THOMAS BURNS

Alias: COMBO, HAMILTON

Specialties: PICKPOCKET

No: 148 Last Displayed: 12/6/2023

Description:

Forty-nine years of age in 1886. Born in United States. Married. No trade. Medium build. Height, 5 feet 10 1/2 inches. Weight. 165 pounds. Black hair, brown eyes, dark complexion. Has scar on forehead; mole on right cheek. Generally wears a black beard, turning gray.

Record:

"COMBO" is a well known New York pickpocket. He works with "Jersey Jimmie" (145), "Nigger" Baker (195), "Curly Charley," Dick Morris (141), "Aleck the Milkman" (160), and the best people in the cities he visits. He was considered second to none in the business; but of late years he has fallen back, and does only "stalling," on account of his love for liquor. He is pretty well known in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Chicago, and, in fact, in almost all the large cities in the States. He was arrested in New York City, for the larceny of a watch from one Lawson Valentine, on a Sixth Avenue horse-car, on February 8, 1875. He was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to four years in State prison, on March 9, 1875, under the name of Thomas Hamilton, by Judge Sutherland. Combo was again arrested, at the Grand Central Railroad depot in New York City, on November 24, 1885, in an attempt to ply his vocation. He was. sentenced to one year in the penitentiary on December 1, 1885, in the Court of Special Sessions, New York. Burns's picture is an excellent one, taken in November, 1885.