‘The Young Poacher’ by William Hemsley (?1817/1819-1906). The practice of Hue-and-Cry, summoning the public to assist in apprehending a suspected criminal, goes back to a provision in Edward I’s Statute of Winchester in 1285. The phrase, which is probably French in origin (‘huer et crier’), was for many years a title of what later became ‘The Police Gazette’, essential reading for London’s criminal classes. Fagin, after receiving Nancy’s reports on Oliver Twist, “with a horrible grin, reseated himself at the table; where he was soon deeply absorbed in the interesting pages of the Hue-and-Cry.”
