THIEVES.
Thieves are numerous in New York. As a general rule, they herd together
in the worst quarters of the city--in the Five Points and along East
River--where they can rapidly and easily communicate with each other,
and where they can hide from the police without fear of discovery.
There are many blunderers in the fraternity, but there are also many
experienced hands, who do a great deal of damage, and give a world of
trouble to the authorities. These are generally well known to the
police.
THE THIEF LANGUAGE.
The thieves of the city have a language, or _argot_, peculiar to
themselves. Those who have been raised to the business use this _argot_
to such an extent, that a stranger finds it as impossible to understand
them as he would if they were speaking in a foreign tongue. _The
Detectives' Manual_ gives a glossary of this language, from which we
take the following specimens, to be found in that work, under the head
of the letter B.:
_Badger_.--A panel-thief.
_Bagged_.--Imprisoned.
_Bag of nails_.--All in confusion.
_Balram_.--Money.
_Bandog_.--A civil officer.
_Barking irons_.--Pistols.
_Bene_.--Good, first-rate.
_Benjamin_.--A coat.
_Bilk_.--To cheat.
_Bill of sale_.--A widow's weeds.
_Bingo_.--Liquor.
_Bingo boy_.--A drunken man.
_Bingo mort_.--A drunken woman.
_Blue-billy_.--A strange handkerchief.
_Blue ruin_.--Bad gin.
_Boarding-school_.--The penitentiary.
_Bone box_.--The mouth.
_Bowsprit in parenthesis_.--A pulled nose.
_Brother of the blade_.--A soldier.
_Brother of the bolus_.--A doctor.
_Brush_.--To flatter, to humbug.
_Bug_.--A breast-pin.
_Bugger_.--A pickpocket.
_Bull_.--A locomotive.
_Bull-traps_.--Rogues who personate officials to extort money.
We could multiply these examples, but the above are sufficient to
illustrate this branch of our subject.
PROFESSIONAL THIEVES.
The poor wretches who steal a few dollars' worth in open day, from
stores and stands, are not considered by professional thieves as
amongst the "fraternity," which embraces house-breakers, pick-pockets,
and burglars. These persons are carefully trained by "old hands," and
are by practice made as perfect as possible in their arts. Indeed, to
be an accomplished burglar requires a very great degree of
intelligence, courage, strength, and ingenuity. These men all have
certain distinct methods of performing their work, so that after they
have been operating a short while, a detective can, by examining the
traces, tell, with absolute certainty, the name of the burglar. Besides
this, the life which these persons lead stamps their countenances and
general bearing with marks which an experienced officer will recognize
at a glance. The sneak-thief, the pickpocket, and the burglar, have
certain habits, attitudes, haunts; they act in certain ways when placed
in certain positions, which reveal them and their occupations to a
practiced eye, with almost as much certainty as the form and aspect of
a blade of grass reveals its genus and species to the eye of a
practiced botanist. A skilled detective will stand at the corner of a
street, in a strange city, that he has never entered before, and will
pick out, almost unerringly, the passers-by who belong to this criminal
class. He will say, "This is a sneak-thief;" "This is a pickpocket;"
"This man has just been released from the State prison;" "This one is a
gambler, stool-pigeon," etc., etc.; being guided in his judgments by
certain indications which the criminal involuntarily displays by the
sheer force of habit.
A sneak-thief will pass along with that rapid, rolling glance of the
eyes which distinguishes the tribe; now he checks himself in his
career; it is but for an instant; no unprofessional eye directed
towards him would notice it; but the sudden pause would speak volumes
to an experienced police officer. He knows that the thief's eye has
caught the sight of silver lying exposed in the basement. In an hour
after he hears that the basement has been entered, and the silver in it
carried off. He knows who has taken it, as well as if he had seen the
man take it with his own eyes; but if the thief has had time to run to
the nearest receiver's den, the silver is already in the melting-pot,
beyond the reach of identification.
HOW FINE HOUSES ARE ROBBED.
Families living in the city cannot, of course, know who they are taking
into their midst as servants, and it frequently happens that these
girls are the confederates of burglars. They come for the purpose of
spying out the premises, and from time to time report the internal
arrangements to their "men." At the proper moment, the burglar, who has
thus acquired a sufficient familiarity with the house, is admitted by
the girl. He performs his work sometimes without detection, but
sometimes adds murder, or attempts at murder, to his crime. These men
are well known to the police, but as they are to be deemed innocent
until _proved_ guilty, it is hard, if not impossible, to prevent their
crimes. A servant girl is seen in the area, towards evening, with a
broom in her hand; by her side is a man who is conversing earnestly
with her. The policeman, as he passes along, recognizes him as a
notorious burglar. That night the house is broken open and robbed, and
perhaps some of the family murdered. The officer knows perfectly well
who did it, but this knowledge goes for nothing in law. The man must be
regularly tried, and proved guilty. Although the officer feels sure the
man and woman are planning a burglary, when he sees them in the area,
he cannot prevent it by arresting the man.
An incident in point has transpired of late, in illustration of this
familiar danger. A gentleman's house, situate on Fifth Avenue, near
Thirty-second street, was entered on the night of March 24th, by a
brace of burglars, who were, as subsequent investigation proved,
admitted at the basement, or servant's entrance, by one of the
chambermaids.
