CHAPTER 9

The High Rip Gang

1874

My business is taking money off passers-by …

ust a few days after a triple hanging at Kirkdale Gaol in January, 1875, a Times journalist wrote a feature on what had become a national concern: ‘Crimes of violence.’ The writer knew Liverpool, and he told the wider world about the city’s problem with ‘corner men’:

Nobody could shut his eyes to the fact, after what had occurred lately, that there had existed for some time in Liverpool a particular class of persons who had become so well known as to acquire the name of ‘Cornermen’ whose business it had been to muster at the corners of streets and commit assaults, with a view to robbing and plundering unfortunate persons who might happen to pass by. Some of the recent assaults had resulted in cases of a terrible description.