PROFESSIONAL THIEVES.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 44, 10 April 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

PROFESSIONAL THIEVES.

(From the Cornhill Magazine.) In reference to their origin, professional thieves may be classed as follows : — l, Those who have been trained to it from their infancy. 2. Those who have taken to it through the connivance or neglect of their parents. 3. Those who, from their childhood, have evinced a propensity to thieving, and taken to it because they liked it. 5. Those children who have forsaken their homes, have been forsaken by their parents, and have fallen into the hands of habitual thieves. 6. Youths whose parents have been imprisoned or transported, leaving their children entirely destitute. 7. Idle and destitute laborers and mechanics. 8. A feW broken down tradesmen and clerks who were once respectable. 9. Others who are very changeable and restless, are too idle to work, and have a strong passion for the adventures of crime. 10. Those who, after a first imprisonment, are forsaken by their friends and can obtain no employment. 11. A few who, by degrees, get into it by the terrib'e pressure of poverty, and, having once got into it, go on to the end. 12. A few from the stern severity of honest parents, who, when a son or daughter has been led to a solitary act of theft, have shut the parental door upon them when they came out of prison, with the distinct intimation that they should not darken their father's threshold again : a poor way of wiping out, the family disgrace. Young hawkers, both boys and girls, frequently become professional thieves. They are first tempted to steal hits of meUl or trifling articles of wearing apparel which they see lying about the houses where they go to vend tbeir wares, and having once begun the descent is easy. A thief writes to me — "I have often sat in our public houses of au evening in company with many other thieves. We h:»ve been in one of our better moods, aud have talked about wh it first caused us to become thieves, and I have heard many a pitiful story. Many of them would say, ' I never knew anything else ; I have been at it all my life, and as I have lived so I must die.' Another would s:iy, ' I could get no work after my third couviction ; nobody would look at me ; I could not starve, and was o ! >litred to no on the uross.' Another would say, ' I be<jan to sell oranges when I was a boy, Or what fruit might be in season ; I could no' always sisll all 1 bad, and sometimes I used to eat them. I durst not go home without the money. Then I used to steal something, and take it to the marine store dealer's. The man would encourage me and tell me to bring what I liked, and he would buy it of me. As I got on thieving, I left home, and was soon polished off into a first-class wire. " A few of what the thieves call the more respectable members of their fraternity, fence misters, and the better sort of publicans in the thieves' quarter, do aT tbey can to keep their children out of crime, by sending them to school, and getting them into honester company as soon as possible. 13 ut while these unfortunate children do remain at home it is next to impossible to keep them out of mischief. They inevitably see and know a great de >1 of what is going on around tliem, and they soon long to be at it, and doing what, they consider the clever and manly thing. Too often this ambition is industriously encouraged. Not unfrequently entire families are trained to dishonesty, and it has happened that nearly the whole of them have been in prison at the same time. The ragged schools do much to check those children whose parents incite them to steal, and a few beautiful instances have occurred in which the poor ragged scholar has refused to obey the unrighteous behests of his parents. The origin of female professional thieves is, in many respects, similar to that of males, and yet there id something in it sufficiently distinctive to merit a passing notice. They are the offspring of prostitutes, thieves, beggars, poor, cruel, and drunken parents, low shopkeepers in the thieves' quarters, and hawkers. They get into it by degrees, much the same as boys do. The youmr girls begin with little things and pass on to greater as they acquire confidence and skill, and as opportunities increase. If they have no one to train them in the first instance, they have not to wait long for their criixiiuul education. They soon get known to the older female thieves, and any signs of superior cunning and audacity they may show are never nealect'd. By and- bye the novice pairs ofT with some established thief, who completes her education, but generally she has Suffered a great deal, and been in prison many times before it corn's to this. Her end is generally the same as the man's; consumption through drink, imprisonment, and unhealthy habits. In the old days of eld Fagan and Jonathan Wild, yOung thieves were trained by means of wearing apparel suspended on a line in a room, with a bell attached to the cord, so that if they did not perform the exercises very adroitlr the detector bell would ring. Now this method is antiquated and obsolete. The progress of intellect has made itself felt among professional thieves, and they go a much readier way to work with their pupils — adopting asimpler and more natural course of training. But thief culture is not so distinct and systematic a branch of criminal life as some imagine. A few do little else except train boys and girls, but these are very few in number compared with the hosts of juvenile thieves who are constantly feeding the criminal market. Thief trainers are something like dog trainers. Here and there men

