He was tried at the Central Criminal Court in August 1856, the following sessions, when the prisoner’s counsel proved an alibi by calling his convicted confederate as a witness. His two sisters also swore he was in their house at Lambeth Walk on the day the robbery occurred, and had dinner and tea with his mother, who was an honest and respectable woman.

Other robberies are perpetrated by brutal violence with a life-preserver or bludgeon. It is usually done by one or more brutal men following a woman. The men are generally from thirty to forty years of age—some older—carrying a life-preserver or bludgeon. This is termed “swinging the stick,” or the “bludgeon business.” The woman walks forward, or loiters about, followed by the men, who are hanging in the rear. She walks as if she was a common prostitute, and is often about twenty-six or thirty years of age. She picks up a man in the street, possibly the worse of liquor; she enters into conversation, and decoys him to some quiet, secluded place, and may there allow him to take liberties with her person, but not to have carnal connection. Meantime she robs him of his watch, money, or other property, and at once makes off.

In some instances she is pursued by the person, who may have discovered his loss; when he is met by one of the men, who runs up, stops him, and inquires the direction to some part of London, or to some street, or will ask what he has been doing with his wife, and threaten to punish him for indecent conduct to her. During this delay the woman may get clear away. In some cases a quarrel arises, and the victim is not only plundered of his money, but severely injured by a life-preserver or bludgeon.

Cases of this kind occasionally occur in the East-end and the suburbs of London. These women and men are generally old thieves, and, when convicted, are often sentenced to transportation, being in most cases well known to the police.

Sometimes these robberies are committed by men without the connivance of women, as in a case which occurred in Drury Lane in August last, when a man was decoyed by several men from sympathy to accompany a drunken man to a public-house, and was violently robbed.

In the month of July 1855 a woman stopt a man in the London-road, Southwark, one evening about twelve o’clock at night, and stole his watch. The party immediately detected the robbery, and laid hold of her. Upon this two men came up to her rescue, struck him in the face, and cut his cheek. They then gave him another severe blow on the head, and knocked him down senseless, while calling out for the police.

A policeman came up at this juncture, and laid hold of Taylor, one of the men, and took him into custody with a life-preserver in his hand. Taylor was tried on 20th August, 1855, at the Central Criminal Court, and was sentenced to fourteen years’ penal servitude.

Highway robberies by the pistol are seldom committed, though occasionally such instances do occur. These are seldom committed by professional thieves, as they generally manage to effect their object by picking pockets, and in the modes we have just described.

The old rookeries of thieves are no longer enveloped in mystery as formerly. They are now visited by our police inspectors and constables, and kept under strict surveillance. Our daily press brings the details of our modern highway-men and other thieves clearly to the light of day; and their deeds are no longer exaggerated by fictitious embellishments and exaggerations. Our railways and telegraphs, postal communications and currency arrangements, have put an end to mounted highwaymen, such as Dick Turpin and Tom King. Were such to appear now, they would furnish a rare piece of sport to our bold and adroit detectives, and would speedily be arrested.

Number of felonies by highway robbery in the metropolitan districts for 186021
Ditto ditto in the City1
22