A life of crime is a life of hard work, great risk, and, comparatively speaking, small pay. Anyone who has followed these articles will agree at once that whatever the criminal gets out of his existence he pays very dearly for. Not only is he constantly running great physical dangers—the risk of being shot or otherwise injured and of being caught and imprisoned—but many of his most carefully planned criminal enterprises are doomed to failure and he has only his labor for his pains.
Quite frequently bank burglars devote as much as three or four months of hard labor in preparing for an important robbery and, in a large percentage of cases, they find that, after all their patience and industry, it is impossible for them to execute the robbery they have so carefully planned and all their work goes for nought. Sometimes, too, they are interrupted in their work and have to flee, leaving behind their kits of valuable tools. Watchmen's bullets are ever threatening their lives and prison walls constantly loom up before them.
In view of these facts one would imagine that the money which the professional criminal makes at such great risk and expense and with so much difficulty would have an enhanced value in his eyes. But this[Pg 251] is not so. Not only is the professional criminal an inveterate gambler, as I have repeatedly pointed out, but the great majority of them are generous to a fault.
While this generosity is almost universal in the underworld, those unfamiliar with the workings of the criminal heart would give it very little credit for such impulses.
My experience in the underworld has thoroughly convinced me that no criminal is wholly bad. I know that beneath the rough exterior of many of the desperate criminals with whom I came in contact beat hearts that were tender. To-day I shall relate some of the more striking incidents which come back to me and which illustrate some of the good qualities possessed by the notorious criminals with whom I associated.
I am reminded of an experience I had with Dan Nugent, the bank burglar. I may say incidentally that this man Nugent was absolutely fearless and would resort to any measure, however desperate, to accomplish his purpose. He was a man to be feared and it was dangerous to cross him. But that this criminal had some very excellent qualities will appear from the following incident, now told for the first time.
While in Kansas City I robbed a bank, securing some four thousand dollars. As I was leaving the bank—it was in the day time—I saw Nugent going in. Evidently he had planned to rob the bank himself. We did not speak.
[Pg 252]
Within a few minutes after my departure the robbery was discovered. The doors were at once closed and no one was allowed to leave without first undergoing the scrutiny of the detectives who had been summoned by telephone. Poor Dan was caught in the trap and his identity being established he was at once arrested on suspicion of having been implicated in the robbery, if not the actual perpetrator of it, although the only evidence against him was the fact of being on the premises.
Dan was kept in custody for some hours, but at length the police were compelled to let him go, being unable to strengthen their case against him.
Later that day I happened to run into him.
"Sophie," he said threateningly, "you owe me two thousand dollars!"
"How do you make that out?" I asked quite innocently, not knowing to what he was referring. I didn't know then that the robbery I had committed had been discovered and that Nugent had been arrested for it.
"You got four thousand dollars in the bank this morning," he replied bitterly, "and I got arrested for it."
He seemed to be in a very ugly frame of mind and I knew he was not a man to be trifled with. I asked him to step into a café and talk it over. We entered the back room of a nearby saloon and Nugent ordered some drinks.
There were various persons seated at other tables in the place, but we attracted no particular [Pg 253]attention. After the waiter had served us and left the room, Nugent took off his hat, held it across the table as though he were handing it to me, and beneath the shelter it afforded pointed a gun at me.
SOPHIE, IF YOU DON'T HAND ME $2,000, I'LL BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF
"SOPHIE, IF YOU DON'T HAND ME $2,000, I'LL BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF"
"Sophie, if you don't divide up on that job, I will blow your head off!" he threatened in a low voice.
I admit I was frightened, but I did not lose my head. Instead I began to cry copiously.
"Dan," I sobbed, "I declare by all I hold holy I didn't get any money in the bank this morning. I've just gotten out of jail and I'm dead broke. My poor children need lots of things I can't buy them. I wish I had got that money at the bank this[Pg 254] morning, but I didn't. It must have been some one else who made a safe get-away, and I think it's pretty mean of you to treat me this way," and I began to cry more strenuously than ever.
Dan looked at me a moment searchingly and then, deciding that my grief was genuine, put up his gun.
"Don't cry, Sophie. I thought you got the money, and I wanted my bit, that's all. I'm sorry to have scared you. Forget it, old girl, and cheer up."
Nugent then asked me what the kids at home needed, and I told him everything I could think of. He took me by the arm and marched me into a dry goods store and made a number of purchases of the things he thought the children would want, and gave them to me, along with a little money for myself. We then parted, Nugent wishing me all kinds of luck and firmly believing in my fairy tale.
I really ought to have shared the money with Nugent because I had stolen a march on him in robbing the bank before he got a chance, and he got into trouble through me. But I knew he had made a big haul in a bank a month previous, and I was practically without funds, so he could more easily afford the loss of the two thousand than I could. But, like most criminals, Nugent had a kind heart, and, when his finer nature was appealed to, he could not help being noble and generous.
