A Thief's Manual

 

The knowledge that the public gains of the transactions of the criminal classes is, at best, but meagre and unsatisfying. The reading public learned about the operations of a group of people only through fragmentary newspaper items, abstract reports of important trials, and costly personal experiences. Unbelievable dishonesty within one year's appropriation would be shocking. Yet, even though criminals operate so widely and are so universal, and even though the public is annually plundered of a fabulous amount, most sufferers today do not know how their goods and valuables disappear. A bank, strong and seemingly impregnable, is entered between twilight and dawn. In an incredibly brief space of time, the burglar's skill cracked vaults that were guaranteed to withstand any efforts, and the burglars successfully carried away hundreds of thousands of dollars before anyone suspected anything or sounded an alarm. Under the very eyes of expert security guards, midnight robbers broke into stores and dwellings, and, despite every ingenious safeguard and protection, they escaped with the property of their unconscious victims. The expert forger, sneak-thief, and counterfeiter defrauded banks, moneyed institutions, and financial firms of vast sums of money in broad daylight. Deceitful people have harmed every class. The public does not know the means used to cause their ruin, nor the modes by which they accomplished their disasters. This information I now propose to give, hoping that by a widespread publication of the methods and plans of the criminal, I may restrict his operations, impede his efforts, and prevent his disastrous successes. (Taken from the original text of Allan Pinkerton's "Thirty Years A Detective," published in 1994. Originally written in the 1800's American English.).