artful dodger
– someone who avoids lodging in the same place twice out of fear of arrest.
Fagan, the Artful Dodger, and Oliver Twist. Image via Wikipedia
In England, the term also meant either a lodger or an expert thief. The Artful Dodger was, of course, the name of Fagan’s top child-pickpocket in Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist.
Sources
Farmer, [...]
Even though William Linsey was orphaned at a young age, this rough start did not appear to have any negative impact on him. Linsey was originally born in Palmer, MA in 1746, but at the age of two he went to live with Phinehas Mixture in Dudley, MA. By Linsey’s own account, Mixture raised him [...]
arch-cove
– the head of a gang or mob; governor; president.
arch gonnof
– the head of a gang of thieves.
The use of “arch” to signify the leader or head of a gang is still in use today. Action-adventure movies or television shows often use the terms “arch enemy” or “arch villain.”
Image via Wikipedia
Sources
Matsell, George W. [...]
In May 1744, Elizabeth Robinson was sentenced at the Old Bailey in London to transportation to the American colonies for her involvement in the theft of 104 China oranges from a warehouse. She was loaded onto the Justitia that same month and eventually landed in Virginia. She ended up in Maryland, where she reportedly continued [...]
angler
– 1. a petty thief who uses a hook on the end of a string to steal from shop-windows, grates, doors, etc.; 2. a member of a gang of petty thieves who roams the street looking for opportunities; 3. a receiver of stolen goods; a fence; 4. a putter up, i.e., a servant, clerk, [...]
amuse
– 1. to fling dust into someone’s eyes in order to distract them; 2. to tell a false tale in order to distract and then rob an unsuspecting victim; to “entertain” deceptively.
Amusers threw dust or pepper, which they kept in their pockets, into the eyes of someone they wanted to rob. As the amuser [...]
Tom Cook was a notorious New England thief who happens to have been born in my hometown of Westborough, MA. He called himself “The Leveller” and cultivated a reputation for stealing from the rich and readily sharing his ill-gotten gains with the poor.
Stories of his exploits have been handed down for generations. Alice Morse Earle [...]
Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies.
Almost as soon as British convict transportation to America ended, Americans began to downplay the numbers and significance of convicts sent to the colonies. In 1786, Thomas Jefferson led the way by claiming,
The Malefactors sent to America were not [...]
Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies.
In a letter to the Maryland Gazette on July 30, 1767, one writer defended importing convicts from Great Britain by citing how many of them reform their ways:
[A] few Gentlemen seem very angry that Convicts are imported here at all, and [...]
Note: This post is part of a series on Convict Transportation to the American colonies.
Samuel Ellard grew up in Spitalfields and was apprenticed to a butcher. He completed his time as an apprentice and worked in the Spitalfields Market for various people until he was arrested on March 9, 1741 for robbing a cheese shop [...]
