Miserable Little Short Measure Thieves.
In the Municipal Court in South Chicago three extremely mean swindlers have been fined $25 and costs. It is unfortunate that they could not have been sent to the Bridewell without the alternative of paying the fine.
For these swindlers were coal dealers who robbed the poor that bought coal by the basket. They STOLE money from their customers, just as the short-measure milk trust conspirators robbed their patrons. We repeat that they ought to be in the Bridewell.
Giving short measure is the dirtiest, smallest, most cowardly form of commercial rascality. The hold-up man who takes his life in his hand and robs on the public highway is a model of decency and courage as compared with the pitiful rascal who steals the pennies of the poor by selling coal or milk or any other necessity of life by short weight.
Short weight is larceny. It ought to be treated as larceny by law.
Crime a Fine Art.
Living by one's wits has become a fine art, and it is a profession that is more liberally patronized than any other by the present generation. One of America's leading detectives remarked that there were about seventy-five thousand people in a city the size of Chicago that would bear watching. There isn't a bank, insurance office, dry goods store, restaurant or hotel that does not employ men to watch their customers, and there is hardly a business house in the country that has not some system of watching its employes. Everybody at this day seems to be afraid of everybody else.
Professional criminals pride themselves quite as much upon their ability as men engaged in legitimate occupations. A thief, for instance, is as vain of his superiority over other thieves as a lawyer, politician, or clergyman might be whose talents had elevated him to a commanding position in the eyes of the people. And the talented thief is as much courted and sought after as the successful man in the honest walks of life. The other thieves will say: "He is a good man to know; I must make his acquaintance." But the thief who has earned a reputation is particular about the company he keeps, and is scornful in his demeanor toward another thief whom he does not consider his professional equal. Caste exists among criminals as well as among other classes.