Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
The Autobiography of a Thief.
The Autobiography of
a Thief
Recorded by
HUTCHINS HAPGOOD
Author of "The Spirit of the Ghetto," etc.
NEW YORK
FOX, DUFFIELD & COMPANY
1903
Copyright, 1903, BY
FOX, DUFFIELD & COMPANY
Entered at the Library of Congress, Washington, U. S. A.
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England.
Published May, 1903.
"_Oh, happy he who can still hope to emerge from this sea of error!_"
FAUST.
"_There is no man doth a wrong for the wrong's sake, but thereby to
purchase himself profit, or pleasure, or honour, or the like; therefore
why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me? And
if any man should do wrong merely out of ill-nature, why, yet it is but
like the thorn or briar, which prick and scratch because they can do no
other._"
BACON.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
Editor's Note 9
I. Boyhood and Early Crime 15
II. My First Fall 34
III. Mixed Ale Life in the Fourth and Seventh Wards 50
IV. When the Graft Was Good 73
V. Mamie and the Negotiable Bonds 89
VI. What the Burglar Faces 107
VII. In Stir 132
VIII. In Stir (Continued) 154
IX. In Stir and Out 182
X. At the Graft Again 202
XI. Back to Prison 228
XII. On the Outside Again 255
XIII. In the Mad-House 300
XIV. Out of Hell 332
Editor's Postscript 348
Editor's Note.
I met the ex-pickpocket and burglar whose autobiography follows soon
after his release from a third term in the penitentiary. For several
weeks I was not particularly interested in him. He was full of a desire
to publish in the newspapers an exposé of conditions obtaining in two
of our state institutions, his motive seeming partly revenge and partly
a very genuine feeling that he had come in contact with a systematic
crime against humanity. But as I continued to see more of him, and
learned much about his life, my interest grew; for I soon perceived
that he not only had led a typical thief's life, but was also a man
of more than common natural intelligence, with a gift of vigorous
expression. With little schooling he had yet educated himself, mainly
by means of the prison libraries, until he had a good and individually
expressed acquaintance with many of the English classics, and with some
of the masterpieces of philosophy.
That this ex-convict, when a boy on the East Side of New York City,
should have taken to the "graft" seemed to me, as he talked about
it, the most natural thing in the world. His parents were honest, but
ignorant and poor. One of his brothers, a normal and honorable man,
is a truck driver with a large family; and his relatives and honest
friends in general belong to the most modest class of working people.
The swell among them is another brother, who is a policeman; but Jim,
the ex-convict, is by far the cleverest and most intelligent of the
lot. I have often seen him and his family together, on Saturday nights,
when the clan gathers in the truckman's house for a good time, and
he is the life of the occasion, and admired by the others. Jim was an
unusually energetic and ambitious boy, but the respectable people he
knew did not appeal to his imagination. As he played on the street,
other boys pointed out to him the swell thief at the corner saloon, and
told him tales of big robberies and exciting adventures, and the prizes
of life seemed to him to lie along the path of crime. There was no one
to teach him what constitutes real success, and he went in for crime
with energy and enthusiasm.
It was only after he had become a professional thief and had done time
in the prisons that he began to see that crime does not pay. He saw
that all his friends came to ruin, that his own health was shattered,
and that he stood on the verge of the mad-house. His self-education in
prison helped him, too, to the perception that he had made a terrible
mistake. He came to have intellectual ambitions and no longer took
an interest in his old companions. After several weeks of constant
association with him I became morally certain that his reform was
as genuine as possible under the circumstances; and that, with fair
success in the way of getting something to do, he would remain honest.
I therefore proposed to him to write an autobiography. He took up
the idea with eagerness, and through the entire period of our work
together, has shown an unwavering interest in the book and very decided
acumen and common sense. The method employed in composing the volume
was that, practically, of the interview. From the middle of March to
the first of July we met nearly every afternoon, and many evenings,
at a little German café on the East Side. There, I took voluminous
notes, often asking questions, but taking down as literally as
possible his story in his own words; to such a degree is this true,
that the following narrative is an authentic account of his life, with
occasional descriptions and character-sketches of his friends of the
Under World. Even without my explicit assurance, the autobiography
bears sufficient internal evidence of the fact that, essentially, it is
a thief's own story. Many hours of the day time, when I was busy with
other things, my friend--for I have come to look upon him as such--was
occupied with putting down on paper character-sketches of his pals
and their careers, or recording his impressions of the life they had
followed. After I had left town for the summer, in order to prepare
this volume, I wrote to Jim repeatedly, asking for more material on
certain points. This he always furnished in a manner which showed his
continued interest, and a literary sense, though fragmentary, of no
common kind.
