The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1884-05-27
THEFT AND THIEVES.
A Talk With q Reformed Con.
vict.
Uncovering Tramps for the On
wary, With "reminiscences
by One Who Set
Them.
San Francisco Chronicle.

San Francisco Chronicle
To talk with jockey on horses, to
INQUIRE of an actor concerning his
profession, or to converse with q
painter about bis art-to do any one
or all of these things is easy, pleasant
and natural, but when one has to sit
down face to face with thief, a
burglar and a garroter, man who
, has spent more than half of his life
in Jail, and ask this man what he
knows about theft and violence, the
task is not 30 easy. 1t is true the
man in question has more than seen
the error of his ways, that he has
been living a reformed life for the
past six wears and that he has during
those six years done more practical
good than a dozen missionaries, but
these facts would rather tend to make
an interview of this sort appear the
more hardy and impertinent. But
with Michael Dunn, the founder of
the refuge for discharged convicts in
New York and the superintendent of
the home of industry in San Francisco,
there is neither hardihood nor imper-
Thence in inquiring into past his
tory that up to 1874 was but a record
of crime and imprisonment. He
processes no hypocritical sorrow for
the past, knows he did wrong, has
shown himself determined to do right,
and talks with such straightfor-
ward simplicity and candor that it is
as easy to ask him questions as it is
to believe his answers.
A BORN KALEPToMANIAc.
I don't know much about kalepto-
many, said Dunn, after talking
generally about the prevalence of
dishonesty; that is, 1 don't much
know whether it's disease or not.
But / do know that when a rich Teddy
is caught a-pilferin, they say. Poor
soul she's a kayleptomaniac while
if a poor devil of a pickpocket is
caught workin' the shop-liftin' racket,
they say. Lock him up, the thief
Now, if anybody ever had the kaylep.
tomaney, it surely was me, for l
dent remember when / didn't steal,
or didn't want to. Twasn't because l
wanted to live wildly, for I never got
drunk in my life, wasn't very much
after wimmen, wasn't no gambler,
never was heavy on oaths, and al
ways liked to share what L had with
them as hadn't anything. No; 1
just thieved scos / was a thief an
couldn't help it, an if that amt kay
leptomaney, why, I don't know what
is.
You were speaking of shoplifting,
said the reporter, seeking to turn the
conversation from a philosophical
into more practical vein: they are
women who are mostly engaged in
that class of thIeving, are they not ?
Yes, replied Dunn, although I used
to do good deal of that work myself.
For one week I went every day into
A. I. Stewards and TUX away a roll
of silk each time, right nnder the chief
clerks very nose. That was leven
year agene now, and only four months
ago L got young lad a position as
cash boy there.
A sHOPLIFTING OUTFIT.
How did you manage about the
silk 7
I'll tell you, replied Dunn. There
was four of us In the mob-me, as |
MIR. Patterson, storekeeper of Tar
rytown, q woman who went as nv
wife, another woman who went as her
sister and the talker.
Who's the talkerS
The talker is the chap that has the
CAB and that does all the Ginning
while the others does the work. The
first two days we had no talker and
Just lifts what we could, but then we
worked the talker as a friend of the
family who was good Judge of silk.
He would take the clerk of the de-
partment as far away as possible,
while / stand behind the women near
the counter where the rolls were lying.
Each of the women had pit, and as
1 suppose you don't know what that is
I'll tell you. It's false pocket made
of cotton flannel, and was, when cryn-
dimes were in fashion, made of four
teen yards of single-width or seven
yards of double-width cloth. 1t was
doubled up from the bottom and fast
ened around the waist under the cryn.
cline and closed up all except big
slit about fifteen inches long right on
. line with the front buttons of the ,
dress. Two or three of the front ,
wires of the crynoline was filed away
and then the pit was complete. Well,
now, the talker and the clerk was {
some distance away. I had my hands 8
IN the silk, and the ladies were in