PREFACE
A few friends, who were kind enough to follow “The Rogue’s March” from week to week in its serial course, would have me add foot-notes on the ground that this story, though by no means founded upon facts, is nevertheless largely built up of them. I have, however, my own prejudice against foot-notes to fiction—and I understand that Notes at the end are never read. I may therefore state at the outset that the Newgate scenes are as near the truth as I have been able to make them, with the aid of sundry Parliamentary papers, supplemented by the very kindly assistance of (I believe) the first living authority on the subject. And a certain “broadsheet” is still in existence as described and quoted, with its vile verses, and its illiterate but circumstantial account of the execution of a man who was not executed.
As to the Transportation details, they have been gleaned partly from the Blue-book published in 1837, partly from the New South Wales Calendar
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