The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-07-21
HOW A THIEF GRADUATES
Shame and Timidity Are Usually
Hard to Break Down
Entirely,
All Thieves Take a Regular Course
Before They Become
Experts.
Departments OF the NefariOus Vocation
Through Which He Goes-Whcro
Mon Become Dishonest.

Very seldom have l known a thief that
became an expert off hand. All thieves
have, more or less. gone through Il regular
graduation ere they matriculated "a mas
tiers of the art of theft and received their
diplomas, writes one of them in the Boston
Herald.
No matter what the predisposing causes
to theft are, q thief begins in the begin
ming, and that is one of a very venturesome
very fearful kind.
He may steal a stick of candy, as the
writer did in the commencement of his
criminal career from some poor old woman
vending it, and whose back is turned, or he
may close some money which his mother
has given him to fetch something from the
store, or he may grab a penny from his
companion at play and receive a licking
for it, or he may sneak around into
some bach yard for the purpose
of begging, and. seeing, say, a piece of lead
piping, he changes his purpose and becomes
a thief, or he may do n thousand and n
other things as he starts out on the high
ways and byways of robberdom.
But the timidity that holds him to his
first theft is greatly weakened as he pro-
ceeds to \ second, to a third, and SO on, I'M
I'll he has nc timidity at all; the rather he
has acquired its opposite-audacity, which
is not courage.
In his progress he either works" alone,
which is seldom the case, except in the be-
ginning, or he associates with one or more
pals, and they work comparatively.
If he works alone he is less liable to ar
rest, whether he be novice or expert; but,
as q novice, he is still less liable, for he
does not 60 the venturesome length Of the
expert.
The success that attends a beginner in
stealing a pocket handkerchief makes him
holder, and he extends his operations.
If he could steal one thing SO easily, why
not another of a greater value under SINH
lar circumstances? So hs goes into the same
store to purchase another spool of thread, and
comes out with half a dozen wipes. and he
makes it his business to confins himself to
things he can conveniently handle without
drawing suspicion on himself.
He, however, is eventually arrested and
convicted, and upon his discharge, in nine
cases out of ten, takes up with another
line of business. This enables him to a
certain extent to evade the law; moreover,
he was only . tyro in the art, and he must
needs make progress.
Then his timidity has returned, though
not in as great q degree as at the first out
set. So he looks around to see what course
he shall pursue as the safest IN his own
eyes.
He turns "cracksman.'' selecting, how
ever, only such premises for his operations
as are uninhabited or that are easy of access
-%outhouses, stores, carpenters shops, ma
chipists' shops, etc.-and from which he
can make a fair haul for himself as we'll as
for the fence of the pawnbroker to whom
h. n0a~@~ 10 N~1I~ f~~ q o0v,c Ar WI Ant
This small business carries him, of course,
from city to city, for to operate long in any
one city would be fatal to his liberty; more
over, he has to skip out at times. Yet
"~cracking'' of this description is q very safe
business. When the plant" has been
picked out there is seldom any difficulty in
working it.
In the meantime he is not unconscious of
tho opportunities offered by storekeepers
and others, and he operates occasionally
n accordingly when he finds one. Blu he
works cautiously.
He eventually becomes an all round
cracksman, and, although ready to do any
other kind of shady business at any time,
he, as a rule, sticks to that calling.
The graduation of a thief is not by any
means a rapid progress, nor do all thieves
graduate with the same honors, 80 to speak
-nascitur, non fit, is applicable equally to
a thief as to a poet or anybody else.
l know eray-haired veterans of crime
whose last theft was as commonplace az
wa their first or any other intervening
One.
am particularly intimate with one who
left his home with a desire to see the world,
but who found that he had to live to do SO.
When hunger pressed him he stole a loaf of
bread from a bakers cart, was arrested for
it and discharged, receiving u dollar from
the judge to boot.
But he became hungry again, and per-
haps from the recollection of his previous
theft and it's outcome, stole a coat.
Finding that he could see the world to
better advantage by a theft now and again,
he repeated his crimes, and eventually
landed in a quarter of the world where
there was a prison, and finally got into it.
But he had acquired a habit, and when he
was ultimately discharged he stole again,
and again, and again; and az the habit
grew on him, SO did his crimes. until from
the stealing of a loaf of bread he had come
to the forging of q number of checks. lie
had started cut to see the world, and he
had seen it in a great variety of shapes ere
he ''let up in a convict prison for the
fourth time.
was also intimate, if not so particularly.
with an Irishman who in his early days had
come over the water, and who started out
on a career of crime by robbing q fellow