FOOTNOTES: 

   [97] i.e., bailiffs, informers and spies.

   [98] The Pretender, whose name was only to be mentioned with
        baited breath.

   [99] See page 533.

  [100] Passengers robbed on the highway between sunrise and
        sunset, could sue the county for the amount of their loss, it
        being the duty of the officials to keep the roads safe.

The Life of JOHN YOUNG, a Highwayman

I have more than once remarked in the course of these memoirs that of all crimes, cruelty makes men the most generally hated, and that from this reasonable cause, that they seem to have taken up an aversion to their own kind.  This was remarkably the case of the unhappy man of whom we are now speaking.

He was, it seems, the son of very honest and industrious parents, his father being a gardener at Kensington.  From him he received as good an education as it was in his power to give him, and was treated with all the indulgence that could be expected from a tender parent; and it seems that after five years’ stay at school, he was qualified for any business whatsoever.  So after consulting his own inclinations he was put out apprentice to a coach-maker in Long Acre, where he stayed not long; but finding all work disagreeable to him, he therefore resolved to be gone, let the consequence be what it would.  When this resolve was once taken, it was but a very short time before it was put into execution.  Living now at large, and not knowing how to gain money enough to support himself, and therefore being in very great straits, he complied with the solicitations of some hackney-coachmen, who advised him to learn their trade.  They took some pains to instruct him, employed him often, and in about six months time he became perfect master of his business, and drove for Mr. Blunt, in Piccadilly.  His behaviour here was so honest that Mr. Blunt gave him a good character, and he thereby obtained the place of a gentleman’s coachmen.  In a short time he saved money and began to have some relish for an honest life; and continuing industriously to hoard up what he received either in wages or vales [tips] at last by these methods he drew together a very considerable sum of money.

And then it came into his head to settle himself in an honest way of life, in which design his father gave him all the encouragement that was in his power, telling him in order to do it, he should marry an honest, virtuous woman.  Whereupon, with the advice and consent of his parents, he married a young woman of a reputable family from Kentish Town, who, as to fortune, brought him a pretty little addition to his own savings, so that altogether he had, according to his own account, a very pretty competency wherewith to begin the world.