The highway robbers of the present day are a very different set from the bold reckless brigands who infested the metropolis and the highways in its vicinity in former times. There was a bold dash in the old highwaymen, the Dick Turpins and Claud Du Vals of that day, not to be found in the thieves of our time, whether they lived in the rookeries of St. Giles’s, Westminster, and the Borough, nestling securely amid dingy lanes and alleys, densely-clustered together, where it was unsafe for even a constable to enter; or whether they roamed at large on Blackheath and Hounslow Heath, or on Wimbledon Common, and Finchley Common, accosting the passing traveller pistol in hand, with the stern command, ‘Stand and deliver.’
The highwaymen of our day are either the sneaking thieves we have described, who adroitly slip their hands into your pockets, or low coarse ruffians who follow in the wake of prostitutes, or garotte drunken men in the midnight street, or strike them down by brutal violence with a life-preserver or bludgeon.
These felonies are generally committed in secluded spots and by-streets, or in the suburbs of the metropolis. Many robberies are committed on the highway by snatching with violence from the person. These are generally done in the dusk, and rarely during the day. When committed early in the evening, they are done in secluded places, intersected with lanes and alleys, where the thieves have a good opportunity to escape, such as in the Borough, Spitalfields, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, Drury-lane, West-minster, and similar localities. These are often done by one person, at other times by two or more in company, and generally by young men from nineteen years and upwards. The mode of effecting it is this. They see a person respectably dressed walking along the street, with a silver or gold chain, who appears to be off his guard. One of them as he passes by makes a snatch at it, and runs down one of the alleys or along one of the by-streets.
Sometimes the thief breaks the chain with a violent wrench. At other times the swivel, or ring of the watch may give way; or a piece of the guard breaks off. The thief occasionally fails to get the watch. In these cases he can seldom be identified, because the party may not have had his eye on him, and may lose his presence of mind; and the thief may have vanished swiftly out of his sight.
Should the person to whom the watch belongs run after him, his companions often try to intercept him, and with this view throw themselves in his way. The thief is seldom caught at the time, unless he is pursued by some person passing by, who has seen him commit the robbery, or who may have heard the cry, “Stop thief.”
These felonies are committed by men living in low neighbourhoods, who are generally known thieves; and are in most cases done during some disturbance in the street, or in a crowd, or upon a person the worse of liquor.
In September, 1859, Thomas Dalton, alias Thomas Davis, a stout-made man of about thirty years of age, and 5 ft. 6 inches high, in company with another man, went to the regatta at Putney, near London, when Dalton snatched the watch of Mr. Friar, formerly the ballet-master at Vauxhall-gardens. Mr. Friar, being aware of the robbery, suddenly seized hold of both the men, when they wrestled with him. The other man got away, but he retained his hold of Dalton. On a policeman coming up Dalton dropped the watch. He was committed to the Surrey Sessions, tried on 15th September, 1859, and sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude.
Dalton was one of five prisoners tried at the Central Criminal Court in December, 1847, for the murder of Mr. Bellchambers, at Westminster, having beaten in his brains with an iron bar in Tothill-street, Westminster during the night. Dalton was then acquitted. Sales, one of the parties charged, was found guilty and hanged at Newgate.
They were seen in the company of the deceased in a public-house in Orchard-street, Westminster on the night of the murder, and had followed him out and robbed him of his money, watch, and seals. Dalton had been several times in custody, for being concerned with other persons in plate robberies; sneaking down into areas and opening the doors by means of skeleton keys, and carrying off the plate. One of the thieves went, dressed as a butcher, with an ox’s tail, pretending the lady of the house had ordered it. While the servant went upstairs he put the plate into a basket he carried with him, and carried it away.
On the 23rd of March, 1850, he was in custody with other three notorious housebreakers for attempting to steal plate in Woburn-square by skeleton keys along with other four thieves, when he was found guilty and got three months’ imprisonment. One of them opened an area gate about 10 o’clock in the morning, carrying a green-baize cloth containing three French rolls. Finding the servant in the kitchen, cleaning the plate, he told her he had brought the French rolls from the baker. The servant, who was an intelligent shrewd person, refused to go upstairs to her mistress. Meantime two detective officers, who had been on the look-out, arrested the four thieves and prevented the robbery.