A "buzz-napper's academy" was a school to train children to be
thieves. In Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist", Fagin was the head
of such an academy. This term was used during the nineteenth century.
However, there are few new things under the sun: such a buzz-napper's
academy, possibly with a different slang name, existed in England
1585. The following is a description of such an academy, as found
in "The Vulgar Tongue: Buckish Slang and Pickpocket Eloquence" by Francis
Gross, Summersdale Publishers Ltd., 2004 ISBN: 1 84024 413 5, p. 205:
"In the year 1585, a "Wotton" kept an academy for the education and
perfection of pickpockets and cut-purses. 'This man [Wotton] was a
gentleman born, and sometimes a merchant of good credit, but fallen
by time into decay: he kept an alehouse near Smart's Key, near
Billingsgate, afterwards for some misdemeanor put down. He reared
up a new trade of life, and in the same house he procured all the
cut-purses about the city, to repair to his house; there was a
school-house set up to learn young boys to cut purses: two devices
were hung up; one was a pocket, and another was a purse; the pocket
had in it certain counters, and was hung about with hawks' bells, &
over the top did hang a little sacring bell. The purse had silver in
it; and he that could take out a counter, without noise of any of the
bells, was adjudged a judicial nypper; according to their terms of art.'"
Click to Close