public places. Nothing is sacrosanct to
the sneak thief.
See Tea leaf
SNOWDROPPERS
----
A snowdropper is someone
who makes a living by stealing clothes from washing lines (as opposed to someone who
steals only underwear from lines and is known as a pervert!). This crime was
particularly prevalent in the Victorian era, when cotton and linen sheets stolen
from the washing lines of the rich and well-to-do was a pretty lucrative lay . These days, snowdroppers usually go for designer clothing
and sell the items in pubs and markets. Though it can be a fairly profitable crime
if you steal the right snowdrops, it is still well down on the scale of serious
theft and practised mainly by kids and the desperate amateur.
See Lay
STIKS/STIKS MAN
----
The re-emergence of the pickpocket in the
1970s meant a change in the name dipper , which had become too well
known, to stiks or stiks man , from the line in the
nursery rhyme ‘Five, six, pick up sticks’. (This is used mainly by young West Indian
pickpockets.) In the 1970s a lot of thriving pickpocket gangs used distraction
techniques in order to steal. Typically, a stiks gang would consist of three
members: the dip or ‘feeler’, who sticks their hand into pockets
and bags; the ‘front man’, who bumps into the victim and pretends to be confused and
flustered, all the better to confuse and fluster the victim as they brush them down
and apologize profusely while the dip goes to work; and, lastly, the ‘pass-off’ man,
to whom the prize will be passed once it has been retrieved. The stiks gangs work
with great speed, which is why the pass-off man is essential. If the victim feels or
senses that their pocket has been picked,then by the time they
raise the alarm and point the finger, the prize will have been deftly palmed off to
the innocent-looking pass-off man, who will have quickly walked away. Even if the
dip and front man are grabbed by passers-by and held for the bull , nothing will be found on them.
The stiks gangs had their own slang,
such as ‘the bull’ for police, which was short for ‘bullies’. The ‘bull squad’ or
‘dip squad’ in London usually operated out of West End Central Police Station and
had a reputation amongst the dippers and stiks men as being a bit heavy-handed and
very sneaky. Members of the bull squad would disguise themselves as tourists or
tramps, or even dress up as women in their constant quest to nick the dips. The
squad had a fairly constant turnover because as soon as they’d made four or five
nickings they would be easily recognizable to the dips.
If a stiks man were to say, ‘I’ve been
under the earth looking for beagles and practising my back-off,’ it would be
translated as ‘I’ve been working the London Underground looking for wallets and
purses and practising stealing from back pockets’. The London Underground was the
main hunting ground for stiks men, as there were very few CCTV cameras in the 1970s
and ’80s and, in the rush-hour crowds, it was easy to get close to someone in order
to steal from them. A wallet or purse was known as a ‘beagle’, but nobody seems to
know why. Stiks men and dips had various tried-and-tested methods of stealing, such
as the ‘back-off’ (lifting the prize from the victim’s back pocket by gripping with
the fingertips and then kneeing the victim lightly behind their knee to make them
bend slightly so the wallet, or whatever it was, comes out of the pocket easily),
the ‘breast-off’ (putting a coat or newspaper under the victim’s chin or in front of
their face while the dip hand reaches for the inside jacket pocket), orthe ‘slide’ (quickly sliding the hand into a side pocket, as
though it were an accident). Picking pockets using distraction techniques is known
as working the smother game . Pickpocketing is also known as going
out on the bottle , from the action of getting behind the
the sneak thief.
See Tea leaf
SNOWDROPPERS
----
A snowdropper is someone
who makes a living by stealing clothes from washing lines (as opposed to someone who
steals only underwear from lines and is known as a pervert!). This crime was
particularly prevalent in the Victorian era, when cotton and linen sheets stolen
from the washing lines of the rich and well-to-do was a pretty lucrative lay . These days, snowdroppers usually go for designer clothing
and sell the items in pubs and markets. Though it can be a fairly profitable crime
if you steal the right snowdrops, it is still well down on the scale of serious
theft and practised mainly by kids and the desperate amateur.
See Lay
STIKS/STIKS MAN
----
The re-emergence of the pickpocket in the
1970s meant a change in the name dipper , which had become too well
known, to stiks or stiks man , from the line in the
nursery rhyme ‘Five, six, pick up sticks’. (This is used mainly by young West Indian
pickpockets.) In the 1970s a lot of thriving pickpocket gangs used distraction
techniques in order to steal. Typically, a stiks gang would consist of three
members: the dip or ‘feeler’, who sticks their hand into pockets
and bags; the ‘front man’, who bumps into the victim and pretends to be confused and
flustered, all the better to confuse and fluster the victim as they brush them down
and apologize profusely while the dip goes to work; and, lastly, the ‘pass-off’ man,
to whom the prize will be passed once it has been retrieved. The stiks gangs work
with great speed, which is why the pass-off man is essential. If the victim feels or
senses that their pocket has been picked,then by the time they
raise the alarm and point the finger, the prize will have been deftly palmed off to
the innocent-looking pass-off man, who will have quickly walked away. Even if the
dip and front man are grabbed by passers-by and held for the bull , nothing will be found on them.
The stiks gangs had their own slang,
such as ‘the bull’ for police, which was short for ‘bullies’. The ‘bull squad’ or
‘dip squad’ in London usually operated out of West End Central Police Station and
had a reputation amongst the dippers and stiks men as being a bit heavy-handed and
very sneaky. Members of the bull squad would disguise themselves as tourists or
tramps, or even dress up as women in their constant quest to nick the dips. The
squad had a fairly constant turnover because as soon as they’d made four or five
nickings they would be easily recognizable to the dips.
If a stiks man were to say, ‘I’ve been
under the earth looking for beagles and practising my back-off,’ it would be
translated as ‘I’ve been working the London Underground looking for wallets and
purses and practising stealing from back pockets’. The London Underground was the
main hunting ground for stiks men, as there were very few CCTV cameras in the 1970s
and ’80s and, in the rush-hour crowds, it was easy to get close to someone in order
to steal from them. A wallet or purse was known as a ‘beagle’, but nobody seems to
know why. Stiks men and dips had various tried-and-tested methods of stealing, such
as the ‘back-off’ (lifting the prize from the victim’s back pocket by gripping with
the fingertips and then kneeing the victim lightly behind their knee to make them
bend slightly so the wallet, or whatever it was, comes out of the pocket easily),
the ‘breast-off’ (putting a coat or newspaper under the victim’s chin or in front of
their face while the dip hand reaches for the inside jacket pocket), orthe ‘slide’ (quickly sliding the hand into a side pocket, as
though it were an accident). Picking pockets using distraction techniques is known
as working the smother game . Pickpocketing is also known as going
out on the bottle , from the action of getting behind the
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