Grafters All: An offbeat Guide To Robbery - Eric Parr

Every year more than a million pounds, in money or goods, are stolen from honest citizens and stashed away by less honest ones. How is it done? The art of robbery has always been a mystery to the layman, but it need not be any longer.

In this amusing and startlingly informative book, Eric Parr (who has been a burglar himself and who retains unique contacts among the Fraternity, past and present) gives the low-down on the life, language and techniques of the modern grafter or criminal.

He describes in detail the methods of such artists as day-time and night-time house-breakers, ladder larcenists, receivers, burglars’ toolmakers, safe crackers, car thieves, wage snatchers, shop lifters, pick-pockets, confidence tricksters, pro- tection money racketeers — not forgetting the policemen and prison officers who have been known to become crooked, or, as the underworld prefers to put it, ‘straight’.

He introduces us to such colourful legendary figures as the Flying Scotsman, Sunblind Sammy, Drury Lane Dan and the Forty Thieves, and provides first-hand testimonies from successful operators in every branch of the game, from the top guv’nors down to the part-timers.