TO Haggart, who babbled on the Castle Rock of Willie Wallace and was only
nineteen when he danced without the music; to Simms, alias Gentleman
Harry, who showed at Tyburn how a hero could die; to George Barrington,
the incomparably witty and adroit—to these a full meed of honour has
been paid. Even the coarse and dastardly Freney has achieved, with
Thackeray's aid (and Lever's) something of a reputation. But James Hardy
Vaux, despite his eloquent bid for fame, has not found his rhapsodist. Yet
a more consistent ruffian never pleaded for mercy. From his early youth
until in 1819 he sent forth his Memoirs to the world, he lived
industriously upon the cross. There was no racket but he worked it with
energy and address. Though he practised the more glorious crafts of
pickpocket and shoplifter, he did not despise the begging-letter, and he
suffered his last punishment for receiving what another's courage had
conveyed. His enterprise was not seldom rewarded with success, and for a
decade of years he continued to preserve an appearance of gentility; but
it is plain, even from his own narrative, that he was scarce an artist,
and we shall best understand him if we recognise that he was a Philistine
among thieves. He lived in an age of pocket-picking, and skill in this
branch is the true test of his time. A contemporary of Barrington, he had
before him the most brilliant of examples, which might properly have
enforced the worth of a simple method. But, though he constantly brags of
his success at Drury Lane, we take not his generalities for gospel, and
the one exploit whose credibility is enforced with circumstance was
pitiful both in conception and performance. A meeting of freeholders at
the 'Mermaid Tavern,' Hackney, was the occasion, and after drawing blank
upon blank, Vaux succeeded at last in extracting a silver snuff-box. Now,
his clumsiness had suggested the use of the scissors, and the victim not
only discovered the scission in his coat, but caught the thief with the
implements of his art upon him. By a miracle of impudence Vaux escaped
conviction, but he deserved the gallows for his want of principle, and not
even sympathy could have let drop a tear, had justice seized her due. On
the straight or on the cross the canons of art deserve respect; and a
thief is great, not because he is a thief, but because, in filling his own
pocket, he preserves from violence the legitimate traditions of his craft.
But it was in conflict with the jewellers that Vaux best proved his
mettle. It was his wont to clothe himself 'in the most elegant attire,'
and on the pretence of purchase to rifle the shops of Piccadilly. For this
offence—'pinching' the Cant Dictionary calls it—he did his
longest stretch of time, and here his admirable qualities of cunning and
coolness found their most generous scope. A love of fine clothes he shared
with all the best of his kind, and he visited Mr Bilger—the jeweller
who arrested him—magnificently arrayed. He wore a black coat and
waistcoat, blue pantaloons, Hessian boots, and a hat 'in the extreme of
the newest fashion.' He was also resplendent with gold watch and
eye-glass. His hair was powdered, and a fawney sparkled on his dexter fam.
The booty was enormous, and a week later he revisited the shop on another
errand. This second visit was the one flash of genius in a somewhat drab
career: the jeweller was so completely dumfounded, that Vaux might have
got clean away. But though he kept discreetly out of sight for a while, at
last he drifted back to his ancient boozing-ken, and was there betrayed to
a notorious thief-catcher. The inevitable sentence of death followed. It
was commuted after the fashion of the time, and Vaux, having sojourned a
while at the Hulks, sought for a second time the genial airs of Botany
Bay.
His vanity and his laziness were alike invincible. He believed himself a
miracle of learning as well as a perfect thief, and physical toil was the
sole 'lay' for which he professed no capacity. For a while he corrected
the press for a printer, and he roundly asserts that his knowledge of
literature and of foreign tongues rendered him invaluable. It was vanity
again that induced him to assert his innocence when he was lagged for so
vulgar a crime as stealing a wipe from a tradesman in Chancery Lane. At
the moment of arrest he was on his way to purchase base coin from a
Whitechapel bit-faker: but, despite his nefarious errand, he is
righteously wrathful at what he asserts was an unjust conviction, and
henceforth he assumed the crown of martyrdom. His first and last ambition
during the intervals of freedom was gentility, and so long as he was not
at work he lived the life of a respectable grocer. Although the casual
Cyprian flits across his page, he pursued the one flame of his life for
the good motive, and he affects to be a very model of domesticity. The
sentiment of piety also was strong upon him, and if he did not, like the
illustrious Peace, pray for his jailer, he rivalled the Prison Ordinary in
comforting the condemned. Had it only been his fate to die on the gallows,
how unctuous had been his croak!
The text of his 'Memoirs' having been edited, it is scarce possible to
define his literary talent. The book, as it stands, is an excellent piece
of narrative, but it loses somewhat by the pretence of style. The man's
invulnerable conceit prevented an absolute frankness, and there is little
enough hilarity to correct the acid sentiment and the intolerable vows of
repentance. Again, though he knows his subject, and can patter flash with
the best, his incorrigible respectability leads him to ape the manner of a
Grub Street hack, and to banish to a vocabulary those pearls of slang
which might have added vigour and lustre to his somewhat tiresome page.
However, the thief cannot escape his inevitable defects. The vanity, the
weakness, the sentimentality of those who are born beasts of prey, yet
have the faculty of depredation only half-developed, are the foes of
truth, and it is well to remember that the autobiography of a rascal is
tainted at its source. A congenial pickpocket, equipped with the
self-knowledge and the candour which would enable him to recognise himself
an outlaw and justice his enemy rather than an instrument of malice, would
prove a Napoleon rather than a Vaux. So that we must e'en accept our
Newgate Calendar with its many faults upon its head, and be content. For
it takes a man of genius to write a book, and the thief who turns author
commonly inhabits a paradise of the second-rate.
