"What are you doing?"
"The same old thing," I admitted. "What are you up to?"
"I have squared it, Jim," he replied earnestly. "There's nothing in the graft. Why don't you go to sea?"
"I'd as lief go to stir," I replied.
We had a couple of beers and a long talk, and this is the way he gave it to me:
"I never thought I could live on eighteen dollars a week. I have to work hard but I save more money than I did when I was making hundreds a week; for when it comes hard, it does not go easy. I look twice at my earnings before I part with them. I live quietly with my sister and am happy. There's nothing in the other thing, Jim. Look at Hope. Look at Dan Noble. Look at all the other noted grafters who stole millions and now are willing to throw the brotherly hand for a small borrow. If I had the chance to make thousands to-morrow in the under world, I would not chance it. I am happy. Better still, I am contented. Only for Mr. Wet Coin I'd be splitting matches in the stir these many years. Show me the reformer who has done as much for friends and the public as Wet Coin."
A "touch" that pleased me mightily as a kid was made just before my second fall. Superintendent Walling had returned from a summer resort, and found that a mob of "knucks" (another name for pick-pockets) had been "tearing open" the Third Avenuecars outside of the Post Office. About fifty complaints had been coming in every day for several weeks; and the Superintendent thought he would make a personal investigation and get one of the thieves dead to rights. He made a front that he was easy and went down the line. He did not catch any dips, but when he reached police head-quarters he was minus his gold watch and two hundred and fifty dollars in money. The story leaked out, and Superintendent Walling was unhappy. There would never have been a come-back for this "touch" if an old gun, who had just been nailed, had not "squealed" as to who touched the boss. "Little Mick" had done it, and the result was that he got his first experience in the House of Refuge.
It was only a short time after Little Mick's fall that it came my turn to go to the House of Refuge. I had grown tougher and much stuck on myself and was taking bigger risks. I certainly had a swelled head in those days. I was seventeen years old at the time, and was grafting with Jack T——, who is now in Byrnes's book, and one of the swellest "Peter" men (safe-blowers) in the profession. Jack and I, along with another pal, Joe Quigley, got aduffer, an Englishman, for his "front," on Grand Street, near Broadway. It was a "blow," and I, who was the "wire," got nailed. If I had not given my age as fifteen I should have been sent to the penitentiary. As it was I went to the House of Refuge for a year. Joe Quigley slipped up on the same game. He was twenty, but gave his age as fifteen. He had had a good shave by the Tombs barber, there was a false date of birth written in his Aunt's Bible, which was produced in court by his lawyer, and he would probably have gone with me to the House of Refuge, had not a Central Office man who knew him, happened in; Joe was settled for four years in Sing Sing.
When I arrived at the House of Refuge, my pedigree was taken and my hair clipped. Then I went into the yard, looked down the line of boys on parade and saw about forty young grafters whom I knew. One of them is now a policeman in New York City, and, moreover, on the level. Some others, too, but not many, who were then in the House of Refuge, are now honest. Several are running big saloons and are captains of their election districts, or even higher up. These men areexceptions, however, for certainly the House of Refuge was a school for crime. Unspeakably bad habits were contracted there. The older boys wrecked the younger ones, who, comparatively innocent, confined for the crime of being orphans, came in contact with others entirely hardened. The day time was spent in the school and the shop, but there was an hour or two for play, and the boys would arrange to meet for mischief in the basement.
Severe punishments were given to lads of fifteen, and their tasks were harder than those inflicted in State's prison. We had to make twenty-four pairs of overalls every day; and if we did not do our work we were beaten on an unprotected and tender spot until we promised to do our task. One morning I was made to cross my hands, and was given fifteen blows on the palms with a heavy rattan stick. The crime I had committed was inattention. The principal had been preaching about the Prodigal Son. I, having heard it before, paid little heed; particularly as I was a Catholic, and his teachings did not count for me. They called me a "Papist," and beat me, as I described.
I say without hesitation that lads sent to an institution like the House of Refuge, theCatholic Protectory, or the Juvenile Asylum, might better be taken out and shot. They learn things there they could not learn even in the streets. The newsboy's life is pure in comparison. As for me, I grew far more desperate there than I had been before: and I was far from being one of the most innocent of boys. Many of the others had more to learn than I had, and they learned it. But even I, hard as I already was, acquired much fresh information about vice and crime; and gathered in more pointers about the technique of graft.
I stayed in the House of Refuge until I was eighteen, and when released, went through a short period of reform. I "lasted," I think, nearly three weeks, and then started in to graft again harder than ever. The old itch for excitement, for theatres, balls and gambling, made reform impossible. I had already formed strong habits and desires which could not be satisfied in my environment without stealing. I was rapidly becoming a confirmed criminal. I began to do "house-work," which was mainly sneak work up town. We would catch a basement open in the day time, and rummage for silverware, money or jewels. There is only a step from this to the business of the genuine burglar, who operates in the night time, and whose occupation is far more dangerous than that of the sneak thief. However, at this intermediate kind of graft, our swag, for eighteen months, was considerable.One of our methods was to take servant girls to balls and picnics and get them to tip us off to where the goods were and the best way to get them. Sometimes they were guilty, more often merely suckers.
During the next three years, at the expiration of which I made my first trip to Sing Sing, I stole a great deal of money and lived very high. I contracted more bad habits, practically ceased to see my family at all, lived in a furnished room and "hung out" in the evening at some dance-hall, such as Billy McGlory's Old Armory, George Doe's or "The" Allen's. Sheenie Annie was my sweetheart at this period, and after we had made a good touch what times we would have at Coney Island or at Billy McGlory's! Saturday nights in the summer time a mob of three or four of us, grafters and girls, would go to the island and stop at a hotel run by an ex-gun. At two or three o'clock in the morning we'd all leave the hotel, with nothing on but a quilt, and go in swimming together. Sheenie Annie, Blonde Mamie and Big Lena often went with us. At other times we took respectable shop-girls, or even women who belonged to a still lower class. What boy with anounce of thick blood in his body could refuse to go with a girl to the Island?
And Billy McGlory's! What times we had there, on dear old Saturday nights! At this place, which contained a bar-room, dance-room, pool-room and a piano, congregated downtown guns, house-men and thieves of both sexes. No rag-time was danced in those days, but early in the morning we had plenty of the cancan. The riots that took place there would put to shame anything that goes on now.[A]I never knew the town so tight-shut as it is at present. It is far better, from a moral point of view than it has ever been before; at least, in my recollection. "The" Allen's was in those days a grade more decent than McGlory's; for at "The's" nobody who did not wear a collar and coat was admitted. I remember a pal of mine who met a society lady on a slumming expedition with a reporter. It was at McGlory's. The lady looked upon the grafter she had met as a novelty. The grafter looked upon the lady in the same way, but consented to write her an article on the Bowery. He sent her the following composition, which he showed to me first, and allowed meto copy it. I always did like freaks. I won't put in the bad grammar and spelling, but the rest is:
"While strolling, after the midnight hour, along the Lane, that historic thoroughfare sometimes called the Bowery, I dropped into a concert hall. At a glance, I saw men who worked hard during the week and needed a little recreation. Near them were their sisters (that is, if we all belong to the same human family), who had fallen by the wayside. A man was trying to play a popular song on a squeaky piano, while another gent tried to sing the first part of the song, when the whole place joined in the chorus with a zest. I think the song was most appropriate. It was a ditty of the slums entitled, 'Dear Old Saturday Night.'"
