THIEVES AND THIEVING (PART ONE)
by Anon
The Cornhill Magazine (September 1860)
The subject of this article has been a good deal written about, and is somewhat repulsive in itself; but so long as thieves exist, the best means for their suppression cannot be considered as having been attained; and whilst the community at large suffers so much from thieving, we must continue to examine the evil with a view to its cure. This question of crime has been discussed and written upon from many points of view. Inspectors, moral reformers, goal chaplains, literary men, legislators, and novelists, all these have had something to say about thieves. But as yet the writer is not aware that anything has been written about thieves by one who might consider himself a working clergyman, going amongst the thieves with no official purpose, with no literary design, going amongst them as their accepted friend, visiting their sick, and sometimes kneeling by the beside of the dying thief. This was exactly my position in one of the largest towns in England for nearly two years. During that time I had unlimited access to the thieves' quarter, at all hours and under any circumstances. Weddings, midnight gatherings, benefit nights, public-houses, I have witnessed them all. How I gained the confidence of the criminal fraternity I cannot tell. I only sought their welfare, never went amongst them without some good errand, never asked questions about their affairs, and never meddled with things that did not belong to me, and it is due to the thieves themselves to say, that I never received from any of them, whether drunk or sober, an unkind look, or a disrespectful word; and in writing this article I have no design to betray the confidence of the thieves, or of mentioning a single guilty name. My purpose is not to state all I know, but to put before the public such points as may be of use in the understanding and mitigation of crime - points which I have gathered from a long and patient study of the question, and some of which points have received vivid illustration in my own personal knowledge. Without stating what I know by reading, and what by personal observation, I shall record things as they struck me in the course of my experience, and describe them as they were, sharpened into the vividness of reality by the living persons and the living scenes that were around me.
The first thing that drew my attention was the fraternity or complete organisation of the thieves. They select some particular quarter for their residence, and it is no uncommon thing for three or four contiguous streets to be wholly tenanted by them; and these houses are no bad property either, for the thieves will pay almost any amount of rent, and pay it regularly, for the sake of keeping together. The aspect of the thieves' quarter is generally low and dingy, but not by any means so ruffianly as some would think. They are more quiet and orderly than one could expect, for they say it does not pay to make rows in their own territory. Persons regularly visiting these haunts, or residing in them, are compromised in the eyes of the police, and suspiciously watched by these minions of the law. Sill there is a good deal of "chaffing" going on between the thieves and the police, and it is sometimes laughable to see the way in which any Verdant Greens in blue clothes are hoaxed and befooled. But it is not all pleasant jesting, for they sometimes quarrel - quarrel, strange to say, about constitutional privileges, such as sitting on your own doorstep, or the lawfulness of smoking your pipe astride your own area railing. Many a thief has tried the right in petty quarrels of this kind, for it is literally true that they have certain notions about the respectability of their district, and the better class of thieves are very indignant at any interference with their liberties as British subjects. As you penetrate further into the arcanum of the thieves' quarter, you gradually become acquainted with a complete organisation and system of things of which the outside world knows nothing, and with which no stranger is allowed to meddle. They have public-houses, shops, tradesmen, lodging-houses, private regulations, and upper and lower class - in short, an imperium in imperio, by means of which they are enabled to carry on their nefarious practices with greater secrecy, security, and success. In many instances they are kind to each other. A man coming out of prison is provided with a home, food, and boon companions. They help their sick, bury their dead, and do something for the bereaved children. They have a language of signs and words which only themselves can thoroughly understand, and a gesture which may seem unmeaning to the passer-by would make him quake with fear if he knew the significance of that seemingly unintentional act. By means of these signs and passwords the thieves can wander about from one town to another, always being sure of a home, and the companionship of kindred spirits, although visiting that town for the first time.
