SAMUEL WINGRAVE, THE TOBACCONIST.

ONE important cause of breach of trust in servants and others is rarely adverted to-want of sufficient vigilance and superintendence in masters. A young person, of unestablished principles, put into a situation of trust, where the conduct of his employer shews plainly that there is scarce a possibility of his being detected if he should make a trespass, is not done justice to; and his error, if he do err, is in large part to be ascribed to his superior. Not that we would have the culprit too easily excused, but that we would have masters do their duty in watchfulness, do we make this remark. The master is bound in duty to exercise a proper degree of care over his concerns, in order that all hope of safe criminality may be forbidden in his subordinates; and if he fails in this duty, we hold that he is himself guilty of a very great offence against society-that of leading its members into temptation, and perilling their best interests, in a business from which he is to be the chief profiter. Some years ago, there occurred a singular case of this nature, which we shall detail, in the hope of impressing the more forcibly the principle here laid down.

Mr Samuel Wingrave was a respectable tobacconist in a large town, the name of which need not be specified. He had advanced to middle life, and had been in business for considerably more than thirty years, when an important incident signalised his career. For the greater period of his shop-keeping life, he had in his employment but one person, who had grown as necessary to him as his daily food, and who was, in fact, the chief manager of the business. Mr Wingrave himself was decidedly an indus trious man, but, from constitutional indolence, and early defects of training, he was incapable of conducting his affairs in that systematic way which is almost indispens able to success. All the system which the tobacconist's

establishment displayed was ascribable to the trusty shopman, Richard or Dick Jackson, as his master styled him, though Dick was scarcely a younger man than his superior.

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Dick,' said Mr Wingrave one day to his shopman, in the confidential way in which he was always wont to treat the latter-Dick, I am growing old, and I begin to have uneasy thoughts that didn't use to trouble me before. What is the reason, think you, that I have never been able to lay up money like my neighbours?' Mr Jackson appeared posed by this question, but, after a pause, he replied: "You have brought up a pretty large family. True,' said the tobacconist, but so have some of my neighbours, who have not appeared to do more business than I, and yet they have laid up money, although living more expensively than I have ever done. Ah, Dick, I have been too indolent and heedless-that, I suppose, is the true state of the case. And now I am getting old, without having made a purse for any of my boys and girls.' So ended this conversation, but the feeling expressed was not so easily removed from Mr Wingrave's mind.

Mr Wingrave and his shopman Jackson had long managed the business alone, and of course, during the master's necessary terms of absence, the other had been left by himself in the shop. But on attaining a fit age, the tobacconist's eldest boy was taken in as a sharer in the toils of tobacco-selling, and by this means the shop was seldom left to the sole management of either master or man. The boy in question, as it chanced, was intelligent, active, and quick-eyed; and shortly after the occurrence of the brief dialogue just recorded, he noticed an incident which forcibly struck and surprised his youthful perceptions. Having received a crown-piece of a new coinage, or at least fresh from the Mint, he examined it attentively ere he deposited it in the till. On returning soon after from some call of duty, he again felt a desire to look at the glittering piece, and sought it for this purpose. To his great surprise, it was not to be

seen. Being certain that no one had been in the shop in the interval excepting Jackson, the boy naturally inquired of him: If he had seen the pretty crown-piece they got a little ago?' The old shopman replied in the negative, and remarked that it would probably have been given away in change. But the youth was almost confident that such could not have been the case. He was, as has been said, quick-eyed for his years, and the conclusion which he could not but form was, that Jackson alone could have touched the missing coin after it was laid in the drawer.

Young Wingrave did as very few boys of fourteen would have done under the circumstances. Assured that a boy's observation would never have been put in the balance against Jackson's long-sustained credit, he did not inform his father of the crown-piece incident, but set himself assiduously to the task of discovering whether such disappearances of silver were of common occurrence. He secretly marked different coins in such a way as to be readily distinguishable again by himself, though not by others, and watched their fate after their consignment to the till. It was long ere the boy attained to a satisfactory result, and it was amazing how much perseverance and secretiveness he displayed in pursuing his object. But, in the end, without having yet communicated with a human being on the point, he became perfectly assured that Jackson was in the regular habit of abstracting money from the drawer in small quantities at a time!

