These depredations are often committed by the workmen themselves, or by their connivance. At other times they are done by persons climbing low walls, and clambering up spouts to the roof, and cutting up the sheet lead. This is usually done under night by two or more in company; sometimes, though rarely, by boys. One keeps a look-out to see there is no person near to detect them. This person is termed a “crow.” If any one should be near, the “crow” gives a signal, and they decamp. Before commencing their depredations, they generally look out for the means of escape, seldom returning the same way they mounted the roof. They make their way out in another direction. If hard pressed, they sometimes hide themselves on the roof behind chimneys, or lie down in gutters or cisterns or any other likely place of concealment. These felonies are often done by bricklayers’ labourers (Irish cockneys) during the winter, and in many cases, as we have said, with the connivance of the workmen engaged in repairing the houses.
There is another class of persons who engage in lead-stealing from the roofs of houses. They were formerly in the service of builders, plumbers, or carpenters, but are out of employment. They go to their late employer’s customers, under the pretext that they were sent by him to repair the roof, and meanwhile plunder the sheet lead, which they generally roll up, convey down, and carry off by means of their accomplices, who are hovering in the neighbourhood. They have the appearance and dress of industrious workmen, and may have been lately seen employed in houses in the neighbourhood, so that they are more likely to deceive the unsuspecting people who admit them into their dwellings. This kind of lead-stealing has been lately of very frequent occurrence in the metropolis.
Copper is frequently stolen from the boilers in the kitchens and wash-houses by the same parties. Sometimes they enter by the area door or the window, which is left open. At other times they climb the garden wall at the back of the house, and enter by a window, left unfastened. They take the copper out of the brickwork in the wash-house, or from the kitchen, roll it up and carry it away. This is generally done in unoccupied houses. Sweeps employed cleaning the chimneys sometimes take away copper in like manner in their soot-bags.
In houses under repair, as well as in unfinished houses, they steal carpenters’ tools, planes, saws, ploughs, squares, hammers, &c., left by the workmen.
They obtain access to the house by climbing over the wooden enclosure or over garden walls. This is generally done in the evening, between the hours of 9 and 12, and frequently by discharged workmen.
In many cases they are stopped on the way with the tools in their possession. If a proper account is not given, it often leads to the detection of the robbery, which generally puts a stop for the time to such depredations in that neighbourhood.
The stolen tools are taken to pawnbrokers or receiving-shops, and sold at an under price. In some cases the pawnbroker gives notice to the police, but in these other shops, this is seldom or never done.
The thieves generally go to some house where no watchman is employed.
| The number of larcenies of tools, lead, glass, &c. from empty or unfinished houses in the Metropolitan districts for 1860, | 472 |
| Ditto, ditto, from the City | 22 |
| 494 |
| Value of the property thereby abstracted in the Metropolis | £462 | 0 |
| Ditto, ditto, in the City | 7 | 10 |
| £469 | 10 |