An interesting story is told of an Illinois town where a mob of pickpockets had been led to believe that they had "squared" things sufficiently with the authorities to be able to run "sure thing" games at the show grounds with impunity,—pickpockets dabble occasionally in games,—but they swindled people so outrageously that the authorities got scared and prohibited the games. The men had paid so heavily for what they had considered were privileges, that they were going to be losers unless they got in their "graft" somehow, so they turned pickpockets again, and, as one man put it, "simply tore the crowd open." When it dispersed, the ground was literally covered with emptied pocketbooks.
The easiest way for the police officer to deal with the pickpocket is to know him whenever he appears, and to let him understand that he is "spotted" and would better keep away. Some officers are born thief-catchers, and can seemingly scent crime where it cannot even be seen, and, whether they know a man or not, can pick out the real culprit. The average officer, however, must recognise his man before he can touch him, unless he catches him red-handed, and it is he who knows a great many offenders and can call the "turn" on them, give their names and records, that is the great detective of modern times. The sleuth of fiction, who catches criminals by magic, as it were, is a snare and a delusion.
During my police experience I carried with me a pocket "rogue's gallery" of the most notorious pickpockets of the section of the country in which I had to travel. For a time I saw so many of these gentry in the flesh, and was shown so many pictures, that a bewildering composite picture of all formed in my mind. It seemed to me, sometimes, as if everybody I saw in the streets resembled a pickpocket that I had to be on the lookout for. I finally determined to commit to memory a picture a day, or every two or three days as was necessary, and learn to differentiate, and the method proved successful. To-day there are about fifty pickpockets that I shall know wherever I see them. The majority of them I have met personally, but a number are known to me by photograph only.
To illustrate the usefulness of photographs in the police business, and incidentally my method, I must tell about a pickpocket whom I identified, one morning, in a town where a circus was exhibiting. He had tried to take a watch from a fellow passenger on a trolley-car, and had nearly succeeded in unscrewing it from the chain when he was discovered. He was a desperate character, and drew a razor, with which he frightened everybody off the car, including the motorman. He attempted to escape by running the car himself, but on seeing that it was going to take him back to the town, he deserted it, appropriated a horse and buggy, and made another dash for liberty. He was eventually driven into a fence corner by some of the young men of the town, and kept at bay until the police arrived, when he was taken to the lock-up, where, in company with my two companions, I saw him. He was brought out of his cell for our inspection, and, as luck would have it, it was his photograph in my book that I had elected to commit to memory a few days before. I knew him the minute I saw him, and he was identified beyond a possible doubt. In return he gave me the worst scolding I have ever had in my life, and threatened to put out "my light" when he is free again, but this is a façon de parler of men of his class; after he has served his five or ten years he will have forgotten me and his threat.
The amount of money which pickpockets take in annually is probably greater than that of any of the other specialists in crime. It would be idle to say how large it is, but it is a well-known fact that thousands of dollars are stolen by them at big public gatherings to which they have access. It was reported, for instance, that at the recent Confederate Soldiers' Reunion in the South $30,000 were stolen by pickpockets, and almost every day in the year one reads in the newspapers of a big "touch" reaching into the thousands. I think it is a conservative statement to say that in a lifetime the expert pickpocket steals $20,000. Multiply this figure by 1,500, which I have given as the number of the first-class tools in the country, and the result reaches high up into the millions. Like other professional thieves, the pickpocket throws away his money like water, and very seldom thinks of saving for old age, but practically all successful mobs have "fall money" (an expense fund for paying lawyers, etc., when they get arrested) of from $3,000 to $5,000 each, carefully banked, and I know of one pickpocket who is the owner of some very valuable real estate. A good illustration of the rapidity with which they recoup themselves financially after a period of rest, or a term in prison, is the story told about one of them who returned to this country penniless after a pleasure trip in Europe. The man related the incident to a friend of mine. "Didn't have a red," he said. "I tackled a saloon keeper I knew for a couple of thousand. How long do you think I was paying him back? Three weeks!"
If the pickpocket knew how to save his money, and could invest it well, his children might some day be but millionaires.
CHAPTER IV.
HOW SOME TOWNS ARE "PROTECTED."
Speaking generally, there are two methods in vogue in American police circles for dealing with crime, and they may be called the compromising and the uncompromising. The latter is the more honest. In a town where it is followed, the chief of police is known to be a man who will not allow a professional thief within the city limits, if he can help it, and he is continually on watch for transient offenders. He will make no "deal" with criminals in any particular, and he takes pride in securing the conviction and punishment of all whom his men apprehend. He is naturally not liked by offenders, although they respect his consistency, and there is a local element of rowdies who consider him "an old fogey," but he is the kind of officer that makes Germany, for instance, and England, too, in a measure, so free of the class of criminals that in this country are so bold. There are some chiefs of police in the United States of this character, and they become known throughout the criminal world, but there ought to be more of them.