Year: 1874

| cSaSt us head New York correspondent
says:


England furnishes excellent laborers, splen-
did soldiers, great novelists and great poets
but her supremacy does not end with these
She furnishes the most accomplished, reckless,
brutal and skillful burglars that aAlict the
| world. gang of perhaps twenty, came over
last fall, to prosecute their business in the New
World. Four of them were arrested last week
and l thought, possibly, look at them and
| their tools, might result in something. found
two men, of perhaps forty years of age, with
/ low ioreheads, small, keen, ferret-like eyes
short, squat figures, but of wonderful strength
both with the small broken nose that seems to
always be token of life of violence and dis.
sipation. The third was rather handsome
young man whose face was as clear and homes
as though he had been in a confidential position
in bank, and the fourth was mere lad, whose
face, young as it was, was as brutal as the two
older ruifians. The elder Williams were reti.
cent, but the young man was very communica
tive and from him got some items that were
to me, at least, of interest.


"Why did you leave London ?" l sked
because it got too warm for u.s." was the re-
ply "We were wanted for jobs we had per-
formed in almost every city in England and
we couldn't keep the police off us any longer


"But if you had done 80 many jobs,' you
ought to have had money enough to have re-
tired on by this time"


"On the contrary, we had to borrow money
20 get away on. You see, this style of business
don't make money if you are known to the po-
lice and other people who live off of us. If a
man who had good nameshould break bank
and get away with it, it would be q nice thing
for him. But with one like me, for instance
its different. Last year / cracked bank and
got a large sum, all in good money. But it took
five OF us to do the job-then the watchman of
the bank had to be let in-that made Cx-then
three detectives, who were employed to work
up the case, got their claws into us, aid to keep
out of prison, we had to divvy with them, and
they kept bleeding US. So, after all, got out
of it, really, about 9400. And then to keep
myself out of trouble, had to keep in hiding.
and didn't do a stroke of work for over six
months.


"Thc last job before that was haul of solid
silver ware, that did all alone, with no part
ners, and got $1,000 worth Of it, and thought
had good thing. I couldn't keep the stuff,
and couldn't sell It as it was. The Jew fences
got hold of me, and l had to break it up and
sell it for just what they saw fit to give me. for
they could floor me at any time. They melted
it, and gave me 5000. It's a bad business. I'd
Father have good salary, and follow an honest
life"


"Whoand what are these comrades of yours ?"


"The two older men are regular cracksmen,





and know nothing else. They were once pre-
cisely like the boy yonder. He was taken out
of an asylum by cracksman and brought up
to it,"


"What use do you make of him?"


"He has been trained to pick pockets-to to rob
halls, and that kind of work, when opportuni-
ty offers, but we use him in other ways He
gets into houses on all sorts of pretcxts, and
gets the run of house that we have spotted to
OF To Of hxy
going through from the back area to the front,
and with ten minutes talk with servant m aid,
than you could by going through it from top to
bottom. He knows houses, he does. Then, if
we have to cut hole through door, we slip
him through, and he unlocks it in jiffy without
noise. He can climb like monkey, and is
just about as fearless. Jimmy is good boy"


"Do you have to use violence very often %


every seldom-never if we can help it,
Amateurs do frequently-a thorough bred not
twice in lifetime. We get into q house, but
always have way out-a clean unobstructed
way. Now if we are in room and the people
wake up, we get out when it becomes danger
Gus, and if our outlet is not obstructed it is all
right, and nobody is going to be hurt. But if
man gets in our way when we are going out,
we dodge him if we can-if we Co mot we
knock him down-and if he grapples we use
a knife or whatever is the shortest way of get
ting rid of him. We are always prepared, and
will of course kill rather than be caught.


"You have been communicative, AMI | am
obliged to you"


~ had as soon talk as not for shall quit the
naS mssE ear can't nsfs is7 f6s shaR
out aid live on the square after that. l wasn't
born to it, and don't like it anyhow


The tools taken from these fellows were shown
me, and they were as instructive as their own
ers' talk. Keys to unlock anything-thin
wedges of steel to go through safes with, ropes
with which to get into second stories; long,
flexible bamboo rods in sections like the fancy
fish poles, on which sponges saturated with
choroform are hung. And this, by the way,
is pretty operation. The burglar climbs by
his cord to a second story Window diamond
and a pitchplaster takes out pane of glass
without notes.-the chloroformed sponge on the
end Of the bamboo rod is held to the moose Of
the sleeper and in few minutes it is as safe to
90 into that room as it would be were the occu-
pants dead. Science has thus been subordina-
ted to crime as we'll as to legitimate purposes.


Their weapons of offense and defence are eX-
tremely ingenious. The sand bag is simple bag
filled with fine sand, with which terrible blow
can be given without making any noise. Then
they have long leather weapon shaped like
club filled with the same material. The jim
my, which is the technical name for a small
steel crowbar, is terrible weapon in addition
to which they have the most deadly and cer-
tain reyolvers, and the most murderous knives


But enough of these fellows. l saw them in
my own bed-room-in Imagination every
night for a week, after my interview with them.


WELL Done WoMEN's WoRK.-Our exchanges
Tor a single morning furnish three notable in
stances Of the developments of female enterprise
and intelligence in fields of action where their
efforts have till of late been little known. In
Edinburgh, it is q woman who has successful
ly competed for the honor of furnishing the de-
sign for a statue of Dr. Livingstone, for which
fund of 1900 has already been raised. The
lady designer is Mrs. Hill, a sister of Sir Noel
Patton. In the Iowa State University, female
student has taken the first prize for surgical dis
sectng; thus fairly seizing and mastering one
of the difficulties predicted as standing in the
way of women's thorough medical training.


Most remarkable of all is it to hear of female
inventors in mechanics, the departments most
alien to the feminine intelligence. A lady in
San Francisco comes forward with the modest
and womanly little invention of a new needle,
in which the thread instead of passing through
the eye of the interest, is screwed IN hole,
bored longitudinally into the end of it; an ar
rangement which is claimed as valuable i'm
provemert, not only for ordinary sewing, but
for surgical purposes, as smaller hole Will be
made by the passage of this needle than by the
one which carries double thread at the eye.


1t is scientific axio,n that "structure pre-
supposes function" The converse also appears
to be true, for the new industrial functions
which women are assuming seem to be modi-
flying and developing the structure Of their in
telligence with great rapidity.--I Wilmington
(Del) Tribune.


ANOTHER ILLUSION observation-disclosures
Freitchie was truly loyal, but she never did
flap that American flag in the faces OF the Con-
feds as they marched into Frederick, Maryland.
Her niece declares so in a communication to
the Womam's Journal. Barbara was, however
in some sort heroine, for the same authority
has it that on one occasion she opened the front
door of her house, and finding the porch full OF
rebel soldiers, lifted her walking cane, and
fiourishing it over their heads, exclaimed, 'Be
gone you lousy packr p They Immediately be
goned. In the light of this recent ard authen-
tic information, we respectfully ask Mr.. Whit
tier to respect the sacredness of history and re-
wise his patriotic poem, based upon some
what exaggerated statement of facts. The fiery
old Quaker wrote:


Shoot il you must this old gray head


But spare your countrys flag, she said.


We beg that he will change the couplet st
that it will read somewhat like the following


Muss, if you must. the old back shed,


But mustn't muss the porch she said.


The spirit of the poem need not necessarily
ha oh a noed hut Rarbara's bold though some