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The lush worker is headed to the annals of early American crime.

The New York Times recently reported that, according to the New York Police Department, a specific breed of pickpocket, the lush worker, will soon be extinct. The lush worker rides the New York City subways late at night looking for a drunken reveler who has fallen asleep during his train ride home. The thief will then nudge the potential victim and if there is no response, he or she will use a straight-edge razor to cut open the man’s pocket and take his wallet.

A Unique Combination

The individual methods, time, and place that go into defining a lush worker are not unique. The use of a blade or scissors to cut open someone’s pocket or purse goes back to at least the seventeenth century in London, when pickpockets employed this method in the midst of large crowds. Thieves have long taken advantage of the late night, when it is easier to find people with their guards down due to drunkenness or sleepiness. And public transportation has often provided opportunities for pickpockets to prey on unsuspecting riders.

But there is something about the precise combination of all these components that is leading to the demise of the lush worker in New York City. In fact, the combination has become so unique that the NYC police department knows with certainty that there are only 109 practicing lush workers in the city, and almost all of them are middle-aged men or older.

Crimes have been known to disappear over time. Some early crimes, like witchcraft, are no longer prosecuted because the behavior is no longer considered criminal. Other crimes have disappeared due to evolving technologies and social structures. Highway robbery vanished when cars replaced horses as a primary mode of transportation, and people could no longer hold up someone sitting in a steel box going 30+ miles per hour.

The police do not know exactly why lush working is dying out. Perhaps the skill involved in cutting open a pocket without slicing the victim’s leg is considered too great to learn. Perhaps easier and more lucrative crimes have attracted petty thieves who are coming up the ranks. But even though someone falls victim to a lush worker almost every weekend, the number of lush workers keeps falling every time one of them retires or dies. (Although, perhaps the New York Times article and this one will inspire more thieves to try their hand at the trade.)

Since the New York Times article focuses on the demise of the lush worker, I thought I would investigate some of the early instances of the practice in America. As I searched early newspapers for stories, the singularity of lush working became clear, because none of the reports I uncovered precisely fit the approach of these modern-day pickpockets. But my searches also reveal that the lush worker belongs to a specific family of pickpockets who have a long tradition in America.

Sleep

Some of the cases I found involved sleep, but not necessarily drunkenness. In 1872, George Fisher of 510 Broome Street in New York City was unable to sleep indoors due to the heat of the summer, so he sat outside on the steps of his residence and “was shortly in the arms of Morpheus.” At four o’clock in the morning, the feeling of someone going through his vest pocket awakened him. Fisher quickly realized that he had been robbed of one dollar, but he luckily spotted the perpetrator walking away from him and was able to have him arrested.

In 1909, Henry Slavic of Enderlin, North Dakota believed that procuring a hotel room during his visit to Minneapolis would be a waste of money. He felt secure in his knowledge that he had $60 sown into the lining of his pants, so he put together a makeshift bed in an alley and fell into a deep slumber. His night outdoors was so comfortable, in fact, that he almost turned over and went back to sleep when the sun hit his eyes in the morning. But he jumped out of “bed” when he happened to look down and saw that his trousers had been ripped to shreds. Needless to say, his $60 was missing.

C. H. Yates of Fort Worth, TX had a dream one Friday night in 1915 that he was late for work, but when he reached into his pocket to pull out his watch to prove to his irate boss that he was indeed on time, he could not find the timepiece. Yates then woke up on the street bench where he had fallen asleep during the night and discovered that his dream had truth to it: his watch was indeed missing from his pocket. He looked up and spotted someone running away from him a half block away, but he was unable to recover the watch.

Drunkenness

Alcohol may have played a role in the above pickpocket cases, but the newspaper articles make no mention that it did. More often than not, though, those who imbibe too much raise their chances of falling prey to a petty thief. In 1891, the Evening News of San Jose, CA reported that Thomas H. Coogan was arrested for robbing a drunk in the rear of a saloon after he was spotted cutting open his victim’s pocket and taking his money. The victim, however, was too drunk to know how much money Coogan had stolen from him.

