Housebreaking

 

HOUSEBREAKING

 

HOUSEBREAKING AS A FINE ART.

Housebreaking as a Fine Art: A Quotation from Dickens. — The English and American Professional Contrasted. — Preparations and Places—A Kit of Tools. — Gaining an Entrance. — The Jointed Key. —Large Footprints. — Servants as Accomplices. — “Over the Garden Wall."

 

Of all types of criminal practice today, one appears certain to persist as long as people have homes. From the very first start of crime, this class, i.e., house burglars and midnight robbers, existed, and their operations reached all classes of the community. Anyone, be they of high or low degree, who may unfortunately own anything worth stealing, is liable to the unexpected and unwelcome visits of the housebreaker and the burglar. Locks and chains, bolts, and bars alike are of no avail in preventing the entrance of these midnight robbers. When darkness and silence are brooding over the city, when happy families have composed themselves for the peaceful slumbers that a day of toil has earned, the cracksman sallies forth, and while a world is wrapped in dreams, he noiselessly pursues his ignoble calling. Silently he plunders his unconscious victims, and then stealing away, he leaves to the light and sunshine of another day the discovery of his visit and the losses that have followed his intrusion.

Dickens has immortalized Bill Sykes and a Toby Crackitt, and through his wonderful genius we have learned much of the social life of this class of criminals, and it is a lamentable fact that these two characters are not isolated instances or mere creatures of the imagination. Every city is swarming with a horde of these reckless men who live by plundering their unfortunate neighbors in the darkness of the night.

Sleeping or carousing during the day, when honest men are toiling for the rewards of their labor and the sustenance of life—these desperate prowlers crawl from their lairs when the midnight bells are tolling and, like the wolves of the forest, seek their prey.

To prevent the depredations of these thieves seems to be almost impossible, and incessant vigilance and prompt punishments when detected have proven to be the only safeguards against their successful operations.

While, therefore, I am unable to prescribe the infallible ounce of prevention, I may at least suggest the homely pound of cure, and by acquainting the public with the mode of operation of these criminals, I may serve to promote the detection of the offenders by showing how their depredations are committed.

Romance and tradition have, for a long period of time, credited the cracksmen with being the most expert in their profession, but the experiences of late years have dispelled this delusion, and English and American detectives alike have conceded that for perfect and ingenious work, the American housebreaker is far more expert and daring than his transatlantic competitor. This distinction is by no means an honorable one, but it is justly deserved; the records and detective experiences of both countries abundantly prove it.

The English burglar spends more time watching and finding the police officers and guards upon the outside of the premises he designs to enter and in getting his numerous and superfluous tools ready for manipulation than the American would require making an entrance and rob an entire house. The English thief, like his more honest compatriot, is slow, methodical, and a devotee to rule and precision. The American, on the contrary, only considers the quickest practical way of securing his object and adopts it at once. The Briton invariably travels with his gang of three and often four members, while the Yankee in any case never requires and will not accept the services of more than a single partner. The case has yet to be recorded where an English cracksman ever tried a midnight robbery alone and unassisted, but the instances are numerous where an American burglar has repeatedly gained hazardous operations without aid or help from anyone. These, of course, are cases in which the most expert or the most reckless have distinguished themselves, but as a rule the American housebreakers travel in couples, and their work is usually quickly, cleverly, and thoroughly executed.

Of late years, through the vigilance of the police and detective authorities, the residents of large and populous cities have rarely been troubled by these unwelcome visitors, but those of the larger towns and villages are perpetual sufferers from their unexpected incursions. American burglars of the advanced type of the present day have been known to deliberately plan a complete tour of burglaries, and their track could be legibly traced from New York to Chicago and the more ambitious and thriving villages of the far West. It must not be imagined that these are mere random selections or the result of ignorant guesswork. On the contrary, every house that has been entered along the route has been carefully examined in advance, and the preliminaries have been arranged with a nice regard for successful and fruitful results.

The usual plan of these knights of darkness, who decide to work their way through the country, is to delegate one of their number to travel in advance and, by stopping a day or two in each place and making ingenious inquiries from the keepers of saloons, hotel clerks, and others, gain a complete knowledge of the wealth and habits of the most prominent residents of the localities in which he may rest. After gathering crucial information, the advance agent meets his partners, shares details about objects of attack, and then quickly leaves on the next train. The reason for this is that should the mysterious appearance and questions of this man lead to his being suspected, should he be hunted down in the event of a pursuit, he can readily prove that at the time the robbery was committed, he was far distant from the scene and quietly enjoying himself at a hotel in an entirely different locality.

