NYPPER. A cut-purse: so called by one Wotton, who in
the year 1585 kept an academy for the education and
perfection of pickpockets and cut-purses: his school was
near Billingsgate, London. As in the dress of ancient
times many people wore their purses at their girdles,
cutting them was a branch of the light-fingered art,
which is now lost, though the name remains. Maitland,
from Stow, gives the following account of this Wotton:
This man was a gentleman born, and sometime 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, and 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, a
FOYSTER was a pick-pocket; a NYPPER was a pick purse,
or cut-purse.