The earliest American case I could find of someone who fell victim to pickpockets who resemble today’s lush workers involved Thomas King of Dublin, Ireland. In 1834, King came to Philadelphia with the Solicitor General of Upper Canada, but when it came time for the two of them to head to Toronto, King could not be found because he was out getting drunk. His companion decided to leave without him.

King remained in the city for two weeks in a constant state of drunkenness, until one morning he returned to his hotel without his hat, watch, or pocketbook, which had been removed from his coat pocket after it had been shredded with a razor blade. The one thing that King was in possession of, however, was a black eye. Still drunk, King attacked the owner of the hotel after he accused the man of robbing him. The owner dragged King to the police station, where during questioning King took a swipe at the investigating officer. King was thrown into a cell to sober up and was charged with assault and battery.

Public Transportation

In order to combat the activity of the 109 lush workers operating in New York City, plain clothes police officers ride the trains looking for suspicious activity, although some of the pickpockets have been arrested so many times that they recognize and even greet the officers. In 1899, a vigilant conductor of a trolley car in New Orleans spotted William Nagel robbing a rider. He notified the police, and it turned out that Nagel, an elderly man who fits the description of today’s lush workers, was a first-class pickpocket. The victim, G. L. Ray, a barber who lived at 628 Bourbon Street, turns out to have spent much of the night getting drunk with Nagel. Nagel was arrested and charged with robbery. Ray was also arrested and charged with being drunk.

(Prints and Photographs Division - Library of Congress)

On a train bound for San Francisco in 1907, Herman Cohn stole the watch of N. D. Hall after Hall had fallen asleep next to him. Once Cohn procured the watch, he leaned back and boasted about his accomplishment to the man sitting behind him and informed him that he was going to go after Hall’s money next. Hall, however, woke up, discovered that his watch was missing, and immediately suspected his seatmate. Hall grabbed Cohn by the neck and pushed his thumbs into his Adam’s apple until Cohn’s tongue was forced out of his mouth. Hall then threatened, “Now dig up that watch you ____ ____ before I kill you.” Cohn reached into this left pocket and returned the watch.

Meanwhile, the man sitting behind the two riders notified the conductor about Cohn’s earlier disclosure, so a police officer was waiting at the station to arrest Hall when they arrived in San Mateo.

Earliest Cases

All of the crimes cited above contain elements of the approach employed by lush workers today, but in each case at least one element is missing. Here are the two cases I came across that appear to resemble the operation of today’s lush workers the most.

While riding on the No. 35 train of the Southern line to Charlotte, NC in 1902, a passenger who claimed to be a painter engaged R. L. Stogner in seemingly endless conversation. Stogner was glad to leave the train and his talkative companion when they pulled into the station, but when he arrived uptown he discovered that a hole had been cut in his hip pocket and that his purse containing $17.50 was gone. His seatmate had used his conversation skills to distract Stogner while he cut an incision in his trousers and took the purse. Current-day lush workers would no doubt be impressed by the ability of this pickpocket to carry out such a theft on a conscious victim.

In 1869, Alfred Oliver got drunk with three other men during a trip to New York. But when Oliver sobered up, he discovered that the pocket of his pants, which contained $215 worth of gold, had been cut out. Oliver reported the theft to the police upon their arrival, and the three men who were drinking with him were arrested. These lush workers certainly did not select the best place to carry out their crime: they were on a passenger ship bound from San Francisco to New York, which severely limited their ability to escape from the crime scene.

Even though I was unable to find an early case that precisely matched the practice of today’s lush workers, all of these stories are close enough that I am confident that such cases must have occurred soon after trains became a primary mode of transportation. They simply went unreported. After all, how many people want to admit to falling prey to a pickpocket after falling asleep drunk on a train?

