Kansas Physician Confirms Howard Report

[TradeName]

The earliest version I could find of the Thackeray/Bowery Boy anecdote is attributed to an 1872 lecture by the abolitionist Wendell Phillips.

The State Rights Democrat (Albany, Or.), March 1, 1872, Page 4, Column 1

Thackeray and a Bowery Boy

Wendell Phillips, in his lecture on
Street Life in Europe, gives one little
instance of street life in America.
Thackeray, on a visit here many years
ago, was anxious to see a genuine
Bowery Boy, and a friend pointed
out to him one leaning against a lamp
post, with his hands in his pockets,
his "soap locks" carefully regulating
over his eyebrow, and his cigar tilted
upright between his teeth. Thackeray
was delighted, and determined
to 'interview' the monster. So he
strode with his manly, sweeping gate,
carrying that ever present benignancy
of expression on his face up to
the 'Boy' and remarked, Very innocently,
"Si--excuse me--but I want
to go to Broadway." The 'Boy'
returned the look with one equally
benignant, and replied, "Well, why in
h--l don't you go?"

----end

Link to a fuller account of the lecture.

Chicago Tribune, March 5, 1873, Page 2, Column 5

Contrasted

Some of the Manners and Customs of Europeans and Americans

Street scenes Acroos the Atlantic as Seen by Wendell Phillips


Another version of the Thackeray story.

Chambers's Journal, Volume 63, November 20, 1886, Page 743

American Traits

An anecdote Thackeray used to relate of an experience of his when in the United States well illustrates this trait of the people. While in New York, he expressed to a friend a desire to see some of the 'Bowery Bhoys,' who, he had heard, were a class of the community peculiar to that city. So one evening he was taken to the Bowery, and he was shown a 'Bhoy.' The young man, the business of the day being over, had changed his attire. He wore a dress-coat, black trousers, and a satin waistcoat; whilst a tall hat rested on the back of his head, which was adorned with long well-greased hair—known as 'soap-locks'—-a style which the rowdies of that day affected. The youth was leaning against a lamp-post, smoking an enormous cigar; and his whole aspect was one of ineffable self-satisfaction. The eminent novelist, after contemplating him for a few moments with silent admiration, said to the gentleman by whom he was accompanied: 'This is a great and gorgeous creature!' adding: 'Can I speak to him without his taking offence?'

Receiving an answer in the affirmative, Thackeray went up to the fellow, on the pretext of asking his way, and said: 'My good man, I want to go to Broome Street.'

But the unlucky phrase, 'My good man,' roused the gall of the individual spoken to. Instead, therefore, of affording the information sought, the 'Bhoy'—-a diminutive specimen of humanity, scarcely over five feet in height—-eyeing the tall form of his interlocutor askance, answered the query in the sense that his permission had been asked for the speaker to visit the locality in question, and he said, patronisingly: 'Well, sonny, yer kin go thar.'

When Thackeray subsequently related the incident, he laughingly declared that he was so disconcerted by the unexpected response, that he had not the courage to continue the dialogue.

---end

A version with a side of oysters.

Frank Leslie's Popular Magazine, Volume 29, June, 1890, Page 735

When Thackeray first visited this country, he said it was the height of his ambition to swallow an American oyster and to see a Bowery boy. Both wishes were gratified. He was taken down into a basement on the Bowery, and a plate of enormous bivalves was placed before him. Taking one of the giants on his fork, he shut his eyes, opened his mouth and determinedly swallowed it. "How do you feel now?" inquired his guide. "As if I had swallowed a baby!" was the reply of the great-hearted satirist. Coming up into daylight again, a specimen of the "b'hoy" such as has been described was pointed out to him. The big Englishman walked up to the monarch of the street, and remarked, inquiringly : " If you please, I would like to go to Broome Street." Without removing the cigar from between his teeth, the American sovereign retorted, benignly: "Well, say, sonny, why don't you go?" Another Englishman had been vanquished by a Yankee.

----end

[Mayerling]

Well it looks like it was more likely to have actually happened too Thackeray. A rotund man, the novelist/lecturer would have liked to try some popular food while in the U.S., so that oyster story sounds likely too.

Jeff

[TradeName]

Before Steve Brodie's alleged jump from the Brooklyn Bridge, a gambler shot at him in an area near the bridge.

New York Sun, May 17, 1886, Page 2, Column 6

STEVE BRODIE SHOT AT

The Bullet Hit the Brooklyn Bridge--Brodie and the Other Man Locked Up

Steve Brodie, the "newsboy," who acquired
a reputation as a pedestrian some years
ago, and has latterly been employed in the
Temple Court, at Beckman and Nassau streets,
was shot at last night by George Floyd, a young
printer.

The men have been on unfriendly terms for
some time past, and soon after Brodie took an
interest in Soto's filibustering expedition to
Honduras the old grudge became more intense.
The trouble between them seems to have originated
in jealousy of some kind.

About 8 o'clock last evening they met at
Chatham and Chambers streets, and, after an
interchange of abuse, Brodie shot out his right,
which landed on his adversary's nose and drew
blood. Fioyd attempted to counter, but Brodie
parried his blows, and Floyd set about looking
after his injured nose. Brodle walked off in
triumph.

As he reached the south roadway of the
bridge Floyd approached him with a pistol of
not very formidable size in his hand and, pointing
it at at [sic] Brodie, pulled the trigger. The
bullet passed harmlessly by Brodie, came very
near hitting Bridge Policeman Dixon, and
spent itself against the masonry of the bridge.

Brodie was about to retaliate with his fist
when both men were arrested by Policeman
Corbin. They were locked up in the Oak street
station--Floyd on a charge of felonious assault,
and Brody for simple assault

---end

New York Sun, November 27, 1886, Page 4, Column 1

Steve's brother Tom Shot

Spending Part of Thanksgiving Night about Town with a Bullet in His Neck

Tom Brodie, Steve's brother, is in the
Chambers Street Hospital with a bullet in his
neck. Tom is 24 years of age and claims to be
a printer. He was one ot the filibusters who
sailed away last winter to subdue Guatemala
and landed on Turks Island. When he returned
he posed as a "travelled" man, and got
along after a fashion until he abused his
mother so that she could stand It no longer,
and he was sent to Blackwell's Island by Justice
Duffy. He was there when Steve dropped
from the bridge, and the fame of this feat
reached him. It made him restless, and on
that very night he and a companion eluded the
guard and started to swim to this city.
They were about half way across when
they were seen and fired at. They
reached Oak Point after being in the
Water nearly five hours. Steve Brodie
employed Tom as a valet when he was exhibiting
himself in a dime museum. When Steve
started off on a starring tour Tom was thrown
on his own resources. On Thanksgiving morning
Tom started out to spend the day as pleasantly
as he could with his friends. In the evening
he appeared in Varain's saloon in Park
row. He was penniless, but this didn't prevent
him calling for a drink. The drink was not
given to him, and Tom stole a bottle of whiskey
and disappeared. A little room on the third
floor at B3 Park row is fitted up as a club room.
It is frequented mostly by printers and Brodie
thought he had a right there. The police say
Brodie had a number of tough young men with
him, and that his object in entering the club
room was to clean it out in order to satisfy an
old grudge that he had against a printer named
Wm. Floyd, who fired a shot at his brother
Steve some months ago. A number of men sat
around a red cloth covered table playing
cards. The police say Brodie wanted to
sell the stolen bottle of whiskey to
Floyd, and when the latter refused to buy
it he asked Floyd to loan him fifty cents.
Floyd replied that he was always willing to
loan a decent man money. Brodie, it is said,
took offence at this remark and made a dash at
fioyd with a knife. Floyd pulled a revolver
from his pocket and fired a shot at Brodie. The
men in the room cleared out, and an hour
later Brodie walked into the Chambers Street
Hospital. The revolver had evidently been
held close to his face for the skin was blackened
with powder. The ball lodged In the muscles
of his neck, and inflicted a painful wound.

Frank Nelson, a printer who saw the shooting,
corroborates the story told by the police.
The door of the club room was fastened with a
big padlock yesterday.

Tom Brodie said that he was sitting quietly
watching a game of poker, and that he was
shot because he said that if Comstock learned
that poker was played there he would "pull"
the place.

Detectives Shalney and Carr of the Oak street
station are looking for Floyd.

----end

New York Sun, December 4, 1886, Page 1 , Column 6

Brodie Lets Floyd Off

George Floyd who shot Tom Brodie at 83
Park row a week ago was discharged at the Tombs
Court yesterday. Brodie recovered rapidly from the
wound made in his neck by the bullet, and was discharged
from the hospital last Wednesday.

----end

New-York Tribune, December 26, 1886, Page 3, Column 4

Printers Arrested for Gambling

The Tombs Police Court on Christmas morning was full
of printers from the newspaper offices, in consequence of
a raid on a gambling house at No. 83 Park Row, kept by
George Floyd. The complainant before Justice Duffy
yesterday morning was William A. Tully, a printer, of
No. 363 West Fifty first st. Tully stated to Justice Duffy
that he had played poker and "seven up" at No. 83 on
various occasions, until his money was all gone. Eleven
men were captured. Justice Duffy fined them $4 each
and held Floyd in $300 for special Sessions.

Again William A. Tully was the complainant against
Ephraim Harris, No. 18 North William-st.. for keeping a
gambling house. In this place five printers were captured.
They also paid $4 each, and Harris was held in $300 for
Special Sessions.

----end

[Mayerling]

Before Steve Brodie's alleged jump from the Brooklyn Bridge, a gambler shot at him in an area near the bridge.

New York Sun, May 17, 1886, Page 2, Column 6


New York Sun, November 27, 1886, Page 4, Column 1

Steve's brother Tom Shot

Spending Part of Thanksgiving Night about Town with a Bullet in His Neck

Tom Brodie, Steve's brother, is in the
Chambers Street Hospital with a bullet in his
neck. Tom is 24 years of age and claims to be
a printer. He was one ot the filibusters who
sailed away last winter to subdue Guatemala
and landed on Turks Island. When he returned
he posed as a "travelled" man, and got
along after a fashion until he abused his
mother so that she could stand It no longer,
and he was sent to Blackwell's Island by Justice
Duffy. He was there when Steve dropped
from the bridge, and the fame of this feat
reached him. It made him restless, and on
that very night he and a companion eluded the
guard and started to swim to this city.
They were about half way across when
they were seen and fired at. They
reached Oak Point after being in the
Water nearly five hours. Steve Brodie
employed Tom as a valet when he was exhibiting
himself in a dime museum. When Steve
started off on a starring tour Tom was thrown
on his own resources. On Thanksgiving morning
Tom started out to spend the day as pleasantly
as he could with his friends. In the evening
he appeared in Varain's saloon in Park
row. He was penniless, but this didn't prevent
him calling for a drink. The drink was not
given to him, and Tom stole a bottle of whiskey
and disappeared. A little room on the third
floor at B3 Park row is fitted up as a club room.
It is frequented mostly by printers and Brodie
thought he had a right there. The police say
Brodie had a number of tough young men with
him, and that his object in entering the club
room was to clean it out in order to satisfy an
old grudge that he had against a printer named
Wm. Floyd, who fired a shot at his brother
Steve some months ago. A number of men sat
around a red cloth covered table playing
cards. The police say Brodie wanted to
sell the stolen bottle of whiskey to
Floyd, and when the latter refused to buy
it he asked Floyd to loan him fifty cents.
Floyd replied that he was always willing to
loan a decent man money. Brodie, it is said,
took offence at this remark and made a dash at
fioyd with a knife. Floyd pulled a revolver
from his pocket and fired a shot at Brodie. The
men in the room cleared out, and an hour
later Brodie walked into the Chambers Street
Hospital. The revolver had evidently been
held close to his face for the skin was blackened
with powder. The ball lodged In the muscles
of his neck, and inflicted a painful wound.

Frank Nelson, a printer who saw the shooting,
corroborates the story told by the police.
The door of the club room was fastened with a
big padlock yesterday.

Tom Brodie said that he was sitting quietly
watching a game of poker, and that he was
shot because he said that if Comstock learned
that poker was played there he would "pull"
the place.

Detectives Shalney and Carr of the Oak street
station are looking for Floyd.

----end

New York Sun, December 4, 1886, Page 1 , Column 6

Brodie Lets Floyd Off

George Floyd who shot Tom Brodie at 83
Park row a week ago was discharged at the Tombs
Court yesterday. Brodie recovered rapidly from the
wound made in his neck by the bullet, and was discharged
from the hospital last Wednesday.

----end

New-York Tribune, December 26, 1886, Page 3, Column 4

Printers Arrested for Gambling

The Tombs Police Court on Christmas morning was full
of printers from the newspaper offices, in consequence of
a raid on a gambling house at No. 83 Park Row, kept by
George Floyd. The complainant before Justice Duffy
yesterday morning was William A. Tully, a printer, of
No. 363 West Fifty first st. Tully stated to Justice Duffy
that he had played poker and "seven up" at No. 83 on
various occasions, until his money was all gone. Eleven
men were captured. Justice Duffy fined them $4 each
and held Floyd in $300 for special Sessions.

Again William A. Tully was the complainant against
Ephraim Harris, No. 18 North William-st.. for keeping a
gambling house. In this place five printers were captured.
They also paid $4 each, and Harris was held in $300 for
Special Sessions.

----end

The reference to "Comstock" made by Tom Brodie in the article of Nov. 27, 1886 is to the "Crusader Against Vice" (usually of sexual nature) Anthony Comstock. Comstock also went against gambling establishments (of which many existed in Manhattan in the 1880s and 1890s), and against patent medicines (probably his best work for public good). You will note all the printers involved in these illegal card games. Park Row was the newspaper center of New York City in that period. In fact, there was a Samuel Fuller movie in the 1950s called "Park Row" about the newsmen of the 1880s.

Jeff

[TradeName]

Here's the Park Row trailer.

Here's a NY Sun article about Scotland Yard's "Black Museum" from 1888. I don't know if Arthur Brisbane (the Sun's London correspondent) wrote it or not. As a bonus, two earlier articles about the Black Museum.


New York Sun July 8, 1888 Page 5, Column 1

WONDERS OF CRIMINAL GENIUS.

