The prisoner said, 'I have twenty-two shillings in my pocket, but it is my mother's money; she gets so drunk she gives me her money to take care of.' The officer stated to the same effect as the prosecutrix, and added, that _in a secret pocket in his jacket he found fourteen shilling and sixpence.
It was the practice of gangs of pickpockets to have a child like this to commit the robbery, and hand the plunder to them_.

Witness went to his parents, who said he had been absent seven weeks, and they would have nothing to do with him.

Mr.Baron Garrow, in feeling terms, lamented that a child of such tender years should be so depraved.

He added, 'I suppose, gentlemen, I need only to ask you to deliver your verdict.' His lordship then observed, that he would consult with his learned brother as to the best manner of disposing of the prisoner.
They at length decided, that although it might seem harsh, the court would record against him fourteen years' transportation, and, no doubt, government would place him in some school; if he behaved well there, the sentence might not be carried into full effect." I remember a query being once put to me by a person who visited the Spitalfields Infant School at the time it was under my management: "How can you account for the fact, that notwithstanding there are so many old and experienced thieves detected, convicted, and sent out of the country every session, we cannot perceive any dimunition of the numbers of such characters; but that others seem always to supply their places ?" The foregoing instance of the systematized instruction of young delinquents by old adepts in the art of pilfering, affords, I think, a satisfactory answer the interrogatory.
The dexterity of experienced thieves shews, that no small degree of care and attention is bestowed on their tuition.

The first task of novices, I have been informed, is to go in companies of threes or fours, through the respectable streets and squares of the metropolis, and with an old knife, or a similar instrument, to wrench off the brass-work usually placed over the key-holes of the area-gates, &c., which they sell at the marine store-shops; and they are said sometimes to realize three or four shillings a day, by this means.