keep kennels for the sole purpose of educating all sorts of dogs, sporting, f-mcy, house dogs, and others. But where one dog is trained in tb ; i way, there are thousands of dogs who are simp'y trained by their owners, or their owners' keepers; while many dogs manage to go through the world without education, manners, or style. It is just so with thieves. A Few are trained by profsssional educators, the majority are trained by some thief who takes a fancy to them ; or they are educated for crime by tbeir parents. The ordinary and general training which boys and girls get refers to stealing small things from houses, shops, street stalls, warehouses, and neglected premises. They are taught to go two or three together, so \ that they may be of mutual assistance to each other. One will act as a stall to cover the working thief, and will ruu away with the booty, so that, should the pilferer be detected, the stolen goods are not found upon him. These will also try pocket handkerchiefs, and soon become expert in taking them. For a superior education the professional trainer, or coaching by a firstclass thief in full practice, is necessary. On this head I have been informed by an adept, "The juvenile is generally committed to stealing habitually before the professional thief will take him in hand. A hoy cannot be thieving lontr before the fact becoming known to some established thief. In a theatre, in a shop, mostly in a crowd, the old thief sees the boy at w>rk, but watches him very carefully. If the boy is sharp arid steady over his business, and is at all good looking, the old thief will make friends with him. An arrangement is soon come to, and the hoy <;oes to reside with his new friend. The first thing is to dress him very respectably, and teach him politeness and good manners as far as such a tiling can be done. We try all we can to make him up so that he will pass for a very respectable school-boy. This pays be^t. It would never do to have him rough. People would be on their guard in a minute if he were not smooth and nice. We sometimes succeed in getting them up beantifu'ly, and then we have what a thief likes — 3 vounjr, innocent looking, and lucrative deception. Pocket picking } s the boy's first lesson, aivl he practises on his instructor, and on the woman who may reside with the thief. When he can quickly and quietly pick the pockets of his new friends, the woman takes him out, generally into some crowded shop. Here he probably succeeds well, gets pleased with bis success, and warms to his work. After practising shops and crowds for some time, the woman ventures to take him out for sirn.r)e handed and open work. lie goes with her into the streets, and does a few easy cases in stealing pocket handkerchiefs and purses. The woirnn has nearly always most to do with the c lucation of the boy. When she has done with him, the man takes him in hand, and they go out together. The boy has now become a single-handed street wire, and works wiih front and back stalls, i.e., a man before and a man behind to cover him, to take the purses from him, and to get him out of trouble when he is suspected. They are always kind to the boy, for if not he would leave them. They feed him and clothe him, and he wants for nothing. They give a little money — not too much, lest he should be foolish with it, and attract the attention of the police. The boy often jrets sent to prison, an 1 when he is liberated the thief meets him and takes him home. As the boy gets older, he becomes independent of liis trainers, and so he id turn pairs off and leaves them." If the boy should attempt to leave his trainers too soon, they will frighten him by threatening to set the police upon him ; nor do they scruple to carry out the threat. There is very little difference between the training of bojs and of cirls. Some idea of the amount of, juvenile crime may be formed from the ! fact that in iB6O there were, under 16 j years of a^e, 4208 boys, known thieves and depredators; and 1467 girls of the same a^e and character. "There is a thieves' quarter in alllarge towns, Well known to the police, and better known fo the thieves. They flourish, with kindred infamy, amidst a congeries of small rag shops, Irishing shops, coffve shops, beer houses, spirit shops, and lodging houses for single men, with, of course, a tripe seller, a bird fancier, a fiddler to play at the thievedora carnivals, and a ragged school within hail. As the reader passes into the quarter in the day time, he is struck with the strange physiognomy and attire Of men and women, bnys and girls. The children don't play like other children ; they lounge about, looking very suspicious and preternatural v sharp. The adults look seedy and sleepy, as if they had been up all ni<rhf. They lounge about the doors, indulging in subdued laughter, and now and then call to one another across the street, or saunter leisurely through the quarter with their hands in their pockets. It is not often that depredations are committed here, unless same stranger chances to present a temptation too strong to be resisted. There are fights and brawls sometimes, but not often. Half a dozen policemen are always about, sometimes looking as excited as sportsmen who have just flushed a woodcock, or wearing an air of languid weariness, as it exhausted by expectation of a prize that never meant to come. In the afternoon, a lew men and women, hubitual thieves, drop in from different parts of the country — perhaps they are returned convicts fresh from Gibraltar, Western Australia, or Bermuda. Nearly the whole of the houses hereabouts are nests of crime, notwithstanding the dingin ess and quietude of their exterior. If a stranger enters one of their pnblic houses, and calls for a glass of ale, it ■will be given to him reluctantly ; and

