The original Fagin?

At an examination of four boys, detected at picking pockets, before the lord mayor, one of them, admitted an evidence, gave the following account.

A man, who kept a public house near Fleet-market, had a club of boys, whom he instructed in picking pockets, and other iniquitous practices. He began by teaching them to pick a handkerchief out of his own pocket, and next his watch, by which means the evidence, at last, became so great an adept, that he got the publican's watch four times in one evening, when the master swore that his scholar was as perfect as one of twenty years practice. The pilfering out of shops was the next art.

In this, his instructions to his pupils were, that at such chandlers, or other shops, as had hatches, one boy should knock for admittance for some trifle, whilst another was lying on his belly, close to the hatch, who, when the first boy came out, the hatch remaining on jar, and the owner being withdrawn, was to crawl in, on all fours, and take the tills, or any thing else he could meet with,
and to retire in the same manner.

Breaking into shops by night was the third article; which was to be effected thus. As brick walls under shop-windows are generally very  thin, two of them were to lie under a shop window as destitute beggars, asleep, in appearance, to passers by; but, when alone, were with pickers to pick the mortar out of the bricks, and so on, till they had opened a hole big enough to go in, when one was to lie as if asleep before the breach, till the other accomplished his purpose.