When I was about nineteen I took another and important step in the world of graft. One night I met a couple of swell grafters, one of whom is at the present time a Pinkerton detective. They took me to the Haymarket, where I met a crowd of guns who were making barrels of money. Two of them, Dutch Lonzo and Charlie Allen, became my friends, and introduced me to Mr. R——, whohas often kept me out of prison. He was a go-between, a lawyer, and well-known to all good crooks. If we "fell" we had to notify him and he would set the underground wires working, with the result that our fall money would need replenishing badly, but that we'd escape the stir.
That I was not convicted again for three years was entirely due to my fall money and to the cleverness of Mr. R——. Besides these expenses, which I considered legitimate, I used to get "shaken down" regularly by the police and detectives. The following is a typical case:
I was standing one day on the corner of Grand Street and the Bowery when a copper who knew me came up and said: "There's a lot of knocking (complaining) going on about the Grand Street cars being torn open. The old man (the chief) won't stand for it much longer."
"It wasn't me," I said.
"Well, it was one of the gang," he replied, "and I will have to make an arrest soon, or take some one to headquarters for his mug," (that is, to have his picture taken for the rogues' gallery).
I knew what that meant, and so I gave him a twenty dollar bill. But I was young and often objected to these exorbitant demands. More than anybody else a thief hates to be "touched," for he despises the sucker on whom he lives. And we were certainly touched with great regularity by the coppers.
Still, we really had nothing to complain of in those days, for we made plenty of money and had a good time. We even used to buy our collars, cuffs and gloves cheap from grafters who made it their business to steal those articles. They were cheap guns,—pipe fiends, petty larceny thieves and shop-lifters—but they helped to make our path smoother.
After I met the Haymarket grafter I used to jump out to neighboring cities on very profitable business. A good graft was to work the fairs at Danbury, Waverly, Philadelphia and Pittsburg, and the foot-ball games at Princeton. I always travelled with three or four others, and went for gatherings where we knew we would find "roofers," or country gentlemen. On my very first jump-out I got a fall, but the copper was open to reason. Dutch Lonzo and Charlie Allen, splendid pickpockets, (I always went with good thieves,for I had become a first-class dip and had a good personal appearance) were working with me in Newark, where Vice-President Hendricks was to speak. I picked a watch in the crowd, and was nailed. But Dutch Lonzo, who had the gift of gab better than any man I ever met, took the copper into a saloon. We all had a drink, and for twenty-five dollars I escaped even the station-house. Unfortunately, however, I was compelled to return the watch; for the copper had to "square" the sucker. Then the copper said to Dutch Lonzo, whom he knew: "Go back and graft, if you want, but be sure to look me up." In an hour or two we got enough touches to do us for two weeks. Senator Wet Coin was at this speech with about two hundred Tammany braves, and we picked so many pockets that a newspaper the next day said there must have been at least one hundred and ninety-nine pickpockets in the Tammany delegation. We fell quite often on these trips, but we were always willing to help the coppers pay for their lower flats. I sometimes objected because of their exorbitant demands, but I was still young. I knew that longshoremen did harder work for less pay than the coppers,and I thought, therefore, that the latter were too eager to make money on a sure-thing graft. And I always hated a sure-thing graft.
But didn't we strike it rich in Connecticut! Whether the people of that State suffer from partial paralysis or not I don't know, but certainly if all States were as easy as Connecticut the guns would set up as Vanderbilts. I never even got a tumble in Connecticut. I ripped up the fairs in every direction, and took every chance. The inhabitants were so easy that we treated them with contempt.
After a long trip in Connecticut I nearly fell on my return, I was that raw. We were breech-getting (picking men's pockets) in the Brooklyn cars. I was stalling in front, Lonzo was behind and Charlie was the pick. Lonzo telephoned to me by gestures that Charlie had hold of the leather, but it wouldn't come. I was hanging on a strap, and, pretending to slip, brought my hand down heavily on the sucker's hat, which went over his ears. The leather came, was slipped to me, Lonzo apologized for spoiling the hat and offered the sucker a five dollar bill, which he politely refused. Now that was rough work, and we would not have done it, had we not been travelling so longamong the Reubs in Connecticut. We could have made our gets all right, but we were so confident and delayed so long that the sucker blew before we left the car, and Lonzo and Charlie were nailed, and the next morning arraigned. In the meantime, however, we had started the wires working, and notified Mr. R.—— and Lonzo's wife to "fix" things in Brooklyn. The reliable attorney got a bondsman, and two friends of his "fixed" the cops, who made no complaint. Lonzo's wife, an Irishwoman and a handsome grafter, had just finished a five year bit in London. It cost us six hundred dollars to "fix" that case, and there was only two hundred and fifty dollars in the leather.
That made Lonzo's wife exceedingly angry.
"Good Lord," she said. "There's panthers for you in New York! There's the blokes that shakes you down too heavy. I'd want an unlimited cheque on the Bank of England if you ever fell again."
A little philosophy on the same subject was given me one day by an English Moll, who had fallen up-State and had to "give up" heavily.
"I've been in a good many cities and 'amletsin this country," said she, "but gad! blind me if I ever want to fall in an 'amlet in this blooming State again. The New York police are at least a little sensible at times, but when these Rufus's up the State get a Yorker or a wise guy, they'll strip him down to his socks. One of these voracious country coppers who sing sweet hymns in jail is a more successful gun than them that hit the rocky path and take brash to get the long green. It is only the grafter that is supposed to protect the people who makes a success of it. The hypocritical mouthings of these people just suit the size of their Bibles."
Lonzo and I, and Patsy, a grafter I had picked up about this time, made several fat trips to Philadelphia. At first we were leary of the department stores, there had been so many "hollers," and worked the "rattlers" (cars) only. We were told by some local guns that we could not "last" twenty-four hours in Philadelphia without protection, but that was not our experience. We went easy for a time, but the chances were too good, and we began voraciously to tear open the department stores, the churches and the theatres; and without a fall. Whenever anybody mentioned the fly-cops (detectives) of Philadelphia it remindedus of the inhabitants of Connecticut. They were not "dead": such a word is sacred. Their proper place was not on the police force, but on a shelf in a Dutchman's grocery store labelled the canned article. Philadelphia was always my town, but I never stayed very long, partly because I did not want to become known in such a fat place, and partly because I could not bear to be away from New York very long; for, although there is better graft in other cities, there is no such place to live in as Manhattan. I had no fear of being known in Philadelphia to the police; but to local guns who would become jealous of our grafting and tip us off.
