will organize these first aids to the captured criminals--the "squarers
of squealers," the lawyers, the men to provide bail, etc. Such a one
was "Mother" Mandelbaum.

Hacks, taxicabs, express wagons, and even moving vans must be readily
available. Peddlers are extremely useful. They prowl about wherever
they please and act as advance men for the burglars. Keeping peddlers
and tramps off your premises is one of the best forms of burglar
insurance.

The army of enemies of society must have its general, and I believe
that probably the greatest of them all was "Mother" Mandelbaum.

ROBBING TIFFANY

Of all the stolen things brought into her shop, Mrs. Mandelbaum
preferred diamonds. She rapidly became an expert on stones and they
presented few difficulties.

A stone once outside its setting usually bears no "earmarks" by which
it can be identified. Nothing is so easily hidden nor so imperishable
as a diamond, and, as everyone knows, they have an unfailing market.
She exhorted her pickpocket customers to specialize on stickpins, and
doubtless they did their best to please her.

While pickpockets are "pickers," they cannot always be choosers, and
the percentage of diamonds remained disappointingly low. This interest
in diamonds brought the "fence" to visit Tiffany's several times. She
stole nothing, in fact, I am sure "Mother" never stole anything in
her life. But it cost her nothing to examine and admire the beautiful
stones, and during one of her visits she was struck with an ingenious
idea which marked the second step in her career. She planned a robbery.

In the rear of the Mandelbaum store a consultation was held between
the proprietress, a confidence man known as "Swell" Robinson, and a
shoplifter, just arrived from Chicago, by the name of Mary Wallenstein.

Robinson, as his name would indicate, was a man of good clothes and
presence. He walked into Tiffany's, went to the diamond counter, and
spent a long time examining the big stones. After about twenty minutes
of questioning he was unable to make up his mind and decided to think
the matter over and return later.

One of the stones valued at about $8,000 was missing, and the clerk
very apologetically asked Robinson to wait a moment while he searched
for it. A dozen employees hunted and counted the stones while Robinson
grew more and more indignant at the evident suspicion that he had taken
the stone.

At last things came to a head and Robinson was led to a room and
searched.

Nothing was found and the store, knowing they had been somehow robbed,
were compelled to let him go. The excitement had not quieted down when
Mary appeared.

She went to the same counter and stood exactly where Robinson had
been. She examined one or two small diamonds and, like Robinson, she
concluded to go home and think it over. There was no objection made,
for there was nothing missing this time. An hour later she handed the
$8,000 gem to "Mother" Mandelbaum.

The following morning the man who polished the counters at Tiffany's
found a piece of chewing gum wedged underneath the counter where nobody
would see it. Inspection of the gum revealed the impression of the
facets of a diamond of the general size of the missing stone. Then
everyone understood. The man had placed the gum beneath the counter
when he came in. At his first opportunity he stuck the diamond in it.
The girl coming in later had only to feel along the counter and remove
the gem to make the theft complete.

This first robbery planned by "Mother" Mandelbaum was so delightfully
successful that the pickpocket industry seemed slow by comparison. The
chewing gum trick could not be worked again, because the jewelers'
association had notified all its members of the new scheme. It was a
short step from jewel-stealing to sneak-thief operations in banks.
Sneak thieves and confidence men began to frequent the back rooms of
the Mandelbaum establishment. It became a clearing house for crimes of
larceny--big and small.

Many able and successful burglars are unimaginative, and, left to their
own devices, would never discover anything to rob. These earnest but
unimaginative souls hung about the premises as if it were an employment
agency waiting for the "boss" to find a job suited to their particular
talents.

DRY GOODS STORE THIEVES

On the other hand, timid but shrewd and observant persons frequently
saw chances to steal which they dared not undertake. Servants of
wealthy New York families learned that "Mother" Mandelbaum paid well
for tips and plans of houses.

Next came employees of wholesale and retail dry goods houses.

To handle bales of silk and woolen, furs, blankets, and other bulky
but valuable merchandise presented new problems. To meet these Mrs.
Mandelbaum moved her establishment to larger quarters. She retained the
pawnbroking department, but added a miscellaneous store, in which she
carried for sale most all the articles found in a country store.

She was now the mother of three children, two daughters and a
son--Julius. One of the daughters married a Twelfth Ward Tammany
politician. This political alliance was extremely valuable. It made
the police more moderate in their extortion for immunity, and was the
means of obtaining pardons, light sentences, and general miscarriage of
justice on the part of judges.

I shall never forget the atmosphere of "Mother" Mandelbaum's place
on the corner of Clinton and Rivington Streets. In the front was the
general store, innocent enough in appearance; and, in fact, the goods
were only part stolen, and these of such a character that they could
not possibly be identified.

"Mother" Mandelbaum led a life which left her open to many dangers from
many different directions. Every member of the underworld knew that
stolen goods of great value were constantly coming into her resort
and from time to time schemes were devised to plunder the famous old
"fence."

Mrs. Mandelbaum always sat inside of a window which was protected by
strong steel slats. The door to the room was of heavy oak. It was
impossible, thus protected, for anybody to make a sudden rush and catch
"Mother" Mandelbaum off her guard.

But, realizing that thieves might at any moment raid her establishment
and finally force their way into her den, she provided still another
safeguard.

THE SECRET OF THE CHIMNEY

"Mother" Mandelbaum had a special chimney built in her den, where
she kept a little wood fire burning during the winter and kept the
fireplace filled with old trash during the hot season. This chimney
was peculiarly constructed, and had a false back behind the fire,
and in this cavity was hidden a little dumb-waiter. In front of the
dumb-waiter was a false iron chimney back on a hinge that could be let
down. She constructed a special brick wall so that it appeared to be
the regular wall of the house.

In case of sudden emergency, "Mother" Mandelbaum could gather up any
diamonds or stolen goods which might be incriminating, pull down the
false chimney back, which fell down over the fire, stow away the
telltale valuable in the hidden dumb-waiter, push the dumb-waiter up
out of sight into the chimney, and push back into place the false
chimney back. This simple operation concluded, "Mother" Mandelbaum was
then ready to face a search or a holdup.

If ever anybody lived in the proverbial "glass house," surely it was
"Mother" Mandelbaum--and she knew it. Her establishment was ostensibly
a general store and a pawnbroker's office, which she maintained in the
front room, but Mrs. Mandelbaum also dealt in stolen goods of all kinds
and planned robberies with thieves and often sheltered, protected, and
hid thieves in times of trouble.

"Mother" Mandelbaum was never seen in the front room, where a clerk
was always kept on guard. She kept out of reach in an inside room,
behind the window with the steel grating. Her false chimney and secret
dumb-waiter arrangement, as already explained, was in this room. In
another room, "Mother" Mandelbaum kept two or three employees busy
removing stolen jewels from their settings and engraving designs to
cover up and hide monograms and identification marks on watches,
jewelry, and silverware.

"MOTHER'S" GLASS HOUSE

In an adjoining room were kept bulky articles and stolen goods, such as
fur coats, etc. Here, too, the price tags, factory numbers, and other
marks were always removed from stolen furs, laces, and silks. One of
the back rooms contained beds where thieves were lodged when occasion
demanded. Still another room was a store room where crates and cases
of stolen goods were packed up for shipment to her customers. At the
end of the passageway leading to one of the rooms was a secret trap
door. In case of a raid by the police, and if her front and back doors
were guarded by detectives, she could use the trap door to let thieves
escape down through a hole in the basement wall which led up into the
house next door, which "Mother" Mandelbaum also owned under another
name.

Gradually "Mother" Mandelbaum's clientele of crooks increased in number
and importance until she had only one real rival, John D. Grady, known
as "Old Supers and Slangs."

Grady had a more distinguished body of bank burglars under his sway
than had "Mother." Bank burglars are the aristocrats of the underworld,
just as pickpockets are the lowest.

When the Manhattan Bank robbery was planned and executed, "Mother"
Mandelbaum was much humiliated that she could not command the financing
and planning of the splendid project. It was Grady's funds which
financed the undertaking, and poor "Mother" lost her one pet and star,
"Western George" Howard. Howard, in many ways, was the greatest of bank
burglars, and he was rated by many as superior to Grady's Jimmy Hope.
In another chapter I told you how "Western George" made the Manhattan
Bank robbery possible and then was murdered.

After Grady's tragic death, "Mother" Mandelbaum was the undisputed
financier, guide, counsellor, and friend of crime in New York.

For twenty-five years she lived on the proceeds of other people's
crimes. During that time she made many millions. But these millions
slipped away for the most part in bribing, fixing, and silencing people.

Still she was a very wealthy, fat, ugly old woman when the blow fell.
Mary Holbrook, a shoplifter and old-time ally of Mrs. Mandelbaum, had a
serious row with her. This row was the beginning of "Mother's" end.

Soon after Mary was arrested, and, of course, applied for help from the
usual source. Not a cent would the old woman give her for bail, counsel
fees, or even for special meals in the Tombs. Mary was desperate, and
sent for the District Attorney. It just happened that District Attorney
Olney was an honest man. He listened to Mary's tale about "Mother"
Mandelbaum, and acted.

"Mother" Mandelbaum, her son Julius, and Herman Stoude, one of her
employees, were arrested.

"Abe" Hummel did his best, but the indictment held, and there was a
mass of evidence sure to swamp her at the trial. But "Mother" did not
wait for the trial. She and the others "jumped" their bail and escaped
to Canada.

Here she lived a few years a wretched and broken figure, yearning and
working to get back to the haunts she loved. But neither her money nor
her political friends were able to secure her immunity. Once she did
sneak to New York for a few hours and escaped unnoticed. It was at the
time of her daughter's funeral, which she watched from a distance,
unable to attend publicly.

Though "Mother" Mandelbaum had money when she died, yet she was
an exiled, broken-hearted old woman, whose money did her no good.
Unusually talented woman that she was, it took most of her lifetime for
her to learn the lesson that crime does not pay!

And now let us take a look at Grady, Mrs. Mandelbaum's great rival. Did
this remarkable man find that crime paid in the long run?

GRADY THE DARING

John D. Grady, known to the police and the underworld as "Old Supers
and Slangs," probably never handled as much money or had his finger
in quite so many crimes as "Mother" Mandelbaum. His career, too, was
somewhat shorter, but it made up for these defects in the unequaled
daring and magnitude of his exploits.

"Mother" Mandelbaum "played safe." Not so John D. Grady. His was a
desperate game, well played for splendid stakes, with risks few men
would care to take, and with all the elements of romance and a tragic
death to cap it.

