The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 111: what you’re looking at

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

ern THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. 97 I \\ RON ) | HW WSS N — LOUISA STANLEY. creasing towards Mr. Lawrence Sampson. “You speak of my recollections, sir,’ he continued,— “ why, the earliest recollections that I have are as- sociated with that Kinchin-Ken in Grub Street. It seems, from all I have ever been able to learn relative to myself, that I was stolen from my parents when a baby and brought up by a woman named Shickster Sal.”* “TI knew her,” observed Sampson. “She was the mistress of the fellow who presided over the gang of juvenile thieves frequenting the Kinchin- Ken, and who bears the name of the Kin- chin-Grand to the present day, although the nest of iniquity has been broken up. Shickster Sal has been dead some years: but the Kinchin- Grand is still alive and in London.” * Shickster means ‘* Lady :"’ the appellation was given because the young woman referred to had been well brought up in her earlier years, before she fell into de- praved society and profligate habits. 13* “Yes—he seems to have abandoned his old ways and now keeps a small chandler’s-shop on Mutton Hill, Clerkenwell. But, talking of my- self,” continued the Foundling, “I was going to tell you that although Shickster Sal brought me up, as one may say,—such a bringing up as it was!— yet I was more indebted to two other persons, who were then mere children themselves, for any kind- ness that was bestowed upon my infancy. These persons were Richard and Sarah Melmoth——” “J know who they are,” observed Larry Samp- son, in his quiet way. “Dick Melmoth is your fellow-assistant at Coffin’s shop—and Sally Mel- moth is Coffin's housekeeper. Their father com- mitted some dreadful crimes about nineteen or twenty years ago, and then put a period to his own existence. His eldest son, James—the brother of Richard and Sarah now living—also met a violent death just at the same time as his father. The lad threw some horrible missile at a noblemay, in GoOniGsdooks (CO)