Chapter II: Preliminary Generalities

To enumerate all that a competent detective should know, would be to say that he should know everything. But as this is impossible, a man or woman desiring to engage in this interesting and lucrative profession should at least acquire as general a knowledge of things as possible.

The pursuit of the profession itself, I have found, affords multitudinous opportunities for learning, and as each new case undertaken generally involves different circumstances, no better field for broadening the mind or enriching a person’s experience can be found.

A detective, once he becomes qualified to act as such, is thrown in contact with all manner of life and conditions, and what experience he necessarily gains in one case is frequently of much value to him in attempting the solution of another.

In my personal experience, and from my wide acquaintance among detectives, I have found that the greatest asset a person engaged in this line of activity can possess is close observation and deduction.

Men and women are engaged in all lines of activity, and among these is to be found the professional thief. The professional thief, and this may be a woman as well as a man, devotes as much time and studious effort to crime as professional persons in other walks of life devote to their respective occupations.

In this country, as well as other countries, during the past few years there has developed many different criminal societies. Frequently these societies and their members are known to the police and detective agencies, but it is not always easy to capture them.

The ideals of professional criminals are quite the opposite of what is usually supposed. They admire cleverness and skill but despise violence,--the forger or swindler commands their respect while they scorn the yeggman or “gorilla” as they term all those who commit crimes of violence. These ideals give rise to the idea of caste or social position among them, the counterfeiter, swindler and forger being placed at the top, while the burglar and highway robber are at the bottom. They are scrupulously careful to do nothing to disgrace themselves and lose caste in the eyes of their comrades. Thus a pickpocket would never commit a highway robbery, or a forger stoop to commit a burglary. Generally they practice at some particular type of crime until they become expert at it and seldom change or attempt anything outside of their own line. They consider it bad taste to kill anyone unless in cases of absolute necessity, but an exception must be made to this among the more desperate element of yeggmen, who seem to consider it an honor to kill an officer of the law, especially one in uniform; and they will sometimes, but not often, go out of their way to kill an officer and thus acquire glory in the eyes of their comrades. The aversion of the more intelligent crooks to violence is probably to some extent due to the fact that it is not profitable and aggravates the offense, insuring a longer term in prison if caught.

A professional thief, as a rule, generally confines his or her criminal operations to some one particular line of activity. Pickpockets or “dips” as they are known in police parlance, have no thought of robbing houses or turning burglars. A safe blower looks down upon the common highwayman, while the latter considers his occupation far more dignified than that of the yegg.

A professional forger is usually a drug fiend and considers himself too clever to associate with a “second story worker”. A “confidence man” has no respect for the “penny weighter”. The latter, it might be said, is the description given to diamond sneak thieves and their methods will be explained later.

In addition to the individual professional crook, the police of all larger cities must deal with what is known as crook organizations. Frequently as many as fifty or more thieves will be identified in a series of bold robberies, and so cleverly is this organization effected that it is almost impossible to obtain evidence indicting “the men higher up”.

For instance, the coming of the automobile has resulted in an organized system of thievery. Thousands of automobiles are stolen every year in this country. The cars are taken apart, reassembled, and finally the altered product is sold by some apparently reputable dealer.

This business of stealing automobiles by organized gangs of crooks has assumed gigantic proportions within the last few years. Although the police everywhere have made many arrests, yet cars are being stolen daily.

This system is one of the most elaborate ever adopted by professional thieves. One man is singled out to steal an automobile and he is instructed as to what kind of a car to steal. For this he generally receives $50.00 or whatever price may be agreed upon.

He steals the car and turns it over to a second person. The second thief drives the machine to some other city and there delivers it to a third person who has been designated to receive it, and who is probably unknown to the first two thieves.

Thus exchanges are made from one party to another, a small financial transaction taking place each time, until the car finally arrives at an assembling plant or garage where the owner acts as a “fence”. Here the car is take apart, all the parts are changed around and with parts from other cars it is assembled again, re-painted and placed on the market as a second-hand machine.

The final destination of the stolen automobile is generally not known to the thief who originally stole it. All he knows is that a certain person paid him $50.00 for the automobile and what became of the car after that is usually of no interest to him. The second thief perhaps knows that he received $100.00 for the same car from a third person, and there his interest ceases.

It is because that the majority of professional thieves confine their operations to some one particular line that the detective soon learns to associate the commission of a certain criminal act with a certain criminal or gang of crooks.

My experience has taught me that reformatories generally do not reform young men, correction houses do not correct men and penitentiaries do not make men penitent. I am speaking now of the professional crook. Society does not build these institutions to punish those who violate the laws, but to protect society from the operations of this gentry.

A short term in prison for the average crook is only a part of the game. Immediately upon his release he again resumes the old criminal method in trying to get a living. I have never been able to understand why a professional crook will devote so much time, thought and study in the commission of a crime for a certain competence it is to bring him, when the same amount of effort and labor spent in an honest direction would result in ten-fold benefit. The professional crook is a menace to society and the detective is the bulwark to stand between the thief and society, protecting the latter from the many schemes devised by the criminal who foolishly imagines his futile efforts will get him something for nothing. No matter how clever the thief may be, sooner or later he is caught in the toils of the law. The legal machinery grinds relentlessly. The more intelligent the thief the greater will be his suffering. All professional crooks acknowledge that they make interesting reading, that in the long run it does not pay to commit crime.

In my own experience among detectives I can recall many cases wherein it would have been possible to lay hands on the real offender, but not having sufficient evidence it was impossible to take criminal action, and the guilty persons sometimes take this advantage and are never apprehended.

But all skilled detectives bide their time. They know that sooner or later the man whom they want will “slip a cog” and they will apprehend him, convict and send him to the penitentiary.

The commission of any criminal act sets in motion all the human forces to uncover the culprit and bring him to justice. These forces are working constantly in every civilized country on the globe.

Police departments and detective agencies everywhere co-operate. They are in one gigantic combine to run to earth the evil doer. Woe betide the man, woman or organization that seeks to continue criminal operations.

In the past ten years there have been many wonderful and startling changes in the methods of crooks and persons of the underworld. The old time burglar with his dark lantern and gun has practically passed away. Burglaries nowadays, for the most part, are committed by young men or boys who act impulsively or on the suggestion of evil minded companions. The highwayman at the present time is very active, due somewhat to the conditions of our country. The streets of all large cities are so well patrolled and economic conditions have become so changed that the field of operations for the highwayman is very limited.

Then, again, the offense is punishable by so severe a sentence in a state prison, and the danger of being caught is so great, that the professional crook prefers to devote his efforts to less hazardous crimes. The professional crook, I have found, is the one who steals money, or that which can easily be converted into money. Only the occasional thief or petty crook bother with stealing articles the disposition of which might prove difficult. Every professional thief realizes that nothing is worth stealing unless it can be easily and readily converted into cash without fear of detection. The man or woman who steals any article of value and carries it to the nearest pawn shop in the hope of realizing a little ready cash, might just as well walk into police headquarters after committing a theft and make a full confession. There is a law in most states making it compulsory for the owner of a pawn shop to co-operate with the detective and police departments in all their daily transactions. The pawn broker is too wise to permit his license to become revoked or to be hauled into court on a charge of receiving stolen goods.

The pawn broker makes a mental note of every person who would do business with him, and to the detective and police divulges any valuable information that he may have. In some large cities pawn brokers are furnished with a list describing stolen articles, and there is an electrical sign or signal connected from the store to police headquarters to be used in an emergency.