Grady, like "Mother" Mandelbaum, was a "fence," but, while she dealt in
everything, Grady specialized in diamonds. He had an office opposite
the Manhattan Bank, which bore the sign, "John D. Grady, Diamond
Merchant." From the windows of this office, Grady, Jimmy Hope, and his
gang gazed hungrily across at the bank and plotted its ruin. Up to the
actual day of the robbery, Hope and Grady were in accord on all plans.
Afterward the two leaders quarreled over the disposition of the bonds.
Hope had his way and there is little doubt that had Grady taken charge
of the two million dollars of securities he would have succeeded in
selling them, whereas Hope failed.

While "Mother" Mandelbaum was building up her trade with pickpockets
and shoplifters, Grady was carrying his business about in a satchel. No
man ever took greater chances. At all hours of the night this short,
stocky man went about the darkest and most dangerous parts of New York.
In the little black satchel, as every criminal knew, was a fortune in
diamonds.

When a thief had made a haul, Grady would meet him at any time or
place he pleased and take the diamonds off his hands. Only once was
he "sandbagged" and robbed of several thousand dollars worth of the
stones. He took the misfortune in good part, said it was his own fault,
and never took revenge on the men who robbed him.

STEAM-DRILL BURGLARY

While "Mother" Mandelbaum engineered house and dry goods store
robberies, Grady set his mind and energies on the great banks. As bold
as the Manhattan affair was his assault on a West Side bank. The vaults
of this bank were surrounded by a three-foot wall of solid concrete.

Grady opened a first-class saloon next door, and as soon as he got
his bearings installed a steam engine in the cellar. This engine was
supposed to run the electric light dynamo and an air pump. In reality
it was there to drill a hole into the bank next door.

Selecting a Saturday which happened to be a holiday, he commenced
operations Friday night, and there was every prospect of being inside
the vault long before Monday morning. But, unfortunately, a wide-awake
policeman of inquiring mind heard the unfamiliar buzzing out in the
street. He prowled around and finally discovered that something unusual
was going on in the cellar under the saloon. No answer coming to his
knocks, he burst in the door and descended to the cellar. The thieves
ran out, but two were caught in the street. Though Grady financed and
planned this scheme, he escaped untouched, for there was no evidence
against him.

Criminals, successful and unsuccessful, rarely lack women to love them.
Strangely enough, this grim, daring, successful general of crime was
perpetually spurned and flouted by my sex. Finally there came to him
like an angel from heaven a very beautiful, well-bred daughter of the
rich. Of course, John fell in love with her--any man would have--and
things looked favorable for him.

This woman was the young and almost penniless widow of a member of the
"four hundred." She had involved herself in a financial situation from
which there was no honest escape. Just as servants of the rich ran to
"Mother" Mandelbaum with their secrets, so this woman went to Grady
with her inside knowledge.

A sort of partnership sprang up between them which was profitable to
both, but particularly to the woman, who used her sex unhesitatingly
to get the better of her bargains with the cunning old master of the
underworld. Grady's passion grew stronger and stronger, and the young
widow, who really despised him, found it harder and harder to keep him
at a distance.

Finally things came to a head. Grady knew that the secret of the
Manhattan Bank was soon to come out and that his position in New York
would be no longer safe. He was ready to flee, but his passion for
the woman had become so completely his master that he would not move
without her. It was a peculiar duel of wits that followed. The woman
was financially dependent on Grady and dared not hide from him nor
pretend that she did not return his passion.

The night came when she must either elope with him or lose his aid. The
thought of either was unbearable, yet she met him in his empty house at
midnight prepared. She knew that Grady would have his entire fortune
with him in the form of the diamonds and her plan was nothing less than
to murder him and take his jewels. She had brought a little vial of
poison with her and held it in trembling fingers within her muff. She
knew Grady had a bottle of yellow wine, and she knew it would not be
hard to have him drink a toast to their elopement.

Grady produced the bottle but also only one dirty tumbler. They were
both to drink from that, it seemed. The woman, at her wits' ends,
glanced about the room and spied a battered tin cup.

"There," she cried, pointing, "the very thing."

GRADY'S ROMANTIC DEATH

While Grady went to get it she emptied the vial into the dirty glass.
Grady soon poured a quantity of the yellow wine on top of it, and then
filled the cup. But to her horror, he handed her the glass and took the
cup.

"No, no, John," she gasped, "you take the glass. I'll drink from the
cup."

"Why," asked Grady, his eyes aflame with sudden suspicion, "what's the
matter?"

"Oh, only that I left a kiss for you on the glass," she faltered.

Grady took the glass and slowly, very slowly, he raised it toward his
lips, all the while gazing unwinkingly at the woman. Just at his lips
the glass stopped and the woman could not avoid a shudder, she covered
her eyes and Grady, used to reading people's minds, read hers. He let
the glass fall and shouted:

"So, it's murder you want--well, murder it shall be, but I'll do the
murdering."

She saw death in his eyes as he seized her arm but before death he
would first have his way with her. She screamed and, pulling with the
strength of despair, twisted the arm out of Grady's grasp, leaving half
her sleeve in his hand.

Still, there could surely be no hope for her, and yet at that very
instant when he poised himself to plunge after her again, his eyes
turned glassy; paralysis seized him, and he sank slowly into his chair
while the fainting woman tottered out of the door.

The next day, it so happened, Shevelin, the watchman, confessed to his
connection with the Manhattan Bank robbery. The police were just taking
up the trail that led to Grady's connection with the affair when the
news came to headquarters that Grady was dead.

He was found with the sleeve of a woman's dress grasped convulsively in
his hand. On the table were a bottle of wine and a cup. A broken glass
and spilled wine on the floor showed traces of poison.

CREED OF THE "FENCES"

An autopsy performed on Grady's body showed no sign of poison. His
death had been caused by apoplexy. The woman who meant to kill him by
poison had actually done so by means of the furious emotions she had
aroused. She could have taken the diamonds had she only dared to wait.

Thus died Grady, still free from the law, and with his great fortune
in diamonds in his pocket. Yet he died in an agony of furious
disappointment as miserably as it is the lot of man to die. For him,
as for "Mother" Mandelbaum, it was destined that the lesson should be
finally but tragically impressed--that crime does not pay!

As a general thing the receiver of stolen goods is the greediest,
tightest-fisted individual who ever squeezed a dollar. The bargains he
drives are so one-sided that unless the thief is unusually shrewd he
will find his profits dwindling to almost nothing by the time he has
disposed of his plunder. The margin between what the thief gets for his
stealings and the price they finally bring is enormous, and even with
only a few thieves working regularly for him the "fence" finds it easy
to get rich in a very short time.

The greed of the "fences" is one important reason why many criminals
find it difficult to reform. The more thieves a "fence" has working
for him the greater his profits, and naturally the longer they remain
in the business the more valuable they are. When a thief reforms, the
"fence" is put to the trouble and expense of training a new man--and
there is always the danger that the new member of the staff will prove
less capable or industrious than the one whose place he takes.

The "fence," therefore, tries to make crime so attractive or so
necessary to the clever thief that he will continue stealing until
death or arrest overtakes him. He keeps close watch for signs of a
desire to reform, and does all he can to discourage it.

The "fence" studies the special weaknesses of his thieves and
understands just how to play on them to his advantage. If a thief
suggests "turning over a new leaf," the "fence" pays him more liberally
for his next lot of goods, or loans him money to satisfy his craving
for liquor, drugs, fine clothes, or whatever may be his failing.

This last is a favorite method of getting a thief into a
"fence's" power. The "fence" advances money freely, with the
"always-glad-to-help-an-old-friend" spirit. But he keeps careful count
of every dollar loaned, and when the inevitable day of reckoning comes
the debt is usually so large that the thief can never hope to pay it
except by crime.

SHINBURN AND THE "FENCE"

After living an honest life for fifteen years, Mark Shinburn might
never have turned burglar again had he not fallen into the hands of one
of these avaricious receivers of stolen goods.

Shinburn--as I will tell you in a later chapter--had accumulated from
his early robberies a million dollars. With this fortune he went to
Belgium, bought an estate and the title of count, and settled down to
the life of a prosperous country gentleman.

But the evil fortune which seems to follow every thief never forsook
Shinburn. His mania for gambling and an unlucky series of speculations
in the stock market at last left him penniless.

In the hope of restoring his fallen fortunes, Shinburn went to London.
There he met an old acquaintance of his--a wealthy receiver of stolen
goods. This wily trickster, eager to get Shinburn, the greatest of
burglars, to stealing for him again, received him with open arms.

"Glad to accommodate you, Mark," said the "fence" when a loan was
suggested. "Your word is good for whatever you need--and pay it back
whenever you are able."

The money Shinburn received in this way went where much of his original
fortune had gone--at Monte Carlo. He returned to the London "fence" for
another loan, and another--and all were willingly granted. But when he
sought money the fourth time he found the "fence's" attitude strangely
changed.

HE TURNS BURGLAR AGAIN

"Really," said the "fence," "I don't see how I can let you have any
more money. It seems peculiar that you should be in such straitened
circumstances. In the old days you used to have all the money you
needed--why don't you use your wits and get some now?"

After touching Shinburn's pride in this crafty way, the "fence"
casually mentioned an excellent opportunity which had come to his ears
for robbing a bank in Belgium. It was, he said, a rather delicate
undertaking, but there was a great deal of money involved--and Shinburn
was the one man in the world who could carry it through.

Shinburn's shame at being obliged to borrow money made him an easy
victim of the "fence's" wiles. He went to Belgium, was caught in the
act of entering the bank, and was sent to prison for a long term. As
soon as he was released the London "fence" began pressing him for
money, and Shinburn became a confirmed criminal again, primarily to pay
this debt.

And this same "fence," Einstein by name, paid the penalty of his
wretched practices with a bullet in his brain, which was sent there
by a desperate burglar who had tried vainly to reform but was held in
criminal bondage by Einstein.

The promoter of crime is not always a receiver of stolen goods.
Sometimes he is himself a thief, who has mastered some branch of the
business so thoroughly that he is able to sit back and let others do
the active work.

Such a man was "Dutch Dan" Watson, who was long considered one of the
most expert makers of duplicate keys in America. His specialty was
entering buildings and taking wax impressions of the keys, which he
often found hanging up in surprisingly convenient places.

From these impressions Watson, in his own workshop, would make the
duplicate keys and file them away for future use. To each key he would
attach a tag bearing the address of the building and a little diagram
showing the exact location of the door which the key unlocked.

