way pickpockets were caught in London 200 years ago: "I walked forth the day after
my arrival, rigged out as the very model of a gentleman farmer, and with eyes, mouth,
and pockets wide open, and a stout gold-headed cane in my hand, strolled leisurely
through the fashionable thoroughfares, the pump-rooms, and the assembly rooms, like
a fat goose waiting to be plucked. I wore a pair of yellow gloves well wadded, to save me
from falling, through a moment's inadvertency, into my own snare, which consisted of
about fifty fish-hooks, large black hackles, firmly sewn barb downward, into each of the
pockets of my brand new leather breeches. The most blundering 'prig' alive might have
easily got his hand to the bottom of my pockets, but to get it out again, without tear-
ing every particle of flesh from the bones, was a sheer impossibility.
to see any of my old customers until the convulsive tug at one or other of the pockets
announced the capture of a thief. I then coolly linked my arm in that of the prisoner,
[and] told him in a confidential whisper who I was."
I took care never
-From Criminal Justice Today: An Introductory Text for the
Twenty-First Century, Tenth Edition,
by Frank J. Schmalleger