On one of my trips to the City of Brotherly Love I had a poetical experience. The graft had been good, and one Sunday morning I left Dan and Patsy asleep, and went for a walk in the country, intending, for a change, to observe the day of rest. I walked for several hours through a beautiful, quiet country, and about ten o'clock passed a country church. They were singing inside, and for some reason, probably because I had had a good walk in the country, the music affected me strangely. I entered, and saw a blind evangelist and his sister. I bowed my head, and my whole pastlife came over me. Although everything had been coming my way, I felt uneasy, and thought of home for the first time in many weeks. I went back to the hotel in Philadelphia, feeling very gloomy, and shut myself up in my room. I took up my pen and began a letter to a Tommy (girl) in New York. But I could not forget the country church, and instead of writing to the little Tommy, I wrote the following jingles:
"When a child by mother's kneeI would watch, watch, watchBy the deep blue sea,And the moon-beams played merrilyOn our home beside the sea.
"When a child by mother's kneeI would watch, watch, watchBy the deep blue sea,And the moon-beams played merrilyOn our home beside the sea.
"When a child by mother's kneeI would watch, watch, watchBy the deep blue sea,And the moon-beams played merrilyOn our home beside the sea.
"When a child by mother's knee
I would watch, watch, watch
By the deep blue sea,
And the moon-beams played merrily
On our home beside the sea.
Chorus.
"The Evening Star shines bright-i-lyAbove our home beside the sea,And the moon-beams danced beaminglyOn our home beside the sea.But now I am old, infirm and greyI shall never see those happy days;I would give my life, all my wealth, and fameTo hear my mother gently call my name."
"The Evening Star shines bright-i-lyAbove our home beside the sea,And the moon-beams danced beaminglyOn our home beside the sea.But now I am old, infirm and greyI shall never see those happy days;I would give my life, all my wealth, and fameTo hear my mother gently call my name."
"The Evening Star shines bright-i-lyAbove our home beside the sea,And the moon-beams danced beaminglyOn our home beside the sea.But now I am old, infirm and greyI shall never see those happy days;I would give my life, all my wealth, and fameTo hear my mother gently call my name."
"The Evening Star shines bright-i-ly
Above our home beside the sea,
And the moon-beams danced beamingly
On our home beside the sea.
But now I am old, infirm and grey
I shall never see those happy days;
I would give my life, all my wealth, and fame
To hear my mother gently call my name."
Towards evening Patsy and Dan returned from a good day's work. Patsy noticed I was quiet and unusually gloomy, and asked:
"What's the matter? Didn't you get anything?"
"No," I replied, "I'm going back to New York."
"Where have you been?" asked Dan.
"To church," I replied.
"In the city?" he asked.
"No," I replied, "in the country."
"I cautioned you," said Dan, "against taking such chances. There's no dough in these country churches. If you want to try lone ones on a Sunday take in some swell church in the city."
The following Sunday I went to a fashionable church and got a few leathers, and afterwards went to all the swell churches in the city. I touched them, but they could not touch me. I heard all the ministers in Philadelphia, but they could not move me the way that country evangelist did. They were all artificial in comparison.
Shortly after my poetical experience in Philadelphia I made a trip up New York State with Patsy, Dan and Joe, and grafted in a dozen towns. One day when we were on the cars going from Albany to Amsterdam, we saw a fat, sleepy-looking Dutchman, and Inicked him for a clock as he was passing along the aisle to the end of the car. It took the Dutchman about ten minutes after he had returned to his seat to blow that his super was gone, and his chain hanging down. A look of stupid surprise spread over his innocent countenance. He looked all around, picked up the end of his chain, saw it was twisted, put his hand in his vest pocket, then looked again at the end of the chain, tried his pocket again, then went through all of his pockets, and repeated each of these actions a dozen times. The passengers all got "next," and began to grin. "Get on to the Hiker," (countryman) said Patsy to Joe, and they both laughed. I told the Dutchman that the clock must have fallen down the leg of his underwear; whereupon the Reuben retired to investigate, searched himself thoroughly and returned, only to go through the same motions, and then retire to investigate once more. It was as good as a comedy. But it was well there were no country coppers on that train. They would not have cared a rap about the Dutchman's loss of his property, but we four probably should have been compelled to divide with them.
Grafters are a superstitious lot. Before we reached Buffalo a feeling came over me that I had better not work in that town; so Joe, Dan and an English grafter we had picked up, named Scotty, stopped at Buffalo, and Patsy and I went on. Sure enough, in a couple of days Joe wired me that Scotty had fallen for a breech-kick and was held for trial. I wired to Mr. R——, who got into communication with Mr. J——, a Canadian Jew living in Buffalo, who set the wires going. The sucker proved a very hard man to square, but a politician who was a friend of Mr. J—— showed him the errors of his way, and before very long Scotty returned to New York. An English Moll-buzzer, a girl, got hold of him and took him back to London. It was just as well, for it was time for our bunch to break up. We were getting too well-known; and falls were coming too frequent. So we had a general split. Joe went to Washington, Patsy down East, Scotty to "stir" in London and I stayed in Manhattan, where I shortly afterwards met Big Jack and other burglars and started in on that dangerous graft. But before I tell about my work in that line, I will narrate the story of Mamie and Johnny, a famous cracksman,whom I met at this time. It is a true love story of the Under World. Johnny, and Mamie, who by the way is not the same as Blonde Mamie, are still living together in New York City, after many trials and tribulations, one of the greatest of which was Mamie's enforced relation with a New York detective. But I won't anticipate on the story, which follows in the next chapter.
Johnny met Mamie when he was sixteen. At that time he was looked up to in the neighborhood as one of the most promising of the younger thieves.
He was an intelligent, enterprising boy and had, moreover, received an excellent education in the school of crime. His parents had died before he was twelve years old, and after that the lad lived at the Newsboys' Lodging House, in Rivington Street, which at that time and until it ceased to exist was the home of boys some of whom afterwards became the swellest of crooks, and some very reputable citizens and prominent politicians. A meal and a bed there cost six cents apiece and even the youngest and stupidest waif could earn or steal enough for that.
Johnny became an adept at "hooking" things from grocery stores and at tapping tills. When he was thirteen years old he was arrested for petty theft, passed a night in thepolice station, and was sent to the Catholic Protectory, where he was the associate of boys much older and "wiser" in crime than he. At that place were all kinds of incurables, from those arrested for serious felonies to those who had merely committed the crime of being homeless. From them Johnny learned the ways of the under world very rapidly.
After a year of confinement he was clever enough to make a key and escape. He safely passed old "Cop O'Hagen," whose duty it was to watch the Harlem bridge, and returned to the familiar streets in lower New York, where the boys and rising pickpockets hid him from the police, until they forgot about his escape.
From that time Johnny's rise in the world of graft was rapid. He was so successful in stealing rope and copper from the dry-docks that the older heads took him in hand and used to put him through the "fan-light" windows of some store, where his haul was sometimes considerable. He began to grow rich, purchased some shoes and stockings, and assumed a "tough" appearance, with great pride. He rose a step higher, boarded tug-boats and ships anchored at the docks, and constantly increased his income. The boys looked uponhim as a winner in his line of graft, and as he gave "hot'l" (lodging-house) money to those boys who had none, he was popular. So Johnny became "chesty", began to "spread" himself, to play pool, to wear good linen collars and to associate with the best young thieves in the ward.
