MODERN BURGLARY.
BURGLARY is almost the only form of violent crime which at present shows no tendency to decrease. It .exhibits, on the contrary, a steady growth, both in the organi- sation and the appliances by which it is conducted, and in the loss of property caused by an army of skilled depredators to whom the law is perhaps over-tender. We need not seek further than the columns of the daily papers for evidence of the outrageous nature of this sleepless war on property. On Satur- day last, for example, two women were charged at the West London Police-court with being concerned in receiving £1,000 worth of jewellery, which had been stolen from a house in Cromwell Road, together with watches and chains belonging to other owners. The actual burglars had been sentenced the day before to nine months' and five months' imprisonment for being caught in the act of breaking into another house in the same neighbourhood. The burglars, according to the state- ment of one of the women charged, had actually sent for her when in Holloway Gaol a few days before their trial, and had directed her to a house in Rosebery Avenue " to look for some money," where she found the jewellery. The police appear to have been well informed of what was going on, and also visited the house, which was by them described as " a perfect hotbed of crime," or, rather, of organised burglary. Displayed in the police-court were more than a hundred keys, many prepared skeleton-keys, twenty-four files, and a com- plete set of burglar's implements. In a second case, an inno- cent-looking laundry is found to be a burglar's depot. In a third, heard on the same day, two men, one an "engineer "- that is, a mechanical artisan, a class which, with the look- smiths, furnishes some of the most dangerous burglars—were sentenced to one and three months' hard labour respectively, under that most useful Act which enables the police to arrest persons suspected of frequenting a neighbourhood for an un- lawful purpose. The case is one of hundreds, illustrating the vigilance of our overworked and undermanned police-force in the prevention as well as the detection of crime. The men were " marking " houses for subsequent operations, and though, when arrested, they protested that a skeleton-key found on them was "of the most ordinary and innocent kind," and only unlocked their own front-doors, the constable proved that it would also unlock his ; that one of the men was "known for some years as an expert burglar; " and that he had been previously convicted. Arrest for "loitering with intent" is generally followed by a remand, which enables the police of different districts to compare notes as to the identity of the subjects, and prove their connection with pre- vious offences. One of the neatest convictions obtained in this way is among the justly prized memories of Scotland Yard. A number of serious burglaries were committed in a suburb, the sole trace left by the perpetrators being a number of wedges of a curious dark wood. These wedges are among the necessary implements of the trade, being laid against the jamb of the door or window attacked, as a fulcrum on which to rest the "jemmy" used to wrench it open. Some mouths afterwards, two men were arrested for " loitering," though the only pieces de conviction found upon them were a few wedges. The men, of course, protested their innocence ; but during their remand, a quick-witted police officer was struck with the resemblance of the wedges to those found previously in the houses in the distant suburb. The wedges were collected and. compared ; and in the room lately occupied by the thieves, parts of the back of an old Windsor chair were found which the wedges, when pieced together, exactly fitted. A further search revealed more wedges in process of manufacture, and the chair and the evidence were alike completed.
