Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-06-13
SOME HARDENED CIR OKS
TRICKS BY WHICH THEY TRY TO
HOODWlNK THE POLICE.

-O $500 -~~-N-
"It's pretty hard for a lag to take
a brace, and not many of them do 1t,
but that's not the fault of the police"
remarked an old-time Headquarters
man who used to be one of the Byrnes
staff. "The police are glad to see a
crook take a hitch to the right side
and stay SO, but they've found out
from long experience that there are
few of them who really do that thing.
"When man has got hold of bun
dies of easy money few times, with
out doing lick for it. he isn't much
good any more. The recollection of
it always stays with him. The clev-
erer they are the more liable they are
to stay with their favorite game.
whenever hear of finished and
graduated lag giving it out that it's
him for a merry and little fiat and
trip with the family every Sunday
morning to the little church around
the corner, l hope it's true, but it's
been true in so few cases since I've
been padding around with a badge
slowed away beneath my outer clothes
that I'm little bit inclined to rubber
to see If the boy isn't working up
his little settle-down for the purpose
of giving Mulberry street the cayenne
square between the eyes.
zone of them, an old-time second
story man who'd done bits in all the
big mills of the country, came pretty
near throwing me with a spin like
that about fourteen years ago. I'd
tagged him n couple of times and got
him, and when he came back with
his hair short the -ast time he looked
me up and handed me one something
like this:
Its me to Join the whites. I'm
through. I'm through right. I've
made my last climb. You know how
long it's mad me down. l just thought
I'd come over and tell you, and tell
the Chief, SOS you'd know. I'm
going to get job in Brooklyn, and
If you ever hear of me being with
the fash push again, nail me for
forty-specker and I'll thank you
well, there was something in the
sort O. down way this old lag had
about him when he pushed this one
over to me that it got me just leetle
bit around the neck, for fact. took
him in. to the Chief.
"Well, you could never tell what the
Chief thought, one way or the other,
and when the old-timer passed him
the same ripple l had no means of
knowing whether it had stuck or not.
The Chief simply told the old lag to
drop in once in while, just for So
ciability's sake, and the promise was
made, and l dug into the kick and
handed the vet few loose ones that
were laying around, and wished him
luck.
"a month later. in neat suit of
black clothes, this old second-story
man came round, paid me back those
few dollars, and invited me to visit
his lodgings in Brooklyn. He said
that he had n job as truckman for
big warehouse company-which 1
afterward found out to be true-and
that his niece was keeping house for
him.
1.-The next time I was In Brooklyn
in the evening l dropped in upon the
old lag, and you never saw such cute
little fiat, nor such nice, womanly-
like person-his niece, as he intro
duced her-presiding over it, in your
born minutes. That clinched me. 7
had a dish of tea and went away with
teenchy lump in my throat, and
when 1 saw the Chief and all the
rest Of the crowd the plugging l did
for that oldtimer was something big
ger in that line than I've done before
or since.
"Well, that'll be about all of the soft
notes up around the E string, with
the mute ON. Two months later a
stool pigeon gave me the whisper that
there was a pretty-sizeable jewelry
fence running over in Brooklyn in
Il certain district.
''The tip 1 passed on to the Brooklyn
office without any suspicion Of what
was going to happen. What happened
was that the Brooklyn Office made a
swoop upon the fence, and the swag-
manager thereof was no less smooth
smoke than the old lag who had been
the occasion Of giving me the mel
lows for the first time in good many
years.
"He had passed up the second-story
game, all right, but he had rugged up
his fence with wide business, and
his niece was about as emery-papered
piece of English female crookdom
as ever had her hair clipped short or
wore a burlap mother hubbard on
prison dress parade.
1.-THE old devil had stuck to his
teamster job for the purpose of keep
ing up his blind, and he had asked me
to scatter the word around among the
police crowd that he was honestly
and truly ON the level. l could see
the almost imperceptible slow grin
under the Chiefs mustache when it
all came out, and the things l did
for many n moon after that in the