_My First Fall._
For the next two years, until I was fifteen, I made a great deal
of money at picking pockets, without getting into difficulties with
the police. We operated, at that time, entirely upon women, and were
consequently known technically as Moll-buzzers--or "flies" that "buzz"
about women.
In those days, and for several years later, Moll-buzzing, as well as
picking pockets in general, was an easy and lucrative graft. Women's
dresses seemed to be arranged for our especial benefit; the back
pocket, with its purse and silk handkerchief could be picked even by
the rawest thief. It was in the days when every woman had to possess
a fine silk handkerchief; even the Bowery "cruisers" (street-walkers)
carried them; and to those women we boys used to sell the handkerchiefs
we had stolen, receiving as much as a dollar, or even two dollars, in
exchange.
It was a time, too, before the great department stores and delivery
wagon systems, and shoppers were compelled to carry more money with
them than they do now, and to take their purchases home themselves
through the streets. Very often before they reached their destination
they had unconsciously delivered some of the goods to us. At that time,
too, the wearing of valuable pins and stones, both by men and women,
was more general than it is now. Furthermore, the "graft" was younger.
There were not so many in the business, and the system of police
protection was not so good. Altogether those were halcyon days for us.
The fact that we were very young helped us particularly in this
business, for a boy can get next to a woman in a car or on the street
more easily than a man can. He is not so apt to arouse her suspicions;
and if he is a handsome, innocent-looking boy, and clever, he can go
far in this line of graft. He usually begins this business when he
is about thirteen, and by the age of seventeen generally graduates
into something higher. Living off women, in any form, does not appeal
very long to the imagination of the genuine grafter. Yet I know
thieves who continue to be Moll-buzzers all their lives; and who are
low enough to make their living entirely off poor working girls. The
self-respecting grafter detests this kind; and, indeed, these buzzers
never see prosperous days after their boyhood. The business grows
more difficult as the thief grows older. He cannot approach his prey
so readily, and grows shabbier with declining returns; and shabbiness
makes it difficult for him to mix up in crowds where this kind of work
is generally done.
For several years we youngsters made a great deal of money at this
line. We made a "touch" almost every day, and I suppose our "mob,"
composed of four or five lads who worked together, averaged three or
four hundred dollars a week. We worked mainly on street cars at the
Ferry, and the amount of "technique" required for robbing women was
very slight. Two or three of us generally went together. One acted as
the "dip," or "pick," and the other two as "stalls." The duty of the
"stalls" was to distract the attention of the "sucker" or victim, or
otherwise to hide the operations of the "dip". One stall would get
directly in front of the woman to be robbed, the other directly behind
her. If she were in such a position in the crowd as to render it hard
for the "dip," or "wire" to make a "touch," one of the stalls might
bump against her, and beg her pardon, while the dip made away with her
"leather," or pocket-book.
Shortly before I was fifteen years old I was "let in" to another kind
of graft. One day Tim, Zack and I were boasting of our earnings to an
older boy, twenty years of age, whose name was Pete. He grinned, and
said he knew something better than Moll-buzzing. Then he told us about
"shoving the queer" and got us next to a public truckman who supplied
counterfeit bills. Our method was to carry only one bad bill among
several good ones, so that if we were collared we could maintain our
innocence. We worked this as a "side-graft," for some time. Pete and I
used to go to mass on Sunday morning, and put a bad five dollar bill
in the collector's box, taking out four dollars and ninety cents in
change, in good money. We irreverently called this proceeding "robbing
the dago in Rome." We use to pick "leathers," at the same time, from
the women in the congregation. In those days I was very liberal in my
religious views. I was not narrow, or bigoted. I attended Grace Church,
in Tenth Street, regularly and was always well repaid. But after a
while this lucrative graft came to an end, for the collector began
to get "next". One day he said to me, "Why don't you get your change
outside? This is the fourth time you have given me a big bill." So we
got "leary" (suspicious) and quit.
With my big rosy cheeks and bright eyes and complexion I suppose I
looked, in those days, very holy and innocent, and used to work this
graft for all it was worth. I remember how, in church, I used tracts or
the Christian Advocate as "stalls"; I would hand them to a lady as she
entered the church, and, while doing so, pick her pocket.
Even at the early age of fifteen I began to understand that it was
necessary to save money. If a thief wants to keep out of the "pen"
or "stir," (penitentiary) capital is a necessity. The capital of a
grafter is called "spring-money," for he may have to use it at any
time in paying the lawyer who gets him off in case of an arrest, or in
bribing the policeman or some other official. To "spring," is to escape
from the clutches of the law. If a thief has not enough money to hire
a "mouth-piece" (criminal lawyer) he is in a bad way. He is greatly
handicapped, and can not "jump out" (steal) with any boldness.
But I always had great difficulty in saving "fall-money," (the same as
spring-money; that is money to be used in case of a "fall," or arrest).
