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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
480 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
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July 7, 2016
My own records tell me that somewhere in Brooklyn on February 21, 2015 I spotted A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York. I took a picture of the cover with my phone, a digital reminder to request it from the library later.
Request I did, putting me in the NYPL queue with three other adventuresome souls. Little did any of us know that this simple act would embroil we three damned souls in a tumultuous adventure that spanned nearly five seasons and continues until this very moment. At present I am wearing the mantle of Overdue Overlord; the book needed to be returned at the end of June, yet here we are solidly in July and still it sits next to me as I type.
It took me months! years! well, year!…it took a long time for me to get this book. I have decided not to return it until I am sure I do not want to see it again. I will pay the fine—bend the library-loan system beyond its intention—happily. As it was before me, so it shall remain: how else could I explain a seventeen-month waiting period before I got the book? It was three, three (that magic number) before me, as you well know—the cursed holder of the book and my two fellow queue-compatriots. I know that the maximum length of a single loan allowed per person, if you run every angle, is four weeks for a non-new release: one week sitting on the shelf in your branch from the day it flips from “in-transit” to “available for pickup,” and three weeks in your actual hands. After a bit of simple math, three months plus a bit of transit time was the expectation when I clicked “place hold back in early 2015. How naïve I was, those halcyon days; what terror befell those that held the book e’er I got my mitts upon it I cannot yet begin to fathom.
This gentle, wide-eyed calculation never did account for the borrowers caveats, of which there are a few: self-renewal, which restarts the three-week borrow from the date of the renew request, obliterating whatever the old due date was; holiday and weekend library closures and unreturnable dates, which round up for the borrower. In fact, I relied upon the Fourth of July to cut two whole days out of my current overdue fee, a savings of fifty cents that I will or did use to purchase a banana sometime today (or yesterday, or last week, depending on when you’re reading this). But there was no fourteen-month holiday, and I know from my own oft-futile and pointlessly vigorous clicking that renewal requests fail if someone else has a prior pending hold. So while I flinch when fees stack above a single load of laundry, someone, it seems, owes more than simple math can handle.
I am aware of the vicious cycle to which I contribute. I continue to check on the current library queue status, to see the fate of those mine own self damns to purgatory. Three sad souls—forevermore, there must always be three—now wait in line for the singular library copy of A Pickpocket’s Tale. My copy. And here I sit, knowingly thwarting their goal, creating their misery, expanding their quiet desperation. I know not who they are, but I know I that I, too, was once like them. And now—well, we know what power absolute does to one that seizes it. They, my nameless, faceless patrons, cannot begin the borrowing process until I relinquish my physical control. And if they—like I did when we were the same—are checking the return due date, they know I’ve gone rogue. They know the unflappable timeline of “should” has collapsed into abyssal chaos. I might hold A Pickpocket’s Tale for fourteen months. It might never come back. Nothing is fair, and everything is possible.
What can I say? It’s all I’ve ever known, the waiting waiting waiting that this book engenders, the need to break the rules to do what must be done, the sense that the game is rigged, the desire to be a “Good Fellow in the eyes and estimation of the underworld; a nervy crook, a money getter and spender.” Maybe not that last one, since it is merely social abrogation and not flaunting the law to purposefully withhold a library book—the fines care not whether you forget or scheme—but I am willing to do my piece, pay my fine. “A good fellow valiantly accepted the consequences and punishments of an arrest, even if the crime was committed by another.” That sounds like me but for library books.
I do feel a twinge of guilt for those three poor marks waiting for my greedy gambol to end:
Not as monstrous, at least, as the narratives I constructed whilst I was the one awaiting the book, the prelude to my eventual descent into quasi-criminal withholding. It did, given months of expectations, seem inescapable for A Picketpocket’s Tale to be a bit less exciting than the surrounding kerfuffle. I braced myself for the modern notion of non-fiction, a tight and basically fictive narrative with some truth mixed in here and there, but instead the book takes excerpts from the journal of George Appo, titular pickpocket, and employs them as jumping-off points for intense discourse about nineteenth-century New York. That is, to be fair, the subtitle of the book, but having an accurate subtitle seems to be the exception and not the rule. The book’s pace makes it feel much older than its ten years, though it only predates Too Big To Fail by three years, the Maginot Line by which I delineate classic, slow, non-fiction and storyteller’s fly-on-the-wall true-crime-style dramatic non-fiction.
A Pickpocket’s Tale is non-fiction that is not afraid to derail itself to make sure its reader has the context required to understand that point. The full context. Sometimes, it’s didactic just for fun:
It is this ultimate distillate of non-fiction that is the unsettling part. Facts come at you in an intense, timeless manner—if you’re being told about the prison ship Mercury, for example, it simply wouldn’t do to only learn about when Appo was aboard the ship. No, context is key: first, why Appo was sentenced to Mercury, then what it was, how it came into being, the financial and political troubles it faced, its overall impact on society, its lasting legacy, then you circle back around to discuss in detail Appo’s stay aboard the ship and how it impacted his personality and actions in direct and indirect ways. It certainly is didactic, and it happens for nearly every object, person, institution, and social movement that intersected with George Appo’s life.
Learning ever in and out of New York in the late 1800s adds a lush context to the book, to the life of a pickpocket, and to his words when you actually get to read them. Yet it is a very slow way to tell a story. Not as slow as procuring a copy, of course; consider that foreshadowing.
Request I did, putting me in the NYPL queue with three other adventuresome souls. Little did any of us know that this simple act would embroil we three damned souls in a tumultuous adventure that spanned nearly five seasons and continues until this very moment. At present I am wearing the mantle of Overdue Overlord; the book needed to be returned at the end of June, yet here we are solidly in July and still it sits next to me as I type.