But if an acquaintance with the thieves quarter revealed to me the amazing subtlety and cleverness of the pilfering fraternity, it also taught me the guilty fear, the wretchedness, the moral guilt, and the fearful hardships that fall to the lot of the professional thief. Tonight they attend a pleasure party in the upper rooms of some dingy-looking house in a back street, gay, kind, light-hearted, and happy, outdoing - as I have seen - in their roistering mirth, the orgies in the Beggar's Opera; tomorrow they are fetched out of their beds by the police, locked up in prison, tried, and condemned to penal servitude. They are never safe a moment, and this constant jeopardy produces a constant nervousness and fear. Sometimes, when visiting their sick, I have gently laid my hand on the shoulder of one of the thieves who happened to be standing in the street. The man would "start like a guilty thing upon a fearful summons," and it would take him two or three minutes to recover his self-possession sufficiently to ask me, "How are you, sir, today?" Some might suppose that if we wanted an affecting illustration of the adage, "Suspicion haunts the guilty mind," it would be supplied in the crimson hues that flush over the cheek of innocent childhood when detected in a little wrong; but I never saw the adage so painfully illustrated as in the thieves' quarter, by the faces of grey-haired criminals whose hearts had been worn into hardness by the dishonouring chains of transportation. When, in the dusk of the evening, I have accosted one of them standing idly on the public-house steps, I have spoken in a low and altered tone, so that he might not at first recognise me; again the guilty start, as the man bent forward, anxiously peering into my face.
When I beheld their wretchedness, their terror, their moral guilt, and their degradation - when I thought of the terrible evils which my criminal friends were inflicting upon the community - when I remembered that they were men, and witnessed their generosity, the honour of their own clan, the talents many of them displayed; when I saw, in some instances, the evidence of superior education, heard them talk of the literary periodicals of the day, discussing their contents - as I often saw them carefully reading the daily newspaper - I could not help asking them, How in the world has it come to this with you? What could have brought you to such infamy and degradation? In looking over police reports and criminal statistics, there are many items as to the origin of the thieving class; and our Recorders now and then treat us to a speech on the causes of crime; but the particulars of a thief's antecedents must be to some extent furnished by himself, the official statement is imperfect and not very trustworthy, especially when we remember that most thieves glory in "gammoning" and misleading the officers of the law. It is a fact, that the majority of thieves hold it meritorious and a triumph to cajole and deceive the representatives of law, and I found that the only way of getting at the whole truth was to wait for their own unsolicited information. As my intercourse with the thieves increased, the truth gradually dawned upon me; until, at length, I gathered by my own observation enough data on which to form some definite conclusions about the causes of crime.
In entering upon this department of my experience, it must be premised that the majority of criminals seem to be under a cloud of romantic misanthropy; they regard themselves as victimised by evils for which they are not altogether responsible, and from which they cannot escape. Every one has an excuse, a tale, an account to give, which relieves them from a part of the blame of their first offences; and I am bound to say that there is some truth in many of their statements relative to their early culpability. Very few of them adopt a life of crime from the sheer love of wrong-doing, and though they have, and must have, evil tendencies, the initiation of a criminal career is often wrought by the force of circumstances, or by the inveiglements of those who are already committed to a dishonest course. The sources of crime are so interfused that it is difficult to speak of them in detail, but so far as the guilty affinities and entanglements can be separated, they may be briefly classified as follows. Some are trained to thieving from their infancy. Their parents are thieves in most cases; in others, the children are orphans, or have been forsaken by their parents, and in such cases the children generally fall into the hands of the regular thief-trainer. In every low, criminal neighbourhood, there are numbers of children who never knew their parents, and who are fed and clothed by the old thieves, and made to earn their wages by dishonest practises. When the parent thieves are imprisoned or transported, their children (many of the thieves are married) are left to shift for themselves, and so fall into the hands of the professional thief-trainers. Here then is one great source of crime. These children are nurtured in it; they come under no good moral influence, and until the Ragged Schools were started they had no idea of honesty, to say nothing of morality and religion. Sharpened by hunger, intimidated by sever treatment, and rendered adroit by vigilant training, this class of thieves is perhaps the most numerous, the most daring, the cleverest, and the most difficult to reform. What is there in these youths to which the moral reformer can appeal? Is there any conscience in that young mind shaped in dishonesty? Have they any sense of kindness, love, or gratitude? In a moral point of view, these thieves are much worse off than the savages of the open wilderness, inasmuch as all the advantages of civilisation are made to serve their criminal habits.
