Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/563

 . 7, 1863.] 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