Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-29
Recovery Of Stolen
Bicycles by Police

y ' ~
NA look upon the stealing of bicycles
wv as crime of much less impor-
lance than the theft of other or
binary property, the police and
police judges do not make any distinction.
During recent years there has been de-
cded increase in the number of cases of
stolen bicycles, and the police have had
corresponding increase in the work of
recovering them. Owners Of stolen bicycles
frequently think the detectives ought to
have no trouble in restoring the wheels to
them but the detectives sometimes find it
rather difficult matter to make prompt
restoration.
IT'S an easy matter to find wheel that
Is being ridden about the Streets" some Of
the losers say to the police. never stopping
to think that the owner ought to be able to
make the Identification much easier than
the detective. Years ago most owners of
wheels carried lock and chain and made
an effort to protect their property when
they left it in front of a business house or
on a road. In those days not many thefts
were reported, but boys and others fire.
quently amused themselves by riding off
upon the wheels of others and then aban-
doning them upon the streets or in alleys.
Occasionally they were ridden some dis
lance out in the country and abandoned,
and some of the borrowers even rode as far
as Baltimore before they discarded the
borrowed wheels
This business of borrowing wheels has
about been abandoned, although such a
case is occasionally called to the attention
of the police. Most of the people who ride
away wheels belonging to other persons
do so with the intention of deprving the
owner of his property. In many cases they
are taken to be ridden by the person com
hitting the theft. but In most cases they
are taken to be sold
Detective Trumbo, who has charge of the
work of making arrests for the thefts of
wheels and recovering the stolen property,
has perhaps had more experience in that
line than those who preceded him IN that
position on account of the increased num-
Der of thefts. Recently the thefts of wheels
showed such an increase that 1t became
necessary for Major Sylvester to designate
another man, Detective Clifford Grant, to
assist Trumbo. The increase in the force
was promptly followed by an increase in
the number of thefts. When the number
of thefts in one day reached a total of
fourteen wheels the detectives We're hardly
able to understand the meaning of what
was going on.
The work of recovering them was no
small matter with them, and they hardly
knew which way to start. 1t was soon
learned, however, that the wheels that had
been stolen by the wholesale had been
taken across the river to an Italian camp.
Almost every man in the camp owned a
wheel. Most of the roads in that section
were in bad condition, but that did not in
terfere with the pleasures of those In camp
1t was because of the number of good
wheels seen in the camp that suspicion
attached to its inhabitants, and more than
a score of wheels were recovered.
1.-The recovery of wheels by the wholesale
in Virginia. said Detective Trumbo, was
not the first time that stolen bicycles have
been recovered in large numbers. Several
times arrests have been made of persons
who stole wheels and put them away in a
shed or some other place until they had
accumulated number of them. 1t was
when the sales were made and the wheels
showed upon the streets that the recovery
commenced and the thieves eventually
caught