Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/46

30 endeavour to touch him in the wind, pretending herself to be very much hurt. Her accomplices are behind, and improve upon the accident, by embracing the victim; and the hindermost is generally the thief who hands off the property. It must be present to every one's mind, that when a person is hit upon the belly, or pit of the stomach— and those women are taught how to place their blows—he will naturally bend from, the effects of the blow: At that moment it is, he loses his watch, a dive is made into his breeches pocket, and both are drawn; and if the lady's hurt is very bad, (that is, well played off) his pocket-book goes to wreck also.

This same trick of turning round, is also practised by two or three men; and a good method is to stoop suddenly down, whereby the person to be robbed comes wholly, or in part, to the ground; and during the struggle to recover himself, or the efforts of tiie accomplice to assist him, the job is effected.

Ladies who press to the windows of drapers shops are fine game. When they wore pockets with hoops, scarcely any operation in all the light finger trade was easier than the dive, or putting in one's hand; afterwards, on the disuse of the hoop, the thing was performed by a short fellow,