Phenix Gazette

Foreign Vagrants:—The wharves in the lower part of the city, and the streets near them, are overrun with swarms of German and Swiss women and children, who must subsist principally by depredations on merchandize of various kinds, while exposed in situations accessible to them.

On Monday, while a cargo of sugar and coffee was in progress of being discharged on the piers near Old Slip surrounded as usual by a crowd of these annoyances it was discovered that several of the sugar boxes placed on the pier had been broken open at the ends and a considerable portion abstracted A quantity of coffee was likewise found to have been filched in the same way Police officers were sent for who in capturing and conveying to the office about twenty vagrants of various ages.

A good portion of Monday afternoon was spent in their examination by means of an interpreter, by which, however, it satisfactorily appeared the actual thieves in this instance had made their escape previous to the arrival of the officers, and that the prisoners were innocent. They were accordingly discharged.

One of the women named an individual perfectly acquainted with the most adroit of this class of thieves, and whose frown made it her business to keep a constant look-out at the wharves for the arrival of ships with cargoes suitable for plunder. It is stated that many of these ignorant creatures are hired pilferers, being deluded by their employers, with the idea that as this is a land of liberty, they may carry on this species of depredation with perfect impunity. Should this prove true, it is to be presumed that the guilty will not long elude the vigilance of the Police.—New York Courier.