Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 9/The art of thieving - Part 1
THE ART OF THIEVING.
PART I.
That so many people can earn their living by thieving proves, at least, that there must be method in their crime, and a considerable amount of ingenuity in carrying out their fraudulent plans. Were thieves to go about their work at haphazard they would soon be driven out of the field: they would neither be able to outwit their victims nor elude the police. Thieves contending with the public have greatly the advantage in some respects. Long practice makes the thief perfect in arts of which the public know comparatively nothing. The honest tradesman and the peaceful and virtuous citizen passing through the streets bear the same relation to the professional thief as the generality of men bear to a well-trained prize-fighter. A man untrained in the art of self-defence can have no chance of success in a contention with a professional bruiser. He knows a thousand tricks to which the uninitiated are perfect strangers. But, whilst we are none of us required to enter the ring and guard ourselves against the skilful assaults of the prize-fighter, we are all obliged to be upon our guard against the depredations of thieves. We know not when or where they may assail us, nor how severe the loss we may sustain by these villains of the criminal arts. It becomes every citizen to know something of the tricks of thieves, in order that he may know his danger and secure his own safety. Whatever objections may be urged against such knowledge, the fact is certain that thieves mainly live upon the ignorance and carelessness of the public. A danger cannot be guarded against until it is known; and before the public can provide for their own protection against thieves, they must acquaint themselves with the snares which are spread for them. It may be objected that in revealing the secrets of the criminal fraternity we only spread the evil. “Thieves,” it may be said, “will read your book and take lessons from it.” This objection can only be urged by those who do not understand the furtive brotherhood. The thieves know already what will be here revealed, and far more. All who are inclined to enlist in the ranks of professional thieves can readily do so, and by such association and a few years’ imprisonment they will soon graduate in the whole art of stealing. We can teach the habitual thief nothing on this subject. Here and there one naturally inclined to evil may take a hint from what is written; but we cannot refrain from informing the public because one or two may make an improper use of the information.
In gathering information on the criminal question, I have been astonished at the gross ignorance displayed by shopkeepers and others. The merest prig could cheat many of them without the least difficulty. While this ignorance lasts the thieves will continue to reap their unhallowed harvests, and shopkeepers will continue to say, “We are constantly being robbed, but we cannot find out how they do it, and therefore we are unable to prevent them.” Until the multitude will do something to dispel this ignorance, they will continue to be the easy prey of the trained marauder, and perfectly helpless whenever the trammels of thieving are thrown about them.
The information which is needed by the multitude to save them, as far as may be, from being robbed and plundered is very difficult to obtain. It cannot be had by merely reading police reports. Only fragments of the art come out there—now and then a burglar’s ingenious instrument, now and then a flash-letter, and now and then a note on the Bank of Elegance. Thieves in general cling to their secrets with the most desperate tenacity. They are unwilling to endanger their craft by too much publicity. A few of them, however, are very communicative when they meet with persons whom they can trust. Under the influence of remorse, aggravated by the treachery of their companions,—proud and vain of an opportunity of showing the amount of their criminal knowledge and dishonest skill, or sincerely and even affectionately grateful for some signal act of unmerited kindness,—they will freely disclose the most startling things, and explain with eagerness their most successful methods of preying upon the public and evading the law. I have sat and listened with amazement and horror to such disclosures, until, unable to bear it any longer, I have checked the narrator by saying, “It is horrible and infernal—how could you do it!” Then, with a face like scarlet (for thieves can blush at such times), the answer has been, “I know it’s diabolical; but do you wish me to smooth it over and tell you a lot of lies? You asked for the truth, and you’ve got it.” The information which a communicative and trusting thief will sometimes impart is so much mixed up with their own slang, there are so many names for the same thing, these names change so frequently, and there are so many variations from each leading mode of thieving, as to make it not a little difficult to get at the real truth of the case. In any explanations which I may offer I shall endeavour to keep to what the thieves consider the best and principal methods; and the reader must understand that each gang of thieves introduces some slight change in the application and carrying-out of those criminal arts, the general plans of which are familiar to the whole brotherhood of thieves.