Sources

• “Alleged Larceny at Sea.” New York Herald, June 10, 1869, vol. XXXIV, issue 161, p. 5. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “A Conductor’s Eye.” Times-Picayune, August 30, 1899, p. 8. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Dreams His Watch is Stolen; Wakes, Fins He’s Right.” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 5, 1915, vol. XXXV, issue 105, p. 5. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “From the N.Y. Transcript.” Southern Patriot (Charleston, SC), July 15, 1734, vol. XXXII, issue 5137, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Neatly Nabs Pickpocket Who Stole His Watch.” San Jose Mercury News, April 4, 1907, vol. LXXII, issue 94, p. 9. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Pickpocket Uses His Knife.” Charlotte Observer, December 19, 1902, p. 5. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Robbing a Drunk.” Evening News (San Jose, CA), September 22, 1891, vol. XX, issue 40, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “Wakens and Finds Clothing Cut Off.” Grand Forks Herald, July 24, 1909, vol. XXVIII, issue 229, p. 1. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.
• “The Way of the Transgressor.” New York Herald, August 14, 1872, p. 8. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers, Readex/Newsbank.

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Over the past year or so I have been writing about burglars and burglary in early America. To conclude this informal series I am going to try something a little different.

Please click on the audio media file attached to this post to hear me talk about my reflections and conclusions about burglary in early America. I am including my notes below to help you follow along as I talk.

The Burglars

• Backgrounds
  • Some had neglectful parents, and some even learned their criminal skills from their parents or guardians.
  • Others came from well-off families and had kind, generous, and God-fearing parents.
  • Some were educated, but others received little to no education at all.
  • Some of the burglars served in the army, where they picked up skills and behaviors that led them into a life of crime.
• A movement from isolated incidents of burglary–perhaps carried out during irrational moments–to more calculated, organized, and professional acts of burglary.
  • The Harvard-educated burglars, James Ward and Joseph Welde (1644): a couple of college kids who made poor judgment in burglarizing the house of one of their uncles.
  • Mathew Cushing (1734): his crimes appear to be less the acts of a professional criminal than of a rebellious young man who tried to take advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves to him.
  • The Morrison Gang (1744): an organized, professional gang of criminals living in Philadelphia, who carried out a string of calculated burglaries.
  • Henry Tufts (1793): planted burglary tools around the area he targeted, so that he had immediate access to them.
• Personal progression.
  • Burglars often started out committing acts of petty crime as youths and then became more daring and attempted more sophisticated crimes as they got older.
  • Many of the burglars talked about a specific moment when they decided to become a professional criminal, almost like a conversion.

Burglary Methods

• Many of the burglars took advantage of opportunities as they saw them, such as an open window.
• More professional burglars employed advanced planning to carry out their burglaries and usually gained knowledge of the shop or building they were about to burglarize from a friend or acquaintance.
• Some burglars returned over and over again to the same towns and stores.
• Of all the burglars profiled, not one of them employed violence in carrying out a burglary.

Punishments

• Burglary had to be punished harshly, because it was easy to carry out at this time.
  • Easy to break into houses and stores.
  • Dwellings were more isolated from one another, which made for easy targets.
  • Problem of the Bible never singling out burglary as a crime, so early American communities that based their social organization on the Word of God did not have guidance in punishing burglary.
• Trends:
  • The Harvard-educated burglars, James Ward and Joseph Welde (1644): a whipping and expulsion from school.
  • Arthur Nottool (1664): successfully pleaded Benefit of Clergy after being found guilty of burglary in Maryland, thus avoiding a death sentence.
  • Mathew Cushing (1734): who was executed and was the first American criminal celebrity.
  • Henry Tufts (1793): despite committing multiple burglaries, which should have earned him a death sentence, Tufts received a reprieve from the governor and was instead committed to life in prison.
• Branding as a punishment seemed to go away in the 1770’s, and it never seemed to stop the criminal from committing further acts of burglary, as in the case of Isaac Frasier.
• Escapes from jail and prison:
  • The fluid walls of the jails: most of the burglars held in prison seemed to be able to find their way out, and often did.
  • Makes sense: experts at breaking into houses and stores can use those same skills to break out of prison.
  • Burglars were adroit at identifying weaknesses in building construction and could use the vulnerabilities of prison walls to escape.
  • Their escapes indicate how primitive some of these prisons must have been, since their inhabitants could so easily escape out of them.
• As in England, there was a struggle over the bodies of the executed to keep them away from surgeons, who wanted to use them for dissection.
  • Mathew Cushing was dissected.
  • Levi Ames’s body was successfully buried in an undisclosed location, despite the surgeons’s determination to take possession of it.
• Many of the burglars asked people to use their fate as a warning not to follow in their footsteps.