Strange and Hideous Mementoes--Robbery
and Fraud--Misdirected American Ingenuity

London, June 18.--I have just been admitted
to see what must undoubtedly rank among
one of the most remarkable collections extant.
Yet it has no official name, and neither exhaustive
Murray nor plenary Baedeker describes it.
True, it has a catalogue, but there exists only
one copy of it. The trustees of this gallery
felicitously call it the Black Museum. Those
trustees are also the heads of the Detective
Department of the London Metropolitan Police.
The museum is contained in one moderate-sized
but closely packed room, situated at the
back of No. 1 Great Scotland Yard.

One of the trustees, a young detective,
patiently shows me over and congenially sets off
its unparalleled treasures. Relieved by a few
casts of celebrated assassins, by a quaint engraving
of a distinguished highwayman of the
last century whom the myrmidons of the law
surprised with two dulcineas, by an admirable
reproduction on paper of the different parts of
an itinerant jeweler's body cut some years
ago by the Prevost French, "Agent de Surete."
and by other similar works, the treasures
consist of burglars' authentic tools, murderers'
weapons, self-destroyers' historical arms,
great criminals' ghastly souvenirs, and their
Victims' ghostlier relics.

Here comes first, in a glass jar, the hand of a
woman, severed by a rough instrument from
the arm; It was found in the Thames many
years ago. Nothing else of the unfortunate
creature was ever discovered. Then follow a
host of sinister-looking razors, each with its
ugly record: a miscellany of knives, every one
of them with its bloody tragedy. Among others,
I am given to handle a forbidding curved
steel, once the pride of a jealous sailor, who
plunged it into the heart of an inconstant
sweetheart; time has not toned down the reddish
discoloration on its blade. Half
a dozen spears, originally intended
for whaling, but used against their officers by
a mutinous crew, bring to remembrance one
of the most lugubrious dramas of the sea.
Yonder is the clerical hat of the Rev. Selby
Watson, who slew his wife, Suspended against
one side of the walls are the Fenian rifles
seized at Clerkenwell about seven years ago.
These excellent weapons with fixed bayonets
are made in two separable sections to be easily
packed up and smuggled. The maker, however,
has omitted to set his trade mark upon
them, so be cannot be looked up.

Aghast at the contemplation of a store of
ugly life preservers. bludgeons, slungshots [sic],
and jimmies, many of them smeared with a
dried black substance--which is blood--it is
with relief that the horror-stricken eye rests
on an unsuspicious little vial. But the Black
Museum has no room for innocent grimcracks:
this vial contains one of the nicotine capsules
With which the notorious Dr. Lamson poisoned
the crippled brother of his beautiful wife to get
hls money. Close by are the fearful hatchet
with which Wainwright killed Harriet Lane,
and the spade which his devoted brother
used to bury her, and four unimpressive
buttons of the dress the woman wore when
assassinated, as well as some of her hair, a
piece of her skin, one of her bones, und the
pistol ball found in her brain. Similar relics
are preserved of Harriet Buswell. the victim of
the Great Coram street murder, whose authors
are still unknown and wanted. Under a glass
case are samples of the marvellous base
two-shilling pieces coined by John Holmes, alias
Sydney Allendale, one of the princes of the unofficial
minters. sentenced only last year to
twenty years' penal servitude. Everybody
banked his two-shilling pieces as the best
productions of the mint, but. strange to say,
his half-crown issues were a complete failure.
Red and black flags of Socialists, ugly
sticks, broken gas pipes, iron bars, and oyster
knives represent trophies conquered by the
police on some of the last riotous occasions. A
black object, only four or live inches long by
3 1/2 deep, apparently a most innocuous trifle, is
one of the explosive machine cases, once filled
with dynamite. found in the coal bunkers of
one of the great Atlantic liners. Other Infernal
machines, or at least supposed infernal
machines, are also represented by a child's
feeding bottle found under the seat of a London
tram car, and an ordinary canister abandoned
in 1881 opposite the Duke of Bedford's
residence in Eaton square.

The most interesting possessions of the Black
Museum are the portable properties which it
has inherited from undoubtedly one of the
greatest culprits of all times, Charles Peace,
hanged in 1879. Never did a more daring
and clever burglar and murderer exist.
The number of houses he pillaged all
over the country has never been known.
His collection of tools, which lies here
with one of his pairs of goggles and one
of his false beards, is a revelation. The
tools are mostly small, but of an everlasting
strength. Among others there is an unheard-of
pincer, with a villainous grip to seize the
heads of keys of looked-up rooms and turn
them back, which is perfect. Peace never oscillated
before a locked bedroom; he always
went straightforward for it. The wooden ladder
he used for his nocturnal expeditions is
another triumph of workmanship. Long and
strong enough to carry any man to any first-floor
window, its joints fold up so that it can be
hidden in an unassuming Gladstone bag.

Convicts' letters add the literary element to
the collection. There is a very well-written
note of Lefroy, the man who killed Mr. Gould
on the Brighton railway, to one of the London
theatrical managers, with reference to a pantomime
written by him. Another interesting
correspondence is the one left by that satanic
woman, Mrs. Waters, the baby farmer, hanged
some fifteen years ago for the murder of an
untold number of infants intrusted to her care.
These letters throw as much horrible light
on those from whom she got the illegitimate
children, and on those with whom she traded
for the adoption of these unfortunate infants,
as on herself. With her correspondence is
kept one of the feeding bottles found in her
bed. A vial of laudanum was attached to the
neck of the bottle, the poison being mixed with
the food of the children she could not get
adopted, or of those whom she knew she was
expected to kill.

A few photographs deserve also a short
notice. First the picture of a long-since dead
adventurer, who is credited, no one knows why,
with being the original oi "Jim the Penman."
Then that of W. Bouppell, the member of Parliament
sentenced to penal servitude for having
forged bis father's will, and next the portraits
of two young, well-educated scoundrels,
Boulton and Park, who with a third wretch.
Lord Clinton, scandalized London some years
ago by their adoption of female clothes and their
indecent freaks. Their case merits a special
mention, for there is no doubt that, like the
nobleman who escaped arrest about eighteen
months ago. though known as guilty of immoral
offences, Boulton. Park, und Lord Clinton
avoided the punishment they richly deserved,
owing to social Influence and interference--sad
blots on the justice of this country.

At the end of last year, in the course of an
ungentlemanly controversy, an American,
Dougherty, shot in London his friend and
countryman. Graham. The latter soon died
from his wounds. The former was sent to
penal servitude for twenty years. Those two
visitors had come to assist at the great fight
between Kilrain and Smith. They were travelling,
also, for business purposes. They were
card sharpers, and doing very well. They belonged
to the class of players and gamblers who
particularly infest the transatlantic steamers.
The uncontrollable temper of Dougherty has
enabled the Black Museum to acquire perhaps
the pearl of its collection in the shape of the
most complete and perfect equipment of a modern
card sharper, for such equipment was found
in the apartments occupied by the two American
friends and appropriated by the English
police. A summary description of it may be
useful, as it might put people on their guard.
First, there is an implement which the unscrupulous
player adjusts with a leather strap to
his left elbow, between his shirt and coat
sleeves. It is provided with nippers fixed at
the end of an elastic steel band, which expands
to the hand of the cheater by his simply resting
his arm on the table, and which folds back
to his elbow by his lifting the arm from the
table. Should this apparatus, both for supplying
and removing cards, not be sufficient in a
protracted sitting, the cheater is provided
with another ingenious plant, which works up
his leg. On his merely bending his knee a
catgut is stretched, two small pulleys begin
action, and send out from ihe foot a pair of
steel clippers to just above his belt to relieve
him of useless cards. The cards these sharpers
use are kept in beautiful mahogany cases
which habitually contain four or five packs,
separated from each other by a partition. Every
card is marked, though the uninitiated do
not see the marks, and the cheater knows
which will turn up. The mark lies either in the
printing of the design at the back, which is
more or less shifted, or in the position of a
certain flower or line on the back, The
surface of some of the cards is rubbed
with a little sandpaper to make them
adhesive, and these cards are then
put back in the case, where they are made to
stick very close together by the means of the
screw which moves the partitions. The object
of this trick is to give the sharper in dealing
the choice of two cards. Another most useful
auxiliary of the provident gambler is a diminutive
and admirably made mirror, not bigger
than a shilling, which yet will hold your countenance.
The owner fixes it on his knee und
uses it in dealing and in games where players
cannot see tbeir cards, by holding them over it.

The mechanical dealing box used at the
game of faro is no longer a security against
cheating by sleight of hand. for in Dougherty's
collection are boxes which allow two cards
instead of one to come up when the sharper
touches a mall lever, his mirror subsequently
telling him which card to use.

Young speculators and old who may read
this and say, "Well, at least we have still the
honest teetotum." may, on the strength of this
hope, expose themselves to certain bankruptcy,
for the last thing I held in my hand in the
Black Museum, though the most innocent-looking
ivory teetotum you could conceive, is
possessed of a movable pivot, and turns up
quite differenr figures according to the end on
which it is spun. This teetotum is also the
product of American genius.

----end

An article about the shooting mentioned above.

New York Sun, November 23, 1887, Page 1, Column 6

An American Shot in London

His Assailant Supposed to be a Well-Known New York Criminal

A cable despatch from London yesterday
said that Col. George M. Graham of Rochester
N. Y. was shot on Monday evening by Dan
Doherty, said to be of Now York. It is
said that on Saturday a Mr Howard won
$2,500 from Doherty in a gambling house
and took his verbal promise to pay the
debt. Doherty later concluded that he
had been cheated, and while taking supper
with Graham on Monday night he asked the
latter how he could get rid of paying the money,
which, he said, had been unfairly won from
him. Graham told him it was a debt of honor,
whereupon Doherty, who had been drinking
pulled a revolver and shot Graham in the abdomen,
inflicting a mortal wound. Doherty is
under arrest.

Inspector Byrnes said yesterday that Dan
Doherty was very likely the crook who about
1868 was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment
in the Massachusetts State prison for a
hank robbery committed in Charlestown.
Prior to engaging in this robbery Doherty
lived in New York with a shoplifter named
Charlotte. While Doherty was in prison
Charlotte lived with a bank burglar named
Horace Hoven, alias "Little Horace." After
Doherty's fifteen years expired Charlotte and
Hoven went to England as man and wife.
Doherty followed them. Hoven was arrested
in Manchester, England recently for a bank
burglary and sent to prison for a long term.
Doherty is remembered here as a dangerous
man who would shoot on slight provocation.

---end

Trial transcript from the Old Bailey Online:

DANIEL FRANCIS DOHERTY, Killing > murder, 12th December 1887.

Reference Number: t18871212-149
Offence: Killing > murder
Verdict: Guilty > no_subcategory
Punishment: Imprisonment > penal servitude



The Spectator, Volume 50, October 6, 1877, Pages 1235-1237

THE BLACK MUSEUM.

Take care how you step," says a courteous official, who has preceded the visitor up a staircase in one of the houses in Scotland Yard, and opened a door on an upper floor; "we are obliged to throw a great deal of this about." The substance in question is a disinfecting powder, inimical to "the moth;" the room is a large, bare-floored apartment, with barred windows, fitted up with wide shelves, which are divided into square compartments; tho centre is occupied by a shelved stand, also divided into compartments, and their contents are liberally sprinkled with the all-pervading powder. The room is that in which the articles of property taken from convicts about to undergo their sentences are stowed away until they are reclaimed by their owners; the stand in the centre is a receptacle for objects of the "unlawful-possession" class, to which a large room upstairs is also devoted. Overhead is the "Black Museum," in which, during the last three years, pieces de conviction, which until then had been kept indiscriminately with the other property of criminals, have been arranged and labelled, forming a ghastly, squalid, and suggestive show. On entering the lower room, the visitor is struck by its odd resemblance to a seed-shop. Hundreds of hooks stud the rims of the shelves and the sides of the compartments, and from them are suspended hundreds of little packets, neatly made up in brown paper, tied with white twine, and severally distinguished by large parchment labels, each bearing a neat inscription. The packets contain small articles taken from the prisoners, who in due course, after they are discharged from prison, will be brought to Scotland Yard, will have their portraits taken (by force, should they object to that process); the larger things are deposited in the compartments of the shelves, and every item, no matter how insignificant, is entered in the proper registers. A motley collection are the larger articles, with a preponderance among them of grimy pocketbooks and greasy purses,—-one trim and pretty hand-basket strikes the visitor's eye,—-but there are valuable things in some of those parcels; and downstairs, in the officials' room, is a massive iron safe, fitted with sliding shelves, in which is kept a large collection of watches, rings, chains, pins, scent-bottles, pencil-cases, and other jewellery, which are either the lawful property of prisoners, or have been found in their unlawful possession and confiscated, but for whom no owners have been discovered. Among tho watches are some beautiful specimens, one in particular, taken from a costermongcr, and of exquisite workmanship and ornamentation, is valued at fifty pounds.

The Prisoners' Property room is scrupulously clean and tidy, but the look of it is forlorn and squalid, the powder lies thick on everything, and the scent of moth and rot is in the air. Great bales of cloth and woollen stuff occupy the shelves of the central stand; they are shaken, and beaten, and turned, but all to no avail; the moth and the rot have got them, while the prison has got the former unlawful possessors of them, and the unwholesome weirdness peculiar to once worn, but long unused garments is upon the articles of wearing apparel which are hung or folded up in the room. This impression comes more strongly upon the visitor when he goes up higher still, into the topmost apartment, where heaps of clothing hang against the walls, some new, some worn. A girl's white fur jacket behind the door is a mere nursery for moths, a bunch of new boots of several sizes dangling from a peg at the end of a long string is all speckled with a measly mildew; the heaps of shawls have a draggled and furtive look, and some childreu's clothing has a touch of its inseparable prettiness, even here Old books, a picture or two, some worthless table ornaments, innumerable articles, which could not be described or classed except as odds and ends, form a portion of this collection, which goes on accumulating, and which has no ultimate destination. "What is to become of all this?" asks the visitor, and is answered, to his surprise, that nobody knows; that the things are nobody's property, and nobody has the power to do anything with them,—-a piece of information which makes them more ghastly and nightmarelike to the imagination than before. An ever-growiDg dust-heap, formed of thieves' clothing and unlawful possessions, with nobody to cart it away, to distribute it, or bury it out of sight for evermore; an accumulating banquet always spread for the moth, the rust, and the rot,—-the contents of those rooms are far from pleasant to think of. It seems supremely ridiculous, but it is a fact that nothing short of a legislative measure could rid the premises of these rotting garments out of whose every fold one might shake, with the dust, an image of squalor, crime, and punishment.

