It is recorded in the pages of Diodorus Siculus, that Actisanes, the
Ethiopian, who was king of Egypt, caused a general search to be made
for all Egyptian thieves, and that all being brought together, and the
king having "given them a just hearing," he commanded their noses to be
cut off,--and, of course, what a king of Egypt commanded was done; so
that all the Egyptian "knucks," "cracksmen," "shoplifters," and
pilferers generally, of whatever description known to the slang terras
of the time, became marked men.
Inspired, perhaps, with the very idea on which the Ethiopian acted, the
police authorities have lately provided, that, in an out-of-the-way
room, on a back street, the honest men of New York city may scan the
faces of its thieves, and hold silent communion with that interesting
part of the population which has agreed to defy the laws and to stand
at issue with society. Without disturbing the deep pool of penalogy, or
entering at all into the question, as to whether Actisanes was right,
or whether the police of New York do not overstep their authority in
putting on the walls this terrible bill of attainder against certain
citizens of the United States, whom their country's constitution has
endeavored to protect from "infamous punishments,"--the student of
moral science will certainly be thankful for the faces.
We do not remember ever having "opened" a place or picked a pocket. We
have made puns, however; and so, upon the Johnsonian _dictum_, the
thing is latent in us, and we feel the affinity. We do not hate
thieves. We feel satisfied that even in the character of a man who does
not respect ownership there may be much to admire. Sparkles of genius
scintillate along the line of many a rogue's career. Many there are, it
is true, who are obtuse and vicious below the mean,--but a far greater
number display skill and courage infinitely above it. Points of noble
character, of every good as well as most base characteristics of the
human race, will be found in the annals of thievery, when they are
written aright.
Thieves, like the State of Massachusetts in the great man's oration,
"have their history," and it may be safely asserted that they did not
steal it. It is dimly hinted in the verse of a certain ancient, that
there was a time in a remoter antiquity "ere thieves were feared"; yet
even this is cautiously quiet as to their non-existence. Homer,
recounting traditions old in his time, chuckles with narrative delight
over the boldness, wit, and invention of a great cattle-stealer, and
for his genius renders him the ultimatum of Greek tribute,
intellectually speaking, by calling him a son of Zeus. Herodotus speaks
plainly and tells a story; and the best of all his stories, to our
thinking, is a thief's story, which we abridge thus.
"The king Rhampsinitus, the priests informed me, possessed a great
quantity of money, such as no succeeding king was able to surpass or
nearly come up to, and, wishing to treasure it, he built a chamber of
stone, one wall of which was against the palace. But the builder,
forming a plan against it, even in building, fitted one of the stones
so that it might be easily taken out by two men or even one.
"In course of time, and when the king had laid up his treasures in the
chamber, the builder, finding his end approaching, called to him his
two sons and described to them how he had contrived, and, having
clearly explained everything, he told them, if they would observe his
directions closely, they might be stewards of the king's riches. He
accordingly died, and the sons were not long in applying themselves to
the work; but, having come by night to the palace, and having found the
stone as described, they easily removed it, and carried off a great
quantity of treasure.
"When the king opened the chamber, he was astonished to see some
vessels deficient; but he was not able to accuse any one, as the seals
were unbroken, and the chamber well secured. When, therefore, on his
opening it two or three times, the treasures were always evidently
diminished, he adopted the following plan: he ordered traps to be made
and placed them round the vessels in which the treasures were. But when
the thieves came, as before, and one of them had entered, as soon as he
went near a vessel, he was straightway caught in the trap; perceiving,
therefore, in what a predicament he was, he immediately called to his
brother, told him what had happened, and bade him enter as quickly as
possible and cut off his head, lest, if seen and recognized, he should
ruin him also. The other thought he spoke well, and did as he was
advised; then, having fitted in the stone, he returned home, taking
with him his brother's head.
"When day came, the king, having entered the chamber, was astonished at
seeing the body of the thief in the trap without the head, but the
chamber secured, and no apparent means of entrance or exit. In this
perplexity he contrived thus: he hung up the body of the thief from the
wall, and, having placed sentinels there, he ordered them to seize and
bring before him whomsoever they should see weeping or expressing
commiseration for the spectacle.
"The mother was greatly grieved at the body being suspended, and,
coming to words with her surviving son, commanded him, by any means he
could, to contrive how he might take down and bring away the corpse of
his brother; but, should he not do so, she threatened to go to the king
and tell who had the treasure. When the mother treated her surviving
son harshly, and he, with many entreaties, was unable to persuade her,
he contrived this plan: he put skins filled with wine on some asses,
and drove to where the corpse was detained, and there skilfully loosed
the strings of two or three of those skins, and, when the wine ran out,
he beat his head and cried aloud, as if he knew not which one to turn
to first. But the sentinels, seeing wine flow, ran with vessels and
caught it, thinking it their gain,--whereupon, the man, feigning anger,
railed against them. But the sentinels soothed and pacified him, and at
last he set the skins to rights again. More conversation passed; the
sentinels joked with him and moved him to laughter, and he gave them
one of the skins, and lay down with them and drank, and thus they all
became of a party; and the sentinels, becoming exceedingly drunk, fell
asleep where they had been drinking. Then the thief took down the body
of his brother, and, departing, carried it to his mother, having obeyed
her injunctions.
