THE SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION
THE MYTH OF THE E
LEMAM BURGLAR
Chief of the Identification
Ittusiraitom
HE GENTLEMAN BUHGLAK is
a myth. When, (juitc recently, 1
in a d e this statement and was
I iioni itly invited to demonstrate
the fact in your columns, I did
not suspect how wide-spread was
tin. opinion to the contrary winch
L should he obliged to rectify. The opportunity
is a good one for correct ing a few other errone
ous but popular beliefs about the world's thieves
and crooks, who constitute a very exclusive so
cial group, to which, with rare exceptions, only
those are admitted who have proved themselves
worthy of the privilege.
Novelists write glibly about this confraternity
of rogues, hut they know it only on the surface.
Either they invent their pretended facts, or they
borrow them. When they borrow, it is from the
alleged memoirs of famous detectives, which are
invariably pure inventions. The honest seeker
after the truth does not learn much from occa
sional visits to the saloons and dens frequented
by thieves. His appearance is the signal for a
dead silence, followed by a general departure.
The detective is, as a rule, much more com
municative. Proud of his role as a protector of
Society, it Hatters his vanity to exaggerate, often
to a grotesque degree, the intelligence and mul
tiple capacities of the quurrv that he is hunting.
of the criminal who is his real partner in this game of
hide-and-senk. If by chance, the Chief of the Police
is endowed with a romancing temperament, his sub
ordinates naturally follow suit.
The true psychology of the detective has yet to be
elucidated. You have
little idea how mod
est they are when
they talk amongst
themselves. Modern
scientific, mo th ods
help them to unravel
certain dillicult prob
1 c m s which would
have bewildered them
some years ago, but
what the police all
the world over has
mainly to rely on is
paid information.
I n t h e Unit o d
States, to judge from
the promises of re
wards which reach us
daily, the system of
laying for informa
tion is I'll c t i c e d
o p e ii 1 y. Here in
France it is carefully
disguised. T h e fa
mous Secret Funds,
of which no public
account is rendered
by the Government,
are secretly drawn on
for police purposes.
Now, the detect
ive's chief business
to control its sinccr-
cleverly and carefully
M,
Pranzini, the murderer, on the
day of hii arreit
is to provoke talk, and then
lty. It is in conversations,
prompted, with a certain class of people that he is
most likely to hud the clue lor which he is search
ing. When he thinks that he is on the track of a
conclusive revelation, he must next test the good faith
and the accuracy of his informant. These people,
whoso loquaciousness is so precious to him, are do
mestic servants. In whatever stratum of society a
crime may have been committed, it is always from'the
lower order of domestics that the detective will learn
most. Invariably they know something, often much,
and generally more than they are willing to tell.
Give me the detective who has a special talent for
worming himself, without exciting suspicion, into the
Alphonse Bertitlon, whose system of identifying criminals by means
of finger prints is used the world over
confidence of a house-janitor, an uudcr-valet, or a
little chambermaid, and I will make you a present of
Sherlock Holmes.
The detective rarely has anything like the knowl
edge popularly attributed to him, of the antecedents
of the criminal he is tracking down. False names
and disguises help to mystify him, and it is only
when the arrest has been made, and the prisoner has
passed through our Anthropometric Department, that
liis true identity and the record of his previous con
victions are made clear.
NOW, I have in my department the Service of
Judicial Identity at the Paris Prefecture of
Police, more than half a million identification cards,
both of French citizens and foreigners, which have
been laboriously collected for twenty years past.
And I can certify this: Amongst them there are
very few gentlemen by birth so few indeed that J
practically have the history of each one of them at my
fingers' ends. And, among these ex-gcntlenien, never
have J eonio across one siuile jnofi ssionnl Iniriilar.
The reason is simple. When a man of good birth
e o v e t s his neighbor's
(roods, his first thought
do not fly to the use of the
" pince-monscigncur," or
"jimmy." Ho takes up
shady finance, which i
likely to be more profit
able than breaking into
people's houses, while the
risk of punishment, in
case of failure, is consid
erably less. In all coun
tries crimes against prop
erty and the person are
visited with the severest
penalties, which no doubt
exercise an intimidating
effect. Only desperate
in en cx-eouvicts, o r
their associates, members
of the criminal fumil.v,
egged on by their needs
or their passions, and ha -ing
nothing more to lose
become professional
burglars. There are no
amateurs. "Freaks" I do
not count. Their ill-conceived
assaults upon so
ciety are disconcerting,
BERTIULON
Department of tlicRncn Blicc
from Photographs
but they do not constitute a permanent danger.
To be a burglar you must be a "handy-man,"
with some technical ability. There is the thief
who specializes in false-keys. He is always more
or less of a locksmith. The coiner must under
stand the galvanophistic casting of metals. The
use of the oxyhydric blowpipe for fusing the
steelplutes of a strong-box, the manipulation of
the dynamite cartridge, that "open sesame" to
the most complicated of locks, can not be learned
in a day. Technical schools for burglars not
having yet been established, it is in the metal
lurgieal factory, as a former artisan, that the
burglar has, as o rule, acquired his knowledge.
T!l'T you ask me: What about the degenerate
gentlemen, the ih'rlassi' noblemen who full
from the upper social ranks to which they be
long, after losing everything they possess
through the triangular influence of gambling,
women, and drink.' They never become thieves
in the professional sense of the term. Either
they profit by bitter experience, or are re
claimed by their friends when half-way on the
road to ruin, or they go on sinking lower and
lower until they reach a depth of degradation
which it is almost impossible to conceive.
Never shall I forget the shock that I exneri
enced when my professional duties llrst brought
me into contact with a human shipwreck of this
description. Covered with nameless rags, the poor
wretch was so infested with vermin that the
very color upon the skin of his cheeks was changed.
This is what had become in little less than fifteen
years of the Baron L. de B., a liian of first-class edu
cation and brilliant gifts. He had passed with the
highest distinction through the Ecole des Beaux Arts,
(the Fine Arts School), and had been awarded the
most coveted of all prizes open to French art stu
dents, the Prix de Home.
The habitual vagabond, sprung from the people,
never sinks so low as this, lie maintains a certain
mastery over himself. Perhaps the unwonted ca
price may seize him to do a day's work. In view of
such an eventuality, he is always provided with a
littlo pocket "necessary," containing a piece of soap,
a comb and brush, needles and thread, so that if need
be he can present a fairly decent appearance before
a possible employer.' Not so with the hoboes who
have once been gentlemen. Misery and abjection
have annihilated in them all ambition, all shame and
all will-power. They have no resistance left, not
I have in my department more than half million identification cards