LADY FINGERS.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 1976, 18 November 1921, Page 2

LADY FINGERS.

SYDNEY PICKPOCKETS. CLEVER WORK IN CROWDS. A constable on plain-clothes duty was accosted the other day by a stranger In the streets (says the Sydney “Daily Telegraph”). Without any preliminaries ho was most seriously advised to beware of pickpockets, as the city was alive with them. The constable was visibly Impressed. "They’re as clever as they’re made,” added the stranger. “Why a man just ran his hands over me, like this” —ho gave a demonstration —"and when it was all finished I missed a tanner out of my vest pocket.” “Go to glory!” said the surprised constable. “You did?” “I did.” It was the time for commiseration. The two turned and walked up the street “You want to bo very careful whom you speak to in this city these days,” the stranger remarked. The constable assured him that he was the soul of caution. At this moment they passed the Clarence Street police station, and the constable suddenly put his hand on the stranger’s shoulder. “You may come in here.” "Hey, man; what’s the game?’* “Come in and see.’ They searched him, inside, and recovered the constables pocket-book. “You should always bo careful to whom you speak In the streets, said the constable, as he locked the man up in a nice, big, airy cell. But all operators are not as easy to get as that. Pick-pocketing is a skilled trade. Apart from an occasional odd job, when necessity drives, it is no game for the amateur. The real pick-pocket is not made he is born. You know him by hia long slender fingers and his small hand. Ot course, this does not mean that every person with long fingers is a pickpocket, or should bo treated with suspicion when a crowd is about. Violinists. for example, invariably have long fingers; also pianists; but they may be quite respectable. With the long fingers must go extreme cleverness and a big deficiency in morality. That is your pick-pocket, and every man in the crowd is a cashbox till to be emptied. , . These ladles confine themselves to very few. Of the members of the profession in Sydney known to the police only 20 per cent, are women. These ladeis confine themselves to other ladles, with a special mission towards elderly ones. Their general method is quite simple. They work in twos or threes, and set out to study the kind of people the suburbs have sent into the city that day. They see an elderly well-dressed lady with a richlooking hangbag. It would have been better for the matron to have pleaded a headache that morning and stayed at home. There is still a chance for her. but it is a remote one. That chance lies in avoiding the trams. But she doesn't. Sooner or latei she boards a car for the next block, anc the pick-pockets mobilise. They follow her, and as soon as she gets one foot on the step she is bl » st J® d by some rude woman who gets m before her. She pauses in her indignation, and looks a black storm cloud at h6 She should have looked behind, for during the pause the lady at the back has gone through the peggjVbag, and all valuables are now missing. Apart from the natural of the old lady at being bustled, she is quite normal till she opens her bo^ to pay her fare. Then tramcar and the policeman at the corner block knows she has been cobbed. And she stays robbed-Mause tk critical moment she refused to look back.