Why crime does not pay

by Sophie Lyons

"I beg your pardon, madame, but can you tell me where the French line steamboats dock?"

I directed her to the proper place and we got into conversation. She told me that she was going home to her mother in France in order to die there. She had been given up by the doctors here as an incurable consumptive and had sold all her goods for a few hundred dollars with which she was to pay her fare and give the rest to her mother. I became interested in this, for it seemed to me that I had robbed a woman in distress of her last dollar, and that was something I did not like to do.

I asked her if she had money besides the amount she drew out of the bank (she had told me of taking the money from the bank), and she said that was all she had in the world. I could not think of keeping her money after that, because, when the poor woman reached the ticket office and found her money gone and her trip abroad impossible, she would probably have died of the shock. So I determined to put the money back in the poor French woman's pocket. I walked along with her to the ticket office and, while she was talking to the agent, I slipped the money back in her pocket. She bought her ticket and went aboard the boat and I felt pleased that I had not kept the money.

That evening I told some of my criminal friends of the transaction, and several of them seemed disgusted with me because I had not put in some money of my own along with the small mite the woman had so that she would be cheered up a bit. They thought it mean of me not to do more than I did to help along a woman so unfortunate as this sick woman.

On several other occasions I voluntarily returned stolen money to people when I found out that they were more in need of it than myself. I stole a satchel from a woman in a bank once and it contained a few hundred dollars. The next day I discovered in the paper that the woman was blind and I was referred to as the meanest kind of a thief. When I learned this I hastened to return the money to the unfortunate woman. I never could sleep easy if I thought that any really deserving person suffered from my thieving. I tried to confine my work to people who could afford to lose their money and would soon forget the affair. A very poor person who loses the savings of a lifetime never gets over the shock of his or her loss and it causes real suffering. It didn't worry me any to make people feel resentful and indignant, but I could not bear the thought of making anybody unhappy.

I was in Paris many years ago and stopping at one of the most fashionable hotels in the city. Mrs. Lorillard, the society woman, was occupying rooms adjoining mine, and I was trying to get her jewelry. She always carried a great amount of jewelry with her, and I knew the prize was a good one. She had two maids with her, one of whom had to keep watch over two satchels in which the jewelry was secreted.

The maids were honest girls and we could not do any business through them, but we followed the party from place to place expecting that some time the girl would forget to take proper care of her satchels, and then our opportunity to steal them would arrive. A few days after Mrs. Lorillard had settled at this hotel she attended some reception in Paris and, of course, her jewelry bags had to be taken from the hotel safe, where they had been placed for safety.

Mrs. Lorillard picked out the particular pieces of jewelry she wanted to wear at the reception, and closed up the two bags, turning them over to the maid to place in the safe. The maid came out of the apartment with the two bags, and I met her in the hall and began to ask her some trivial question. She stopped to talk with me and laid down the bags. While I kept her engaged in conversation a comrade of mine crept up, substituted another bag for one of the jewelry receptacles and skipped off. I continued to talk a little longer and then the girl and I parted, she going downstairs to the safe with the two bags, not suspecting that I had deliberately held her in conversation while my friend had taken one of the precious bags.

My associate went to another hotel and concealed the jewelry, while I stayed there in my room, not wishing to attract attention by leaving at such a critical time, for, after the robbery was discovered, if it had been found that I had left at the same time it would have been natural for suspicion to be directed at me.

The following day, when the bags were sent for in order for Mrs. Lorillard to put back the jewels she had worn at the reception, it was found that one of the bags was missing and there was great excitement. Detectives by the score were sent for and the whole hotel was searched top and bottom for a clew.