Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1913-01-01
AUTO STEALING INCREASES.
New York Police Apparently Help.
less--Bogus Garages as Fences"

Il More than $l,oO0000 worth OF auto
mobiles have been stolen in New
York city i'm the last five years. Few
er than half of these have been res
covered and the situation is growing
SO acute that insurance companies
which have been obliged to stand the
loss have hired private detective
agencies to apprehend the bands OF
thieves who are leagued with the
owners of disreputabe garages. The
| police, according to a representative
of a majority of the insurance con-
Germs. have been powerless to stop
the depredations. Numerous arr
rests have been made but a remark
ably small number of convictions Sc
cured. Unless some means is devised
to end the traffic soon insurance
| rates will take a big jump. only
| the keen competition among the So
| companies which now do that sort OF
a business has prevented such a rate
| increase already.
| An insurance man said at New
York: Apparently the police can't
do thing. We have appealed to
them repeatedly, but we get no re-
suits. Now we are going to take
matters into our own hands and see
what we can do"
Recently the New York police de-
partment has adopted new method
to recover stolen automobiles and
apprehend the thieves. A census of
all cars in the questionable garages
in the city has been taken and eaehI
day every policeman is furnished
with descriptions of cars stolen In.
no he,
man then is supposed to inspect The
garages in his district, land if he ffnas
machine that shouldn't be there ac-
cording to the census, he sees to it
that that automobile is not removed
from the place until ii has been
identified. a few recoveries have
been made under this plan but it Is
still far from satisfactory the insuf
ance companies claim.
conservative estimate of the
number of machines stolen in New
York city alone in the present year
was made by an insurance adjuster.
He said that at least lilo cars, of an
average value of $4,000, have been
taken so far and that more than half
of these have not been recovered. The
total loss for the last five years he
places at s1.250,000, of which mor&
than $3.50, 900 has been met by the III
surance companies. The present
month of December has been the
worst on record, and more cars have
been stolen in the past 26 days than
in any previous period of twice that
length.
So serious has the situation become
that a number of the insurance COM
panies have banded together to fight
the thieves. Two detective agencies
have been employed and seven oper-
ators have been sent out to investi-
gate the situation. 1t is said that
only one man is now in state prison
for the stealing of an automobile as
a result of police activity in this city
in 1912
In addition to the main traffic in
automobiles the thieves carry on as \
side line the business of stealing ac-
cessories and equipment. This alone
has resulted in loss of about $685.
600 in the past II months and not a
cent of that loss has been recovered.
In former years spare tires were
taken in great numbers. but now they
are generally locked to the car, itself.
tically has been abandoned.
The first epidemic of automobile
thievery was unimportant compared
to the present scale. While many
machines were stolen five years ago,
most of them were simply held for
| the reward that would inevitably be
[.offered, and would eventually be re-
turned intact upon the payment of
| 500 or so and no questions asked.
Fat the present time. however, an
automobile never is taken for pur-
poses of ransom. 1t is taken to
Keep, and though nearly half Of the
number is recovered, that is due more
to good luck than good management.
The actual thieves rarely are appre-
hended
Naturally the development of the
stealing end of the game has had its
effects elsewhere. Mushroom growths
of garages have sprung up all over
the city, many of them almost solely
for the purpose of acting as fences"
for stolen cars and equipment, say de-
tectiyes. 1t is into one of these that
a pilfered automobile is hurried, to
emerge a few days later in such "a
state that its own maker wouldn't
recognize it. From such place have
come the cars in which gang men
travel on missions of revenge and
from such have come the machines
that conveyed robbers to their
| quarry, then swiftly away
| Most of the cars that are stolen are
taken from the automobile district,
| which embraces also not small por-
ton of the new Tenderloin and the
theaters. More than 80 per cent.
have disappeared from between
Fiftieth and SEVENTEEN streets Won
Broadway, according to the defec-
tives, and some of the thefts have
been so bold as to astonish the police.
Springfield Republican.