the absence of any witness who would give him a character was likely to go hard with him, he wrote in his assumed name to his brother-in-law at Hempstead, asking him to procure him an evidence from London. The postage was not prepaid, and his brother-inlaw either did not recognize the handwriting or pretended that he did not, in order to avoid paying the postage on a letter in which he was not likely to hear of anything to his advantage. The letter was returned to the post office, where Turpin's old schoolmaster saw it and recognized the handwriting. It is not necessary to suppose that he had not seen the hand since Dick left school. The Hempstead highwayman was a famous criminal for whose apprehension a reward of £200 was offered, and any specimens of his handwriting that existed in the neighborhood would be objects of special interest to the man who had taught him to write. The letter was taken to a Justice of the Peace, who opened it and sent the schoolmaster down to York, where he identified 'John Palmer' as his old pupil Dick Turpin. The trial took place at York Assizes on the 22nd of March, 1739, 'before the Honorable Sir William Chapple, knt., Judge of Assize, and one of His Majesty's Justices of the Court of King's Bench.' The prisoner was found guilty of the charge against him, that of stealing a horse, and condemned to death. The 17th of April was the day fixed for the execution. Turpin tried hard to get the sentence reduced to transportation, but he can hardly have had much hope of cheating the hangman, seeing that there was a murder as well as a great many robberies against him. So far from showing any penitence for his misdeeds, he was very vain of his notoriety, and anxious to cut as dashing a figure as possible at his execution. He had new clothes for

the occasion, and hired five men to follow the cart as mourners. He died with a courage which made his final exit the one scene in his life that is not unworthy of his posthumous renown.

For, indeed, the most remarkable fact that falls to be recorded about Dick Turpin is that he did nothing remarkable. His crimes were numerous enough in the last month of his career as a highwayman he committed a robbery almost every day- but not one of his exploits on the road was at all daring or dramatic. If he was not a coward, as many people declared, he certainly preferred to have the odds in his favor. But he had a fairly long reign for so notorious an offender, and apparently kept his nerve to the last.

None the less, he was a ballad hero even before his death. The only explanation that can be given is that he was a highwayman, and the highwayman, according to the fiction popular in an age of abounding social injustice, was the successor of Robin Hood and his merry men.

The naked I've cloathed, the hungry fed,
And the Rich I've sent empty away,

says a ballad in honor of Turpin, and goes on to relate how he paid forty pounds to save a poor man from being taken to prison for debt, and then, waiting round the next corner for the creditor, made him stand and deliver not only the forty pounds, but 'twenty guineas more.' There is no evidence whatever that Turpin ever did a knightly deed in his life, but he was a famous knight of the road, and that was enough for the ballad-monger.

His present-day renown rests on the fabulous Ride to York. Ainsworth tells the story with such tremendous gusto that the uncritical reader may well be carried away. His Dick Turpin, hotly pursued, clears the high gate of the old Hornsey toll-bar, leaps lightly over a

donkey-cart, driver and all, charges three horsemen barring the road, with the reins in his teeth and a pistol in each hand, and strikes all the heroic attitudes of the bold highwayman of melodrama. But Rookwood makes some quite unnecessary demands on our credulity. We are asked to believe that Black Bess covered the distance from London to York between seven in the evening and six in the morning, with the aid of a raw beef steak rolled round her bit, and a bottle of some marvelous dope which her master carried with him as a last resource in an emergency. A more serious fault from the literary point of view is that in the novel there is no motive whatever for a feat which cost the life of Black Bess. Turpin was not out to save his neck by establishing an alibi. He was closely pursued most of the way, and nothing would have been easier for him than to give the enemy the slip if he had wished. He accomplished the feat for the sake of doing it, his object being simply to set up a record.

Beyond the fact that Dick Turpin began his career near London and ended it at York, there is nothing in his life that even suggests the famous ride. It was a highwayman named

Nevison, who flourished in the reign of Charles II, that should have been the hero of Rookwood. The story and it may quite well be true- is that 'Swift Nicks,' as he came to be called, robbed a traveler on Gad's Hill, near Rochester, at four o'clock on a May morning. His victim happened to be a man who knew him, and his only chance was to prove an alibi, which he did by speaking to the Lord Mayor of York, on one of the bowling-greens of that city, at a quarter to eight on the evening of the same day. He must have used relays of horses, and good horses at that, but a man of his trade had usually a friend in need at some discreet wayside inn, and he may on occasion have put a pistol to the head of a well-mounted traveler and swapped a tired horse for a fresh one. Many people have ridden between London and York in a day; one gentleman, in the reign of James I, did it six days running for a wager. It may be that Nevison's ride, which another account makes start at Barnet, is nothing more nor less than a legend of the Great North Road, based on such sporting events and on the countless exploits of the highwaymen who held up the lieges on that historic highway.