"Dutch Dan's" active part in the proposed crime ended as soon as the
keys were made. Then, from the wide circle of criminals that he knew,
he would select a number of expert burglars and hand them a set of the
keys and diagrams, showing just how the robbery was to be carried out.

If the burglars were successful they turned over to "Dutch Dan" 20 per
cent. of the proceeds. This mode of operation proved very profitable
for Watson, and I remember that he often had as many as eight different
parties of burglars working for him at one time.

And Watson, like Einstein, was sent to his grave by a fellow criminal,
who had been discarded from his gang and killed him in revenge.

Will any reader who has reviewed with me the lives of the famous
criminals recounted above dispute my assertion that, truly, CRIME
DOES NOT PAY?

CHAPTER IX

SURPRISING METHODS OF THE THIEVES WHO WORK ONLY DURING BUSINESS HOURS
AND WALK AWAY WITH THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS UNDER THE VERY EYES OF THE BANK
OFFICIALS

One day before I was as well known to the police as I later became I
was walking down Broadway in New York when I met a prominent citizen of
the underworld with whom I had been associated in numerous burglaries.
So far as I knew at that time he was still a burglar. After we had
stood chatting for several minutes I was surprised to have him press a
hundred-dollar bill into my hand and say:

"Just as the clocks strike noon to-day I want you to go into the
Manhattan Bank and have this bill changed. Walk right up to the paying
teller's window and ask for some silver and small bills. When he hands
you the money take your time about counting it, and keep his attention
engaged just as long as you can."

"But what do I get for running errands for you?" I jokingly inquired.

He refused to explain any further, and, as I was just dying with
curiosity to find out what sort of game he was up to, I agreed to do as
I was told. Of course, I knew it was some crime he was inveigling me
into, but just what it was, or what part I was playing in it, I had no
more idea than a babe unborn when I strolled into the bank promptly on
the stroke of twelve.

The paying teller proved to be a very susceptible man, and I found no
difficulty in getting him into conversation. As there were few people
in the bank at that hour, he was glad enough to relieve the monotony of
his day's work by a little chat with a pretty young woman.

Well, to make a long story short, we talked busily for fully fifteen
minutes, and during all that time I succeeded in keeping his eyes
riveted on me. When, at last, a man approached the window to transact
some business I put my money away in my satchel, gave the courteous
teller a parting smile, and strolled leisurely out of the bank. While I
was in the bank I had seen nothing of the man who had sent me on this
mysterious errand, and I did not see him until I called at his hotel
that evening.

"We've done a good day's work, Sophie, and here is your share of the
profits," he said, handing me a fatter roll of crisp bank notes than
I had laid my hands on for several weeks. As I hurriedly counted the
bills over I was amazed to find that the roll contained $2,000.

"While you were flirting so deliciously with the paying teller," my
friend explained, "I slipped into the bank by a side entrance, reached
my hand through a gate in the wire cage and grabbed a bundle of bills,
which I later found to contain $4,000."

That was my introduction to the work of the "bank sneak"--a thief
whose methods were then in their infancy, but who developed ingenuity
and boldness so rapidly that he soon became the terror of the banks
and every business man who ever has to handle large sums of money or
securities.

What I have to tell you to-day about "bank sneaks" and their methods
will furnish as good an example as anything I know of the fact that
CRIME DOES NOT PAY.

The stealings of a clever "sneak" often run as high as $100,000 in a
single year. But what benefit does he get out of this easily acquired
wealth? It invariably goes as easily as it comes, and, after a few
months, he is as badly in need of money as he was before. I can count
on the fingers of one hand the "sneaks" who are getting any real
happiness out of life--and they are all men and women who, like myself,
have seen the error of their ways and reformed.

If crime could ever prove profitable to any man, it would have proved
so to Walter Sheridan, long the foremost "bank sneak" in America. So
varied and far reaching were his adroit schemes that within twenty
years the gangs which he organized and led stole more than a million
dollars. He was a past master in the art of escaping punishment for his
crimes, and he was also a shrewd, close-fisted financier, who claimed
the lion's share of all the booty and carefully hoarded his savings.

Yet what did all his cleverness avail this prince of "sneaks"? His
fortune was swept away, and he finally died a pauper in the prison cell
to which he was sent when he was picked up starving in the streets of
Montreal.

Sheridan introduced many ingenious new methods in "bank sneaking," just
as Mark Shinburn did in burglary. He was the first to conceal a pair
of tweezers in the end of his cane and use them to pick up bundles of
money which were beyond the reach of his arms.

This cane was a really wonderful device. To all appearances it was only
a fine, straight piece of bamboo, nicely polished and fitted with an
ivory handle--the sort of walking stick any prosperous man might carry.

Only when you unscrewed its heavy brass ferrule was the dishonest
purpose for which it was intended revealed. The bamboo stick was
hollow, and in it were two narrow strips of steel which dropped down
below the end of the cane and could be operated like tweezers when you
released the spring, which was concealed under a heavy band of solid
silver just below the handle.

When Sheridan was his natural self he was a stout, good looking man
of dignified presence and refined manners who would readily pass for
a well-to-do merchant or manufacturer. But when occasion required he
could change his appearance so that even his closest friends wouldn't
recognize him.

Once when he was arrested in New York he effected in his cell in the
Tombs a transformation which mystified the authorities and nearly
resulted in his release on the ground of mistaken identity.

He exchanged his expensively tailored suit and fine linen for the dirty
rags of a tramp who was locked up in the adjoining cell. With a broken
knife blade he hacked off every bit of his long flowing beard. He dyed
his reddish brown hair with coffee grounds and clipped and twisted it
to make it look a life-long stranger to comb and brush. By eating soap
he managed to reduce his portly figure to a thin, sickly shadow of skin
and bones.

When the prison keepers came to take him into court for trial they
were amazed to find in place of the well-dressed, well-fed broker they
had locked up a few days before a repulsively dirty, ragged, emaciated
tramp, whose actions indicated that he was not more than half witted.

This ruse of Sheridan's failed, however, through the persistence of
William A. Pinkerton, head of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Mr.
Pinkerton, who had been on Sheridan's trail for years, identified him
positively in spite of his changed appearance, and succeeded in having
him convicted and sentenced to five years in Sing Sing prison.

It was from this wizard of crime, Walter Sheridan, that I learned the
value of the clever disguises which so often stood me in good stead
and which enabled my comrades and me to get our hands on hundreds of
thousands of dollars that didn't belong to us.

Early in my career I conceived the idea of furthering my dishonest
plans by posing as a wealthy old widow, so crippled that she had to
transact whatever business she had with the bank from her seat in her
carriage. This plan succeeded beyond my fondest expectations, and I am
ashamed to think how many thousands of dollars I stole through this
simple but extremely effective little expedient.

This ruse proved its merits the first time we tried it--in the daylight
robbery of a Brooklyn, New York, bank, where one of my two companions
walked away with $40,000 while I sat outside in my carriage listening
to the old cashier's advice about investing the money my lamented
husband had left me.

But let me go back to the very beginning and show you just how this
bold robbery was planned and carried out.

We had had our eyes on this bank for a week--Johnny Meaney, Tom
Bigelow, and I. Between the hours of 12 and 1 each day we found there
were few customers in the bank and the institution was left in charge
of the old cashier and a young bookkeeper.

But the cashier, although over sixty years old, was a keen-eyed,
nervous man, whose suspicions were apt to be easily aroused. And,
besides, the window in the wire cage where he did business with the
bank's customers was so situated that he could always see out of the
corner of his eye the vault and the long counter where the money was
piled.

We all agreed that it was not safe to attempt the robbery while the
cashier was in his usual place. If I could only devise some way of
getting him outside the bank for a few minutes it would be easy for
one of the men to hold the young bookkeeper in conversation at the
paying teller's window, which was so placed that while he stood there
his back was toward the vault. That would give just the opportunity we
needed for the third member of the party to step unnoticed through a
convenient side door and get the plunder.

But how to lure the cashier out of the bank? That was the question,
and it was while I was racking my brains for some solution of the
difficulty that I blundered upon the idea of posing as a wealthy widow
who was too lame to leave her carriage when she called at the bank.

During my stay in this city I had heard of the death in Europe of a
rich and prominent Brooklyn man. He had been living abroad for the last
ten years and had married there an English woman who had never visited
Brooklyn and was entirely unknown there except by name.

Nothing could have suited my purpose better. I would pose as this
wealthy Brooklyn man's widow, and in this guise would induce the bank
cashier to come out to my carriage and talk with me.

You may be sure that I laid my plans with the greatest care, for I knew
what a bold undertaking this was and that the least oversight on my
part would spoil everything.

First I bought a silver gray wig to cover my chestnut hair. It was
a beautiful specimen of the wig-maker's art and cost me sixty-five
dollars.

Then I made up my plump, rosy cheeks to look as pale and wrinkled as an
invalid woman's should at the age of seventy and dressed myself in the
gloomiest, most expensive widow's weeds I could find.

[Illustration: POSING AS A WEALTHY CRIPPLED OLD WIDOW]

A pair of hideous blue goggles and two crutches completed my
disguise. The glasses were to hide my bright eyes, whose habit of
roaming incessantly from side to side I had an idea often made people
suspicious of me; and the crutches were to bear out my story of
the paralyzed limbs which made my leaving my carriage except when
absolutely necessary out of the question.

My costume was not the only detail which had to be arranged to make
my plan complete. I must have some visiting cards--cards with a heavy
mourning border and the name of the Brooklyn man's widow engraved on
them.

I also didn't forget to place with these cards in my handbag some
worthless mining stock which had been my share of a western bank
robbery, and which even Ellen Peck's shrewd magic couldn't turn into
cash. This would be useful, I thought, in holding the old cashier's
attention.

Then there were my horses and a carriage befitting my wealth which the
men hired from a livery stable. I called on two young thieves whom I
knew over in New York, and, by promising them a small percentage of
whatever we succeeded in stealing, induced them to dress up in some
borrowed livery and act as my driver and footman.

At last everything was arranged and the day was set for the robbery.
The morning dawned warm and bright--just the sort of weather which
would make an invalid widow feel like venturing out to transact a
little business.

I had not seen Bigelow and Meaney since the night before. They had
called then at my rooms to go over our plans for the last time. Bigelow
was to engage the attention of the bookkeeper, who would be left alone
in the bank after the cashier's departure, while wiry little Johnny
Meaney made his way through the side door and got the money.

