The Shasta courier., 1869-01-16
The Art of POcket-Picking.

The late Mr.. De Quincy wrote a curious
and elaborate paper on g Murder Consider
ed as one of the Fine Arts" Had he
lived half century later he might have
extended his inquiries so as to include
pocket-picking in that category; for an art
it has certainly become. Your artistic
pickpocket is gentlemanly looking fellow,
wears neat boots and gloves, always has a
neat-looking hat, and is altogether the last
man you would suspect of any sinister de-
signs on your pockets. He lives in first
class hotels and boarding houses, often fire.
quently the same house for years, totally
unsuspected, and remarkable only for his
quiet and gentlemanly demeanor He
carefully chooses four companions, equally
respectable in appearance, to form what is
called mob, each one producing certain
sum to make bank, to use in case one of
them falls (taken by the police), in order
to provide bail Or to pay his counsel fees
They then frequent railway stations, pub
lie meetings, Or any place they can find a
crowd. A victim is quietly selected as a
probable find. Two of the mob then place
themselves in front of him and two remain
behind, occupying, as it were, the angles
of square, of which the victim is the
center. These are called the front and
back stalls. The unfortunate victim is
then famed that is, his pockets are softly
padded to find out the one in which he
keeps his wallet; the sign is passed to the
operator, who is termed the wire, who i'm
mediately proceeds to work. He does not
place his hand in the pocket, that is fatal
error but with the two first fingers he
gently draws up the lining of the pocket,
to the opening, and with it the wallet, and
the trick is done This system is called
reefng. The wallet is Immediately passed
to .one of the back stalls, who quietly
though quickly leaves
The most dangerous place for money is
undoubtedly the pocket of the pants
Again, one of the front stalls passes his
arm before your face to touch the other
front stall on the shoulder, only to say,
" How are your" but the wire from behind
has your diamond pin in possession. If
possible they return the empty wallet to the
pocket to avoid detection in its possession,
or the dangerous necessity of throwing it
away. For instance, two gentlemen sitting
at one end of the car get into an angry alter
cation, high words ensue, the attention of
the other passengers is attracted to their
dispute, and the young lady who sat next
to the nice-looking man at the other end
OF the car finds. on arriving at Stewards S,
that her purse is empty. The angry gen.
tieman and the nice-looking man are simply
contederates. This they term wedding.
A correspondent of newspaper lost $500
In this way while riding in a Fourth street
avenue car.
Pickpockets are necessarily migratory
In their habits, finding long residence in
one place inconvenient This renders it
dlfhcult to make any estimate of their
probable numbers in New York. They
prefer locality for the scene of their oper-
atoms that has numerous lines of rail, to
enable them to separate in various direc-
TONS as soon as they have good swag, and
to meet again in some other town. These
men stand by one another in trouble, and