The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 250: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

230 REYNOLDS’ WORKS— to search after some thief who had exercised his manipulating skill upon them. All the varied and manifold impressions which villainy and crime, in their different grades and degrees, can stamp upon the human countenance might be discerned in that room; and, heavens! what a study for the phrenologist. Wherefore go to Newgate to inspect the plaster casts of the countenances of defunct criminals, when there are these haunts in London where the faces of shoals of living evil-doers can be studied; and with all the more fearful accuracy, with all the more frightfully real intensity, inasmuch as the worst and darkest passions which are known to the human soul can be then observed working upon ani- mated features and in their most hideous vitality. At the numerous tables in this room the company were seated, — all of them smoking, and all drinking too, but the liquors were varied according to tastes and pecuniary re- sources; so that passing through those grades which were represented by the daring burglar, the bold thief, the cunning larcenist, the pitiful area-sneak, or the miserable pudding- stealer, a corresponding gamut might be specified in the form of steaming punch, tumblers of hot spirits and water, quarterns of gin, pots of ale, and pints of porter. In this de- lectable place Lord Charles Meredith and Captain Stanley remained for about half an hour, — at the expiration of which they took their departure, still accompanied by the police officer. Three or four other dens of depravity were visited, and it was now past midnight, but as yet not the slightest sign was discerned of the objects of their search. They did not of course think it of the slightest use to visit the house in which the Burker and the Scotts had been wont to live, nor to take the slightest trouble in watching the premises of the Smedleys, for there could be little doubt that the Burker and Bill Scott had kept out of the way at the time they must have known the trial was coming on at Liverpool, so as to be on their guard in case of a result perilous to their own personal safety. And now, too, that the intelligence of this result had arrived in London, it was all the more certain that the ruffian and his guilty accomplice would have taken the best possible ‘precautions to elude the search which was sure to be insti- tuted after them. Captain Stanley and Lord Charles now held a consultation CORNICE OOOK