A pickpocket's tale : the underworld of nineteenth-century New York

**"A remarkable tale."―__Chicago Tribune__** In George Appo's world, child pickpockets swarmed the crowded streets, addicts drifted in furtive opium dens, and expert swindlers worked the lucrative green-goods game. On a good night Appo made as much as a skilled laborer made in a year. Bad nights left him with more than a dozen scars and over a decade in prisons from the Tombs and Sing Sing to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he reunited with another inmate, his father. The child of Irish and Chinese immigrants, Appo grew up in the notorious Five Points and Chinatown neighborhoods. He rose as an exemplar of the "good fellow," a criminal who relied on wile, who followed a code of loyalty even in his world of deception. Here is the underworld of the New York that gave us Edith Wharton, Boss Tweed, Central Park, and the Brooklyn Bridge. 60 illustrations

"A remarkable tale."—Chicago Tribune

Publishers Weekly

George Appo, the antihero of this fascinating historical study, was a pickpocket and con man who gained notoriety after testifying in 1894 about police corruption and even played himself on Broadway. Historian Gilfoyle, who in City of Eros wrote about prostitution in New York, uses Appo's autobiography as a starting point for an exploration of the urban demimonde and the varieties of criminal experience in the Gilded Age. We follow Appo through Gotham's teeming sidewalks and streetcars as he casually picks pockets for spending money and then smokes it away in opium dens where the classes and races mingle. Sooner or later he runs afoul of New York's police and court system, almost as corrupt and chaotic as the criminal subculture they regulate. Then he's off to an archipelago of correctional institutions, from a shipboard reform school to Sing Sing, a prison-industrial hellhole where convicts are contracted out as factory laborers and disciplined with such tortures as the "weighing machine." Gilfoyle paints a Hogarthian cityscape peopled with gang ruffians, gentleman swindlers, dirty politicians, cunning shysters and evangelical reformers, all depicted with a sympathetic understanding of the rigors of life on the margins. The result is a colorful, evocative social history. 60 illus. (Aug.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

"George Appo, the antihero of this fascinating historical study, was a pickpocket and con man who gained notoriety after testifying in 1894 about police corruption and even played himself on Broadway. Historian Gilfoyle, who in City of Eros wrote about prostitution in New York, uses Appo's autobiography as a starting point for an exploration of the urban demimonde and the varieties of criminal experience in the Gilded Age. We follow Appo through Gotham's teeming sidewalks and streetcars as he casually picks pockets for spending money and then smokes it away in opium dens where the classes and races mingle. Sooner or later he runs afoul of New York's police and court system, almost as corrupt and chaotic as the criminal subculture they regulate. Then he's off to an archipelago of correctional institutions, from a shipboard reform school to Sing Sing, a prison-industrial hellhole where convicts are contracted out as factory laborers and disciplined with such tortures as the "weighing machine." Gilfoyle paints a Hogarthian cityscape peopled with gang ruffians, gentleman swindlers, dirty politicians, cunning shysters and evangelical reformers, all depicted with a sympathetic understanding of the rigors of life on the margins. The result is a colorful, evocative social history. 60 illus." [From Publishers Weekly, Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.] A Pickpocket's Tale Is A Fascinating True-crime Story. Gilfoyle Uses George Appo's Unpublished Memoirs To Re-create The World Of The Nineteenth-century Criminal In Astonishing Detail. George Appo Was Half Irish, Half Chinese Who Became A Pickpocket At The Tender Age Of Twelve. He Was First Arrested At Age Fourteen And Sentenced To A Year On A Prison Ship For Juvenile Offenders Served . In And Out Of Prisons, He Became An Expert Pickpocket, Making Hundreds Of Dollars A Night--the Annual Wage Of A Skilled Laborer. By His Early Twenties He Was A Regular Patron Of New York's Opium And Prostitution Dens. But Despite Many Years In Prison And Being Wounded Several Times He Managed To Die Of Old Age At Age Seven-four. The Trials Of Quimbo Appo -- Urchins, Arabs, And Gutter-snipes -- A House Of Refuge At Sea -- Appo On: Violence -- Factories For Turning Out Criminals -- The Guns Of Gotham -- Drafted -- Opium Dens And Bohemia -- The Old Homestead -- The Dives -- Appo On: Jack Collins -- Tombs Justice -- Appo On: Good Fellows -- Fences -- That Galling Yoke Of Servitude -- Danny Driscoll And The Whyos -- Eastern State Penitentiary -- Green Goods -- Appo On: Jersey City -- Poughkeepsie -- Appo On: Stealing Guys -- The Lexow Committee -- In The Tenderloin -- A Marked Man -- Buried Alive -- A Genuine Reformation . Timothy J. Gilfoyle. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. "A remarkable tale."― Chicago Tribune In George Appo's world, child pickpockets swarmed the crowded streets, addicts drifted in furtive opium dens, and expert swindlers worked the lucrative green-goods game. On a good night Appo made as much as a skilled laborer made in a year. Bad nights left him with more than a dozen scars and over a decade in prisons from the Tombs and Sing Sing to the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he reunited with another inmate, his father. The child of Irish and Chinese immigrants, Appo grew up in the notorious Five Points and Chinatown neighborhoods. He rose as an exemplar of the "good fellow," a criminal who relied on wile, who followed a code of loyalty even in his world of deception. Here is the underworld of the New York that gave us Edith Wharton, Boss Tweed, Central Park, and the Brooklyn Bridge. 60 illustrations A portrait of professional con man and underworld figure George Appo traces his childhood in the notorious Five Points and Chinatown neighborhoods, his incarcerations in such prisons as the Tombs and Sing Sing, and his stint in the Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, where he was reunited with his inmate father.