As another illustration of the kindness of heart of some criminals, let me tell of a letter I received from a world-renowned criminal, whose name I will[Pg 255] not now disclose. This unfortunate man is now serving a term in a foreign prison for a daring bank robbery in which he was caught through his anxiety to help a pal—although if he had thought only of himself he would have been free. I will quote from his letter to me and you will see the kindness that dwells in his big heart:
"My dear Pal:—Now, I want you to do me a little favor. Don't send me any money or presents at Christmas, but take the money that you would use on me, and go out and buy some turkeys and give them to some of the poor people who live around your place. It will make them feel good, and it will be a better way to use the money than to waste it by sending it over to me."
A man who can write such a thoughtful letter as the above and can sympathize with others in distress is not entirely a bad man, even though he is a convicted criminal. It is sad, indeed, to think that such a large hearted man should have to spend most of his days behind prison bars instead of being at some kind of labor where he could be of service to mankind and do all the decent things which his kindly thoughts of others would prompt him to do.
Not because I want to convey the impression that I am better than any of the other criminals whose exploits I am narrating, but, on the contrary, because the incident I am about to relate is typical of what notorious criminals are doing every day, I[Pg 256] am going to tell of another experience in which I figured.
It was when I was in New York. One day, while loitering in a bank in the vicinity of Broadway and Chambers street, I observed a woman draw some money. She put it in a handkerchief and then placed the handkerchief in her pocket. I was in need of money pretty badly just then and decided to follow the woman and get the money.
After she came out of the bank I got close to her and had no trouble in taking out the handkerchief and the money. She was walking down toward the river front and, having started in that direction, too, I had to continue for a block or so in order not to excite suspicion by turning back. I walked a little behind the woman, and, when we reached the middle of the block, she stopped and spoke to me:
"I beg your pardon, madame, but can you tell me where the French line steamboats dock?"
I directed her to the proper place and we got into conversation. She told me that she was going home to her mother in France in order to die there. She had been given up by the doctors here as an incurable consumptive and had sold all her goods for a few hundred dollars with which she was to pay her fare and give the rest to her mother. I became interested in this, for it seemed to me that I had robbed a woman in distress of her last dollar, and that was something I did not like to do.
I asked her if she had money besides the amount she drew out of the bank (she had told me of taking[Pg 257] the money from the bank), and she said that was all she had in the world. I could not think of keeping her money after that, because, when the poor woman reached the ticket office and found her money gone and her trip abroad impossible, she would probably have died of the shock. So I determined to put the money back in the poor French woman's pocket. I walked along with her to the ticket office and, while she was talking to the agent, I slipped the money back in her pocket. She bought her ticket and went aboard the boat and I felt pleased that I had not kept the money.
That evening I told some of my criminal friends of the transaction, and several of them seemed disgusted with me because I had not put in some money of my own along with the small mite the woman had so that she would be cheered up a bit. They thought it mean of me not to do more than I did to help along a woman so unfortunate as this sick woman.
On several other occasions I voluntarily returned stolen money to people when I found out that they were more in need of it than myself. I stole a satchel from a woman in a bank once and it contained a few hundred dollars. The next day I discovered in the paper that the woman was blind and I was referred to as the meanest kind of a thief. When I learned this I hastened to return the money to the unfortunate woman. I never could sleep easy if I thought that any really deserving person suffered from my thieving. I tried to confine my work to people who could afford to lose their money and would soon[Pg 258] forget the affair. A very poor person who loses the savings of a lifetime never gets over the shock of his or her loss and it causes real suffering. It didn't worry me any to make people feel resentful and indignant, but I could not bear the thought of making anybody unhappy.
I was in Paris many years ago and stopping at one of the most fashionable hotels in the city. Mrs. Lorillard, the society woman, was occupying rooms adjoining mine, and I was trying to get her jewelry. She always carried a great amount of jewelry with her, and I knew the prize was a good one. She had two maids with her, one of whom had to keep watch over two satchels in which the jewelry was secreted.
The maids were honest girls and we could not do any business through them, but we followed the party from place to place expecting that some time the girl would forget to take proper care of her satchels, and then our opportunity to steal them would arrive. A few days after Mrs. Lorillard had settled at this hotel she attended some reception in Paris and, of course, her jewelry bags had to be taken from the hotel safe, where they had been placed for safety.
Mrs. Lorillard picked out the particular pieces of jewelry she wanted to wear at the reception, and closed up the two bags, turning them over to the maid to place in the safe. The maid came out of the apartment with the two bags, and I met her in the hall and began to ask her some trivial question. She stopped to talk with me and laid down the bags.[Pg 259] While I kept her engaged in conversation a comrade of mine crept up, substituted another bag for one of the jewelry receptacles and skipped off. I continued to talk a little longer and then the girl and I parted, she going downstairs to the safe with the two bags, not suspecting that I had deliberately held her in conversation while my friend had taken one of the precious bags.
