modern Jonathan Wilds have not their favourite lines of steamers――it is not now necessary that they should buy ships of their own――and that they have not their factors and agents at Continental ports and in Continental cities?

“Many thousands of pounds’ worth of jewellery and bank-note――to name only two sorts of plunder――are stolen every year.

“There must be a mart for this precious merchandise, a mart the whereabouts of which must be perfectly familiar to professional burglars and thieves.

“Bank robbers and pickpockets have been known coolly to admit that the market price for a stolen five-pound note is three pounds ten shillings. Who buys stolen bank notes at this rate? Who melts down the stolen plate? Who wrenches the stolen gems out of their settings? Who sends the unset jewels to Amsterdam and elsewhere?

“If the police are unable to find out the wholesale dealers in stolen property, and trust to chance to make such a haul as they made the other day in the Commercial-road, might it not be expedient to allow the next professional burglar we catch to turn Queen’s evidence against the receivers?

“No terms can be made with a murderer, and Peace must be left to the gallows; but most useful revelations might be obtained from a professional housebreaker permitted to turn approver.

“Such a witness, if his evidence proved trustworthy, should receive――strictly or once in away――a full pardon.

“Convicts sentenced to penal servitude are not apt to be very grateful for a partial remission of their term of durance; and, indeed, in the case of Mr. Harry Benson, the Government, it appears, does not conceive that it is under any obligation at all to the convict for having made an exhibition of the old detective force in its full iniquity.”

In tracing the criminal career of a desperate character like Peace, it is curious to note how prone to wrong-doing he was from his earliest youth. His first theft is thus described:――

An apple of beautiful hue tempted Eve to her first sin, and it is said that fruit of a similar name first induced Peace to commit a serious theft. In the year 1830 he lived close to the orchard of the Rev. Joseph Smith, whose residence was known as the Plantation.

“The rev. gentleman was the pastor of the flock who worshipped at the Nether Chapel in Norfolk-street. But the ‘Plantation’ on Langsett-road had a different prospect to what is now the case.

“Then it was in the country really; on the banks behind the houses were farms and orchards; beneath the house were meadows sloping to the River Don, which was then alive with fish, trout being plentiful in the waters, and at times a salmon or sea-trout strayed into these higher regions from the Ouse.

“The railway connecting Sheffield with Manchester had not made its black streak across the opposite Old Park-hill, and a pleasant place was the residence of the Independent minister of those days.

“Behind the good man’s house was a goodly orchard, and within the enclosure fruit trees which carried crops of heavy, golden fruit.

“The lads of the neighbourhood viewed those crops with envy, and one of the leading spirits among them was Charles Peace, a well-instructed lad, fearless, venturesome, and domineering in spirit.

“He planned the robbery of the pastor’s orchard, but being inexperienced, was captured――whilst in an apple tree.

“He had not learnt in those days the wiles and deceits which have since come so naturally to him.

“But he had not to cope with detectives, inspectors, constables, and other professional men, who render life obnoxious to a thief. His captor was actually the parish beadle.

“Had that man lived until these days how proudly he might have said――

“‘I caught Peace!’

“But the youthful aspirant to future honours did not obtain the reward he should have had for his speculation.

“He bargained for apples, and instead was taken before the wrathful owner of the fruit, Mr. Smith. The beadle shortly afterwards had a task to undertake which left no mark in local history, but did on the young man who stole the apples.

“Such was the commencement in ‘active’ life of him who now occupies a cell in Newgate, from thence to be taken to answer a record of crime the which has not been paralleled by Claude Duval, Thomas King, Richard Turpin, or others of that ilk.

“Those men had not the telegraph to compete with, yet failed; Peace had the widespread information of modern days to watch, and yet for a time succeeded.

“The marauders of the old shool, above mentioned, defeated justice for a time because on their thoroughbred horses they could outride the messengers of justice.

“Peace had to fight against the magnificent apparatus of science by which information is flashed across a thousand miles in a second of time, and yet he succeeded in baffling all who sought to track him.”

The blow that had fallen on Peace and his domestic circle was a terrible one, and in a short space of time, after his conviction, the house in the Evalina-road was tenantless.

A visit to the locality is thus described by an eye-witness:――

“Peckham approached from Greenwich, with a suggestion of sunshine in the sky, looked much prettier to-day. There are some goodly houses along Queen’s-road, but as one climbs the hill to Peace’s part, the houses taper away till long lines of modest brick buildings meet the eye. Where Peace lived may be called the tail-end of Peckham.