It took me months! years! well, year!…it took a long time for me to get this book. I have decided not to return it until I am sure I do not want to see it again. I will pay the fine—bend the library-loan system beyond its intention—happily. As it was before me, so it shall remain: how else could I explain a seventeen-month waiting period before I got the book? It was three, three (that magic number) before me, as you well know—the cursed holder of the book and my two fellow queue-compatriots. I know that the maximum length of a single loan allowed per person, if you run every angle, is four weeks for a non-new release: one week sitting on the shelf in your branch from the day it flips from “in-transit” to “available for pickup,” and three weeks in your actual hands. After a bit of simple math, three months plus a bit of transit time was the expectation when I clicked “place hold back in early 2015. How naïve I was, those halcyon days; what terror befell those that held the book e’er I got my mitts upon it I cannot yet begin to fathom.
This gentle, wide-eyed calculation never did account for the borrowers caveats, of which there are a few: self-renewal, which restarts the three-week borrow from the date of the renew request, obliterating whatever the old due date was; holiday and weekend library closures and unreturnable dates, which round up for the borrower. In fact, I relied upon the Fourth of July to cut two whole days out of my current overdue fee, a savings of fifty cents that I will or did use to purchase a banana sometime today (or yesterday, or last week, depending on when you’re reading this). But there was no fourteen-month holiday, and I know from my own oft-futile and pointlessly vigorous clicking that renewal requests fail if someone else has a prior pending hold. So while I flinch when fees stack above a single load of laundry, someone, it seems, owes more than simple math can handle.
I am aware of the vicious cycle to which I contribute. I continue to check on the current library queue status, to see the fate of those mine own self damns to purgatory. Three sad souls—forevermore, there must always be three—now wait in line for the singular library copy of A Pickpocket’s Tale. My copy. And here I sit, knowingly thwarting their goal, creating their misery, expanding their quiet desperation. I know not who they are, but I know I that I, too, was once like them. And now—well, we know what power absolute does to one that seizes it. They, my nameless, faceless patrons, cannot begin the borrowing process until I relinquish my physical control. And if they—like I did when we were the same—are checking the return due date, they know I’ve gone rogue. They know the unflappable timeline of “should” has collapsed into abyssal chaos. I might hold A Pickpocket’s Tale for fourteen months. It might never come back. Nothing is fair, and everything is possible.
What can I say? It’s all I’ve ever known, the waiting waiting waiting that this book engenders, the need to break the rules to do what must be done, the sense that the game is rigged, the desire to be a “Good Fellow in the eyes and estimation of the underworld; a nervy crook, a money getter and spender.” Maybe not that last one, since it is merely social abrogation and not flaunting the law to purposefully withhold a library book—the fines care not whether you forget or scheme—but I am willing to do my piece, pay my fine. “A good fellow valiantly accepted the consequences and punishments of an arrest, even if the crime was committed by another.” That sounds like me but for library books.
I do feel a twinge of guilt for those three poor marks waiting for my greedy gambol to end:
Pickpockets referred to their accomplices (numbering two to six) as “mobs.” The streets, parks, or trolleys where they worked were “beats.” Pocketbooks were “leathers,” and money was a “roll.” The actual larceny was a “touch,” which was performed by a “wire,” a “pick,” a “bugger,” or a “tool,” while “stalls distracted or jostled the victim.Oh, I was hoping for a cute name for victims, like “mark.” That kind of deflates my romanticized notion of crime as well as my ability to downplay my selfish actions. Yes, of course, those foolish victims waiting patiently past the time the book was due. Those victims that expected me to do what I agreed to do when I joined the library lending system. Yes, that doesn’t sound monstrous of me at all.
Not as monstrous, at least, as the narratives I constructed whilst I was the one awaiting the book, the prelude to my eventual descent into quasi-criminal withholding. It did, given months of expectations, seem inescapable for A Picketpocket’s Tale to be a bit less exciting than the surrounding kerfuffle. I braced myself for the modern notion of non-fiction, a tight and basically fictive narrative with some truth mixed in here and there, but instead the book takes excerpts from the journal of George Appo, titular pickpocket, and employs them as jumping-off points for intense discourse about nineteenth-century New York. That is, to be fair, the subtitle of the book, but having an accurate subtitle seems to be the exception and not the rule. The book’s pace makes it feel much older than its ten years, though it only predates Too Big To Fail by three years, the Maginot Line by which I delineate classic, slow, non-fiction and storyteller’s fly-on-the-wall true-crime-style dramatic non-fiction.
A Pickpocket’s Tale is non-fiction that is not afraid to derail itself to make sure its reader has the context required to understand that point. The full context. Sometimes, it’s didactic just for fun:
Origins of the term “dive” are difficult to pinpoint. Mid-nineteenth-century New Yorkers apparently employed the word to describe disreputable drinking establishments located in basements, thereby requiring patrons to figuratively “dive” into them to escape public view. One reporter defined a dive as “a place that is low down, beneath the street level, and is devoted to drinking or dancing.” By the 1880s, however, many accepted police detective Thomas Byrnes’s assumption that a dive was any unlicensed leisure establishment: a house of prostitution, gambling den, policy office, or opium den.I love a good fact, uncovering the origin of the word “dive” is the type of gem that makes slow books like this worth reading.
