A LONDON CRIMINAL AT WORK.

Lake County Press, Issue 1065, 21 May 1903, Page 3

A LONDON CRIMINAL AT WORK.

There are certain things in the beck attic of this shabby little house ' in Hoxton which might interest the neighbours, could they manage .to ' peer through its closely curtained j window (says Mr. Ernest A. Carr in j "Living London") Over the coke fire hangs a melting pot, an iron ladle is lying before it, and au electric battery stands on the mantelshelf. On the table, beside a shapless mass of bright metal, are ■ some odd-looking slabs of plaster of | Paris ; and seated before it is an j elderly mar. in a leather apron at i work with his tools. One by one he picks up the glittering white discs . that lie before him on a board, nips , off from each its long "tail " of metal, and touches up its milled edges at the point of fracture. They look like silver coins—crowns, halfi ciowns, and florins — but the Koyal ; Mint would repudiate them all. I This dingy attic is the workshop of a notorious coiner—a "smasher," . in the jargon of crime—well known , in the old honest days as the cleverI est silversmith in Clerkenwell, but an inveterate criminal now. | How are his spurious wares foij stcd on the market ? This smartly dressed couple walking arm-in-arm down Old Street are among his patrons, and will illustrate the methods of the "snide- pitcher," or passer of bad money, a« they are practised daily in London. Armed with a purseful of good coin of the realm | and a single piece of "snide," the , woman selects for her field of action those shops which are in charge of lads or elderly women ; her partner, as she enters each, takes his stand at a safe distance, prepared to I vanish unobtrusively at a hint of j trouble. If detected, her assumption of innocence will probably save I her from arrest ; if successful she reI joins her companion, takes his arm, | and he furtively slips another false coin into her hand. In this way the. precious pair contrive to pass some two dozen pieces of counterfeit money in a day.