H. H.
The Autobiography of a Thief.
CHAPTER I.
_Boyhood and Early Crime._
I have been a professional thief for more than twenty years. Half
of that time I have spent in state's prison, and the other half in
"grafting" in one form or another. I was a good pickpocket and a fairly
successful burglar; and I have known many of the best crooks in the
country. I have left the business for good, and my reasons will appear
in the course of this narrative. I shall tell my story with entire
frankness. I shall not try to defend myself. I shall try merely to tell
the truth. Perhaps in so doing I shall explain myself.
I was born on the east side of New York City in 1868, of poor but
honest parents. My father was an Englishman who had married an Irish
girl and emigrated to America, where he had a large family, no one of
whom, with the exception of myself, went wrong. For many years he was
an employee of Brown Brothers and Company and was a sober, industrious
man, and a good husband and kind father. To me, who was his favorite,
he was perhaps too kind. I was certainly a spoiled child. I remember
that when I was five years old he bought me a twenty-five dollar suit
of clothes. I was a vigorous, handsome boy, with red, rosy cheeks and
was not only the pet of my family, but the life of the neighborhood as
well.
At that time, which is as far back as I can remember, we were living
on Munro Street, in the Seventh Ward. This was then a good residential
neighborhood, and we were comfortable in our small, wooden house. The
people about us were Irish and German, the large Jewish emigration
not having begun yet. Consequently, lower New York did not have such
a strong business look as it has now, but was cleanly and respectable.
The gin-mills were fewer in number, and were comparatively decent. When
the Jews came they started many basement saloons, or cafés, and for the
first time, I believe, the social evil began to be connected with the
drinking places.
I committed my first theft at the age of six. Older heads put me up to
steal money from the till of my brother's grocery store. It happened
this way. There were several much older boys in the neighborhood who
wanted money for row-boating and theatres. One was eighteen years old,
a ship-caulker; and another was a roustabout of seventeen. I used to
watch these boys practice singing and dancing in the big marble lots
in the vicinity. How they fired my youthful imagination! They told me
about the theatres then in vogue--Tony Pastor's, the old Globe, Wood's
Museum and Josh Hart's Theatre Comique, afterwards owned by Harrigan
and Hart.
One day, George, the roustabout, said to me: "Kid, do you want to go
row-boating with us?" When I eagerly consented he said it was too bad,
but the boat cost fifty cents and he only had a ten-cent stamp (a small
paper bill: in those days there was very little silver in circulation).
I did not bite at once, I was so young, and they treated me to one of
those wooden balls fastened to a rubber string that you throw out and
catch on the rebound. I was tickled to death. I shall never forget that
day as long as I live. It was a Saturday, and all day long those boys
couldn't do too much for me.
Towards evening they explained to me how to rob my brother's till. They
arranged to be outside the store at a certain hour, and wait until I
found an opportunity to pass the money to them. My mother watched in
the store that evening, but when she turned her back I opened the till
and gave the eight or ten dollars it contained to the waiting boys. We
all went row-boating and had a jolly time. But they were not satisfied
with that. What I had done once, I could do again, and they held out
the theatre to me, and pretended to teach me how to dance the clog.
Week in and week out I furnished them with money, and in recompense
they would sometimes take me to a matinée. What a joy! How I grew to
love the vaudeville artists with their songs and dances, and the wild
Bowery melodramas! It was a great day for Indian plays, and the number
of Indians I have scalped in imagination, after one of these shows, is
legion.
Some of the small boys, however, who did not share in the booty grew
jealous and told my father what was doing. The result was that a
certain part of my body was sore for weeks afterwards. My feelings were
hurt, too, for I did not know at that time that I was doing anything
very bad. My father, indeed, accompanied the beating with a sermon,
telling me that I had not only broken God's law but had robbed those
that loved me. One of my brothers, who is now a policeman in the
city service, told me that I had taken my ticket for the gallows. The
brother I had robbed, who afterwards became a truckman, patted me on
the head and told me not to do it again. He was always a good fellow.
And yet they all seemed to like to have me play about the streets with
the other little boys, perhaps because the family was large, and there
was not much room in the house.
