Tag: George Appo

  • A Good Fellow and a Wise Guy The New York Sun 2006-08-09 William Bryk Book Review A Pickpocket’s Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York by Timothy J. Gilfoyle George Washington Appo, the once notorious Asian-Irish-American petty criminal who flourished during the last quarter of the 19th century as a pickpocket and swindler, had pretty…

  • Story Of A Criminal The Indianapolis Journal Indianapolis, Indiana Sunday, 1894-06-17 page 16, columns 1-2 How Green Goods Men Are Protected by Gotham Police. Tale of Iniquity Unequaled In the Annals of Municipal Corruption—Testimony of George Appo. NEW YORK, June 16. During the past week the Lexow committee opened up an entirely new line of…

  • Appo Will Serve Six Months The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Thursday, 1895-10-03 page 12, column 2 Source: Brooklyn Public Library’s Brooklyn Collection George Appo, the Chinese half-bred, who obtained notoriety especially through his testimony before the Lexow senate investigating committee, and who pleaded guilty to assault in the third degree in the stabbing of Policeman Michael…

  • The Urban Underworld in Late Nineteenth-Century New York: The Autobiography of George Appo Bedford/St. Martin’s 2013 208 pages Paper ISBN-10: 0-312-60762-8; ISBN-13: 978-0-312-60762-3 George Appo (1856-1930) Edited with an Introduction by: Timothy J. Gilfoyle, Professor of History Loyola University, Chicago Through the colorful autobiography of pickpocket and con man George Appo, Timothy Gilfoyle brings to…

  • In George Appo’s world, child pickpockets swarmed the crowded streets, addicts drifted in furtive opium dens, and expert swindlers worked the lucrative green-goods game. On a good night Appo made as much as a skilled laborer made in a year.

  • In 1898, journalist Louis J. Beck offered the reading public what he saw as a valuable case study in “heredity and racial traits and tendencies.” This case study was none other than the infamous “half-breed” criminal George Washington Appo (1856–1930), whose name was virtually a household word for New Yorkers of the time.