Knowing that Jackson had no claim or authority to do this, being paid a quarterly salary, the boy refrained no longer from informing his father of what he had observed. At first, the old tobacconist laughed outright at the intelligence, and declared the whole to be an absurdity. 'What! Dick Jackson steal, and steal from me! Impossible !' But the persevering assertions of the boy, and his distinct account of the close watchings which had led him to the conclusion, staggered the tobacconist's faith at last, although absolute conviction might not be produced. The son proposed secretly and cautiously to repeat his coin

markings with the father's cognizance, and to this course of proceeding the latter agreed. The issue was, that Mr Wingrave was brought in a week or two to the clear and firm assurance, that the man whom he had so long trusted was in the regular practice of pilfering from the contents of the till. This conviction caused much pain to Mr Wingrave, and it also excited much doubt and conjecture as to the past; seeing that no one could determine at what time the system of peculation had begun, and to what extent it had proceeded. One thing was obvious -that Jackson's course required to be brought to a close.

Being a man of little penetration or activity of mind, it was perhaps well for the tobacconist that he thought of consulting an intimate friend and relative, a person 'learned in the law,' and still more deeply versed in the learning of common-sense, upon the subject of Jackson's delinquencies. By this friend's advice the matter was kept secret, and Jackson was privately sent for to the presence of the only three parties acquainted with the discovery—namely, Wingrave, his son, and the lawyer. It would have been hard for any spectator of this interview, to say whether the tobacconist or his faithless servant exhibited most distress in entering on the subject of the meeting. Suffice it to say, that Jackson, at the outset, denied his guilt, though with a guilty bearing and countenance. But when Wingrave and the boy went over the proofs of his crime, which they had severally and conjunctly collected, and the lawyer at the same time declared that they would be recognised as full and decisive criminatory evidence by the law, the treacherous shopman fell upon his knees in an agony of fear, and prayed in the most abject manner for mercy. This of course the tobacconist would not consent to without a full confession of the length of time he had carried on his peculations, and the extent, if it could be told, to which they had gone. In the terrors of the moment, Jackson confessed all. His thefts had begun almost with his entrance to Wingrave's service, and had since continued

without intermission, the wretched old man declaring that, in the end, he had lost all sense of guilt, and had come to regard whatever he took as fairly his own. But let me go home,' exclaimed he, and for pardon and concealment, I will give up all I possess in the world.' The simple tobacconist would at once have consented to this, but the lawyer, who knew human nature better, and put little confidence in compulsory repentance, required Jackson to give up the keys of his repositories, and to inform them where his money was placed. The hesitation with which the criminal complied with this demand, though it might partly arise from the involuntary strugglings of that avarice by which he had been drawn into guilt, justified the lawyer's caution. The shopman, however, gave up his keys, and stated that the fruits of his thefts would be found in one escritoire, in the shape of bank-receipts. Having received proper authority from its miserable proprietor, the lawyer then sent to Jackson's lodgings for the escritoire in question.

When this article was brought, it was found to contain a number of receipts from different banks, among which, to avoid suspicion, Jackson had distributed his stolen funds. On seeing the very large amount of the sums for which these papers were the vouchers, the tobacconist experienced mingled feelings. He was shocked to think that he had been so long at the mercy of a man who was capable of robberies to such an extent, and he could not but feel pleasure at the thought that these large sums were undeniably his own. Jackson sat with his selfdishonoured gray head bent to the ground, while his secret repository was undergoing examination. A question from his master made him raise his eyes and speak. All is there,' said he huskily, and more than all. My own small savings are in these bills also. I have enjoyed nothing, either from my own means, or-or yours, but the pleasure of hoarding.' The melancholy or rather despairing tone in which these words were uttered, softened the heart of the simple tobacconist; and had he not been restrained by the presence of others, he