Some Characteristics of Thieves

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 3197, 6 May 1889, Page 2

Some Characteristics of Thieves

Honest people always have a feeling of curiosity anent thieves. How' cumo they to bo thieves? What made them steal 1 Was hunger the original cause! Or. mischief) Or wantonness ? Ot* sheer wickedness 1 Or is there really a form of madness which we are used, more in sport, than in serious earnest, to refer toy as kleptomania? It was with a to obtaining some kind of a solution' 1 to these and other questions that one of., onr reporters a few days ago visited a well-known detective—that is, well-known by name, for so chameleon-like are his changes, appearance that his enemies, - - ihieves themselves, are not with liia person. At home he is a genial old gentleman, IIOW PEOPLE BECOME THIEVES. \ ' "Alid you .to know how people become thieves, eh?" ha said between puffpt/fyhe fragrant herbit is not, it never was, a weed. " Well, you are putting a pretty severe \ question, but I think lean help you . out Of course, as to motives, loanriot say anything. They are so ' different. Thieving may run in '.ifie 'v blood. It does in many instances, . ' most certainly. Why, over and over '•■%% > again the impulse to steal will break. a couple of genetations away from the ' "£l parent thieves. Take, for instance, the young children of thieves—that term includes '. ' S thin? from pickpockets or ' snatchers up to irst-cltss burplars—put them into a respectable school to learn the business, and bring them > up to honest business, never oven let them know, what their parents wore, ' ■lt is five chances to two that their . i children-willdevelop; instincts of their grandparent's and".. •become, tbieves. Especially if both ', parents happen to liaye been childrep of tlneies." > ' AS THBT nfealK SO THE? 00 OIT. t >' Whatever s man begins bp Jc'" V.

ing, he always good on stealing. the ea.ne sort of thing by preference, For iustance, here's a case in point, brought to my notice only a few days, ago. A man was sentenced to a long term ot imprisonment for stealing a large crate of eggs, That wis his • .'Aofession, Ho was an eg" thief, • v nfl had never done any tiling else worth mentioning in tlio thieving way, Iwelvj yeara ago lie committed liin first theft at Godalroing-one egg, He was caught, and got fourteen days, When he came out ot gaol, his character whs gone, Ho started for Loudon, . but reached Guildford. Here ho stole two eggs and got another fourteen days. So he kept on, sometimes taking a few, sometimes a large number of eggs—always eggs—until he became known to the police as an egs thief, and a robbery of uuhatcheil chickens occurred, this man was one of the suqppcte'd parties, , Now ho has got a long term, [f he ' g . lives and comes out, he will return to »■£ hie old business. Ho knows no oilier Shirt robbers are quite a well known and recognised class, and, if you take the trouble to truce thoir history back to theirfirst thefts you will find they havs been stealing sliirtn from clothes lines, from shops, from workshops, all their lives. Window breakers begin by orackin? the thin panes of glass in Mall shops in by-streots, ami increase in daring and expertnesa, until they take to breaking plateglass, Pickpockets, watch smitoliern, ..handkerchief snatchcrs, jinrso snatchere, seldom ~ if ever change their line of business; tlioy begin on watches, or purses, or handkerchiefs and - they go on to the end stealing the- same articles, except some extraordinary opportunity or temptation arises which onca in a while may attract them from their regular course, and generally lands them in gaol at once,' l " These characteristics must be o great assistance to you detectives in the tracing of a crime."

METHODS OF DISCOVERY, " Ob, yes, certainly. According to the nature o( a crime wn-generally know where to look for the perpetrator. That is to say, if it is one of a kuown category. Thioves of certain classes herd together, and nothing but an alibi is sufficient to prove a man's innocence .in most cases, and his guilt .is almost always easily proved, if we tlm naturo of the theft. Hut, of course, there are constantly happening complications. A combination of men and women, for instance, each an adept in his or her. own particular line, A crime cleverly executed, with perhaps one peisdn directing all the parlies who Haver jpppars himself; who perhaps is even unknown to all the members of tho gang, hut iB understood by each to be their chief, and who gives orders and directions plans robberies, and receives the booty and takes none of tho immediate danger, His onl j chance of discovery is by being betrayed by one of his gang.