The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-09-15
SPIRIT OF rnn PRESS.
K ditoriaI Opinions Of iho Lending Journals
Uoon Current Topics Compiled Every
nav for the EvcnIBR Telegraph
THE CAPITALISTS OF CRIME.


From the NJ y 7stbune
Tbe contest between those who work and
those who plunder is nearly as old as the
world itself Nor is there much ground to
hone for its speedy termination. We suggest
Ibc inouiry whether society may not have
made mistake in its mode of carrying on
tbis contest. Has it not failed TO recognize
the fact that habitual criminality is craft,
NOT carried on by isolated individuals, but by
a virtual organization comprehending various
grades and divisions of work. and especially
recurring the combined action of capital and
labor precisely as other crafts do, and like
them, too, being wholly dependent for its
continued existence on this union! There are
two well-defned classes enlisted in criminal
operations, the capitalists and the operatives,
those who furnish the means, and those who
work the machinery; and the former are
absolutely essential to the latter. There
are four kinds OF criminal capitalists: |. The
owners of houses or dens atfordlng shelter to
depredators, and places for their congrega-
ton and ACKNOWLEDGEMENT saloons, dance
house, and houses of prostitution. 2. The
receivers or buyers OF stolen property .. Inc
paynbrokers who lend money upon such
property. 4. The makers of burglarious and
other instruments used in criminal opera
tions 1t is the practical impunity of these
capitalists which supports the breed of thieves
and burglars. As the law now stands, man
possessed of some capital may, with absolute
mpunity, use it in providing homes for
criminals, arranged, if so he pleases, for con-
cealing the thieves and their plunder, and for
bGCling the pursuit of the police; OF such
person may, with equal impunity, engage in
the manufacture of burglars and thieves
instruments, some of which are of the
most elaborate construction. 1t is true
that, as regards those who cash the
stolen property, either by purchase OF
by 'loan--receivers and pawnbrokers-
the law does provide for their pun
ishment but the requirements as to evidence
are such as to make detection and conviction,
in ordinary cases, all but impossible. In
New York, the number of daily receptions of
stolen property probably amounts to some
thousands; yet the conviction of a receiver
is SO rare that there is scarcely one to ten
thousand offenses; and the conviction of
pawnbroker for receiving such property in
pledge we have never heard of. Compared
to the swarms of operative plunderers, the
several classes of criminal capitalists eonsti-
tute but small body. Being much more
sensitive to the terrors of the law and more
confined to given localities, they offer by far
lie fairest mark for successful criminal legis-
lttion. The mere ''laborer' of the criminal
class, if we may so name the thief and the
burglar, has neither reputation to hazard nor
property to lose; he can hide himself or run
away. Not so, however, the man who has
invested his capital in aid of the preda-
tory class; he cannot conceal himself; and
if he run away, he must leave his houses,
his shop, or his stock behind him.
These criminal capitalists present a
vital and exceedingly vulnerable part
of the organization. If it were made abso-
lutely unsafe for owners of property to afford
shelter to habitual criminals-the stern rule
S'No houseroom to the dishonest" being
rigidly enforced-and if it were also made alb
solutely unsafe either to purchase stolen pro-
perty or to advance money upon it, the class
that now lives by plunder would per force be
driven either to honesty or starvation. Some
years ago, in the town of Kidderminster,
England, it was noticed that while household
property, shop goods, valuables carried about
the person, etc. etc., were perfectly secure
from depreciation, the thread and silk used in
bombazine and carpet weaving were con
stantly stolen. Now, what was the cause Of
this strange anomaly Kidderminster was mo-
large enough to conceal and support trader
in stolen goods of the ordinary kind but il
contained many small weavers some of whom
had both means and inclination to buy the
stolen silk and thread. Circumstances enabled
capital and labor-the capital of the small
weaver and the labor of the thief-to ac
jointly against the silk and thread whil
they did not admit of such joint action agains
other kinds of property
There is a world of instruction in all this
1t says to society: Strike at the criminal capi
tdltStS in your warfare against crime; max
the cities too hot to hold them; destroy oppor
tunity in the large towns as well as in tn
small; and then evil inclination will remail
dormant and undeveloped in the former n
less than in the latter; but so long as, throug
Ignorance or fear, you fail to adopt thi
method of attack Won will he Oblioad IN main
tain an army of watchers to check evil incl
nation as it ripens into crime; your propert
will be exposed to plunder and your person
to injury and thousands upon thousands G
children, who might be saved by law g
lnexorable as that which makes the magnet
needle obey the loadstone, will be doomed
grow up under influences which will comp'
them to become the criminal army of th
future.