At a few minutes past twelve my carriage drew up in front of the bank.
Two or three of the officials were just going to lunch. If nothing
unexpected had happened to change the bank's routine, the cashier and
one bookkeeper were alone in the counting-room and the coast was clear.

Through my blue glasses I could see Tom Bigelow's big form swinging
down the street as unconcernedly as if he had not a care in the world.
And from the opposite direction, although I could not see him, I felt
positive that Meaney was on his way to carry out his part in our crime.

The footman jumped down and stood at attention while I fumbled
in my bag for one of my black bordered cards. With hands which
trembled naturally enough to give the last touch of reality to my
feeble appearance I handed him the card and tremulously whispered my
instructions. He bowed respectfully and disappeared inside the bank.

Would the cashier be good enough to step outside and discuss a little
matter of business with a lady who was unable to leave her carriage?

The cashier is very sorry, but he is extremely busy and, as he is
practically alone in the bank just now, it will be impossible for him
to leave his desk. Can't the lady arrange to step inside for a minute?

Before the nervous footman has time to explain that the lady is a
cripple and cannot leave her carriage the cashier has taken another
look at the card, has recognized the name, and realizes that it is the
widow of a millionaire who is waiting outside for an audience with him.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," he says nervously; "the light is so poor here
that I could hardly see that name. Tell the lady that I will be out
directly."

As the footman walks out to report to his mistress that her wishes are
going to be fulfilled the cashier hurriedly changes the linen jacket
he wears at his desk for a solemn frock coat, gives his scanty hair a
quick part and calls to the bookkeeper to look out for things while he
is gone.

All this time I am sitting primly there in the carriage trying as hard
as I know how to live up to the dignity of a millionaire's widow and to
conceal my fears that something is going to happen to disarrange our
carefully laid plans.

But, the next instant, I am relieved to see the cashier coming toward
me all bows and smiles. And, as he comes out of the bank he almost
brushes elbows with Tom Bigelow, who, with a punctuality worthy of a
better cause, is going into the bank at that very moment.

Yes, indeed, the cashier remembers my husband and he is proud of the
opportunity to be of some service to his widow. I can see the avarice
shining in his eyes as he thinks of the profits his bank will make if
he can get the handling of my property.

Our interview is, of course, a tedious affair for I am very feeble
and have all sorts of difficulty in finding the mining stock about
which I want to consult him. But the cashier shows not the slightest
impatience and humors my whims with all the consideration my wealth and
position deserve.

And, when he sees what a worthless lot of stock I have invested in, his
interest in me becomes all the greater.

Out of the corner of my eye I can just see Tom Bigelow as he stands
talking with the bookkeeper inside the bank. And, by this time, if no
unforeseen difficulty has arisen, I know that Johnny Meaney is in the
vault making a quick but judicious selection of the cash and securities
which we can most easily dispose of.

After what seemed an eternity, but was in reality only four or five
minutes, I saw Bigelow come out of the bank and stroll leisurely up the
street. This was the signal that the money had been secured and that
Meaney was making his escape in the opposite direction.

Now everything depended on my holding the cashier just as much longer
as I could. Every minute he remained there talking with me meant that
much delay in the discovery of the bank's loss and the starting of the
police on our trail.

Another five minutes dragged along before I had exhausted the supply of
questions which I wanted answered. Then I said good-bye, promising to
return on the next day, and told my coachman to drive on. The cashier
whom I had duped so successfully stood there on the sidewalk bowing and
smiling as my carriage rolled down the street.

I went to the house of a friend, where I exchanged my disguise for
my ordinary clothes. Then I boarded a train for Montreal and there a
few days later Bigelow and Meaney divided with me booty amounting to
$40,000.

It was nothing unusual for the clever bands of "bank sneaks" with
which I "worked" to steal as much or more than that in as short order.
But, as I have told you, a relentless curse followed our dishonestly
acquired wealth and, sooner or later, taught those who would learn the
lesson that honesty is the only policy and that CRIME DOES NOT
PAY.

CHAPTER X

STARTLING SURPRISES THAT CONFRONT CRIMINALS--HOW UNEXPECTED HAPPENINGS
SUDDENLY DEVELOP AND UPSET CAREFULLY LAID PLANS AND CAUSE THE BURGLARS
ARREST OR PREVENT HIS GETTING EXPECTED PLUNDER

Only one who has been, as I have, for years behind the scenes at all
sorts of crimes can appreciate how often every criminal is brought face
to face with the most startling surprises.

No matter how clever a robber is he can never tell when arrest, serious
injury, or death will bring his dishonest career to a sudden end. And,
even if he escapes these fatal disasters, there are always a thousand
and one chances which may develop at any moment to spoil his carefully
laid plans and prevent his getting his plunder. Most of these are
things which it is absolutely impossible to foresee and guard against.
This is why only a small percentage of the crimes which are attempted
ever succeed and why their success hangs trembling in the balance until
the very last minute.

The brains we criminals expended in saving some robbery from failure
or in escaping the consequences of our deeds would have won us lasting
success and happiness in any honorable pursuit--used, as they were,
for crime, they brought us in the end only disgrace and remorse. That
is the lesson which these experiences have taught me and which I hope
every reader of this page will learn.

If there was ever a thief who planned his crimes with greater attention
to the smallest details than Harry Raymond, the man who stole the
famous Gainsborough, I never knew him.

But even Raymond's painstaking care was not proof against all the
startling surprises which confronted him and his plans were often
completely ruined by one of these unexpected happenings.

Raymond was always a restless man--never content to remain long in one
place. When stories of the rich gold and diamond mines in South Africa
reached his ears he began to cast longing eyes in that direction. Where
there was so much treasure he thought there surely ought to be an
opportunity to get his hands on a share of it.

He tried to induce Mark Shinburn to go with him, but Shinburn had his
eye on several big robberies nearer home, and so Raymond set out alone.
On the way he met Charley King, a noted English thief, and the two
joined forces.

Raymond hadn't been in South Africa twenty-four hours before he learned
that a steamer left Cape Town for England every week with a heavy
shipment of gold and diamonds on board. His next step was to find out
just how this treasure was brought down from the mines.

As he soon learned, it came by stage each week, the day before the
steamer sailed. The bags of gold dust and uncut diamonds were locked
in a strong box which was carried under the driver's seat. There was
only one other man on the coach besides the driver--a big, powerful
Boer, who carried a brace of revolvers and a repeating rifle and had
the reputation of being a dead shot.

There was just one difficulty in the way--Raymond really needed a third
man to assist King and him. Among all the criminals in Cape Town whom
he knew there was none he could trust, and so he at last decided to
ask a wholly inexperienced man to join the party. The man he selected
was an American sea captain who had been obliged to flee from his
native land after setting fire to his ship for the insurance. He was
desperately in need of money and was, therefore, only too glad of the
opportunity to share in the fortune Raymond proposed to steal.

Raymond, with his customary caution, studied the proposition from
every angle. At last he was convinced that he had provided for every
contingency which could possibly arise to prevent his robbery of the
coach.

This was his plan--to stretch a rope across some lonely spot in the
road and trip the horses. Before the driver and the guard could recover
from their astonishment and extricate themselves from the overturned
coach, Raymond and his companions would leap from their ambush and
overpower them.

Half way up a long hill, down which the coach would come, the three
men concealed themselves--Raymond and the captain on one side of the
road, King on the other.

Around a tree on either side of the road they fastened the rope with a
slip noose, letting its length lie loose on the ground directly in the
path of the coach. Carefully loading their revolvers they settled down
to wait for its approach.

At last their ears caught the rumble of its wheels and presently the
four horses which drew the heavy vehicle and its precious contents
appeared above the crest of the hill. They were making good time on the
last lap of their long journey from the mines.

On they came, until the hoofs of the leaders were within a foot of the
rope. Raymond gave a shrill whistle and his companions stretched the
rope tight across the road at a distance of about two feet above the
ground.

As the forward horses struck the barrier they fell in a heap and the
ones behind came tumbling on top of them. The wagon pole snapped like a
pipe stem.

The heavy coach stopped short, reeled uncertainly for a second, then
keeled over on its side, hurling both the driver and the guard several
feet away.

The three robbers sprang from their hiding place and covered the
prostrate men with their revolvers.

As they did so one of the fallen horses scrambled to his feet, broke
the remnants of the harness that clung to him and dashed down the hill,
furious with pain and fear.

Not one of the robbers paid any heed to this incident--for who would
have suspected that a frightened stage horse could interfere with their
carefully laid plans?

The driver was easily disposed of, but the guard showed fight and it
required the combined efforts of the three men to bind and gag him so
that he could do no harm.

They were just knotting a piece of rope around his struggling legs when
a shot rang out and a rifle bullet whizzed by their heads--followed by
another and another.

An instant before the moon had broken through the clouds. By its light
they saw six sturdy Boer farmers advancing up the hill, firing their
repeating rifles as they came.

Resistance was useless--they were outnumbered two to one and they had
all been in South Africa long enough to have a wholesome respect for a
Boer's marksmanship.

Covering their retreat with a few shots from their revolvers, they took
to their heels. In the rain of bullets which was falling around them
it was suicide to think of trying to take the heavy strong box with
them, and they had to leave it there in the coach with all its treasure
untouched.

Raymond was completely mystified. He and his companions had not fired
a shot in their struggle with the men on the coach. How had those Boer
farmers, who lived in a house at the foot of the hill nearly half a
mile away, happened to be aroused just in time to spoil the robbery?

The account the newspapers gave of the robbery cleared up the mystery.
It seemed that the frightened horse which had dashed down the hill had
plunged through the lattice gate in the front of the Boer's house.

The crash of the woodwork and the wounded animal's cries of pain as
he struggled to free himself had awakened the farmers. As they rushed
out half dressed to see what the trouble was the moon shone out and
revealed to them the overturned coach on the hillside above and the
robbers struggling with the guard and driver.

You see what a surprising thing it all was and how impossible it was
for Raymond to have foreseen that anything like this would happen. But
these two little incidents--the runaway horse and the moon's sudden
appearance--were all that was needed to snatch away $250,000 in gold
and diamonds just as Raymond thought he had it safely in his hands.

Even more surprising was what happened when Tom Smith and I, with Dan
Nugent and George Mason, were trying to rob a little bank down in
Virginia.

The fact that the cashier and his family lived on the floor above this
bank made it a rather ticklish undertaking.

There was, however, no vault to enter, and the safe was such a
ramshackle affair that the men felt sure they could open it without the
use of a charge of powder. So we decided to make the attempt.