“His house is still to let, and though nobody that I can hear of has been to visit it――except members of the Press――the gentleman who has the letting of it thinks he will get a couple of pounds extra now that it has sprung into notoriety.

“Well, he may. I don’t know so much about the peculiarities of the Peckham people; but on this point I am inclined to agree with the lady who lives next door. She wants to let her front room, and has ‘Apartments’ in the window.

“That card appeals in vain to the eligible young gentlemen who usually want comfortable chambers, and she is afraid that respectable people will not care to come into such a ‘dreadful’ neighbourhood.

“She considers it a bad day for her when she came there, which she did a week before Peace was found out. Indeed, it was from Peace she had the keys to look over the house. An ominous introduction truly.

“Her idea is that before that house lets again £2 will have to be taken off, instead of being put on, the rent. I agree with her, for I can hear of nobody who has a good word for the house, except perhaps the postman, who told me, as we trudged together through the mud, that ‘it wasn’t a bad place in his view of it. The Thompsons did not trouble him much――they had very few letters.’

“A neighbour says that when the Thompsons came their house was a treat to look at, Mr. Thompson filling all the front windows with choice and costly flowers, which he carefully tended and watered with his own hands.

“People at Peckham are beginning to be a trifle impatient with inquisitive strangers who want to know about their most famous character. On my first visit to Peckham I looked in on the gentleman who combines the duties connected with her Majesty’s mails with dispensing flour and other household necessities to her Majesty’s females.

“I asked him if he knew and could tell me where ‘Mr. Smith’ lived――the party who had let the house to Mr. Thompson? This gentleman shut me up very sharp.

“‘I know where Mr. Smith lives, but I don’t think I would be justified in telling you, as you would only be bothering him like the rest.’

“I left that establishment with a feeling that my introduction to the natives of Peckham was not encouraging. A few yards further on I saw Mr. Smith’s address ln the windows of half-a-dozen empty houses, the notices inviting people to apply to ‘Mr. Smith, Ryde Villas, St. Mary’s-road.’

“I accepted the invitation, and found Mr. Smith a most obliging and very communicative gentleman.

HOW PEACE WAS FOUND OUT.

“I find the police scout the idea that the man ‘Ward’ was discovered through the jealousy of Mrs. Thompson, the younger of the ‘housekeepers’ at Peckham, and the professed wife of Peace.

“Those who had to do with the case told me that they had no information whatever from Mrs. Thompson, who never communicated with them, but disappeared as she sniffed danger.

“‘How then,’ I asked, ‘did it occur to you to connect the Blackheath burglar with the Bannercross murderer?’

“‘Well,’ was the reply, ‘we can scarcely tell you. We could not get our evidence so complete as we could wish, and we were obliged to wait for a time. That waiting served us well. Trifles, mere trifles, such as we can scarcely repeat to you, made us believe that this man was ‘somebody.’ We watched those who came about our place at Greenwich; then we watched those who came about Newgate. We got, after great trouble, a hint or two; we acted upon what we received, and were ultimately able to connect the man ‘Ward’ with Peckham; then from Peckham we worked Nottingham and Sheffield, and then the case gradually worked itself into shape.’

“For the police it was a lucky thing Mrs. ‘Ward’ took those two boxes to Sheffield.

“That, I believe, was really the first indication that Blackheath and Bannercross were connected.

“It suddenly flashed across one of the Greenwich division that this mysterious man, who called himself a ‘half-caste,’ resembled in every respect except one the man so urgently ‘wanted’ at Sheffield.

“That exception was his hair, particularly the absence of beard and whiskers. Height, breadth, eyes, manner of talking, singularity of fingers, and wide, straddling walk――to quote the police description, ‘walking with his legs apart’――all tallied. Put beard and whiskers upon that face, and it was――Peace.

“Inspector Bonny went to Nottingham; Inspector Phillips to Sheffield.

“Phillips was shown a portrait of Peace. He was confirmed in his suspicions. The photograph resembled the man in Newgate so closely that he had no doubt as to the identity.

“The rest of the story you know. How Phillips and Twibell found the property at Darnall in the possession of Mrs. Peace, how the property was identified as part of the proceeds of the Blackheath burglaries, how Police-constable Morris came to London and identified Peace in Newgate, and (as I telegraphed to you) how the Treasury, appreciating the importance of the case in the light of the identification, undertook the prosecution on its own account.

