Archival data about, and contemporary accounts of, the Gin Acts illustrate
the careers of 198 informers known to have operated in Westminster between
1737 and 1741, providing an idea of their interrelationships. Visible links
among the informers appear to have been generally weak. Most of the sample
at hand operated as isolates on an opportunistic basis, informing only onc
e. Their network, such as it was, seems to have functioned primarily as a c
learinghouse, connecting informers with victims in neighborhoods where the
informers were as yet unknown and thus less vulnerable to attack by the com
munity.