It is this ultimate distillate of non-fiction that is the unsettling part. Facts come at you in an intense, timeless manner—if you’re being told about the prison ship Mercury, for example, it simply wouldn’t do to only learn about when Appo was aboard the ship. No, context is key: first, why Appo was sentenced to Mercury, then what it was, how it came into being, the financial and political troubles it faced, its overall impact on society, its lasting legacy, then you circle back around to discuss in detail Appo’s stay aboard the ship and how it impacted his personality and actions in direct and indirect ways. It certainly is didactic, and it happens for nearly every object, person, institution, and social movement that intersected with George Appo’s life.
Learning ever in and out of New York in the late 1800s adds a lush context to the book, to the life of a pickpocket, and to his words when you actually get to read them. Yet it is a very slow way to tell a story. Not as slow as procuring a copy, of course; consider that foreshadowing.
February 28, 2025
Absolutely bonkers amount of research here
February 9, 2013
In the gas-lit world of nineteenth century New York lurked a class of men who considered themselves “professional thieves” and who spoke their own language, which the novelist Herman Melville called “that foulest of all human lingoes.” One man privy to this jargon was George Appo. The son of a Chinese tea merchant father and an Irish immigrant mother, Appo would grow up as an orphan adrift in New York’s roughest district, Five Points. Though once a successful businessman, his father Quimbo was haunted by secrets of a criminal past in the California gold fields. Soon after George’s birth, Quimbo’s prior misdeeds divided the family. The young George was left with his mother while his father was packed off to Sing Sing to serve time for the murder of Mexican prospectors. Unable to care for her child, Catherine Appo left George with a friend in Five Points. In order to survive in this impoverished world of brazen prostitutes, corrupt policemen, and indolent addicts, George Appo cultivated the art of picking pockets and became a “good fellow” crook. Though unable to read or write for much of his life, Appo penned his autobiography with the help of a fellow inmate during one of the many prison sentences he served as an adult. This manuscript serves as the foundation for Timothy Gilfoyle’s A Pickpocket’s Tale, which adds flesh to the skeletal structure of Appo’s narrative to provide a comprehensive overview of criminality, courts, and incarceration in the era of Boss Tweed.
This tale is populated with percentage coppers, swaggering politicians, inert opium addicts, and dance hall girls, who fit Dickensian stereotypes, but Gilfoyle skillfully avoids overdramatizing the narrative. Through its portrayal of Appo as a relatable antihero, the text argues that the illicit careers chosen by people like George Appo were adopted as a way to survive and escape burdensome social and economic conditions. Criminality provided an appealing and more lucrative alternative to dangerous 13-cents-per-hour gigs in steel mills and other factories. Unfortunately, crime came at a cost. The stigma of any previous incarceration or involvement in criminal activity marked a man for life in New York, making less influential criminals easy prey for policemen and political machines.
As a child pickpocket and later as a participant in the “green goods game,” a counterfeiting swindle, serving time was a regular occurrence for Appo. Appo’s autobiography provides brief snippets of his experience in some of the most notorious correctional institutions of his day, including the Mercury packet ship for criminal youth, Blackwell’s Island, Sing Sing, Clinton and the Tombs. Gilfoyle builds upon these succinct anecdotes to detail the institutional framework set up to deal with the dispossessed, the poor, and the mentally ill flitting from shadow to shadow in the alleyways of the metropolis. His writing exposes the corruption of the legal system in order to finally give George Appo a fair trial, albeit both posthumously and metaphorically.
The discerning reader will wonder why, in a work focused on a mixed race thief inhabiting an era characterized by the Great Migration and such legislation as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, Gilfoyle does not address the salience of race relations in this burgeoning and diverse metropolis. Despite deficiencies such as this omission of a discussion of race relations in the New York underworld, this text invites both scholarly and recreational historians into a criminal environment made possible by gaslight and mass transportation while still conveying a successful argument. Gilfoyle’s work showcases an innovative way to integrate a primary source document into an important narrative of the city’s underworld while illuminating the distinctive voice of a forgotten figure who, despite experiencing all aspects of the criminal justice system and boasting involvement in several criminal networks, might otherwise remain unknown to all but a few scholarly readers in the Columbia University archives. By delving into each detail provided in Appo’s autobiography, Gilfoyle uncovers the world of the marginalized without exaggeration or sensationalism. He carves a place in history for Appo and his vilified compatriots, ultimately reframing traditional historical narratives by elevating “history from below.”
This tale is populated with percentage coppers, swaggering politicians, inert opium addicts, and dance hall girls, who fit Dickensian stereotypes, but Gilfoyle skillfully avoids overdramatizing the narrative. Through its portrayal of Appo as a relatable antihero, the text argues that the illicit careers chosen by people like George Appo were adopted as a way to survive and escape burdensome social and economic conditions. Criminality provided an appealing and more lucrative alternative to dangerous 13-cents-per-hour gigs in steel mills and other factories. Unfortunately, crime came at a cost. The stigma of any previous incarceration or involvement in criminal activity marked a man for life in New York, making less influential criminals easy prey for policemen and political machines.
As a child pickpocket and later as a participant in the “green goods game,” a counterfeiting swindle, serving time was a regular occurrence for Appo. Appo’s autobiography provides brief snippets of his experience in some of the most notorious correctional institutions of his day, including the Mercury packet ship for criminal youth, Blackwell’s Island, Sing Sing, Clinton and the Tombs. Gilfoyle builds upon these succinct anecdotes to detail the institutional framework set up to deal with the dispossessed, the poor, and the mentally ill flitting from shadow to shadow in the alleyways of the metropolis. His writing exposes the corruption of the legal system in order to finally give George Appo a fair trial, albeit both posthumously and metaphorically.
