The main buildings were then un-roofed or demolished (see Destruction of country houses in 20th-century Britain). From 1969, the destruction of houses of architectural or historical significance was prohibited by law and the job of the housebreakers ended. An estimated 1,800 buildings were disposed of by housebreakers before this time.
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By watching out for each other and working with local law enforcement, the 860-home neighbourhood saw nine arrests of housebreakers in four weeks. The crime rate has since dropped off.
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The gun had been bought because Falmouth House was in an exposed location and he had had trouble with housebreakers. He was buried in Newmarket cemetery on 12 November. Wreaths were sent by the Duke of Westminster and the Prince of Wales. His burial plot can be found there to the right of the chapel.
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Isabel and Anna, not wanting to simply leave his body in the street or carry it to a crematorium, throw it from the roof of their apartment building, making it seem as if Ferdinand had committed suicide. Soon after, Isabel becomes ill, and can no longer work. She dies, and after Anna has taken her body to be cremated, housebreakers arrive at her apartment and overpower her, making her homeless once again. After having been homeless for a period, Anna is forced to run from a police officer, and goes through the first open door she sees, which turns out to be the city's national library.
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Their dubious behaviour reached public attention also because of the rivalry between the two leading thief-takers: Charles Hitchen and Jonathan Wild. Hitchen became irritated by the great success of Wild, his former assistant, who took advantage from Hitchen's suspension from the place of Under City-Marshall to engage in more lucrative illegal activities. In 1718 Charles Hitchen resolved to write a pamphlet against the practice of thief- taking called: A True Discovery of the Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers, In and About the City of London: To the Multiplication and Encouragement of Thieves, Housebreakers, and other loose and disorderly Persons. In his pamphlet Hitchen denounces the ill practices of thief-takers, but the actual unspoken target was the very Jonathan Wild, whom he nicknames "The Regulator".
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A housebreaker is an organisation that specialises in the disposition of large, old residential buildings. From the late 19th century and peaking in the mid 20th, many large country houses, manors, stately homes, and castles in the United Kingdom became impractical to maintain; initially due to the repeal of the Corn Laws and the late 19th-century agricultural depression, later because of cultural changes following the First World War and then requisitioning during the Second World War. Often, they were sold to housebreakers such as Crowthers of London or Charles Brand of Dundee for disposal of their contents and demolition. Typically, after an initial 'walk- round sale' or auction was carried out, fixtures, fittings, and occasionally whole rooms, were sold off to museums or for re-installation in other properties.
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373x373px In April 1718, Hitchen published his pamphlet "A True Discovery of the Conduct of Receivers and Thief-takers, in and about the City of London: To the Multiplication and Encouragement of Thieves, Housebreakers, and other loose and disorderly Persons" dedicating it to the Lord Mayor Sir William Lewen, the Aldermen and Common Council of London. The tract shows Hitchen disguised as a social reformer and moralist giving his recommendations for rooting out the iniquities by imprisoning all the thief-takers and receivers. Hitchen did not directly name Wild in his first pamphlet but made an obvious allusion when talking about "the regulator" and "the thief-taker". The word "regulator" should have had very negative connotation due to king James II's "Committees of Regulators" appointed to change the result of the elections for the king's favour.
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