X. SCUFFLE-HUNTERS. These are literally composed of that lowest class of the community, who are vulgarly denominated the Tag-Rag and Bobtail.(f) When Goods are shipping or landing upon the Quays, they are ever ready to offer their assistance to work as porters by the day or the hour, and they generally come prepared with long aprons, not so much as a convenient habiliment to enable them the better to perform their labour, as to furnish them with the means of suddenly concealing what they pilfer, with which, when obtained, they generally disappear. The number of these Miscreants, who are annually punished by the Lord-Mayor, for pillage upon the Quays, sufficiently demonstrates the extent of the evil; especially when it is recollected, that previous to the Establishment of the Quay Guards by the Marine Police, and during the total want of a competent force upon the Wharfs, not one in fifty who committed acts of Delinquency was punished. The fact is, that the pillage they committed on the Quays was excessive, and it will cease to be a matter of wonder, since the general answer of most Vagabonds, to the interrogatory of Magistrates as to their means of subsistance is, that they work at the water-side. (f) Their numbers are estimated in Chap. IV. (Div. 11.) 1 It is to be lamented, that in developing this wide extended System of Pillage, the Delinquency which attaches to Commercial Property, must be still farther followed, even to THE WAREHOUSES. In these receptacles it might reasonably have been expected, that the danger would have ceased. But here too the evil appears to be equally prominent, and the effect it produces, even more severe, as it applies to Commercial Property; since the loss not only comprises the original value of the Property purloined, but also the Revenue of the Crown, either paid or secured, upon all Merchandise thus deposited. If the universal admission of all persons engaged in the Trade of the River Thames, as to the deficiencies which are uniformly experienced, far beyond what can arise from natural waste or shrinkage, should not be considered as a sufficient proof of the evil practices which prevail in the Warehouses, recourse might be had to the evidence given before the Committee of the House of Commons, and to the Records of the Courts of Criminal Justice, as an indisputable confirmation of the existence of the evil to a very great extent. In addition to the evidence which these Documents furnish, specific details have been given upon oath, by persons who have long worked as Labourers in the different Warehouses, which tend in a very eminent eminent degree to develope the cause of the uniform deficiencies which are discovered, particularly in the article of Sugar. These details state, that the Plunder in the Warehouses is carried on to a very great extent, and that the chief instruments are the Journeymen Coopers, and, in some instances, the Gangsmen: That as often as these Coopers attend for the purpose of drawing Samples, they are followed by a person who is called a Sweeper, whose duty it is to sweep the sugar from the top of each hogshead, from which samples have been drawn: Each sample generally consists of four or five pounds of Sugar, which is carried off by the Journeyman, supposed to the house of his Master, (n) while nearly an equal quantity generally remains on the head of each hogshead, from which samples have been drawn: this is swept into a basket, and when full conveyed to a general Receiving Hogshead, called a Devil, which is placed for that purpose in one corner of the Warehouse, and to which every hogshead or cask deposited in the (n) By the 13th Regulation of the West India Merchants, at a General Meeting, held on the 27th of April 1790, it is recommended, that sugars be drawn only once, and then for Lotting; and that the quantity then taken be only one pound and a half, in order to furnish two Lotting Samples.-One for the Seller and one for Buyer. By the 15th article, the Wharfingers are desired to inspect the samples occasionally, and to stop all Coopers conveying away Samples, exceeding the weight which is thus allowed, or the number contained in the order for that purpose. Ware : : : : Warehouse is said to contribute more or less When full, this Devil-Hogshead is removed to the Purchaser, and replaced by another. There is said to be generally one, and sometimes two of these Receiving Hogsheads in each WarehouseIf it be discovered, that any one or more Hogsheads weigh one quarter or half an hundred above the landing weight, the overplus is taken out and deposited in the Devil Hogshead. It is asserted to be the practice of the Labourers who work under the Gangsmen, : to draw from four to ten pounds of sugar, from as many hogsheads as are accessible, taking care to attend to the moist or dry state of the sugar, so as not to occasion a deficiency, for which the Wharfinger can be rendered accountable. By these various Systems of Pillage, a great aggregate loss is sustained by the West-India Planters and Merchants; which, including the Plunder of the inferior Labourers and Scuffle-hunters, who are occasionally employed in these Warehouses, has been estimated to average, exclusive of the pound and a half allowed for two samples, to sixteen pound weight a hogshead, which upon a medium importation of 130,000 hogsheads of sugar, at the present price of sugars, would amount to about seventy thousand pounds sterling a year! and this, independent of the Pillage on other articles of the growth and produce of the West India Islands. According to the evidence of a respectable Revenue Officer, the Plunder of the Warehouses by Journcymen Journeymen Coopers, under the pretence of taking samples, is very enormous. He has traced them frequently to the shops of known Receivers, particularly a noted one in St. Mary's Hill, but has been discouraged from following up these detections, from the circumstance of his having found upon one occa sion, when directed by the Board of Customs to prosecute a Journeyman Cooper, that he was protected by his Master. There are several Public Houses in the neighbourhood of Thames-street, to which the Journeymen Coopers resort with their Boards of Sugar.-In these receptacles a kind of market is held, where the small Grocers attend, and by means of fictitious Bills of Parcels cover the stolen Property to their respective houses. A vast deal of Sugar plundered in the Warehouses, and also double samples of Rum are sold in these houses. -The parties who form this criminal confederacy, are said to be great adepts in cluding Justice-They have established a principle with regard to judicial oaths, affecting the security or tending to the acquittal of their companions in iniquity. Oaths by which Public Justice may be defeated are called, Non-compulsive Oaths, which, although false, are not considered to be of a criminal nature. It may, perhaps, be pleaded in behalf of some of those who benefit by this enormous pillage, that a considerable proportion, has been sanctioned by cus : |