Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-08
BANDED FOR ROBBERY
Unique Organization That Has
Terrorized France.
PARIS WALTZ IERCERS
THEIR LEADER rs A vERITABLE
ARTIST IN CRIME.
A Remarkable Trial-Sixteen Have
Already Been Convicted-How
They Operated.
PARIS WALL-PIERCERS

AASy SPCAoSSas
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
AMIENS, France, March 25, 1905
On the night of April 81, 1903, a citizen
of Abbeville perceived three individuals en-
tering an empty villa He ran to give
warning, but when the police arrived they
found only beautiful little jointed jimmy
as clue.
AS Abbeville's surrounding chateaux had
been suffering from unusual quantity of
high-class burglary, a hunt for the three
men was at once organized. At the little
railway station of ST. Remy early the next
morning, a brigadier and a policeman came
on them. They showed fight. The police
man was shot dead and the brigadier Sc
verely wounded.
Later the same day two of the criminals
were taken and identified by the wounded
brigadier. Soon it was observed that the
elder of the prisoners was an unusual type
"a man of some education and manners, of
feverish cerebral activity, yet endeavoring
to contain himself and appear stupid ana
british. His companion was silent youth
of dog-like devotion to his chief
They would say nothing of themselves;
but a morocco valise lined with velvet ana
containing magnificent set of burglars
tools found hidden near the spot where they
were taken caused the Abbeville police to
telegraph at once to the central detective
service at Paris. a pieced-together letter
which the silent youth had tried to tear up,
chew and swallow, gave a Paris address
and the name Jacob
Such were the clues to what has become
the greatest burglary trial and conviction
of modern times in France. AT the Iarls
address, rue Leibnttz, what they call
"souriciere" rat-trap was established-the
police installed themselves in the house with
provisions for a week-and waited. Every
party entering was handcuffed, thrust into
a corner and fed; and the police continued
waiting, playing cards to pass the time, I'M
til another party happened into be caught
and handcuffed.
splendidly Organized.
At the end of the week they had six men
and two women, and with these they knew
already that they had the nucleus of
most extraordinary gang of up-to-date bur-
glars. The elder of the two men taken at
Abbeville was it's chief, jacob" and the
further the police penetrated into the mys-
teries of his organization the more they
We're astonished al the order, discipline and
faithfulness he had been able to establish
in it. The police Investigations lasted
eighteen months, at the end of which time
twenty-siX members of the band were in
prison waiting trial; but the police knew
that the band must have numbered over
100 active and affiliated members, while
down to the very giving of the verdict oc-
cult aid came to the prisoners from their
brethren still at large.
Facts of this nature caused the trial,
which has just finished in this city, to be
something more than monster one. 1t
lasted over two weeks, and the prosecu-
ton called over $50 Witnesses But still
more unusual was, the judges treatment
of the fifteen prominent lawyers who came
down from Paris as by magic to labor dur
ing months over the defense of the pris-
oners; and most unusual of all was the
military occupation of the court house
by a battalion of the I'D Infantry and the
accompanying of witnesses, jurors and
prisoners by troops from the Both Cbas- |
SeurS.
All this had it's occasion in the extra
ordinary ideas that the public. jurors, wit |
nesses and even the judges and the police |
had come to have concerning the bands |
organZa ton. Who had retained the fif- |
teen lawyers who came down from Paris? |
They must have been paid very heavily |
indeed, in order to support the odium of /
their position, the very judges sneering |
at them a species of the bands "affiliat- |
ed" Drafts for important sums came to |
the prisoners without distinction during six
to eighteen months of their preventive |
Imprisonment, awaiting trial. Correspond |
ence was intercepted, and it was found to
deal with the spiriting away of witnesses.
Judges, jury and witnesses received threat
ening letters.
Terror to the Community.
One other detail reused enormous Pari-
sian interest. This band was none other
than that of the "Wall-Piercers of Paris"
whose exploits for five years past had
frightened countless Paris families and
made living in Paris apartment houses
matter of terror for timid people
For example, one Sunday some four years
ago a jeweler occupying a handsome apart
ment in the rue Quincampoix took his wife
to the races, leaving 100000 francs worth
of valuables in two burglar-proof safes and
the servant went 10 see her aunt at Co.
lombes.
When the jeweler returned that night
hole had been cut in the ceiling of his par
Tor; a rope ladder had been let down from
the apartment above, rented for the pur-
pose by the thieves, and the big safe in
his parlor and the little safe in his bedroom
had been scientifically opened and robbed
This was one of the early cases. 1t took |.
a year for Paris to get scared, but when
here and there, again and again, in all
parts of the gay capital, this new style of
burgling showed itself, 1.-The wall-piercers of
and mothers would hear noises above or
below them and run to the police; and men
came to look with suspicion on their neigh
bors. That 1.-The wall-piercers of Paris.
were to be broken up caused a great sigh
of relief to go up from Paris.
Avoided Bloodshed.
Yet wall-plercing was but one of the three
were churches and chateaux and villas. At
the trial it was brought out that they never
burgled where they would find occupants
to tempt them to bloodshed
The society papers were their best indi-
Gators. AS soon as a rich family was an
nounced quitting a likely chateau or
villa, Jacob would send one of his special
lied scouts to inspect it. The scout would
place folded slips of cigarette paper in the
joints of each of it's doors. If, two days
later, they were found intact, he would tel
egraph to Jacob, Aunt is better" and
burgling party would arrive that night. The
next day they would have disappeared, and
the succeeding job would be in quite a diff
ferent part of France.
The organization included:
/. The informationrand scouting section |
mentioned. How many merely affiliated
members belonged to 1t In various parts of |
France will never be known. Reputed hon
est men In town and country are alleged
to have drawn incomes from it,
2. The burgling section They made their
own tools, real marvels. They We're carried
by the experts in two valises lined with
velvet. All the tools fitted the same poig-