In the end, I never grew tired of these stories of burglars. I originally thought that by focusing on burglary, at some point I would find myself repeating the same story over and over again. But that never happened.

As I read about and explored these criminal figures, each burglar exhibited some twist in their behavior or circumstance or criminal act that called out and compelled me to write about him or her. I hope these stories of early American burglars have captured your imagination as much as they have mine.

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Note: This post continues Early American Crimes: Burglary, Part II.

Outside of murder, burglary and robbery were considered the most egregious crimes in England and colonial America. Since burglars and robbers threaten the well-being and lives of victims while taking their property, they are generally regarded as worse than thieves, who try to steal without detection or intimidation. Burglary also conjures up feelings of discomfort, fear, and disgust at the thought of a stranger rifling through your possessions after entering your residence uninvited.

Burglars in general do not face the same time constraints as robbers, who have to grab the goods from their victims and escape immediately after the confrontation. If burglars can find an unoccupied house, go undetected, or intimidate the occupants into inaction, they can empty the contents of the dwelling at their leisure. Under these circumstances, burglary can end up costing the victim much more than robbery.

Burglar Backgrounds

Burglars from Philadelphia generally came from the poorer and transient classes, and probably came from immigrant, mariner, and servant groups. They most likely did not constitute a criminal class, i.e., a group of criminals who acted as full-time robbers, burglars, or thieves. They were probably opportunistic criminals, taking advantage of opportunities when they found themselves in desperate straits.

The urban setting of late eighteenth-century Philadelphia provided burglars and other criminals focused on property with more to steal than in rural areas. These opportunities, combined with greater deprivation among the poor, meant that property crime was higher in Philadelphia than in other parts of Pennsylvania.

Eighteenth-century Massachusetts, where there was more of a history of burglary, experienced a greater presence of chronic criminals who belonged to a quasi-criminal subculture than Pennsylvania did. The stories of their lives and of the many burglaries and robberies they committed regularly appeared in broadsides and pamphlets, which could often be purchased at their executions.

Burglars and other types of thieves tended to steal similar types of goods: money, food, fabrics, clothing and accessories, household goods, and silverware were all top targets. The burglary of shops or warehouses belonging to wealthy merchants could bring the biggest hauls, sometimes 20 to 200 pounds or more. Such operations often involved advanced planning and knowledge of the presence and location of the goods.

Accomplices

Burglars often acted with accomplices, in groups, or in gangs. Women usually did not commit burglaries or robberies, but when they did they were usually accompanied by males. Female burglars who were caught were often shown mercy by the courts during sentencing, since judges tended to believe that they were driven to the act by poverty.

African-American burglars also tended to act in groups, and they were often joined by whites, who usually took the lead in fencing the stolen items. Sixteen burglaries by African Americans were prosecuted in Pennsylvania between 1780 and 1800, and ten of them included white accomplices.

Because the criminal justice system in the colonies tended to be inefficient, burglars could commit numerous crimes over long periods of time before being caught. Professional burglars avoided detection by moving around and committing crimes in different places, where they would not be known and could more easily sneak off. If they were ever caught, they would sometimes try to strike deals with their victims to avoid bringing in the authorities and risk prosecution.

Burglary was considered a serious crime in early America, and it was dealt with harshly by the authorities. Over the coming weeks, Early American Crime is going to examine this crime more closely by profiling some of the burglars of colonial America and the early United States.

Click here to read more about burglary on EarlyAmericanCrime.com.