As Tom Smith had sprained his wrist in escaping from a Pennsylvania
sheriff a few nights before he was to remain on guard outside the bank,
while I entered with Dan and George and rendered what assistance I
could in opening the safe. This was the first time I had ever been on
the "inside" of a bank burglary and I was quite puffed up with my own
importance.

Dan opened one of the bank windows with his jimmy and held his hands
for me to step on as I drew myself up over the high sill. Then he
handed the tools to me and he and George climbed up.

The bank in which we found ourselves was one large room. A door led
into it from the broad porch which extended along the front of the
building. At the rear was another door opening into a long passageway,
at the end of which was a staircase leading to the cashier's apartments
overhead.

While the two men were looking the safe over I unlocked the front door
to provide an avenue of escape in case we should have to beat a hasty
retreat.

I also opened the door at the rear and peered into the darkness of
the passageway. There was no sign of life--no sound except the heavy
breathing of the sleeping cashier and his family in the rooms above. I
closed the door gently for fear the rasping of the drills on the metal
of the safe would be heard.

Just then my quick ears caught the sound of some one in the passageway.
I tiptoed over to the door and pressed my ear against it.

I had barely time to draw away from the door before it opened wide and
I stood speechless with amazement at the apparition I saw standing
there within an arm's length of me.

[Illustration: SURPRISED BY A SLEEP WALKER.]

I am not a superstitious woman, but what I saw in that doorway set my
heart to thumping madly, and sent the cold shivers up and down my back.
And I am not ashamed to confess how startled I was, for Dan Nugent and
George Mason, the veterans of a hundred burglaries, later admitted that
nothing had ever given them such a scare as this.

What we saw facing us, like a ghost, was a beautiful young woman. The
filmy white night robe she wore left her snowy arms and shoulders bare
and revealed her bare feet.

Her face looked pale and ghastly in the light of the kerosene lamp she
carried high in one hand. The mass of jet black hair which crowned her
head and hung in a long braid down her back made her pallor all the
more death-like.

Her eyes were shut tight.

For a minute we stood blinking like frightened children at this
uncanny, white, silent figure. Then, gradually, it dawned on us that
this apparition was the cashier's eldest daughter, and that she was
walking in her sleep.

As we recovered our senses it didn't take us long to see what a
dangerous situation we were in. At any moment our unwelcome visitor
might awaken. By the time we could bind and gag her the rest of the
family might discover her absence and start in search of her.

The girl looked so innocent and helpless and so strangely beautiful
that, for my part, I was heartily glad when George Mason nodded his
head toward the door to indicate that we would better be going.

The two men climbed out of the window and I made my escape by the front
door. The last I saw of the sleep-walking girl she was groping her way
across the bank with slow cautious steps, still holding the lamp high
above her head and looking more than ever like a graveyard specter.

Whether anybody except ourselves ever knew what a strange chance
saved the bank from robbery that night I never heard. It was a costly
experience for us as, according to what we learned later from the
newspapers, that safe contained $20,000 in cash.

We missed that tidy little bit of plunder just because a young woman
was addicted to the habit of walking in her sleep.

And now another instance--the very remarkable chain of surprises which
resulted in the murder of a bank cashier, the blackening of a dead
man's reputation, and, finally, the imprisonment of two desperate
burglars for life.

For many years the robbery of the bank in Dexter, Maine, puzzled
everybody. This was a job of national importance, because Mr. Barron,
the cashier of the bank, was accidentally murdered, and the detectives,
after failing to get any clue to the burglars, buncoed the bank
officials by inventing the theory that the unfortunate cashier had
murdered himself!

They managed to fix up the books of the bank in such a way as to show
some trivial pretended defalcation, which amounted, as I remember it,
to about $1,100. On the strength of this barefaced frame-up the memory
of the poor cashier was defamed and the bank actually brought suit
against the widow for some small sum.

The real facts I will now tell you. Jimmy Hope, the famous bank
burglar, first got his eye on the Dexter bank as a promising prospect,
and made all his plans to enter the bank when, to his disgust, he was
grabbed for another matter and given a prison term. In Jimmy Hope's
gang was an ambitious burglar named David L. Stain, and Stain decided
that there was no reason why the Dexter bank should escape simply
because Hope was serving a sentence.

So Stain looked over the ground and decided to rob the bank with a
little band of his own, consisting of Oliver Cromwell and a man named
Harvey, and somebody else whose name I do not now recall. They selected
Washington's Birthday because it was a holiday, and there was every
reason to believe that nobody would be in the bank.

Late in the afternoon Stain and his associates forced their way into
the building and sprung the lock of the back door of the bank. The
burglars stood for a moment to put on their masks and rubber shoes, and
then Stain moved forward toward the inner room of the bank, where the
bank vaults were.

Just at the moment that Stain put his hand on the doorknob Cashier
Barron on the other side of the door put his own hand on the inside
knob as he unsuspectingly started to leave the inside room, where he
had been going over some of the books that were in the vaults.

[Illustration: AS THE DOOR OPENED STAIN AND BARRON CAME FACE TO FACE]

As the door opened Dave Stain and Cashier Barron suddenly came face
to face without the slightest warning. Barron stood paralyzed with
astonishment as he peered into the masked face of the leader. Stain,
with perfect composure, struck Barron a quick blow with a slung-shot,
landing the weapon exactly in the center of Mr. Barron's forehead.

The cashier dropped to the floor stunned and Stain imagined that his
victim's skull was crushed, or that, if the blow had not been fatal,
Barron would come to his senses and make an outcry. In either case
the burglars realized that they had done a bad job. Murder was not
intended, and none of the gang had any stomach for going on with the
robbery, even though the doors of the big vault stood invitingly open.

After a few moments' hasty consultation the cracksmen picked up the
unconscious but still breathing form of the faithful cashier and laid
it in the vault, and closed and locked the big doors. Stain and his
gang made their way noiselessly out of the building, strolling, one by
one, through the town and out into the country, where a span of horses
was waiting for them. They drove across country, keeping away from the
railroad, and made their escape without leaving a clue of any kind.

When Cashier Barron failed to turn up at home at supper time a search
was made and somebody went to the bank. The cashier's hat and coat were
found in the inner room, and a faint sound of heavy breathing could be
heard from the interior of the closed vault. Blacksmiths were hastily
called, and, after several hours' work, succeeded in freeing the
imprisoned cashier--but, although Barron was still alive and breathing,
his face was black from his having breathed over and over again the
poisoned air of the vault, and he died without recovering consciousness.

Several years later a clue to the real truth of the tragedy was picked
up by a newspaper reporter, who devoted several weeks of painstaking
work to piecing together the scraps of evidence he was able to
collect. This reporter then had himself appointed a Massachusetts State
detective and arrested Stain and Cromwell, brought them to Bangor,
Maine, was able to have them identified by several townspeople who had
seen them in Dexter on the day of the murder, and Stain and Cromwell
were both convicted of murder in the first degree, and the conviction
was unanimously confirmed by the Supreme Court of the State of Maine.
They were sentenced to life imprisonment.

I could go on indefinitely recounting instances as surprising as any
of these of the unexpected things which are constantly happening to
prevent criminals succeeding in their undertakings. But these which
I have mentioned are enough to show any thoughtful man or woman how
hazardous and how profitless crime always is.

Success in crime is achieved only at the risk of life and liberty. In a
few rare cases the criminal escapes these penalties, but, even so, his
ill gotten gains melt rapidly away and bring him no lasting happiness.
And, as I have shown here to-day, a large percentage of the crimes he
undertakes yield him nothing for all the time, thought, and effort he
has to give them.

Each chapter of my own life, as I am now recalling it, and the lives of
all the criminals I have ever known, only give added emphasis to the
fact which I want to impress on you--that CRIME DOES NOT PAY.

CHAPTER XI

THRILLING EVENTS WHICH CROWDED ONE SHORT WEEK OF MY LIFE--HOW I
PROFITED NOTHING FROM ALL THE RISKS I FACED

Not all the crimes the professional criminal commits are carefully
planned in advance. Very often they are committed on the spur of the
moment, when the opportunity to steal some article of value without
detection suddenly presents itself. The habit of wrongdoing becomes so
strongly developed that the thief is unable to resist the temptation
to steal even when he is not in need of money and when there is every
incentive for him to avoid the risk of arrest.

This was exactly what happened to me in Springfield, Mass., one day.
The fact that I was unable to withstand the glittering lure of a tray
full of diamonds proved the starting point of one of the most eventful
weeks of my life.

What happened to me during the week which began with my bold robbery of
a Springfield diamond merchant is as good an example as I can select
from my past career to give point to the lesson I have learned and am
trying to teach--that crime in the long run can never be made to pay.

Just think of it--in the seven days that followed the unlucky moment
when I thrust my hand into that open showcase in Springfield I was
arrested three times, jumped my bail once, and successfully made my
escape from a Boston cell. During all that time I was never free from
fear of arrest--asleep or awake, I would start at the slightest sound,
fearful that it was a detective coming to snap those hateful handcuffs
on my wrists again.

And what did I have to show for all the nervous strain, all the
suffering and hardship I underwent during that week? Worse than nothing
at all. Although I stole cash and valuables amounting to more than
seven thousand dollars, I was penniless when I finally succeeded in
getting back to New York.

A good share of the money had gone to the lawyers. A thousand dollars
of it I had been obliged to leave behind when I made my escape from the
Boston police, and the trayful of diamond rings I had stolen was hidden
in Springfield, where I would not dare show my face for many months.
Even the rings on my own fingers had gone to pay my lawyers' fees and
my bail.

But let me go back to the very beginning and explain just how all these
things came about.

It was when I was on my way back from an unsuccessful bank robbing
expedition to a Canadian town. I was feeling tired, out of sorts and
generally disgusted with myself. "If I ever get back to my home in New
York," I said to myself remorsefully, "I will surely settle down to an
honest life."

But alas for all my good intentions! Just before I reached Springfield
I happened to recall that this was where an old school friend of mine
lived. She was a thoroughly respectable woman, the wife of a hard
working tradesman, and I determined to stop off and surprise her with a
visit.

As luck would have it, I found her house locked, and one of her
neighbors told me that she was away visiting her mother in Worcester.
Knowing no one else in Springfield, there was nothing for me to do but
kill time for two or three hours until another train left for New York.

I was strolling leisurely along one of the main streets as innocent as
one of my babies of any intention of wrongdoing, when I happened to
notice something wrong with my watch. The hands had evidently stuck
together, and it had stopped more than an hour before. Just across the
street I saw a large jewelry store. I walked over there to see about my
watch. It was the noon hour and the store was deserted except for an
old man whom I judged to be the proprietor, and, at his bench far in
the rear, a lone watchmaker.

