The Right Way to Do Wrong (11 page)

The latter put his initials on it and thought no more of the transaction. The depositor then went out into the bank and deposited his London draft, and on the following day presented a check for $30,000, which was paid, the teller knowing that that amount was to his credit on the books. Later in the day he again appeared at the window and presented the check for $30,000, which had been initialed by the president. This check was also paid. Nothing more has since been seen of the depositor.

PICKPOCKETS AT WORK

Among the most interesting classes of thieves is the pickpocket, whose clever subterfuges and skill of hand have been so often exploited in novel and storybook. Your professional pickpocket is naturally a rover, and travels the country over, attending large gatherings. Of professional
pickpockets there are a number of types, each adapted to the class of “work” in which he engages.

It is the usual opinion that a pickpocket is a forbidding and suspicious looking fellow, but a glance at the rogues' gallery in any police headquarters will show you that they look much like ordinary individuals, and are of more than average intelligence. The pickpocket is usually very well dressed and of prepossessing appearance. Those who seek to make only large hauls are entertaining talkers and easy in their manner. They are generally self-possessed and, while dexterous, are very cautious in their operations.

It is needless to say that women make the most patient as well as the most dangerous pickpockets. It is simply amazing how quickly an expert pickpocket, with a delicate touch, seemingly accidental, will locate the resting-place of a well-filled purse or other article of value that he chooses to abstract. When once discovered they follow their intended victims until the proper opportunity comes. A common pickpocket trick is for the operator to carry a shawl or overcoat carelessly over the left arm, and to take a seat on the right side of the person they intend to rob in a streetcar or other vehicle.

Sometimes a small and very sharp knife is used to cut the side of the dress or pantaloons of the victim, so that the purse may be abstracted without going into the pocket directly. Others of this light-fingered gentry wear light overcoats with large pockets removed. They will endeavor to stand near a person, preferably a woman, who is paying her fare and has displayed a well-filled purse. The pickpocket then carelessly throws his coat over her dress, and by inserting his hand through the outside
opening of his own pocket, quietly proceeds to abstract her purse. Pickpockets either work alone or in pairs, or what is called a mob. Most female pickpockets seem to prefer to work alone, sometimes, however, working in conjunction with a man thief to whom they pass their plunder, and thus make detection impossible if they are suspected and searched.

The mob is a gang of expert pickpockets under the direction of a leader who has had experience, and knows all the tricks. Their usual game is to frequent some crowded platform or a railway station, and raise an apparent row in which two men seem to engage in a scuffle or quarrel and come to blows. Others rush in attempting to separate them, and the attention of the whole crowd of people is for the moment directed strongly that way. At the same moment other single light-fingered members of the same gang crowd in with the citizens who are being jostled, and abstract their pocketbooks and watches without any trouble. Recently a gang has successfully worked in several of the subway stations in Boston, and the same gang has successfully plyed this vocation in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

The false-arm game, or the “third mit,” as it is known to the professional pickpocket, is said to be little employed in this country now. A loose cape overcoat is worn in one of the sleeves of which a false arm and hand are fixed. Thus a detective who may be watching the pickpocket will see apparently both of his hands in view, while in reality the light skillful fingers of the operator's left hand are going through the pockets of the man beside of whom he is standing. This dodge is very much employed on the continent by shoplifters.

One of the many fertile dodges by which a pickpocket escapes detection is known as the horse-dodge. The thief so arranges as to meet his victim by the side of a horse standing by the curbstone. He has previously located the watch or purse he wishes to lift, and with a quick blow he knocks his victim's hat over his eyes, grabs the pocketbook or watch or whatever else he is after, and immediately darts under the horse, and hides himself in the traffic on the other side. By the time the victim has got the use of his eyes, and is able to look around, the thief has entirely disappeared, and he would not be apt to look in the right direction, at any rate.

In the outskirts of London, among the small shops, a rather unusual trick has been played frequently upon unsuspecting shopkeepers. Two men in earnest argument over some matter enter a small grocery store and approach the proprietor who is behind his till. One man says to the proprietor, “My friend and I have gottten into an argument over a peculiar matter which we believe you can settle for us. I have bet him that my hat,” taking off an old-fashioned stove-pipe hat, “will hold more than four quarts of molasses, while he contends that it will hold hardly three quarts. We are willing to buy the molasses if you will fill this hat and prove the question to decide the bet.” The shopkeeper good-humoredly agrees, and brings the hat brimful with sticky molasses, at which one of the thieves slaps it over the shopkeeper's head, and before he can extricate himself and call help they have robbed the till and disappeared.

BEGGING LETTER SWINDLES

Every section of the country, almost every city, has one or more begging letter writers, who ply their trade with greater or less success, and exercise their arts upon the simple and credulous. These clever rascals range all the way from the ignorant crook that writes a pitiful story of want and misery, and who neither receives nor expects more than a few dollars at a time, to the master of the craft, who goes about it like a regular business, has a well-organized office and a force of stenographers and clerks, who are kept busy day in and day out sending off and receiving mail.

Several remarkable cases have been unearthed only lately, where the fake was receiving hundreds of letters daily, the large majority of them containing money. The post-office authorities, however, have been getting after this class of rogues very sharply of late, and any organized plundering by the use of the mails, is almost certain to come to an untimely end sooner or later.

