Next morning at the station house the firm was inclined to treat me leniently. The ring had been recovered, and on the promise of my father to look after me, and on my own promise to behave in the future, the judge dismissed the case.
I soon found the old environment calling me in tones which I could not resist. I slipped back again to the old pals and companionships. The ice was broken. I found each succeeding act against the law much easier of commission, until the habit became formed. Crime to the professional thief is nothing more or less than habit. That is why the reforming of such is so difficult. I lost all sight of the morals. The right or wrong of an act never enters into the mind of a criminal. His senses in this respect have become atrophied. Each act is a business proposition, considered from a business standpoint, and measured only by dollars and cents, and the opportunity for a clean “getaway.”
I did not confine myself to shoplifting. I soon graduated from this class into something bigger. I remembered the teachings of school days, the copybooks wherein were facsimiles of checks, promissory notes, etc. I soon put this learning into criminal practice.
Suggestion, while perhaps not a direct contributory cause of crime, is nevertheless so intricately interwoven with the big causative agencies that it is mighty difficult to say what part it does play in the formation of the criminal. That it plays a big part there is no gainsaying. A mind lacking will power is like a sheep—ever willing to follow a leader. If that mind possesses criminal tendencies, a method of crime is easily suggested by simply reading of other crimes. I know not whether it is pertinent to the query or not, but one of the big facts about the men in the underworld is that nearly all are inveterate readers of the daily press.
Whatever part suggestion may have played in the lives of other men in the underworld, it was a potent factor in one of the crimes of my early career. The proprietor of the pool room which we made our rendezvous had a relative who suddenly died. Wishing to show his affection for the departed, he sent me to purchase a floral piece. Being short of change, he wrote a check for ten dollars and bade me give it in exchange for the wreath. From this incident in the life of legitimate business was suggested an illegitimate use of the same idea. Why could I not do the same thing? I reasoned. The more I thought of it, the more certain I became of its feasibility. I tried it out and it succeeded beyond all expectations. This success hastened me on to the inevitable day of disaster. All crooks are possessed of a little more than their due share of vanity; my success in the new line puffed up my pride considerably. I was only a kid, I reasoned, doing a man’s work in the underworld. Of course there was no big money involved, but the money there was looked awfully big to me.
CHAPTER III
PERSISTING IN MISDEEDS
Every lane, the philosopher will tell you, has an ending. Mine stopped abruptly. A check of mine was returned to the one who supposed me a Carnegie. Having a good description of me, he lost no time in notifying the police. Some ten weeks later, I walked into the arms of a waiting policeman. I knew him well as an old friend of the family, and besought him for their sakes to let me go. He couldn’t see it that way. Of course he was sorry for me, and all that, but he had a duty to perform. I put on as bold a front as I could as he led me to the nearest patrol box. My impressions of that ride in the wagon are indistinct in my memory. I do remember, however, the sensation of weight that seemed to overwhelm me as I entered for the second time the station house. I was held for trial and committed to jail until tried.
It was early summer and the courts had adjourned to meet again three months hence. That time I must spend in jail, unless it were my pleasure to plead guilty or unless I could arrange for bail. The latter was out of the question; bail could not be had. Friends of the family were unwilling to take the chance. Upon entering jail my mind was made up to take my punishment at once and have it over with, but in jail I met men older and abler in crime than I was, whose advice to me was to demand a jury and take a chance. They reasoned with me that I had everything to gain and nothing to lose by the experiment. I, of course, took their advice.