Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/564

 554 may be so, but often the wire has been “weeding.” When ladies’ pockets are so long that the wire’s fingers wontwon’t [sic] 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 pleirspliers [sic]—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