“To Police-officer Robinson undoubtedly belongs in the first instance the credit of capturing Peace. He unquestionably risked his life in his courageous encounter with the desperate convict, and well deserves such recognition as has been suggested by your correspondent.

“Let it not be forgotten, however, that Robinson’s share in the transaction terminated there. Without him nothing would have been done; yet after Peace’s bullet pierced his arm and the two constables came to his help, Robinson dropped the thread, which was picked up by Inspector Phillips and Inspector Bonny.

“These officers have been indefatigable in their exertions to bring home the graver charge against Peace. Day by day, and night after night they have laboured, and many a night since the memorable evening when Peace was caught in the act, they have slept not, neither have they rested, so anxious have they been to close once for all the career of the dreadful villain whose escape made everybody so uneasy.

“But it should not be forgotten (observed a writer at the time) if testimonials are spoken of, to remember these two officers.

“Robinson was a brave fellow, and acted like a hero; yet if Bonny and Phillips had not used their brains, and set their highly-trained wits to work, ‘John Ward’ might have been convicted of the Blackheath burglary and the shooting of the intrepid Robinson, and he might have been sentenced to penal servitude for life; but in Sheffield the Bannercross murder would have been regarded as an undiscovered crime.

“To Bonny and Phillips belong the credit of proving that Ward was Peace, that Blackheath meant Bannercross, that burglary was overshadowed by the bigger crime of murder. A wave of relief swept over Sheffield when it was known that Peace had really been captured at last. To Phillips and Bonny was due the fact that he was thought of at all as the man who shot Dyson two years before.

THE TROUBLES OF THE PEACES.

“There is really no peace for the Peaces. Now that Charles Peace, the man of Bannercross, has been caught there are dozens of persons who are anxious to tell all they know about him and his family.

“Several of them have got it into their heads that there is only one family of Peace, the head and front of which now awaits in Newgate the reward of his desperate misdeeds.

“Thus it comes about that several most excellent people are getting uneasy about the name they bear, particularly when they find it connected with some of the early doings of “the insignificant-looking” gentleman who has recently sprung into so much significance.

“The latest instance is that of a family of Peace who lived some time ago in Philadelphia――not the Philadelphia which figures in Sacred Writ, but the exceedingly secular locality of that name which figures in Sheffield.

“Mr. Charles Peace, of George-street, Philadelphia, has no connection whatever with the Charles Peace of the many aliases, burglar and murderer; neither is it right that his son, who also bears the (in these days) somewhat burdensome name of Charles Peace, should be associated with the person who has proved himself so eligible a candidate for the last attentions of the law.

“It is certainly a trifle too bad, even when people are thirsting for every particle of information about that extraordinary character, that the respectable member of a respectable firm of file manufacturers in Pea-croft, or his son who earns his livelihood in an honourable way in the file trade at Rotherham, should have themselves brought up in public as connected in even the remotest degree with the ruffian who had the misfortune to call himself by their name.

“So that, once for all, readers will understand the Philadelphia Peace and the Bannercross Peace are wide as the poles asunder.

“This incident reminds one of the trouble and suspicion to which many people were put shortly after the murder.

“Peace, it will be remembered, was described as a ‘little, insignificant-looking man, with grey hair.’

“There was at once an eager look-out kept for people who answered that somewhat general description. It was a bad time for ‘little insignificant-looking men,’ and as our local world has a good many people who come fairly within that description, several estimable and other citizens were frequently the object of glances which were not at all flattering in their meaning.

“Two elderly gentlemen were pointed out as greatly resembling the notorious Peace, and enjoyed a reputation on that account only a shade less comfortable than other gentlemen in this district, of most substantial proportions, who up to a short time ago were repeatedly referred to as remarkably like the Claimant.

“Even when a more specific description of Peace appeared mistakes were freely made, though not with the provoking results of a double apprehension, as in the case of that poor tramp at Barrow-in-Furness, who was subsequently apprehended at Hexham, and who complained bitterly――and not unnaturally――to our reporter who interviewed him in prison, that he should have been arrested a second time ‘when the police had already let him go once.’

“This poor fellow, to put matters right once for all, made a pilgrimage to Sheffield and called upon the Chief Constable, who, of course, had no more to do with his arrest at Barrow-in-Furness and Hexham than the poor tramp had to do with the arrest of the real Peace by Police-constable Robinson in that garden at Blackheath.”