It was at this time that he met Mamie, who was a year or two younger than he. She was a small, dark, pale-faced little girl, and as neat and quick-witted as Johnny. She lived with her parents, near the Newsboys' Lodging House, where Johnny still "hung out". Mamie's father and mother were poor, respectable people, who were born and bred in the old thirteenth ward, a section famous for the many shop girls who were fine "spielers" (dancers). Mamie's mother was one of the most skillful of these dancers, and therefore Mamie came by her passion for the waltz very naturally; and the light-footed little girl was an early favorite with the mixed crowd of dancers who used to gather at the old Concordia Assembly Rooms, on the Bowery.
It was at this place that Johnny and Mamie met for the first time. It was a case of mutual admiration, and the boy and girl started in to"keep company." Johnny became more ambitious in his line of graft; he had a girl! He needed money to buy her presents, to take her to balls, theatres and picnics; and he began to "gun", which means to pickpockets, an occupation which he found far more lucrative than "swagging" copper from the docks or going through fan-light windows. He did not remain content, however, with "dipping" and, with several much older "grafters", he started in to do "drag" work.
"Drag" work is a rather complicated kind of stealing and success at it requires considerable skill. Usually a "mob" of four grafters work together. They get "tipped off" to some store where there is a line of valuable goods, perhaps a large silk or clothing-house. One of the four, called the "watcher", times the last employee that leaves the place to be "touched". The "watcher" is at his post again early in the morning, to find out at what time the first employee arrives. He may even hire a furnished room opposite the store, in order to secure himself against identification by some Central Office detective who might stroll by. When he has learned the hours of the employees he reports to his "pals". Ata late hour at night the four go to the store, put a spindle in the Yale lock, and break it with a blow from a hammer. They go inside, take another Yale lock, which they have brought with them, lock themselves in, go upstairs, carry the most valuable goods downstairs and pile them near the door. Then they go away, and, in the morning, before the employees are due, they drive up boldly to the store with a truck; representing a driver, two laborers, and a shipping clerk. They load the wagon with the goods, lock the door, and drive away. They have been known to do this work in full view of the unsuspecting policeman on the beat.
While Johnny had advanced to this distinguished work, Mamie, too, had become a bread-earner, of a more modest and a more respectable kind. She went to work in a factory, and made paper boxes for two and one-half dollars a week. So the two dressed very well, and had plenty of spending money. Unless Johnny had some work to do they always met in the evening, and soon were seriously in love with one another. Mamie knew what Johnny's line of business was, and admired his cleverness. The most progressivepeople in her set believed in "getting on" in any way, and how could Mamie be expected to form a social morality for herself? She thought Johnny was the nicest boy in the world, and Johnny returned her love to the full. So Johnny finally asked her if she would "hitch up" with him for life, and she gladly consented.
They were married and set up a nice home in Allen Street. It was before the time when the Jews acquired an exclusive right to that part of the town, and in this neighborhood Mamie and Johnny had many friends who used to visit them in the evening; for the loving couple were exceedingly domestic, and, when Johnny had no business on hand, seldom went out in the evening. Johnny was a model husband. He had no bad habits, never drank or gambled, spent as much time as he could with his wife, and made a great deal of money. Mamie gave up her work in the shop, and devoted all her attention to making Johnny happy and his home pleasant.
For about four years Johnny and Mamie lived very happily together. Things came their way; and Johnny and his pals laid by a considerable amount of money against a rainyday. To be sure, they had their little troubles. Johnny "fell," that is to say, was arrested, a score of times, but succeeded in getting off. It was partly due to good luck, and partly to the large amount of fall-money he and his pals had gathered together.
On one occasion it was only Mamie's cleverness and devotion that saved Johnny, for a time, from the penitentiary. One dark night Johnny and three pals, after a long conversation in the saloon of a ward politician, visited a large jewelry store on Fulton Street, Brooklyn, artistically opened the safe, and made away with fifteen thousand dollars. It was a bold and famous robbery, and the search for the thieves was long and earnest. Johnny and his friends were not suspected at first, but an old saying among thieves is, "wherever there are three or four there is always a leak," a truth similar to that announced by Benjamin Franklin: "Three can keep a secret when two are dead."
One of Johnny's pals, Patsy, told his girl in confidence how the daring "touch" was made. That was the first link in the long chain of gossip which finally reached the ears of the watching detectives; and the result was thatPatsy and Johnny were arrested. It was impossible to "settle" this case, no matter how much "fall-money" they had at their disposal; for the jeweler belonged to the Jewelers' Protective Association, which will prosecute those who rob anyone belonging to their organization.
As bribery was out of the question, Johnny and Patsy, who were what is called in the underworld "slick articles," put their heads together, and worked out a scheme. The day of their trial in the Brooklyn Court came around. They were waiting their turn in the prisoner's "pen," adjoining the Court, when Mamie came to see them. The meeting between her and Johnny was very affecting. After a few words Mamie noticed that her swell Johnny wore no neck-tie. Johnny, seemingly embarrassed, turned to a Court policeman, and asked him to lend him his tie for a short time. The policeman declined, but remarked that Mamie had a tie that would match Johnny's complexion very well. Mamie impulsively took off her tie, put it on Johnny, kissed him, and left the Court-house.
Johnny was to be tried in ten minutes, buthe induced his lawyer to have the trial put off for half an hour; and another case was tried instead. Then he took off Mamie's neck-tie, tore the back out of it, and removed two fine steel saws. He gave one to Patsy, and in a few minutes they had penetrated a small iron bar which closed a little window leading to an alley. Patsy was too large to squeeze himself through the opening, but "stalled" for Johnny while the latter "made his gets". When they came to put these two on trial there was a sensation in Court. No Johnny! Patsy knew nothing about it, he said; and he received six years for his crime.
But Johnny's day for a time in the "stir" soon came around. He made a good "touch", and got away with the goods, but was betrayed by a pal, a professional thief who was in the pay of the police, technically called a "stool-pigeon". Mamie visited Johnny in the Tombs, and when she found the case was hopeless she wanted to go and steal something herself so that she might accompany her boy to prison. But when Johnny told her there were no women at Sing Sing she gave up the idea. Johnny went to prison for four years, and Mamie went to a tattooer, and, as aproof of her devotion, had Johnny's name indelibly stamped upon her arm.
Mamie, in consequence of her fidelity to Johnny, whom she regularly visited at Sing Sing, was a heroine and a martyr in the eyes of the grafters of both sexes. The money she and Johnny had saved began to dwindle, and soon she was compelled to work again at box-making. She remained faithful to Johnny, although many a good grafter tried to make up to the pretty girl. When Johnny was released from Sing Sing, Mamie was even happier than he. They had no money now, but some politicians and saloon-keepers who knew that Johnny was a good money-getter, set them up in a little house. And they resumed their quiet domestic life together.