Sources

Cohen, Daniel A. Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New England Crime Literature And the Origins of American Popular Culture, 1674-1860. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.

Marietta, Jack D. and G. S. Rowe. Troubled Experiment: Crime and Justice in Pennsylvania, 1682-1800. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.

Read more about burglary in Early American Crime.

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Note: This post continues Early American Crimes: Burglary, Part I.

In the earliest days of colonial America, burglary was not considered much of a problem. Most people in the community knew each other, and strangers could be quickly identified. But as more people settled in America and cities grew bigger, burglary became a much more frequent occurrence, and it increasingly was treated with harsh punishment.

Massachusetts

Even though Massachusetts established harsh penalties for burglary in the seventeenth century, the rate of burglaries continued to rise as the province became more urbanized. Burglaries were a constant worry for people who lived in Boston, and in the spring and summer of 1712, Boston merchants, shopkeepers, and craftsmen experienced a spike in nighttime break ins. The rise in burglary in Boston prompted the General Court to take action, and in 1715 burglary became a capital crime in Massachusetts unless the offender could prove that the house was empty at the time of the break-in.

Despite the strengthening of the penalty, by 1770 burglary continued to be such a problem that the Massachusetts legislature made it a capital crime even if the house was empty when the burglar entered it. At the time, Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson claimed the reason why incidences of burglary were so high in Massachusetts was that burglars were coming from other colonies, where the punishment for the crime was death. Once burglars crossed into Massachusetts, they would only receive a small fine or light corporal punishment if they were careful enough to enter a house that was uninhabited.

After the American Revolution, burglary continued to be a capital offense in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, although after 1805 the death penalty only applied to burglaries where the occupants were in the house and where the offender was carrying a dangerous weapon or committed assault. Burglary did not cease to be a capital crime in Massachusetts until 1839.

Pennsylvania

While the general trend in the colonies during the eighteenth century was to increase punishment for burglary, Pennsylvania’s criminal code continued to remain relatively mild, mostly because its burglary rate remained fairly low. In 1705, Pennsylvania revised its criminal code and made burglary punishable by whipping, six month’s imprisonment at hard labor, and restitution for the victim. Even though this string of punishments was less severe in relation to other colonies, the fact that property crime was the only category of crime that was punished by a combination of penalties shows how seriously Pennsylvania took it.

Pennsylvania’s mild criminal code did not apply to all of its citizens, however. African Americans, slave or free, were subject to a different set of punishments. Under these separate provisions, burglary–as well as murder, the rape of a white woman, and buggery–was punished by execution.

No doubt inspired by England’s Transportation Act, Pennsylvania created a provision in 1718 whereby burglars and other felons could be banished from the colony in lieu of execution. After Ann Mitchell was convicted on burglary charges in 1725, she was pardoned on condition that she and her husband leave the colony, probably because she was pregnant at the time. Two other burglars, Cornelius O’Brien and Edward Fitzgerald, were pardoned in 1735 after they agreed to leave the colony and “never return.”

The low burglary rate in Pennsylvania did not last. Starting in 1760, the burglary rate began to soar, to the point where more burglaries were prosecuted in Pennsylvania during the decade of the 1760s than were prosecuted in Massachusetts between the years of 1750 and 1800. In the end, an astounding 61 burglars were executed in Pennsylvania during this time. Not surprisingly, most of the burglaries took place in and around Philadelphia.

In 1786, Pennsylvania reclassified burglary and other crimes as noncapital and substituted instead “continued hard labor, publicly and disgracefully imposed” in an attempt to rehabilitate the offender instead. Connecticut took a similar tactic after it founded New-Gate Prison in 1773. It passed an act making burglary, robbery, and counterfeiting punishable by imprisonment not exceeding 10 years for the first offense, although second time offenders received sentences of imprisonment for life.

Go to Early American Crimes: Burglary, Part III.

