"William was wily, wary and wicked."
A former cat-meat salesman named Pickles, who later turned to horse thievery, was the subject of a colorful profile in the March 27, 1876 Brooklyn Daly Eagle. An excerpt:
“Another escape from the Penitentiary has come to light. This time it was a clean walk out instead of an escape. The fact has been concealed by the prison authorities for over a month. William Pickles, alias Clark, was the convict who, on the afternoon of February 23, shouldered a pitchfork and walked out at the Penitentiary, ostensibly to the cow stables opposite. They are waiting for his return, but he does not come. A facetious fellow convict, when he heard of William’s departure, began humming the tune, ‘Oh, Willie, we have missed you.’ This Pickles is a character who has made a mark on his day and generation.
"It was a dizzying leap from a cat meat purveyorship." (Image by Lipedia.)
He drew his first breath in ‘Lunnon Town,’ some forty-eight years ago. At a tender age he was apprenticed to a costermonger, who made vocal the streets of London with his cries of ‘Cat meat,’ ‘Cat meat.’ In course of time William became a boss caterer to the feline race. He bade farewell to the shores of his native land about twenty years ago, on account of some little misunderstanding with the authorities there. He came to New York, and at once began to flourish like the typical green bay tree. William was wily, wary and wicked. After viewing the opportunities presented to an enterprising mind in a free land he concluded to direct his attention to horse flesh. It was a dizzying leap from a cat meat purveyorship but Pickles had a great and adaptable soul. He became a trader in horses–in other people’s.
A man of Pickles’ qualities had not much difficulty in getting horses for nothing, and selling them for a good deal. He was thoroughly impartial in his selection of the noble quadroped. He would yank out a claim peddler’s horse from a stable as quick as he would a Hambletonian. It all depends on his opportunities. It is said that in the course of the two or three weeks Pickles would transmogrify the veriest hackney into as trim a looking animal as a gentleman would care to sit behind. He could make a white horse black to order, dapple a pure bay, affix a mark of aristocracy on the brow, make a moribund nag look fresh and cheerful–in short, he was a wizard veterinarian. He could take a kink out of the leg, put strength in the backbone, fructify the tail and do anything with the animal he had in hand in short of causing it to grow a pair of side whiskers. This might have come in time had not Pickles’ scientific pursuits been interrupted by the police. This occurred in the zenith of his prosperity, when he was in the enjoyment of the proud reputation of being ‘one of the handiest men about horses you ever saw.’ He was sent to Sing Sing for ten years. He languished there for about half of his term when one night he managed to reach the sewer pipe and through it he crawled out of the prison.”
