Early he became a bon vivant, interested in good food, good entertainment, and the worlds of horse racing, boxing, showing dogs, and, particularly, the London criminal. From his mother's side, however, his grandfather having been prominent in the Chartist movement in the 1840s, he developed a keen and abiding sympathy for the plight of the poor. He may have been a man of the world, but he knew well the injustices of that world, and he worked hard to correct them.
He was educated at Hanwell Military College and the university at Bonn. Other than adding German to his fluent French and getting to know the other upper-class English students there for a good time, Sims did not greatly benefit from his German education, and he was sent home after failing to obey a curfew imposed by the Bonn police. Back in London he worked in his father's furniture business in the city by day and got caught up in the bohemian life of writers and artists by night. After several years and several false starts he managed to make a living by his pen, and he quit his father's employment for good in 1874.
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