My associate went to another hotel and concealed the jewelry, while I stayed there in my room, not wishing to attract attention by leaving at such a critical time, for, after the robbery was discovered, if it had been found that I had left at the same time it would have been natural for suspicion to be directed at me.
The following day, when the bags were sent for in order for Mrs. Lorillard to put back the jewels she had worn at the reception, it was found that one of the bags was missing and there was great excitement. Detectives by the score were sent for and the whole hotel was searched top and bottom for a clew.
That evening, after I had retired, I heard a woman sobbing in the adjoining room, and, as the sobs continued for some time, I knocked and asked if I could be of assistance to her. She opened the door and invited me into her room. It was Mrs. Lorillard. She told me of the robbery and said that it was not the jewelry she worried about but the loss of a picture of her dead child which was very dear to her. She thought more of the picture than the jewels[Pg 260] and her grief over its disappearance was pathetic. I consoled her as best I could, and told her I had had some experience as a detective and thought I could secure the return of the picture without any trouble, especially as it was not valuable to the thieves. The following day I took back the picture to the woman and she was overjoyed at its return. After remaining in the hotel long enough not to excite suspicion by my departure, I left to meet my pals and divide the proceeds of the job. The jewels we had taken were the best in the Lorillard collection, and each one of the party made a good profit on the transaction. A number of years after this event Mrs. Lorillard committed suicide, which was induced by a spell of melancholy, brought on probably by thoughts of her dead boy, whom she dearly loved.
I have already mentioned how Langdon W. Moore, the notorious bank burglar, whose activities in New England made him more feared throughout that section than any other criminal who ever operated, once frustrated an attempt to rob a bank at Francetown, New Hampshire, after having consented to participate in it, because the bank was located near his own birthplace and he did not feel like robbing his parents' old neighbors.
This man Langdon, like many other criminals of the same caliber, made it a rule of his life never to use violence. Frequently he abandoned a contemplated criminal enterprise upon which he had spent months of hard work because he found that[Pg 261] he could not carry out his original plan without injuring a watchman or other person.
Of course, when hard pressed it was sometimes necessary for Langdon to fight his way to liberty, in such cases he always made reparation to the injured man as far as lay in his power. On one occasion, when he had fractured the skull of an officer who had sought to capture him, he caused $2,500 in cash to be sent to the injured man.
Other criminals frequently exhibit similar noble qualities.
Loyalty to his comrades is another trait found in almost every professional criminal. "Honor among thieves" is a phrase commonly used, but few realize upon what a strong foundation it rests. I know of innumerable instances where criminals risked their own liberty and even their lives in order to assist a comrade in danger.
Mark Shinburn, the noted bank burglar, once displayed bravery and loyalty of a character which is seldom excelled even on the battlefield. He had participated with Eddie Quinn and a third bank burglar in the robbery of a Western bank. Just as the three were leaving the bank the watchman appeared upon the scene. There was nothing to do but run. The watchman opened fire. Quinn dropped. Without a moment's hesitation Shinburn stopped in his flight, although the watchman was close upon them, and, lifting his fallen comrade to his broad shoulders, continued his flight at reduced speed.
[Pg 262]
Shinburn was a very powerful fellow and even with his wounded comrade on his shoulders he was able to outrun the watchman. He soon caught up with the third man of the party and they made for the woods. When they lowered Quinn to the ground they found that he was dying. The burglar had only a few minutes to live. Quinn was conscious and begged his comrades to get a priest to administer the last rites, realizing that his end was near.
The two men with him knew it was impossible to get a priest, but they wanted to make the last moments of Quinn's life as happy as possible. To leave the woods at this time, however, was to invite capture, for the watchman had undoubtedly aroused the neighborhood and the woods would naturally be the first place searched for the fugitives. Nevertheless Shinburn decided to take a chance and left the dying man to comply with his last wish. He knew that it would be almost impossible to get a priest, but he broke into a furnishing store on the outskirts of the woods and went back to his dying comrade wearing a costume very much like that of a priest.
The approaching hand of death had dimmed the dying burglar's sight and he had no suspicion that the "priest" was his big-hearted comrade. In a slow, solemn tone Shinburn spoke words of encouragement to his dying friend, and the unfortunate man passed away, comforted by what he thought were the sacred words of a priest.
But instances of noble deeds among criminals[Pg 263] whose souls are generally believed to be wholly black might be narrated without end. These men and women who declare war against society only to find that CRIME DOES NOT PAY are not without their redeeming qualities.
Their evil deeds are published far and wide, but the good that they do seldom comes to light.
SOPHIE LYONS.