The proprietor was arranging some trays of diamonds in one of the
showcases when I approached him and stated my errand. He said my
watch could be fixed in two minutes, and started off with it to the
watchmaker's bench. His back was no sooner turned than I took in the
fact that he had neglected to close the sliding door of the showcase.
Inside there, within easy reach of my long arms, were two, three, a
dozen trays of costly diamond rings, brooches, and necklaces.

Forgetting all my recent resolutions and regardless of the
consequences I reached my hand across the showcase and down inside.
It took a powerful stretch of my muscles to reach the nearest of the
trays. But at last my fingers closed securely over its edge, and, with
a skill born of long experience, I drew my arm back and the tray of
rings came with it.

This was an operation that required a good deal of care, because in
my position the tray was not an easy thing to handle without letting
some of its precious contents fall clattering to the floor and give
the alarm. In less time than it takes to tell, however, and before the
proprietor had fairly reached the watchmaker's bench, I had the tray
safely concealed in my handbag.

The proprietor returned with my watch. It was only a trivial matter to
adjust it, he said, and there would be no charge whatever. I thanked
him and hurried out, shaking inwardly for fear he would discover the
absence of the tray of rings before I could lose myself in the streets.

After getting his plunder a thief's first thought is to get it out of
his possession. What he wants is a temporary hiding place--a place
where he can conceal it until whatever outcry the theft may have caused
has had time to die down and he can safely dispose of his booty to
one of the numerous "fences" who are to be found in every large city.
Whenever possible, the prudent thief selects a temporary hiding place
before he actually lays his hands on his plunder, and loses no time in
getting it out of his possession, so that, in case the police arrest
him soon after the robbery, they will find nothing incriminating.

This crime of mine, however, was so entirely unpremeditated that I had
not the faintest idea what I was going to do with my tray of rings
when I walked out of the store. Down the street a few blocks I saw
the railroad station, and this suggested a plan. I would check my bag
there and hide the check in some place where I could easily recover it
whenever the coast was clear.

This was a plan I had often followed with success, and it is a favorite
with thieves even to this day. I saw by the newspapers that the
misguided young man who robbed the New York jewelry firm of $100,000
worth of gems the other day went straight to the Pennsylvania Railroad
Station and checked the suitcase containing the plunder which had
tempted him to his ruin.

By this time all intention of reform had left my mind, and I thought
only of the ways I could use the money the diamonds would bring. The
hurried inspection I had been able to give them placed their value at
fully $3,000.

I walked quickly, but with no outward signs of excitement to the
station, where I locked my handbag and exchanged it for a brass check.
Then I walked out of the station and seated myself on a bench in the
public square. It was the work of only a minute to dig a little cavity
in the gravel under one of the legs of the bench with the pointed heel
of my French boot. A big red-faced policeman was standing uncomfortably
near all the while, but soon he turned his back. I bent over quickly,
placed the check in the little hole I had dug, and quickly covered it
with earth. I continued sitting there for some minutes, making a mental
photograph of the spot so that I would be able to locate it again, even
if I had to wait months.

As I rose and crossed the square to a department store I realized that
I had not acted a bit too quickly, for I overheard some men discussing
the daring robbery of the jewelry store. It had just been discovered,
so they said, and the police were already scouring the city for the
thieves.

I made haste to purchase a satchel very similar in appearance to the
one containing the diamonds. In this I placed a few trinkets and such
things as a woman might naturally carry, and returned to the railroad
station. I checked this satchel just as I had the other, and walked
away--my mind somewhat at rest.

Walking along the main street I encountered a detective who was
convoying a couple of men to the station. The face of one of the men
was familiar, and he recognized me before I could turn away. Using a
store window as a mirror I was able to see that all three had stopped
across the street and were looking at me. I lost no time in getting
away, and the detective, of course, had his hands full. But I knew my
chances of getting out of town were mighty slim, and it was no surprise
an hour later when two detectives confronted me at the station.

"How do you do?" said one; "do you live here?"

"I live in New Haven," I said, rapidly adding a fictitious name and
address. I explained my visit to town, but they were not satisfied and
to the police station I went.

In searching me the detectives held up my satchel check and hurried off
gleefully to the depot, quite certain that they had found the missing
diamonds.

They returned crestfallen, but the captain had an instinct that told
him I had those diamonds and he ordered me locked up over night.

From a neighboring cell the two men arrested earlier in the day called
out:

"Hello, Sophie, how did you get in?"

I did not answer, and pretended not to know them. The police unlocked
my cell door and invited me to come out and meet my friends, hoping, of
course, to learn something.

But I said in a loud voice that I never saw the men before, and that
they must have mistaken me. The two men were good enough to take the
hint at this point that I was in trouble, and soon after I heard one of
them saying that from a distance I looked like Sophie Lyons.

In the morning the police captain reluctantly released me. But he sent
a detective to make sure I got out of town, and he gave me his parting
promise to run me in if I ever came within his reach.

There was nothing for me to do but to take the train and hope to return
some day for the diamonds. I got off at New Haven and sat in the
railroad station pondering ways and means.

My thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Lizzie Saunders, a
woman criminal of no mean ability. From the effusiveness of her welcome
I suspected that she was "broke" and wanted a loan, as, indeed, proved
to be the case.

I hadn't much to spare, and was forced to listen to her schemes. She
told me that the town of Holyoke was a splendid place to pick up money,
as it was crowded with farmers attending a fair.

I was tired and disgusted and wanted to return to New York. Yet I did
not want to go so far from the diamonds, and, foolishly, I listened and
was persuaded.

Arrived at Holyoke we investigated the banks, but saw no chance of
snatching anything. We were both very much in need of raising some
funds right away, and something had to be done.

A sure-enough farmer cashed a large check, counted the money five
times, laid it in a huge wallet, and tied the wallet together with a
piece of string. Then he placed it in the breast pocket of his coat
and marched out. Of course, we followed. Lizzie, who was known as "The
Woman in Black," because she never wore anything else, kept a lookout
while I operated.

The old man was watching the street parade, hands in his trousers
pockets, chin stuck out, and whiskers projecting a foot in front of him.

I reached my hand into his pocket, got a grip on the wallet, and was
about to give the quick snap of the wrist and jostle, which is part of
the pickpocket's technique, when I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. I
knew instinctively that it was a detective. Quickly thrusting the bulky
wallet back into the old man's pocket, I threw my arms around his neck
and kissed him.

[Illustration: I FELT A HAND ON MY SHOULDER]

"Oh, Uncle Dan!" I cried between the kisses, with which I fairly
smothered the astonished old man; "where in the world did you come
from?"

The old man almost got apoplexy, for I kissed him and hugged him with
a vehemence that made everybody forget the parade. I can remember the
sea of whiskers I dived into.

"Gosh all hemlock, who are you?" he gasped when I let him go. "I ain't
Dan, I'm Abijah."

The detective really believed that I knew Abijah, but he remembered
Lizzie and took her away. I was about to escape when a redfaced woman
arrived and shouted:

"You hussy, what do you mean by hugging my husband?"

The detective hesitated and looked back, but he would have let me go if
Lizzy hadn't been fool enough to call out:

"Sophie, find me a lawyer and get me out of this."

That was enough even for the thick-headed police detective, and he took
us both away. The old man refused to testify against us. He was afraid
he would not be believed and the scandal would get back to his home
town. He was right; it would have.

Arrived at the station, no talk or acting was of the slightest avail,
and the judge next day held us each in $500 bail.

We raised that amount on jewelry, and, of course, "jumped" it and
arrived at Boston together.

I was thoroughly disgusted with Lizzie, but she stuck to me like a
leech, in spite of a dozen tricks that would have rid me of a detective.

At last I succeeded in getting away from her and happened to meet an
all-round knight of the underworld known as "Frisco Farley." Together
we worked the soda fountain trick, which was new then, and which I
will explain in a later article.

In the course of the day we took in considerable profits, which had not
been divided or even counted when we foolishly stepped into a jewelry
store, merely to look at a new-fangled thief-proof showcase.

The first thing I knew, Farley was gone and I was arrested. It seems
Farley had operated in that store a year ago, had been noticed and had
escaped just in time. I was arrested as his accomplice.

On the way to the station what worried me most was the fact that I had
in my pocket a ticket to New York. In Boston, for some reason, a ticket
to New York is looked upon by the police as conclusive evidence of
guilt.

I burst into tears and wailed and sobbed at the shame and humiliation
of my arrest. By concealing the ticket in my handkerchief I managed to
get it into my mouth as I wiped away my tears. Long before we reached
the station house I had chewed up the small piece of pasteboard and
swallowed it.

The story I told had only one weak spot. There was $400 more in my
pocketbook than I thought, and this one discrepancy made them lock me
up.

That night I was placed in a cell with an intoxicated woman. I was able
to send out and get a bottle of whiskey, but not for myself. About
midnight the woman woke up and was glad of a drink. I not only gave her
one, but many, until she was in a stupor and made no protest when I
changed clothes with her.

In those days, in Boston, it was usually the custom to let intoxicated
persons sleep in a cell and then to put them out on the street in the
morning without bringing them to court.

In the morning I pretended to be half sober and protested violently
against being thrown out in the cold. But they pushed me out onto the
sidewalk, much to my outward grief and inward joy.

I borrowed the price of a ticket to New York, leaving my money in the
police station and my jewels at Springfield. Thus a week of hard,
nerve-wrecking work netted me absolutely not one cent, but in reality
the loss of my jewels, my time, and considerable money.

CHAPTER XII

GOOD DEEDS WHICH CRIMINALS DO AND WHICH SHOW THAT EVEN THE WORST THIEF
IS NEVER WHOLLY BAD

A life of crime is a life of hard work, great risk, and, comparatively
speaking, small pay. Anyone who has followed these articles will agree
at once that whatever the criminal gets out of his existence he pays
very dearly for. Not only is he constantly running great physical
dangers--the risk of being shot or otherwise injured and of being
caught and imprisoned--but many of his most carefully planned criminal
enterprises are doomed to failure and he has only his labor for his
pains.

Quite frequently bank burglars devote as much as three or four months
of hard labor in preparing for an important robbery and, in a large
percentage of cases, they find that, after all their patience and
industry, it is impossible for them to execute the robbery they have so
carefully planned and all their work goes for nought. Sometimes, too,
they are interrupted in their work and have to flee, leaving behind
their kits of valuable tools. Watchmen's bullets are ever threatening
their lives and prison walls constantly loom up before them.