The burglars succeeded in obtaining a considerable amount of plunder,
but were alarmed by the unexpected awakening of some of the inmates of
the house, and hastily departed. Suspicion fell upon the delinquent
maid, who was examined, confessed her guilt, stated that the principal
burglar was her sweetheart, and promised that if she was permitted to
escape the deserved public punishment of her crime, she would see that
the missing property was restored to its rightful owners. This
'arrangement' was accepted, the girl fulfilled her part of the
contract, and every article that had been stolen was promptly restored.
The chambermaid was dismissed, and any further prosecution of the
affair was summarily closed. In this particular instance, it will be
seen that matters terminated favorably, but it would be well if wealthy
citizens would be warned against the 'family' risk to which their
property is exposed, and led to adopt the most stringent precautions
against these dangers, especially when summer pleasures will entice the
majority of the votaries of gayety and fashion 'out of town,' leaving
their dwellings almost wholly to the 'care' of not always reliable
domestics.
A HAIR THIEF.
During the summer of 1868, a young lady residing in a respectable part
of the city, was decoyed by an elderly woman, (under the pretence of
being able to introduce the young lady to a cheap dressmaker,) into a
low neighborhood, where she was seized by two men, dragged into a
hovel, and there held by the ruffians, while the old hag who had
decoyed her thither, with a pair of shears cut off the larger portion
of her luxuriant hair--to fill, as she coolly informed her victim, 'an
order from a wig-maker.' The screams and struggles of the poor dupe
were of no avail, and when finally thrust out of doors by her
tormentors, she was so frightened that she wandered mechanically along,
up and down streets, until she met a policeman, who, on hearing her
story, called a carriage and had her conveyed home, but was not able
from her incoherent and inaccurate description, either to identify the
place where the outrage was committed, nor the people by whom it was
perpetrated.
[Illustration: The thieves' exchange--a drinking saloon where
pawnbrokers go to buy stolen goods.]
THE THIEVES' EXCHANGE.
There is, in the Eighth Ward of the City, an "Exchange," where the
light-fingered gentry congregate and interchange confidential
intelligence, the news of their profession, and exchange the stolen
goods temporarily in their possession. Attached to this is the wareroom
of the proprietor, who is simply a receiver of stolen goods. There are
many of these places in the city.
The agent of the New York Prison Association, in one of his reports,
says:
When a burglar has successfully entered a store, and carried off a
large amount of property, in the form of fine goods, this property
itself is of no more use to him than the dust of the street. He does
not want to wear lace or jewelry. He does not need watches or pencil-
cases. He cannot eat cameos or vases. He, therefore, at once takes his
plunder to his 'fence,' and receives from him, in money, such a price
as is usually agreed upon. It is very difficult to ascertain, with any
degree of exactness, what proportion of the value of the plunder is
realized on the average by the thief; but from the best information we
could obtain, we feel confident it does not exceed one sixth.
A man whom we met in one of the jails, told us he was unsuccessful at
first, because he had received no instructions in the art. We asked him
what he deemed the most important information to be obtained by a tyro
in the business. He answered promptly: 'To know the names and
characters of all the "fences" within a circle of thirty miles.' He
could do little or nothing without this knowledge.
In the rural districts, these receivers of stolen goods are quite
unknown, except among the thieves themselves, unless some unusually
active deputy sheriff makes the discovery; but in the cities,
especially in New York and Brooklyn, they are as well known to the
police officers as the city halls of those places. These officers are
sure that everything they have in their warehouses is stolen; they are
acquainted with their ways of doing business; and they know what
thieves resort to each, and where they dispose of their ill-gotten
property. Yet this knowledge avails but little in promoting the ends of
justice. It is but rarely that any of this class are convicted of their
offences. The reason is that strict legal proof of their guilt can very
seldom be procured.
The study of the means of rapidly and effectually removing the marks
by which the property in their hands can be identified, is the main
business of their lives, and they acquire a degree of skill and
dexterity in altering or effacing these marks, which is truly
surprising. A melting-pot is always over the fire, to which all silver
ware is consigned the instant it is received. The marks on linen,
towels, and handkerchiefs, are removed, sometimes by chemicals,
sometimes by fine scissors made expressly for the purpose. Jewelry is
at once removed from its settings, and the gold is either melted or the
engraving is burnished out, so as in either case to make identification
impossible. Rich velvet and silk garments are transmogrified by the
removal and re-arrangement of the buttons and trimmings. Pointed edges
are rounded, and rounded edges are pointed, entirely changing the whole
aspect of the garment, with such celerity that the lady who had worn
the dress in the morning would not have the slightest suspicion that it
was the same in the evening. Cotton, wool, rags, and old ropes, require
no manipulation. When once thrown upon the heap, they defy the closest
scrutiny of the owners. There is scarcely an article which can be the
subject of theft, which the resources of these men do not enable them,
in a very short time, to disguise beyond the power of recognition.
Their premises are skilfully arranged for concealment. They are
abundantly provided with secret doors and sliding panels, communicating
with dark recesses. Apertures are cut in the partitions, so that a
person coming in from the front can be distinctly seen before he enters
the apartment. The 'fence' is as well skilled as any lawyer in the
nature of evidence. He knows the difference between probability and
proof as well as Sir William Hamilton himself. He does not trouble
himself about any amount of _probabilities_ that the detectives may
accumulate against him; but the said detective must be remarkably acute
if he is ever able to get anything against him which will amount to
strictly legal proof.