"After this the king resorted to many devices to discover and take the
thief, but all failed through his daring and shrewdness: when, at last,
sending throughout all the cities, the king caused a proclamation to be
made, offering a pardon and even reward to the man, if he would
discover himself. The thief, relying on this promise, went to the
palace; and Rhampsinitus greatly admired him, and gave him his daughter
in marriage, accounting him the most knowing of all men; for that the
Egyptians are superior to all others, but he was superior to the
Egyptians."
The Egyptians appear to have given their attention to stealing in every
age; and at the present time, the ruler there may be said to be not so
much the head man of the land as the head thief. Travellers report that
that country is divided into departments upon a basis of abstraction,
and that the interests of each department, in pilfering respects, are
under the supervision of a Chief of Thieves. The Chief of Thieves is
responsible to the government, and to him all those who steal
professionally must give in their names, and must also keep him
informed of their successful operations. When goods are missed, the
owner applies to the government, is referred to the Chief of Thieves
for the Department, and all particulars of quantity, quality, time, and
manner of abstraction, to the best of his knowledge and belief, being
given, the goods are easily identified and at once restored,--less a
discount of twenty-five per cent. Against any rash man who should
undertake a private speculation, of course the whole fraternity of
thieves would be the beat possible police. This, after all, appears to
be a mere compromise of police taxes. He who has no goods to lose, or,
having, can watch them so well as not to need the police, the
government agrees shall not be made to pay for a police; but he whom
the fact of loss is against must pay well to be watched.
Something of this principle is observable in all the East The East is
the fatherland of thieves, and Oriental annals teem with brilliant
examples of their exploits. The story of Jacoub Ben-Laith, founder of
the Soffarid dynasty,--otherwise, first of the Tinker-Kings of the
larger part of Persia,--is especially excellent upon that proverbial
"honor among thieves" of which most men have heard.
Working weary hour after hour in his little shop,--toiling away days,
weeks, and months for a meagre subsistence,--Jacoub finally turned in
disgust from his hammer and forge, and became a "minion of the moon."
He is said, however, to have been reasonable in plunder, and never to
have robbed any of all they had. One night he entered the palace of
Darham, prince of the province of Segestan, and, working diligently,
soon gathered together an immense amount of valuables, with which he
was making off, when, in crossing a very dark room, his foot struck
upon a hard substance, and the misstep nearly threw him down. Stooping,
he picked up that upon which he had trodden. He believed it, from
feeling, to be a precious stone. He carried it to his mouth, touched it
with his tongue,--it was salt! And thus, by his own action, he had
tasted salt beneath the prince's roof,--in Eastern parlance, had
accepted his hospitality, become his guest. He could not rob him.
Jacoub laid down his burden,--robes embroidered in gold upon the
richest materials, sashes wanting only the light to flash with precious
stones worked in the braid, all the costly and rare of an Eastern
prince's palace gathered in one common spoil,--laid it all down, and
departed as silently as he had come.
In the morning the disorder seen told only of attempted robbery.
Diligent search being made, the officers charged with it became
satisfied of Jacoub's complicity. They brought him before the prince.
There, being charged with the burglary, Jacoub at once admitted it, and
told the whole story. The prince, honoring him for his honor, at once
took him into his service, and employed him with entire confidence in
whatever of important or delicate he had to do that needed a man of
truth and courage; and Jacoub from that beginning went up step by step,
till he himself became prince of a province, and then of many
provinces, and finally king of a mighty realm. He had soul enough,
according to Carlyle's idea, not to need salt; but, for all that, the
salt saved him.
Another king of Persia, Khurreem Khan, was not ashamed to admit, with a
crown on his head, that he had once been a thief, and was wont to
recount of himself what in these days we should call a case of
conscience. Thus he told it:--
"When I was a poor soldier in Nadir Shah's camp, my necessities led me
to take from a shop a gold-embossed saddle, sent thither by an Afghan
chief to be repaired. I soon afterward heard that the owner of the shop
was in prison, sentenced to be hanged. My conscience smote me. I
restored the stolen article to the very place whence I had removed it,
and watched till it was discovered by the tradesman's wife. She uttered
a scream of joy, on seeing it, and fell on her knees, invoking
blessings on the person who had brought it back, and praying that he
might live to have a hundred such saddles. I am quite certain that the
honest prayer of the old woman aided my fortune in attaining the
splendor she wished me to enjoy."
These are variations upon the general theme of thievery. They all tend
to show that it is, at the least, unsafe to take the fact of a man's
having committed a certain crime against property as a proof _per se_
that he is radically bad or inferior in intellect. "Your thief looks
in the crowd," says Byron,
"Exactly like the rest, or rather better,"--
and this, not because physiognomy is false, but the thief's face true.