Outside the door of the Black Museum is a shelf, in the wall of the landing-place. The visitor passing it is aware of a huddled heap of dirty coats, a serge gown, and a coarse kind of rug, the skin of an animal, with the red and white hair on. Under the shelf, on the floor, lies some rough packing-cloth. He passes the heap carelessly—-there's a little can full of a disinfecting fluid on the same shelf—-and enters the Museum. What are his first impressions of it? They are various,—-that it is like a bit out of a gamekeeper's room, with a bigger bit out of a smith's forge, a touch of a carpenter's workshop, a broad suggestion of a harness-room, something of the marine-store complexion (and a good deal of its odour), a hint of the open-air stall in front of a pawn-shop in a very small way of business indeed, a little of the barrack-room gun-rack, with no "bright barrels" enforced; a general air of lumber-room, with just a dash of anatomical museum, but above all, and increasing with every moment's prolonged observation, a likeness to the cutlery booth in a foreign fair, with all the knives symmetrically displayed, but unaccountably rusty and dim-bladed, as if the booth had been shut up for half a century, and the salesman and his customers were all ghosts.

Opposite the door, and on the face of the wall to the right, are the objects, displayed on a wooden shelf with iron legs, which convey to the visitor a hint of the open-air stall in front of a pawn-shop in a very small way of business indeed. A common little looking-glass in a wooden frame, with a foot to it, four black glass buttons, two wisps of rope, a pair of trumpery earrings in a cardboard box, two bullets, a pipe, a cluster of soft, now dull, light brown hair, wound round a pad, a comb, a pocket-knife, and a little wooden stand covered with glass, are among the most noticeable articles. On the shelf to the right are a dirty Prayer-book, a pocket dictionary, a pair of boots, a gaudy bag worked in beads, and the crushed remains of a woman's bonnet, made of the commonest black lace, and flattened into shapelessness. In both these instances the other impressions of the place come in too, for over the shelf fronting the door hang workmen's tools, hammer, and cleaver, and spade, and beside that on the right, is just such a bundle as adorns the walls of the Marine Store; it consists of a gown and petticoat, of cheap, poor stuff, bearing dreadful, dim stains, and a battered crinoline. The visitor is in presence of the mean objects which perpetuate here the memory of two peculiarly horrible crimes. The soft brown hair is that of Harriet Lane, the buttons and the earrings are those which were found in the earth where her body had been buried, the bullets were taken out of her skull, tho object under the glass-case is the sacred piece of her skin which completed the identification of the body; the wisps of rope dragged her out of the earth under the warehouse, the cleaver, the hammer, and the spade are the implements with which the horrible deed which led to the murderer's detection were done. The knife was Thomas Wainwright's, the pipe was Henry's, and when the visitor is leaving the museum he will be shown, in the pack-cloth on the floor under the shelf outside the door, the wrapper in which the dismembered body was packed; and in one of the dirty coats,—-a horrid thing, with its hideous rents and smears,—-Wainwright's vesture on the occasion. The coat of the captain of the ' Lennie,' with the gash in the cloth torn by the knife of his murderer, and eaten through and through with moth and rot, is not nearly so disgusting an object; and as for the serge robe of that poor rogue, "Professor Zendavesta," and the hide cloak of the confiscated "anatomical" wax African, who grins awfully in one corner of the museum, a real skeleton hand and arm considerately hidden behind him, they are quite cheerful to look at in comparison. The Prayer-book and the other pitiful objects upon the shelf to the right were found on the body of Maria Clousen, the blood-and-mud-stained clothes were hers, and they contrast with grim irony, as evidences of an unpunished crime, with the adjoining objects, which tell of one brother hanged and the other in penal servitude.

Along the wall on the right side of the room is ranged a choice collection of guns, crowbars, and "jemmies "—-the latter are implements of the housebreaking industry, which admit of great variety, and are susceptible of highly artistic handling—-and among them is a pair of tongs, unevenly rusted, and with a dirty paper-book, written all over with incoherent sentences, attached to it. The tongs are those with which a man named Macdonald killed his wife about two years ago; the book is, it seems to the visitor, a record of the various phases of the man's insanity. They hanged him, though, and also the greater number of the proprietors of the horrid, labelled assortment of hammers, knives—including the bread, carving, and pocket varieties--razors, and pistols, which suggest a cutler's booth in a fair. There is dried blood on all the knives and razors, and on some of the hammers, and every one of them stands for a murder or a suicide; in a terrible number of cases, for the murder of a wife by her husband. Several of the pistols, mostly beautiful weapons, are the instruments of suicide, and each is labelled with the name, date, and place. The simple suicides are almost all among the higher classes of society, and when the visitor asks how the pistol with which a gentleman of wealth and station shot himself has come into the keeping of the Museum, he is told :—-" The family mostly do not like to have it, and so they ask the police to take it away." In a corner hang the clothes of the Rev. J. Watson, who murdered his wife at Stockwell; the horse-pistol with which he shot her, and the heavy hammer which he bought to knock the nails into the chest in which he proposed to hide her body. So carefully had the murderer washed his trousers and his coat-sleeves, that the blood-stains could only be discerned with difficulty at the time of the investigation. But since the coat and trousers have been hanging on the Black Museum's walls, the stains have come out close and thick. "We many times notice that here," the visitor is told. The frightful weapons used by the 'Lennie' mutineers are here, neatly ranged under the photograph of the ringleader, "French Peter," and a "group" of the whole gang of ruffians, with a red-ink mark on four heads among the number, to indicate those who were hanged. Hard by is a bundle of letters, forming the correspondence which furnished much of the evidence against Margaret Waters, the baby-farmer. How much sin, shame, sorrow, and cruelty that small dusty bundle represents! A small billycock hat, with a mask fastened inside the front rim, into which is packed a purse, a comforter, a small lantern, and a life-preserver, with a terrific knob of lead on it, is quite a cheerful object to turn to from all these grim relics of worse crimes, though the burglar who formerly owned the life-preserver informed the police who seized, but also rescued him, having come up on hearing his cries when be was caught between the iron bars of a window through which he was escaping, on a false alarm, that he had thoroughly intended to "do for" any one who should interrupt him, with that convenient weapon. A bundle of flash notes, Bank of Elegance issue, for which there is a fixed price, and a brisk sale on race-courses among bettors who can only read imperfectly or not at all; the conjuring-book of Professor Zendavesta, which always opened at the same page, the only one on which there is a worked horoscope; the wretched cheat's ill-spelled accounts, which reveal the stupendous credulity of the people, for they record an average of five hundred visitors a week; and the letters addressed to him, chiefly by women, at least sufficiently educated to know better;—-these are almost amusing, after all that has been seen before. A forged betting ticket, which got the forger into trouble at the Nottingham races, is a curious and ingenious example of perverted cleverness. The forged ticket is identical with the real one, to all appearance. On very close inspection, one sees that it is better printed than the genuine article. A large assortment of burglars' tools is not the least suggestive object here. The weapons of the thieves' war upon society are models of good workmanship, and of the adaptation of means to ends. When the neatest "centre-bit" of the carpenter's shop is compared with the deft, swift, noiselessly-working implement which goes into an iron shutter as a cheesemonger's scoop goes into a "freah Dutch;" when one looks at tho wedges of finely-tempered steel, working between zinc side-bites; at the two homemade dark lanterns, contrived with extraordinary cleverness out of a mustard-tin and a metal match-box respectively; at the rope-ladder; the "beautiful little jemmy," in a carefully-buttoned red flannel case,—-this small, powerful tool is made of a piece of a driving-wheel belonging to the finest machinery, and the metal was, of course, stolen to make it—-at the bright, slender skeleton keys; at the footpads, which are enough to make one start at every creak of one's boards and stairs, however slight; at the safe-breaking tools, which make one think there's nothing like the old stocking in the thatch, after all,—-one is amazed at and sorry for the misused cleverness and perverted inventiveness to which these things testify. Among the skeleton keys is one delicate little contrivance, which at a first glance one might take for an ornament for a lady's chatelaine. It is in reality a double instrument for picking latch-keyholes,—-one part forming the key, and the other lifting the spring. This pretty trifle was made from the brass clasp of a purse, and used with such success by the inventor that in a short time he found hinieelf in prison. While one is actually inside the Black Museum, one cannot feel amused at anything; but by the time one has turned into the Strand, the impression of the dreary reliquary of crime has so far passed away, that one can smile at the story told of the impudent simplicity of this poor, clever thief. "When be was discharged from prison," said the curator of the Black Museum, as he restored the delicate, dangling little bit of villany to its place, " the man came here, and asked us to let him have it back!"

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Chambers's Journal, April 25, 1885, Pages 264-267

The Black Museum

The name at the head of this paper will be a puzzle to a good many of our readers. Even among Londoners born and bred, not one in a hundred perhaps has heard of the Black Museum. Whitaker’s Almanac knows it not; and Dickens’s Dictionary of London, that ‘guide, philosopher, and friend’ of the wanderer in the great metropolis, makes no mention of it. Mr Samuel Weller himself, ‘extensive and peculiar’ as his knowledge of London is admitted to have been, might have had to plead guilty of ignorance in this one particular. And yet the Black Museum can show names of mark in its visitors’ book. ‘Counts a many, and dukes a few,’ from Royal Highnesses downwards, have here inscribed their signatures. Literature and music are represented by Mr W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan; the drama by Miss Minnie Palmer; the fire brigade by Captain Shaw; and the last offices of the law by Mr William Marwood, who, we are told, was a frequent visitor. Not to keep the reader in suspense, the Black Museum is a small back-room on the second floor of the offices of the Convict Supervision Department, Scotland Yard, and its curios consist exclusively of articles connected in one way or another With crime and criminals. The objects exhibited are about a hundred and fifty in number. They are carefully labelled, and are further described in a bulky catalogue, which, in addition to names, dates, and other particulars, contains a number of photographs and newspaper cuttings having relation to the various items.

The collection is so arranged as to allow free inspection of the various objects, and the curator, Sergeant Bradshaw, takes an evident pride in his charge, and furnishes the history of any given item with remarkable promptitude and accuracy. Round three sides of the room, on a high shelf, are ranged a number of plaster casts from Derby jail and York Castle, representing the heads of sundry criminals, who, for one offence or another, have suffered the last penalty of the law. If it were customary to hang people on the strength of their personal appearance, we should say that most of these gentry fully deserved their fate. They are not a pleasant sight, and for the most part have not even notoriety to recommend them. One of them, however, a big heavy head, ticketed as that of ‘John Platts’—-executed in 1847, for the murder of one George Collis, at Chesterfield—-acquires a factitious interest from the fact that the identical rope which hanged the original is looped over the gas pendant in the centre of the room. The halters connected with the other casts are also preserved in the Museum, but this one chances to have the place of honour. The curator calls our attention to the thinness of the rope—-about five-eighths of an inch only—-in comparison with that at present used, which is nearly or quite an inch in diameter. He further points out that the rope is much shorter than that now in use. Under the old regime, it was an even chance whether the criminal died by strangling or by dislocation of the neck; whereas, by the present more merciful ‘long drop,’ the neck is invariably dislocated, and death is practically instantaneous. Together with the halter are seen the cords——now replaced by a leather strap—-for pinioning the arms of the condemned man, and the cap—-a tall conical affair like a large cotton nightcap, but of double material—-for drawing over his head at the supreme moment. These three items, the halter, the pinioning gear, and the cap, constitute the complete ‘hangman’s kit.’ Sergeant Bradshaw informs us, not without a touch of regret, that Mr Marwood, on paying his last visit to the Museum, promised to present to it the rope with which the murderers of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr Burke were executed, but died without having redeemed his promise.

From the appliances of the hangman, we pass by an easy transition to the last relics of the late Mr Charles Peace, which rank among the chief lions of the collection. Sergeant Bradshaw shows us, handling them ‘tenderly, as if he loved them,’ the working tools of the venerable miscreant: the neat little picklocks and skeleton-keys; the gimlet, muffled in an india-rubber casing; the handy little ‘jemmy;’ the crucible for melting down his spoils; and last, but not least, his ‘ladder,’ a simple wooden contrivance, folding into so small a compass as to go into an ordinary handbag, and yet, when extended, affording ample foothold for the cat-like ‘prince of burglars,' as he is called, to climb up to a first-floor window. So original is the contrivance, that until Peace himself revealed its object, the police were quite at a loss to imagine its use. Here, too, are the inventor’s blue spectacles, and his artificial arm—-a leather stump with a hook in it—-worn for the purpose of disguise, the real arm lying snugly within the coat. The secret of Peace having so long kept out of the hands of the police is that he had no accomplices, but worked entirely alone. Under cover of his disguise, he collected the necessary information for his exploits; and after some daring burglary, wherein the activity of a practised gymnast had been displayed, the last person to be suspected was the little one-armed old man with the blue spectacles. Wonderful are the ways of hero-worshippers. Some eccentric relic-hunter has actually cut a piece out of the artificial arm, and in some obscure corner of the universe doubtless dazzles his kinsfolk and acquaintances by the exhibition of a veritable bit of leather formerly belonging to a deceased burglar and murderer. The reader may remember that Peace, after having escaped the consequences of many previous crimes, was convicted of attempting the life of a policeman, and of the actual murder of a Mr Dyson, at Bannercross, near Sheffield; and after a determined attempt to escape by jumping from a railway train, was executed at Leeds on the 25th of February 1879. A carte-de-visite of Peace, taken by the Stereoscopic Company, is preserved in the catalogue, and should be a valuable example to the student of physiognomy; the high forehead, deep-set eyes, and bulldog lower Jaw indicating a singular combination—-fully verified in the life of the man—-of strong intellectual power and force of will, unbalanced by corresponding moral qualities.

From the Peace collection we pass to the stock-in-trade of less notorious burglars. Here is a miniature dark-lantern, manufactured by some ingenious scoundrel out of one of Bryant and May’s three-penny tin match-boxes. ‘To such base uses may we come at last!’ The bull's-eye is a mere bit of window-glass, oval in shape, and so small that the operator can, when necessary, mask it with his thumb, no slide being used. The light~giving power of such a lantern must naturally be small, but it is probably quite sufficient to enable the burglar to avoid stumbling over tables and chairs, or to illuminate a key-hole.

