THE PROFESSIONAL CRIMINAL.
In appearance and manner the professional criminal has not changed much
in the last decade. I knew him first over ten years ago, when making my
earliest studies of tramp life. I saw him again five years ago, while on
a short trip in Hoboland, and we have met recently on the railroads; and
he looks just about as he did when we first got acquainted.
Ordinarily he would not be noticed in mixed company by others than those
accustomed to his ways. He is not like the tramp, whom practically any
one can pick out in a crowd. He dresses well, can often carry himself
like a gentleman, and generally has a snug sum of money in his pockets.
It is his face, voice, and habits of companionship that mark him for
what he is. Not that there is necessarily that in his countenance which
Lombroso would have us believe signifies that he is a degenerate,
congenitally deformed or insane, but rather that the life he leads gives
him a look which the trained observer knows as "the mug of a crook." He
can no more change this look after reaching manhood than can a genuinely
honest man, who has never been in prison, acquire it. I had learned to
know it, and had become practised in discovering it, long before I
became a policeman. It took me years to reach the stage when in merely
looking hurriedly at a criminal something instinctively pronounced him a
thief, but such a time certainly comes to him who sojourns much in
criminal environment. There are, of course, certain special features and
wrinkles that one looks for, and that help in the general summing up,
but after awhile these are not thought of in judging a man, at least not
consciously, and the observer bases his opinion on instinctive feeling.
Given the stylish clothes to which I have referred, a hard face,
suspicious eyes which seem to take in everything, a loitering walk, a
peculiar guttural cough, given by way of signal, and called the thief's
cough, and a habit of lingering about places where a "sporty"
constituency is usually to be found, and there is pretty conclusive
evidence that a professional thief is in view. All of this evidence is
not always at hand; sometimes there is only the cough to go by, but, the
circumstances being suspicious, any one of them is sufficient to make an
expert observer look quickly and prick up his ears.
In New York City, for instance, there are streets in which professional
thieves can be met by the dozen, if one understands how to identify
them, and it is only necessary to pass a few words and they can be drawn
into conversation. Some are dressed better than others,--there are a
great many ups and downs in the profession,--and some look less typical
than the more experienced men,--it takes time for the life to leave its
traces,--but there they stand, the young and old, the clever and the
stupid, for any one who knows how to scrape acquaintance with them.
They are the most difficult people in the world to learn to know well
until one has mastered their freemasonry, and then they are but little
more fearful of approach than is the tramp.
I devote a special chapter to their class, because I believe that they
are the least understood of all offenders, and also, as I stated in the
last chapter, because I consider them the real crux of the problem of
crime in this country. The petty offender is comparatively easy to
discourage, the backwoods criminal will disappear as our country
develops, the born criminal, the man who says that he cannot help
committing crimes, can be shut up indefinitely, but the professional
criminal, thanks to his own cleverness and the league he and the unknown
thief have entered into, baffles both the criminologist and the
penologist, and he probably does more financial harm to the country than
all the other offenders put together. He is the man that we must
apprehend and punish before crime in the United States will fail to be
attractive, and at the present moment it is its attractiveness which
helps to make our criminal statistics so alarming.
I have placed him fourth in numerical strength in my general
classification, and I believe this to be a correct estimate of the
number of those who really make their living by professional thieving.
If those are to be included who would like to succeed as professional
thieves and fail, and drop down sooner or later into the occasional
criminal's class, or into the tramp's class, the position I have given
the so-called successful "professional" would have to be changed; but it
has seemed best to confine the class to those who are rated successful,
and on this basis I doubt whether an actual census taking, if it were
possible, would prove them to be more numerous than I have indicated.
Seeing and hearing so much of them on my travels, I made every effort to
secure trustworthy statistics in regard to their number, and as the
majority of them are known to the police, it seemed reasonable to
suppose that, if I passed around enough among different police
organisations, I ought to get satisfactory figures, but the fact of the
matter is that the police themselves can only make guesses concerning
the general situation, and I am unable to do any better.
When putting queries concerning the number of the offenders in question,
my informants wanted me to differentiate and ask them about particular
kinds of professionals before they would reply. One very well informed
detective, for instance, said: "Do you mean the whole push, or just the
A Number One guns? If you mean the push, why you're safe in saying that
there are 100,000 in the whole country, but the most of 'em are a pretty
poor lot. If you mean the really good people, 10,000 will take 'em all
in."
