Word: takers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...THIEF-TAKER GENERAL, THE RISE AND FALL OF JONATHAN WILD by Gerald Howson. 338 pages. St. Martin's Press...
...nation in jail or out. Wild perfected England's first coherent system for detecting and arresting criminals. Yet his success at organizing crime detection was due to the fact that he took great care to organize the crime in the first place. He not only became the "Thief-Taker General of Great Britain and Ireland," as he took to calling himself; he was also the realm's principal thief...
Wild was not the first thief-taker to turn a profit in this trade; he was merely the most gifted. A proof of his talent was one of his creations known as the "Lost Property Office." Wild would approach a citizen from whom money or documents had been stolen (generally in a theft organized by Wild), and represent himself as a man whose crime-fighting had given him some knowledge of the underworld. Perhaps he could be of help. In a day or two-sometimes only a few hours-he would return with the suggestion that the citizen appear...
Beggar's Opera. Achievement such as Wild's does not go unnoticed, and one day in front of Old Bailey a betrayed colleague named Blueskin Blake tried to cut the Thief-Taker General's head off with a dull knife. He failed. In 1725, though, Wild was sentenced to be hanged by a corrupt judge (appropriately, on false evidence that he had received a bit of stolen lace). Wild died wealthy, though. During his career the reward for giving evidence rose from ?40 to ? 140, or from $2,000 to $7,000 in modern money, as Author...
POPE BROCK as Jack Sheppard is excellent. He is self-assured and at the same time suitably wide-eved and innocent. David Gullette as the Thief-Taker General scowls meanly and reads his lines with precise meter and intonation. Senelick is good at developing expert character actors; Dribbling Wilf ("a criminal mastermind of the first water"), played by E. Mackenzie, has remarkable facial control and an admirable ability to salivate. The Incredible Porty McFigg (Lawrence F. Uhl) cats glass, strangles rats with his teeth, roars and grunts and pounds in his pornography-painted chest, all with considerable glee...