The Sun.
London, England, 1869-06-15 00:00:00

THE FRENCH THIEVES.

The Daily News has an interesting article descriptive or
the thieves of Paris. The facts are taken from a paper 10
the Revue des Deur Mondes, by M. Maxime du CallW'
who classifies his subjects as a botanist would his Plantg'
The thieves (he declares) form a clan, separate and OP
tinct,. and divisable into some twenty groups. They hale
a dialect of themselves. The language of the gipsies for is
a large part of this strange patois, into which Nor 6
from other foreign tongues enter. The chief of action, °III.
pany of thieves is called meg or mek, by contra
according to M. du Camp, from the Latin magus, Aratbbie
melek (king) ; the executioner is tollard, from
Latin tellere, quia tollit e vivis. In the thieves' argot, the
word for pardon is redam, from the Latin rediniere, t°
berg
redeem. In it years are berges, from the German
(mountain), symbolising the difficult ascent of thei
111°
arduous life. Other metaphors are more obvious•
speak is balancer le chiffon rouge, "to wave ,t,11:
red rag "—that is, the tongue. To peach 111.;,,r
a comrade is judacer, to play the Judas.
an odd concession, the Court of Assizes is /cc Pis'
(the just one). The Legislative Body is "t;11:
Tower of Babel ;" an omnibus, " the common oceige
the grating of the prison windows is " the harp."
gendarmes are the "dealers in lace " (or, by an ambigulu;
snares—marchands de lacets. The guillotine was Abbi*
de monte-a-regret, or, as we might say, thefivAebbesTub°;
placed
Rhoictutehtete,miidt dlies
Sorrowful Ascent. Now, from the
of
falltehde of the
Stones. To deny (nier) is, by a mere play 1111°r1
"to go to Niort." The bench on which the accused sit 10
the courts of justice Lis known as the planche
the bread-plank ; a phrase which, as Id. ail C 31%
observes, strikingly paints the ordinary destitutn of 1.
ttaeveAntietnety oaf
the
Placee
occupants. In the hierarchy of the thieves
clanottlicie
highest place is occupied by the faisscurs, or, as we 911 1.11,0
call them, swindlers. Next follow "free burgesses," 11..'e
obtain entrance into houses by professing to belong W
profession of the occupant, and who are ready to
'
the
up anything that comes to hand. " The actor who 11
been ruined by the burning down of his theatre,
ww
humble and mendicant ecclesiastic who is under a vo wo
go on foot to Rome, the man of letters who has beer,
fatally involved in the failure of his publisher, tbe _
chant who has been unlucky in business, the old tutor
whom family misfortunes and his own virtue WI
reduced to distress," belong to this class. s.lleilee
have their counterparts in England, as have also ,'„r
chineurs, who sell stuffs to women from door to o°"s.
which they are able to offer at inconceivably low Prifeer,
icThe vol ahu
apotihni
thief's career
the theft
generally from thebeg
begins,
IP.
se rr"
ocriry:
from a drunken man under pretence of assisting bin"'
Cretzr is our pickpocket., who haunts crowds at theatr"
e'
doors, exhibitions, and railway stations. He is generatle
accompanied by three or four lads—mouclicreas,
l,lhe
gnats, who indicate likely subjects to him. lis
triumph of this art is to nu:le the tire
chicane, that is, with the back turned to the Perligli
who is being plundered. Its greatest adept was 'l\ ra. e
Lepreuil, who had acquired the honourable 113.0..
of " the hand of gold." M. du Camp gives an illustroA.l
of his skill. An immense crowd being assembled clurrii,
the time of the Republic on the Place de la B°llree'•,-ed
police agent on duty recognising Mimi Lepreuil re(1111"
him to take himself away. That illustrious roan refuszie
d
taking his stand upon his right as a citizen. Leav:ge
d
alone," he said, " with your Republicans ; I have 013/8-0,0
in five hundred pockets, and have not found a singieic, is
Other forms of theft are the vol a la Wtourne, -0711.
practised by female shoplifters, and the vol retad'ay;
which is theft of goods exposed for sale in the oPeu.till
is
the vol a la rode or au radio, in which the sh°l4 the
carried off bodily; and the vol ala vrillee 14
the
la
bearings of the shop having been taken in the daytime,
boy.
hole is pierced in the shutters,
thief, enters, and admits his comrades, svb t are
and "the rat,'o
0,31ce
short work of its contents. The cassevr3 Orse cell
our housebreakers, and often break head° Lions
as doors. The carreurs have their field of heads
peranes
with
jewellers' shops. "He examines the precious st.o
that he
extreme attention, closely, very closely—so closely
_eared
touches them with his nose. His nose has been
.011. ch are
with virgin wax ; some diamonds stick to it, othet
slipped promptly into the sharper's sleeve•
out at
practitioners use their tongues, shooting them], with
the jewels like certain insect-catching anblifile pail-°
an
„arrear, ull
rapid and precise aim, or fix the stones to
of the hand with gum adraganth. The Fee sv"°
throwing a couple of sous to accomp veld'
acts the street beggar, often throws with this pia
able diamond. A single jeweller in the Faiaiff goaloolty ale
to have lost property to the value of iuggag6
operation of two carreurs. The roulotier see s_:_evegre•
from trucks, and completes the category of the
ses, b
or inferior thieves, whom M. du Camp th°llgli
descrii,itte pore
there are many other varieties of it. To the "-
_.O froto
(the word pigre comes through the oldie Italian Pe.gior,l2' 7., et
the Latin piger, slothful) belong am& "5 the
chamber-rifler, caroubleur, or robber with false lteYs the
sorguer, or man of the night, who stops carriaeu sod
high road, and regulates his labours by the rising
close
l/
setting of the moon ; and the scionncur,
to° _order
resembles our garotter. None of these shrink fros4tods
as an accident of plunder. At the bead of them 11
the escarpe, who is assassin by profession.