The cities which were reported to have turned out the greatest number
were New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Buffalo,
Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and San Francisco. Chicago
was given the palm for being, at the present moment, the main stronghold
of habitual criminals. Nearly every photograph I saw of a young
offender was said to represent one of Chicago's hopefuls, and the
pictures of the old men were generally described as the likenesses of
New York City "talent." Chicago's lead in the number of "professionals"
was explained by one man on the ground that it is a Mecca and Medina
"for young fellows who have got into some scrape in the East. They go to
Chicago, get in with the push, and then start out on the road. The older
men train them."
A question that I was continually putting to myself when meeting the
"professional" was: What made him choose such a career? He is
intelligent, agreeable to talk to, pleasant as a travelling companion,
and among his kind a fairly good fellow, and why did he not put these
abilities and talents to a better use? To understand him well I believe
that one must make his acquaintance while he is still living at home, as
a boy, in some city "slum." He does not always come from a slum, but, as
a rule, this is where he begins his criminal career. In every quarter
of this character there is a criminal atmosphere. The criminologists
have not given this fact sufficient prominence in their writings. They
make some mention of it, but it is seldom given its true significance in
their books. The best-born lad in the world can go wrong if forced to
live in this corrupt environment. Not that he is necessarily taught to
commit crimes, or urged to, although this sometimes happens; they become
spontaneous actions on his part. The very air he breathes frequently
incites him to criminal deeds, and practice makes him skilful and
expert. In another environment, in nine cases out of ten, he could be
trained to take an interest in upright living; in this one he follows
the lines of least resistance, and becomes a thief.
Let me describe the childhood of a criminal boy who will serve as a type
for thousands.
He was born in one of the slums of New York, not far from the Bowery,
and within a stone's throw of the clock of Cooper Institute, and the
white spire of Grace Church. From the very start he was what is called
an unwelcome child. Not that there was any particular dislike toward him
personally, but his parents had all they could do, and more too, to care
for the half dozen other children who had come to them, and, when he
appeared, there was hardly any room in the house left. He grew up with
the sense of want always present, and when he got into the street with
the other children of the neighbourhood, it became even more oppressive.
Pretty soon he learned from the example of his playmates that begging
sometimes helps to quiet a boy's hunger, and that pilfering from the
grocer's sidewalk display makes the dinner at home more substantial.
These are bits of slum philosophy that every child living in slums
learns to appreciate sooner or later. The lad in question was no
exception. He was soon initiated into the clique, and played his own
part in these miniature bread riots. He did not appreciate their
criminal significance. All he knew was that his stomach was empty and
that he wanted the things he saw in the shops and streets. He was like a
baby who sees a pretty colour gleaming on the carpet, and, without
counting the cost or pains, creeps after it. He knew nothing of the law
of Mine and Thine, except as the thing desired was held fast in the fist
of its owner. Not that he was deformed in his moral nature, or naturally
lacking in moral power, but this nature and power had never been
trained. Like his body, they had been neglected and forgotten, and it is
no surprise that they failed to develop. Had somebody taken him out of
his "slum" environment, and taught him how to be respectable and honest,
his talents might have been put to good uses, but luck, as he calls
circumstances, was against him, and he had to stay in low life.
In this life there is, as a rule, but one ideal for a boy, and that is
successful thieving. He sees men, to be sure, who find gambling more
profitable, as well as safer, and still others humble enough to content
themselves with simple begging, but as a lad truly ambitious and anxious
to get on rapidly, he must join the "crook's" fraternity. There is also
a fascination about crime which appeals to him. Men describe it
differently, but they all agree that it has a great deal to do in making
criminals. My own idea is that it lies in the excitement of trying to
elude justice. I know from experience as an amateur tramp that there is
a great deal of satisfaction in slipping away from a policeman just as
he is on the point of catching you, and I can easily understand how much
greater the pleasure must be to a man, who, in thus dodging the officer,
escapes not simply a few days in a county jail, but long years in a
penitentiary. It is the most exciting business in the world, and for men
equal to its vicissitudes it must have great attractions.
