Captured: Portraits of Crime 1870-1930 - Flipbook - Page 43
had multiple aliases and carried out their offending in different locations. In the
early 1900s fingerprinting was introduced in NSW gaols to supplement photographic
portrait identification. Ironically, it was this technology that assisted Maguire
in having convictions erroneously recorded against him in 1928 rescinded.
What caused Maguire to lead a life of crime is unknown. His offending
behaviour — throwing stones, riotous behaviour, loitering, playing pitch and toss
and drunk and disorderly — between the ages of 14 to 21 together with his frequenting
of inner-Sydney Redfern, were typical of what was considered the life of the
‘larrikin’. In the eyes of late-Victorian era observers, these young men — commonly
from the working classes — were considered to be a menace to society. One police
sergeant suggested that by the age of twenty, ‘if they are not entirely bad’ they
‘begin to rise out of it’. Thomas Maguire, did not emerge from his young life of
crime, but stayed on this path for many, many years.
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