"Hod" Bacon is an illustration of the professional "sneak" who
confines his operations more particularly to the rooms of hotel
guests. He works systematically and prepares his plans as the skilled
detective works to capture the expert criminal. This thief frequently
would follow a victim thousands of miles to commit a successful
robbery. He would watch hotel guests continuously for several days,
until he observed them purchase theater tickets or going out for
the evening, first determining how many (if a family) occupied the
apartment, and how many servants they had, and assuring himself before
committing the robbery they were all absent. He enters the rooms with
false keys, locks himself in, and works at his leisure; also unlocks,
with false keys, the trunks, bureau drawers, etc., abstracting from
them such valuables as he considers worth taking. He invariably takes
from the ladies' trunks some ladies' wearing apparel, endeavoring
to cast the suspicion that the theft was committed by a chambermaid
or other employes in the hotel having access to the apartment. On
one occasion Bacon robbed a traveling jewelry salesman's trunk in a
Chicago hotel. Not satisfied with the valuable loot of jewelry he
obtained, he stole the salesman's overcoat, after which he secured
sleeping car passage from Chicago to Pittsburg via Pennsylvania
railroad. On the same evening's train, it so happened that the
salesman he robbed was then enroute east, and, peculiarly enough,
had been assigned a berth opposite the thief, in the same car. After
the train left Chicago, observing his stolen overcoat hanging in the
thief's section, he telegraphed to Pittsburg, and on arrival of the
train the thief was arrested, and identified as "Hod" Bacon.
[Illustration: CASE OF TOOLS AND RELICS COLLECTED BY DETECTIVE
WOOLDRIDGE