This specimen now rests in the Museum of the Criminal Investigation Department at Scotland Yard, a collection which gives an unpleasant shock to the visitor from the overwhelming evidence it affords of the skill, numbers, malignity, organisation, and highly specialised education of the burglar brigade. The exhibition corresponds in the main to what in a scientific museum would be the " students" collection. It is representative rather than bulky; impressive, not so much from the number of the specimens, great though that is, as from the variety and the minute completeness and sub-division of the different branches of the trade. Roughly speaking, burglars practise either as house- breakers or warehouse-burglars. In the case of the last, the iron safe is the object of attack, and as the watchman is either absent, decoyed away, or an accomplice, the implements used are of the largest kind, and their use not unaccompanied by noise. " Jemmies," or steel crowbars, from three to five feet long, thick, weighty, and with hooked points like eagles' beaks, ponderous " braces " for drilling holes into the locks of safes, steel wedges, and leaden hammers faced with leather to deaden sound, even canisters of gunpowder for blowing out the locks, are part of the equipment of the "safe" burglar: "Family burgling " is a separate branch of the art, The tools are far more delicate, and means of bscape must be provided in addition to those of forcible entry. Neat ladders of tarred rope, for fixing to porticos as a ready means of descent, are an old precaution. But the wire and string entanglement which are now invariably stretched across the paths and gardens of villa and country residences in order to trip up pursuers, are a recent improvement, generally adopted by the profession. The equipment of the warehouse-burglar is too bulky for hand-carriage, and is always taken to the scene of action in a cab or a spring-cart. The house-burglar carries his tools in his long overcoat,—a broken overcoat-button, of which one.half was found on a smashed window-sill, was used to identify a burglar last week. Some of the ""jemmies" at Scotland Yard are of very careful workmanship, unscrewing in the centre, and able to be concealed in a bat. Masks are an antiquated precaution. One is, however, preserved, which was worn by a burglar who was detected under a bed in a public-house before closing-time. Burglaries committed after 9 o'clock incur a heavier penalty than house-breaking achieved before that hour. For this and other reasons the time of dinner is usually selected for the looting of a large establishment. This has only one drawback. It leaves little time for exploration, and the burglar must be well acquainted with the interior of the house. In this connection women play an important, and usually an unconscious part. It is not difficult for a nice-spoken young man to get on friendly terms with the maid-servants in a large establishment, and servants take a special pride in showing their friends and admirers round a well-appointed house. A judicious appreciation of the taste displayed in the mistress's boudoir leads naturally to a view of the bedroom, and not seldom to voluntary information as to the position of the jewel-box or safe. Nearly all the recent great jewel-robberies from private houses have been effected during the dinner-hour. Midnight burglary is often less skil- fully performed and far more dangerous to the life both of the owner and of the police. Recently fire-arms have gone out of favour with the house-breaker, and the Return for last year gives only some fifteen instances of burglary with pistols, and fewer of their use. But after the exploits of Peace, the revolver was generally carried and used with malignant frequency. The courage with which unarmed policemen faced these desperadoes has hardly been appreciated enough. There does not appear to be an instance on record in which a constable has hesitated to seize his man when threatened or fired upon, a fact to which the present unpopularity of the revolver with midnight-thieves is perhaps attributable. Peace, when captured, had a large revolver strapped to his wrist, pretty fair evidence that he intended to use it, and not to lose it. The revolver with which a plucky young gentleman was wounded when in pursuit of a burglar at Muswell Hill is still shown at Scotland Yard ; and there are always a few desperate characters who will take life with as little scruple as property. Probably the very worst of recent offenders of this class were the Holton burglars, Hobbs and Wright, who were captured after a desperate chase across house-roofs, in the course of which two constables were wounded and two revolvers emptied by Wright. This ruffian openly regretted in Court that he had not killed his man, and implored the Judge to sentence him to death rather than to penal servitude for life. Perhaps the least hopeful feature of the subject from the householders' point of view is the failure to provide any interior protection which can match the resources of the assailants, though these, unlike the Indian burglar who cuts through the house-wall with a heavy iron trowel as he lies on his stomach, attack windows and doors only. The law is very tender about burglars' lives, though probably a good old- fashioned blunderbuss, which will fill a room with shot, makes a prodigious report, and does not kill, would be an effective fire- arm. The electric light, so easily turned on by those who know the house, and so difficult to work by those who do not, is said to be far the best modern protection. In London houses a noisy terrier is also a useful guard; large dogs in outdoor kennels are always " hocussed " or poisoned. But the professional burglar is nearly always known to the police, who are baffled, not by want of knowledge, but by the curious state of the law, which leaves the thief free to play the game with every advantage to himself until caught red-handed. A few months in gaol atone for the first and second offences, by which time he has grown so cunning and dexterous that detection and conviction are alike difficult. The alternative seems to be either to give the police enlarged powers to deal with known criminals, or to increase their numbers, so that the nightly patrols shall be more numerous and more effective.
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