THE “GERMAN PRINCESS.”
Female sharpers have abounded in every age and country. The feminine mind is so full of resource, a woman can be so inventive,
so clever in disguising frauds and keeping up specious appearances, that we come upon the female adventuress continually. As far back as the seventeenth century there was the celebrated “German Princess,” who took in everyone right and left. Although she was nothing more than a common thief, the daughter of a chorister in Canterbury Cathedral, and the wife of a shoemaker, she passed herself off at Continental watering-places as the ill-used child of a sovereign prince of the German Empire. At Spa she became engaged to a foolish old gentleman of large estate, and absconded with all her presents before the wedding-day. Then she established herself at a London tavern and, as an act of great condescension, married the landlord’s brother, who suddenly found that she was a bigamist and a cheat. Her committal to Newgate followed, but on her release she resumed her rôle as the “German Princess” and went on the stage to play in a piece named after her, and the plot of which was founded on the strange ill-usage of this high-born lady. After this she resumed her robberies and led a life of vagabondage, in which she swindled tradesmen, especially jewellers, out of much valuable property. Fate presently overtook her and landed her at the plantations as a convict; but even in Jamaica her effrontery gained her the friendship of the governor, and she soon returned to England to resume her career as a rich heiress, whereby she duped many foolish people and committed numbers of fresh robberies. One day, however, the keeper of the Marshalsea prison, who was on the look-out for some stolen goods, called at the lodging which she occupied, recognised her, and carried her off to gaol. She was soon identified as a convict who had returned from transportation, and her adventurous career presently ended on the gallows.
JENNY DIVER.
Mary Young, alias Jenny Diver, was of the same stamp as the “German Princess,” but in a somewhat lower grade and of a later date. Her business was chiefly pocket-picking, her adroitness in which gained her her sobriquet, as one who “dived” deep into other people’s pockets. She was an Irish girl in service, who formed an acquaintance with a thief, and accompanied him to London. The man was arrested on the way, and Mary Young, arriving alone and helpless, soon joined a countrywoman, Ann Murphy, and tried to earn her livelihood by her needle. Murphy told her of a more lucrative way of life, and introduced her to a club near St. Giles’s, where thieves of both sexes assembled to practise their business, and she was taught how to pick pockets, steal watches, and cut off reticules. She soon displayed great dexterity. An early feat, which gained her great renown, was that of stealing a diamond ring from the finger of a young gentleman who helped her to alight from a coach. Another clever trick of hers was to wear false arms and hands, while her own were concealed beneath her cloak, to be used as occasion offered. It was her custom to attend churches, and, when seated in a crowded pew, make play on either side. Another clever device was to join the crowd assembled to see a State procession. She would be attended by a footman and by several accomplices. Seizing a favourable opportunity, between the Park and Spring Gardens, she pretended to be taken seriously ill, and while the crowd pressed round her with kindly help, her confederates took advantage of the confusion to lay hands on all they could “lift”; jewels, watches, snuffboxes of great value were thus secured. Yet again, accompanied by her footman, she would pretend to be taken ill at the door of a fine house and send her servant in to know if she might be admitted until she recovered. While the occupants, who willingly acceded to her request, were seeking medicines she snapped up all the cash and valuables she could find. But she was at last arrested in the very act of picking a gentleman’s pocket and was transported to Virginia, whence she returned before the completion of her sentence and resumed her malpractices. Having made a successful tour through the provinces, she returned to London, frequented the Royal Exchange, the theatres, the Park, and other places of the sort, where she preyed continually on the public and with continued immunity from arrest, till she was caught picking a pocket on London Bridge and was again sentenced to transportation. Again she returned, within a year, and was finally arrested, tried a third time, and sentenced to death.
THE BARONESS DE MENCKWITZ.
The type of Jenny Diver was not uncommon then or since, and many names might be quoted in proof of this. A very notorious female swindler came over to England towards the end of the eighteenth century, and managed to defraud numbers of London tradespeople of considerable sums. Her plan of procedure was always the same: to pass herself off as a lady of distinction, take a house in a good part of the town, furnish it on credit, make away with the goods, and then abscond. She was arrested again and again, and spent much time in Newgate or the Fleet Prison. One device was to open a picture gallery where busts and portraits were on sale, which she had obtained, the first from an Italian image boy, the second from credulous dealers. Sometimes she got a bill discounted on the strength of having a consignment of wax figures detained in the Custom House. She set up an establishment as a “fancy dress-maker” in Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, but the house was only a cloak to debauchery and malpractices.
In carrying out these various frauds and crimes she assumed many aliases, and was now Miss Price, next Mrs. Douglas or Lady