Men generally prefer to rob men, not only because men are supposed to carry the largest amount of money, but also from a sort of mongrel chivalry which prevails among habitual thieves. They consider it somewhat ungallant to misuse a female, and prefer leaving them in the hands of female thieves. How seldom it is that women are garroted! One reason is, the female thieves are very much opposed to men garroting women, and hardly any female thief will consent to have a woman garroted; she will first try all other means of robbing her victim. The female thieves know, by bitter and personal experience, the terrors of the garrote. Their men not unfrequently garrote the female thieves by way of punishing them. If a female thief is very saucy, or in any way offends her man, he threatens to screw her up, and the threat is generally sufficient. After being garroted once or twice the female thief stands in terror of the infliction, and will submit to almost anything rather than be “screwed up.” So men steal from men, women from women; the latter opposing the garroting of women to the utmost of their power, and very frequently resisting the application of the garrote to men. The female thief seeks her prey in shops, fashionable streets, conveyances, and public gatherings. The man-thief seeks his victims in all sorts of places and circumstances, anywhere the world over. The public are greatly mistaken in thinking that the thieves work at random. They often know their mark, both of time, person, and place. Thieves are full of schemes, subtlety, plans, and methods, and if they could observe their own rules they would very seldom be detected. The following kind of robberies are looked upon by the thieves as their most lucrative methods:—Burglary, hotel-jilting, garroting, and pocket-picking. And the most difficult and dangerous of all their arts they pronounce to be “fly-buzzing,” i. e., one thief picking a person’s pocket when no third party is present.
Pocket-picking is one of the principal arts in thievedom, and we must explain and describe it at some length. Occasionally it is done single-handed, but only the cleverest thieves can thus work alone. For pocket-picking they nearly always go two together, often three, and occasionally four. Whatever the numbers may be, whether three or four, the person who really does the work is called the wire. Suppose three; one is the wire, and the other two are the front and back stalls. Stalling is almost always practised in pocket-picking. The stall acts as though he did not belong to the thief, and yet does all he can to assist the wire. The stalls walk before or behind—any way so that they can divert the victim’s attention from the wire, and cover his work from any one who happens to pass by. The wire will not keep the treasure in his hands long, but passes it into the hands of one of the stalls, who thus becomes the “swagsman,” or banker. Purses, when emptied of their contents, are thrown away the first opportunity, to avoid identification. In picking pockets they are guided to their victim by his general appearance and manner. Thieves become very expert in judging what position persons hold in life, and whether they are likely to have any money about them. Moreover, they watch people in public places paying or receiving money, and they will follow them very long distances. If the victim wears a gold watch-guard, then the thieves are reconciled to the risk at once; money or no money, they make sure of a watch. Absence of mind makes many a victim for the pickpocket. And when the person is not preoccupied and absorbed in his own thoughts, the stalls always divert the victim’s attention from the wire by running against the victim, as if by accident, asking him the way to somewhere, or the hour of the day, or by creating some disturbance. Both male and female thieves are very clever at what they call “fanning pockets,” which is done by suddenly, as if by accident, passing one hand quickly and lightly over the pocket; and thus they can tell in a moment which pocket contains the treasure. The wire always uses the thumb and two forefingers, generally of the right hand. When they get their victim to-rights, the pocket is picked in a moment and the gang at once disperse.
They have preconcerted signals, of which the principal are the following: From the stalls,—“the police,” “we are watched,” “not yet,” “give it up;” from the wire,—“I must give it up,” “I’ve missed,” or “I’ve got it.” A cough, a stamp of the foot, a laugh, a wave of the hand, or a slang word is used, as the case may be, to signal the necessary information. Sometimes they get half-caught, and put back that which they had nearly taken without the victim knowing what has happened; but they will follow up their prey, and try again and again as long as there is any chance of success. If the wire gets into trouble by being detected or suspected, then the stalls come forward, and, acting as if they did not know the thief, do their uttermost to get him out of the scrape, and clear off. When money is loose in the pocket the thieves call it “weeding:” people occasionally think that they have lost or mislaid their loose money in going from shop to shop; it may be so, but often the wire has been “weeding.” When ladies’ pockets are so long that the wire’s fingers wont reach the bottom, he puts his left hand to the bottom of the pocket outside the lady’s dress, and very dexterously, and almost imperceptibly, lifts the pocket up towards his right hand; and this is called “punching it up.” The only instruments used in pocket-picking are a sharp penknife or a pair of scissors, and a pair of pleirs—the former for ripping pockets and ladies’ dresses; the latter for cutting watch-guards. This instrument is generally like the one here illustrated. 
