Before the existence of street lighting, link boys (youths carrying burning torches) were paid by pedestrians to light their way at night. Link boys were notorious thieves and here one of them appears to be picking the pocket of a prostitute. The enveloping darkness is conveyed in this prints by means of aquatint, a print process first used in France in the early 1760s, which reached England about a decade later, less than fifteen years before this print was produced.