Thubway Tham

Thubway Tham is a pulp fiction character created by Johnston McCulley, who was also the creator of Zorro. He first appeared in "Detective Story Magazine" on June 4, 1918, and he continued to appear in several pulp fiction publications from the 1910s to the 1960s.

Thubway Tham, as described by McCulley, is "a clever pickpocket, one of the cleverest in the business, and [he works] only in the subway during rush hours." [McCulley, Johnston, "Thubway Tham's Inthane Moment", Detective Story, Nov 19 1918, p. 1] His friends had called him "Subway Sam," but, due to his lisp, his nickname soon became "Thubway Tham."

A typical Thubway Tham story features the pickpocket committing some sort of crime. He is pursued by Detective Craddock, but, due to the cop's own incompetence, Thubway Tham always gets away. The people who Tham robs are usually deserving of the theft. He also often antagonizes bigger criminals to teach them a lesson.

In 2005, Wildside Press released a collection of Thubway Tham stories entitled "Tales of Thubway Tham".

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