Watches are taken from the pocket much the same as purses. A thief will always make a venture or “throw a chance away,” as he calls it, when he sees a gold chain. No matter where the watch of the lady or gentleman is worn, the thief runs his finger along the guard, which at once guides him to the watch. If he finds it to be a silver watch, he will frequently put it back in disgust; but he will run risks for a gold watch. If he is detected either by the alertness of his victim or his own awkwardness, he will put the watch back if possible, or say the chain has got entangled with his buttons, or stumble up against his victim, beg his pardon, and so cover his own retreat. The pliers for cutting watch-guards are very strong, and do their work in an instant; but these instruments are not generally used. Most thieves break the watch from the guard by the following quick and easy method:—The watch is tightly grasped in the left hand, the powerful and fleshy part of the thumb resting on the part of the watch where the stud and ring are attached. The ring to which the chain is fastened, is held tightly between the thumb and finger of the right hand. This position gives the thief considerable power over the watch; and by suddenly wrenching his hands in opposite directions, the ring either breaks or the stud is twisted off, or, as more commonly happens, the small pin which passes through the ring to fasten it is torn out. Occasionally the thieves have not time to put the watch back in case of alarm; at other times they cannot, from the difficulty of the circumstances, wrench it from the guard; and when a gentleman finds his watch out of his pocket and dangling by the chain, he may know that something of this kind has occurred.
Not long ago several gentlemen were walking at a late hour along one of the London streets; they observed a man walking on the opposite side of the street, and watching them very intently. They could not make out what the fellow was looking at until, at last, one of the gentlemen noticed that the watch of one of the company was out of his pocket hanging by the chain. The man who eyed them so conspicuously was no doubt a single-hand wire, who had drawn the watch from the pocket, but had not been able to twist it from the guard, and was waiting for another chance.
As a specimen of the ingenious methods of stalls take the following incident:—
A gentleman, probably in the police-force and not unlikely a detective, was listening one Sunday afternoon to a Hyde Park preacher. A suspicious-looking man with a well-dressed lady on each arm walked towards the gentleman as if by accident, poked the first finger of each hand under the gentleman’s coat-laps and lifted them up, no doubt to give the ladies on his arms the opportunity of picking both pockets. But the gentleman, who told us the circumstance in the Victoria Hotel, was too quick for the thieves, and they had to retire, covering their confusion as they best could.
A remarkable instance of pocket-picking by a single-handed wire is said to have happened in London. A gentleman from the country received a large sum of money in sovereigns. He bought a sort of canvas bag for it, walked along the streets, all the while keeping his hand in the pocket where the purse was, with a desperate determination not to be done. All at once, to his astonishment, his purse was gone. He at once went to a policeman, by whose assistance he had the singular good fortune to find the thief who had taken his purse. The gentleman was so amazed at his purse being taken while his hand had never left his pocket, that he offered to forgive the thief if he would tell him how it was done. The thief then said:—
“I happened to see you receiving the money, and followed you. I saw you buy the bag-purse, and again followed you. After a time, I tickled your ear with a feather; unconsciously you took your hand out of your purse-pocket to remove what you thought, perhaps, was a fly; and while you were rubbing your ear I got the booty.”
A great deal of pocket-picking is done in crowds. There the thieves can work the easiest, and are surest of escaping detection. If no crowd forms of itself, the thieves resort to different methods of creating a crowd. Having selected a place to have a crowd—and they select places where people with money are likely to be passing—one of the gang throws a stone into one of the shop-windows, which is called “smashing the glaze;” a crowd of people soon form, and then the wires go to work. “Tumbling a fit for buzzing” is also resorted to for the purpose of creating a crowd. A man falls down in a public thoroughfare. People passing think he is in a fit, and so he seems to be, for long practice has enabled him to act his part to perfection. He goes through a regular series of symptoms, pains, and contortions; comes slowly round, and, being alone, he asks one of the bystanders to call him a cab, in which the fit-tumbler drives off. While he has been having his fits, the pickpockets have been busy at work, looking after people’s purses, and sympathising with the sufferer or taking no notice of him as their game required. Some of these scenes are occasionally acted under the very eyes of the police without being detected. The “fit-tumbler” is always well dressed, and, to make his work safer and more successful, he is not a regular thief, nor is he known to the police as belonging to the criminal classes.
