The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-06-24
POLICE AND THE FENCES.
UNWRITTEY LAW FOR RECEIT-
 FRS OF STOLEN GOODS.
They Give Up Much Loot Every Year,
 Yet Grow RIch-Why They are AL lowed to Continue in Business-Less Profit in ThievinE Now Than Former

lowed to Continue in Business-Less
 Profit in Thieving Now Than Former
 Ky.
 ''The New York police come pretty near knowing where to find all the thieves fences when they're on the hunt for stolen property" said a yer teran detective of the Headquarters staff. "The fences are really of great laid to the police of a big town. That is why they are not put out of busi- ness. The Headquarters detectives re- cover hundreds of thousands of dol lars worth of stolen property every year from the fences.
 :'The proprietors of fences, who are generally themselves crooks who re- tired from active thievery to go into the more profitable and less risky busi- ness of buying up the loot of their for mer pals, rarely make any attempt to hide their bought-up plunder from the detectives. When the police catch fence proprietor in the act of holding out on them-that is, concealing the loot that he actually has in his pos session at the time of the Search-he immediately finds himself in trouble. He is pinched, hounded around and 1 sent over the road as receiver of stolen goods. Not only that, he is for ever debarred from starting in busi- ness in New York as a barterer with | thieves. For these reasons it happens .only once in a great while that fence proprietor will take chance on trying
 to fool detectives who are on a swag 1 hunt
 How do the fence proprietors get
 rich-and most of them are rich
 when they're on such close giving-up terms with the police? There's no pro-
 blem in that. .....-....... ,..s
 It's all a matter of quick action on
 the part of the men who run the fences.
 It they're real sudden about, it they 4 can get rid of the plunder they buy from the thieves, at about one-t tenth or even one-twentieth it's value, before the detectives swing along and ask
 questions. -.s. 4.+...
 "The detectives touring the fences in search of reported stolen property
 simply inquire of the fence pro- iprietors: A.. h..
 | @ Have you got this SWag"
 ''They make it a sort of point not to task such question as this:
 Did you have this loot, and get rid
 of it%
 Thus the amount of loot the quick Eacting fence proprietor bass. to sur
 render Is in very small proportion to the amount of stuff that he gets rid of
 lat huge profits. Moreover, considering
 that the fence proprietors drive the most inconceivably. sharp and grind
 ing bargins with the thieves, it is no very great setback to them when , they are compelled to surrender occa- !; siona hunks of swag to the police.
 When a theft brings to fence, say . a quantity of silver plate, the. fence
 proprietor does not in these days, ' tuck it awayfon a back shelf and keep lit shelved until such time as he can
 make leisurely disposition of it. He knows that at any minute the Head quarters men are liable to drop around and ask him if he has the junck in his possession. Instead of putting it away, he gen.
 erally makes a sudden trip to some lother city, with the loot neatly pack
 ed away in his luggage, and gets rid of lit in bargains with dealers in these
 other cities with whom he is on close business terms. These dealers, by the , way, are of course, in a way, runners of second hand fences themselves, but
 they are, nevertheless, nearly all the owners of presumably legitimate busi- ' establishments.
 If a fence man finds it incovenient
 to make a quick trip out of town to dispose of the silver plate, he puts it
 in the melting pot immediately he 1. gets it, so that by the time the detec- ltives arrive with their inquiries the silver plate is converted into bar bull lion. Nor is fence man, in such case lreqired by the searching sleuths to lstate that he has had the silver plate , and converted it into bar silver
 "The bar silver may be in plain view of the detectives while they are asking : their questions, but when the trusted | fence man tells them he hasn't the , silver plate for which they are search. ing, they let it go at that, and do not ,. ask him if he has had it and melted il J down. ,.t..
 ''So that it is a sort of mutual and : well understood give and take relation. [ ship between the fence proprietors and r the police. $
 Another advantage enjoyed by the
 quick acting fence proprietors of to. day is that many big robberies are on, Il Ily reported to the police by the victims after considerable delay. This delay
 lenables the thieves to get rid of the t lswag in good time for the fence pro- e prietor to dispose of it himself before - the arrival of the detectives.
 = While most of the fences in an6 around New York are establishments 9 the proprietors of which barter with a thieves for every imaginable sort oi r plumber, and are operated under the ,, guise of junck shops many of the l high notch fences deal in loot of a spe. l, cial character. j # I Not few of the fences, for ex 0 ample, handle jewelry and nothing r else. Other fences make speciality O | gold and silver plate. or gold and sill - yer metal of any kind and handle nt s other sort of goods. Some of the fences
 handle furs only, and so on. t$ e Burglars and all around thieves f know just where to get rid of tn, I plunder of various sorts that the, y pick up in the pursuit of their trade