The Beggars' Brotherhood

Book excerpt: "This book traces the growth and decline of those twin brotherhoods of beggars and knaves, which occupied the alarmed attention of Englishmen from the sixteenth century. The author scrutinises the unsavoury details of the lives and customs of these rogues and illustrates by contemporary quotations their various methods of preying on the innocent and unwary. The second part of the book deals with the disappearance of the brotherhood of beggars and the coming of the highway-men, the body-snatchers and the organised gangs of ruffians controlled by Jonathan Wild. The book contains a notable gallery of villains, enlivened here and there with snatches of genial balladry." --Dust jacket.