Evening star., 1900-01-22
ARE USUALLY TIPPED OFF.
The FOOtpad Discusses Detectives
Methods and Their Clues.

"Of course, l am a bear on the police
| stock market" said the footpad, as he
critically sized up one Of Washington s
| finest who did not recognize him, and
naturally cannot say anything especially
good of them. l have no hard feelings,
personally, you know, since they are earn
| ing their living like myself by looking for
gentlemen of my profession, while We are
returning the compliment.
This Krebs case meat and drink
for me. The Star had that slippery Dick s
history in type before the detec'S We're real
ly sure they mad the man. That's enter
prise. Now listen. Detec's are all right as
far as they CO. and being tender-hearled
man myself, L feel for them; but they are
| only human, and, like the rest of US, some
are bright and more are dull. Sometimes
they actually detec', and again they don't.
more often they don't. In nine cases out
of ten they are tipped Off
Its this way:
Take former Inspector Byrne, the great
est of EN- all. Do you know what his
method was, the underlying scheme of his
| success? Stool pigeons The setting of one
thief against another to catch him. Get
ting the little thief to pike off the big fell
low, when they were chasing that game.
Playing the little fry against themselves.
Any blind man can follow a clue Some
body gives the detec's a clue or tip 1t is
seldom they originate anything. Then they
run it down and catch the man and the
credit. 'Tis swift they are to let one know
which officer made the arrest, but they
forget who it was that tipped them off in
the first instance. They are attacked by
acute lapse of memory then. Very sad
Il will back ten good men on any news
paper against an even number of the men,
bers of any police force in the country in
ferreting out a crime or untangling a mvs-
terry. Like the old miner who builds his
cabin on rich lode of ore and abandons
ii unseen to the tenderfoot to find, so it is
often that the most experienced men on the
detective force overlook or ignore the vital
theory of a case. The bright young men
of The Star had Krebs dead to rights
while my chums, the detec's, were still de-
tecting.
No better example of this curious ex-
ample of a policeman's nature and the
conduct of his business can be given than
the unwarranted arrest of the English tour
Isl by your force a few months ago His
documents, especially his Masonic papers
etc, aside from his own story and other
satisfactory proof. demonstrated indubita-
bly, Qhanks for that word, l was stuck)
that he was not the Pittsburg thief the police
took him for. They knew too that they
were wrong; yet they held him prisoner
for several days. That fellow, though. had
so much nerve and sang froid that he'd
been credit to my profession. Blind
trails, cold scents and twisted theories are
nuts to them in sGme cases.
Look at the Dorsey Foultz case, Why
no, I won't, either. Well pass that
Was 1t the detec'S that arrested Krebs
in New York with the knife in his pocket?
Yes. a private detec' in a store, after he
had been kindly pointed out by the lady
whom he had followed. Ditto here, only
Mr.. Chance was the detec and the blue
coated Hawkshaw-Sherlock couldn't see it,
even to take him into custody.
IT'S luck, pure and simple luck and
accident in a majority of cases, that en-
ables detec' to land his man behind the
bars. What's that? I'm a lawbreaker my
self, and my opinion doesn't amount 20
much? Say! you're too kind. Tanks But
you're wrong. Why, to a certain extent |
support the decent citizen to maintain the
law. Yes, 1 do: no CUFF. The decent citi-
zen is-but that's another story"