Word: pickpocket
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Died. Irving Wexler, 63, alias Waxey Gordon, onetime (1905) pickpocket who advanced through stickups, slugging, dope-peddling and murder into big-time racketeering; of a heart attack; on Alcatraz. During Prohibition, paunchy, bullet-headed Waxey muscled into a string of New Jersey breweries, cleaned up a profit of $4,555,537 in 1931-32, but paid only $2,615.76 in income tax (for which U.S. District Attorney Tom Dewey put him away for seven years in 1933). In the underworld of Al Capone, Legs Diamond and Dutch Schultz, Waxey luxuriated in a life of $10 silk underwear and shiny Lincolns...
Lion's Mouth. In Glasgow, Pickpocket Francis Ryan got a 60-day sentence after he unwittingly plied his trade on an excursion steamer carrying 20 Glasgow policemen and their wives...
Like most hunters of skill and experience, tiny, deft-fingered Police Inspector Shimpachi Utsugi recalls his triumphs with nostalgic respect for his quarry. "In the old days," says Utsugi of the time when he first joined the imperial police force, "Japan's pickpockets were proud professional men who would never stoop to employ such tactics as cutting garments with a knife." They plied their trade with stealth, skill and subtlety, and to combat them, the young detective matched skill with skill and stealth with stealth. He soon became as good a pickpocket as the pickpockets. On busy days, like...
Last week, at 82, Pickpocket Tamotsu was back in the streets of Tokyo, presumably still plying his trade, but his old adversary was no longer on his track. After 40 years on the force, 68-year-old Inspector Utsugi had retired. "I shall probably meet Tamotsu again one day," he sighed, "and I shall say: 'Are you behaving yourself?' He will answer: 'Ah, yes, I am just taking...
...book called Lincoln Fires a General (correct title: Lincoln Finds a General). President Folk's diary was interesting, too, and so was Washington's. Why, during the Civil War, said Student Truman, a Senate committee got hold of General Meade and used him like a pickpocket. The reporters leaped at the bait. Did that mean "General MacArthur was likely to be used as a pickpocket?" He was making no inferences, said Harry Truman, just pointing out that history had a way of repeating itself...