The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-12-20
EAPEKI PIOAF0CKETS.
LONDON SEEMS TO BE THE TRAIN
I ING SCHOOL FOR THEM.

There Are 100, OeO iB the Big City-Paris
Has a Pretty Large Crowd of Them
Also-They Belong to Clubs and Have
Savings Banks of Their Own.
About century ago Paris had only
about fifty pickpockets, now the police
reports show that their number has
reached four thousand in the metropolis
alone, and about ten thousand IN the
rest of France. These figures are nearly
doubled at times of reviews, races,
popular fetes, and exhibitions by re-
crUits from abroad. But, singularly
enough, they all come or have been
trained in Great Britain. England is
the cradle and hotbed of pickpockets.
1t is profession as firmly established as
carpentering or bricklaying; it has its
apprentices, graduates, professors, ex-
perts, and commercial agents. Novices
are taught to distinguish Frenchman
from native, Russian from Ger
man, South American from an Italian;
they are made acquainted with the
slight but all important differences in
each nationality in the cut of the
clothes, the place of the pockets, the
mode of carrying jewelry, watches,
purses, or loose cash.
When the pupils are supposed to have
profted sufficiently by their education,
they are dispatched at Christmas time to
a certain suburb of London, where they
are farmed out. The agent, who has
come to select trio, puts them through
their PAGES, and if they acquit them
selves creditably he engages them, gives
them clothes, board and special instruc-
tons, and takes them abroad to ply their
trade under his management. As soon,
however, as their personality has become
inconveniently familiar to the police of
the locality, they are returned and ex-
changed for fresh set, under the same
conditions.
The community numbers 10000 in
London, including women and children
their headquarters are in the obscure
purlieus of st. Giles, Whitechapel, the
Minories and the low lying wharves of
the Thames 1t is there that they hold
their meetings, organize their detach-
ments, deliberate on future movements,
have their savings banks and clubs, and
settle on the way of assisting those of
their pals who are i'll, Swallowed or in
prison. They form regular associa-
ton, like the housebreakers and shop
ifters, from whom, however, they are
quite distinct.
AT WORK IN PARIS.
During their visits in Paris, although
operating in common, they do not dwell
together, but are scattered all over the
city, meeting only to share the spoils at
certain specified moments, in dark or
borgne taverns and wine shops situated
in the neighborhood of the Champs
Elysees and the Grand Opera The
foreign, as well as the French, operators
have their receiving houses, called in
Paris meumers (millers), where they dis
pose of their gleanings, and it is a re-
markable feature of these transactions
that they are carried on on both sides
with scrupulous fairness and honesty.
A sharp and observant person might
detect the pickpocket who shadows him
WIN ONl1 lhOGhG ny INC pCNulldl ION4AiS
restlessness of the eye, of which even
the most experienced ones cannot en-
tirely divest themselves. The habit is
contracted at the onset of their careers;
imperative then, it becomes inveterate.
The pickpocket embraces at a glance the
particular article in shop window cal
culated to attract the passerby, the con-
formation of the victims pockets, the
foot passengers around him and the
quarter from which his bugbear, the
Bobby" is likely to appear. The En-
glish pickpocket rarely offers any oppo-
sition if caught in the act: he submits
silently to be led off by his captor: only
the women howl, thrash, sob scratch
and fight. 1t is the characteristic ma
tional GOODNESS and lack of emotional
irritability that contribute more than
any physical aptitude to make the Brit
ish pickpocket facile princeps in his art,
and an object of envy and admiration to
members of the professions in other
countries.
THE FRENCH WAY.
In escb cOuntry the prOfeSSiOo rafaiDs