Stealing from Drunken Persons.—There is a very common low class of male thieves, who go prowling about at all times of the day and night for this purpose.
They loiter about the streets and public-houses to steal from drunken persons, and are called “Bug-hunters” and “mutchers.” You see many of them lounging about gin-palaces in the vicinity of the Borough, near St. George’s church. We have met them there in the course of our rambles over the metropolis, and at Whitechapel and St. Giles’s. They also frequent the Westminster-road, the vicinity of the Victoria Theatre, Shoreditch, and Somers Town. These low wretches are of all ages, and many of them have the appearance of bricklayers’, stone-masons’, and engineers’ labourers. They pretend they are labourers out of work, and are forward in intruding themselves on the notice of persons entering those houses, and expect to be treated to liquor, though entire strangers to them.
They are not unfrequently so rude as to take the pewter-pot of another person from the bar, and pass it round to their comrades, till they have emptied the contents. If remonstrated with, they return insulting language, and try to involve the person in a broil.
You occasionally find them loafing about the tap-rooms. They watch for drunken people, whom they endeavour to persuade to treat them. They entice him to go down some court or slum, where they strip him of his watch, money, or other valuables he may have on his person. Or they sometimes rob him in the public-house; but this seldom occurs, as they are aware it would lead to detection. They prefer following him out of the public-house. Many of these robberies are committed in the public urinals at a late hour at night.
These men have often abandoned women who cohabit with them, and assist them in these low depredations. They frequently dwell in low courts and alleys in the neighbourhood of gin-palaces, have no settled mode of life, and follow no industrious calling—living as loafers and low ruffians.
Some of them have wives, who go out washing and charing to obtain a livelihood for their children and themselves, as well as to support their brutal husbands, lazzaroni of the metropolis.
This class of persons are in the habit of stealing lead from houses, and copper boilers from kitchens and wash-houses.
There is another class of thieves, who steal from drunken persons, usually in the dusk of the evening, in the following manner: Two women, respectably dressed, meet a drunken man in the street, stop him and ask him to treat them. They adjourn to the bar of a public-house for the purpose of getting some gin or ale. While drinking at the bar, one of the women tries to rob him of his watch or money. A man who is called a “stickman,” an accomplice and possibly a paramour of hers, comes to the bar a short time after them. He has a glass of some kind of liquor, and stands beside them. Some motions and signs pass between the two females and this man. If they have by this time secured the booty, it is passed to the latter, who, thereupon slips away, with the stolen articles in his possession.
In some cases, when the property is taken from the drunken man, one of the women on some pretext steps to the door and passes it to the “stickman” standing outside, who then makes off with it. In other cases these robberies are perpetrated in the outside of the house, in some by-street.
Sometimes the man quickly discovers his loss, and makes an outcry against the women; when the “stickman” comes up and asks, “what is the matter?” the man may reply, “these two women have robbed me.” The stickman answers “I’ll go and fetch a policeman.” The property is passed to him by the women, and he decamps. If a criminal information is brought against the females, the stolen goods are not found in their possession, and the case is dropped.