sense of panic than were robbery, burglary, and housebreaking. Picking pockets
was regarded as more of a petty offence by the late seventeenth century and was
almost certainly more common than the few accused who appeared in court
charged with such an offence might suggest. Magistrates were in many cases re-
luctant to send those accused of this offence to the Old Bailey to face trial for
their lives, since so often those caught were women or young boys. One com-
mentator, indeed, thought that young people were drawn into crime very
largely by picking pockets of silk handkerchiefs, which were easy to steal and sell,
and relatively valuable.^55 There were no doubt skilled pickpockets at work in the
London crowds: it was always said that they did particularly well at hangings,
and the dangers of pickpockets was one reason the authorities gave for discour-
aging crowds. But those most frequently accused of picking pockets—‘privately
stealing’ as the law termed it—or at least those most likely to appear in court,
were prostitutes charged with stealing from their often drunken clients. For a
man angry enough and willing to appear a fool or worse in court, it was rela-
tively easy to bring the charge, since the woman could generally be found and
easily identified, and her guilt sworn to on oath. But the plight of James Steed
who, in what was a typical case, spent a night with three women in a tavern and
went to sleep leaving his breeches on a chair with four guineas in the pocket,
only to find the women gone and his money missing in the morning was not
likely to rouse pity in court, let alone cause alarm.^56 On the whole, despite the
fact that it was a capital offence, pocket picking was treated as though it were a
very minor offence. Timothy Nourse included pickpockets among the ‘lesser
Criminals’ whose offences ‘deserve not Death’^57 ; the lord mayor and other
London magistrates tended to take the same view.
Roughly four out of ten men and women accused at the Old Bailey of com-
mitting offences against property in the City of London in the late seventeenth
century faced the possibility ofbeing sentenced to die on the gallows at Tyburn.
The remainder were accused of simple larceny—feloniously taking and carry-
ing away the goods of someone—or with a form of fraud or obtaining goods by
false pretences. Virtually all of those accused of theft faced charges of grand lar-
ceny, that is, stealing property of a shilling or more in value. Very few were pros-
ecuted for petty larceny, theft under a shilling. The distinction was crucial.
Grand larceny was a felony, and thus a capital offence at common law. It rarely
resulted in execution in this period because it was also subject to benefit of
clergy, a fiction that had the effect by the seventeenth century of saving those
Introduction: The Crime Problem 23(^55) [ J. D., Gent.,] An Humble Proposal to prevent the Beginnings of Theft, viz. the Picking Pockets of Handkerchiefs
(n.d., c. 1720 ). Paul Griffiths informs me that men and women accused of picking pockets were being com-
mitted to Bridewell in significant numbers by the 1620 s. I am grateful to Dr Griffiths for showing me
some of the data that he will present in his forthcoming book—The First Bridewell: Petty Crime, Policing, and
Prison in London, 1550 – 1660.
(^56) CLRO: London Sess. Papers, February 1715 ; for other cases involving alleged prostitutes, see Lon-
don Sess. Papers, December 1695 (depositions of Richard Roberts and Thomas Wheatley).
(^57) Timothy Nourse, Campania Felix, or, a Discourse of the Benefits and Improvements of Husbandry( 1700 ), 229.