Their happiness did not last long, however. Johnny needed money more than ever now and resumed his dangerous business. He got in with a quartette of the cleverest safe-crackers in the country, and made a tour of the Eastern cities. They made many important touches, but finally Johnny was again under suspicion for a daring robbery in Union Square, and was compelled to become a solitary fugitive. He sent word, through an old-timeburglar, to Mamie, exhorted her to keep up the home, and promised to send money regularly. He was forced, however, to stay away from New York for several years, and did not dare to communicate with Mamie.
At first, Mamie tried to resume her work at box-making. But she had had so much leisure and had lived so well that she found the work irksome and the pay inadequate. Mamie knew many women pickpockets and shop-lifters, friends of her husband. When some of these adventurous girls saw that Mamie was discontented with her lot, they induced her to go out and work with them. So Mamie became a very clever shop-lifter, and, for a time, made considerable money. Then many of the best "guns" in the city again tried to make up to Mamie, and marry her. Johnny was not on the spot, and that, in the eyes of a thief, constitutes a divorce. But Mamie still loved her wayward boy and held the others back.
In the meantime Johnny had become a great traveller. He knew that the detectives were so hot on his track that he dared to stay nowhere very long; nor dared to trust anyone: so he worked alone. He made a numberof daring robberies, all along the line from Montreal to Detroit, but they all paled in comparison with a touch he made at Philadelphia, a robbery which is famous in criminal annals.
He had returned to Philadelphia, hoping to get a chance to send word to Mamie, whom he had not seen for years, and for whom he pined. While in the city of brotherly love he was "tipped off" to a good thing. He boldly entered a large mercantile house, and, in thirteen minutes, he opened a time-lock vault, and abstracted three hundred thousand dollars worth of negotiable bonds and escaped.
The bold deed made a sensation all over the country. The mercantile house and the safe manufacturers were so hot for the thief that the detectives everywhere worked hard and "on the level". Johnny was not suspected then, and never "did time" for this touch. For a while he hid in Philadelphia; boarded there with a poor, respectable family, representing himself as a laborer out of work. He spent the daytime in a little German beer saloon, playing pinocle with the proprietor; and was perfectly safe.
But his longing for Mamie had grown so strong that he could not bear it. He knew that the detectives were still looking for him because of the old crime, and that they were hot to discover the thief of the negotiable bonds. He sent word to Mamie, nevertheless, through an old pal he found at Philadelphia, and arranged to see her at Mount Vernon, near New York.
The two met in the side room of a little saloon near the railway station; and the greeting was affectionate in the extreme. They had not seen one another for years! And hardly a message had been exchanged. After a little Johnny told Mamie, proudly, that it was he who had stolen the negotiable bonds.
"Now," he added, "we are rich. After a little I can sell these bonds for thirty cents on the dollar and then you and I will go away and give up this life. I am getting older and my nerve is not what it was once. We'll settle down quietly in London or some town where we are not known, and be happy. Won't we, dear?"
Mamie said "Yes," but she appeared confused. When Johnny asked her what wasthe matter, she burst into tears; and choked and sobbed for some time before she could say a word. She ordered a glass of whiskey, which she never used to drink in the old days, and when the bar-tender had left, she turned to the worried Johnny, embraced him tenderly and said, in a voice which still trembled:
"Johnny, will you forgive me if I tell you something? It's pretty bad, but not so bad as it might be, for I love only you."
Johnny encouraged her with a kiss and she continued, in a broken voice:
"When you were gone again, Johnny, I tried to make my living at the old box-making work; but the pay wasn't big enough for me then. So I began to graft—dipping and shop-lifting—and made money. But a Central Office man you used to know—Jim Lennon—got on to me."
"Jim Lennon?" said Johnny, "Sure, I knew him. He used to be sweet on you, Mamie. He treated you right, I hope."
Mamie blushed and looked down.
"Well?" said Johnny.
"Jim came to me one day," she continued, "and told me he wouldn't stand for what I was doing. He said the drygoods peoplewere hollering like mad; and that he'd have to arrest me if I didn't quit. I tried to square him with a little dough, but I soon saw that wasn't what he was after."
"'Look here, Mamie,' he finally said. 'It's just this way. Johnny is a good fellow, but he's dead to you and dead to me. He's done time, and that breaks all marriage ties. Now, I want you to hitch up with me, and lead an honest life. I'll give you a good home, and you won't run any more risk of the pen!'"
Johnny grew very pale as Mamie said the last words; and when she stopped speaking, he said quietly:
"And you did it?"
Mamie again burst into tears. "Oh, Johnny," she cried, "what else could I do. He wouldn't let me go on grafting, and I had to live."
"And so you married him?" Johnny insisted.
The reply was in a whisper.
"Yes," she said.
For the next thirty seconds Johnny thought very rapidly. This woman had his liberty in her hands. He had told her about the negotiable bonds. Besides, he loved Mamie and understood the difficulty of her position. Hislife as a thief had made him very tolerant in some respects. He therefore swallowed his emotion, and turned a kind face to Mamie.
"You still love me?" he asked, "better than the copper?"
"Sure," said Mamie, warmly.
"Now listen," said Johnny, the old business-like expression coming back into his face. "I am hounded for the old trick; and the detectives are looking everywhere for these negotiable bonds, which I have here, in this satchel. Can I trust you with them? Will you mind them for me, until things quiet down?"
"Of course, I will," said Mamie, gladly.
So they parted once more. Johnny went into hiding again, and Mamie went to the detective's house, with the negotiable bonds. She had no intention of betraying Johnny; for she might be arrested for receiving stolen goods; and, besides, she still loved her first husband. So she planted the bonds in the bottom of the detective's trunk.
Here was a pretty situation. Her husband, the detectives, and many other "fly-cops" all over the country, were looking for these negotiable bonds, at the very moment when theywere safely stowed away in the detective's trunk. Mamie and Johnny, who continued to meet occasionally, often smiled at the humor of the situation.
Soon, however, suspicion for the Philadelphia touch began to attach to Johnny. Mamie's detective asked her one evening if she had heard anything about Johnny, of late.
"Not for years," said Mamie, calmly.
But one night, several Central Office men followed Mamie as she went to Mt. Vernon to meet Johnny; and when the two old lovers parted, Johnny was arrested on account of the fifteen thousand dollar robbery in Brooklyn, from the penalty of which he had escaped by means of Mamie's neck-tie many years before. The detectives suspected Johnny of having stolen the bonds, but of this they could get no evidence. So he was sent to Sing Sing for six years on the old charge. When he was safely in prison the detectives induced him to return the bonds, on the promise that he would not be prosecuted at his release, and would be paid a certain sum of money. The mercantile house agreed, and Johnny sent word to Mamie to give up the bonds. Then, of course, the detective knew about the trick that Mamiehad played him. But he, like Johnny, was a philosopher, and forgave the clever woman. When he first heard of it, however, he had said to her, indignantly:
"You cow, if you had given the bonds to me, I would have been made a police captain, and you my queen."