So I had to give up the till; but I hated to, for even at that age I
had begun to think that the world owed me a living! To get revenge I
used to hide in a charcoal shed and throw pebbles at my father as he
passed. I was indeed the typical bad boy, and the apple of my mother's
eye.
When I couldn't steal from the till any more, I used to take clothes
from my relatives and sell them for theatre money; or any other object
I thought I could make away with. I did not steal merely for theatre
money but partly for excitement too. I liked to run the risk of being
discovered. So I was up to any scheme the older boys proposed. Perhaps
if I had been raised in the wild West I should have made a good trapper
or cow-boy, instead of a thief. Or perhaps even birds' nests and fish
would have satisfied me, if they had been accessible.
One of my biggest exploits as a small boy was made when I was eight
years old. Tom's mother had a friend visiting her, whom Tom and I
thought we would rob. Tom, who was a big boy, and some of his friends,
put me through a hall bed-room window, and I made away with a box of
valuable jewelry. But it did me no good for the big boys sold it to a
woman who kept a second-hand store on Division Street, and I received
no part of the proceeds.
My greatest youthful disappointment came about four weeks later. A boy
put me up to steal a box out of a wagon. I boldly made away with it and
ran into a hall-way, where he was waiting. The two of us then went into
his back-yard, opened the box and found a beautiful sword, the handle
studded with little stones. But the other boy had promised me money,
and here was only a sword! I cried for theatre money, and then the
other boy boxed my ears. He went to his father, who was a free mason,
and got a fifty cent "stamp." He gave me two three-cent pieces and
kept the rest. I shall never forget that injustice as long as I live.
I remember it as plainly as if it happened yesterday. We put the sword
under a mill in Cherry Street and it disappeared a few hours later. I
thought the boy and his father had stolen it, and told them so. I got
another beating, but I believe my suspicion was correct, for the free
mason used to give me a ten cent stamp whenever he saw me--to square
me, I suppose.
When it came to contests with boys of my own size I was not so meek,
however. One day I was playing in Jersey, in the back-yard of a boy
friend's house. He displayed his pen-knife, and it took my fancy. I
wanted to play with it, and asked him to lend it to me. He refused,
and I grabbed his hand. He plunged the knife into my leg. I didn't like
that, and told him so, not in words, but in action. I remember that I
took his ear nearly off with a hatchet. I was then eight years old.
About this time I began to go to Sunday School, with what effect on my
character remains to be seen. One day I heard a noted priest preach.
I had one dollar and eighty cents in my pocket which I had stolen from
my brother. I thought that each coin in my pocket was turning red-hot
because of my anxiety to spend it. While the good man was talking of
the Blessed One I was inwardly praying for him to shut up. He had two
beautiful pictures which he intended to give to the best listener among
the boys. When he had finished his talk he called me to him, gave me
the pictures and said: "It's such boys as you who, when they grow up,
are a pride to our Holy Church."
A year later I went to the parochial school, but did not stay long,
for they would not have me. I was a sceptic at seven and an agnostic
at eight, and I objected to the prayers every five minutes. I had
no respect for ceremonies. They did not impress my imagination in
the slightest, partly because I learned at an early age to see the
hypocrisy of many good people. One day half a dozen persons were
killed in an explosion. One of them I had known. Neighbors said of him:
"What a good man has gone," and the priest and my mother said he was
in heaven. But he was the same man who had often told me not to take
money from the money-drawer, for that was dangerous, but to search my
father's pockets when he was asleep. For this advice I had given the
rascal many a dollar. Ever after that I was suspicious of those who
were over-virtuous. I told my mother I did not believe her and the
priest, and she slapped my face and told me to mind my catechism.
Everything mischievous that happened at the parochial school was laid
to my account, perhaps not entirely unjustly. If a large firecracker
exploded, it was James--that was my name. If some one sat on a bent
pin, the blame was due to James. If the class tittered teacher Nolan
would rush at me with a hickory stick and yell: "It's you, you devil's
imp!" and then he'd put the question he had asked a hundred times
before: "Who med (made) you?"
I was finally sent away from the parochial school because I insulted
one of the teachers, a Catholic brother. I persisted in disturbing
him whenever he studied his catechism, which I believed he already
knew by heart. This brother's favorite, by the way, was a boy who used
to say his prayers louder than anybody else. I met him fifteen years
afterwards in state's prison. He had been settled for "vogel-grafting,"
that is, taking little girls into hall-ways and robbing them of their
gold ear-rings. He turned out pretty well, however, in one sense, for
he became one of the best shoe-makers in Sing Sing.
