"SWAG" FOR SALE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 35, 6 March 1909, Page 4

"SWAG" FOR SALE.

11UW SHCES DISPOSES OF HIS BOOTY, Although it 'has been impossible to procure proof, a well-known lirm of gold and aUvi'i- rcliners are quite convinced that they have had the stolen Ascot Cup offered them for sale (says a Home paper). A man came to them with an ingot o! wonderfully pure gold—2o carat, corresponding with that of which the famous trophy was made—declaring that he got the metal in Abyssinia, and wished to sell it.

The ingot corresponded not only in linciics.s, but also in weight, with the Ascot Cup. So it seeni>, on the face of it, extremely probable that the gold was indeed the smelted remains of the stolen trophy. Thieves, naturally, prefer hard cash of the realm. This is immediately usable, and cannot, unless previously marked, be identilied. Banknotes they arc why of. They may be traced by their numbers. As for jewellery and most other articles of the kind., ihey are valuable to the burglar merely for the jewels they contain or lor the troy weight of the precious metal. Bill Sikes has no conscience or sentiment on the subject. The most wonderful work of art is promptly relegated to | the siuelting-pot. Three years ago a famous motorracing cup was stolen from an exhibition at Olympia. As a work of art, it was worth CSUU or , JLOUO. The silver of

which it was composed would not have fetched a tenth the money. Yet so far as known, this was ruthlessly melted down. ihere is a class -of burglars who do not deal with "fences" or receivers. They have their own smelting-pois and crucibles. The gentleman burglar, 'George Robinson," who was at last captured while entering a millionaire's house by means of a rope ladder, had a little workshop of his own, where he melted down all the silverware aud jewellery which he stole.

His furnace, with its gas-oxygen llame, was of the very best procunXle, and it is a fact that he sold precious metal of the value of X4BOO to the United States Assay Ollice. ' Another criminal of similar type was George Dickiusou, known as the "Even-ing-dress Burglar.' 1 He was a skilful piechauic, made ! hjs own professional implements, aud had a jeweller's furnace and crucibles in his home, i In old days the "fence" was the burglar's only resort; and, as a rule, the | "fence" paid barely a third of the ordinary market value of his stolen articles. The modern cracksman has done his best to get ahead of the '"fence."

One dodge is to take the spoil abroa-l. Three years ago there was a burglary at the house of Mrs. Val Prinsep, and JMOUO worth of jewellery was stolen. A couple of months later two Swiss were arrested at Zurich while attempting to sell part of the spoil to a jeweller in that town. Again, some thieves pickpockets, principally—who make a specialty of rings, watches, and tiepins, "doctor" the stolen goods, and so alter them tlut their owners could never recognise them. For instance, the names of the makers are erased from watches, and other names worked in; jewels are knocked out from pins and rings and given a different setting.

A "thieves' kitchen," where iUis kind of "doctoring" was in full swing, was raided by the police in .St. Paul's Road, Canonbury. and tliree years' penal servitude was tin: sentence received by the man who ran tin? place, lie was the head of a regular co-operative society of thieve*, w'ho were thus quite independent of the "fence." The stolen articles, when carefully doctored, were pawned. At one time cycles were stolen in immense number*. The London police discovered a cycle shop in Hammersmith which was entirely Blocked with stolen machines. It was most difficult to identify the bicycles, for name-plates, pedals, handle-bar*, etc., had been altered and exchanged. The total value of the stolen machines was £4OO.