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.