The next source of crime is vagrancy. There many be a few honest beggars; but given an opportunity, the majority of them are thieves. Occasionally they begin by stealing things of small value, until, their purloining habits being cultivated, they doff the vagrant, and are admitted into the ranks of the professional thieves. In not a few instances the cringing, whining, inoffensive, and seemingly timid beggar, is the spy and pioneer of the expert and organised gang of thieves; and so long as vagrancy is encouraged, so long will it be impossible to dry up the sources of crime. Those who are too lazy to earn their bread, generally resort to dishonest means of living. Through drunkenness and debauchery many lose their employment and shift about from place to place, until at length their unsteadiness disqualifies them from holding any situation, and they are no longer able to obtain employment. For this class, three course are open - the workhouse, vagrancy, and thieving. The first has too much restraint, the second is too slow, and so they resort to the last.
That there is in some a natural tendency and strong bias towards dishonesty, is a fact beyond dispute; these like thieving: it becomes a habit and a passion with them; and if, after having tasted the stolen waters, they might have their choice between an honest and a dishonest course, they would prefer the latter. It is no very uncommon thing for men who have left the profession to associate frequently with thieves, and to do a little pilfering occasionally for old acquaintances sake.
A love of adventure is strong in the breasts of many men; leading some to the army, some to the navy, others to the colonies, and some to foreign travel. This love of adventure, combined with recklessness and laxity of principle, takes a criminal direction, making a poacher in the country, and a thief in the town. It is said of some that they never like to be at a "fast end," or they like to be at a "loose end." For these unstable people, who are perpetually changing their employment, as though they had made up their minds to roll restlessly up and down in the world for the term of their natural lives, there are three chances: to be a "jack of all trades," to remain poor, or to turn thief. A man who will "stick to nothing" must realise one of these three chances, and which of the three, is not infrequently determined by circumstances. A repugnance to constant, monotonous and plodding industry, has hindered the advancement of most, and caused the ruin of many.
What may be called "bad families," are another prolific source of crime. Thieving, and some other crimes seem to be hereditary, running in the same families for generations. It is somewhat difficult to watch this phenomenon in large towns; but in country villages the fact is proverbial. When a depredation has been committed in a country village, the constable looks to certain families, just as the town policeman looks to certain streets; and when the delinquent is removed to prison, "like one of his breed," "they always were a bad lot," are the staple, and generally truthful phrases in the village gossip; and although it is difficult to trace the offshoots of bad families in large towns, the results of the inquiries I have made, tend to confirm my belief in the theory, both as applied to town and country. The above remarks by no means exhaust the question of the causation of crime; but no one can mingle with thieves without feeling force of these observations. Temptation, laziness, vice, necessity, a depraved will, are the sad and prolific fountains of the streams of criminal life.
The poor helpless little children, who literally grow up into a criminal career, who have no means of knowing that they are wrong, and who cannot help themselves, have strong claims on the compassion of every lover of his species. Some of them are fine-looking fellows, with bright and piercing eyes, ample foreheads, finely-chiselled lips, clean and winning faces, symmetrical contour, and well-proportioned limbs. When I have seen them dressed in their best attire, looking so well that some of them would be an ornament to any drawing-room, so far as a handsome appearance is concerned, my heart has ached to know that there was nothing but a criminal career in prospect for the merry, prattling, and beautiful boy. I also found another class of thieves whose case commended itself to my deep commiseration - young men, originally honest, who had lapsed into crime through momentary temptation. These, after the commission of a first offence, are overwhelmed with a deep sense of shame and personal loathing; which, instead of being the means of their recovery, renders them desperate, and plunges them into a life of crime. To go back to pure life would be to expose themselves to suspicion, desertion, taunts and sneers; and as they cannot face these mortifications, they feel embittered, and bid adieu to the habits and associates of their quondam honest life.