Sources

• Cohen, Daniel A. Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New England Crime Literature And the Origins of American Popular Culture, 1674-1860. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.
• Marietta, Jack D. and G. S. Rowe. Troubled Experiment: Crime and Justice in Pennsylvania, 1682-1800. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
• Phelps, Richard H. Newgate of Connecticut, Its Origin and Early History. New and Expanded Edition. Camden, ME: Picton Press, 1996.
• Powers, Edwin. Crime and Punishment in Early Massachusetts, 1620-1692: A Documentary History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966.
• Semmes, Raphael. Crime and Punishment in Early Maryland. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1938.
• Simons, D. Brenton. Witches, Rakes, and Rogues: True Stories of Scam, Scandal, Murder, and Mayhem in Boston, 1630-1775. Beverly, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 2005.

Read more about burglary in Early American Crime.

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Outside of murder, which cuts to the core of who we are as human beings, burglary is perhaps the ultimate criminal transgression in America. Burglary violates two strong American principles at the very same time: the protection of property and the right to privacy. It also brings with it a potential for violence, since confronting a burglar could bring bodily harm or even death to the victim.

Common Law

Common law defines burglary as the breaking and entering of a dwelling house at night with the intent of committing a felony once inside. The “breaking in” actuality does not have to involve force. It can be as simple as opening an unlocked window or door, entering through a partially open window or door, or even using fraud or trickery to gain entrance. However, if a window was already sufficiently open to allow a person’s body to go through it, the entry technically can not be considered a break in.

Only part of the burglar’s body, or even part of an extension tool used by him or her, needs to cross into a house for it to be considered an entry. Some American statutes expanded the definition of burglary beyond simply entering a dwelling house to include all kinds of structures, such as storehouses, sheds, or chicken coops. Warehouses, shops, and even ships were often targets of burglars in early America, especially during the seventeenth century.

“Night” under common law is defined as “when a man’s face cannot be distinguished by the light of the sun,” although it can also be defined as the time between sunset and sunrise. The fact that burglaries occur at night elevates the seriousness of the crime. Inhabitants are much more likely to be present during the nighttime, so the potential for violence is greater. The thought that someone could be present in your house while you slept is also particularly unsettling. In contrast to burglary, breaking and entering a house with the intention of committing a felony during the day is called housebreaking.

Once a burglar breaks into a house, the offender does not need to carry out a felony within the dwelling for it to be considered a burglary; only the intention to commit a felony is needed. Whatever felony is committed inside the place of residence is its own crime, and it is prosecuted and punished as an offense separate from the burglary.

Burglary in the 17th Century

Burglary was not much of a concern in the early days of the American colonies, and so the laws governing its punishment were relatively mild. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, for example, simply stipulated that burglary should be “severely punished” and left the form of punishment up to the discretion of the judge.

As more people populated the colonies and filled the towns, burglary became a serious crime. In 1647, the Bay Colony reacted to this trend by formally codifying the punishment for burglary. First time offenders were to have a letter B branded on their foreheads, second time offenders would be severely whipped and branded, and a third offense would bring the death penalty.

In 1671, the Plymouth Colony followed the Bay Colony by making burglary a capital crime on the third conviction as well, although the law also stipulated that the court could show mercy and decide instead that the offender be “otherwise grievously punished.” When the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies were combined to create the Province of Massachusetts Bay in 1692, it basically adopted the Bay Colony’s set of punishments for burglary, although second time offenders could be whipped with up to 39 lashes and made to sit on the gallows for an hour.

In contrast to Massachusetts, Pennsylvania actually reduced their penalties for burglary over the course of the seventeenth century. Before the Lower Counties under the Duke of York were incorporated into Pennsylvania, burglary was punished much like it was in Massachusetts, with a branding on the forehead for the first offense and death for the third offense. After William Penn established the colony of Pennsylvania in 1682, he put in place the mildest criminal code in the American colonies. Crimes against property under Penn were generally punished by having the perpetrators pay a multiple of the value of the property, and murder was the only crime that could result in execution. On top of compensating the victim, burglars in Pennsylvania could also be punished by wearing a sign for a specified period of time.

Go to Early American Crimes: Burglary, Part II.