As soon as Johnny got out of stir, Mamie quit the detective, and the couple are now living again together in a quiet, domestic manner, in Manhattan.
For a long time I took Sheenie Annie's advice and did not do any night work. It is too dangerous, the come-back is too sure, you have to depend too much on the nerve of your pals, the "bits" are too long; and it is very difficult to square it. But as time went on I grew bolder. I wanted to do something new, and get more dough. My new departure was not, however, entirely due to ambition and the boldness acquired by habitual success. After a gun has grafted for a long time his nervous system becomes affected, for it is certainly an exciting life. He is then very apt to need a stimulant. He is usually addicted to either opium or chloral, morphine or whiskey. Even at this early period I began to take a little opium, which afterwards was one of the main causes of my constant residence in stir, and was really the wreck of my life, for when a grafter is doped he is inclined to be very reckless. Perhaps if I had never hit the hopI would not have engaged in the dangerous occupation of a burglar.
I will say one thing for opium, however. That drug never makes a man careless of his personal appearance. He will go to prison frequently, but he will always have a good front, and will remain a self-respecting thief. The whiskey dip, on the other hand, is apt to dress carelessly, lose his ambition and, eventually to go down and out as a common "bum".
I began night-work when I was about twenty years old, and at first I did not go in for it very heavily. Big Jack, Jerry, Ed and I made several good touches in Mt. Vernon and in hotels at summer resorts and got sums ranging from two hundred to twenty-seven hundred dollars. We worked together for nearly a year with much success and only an occasional fall, and these we succeeded in squaring. Once we had a shooting-match which made me a little leary. I was getting out the window with my swag, when a shot just grazed my eye. I nearly decided to quit then, but, I suppose because it was about that time I was beginning to take opium, I continued with more boldness than ever.
One night Ed, a close pal of mine, was operatingwith me out in Jersey. We were working in the rear of a house and Ed was just shinning up the back porch to climb in the second story window, when a shutter above was thrown open and, without warning, a pistol shot rang out.
Down came Ed, falling like a log at my feet.
"Are you hurt?" said I.
"Done!" said he, and I saw it was so.
Now a man may be nervy enough, but self-preservation is the first rule of life. I turned and ran at the top of my speed across two back yards, then through a field, then over a fence into what seemed a ploughed field beyond. The ground was rough and covered with hummocks, and as I stumbled along I suddenly tripped and fell ten feet down into an open grave. The place was a cemetery, though I had not recognized it in the darkness. For hours I lay there trembling, but nobody came and I was safe. It was not long after that, however, that something did happen to shake my nerve, which was pretty good. It came about in the following way.
A jeweler, who was a well-known "fence", put us on to a place where we could get thousands. He was one of the most successful"feelers-out" in the business. The man who was my pal on this occasion, Dal, looked the place over with me and though we thought it a bit risky, the size of the graft attracted us. We had to climb up on the front porch, with an electric light streaming right down on us.
I had reached the porch when I got the well-known signal of danger. I hurriedly descended and asked Dal what was the matter.
"Jim," he said, "there's somebody off there, a block away."
We investigated, and you can imagine how I felt when we found nothing but an old goat. It was a case of Dal's nerves, but the best of us get nervous at times.
I went to the porch again and opened the window with a putty knife (made of the rib of a woman's corset), when I got the "cluck" again, and hastily descended, but again found it was Dal's imagination.
Then I grew hot, and said: "You have knocked all the nerve out of me, for sure."
"Jim," he replied, "I ain't feeling good."
Was it a premonition? He wanted to quit the job, but I wouldn't let him. I opened up on him. "What!" I said. "You are willing to steal one piece of jewelry and take yourchance of going to stir, but when we get a good thing that would land us in Easy Street the rest of our lives, you weaken!"
Dal was quiet, and his face unusually pale. He was a good fellow, but his nerve was gone. I braced him up, however, and told him we'd get the "éclat" the third time, sure. Then climbing the porch the third time, I removed my shoes, raised the window again, and had just struck a light when a revolver was pressed on my head. I knocked the man's hand up, quick, and jumped. As I did so I heard a cry and then the beating of a policeman's stick on the sidewalk.
I ran, with two men after me, and came to the gateway of a yard, where I saw a big bloodhound chained to his kennel. He growled savagely, but it was neck or nothing, so I patted his head just as though I were not shaking with fear, slipped down on my hands and knees and crept into his dog-house. Why didn't he bite me? Was it sympathy? When my pursuers came up, the owner of the house, who had been aroused by the cries, said: "He is not here. This dog would eat him up." When the police saw the animal they were convinced of it too.
A little while later I left my friend's kennel. It was four o'clock in the morning and I had no shoes on and only one dollar and sixty cents in my pocket. I sneaked through the back window of the first house I saw, stole a pair of shoes and eighty dollars from a room where a man and his wife were sleeping. Then I took a car. Knowing that I was still being looked for, I wanted to get rid of my hat, as a partial disguise. On the seat with me was a working man asleep. I took his old soft hat, leaving my new derby by his side, and also took his dinner pail. Then when I left the car I threw away my collar and necktie, and reached New York, disguised as a workingman. The next day the papers told how poor old Dal had been arrested. Everything that had happened for weeks was put on him.
A week later Dal was found dead in his cell, and I believe he did the Dutch act (suicide), for I remember one day, months before that fatal night, Dal and I were sitting in a politicians saloon, when he said to me:
"Jim, do you believe in heaven?"
"No," said I.
"Do you believe in hell?" he asked.
"No," said I.
"I've got a mind to find out," he said quickly, and pointed a big revolver at his teeth. One of the guns in the saloon said: "Let him try it," but I knocked the pistol away, for something in his manner made me think seriously he would shoot.
"You poor brute," I said to him. "I'll put your ashes in an urn some day and write "Dear Old Saturday Night" for an epitaph for you; but it isn't time yet."
It did not take many experiences like the above to make me very leary of night-work; and I went more slowly for some time. I continued to dip, however, more boldly than ever and to do a good deal of day work; in which comparatively humble graft the servant girls, as I have already said, used to help us out considerably. This class of women never interested me as much as the sporting characters, but we used to make good use of them; and sometimes they amused us.
I remember an entertaining episode which took place while Harry, a pal of mine at the time, and I, were going with a couple of these hard-working Molls. Harry was rather inclined to be a sure-thing grafter, of which class of thievesI shall say more in another chapter; and after my recent dangerous adventures I tolerated that class more than was customary with me. Indeed, if Harry had been the real thing I would have cut him dead; as it was he came near enough to the genuine article to make me despise him in my ordinary mood. But, as I say, I was uncommonly leary just at that time.
