“You don’t see the skilled professional as much anymore - the classic bumps, the hug-and-lift,” said Capt. Brian Korn, commander of the Sixth District, which covers portions of Center City.

“Lo, the poor pickpockets. Whither they have wandered?” The Inquirer asked in 1932 under the headline “Dips Vanishing from Crooks’ Armies.”

In 1947, another Inquirer reporter wrote that the craft was dying. “The young crook of today won’t spend the years of careful apprenticeship required to develop the sensitive touch and fleeting fingers that left the victims unaware.”

By 1970, Detective John Kelly of the Police Department’s intelligence squad estimated there were only three professional pickpockets left in Philadelphia.

“Anyone can pick a handbag,” Kelly said then. “That doesn’t take an education. But picking pockets is an art.”