Читать книгу Notes of an Itinerant Policeman - Flynt Josiah - Страница 5

Next to the tramp, who is more of a nuisance on American railroads, however, than a criminal offender, the pickpocket is the most troublesome man that a railroad police officer has to deal with. He has made a study of the different methods by which passengers on trains can be relieved of their pocketbooks, and unless he is carefully watched he can give a railroad a very bad name. The same is true of a circus, in the wake of which light-fingered gentry are generally to be found. Circuses, like railroads, hire policemen to protect their properties and patrons, and there are certain "shows" which one can attend and feel comparatively safe; but in spite of the detectives which they employ, many of them are exactly what the owner of a circus called them in my presence – "shake-downs." Everybody is to be "shaken down" who is "green" enough to let the pickpockets get at him, and, if pocketbooks are lost, the proprietor will not be held responsible.

A railroad company, on the other hand, is severely criticised, and justly, if pickpockets are much in evidence on its trains, and as they are the most numerous of all habitual offenders, the railroad police officer is kept very busy during the summer season.

The origin of the pickpocket takes one too far back in history to be explained in detail here, but the probability is that his natural history is contemporaneous with that of the pocket. When pockets were sewed into our clothes, and we began to put valuables into them, the pickpocket's career was opened up; to-day he is one of the most expert criminal specialists. In the United States he has frequently begun life as a newsboy, who, if he is dishonest, soon learns how to take change from the "fob" pocket of men's coats. If he becomes skilled at this kind of "grafting," and attracts the attention of some older member of the pickpocket's guild, he is instructed in the other branches of the art, or trade, as one pleases; I call it a business. An apt pupil can become an adept before he is in his teens; indeed, some of the most successful pickpockets in the country to-day are young boys. There are a number of reasons why so many criminals make pocket-picking a specialty. In the first place, it brings in hard cash, which does not have to be pawned or sold, and which it is very difficult to identify. The "leather," or pocketbook, is "weeded" (the money is taken out) and then thrown away, and unless some one has actually seen the pickpocket take it he cannot be convicted. Another reason is that it requires no implements or tools other than those with which nature has provided us. Two nimble fingers are all that is necessary after the victim has once been "framed up," and the ease with which victims are found constitutes still another attraction of the profession. We all think we take great care of our pocketbooks in crowded thoroughfares, and on street cars, but the most careful persons are "marks" for the pickpocket, if he has reason to believe that the plunder will pay him for the necessary preparations. It is usually the unwary farmer from the country who makes the easiest victim, but there are knowing detectives who have been relieved of their purses.

A fourth reason, and the main one, is that a practised hand at the business takes in a great deal of money. Twenty-five dollars a "touch" is not considered a phenomenal record if there is much money in the crowd in which the pickpocket is working, and five or six touches in a day frequently only pay expenses. An "A Number One grafter" is after hundreds and thousands, and it is the ambition of every man in the business to be this kind of pickpocket.

Some men operate on the "single-handed" basis; they travel alone, arrange their own "frame-ups" (personally corner their victims), and keep all the profits. There are a few well-known successful pickpockets of this order, and they are rated high among their fellows, but the more general custom is for what is called a "mob" of men to travel together, one known as the "tool" doing the actual picking, and the others attending to the "stalling." A stall is the confederate of the pickpocket, who bumps up against people, or arranges them in such a way that the pickpocket can get at their pockets. Practically any one who will take a short course of instruction can learn how to stall, but there are naturally some who are more expert than others. A tool who hires his stalls and makes no division of spoils with them will sometimes have to pay as much as $5 a day for skilled men. When he divides what he gets, each man in the mob may get an equal share or not, according to a prearranged agreement, but the tool is the man who does the most work.

Of first-class tools, men who are known to be successful, there are probably not more than 1,500 in the United States. Practically every professional offender has a "go" at pocket-picking some time in his career, but there are comparatively few who make a success of it as actual pickpockets; the stalls are numberless. Among the 1,500 there are some women and a fair portion of young boys, but the majority are men anywhere from twenty to sixty years old. The total number of the successful and unsuccessful is thirty, forty, or fifty thousand, as one likes. All that is actually known is that there is an army of them, and one can only make guesses as to their real strength.

It is an interesting sight to see a mob of pickpockets at work. It equals football in exercise and tactics, and fencing in cunning and quickness. At the railroad station one of the favourite methods is for the mob to mix with the crowd, pushing and tugging on and near the steps of the coaches. It was my duty to watch carefully on all such occasions, and I was finally rewarded by seeing some pickpockets at work. We were three officers strong at the time, and we had concentrated at the middle of the train, where the pushing was worst. One of the officers was a man who has made a lifelong study of grafts and grafters. He and I were standing close together in the crowd, and suddenly I saw him dart like a flash toward the steps of one of the cars. I closed in also, as best I could, and there on the steps were two big stalls blocking the way, one of them saying to the people in front of him: "Excuse me, but I have left my valise in this car." His confederate was near by, also pushing. Between the two was the tool and his victim, and my companion had slipped in among them just in time to shove his arm in between the tool's arm and the victim's pocket, and the "leather" was saved.

In the aisle of a car, when the passengers are getting out, another popular procedure is for one stall to get in front of the victim, another one behind him, and the tool places himself so that he can get his hand into the man's pocket. The stall behind pushes, and the one in front turns around angrily, blocking the way meanwhile, and says to the innocent passenger: "Stop your pushing, will you? Have you no manners?" The man makes profuse apologies, but the pushing continues until the two stalls hear the tool give the thief's cough or make a noise with his lips such as goes with a kiss, which is a signal to them that the leather has come up, and is safely landed; it has been passed in lightning fashion to a confederate in the rear; the tool never keeps it if he can help it. On reaching the station platform the front stall begs pardon for the harsh words he has spoken to the passenger, and in the language of the story-teller, all ends happily.