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CyberRead carries over 40,000 of your favorite books from both major and independent publishers for your PDA and PC Book Categories Search Books Get Reader Software My Account ... Customer Support All Formats Mobipocket Microsoft Reader Adobe Acrobat PDF Microsoft Word Product Details All Categories A BOOK OF SCOUNDRELS Mobipocket Reader (436.00 Kb)
Price: Author: Whibley, Charles Publisher: eBookbase ( All Products by eBookbase Publish Date: ISBN: Category: Biographies Language: English Type: Downloadable Formats: Summary: excerpt from the INTRODUCTION:
While murder is wellnigh as old as life, property and the pocket invented theft, late-born among the arts. It was not until avarice had devised many a cunning trick for the protection of wealth, until civilisation had multiplied the forms of portable property, that thieving became a liberal and an elegant profession. True, in pastoral society, the lawless man was eager to lift cattle, to break down the barrier between robbery and warfare. But the contrast is as sharp between the savagery of the ancient reiver and the polished performance of Captain Hind as between the daub of the pavement and the perfection of Velasquez. Every art is shaped by its material, and with the variations of its material it must perforce vary. If the skill of the cutpurse compelled the invention of the pocket, it is certain that the rare difficulties of the pocket created the miraculous skill of those crafty fingers which were destined to empty it. And as increased obstacles are perfection's best incentive, a finer cunning grew out of the fresh precaution. History does not tell us who it was that discovered this new continent of roguery. Those there are who give the credit to the valiant Moll Cutpurse; but though the Roaring Girl had wit to conceive a thousand strange enterprises, she had not the hand to carry them out, and the first pickpocket must needs have been a man of action. Moreover, her nickname suggests the more ancient practice, and it is wiser to yield the credit to Simon Fletcher, whose praises are chanted by the early historians. | |
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