if he is not off as soon as he has drunk his beer, some of the thieves will insult him, and drive him away ; or they will go to the landlord and say, "What is. the man ? Is he square ? If he is send him away We don't want him, and we won't have it. If square people are ; llowed to come here, we shall take our custom somewhere else." If circumstances should be favorable, the stranger will be cheated and gambled out of all his money, and then aent out of the house, iusulted as well as plundered. These public houses are always, with scarcely an exception, kept by persons who have formerly belonged to the thieves' organisation in some one of its many departments. According to the judicial statistics for iB6O, there are 4,938 beer houses and public houses resorted to by thieves and the infamous of the other sex. The thieves resort to these houses for the sake of society, security, and enjoyment. In the afternoon very few of them are drunk. They pass away the time gambling with dominoes, dice, and cards. Two detectives, perhaps, come in quietly, look round the rooms, and then pass out, without anything beinp said. Should a man whom they want be present in the rooms, they will give him a tap on the shoulder, and say, "You are_ wanted; come with me.'' The professional thief will generally . accept this invitation to prison without any ado, making inquiries as he goes along as to what they ' want him for. Should there be an individual in the room, a stranger to the detectives, they will bid him stand up, and then, "Take off your hat, sir;" this, that they may know him another day, and the thief obeys them as though he were a soldier and under inspection or parade. The thieves are mostly dressed in a mean and slovenly way when they are off work; but when they go out on their criminal business they dress well and become animated and brisk in their manner. There is very little plunder kept in the thieves' quarter ; they seldom take their acquisitions to their own homes, nor are the burglar's toola often found about him ; they are quietly stowed away in some unsuspected quarter, and are brought out again only when they are wanted. Should a thief go into one of their public houses with a stolen watch upon him, the company present would be very angry, and request him to leave them at once. " Don't come here with it. Go and put it off. You may get us all into trouble if you stay here with that thimble upon you." And away the thief goes to the fence-master, and the watch is turned into money, probably in less than an hour after it has been purloined ; and in another hoar or two the ' fence' can, if he likes, melt the gold down and dispose of the works. Tlie thieves think it perfectly fair to cheat one another in gambling; they are proud of the feat. Sometimes they lose fifteen or twenty pounds at a sitting. They never carry much money about with them ; they make the publican their banker, and he is generally faithful. No amount of success induces them to desist. However large the proceeds of a burglary or garotte, they still «o on until they are caught and imprisoned. The majority of habitual thieves profess to believe the Bible, and to respect religion. They are not all drunkards. A few of them are moderate, steady, and even abstemious ; in some instances they conceal their wickedness from their parents, if still living — visiting them occasionally and giving them money. Generally they ar^ true to each other, but sometimes they are treacherous ; though ' rounding' or treachery is always spoken of very indignantly by them, and often severely, and even murderously punished. Their character in respect of violence and cruelty has been much ameliorated during the last fifteen or twenty years. They do not like resorting to violence if it can possibly be avoided. When th? stolen property is on them, they will fight to get away ; but they do not in these times put old men and women on a blazing fire, and keep them there until they tell where their money is. The modern thief depends upon his skill for finding the cash, and, in fact, often knows where the stake is before he enters the house. Pistols are seldom carried by them ; the weapon is generally a neddy or life preserver. The professional thieves admit that they are wrong, but try to make out that they are no worse than some other folks— fraudulent bankers, for instance. A constant study of the newspapers, especially the reports of criminal cases, conviuces them that there are ro<rues in every sphere of life, and t! a' thievis are not much worse than their neighbor*. Professional thieves are not capable of sustained reading; their intellects confuse rules and exceptions. Blinded by their own passions, they cannot see the difference between an honest life and the exceptional instances which come under their notice in the courts of law.