---------=-----
A pauper lunatic in the Garlands 1 near
Carlisle, named Ann Cook,has become entitled to 01,
A relative died recently, and left her and her sister 00,v"
between them. .L. ilitml
CHARGE OF LIBEL—An action against, a 111
Pita"
officer for libel was heard in the Court of Commr i‘iili•
on Monday. Captain Brooke, riding master at the _
.„,
tary College at Sandhurst, sued Colonel Peel, forraerlYi '174
officer in the 11th Hussars, for having libelled hiniiiet,
Asylllll c
000.
letter which he had written to Lord Williatn Pa
bow.
Adjutant-General at the Horse Guards. The court', the
ever, held that the communication wasp rivileged, au"
plaintiff was non-suited.
TWENTY SHILLINGS COMPENSATION FOP' - to
OF FROMISE.---A. woman, named Alitchell, bel°Pg-
the parish of Leslie, has just sued William Oldriaalsc'oo.
tailor in Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, for £l2 damages, con'
sequence of defender having engaged to marry Pu'"hifj
and failed to do so. Oldman is over 70 years of aignet: !hog
would-be wife between -10 and 50. Before Ving
merits the sheriff gave defender a last chance of closlo,,
the case by taking the lady. The ~ 01d gentletnoll .
He declined the offer, and the sheriff found for the Pursue r•
thought 20s. would cover all the loss she had sustaine
that
MASSACRE IN ABYSSINIA.—The stateuic.lol
law's visit
object of Mr. Henry Powell and his brother-1
sufficient force
to Egypt is " to obtain from the VicerclY-:
the force to enable them to mete out justice
murderers of their kinsfolk," is emphatically n CO'l
dieted. Their purpose is, it is stated, to obtaia an
adequate escort from the Egyptian governor at :1‘13.,.
sowah to proceed as near as practicable to the localiO,
o. f the reported massacre, and to ascertain by Per5°,,17,31
inquiries on the spot the fate of their relatives. 511°ha
their worst fears be realised, they will probably leave the
of the assassins to the only available instrir
mentality, namely, the Egyptian forces, who are noW °II
should
active service in that territory. On the other haild'
it prove that the unfortunate party are retained as
hostages by the wild Bfisena,h tribe, negotiations will be
set on foot and every conciliatory means.used to effect
&ix kbera#9l3,_