The discerning reader will wonder why, in a work focused on a mixed race thief inhabiting an era characterized by the Great Migration and such legislation as the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, Gilfoyle does not address the salience of race relations in this burgeoning and diverse metropolis. Despite deficiencies such as this omission of a discussion of race relations in the New York underworld, this text invites both scholarly and recreational historians into a criminal environment made possible by gaslight and mass transportation while still conveying a successful argument. Gilfoyle’s work showcases an innovative way to integrate a primary source document into an important narrative of the city’s underworld while illuminating the distinctive voice of a forgotten figure who, despite experiencing all aspects of the criminal justice system and boasting involvement in several criminal networks, might otherwise remain unknown to all but a few scholarly readers in the Columbia University archives. By delving into each detail provided in Appo’s autobiography, Gilfoyle uncovers the world of the marginalized without exaggeration or sensationalism. He carves a place in history for Appo and his vilified compatriots, ultimately reframing traditional historical narratives by elevating “history from below.”
August 13, 2018
A Pickpocket’s Tale follows the life of George Appo who evolved from the proverbial hard knock life of five points to become an informant for a commission looking into crime. During his tenure he would go from pickpocket to opium addict to confidence man engaging in a variety of money making schemes. He would serve time in almost every correction institute in the area including Boys' House of Refuge, Blackwell's Island, Sing Sing, Dannemora, Matteawan, Eastern State Penitentiary, and the Tombs. His tenure in prison is well captured here and the downfalls of penal life at the time are discussed. This book takes Appo’s life and uses it to explore broader social contexts of life in NYC during the Gilded Age for the criminal classes who were locked in a vicious cycle. The book is well written and keeps the story moving with snippets from Appo’s autobiography supplemented by sound historical research of the events they portray. For those interested in Gilded Age life this is a great read and one that should not be missed. Also good for those interested in the prison history of the area and time period.
October 18, 2018
An entertaining and enlightening bio about a "Good Fellow" from the 19th century. Good background on the methods of crime in that era.
April 21, 2011
A little disconcerting to find that instead of a straight-up history of George Appo, Gilfoyle takes snippets of Appo's unpublished autobiography and takes every single rabbit trail in sight. In other words, if you're interested in various members of the underworld, police corruption, the predominant scams of the day, what the court system was like, what Sing Sing was like (or the hospital for the criminally insane, or many many other places of incarceration, including a ship intended to teach young male offenders to be sailors), who was running the gangs, what the inside of an opium den was like - well, you see what I mean. It's heavy, and very dry at times. What kept me reading was the sheer magnitude of the chaos in New York at that time. Gilfoyle captures that element well. And I've got to say, the names they had for the city and it's institutions are awesome American Gothic - Gotham, The Tombs, the Bowery, Hell's Kitchen, the Tenderloin - they add truckloads of atmosphere. The book succeeded in presenting a very broad picture of what life was like on the wrong side of the law in those days. Not an easy read.
April 24, 2018
I picked up this book because I wanted to learn more about the criminal underworld of Gilded Age New York and it delivered. Gilfoyle manages to both tell the sad story of George Appo and cover a variety of topics including pickpocketing, grafting, police corruption, opium dens, gangs, the different "big" prisons (Sing Sing, The Tombs, Blackwell's, etc), the Luxow Committee, the early sparks of organized crime, and more. The only thing missing is prostitution, but Gilfoyle has another book on that. Great read.
July 30, 2015
This was a great non-fiction account of underworld NYC in the 19th Century based on the memoir of a former pickpocket and confidence man that was fleshed out with multitudes of interesting research about prisons, drug use, and other details so often brushed-over. Very well done.
January 7, 2019
Using George Appo's autobiography the author wrote a meticulously researched account of 19th century New York crime and punishment. Timothy Gilfoyle goes into great detail about the criminal underworld, fashionable opiate abuse, the mostly horrific state of the criminal justice system, prison conditions, mental institutions and the very rigged state of affairs at the time. It definitely was not designed for anyone to succeed when going through any of these systems.
This was very interesting to me, but maybe I would only recommend to people who have a serious interest in these types of histories. Fascinating and well written book if you have a strong interest in 19th century New York crime scene and prison history. 4 stars and best reads pile.
This was very interesting to me, but maybe I would only recommend to people who have a serious interest in these types of histories. Fascinating and well written book if you have a strong interest in 19th century New York crime scene and prison history. 4 stars and best reads pile.
August 21, 2019
I don't feel it is quite fair for me to rate this book seeing as how it was completely different than what I expected, and not in a good way. I expected the story of George Appo to be told more as a story, but this was more of a history lesson. The book detailed how corrupt both the law enforcement and the corrections side of the criminal justice system was. The biggest concept I noted was how once an individual started down the slippery slope toward living a life of crime, how hard it was to come back up. The system, along with society, made it impossible. Appo on numerous occasion said he wanted to live an honest life, but the world made it impossible for him. For those who grew up poor and without during this era, the world was against them.
December 15, 2019
Half of the book revolved around the central character who seems to be a bit of a lovable, non-violent roguish character who was simply a victim of his circumstances. The other half weaves a good history of the penal system, police, and the politics of the 19th century. Much like today, there was a lot of corruptibility and failures in all the avenues of the legal system especially for those with limited incomes. Abuse and torture ran rampant and it was also the age of experimentation with different ways to punish, train, or remove undesirables from the rest of the populous. It was interesting reading about the prison system in New York for the "professional criminal" at this time.
August 22, 2019
This was a fascinating look into the New York underworld and the prison industry of the 1800's.
