There is such a thing as education in crime. As there are medical schools for doctors, and commercial academies for merchants, so thieving is systematically taught in some of our large towns. One boy for instance gives this account of himself: “My father was a soldier and died when I was a little fellow, leaving mother very poor. She begged in the street for a living.
She died about nine years ago. There was nobody to look after me. I soon fell among thieves, and was taken to Wentworth Street, in Whitechapel, to a house where I was boarded and lodged for six months, where I was taught to pick pockets. There were twenty more boys besides myself kept by a man and woman who got the plunder.
Daily the woman dressed herself, put a bell in her pocket, also a purse. Any boy who could take the purse from her pocket without causing the bell to tinkle, got the money it contained. We stayed till we were well fitted to pick pockets.” The extent to which this education is carried is almost incredible. What an argument for Christian mission schools!— GUTHRIE.
