Evening star., 1903-07-01
NEWSBoY PICKPoCKETS.
Two Little Experiences With Thieves,
With an Interval Of Thirty Years.
From the New York

"One of my earliest experiences in this
city," said New Yorker of now thirty-odd
years standing, was with newsboy who
tried to pick my pocket: and among my
latest experiences has been one precisely
similar; this last experience showing, 1
suppose, that am getting old and so have
come to be regarded an easy mark again,
as 1 must haVe been considered when was
young and new to the town. The methods
employed by the two boys working thirty
years apart. were identically the same, the
boy in each case attempting the compara-
lively simple and easy pocketpicking task
of extracting money from the outside
change pocket of an overcoat
ITO do this the boy carries his news
papers, to the causal eye, held out in front
of him quite in the ordinary way; but he
actually holds them with the left hand
only carrying the right hand under the
papers out of sight and apparently helping
to support them, but wholly free. Offering
his papers to a customer thus the newsboy
pickpocket advances them closer and closer
to the customer. with an appearance sim
ply of importuning him to buy, until he
gets the papers close to the mans coat and
over the change pocket. Under the papers
thus advanced he puts forth quick, out or
sight. his right hand, with which to rifle
the pocket. if you leave it unprotected.
though he may lose a chance by bungling
himself, and so give you a chance.
This last boy that tried me was a novice
and a bungler who did just that; and r
felt the pressure of his fingers on the coat
plainly before he got into the pocket at all:
and 1 turned on him, but not angrily, nor
even threateningIy, but with a sort of re-
proachful and regretful exclamation. Be
sides being chagrined for myself at having
been picked out as easy 1t really seemed a
pity that this youngster should have de-
iiberately set out, as he seemed to have
done, on the wrong road; to follow way
that. in the nature of things, could lead to
one end only: and l am sure that the boy
knew how l felt
Il don't mean that he figured IL all out
as exactly as l have tried to tell ii to you
but he certainly did know in general sort
of a way. He started back with a shamed
face, and at the same time with a scared
sort of look as though he thought / might
get after him, after all: but when he real
lied that / was just soft-hearted and sorry,
and wasn't going to do anything about it,
why though / stood and gazed at him for a
moment, he, after his first momentary look
of shamefacedness and alarm. ignored me
completely, and simply went on Offering his
papers to the passersby though L had
never existed.
He had had good shaking up from his
failure with me and my discovery of him,
and what with his wonder after that about
how it was going to come out; but he w&e
but he was coming The moral of all
this is that, while the great bulk of the
newsboys are independent, sef-reliant.
capable little chaps. who are strictly on the
level there are among them, more's the
pity. some who will pick a pocket If they
get chance: and when you meet a ~
who insists upon working his papers up
close against you over your outside change
pocket, why of him you want to fight shy