JONATHAN WILD: PRINCE OF ROBBERS By Frederick J. Lyons This
is a readable account (Michael Joseph, 15s.) of the celebrated crook and his . eighteenth-century background. As the material regarding Wild is scanty, the author has plenty of space to give an account of the prisons, the punish- ments, and the hangings in those days, all of which makes interesting, il gloomy, reading. The story of Wild himself is lightly and well outlined. As a gangster he was rather in advance of his day. His special piece de resist- ance is amusing in retrospect : as head of a criminal organisation he received quantities of stolen goods which he kept in his secret warehouses. At the same time he advertised himself as "Thief-Taker General of Great Britain and Ireland," posing as an ally of the police, one whose business it was to be
touch with-criminals to bargain..with them for the return of stolen property —which property was often under .his Own = lock and key. Wild was a comedian, perhaps, but not a lovable character. The women threw stones and not rosés at him on his journey to Tyburn Gallows.
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