Sadly much of the history seem oddly contemporary with no rehabilitation and poor mental health treatment in the penal system today. The prison industry is still run for profit with little over sight.
The poor and low level criminals receiving harsh punishments while the rich fat cats get a slap on the wrist.
Sadly much of the history seem oddly contemporary with no rehabilitation and poor mental health treatment in the penal system today. The prison industry is still run for profit with little over sight.
The poor and low level criminals receiving harsh punishments while the rich fat cats get a slap on the wrist.
December 4, 2021
Although the information was interesting, and I learned much about prisons, poverty, police corruption, and more in the 19th century, But the book seemed disjointed and rambling. It was not written in a way that caused me to rush to start reading each day, nor to not put the book down. But the knowledge gained kept me plugging away.
August 10, 2017
Pretty good, dry in a couple parts but very informative.
April 3, 2019
I enjoyed this book. It was interesting reading about New York and the characters and places that comprised it's underworld.
December 25, 2025
Really interesting book about the late 1800s in lower Manhattan, you can’t help but to sympathize and like George Appo, a legendary pickpocket and confidence man.
May 23, 2010
Reading nonfiction for pleasure is relatively new thing for me, and I still find that it takes me longer to get through this type of book. In A Pickpocket's Tale the author, Timothy Gilfoyle, spends the majority of the time writing about some pretty fantastic events in a very straightforward and informative tone. I suppose it kind of read like Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, if it had been a documentary.
Gilfoyle uses the memoirs of pickpocket and con artist George Appo as framework to investigate certain aspects of life as a criminal in the late 1800s. For example, an excerpt from Appo's autobiography about his time spent in Sing Sing Prison, or his opium addiction, or perpetrating a specific con known as the "Green Goods Game", is followed by a chapter giving more scholarly information about the prison, or opium dens, or the con.
I certainly learned a lot about 19th century prisons (Appo ended up serving time at five or six), and the savage methods of discipline they employed. Oddly the brutal punishment was often coupled with incredibly lax security, and the stories of well behaved prisoners being allowed to act as guards, and convicts leaving Blackwell Island by the dozens whenever they felt like it verge on the ridiculous. I especially enjoyed the chapter about the Mercury, a prison ship for boys which was owned by the city of New York and sailed the Atlantic. Its goal was to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents through a military schedule and nautical training. Mostly it just built better crooks though, and I think this is one of the points that Gilfoyle is getting at. Every form of incarceration mentioned in the book only serves to make Appo a more shrewd criminal.
I don't think this book would have work as well, if at all, without the incredible character of George Appo at its heart. Appo was short and scrappy, the son of a Chinese father and Irish Catholic mother who grew up on the streets of New York. After his father was jailed for murder he took to the streets and started picking pockets, at first to survive and later to sustain his opium addiction. Appo was a self described "good man" who never aimed to hurt anyone, though he was quick to jab somebody with his penknife in self defense. After first entering Sing Sing Prison he accidentally burned a shirt while ironing it and was brutally beaten as punishment. As soon as they sent him back to work, Appo promptly went and threw the whole pile of clothes in the furnace.
Later on in life though, Appo showed an uncanny tendency towards forgiveness. Once while Appo was helping pull a con on two bumpkins from the Carolinas, one of the marks was tipped off by a policeman that Appo was up to no good. Ira Hogshead shot George Appo in the head at point-blank range. Appo lost an eye and carried a bullet in his skull for the rest of his life. When Appo visited his attacker in jail he told the man, "Accidents will happen. I hope you will get out of this soon and I forgive you." Then he gave him advice on which lawyers were trustworthy.
I would really only recommend this book to people specifically interested in the subject matter, but it certainly did what it set out to do.
Gilfoyle uses the memoirs of pickpocket and con artist George Appo as framework to investigate certain aspects of life as a criminal in the late 1800s. For example, an excerpt from Appo's autobiography about his time spent in Sing Sing Prison, or his opium addiction, or perpetrating a specific con known as the "Green Goods Game", is followed by a chapter giving more scholarly information about the prison, or opium dens, or the con.
I certainly learned a lot about 19th century prisons (Appo ended up serving time at five or six), and the savage methods of discipline they employed. Oddly the brutal punishment was often coupled with incredibly lax security, and the stories of well behaved prisoners being allowed to act as guards, and convicts leaving Blackwell Island by the dozens whenever they felt like it verge on the ridiculous. I especially enjoyed the chapter about the Mercury, a prison ship for boys which was owned by the city of New York and sailed the Atlantic. Its goal was to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents through a military schedule and nautical training. Mostly it just built better crooks though, and I think this is one of the points that Gilfoyle is getting at. Every form of incarceration mentioned in the book only serves to make Appo a more shrewd criminal.
I don't think this book would have work as well, if at all, without the incredible character of George Appo at its heart. Appo was short and scrappy, the son of a Chinese father and Irish Catholic mother who grew up on the streets of New York. After his father was jailed for murder he took to the streets and started picking pockets, at first to survive and later to sustain his opium addiction. Appo was a self described "good man" who never aimed to hurt anyone, though he was quick to jab somebody with his penknife in self defense. After first entering Sing Sing Prison he accidentally burned a shirt while ironing it and was brutally beaten as punishment. As soon as they sent him back to work, Appo promptly went and threw the whole pile of clothes in the furnace.
Later on in life though, Appo showed an uncanny tendency towards forgiveness. Once while Appo was helping pull a con on two bumpkins from the Carolinas, one of the marks was tipped off by a policeman that Appo was up to no good. Ira Hogshead shot George Appo in the head at point-blank range. Appo lost an eye and carried a bullet in his skull for the rest of his life. When Appo visited his attacker in jail he told the man, "Accidents will happen. I hope you will get out of this soon and I forgive you." Then he gave him advice on which lawyers were trustworthy.