Although, as one can see from the above incidents, I was not given to
veneration, yet in some ways I was easily impressed. I always loved old
buildings, for instance. I was baptized in the building which was until
lately the Germania Theatre, and which was then a church; and that
old structure always had a strange fascination for me. I used to hang
about old churches and theatres, and preferred on such occasions to
be alone. Sometimes I sang and danced, all by myself, in an old music
hall, and used to pore over the names marked in lead pencil on the
walls. Many is the time I have stood at night before some old building
which has since been razed to the ground, and even now I like to go
round to their sites. I like almost anything that is old, even old men
and women. I never loved my mother much until she was an old woman. All
stories of the past interested me; and later, when I was in prison, I
was specially fond of history.
After I was dismissed from the parochial school, I entered the public
school, where I stayed somewhat longer. There I studied reading,
writing, arithmetic and later, grammar, and became acquainted with
a few specimens of literature. I remember Longfellow's _Excelsior_
was a favorite of mine. I was a bright, intelligent boy, and, if it
had not been for conduct, in which my mark was low, I should always
have had the gold medal, in a class of seventy. I used to play truant
constantly, and often went home and told my mother that I knew more
than the teacher. She believed me, for certainly I was the most
intelligent member of my family.
Yes, I was more intelligent than my parents or any of my brothers and
sisters. Much good it has done me! Now that I have "squared it" I see a
good deal of my family, and they are all happy in comparison with me.
On Saturday nights I often go around to see my brother the truckman.
He has come home tired from his week's work, but happy with his twelve
dollar salary and the prospect of a holiday with his wife and children.
They sit about in their humble home on Saturday night, with their pint
of beer, their songs and their jovial stories. Whenever I am there,
I am, in a way, the life of the party. My repartee is quicker than
that of the others. I sing gayer songs and am jollier with the working
girls who visit my brother's free home. But when I look at my stupid
brother's quiet face and calm and strong bearing, and then realize my
own shattered health and nerves and profound discontent, I know that
my slow brother has been wiser than I. It has taken me many years on
the rocky path to realize this truth. For by nature I am an Ishmælite,
that is, a man of impulse, and it is only lately that wisdom has been
knocked into me.
Certainly I did not realize my fate when I was a kid of ten, filled
with contempt for my virtuous and obscure family! I was overflowing
with spirits and arrogance, and began to play "hooky" so often that I
practically quit school about this time.
It was then, too, that we moved again, this time to Cherry Street, to
the wreck of my life. At the end of the block on which we lived was a
corner saloon, the headquarters of a band of professional thieves. They
were known as the Old Border Gang, and among them were several very
well-known and successful crooks. They used to pass our way regularly,
and boys older than I (my boy companions always had the advantage of me
in years) used to point the famous "guns" out to me. When I saw one of
these great men pass, my young imagination was fired with the ambition
to be as he was! With what eagerness we used to talk about "Juggy,"
and the daring robbery he committed in Brooklyn! How we went over again
and again in conversation, the trick by which Johnny the "grafter" had
fooled the detective in the matter of the bonds!
We would tell stories like these by the hour, and then go round to
the corner, to try to get a look at some of the celebrities in the
saloon. A splendid sight one of these swell grafters was, as he stood
before the bar or smoked his cigar on the corner! Well dressed, with
clean linen collar and shirt, a diamond in his tie, an air of ease and
leisure all about him, what a contrast he formed to the respectable
hod-carrier or truckman or mechanic, with soiled clothes and no collar!
And what a contrast was his dangerous life to that of the virtuous
laborer!
The result was that I grew to think the career of the grafter was the
only one worth trying for. The real prizes of the world I knew nothing
about. All that I saw of any interest to me was crooked, and so I began
to pilfer right and left: there was nothing else for me to do. Besides
I loved to treat those older than myself. The theatre was a growing
passion with me and I began to be very much interested in the baseball
games. I used to go to the Union grounds in Brooklyn, where after the
third inning, I could usually get admitted for fifteen cents, to see
the old Athletics or Mutuals play. I needed money for these amusements,
for myself and other boys, and I knew of practically only one way to
get it.
