A Pickpocket's Tale

If you read one biography/memoir of a Gilded Age criminal, make it this one. It tells the story (often in his own words) of the celebrated pickpocket George Appo, an odd little half-Chinese, half-Irish, one-eyed fellow who could make $800 in a few days when most working men made less than that in a year. Appo would rivet New Yorkers when he testified about his second career as a “green goods” con man, working to swindle gullible out-of-towners who came to buy purported counterfeit money at a discount, only to discover that there was nothing but sawdust inside the packages… show more.

Once upon a time in the nineteenth century, George Appo was one of the most famous criminals in New York City. The son of immigrants—a Chinese father and Irish mother—he grew up in the dirty, rotten Five Points neighborhood, where he learned to con, steal, fight, and outrun the police. In and out of prison, teaming up with gangs, and frequenting the opium dens where Bohemianism flourished, Appo knew every swindle and dodge on the street. But, as he once told a judge, he did not consider himself a “bad character.” Indeed, this intricately researched, beautifully written book demonstrates that… show more.