New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1886-07-28
Thieves Die Poor.

AAA0y Of5 III - OOAe
New York Mail and Express.
8 Hello! Promised to tell you what?"
said the old police detective, reused
from a nap, and rubbing his eyes.
About thieves who stole fortunes and
died poor, eh? Come to think, so
did. But say? wouldn't the other
kind do; them that stole. and kept the
money? No? Take more stock in the
other gang? Queer! WE'LL. sit down
and let me think And the old de-
tective pushed chair over to the re-
porter and filed his pipe; with sigh
that sounded good deal Ikea growl.
Seems to me- he resumed a little
ungraciously, ''you ought to. be salts
fed with what you have had in that
line lately. cit isn't but week or
to- two ago you were writing the
obituary OF the king pin OF that gang,
who died som'eres up in Massachu-
sets. tPlin White was the boss thief
for cheek as we'll as for luck, as one
might know, for he is q newspaper
man from the start, and it was when
he was druv out of the business that
he caught on to the Boston suckers
and showed his metal Pin was the
boss swlndler and no mistake. He
was the only man l ever knew who
robbed a man twice of all he had;
ruined him the first time, and cleaned
him out the next; all under the guise
OF friendship. When he stole he
jumped it-there never was
mean hair in Pins head
and went for stake of 100000, or
|, 100000 or $50, 900 if funds were low.
I'm blamed if don't believe he stole
couple of millions in his time, and
yet he died poor. Where did it all go
to? You ask me too much. One
thing l can tell you, very little went
back to it's owners. Some of it was
lost in the flood that swallowed up
his fowl farm on that Louisiana Is
land, where he had fortune invested;
doubtless much OF it was. 'blown I'M
at faro. That's the way nine tenths
OF all stolen money goes, and that's
how gamblers live. To my mind that
is the principal objection to gambling.
you bet your money against q thief's,
put up by his hackers, and the chances
are not even.
'"The real thief isn't the man that
steals, but the one who puts up for
the tools, and takes the profit, but
none of the risk. He is the fellow who
gets rich at the business. The others
diepoorer than rats, in Jail or in their
boots, according to their luck or to
the whim OF their master, whose slaves
they are, even the best of them.
George Howard was one of them. He
was a regular mechanical genius and
used to buy bank-locks and study
their mechanism and the way to over
come it for months and months in his
room, before he Would tackle the job.
When he was shot down in a row with
the rest OF the gang up in Winchester
county, hedidn' leave cent, so far as
anybody ever heard though he hadstol-
en- thousands. Idon' tsuppose a smart
er thief ever lived than Jessie Allan, one
OF the Allan family the New Yorks
know so we'll. He stole more money
than would have made any man COM
fortablv rich before he was found dead
at a railroad depot, with kit OF bur-
glars tools beside him, stricken down
by apoplexy or heart disease, just as
he was looking at a job. He had just
got out of the Ohio penitentiary, after
serving out seven years sentence.
No money was ever found after him.
and for good reasons-he didn't have
any. There was a bank burglar shot
over in Jersey when he was blowing up
safe. John Hughes was his name,
and he gambled away more'n one for
tune in New York, but for all that
enough money to bury him decently
couldn't be got together.
Big John Garoty, the second story
thief, who fell through stair hole in
house on the hill over in Brooklyn
and was killed, with his arms full of
rich silver wedding presents, was as
poor as Jobs turkey. He was clever
at the trade, aud had ruined scores
Of men. When he escaped from Sing
Sing once he did it so neatly that his
keeper never could find out how till
fate sent him back to show them and
have laugh at their expense. There's
lots OF other thieves that die in their
boots, but these will do. Just let me
count in Jim Casey, who comes to
my mind in that connection. Jim
was bank burglar and a good one.
Ellen, his wife was a trump, too.
In the July riot in 1871, when she
was pickpocket on Eighth avenue,
she vas shot in the leg, and at the
hospital they found twelve pocket
books and purses in her clothes. Jim
and her worked the racket together
for all they were worth, till Jim was
shot dead by Tom Mccormick, his
pal, in a Twenty seventh street saloon
in an argument about sharing the
Doodle from a Philadelphia bank they
had cracked. That busted the firm,
and no assets were found to admins
trate on. Jim had sblowed it in at
faro. The old woman is stealing in
England now-if she isn't in jail.
n - ~ q