nd picking of pockets.

Edward was a young fellow, active in his person and enterprising in his
genius; he soon distinguished himself in cudgel playing, and such other
Moorfields exercises as qualify a man first for the road and then for
the gallows. The mob who frequented this place, where one Frazier kept
the ring, were so highly pleased with Burnworth's performances that they
thought nothing could express their applause so much as conferring on
him the title of Young Frazier. This agreeing with the ferocity of his
disposition, made him so vain thereof, that, quitting his own name, he
chose to go by this, and accordingly was so called by all his
companions.

Burnworth's grand associates were these, William Blewit, Emanuel
Dickenson, Thomas Berry, John Levee, William Marjoram, John Higgs, John
Wilson, John Mason, Thomas Mekins, William Gillingham, John Barton,
William Swift, and some others that it is not material here to mention.
At first he and his associates contented themselves with picking
pockets, and such other exercises in the lowest class of thieving, in
which however they went on very assiduously for a considerable space,
and did more mischief that way than any gang which had been before them
for twenty years. They rose afterwards to exploits of a more hazardous
nature, viz., snatching women's pockets, swords, hats, etc.

The usual places for their carrying on such infamous practices were
about the Royal Exchange, Cheapside, St. Paul's Churchyard, Fleet
Street, the Strand and Charing Cross. Here they stuck a good while, nor
is it probable they would ever have risen higher if Burnworth, their
captain, had not been detected in an affair of this kind, and committed
thereupon to Bridewell, from whence, on some apprehension of the
keepers, he was removed to New Prison, where he had not continued long
before he projected an escape, which he afterwards put into execution.

During this imprisonment, instead of reflecting on the sorrows which his
evil course of life had brought upon him, he meditated only how to
engage his companions in attempts of a higher nature than they had
hitherto been concerned in; and remembering how large a circle he had of
wicked associates, he began to entertain notions of putting them in such
a posture as might prevent their falling easily into the hands of
justice, which many of them within a month or two last past had
done--though as they were sent thither on trivial offences, they qu