Here are the working tools of Wright and Wheatley, the Hoxton burglars, now undergoing penal servitude—-Wright being condemned for ife, Wheatley to twenty years. Each carried a revolver; that belonging to Wright, with which he shot at and wounded two of the police, being stamped ‘British Constabulary,’ a queer illustration of the irony of fate, and of the proverbial ‘engineer hoist with his own petard.’ Each of these two practitioners carried his tools in a sort of haversack slung at his side. A later expert, captured in the act of an attempted burglary at the British Museum in 1884, took a bolder course, and carried his implements—-also here preserved—-in an ordinary carpenter’s tool-basket, over his shoulder. This gentleman affected the early morning for his exploits, and unless caught in the very act, would naturally be taken for a harmless British workman, going about his lawful avocations.

As might perhaps be anticipated, we find here an ample collection of crowbars or ‘jemmies’ of various descriptions. These formidable appliances are made, it appears, in regular gradations of size, the three largest being known as the ‘Lord Mayor,’ the ‘Alderman,’ and the ‘Common-councilman. The Lord Mayor is four feet three inches in length, and is only used on great occasions, say the breaking open of a strong-room or very heavy safe. The specimen here shown was used in what is known as the Hatton Garden burglary in 1880, by Smith and others. The Alderman is three feet three inches in length; the Common-councilman about two inches shorter, and, as befits its lower dignity, not quite so stout. whatever may be said as to the projected reform of the City of London, our readers will agree With us that the sooner this corporation is abolished the better. Passing downward from the Common-councilman, we come ultimately to the ‘pocket’ Jemmy—-James the less, in more respectful language—-which is about twelve inches in length. The Black Museum specimen is of finely tempered steel, and hinged so as to fold in half, in which condition a curate might carry it In his breast-pocket without exciting suspicion. The larger sizes divide into two or three lengths, which are screwed together when required for actual use. Some are solid, some of tubular steel, the latter construction giving increased lightness without any sacrifice of strength. Each end terminetes in a chisel point, the one straight, the other slightly bent. In close continuity to the crowbars we are shown specimens of the ‘knuckleduster,’ a small but formidable weapon, for which we are indebted to our American cousins. The ordinary knuckle-duster is a flat piece of iron or brass about half an inch thick, with four oval openings of such size as to allow the passage of the four fingers. The fingers being passed through these holes, the hand closes with a firm grip on the ‘butt’ of the weapon, while the remainder of the metal stands out in the shape of an iron ring or guard over each knuckle, a blow from the hand thus armed coming with terrific force. Still more formidable is the ‘spiked’ knuckle-duster. Here each loop of the projecting guard over the knuckles, instead of being rounded, as in the former case, is fashioned into an angle of about ninety degrees, giving a cutting effect in addition to the natural force of the blow.

Passing on from the knuckle-dusters, we give a cursory glance at a varied collection of life-preservers, pistols, daggers, and other lethal weapons, all of which have seen service at some time or other. The butcher’s knife, we note, is a decidedly popular weapon. There are also some half-dozen razors, all of which have been used in the commission of murders or attempted murders. It is a curious fact that they are without exception black-handled, the innocent whiteness of bone or ivory being apparently uncongenial to the murderous instinct.

Our attention is next directed to sundry tin canisters, which prove to be infernal machines. As a rule, they look harmless enough, one of them even assuming the innocent semblance of an ordinary lump of coal. The imitation is so good that it is only on taking it in the hand that we discover that the supposed coal is in reality metal, hollow, but of great weight and substance. This singular article was brought to the police by one Fraser Palmer, otherwise Farrell, otherwise ‘Warhawk,’ a man who had a mania for warning our own and foreign governments of plots which in reality had no existence save in his own imagination. He asserted that this supposed piece of coal, with others of the same kind, was intended to be charged with explosives, and mixed with the genuine coal in the bunkers of some doomed steamship. It is said that, in consequence of his revelations, an examination was made of the whole of the coal in the bunkers of the late Czar’s steam-yacht Livadia, then lying at Glasgow, but without result. Side by side with this last item is a far more formidable-looking affair. It is of small size; but the solidity of its construction and the peculiarity of its shape—-a flattened oval, tapering down at the extremity, where the fuse is inserted—-indicate that special thought and ingenuity have been expended on its design. Even the most accomplished of criminals, however, cannot be always on his guard, and this deadly contrivance was inadvertently left in a tramcar. The conductor was persuaded that his ‘find’ was an infernal machine of more than ordinarily diabolical character, and he conveyed it with infinite precaution to the police, who at first were of the same opinion. Further investigation, however, satisfied them that the supposed explosive was merely a model, artistically cast in lead, of a new design for an infant's feeding--bottle!

A more serious interest attaches to the truncheon-case—-pierced with a bullet—-of the unfortunate policeman Cole, shot at Dalston in 1882 by the cowardly ruffisn Orrock, in an attempted burglary at a Baptist chapel. Orrock’s soft felt hat, found on the scene of the murder, is also here preserved, as also the chisel, with the letters ‘rock’ scratched upon it, which led to his identification. A photograph of the chisel is also shown; and it is a curious illustration of the detective powers of science that the mark, which on the chisel itself is imperceptible to ordinary eyesight, is plainly legible in the photograph.

Among the cartes-de-visite which adorn the Museum catalogue is that of O’Donnell, the man who shot the informer Carey. Here, too, are the two bullets which were extracted from Carey’s body, and the revolver, a small pocket weapon, from which they were fired. A larger revolver, found among O‘Donnell's luggge, lies beside it. Under a glass shade hard by lies a gelatine capsule, a harmless-looking affair enough, but belying its appearance, for it contains a deadly poison, aconite—-being, in fact, the fellow to that used by Dr Lamson in 1882 to destroy his youthful brother-in-law. We are shown the carte of this criminal also, a gentlemanly-looking man, by no means answering to the conventional type of assassin. Appearances, however, are deceitful, as the copybooks of our youth so persistently reminded us. Under another glass shade is a piece of dark-brown leather, which proves to be a portion of the tanned skin of Bellingham, the murderer of Mr Perceval. Side by side with this is a curiosity of a. different kind, a pin-cushion, skilfully worked in human hair, with the inscription, ‘I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way thou shalt go. I will guide thee with mine eye.’ Here, apparently, the worker’s stock of scriptural quotation failed, for she continues, ‘My home is in heaven.’ It is painful to have to relate that the good lady who worked these pious sentiments has been over three hundred times convicted of drunkenness and disorderly conduct! She presented this pin-cushion—-in honour, we presume, of old acquaintance—-to the Rev. Mr Horsley, chaplain of the House of Detention, who in turn presented it to the Black Museum.

A tall hat on a peg and much covered with dust, next attracts our attention. This homely relic was the property of the Rev. Mr Speke, the eccentric clergyman who suddenly disappeared, leaving his head gear—-here present-—in the Green Park, and was believed to have been murdered, but was subsequently discovered, in the garb of a labouring-man, at Padstow in Cornwall. He ultimately died, we believe, in a lunatic asylum. Close beside Mr Speke’s hat hang a coil of rope, a pair of boots, and an old horse-pistol. These articles were the property of another clerical gentleman, the Rev. John Selby Watson, an eminent scholar, of St Michael’s Road, Stockwell. He was convicted, in January 1872, of the murder of his wife, whose body he had inclosed in a packing-case, corded with the piece of rope here shown. He was, however, respited on the ground of insanity, and thenceforth kept in confinement. He died quite recently, at Parkhnrst Prison in the Isle of Vight, falling out of his bunk in a fit and fracturing his skull.

Not far distant are mementos of other well-known murderers. Here is the portrait, cut from the Daily Telegraph, of Lefroy, the murderer of Mr Gold on the Brighton Railway. Here is the rope used by Marguerite Dixblanc to strangle her mistress, Madame Riel, in Park Lane. Here are the boots of the unfortunate girl, Maria Clausen, murdered at Kidbrooke Lane, Eltham, and the plasterer’s hammer which did the deadly deed. With another plasterer's hammer, also here preserved, Mullins murdered Mrs Emsley at Stepney, in 1860. Here, too, are sundry memorials of the Wainwright case, or Whitechapel murder, of 1874. Here are the chopper with which the unfortunate Harriet Lane was dismembered, and the spade which dug her grave. Here is one of the buttons cut from her dress, and a corresponding button found with her body; and—-stranger item still—-the piece of shinbone taken by a surgeon from the leg of the living Harriet Lane, and which formed a last unmistakable proof of the identity of the nameless corpse. Even the cigar which Henry Wainwright was smoking when arrested, is here preserved.

Turning to offenders of a more frivolous character, we have the peepshow apparatus wherein a pretended astrologer, calling himself Professor Zendavesta, and residing in Homer Street, Marylebone Road, London, was wont, ‘for a consideration,’ to call up the image of an inquirer’s future wife or husband. To illustrate the audacity of the Professor and the fatuity of his dupes, we may mention that among his pictorial collection of promised husbands were found Mr Holman Hunt and Mr Henry Neville. Another branch of the Professor’s business was the casting of nativities; and a number of his hand-bills, showing the great advantages to be derived from possessing the ‘straight tip’ in this particular, are preserved with the peepshow apparatus. Next to this latter is a circular board with a number of shallow cups or depressions, painted of different colours, but higgledy-piggledy, like a solitaire board ‘gone wrong.’ This is an appliance for public-house gambling. A marble being dropped into a cylindrical arrangement at the side, is allowed to wander at will over the board, bets being made as to the particular colour in which it will finally settle. Not far distant is a bundle of ‘flash’ notes, used by sharpers to simulate unbounded wealth, for the purpose of the ‘confidence trick’ and similar frauds. ‘Flash’ differ from ‘forgcd’ notes, the latter being intended to be actually passed as money, and consequently made as like the real thing as possible. The flash note is a very rough affair, and only aims at simulating the general appearance of a genuine note. The specimens before us are headed ‘Bank of Engraving,' and run: ‘I promise to engrave and print in letter-press on demand for the sum of ten pounds, in the first style of the art, or forfeit the above sum. London, 29 April 1840. For Self and Co., Bank of Engraving. J. DUCK.' There is the customary 'Ten' in large Gothic letters in the left-hand corner; and the paper and printing of a genuine note are imitated with sufficient closeness to deceive an unwary observer who merely sees the note in the hands of another person.

Among curiosities of a different kind is an Egyptian courbash, or bastinado, an article having the appearance of an ordinary walking-cane, tapering considerably. It is said to be of rhinoceros’ hide. Whatever the material, it is of great weight and flexibility; and when applied, after the mild Oriental fashion, to the soles of the victim’s feet, must be extremely persuasive. The specimen before us had the honour of being exhibited during a recent debate in the House of Commons. Hard by it is an ancient watchman’s rattle, with which an expert performer, if allowed full opportunity to use it, could make a noise audible at nearly two hundred yards’ distance. As a matter of fact, however, it was chiefly used to batter the head of the watchman himself, for which purpose it was greatly approved by the malefactors of the period. A similar appliance, in an improved form, was used by the police up to a recent date; but is now happily superseded by a powerful whistle, which leaves the wearer full use of his hands for attack or defence, and can be heard for nearly three-quarters of a mile. Here, also, are handcufi's of various dates and construction, including the pair in which the notorious Jerry Abershaw, the highwayman, was hanged in chains (1795) on Wimbledon Common; and an ingenious wristlet, of Yankee contrivance, for securing an offender on his way to durance vile. It is not unlike a. pair of caliper-compasses, but with a crosshandle, like that of a corkscrew. The compass portion being slipped over the wrist of the criminal, closes with a spring; and the handle being grasped firmly by the officer in charge, the captive has small chance of freeing himself, for a broken wrist would be the probable consequence of a struggle. Apropos of this useful appliance, Sergeant Bradshaw favours us with a ittle piece of professional advice, which will appropriately conclude our paper. ‘Always grip your man,’ he tells us, ‘on his right side. Then, if he shows fight, he can only let you have it with his left, and you have your right hand free to tackle him. If you grip him on his left side, you leave him the use of his right hand to your left, and like enough he’ll get the better of you.’

---end

[Mayerling]

Boy, you put down a great deal about the "Black Museum". I can't go into much of it, but I'll try go point out a few things.

Reverend Benjamin Speke disappeared in 1865 and it was what they refer to as a "nine day wonder". The blameless clergyman was the brother of the African Explorer and discoverer of Lake Victoria (he was alone, but his exploration partner James Grant was ill in a tent a few miles back), John Hanning Speke. The explorer had died in a shooting incident (some still suspect it was suicide) when he was about to appear at a debate with his former partner in an earlier expedition, the famous Richard Burton. Burton was a gifted debater (and writer) and probably would have won the debate - but we'll never know. Benjamin Speke was found at the end of nearly two weeks, working as a cattle drover on a country farm. He returned to his home, and died in 1881, possibly a suicide by drowning. What caused the disappearance was never revealed.

Reverend John Selby Watson was one of the few murderers who had his biographical entry in the original Dictionary of National Biography. He was headmaster of a small school in London, and augmented his meager earnings (which were never raised) by translations and learned books that were not big money generators. However, I can vouch that his translation of the Roman-Greek historian Polybius was included in a "Viking" paperback with three other ancient historians forty years back. His last work of scholarship, a history of the Papacy, failed like the other books did. Unfortunately he was now super-annuated, and the Board of Trustees thanked him for his services and replaced him - they did not give him any final gift or annuity. His wife had become an alcoholic, and she confronted him at home and in the course of an argument he bludgeoned her. It actually is a manslaughter, but he compounded the crime by trying to "hide" the body, behind a sofa. When he realized he could not plan a sudden clever burial or dismemberment (he never was the type) he took some poison. A servant found him and got the doctor...and the police. Nobody expected Watson to hang - it was abundantly clear that his crime was tied to cruel poverty and unfeeling employers. While on death row (he was found guilty of first degree murder) several parliamentary members in discussing the case judged the man's ability for translating Greek. The sentence was reduced to life imprisonment. He died in that accident in his cell in 1884.