I would really only recommend this book to people specifically interested in the subject matter, but it certainly did what it set out to do.
May 29, 2010
This book is about George Appo, a man whose life experiences brought him into contact with most of the criminal justice institutions New York City and New York State had to offer between his birth in the 1850s through his death in 1930. The Boys' House of Refuge, Blackwell's Island, Sing Sing, Dannemora, Matteawan, Eastern State Penitentiary, the Tombs, opium dens, vaudeville, the Lexow Commission - it's all there. Gilfoyle was working from Appo's unpublished - and unpolished - autobiography to produce this account of his life and, more importantly for readers, to provide a tour through these various institutions. Gilfoyle must grapple with the fact that the different groups of which Appo was a member - newsboys, pickpockets, etc. - left minimal sources for historians to work with, and he does a good job of illuminating as much as he possibly can. He argues that the institutions that historians so often study - the family, the school, the workplace, the church - were essentially absent from Appo's life and the lives of many other comparable people.
My one major criticism of the book is that it doesn't do a very good job talking about why the "green goods game" would have been such a successful con in the last decades of the nineteenth century. (Basically, what happened in the "game" was that the con men advertised that they had counterfeit currency for sale, and then when a buyer showed up, they took his real money and gave him a package in exchange - a package that, when the buyer opened it, contained real currency, but was then switched when the buyer wasn't looking for one containing worthless paper or sawdust. The buyer couldn't go to the authorities about the con because the buyer himself had been attempting to do something illegal, namely, purchasing counterfeit currency.) After reading Stephen Mihm's excellent A Nation of Counterfeiters, I know that counterfeiting was extremely common for a host of reasons; the green goods game makes more sense coming from that longer history. Gilfoyle's book was published before Mihm's, so he certainly can't be held accountable, but the two works would be better in combination, and I do think it's a bit odd that Gilfoyle apparently didn't try to understand more about why this con would have been such a sure thing at the time.
I'm still thinking about whether I'll use it for my fall course or not; there is much to recommend it. In particular, I like that it's getting at the everyday life of people besides the middle and upper classes.
My one major criticism of the book is that it doesn't do a very good job talking about why the "green goods game" would have been such a successful con in the last decades of the nineteenth century. (Basically, what happened in the "game" was that the con men advertised that they had counterfeit currency for sale, and then when a buyer showed up, they took his real money and gave him a package in exchange - a package that, when the buyer opened it, contained real currency, but was then switched when the buyer wasn't looking for one containing worthless paper or sawdust. The buyer couldn't go to the authorities about the con because the buyer himself had been attempting to do something illegal, namely, purchasing counterfeit currency.) After reading Stephen Mihm's excellent A Nation of Counterfeiters, I know that counterfeiting was extremely common for a host of reasons; the green goods game makes more sense coming from that longer history. Gilfoyle's book was published before Mihm's, so he certainly can't be held accountable, but the two works would be better in combination, and I do think it's a bit odd that Gilfoyle apparently didn't try to understand more about why this con would have been such a sure thing at the time.
I'm still thinking about whether I'll use it for my fall course or not; there is much to recommend it. In particular, I like that it's getting at the everyday life of people besides the middle and upper classes.
June 17, 2013
I utterly HATED this book. For starters, I know it's non-fiction, but it read like a poorly written textbook. Secondly, It was so all over the place that I had a difficult time staying with it. It didn't hold my attention and, given the option, I would not read this book again. You couldn't PAY me to read this book again, actually. The topics were so scatterbrained and not fully developed. It would, literally, change who the main subject of the section was mid chapter, and wouldn't necessarily tie in Appo until much later. It also got confusing when they were talking about father and son at times. For part of the book, the father was referred to as "Quimbo Appo" or "Appo" and his son wasn't mentioned at all, or was referenced as "his son" or "George Appo". Once he was out of the picture, and they were predominantly discussing the son, he was referred to as "George Appo" or "Appo". Later in the book, when they were reunited, however briefly, they would go back and forth as to who was simply "Appo" and who had their first name interjected before the surname.
Also, had I not already known about some of the places discussed in these pages, I have a good feeling I would not know what was going on or where this guy was. I would say it would be great to use as a reference for a paper, but I'm not sure I'd really be able to find the information I was looking for within these pages again unless I highlighted or used post-its. Finally, in regards to certain facts, it took repetitive to a whole new level. I mean, I thought that The Iliad and Odyssey were repetitive with their constant repetition of epitaphs, but this made those seem like nothing. I honestly had to stop myself a few times because I thought I lost my page and was back a few chapters from the one I was reading. I'm pretty sure I read the same sentence in at least half a dozen places in this book. I jest not. If you aren't required to read it, I wouldn't.
Also, had I not already known about some of the places discussed in these pages, I have a good feeling I would not know what was going on or where this guy was. I would say it would be great to use as a reference for a paper, but I'm not sure I'd really be able to find the information I was looking for within these pages again unless I highlighted or used post-its. Finally, in regards to certain facts, it took repetitive to a whole new level. I mean, I thought that The Iliad and Odyssey were repetitive with their constant repetition of epitaphs, but this made those seem like nothing. I honestly had to stop myself a few times because I thought I lost my page and was back a few chapters from the one I was reading. I'm pretty sure I read the same sentence in at least half a dozen places in this book. I jest not. If you aren't required to read it, I wouldn't.
