Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/565

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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,