MAKING A LIVELYHOOD BY CRIME

 The ways of making a livelihood by crime are many, and the number of men and women who live by their wits in all large cities reaches into the thousands. Certain criminals use their skills to maximize their financial gain. Robbery is now classed as a profession, and in the place of the awkward and hang-dog-looking thief we have the intelligent and thoughtful rogue. There seems to be a strange fascination about crime that draws men of brains, with their eyes wide open, into its meshes. Many people, and especially those whose knowledge of criminal life is purely theoretical or derived from novels, imagine that persons entering criminal pursuits are governed by what they have been previously and that a criminal pursuit once adopted is, as a rule, adhered to; in other words, a man once a pickpocket is always a pickpocket, or another, once a burglar, is always a burglar. Hardly any supposition could be more mistaken. Primarily there are, of course, predisposing influences that have a certain effect on governing choice. A man of education, refined habits, and possibly a minimum of courage would not be likely to adopt the criminal walks requiring brute force and nerve. Such a one would be far more likely to become a forger or counterfeiter than a highway robber. Still, under certain circumstances—opportunity and the mode of working of those who were his tutors in crime, he might be either foreign as they would be to his nature. Criminal occupation, however, is, like everything else, progressive. Two things stand in the way of the beginner in crime attaching himself to what he may view, taking them in the criminal's own light—as the higher walks of predatory industry, the top rungs of the criminal ladder. The first is, naturally, lack of experience and skill; the second, lack of confidence in him or knowledge of him by the more seasoned and experienced—cooperation would be needed.

Hence, if he cannot strike out for himself by the force of his own genius in some new line of forgery, confidence operations, embezzlements, or others of the class of crimes dependent upon brains, adroitness, and address for their success, he must enter on the broad level as a general thief—one of the class who will steal anything that they can get away with, from a needle to a ship's anchor. From that level he may rise, partly by the force of his own increased knowledge of the practice of crime, partly by his natural adaptability for special methods of preying upon the community, and partly by the advice and cooperation of older criminals with whom he comes in contact, whether at liberty or doing time in a prison. From a petty general sneak thief, he may become one of a gang of pickpockets, and from a pickpocket, in the course of time, he may suddenly come to the front with distinction even as a first-class bank burglar. Cracksmen of this class head the list of mechanical thieves. It requires rare qualities in a criminal to become an expert bank-safe robber. Thieves of this high grade stand unrivaled among their kind. The professional bank burglar must have patience, intelligence, mechanical knowledge, industry, determination, fertility of resources, and courage—all in high degree. But, even if he has all these, they cannot be used unless he can find suitable associates or gain admission to one of the already organized gangs.