Page:The London Guide and Stranger's Safeguard.djvu/51

Rh should you charge the watchman with her person, you would not recover the property, and the charge falls to the ground as a matter of course. I have frequently known both women brought in and searched, but nothing was found upon them; in such cases they have a third accomplice, but generally the stolen things have been deposited in some nook or corner conveniently situated near where the transaction took place—such as the interstices of window shutters, for bank notes; or the broken corner of the same,—holes are dug in the mortar of walls for the express purpose,—very often upon the ledges where window-shutters are stowed away by day. Such are the contrivances of those wretclies who prowl the streets to take advantage of silly men.

Never suffer a watchman to go out alone, after he has heard the charge, in which the scene of action is of course pointed out: he would take care of the property himself; and you might ascertain that he had met with it, by his becoming extremely jolly in his answers, not to say impudent,—among other things, affecting to doubt "whether you ever had so much about you."

Is the next degree of street depreciation, and is performed either with a stick, which is thrust