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Show l Some of the Recollections of a Reformed Burglar f I O By Fred- R, Bedidolt. Q Ilo.was 60 years old and wore a long white beard when I mot him. His hair was tho color of driven snow. In fact he looked very much liko the proverbial pro-verbial Santa Claus. Ho lacked" only girth about his waistband. But for all his sixty winters and for all hlB white hair his eye was bright and keen, and his ear aB quick as when ho was a boy of i'0. And all this, in splto of some twonty-nvc years spent within prison walls. During tho course oC several months' clo30 acquaintance he waxed1 confidential. confiden-tial. Ho was not prone to confidence confi-dence and his Information would havo been Interesting, to put it mildly, to many men had he chosen to bo so. But, at that, It all concerned days long gono by. As a rule his stories dropped out, apropos of some little thing he had noticed or which had croppped up In conversation. Reminiscences of a career ca-reer of crlmo -which had made the relator a spectacular figure in more than one newspaper story in former years, some of them at least are well worth the retelling. One night we were passing through the residence district of the busy city where we lived. The nsrjhalt streets were detxirtcd', save for a very occasional occa-sional pedestrian. Night was falling. Lights gleamed out from windows, dining-room windows, as a rule, for it was tho dinner hour. And beneath shades, raised some of them to their full limit, and others Just a few inches from the sill, we could catch glimpses of families seated about well laden tables. Cut glass sparkled on these boards, and the men and women who sat about them were all of them well groomed and very apparently blessed with the good things which come with wealth. He walked for some blocks In silence. Then ho paused before ono particularly opulent appearing mansion, and, gradually, at first ranibllngly, lapsed into reminiscence. He said: "What a chance for a porch climber." I encouraged him, judiciously, for I had learned from experience not to prod him to sharply. And he went on: "The porch climber always works at this time of the evening. And look at the chance they offer him. The curtain's up. The lawn Is cluttered with chrub-bery. chrub-bery. The porch Is in a deep shadow. not a bull in this section of the town." He looked at the place as a man who has foresworn liquor sometimes looks at a filled glass. Then he went on, and what he said I repeat, expurgated largely large-ly from slang, but not from eomc of the technical terms of his former calling, terms which havo been dubbed slang, falsely, for they are as legitimate In their own way as are the technicalities technicali-ties of any profession. "The porch climber of today is the smoothest burglar going. He gets the money. All the big hauls you read of now are made by him. He Is tho most scientific of his kind of grafters. Tho old-time night prowler Is no longer the king of thieves. Ho has come to be little better than a tramp. People don't keep na much ready money on hand as they U6ed to, and you have to know where to get It, and to work with some chance to do something, not In the dark. The porch climber does that. "He is able to do It because people leave their houses exposed at dinner lime, nnd they lpave their dining-room curtains up so that everyone can see who's at the table. "Now a porch climber, when ho drops into a town, is liable to live In a good rooming-house. He goes to the beat theaters. You won't find him in low dives. His business calls him elsewhere. At the theater or on the street he sees the old ladles who wear sealskins and diamonds. He can follow these to their homes and that way he picks out his houses. But that isn't all there Is to It by a long shot. He may learn of the house, of course, through confederates, and know just what he Is after. He may get the Information from some shady saloonkeeper. But with that In his hands he has to know where to go to get It, and whether everyone is out of tho way In fact, by rights ho should know Just where everyone is. And before be-fore he Is ready to turn the trick he has to know Ju3t where each person's sleeping-room Is. "How does he do that? Well, sir, just by watching the family at this time of the evening, when they are at dinner. Say a porch climber has picked out that house. Now what he wants is the old lady's room and her daughter's rooms. The old woman has the big rocks and the rich sealskin. The old man gave them to her years ago, when he first began be-gan to make his pile. And then they began to blow themselves on the girls. As to tho young fellows, they ain't worth while bothering with. A tie pin or two is about the size of the stuff you'll find In their rooms. "Now, to locate the particular aport-ments aport-ments he wants your porch climber Just waits till dinner time. He takes a walk up here just as we are walking. Ho takes a quiet pipe up and down the block. No one in sight. He slips into the yard there Isn't any fence to climb, even. He has an elegant chance to plant right in the shade of that clump of trees or behind that holly bush see? Well, he plants there and uses his eyes. "One night all tho family are at dinner except one. He tells that by the empty place. Well, he looks around. Probably Prob-ably that one is dressing they always got to dress for dinner in this part of town. Of course that room is lighted up. Next night It Is someone some-one else, and next night or so, someone some-one still further. Of course it doesn't go nice that way. The thief has to plant out in that dark place night after night. He has to wait till late in the evening, maybe, and theiv he uses a different dif-ferent plan to find the sleeping rooms. The old folks go to bed early. And he verifies what ho found about their rooms during earlier sessions when he sees them light up right after theater. A little later, perhaps quite a bit, the girls come along. As for the young fellows, fel-lows, they don't blow in till way along In the morning, maybe. "So the porch climber pipes, and finally gets each room down pat. He knows where the old woman nnd the girls sleep and where they must, of course, go when they dress for dinner. He consequently knows where those sealskins and diamonds must be lying while the family are eating. Then he goes to his hiding place and waits some dinner hour when the whole family are at the table. One by one the chairs fill up. When they aro full It is Just a case of turning the trick. "Of course the trick isn't ensy. But that is a matter of detail and experience. experi-ence. He has to make a quick sneak to tho porch, when tho street Is clear. Then he goes up the post. On the roof he stoops low and opeii3 the window, generally It is unfastened. Of course burglar alarms are rarely on at this time of tho night. He goes through the old lady's room, and probably through those of the daughters. He takes his swag and slips down the post. All this takes a very few minutes. "Probably It's an hour or two later before the tumble conies and the pollco are told. Meantime tho crook is smoking smok-ing his cigar in his room or taking In the theater again. And In a day or two he has expressed the stuff away to some good fence, who gives him at the most 30 cents on the dollar of its real worth. At that he is making a good thing, probably. But even porch climbing is getting very dangerous. Crooks don't get the show nowadays they used to. The graft is too hard. I think of that whenever I see a good chance and my fingers begin to Itch." |