Maria Clousen is the victim of a case which has annoyed Crime Historians since 1871 when it occurred: the "Eltham Case". A made in a house in Eltham, near London, she had been seeing a great deal of one Edmund Pook, whose family (a middle class one) lived in Eltham, but who (despite being a epileptic) was actually pursuing a career on the music hall circuit. One night in the fall of 1871 Maria was hurrying up with her chores when a fellow servant asked why she was in a rush. Maria explained she had a date with Edmund. She ran out and was never seen alive again (her corpse, attacked with a hatchet) was found in a nearby "lover's lane". Suspicion fell on Edmund, and he was arrested. But soon the case descended into a farce. A solicitor also named Pook (but not a relative, apparently) felt Edmund was being railroaded. This guy did everything to gather a minor dream team to defend Edmund, and to discredit anyone who testified for the prosecution. There was evidence that Edmund's movements that night were suspicious and furtive, but the defense attacked and attacked and questioned everything. Then came the testimony about what Maria had said as she was leaving to the fellow servant. The solicitor named Pook and his barrister partner insisted it was hearsay and not under any exception (it was not given to a figure who had legal right to hear and make note of it - a senior servant or somebody who had the legal obligation to protect Maria). As a result it had to be thrown out. Edmund Pook was acquitted.

There was also a criminal libel trial on the case that resulted in another victory for the Pook family and it's offspring (still using Pook the solicitor!). Then there a last trial - a civil suit that it was a mistake for the Pooks to have pursued. It seems the level of proof needed for evidence in civil suits is far more flexible than in criminal cases. This time Sergeant Ballentine, a prominent barrister of the day, was defending the defendant in the civil case, and when Edmund got on the stand forced him to make revelations he had not been forced to make in the earlier cases...statements showing he had opportunity, motive, and possibly access to the weapon. The jury voted against the Pooks in this case, and the family's reputation was finally destroyed by their over-reaching. They'd gone to the legal water trough once too many times.

Jeff

[TradeName]

Thanks, Jeff.

Here's an account of the alleged threat against the Czar's yacht mentioned in one of the Black Museum articles.

The Saturday Review, October 2, 1880, Pages 414-415

THE PLOT AGAINST THE LIVADIA

Just as the excitement about the Watford dynamite was settling down into the condition which precedes absolute oblivion, a fresh scare of the same kind, and probably not unconnected with the former, came from Glasgow. There, as diligent readers of their newspapers are aware, lies, and has for some time been lying, all but ready for sea, a new yacht built for the Czar by some Glasgow shipbuilders. The Livadia is one of the numerous, costly, and it may be added hitherto not very successful, experiments of the indefatigable Admiral Popoff. Upon a huge raft-shaped hull, like an air-cushion, or rather like an inflated John Dory in shape, rises a short superstructure with straight sides, and then a kind of infinitely magnified deckhouse, arranged rather like a sumptuous palace on shore than a confined and awkwardly shaped sea-home. Whether this queer craft will be nautically a success remains to be seen. But she was intended to be something more than a mere pleasure-boat. Her speed was to bo very great; her capacity as a troop-ship would, in case of need, be enormous; and, though it would be difficult to armour-plate her in any way, her great low-lying platform, based on a sort of life-raft, divided into an immense number of compartments, could very easily have heavy artillery mounted on it, and would, at least in theory, be almost unsinkable by shot. Hence the Livadia would be, if she answered her designer's demands on her, a considerable addition, not merely to the Czar's comfort, bat to the strength of the Russian navy, and she is all the more likely to be the mark of the attempts of the restless conspirators who are ready to strike anywhere at an exposed and vulnerable point. Moreover it was supposed, at any rate at one time, that the Grand Duke Constantine would himself command the Livadia on the voyage to Russia. Thus a remarkable opportunity of killing divers birds with one stone presented itself to the Nihilists, who, it may be added, are also, since the semi-official statement that the dynamite found at Watford had been in all probability lying there for some days, strongly suspected of the attempt to blow Hp the North-Western train. The Livadia, it should be observed, from her peculiar construction, offers a good deal of temptation to the particular form of destructive agency supposed to have been adopted.

Of the main facts there seems to be no doubt; which is a good deal more than can be said for the former attempt. It is said positively that information was received a week ago from St. Petersburg, and also from Geneva, a great haunt of Russian malcontents, that three men had left London with "Thomas" clocks intended for the destruction of the yacht. These ingenious devices, it may be remembered, are named from, and were first employed by, the author of the Bremen explosion. Nitroglycerine is the explosive agent, and in the case is included a piece of mechanism going by clockwork for as many days as may be thought proper. At the conclusion of the time, and not before, a hammer strikes the detonating fuse connected with the nitroglycerine, and the explosion takes place. Although these clocks have been much talked of, it is not to be supposed that many people have been actually acquainted with them; but there is nothing mysterious in their construction, though whether it is possible to obviate the risk of a premature explosion from some chance concussion is indeed not quite clear. In a trading-ship they can of course be concealed very conveniently among parcels of merchandise or passengers' luggage. But a favourite notion as to their use is that they should be concealed among the coals; romance, if not history, going so far as to say that they have been or may be fashioned so as to look like large blocks of the fuel and thus to escape detection. The coal bunkers in the Livadia are in the lowest part of the structure, and therefore excellently situated for the production of the most destructive explosion. Further, it is said that tho three persons indicated actually endeavoured to obtain access to the Livadia, which was naturally an object of great curiosity to Glasgow sightseers. But warning had been received in time, and, on a different pretext, visitors were excluded. Since that time the Livadia has been guarded with a good deal more care than most ships of war off an enemy's coast. Nobody is admitted into the yard without giving ample explanations; detectives wander about the yard and the ship herself; the coal already on board has been taken out and examined, and everything admitted on board in future is to be poked and probed with the assiduity of the most jealous exciseman. Bold as well as wary as the Nihilists have more than once proved themselves, it [sic] not very likely that they will endeavour to elude this vigilance just now. Yet it is only fair to remember that the explosion at the Winter Palace took place under conditions apparently far more prohibitory than any which can apply to the Livadia. An immense number of workmen, sailors, and others must be perforce admitted to the ship for whom it would be very difficult for anyone personally to answer. The examination of the coal more particularly suggests itself as an extremely difficult business to carry out thoroughly. On the whole, it is probable that only those persons who are ardently in quest of a new sensation would care to accept a berth on board the Livadia for the trip to the place whence she takes her name, despite the promise of next to no motion, of lofty courts and halls instead of 6tifling cabins, and even of flower-gardens and other phenomenal luxuries to relieve and contrast with the monotony of the sea.

It is impossible, taking the facts as stated, to resist the conclusion that the Nihilists are by no means inclined to give up the game, or to abandon their old way of playing it, despite the comparative lull which the iron hand and velvet glove of General Loris Melikoff have together brought about of late in Russia itself. It is, to say the least, unpleasant, and, to say more than the least, somewhat ungrateful, that they should choose England for the scene of their operations. When they were first suspected of the Watford affair, it was stated that the police had with some simplicity requested the best-known Nihilists resident in England to say whether they had had anything to do with it, and had (strange to say) received an indignant denial, couched in terms expressing a very noble sense of English hospitality. Putting the former incident out of the question, this latest attempt does not seem to argue the existence of such a sense in any very lively form. The Nihilists might argue that they only intended to blow up a Russian ship carrying a Russian crew on the high seas. Unluckily, as their inventor found, nitroglycerine clocks are no more certain to keep time than other clocks, and a premature explosion would have at least unpleasant effects on a large number of perfectly innocent people in Messrs. Elder's employ. This consideration, however, is one that rarely deters the Continental, or, for the matter of that, the Irish conspirator. Both are too logical to look at anything but the connexion between the end and the means, and we have no doubt that the horror felt by Orsini's English sympathizers at his waste of innocent blood seemed to his Continental friends as much cant as English sympathy with Irish cattle seems to Mr. Dillon and his colleagues. In such incidents as the Glasgow scare we pay the penalty for being first a hospitable and then a commercial nation. "If you did not build ships for the Czar," the person with the clocks would doubtless say, "I should not blow them up." At the same time it must be admitted that for nervous people these perpetual scares are rather trying. To blow up something is very easy, and dynamite has not the slightest respect for persons. If Mr. Biggar himself had been in the train at Watford, and the fuse had not gone wrong, all his sympathy with Hartmann would not have saved him from a practical experience of the method he recommends. Therefore, on the whole, it will be satisfactory when the Livadia and her crew, and her designer and her commander, and all the rest of her belongings, are well out of the country. At present Glasgow, not an attractive place at any time, may be said to have become less attractive than ever. The incident is a serious, and yet at the same time a half ludicrous, commentary on what is grandly called the solidarity of peoples. We have absolutely nothing to do with the quarrels between the Czar of Russia and his subjects, and it is somewhat trying that the field of battle should be transferred to our railways and shipyards. Foreigners would tell us that we have only to thank the indiscriminateness of our reception of strangers, and the feebleness of our police. But the triumphs of the Continental police itself over determined malcontents well provided with money cannot be said to have been of late years either numerous or convincing. There is, therefore, nothing for it but philosophy and a reliance on the chapter of accidents. The singular duel between the Glasgow police and the three Nihilists will, however, continue to be watched with interest. There is, we suppose, no legal reason for arresting these worthies, and the mere possession of a nitroglycerine clock could hardly be made an offence. But really we have at the present moment quite a sufficient supply of bloodthirsty scoundrels to deal with at home, and it would be obliging of the Nihilists not to make further contributions to the list.

---end

A drawing of the yacht from Google books.

The Engineer, Volume 50, July 16, 1880, Page 48

[Mayerling]

Fascinating TradeName. Looking at the picture of the Lividia it did not strike me as so stable a craft as the article suggested. However it was made for the comfort of the Tsar, Alexander II of Russia in 1880. Ironically he would be assassinated by nitroglycerine bombs on the Nevski Prospect in St. Petersburg in March 1881, in a particularly horrible manner (his legs were blown off by the bombs - he was taken back to the Winter Palace to die, in front of his sons and daughters and grandchildren, many of whom would also die violently in the Russian Revolution thirty six - thirty seven years later).

The reference to the "Thomas" clocks is not to the American Seth Thomas clocks from New England. It is connected to the 1875 "Bremerhaven" Dock Explosion that killed between 60 and 100 people who were on a dock or boarding a docked steamer. The perpetrator was one "William Thomas", who was watching the loading (by a crane) of a barrel in which was a specially designed "infernal machine" that was created with a set timer to blow up when the ship was in mid ocean sinking the vessel quickly. Thomas and his associates did not care about casualties (if anyone survived they were fortunate), but it was for the inflated insurance paid out on the items Thomas was shipping - the insurance company would have to pay out because there was no way to check out the wreck.

What happened here was that the crane had not properly bound up the barrel/crate it was lifting, so that it fell back onto the dock's platform. When it did the explosives blew up and caused all the death, destruction, and havoc. Thomas saw this, and went into his cabin on the other ship. He realized no ships would be allowed out of the port until the police investigation was completed, and that soon they'd find his name linked to the barrel/crate and would locate him for interrogation regarding what was inside and why. Shortly a shot was heard in the cabin. Thomas shot himself in the head, but would live a few days (his wife would see him before he died). A note he wrote admitted his guilt, but mentioned nobody else.

It turned out he was a con-man and criminal named Alexander Keith from Halifax, Nova Scotia. His career spanned back to the American Civil War, where he was a southern sympathizer (basically because Canadians did not think highly of the U.S. from historical conflicts like the War of 1812; but he was also quite an opportunist in getting rich quick). Keith soon was involved in blockade running, and smuggling. Frequently his partners being cheated. Some ended up dead - the Bremenhaven incident was not the first suspicious death associated with him, nor his earliest involvement in barratry for insurance. Ironically one of his earlier instances of this tied him with another killer. In 1864 John Wilkes Booth had sent his trunks of theatrical clothing to be shipped to New England by a ship from New Brunswick that Keith was a silent partner in. The Captain was a man who knew Booth in Montreal, and had entertained the actor at his own home. The Captain was lost with the boat which was lost at sea (no cause was ascertained as the ship disappeared). It's cargo had been insured by Keith, so he pocketed the money - it's doubtful Booth ever got a penny for his lost costumes.

Keith's biography is in Wikipedia.

Jeff

[TradeName]

Thanks for the information about the "Thomas clock," Jeff.

Here are a couple of articles from 1885 about an alleged handbook for thieves.

Pall Mall Budget, February 20, 1885, Page 15

The Robber's Vade Mecum

A Popular Guide to the Science of Larceny

The quotations and descriptions to be here given from the proof-sheet, of a long promised volume bearing the above title are laid before the public with the one object of promoting the observance of honesty, by exposing the methods of the criminal class, and not as indicating the very smallest patience with the positively dazing purpose of the author. That purpose, according to a prefatory note, is “to supply the young of both sexes with a concise manual of the art of being supported by involuntary contributions to the end that all portable kinds of property may have a more equal distribution and a more penetrating and utilitarian currency.” Nor is it necessary, after quoting this, to refer at any length to the opening chapter of the coming volume, treating of “The Ethics of Dishonour"——presenting an analysis of the various ways in which men of exalted position may commit robberies without breaking the law, and concluding with an almost passionate exhortation against “the eighth deadly sin,” which is described as “being found out.” It will be enough in the way of preliminary to quote a brief passage from the chapter on training:—-


There is no Royal road to the successful practice of dishonesty, and the removalist who has allowed the golden years of his youth to slip away without ever sneaking his father’s Peter (watch) or plucking a brooch from his mother's mom, or, better still, making a secret collection of buttons from the coats of various policemen in his neighbourhood, may find that his liberty is very seriously threatened in the fuller exercise of his calling. The gonoph (thief) who is caught, is caught through clumsiness, and merits the full humiliation that Fate is known to visit upon the wicked and the unsuccessful alike.


In an early part of the volume there is an extraordinary chapter on Police Practice and Regulations, and from this two seemingly important facts are to be derived. In the first place, it is broadly insinuated that the policing of London railway-stations is a preposterous fraud:—-


Thc metropolitan coppers can only enter under certain conditions and restrictions, and the work of the company has to be done by a batch of amateurs, whose main interest is to see that the window-leathers of the carriages are not stolen as shaving-strops, and who naturally do not care for the possessions of the public one single jot. Witness the rich harvest of clocks and slangs (watches and chains) that has been gathered at South Kensington station during the days of the Health Exhibition.