November 23, 2011
Gilfoyle takes the life of George Appo the son of immigrants, half Chinese, half Irish, to describe in detail the criminal world of late 19th century America. After a life of crime and numerous prison terms Appo wrote an autobiography which serves as the frame work of the story. We learn all kinds of interesting facts. The NYC "Tenderloin District" is so named because cops were so corrupt that they could eat tenderloin steaks any where in the district. Pickpocketing was a huge crime because without checks (or credit cards) people had to carry around lots of cash to do business. We learn about the "Green Goods Game" that flourished in the late 19th century bilking marks of millions. It was difficult to prosecute as laws against fraud were not yet established. If you were a victim of fraud it was your fault for being stupid. In an attempt at reforming young criminals Appo with a hundred other pickpocket kids were put as a crew on a sailing ship the Mercury for 6 months and traveled about the Atlantic to the shores of Africa to Rio de Janiero and back. Didn't work and was abandoned in a few years.
The book describes Sing Sing, the Tombs, insane asylums. It describes the opium dens (common, legal and frequented) and prostitution. It describes the then current common thinking that people were inherently criminals and that reform was really not possible.
Life was tough, mean and relentless especially tough for a poor person or a criminal.
I found the book interesting for these insights but I found the reading a bit tedious. If you want to know everything about the late 19th century criminal world in the US this is a must read. But it for me was a bit of a plod.
The book describes Sing Sing, the Tombs, insane asylums. It describes the opium dens (common, legal and frequented) and prostitution. It describes the then current common thinking that people were inherently criminals and that reform was really not possible.
Life was tough, mean and relentless especially tough for a poor person or a criminal.
I found the book interesting for these insights but I found the reading a bit tedious. If you want to know everything about the late 19th century criminal world in the US this is a must read. But it for me was a bit of a plod.
January 7, 2008
There's a fascinating tale or three in this book, but they're
nearly buried beneath a ton of statistical information and exhaustively detailed descriptions of the operations of prisons and primitive mental health facilities of 19th-century New York and the corruption and failures of NYC's police and court systems.
In his acknowledgments, the author notes that this book took over a decade to bring together, saying that he began writing it "with two parents and no children. It ends with no parents and two children." I appreciate the time and effort he put into it so I hate to say that he overwrote it, but I think he did.
Still, I got a lot out of it and have a much better perspective of what life was like in that time and place. I do recommend this book, but be prepared for a long, slow read.
A side note: I always pull up Google Maps to pinpoint locations whenever I'm reading history, to see if any original structures remain and what the areas look like now. While looking up places described in this book, I noticed that several, such as the prison at Sing Sing and the Matteawan State Hospital, seem to be deliberately blurred because the areas immediately surrounding them are very clear. Since these places still in some form of operation, is this a Homeland Security thing, do you think? Are there terror suspects being housed there, or what?
nearly buried beneath a ton of statistical information and exhaustively detailed descriptions of the operations of prisons and primitive mental health facilities of 19th-century New York and the corruption and failures of NYC's police and court systems.
In his acknowledgments, the author notes that this book took over a decade to bring together, saying that he began writing it "with two parents and no children. It ends with no parents and two children." I appreciate the time and effort he put into it so I hate to say that he overwrote it, but I think he did.
Still, I got a lot out of it and have a much better perspective of what life was like in that time and place. I do recommend this book, but be prepared for a long, slow read.
A side note: I always pull up Google Maps to pinpoint locations whenever I'm reading history, to see if any original structures remain and what the areas look like now. While looking up places described in this book, I noticed that several, such as the prison at Sing Sing and the Matteawan State Hospital, seem to be deliberately blurred because the areas immediately surrounding them are very clear. Since these places still in some form of operation, is this a Homeland Security thing, do you think? Are there terror suspects being housed there, or what?
December 28, 2007
This book is structured around excerpts from the autobiography of George Appo, a petty thief in New York in the late 19th century. The excerpts are very interesting- they tell his story of life in opium dens and streetcars, and the gangsters and criminals he associated with. Altogether, they would probably span about 50 pages, but this book is 544 pages long. It is filled with information about the US prison system (particularly in NY and PA) at the time, and generally about life in Manhattan at the time, and is unfortunately very dry.
I personally found the parts about the penal system to be the most interesting (if you want to know more about this topic, I highly recommend "20,000 Years in Sing Sing" by Lewis E. Lawes), especially the fact that for several years, the state of New York ran a "school ship" called the Mercury that was designed as an alternative punishment for juvenile offenders. If a minor (male, of course) was found guilty of a crime, he could be sentenced there instead of to one of the workhouses or prisons for any number of years. Onboard, he would learn the trade of seamanship, with the intention of becoming a sailor upon release. For various reasons this didn't last very long, but I think it is an admirable concept, and I wish that our judicial system offered something similar to rehabilitate troubled kids today.
I personally found the parts about the penal system to be the most interesting (if you want to know more about this topic, I highly recommend "20,000 Years in Sing Sing" by Lewis E. Lawes), especially the fact that for several years, the state of New York ran a "school ship" called the Mercury that was designed as an alternative punishment for juvenile offenders. If a minor (male, of course) was found guilty of a crime, he could be sentenced there instead of to one of the workhouses or prisons for any number of years. Onboard, he would learn the trade of seamanship, with the intention of becoming a sailor upon release. For various reasons this didn't last very long, but I think it is an admirable concept, and I wish that our judicial system offered something similar to rehabilitate troubled kids today.
