The Right Way to Do Wrong (9 page)

If the same amount of ability and talent that many a criminal exercises to become a professional burglar were applied to an honest pursuit, he would gain wealth and fame; but once started in the path of crime it is difficult to turn aside.

The burglar who makes the breaking into houses a profession is held by the fascination of the danger and the rewards of his pursuit. The consciousness that he is able to accomplish the almost impossible, to plan and bring off coups which fill the newspapers with flare headings, is as much a matter of pride to him as high attainments in an honorable profession are to another man.

Planning a Bold Break
. When a burglar starts out on a job he does not do it haphazardly. He carefully selects a house in a favorable location, occupied by a family who
are known to have valuable possessions worth taking away. The retired location of the house, the ease of access, every approach and every avenue of escape if detected are carefully studied. Then he goes about acquainting himself with the habits of the people who occupy the house. He soon knows when they come and go, how the doors are fastened, how the windows are secured. Perhaps he ingratiates himself by paying marked attention to the maids of the kitchen, and so earns the inside workings of the household. Usually this is accomplished by the aid of a confederate or member of the gang to which he belongs, and if he can induce the cooperation of some servant his work is made so much the easier.

At length the night of the burglary arrives. The date has been carefully set. You may be sure that there is not a full moon to illuminate the grounds, as he has consulted the almanac. If there is a watchdog, the burglar carries ample means to quiet him, in the shape of a small bottle of chloroform. Accompanied by his pal (for most of these burglars work in pairs) they rapidly effect their entrance in accordance with their plan. Usually one man is stationed outside, to give warning by means of a peculiar whistle or other sound in case detection is to be feared.

How the burglar overcomes all the obstacles of his entrance into the house will be treated later, but to a professional cracksman the ordinary locks of doors, the ordinary window fastenings and safety arrangements that the householder attends to so carefully every night offer but little or no obstacle. When the time comes for him to enter, he enters as quietly and quickly as though he were the master himself—in fact, very much more quietly. Once inside, his glimmering electric dark lantern, which
can be hooded in an instant, gives him sufficient light to move with noiseless rubber-soled shoes to the different apartments. The absolute silence in which a professional cracksman can go through a house, avoiding creaking doors, and escaping every loose board which may betray his presence is astonishing. Many a householder has awakened in the morning find his house rifled who would deem it impossible for anyone to enter his house, much less his room, without immediately arousing him.

To show how carefully a burglar plans for the “cracking” of some specially desirable “crib,” one ex-convict declares that he has often expended large sums of money in making the preliminary arrangements for some great coup. If a burglar should happen to be caught in the house-breaking act, it is fairly important that he should not be recognized afterwards; so most professional burglars are very careful to provide themselves with a disguise when out on their “work.” One reformed criminal told Inspector Byrnes that he had several times been seen by people while entering houses, but they had never once been able to recognize him afterwards. His simple plan he described as follows: “I always wore a specially made wig, with false side-whiskers and moustache of the best quality. My wardrobe was extensive, and contained reversible coats and reversible trousers, after the style used by quick-change artists on the stage. With the aid of these, I have been able to make a complete change of appearance in less than two minutes.” It is easy to see how rogues take more pains to perpetrate robberies than honest men do to get a living.

The Burglar Who Walked Backward
. A London burglar, who served a long sentence, told the chaplain of the
prison the following amusing story of one of his experiences: “One of the toughest pieces of work I undertook was a big jewelry shop in the Seven Sisters Road, one January night. It was a ‘put up' job—that is, the business came to me through one of the brokers who supply burglars with places for likely hauls, and receive in return a large commission. The jewelry store in this case was protected by iron shutters, not easy to open from the street, but valuable goods were supposed to be left overnight in the window.

“I approached the crib down a narrow entry to the rear, and along this I walked backward, for the ground was covered with snow, and any tracks going forward would attract the next policeman who should pass. I continued on this crab-like progress until under the shutter of the rear window. This I got through without difficulty, but was confronted by a door leading into the passage, which was locked. On attempting to force it with a jimmy, the door fell together with its case with a tremendous crash. I need not say I made myself scarce in a jiffy, and hid behind a shed in the yard. Strange to say, nothing happened. No one seemed to have heard the terrible racket. I re-entered, and, climbing to the top of the stairs, found a heavy trapdoor fastened with a massive bolt. This gave way after a special treatment, and in the big sitting room, by the glimmer of my tiny dark lantern, I found a few watches. The door leading into the shop was fastened with a mortise lock, and it was necessary to cut the box out. Much to my disgust, I found the show-window absolutely empty. In ransacking the place, I came across a small iron safe which, with a vast deal of trouble, I dragged into the basement, where I set to work
with my safe-opening tools, feeling sure I should find my plunder, but again I was disappointed, for the safe was empty.” (Almost all English safes are key-locked, not combination as in America.)

“Where was the stuff? Clearly the jeweler had some hiding-place. I resolved not to get ‘cold feet' on this job, so went back to make a systematic search. Outside the old couple's bedroom, I listened carefully. All was quiet. I entered as silently as a shadow, and found the old jeweler and his wife sleeping soundly. A revolver was on the chair by his bedside. I have always considered the practise of keeping revolvers about the house most dangerous, especially to casual night visitors, so I pocketed this one, gathered up the loose money, two gold watches, and, turning, found arranged along the wall, the rods of jewelry and watches from the shop window. I selected as many as my pockets would hold, and cautiously made my way downstairs again. Upon leaving the house, I walked backward again through the snow, and almost collided with the milkman just starting on his rounds.

“ ‘You have a very remarkable way of walking,' he said.

