In March, 1861, two known prostitutes, lodging together in a house in Charlotte-street, were brought before the Lambeth police court for a felony committed in the room in which they lodged. They abstracted knives and forks, plates and spoons, along with two chairs, rifling the apartment of nearly all it contained. They were convicted and sentenced, the one to three months’, and the other to six months’, imprisonment—the latter having been previously convicted.
Another felony occurred lately in Isabella-street, Lambeth, where a mechanic’s wife stole the bed-clothes and the feathers out of a bed in the house in which she lodged. Her husband was glad to pay the amount to prevent criminal prosecution.
There are many felonies committed by persons lodging in coffee-houses and hotels, some of them of considerable value. The hotel thieves assume the manner and air of gentlemen, dress well, and live in high style. They lodge for an evening or two in some fashionable hotel, frequently near the railway stations. They get up at night, when the house is quiet and business suspended, and commit robberies in the house. They have an ingenious mode of opening the doors, though locked in the inner side, by inserting a peculiar instrument and turning round the key. They go stealthily into the rooms, and abstract silver plate, articles of jewellery, watches, money, and other valuables.
These persons usually leave early in the morning, before the other gentlemen get up. Some of them are young, and others are middle-aged. They have generally some acquaintance with commercial transactions, and conduct themselves like active business men. They are birds of passage, and do not reside long in any one locality, as they would become known to the police.
A very extensive robbery of this kind occurred some time ago at a fashionable hotel in the metropolis, near the Great Northern Railway, to the amount of 700l. or 800l. The thief was apprehended at York, and committed for trial.
| Number of felonies in the Metropolitan districts for 1860, committed by lodgers | 1,375 |
| Ditto, ditto, in the City | 83 |
| 1458 |
| Value of property thereby abstracted in the Metropolitan districts | £3,643 |
| Ditto, ditto, in the City | 144 |
| £3,787 |
Robberies by Servants.—There are a great number of felonies committed by servants over the metropolis, many of which might be prevented by prudent precautions on the part of their employers. On this subject we would wish to speak with discrimination. We are aware that many honest and noble-minded servants are treated with injustice by the caprice and bad temper of their employers, and many a poor girl is without cause dismissed from her situation, and refused a proper certificate of character. Being unable to get another place, she is often driven with reluctance from poverty and destitution to open prostitution on the street. On the other hand, many of our employers foolishly and thoughtlessly receive male and female servants into their service without making a proper inquiry into their previous character.
Many felonies are committed by domestic female servants who have been only a month or six weeks in service. Some of them steal tea, sugar, and other provisions, which are frequently given to acquaintances or relatives out of doors. Others occasionally abstract linen and articles of wearing-apparel, or plunder the wardrobe of gold bracelets, rings, pearl necklace, watch, chain, or other jewellery, or of muslin and silk dresses and mantles, which they either keep in their trunk, or otherwise dispose of.