The greed of the "fences" is one important reason why many criminals find it difficult to reform. The more thieves a "fence" has working for him the greater his profits, and naturally the longer they remain in the business the more valuable they are. When a thief reforms, the "fence" is put to the trouble and expense of training a new man—and there is always the danger that the new member of the staff will prove less capable or industrious than the one whose place he takes.
The "fence," therefore, tries to make crime so attractive or so necessary to the clever thief that he will continue stealing until death or arrest overtakes him. He keeps close watch for signs of a desire to reform, and does all he can to discourage it.
The "fence" studies the special weaknesses of his thieves and understands just how to play on them to his advantage. If a thief suggests "turning over a new leaf," the "fence" pays him more liberally for his next lot of goods, or loans him money to satisfy his craving for liquor, drugs, fine clothes, or whatever may be his failing.
This last is a favorite method of getting a thief into a "fence's" power. The "fence" advances money freely, with the "always-glad-to-help-an-old-friend" spirit. But he keeps careful count of every dollar loaned, and when the inevitable day of reckoning comes the debt is usually so large that the thief can never hope to pay it except by crime.
SHINBURN AND THE "FENCE"
After living an honest life for fifteen years, Mark Shinburn might never have turned burglar again had he not fallen into the hands of one of these avaricious receivers of stolen goods.
Shinburn—as I will tell you in a later chapter—had accumulated from his early robberies a million dollars. With this fortune he went to Belgium, bought an estate and the title of count, and settled down to the life of a prosperous country gentleman.
But the evil fortune which seems to follow every thief never forsook Shinburn. His mania for gambling and an unlucky series of speculations in the stock market at last left him penniless.
In the hope of restoring his fallen fortunes, Shinburn went to London. There he met an old acquaintance of his—a wealthy receiver of stolen goods. This wily trickster, eager to get Shinburn, the greatest of burglars, to stealing for him again, received him with open arms.