If any one has reason to believe that a business of the kind is conducted on fraudulent lines, a complaint to one of the post-office inspectors in any large city will quickly bring a “fraud order” against the party, restraining them from use of the mails, and a rigid investigation follows. Then the game is up, and it's back to the “tall timber” for them. It is a well-known fact, however, that this recourse to the “fraud order” is frequently used by unprincipled persons, out of spite and to obtain revenge upon those who are actually conducting a legitimate business. The fraudulent advertisement is often an adjunct to the bogus
letter scheme, and designed to get names to whom a special kind of letter may be written. One of the most daring schemes of this kind was unearthed a short time ago in New York City. A man fitted up a suite of offices in elegant style in one of the large office buildings. He then traveled to South Dakota, and under the laws of that State, incorporated a stock company, with a capitalization of five million dollars. It was called a commercial and mining company. Returning to New York, he instructed the Press Clipping Bureau to save him the obituary notices of all males that died in the States other than New York—just far enough away from the center of operations to be comfortable for him.

Using these obituary notices for guides, he would, write to the dead man, notifying him that the last payment was due on the five hundred or one thousand shares of stock which he had bought at fifty cents a share. He congratulated the man on his foresight on investing in this stock, as it had gone up several points, and was still rising in value. He begged that a remittance in final payment of this stock should be sent at once.

A beautifully engrossed certificate of stock was enclosed in the letter to the dead man, and the inevitable result was that the surviving relatives, thinking the departed one had bought this stock quietly and forgotten to mention it, sent on a check for all the way from five hundred to one hundred dollars as requested. It was one of the prettiest schemes that has been worked for a long time, and the actual amount of money realized by the swindler will never be known. Such a “snap” could not last long, however, and the promulgator of the swindle was soon detected and brought to trial.

One man advertised to sell ten yards of good silk for twenty-five cents, and so worded his announcement as to suggest a bankrupt sale or smuggled goods. For a time he reaped a rich harvest. Money came thick and fast. To each of his dupes he mailed ten yards of sewing silk.

Another rascal offered a complete and perfect sewing machine for one dollar. He, also, gathered in the dollars at a rapid rate, till Uncle Sam put a stop to his operations—he sent his victims a common sewing needle.

This is quite in line with the fellow who advertised a few years ago to tell a sure way of getting rid of chinch bugs for one dollar. After the victim had sent the dollar, he received by mail a card upon which was printed the following:

Many of these advertisements are inserted merely to receive names and addresses of credulous people. The lists of names are then sold or rented out to fake mail-order houses, who proceed to circularize them.

Chain letter schemes are now declared illegal, but for some time a number of clever dodges of this kind were worked throughout the United States as well as on the continent. A brief description of one of these schemes will show the character of this kind of enterprise:

The scheme was where a trip to the Paris Exposition, with two hundred dollars for expenses, was offered as a prize. Each person entering the contest was required to
pay thirty cents, then send to friends two letters, requesting them to send their names to the original promoter, and send duplicate letters to two of their friends, the operation to be repeated indefinitely.

Each person writing to the original promoter was to receive an offer, allowing him to start a chain on his own account, on payment of thirty cents, the trip and money going to the one whose chain brings out the largest number of letters. The ostensible object was to secure names for employment at the exposition.

TRICKS OF BUNCO MEN

Something for nothing has ever tempted the simple and unsophisticated; indeed, it is a trait of human nature upon which the swindler everywhere, and in all ages, has relied to his profit.

The origin of the term “bunco” comes from an old English game of chance in which a checkered cloth covered with numbers and stars is covered with a hood called a “bunco.” The game was to throw dice that counted up to a certain concealed number. The man who knew the game was called the “bunco man,” or the banker, and later when this form of swindle became notorious the term was corrupted into “bunco.” Today the word is used to denote almost any swindle where the victim is made to believe he is to receive a large sum of money or valuables, and then gets nothing at all.

The real Simon Pure Bunco Game, as practiced in the United States some years ago by Tom O'Brien, the King
of Bunco Men, was played as follows: The victim, some wealthy farmer usually, was lured to a room at a hotel and a game was proposed. A confederate took the part of another player. A pack of forty-eight cards in eight sets, each set numbered from one to six was produced, shuffled, and dealt out eight cards to each player. The total sum of the numbers in each hand was then compared with the number carrying a prize on the chart. If it corresponded, the hand won the prize.

The cards are gravely counted and compared. The dealer then says to the con federate and dupe:

“Gentlemen, you have drawn the grand conditional advertising prize. You're entitled to $10,000 apiece on condition that you prove yourselves worth $50,000, and promise to advertise our battery, whether you win or lose. You will have to put up $10,000 apiece against the $10,000 prize; then you draw once more. If you draw a star number you get only the $10,000 prize and your money back. If you draw any other number you get its prize added to your own money and the big prize.”

The confederate says he is worth more than $50,000 and declares his intention of going and getting the $10,000 stake. The dupe is also persuaded to put up the cash and both winners go away to get the money. They return and the money is put up. Four cards are dealt each. The total of each hand is twenty-eight.

“Why, gentlemen,” says the bunco man in apparent surprise, “twenty-eight is the ‘State number,' the total blank! You have lost all!”

The confederate pretends to be very much broken up, condones, with his “fellow victim” and gets him out of the room as soon as he can. In a few moments he gives
the farmer the slip, joins his partner, and they escape from town as quickly as possible.

Such is the principle of the bunco game, and it is worked under many guises with cards, dice, at the pool or billiard table—our pool-room bunco is known as
“selling the lemon”
as bets are made on the yellow ball—but always with the idea of making the victim believe he is going to get something for nothing.

A variation of the bunco game, often played in the farming districts, is for a well-dressed, plausible man to drive up to a well-to-do farmer's home and inquire if he knows of a good farm for sale. If he does, he is invited to drive with the stranger to take a look at it and give his advice. The farmer finds his new acquaintance bright and entertaining. The property is reached and the sharper with apparent satisfaction inspects the land and buildings, and closes a bargain without much haggling. In the course of conversation the man from the city flashes a big roll of bank notes of high denomination and the farmer is duly impressed.