The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1868-03-07
9airellanp.
"REMINISCENCES OLE a POLICE
NTAGES'rEeATE.

MAGISTRATE.
There are more crimes both of moral and
legal nature. than come whiting the ordinary
purview of our courts, or whose treatment and
cure are subjected TO the discipline of pris-
ons. One such, at least, is one Of the most fire.
quent occurrence. It is a'crime GOO, that affects
the relations of business, that strikes pointed
" at the morality and honesty OF traffic, and
that impairs that faith and credit which is the
substratum of the mercantile world quite as dis
astrously any of the lessons of whose wrongs
and iniquity are daily taught to the world by
examples of arrest, conviction and punishment.
1t is the crime of stealing ones own property.
BY the common law, deriving its inspiration
from the purest sources of wisdom and integrity,
it is made crime for to steal or attempt to
steal his goods to the end that he may
wrong his fellow, who, by the circumstance of
trade or confding faith, may possess the right
to require a just and honest disposition of them.
1t were well for public morals, and for the in
tegrity of the business world, If this wise and
just law were "more honored in the observance
than the 'breach" of it, as has so long been the
experience of the country. The crime is COM
United every day. But when successfully per-
petratcd, it leaves behind its footsteps traces
by which suspicion stamp it with the proof
and condemnation And when it fails of sue
cess, it is quickly caught in its tolls that its
intended victims escape loss, and in the exulta-
ton of their good fortune, are disnclned to
prosecute the offender to that measure of legal
punishment that he may so we'll merit.
The men who conceive and attempt the exc
cution Of this otfense, seldom evince much Skill
sagacity or prudence. They have not the erudi-
ton that professional crime acquires. They do
not exercise the like care and caution that gem
orally characteriZes the conduct of those who
commit great offences even for the first time. If
they do in any wise survey in advance the road
to guilt, escape. suspicion or arrest, it is from
stand point quite different from that assumed by
most other artisans in crime. They especially
rely upon their former reputation, and the assur-
ance with which they purpose to blazon that
forth to beclOud any rising mists Of suspicion,
as the buckler with which to arm themselves
against detection.
In 1885,, at the early hour when the busy hand
of traffic and thrift was unlocking the stores in
street, for the business of the day, bus
tie and hum was noticed within and about the
store of -, well known and somewhat
well established retail dry goods dealer. l was
passing the contiguous corner on my way to the
early session of my court, and observing the I'M
usual scene, stopped for moment to observe its
import. The merchant, frenzed quite beyond
temporary sanity as he seemed to those gathered
about him, was keen sighted and discriminating
enough to notice my presence at the corner. He
quickly hurried messenger to invite my atten-
dance ut the store. The store had been bur-
glariously entered and robbed during the night.
The owner was in parDxysm of wonderment,
grief and despair at the development of this Ca
lamity. He bemoaned his loss, and the ruin
which he asserted impended over him, with a
vehemence of passion that all the generous con-
ISOLATION of his pcighbors about him could in no
wise assuage. readily and heartily united my
sympathy to that of his neighbors. l had
known him for some time, and basing my opin.
ion upon his general reputation rather than my
individual knowledge, hal regarded him rs an
upright merchant, and reputable citizen.
A sense Of my official relations to the commu-
nifty superadded to my obligations as Il citizen.
impclled me at once to make inquiry into and
circumspeotion of the facts of the case, AND to
proffer my aid to seek to penetrate the mysteries
of the crime, and if possible to trace its footsteps
from the scene of its commission to the habita-
ton OF its perpetrator and the place whence the
goods had been conveyed
The merchant shutting the door upon the
crowd that was gathering about it, and giving
ingress to myself and few others, essayed to set
forth the extent of his losses, ard to show by
cular evidence how the burglary had been achiev-
ed. The property alleged to be stolen consisted
chiefly Of silk goods, of which there was known
to have been a large quantity and many of them
lately received. 1t was readily recognized as IA
simple fact, that silk goods to a great value
could be compressed within small bulk, and
thus easily removed. But it was singular cir
cumstance, aud as such frankly avowed by the
owner, that nice Discrimination had been made
by the thieves in the quality and value of the
property taken, for while the silks of every vari-
ETY. of value had been promiscuously kept upon
the shelves, and in the drawers, only the most
valuable ones had been stolen. Believing that
no stranger could have made this studious dis
elimination, | whispered to the merchant my
queries as to whether he suspected any of his
employees. He ieplicd not only with the prompt
ness of settled conviction, but with an asperity
that was tinSed with sense of aiYront, that his
clerks were innocent as himself. That an
swer, in style and tone, standing out in such
bold relief from the fact to which it related,
quickcned my apprehension and colored my re-
Elections with the hue OF suspicion, and | was at
once, without being restrained by the tedious
process of reason, hurried to the nasty eonvic-
spite his position or his history, was himself the
thief and had stolen his own goods to avoid the
debt that impended over them.
l asked him then to show me how the burglary
had been effected. He directed my attention to
window in the rear of the store. Anger holes
had been profusely bored through the shutters,
and in the form of a circle, so that piece was
easily removed, large enough to admit the pass
age OF an arm, and thus the winuow fastenings
had been removed, and the window raised, and
an entrance effected. All this seemed apparent
sly quite rational, and very like the method so
frequently adopted by burglars in their calling.
But looked again. and with an eye jaundiced
by the strong though distasteful suspicion with
which was impregnated. The sill of the win
dow was at quite an elevation from the ground