man," "booster," "capper" and every sort of affiliated crook, recalling
Charles Reade's account in "The Cloister and the Hearth" of Gerard in
Lorraine among their kin of another period:

With them and all they had, 'twas lightly come and lightly go; and
when we left them my master said to me, "This is thy first lesson,
but to-night we shall be at Hansburgh. Come with me to the 'rotboss'
there, and I'll show thee all our folk and their lays, and
especially 'the lossners,' 'the dutzers,' 'the schleppers,' 'the
gickisses,' 'the schwanfelders,' whom in England we call 'shivering
Jemmies,' 'the süntregers,' 'the schwiegers,' 'the joners,' 'the
sessel-degers,' 'the gennscherers,' in France 'marcandiers a
rifodés,' 'the veranerins,' 'the stabulers,' with a few foreigners
like ourselves, such as 'pietres,' 'francmitoux,' 'polissons,'
'malingreux,' 'traters,' 'rufflers,' 'whipjacks,' 'dommerars,'
'glymmerars,' 'jarkmen,' 'patricos,' 'swadders,' 'autem morts,'
'walking morts,'--" "Enow!" cried I, stopping him, "art as gleesome
as the evil one a counting of his imps. I'll jot down in my tablet
all these caitiffs and their accursed names: for knowledge is
knowledge. But go among them alive or dead, that will I not with my
good will."

And a large part of it was due simply to the fact that seven learned men
upon seven comfortable chairs in the city of Albany had said, many years
ago, that "neither the law or public policy designs the protection of
rogues in their dealings with each other, or to insure fair dealing and
truthfulness as between each other, in their dishonest practices."

The reason that the "wire-tapping" game was supposed to come within the
scope of the McCord case was this: it deluded the victim into the