"Field Lane Negotiations; or, a Specimen of 'Fine Drawing.' Thish ish vot I callsh 'caushe and effect;' caushe if vee thidn't buy, no bothy vood shell, and if vee thidn't shell, nobothy vood buy; and vot's more, if peoplesh thidn't have foglesh, vy, nobothy could prig em" (See Abrahams on the "Economy of Wipes").
Those were the days of large and valuable silk Bandana handkerchiefs, and the story used to be told that you might have your pocket picked of your handkerchief at one end of Field Lane, and buy it again at the other end, with the marking taken out.
Long before Fagin's time, however, there was a school for young thieves in this neighbourhood, vide Gentleman's Magazine (1765), vol. xxxv. p. 145.
"Four boys, detected in picking pockets, were examined before the Lord Mayor, when one was admitted as evidence, who gave an account, that a man who kept a public-house near Fleet Market, had a club of boys, whom he instructed in picking pockets, and other iniquitous practices; beginning first with teaching them to pick a handchief out of his own pocket, and next his watch; so that, at last, the evidence was so great an adept, that he got the publican's watch four times in one evening, when he swore he was as perfect as one of twenty years' practice. The pilfering out of shops was his next art; his instructions to his pupils were, that as many chandlers, or other shops, as had hatches, [65] one boy was to knock for admittance for some trifle, whilst another was lying on his belly, close to the hatch, who when the boy came out, the hatch on jar, and the owner withdrawn, was to crawl in, on all fours, and take the tills or anything else he could meet with, and to retire in the same manner. Breaking into shops by night was another article which was to be effected thus: as walls of brick under shop windows are very thin, two of them were to lie under a window as destitute beggars, asleep to passers by, but, when alone, were provided with pickers to pick the mortar out of the bricks, and so on till they had opened a hole big enough to go in, when one was to lie, as if asleep, before the breach, till the other accomplished his purpose."
Footnotes
[65] Dwarf doors.