“Of removals from the person” our author says:—-


The happy hunting ground of the removalist is the race meeting. At a recent “Derby” an experienced detective from Scotland-yard was separated from a sum of £10, contained in his right trouser pocket, without cut or tear. Ladies' bags, field glasses and breechpokes (purses) can be gathered like blackberries; but the characteristic take of the racecourse is the “tying up of a Jay," as it is called, a most ingenious and amusing method of clearing off the peter of any suitable mug (victim), and indeed anything else that on him is. The company must consist of at least three, and preferably of four, gonophs (thieves), and the time of action is the moment when the horses are running. The two strongest members of the company take their places to the right and left of the mug to be operated upon; the man who is nimblest in the fingers stands behind, and the fourth confederate, if there be one, places himself in front as a screen. The role of the two side men is boisterous and stupid excitement. They shout and yell, exult and lament, and perhaps make extravagant bets and absurd predictions. And towards the climax of the race, when the Jay is positively mesmeriscd by the spectacle of the steeds flying and bobbing before him, they place their arms under his, and hoist him clean off his feet. The operation is most emphatically successful when Juggins (the victim) is made to believe that his two neighbours are genuinely clumsy and stupid, and when he laughs indulgently at their bucolical enthusiasm. The breeches should be ripped with a razor, and the slang (chain) should be taken with the watch, if possible, by snipping with a penknife the button-hole that it is fixed in. An excellent first stage in this operation of “tying up" is to give the Jay a smart rap on the hat, or even to smash it down like a concertina. It is the instinct of a decently dressed Englishman to throw up his arms if his hat is molested.


The highest and most profitable kind of theft from the person is performed, it appears, by men of cultivation and even of capital—-thieves who are able to await opportunities, and to travel abroad, if need be, after or with their victims. The intending larcenist will strike up a conversation with a likely looking Jay in a public conveyance, a restaurant, or a place of amusement, and win his friendship. Sometimes he will penetrate into a club or boarding-house, and, much more often, into a good hotel where plenty of rich bachelors reside in the season. He will learn where the money and valuables are kept, and miss no opportunity of taking a wax impression of any keys that he may gain access to. He will also get possession of visiting cards, and read and copy private letters and documents; but as a rule he will not commit the actual theft himself. He remains the “guide, philosopher, and friend” of the Jay right to the end of the chapter, and should that Jay be robbed abroad, may possibly lend him a little of his own money to enable him to return to England.

Descending somewhat in the scale of crime, we come to simple “buzzing,” or the picking of pockets. Purses and watches are the almost exclusive haul of the pickpocket, and 90 per cent. of these thefts happen in crowds. Many of the quarrels to be heard in the streets of London are got up entirely for the purpose of collecting crowds for the pickpockets to work in. Some thieves operate simply with their hands, but others use a knife or razor, in order to cut through coats and dresses, and especially to get the purses from ladies. The trouser pocket of a man can easily be emptied in a crowd by slitting down the seam with a razor, hooking the instrument into the aperture, and sawing from within outwards, A thief will often do his work with an overcoat on his arm to hide the movements of his hand; this especially in the omnibus or train. Newspapers and handkerchiefs are also used for this purpose, and with the help of the latter it is common for scarf pins to be stolen. “Excuse me, sir, you have some dust on your neck,” says the thief to the victim, and in pretending to brush off the dust he removes the pin by grasping it through the handkerchief. When a watch is stolen it is generally separated by grasping the instrument itself in one hand, and the ring thereof between the thumb and finger of the other, and then giving a sharp twist, so that a tiny steel pin gives way and falls, the watch being taken and the chain left hanging. There are ways, too, in which a Jay’s possessions may be entirely removed in spite of the most extreme precautions. The following quotation will provide an instance:—-


There is a method of removing watches and chains that is likely to get more and more into favour as time goes on, for it is easy, almost perfectly safe, and always unlikely to be confided to the police. The Jay selected should, if possible, be a stout, prosperous, credulous old buck, with two or more chins, and a rich, jingling walk. The mollhook should have soft, well-bred hands and gloves of crimson silk, not kid, having upon them a small sprinkle of some rare perfume. When the moment for action arrives, she is to clasp her hands over the eyes of the Jay with a rich, tuneful, and modest laugh, and exclaim, “Who is it?" If Juggins should happen to turn upon the siren distrustfully, she may laugh or beg his pardon, allege that she took him for her father or brother, and skip merrily away; but if he does not, the gonoph in front may have a fine time of it. As a rule the jay contents himself at once—-especially if the siren kisses his cheek, which she may do with impunity, for it is not an assault—-and begins deliberately to make guesses. His thoughts go forty years back, and he cries out, “It is Clementina!" “No, sir, it is not,” says the mollhook musically; “you must guess again, you darling old thing.” “Then,” says the hapless Juggins, “it must be little Clara, surely." "Nearly right, but not quite,” says the wench, and so on; until the deluded and denuded mug is permitted to turn and face the blushing and apologising young gentlewoman who has mistaken him for her “dear old dad.” “ Come back, my child; I will adopt you," said an elderly M. P. a little while ago, in a street at Kensington, as he glanced mildly at the curtseying and retreating figure of the only woman who had ever embraced him. “Come! here is my card: I represent South So-and-So in the Conservative interest. May I invite you to one of our picnics?"


From which teaching the moral for worthy citizens is abundantly clear. In a subsequent article the reader shall be initiated, both by quotations and illustrations, into the arts and mysteries of the industry that goes by the name of Burgling. Meanwhile, it is only an act of justice to the author of this “Robber’s Vade Mecum" to say that he sternly deprecates all kinds of violence in his treatise. “The thief is always to remember,” he says, “that a Jay is made of human flesh and blood like himself; and, indeed, even in the extreme instance of burgling, it is to be recognized that the occupant of the house may often have as much right to be there as the burglar has.”

----end

Pall Mall Budget, June 5, 1885, Pages 17-18

The Robber's Vade Mecum

A Popular Guide to the Science of Larceny.--(second Notice)

“Of Burgling and Allied Operations.” Such is the solemn heading of the seventh of the ten chapters of the lawless “Vade Mecum ” recently criticised and quoted from at some length in these columns. The previous chapters are all full of a dark interest. They deal with what are conventionally called frauds and confidence tricks. For example, the reader is told how the bags of travellers at railway stations may be safely removed by the process of extinguishing or capping them with a portmanteau that is hollow underneath and provided with inward springs for the purpose of grasping the victimized packages; how the changes are rung, especially in jewellers’ and pawnbrokers’ shops, where brass trinkets are deftly substituted for the real valuables; and how “gonophs” go out “on the fiddle"—-that is to say, how thieves go forth simply to make chance and promiscuous acquaintances in order to swindle them, or perhaps only to make them pay for their dinners. But when the writer comes to burglary, which he describes as a form of “tax collecting with violence or coercion,” and which he avers should only be attempted by “what the astute governor of a London prison has called ‘the aristocracy of crime,’" he is on his mettle. Here is a quotation from the author’s preliminary exhortation:—-


If you burgle, burgle well. Spend capital fearlessly, and play for high stakes. The futility of running risks for a mean and insignificant reward is in no way better emphasized than in some of the cell-wall inscriptions collected by that paragon of misdirected holiness, Mr. J. W. Horsley, the chaplain of Clerkenwell Prison. Think of this:—-

When I get out I do intend
My future life to try and mend,
For sneaking’s a game that does not pay;
You’re bound to get lagged, do what you may.

Or this, “Ten days and ten years for a box of money, with 9s. 7d. in the box.” Or, if you would realize the pathos of penal servitude, and make it an incentive to cautious and reasonable ambition, imagine the weariness of the lone brother who wrote "3,330 bricks in this cell,” a passage that a man who must be a poet as well as a priest has called “a rosary of wan hope.”






The knowledge of practical housebreaking, it appears, is to a great extent the knowledge of housebreaking implements and their uses. One cannot therefore do better in this place than offer a description of the things that form the usual contents of a burglar's bag. The illustrations in the following page, which of course are not proportionate in dimensions, are given in the eighth chapter of the volume under review. First comes the dark lantern. It is not indispensable, and it seems that many of the best “busters,” or housebreakers, prefer merely to use a small scrap of candle ,others use a common bull’s-eye. Next come the instruments for opening a door which is locked on the inside by manipulating the key through the keyhole. The illustration (fig. 2) explains itself; but it may be mentioned that there are other tools in use for exactly the same purpose, 'notably a contrivance like a crayon-holder, which is made to tighten upon the end of the key by means of a screw and a milled head. The twirl shown in fig. 3 is an instrument needing much patience in its use; but its genuineness and efficiency will be realized when it is said that “deftly employed, the axis of rotation of the key and the axis of rotation of the twirl may be made identical.” “This instrument,” adds the author, “should be made of tough brass or of steel tempered to a deep blue.” The most convenient form of auger for burglarious use appears to be that adopted by “the late Mr. Charles Peace,” who is referred to throughout the work with an affection that is tempered and modified only by a touch of censure regarding his “utterly unprofessional and irrelevant enterprises in the way of love-making.” As to ladders and knotted ropes, it would seem that the run of burglars have used them principally for purposes of exit, but Peace gave a new life to the practice of using them for admission, and went so far as to invent one for his own use (fig. 5). “A highly successful member of our profession,” says the author, “is in the habit of using a ladder of thin, black rope, and placing its sharp hook upon window-sills and porticos by means of a telescopic fishing-rod made of bamboo, and provided with a fork at its thin extremity.” Wedges, we learn, “are most useful when made of new elm or ash, and left rough from the friction of the saw.” They are used in burgling for blocking the inmates of a house in or out of their rooms, according to circumstances; and, it may be added, they must be useful to travellers living in small isolated hotels for the supplementation of ramshackle locks. We now come to the “jemmy ” or “James,” and here is the character that our author gives it:—-


As the lion is king of the forest, so the jemmy is the prince of the burglar’s instrument case. It is the magical “open sesame " that the outraged gonoph utters at the gate of the cave of treasures held by the rich thief who has never broken the law. The jemmy is of many kinds and sizes. A “lord mayor,” which is used almost exclusively for safes, is generally about the height of a “member of parliament"—-by-the-bye, did the reader ever note the blind adoration of height evidenced in the fact that most of these gentlemen are abnormally tall?--and is carried in parts, which are screwed together with hollow circlets like an iron gaspipe. The “alderman ” comes next and the “common councilman" last, although the instrument is sometimes made so small as to be available for the opening of small cash boxes and jewel cases, when it is desired to lighten the bulk of the things to be taken away from a building. Most of these tools are made of worn-out files, for in these we have the very best cast steel. They are soft in their thickest parts, and “tempered spring-hard" at their working points. The uses and varieties of the James will be at once understood when it is explained that it is used as a lever of the third order.


The other things required, it would appear, are a keyhole saw for enlarging holes made with the auger, a strong glazier's knife for taking out windows and stripping off panel beadings, a good collection of skeleton keys and picks, which can be obtained at any locksmith's, a sheet of pitchy canvass to flap against glass that is about to fall, a supply of paper of the colour of any outer door to be broken through, for sticking on the apertures in case of police visits to the rear of the premises, a screwdriver, a bradawl, and a piece of high roast meat, containing a pinch of sulphate of atropia to lull the dog with.

Plus the above articles, and fortified with that knowledge of the structure, the regulations, and the “strength” of the house, which, the author says, can only be obtained by a vast expenditure of time, tact, and capital—-and he adds that there is an owner of public conveyances in London who does not hesitate to spend such a sum as a couple of thousand pounds for such a purpose!-—the burglars, preferably two in number, will , begin their work. The fol10wing are the recommendations of the “Vade Mecum” in this regard:—-


Never touch the front door of a conspicuous or exposed house, especially in London, and be very wary about effecting an ingress by the front area. When anything of the kind is done, a plausible third man should be employed to feign intoxication and delay the march of the nearest policeman, and a fourth to watch the house. This last operator should not whistle; he should signal in some way that is not calculated to excite suspicion, as plenty of good burglars have been whistled by their companions into penal servitude. If the premises are approached from the rear, or side, by a garden wall, it should be noted whether a line of tell-tale cotton has been laid in the way. When the time--which had better be between two and three o'clock—-has been fixed upon, the operators should lose not a moment in getting out of sight of passers by and beyond the range of vision of neighbours’ windows. Unless there are sheets of iron behind the doors and windows (bars are useless, as their fastening in the wood may be destroyed), and sensitive bells hung to them, the process of getting into the house is always the easiest part of the whole burglary. Once inside, the operators will place their boots at a spot where they can instantly be reached in making a sudden exit, and begin work according to their special knowledge of where the people and the goods are. The plate of the pantry and the trinkets of the boudoir are of course the chief things to make for; but it is an excellent rule to institute a collection from the most accessible parts of the house, and prepare them for removal, before running any risk of “a tumble." The fastening of the inmates in their rooms by means of the hooks displayed in fig. 10, or the wooden wedges shown at fig. 6, is an admirable first step in many cases; and it need hardly be added that when the gang are working in a chamber from which it is possible to leave by the window, they should always fasten themselves in.


Enough has now been quoted and described from this “Robber’s Vade Mecum" to show the turn that things are taking in the “ethics, of dishonour”—-to use the author’s own expression—-and also to place the public on their guard against the principal offences that the modern scientific robber is likely to commit. It simply remains that a small taste should be given of this literary burglar’s composition when his mood is flowery and sentimental, as when he writes the following—-the last words of his volume. “ Like the Spartan child," he says, “the exquisitely nurtured bud of a republic, the integrity and happiness of which have been the envy of the centuries, the young thief of to-day must he always learning, always training, and always coveting the possessions of the unjust. If, again, he should love not the memory of Robin Hood and the many saints of the gospel of taking constantly from the rich, and giving—-now and then—-to the poor; if he has no hatred of plutocracy and no adoration of that valorous and eminently practical socialism which does more work in a night than the lecture-room can do in an era, he should fling up the sponge, renounce his noblest aspirations, and adding not hyprocrisy to apostasy, enlist himself as a policeman without further delay.”

---end

[Pcdunn]

I really enjoyed the articles about the Black Museum. While I don't always read everything that appears here, many offerings are fascinating. Keep it up, all.

[TradeName]

Thanks, Pat.

Here are some bits about Adam Worth which I may reference later.

New York Sun, February 12, 1888, Page 10, Column 4

Thieves and Their Ways

A Talk with [New York Police] Inspector Byrnes Concerning Criminals

[...]

"That reminds me, Inspector. Who is Adam
Worth who is reported living in such great
style in London, somewhat after the fashion
you have indicated?"

