School for Thieves

School for Thieves

A man named Wotton, a gentleman born and sometime merchant who had fallen into decay, kept a struggling alehouse at Smart’s Quay near Billingsgate. Deciding to set up a new venture, he established a schoolhouse within the inn, where he taught young boys how to cut purses by hanging up two devices: a pocket and a purse, both filled with coins and hung about with many hawks bells. He that silently took a coin out of the pocket graduated as a ‘public foister ‘, and one that took a silver silently out of the purse was adjudged a ‘judicial nipper’.

But if the victim did feel an intrusive hand, he would shout ‘stop thief’ to ‘raise the hue and cry’, and everyone was supposed to run after the miscreant and catch him. But this rarely succeeded, thieves being adept at disappearing through the crowd.

Source ~ by Jan-Marie Knights
‘The Tudor Socialite: A Social Calendar of Tudor Life’