In view of these facts one would imagine that the money which the
professional criminal makes at such great risk and expense and with so
much difficulty would have an enhanced value in his eyes. But this is
not so. Not only is the professional criminal an inveterate gambler,
as I have repeatedly pointed out, but the great majority of them are
generous to a fault.

While this generosity is almost universal in the underworld, those
unfamiliar with the workings of the criminal heart would give it very
little credit for such impulses.

My experience in the underworld has thoroughly convinced me that no
criminal is wholly bad. I know that beneath the rough exterior of many
of the desperate criminals with whom I came in contact beat hearts that
were tender. To-day I shall relate some of the more striking incidents
which come back to me and which illustrate some of the good qualities
possessed by the notorious criminals with whom I associated.

I am reminded of an experience I had with Dan Nugent, the bank burglar.
I may say incidentally that this man Nugent was absolutely fearless
and would resort to any measure, however desperate, to accomplish his
purpose. He was a man to be feared and it was dangerous to cross him.
But that this criminal had some very excellent qualities will appear
from the following incident, now told for the first time.

While in Kansas City I robbed a bank, securing some four thousand
dollars. As I was leaving the bank--it was in the day time--I saw
Nugent going in. Evidently he had planned to rob the bank himself. We
did not speak.

Within a few minutes after my departure the robbery was discovered.
The doors were at once closed and no one was allowed to leave without
first undergoing the scrutiny of the detectives who had been summoned
by telephone. Poor Dan was caught in the trap and his identity being
established he was at once arrested on suspicion of having been
implicated in the robbery, if not the actual perpetrator of it,
although the only evidence against him was the fact of being on the
premises.

Dan was kept in custody for some hours, but at length the police were
compelled to let him go, being unable to strengthen their case against
him.

Later that day I happened to run into him.

"Sophie," he said threateningly, "you owe me two thousand dollars!"

"How do you make that out?" I asked quite innocently, not knowing
to what he was referring. I didn't know then that the robbery I had
committed had been discovered and that Nugent had been arrested for it.

"You got four thousand dollars in the bank this morning," he replied
bitterly, "and I got arrested for it."

He seemed to be in a very ugly frame of mind and I knew he was not a
man to be trifled with. I asked him to step into a café and talk it
over. We entered the back room of a nearby saloon and Nugent ordered
some drinks.

There were various persons seated at other tables in the place, but we
attracted no particular attention. After the waiter had served us and
left the room, Nugent took off his hat, held it across the table as
though he were handing it to me, and beneath the shelter it afforded
pointed a gun at me.

[Illustration: "SOPHIE, IF YOU DON'T HAND ME $2,000, I'LL BLOW YOUR
HEAD OFF"]

"Sophie, if you don't divide up on that job, I will blow your head
off!" he threatened in a low voice.

I admit I was frightened, but I did not lose my head. Instead I began
to cry copiously.

"Dan," I sobbed, "I declare by all I hold holy I didn't get any money
in the bank this morning. I've just gotten out of jail and I'm dead
broke. My poor children need lots of things I can't buy them. I wish
I had got that money at the bank this morning, but I didn't. It must
have been some one else who made a safe get-away, and I think it's
pretty mean of you to treat me this way," and I began to cry more
strenuously than ever.

Dan looked at me a moment searchingly and then, deciding that my grief
was genuine, put up his gun.

"Don't cry, Sophie. I thought you got the money, and I wanted my bit,
that's all. I'm sorry to have scared you. Forget it, old girl, and
cheer up."

Nugent then asked me what the kids at home needed, and I told him
everything I could think of. He took me by the arm and marched me
into a dry goods store and made a number of purchases of the things
he thought the children would want, and gave them to me, along with a
little money for myself. We then parted, Nugent wishing me all kinds of
luck and firmly believing in my fairy tale.

I really ought to have shared the money with Nugent because I had
stolen a march on him in robbing the bank before he got a chance, and
he got into trouble through me. But I knew he had made a big haul in a
bank a month previous, and I was practically without funds, so he could
more easily afford the loss of the two thousand than I could. But, like
most criminals, Nugent had a kind heart, and, when his finer nature was
appealed to, he could not help being noble and generous.

As another illustration of the kindness of heart of some criminals, let
me tell of a letter I received from a world-renowned criminal, whose
name I will not now disclose. This unfortunate man is now serving a
term in a foreign prison for a daring bank robbery in which he was
caught through his anxiety to help a pal--although if he had thought
only of himself he would have been free. I will quote from his letter
to me and you will see the kindness that dwells in his big heart:

     "MY DEAR PAL:--Now, I want you to do me a little favor.
     Don't send me any money or presents at Christmas, but take the
     money that you would use on me, and go out and buy some turkeys
     and give them to some of the poor people who live around your
     place. It will make them feel good, and it will be a better way to
     use the money than to waste it by sending it over to me."

A man who can write such a thoughtful letter as the above and can
sympathize with others in distress is not entirely a bad man, even
though he is a convicted criminal. It is sad, indeed, to think that
such a large hearted man should have to spend most of his days behind
prison bars instead of being at some kind of labor where he could be
of service to mankind and do all the decent things which his kindly
thoughts of others would prompt him to do.

Not because I want to convey the impression that I am better than any
of the other criminals whose exploits I am narrating, but, on the
contrary, because the incident I am about to relate is typical of what
notorious criminals are doing every day, I am going to tell of another
experience in which I figured.

It was when I was in New York. One day, while loitering in a bank
in the vicinity of Broadway and Chambers street, I observed a woman
draw some money. She put it in a handkerchief and then placed the
handkerchief in her pocket. I was in need of money pretty badly just
then and decided to follow the woman and get the money.

After she came out of the bank I got close to her and had no trouble in
taking out the handkerchief and the money. She was walking down toward
the river front and, having started in that direction, too, I had to
continue for a block or so in order not to excite suspicion by turning
back. I walked a little behind the woman, and, when we reached the
middle of the block, she stopped and spoke to me:

"I beg your pardon, madame, but can you tell me where the French line
steamboats dock?"

I directed her to the proper place and we got into conversation. She
told me that she was going home to her mother in France in order to
die there. She had been given up by the doctors here as an incurable
consumptive and had sold all her goods for a few hundred dollars with
which she was to pay her fare and give the rest to her mother. I became
interested in this, for it seemed to me that I had robbed a woman in
distress of her last dollar, and that was something I did not like to
do.

I asked her if she had money besides the amount she drew out of the
bank (she had told me of taking the money from the bank), and she
said that was all she had in the world. I could not think of keeping
her money after that, because, when the poor woman reached the ticket
office and found her money gone and her trip abroad impossible, she
would probably have died of the shock. So I determined to put the money
back in the poor French woman's pocket. I walked along with her to the
ticket office and, while she was talking to the agent, I slipped the
money back in her pocket. She bought her ticket and went aboard the
boat and I felt pleased that I had not kept the money.

That evening I told some of my criminal friends of the transaction, and
several of them seemed disgusted with me because I had not put in some
money of my own along with the small mite the woman had so that she
would be cheered up a bit. They thought it mean of me not to do more
than I did to help along a woman so unfortunate as this sick woman.

On several other occasions I voluntarily returned stolen money to
people when I found out that they were more in need of it than myself.
I stole a satchel from a woman in a bank once and it contained a few
hundred dollars. The next day I discovered in the paper that the woman
was blind and I was referred to as the meanest kind of a thief. When I
learned this I hastened to return the money to the unfortunate woman.
I never could sleep easy if I thought that any really deserving person
suffered from my thieving. I tried to confine my work to people who
could afford to lose their money and would soon forget the affair. A
very poor person who loses the savings of a lifetime never gets over
the shock of his or her loss and it causes real suffering. It didn't
worry me any to make people feel resentful and indignant, but I could
not bear the thought of making anybody unhappy.

I was in Paris many years ago and stopping at one of the most
fashionable hotels in the city. Mrs. Lorillard, the society woman, was
occupying rooms adjoining mine, and I was trying to get her jewelry.
She always carried a great amount of jewelry with her, and I knew the
prize was a good one. She had two maids with her, one of whom had to
keep watch over two satchels in which the jewelry was secreted.

The maids were honest girls and we could not do any business through
them, but we followed the party from place to place expecting that
some time the girl would forget to take proper care of her satchels,
and then our opportunity to steal them would arrive. A few days after
Mrs. Lorillard had settled at this hotel she attended some reception in
Paris and, of course, her jewelry bags had to be taken from the hotel
safe, where they had been placed for safety.

Mrs. Lorillard picked out the particular pieces of jewelry she wanted
to wear at the reception, and closed up the two bags, turning them over
to the maid to place in the safe. The maid came out of the apartment
with the two bags, and I met her in the hall and began to ask her
some trivial question. She stopped to talk with me and laid down the
bags. While I kept her engaged in conversation a comrade of mine
crept up, substituted another bag for one of the jewelry receptacles
and skipped off. I continued to talk a little longer and then the girl
and I parted, she going downstairs to the safe with the two bags, not
suspecting that I had deliberately held her in conversation while my
friend had taken one of the precious bags.

My associate went to another hotel and concealed the jewelry, while I
stayed there in my room, not wishing to attract attention by leaving at
such a critical time, for, after the robbery was discovered, if it had
been found that I had left at the same time it would have been natural
for suspicion to be directed at me.

The following day, when the bags were sent for in order for Mrs.
Lorillard to put back the jewels she had worn at the reception, it was
found that one of the bags was missing and there was great excitement.
Detectives by the score were sent for and the whole hotel was searched
top and bottom for a clew.

That evening, after I had retired, I heard a woman sobbing in the
adjoining room, and, as the sobs continued for some time, I knocked
and asked if I could be of assistance to her. She opened the door and
invited me into her room. It was Mrs. Lorillard. She told me of the
robbery and said that it was not the jewelry she worried about but the
loss of a picture of her dead child which was very dear to her. She
thought more of the picture than the jewels and her grief over its
disappearance was pathetic. I consoled her as best I could, and told
her I had had some experience as a detective and thought I could secure
the return of the picture without any trouble, especially as it was
not valuable to the thieves. The following day I took back the picture
to the woman and she was overjoyed at its return. After remaining in
the hotel long enough not to excite suspicion by my departure, I left
to meet my pals and divide the proceeds of the job. The jewels we had
taken were the best in the Lorillard collection, and each one of the
party made a good profit on the transaction. A number of years after
this event Mrs. Lorillard committed suicide, which was induced by a
spell of melancholy, brought on probably by thoughts of her dead boy,
whom she dearly loved.