Auctions and sales are favourite resorts of thieves. They will travel as much as fifty or sixty miles to a good sale, and always make sure of clearing their travelling expenses by pocket-picking. Should they steal any goods or plate of any kind, they take the stolen property to the nearest “fence town,” and dispose of it at once. There is a great deal of carelessness with purses at sales. Some persons are fond of showing their money, and others delight to be in liquor; so between the two a clever wire is sure of his harvest. “Working on the stop” is done in the streets. A gang of thieves pick out a likely mark and set a stall upon him, who stops the mark and, if possible, holds him in conversation while the rest of the gang ease him of his cash. It is in this kind of work that men who have fallen from respectability, such as clerks and tradesmen, are of most use to the thieves. They can never become so clever as the born-and-bred thieves, but they make the best of stalls. Their business air puts the victim off his guard, whereas the uneasy and furtive restlessness of an habitual thief attempting to stall would at once put a man who knew the world upon his guard. “Stiff-dropping” is another mode of pocket-picking, and is practised both in the streets and in conveyances. A boy or girl, very respectably dressed, shows a letter to a lady—for this appeal is generally made to their soft hearts—and is in great trouble because he cannot read the direction of the letter. The lady—as any lady would—kindly undertakes to help him, perhaps takes out her spectacles; and while she is doing this her purse is taken, it may be in the street or it may be in an omnibus. The party who picks the pocket while the “stiff-dropper” is attracting the victim’s attention is called “the hook.” Omnibuses are greatly patronised by the thieves, who insist upon it that some of the omnibus-conductors play into their hands. The greater part of this work is done by women, who, if possible, sit near the door and fan people’s pockets as they get in. When they have marked their game they wait until the victim is coming out of the ’bus. One thief will put some hindrance in the victim’s way, and while he or she is hindered, apparently by accident, in getting out, the theft is committed. As soon as the wire has got the purse, he passes the signal to the stall on the other side, and the victim may go. But if the wire cannot succeed the victim is detained for some time. The stall will pretend to be getting out, or throw herself forward into the doorway to look at something, or put her leg across the omnibus, or tumble something, or ask a question; keeping the victim until the wire either gets the purse or gives the office up in despair. Two men and one woman frequently work an omnibus. The wire contrives to sit next to his mark. The stall engages the victim’s attention while the wire is at work, who, when he has succeeded, passes the purse to the third thief. The third thief, or swagsman, leaves the omnibus as soon as possible. The others ride on for some distance, knowing that they are not in danger because nothing can be found upon them. Many a kind-hearted person has been plundered while making out the address of a letter for a boy or girl who could not make the writing out. The public are familiar with Dick Turpin and the villains of Hounslow Heath, with their blunderbuss threateningly levelled at the heads of the stage-coach passengers; but those days are gone, and the few instances in which men are waylaid, half-murdered, and robbed, are enacted only by tramps, beggars, and the lowest class of thieves—such, for instance, as those Bilston stupidities, who do their work as heavily and brutally as Barclay’s dray-horses might do if they went mad and turned out on the streets to get their living by picking pockets.
Railways have taken the place of stage-coaches, and a great deal of pilfering is done in connection with them. On fair-days, market-days, and other special occasions, when trains and stations are unusually crowded and brisk, the thieves are always very busy. Sometimes they will work a whole line or part of it, until they cannot safely stay any longer. They will take a ticket for a station a few miles out and distant from a large town station, and return by one of the crowded night-trains, and this they call “grafting short stages.” Both in the train and out of it there is a good deal of thieving going on. They watch persons getting their tickets, and notice what change they have, and then keep their eye upon them, and get into the same carriage if they think it worth their while. Hither come the magsmen, the women, and the Peter-ringers; the magsmen dressed like farmers to decoy country folks to hocussed drink and the flash gambling-houses—the women for picking pockets and “picking up.” But a Peter-ringer, “What in the world is that?” the reader will say. Well, my friend, a Peter-ringer is one who tries to get his living by stealing carpet-bags. He takes a carpet-bag of the usual size and appearance with him to the railway-station, and when he sees one loose and somewhat similar to his own, he effects an exchange and quietly makes off, leaving for the traveller some hay or rags, or perhaps a few stones. Sometimes whole families, men, women, boys, and girls, give themselves principally to railway thieving. Thieves prefer working railways three together—wire, and front and back stalls. We will suppose these three setting out for a day’s villany. They go down to the station respectably dressed, and are not in any hurry to take their tickets; but lounge about, watching intently, under the garb of seeming indifference, the different passengers taking their tickets and opening their purses. They always take their seats next the door, and fan the passengers’ pockets as they enter the carriage. Sometimes they pick the passengers’ pockets while in the carriage, but oftener do it as they are getting out, when the same tricks are practised as in omnibuses. Most thieves, and especially railway thieves, are very fond of having a coat or rug over their left arm; these they press against the victim in such a way as to cover their right hand, with which they work underneath and out of sight. Passengers now and then find their emptied purses in their own pockets, and this the thieves call “weeding a poke and whipping it back.” If they cannot whip the purse back, or are not disposed to do it, they have plenty of repositories for emptied purses—window-slides, tunnels, water-closets, and for a joke the railway porter’s jacket pocket. Railway thieves may be generally known by their restlessness. They jump out and in at every station, change seats and carriages, and seem to be watching everybody. A gentleman one day was travelling by train from Birmingham to London in a second-class carriage. In another compartment of the same carriage he saw a young and an elderly female, who were very intimate and friendly. The younger lady chatted a great deal with the elder one, and called her attention to almost everything they passed; and their company seemed mutually delightful. At Oxford the younger lady left the carriage and took a friendly leave of her companion. Shortly after the train was again in motion the elderly lady became greatly excited and alarmed, exclaiming,
“Oh dear! I’m robbed. That young hussy has taken my purse.”
