New-York tribune., 1906-07-29
In Eleven Years the Number of Photographs the
Roeues' Gallery Increases from 1000 TO 1000
No Profit for Burglar Insurance Companies.

the Detective Bureau sCme months ago after
an absence Of eleven years did not care 10 talk
about the burglary insurance matter, but freely
discussed the old and criminals of New
York He showed the Rogues' Gallery of d dec
ade ago. with its two thousand classic faces
inserted in a dozen wooden pages, and
pointed out the extensive volumes and elaborate
card index system required to keep track of to-
days twelve thousand rascals. It scarcely needed
a demonstration of men and methods to show
the unhappy decentralization of crooks that has
gone along with the increase in numbers. The
fine intellectual forehead Of Dutch Baum, king
Of peter men, compared with the meagre brow
of an East Side porch climber the manly
frame Of the former would appear against the
stunted physique of the latter. And as bygone
giants are deduced by the finding of weapons
of heroic size, the quality of ancient crooks
is attested by ingenious tools and mighty jim
mics in the headquarters museum. Compare
an eght-foot sectional bar, Weighing perhaps
sixty pounds and able 70 unhinge steel doors
with a lead pencil jimmy that slips into vest
pocket and has to be handled tenderly to open
a bureau drawer.
The gallery has been filed up these last few
years said Inspector Mclaughlin with Rus
sian, Polish and Hungarian Jews. Bohemians
and Italians. They are mostly young fellows,
who learn enough of American ways 10 be
crooked. I suppose must expect 10 get the
bad with the good When I left the bureau
there were only four Italian CROOKS who had
their pictures taken: now there are a great
many. From sneakng and pocket picking these
young fellows ascend TO burgiarizing delica-
lessen store but they rarely get higher. They
don't study the profession like oldtimers and
they keep bungng Yet the brightest rascals
of he old days were foreigners. The A1stro-
Galician the Rumanian Jew and the rest of to-
days gang lack the intelligence. the physical
stamina and the courage of their predecessors
Every morning I line up from twenty to fifty Of
them. captured in all parts OF the city, for my
two hundred detectives to get a good look at.
and every veteran notices their youthfuness.
slight bodies and just cunning minds. The best
of them are dapper little chaps who would be
rather afraid use a gun
L don't care TO enlighten crooks their er-
rors but novice would almost laugh al the
way these people go about it to rob a small
safe They have a horse and covered wagon,
and taking the safe bodily from the store or Of
flee. put it aboard and drive to an old stable or
some unfreouented place where they can Ia
boriously chisel through the sheet iron and con-
crete bottom. Sometimes they do the job aboard
the wagon while st is rafting uoisily over the
Belgian blocks Then they must go to the trou-
BILE OF taking the looted safe somewhere and
getting rid Of It, Instead of all this work nm
experienced man would simply knock the knob
Off the door. while the safe stood in the Office
insert steel punch and drive the combination
inside. using a lead filled hammer 20 deaden the
noise. Or he would get the knob of and fnd the
combination by listening TO the clicks. which the