If any one could be found so blind to obvious inferences as to accept natural selection, "or the preservation of favoured machines," as the main means of mechanical modification, we might suppose him to argue much as follows:- "I can quite understand," he would exclaim, "how any one who reflects upon the originally simple form of the earliest jemmies, and observes the developments they have since attained in the hands of our most accomplished housebreakers, might at first be tempted to believe that the present form of the instrument has been arrived at by long-continued improvement in the hands of an almost infinite succession of thieves; but may not this inference be somewhat too hastily drawn?
"Luck or Cunning?"
Samuel Butler
housebreakers were rare in St. Sennans.
"Somehow Good"
William de Morgan
Among them were several who had not the appearance of seamen, and who, I surmised, were highwaymen or housebreakers.
"Paddy Finn"
W. H. G. Kingston