Letter: Fagin's children demonstrate their technique

Sir: On the Paris Metro one Sunday morning several years ago, I watched bemused as an older girl, perhaps 15 years of age, showed two younger children how to hold a newspaper over their lower arm. They were behaving so oddly I watched with interest as they came up to me and tried to open my bag with the hand supposedly hidden under the paper. I shouted and they ran off. Clearly the training school for Fagin's friends (Letters, 19 August).

Yours sincerely,

ANN KAYE

London, E11

19 August