she also took care of his personal appearance, and equipped him generally for an A No. 1 pickpocket. Women are much the same, I believe, in every rank of life.

It was at this time, when I was a kid of fifteen, that I first met Sheenie Annie, who was a famous shop-lifter. She was twenty-one years old, and used to give me good advice. "Keep away from heavy workers," (burglars) she would say; "there is a big bit in that." She had lived in Graftdom ever since she was a tid-bit, and she knew what she was talking about. I did not work with her until several years later, but I might as well tell her sad story now. I may say, as a kind of preface, that I have always liked the girl grafter who could take care of herself instead of sucking the blood out of some man. When I find a little working girl who has no other ambition than to get a little home together, with a little knick-knack on the wall, a little husband and a little child, I don't care for her. She is a nonentity. But such was not Sheenie Annie, who was a bright, intelligent, ambitious, girl; when she liked a fellow she would do anything for him, but otherwise she wouldn't let a man come near her.

The little Jewish lassie, named Annie, was born in the toughest part of New York. Later on, as she advanced in years and became an expert pilferer, she was given the nickname of "Sheenie." She was brought up on the street, surrounded by thieves and prostitutes. Her only education was what she received during a year or two in the public school. She lived near Grand Street, then a popular shopping district. As a very little girl she and a friend used to visit the drygoods stores and steal any little notion they could. There was a crowd of young pickpockets in her street, and she soon got on to this graft, and became so skilful at it that older guns of both sexes were eager to take her under their tuition and finish her education. The first time I met her was in a well-known dance-hall—Billy McGlory's—and we became friends at once, for she was a good girl and full of mischief. She was not pretty, exactly, but she was passable. She was small, with thick lips, plump, had good teeth and eyes as fine and piercing as any I ever saw in man or woman. She dressed well and was a good talker, as nimble-witted and as good a judge of human nature as I ever met in her sex.

Sheenie Annie's graft broadened, and from dipping and small shop-lifting she rose to a position where she doubled up with a mob of clever hotel workers, and made large amounts of money. Here was a girl from the lowest stratum of life, not pretty or well shaped, but whom men admired because of her wit and cleverness. A big contractor in Philadelphia was her friend for years. I have seen letters from him offering to marry her. But she had something better.

For she was an artist at "penny-weighting" and "hoisting." The police admitted that she was unusually clever at these two grafts, and they treated her with every consideration. Penny-weighting is a very "slick" graft. It is generally worked in pairs, by either sex or both sexes. A man, for instance, enters a jewelry store and looks at some diamond rings on a tray. He prices them and notes the costly ones. Then he goes to a fauny shop (imitation jewelry) and buys a few diamonds which match the real ones he has noted. Then he and his pal, usually a woman, enter the jewelry store and ask to see the rings. Through some little "con" they distract the jeweler's attention, and then one of them (and at this Sheenie Annie was particularly good) substitutes the bogus diamonds for the good ones; and leaves the store without making a purchase.

I can give an example of how Sheenie Annie "hoisted," from my own experience with her. On one occasion, when I was about eighteen years old, Sheenie and I were on a racket together. We had been "going it" for several days and needed some dough. We went into a large tailoring establishment, where I tried on some clothes, as a stall. Nothing suited me.—I took good care of that—but in the meantime Annie had taken two costly overcoats, folded them into flat bundles, and, raising her skirt quickly, had hidden the overcoats between her legs. We left the store together. She walked so straight that I thought she had got nothing, but when we entered a saloon a block away, and the swag was produced, I was forced to laugh. We "fenced" the overcoats and with the proceeds continued our spree.

Once Sheenie "fell" at this line of graft. She had stolen some costly sealskins from a well-known furrier, and had got away with them. But on her third visit to the place she came to grief. She was going out with a sealskin coat under her skirt when the office-boy, who was skylarking about, ran into her, and upset her. When the salesman, who had gone to her rescue, lifted her up, she lost her grip on the sealskin sacque, and it fell to the floor. It was a "blow," of course, and she got nailed, but as she had plenty of fall-money, and a well-known politician dead to rights, she only got nine months in the penitentiary.

Sheenie Annie was such a good shop-lifter that, with only an umbrella as a stall, she could make more money in a week than a poor needle-woman could earn in months. But she did not care for the money. She was a good fellow, and was in for fun. She was "wise," too, and I liked to talk to her, for she understood what I said, and was up to snuff, which was very piquant to me. She had done most of the grafts that I had done myself, and her tips were always valuable.

To show what a good fellow she was, her sweetheart, Jack, and another burglar named Jerry were doing night work once, when they were unlucky enough to be nailed. Sheenie Annie went on the stand and swore perjury in order to save Jack. He got a year, but Jerry, who had committed the same crime, got six. While he was in prison Annie visited him and put up a plan by which he escaped, but he would not leave New York with her, and was caught and returned to "stir." Annie herself fell in half a dozen cities, but never received more than a few months. After I was released from serving my second bit in the "pen," I heard Annie had died insane. An old girl pal of hers told me that she had died a horrible death, and that her last words were about her old friends and companions. Her disease was that which attacks only people with brains. She died of paresis.

Two other girls whom I knew when I was fifteen turned out to be famous shop-lifters—Big Lena and Blonde Mamie, who afterwards married Tommy, the famous cracksman. They began to graft when they were about fourteen, and Mamie and I used to work together. I was Mamie's first "fellow," and we had royal good times together. Lena, poor girl, is now doing five years in London, but she was one of the most cheerful Molls I ever knew. I met her and Mamie for the first time one day as they were coming out of an oyster house on Grand Street. I thought they were good-looking tid-bits, and took them to a picnic. We were so late that instead of going home Mamie and I spent the night at the house of Lena's sister, whose husband was a receiver of stolen goods, or "fence," as it is popularly called. In the morning Lena, Mamie and I made our first "touch" together. We got a few "books" uptown, and Mamie banged a satchel at Sterns. After that we often jumped out together, and took in the excursions. Sometimes Mamie or Lena would dip and I would stall, but more frequently I was the pick. We used to turn our swag over to Lena's sister's husband, Max, who would give us about one-sixth of its value.

These three girls certainly were a crack-a-jack trio. You can't find their likes nowadays. Even in my time most of the girls I knew did not amount to anything. They