London's “dips” take pride in their work

LONDON—Anna Dolan stopped in Piccadilly Circus to buy an afternoon paper. She took out her change purse and left her shoulder bag open while the news vendor sorted out three new pence from the coins in her outstretched palm. Having arrived from New York that morning on her first visit to London, she was not yet familiar with the money. When she replaced the purse in her bag, she noticed her billfold had gorie. One copy of The Eyening Standard had cost her about $70.

Morton Hirschfeld was late for a dinner date at a friend's house in Muswell Hill. Sensibly, he decided to travel by underground, but there was a line at the Victoria Station ticket office and he had no change for the machines. Hopping impatiently from foot to foot, he took out a £5 note and replaced his wallet in the tack pocket of his jeans. When he got to the window, the clerk was not very happy to see so large a bill, but his displeasure was as, nothing to Mr. Hirschfeld's when he went to add the four £1 notes in his change to the £40 in his wallet. It wasn't there. His subway fare had cost him over $100, And he arrived so late, he missed dinner.

Miss Dolan and Mr. Hirschfeld had been mugged, London‐style, discovering, like many New Yorkers before them, that the experience hurts only in the budget. They were also extremely unlucky, because a mere 6,000 cases of this sort were reported in all of London during 1971. With a combined resident and transient population last year of perhaps 16 million, that meant the odds against such a thing happening were better than 2,500 to 1. And as for New York‐type muggings with gun, knife or acid bottle, these were so rare they failed even to rate a separate mention in the crime statistics.

This is no reflection on London's thieves, of course. In 1971, shoplifters improved yet again on a performance that has long kept them at the head of Britain's growth industries, and bank robbers can also look back on another year of solid achievement. It is just that thefts from the person—the police classification for pocketpicking, bag‐snatching and other forms of petty personal pilferage—are regarded with some disdain by those who take pride in their work. Except for the “dip,” who often seems more interested in his technique than its rewards — the case was recently reported of a pickpocket caught replacing a wallet when he found it held no money — the field is left to villains who are too old, too lazy or too limited in ambition to tackle anything more arduous. Violence is therefore unlikely.

It is also unsporting, which is another reason why London is still the safest of all great cities to walk around in, day or night. Criminal virtuosity commands the Londoner's grudging admirition; violence or meanness, his ungrudging hostility. It is all right to stick up a bank, but not if you use a gun. Sithilarly, when stealing a rich American's wallet, you are supposed to lift it from him in a crowd, not knock him down for it after dark. The thief who hurts somebody who doesn't deserve it will find every hand against him.

Good police work helps too, of course, but New Scotland Yard will readily concede that its biggest single advantage over the New York Police Department is the absence of an army of drug addicts forced into crude or brutal crime. For most of the time, the Metropolitan Police have to deal with professionals who are concerned with feeding their families, not feeding their habits. Playing percentages, they prefer picking locks to pockets.

None of which is of much consolation to Miss Dolan or Mr. Hirschfeld, of course. But if the two million American visitors expected this year remember to keep their pocketbooks closed and their wallets next to their hearts, the only uneasiness they need ever feel in London is when the hotel clerk presents the bill.