Under these circumstances it would be impossible to connect him with the crime, and his innocence is clearly proved.

Another consideration of importance to the thieves is to select a town where a railroad train will pass through during the early hours of the morning, as this enables them to get away safely, often before the robbery is discovered. and certainly, before suspicion attaches to them. As they are not burdened with any number of superfluous tools or baggage and never carry away any stolen articles but money, bonds, or valuable jewelry, their appearance would not be noticeable, and their baggage would be light.

If the burglars are about to attempt operations upon a place about which they have received no definite information and are in ignorance of the general character and wealth of their victims, they usually select some first-class block, and if there is an empty house in the vicinity, they will enter this and then, from the rear of this building, operate upon their chosen mark from the back entrance. If, however, the houses are all occupied, which is the case, they will try to secure a furnished room or board and lodging in some part of the block in question, and if they succeed in this. They make it a rule never to try to rob any of the inmates of the house in which they may be domiciled, no matter how great the temptation, for this would at once lay them open to suspicion.

The tools that are used by an expert American housebreaker are very few and consist of a very light and ingeniously constructed folding ladder, about thirteen feet long, which can be folded up to the length of two feet and readily packed in an ordinary trunk or valise; two small jimmies; a pair of nippers; a small gimlet; a set of small bureau picks; a jointed key; a thin glue knife; some common matches; and a few yards of strong twine. Thus equipped, he is prepared to plunder an entire town, if sufficient time has been afforded him.

If the burglars have secured lodgings in the block, they begin operations as early as possible after the inmates have retired to rest. The man who is to enter the building dresses himself in soft woolen clothes; they make little or no noise in the apartment of the sleepers upon whom he intends to work. It has been proven that in the stillness of midnight or the early hours of the morning, the rustling noise made by a starched white shirt has often aroused the sleeper, particularly if a female, from a sound slumber, and has often led to detection. On entering the house, the burglar at once discards his shoes and works on his stocking feet.

Once preparations are complete, the individual assigned to manage the external tasks discreetly exits their room and goes ahead downstairs to unlock the back door. Ascertaining that the coast is clear, he gives the signal to his companion, who, taking his folding ladder and other tools with him, also descends to the yard of the premises they occupy.

Preferring to work as far away from their own quarters as possible, they scale several intervening fences or light walls until they reach the desired house and then start their work upon the back door. If this door is not bolted, an entrance is gained in a moment, but if it is thus secured, they have recourse to the window—and if that can be readily opened with the glazing knife, they gain admittance to the house as quickly as they could have done had they used their nippers upon the lock of the door.

If the window, however, is tight or swollen, and the glazing knife cannot be used, and if the wind is favorable, they noiselessly raise their folding ladder to the sill of the window upon the next floor. This occupies but a few minutes, and as these windows are seldom fastened, many of them not being supplied with any fastening, they speedily enter. As soon as they have entered the building in this manner, the thief makes his way downstairs and quietly unfastens the front parlor window and shutters. This is done in order to deceive the inmates of the house and the police authorities, for when an examination takes place, they invariably arrive at the conclusion that the robbers must have gained an entrance from the front—never for a moment suspecting any of their neighbors, as the back door and rear part of the house are always found intact.

His next move is to unbolt the back door, and if the fences can be scaled easily or there is an alleyway in the rear of the house, he folds up his ladder and sends it back to their lodgings by the outside worker. As soon as the outside man has returned the ladder safely to his quarters, he hurries back and is then stationed at the front door on the inside. Drawing the bolts, he stands with the key in his hand, ready for an alarm. Should the inside thief give this while he IS at work upstairs, his companion instantly unlocks the front door and throws it open, and then quickly and noiselessly springs for the back door. Opening this door and stepping into the yard, he inserts his nippers over the key from the outside, and when his disturbed partner appears and comes out, he closes the door gently and locks it from the outside with the nippers. They then sneak away and return to bed as quietly and easily as though nothing unusual had occurred.

If a police officer is attracted by the alarm and makes an investigation, on finding the front door open, he naturally infers that the burglars have escaped by that means of exit, and in this view he is sustained by the inmates of the house who have found the back doors and windows securely locked and fastened.