“ ‘Oh,' I replied, ‘it is an agreeable change after the monotony of always walking forward; but in the daytime I cannot practise it, owing to the remarks of foolish people who will not mind their own business.'

“He seemed to enter into the joke, but no sooner had we reached the road, than he shouted, ‘Police!' and ‘Stop thief!' for all he was worth.

“I had a good start, however, and two hours later a Hoxton ‘fence' received a considerable addition to his store of valuables concealed under the floor of his bedroom.”

The question has often been asked how burglars get away with their booty, especially when it makes, as it often does, a bulky bundle. The police are apt to be suspicious of people who carry bundles in the small hours of the night, and ask inconvenient questions. If any one doubts this, let him try the experiment of going out between two and three in the morning, carrying a bag heavily loaded with bricks. He will not proceed many yards without being pounced upon by a “cop.” A story in point is told by an ex-convict to a well-known detective:

“I had a pal with me, and we broke into the country palace of one of the wealthiest dukes in England. The silver-plate we got filled two bags. We had just dragged the sacks into the thicket near the house when the alarm was raised. Think of the tight place we were in—two o'clock in the morning, and a policeman every thirty yards all around the grounds, every road guarded and every path. Safe enough inside the ring we were, but when daylight came, what would happen? Still the next day dawned, and no trace was found either of the plunder, or of us, and by evening of that same day, it was all melted and sold to the ‘fence' in the city. The police were utterly baffled as to how the perpetrators of the robbery got away with two sacks full of plate. No one had passed the cordon of police except a couple of countrymen from the home farm, who were driving a cart to market, containing a slaughtered sheep. Now I might tell the police something that would interest them. If they had turned that sheep over, they would have found, instead of the usual bodily organs, that the carcass contained a valuable collection of silver, and if they had looked under the straw, they might have found the rest of the duke's missing property.”

The Second-Story Man
. The professional burglar of standing in his profession looks down somewhat with condescension upon the second-story burglar, whose risks are not nearly so great, and whose rewards, of course, are proportionately smaller. The second-story man avoids breaking and entering a house. His forte is obtaining an entrance by means of convenient porches, over-hanging boughs of trees, water-conductors, and lightning-rods, up which he climbs with the greatest ease, and enters through an unguarded window in that part of the house where he has planned to make his robbery.

Many successful second-story men work only in the daytime, and are prepared with all sorts of plausible excuses to explain their presence if detected in a house. A burglar engaged in going through the premises after jewels known to be in the house may, in a second's time, assume all the appearance and actions of the honest workman come to repair the plumbing, and by his clever effrontery, escape even after he is detected. Usually, however, the second-story man so plans and times his work as to enter the house when most of the family are absent, and thus avoid the risk of detection.

BURGLARS' SUPERSTITIONS

Some people imagine that a burglar is forever on the still hunt for plunder; that the breaking into houses forms a nightly part of his program, and that he would be a lonesome individual unless he had a dark lantern in one
hand and a jimmy in the other. The truth of the matter is that professional burglars rarely make more than eight or ten good hauls in the course of a season, and that to be out on more than one job inside of a week or ten days would be considered rather dangerous. Of course, there are cases where gangs of burglars are working certain sections of the city where a number of startling robberies are committed one after another, but your careful and successful cracksman limits his work and increases his safety.

The burglar, no doubt, may be a quiet citizen, a householder himself, and one known as a respectable man to his neighbors, and when occasionally he disappears for a week or a fortnight, it is attributed to business in a distant city. His “business” brings him in another rich haul, and when that is disposed of he is on “Easy” street again until inclination or necessity compels him to go forth in quest of other plunder.

Sailors are superstitious, but burglars share that honor with them, for there is no class of individuals who look more carefully to signs of good and evil omen than does your professional crib cracker. From an ex-convict whom I once befriended, in Omaha, and from other sources, I learned the following most common superstitions of thieves and burglars.

A black cat is a certain forerunner of disaster to the burglar, and householders who suddenly find their black cats poisoned may take it as a warning that the robbery of their domain has been decided upon, for the criminals take care to destroy their dumb enemies before paying a midnight call. Dogs, on the contrary, they fear but little,
however savage they may be, because they take care to carry in their pockets pieces of ivory, a certain cure for dog-bites.

The cries of an infant warn the marauder that misfortune awaits him in the neighborhood. He will not stay in a house if he finds a clock stopped, a broken mirror, or an unframed oil painting; these are infallible omens of disaster.

One of the chief terrors of the burglar is a newly painted house. Several years ago in a northern town, some disciples of the jimmy broke into a large domicile, but removed nothing, though they favored the next house with a visit the same evening and stole everything of value. They were captured as they were scaling the garden wall, and at the trial one confessed that they had spent eight weeks in making preparations for entering the house from which they removed nothing, and upon doing so found it to have been freshly painted, so transferred their attention to the adjoining building, thereby bringing about their capture.

A criminal studies the weather quite as carefully as the farmer does. He will not perpetrate a crime on the night of a new moon, nor if the orb has a halo or mist round it. And were he to plunder a house during an eclipse, he might as soon give himself up to the law at once, for his days outside of prison walls would be numbered. Even more trifling incidents are of equal significance to the robber. It is bad luck to be followed by a dog, and any undertaking or plundering plan will be abandoned for the time, as it means capture or failure.

If the house selected has crape on the door, to enter
would be to court disaster, and to kick against a piece of coal in the road would bring about a similar result.

Pickpockets are very careful not to rob a cross-eyed or club-footed person. To rob a blind man would be to bring down misfortune; but, curiously enough, a blind woman can be victimized with impunity. A stolen purse that contains a battered coin or lock of hair is thrown away intact, or the thief will find himself a prisoner before the day is out.