In time it interested the boy I am describing. At first he thieved
because it was the only way he knew to still his hunger, but as he grew
older the idea of gain developed, and he threw himself body and soul
into the thief's career. He had been brought up in crime, taught to
regard it as a profitable field of labour, full of exciting chase and
often splendid capture, and naturally it was the activity that appealed
to him. He knew that he had certain abilities for criminal enterprises,
that there was a possibility of making them pay, and he determined to
trust to luck. The reader may exclaim here: "But this boy must have been
a phenomenon. No lad wilfully chooses such a career so young." He was in
all respects an average slum boy in his ambitions and maturity, and if
he seems extraordinary to the reader, the only explanation I can give is
that low life develops its characters with unusual rapidity. Outcast
boys are in business and struggling for a place in the world long before
the respectable boy has even had a glimpse of it. This comes of
competition. They must either jump into the fray or die. The child in
them is killed long before it has had a chance to expand, and the man
develops with hothouse haste. It is abnormal, but it is true, and it all
goes to show how the boy in question was registered so early in the
criminal calendar. He had to make his living, he had to choose a
business, and his precocity, if I may call it that, was simply the
result of being forced so early into the "swim." He ought to have been a
frolicsome child, fond of ball and marbles, but he had but little time
for such amusements. Money was what he wanted, and he rushed pell-mell
in search of it. I will leave him in the company of hardened tramps and
criminals, into which he soon drifted, and among whom he made a name for
himself.
The resolution to be a "professional" comes later with some lads than
with others. Until well on into their teens, and sometimes even into
their twenties, there are those who merely drift, stealing when they can
and managing otherwise when they can't. Finally they are arrested,
convicted, and sent to state prison. Here there is the same criminal
atmosphere that they were accustomed to in the open, only more of it. Go
where they will in their world, they cannot escape it. In prison they
form acquaintances and make contracts against the day when they will be
free again. They are eventually turned loose. What are they to do? The
"job," of course, that they have talked about with a "pal" in the "stir"
(penitentiary). They do it, and get away with two or three thousand.
This decides them. They know of more deals, and so do their cronies, and
they agree to undertake them and divide the plunder. So it goes on for
years, and finally they have "records;" they are recognised among their
fellows and in police circles as clever "guns;" they have arrived at
distinction.
Only one who has been in the criminal world can realise how easy it is
for a boy to develop on these lines. He who studies prison specimens
only, and neglects to make their acquaintance while they are still young
and unhardened, naturally comes to look upon them as weird and uncanny
creatures, to be accounted for only on the ground that they are freaks
of nature; but they are really the result of man's own social system. If
there were no slums in this country, no criminal atmosphere, and no
unknown thieves to protect the known, there would be comparatively few
professional offenders. The trouble at present is that when a boy gets
into this atmosphere, once learns to enjoy criminal companionship and
practice, he is as unhappy without them as is the cigarette fiend
without his cigarette. Violent measures are necessary to effect any
changes, and there comes a time when nothing avails.
Before closing this chapter it seems appropriate to refer to some of the
peculiar characteristics of professional offenders. The most that can be
attempted in the space of one chapter is a short account of a few of
their traits as a class, but an interesting book might be written on
this subject.
A peculiar caste feeling or pride is one of the most noteworthy
characteristics of professional offenders. They believe that, in
ostracising them from decent company, the polite world meant that they
should live their lives in absolute exile, that they should be denied
all human companionship, and in finding it for themselves among their
kind, in creating a world of their own with laws, manners, and customs,
free of every other and answerable only to itself, they feel that they
have outwitted the larger world, beaten it at its own game, as it were.
Their attitude to society may be likened to that of the boy who has been
thrown out of his home for some misdemeanour and who has "got on"
without paternal help and advice; they think that they have "done"
society, as the boy often thinks that he has "done" his father, and the
thought makes them vain. Individually, they frequently regret the deeds
which lost them their respectability, and a number, if they could, would
like to live cleaner lives, but, collectively, their new citizenship and
position give them a conceit such as few human beings of the respectable
sort ever enjoy. Watch them at a hang-out camp-fire gathering! They sit
there like Indian chiefs, proud of their freedom and scornful of all
other society, poking fun at its follies, picking flaws in its
morality, and imaginatively regenerating it with their own suggestions
and reforms. At the bottom of their hearts they know that theirs is a
low world, boasting nothing that can compare with the one which they
criticise and carp at, and that they are justly exiled; but the fact
that they have succeeded alone and unaided in making it their own puffs
them up with a pride which will not allow them to judge impartially.
