The Autobiography of a Thief

by Hutchins Hapgood

With my big rosy cheeks and bright eyes and complexion I suppose I looked, in those days, very holy and innocent, and used to work this graft for all it was worth. I remember how, in church, I used tracts or the Christian Advocate as "stalls"; I would hand them to a lady as she entered the church, and, while doing so, pick her pocket.

Even at the early age of fifteen I began to understand that it was necessary to save money. If a thief wants to keep out of the "pen" or "stir," (penitentiary) capital is a necessity. The capital of a grafter is called "spring-money," for he may have to use it at any time in paying the lawyer who gets him off in case of an arrest, or in bribing the policeman or some other official. To "spring," is to escape from the clutches of the law. If a thief has not enough money to hire a "mouth-piece" (criminal lawyer) he is in a bad way. He is greatly handicapped, and can not "jump out" (steal) with any boldness.

But I always had great difficulty in saving "fall-money," (the same as spring-money; that is money to be used in case of a "fall," or arrest). My temperament was at fault. When I had a few hundred dollars saved up I began to be troubled, not from a guilty conscience, but because I could not stand prosperity. The money burned a hole in my pocket. I was fond of all sorts of amusements, of "treating," and of clothes. Indeed, I was very much of a dude; and this for two reasons. In the first place I was naturally vain, and liked to make a good appearance. A still more substantial reason was that a good personal appearance is part of the capital of a grafter, particularly of a pickpocket. The world thinks that a thief is a dirty, disreputable looking object, next door to a tramp in appearance. But this idea is far from being true. Every grafter of any standing in the profession is very careful about his clothes. He is always neat, clean, and as fashionable as his income will permit. Otherwise he would not be permitted to attend large political gatherings, to sit on the platform, for instance, and would be handicapped generally in his crooked dealings with mankind. No advice to young men is more common in respectable society than to dress well. If you look prosperous the world will treat you with consideration. This applies with even greater force to the thief. Keep up a "front" is the universal law of success, applicable to all grades of society. The first thing a grafter is apt to say to a pal whom he has not seen for a long time is, "You are looking good," meaning that his friend is well-dressed. It is sure flattery, and if a grafter wants to make a borrow he is practically certain of opening the negotiations with the stereotyped phrase: "You are looking good;" for the only time you can get anything off a grafter is when you can make him think you are prosperous.

But the great reason why I never saved much "fall-money" was not "booze," or theatres, or clothes. "Look for the woman" is a phrase, I believe, in good society; and it certainly explains a great deal of a thief's misfortunes. Long before I did anything in Graftdom but petty pilfering, I had begun to go with the little girls in the neighborhood. At that time they had no attraction for me, but I heard older boys say that it was a manly thing to lead girls astray, and I was ambitious to be not only a good thief, but a hard case generally. When I was nine or ten years old I liked to boast of the conquests I had made among little working girls of fourteen or fifteen. We used to meet in the hall-ways of tenement houses, or at their homes, but there was no sentiment in the relations between us, at least on my part. My only pleasure in it was the delight of telling about it to my young companions.

When I was twelve years old I met a little girl for whom I had a somewhat different feeling. Nellie was a pretty, blue-eyed little creature, or "tid-bit," as we used to say, who lived near my home on Cherry Street. I used to take her over on the ferry for a ride, or treat her to ice-cream; and we were really chums; but when I began to make money I lost my interest in her; partly, too, because at that time I made the acquaintance of a married woman of about twenty-five years old. She discovered me one day in the hallway with Nellie, and threatened to tell the holy brother on us if I didn't fetch her a pint of beer. I took the beer to her room, and that began a relationship of perhaps a year. She used to stake me to a part of the money her husband, a workingman, brought her every Saturday night.

Although the girls meant very little to me until several years later, I nevertheless began when I was about fifteen to spend a great deal of money on them. It was the thing to do, and I did it with a good grace. I used to take all kinds of working girls to the balls in Walhalla Hall in Orchard Street; or in Pythagoras, or Beethoven Halls, where many pretty little German girls of respectable families used to dance on Saturday nights. It was my pride to buy them things—clothes, pins, and to take them on excursions; for was I not a rising "gun," with money in my pocket? Money, however, that went as easily as it had come.

Perhaps if I had been able to save money at that time I might not have fallen (that is, been arrested) so early. My first fall came, however, when I was fifteen years old; and if I was not a confirmed thief already, I certainly was one by the time I left the Tombs, where I stayed ten days. It happened this way. Zack and I were grafting, buzzing Molls, with a pal named Jack, who afterwards became a famous burglar. He had just escaped from the Catholic Protectory, and told us his troubles. Instead of being alarmed, however, I grew bolder, for if Jack could "beat" the "Proteck" in three months, I argued I could do it in twenty-four hours. We three ripped things open for some time; but one day we were grafting on Sixth Avenue, just below Twentieth Street, when I fell for a "leather." The "sucker," a good-looking Moll was coming up the Avenue. Her "book," which looked fat, was sticking out of her skirt. I, who was the "wire," gave Jack and Zack the tip (thief's cough), and they stalled, one in front, one behind. The girl did not "blow" (take alarm) and I got hold of the leather easily. It looked like a get-away, for no one on the sidewalk saw us. But as bad luck would have it, a negro coachman, standing in the street by the pavement, got next, and said to me, "What are you doing there?" I replied, "Shut up, and I'll give you two dollars." But he caught hold of me and shouted for the police. I passed the leather to Jack, who "vamoosed." Zack hit the negro in the face and I ran up Seventh Avenue, but was caught by a flyman (policeman), and taken to the station house.

On the way to the police station I cried bitterly, for, after all, I was only a boy. I realized for the first time that the way of the transgressor is hard. It was in the afternoon, and I spent the time until next morning at ten, when I was to appear before the magistrate, in a cell in the station-house, in the company of an old grafter. In the adjoining cells were drunkards, street-walkers and thieves who had been "lined up" for the night, and I spent the long hours in crying and in listening to their indecent songs and jokes. The old grafter called to one of the Tenderloin girls that he had a kid with him who was arrested for Moll-buzzing. At this they all expressed their sympathy with me by saying that I would either be imprisoned for life or be hanged. They got me to sing a song, and I convinced them that I was tough.

In the morning I was arraigned in the police court. As there was no stolen property on me, and as the sucker was not there to make a complaint, I was "settled" for assault only, and sent to the Tombs for ten days.

My experience in the Tombs may fairly be called, I think, the turning point of my life. It was there that I met "de mob". I learned new tricks in the Tombs; and more than that, I began definitely to look upon myself as a criminal. The Tombs of twenty years ago was even less cheerful than it is at present. The Boys' Prison faced the Women's Prison, and between these two was the place where those sentenced to death were hanged. The boys knew when an execution was to take place, and we used to talk it over among ourselves. One man was hanged while I was there; and if anybody thinks that knowledge of such things helps to make boys seek the path of virtue, let him go forth into the world and learn something about human nature.