New Britain herald., 1916-08-05
At the present time there are quite

At the present time there are quite
 ;a number of juvenile pickpockets
 about the city. The police have
 cases of boys of five and eight years
 old who have been taught to pick
 pockets by some Fagin. These juve-
 rifles ply their trade in the pushcart
 market and the and 10 cent stores
 To cover up their thieving they fre- quently resort to trickery. Detectives Mugge and Gaynor Of the squad were
 at Fifty ninth street and the Queens
 borough bridge recently. They no- t1ced an old woman waiting for a car
 a little fellow of five years ran up to
 her apparently badly frightened "Oh,
 please, man, he pleaded as he chung to her skirts, make that big boy go away; he wants to hit me-. As he spoke a husky boy of eight danced up
 to the old lady, and, attempted to strike the younger boy The old lady
 beat him off with an umbrella, while the little fellow chung more tightly to
 her skirts, screaming with terror. The
 older boy departed, and the five-year-
 old boy thanked his savior and went
 his way. The two detectives followed him. He met his companion and they saw him pass the pOcketbOok, con- taining $10, to the older boy. The de- tectives then corraled the two, and led them back to their victim. They ex- plained they were detectives. Then" explained the old lady, "you should lock up that big boy. He wanted to hit that poor little felloW.' When the l detectives handed the old lady her i, pocketbook and explained that the i poor little fellow'' had extracted it from her handbag she gasped in l amazement. Land sakes alive,' she l exclaimed, they do teach children 1 wickedness at a tender age in this l city,
 The indeterminate sentence law has 1 caused hundreds of pickpockets to i leave the city in the past few months. l By this law if a pickpocket is con- yictedt he may be sent to the work house for an indefinite period. The | as Commissioner of Cor i rrections Lewis says, does not like l manual labor or the prospect of i spending many months in jail, so for 1 that reason hundreds of them have l em ba rked for fields where they may practice their vocation with more safety. This does not mean that there are no pickpockets in the city for there are enough of them left to make 1 life uncomfortable for the travelling public, but it explains the growing activity of the female pickpocket.
 An old ickpocket who had joined the exodus, and had departed from the city for place where the law was not so stringent, recently wrote a letter to Inspector Cray, protesting at the way the police were treating him. He wrote that as he had left the city, and was no longer bothering the police he thought they should let him alone. He i said that whenever he was arrested in New York police sent on his record to the local police, and that he thought was ungrateful, and made it difficult for him to earn a livelihood at pick ing pockets. The pickpocket out of the city is now engaged in robbing the clerks off for vacations as they are leaving a crowded boat or train.
 Lieutenant McKenna and Detective frank D. Cassassa, have been pursuing pickpockets for twenty years. They know the faces and history of hum | dreds of pickpockets, and also know all their tricks. Detective Casassa says that the safest place for man to carry 9 wallet is in the inside vest pocket, ! and that the most careless place to carry It IS III the lip or trousers pocket. Pickpockets, he says are to be found on the rear platforms and rear ends of crowded underground and surface cars so that they get their victims both going and coming. A great many persons, he says, are robbed while they are boarding a car. The victim is showed in the back, and at the same time his wallet is ex- jracted. i
 The flying squadron has rowing commission and goes to all parts of the five boroughs. As a rule 1t follows