I was frequently struck with the migratory and fluctuating character of the population in the thieves' quarters. They were continually moving, and, although there were a few who seemed to be permanent residents, I hardly ever went amongst them without meeting with fresh faces. Where could the unfailing supply come from? Whence the new recruits? Most of them came from other towns, some from prison, and some from penal servitude. These constant changes led me to ponder over the perpetuation of crime, and I often asked myself, how do the criminal classes reproduce and perpetuate themselves from age to age? They neither seemed to wear out nor die out; it is true of thieves, as of mankind in general, "One generation passeth away, and another cometh." In groping about for the roots of the criminal upas, I found many things which fostered, and some things which rendered inevitable the perpetuation of the genus thief. The thieves' organisation helps to perpetuate crime. Men and women get so linked in and interlaced with the general colony, that it is almost impossible to escape to honest circles and industrial life. Mutual obligations, mutual crimes, and even the attachments of friendship arising out of companionship in danger, suffering, sensuality, and crime, render it very difficult for the confirmed thief to tear himself from the haunts and the society of criminal life. This "thieves' quarter" enables the thieves to escape for a time detection and arrest. All are so far pledged to one another, that they will do anything to facilitate the escape of one of their clan; and when the police are anxious to catch a thief, they have not only to contend with his ability to keep out of their hands, but they have to struggle against an expert fraternity located in every important town in England. Every thief tries to avoid detection, and almost every other thief in Britain will do his best to conceal and help him. Again, if a youth takes to thieving and is alone in his course, he soon finds company and a home in the thieves' quarter, where his lagging courage will be stimulated and the ignorance of his inexperience be corrected by the craft of the old and practised rogues.
The thrall of sensual pleasure forms a strong chain in the continuity of crime. Given a set of men and women who neither fear God nor regard man - given a community which lives only for the enjoyment of the passing hour - given a set of people who will let nothing come between them and their sensual enjoyments - given a set of people whose mental and moral nature has either been formed in this community, or degraded down to its awful level; and then what follows? More follows than shall be written here; more than can ever be told, and more than is ever known, save to the oldest and most abandoned of the tribe. Theirs is every animal gratification and every sensual indulgence; theirs the consuming passions which are the offspring of laziness - poison-flowers, stimulated and quickened in their growth by feverish excitement and unrestrained indulgences. Occasionally, they can afford to dress themselves in the richest attire, drink the most costly wines, and partake of the most luxurious and expensive viands.
Is there no pleasure-attraction in all this? They are not confined to one locality, but may roam the world over and live anywhere, except where there is no possibility of plunder. They have no responsibility, except that of desperate and well-trained courage, and no care, except to keep out of the hands of the police. Is there no enjoyment in this for selfish and vicious natures? Thieves have their pleasure parties, balls, reunions, social evenings, and trips to watering-places. Music sheds its charm over their merry hours, and the poetry of motion unites with the poetry of sound. Dances, from the dextrous hornpipe to the quiet varsoviana, and back again to the whirling waltz, or the jaunty tread of the country dance; songs from the Flash Reciter or the last new opera contribute in turn to the amusements of the evening. Bound in these syren chains, who need wonder that the class is perpetuated?
Many a thief is kept in reluctant bondage to crime from the difficulty he finds in obtaining honest employment and earning honest bread. Many thieves are fond of the criminal courses; but others of them are utterly weary of the hazard, disgrace, and suffering, attaching to their mode of life. Some of them were once pure, honest, and industrious, and when these are sick, or in prison, they are frequently filled with bitter remorse, and make the strongest vows to have done with the guilty life.
