The Washington times., 1934-01-29
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Battling
By GILBERT SELDES

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A thief was caught by the
New York police the other day,
a "Raffles" who specialized,
like great real estate men, in
one district, and that district
was the upper and richer East
Side. The police believe that he
has been operating for a year
and has taken away jewels
valued at nearly million dol
lars. They watched him one
day making nine calls; they
were afraid to arrest him until
the ninth because his calls were
so swift, his exits so prompt
that he might not have the
goods on him, and, in that case,
the police would also not have
the goods on him. The unlucky
ninth for the man kept him half
an hour.
When accosted by detectives
he tried to throw away a cigar
cite case in which, under a
layer Of cigarettes, we're found
three rings and a brooch, all
diamonds. So far the handling
Of the case on both sides has
been perfect; the thief got his
swag and the detectives got the
thief. The catch lies in this:
The police are disappointed.
Instead of being an exquisitely
dressed, beautifully valeted, tall
and handsome graduate of one
Of the better colleges, this
Raftles, heaven help us, is nearly
so years old, short and heavy,
dressed in hand7me-dow and
unable to pronounce the Eng
lish language in the accents of
Harvard, let alone Oxford.
He Must Be Suave
According to one newspaper,
the detectives, in spite of this
disappointing appearance, hold
to the belief that the man has
had a suave and long career"
in the Raffles line. They want
him to be Suave, and Suave he
shall be, broken English and
ragged clothes Notwithstanding.
I suspect that about a year ago
the detectives assigned to the
case created a mental picture Of
their quarry, and now they re-
fuse to. change it. Maybe the
mental picture is what delayed
the capture by six months.
I have a photograph (made
by internationally of a man
driving a racing car around a
bend. One of his rear wheels
has come off-it is, in fact,
spinning in midair in front Of
and above the drivers head;
the car has not yet turned
turtle. Altogether it. is one Of
the most extraordinary action
pictures I have ever seen, but
the most astonishing thing
about it is the expression on
the drivers FACET is so un-
like the expressions on drivers
faces in made-movies of motor
accidents. The driver regis
tiers, to be sure, but not terror.
His face is lit with absolute
unbelief that the thing has hap
pened; he is as surprised as
you or I would be. And peo-
pie looking at the picture have
such a definite idea in their
own minds about the proper
expression for the man that
they can hardly believe what
they see.
Right Pictures
The newsreel of the Am
bridge strike last summer was
another case in point. Here
was an actual riot; you saw it
from the time the strikers ap-
peared to the time the sheriff's
men advanced with shotguns
and sticks; you saw the first
scuffles, the first blows and the
killing of a striker. And the
whole thing was totally unlike
what you thought it ought to
be. It was very quiet; the bat
tie was hardly joined before it
was ended; the killing of the
striker was so sudden, the re-
suit was so insignificant that
you barely knew it had occurred.
Actuality is a hard thing to
accept. In spite of all we have
heard and seen of the World
War, most of us, at the sound
of the words, think of pictures
we knew in our childhood, of
generals in blue coats talking
to major generals in blue coats,
or of cavalrymen in khaki dash
ing up a hill, with a red spot
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