I remember talking with a Western criminal in regard to this matter, and
taking him to task for his loose and careless criticism, as I considered
it. He had tossed off bold judgments on all manner of inconsistencies
and immoralities which he claimed that he had found in respectable
society, and took his own world as a standard of comparison. Generosity
was a virtue which he thought much more prevalent in his class. He
listened to my objections, and seemed to accept some of the points made,
but he closed the argument with a passionate appeal to what he would
have called my class pride. "But think how we've fooled 'em, Cigarette,"
he exclaimed. "Why, even when they put us in prison we've still got our
gang, just the same, our crowd,--that's what tickles me. I s'pose they
are better'n I am,--I'll be better when I'm dead,--but they ain't any
smarter'n I am. They wanted me to go off in the woods somewhere 'n' chew
up my soul all alone, 'n' I've fooled 'em,--we all have! That's what I'm
kickin' for, that they give in 'n' say, 'You ain't such Rubes as we
thought you were.' If one uv 'em 'ud jus' come to me 'n' say: 'Jack,
it's a fact, we can't ring in the solitary confinement act on
you.--d'you know, I believe I'd reform jus' to be square with 'im. What
I want 'em to do is to 'fess up that I ain't beholden to 'em for cump'y,
for my gang, 'n' that they ain't any smarter'n I am in findin' a gang.
I'm jus' as big a man in my crowd as they are in theirs, 'n' nothin'
that they can do'll make me any smaller. Ain't that right, eh?" And I
had to confess that from his point of view it was.
Respectable, law-abiding people never realise what a comfort this caste
feeling is to thousands of men. I have met even educated men to whom it
has been a consolation. They have never been able to define exactly the
compensation it affords them, indeed they have often been ashamed to
admit the fact, but it has remained, nevertheless. I think the man I
have just quoted enunciates it as clearly as it is possible to be set
forth in words. His joy consisted in discovering that he was just as
"smart," just as full of resource, just as equal to a trying situation,
even in his disgrace and downfall, as the man who shunned his company,
who wanted him banished or sent to prison; he had revenged himself, so
to speak, on his avengers, a gratification which is more or less dear to
all human beings.
Personal liberty and freedom in contra-distinction to class liberty and
freedom also count for a good deal in the outcast's life. Besides being
independent of other people, he is also more or less independent of his
own people, so far as laws and commands are concerned. He tolerates no
king, president, or parliament, and resents with vigour any
infringements upon his privileges, either from society or his own
organisation. In fact, he leaves the organisation and lives by himself
alone, if he feels that its unwritten, but at times rather strict, laws
bear too heavily upon him. There are men who live absolutely apart from
the crowd, shunning all society, except that which supports them. They
are often called "cranks" by their less thoroughgoing companions, and
would probably impress every one as a little crotchety and peculiar, but
their action is the logical outcome of the life. The tendency of this
life is to make a man dislike the slightest conventionalism, and to live
up to his disliking is the consistent conduct of every man in it. He
hates veneer about him in every particular and only as he throws off
every vestige of it does he enjoy to the full his world.
In a lodging-house in Chicago, some years ago, I met a tramp who was a
good example of the liberty-loving professional offenders. We awoke in
the morning a little earlier than the rest, and, as it was not yet time
to get up, fell to talking and "declaring ourselves," as tramps do
under such circumstances. After we had exchanged the usual cut and dried
remarks which even hobo society cannot do entirely without, he said to
me, suddenly, and utterly without connection with what had gone before:
"Don't you love this sort o' life?" at the same time looking at me
enthusiastically, almost as if inspired. I confessed that it had certain
attractive features, and showed, for the sake of drawing him out, an
enthusiasm of my own. "I don't see," he went on, "how I have ever lived
differently. I was brought up on a farm, but, my goodness, I wouldn't
trade this life if you'd give me all the land in the wild West. Why, I
can do just as I please now--exactly. When I want to go anywhere, I get
on a train and go, and no one has the right to ask me any questions.
