Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1860-08-16

the precise vintage of sherry by the merest
sip, 30 the detective at once pounces upon
the, Athors of the work of art under conside-
ratln by the style of performance if not
upda' the precise executant, upon the
''sehsop' to which he belongs. Having
finished the toilette branch of the inquiry,
he takes short view Of the parapet of your
house, and makes an equally cursory inves-
tigation Of the attic window fastenings. His
mind is made up. and most likely he will
address you in these words:
't'All right, sir. This is done by one of
the Dancing School ?"
impossible !' exclaims your plundered
partner. "Wby our children 60 to Mon
sieur Pettitoes, Of No 81, and assure you
he is highly respectable professor. AS to
his pupils II
The detective smiles and Interrupts
Dancers" he tells her, ''is name given
to the sort of burglars by whom you have
been robbed and every branch of the thiev-
ing profession is divided into gangs, which
are termed Schools From No. 80 to the
end of the street the houses are unfinished
The thief made his way to the top of one of
these, and crawled to your garret."
''But we are twenty houses distant and
why did he not favor one of my neighbors 2"
you will ask.
EITHER their uppermost stories are not
so practicable, or the ladies have not SO
valuable jewels"
''But how did the thieves know that %
''By watching and enquiring." This
affair may haze been in preparation for more
than month. Your house has been watch
ed-your habits asccrtained. They have
found out when you dine-how long you
remain in, the dining room. A day is Sc
lected -while you are busy dining, and the
servants waiting on you, the thing is done.
Previously, many journeys have been made
over the roofs to find the best means of en-
terlng your house. The attic is chosen !;
the robber gets In and creeps noiselessly,
or dances into the place to be robbed,
.Is there any chance of recovering our
property p you ask, anxiously, seeing the
whole matter at a glance.
Il hope SO. have sent some brother
officers to watch the Fences houses
'Fences?"
Fences" explains the detective, in re-
ply to your innocent wife's inquiry, ''are
purchasers of stolen goods. Your jewels
W. soon be forced out of their settings, and
'tne goI7 me1reu: -i----'----- - g
A suppressed scream.
eve shall see, if at this unusualhour Of
the night, there is any hustle in or near any
of these places; if any smoke is coming out
of any of their furnaces, where the melting
takes place. [ shall 60 and seek out the
precise garretteer that's another name
these plunderers give Reconsideration [
suspect. By his trying to SELF your do
mestic by placing the ring and toothpick
in their bed, [ think [ know the man."
The next morning you find all these sup
positions verified The detective calls, and
obliges you, at breakfast, (aftcr sleepless
night,) with complete list of the stolen
articles, and produces some of them for
Identification. In three months your wife
gets nearly every article back, except some
of the gold her ''damsels" innocence is
fully established, and the thief is taken from
his 'school' to spend long holiday in a
penal colony.
Sometimes they are called upon to inves-
tigate robberies so executed that no human
ingenuity appears, to ordinary observers,
capable of finding the thief The robber
has left no trail-not trace. Every clew
seems cut off-but the experience of de-
tective guides him into tracks invisible to
other eyes. Not long since, trunk was
rihed at fashionable hotel The theft was
so managed that no suspicion could rest on
any one. The detective sergeant, who had
been sent for, fairly owned, after making a
minute examination, that he could afford no
hope of elucidating the mystery AS he
was leaving the bedroom, however, in which
the plundered portmanteau stood, he picked
up an ordinary shirt button from the carpet.
He silently compared it with these on the
shirts which the thief had left behind in the
trunk. It did not match them He said
nothing, but hung about the hotel for the
rest of the day. Had he been narrowly
watched he would have been set down for
an eccentric critic Of linen.
He was looking out for shirt front or
wristband with button. His search was
long and patient, but at length it was re-
warded. One of the inmates in the house
showed a deficiency in his dress, which no
one but detective would have noticed. He
looked as narrowly as he dared at the pat
tern of the remaining buttons. 1t cores
ponded with that of the little tell tale he had
picked up. He went deeper into the SUBJ
ject, got trace of some of the stolen pro-
perty, ascertained a connection between it
and the suspected person, confronted him
with the owner of the trunk, and finally
succeeded in convicting him of the theft.
At another hotel robbery, the blade of a
knife, broken in the lock of a portnanteau,
formed the clew. The detective employed
in that case was for sometime indefatigable
in seeking out knives with broken blades.
At length he found one belonging to an un-
derwaiter, who proved to be the thief.
gSy| John Randolph was one of the most sar-
castle mon that ever lived. One time young
man attempted to make his acquaintance. He
obtained an introduction, and among the first