Adam Worth is one of the class I have
referred to. He is an American and some of his
people live in this city to-day. He fled the
country on account of a Massachusetts bank
robbery. He took over a large amount of
money and set up an elegant private establishment
in London. His home is in Piccadilly.
It is frequented by the highest class of
English criminals and of American crooks who go
across. He is reputed to have added largely to
his wealth through his shrewdness in disposing
of stolen property from the Continent. He is a
swell, I tell you. He lives and acts like a
gentleman, owns a yacht, and all that sort of
thing. Anybody who goes over there from
here and is known as a 'good man' is sure of
being royally entertained by Adam. Yet his place
is, I assume under the surveillance of the police,
and he is liable at any time to make a slip
that will give them a chance to grab him. His
is no double life in the story and the stage acceptation
of such things. He does not have any
society, except that of his kind. With all his
money, and despite his criminal record, his exile
is said to be a bitter dose for him. He is reported to
have made many attempts and offered large
amounts to make a compromise in the bank
case against him, so that he could return to
this country. Criminal as he is, he still has a
longing to revisit the land of his birth. He is
known to have planned and had carried out
some of the most daring robberies in England
of late years, among them that of the Dover
mail train.

[...]

---end

Criminals and Crime: Some Facts and Suggestions (London: Nisbet, 1907), Pages 94-99
by Sir Robert Anderson

Chapter VI

Facts like these failed to convince Dr. Max Nordau when he called upon me years ago. At his last visit I put his "type" theory to a test. I had two photographs so covered that nothing showed but the face, and telling him that the one was an eminent public man and the other a notorious criminal, I challenged him to say which was the "type." He shirked my challenge. For as a matter of fact the criminal's face looked more benevolent than the other, and it was certainly as "strong." The one was Raymond alias Wirth—-the most eminent of the criminal fraternity of my time—-and the other was Archbishop Temple. Need I add that my story is intended to discredit—-not His Grace of Canterbury, but—-the Lombroso "type" theory.

Raymond, like Benson, had a respectable parentage. In early manhood he was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment for a big crime committed in New York. But he escaped and came to England. His schemes were Napoleonic. His most famous coup was a great diamond robbery. His cupidity was excited by the accounts of the Kimberley mines. He sailed for South Africa, visited the mines, accompanied a convoy of diamonds to the coast, and investigated the whole problem on the spot. Dick Turpin would have recruited a body of bushrangers and seized one of the convoys. But the methods of the sportsmanlike criminal of our day are very different. The arrival of the diamonds at the coast was timed to catch the mail steamer for England; and if a convoy were accidentally delayed en route, the treasure had to lie in the post office till the next mail left. Raymond's plan of campaign was soon settled. He was a man who could make his way in any company, and he had no difficulty in obtaining wax impressions of the postmaster's keys. The postmaster, indeed, was one of a group of admiring friends whom he entertained at dinner the evening before he sailed for England.

Some months later he returned to South Africa under a clever disguise and an assumed name, and made his way up country to a place at which the diamond convoys had to cross a river ferry on their way to the coast. Unshipping the chain of the ferry, he let the boat drift down stream, and the next convoy missed the mail steamer. £90,000 worth of diamonds had to be deposited in the strong room of the post office; and those diamonds ultimately reached England in Raymond's possession. He afterwards boasted that he sold them to their lawful owners in Hatton Garden.

If I had ever possessed £90,000 worth of anything, the government would have had to find some one else to look after Fenians and burglars. But Raymond loved his work for its own sake; and though he lived in luxury and style, he kept to it to the last, organising and financing many an important crime.

A friend of mine who has a large medical practice in one of the London suburbs told me once of an extraordinary patient of his. The man was a Dives and lived sumptuously, but he was extremely hypochondriacal. Every now and then an urgent summons would bring the doctor to the house, to find the patient in bed, though with nothing whatever the matter with him. But the man always insisted on having a prescription, which was promptly sent to the chemist. My friend's last summons had been exceptionally urgent; and on his entering the room with unusual abruptness, the man sprang up in bed and covered him with a revolver! I might have relieved his curiosity by explaining that this eccentric patient was a prince among criminals. Raymond knew that his movements were matter of interest to the police; and if he had reason to fear that he had been seen in dangerous company, he bolted home and "shammed sick." And the doctor's evidence, confirmed by the chemist's books, would prove that he was ill in bed till after the hour at which the police supposed they had seen him miles away.

Raymond it was who stole the famous Gainsborough picture for which Mr. Agnew had recently paid the record price of £10,000. I may here say that the owner acted very well in this matter. Though the picture was offered him more than once on tempting terms he refused to treat for it, save with the sanction of the police. And it was not until I intimated to him that he might deal with the thieves that he took steps for its recovery.

The story of another crime will explain my action in this case. The Channel gang of thieves mentioned on a previous page sometimes went for larger game than purses and pocket-books. They occasionally robbed the treasure chest of the mail steamer when a parcel of valuable securities was passing from London to Paris. Tidings reached me that they were planning a coup of this kind upon a certain night, and I ascertained by inquiry that a city insurance company meant to send a large consignment of bonds to Paris on the night in question. How the thieves got the information is a mystery; their organisation must have been admirable. But Scotland Yard was a match for them. I sent officers to Dover and Calais to deal with the case, and the men were arrested on landing at Calais. But they were taken empty-handed. A capricious order of the railway company's marine superintendent at Dover had changed the steamer that night an hour before the time of sailing; and while upon the thieves was found a key for the treasure chest of the advertised boat, they had none for the boat in which they had actually crossed. But, mirabile dictu, during the passage they had managed to get a wax impression of it. We also got hold of a cloak-room ticket for a portmanteau which was found to contain some £2000 worth of coupons stolen by the gang on a former trip. The men included in the "bag" were "Shrimps," "Red Bob," and an old sinner named Powell. But the criminal law is skilfully framed in the interest of criminals, and it was impossible to make a case against them. I succeeded, however, by dint of urgent appeals to the French authorities, in having them kept in gaol for three months.

And now for the point of my story. Powell had left a blank cheque with his "wife," to be used in case he came to grief; and on his return to England he found she had been false to him. She had drawn out all his money, and gone off with another man; and the poor old rascal died of want in the streets of Southampton.(1) He it was who was Raymond's accomplice in stealing Mr. Agnew's picture, and with his death all hope of a prosecution came to an end.

(1) "Shrimps" also found that his "wife" had proved unfaithful. He disappeared, and I heard that he had filled his pockets with stones and thrown himself into the sea. Had the men been in an English gaol they would have communicated with their friends; but in Boulogne prison they were absolutely buried, and their women gave them up.

---end

The Greatest Criminal of the Past Century: Adam Worth, Alias "Little Adam" (New York: 1903), Pages 1-6
by Pinkerton National Detective Agency

ADAM WORTH, alias Harry Raymond, was born in the year 1844 in the village of Cambridge, near Boston, of Jewish parents, who had emigrated from Germany some years before. He was fairly well educated. "Little Adam," in his early school days, was a precocious child, full of mischief; and at that time was addicted to making trades in playthings and various other articles with his school fellows much to their disadvantage.

[...]

After participating in several robberies through the East, and in fact all over the country, Worth became associated with a gang of bank burglars, consisting of "Big Ike" Marsh, Bob Cochran, (now dead) and Charles Buliard, alias "Piano Charley" (now dead). In looking over the country for work, they visited Boston, Mass., and there Worth discovered that there was a barber shop adjoining the Boylston Bank on Washington Street. He rented this shop, stating that he was the agent for a new patent bitters, and started to fill the front of the shop and windows with his wares and at the same time built a partition across the rear of the shop. The bottles served a double purpose, that of showing his business, and preventing the public from looking into the place. The wall of this shop was next to the wall of the Boylston Bank. A careful measurement of the bank and of the shop adjoining showed the burglars just where to commence their work. They worked during the night for nearly one week, piling the debris in the rear of the shop and keeping the front of it clean. When they were prepared to enter the vault, which they did, they found therein three safes, which they tore to pieces and removed the contents, amounting to nearly one million dollars in money and securities. With this they fled to New York, where they were followed by Boston detectives, and, being advised through intimate friends of the presence of the detectives who were looking for them, they fled to Philadelphia, from which city Bullard and Worth sailed for Liverpool, while Marsh went to Baltimore and boarded a steamer for Queenstown. Before going they divided the booty. [...]

Bullard and Worth went to Liverpool, Bullard registering at the Washington Hotel under the name of Chas. Wells, and Worth, for the first time, assuming the name of Harry Raymond, after the noted editor of the New York Times. Bullard was inclined to live fast and dissipate, and became greatly infatuated with a barmaid in the Washington Hotel, who was known as Kittie Wells. Bullard afterwards married her under the name of Wells, and she became quite famous in Europe and America as a beauty.

Worth was not idle in Liverpool. He looked around for something in his line, and found a large pawnshop in that city which he considered worth robbing. In Europe, at that time, they did not put the safeguards over their property that they did in America, and he saw that if he could get plaster impressions of the key to the place he could make a big haul. After working cautiously for several days he managed to get the pawnbroker off his guard long enough to enable him to get possession of the key and make a wax impression; the result was that two or three weeks later the pawnbroker came to his place one morning and found all of his valuable pieces of jewelry abstracted from the safe, the store and vaults locked, but the valuables gone. The property stolen was valued at about ,£25,000. Worth then went to London, and Bullard, his partner, went to Paris. Bullard, under the name of Charles Wells, opened the first American bar there was in Paris, at 2 Rue Scriebe. This resort was fitted up in palatial splendor, something like $75,000 worth of oil paintings adorning its walls. The bar was fitted up with fine glass-ware, looking-glasses, and everything which an American bar had in those days. The Parisians were astonished by its magnificence. The place soon became a famous resort and was extensively patronized not only by Americans, but by Englishmen; in fact, by visitors from all over Europe. They made a specialty of making and serving American drinks, which, at that time, were unknown in Europe. The second floor of the house was fitted up as a club room, where files of American papers were kept, and which all Americans were cordially invited to use as a congregating place and many received their mail at this noted house. Later on, Bullard, alias Wells, who was an inveterate gamester, opened a gambling house on the American style, the club room being located on the second floor of the building, importing from America roulette croupiers and experts at baccarat. Mrs. Wells was a beautiful woman, a brilliant conversationalist, who dressed in the height of fashion; her company was sought by almost all the patrons of the house. The fact that gambling was carried on soon reached the ears of the police. They had made two or three raids on the house, but never succeeded in finding anything upstairs, except a lot of men sitting around reading papers, and no gambling in sight. About that time, in the Winter of 1873 or 1874, Mr. William A. Pinkerton arrived in England in pursuit of the men who had robbed the Third National Bank of Baltimore, Md. This gang had been located in an English seaport, and while waiting for extradition papers to arrive,—-it being impossible to arrest them without papers, especially in England, where, at that time, burglary was not covered in the treaty,—-they suddenly became alarmed, and fled the country, possibly on account of Mr. Pinkerton having met two of the gang in Lombard St., London, by accident. Mr. Pinkerton had gone to Paris to endeavor to get trace of them, and, suspecting they would visit Well's bar, kept a close watch there. Then for the first time the Paris police learned who Wells was. They said they knew there was gambling going on in the house, and had made several ineffectual raids to catch them at it, but on reaching the second story found only a number of men sitting around reading papers, with no gambling implements in sight. Mr. Pinkerton explained to the police, that when they approached the place to raid it, the bartender, or "look-out" on the first floor touched an electric button connecting with a buzzer in the gambling rooms, and gave the alarm. The suspicion of the French police had been attracted to the house from a robbery which took place in the barroom. The place was finally raided by the police and Wells and others were arrested charged with maintaining a gambling house, but were admitted to bail. In France, burglary was at that time covered by extradition treaty, and Wells, being held on a charge of gambling in heavy bonds, fled to England, leaving the house in custody of Raymond. One day, shortly after Wells left, a diamond dealer, who had frequented the place showing his wares, called in with a bag of jewels, which he carelessly placed on the floor at his feet. He requested Raymond to cash a check for him, and while the diamond dealer was being accommodated, Raymond attracted his attention. Instantly the bag containing the jewels was picked up, and a duplicate of it substituted, and the thief, who was Joe Elliott, a noted American crook, then in Paris, succeeded in escaping with the bag, which contained £30,000 worth of diamonds. The robbery startled all Paris, and was the means of attracting suspicion to the house, and after the gambling raid took place, the house lost prestige, soon went to pieces, and was afterwards purchased by an English bookmaker, who continued the bar for several years. It was eventually closed.

Bullard moved his wife to London, and she had in the meantime born to him two beautiful girls. Later on he ventured to the United States, where he was arrested in New York City, taken to Boston, and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for the Boylston Bank robbery. He remained in prison several years, from which he escaped. Meanwhile, his wife had obtained a divorce from him, and married a very wealthy planter, and by him had one child. Bullard drifted into Canada, and was later arrested and convicted of stealing chains from a jeweler's shop window in Toronto. He was sentenced to 7 years in the Kingston Penitentiary, and died in poverty shortly after his release.

---end

[Mayerling]

It's late so I won't be writing too much tonight. But there are one of two points regarding Adam Worth (as his name is now spelled - not "Wirth") to mention.

His theft of the celebrated portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire from the gallery owned by the Agneu brothers in 1876 was a point that was made by several scholars in Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle - as one of the reasons for considering Worth, with his London West End residence, and his home where well known crooks gathered for conferences and discussions, as the model of Professor James Moriarty, Holmes' best known antagonist - and the only one who "dies" with him in their fight at the Reichenbach Falls in "The Adventure of the Final Problem" (1893). Moriarty's background is based on others (no doubt Dr. Selby Watson, the teacher and scholar turned wife murderer is one of them) but in the novel "The Valley of Fear" (1915) the Professor is described by a Scotland Yard Inspector as having a fine portrait behind his desk, which is that of a woman by the French painter Horace Vernet. It is mentioned by Holmes that the Professor (who spent the interview with the inspector explaining how a lunar eclipse worked) owns a painting that is worth like 3,000 pounds, and that he could not possibly afford it in his supposed salary as a professor and occasional writer.