I have already mentioned how Langdon W. Moore, the notorious bank
burglar, whose activities in New England made him more feared
throughout that section than any other criminal who ever operated, once
frustrated an attempt to rob a bank at Francetown, New Hampshire, after
having consented to participate in it, because the bank was located
near his own birthplace and he did not feel like robbing his parents'
old neighbors.

This man Langdon, like many other criminals of the same caliber, made
it a rule of his life never to use violence. Frequently he abandoned a
contemplated criminal enterprise upon which he had spent months of hard
work because he found that he could not carry out his original plan
without injuring a watchman or other person.

Of course, when hard pressed it was sometimes necessary for Langdon to
fight his way to liberty, in such cases he always made reparation to
the injured man as far as lay in his power. On one occasion, when he
had fractured the skull of an officer who had sought to capture him, he
caused $2,500 in cash to be sent to the injured man.

Other criminals frequently exhibit similar noble qualities.

Loyalty to his comrades is another trait found in almost every
professional criminal. "Honor among thieves" is a phrase commonly used,
but few realize upon what a strong foundation it rests. I know of
innumerable instances where criminals risked their own liberty and even
their lives in order to assist a comrade in danger.

Mark Shinburn, the noted bank burglar, once displayed bravery
and loyalty of a character which is seldom excelled even on the
battlefield. He had participated with Eddie Quinn and a third bank
burglar in the robbery of a Western bank. Just as the three were
leaving the bank the watchman appeared upon the scene. There was
nothing to do but run. The watchman opened fire. Quinn dropped. Without
a moment's hesitation Shinburn stopped in his flight, although the
watchman was close upon them, and, lifting his fallen comrade to his
broad shoulders, continued his flight at reduced speed.

Shinburn was a very powerful fellow and even with his wounded comrade
on his shoulders he was able to outrun the watchman. He soon caught up
with the third man of the party and they made for the woods. When they
lowered Quinn to the ground they found that he was dying. The burglar
had only a few minutes to live. Quinn was conscious and begged his
comrades to get a priest to administer the last rites, realizing that
his end was near.

The two men with him knew it was impossible to get a priest, but they
wanted to make the last moments of Quinn's life as happy as possible.
To leave the woods at this time, however, was to invite capture,
for the watchman had undoubtedly aroused the neighborhood and the
woods would naturally be the first place searched for the fugitives.
Nevertheless Shinburn decided to take a chance and left the dying
man to comply with his last wish. He knew that it would be almost
impossible to get a priest, but he broke into a furnishing store on the
outskirts of the woods and went back to his dying comrade wearing a
costume very much like that of a priest.

The approaching hand of death had dimmed the dying burglar's sight and
he had no suspicion that the "priest" was his big-hearted comrade. In
a slow, solemn tone Shinburn spoke words of encouragement to his dying
friend, and the unfortunate man passed away, comforted by what he
thought were the sacred words of a priest.

But instances of noble deeds among criminals whose souls are generally
believed to be wholly black might be narrated without end. These men
and women who declare war against society only to find that CRIME DOES
NOT PAY are not without their redeeming qualities.

Their evil deeds are published far and wide, but the good that they do
seldom comes to light.

SOPHIE LYONS.

AN INTERVIEW WITH SOPHIE LYONS

FORMER QUEEN OF CRIMINALS, WHO ANNOUNCES THAT SHE WILL DEVOTE THE REST
OF HER LIFE AND HER FORTUNE OF $500,000 TO SAVING FIRST OFFENDERS.

Sophie Lyons has turned reformer.

With the mellowing influence of years, she is now 66, the erstwhile
queen of women criminals has decided that crime does not pay and
intends to devote her fortune and remaining days to saving others from
paths that have been hers.

Her new resolution, she says, probably will alienate her husband,
"Billy" Burke, who recently completed a prison term in Stockholm,
Sweden. "I want to accomplish his reformation more than I do any
other person's, no matter what the cost," she declared. "He is weak
and easily tempted, and his criminal operations were not induced by
necessity, as were mine. If my plans will help to make him a good man I
shall feel they are not in vain."

In her modest little home Mrs. Lyons-Burke, who for 40 years was known
intimately to the police of two continents and whose acquaintance
with the interior of jails and prisons is world-wide, outlined to a
representative her plans for the redemption of criminals.

"I haven't a great many years to live and I am worth half a million
dollars," Mrs. Burke said. "I want to make amends as far as possible
for what I have done in the past. I have lived a straight life for 25
years, and have accumulated much property by legitimate means. But
there is something I crave more than money. Do you know what that is?
It is the respect of good people. Maybe I can get some of this by
showing that I am not all bad and that I am sincere in my effort to
help others."

Great tears coursed down Mrs. Burke's face as she told of recent
efforts to obtain the good-will and friendship of persons whose
respectability is unquestioned. One of these is a pastor of a Detroit
church, who, she said, had urged her to talk to his congregation on
the futility of a life of crime. She declined, feeling that she had no
right to intrude herself among church people.

In her scheme for the saving of criminals, Mrs. Burke said that she
intends to pay particular attention to first offenders and will
exert every effort to prevail upon them to return to a life of
respectability. "You know how hard it is for a man or woman to secure
permanent work after leaving prison? I am going to help some of these.
They will find a friend in Sophie Lyons."

Mrs. Burke said that she was considering an offer from a vaudeville
booking concern to give 20-minute talks from the stage. "Do you think
this would be a good idea?" she inquired eagerly. "I have had the same
proposition from a lyceum lecture bureau, but I believe I can better
reach those I want to reach in the theaters. If I decide to go on the
stage every cent of the money I get will go to carry out my plans for
reformation and to charity."

That she has an ambition to accomplish much good and to die poor, was
Mrs. Burke's declaration. "My children are grown and self-supporting,
and all my money and real estate will go to save criminals and to
other charities," she said. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Children was mentioned by Mrs. Burke as being one of her favorite
charities. "I am doing something for this organization right along,"
she said, "and I expect to leave it a substantial bequest."

SOPHIE LYONS AIDS EVICTED FAMILY

REFORMED CONFIDENCE WOMAN TAKES IN WHEELERS, WHO LIVED IN TENT

VERSES IN JEWISH BIBLE INFLUENCE HER TO ACTION--WANTS TO SHOW CHARITY

Mrs. Sophie Lyons-Burke was reading a Jewish prayer book in her home
at 42 Twenty-third Street yesterday afternoon. She had just completed
the following, which is a prayer for joyful occasions, when she had a
visitor:

     "Thou, O God, hast always been gracious unto me and hast often
     sent me joys even when I least deserved them. For all this
     abundance of Thy goodness I humbly thank Thee, and for the new
     happiness that comes to me (and my household) my soul is filled
     with gratitude. Let me not grow overbearing in prosperity nor
     arrogant because of my success, but let me enjoy Thy blessings
     with becoming gratitude and humility. Nor let me ever forget that
     the most acceptable thank-offering is to bring light and joy to
     those that sit in darkness and affliction, and give heed to the
     hungry and comfort the broken-hearted. May I, by doing what is
     pleasing to Thee, continue to find grace and favor in Thy sight."

Everybody knows Sophie Lyons. They know about her past and about her
present husband, who got into a Swedish prison through a little affair
over diamonds, causing Sophie to cross the sea to cheer him up. They
know of her utterance that a husband should be allowed an affinity
now and then to add to the zest of his life, but in this instance
she appears in a different light. Long ago she "squared it" with the
police. Now she is evidently trying to "square it" with a higher
authority. And this connects the prayer with the visitor.

The man who rapped on her door was A. H. Jones, inspector for the city
poor commission. He was weary and almost discouraged, having been out
since early morning looking for a home for the Wheelers. The Wheelers,
husband, wife and six children, had been evicted from their residence
at 92 Calahan Street Monday, the owner desiring to sell and not to rent
the place. From then on they lived in a tent-like structure in a vacant
lot alongside the house they had inhabited.

"You own a cottage at 51 Twenty-third Street?" asked Mr. Jones.

"Yes," was the reply; "but it is rented, I guess. Anyway, a man has
agreed to take it."

Then followed the recital of the troubles of the Wheelers, the attempts
of the city agent to find shelter, the offer of $10 a month for the
barn and the failure because of the children.

Mrs. Burke thought for a moment. Then she smiled:

"See here what I was reading," she said. "'The most acceptable
thank-offering is to bring light and joy to that sit in darkness.' You
may put that family in that house. It has been remodeled, and is just
about new. It has seven rooms and a bathroom, and will be all right, I
guess. I will tell you why I am doing this.

"If I have all the world and have not charity I can never enter the
gates of heaven."

The Wheelers moved to-day. Their furniture was all arranged about the
tent, so there was no taking up of carpets or anything like that,
loading into a van being all that was necessary. If it rains to-night,
the man, incapacitated from work, won't lie awake and shiver and wonder
how long it will take the downpour to soak through his shelter. He and
his will be safe beneath a roof, a roof belonging to Sophie Lyons-Burke.

SOPHIE LYONS RETURNS

"CONFIDENCE QUEEN" ENDS HER TWENTIETH TOUR OF THE WORLD

Sophie Lyons, once called the "cleverest crook in the world" and the
Confidence Queen, arrived recently in the first cabin of the French
liner _La Lorraine_, attired in the latest Parisian style of dress for
an elderly woman, several trunks and a jewel case that the customs
men made her open, unwilling to take her word that there was nothing
dutiable in it.

Sophie is worth a half million, she says, and she has been for the last
several years living "on the level" and looking over the world from the
viewpoint of one who has or believes she has a taste for literature.
Her trip on _Lorraine_ was the end, she said, of her twentieth tour of
the world.

The customs men who insisted on the opening of the jewel case, made
fast by a padlock, were surprised to find nothing in it except a Jewish
prayer book. One of the prayers that Sophie had marked ran thus:

"Thou, O Lord, hast always been gracious to me, and hast often sent
me joys when I did least deserve them. For all this abundance of Thy
goodness I humbly thank thee."

Sophie said she was a Jewess, despite her name, which is supplemented
legitimately by Burke, Christian name Billy, who is in a Swedish
prison. Sophie admitted yesterday that she was 65, but the records give
her a few more years. She looks younger. She said she had spent the
last seven months in leisurely circling the globe, and that she was
engaged in writing another book to be called "Crime Queen," which would
be in a measure autobiographical.

Sophie is the daughter of a Holland Jew named Van Elkan, she says, and
her grandfather was a rabbi.