The river press., 1911-05-17
BARS THE CROOKS
Uncle Sans Assay Office In Wall
Street Not a "Fence."
ON THE WATCH FOR THIEVES.

Precautions Taken to Keep Jevveiry
and Gold and Silver Articles, That
May Have Been Stolen, Out Of the
Governments Melting Pot.
The way in which the United States
assay office in Wall street keeps it.
self from becoming fence" where
thieves and crooks may bring their
stolen wares to have them melted and
receive cash for the same was recently
explained by the superintendent.
The federal statutes make it difficult
for those in charge to refuse any gold
or silver handed in. The statute reads
In part that "any owner of gold and
silver bullion shall be entitled to de-
posit the same, and 1t shall be melted
and assayed Immediately" 1t does
not designate that only the rightful
owner may apply for service. and mas
much as possession is nine points Of the
law of rightful ownership the assayer
\ not allowed to be doubling Thorn
us.
Several years ago. said the super
intendent. there was a city detective
stationed In the building to watch for
iewelry and gold and silver pieces that
were presented for assaying to deter.
mine whether or not they were stolen
goods. He remained here for eighteen
months, and during that time he did
not catch a single thief. The reason
was that the news undoubtedly went
out to every fence, crook and thief OF
every description In the city that
guard was at the assay office and to
watch out for him.
AFTER the city detective was with
drawn it became more necessary to Sc
cure some other means to prevent our
offices from really becoming fence
for stolen articles
"The one provision we finally incor.
porated into our rules that has kept
away from US the greatest portion OF
stolen goods that might otherwise be
headed in our direction was that we re-
fused to accept any bullion that will
assay less than 500. In this way we
are able to refuse any ordinary guam
tity of rings, watches and other trim
kets that would be stolen and which
we know will not contain pure metal
to that amount. OF course sometimes
we will accept stuff and it will turn
out to be worth a few dollars under
the amount, but we cannot always
guess correctly when looking at goods
I'VE have many other ways OF deter
mining whether goods presented to US
have been stolen, but it would not be
wise to let every crook In town know
what they are. Sufficient to say that
every time we have suspected things
were not right we have secured tmme-
diate cooperation of the New York de-
tective bureau, and l believe We have
secured better results. than when a
man from the central Office was con-
stantly on watch. Then the stuff did
| not appear. Since then we have been
Of assistance in tracing down several
burglar mysteries.
when goods are stolen that value
or would assay over $500 it Is much
easier for us to keep the lists of the
same which are furnished by the po-
lice department and to be on the look
out for what Is wanted
"Then when the value of the articles
Is over that amount we are in much
safer position to put few questions to
our customer, to discover who he Is
and why he wants to get money for
the articles. II we are still suspicious
that all is not as it should be it is a
simple matter to make few investiga.
tions before we complete the transac-
ton.
II am perfectly aware that the idea
Is prevalent in many quarters that the
United States assay Office is fence
for thieves to bring their wares. This
may have been the case in New York
in the old days. and it may be so now
in other places, but l feel that it is a
pity that such feeling still exists in
New York. 1t may be that there are
cases where stolen articles get by US.
but we are constantly on the lookout
for crooks and what they have looted
and feel safe in saying that there is
less justice to the term fence being
applied to us now than at any other
time in the history Of the of1ice."-New
York World.