Suppose a man of this sort in prison. His eyes are opened, and he sees before him the gulf of remediless ruin into which he will soon be plunged. He knows well enough that the money earned by thieves goes as fast as it comes, and that there is no prospect of his ever being able to retire on his ill-gotten gains. He comes out of prison determined to reform. But where is he to go? What is he to do? How is he to live? Whatever may have been done for him in prison is of little or no avail, if as soon as he leaves the gaol he must go into the world, branded with crime, having no character to lose, unprotected, and unhelped. The discharged prisoner must be friendly with some one, and he must live. His criminal friends will entertain him, on the understood condition that they are repaid from the booty of his next depredation. Thus the first food he eats, and the first friendly chat he has, become the half-necessitating initiative of future crime. Frequently, the newly-discharged prisoner passes through a round of riot and drinking immediately on his release from a long incarceration; as any man would do, in similar circumstances, who had no fixed principles to sustain him. And so, by reason of the rebound of newly-acquired liberty, and the influence of the old set, the man is again demoralised. The discharged prisoner leaves gaol with good resolves, but the moment he enters the world there rises before him the dark and spectral danger of being hunted down by the police - of being recognised and insulted - of being shunned and despised by his fellow-workmen - of being everywhere condemned and forsaken.
It would be easy for me to furnish instances in which men surrounded by these difficulties have despaired of honest life, and gone back to their old habits in hopeless disgust. But with very many thieves a change of conduct is solely a question of pleasure and money. They will tell you plainly that they are not going to work hard for £1. per week, when by thieving they can easily earn £5. per week, and live like gentlemen.
The encouragement of vagrancy has helped to continue the plague of thieving. Not only does it furnish an opportunity to spy out premises - and there is a good deal in that - but it loosens the moral principles, generates laziness, and supports a class which, generally speaking, merges into the criminal community. Many of them beg either because it affords a pretext and cover for thieving, or else they are not clever enough to live by stealing. The persons who most encourage vagrancy are difficult to get at, and hard to convince. Any beggar knows that his supporters are chiefly, if not soley, among the middle and lower classes of society. The blame of the evil lies at the door of a maudlin philanthropy. These benevolent people think they serve their fellow creatures by foolish almsgiving; they grumble at the poor-laws, and are niggardly to respectable and trustworthy charities, while they bestow their alms on some cringing rascal who gets his lazy living by pilfering, lying, and fraud. A little more worldly wisdom would correct that pernicious charity which makes no difference between known and unknown, and neglects a starving neighbour to relieve a worthless stranger.
The hardening influence of prison life is another perpetuator of crime. The meeting of thieves in prison is more pernicious to themselves than their meeting out of it, because within the prison walls there are inducements to corrupt and harden one another, which do not so fully obtain when they are at large. Who can tell the blackest tale, who can make crime most exciting and attractive, who can pour the wittiest amount of derision on rectitude, who can most cleverly "dodge" the jail officers, who can bear punishment in the most hardened manner, - these are the heroes and objects of admiration to many of the inmates of a prison. If a man does not endure his punishment bravely, he is so tease and jeered by his fellow prisoners, that he not unfrequently commits, designedly, some flagrant breach of prison rule, in order that, by braving the punishment and enduring it without flinching, he may redeem his lost character for hardihood. 	
One of the chief causes of the perpetuation of crime is the training of young thieves. They are born, nurtured, reared, educated, professional thieves. No ray of moral light ever shines upon them; no intercourse with purity or honesty ever falls to their lot; no good feeling is ever allowed to predominate; all their passions are distorted, all their faculties are perverted. They believe the clergy are all hypocrites, the judges and magistrates tyrants, and honest people their bitterest enemies; believing these things sincerely, and believing nothing else, their hand is against every man, and the oftener they are imprisoned the more is their dishonestly strengthened. If they learn to read, it is that they may study the police reports; and so imbued are their young minds with crime that they cannot sustain a long conversation without resorting to "thieves' latin." Of these youngsters the following, quoted from memory, is a tolerably accurate description:
"In a damp and dreary cellar I was born;
Want, and cold, and hunger found me forlorn.
God, perhaps, in pity heard me,
For a heart of courage stirred me,
And I gave back blow for blow, scorn for scorn."Nature stamped her frown upon me at my birth,
Never did my look betoken love or her worth;
So I shun the sight of morning,
Deeds of darkness oft performing,
Wandering ever scorned and scorning through the earth."Until this nursery of young thieves can be destroyed, there is no prospect that thieving will come to an end in this country, or in any other.