AMERICAN JEWEL THIEVES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 608, 4 October 1913, Page 2

AMERICAN JEWEL THIEVES.

ENGLISH SERVANTS BLAMED. In the absence of the arrest of native nialefactors, the private detective agencies in New York are now apparently agreed in placing the responsibility for the big jewel robberies in recent years from fashionable American families upon what they call the organised band of "English servant crooks" (writes a New York corespondent) It is estimated that prominent and wealthy families living in the eastern States of America have been robbed during the last five years of £500,000 worth of valuable 3, and only in two or three cases were the goods recovered.

| The detectives say they have come the conclusion that "English servant crooks" are responsible by a process of pure reasoning and Sherlock Holmes deduction. In the first, place they submit every American family of distinction haß a penchant for English servants; secondly, every jewel robbery for the past few years has been an "inside job." The spokesmen of the detective agencies who make this grave accusation against your countrymen and countrywomen do not impugn the honesty of English domestics as a class. To quote one of them: —

"It is because English batlers, valeta footmen, and maids are, generally speaking, the most honest in the world, and more especially because they are usually loyal to their emDloyers, and the demand for them here is so general. The trouble is that any adventurer who comes aFong with an English accent posing as a servant often secure 3 a job on his own uncorroborated statements. If asked for a reference the man will ari3Wer. with profound humility, 'I have no American references, but here is a paper signed by his Ludship the Duke of London. I desire you to communicate with him, sir.' No good American even does communicate with his lordship. The paper with his lordship's name is enough, and the hippy employer foresees a long course of modesty telling his friends that his man is an old family retainer of the Duke of London."

These crooked servants, it is represented, are mere tools in the hands of designing American thieves, who are extremely Well posted regarding wealthy American families and their glittering possessions. The members of this gang organise the thefts and dispose of the stolen goods. So far as records go, English servants in recent years, though numerous in America, have not figured much in the police courts, and unless further evidence is forthcoming, more especially in regard to the Newport robberies, where several wealthy people's houses have been despoiled every summer, one is inclined to the belief that the representations made at the instance of the detective agencies are published here either to explain the incompetence of these agencies or their run of desperate hard luck in tracing the real culprits. It is quite true, ay stated, that Engilsh servants in the United States are in considerable request, but American employers, so far as my experience goes, are just as businesslike in examining their credential? as employers on your side of the. Atlantic.