August 27, 1875. The Metropolitan magistrates have had before them a
case which seems likely to show how some, at least, of the robberies at
railway stations are accomplished. Some ingenious persons, it appears,
have devised a way by which a trunk can be made to steal a trunk, and a
portmanteau to annex a portmanteau. The thieves lay a trunk artfully
contrived on a smaller trunk; the latter clings to the former, and the
owner of the larger carries both away. The decoy trunk is said to be
fitted with a false bottom, which goes up when it is laid on a smaller
trunk, and with mechanism inside which does for the innocent trunk what
Polonius recommended Laertes to do for his friend, and grapples it to its
heart with hooks of steel. In fact, the decoy duck—we do not know how
better to describe it—is made to perform an office like that of certain
flowers, which suddenly close at the pressure of a fly or other insect
within their cup and imprison him there.
—_Annual Register_, 1875.