Sources

• Allen, Francis A. “Offenses Against Property.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 339: Crime and the American Penal System (Jan., 1962), 57-76.
• Cohen, Daniel A. Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New England Crime Literature And the Origins of American Popular Culture, 1674-1860. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2006.
• Marietta, Jack D. and G. S. Rowe. Troubled Experiment: Crime and Justice in Pennsylvania, 1682-1800. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006.
• Powers, Edwin. Crime and Punishment in Early Massachusetts, 1620-1692: A Documentary History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966.
• Semmes, Raphael. Crime and Punishment in Early Maryland. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1938.
• Simons, D. Brenton. Witches, Rakes, and Rogues: True Stories of Scam, Scandal, Murder, and Mayhem in Boston, 1630-1775. Beverly, MA: Commonwealth Editions, 2005.

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In order to settle a debate with her boss, Rebecca, a self-described “curious technical writer,” asked Early American Crime, “Were American pickpockets executed in the 1700′s and 1800′s? I know Britain was big on this, but how about America?”

As far as I can tell, pickpockets were not executed in America as they were in Britain. I can’t definitively say that it never happened, but I haven’t been able to find an instance when it did.

The reason why pickpockets could be executed in Britain but weren’t in America raises some interesting comparisons between the two countries. Throughout the 18th century and into the 19th, Britain executed many of its petty criminals because it relied on strict sentencing laws to deter crime in the absence of a professional police force. The British were fearful that a government-sanctioned police force could easily lead to the creation of a standing army, which could then be used to infringe on individual liberties. This fear was so great that England did not create a professional, organized police force until 1829. Armed with only a lantern and a pole, the City Watch was the only official body patrolling the streets in the 18th century, and it was considered inept and formed the butt of many jokes.

Rising population and overcrowding in the cities contributed to England’s petty crime woes. London in the eighteenth century was by far the largest city in Western Europe, having surpassed Paris earlier in the 17th century, and about one-tenth of the entire population of England lived there. This large concentration of people, combined with no serious organizational body policing the streets, created ample opportunities for acts of petty theft, such as pickpocketing. As crime rates rose throughout the century, the authorities in frustration increasingly turned to capital punishment as a means of discouraging thieves from committing such crimes.

Social conditions in America were quite different from those in England. Both the general and urban populations in America were much smaller, so there were not as many opportunities for criminals to commit the predominantly urban crime of pickpocketing as there were in England. Property crimes in America tended to be more in the form of larceny, robbery, or burglary, although petty acts of crime, such as pickpocketing, did occur.

Each colony in America had its own set of laws, so the punishment for pickpocketing varied among the colonies and changed over time, especially as punishments became based less on biblical and more on secular principles of law. In Massachusetts, theft was generally punished with fines and whippings, although a third-time offender who stole something valued over three pounds could be put to death. Picking a pocket in Massachusetts, in other words, simply wouldn’t bring a death sentence. In Pennsylvania, Mary Isaac received 21 lashes for pickpocketing in 1734. On June 4, 1752, The Pennsylvania Gazette reported that John Broughton was burnt in the hand with the letter “R” and sentenced to servitude for pickpocketing in Annapolis, MD.

African-Americans were often accused of pickpocketing, and the penalty for them was usually whipping. The American Weekly Mercury of Philadelphia reported on June 23, 1743 that a “Negro Fellow having stole a Pocket Bottle of about three Pence or four Pence Value, was ordered to be corrected for it at the Publick Whipping Post.” Just as he arrived for his punishment, the man suddenly pulled a knife out of his pocket and “very heroically cut his own Throat, chusing rather to suffer Death than be exposed to Publick Shame.”

Since the African-American accused of pickpocketing took his own life, his death cannot be construed as an execution. Consequently, I am sorry to report that Rebecca lost the friendly debate with her boss.

Read more about pickpocketing in Early American Crime.

Special note: This post is sponsored by The National Pardon Centre, a family-run, non-profit organization providing the fastest and most efficient Canadian pardon and US entry waiver services in Canada.