Page:Life of Colonel Jack (1810).djvu/28

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12
THE LIFE OF

holes, and nealing arches in the glass house, called Dallow's Glass-house in Rosemary-Lane, or at another glass-house in Ratcliff-Highway.

In this manner we lived for some years; and here we failed not to fall among a gang of naked, ragged rogues like ourselves, wicked as the devil could desire to have them be at so early an age, and ripe for all the other parts of mischief that suited them as they advanced in years.

I remember that one cold winter night we were disturbed in our rest with a constable and his watch, crying out for one Wry-neck, who it seems had done some roguery, and required a hue and cry of that kind; and the watch were informed he was to be found among the beggar boys under the nealing-arches in the glass-house.

The alarm being given, we were awakened in the dead of the night with, Come out here, ye crew of young devils, come out and shew yourselves; so we were all produced, some came out rubbing their eyes, and scratching their heads, and others were dragged out; and I think there was about seventeen of us in all, but Wry-Neck, as they called him, was not among them. It seems this was a good big boy, that used to be among the inhabitants of that place, and had been concerned in a robbery the night before, in which his comrade, who was taken, in hopes of escaping punishment,