If we could not get the money at home, either by begging or stealing,
we would tap tills, if possible, in the store of some relative; or tear
brass off the steps in the halls of flats and sell it at junk shops. A
little later, we used to go to Grand Street and steal shoes and women's
dresses from the racks in the open stores, and pawn them. In the old
Seventh Ward there used to be a good many silver plates on the doors of
private houses. These we would take off with chisels and sell to metal
dealers. We had great fun with a Dutchman who kept a grocery store
on Cherry Street. We used to steal his strawberries, and did not care
whether he saw us or not. If he grabbed one of us, the rest of the gang
would pelt him with stones until he let go, and then all run around the
corner before the "copper" came into sight.
All this time I grew steadily bolder and more desperate, and the day
soon came when I took consequences very little into consideration.
My father and mother sometimes learned of some exploit of mine, and a
beating would be the result. I still got the blame for everything, as
in school, and was sometimes punished unjustly. I was very sensitive
and this would rankle in my soul for weeks, so that I stole harder
than ever. And yet I think that there was some good in me. I was
never cruel to any animals, except cats; for cats, I used to tie their
tails together and throw them over a clothesline to dry. I liked dogs,
horses, children and women, and have always been gentle to them. What
I really was was a healthy young animal, with a vivid imagination and
a strong body. I learned early to swim and fight and play base-ball.
Dime and nickel novels always seemed very tame to me; I found it much
more exciting to hear true stories about the grafters at the corner
saloon!--big men, with whom as yet I did not dare to speak; I could
only stare at them with awe.
I shall never forget the first time I ever saw a pickpocket at work.
It was when I was about thirteen years old. A boy of my own age, Zack,
a great pal of mine, was with me. Zack and I understood one another
thoroughly and well knew how to get theatre money by petty pilfering,
but of real graft we were as yet ignorant, although we had heard many
stories about the operations of actual, professional thieves. We used
to steal rides in the cars which ran to and from the Grand Street
ferries; and run off with overcoats and satchels when we had a chance.
One day we were standing on the rear platform when a woman boarded the
car, and immediately behind her a gentlemanly looking man with a high
hat. He was well-dressed and looked about thirty-five years old. As
the lady entered the car, the man, who stayed outside on the platform,
pulled his hand away from her side and with it came something from her
pocket--a silk handkerchief. I was on the point of asking the woman
if she had dropped something, when Zack said to me, "Mind your own
business." The man, who had taken the pocket-book along with the silk
handkerchief, seeing that we were "next," gave us the handkerchief and
four dollars in ten and fifteen cent paper money ("stamps").
Zack and I put our heads together. We were "wiser" than we had been
half an hour before. We had learned our first practical lesson in the
world of graft. We had seen a pickpocket at work, and there seemed to
us no reason why we should not try the game ourselves. Accordingly a
day or two afterwards we arranged to pick our first pocket. We had,
indeed, often taken money from the pockets of our relatives, but that
was when the trousers hung in the closet or over a chair, and the owner
was absent. This was the first time we had hunted in the open, so to
speak; the first time our prey was really alive.
It was an exciting occasion. Zack and I, who were "wise," (that is,
up to snuff) got several other boys to help us, though we did not tell
them what was doing, for they "were not buried" yet, that is, "dead,"
or ignorant. We induced five or six of them to jump on and off the rear
platform of a car, making as much noise and confusion as possible, so
as to distract the attention of any "sucker" that might board. Soon I
saw a woman about to get on the car. My heart beat with excitement, and
I signalled to Zack that I would make the "touch." In those days women
wore big sacques with pockets in the back, open, so that one could
look in and see what was there. I took the silk handkerchief on the
run, and with Zack following, went up a side street and gloried under
a lamp-post. In the corner of the handkerchief, tied up, were five
two-dollar bills, and for weeks I was J. P. Morgan.
For a long time Zack and I felt we were the biggest boys on the block.
We boasted about our great "touch" to the older boys of eighteen or
nineteen years of age who had pointed out to us the grafters at the
corner saloon. They were not "in it" now. They even condescended to be
treated to a drink by us. We spent the money recklessly, for we knew
where we could get more. In this state of mind, soon after that, I met
the "pick" whom we had seen at work. He had heard of our achievement
and kindly "staked" us, and gave us a few private lessons in picking
pockets. He saw that we were promising youngsters, and for the sake
of the profession gave us a little of his valuable time. We were proud
enough, to be taken notice of by this great man. We felt that we were
rising in the world of graft, and began to wear collars and neckties.