He and I were walking in Stuyvesant Square when we met a couple of these domestic slaves. With a "hello," we rang in on them, walked them down Second Avenue and had a few drinks all around. My girl told me whom she was working with. Thinking there might be something doing I felt her out further, with a view to finding where in the house the stuff lay. Knowing the Celtic character thoroughly, I easily got the desired information. We took the girls into Bonnell's Museum, at Eighth Street and Broadway, and saw a howling border melodrama, in which wild Indians were as thick as Moll-buzzers in 1884. Mary Anne, who was my girl, said she should tell her mistress about the beautiful play; and asked for a program. They were all out, and so I gave her an old one, of another play,which I had in my pocket. We had a good time, and made a date with them for another meeting, in two weeks from that night; but before the appointed hour we had beat Mary Anne's mistress out of two hundred dollars worth of silverware, easily obtained, thanks to the information I had received from Mary Anne. When we met the girls again, I found Mary Anne in a great state of indignation; I was afraid she was "next" to our being the burglars, and came near falling through the floor. But her rage, it seemed, was about the play. She had told her mistress about the wild Indian melodrama she had seen, and then had shown her the program ofThe Banker's Daughter.
"But there is no such thing as an Indian inThe Banker's Daughter," her mistress had said. "I fear you are deceiving me, Mary Anne, and that you have been to some low place on the Bowery."
The other servants in the house got next and kidded Mary Anne almost to death about Indians andThe Banker's Daughter. After I had quieted her somewhat she told me about the burglary that had taken place at her house, and Harry and I were much interested. Shewas sure the touch had been made by two "naygers" who lived in the vicinity.
It was shortly after this incident that I beat Blackwell's Island out of three months. A certain "heeler" put me on to a disorderly house where we could get some stones. I had everything "fixed." The "heeler" had arranged it with the copper on the beat, and it seemed like a sure thing; although the Madam, I understood, was a good shot and had plenty of nerve. My accomplice, the heeler, was a sure thing grafter, who had selected me because I had the requisite nerve and was no squealer. At two o'clock in the morning a trusted pal and I ascended from the back porch to the Madam's bed-room. I had just struck a match, when I heard a female voice say, "What are you doing there?" and a bottle, fired at my head, banged up against the wall with a crash. I did not like to alarm women, and so I made my "gets" out the window, over the fence, and into another street, where I was picked up by a copper, on general principles.
The Madam told him that the thief was over six feet tall and had a fierce black mustache. As I am only five feet seven inches and was smoothly shaven, it did not seem likean identification; although when she saw me she changed her note, and swore I was the man. The copper, who knew I was a grafter, though he did not think I did that kind of work, nevertheless took me to the station-house, where I convinced two wardmen that I had been arrested unjustly. When I was led before the magistrate in the morning, the copper said the lady's description did not tally with the short, red-haired and freckled thief before his Honor. The policemen all agreed, however, that I was a notorious grafter, and the magistrate, who was not much of a lawyer, sent me to the Island for three months on general principles.
I was terribly sore, for I knew I had been illegally treated. I felt as much a martyr as if I had not been guilty in the least; and I determined to escape at all hazards; although my friends told me I would be released any day; for certainly the evidence against me had been insufficient.
After I had been on the Island ten days I went to a friend, who had been confined there several months and said: "Eddy, I have been unjustly convicted for a crime I committed—such was my way of putting it—andI am determined to make my elegant, (escape) come what will. Do you know the weak spots of this dump?"
He put me "next", and I saw there was a chance, a slim one, if a man could swim and didn't mind drowning. I found another pal, Jack Donovan, who, like me, could swim like a fish; he was desperate too, and willing to take any chance to see New York. Five or six of us slept together in one large cell, and on the night selected for our attempt, Jack and I slipped into a compartment where about twenty short term prisoners were kept. Our departure from the other cell, from which it was very difficult to escape after once being locked in for the night, was not noticed by the night guard and his trusty because our pals in the cell answered to our names when they were called. It was comparatively easy to escape from the large room where the short term men were confined. Into this room, too, Jack and I had taken tools from the quarry during the daytime.
It was twelve o'clock on a November night when we made our escape. We took ropes from the canvas cot, tied them together, and lowered ourselves to the ground on the outside,where we found bad weather, rain and hail. We were unable to obtain a boat, but secured a telegraph pole, rolled it into the water, and set off with it for New York. The terrific tide at Hellgate soon carried us well into the middle of Long Island Sound, and when we had been in the water half an hour, we were very cold and numb, and began to think that all was over. But neither of us feared death. All I wanted was to save enough money to be cremated; and I was confident my friends would see to that. I don't think fear of death is a common trait among grafters. Perhaps it is lack of imagination; more likely, however, it is because they think they won't be any the worse off after death.
Still, I was not sorry when a wrecking boat suddenly popped our way. The tug did not see us, and hit Jack's end of the pole a hard blow that must have shaken him off. I heard him holler "Save me," and I yelled too. I didn't think anything about capture just then. All my desire to live came back to me.
I was pulled into the boat. The captain was a good fellow. He was "next" and only smiled at my lies. What was more to the purpose he gave me some good whiskey,and set me ashore in Jersey City. Jack was drowned. All through life I have been used to losing a friend suddenly by the wayside; but I have always felt sad when it happened. And yet it would have been far better for me if I had been picked out for an early death. I guess poor Jack was lucky.
Certainly there are worse things than death. Through these three years of continual and for the most part successful graft, I had known a man named Henry Fry whose story is one of the saddest. If he had been called off suddenly as Jack was, he would certainly have been deemed lucky by those who knew; for he was married to a bad woman. He was one of the most successful box-men (safe-blowers) in the city, and made thousands, but nothing was enough for his wife. She used to say, when he would put twelve hundred dollars in her lap, "This won't meet expenses. I need one thousand dollars more." She was unfaithful to him, too, and with his friends. When I go to a matinée and see a lot of sleek, fat, inane looking women, I wonder who the poor devils are who are having their life blood sucked out of them. Certainly it was so with Henry, or Henny, as we used to call him.
One day, I remember, we went down the Sound with a well-known politician's chowder party, and Henny was with us. Two weeks earlier New York had been startled by a daring burglary. A large silk-importer's place of business was entered and his safe, supposed to be burglar-proof, was opened. He was about to be married, and his valuable wedding presents, which were in the safe, and six thousand dollars worth of silk, were stolen. It was Henny and his pals who had made the touch, but on this beautiful night on the Sound, Henny was sad. We were sitting on deck, as it was a hot summer night, when Henny jumped off his camp-stool and asked me to sing a song. I sang a sentimental ditty, in my tenor voice, and then Henny took me to the side of the boat, away from the others.
"Kid," he said, "I feel trouble coming over me."
"Cheer up," I replied. "You're a little down-hearted, that's all."
"I wish to God," he said, "I was like you."
I pulled out a five dollar bill and a two dollar bill and remarked: "I've got just seven dollars to my name."
He turned to me and said:
"But you are happy. You don't let anything bother you."
Henny did not drink as a rule; that was one reason he was such a good box-man, but on this occasion we had a couple of drinks, and I sang "I love but one." Then Henny ordered champagne, grew confidential, and told me his troubles.
"Kid" he said, "I've got thirty five hundred dollars on me. I have been giving my wife a good deal of money, but don't know what she does with it. In sixty days I have given her three thousand dollars, and she complains about poverty all the time."
