“When I left her I went to live in Charles Street, Drury Lane. I stopped there working by myself for five or six months, and got acquainted with a young woman who has ever since been devoted to me. She is now thirty-three years of age, but looks a good deal older than she is, and is about the middle height. We took a room and furnished it. I soon got acquainted with some of the swell-mob at the Seven Dials, and went working along with three of them upon the ladies’ purses again. At this time I was a great deal luckier with them than I had been since I had left Tothill-fields Prison. I worked with them till April 1847, visiting the chief places of public resort, such as the Surrey Gardens, Regent’s Park, Zoological Gardens, Madame Tussaud’s, the Colosseum, and other places. Other two comrades and I were arrested at the Colosseum for picking a lady’s pocket. We were taken to Albany Street station-house, and the next day committed for trial at the sessions. I had twelve months’ imprisonment for this offence, and the other two got four years’ penal servitude, on account of previous convictions. I had only summary convictions, which were not produced at the trial.
“At this time summary convictions were not brought against a prisoner committed for trial.
“We were frequently watched by the police and detectives, who followed our track, and were often in the same places of amusement with us. We knew them as well as they knew us, and often eluded them. Their following us has often been the means of our doing nothing on many of these occasions, as we knew their eye was upon us.
“I came out of prison three or four days before the gathering of the Chartists on Kennington Common. My female friend met me as I came out.
“I went to this gathering on 10th April, 1848, along with other three men. I took several ladies’ purses there, amounting to 3l. or 4l., when we saw a gentleman place a pocketbook in the tail of his coat. Though I had done nothing at the tail for a long time, it was too great a temptation, and I immediately seized it. There was a bundle of bank-notes in it—7 ten-pound notes, 2 for twenty pounds, and 5 five-pound notes. We got from the fence or receiver 4l. 10s. for each of the 5l., 8l. 10s. for the tens, and 18l. for the 20l. notes.
“The same afternoon I took a purse in Trafalgar Square with about eighteen sovereigns in it. I kept walking in company with the same men till the commencement of 1849, when I was taken ill and laid up with rheumatism. I lost the use of my legs in a great measure, and could not walk, and paid away my money to physicians. Before I got better, such articles as we had were disposed of, though my girl helped me as well as she could.
“In the early part of 1849, when I was not able to go out and do anything, Sally, who cohabited with me, went out along with another girl and commenced stealing in omnibuses. She was well-dressed, and had a respectable appearance. I did not learn her to pick pockets, and was averse to it at first, as I did not wish to bring her into danger. I think she was trained by my pals. She was very clever, and supported me till I was able to go out again. I had to walk with a crutch for some time, but gradually got better and stronger. Some time after that I got into a row at the Seven Dials, and was sent for a month to Westminster prison for an assault.
“When I came out I was sorry to find that Sally was taken up and committed for trial for an omnibus robbery, and had got six months’ imprisonment at Westminster. This was in 1850. I succeeded very well during the time she was in prison in picking ladies’ pockets during the time of the Great Exhibition at Hyde Park.
“When she came out, I had nearly 200l. by me. I did not go out for some time, and soon made the money fly, for I was then a cribbage player, and would stake as much as 2l. or 3l. on a game.
“In the end of the year 1851 I was pressed for the first time to have a hand at a crack in the City along with other two men. I was led through their representations to believe they were experienced burglars, but found afterwards, if they were experienced they were not very clever. Though they got a plan, they blundered in the execution of it in getting into the place, and went into the wrong room, so that they had to get thro’ another wall, which caused us to be so late that it was gray in the morning before we got away; and we did not find so much as we expected.