their victims, tip...tip...tip-toeing silently but swiftly behind
their prey, and then ... with a sudden spring they threw
themselves on to little boys' backs, and getting their arms round
their necks, they remorselessly throttled the life out of them. In
the early "sixties" there was a perfect epidemic of so-called
"garrotting" in London. Harmless citizens proceeding peaceably
homeward through unfrequented streets or down suburban roads at
night were suddenly seized from behind by nefarious hands, and
found arms pressed under their chins against their windpipe, with
a second hand drawing their heads back until they collapsed
insensible, and could be despoiled leisurely of any valuables they
might happen to have about them. Those familiar with John Leech's
Punch Albums will recollect how many of his drawings turned on
this outbreak of garrotting. The little boy had heard his elders
talking about this garrotting, and had somehow mixed it up with a
story about hunchbacks and the fascinating local tales about "the
wee people," but the terror was a very real one for all that. The
hunchbacks baffled, there only remained a dark archway to pass,
but this archway led to the "Robbers' Passage." A peculiarly
bloodthirsty gang of malefactors had their fastnesses along this
passage, but the dread of being in the immediate neighbourhood of
such a band of desperadoes was considerably modified by the
increasing light, as the solitary oil-lamp of the passage was
approached. Under the comforting beams of this lamp the little boy
would pause until his heart began to thump less wildly after his
deadly perils, and he would turn the handle of the door and walk
into the great hall as demurely as though he had merely traversed
an ordinary everyday passage in broad daylight. It was very
reassuring to see the big hall blazing with light, with the logs
roaring on the open hearth, and grown-ups writing, reading, and