New-York tribune., 1902-08-24
BID ACTORS

How next to impossible 1t is to give put
ND job the veritabie appearance OF reality!
Year after year people come forward with elab-
oratc tales of having been robbed or disappear,
leaving behind them carefully arranged para
phernalia of an accident or tragedy, but not
once in one hundred times is the world imposed
upon for long Ii takes very brilliant genius
TO create with absolute yerisimilltude an aru-
fetal structure Of circumstantial evidence and
1t really is not worth the while of the average
individual TO try. If he has any dim suspicion
that he is such a genius let him take counsel of
common sense and be assured that If he were
he would almost certainly have already
achieved wealth and fame in whatever line of
business he may have followed. \ brain
that can think Of every button and every
pocket every footprint, and the locking of every
door from the right side In the elaboration of
a plot, has q capacity for large things, com
bined with grasp of details, which would not
pass unnotced. So when an ordinary person
is tempted to escapade or crime in the belief
that he can cover up his tracks. he should ask
what distinguished ability for amateur omnisci-
ence he has shown. and prudently conclude to
keep to the straight and narrow path where
footsteps need no concealmeDt.
The other day a young man disappeared from
the bathing beach at Coney Island and the
alarm was sent out that he had been drowned.
1t certainly looked so for time-iust as painted
scenery looks like real trees if you are far
enough from the stage and haven't keen eyes.
But little closer observation gave strong rea-
son for suspicion that the tragedy was as much
of sham the stage setting. The young
man apparently thought that II he left his
clothes in the bathhouse and went into the
water and disappeared the chain OF circum-
stance would be convincing. SO it might have
been if his brain had been alert enough But
he sc=ms TO have made one or two trifing slips.
For one thing he left bis clothes without his
collar and sleeve buttons. Then he forgot TO salt
his pockets with money. He wanted his change.
and took every cent Of ii, thereby raising the
question whether he took his money in bathing
or visited CoDey Island without enough money
10 pay his car fare home; and what could he
have done with his buttons except to put them
in another shirt? Probably he forgot to dupli-
cate these triies beforehand and so had TO
them. or perhaps he was distinctly a second
class actor that this refinement Of stimulation
never occurred TO him at any stage of the play.
II was the rift however. which sent the whole
structure crumbling down; and so 1t is almost
ALWAYS The bank clerk who is hypnotZed
and robbed forgets that his own house will be
searched for the missing funds. The express
messenger who shoots his own toe off does not
stop to think that suspicious world viii look
infinitely for the direction of the bullet The
counterfeiter will reproduce with great skill
finest line and curve but something is sure to
escape him. and TO the trained eye there is
difference between the real thing and the imi-
tation
On the whole man is evidently fashioned TO
be honest He makes bad work at being any
thing else It takes more brains TO be sue
cessful villain than TO follow any other profes-
sion. Very few rascals fail TO leave the mask
of some day. Their mistakes are Just those
simple oversighfs like taking the buttons from
the bathing house. Anybody ought to have