My temperament was at fault. When I had a few hundred dollars saved
up I began to be troubled, not from a guilty conscience, but because
I could not stand prosperity. The money burned a hole in my pocket. I
was fond of all sorts of amusements, of "treating," and of clothes.
Indeed, I was very much of a dude; and this for two reasons. In the
first place I was naturally vain, and liked to make a good appearance.
A still more substantial reason was that a good personal appearance is
part of the capital of a grafter, particularly of a pickpocket. The
world thinks that a thief is a dirty, disreputable looking object,
next door to a tramp in appearance. But this idea is far from being
true. Every grafter of any standing in the profession is very careful
about his clothes. He is always neat, clean, and as fashionable as
his income will permit. Otherwise he would not be permitted to attend
large political gatherings, to sit on the platform, for instance, and
would be handicapped generally in his crooked dealings with mankind.
No advice to young men is more common in respectable society than
to dress well. If you look prosperous the world will treat you with
consideration. This applies with even greater force to the thief. Keep
up a "front" is the universal law of success, applicable to all grades
of society. The first thing a grafter is apt to say to a pal whom he
has not seen for a long time is, "You are looking good," meaning that
his friend is well-dressed. It is sure flattery, and if a grafter wants
to make a borrow he is practically certain of opening the negotiations
with the stereotyped phrase: "You are looking good;" for the only time
you can get anything off a grafter is when you can make him think you
are prosperous.
But the great reason why I never saved much "fall-money" was not
"booze," or theatres, or clothes. "Look for the woman" is a phrase, I
believe, in good society; and it certainly explains a great deal of a
thief's misfortunes. Long before I did anything in Graftdom but petty
pilfering, I had begun to go with the little girls in the neighborhood.
At that time they had no attraction for me, but I heard older boys say
that it was a manly thing to lead girls astray, and I was ambitious to
be not only a good thief, but a hard case generally. When I was nine or
ten years old I liked to boast of the conquests I had made among little
working girls of fourteen or fifteen. We used to meet in the hall-ways
of tenement houses, or at their homes, but there was no sentiment in
the relations between us, at least on my part. My only pleasure in it
was the delight of telling about it to my young companions.
When I was twelve years old I met a little girl for whom I had a
somewhat different feeling. Nellie was a pretty, blue-eyed little
creature, or "tid-bit," as we used to say, who lived near my home on
Cherry Street. I used to take her over on the ferry for a ride, or
treat her to ice-cream; and we were really chums; but when I began
to make money I lost my interest in her; partly, too, because at that
time I made the acquaintance of a married woman of about twenty-five
years old. She discovered me one day in the hallway with Nellie, and
threatened to tell the holy brother on us if I didn't fetch her a pint
of beer. I took the beer to her room, and that began a relationship
of perhaps a year. She used to stake me to a part of the money her
husband, a workingman, brought her every Saturday night.
Although the girls meant very little to me until several years later,
I nevertheless began when I was about fifteen to spend a great deal of
money on them. It was the thing to do, and I did it with a good grace.
I used to take all kinds of working girls to the balls in Walhalla Hall
in Orchard Street; or in Pythagoras, or Beethoven Halls, where many
pretty little German girls of respectable families used to dance on
Saturday nights. It was my pride to buy them things--clothes, pins, and
to take them on excursions; for was I not a rising "gun," with money in
my pocket? Money, however, that went as easily as it had come.
Perhaps if I had been able to save money at that time I might not
have fallen (that is, been arrested) so early. My first fall came,
however, when I was fifteen years old; and if I was not a confirmed
thief already, I certainly was one by the time I left the Tombs, where
I stayed ten days. It happened this way. Zack and I were grafting,
buzzing Molls, with a pal named Jack, who afterwards became a famous
burglar. He had just escaped from the Catholic Protectory, and told us
his troubles. Instead of being alarmed, however, I grew bolder, for if
Jack could "beat" the "Proteck" in three months, I argued I could do
it in twenty-four hours. We three ripped things open for some time;
but one day we were grafting on Sixth Avenue, just below Twentieth
Street, when I fell for a "leather." The "sucker," a good-looking Moll
was coming up the Avenue. Her "book," which looked fat, was sticking
out of her skirt. I, who was the "wire," gave Jack and Zack the tip
(thief's cough), and they stalled, one in front, one behind. The girl
did not "blow" (take alarm) and I got hold of the leather easily.
It looked like a get-away, for no one on the sidewalk saw us. But as
bad luck would have it, a negro coachman, standing in the street by
the pavement, got next, and said to me, "What are you doing there?" I
replied, "Shut up, and I'll give you two dollars." But he caught hold
of me and shouted for the police. I passed the leather to Jack, who
"vamoosed." Zack hit the negro in the face and I ran up Seventh Avenue,
but was caught by a flyman (policeman), and taken to the station house.
