Beware of Pickpockets.

Otago Witness, Issue 956, 16 May 1889, Page 37

Beware of Pickpockets.

An incident which I remember hearing of 'at the time it occurred, and which has been revived of late," will serve to illustrate the cleverness with which the. light-fingered gentry who frequent omnibuses can disguise themselves as. well as their object. An old lady who had just left.an.ominbus discovered .that she had been, quite unconsciously, relieved of the contents of her pocket. She made her way toi the nearest police station, and on ttje principle o£ shutting the stable door after the horse is gone, she sought the inspector, and opened to him her grief with all the attendant circumstances. " Who sat next you, ma'sm ?" said bei' ■ "Ob, a very respectable helderly gentleman, sir, a feeble invalid-looking gentleman as had met with an haccident, for he carried the harm next me in a sling 1 It was in splints, sir, and quite stiff like, so it couldn't be him, and on the other .side was the door, so I can't make it out at all." V Kespectable elderly rascal, mann," said the inspector; "he's a good deal younger than you are, and in quite as good health as myself, and he wore a respectable cloak, too, didn't he ?—a short one 1" \ " That he did, sir." " Thqn I suppose you begin to guess now who robbed you ?" " No, sir, I don't know who it could be, because that dear old gentleman was the only passenger near me, and he had his arm in splints, and was dreadful afraid of hanyone passing 'im, and a-touching of it." "Well then, I'll tell you, because you'll probably get robbed in. the same way again. That • arm,' as you call it, in ' splints,' wasn't his arm at all." " Lor' bless me, sir, you don't mean to say it was anybody helse's ?" " No, I don't mean that; I mean to inform you that what you keep on calling an' arm was a sham. His real arm was undef his cloak, and his real fingers in your pocket go to make the ' harm' of the whole story." " Good gre-ashus me 1 What wickedness there his in the world, to be sure," exclaimed the naive old lady, completely flabbergasted by the horrifying revelation, "and me a-pitying on him all the time."