That's what I call liberty,--I want to go just where I please," and he
brought out the words with an emphasis that could not have been stronger
had he been stating his religious convictions.
I have often been asked whether tramps and criminals have class
divisions and distinctions like those in society proper. "Are there
aristocrats and middle class people, for instance," a number of persons
have said to me, "and does position count for much?" Most certainly
there are these distinctions, and they constitute one of the most
notable features of the life. There is just as much chance to climb high
and fall low, in the outcast world, there are just as many prizes and
praises to win, as in the larger world surrounding it, and the
investigator will find, if he observes carefully enough, the identical
little jealousies, criticisms, and quarrels that prevail in "polite
society."
A man acquires position in pretty much the same way that it is acquired
elsewhere,--he either works hard for it, or it is granted him by common
consent on account of his superior native endowment. There is as little
jumping into fame in this world as in any other; one must prove his
ability to do certain things well, have a record of preparation
consistent with his achievements, before he can take any very high place
in the social order. The criminal enjoys, as a rule, the highest
position; he is the aristocrat of the entire community. Everybody looks
up to him, his presence is desired at "hang-out" gatherings, boys
delight to shake his hand, and men repeat his remarks like the wise
sayings of a prophet. He feels his importance, works for it, and tries
to live up to it, just as determinedly as aristocrats in other spheres
of activity, and if he loses it and falls from grace, the disappointment
is correspondingly keen.
The tramp may be said to belong to the middle class of the outcast
world, and, like other middle class people, he often finds life a little
nicer in a class socially above him. He enjoys associating with
criminals, being able to quote them on matters of interest to the
"hang-out," and giving the impression that he is _au courant_ with their
business. If he can do all this well it makes him so much the more
important among his fellows. His own particular class, however, also
has advantages and attractions, and there are men who seek his company
nearly as much as he seeks the criminals. There is an upper middle class
as well as a lower, and the line of separation is sharply drawn. The
"old stagers," the men who have been years "on the road," and know it
"down to the ground," as they say, constitute the upper middle class.
They can dictate somewhat to the tramps not so experienced as they are,
and their opinions are always listened to first. If they say, for
instance, that a certain town is "hostile," unfriendly to beggars, the
statement is accepted on its face, unless some one has absolute evidence
to the contrary, and even then the under class man makes his demurrer
very modestly. I have never succeeded in getting as far as this during
my tramp experiences, and had to remain content in the lower division,
but even there I had a significance denied to men less experienced than
I was. A newcomer, for instance, a "tenderfoot," was expected to show me
deference, and if I happened in at a "hang-out," where only newcomers
were present, I was cock of the walk. Even these "tenderfeet" have a
class pride, too, for at the bottom of all this social arrangement there
are men and women who have been turned out of every class, the outcast
of the outcasts. They are called "tomato-can-stiffs" and "barrel
dossers" by the people above them, terms which indicate that they have
reached the last pitch of degradation. They realise their disgrace
nearly as much as their counterparts who have been turned out of
respectable society, and often look with longing upon the positions they
once enjoyed, but their lot is not entirely without its consolations, as
I learned one day in talking with one of them. "Well, at any rate," he
said, "I ain't got to keep thinkin' all the while 't I'm goin' to fall
and lose my posish the way you have to. There's no place for me to fall
to, I've come to the end o' my rope. You've got to keep lookin' out fer
yerself ev'ry step you take--keep worryin' about gettin' on, 'n' I don't
have them worries any more, 'n' it's a big relief, I tell you. You feel
the way you do when you get out o' prison." This thought is a little
fanciful, and not entirely sincere, but I can nevertheless appreciate
the man's point of view, for, with all the independence and liberty of
this world, there is, just as he said, considerable worry about holding
one's place, and I can imagine a time when it would be pleasant to be
relieved of it all.
The financial profits in a professional offender's career are not easy
to determine, but they must be taken into consideration in all accounts
of his life, no matter how short. I saw more of the pickpocket, during
my police experience, than of any other professional thief, and it was
possible for me to learn considerable in regard to his winnings.