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who are always ready to fling an air of ridicule upon the labours of humanity, because they are desirous that what they have not the virtue to do themselves should appear to be foolish and romantic when done by others. A still higher degree of depravity than this is to want every sort of compassion for human misery when it is accompanied by filth, poverty, and ignorance. To regulate humanity by the income tax, and to deem the bodily wretchedness and the dirty tears of the poor a fit subject for pleasantry and contempt. We should have been loth to believe that such deep-seated and disgusting immorality existed in these days, but the notice of it is forced upon us.”
    DEVONSHIRE TERRACE
    March, 1850

PREFACE TO THE CHARLES DICKENS EDITION 1867
    O nce upon a time it was held to be a coarse and shocking circumstance that some of the characters in these pages are chosen from the most criminal and degraded of London’s population.
    As I saw no reason, when I wrote this book, why the dregs of life (so long as their speech did not offend the ear) should not serve the purpose of a moral, as well as its froth and cream, I made bold to believe that this same Once upon a time would not prove to be All-time or even a long time. I saw many strong reasons for pursuing my course. I had read of thieves by scores; seductive fellows (amiable for the most part), faultless in dress, plump in pocket, choice in horseflesh, bold in bearing, fortunate in gallantry, great at a song, a bottle, pack of cards or dice-box, and fit companions for the bravest. But I had never met (except in Hogarth) with the miserable reality. It appeared to me that to draw a knot of such associates in crime as really did exist; to paint them in all their deformity, in all their wretchedness, in all the squalid misery of their lives; to show them as they really were, for ever skulking uneasily through the dirtiest paths of life, with the great black ghastly gallows closing up their prospect, turn them where they might; it appeared to me that to do this would be to attempt a something which was needed and which would be a service to society. And I did it as I best could.
    In every book I know, where such characters are treated of, allurements and fascinations are thrown around them. Even in the Beggar’s Opera, the thieves are represented as leading a life which is rather to be envied than otherwise; while Macheath, with all the captivations of command, and the devotion of the most beautiful girl and only pure character in the piece, is as much to be admired and emulated by weak beholders as any fine gentleman in a red coat who has purchased, as Voltaire says, the right to command a couple of thousand men or so and to affront death at their head. Johnson’s question, whether any man will turn thief because Macheath is reprieved, seems to me beside the matter. I ask myself whether any man will be deterred from turning thief because of Macheath’s being sentenced to death and because of the existence of Peachum and Lockit; and remembering the captain’s roaring life, great appearance, vast success, and strong advantages, I feel assured that nobody having a bent that way will take any warning from him, or will see anything in the play but a flowery and pleasant road, conducting an honourable ambition—in course of time—to Tyburn Tree.
    In fact, Gay’s witty satire on society had a general object which made him quite regardless of example in this respect and gave him other and wider aims. The same may be said of Sir Edward Bulwer’s admirable and powerful novel of Paul Clifford, which cannot be fairly considered as having, or as being intended to have, any bearing on this part of the subject, one way or other.
    What manner of life is that which is described in these pages as the everyday existence of a Thief? What charms has it for the young and ill-disposed, what allurements for the most jolter-headed of juveniles? Here are no canterings on moonlit heaths, no