The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 576, November 17, 1832Various
History
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 576, November 17, 1832
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
At length, one Saturday, by pretending to forget the job until all the
men were gone out about other work, the boy, affecting suddenly to
recollect it, persuaded the master to let him go alone, saying he
himself could perform the duty. It was five o'clock in the morning
when he and the disguised robber reached the house; the cook opened
the door, having nothing on save a blanket thrown over her shoulders.
The arch young rogue said, "It's only me and Harry; it's a very cold
morning; if you like to go to bed again, cookey, we will do it well,
and leave all clean, and shut the door fast after us." She went to
bed, and they went to the plate depository, which had been well noted
oft times before. They put the whole of its contents into the
soot-bag, and fearlessly walked through the streets with it on their
backs. The boy, a few hours afterwards, was so metamorphosed, being
dressed in the smartest manner, with cane in hand and fifty pounds in
his pocket, that he walked the streets in full confidence that not
even his master or his fellow-apprentices would know him.
_Pickpockets._
The qualifications for a pickpocket are a light tread, a delicate
sense of touch, combined with firm nerves. These boys may be known by
their shoes in the street; they generally wear pumps, or shoes of a
very light make, having long quarters. There is about their
countenance an affected determination of purpose, and they walk
forward, as if bent on some object of business: it is a rule with them
never to stop in the street. When they want to confer for a moment
they drop into some by-court or alley, where they will fix on an
object of attack, as the people pass down a main street; when they
start off in the same manner, the boy going first, to do what they
call "stunning," that is to pick the pocket. The first rate hands
never, on any occasion, loiter in the streets, unless at a procession
or any exhibition, when there is an excuse for so doing. Many have a
notion that instruments are used in disencumbering the pockets: this
is a false idea; the only instrument they use is a good pair of small
scissors, and which will always be found on the person of a pickpocket
when searched; these they use to cut the pocket and all off, when they
cannot abstract its contents.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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