The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1902-10-24
GERMAN THIEVES WHO KILL.
Acts of Violence in New York CITY
That Are Laid at the Doors
of One Class.

mere is reason, in the opinion OF
| expert thief catchers, to believe that
most of the acts of violence COM
mitted by burglars in the last few
weeks have been the work of one
class of criminals. This class is
known to the police as German
thieves, says the New York Sun of
| recent date.
The American thief is like the
English thief and the Irish crook, in
that he hesitates to use violence
save in cases of great danger to
himself. Most thieves, especially
house breakers, carry pistols when
engaged on a job, but the pistol is
more for the purpose of intimidation
than anything else.
The German thief is entirely diff
ferent from the others. He carries
gun for the purpose of using it on
any one who puts his life or his
liberty, especially the latter, in dam
ger. He will use the gun on the
slightest provocation, and invariably
shoots to kill.
Almost all German thieves are
house breakers. Detectives in this
city say that 60 per cent of the house
burglaries that occur here are the
work of negroes, who belong espe-
cially in the class known to the po-
fice as ''sneaks."
There is hardly a police detective
of experience in this city who does
not believe that the Latimer killing
in Brooklyn was the work of Ger
man crook. The job bore all the ear
marks. 1t was similar to many other
shootings committed under the same
conditions by German crooks.
Fritz Meyer, the murderer of the
old church bell ringer in Brooklyn,
the murderer of Policeman Smith,
who caught him robbing the poor
box of Catholic church in Manhat-
tan, and probably the murderer of a
number of other persons, was a true
type of the German crook Green
wall, hanged two years ago in Ray
mond street Jail, in Brooklyn, for
murder similar to that of Latimer,
was another of the same stripe.
They were men who would shoot
man, woman or child without a mo-
ment's hesitation if caught in a rob-
berry. They were men who shot to kill,
and after killing they faced death
themselves with amazing Indifference
when the law condemned them,
Many detectives find in this latter
characteristic an explanation of the
Willingness of German thieves to shoot
and kill without hesitation. They say
that these men are all atheists; that
they kill others with the same indiffer-
ence that they face death themselves.
They point to the number of Ger
man suicides as proof of this. The Ger
man thieves will hold to life as long as
they can, killing others in order to
lengthen their own days, but once they
see the end has to come, they are sto-
ical and fearless, thoroughly believing
that it Is the end of all things for them. |
Detectives find that German crooks !
prefer death to imprisonment, and are
not deferred from killing people who
corner them by the fear of execution,
as thieves of all classes are.
A detective on the staff of Capt. Ii
tus, of this city, told reporter the |
other day that there were more Ger |
man crooks along the Bowery now |
than there had been for years.
''You can find dozens of them around |
the lodging houses" he said ''many of |
them young men of 25 and 80. They |
hang together because thieves of other
nationalities will not work with them. |
american thieves are not fond of |
hanging, and the Germans proneness
to shoot is well known to them. A |
German will kill rather than be cap
tured and risk term in prison.
"An American thief-in fact, anv
other kind of thief-will take dozen
terms rather than face a charge of
murder. That is because away down
deep in him is the fear of God, which
doesn't exist in the German at ALL"
70