The gentleman said, “Why, I thought the young lady was a friend of yours?”
“Friend!” said the old lady; “why, I never saw her before.”
Surely enough the old lady was robbed, for her dress and outer garments were cut open to her under pocket. She was going to pay a considerable sum of money in London, and, fortunately for her, she had stitched some bank-notes where no wire could get them. No doubt this lady had been watched from the bank to her home, and from home to the railway-station, where the lively young female was planted upon her to travel with her until the deed was done. Not at all unlikely some servant had treacherously, or foolishly and unknowingly, put the thieves on the scent. Persons who are going to the bank to pay in money, or who have been to the bank receiving money, are frequently robbed. They wonder how the thieves happen to catch them at that particular time. The explanation is that, like woodcocks, they are considered rare game, and are generally watched and marked down. This kind of thieving is called “jug-buzzing,” and is only practised by the cleverest thieves. Two of them will go into the bank when many people are in, or when they have marked their woodcock. The two thieves are very well dressed, and try to appear as gentlemanly and quiet as possible. One of them will ask for change for a 5l. note, and it is his aim to keep the clerk’s attention as long as he can. This gives the thieves an opportunity of using their eyes and ears to some purpose, as by this means they find out who is receiving money. When they have chosen their victim they try to rob him as soon as possible, preferring to do it in the bank if they can; they consider that the safest, as in it they think themselves least liable to suspicion. A few of the thieves are quick enough to take their booty from the breast-pocket; they are considered the top of the profession, and are called “bloke-tools.” These thieves generally carry snyde scrip and commercial bills, which are supplied to them by broken-down lawyers’ clerks and others; so that, if they become the objects of suspicion and fall into the hands of the police, they produce their snyde paper, and endeavour to pass themselves off for commercial men. A good deal of pocket-picking is done in places of worship, and this is called “kirk-buzzing.” They are by no means particular as to the place—church or chapel, anywhere for money. They will pay two or three visits to the same place, and only give it up when it becomes too hot to hold them. They are very fond of missionary meetings and other philanthropic crowds, where the people are too excited and too far away in the celestial to care for such carnal things as purses and pockets. Some ladies at a small place called Hill Top, in South Staffordshire, were heavily fleeced in a Methodist chapel not very long ago by some “kirk-buzzers,” who, guided by advertisement, came down upon the good people from a distance. Sometimes the pockets are picked during the progress of the service, especially if the meeting is exciting and one calculated to rivet the attention of the audience; but the chief part of the work is done in what thieves call “the burst,” which means just in the midst of the excitement and stir which is made when the people rise from their seats and are passing out along the aisles. Then they fan pockets, pick their marks, do their dishonest deeds, and jostle themselves about, all the while looking as devout as possible. The wax arm dodge for robbing at the communion is seldom used; clever thieves can do without it. This kind of work is also called “buzzing on spec.” It is said by the thieves that when they go to Roman Catholic places of worship they get to know the name of the officiating priest, so that if they are caught they profess to be Papists, and ask to speak with Father So-and-so; they do this in the hope that the priest will take pity on them and get them off. Exchange Robbing is done by men; women and children are never employed, except outside, to receive the “swag.” The Exchange-men never work in towns where they are well known to the police. Moreover, they dress exceedingly well, so that if on a sudden outcry of something gone the doors are closed at once, it is next to impossible for the police to detect the culprit—first, because they do not know him, and secondly, because of the thief’s unsuspicious appearance and manner. An Exchange thief watches until he sees a gentleman with a purse or a roll of notes. This man he marks, and follows him wherever he goes; and the moment the thief has picked the merchant’s pocket he is off. Gentlemen can seldom tell to a few minutes how much time has elapsed since the wealth was in their possession; and should it only be a few minutes between the knowledge of possession and the alarm of ascertained loss, the brief interval is nearly always sufficient to enable the rascal to make good his escape: once outside and his capture is generally hopeless, as on the slightest suspicion of being followed the property is immediately passed from hand to hand. The foregoing explanation will account for the Exchange thief being so seldom caught.