Henny had a nice flat of seven or eight rooms; he owed nothing and had no children. He said he was unable to find any bank books in his wife's trunk, and was confident she was not laying the money by. She did not give it to her people, but even borrowed money from her father, a well-to-do builder.
Two days after the night of the excursion, one of Henny's pals in the silk robbery, went into a gin mill, treated everybody, and threw a one thousand dollar bill down on the bar.Grafters, probably more than others, like this kind of display. It is the only way to rise in their society. A Central Office detective saw this little exhibition, got into the grafters confidence and weeded him out a bit. A night or two afterwards Henny was in bed at home, when the servant girl, who was in love with Henny, and detested his wife because she treated her husband so badly (she used to say to me, "She ain't worthy to tie his shoe string") came to the door and told Henny and his wife that a couple of men and a policeman in uniform were inquiring for him. Henny replied sleepily that they were friends of his who had come to buy some stones; but the girl was alarmed. She knew that Henny was crooked and feared that those below meant him no good. She took the canvas turn-about containing burglar's tools which hung on the wall near the bed, and pinned it around her waist, under her skirt, and then admitted the three visitors.
The sergeant said to Henny, who had dressed himself, "You are under suspicion for the silk robbery." Yet there was, as is not uncommon, a "but," which is as a rule a monetary consideration. Henny knew that the crime was old,and, as he thought his "fence" was safe, he did not see how there could be a come-back. So he did not take the hint to shell out, and worked the innocent con. But those whose business it is to watch the world of prey, put two and two together, and were "next" that Henny and his mob had pulled off the trick. So they searched the house, expecting to find, if notéclat, at least burglars tools; for they knew that Henny was at the top of the ladder, and that he must have something to work with. While the sergeant was going through Henny's trunk, one of the flymen fooled with the pretty servant girl. She jumped, and a pair of turners fell on the floor. It did not take the flyman long to find the whole kit of tools. Henny was arrested, convicted, and sent to Sing Sing for five years. While in prison he became insane, his delusion being that he was a funny man on the Detroit Free Press, which he thought was owned by his wife.
I never discovered what Henny's wife did with the money she had from him. When I last heard of her she was married to another successful grafter, whom she was making unhappy also. In a grafter's life a woman often takes the part of the avenger of society.She turns against the grafters their own weapons, and uses them with more skill, for no man can graft like a woman.
I had now been grafting for three years in the full tide of success. Since the age of eighteen I had had no serious fall. I had made much money and lived high. I had risen in the world of graft, and I had become, not only a skillful pickpocket, but a good swindler and drag-worker and had done some good things as a burglar. I was approaching my twenty-first year, when, as you will see, I was to go to the penitentiary for the first time. This is a good place, perhaps, to describe my general manner of life, my daily menu, so to speak, during these three fat years: for after my first term in state's prison things went from bad to worse.
I lived in a furnished room; or at a hotel. If there was nothing doing in the line of graft, I'd lie abed late, and read the newspapers to see if any large gathering, where we might make some touches, was on hand. One of my girls, of whom there was a long succession, was usually with me. We would breakfast, if the day was an idle one, about one or two o'clockin the afternoon. Then we'd send to the restaurant and have a beefsteak or chops in our rooms, and perhaps a whiskey sour. If it was another grafter's girl I'd won I'd be greatly pleased, for that kind of thing is a game with us. In the afternoon I'd take in some variety show; or buy the "Tommy" a present; if it was summer we might go to a picnic, or to the Island. If I was alone, I would meet a pal, play billiards or pool, bet on the races, baseball and prize fights, jump out to the Polo grounds, or go to Patsy's house and have a game of poker. Patsy's wife was a handsome grafter; and Patsy was jealous. Every gun is sensitive about his wife, for he doesn't know how long he will have her with him. In the evening I would go to a dance-hall; or to Coney Island if the weather was good.
If it was a busy day, that is, if there was a touch to be pulled off, we would get up in the morning or the afternoon, according to the best time for the particular job in hand. In the afternoon we would often graft at the Polo grounds, where we had a copper "right." We did not have the same privileges at the race track, because it was protected by the Pinkerton men. We'd console ourselves atthe Polo grounds, which we used to tear wide open, and where I never got even a hint of a fall; the coppers got their percentage of the touches. In the morning we would meet at one of the grafters homes or rooms and talk over our scheme for the day or night. If we were going outside the city we would have to rise very early. Sometimes we were sorry we had lost our sleep; particularly the time we tried to tear open the town of Sing Sing, near which the famous prison is. We found nothing to steal there but pig iron, and there were only two pretty girls in the whole village. We used to jump out to neighboring towns, not always to graft, but sometimes to see our girls, for like sailors, the well-dressed, dapper pickpocket has a girl in every port. If we made a good touch in the afternoon we'd go on a spree in the evening with Sheenie Annie, Blonde Mamie, Big Lena or some other good-natured lasses, or we'd go over and inspect the Jersey maidens. After a good touch we would put some of the dough away for fall-money, or for our sick relatives or guns in stir or in the hospital. We'd all chip in to help out a woman grafter in trouble, and pool a piece of jewelry sometimes, for the purpose.Then, our duty done, we would put on our best front, and visit our friends and sporting places. Among others we used to jump over to a hotel kept by an ex-gun, one of the best of the spud men (green goods men), who is now on the level and a bit of a politician. He owns six fast horses, is married and has two beautiful children.
A few months before I was sent to the penitentiary for the first time, I had my only true love affair. I have liked many girls, but sentiment of the kind I felt for Ethel has played little part in my life. For Ethel I felt the real thing, and she for me. She was a good, sensible girl, and came from a respectable family. She lived with her father, who was a drummer, and took care of the house for him. She was a good deal of a musician, and, like most other girls, she was fond of dancing. I first met her at Beethoven Hall, and was introduced to her by a man, an honest laborer, who was in love with her. I liked her at first sight, but did not love her until I had talked with her. In two weeks we were lovers, and went everywhere together. The workingman who loved her too was jealous and began to knock me. He told her I was a grafter, butshe would not believe him; and said nothing to me about it, but it came to my ears through an intimate girl pal of hers. Shortly after that I fell for a breech-kick (was arrested for picking a man's trouser's pocket), but I had a good lawyer and the copper was one of those who are open to reason. I lay a month in the Tombs, however, before I got off, and Ethel learned all about it. She came to the Tombs to see me, but, instead of reproaches, I got sympathy from her. After I was released I gave her some of my confidence. She asked me if I wouldn't be honest, and go to work; and said she would ask her father to get me a job. Her father came to me and painted what my life would be, if I kept on. I thought the matter over sincerely. I had formed expensive habits which I could not keep up on any salary I could honestly make. Away down in my mind (I suppose you would call it soul) I knew I was not ready for reform. I talked with Ethel, and told her that I loved her, but that I could not quit my life. She said she would marry me anyway. But I thought the world of her, and told her that though I had blasted my own life I would not blast hers. I would not marry her, she wasso good and affectionate. When we parted, I said to myself: Man proposes, habit disposes.