Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1886-08-18
aail9 eagle
In THE READING-R00MS.
HOW HOTEL MEN ARE ANNOYED BY
LOlTERING CONFIDENCE MEN.

Thieves Who Read Newspapers-Close
Scrutiny of the Dctective-An Intelli-
gent Glass of Burglars-How News
paper Clippings Lead to Discovery.
There is hardly an hour in the day that
well known thieves or confidence men can
not be found diligently porting over news
papers in the reading rooms OF the Leading
hotels. This is one Of the greatest nuisanceS
with which the hotel proprietors have to
contend But it seemed impossible to pre-
vent it entirely, as it is exceedingly difficult
to discriminate between gentlenlanly-
looking crook and the guests The hotel
detectives are constantly ejecting those un-
welcome people from the hotels and not un-
frequently, by mistake, prominent men con-
slider themselves insulted by tie detectives
scrutiny. The reading rooms Of the lead
ing hotels are really as accessible as public
libraries. Particularly is this the case at the
Fifth Avenue, the Windsor, and the Grand
Central, which have very large reading
sooms where the newspapers Of the princi-
pei cities are kept on file.
Now that the spacious public reading
room CT the Cooper union has been closed
Oh account OF repairs there is really no
public reading rooom where papers are kept
On file except at the Y. III. c.. A. While
the thieves could easily go there to read the
papers, the peaceful and religious atrnos-
phere OF the place does not agree with them,
and they prefer going to the hotels at the
risk Of being kicked out. Hence the read
ing rooms of the hotels are practically a
public loungipg place, and patron OF a
hotel often has to wait hours for these
men to get through that he may get paper
Another objection to these people is that
they nutilate the papers.
WHAT a DETECTIVE HAS TO SAY.
"The intelligent class Of burglars and
confidence men," said vel-known detect
i've, read the leading newspapers of the
country almost as carefully as the exchange
editor OF daily newspaper 1t is one Of
the most necessary parts of their business
in order to DO successful The crook is in
variably On the go-today in New York,
tomorrow in Chicago, and few days later
in San Francisco. lie also has pals scat
tered all over the country, and in no way
can he keep TT ok of them better than by
reading the newspapers. Should an i'm
pcrtant robbery take place to-day in Chi
cage, naturally the police are on the alert,
and too professional thief could not do bet
the net CIV days. Were he to go there
he wol,i lnost certainly lie arrested on
suspicioa, n or5er to keep from falling
into sni. ..ley read the criminal news of
the varoas cities. These thieves, as gen.
eral rae ,...s organized. IL goods of great
value are a.o.en here invariably they will
be sent 20 another city for disposal. Tho
thief may b. arrested after shipment and
.t-f.. .f.9u 4. ha,. nf
keeping posted except through the mails.
Some valuable diamonds were recently
stolen in Buffalo. A man was arrested on
suspicion, ut none of the stolen property
was found il his possession. 1t IVES believed
that they were sent to Philadelphia TO be
disposed OF by a pal, but there was no way
of positively tracing them These suspi-
cions were published in the Buffalo newspa-
pers as ii they were really true Then the
police o. Philadelphia were.notifel 10y tho
Buffalo authorities to watch for the accom-
plice Detectives watched the public read
ing rooms of the Quaker City, and 40 last
spotted young man who seemed to display
an eagerness for the Buffalo papers. They
watched to see what he read, and saw that
he fairly devoured the account of the dia-
mond robbery. He cut the article out of
the newspaper, and, slipping it into his
pocket, stole from the room. From this
the detectives were convinced that the man
was implicated They arrested him, and
from papers found in his possession, the
diamonds were recovered and both men
convicted. 1t is common thing when
thieves are arrested to find newspaper clip
pings in their possession which lead to the
discovery of important robberies. New
Work Star