Green’s Dictionary of Slang

stealing, esp. picking pockets; also attrib.

1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 135: Padding Jack and diving Ned, / With blink-eye’d buzzing Sam.
1812		Vaux Memoirs in McLachlan (1964) 82: Lest the reader should be unprovided with a cant dictionary, I shall briefly explain in succession: viz., buzzing [...] Picking pockets in general.
1828		G. Smeeton Doings in London 104: Some of the flash-house keepers not infrequently join in a little buzzing excursion themselves.
1851		Liverpool Mercury 14 Jan. 38/2: ‘He will soon beat James at buzzing’.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 6/1: She was of very little account in the ‘buzzing’ line. [Ibid.] 92/2: He had not been long on the ‘buzzing lay,’ but was pretty clever at it.
1868		‘Six Years in the Prisons of England’ in Temple Bar Mag. Nov. 536: You can make a fair thing by ‘snotter-hauling,’ even if you cannot get on at ‘fly-buzzing’.
1876		C. Hindley Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 261: In my young days, there used to travel about in gangs, like men of business, a lot of people called ‘Nobblers,’ who used to work the ‘thimble and pea rig’ and go ‘buzzing,’ that is, picking pockets, assisted by some small boys.
1896		Lloyd’s Wkly Newspaper 6 Sept. 3/3: The common slang of street thieves who ‘buzzed a bloke on the fly’.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 176: Buzzing (a) A near-archaic term for stealing by picking pockets; nevertheless, still used by old East Londoners.