January 15, 2015
This book by acclaimed historical Timothy Gilfoyle uses, as a narrative framework, a short ninety-nine page autobiography of George Appo, a notorious "good fellow." Such a man was brave, and "nervy," and made a living by his wits rather than violence. Not to say he wouldn't fight - he would. And not to say he wasn't a victim of violence - he was shot twice, stabbed in the throat and tortured in prison. Appo's own narrative is fascinating, but what makes this book exemplary is Gilfoyle's larger study which illuminates the rise of the modern criminal underworld, 19th century penology and prisons, jurisprudence, noted crimes of the 19th century and the rise of the drug trade, as opium smoking filtered into the mainstream. Furthermore, he explains with clarity the social forces in the 19th century that created a man such as Appo. Consider the recently released and quite absurd movie, Gangs of New York. It is often a dry, over-detailed read, but Gilfoyle illuminates the real world from which that fictional movie emerged.
November 11, 2013
This book tells the story of George Appo. He never went to school, lived on the streets of New York and supported himself as a pickpocket until he wa promoted to grifter. He was part Chinese, at times weighed as little as 100 pounds and oh yes, he did get caught and was tried a dozen times and sent to some of New York's toughest prisons, including Clinton and Sing Sing. However, the toughest confinement may have been when he was found to be insane (he wasn't) and sent to the state hospital for the criminally insane at Matteawan State Hospital in upstate New York. The book does an excellent job of detailing the court system of the late 1800's through the early 1900's. the book also gives a vivid description of what it was like to be incarcerated during this same period of time. The author states it took 10 years to write this book and with his extensive research. you can see why. It is a good one.
Frank
Frank
October 18, 2014
I've been studying 19th-century crime in London lately, so it was especially interesting to take a look at the contemporary scene in New York City. The crimescape in the two metropolises differs in interesting ways, but, needless to say, both are tragic. Gilfoyle has done us all a service in taking what one presumes is the essentially unreadable autobiography of small-time crook George Appo and edited and appended it into a detailed and thought-provoking history of the early underbelly of organized crime in the Big Apple.
I will mention that the title is a bit misleading. There's only about half a chapter that discusses the actual craft and mores of pick-pocketing. I purchased the book because of my interesting that subject, so I was disappointed not to get more info about it. Most of Gilfoyle's attention is on the horrific penal system of the time--but, make no mistake, that's still plenty interesting.
I will mention that the title is a bit misleading. There's only about half a chapter that discusses the actual craft and mores of pick-pocketing. I purchased the book because of my interesting that subject, so I was disappointed not to get more info about it. Most of Gilfoyle's attention is on the horrific penal system of the time--but, make no mistake, that's still plenty interesting.
August 13, 2025
had to read this for american history class not really sure why tho bc we were mostly talking abt the industrial revolution and everything?? i guess bc as a result of the success of everythign thats why there was crime
so basically this dude would just also i think he was in a play.
so basically this dude would just also i think he was in a play.
September 13, 2009
The subtitle should have been "The Under-Belly of the Gilded Age". The prose is extremely dry with lots of names and dates. However, it was a very interesting history of every aspect of the criminal world of New York in the mid- to late nineteenth century. The author discusses opium dens, illegal saloons, Chinese tongs, pickpockets, fences, prisons (like Sing Sing and Eastern State), city jails, criminal courts, police corruption, con games. You name it and you'll learn a little something about the social and economic forces that shaped criminality in 19th century New York. Using the unpublished memoir of a notorious pickpocket George Appo as an outline, the author explains the history and references. Not an exciting read by any measure, but a well researched and organized exploration of the subject.
March 13, 2015
The title of this book is pretty misleading. It really is minimally about a pickpocket named George Appo. What is really is is difficult to pinpoint. It seems every one to two chapters delves into a new subject. The reader will become upclose and personal with:
Opium Dens – Operation, legalities, patronage
New York Legal/Justice System in the late 19th century
Mental Health Institutions in the late 19th century
Penal System of New York in the 19th century
Medical Care
Theater
This author seems to do a bait and switch where you think you are reading a non-fiction account of a pickpocket only to find you are treated to what often times closely resembles a text book. If you are a major history buff you’d probably enjoy this otherwise I think it’s a bit dry and boring for the average reader looking for some juicy story about a ne’er do well pickpocket.
Opium Dens – Operation, legalities, patronage
New York Legal/Justice System in the late 19th century
Mental Health Institutions in the late 19th century
Penal System of New York in the 19th century
Medical Care
Theater
This author seems to do a bait and switch where you think you are reading a non-fiction account of a pickpocket only to find you are treated to what often times closely resembles a text book. If you are a major history buff you’d probably enjoy this otherwise I think it’s a bit dry and boring for the average reader looking for some juicy story about a ne’er do well pickpocket.
June 28, 2016
A Pickpocket's Tale: the Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York by Timothy Gilfoyle (W.W.Norton & Co. 2006) (Biography). This is the biography of one George Appo, a small-time criminal who grew up in the Five Points area of New York City in the late 1800's. He spent his life in and out of various jails, prisons, and mental institutions. This volume recounts the various small-time scams at which small-time criminals could make their living in turn-of-the-century New York. At one time or another, it appears that George Appo tried each of them. My rating: 7/10, finished 6/27/16.
didnt-finish
August 22, 2018sometime over the summer i bought A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York by Timothy J. Gilfoyle. i like late 19th century stuff, and i have a thing for reading about criminals. but this was soooooooo dry. i didn't finish it. i couldn't. it was like reading one of the most boring history texts ever assigned. i was hoping it would be more of a "fictiony" read like the devil in the white city was. but, no. i would like to learn about 19th century new york criminals, but not from this book.
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