On the way to the police station I cried bitterly, for, after all,
I was only a boy. I realized for the first time that the way of the
transgressor is hard. It was in the afternoon, and I spent the time
until next morning at ten, when I was to appear before the magistrate,
in a cell in the station-house, in the company of an old grafter. In
the adjoining cells were drunkards, street-walkers and thieves who had
been "lined up" for the night, and I spent the long hours in crying and
in listening to their indecent songs and jokes. The old grafter called
to one of the Tenderloin girls that he had a kid with him who was
arrested for Moll-buzzing. At this they all expressed their sympathy
with me by saying that I would either be imprisoned for life or be
hanged. They got me to sing a song, and I convinced them that I was
tough.
In the morning I was arraigned in the police court. As there was
no stolen property on me, and as the sucker was not there to make a
complaint, I was "settled" for assault only, and sent to the Tombs for
ten days.
My experience in the Tombs may fairly be called, I think, the turning
point of my life. It was there that I met "de mob". I learned new
tricks in the Tombs; and more than that, I began definitely to look
upon myself as a criminal. The Tombs of twenty years ago was even less
cheerful than it is at present. The Boys' Prison faced the Women's
Prison, and between these two was the place where those sentenced to
death were hanged. The boys knew when an execution was to take place,
and we used to talk it over among ourselves. One man was hanged while
I was there; and if anybody thinks that knowledge of such things helps
to make boys seek the path of virtue, let him go forth into the world
and learn something about human nature.
On my arrival in the Tombs, Mrs. Hill, the matron, had me searched for
tobacco, knives or matches, all of which were contraband; then I was
given a bath and sent into the corridor of the cells where there were
about twenty-five other boys, confined for various crimes, ranging
from petty larceny to offenses of the gravest kind. On the second day
I met two young "dips" and we exchanged our experiences in the world
of graft. I received my first lesson in the art of "banging a super,"
that is, stealing a watch by breaking the ring with the thumb and
forefinger, and thus detaching it from the chain. They were two of the
best of the Sixth Ward pickpockets, and we made a date to meet "on the
outside." Indeed, it was not many weeks after my release before I could
"bang a super," or get a man's "front" (watch and chain) as easily as
I could relieve a Moll of her "leather".
As I look back upon the food these young boys received in the tombs,
it seems to me of the worst. Breakfast consisted of a chunk of poor
bread and a cup of coffee made of burnt bread crust. At dinner we had
soup (they said, at least, there was meat in it), bread and water;
and supper was the same as breakfast. But we had one consolation. When
we went to divine service we generally returned happy; not because of
what the good priest said, but because we were almost sure of getting
tobacco from the women inmates.
Certainly the Gerry Society has its faults; but since its organization
young boys who have gone wrong but are not yet entirely hardened, have
a much better show to become good citizens than they used to have. That
Society did not exist in my day; but I know a good deal about it, and I
am convinced that it does a world of good; for, at least, when it takes
children into its charge it does not surround them with an atmosphere
of social crime.
While in the Tombs I experienced my first disillusionment as to the
honor of thieves. I was an impulsive, imaginative boy, and that a
pal could go back on me never seemed possible. Many of my subsequent
misfortunes were due to the treachery of my companions. I have learned
to distrust everybody, but as a boy of fifteen I was green, and so the
treachery I shall relate left a sore spot in my soul.
It happened this way. On a May day, about two months before I was
arrested, two other boys and I had entered the basement of a house
where the people were moving, had made away with some silverware, and
sold it to a Christian woman in the neighborhood for one twentieth of
its value. When I had nearly served my ten days' sentence for assault,
my two pals were arrested and "squealed" on me. I was confronted with
them in the Tombs. At first I was mighty glad to see them, but when
I found they had "squealed," I set my teeth and denied all knowledge
of the "touch." I protested my innocence so violently that the police
thought the other boys were merely seeking a scape-goat. They got
twenty days and my term expired forty-eight hours afterwards. The
silverware I stole that May morning is now an heirloom in the family of
the Christian woman to whom I sold it so cheap.
If I had always been as earnest a liar as I was on that occasion in the
Tombs I might never have gone to "stir" (penitentiary); but I grew more
indifferent and desperate as time went on; and, in a way, more honest,
more sincerely a criminal: I hardly felt like denying it. I know some
thieves who, although they have grafted for twenty-five years, have not
yet "done time"; some of them escaped because they knew how to throw
the innocent "con" so well. Take Tim, for instance. Tim and I grafted
together as boys. He was not a very skilful pickpocket, and he often
was on the point of arrest; but he had a talent for innocence, and the
indignation act he would put up would melt a heart of stone. He has,
consequently, never been in stir, while I, a much better thief, have
spent half of my adult life there. That was partly because I felt,
when I had once made a touch, that the property belonged to me. On
one occasion I had robbed a "bloke" of his "red super" (gold watch),
and made away with it all right, when I carelessly dropped it on the
sidewalk. A crowd had gathered about, and no man really in his right
mind, would have picked up that super. But I did it, and was nailed
dead to rights by a "cop." Some time afterwards a pal asked me why
the deuce I had been so foolish. "Didn't the super belong to me," I
replied, indignantly. "Hadn't I earned it?" I was too honest a thief.
That was one of my weaknesses.