After a thief has entered a house and begun to work, the first and most important question is to discover where the valuables are kept. As the front sleeping room on the second floor is usually occupied by the head of the family, this is the first point of attack. If the door is simply locked, the nippers are brought into play, and the key is turned as softly as though run upon the other side, and the door is opened. Sometimes the door is fastened with a bolt, and then the “jointed key” is used. This instrument is shaped and formed as follows:

A stands for the stock, B the inside lever, C the joint, and D is a wire attached to the end of the lever to draw it down when inside the door.

Obtaining the location of the bolt, a hole is bored through the door, sufficiently large to admit the key. The joint then having passed through the door, the wire is drawn, and the lever is thus brought to a right angle with the stock of the key and directly against the handle of the bolt. A “simple twist of the wrist” is all that is necessary, and the bolt is shot back.

Some people, however, have these doors fastened with a bolt and chain, a staple being fastened in the doorpost to hold the end of the chain and the other end of the chain being placed in a slide, which is fastened upon the inside of the door. This chain admits of the door being opened a certain distance, but not sufficiently wide to allow a man to enter. The burglar's methods of overcoming this obstacle are simple and invariably successful. He simply opens the door wide enough for him to obtain the location of the bolt, and then, boring a small gimlet hole over the spot, strong thin wire is inserted through the hole and attached to the knob of the slide. The door is then closed, and a gentle pull upon the wire draws the chain from the slide, and it drops down, thus allowing free and uninterrupted entrance to the ingenious burglar.

Once in the room, the clothing of the gentleman of the house is carefully searched. Bureau drawers are noiselessly opened with the aid of lockpicks, and pillows are carefully examined for hidden valuables. Thus, from one room to another, the thief makes his tour of the inviting portions of the house, and when he has finished his investigations, he joins his friend “at the front door.

They then make their departure by the back door, which they carefully lock behind them, and should time permit, they will try to see another house in the same area.

Sometimes working in houses that are surrounded by soft and yielding ground, in which the shoes they wear would make an impression that might lead to detection, they wear extraordinarily large shoes and, after getting a short distance from the spot, throw them into a neighboring well. As a general thing, should the footmarks be noticed, suspicion falls upon some Black person, as a white man would scarcely wear such mammoth foot covers as those whose impressions are left in the ground.

The devices resorted to by the housebreaker are both many and ingenious and vary from the ideas given above, as the necessity of the emergency requires. Sometimes their entrance is gained through the scuttle in the roof, which they are enabled to reach by securing an unoccupied house in the vicinity and then, by crawling over the roofs of the intervening houses, reaching their points of attention without attracting anyone to the street. In these cases, as in all others, measures are at once taken to provide a means of escape, and before operations are started, the front door and other points of exit are carefully prepared for their departure. In case of detection while at work, the thief will never retire through the roof but will try to mislead both the police and the inmates of the house by opening the front door and escaping at the rear.

Back windows are often pried open with the aid of the strong and ingeniously constructed “jimmy,” and in some cases the burglar obtains admission to a house in the daytime and conceals himself in some unoccupied room until the family has retired, when he issues from his place of hiding and ransacks the premises. Dishonest servant girls, too, have proven to be of valuable help to these thieves, and through their efforts, burglars have gained entrance into premises that otherwise would have resisted their most persistent efforts. It has often been developed that these girls have been the wives, mistresses, and relatives of the thieves, and that they have engaged in service for no other purpose than to further the efforts of the men with whom they were associated. to plunder the families who have employed them.

Of course, there are innumerable other methods adopted by this fraternity of dishonest men and women, and their processes vary according to the skill and ability of the parties engaging in the work. From boys in their teens to men whose hair is whitened with age, the ranks of the housebreakers are filled, and their efforts against the public safety are unceasing.

I have thus described the general mode of work of the expert housebreaker of the present day, although much of their success depends upon the quick and noiseless movements of the thief himself, which are impossible of description and must be left to the imagination of the reader. To be able to pick a lock, to open a bureau drawer and rifle its contents, and to search beneath the pillow of a sleeping victim are all points of the profession upon which I cannot dilate intelligently, but that these men are constantly plying their vocations is fully proven by the records of our daily journals.

To housekeepers, therefore, I say, do not neglect the proper safeguards before retiring for the night, and in case of detecting robbers in your house, do not search for your thief from the front door, because you find it open, or upon the street; but rather seek the rear of your premises, and the chances are largely in favor of finding the disturbers of your sleep and the plunderers of your home engaged in the attempt of scaling your fence and escaping by that means to their convenient hiding place in the immediate vicinity.