Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-27
Mayer s Company, 415=417 9TH St.
TRAINING CHILD BURGLARS.
Newest Devices of the Modern Criminal
Schools.
From the London Mail.

SCnOOlS.
From the London Mail
1t has long been known that the modern
thief or burglar trains children very care
fully for nefarious work. Only the other
day a trainer of young thieves was sent to
prison, and such cases are continually crop
ping up.
Most ingenious are the methods practised
by professionals to teach their pupils the
art of burglary. Mere youngsters make ex-
ceIent subjects; and as 1t is obviously of
Importance not to make noise when bur
Cling" the lads are now taught to slide
face downward on the balustrade. 1t has
been discovered that in order to accustom
them to this mode of descent, special spiral
shaped balustrades are sometimes con-
structed, and before the pupil is pronounced
finished he must be able to slide down a
variety of these balustrades like creased
lightning
Another common practice among the
"burgling' fraternity is that of getting or
ders to view empty houses from various
house agents. A . number of clever bur-
glaries are worked this way. Dressed up
as country squire the master" visits
numbers of house agents, gets orders to
view certain houses, generally in terraces.
as there, if he has plan of the interior of
one house, he has a key to the whole
terrace.
He accordingly looks over the house, gets
a plan of the interior and quits. few
days afterward his pupils enter the empty
house, and making their way along the
roofs, enter whichever house has been Sc
lected. In the meantime the squire pa
trolls the house outside, looking respecta-
bility personiied, and when the coast is
clear he signals, usually by striking
matches, so that the boys inside know
whether they can safely come out with the
spoil. One match means ALI well'; two
matches danger.
A well-known Scotland yard official a
short time ago effected clever capture in
this way. He noticed a man, pipe in
mouth, walking up and down a street in
the west end of London and continually
striking matches to light his pipe. Strange
to say, however, no smoke emanated from
the pipe, and thinking something was
wrong, the detective concealed himself and
awaited developments. A few minutes later
the man struck another match and in a
trice a boy about twelve years old came
out from the front door of an unoccupied
house, bearing on his shoulders a sack with
sticks of wood protruding from the end
The detective "smelled rat' and at once
detained the lad, in whose sack, under the
wood, was found over $4,000 worth of jew
els. The Country squire endeavored to
make his escape, and the boy protested
that he had never seen him. but it was af-
terward discovered that the bucolic gentle
man was a well-known ticket-of-leave man.
AS a general rule, old penal servitude men
are the founders of thieves schools" Re-
alizing that, as they are too well known to
the police, their chances of continuing a
felonious career in a successful manner are
very slight, they have perforce to procure
understudies.
Accordingly, by charging on the profits
accruing from burglaries and pocket pick
ing, they have little difficulty in getting
hold of boys with evil propensites. Weeks
and weeks are then spent in instructing
the novices in their new trade. The initial
lessons are generally devoted to the art of
picking pockets