The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 110: what you’re looking at

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

THE MYSTERIES OF THE COULT. —— SF LOUISA STANLEY. ereasing towards Mr. Lawrence Sampson. “You speak of my recollections, sir,” he continued,— “ why, the carliest recollections that I have are as- sociated with that Kinchin-Ken in Grab Street. It seems, from all I have ever beon 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.”* : “I koew her,” observed Sampson. “She was the mistress of the fellow who presided over the rang of javenile 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 :"* tho appellation was given because the young woman referred to had been well brought up in her earller years, before she fell into de- Braved society and profligate habits, lae ae “Yes—le seems to have abandoned his old ways and now keeps a small chandler’s-shop on Matton 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——" “I 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 dre:dful 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 nobleme> in comliclbooks.com