Of a promiscuous crowd, taken almost anywhere, the pickpocket in it is
the smartest man present, in all probability. According to
Ecclesiasticus, it is "the _heart_ of man that changeth his
countenance"; and it does seem that it is to his education, and not to
his heart, that man does violence in stealing. It is certainly in exact
proportion to his education that he feels in reference to it, and does
or does not "regret the necessity."
And, indeed, that universal doctrine of contraries may work here as
elsewhere; and it might not he difficult to demonstrate that a majority
of thieves are better fitted by their nature and capacity for almost
any other position in life than the one they occupy through perverse
circumstance and unaccountable accident. Though mostly men of fair
ability, they are not generally successful. Considering the number of
thieves, there are but few great ones. In this "Rogues' Gallery" of the
New York Police Commissioners we find the face of a "first-rate"
burglar among the ablest of the eighty of whom he is one. He is a
German, and has passed twenty years in the prisons of his native land:
has that leonine aspect sometimes esteemed a physiognomical attribute
of the German, and, with fair enough qualities generally, is without
any especial intellectual strength. Near him is another
"first-rate,"--all energy and action, acute enough, a quick reasoner,
very cool and resolute. Below these is the face of one whom the
thief-takers think lightly of, and call a man of "no account." Yet he
is a man of far better powers than either of the "first-rates,"--has
more thought and equal energy,--a mind seldom or never at rest,--is one
to make new combinations and follow them to results with an ardor
almost enthusiastic. From some want of adaptation not depending upon
intellectual power, he is inferior as a thief to his inferiors.
This man was without a cravat when his picture was taken, and his white
shirt-collar, coming up high in the neck, has the appearance of a white
neckerchief. This trifle of dress, with the intellectual look of the
man, strikes every observer as giving him a clerical appearance. The
picture strongly resembles--more in air, perhaps, than in feature--the
large engraved portrait of Summerfield. There is not so much of calm
comprehensiveness of thought, and there are more angles. Thief though
he be, he has fair language,--not florid or rhetorical, but terse and
very much to the point. If bred as a divine, he would have held his
place among the "brilliants" of the time, and been as original,
erratic, or _outré_ as any. What a fortune lost! It is part of the
fatality for the man not to know it, at least in time. Even villany
would have put him into his proper place, but for that film over the
mental vision. "If rogues," said Franklin, "knew the advantages
attached to the practice of the virtues, they would become honest men
from mere roguery."
Many of the faces of this Rogues' Gallery are very well worth
consideration. Of a dozen leading pickpockets, who work singly, or two
or three together, and are mostly English, what is first noted is not
favorable to English teaching or probity;--their position sits easily
upon them. There is not one that gives indication of his having passed
through any mental struggle before he sat down in life as a thief.
Though all men capable of thought, they have not thought very deeply
upon this point. One of them is a natural aristocrat,--a man who could
keep the crowd aloof by simple volition, and without offense; nothing
whatever harsh in him,--polite to all, and amiable to a fault with his
fellows.
There would be style in everything he did or said. He is one to
astonish drawing-rooms and bewilder promenades by the taste and
elegance of his dress. Upon that altar, doubtless, he sacrificed his
principles; but the sacrifice was not a great one.
"'Tis only at the bar or in the dungeon that wise men know a felon by
his features." Another English pickpocket appears to have Alps on Alps
of difference between him and a thief. Good-nature prevails; there is a
little latent fire; not enough energy to be bad, or good, against the
current. He has some quiet dignity, too,--the head, in fine, of a
genial, dining Dombey, if such a man can be imagined. Face a good oval,
rather full in flesh, forehead square, without particular strength, a
nose that was never unaccompanied by good taste and understanding, and
mouth a little lickerish;--the incarnation of the popular idea of a
bank-president.
The other day he turned to get into an omnibus at one of the ferries,
and just as he did so, there, it so happened, was a young lady stepping
in before him. The quiet old gentleman, with that warmth of politeness
that sits so well upon quiet old gentlemen in the presence of young
ladies, helped her in, and took a seat beside her. At half a block up
the street the president startled the other passengers by the violent
gesticulations with which he endeavored to attract the attention of a
gentleman passing down on the sidewalk; the passengers watched with
interest the effect or non-effect of his various episodes of
telegraphic desperation, and saw, with a regret equal to his own, that
the gentleman on the sidewalk saw nothing, and turned the corner as
calmly as a corner could be turned; but the old gentleman, not willing
to lose him in that manner, jumped out of the 'bus and ran after, with
a liveliness better becoming his eagerness than his age. In a moment
more, the young lady, admonished by the driver's rap on the roof, would
have paid her fare, but her portmonnaie was missing. I know not whether
the bank-president was or was not suspected;--
"All I can say is, that he had the money."
Look closer, and beneath that look of good-humor you will find a little
something of superciliousness. You will see a line running down the
cheek from behind each nostril, drawing the whole face, good-humor and
all, into a sneer of habitual contempt,--contempt, no doubt, of the
vain endeavors and devices of men to provide against the genius of a
good pickpocket.