HOW PICKPOCKETS DO THEIR WORK.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3918, 9 February 1884, Page 6 (Supplement)

HOW PICKPOCKETS DO THEIR WORK.

" Pickpockets are a class of thieves who must be especially fitted for the business," said a head-quarters detective a few days since. "Do you mean to say that there aro regular instructors in the art of digital appropriation ?" " Oil, yes—old experts who have reduced it to a science. Some of them who havo advanced in years, or otherwise incapacitated for active work on their own hook, devote all their time to instructing thieves and putting up jobs for them. It is a peculiar profession, and requires peculiar talents as well as peculiar surroundings and circumstances, to mako it a success. The pickpocket out of a large city ceases to bo a 'greut artist,'and in a poorer town or a village would degenerate into a more burglar, or even become honest or prosperous. The pickpocket never commits violence, as the footpad,tho burglar,or the garotter does. He performs his work unostentatiously, unobstrusively—l might even say delicately. He is a judge of character, too. He is a sort of detective in his way, knowing at a glance the kind of man whose watch is likely to be solid and valuable and not belonging to the order of flash jowellovy. Long experience has'made him abont as good a judge of the value of things as a jeweller or a pawnbroker. There is a daily danger in his "mode of life which no doubt has attractions for the adventurous. He goes forth with his liberty in his hand. He lives in the face of danger. He sees companions and friends perpetually struck off tho roll of gentlemen-at-large. He knows not when his own day of doom may arrive.'

' Docs his business pay, generally speak ing?'

'Hardly. That is to say, there are very few rich thieves of any description. They nearly all die panpers, or in prison, or in their boots; many at the hands of their comrades. Feur and guilt are the passions thafc sway them. There is no such thing as honor among thieves. Semo have amassed wealth, but to how many of them has ifc been no use ? : You remember Joe Parrish, who was arrested when he was wanted for picking anion's pocket of £100? He was one of the most adroit pickpockets in the country, and his similar" operations of tho few months preceding his arrest would reach the aggregate of several thousand pounds. Parrish has grown rich from his multitudinous robberies, and owns valuable real estate.- He is widely known anions the

he was given the title of the King of Pickpockets. His career of crime has been a long ono, and he is supposed to have stoleu about £200,000. He is not, yet over fortyfive years of age, yet he has committed more robberies and escaped scot free oftcner than any man. Then there was Dan Noble, another famous pickpocket, who died in, a London prison. Ho was about the age of Parrish, and was quite as well known at one time, but he graduated into a bank sneak before his final arrest. 'Do professional pickets usually operate singly or in gangs ? ' ' Some of them prefer to go it alone, but as a general thing they travel in organised mobs of three- It takes three men to do a neat and safe job, except in dense crowds where the usual precautions are not necessary ; but even then they nearly always work in gangs. In tho parlance of tho craft these three individuals are known respectively as the 'wire,' the 'stall,' and the ' cover,' Tho ' wire is the pickpocket himself ; the 'stall' does duty by attracting the man's or woman's attention while tho operator's fingers are in the pocket; the ' cover ' places himself in position, so that the movements of the ' wire ' cannot bo observed. It is very often the case that tho ' wire' is a boy, while the other two are men. For the mere business of relieving pockets of their contents boys are the ablest adepts. Many street, arab has been driven to the work by want and bad company at a yery early age, becoming a professional long before lie has attained his growth.' ' I have heard, also, that women arc very smooth at the business ? ' 'So they are. '.( hey frequently travel wit'li'malc pals, and always do the delicate and ri?ky part of the wor,i. You seldom hear of one being caught. This is not so much owing to the superior cunning as to the fact thai they are carefully covered and protected by their mu!o confrere;. I have noticed that when a female pickpocket travels alone she preys upon her own sex almost exclusively. When pickpockets are working in a great crowd, as I said before, they go in gangs. The chief manipulator goes ahead. He selects a victim, fans his pocket to see if there is anything in it, then slips his hand daintily into it. and. takes out, the purso or roll of money, which he passes back to one of his comrades. Sometimes ifc changes hands throe or four times in as many seconds, aud even if the operator is ' nabbed ' immediately after the work is done, nothing is found on his person to convict him of the theft." ' What do you mean by 'funning ' a man's pocket ?' ' That is simply the slang for feeling it in the light cautious manner which is learned by training. A sharp thief never puts his hand into a man's pocket at random, but goes through the "'fanning" process at first, and locates the object ho desires to " pinch." A clever boy. gaining a character for a light but successful hand, is well cared for by his older pals. With such ti lad it is well worth their while to behave fairly and give him a liberal share of the spoils. I heard of a case not long ago where a boy, being detected by ono of his victims, was got away by two of his comrades, ono. of whom was arrested, tried, and convicted, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment.' Thero is a story told of a skilful pickpocket who was brought, before a police magistrate on a charge of fancying that another man's watch was his own. The complainant, was asked by the magistrate : ' Are you sure you had your watch with you at the time you missed it, and gave this "man in charge for having stolen it r" The witness hesitated, not being quito sure, and answered : ' I do not know.' 'Not. know!' exclaimed the magistrate; ' Why, surely, any man would know that!' So saying he instinctively put his hand into his pocket and found that his own watch was not thero. 'Oh, to bo sure,'he added,' I mis 3my own watch, but I believe I left it on my' dressing table this morning.' Of course there was a laugh in Court. The stupid remarks of magistrates and judges put the lawyers and public on a broad grin. When the magistrate went home that evening ho ut once asked his wife if he had not left his watch upstairs. ' Yes,' sho replied, 'but a gentleman called in the middle of tho day, saying that you had sent him for it, and I gave it to him, of course' This gentleman was a sharp pickpocket, who had been in Court whori the cose was on.