ABSTRACT
They were not very formidable: the eldest, Thomas Boag, was 25 years of age and only about 5 feet in height, while his companions Daniel McKie and Steel McColloch, or McCalow, were about 15 and 14, and under 4 feet 10 inches.1 Nothing came of this alarm, though individual Scottish boy-pickpockets were prosecuted in subsequent years. This account is typical of the language used in eighteenth-century crime reporting, reflecting a very distinctive notion of criminal danger. Criminal activity was often described as involving gangs of mobile outsiders.