Worth died almost broke in the early 20th Century, and his last success was negotiating (through William Pinkerton) for the return of the Gainsborough painting to the Cavendish family. A biography on Worth entitled "The Napoleon of Crime" (a tip of the hat to Holmes'/Conan Doyle's description of Moriarty in "The Final Problem") was written about a dozen years back. In the early 1970s George Segal and Eliot Gould did a comic film about two 19th Century criminals, "Harry and Walter Go to New York". In it, Michael Caine appeared as Adam Worth.

That pseudonym of "Harry Raymond" is supposedly based on the editor "Henry Raymond", the original editor of the New York TImes in 1851 until his death in 1869. Raymond was a staunch Whig and Republican, and supported the Union cause in the Civil War (and was a large critic of the presidency of Andrew Johnson). He was such a major Republican "voice" that he was a leading Republican national committeeman. His death is still a matter of controversy. Raymond died of a stroke (it was called "apoplexy" in 1869), but a rumor (that still crops up) insisted he was having an affair with a woman - possibly an actress - and that he died from the results of his stroke after seeing her. This has little to do with Worth, but it is of some interest to us.

Jeff

[TradeName]

Thanks, Jeff.

Arthur Brisbane in 1921 recalled the 1888 Sullivan/Mitchell fight, mentioning the presence of the American criminal Billy Porter. In his contemporary coverage of the aftermath of the match, Brisbane mentions that an associate of Porter's, William Raymond, initially attempted to flee from the French police who rounded up the participants and spectators.

I wonder if William Raymond could have been Adam Worth, who used the alias Henry (or Harry) Raymond.

The June 27th Sun article below mentions that Porter was associated with a fence named Johnson, who had lived in Piccadilly and owned a steam yacht. This matches what Inspector Byrnes said about Worth in the February 12th Sun article above.

The Deseret News, July 1, 1921, Page 4

Today

by Arthur Brisbane

[...] For instance,
consider the last fight reported
by this writer for Charles A. Dana
between John L. Sullivan and Charley
Mitchell thirty odd years ago [March 10, 1888] on
Baron Rothschild's training quarters
near Chantilly in France.

The men fought with bare fists,
soaked in walnut juice to harden
their skin. They fought on muddy bare
ground in a cold drizzling rain in
mid-winter. They had long sharp spikes
in their shoes, to grip the mud. Once
mitchell drove his spikes into Sullivan's
instep, perhaps accidently, and
Sullivan uttered his famous remark of
mingled rebuke and self-restraint, "Be
a gentleman, Charley, if you can,
you --- --- ---."

No crowd and no gate receipts at
that real fight. It was fought under
London prize ring rules, each round
lasting until one man went down, with
at least one knee on the ground. [...]

Billy Porter, distinguished and
patriotic American bank burglar, who
had killed two or three men, and fled
to England, and subsequently died a
convict in the German salt mines,
stood just outside the ropes in John L.
Sullivan's corner.

He was neatly dressed, silk hat,
beautiful overcoat with velvet collar
and big pockets. Both hands were in
his pockets. Before the fight began
he tilted his hands upward and two
ugly little round points stuck up
inside the cloth.

"I am here to see fair play for
Sullivan," said Porter. "I suppose
you Mitchell men know what I have
got in my pockets."

The Mitchell men first class thugs,
and carefully chosen, knew well that
Porter had his two "guns" and would
use them. They behaved nicely, abandoning
their plan to break into the
ring, if things went badly for their
man.

[...]


----end

New York Sun, March 11, 1888, Page 2, Column 3

THE FIGHTERS ARRESTED

Some French Soldiers with Big Guns Capture the Tired Sports

PARIS, March 11, 5 A. M. Five carriage
loads of about twenty men were captured by
gendarmes after the fight. The carriages
were foolishly driving in single file back to
Creil, whence they had come, when they were
stopped on the road by three mounted
gendarmes who had been quietly waiting for
them to come back. The gendarmes drew their
sabres and ordered the coachmen to pull up,
and they, with French respect for the law
representatives, obeyed despite the commands
roared by their prize-fighting fares to go right
ahead.

William Raymond, an American sporting
gentleman brought by William P. Porter,
determined not to be taken, jumped from
the carriage and made a break for the
woods. The gendarmes drew their pistols
and fired. Raymond came back.[...]

----end


New York Sun, June 22, 1888, Page 1, Column 1

American Burglars Caught

LONDON, June 21.-- Billy Porter and Frank
Buck, well-known American burglars, both
with many aliases, have been arrested in this
city by Superintendent John Shore and officers
of his staff on a warrant for burglary committed
in Zurich. The prisoners have been
identified by Zurich officials. To-morrow they
Will be taken to the Bow Street Police Court
for extradition, for which there is sufficient
evidence.

===

Billy Porter is well known all over America
as the partner of Johnny Irving, who was shot
and killed by John Walsh during a row in
Draper's saloon in Sixth avenue on Oct.
16. 1883. Walsh was killed at the same time,
and Porter was tried for killing him, but was
acquitted. Porter, who is 33 years old, is one
of the most skilful safe burglars in America.
In 1879 he and his pals secured $15,000 worth
of valuables from a Providence jeweller. In
the same year he escaped from the Raymond
street jail, Brooklyn, in company with Irving.
In 1884 be went to Europe with Sheeny Mike,
and they returned a year later with $25,000
each, the result of many burglaries in England,
France, and Germany. Porter was
arrested later for robbing the jewelry store of
Emanuel Marks & Son at Troy of $14,000 worth
of goods. He was acquitted on this charge, but
Sheeny Mike, who was arrested in Florida, was
convicted. Later, Billy Porter again went to
Europe.

Frank Buck is best known as a clever bank
sneak. He has worked with Horace Hovan,
I. W. Moore, Johnny Price, and other notorious
bank sneaks. He was arrested in 1881 for the
larceny of $10,050 in securities from a broker's
office in Philadelphia. For this crime he served
three years in the Eastern penitentiary in
Philadelphia. Since 1885 he has spent a good
deal of the time in Europe.

---end

New York Sun, June 23, 1888, Page 1. Column 1

PORTER AND BUCK ARRAIGNED

London, June 22. Billy Porter, alias Morton,
et cetera, the notorious American burglar,
who accompanied John L. Sullivan on his trip
to Europe, and his colleague, who has lived
under many aliases, including those of Frank
Buck, Bailey, and Allen, were brought up at
Bow street police court this morning, on an
extradition warrant charging them with burglary
at a jeweller's shop in Zurich. It is
alleged that property of the value of £50,000
was stolen. The prisoners did not look at all
nervous or anxious, and appeared to take an
intelligent but not personal interest in the
proceedings of the court.

Buck, or Bailey, is of middle height, rather
stout. He has a red and shaven face, and his
bead is bald on top. with thick silver-gray
hair round the sides. He has the general
appearance of a benevolent and opulent paterfamilias.

Porter, although not quite so genial looking,
is not at all like Bill Sykes. He is of about the
same size as the other, but is younger, and he
has dark brown hair and moustache. Both
were dressed like respectable English citizens
--silk hats, black. tall coats, &c.

An English detective, who knew the prisoners
by sight, stated that he had arrested them
in the Cafe Monico last night. He also stated
that both of them had houses in the suburbs of
London, which were stocked with every kind of
burglars' tools and with so much jewelry and
other plunder that the police had not yet had
time to make an inventory of it.

Swiss witnesses were then called, and one of
them.an official in the Police Bureau of Zurich,
gave the particulars of the burglary. He said
that on the night of Sunday, April 30, two
thieves entered the open door of a large building
in the centre of Zurich, which contains a
dwelling house and jeweller shop, proceeded
upstairs, forced open the door of a storeroom,
and descended thence through a hole which
they made in the floor into the shop beneath.
From the shop window they carefully selected
everything of value, principally diamonds, and
retired with the plunder. They left behind,
however, the handles of two files and a piece
of oil-cloth for wrapping-up goods, which a
shopkeeper of Augsburg, whence the prisoners
departed on the preceding Saturday for Munich,
declared he had sold to them.

The magistrate remanded them until Friday
next, ordering the police to produce on that
day an inventory of the things found in the
prisoners' dwelling. The prisoners retired
with dignity and calmness to the seclusion of
their cells.

I called on Chief Detective Shaw at Scotland
Yard to-day. He is a man of middle age and
heavy features and of pretentious manner. He
said it would be Impossible for THE SUN's
correspondent to see Porter, but there was no
questlon about the outcome of the trial.

"We have got in that safe," he said, pointing
to a thick iron box in a corner, " early £4,000
worth of the diamonds and jewelry that Porter
stole, and we have got him so tight that there
is no possibility of his escaping this time. His
term will be so long that it is not likely that he
will ever leave prison alive."

----end

New York Sun, June 25, 1888, Page 5, Column 2

Billy Porter's Mishap

He Said He Had Reformed, but Soon After He Turned Up in Jail

London, June 24.--A few weeks apo I was
in the Chatham Hotel, Paris, when a dapper
and well-dresses man came to the table where
I was sitting, shook hands. and asked me how
New York wan getting along. His face was
familiar and his manner more so, but he was
quiet and thoroughly at his ease. He mentioned
the names of a number of men who are
more or loss known about town in New York,
and eventually it flashed across my mind that
he was Billy Porter, the bank burglar. I asked
him If that was so. You are as "right as a
trivet," he said, "but I am out of the business
now for good. I didn't find it out till I went to
prize fights over here, and that recalled me to
my old life. After that I threw away the old
impressions, and have given up that crowd
and everything connected with it tor good.
Straight buslness will do for me for the rest of
my life. I have been the subject of a good
many hard words, but I don't admit the truth
of them."

"Are you going back to America," I asked,
"to carry out your programme of purity?"

"No," said Porter, with a smile, "they are
not as fond of me in America as they might be,
especially in the better classes. I am going
to take life easy, and I think that Paris and
London will do."

He talked a little more about his life, and
then wandered away to join a crowd of men
who received him with the utmost cordiality.
He was evidently rather popular in Parts,
although I doubt if anybody had the least idea
who he was.

Yesterday morning, on my arrival in London,
I learned that this accomplished character
was in the hands of the police, and
with the aid of letters of introduction from Inspector
Byrnes, who ranks, by the way, with the
three or four Americans who are really known
in Europe, I succeeded in seeing Mr. Porter
again. He was in precisely the spirit that
might have been expected. There was not the
slightest change in his demeaner since I saw
him in Paris, but I felt rather nonplussed. I
could not get rid of the memory that while he
was talking to me in the Chatham Hotel he
had, as is alleged, concealed about his person
or in his room a very great many thousand dollars'
worth of diamonds which he had just
stolen in Munich.

"The whole thing is cooked up," he said,
"and I will come out of it in good shape. but
I cannot talk about it as you will readily understand,"
glancing around at the prison officials
and porters.

The case has not aroused the slightest interest
in England outside of police circles. It is
the general impression that this time the noted
crack is bagged. He is guarded with a degree
of vigilance that precludes all chances of escape.

Blakely Hall.

----end

New York Sun, June 27, 1888, Page 3, Column 7

Two American Burglars

Billy Porter and Frank Buck Will be Taken to Switzerland

Their Daring Robbery of a Jewelry Store--Back in England With $20,000 Worth of Plunder--Buck Weds an English Girl

London, June 20. It is certain that the,
Swiss authorities will obtain the extradition of
Billy Porter and Frank Buck, the American
burglars, who were arrested here a few days
ago on a charge of burglary committed in
Zurich. Porter had been shadowed from the
time he arrived in England, in 18B7. The jewelry
robbery at Munich was the most daring
in the annals of the German police. The
robbers forced a side door, cut through two
ceilings, and descended into the jewelry shop by
means of a rope ladder. They left the ladder
in the shop, together with a piece of linen,
which was afterward found to be identical
with a piece of linen found in Buck's house,
and in which some of the stolen jewelry was
wrapped. With the jewels was found a letter'
saying:

"Have left you something to go on with."

Buck tried to conceal in the waistband of his
trousers a large packet of loose diamonds.
Both dressed stylishly and frequented American
resorts in London. They were on friendly
terms with Bond, the famous bank burglar,
and a receiver of stolen goods named Johnson,
who owned a steam yacht. The latter formerly
lived in Chambers. Piccadilly, paying a rent of
£300 yearly. Recently he took a mansion at
Clapham.

Not long ago Porter, Buck, and Johnson had
a carouse in Porter's house at Chelsea. Getting
into a fight. Johnson hit Buck on the head
With a fender[???], and Buck floored Johnson and
trampled upon him, smashing his nose. They
were arrested, but each declined to make a
charge against the other. Subsequently the
three men had another carouse, when all were
arrested and fined in the Bow Street Police
Court for drunkenness. On that occasion,
Johnson gave an assumed name.

Porter was present at the fight between
Mitchell and Sullivan, and was the man at
whom the gendarmes fired when the spectators
were trying to escape after the fight. Buck
recently married a respectable English girl.
He bought a fine house in Walham Green, and
purchased a pair of horses and a carriage.

Superintendent Shaw cleverly recovered a
portion of the Munich plunder, consisting of
800 unset stones, bracelets, rings, and other
articles of jewelry, and $4,500 in English and
French bank notes. The total vulue of the
booty recovered is about $20,000. In each
house were found loaded revolvers, disguises,
superb sets of burglars' tools, and scores of
suits of clothes and hats suitable for every
country in Europe.

----end

New York Sun, June 30, 1888, Page 1, Column 3

News of the Old World

Billy Porter and Buck Taylor Again up in Court

London, June 29.--Billy Porter, alias Morton,
&c., and Buck Taylor, alias Francis Bailey
Allen, were again brought up at Bow Street Police
Court to-day under an extradition warrant
charging them with burglary at Munich, particulars
of which were glven in THE SuN last
Saturday. The case to-day was tried by Magistrate
Slr James Ingham, an attenuated and
very old man. The prisoners were dressed as
last week, but did not look quite so fresh and
calm. Porter in particular looked anxious.

The proceedings consisted entirely of an
examination of the jewelry and other goods
found in the houses of the prisoners. The
former included several envelopes containing
a hundred and more loose diamonds, an envelope
full of gold and diamond scarfpins, lots
of gold watches and chains, rings, bracelets.
&c., the total value being about $20,000. A
casket of valuable jewels was also produced
which had been placed by the prisoners at a
safe depository.

Among the other articles found were a heavy
flat piece of iron with a hole in it known as a
"safe persuader," two loaded revolvers, and a
quantity of ammunition, a lot of shirts, collars
and cuffs, which. it is rumored, are to have an
important bearing on the prosecution, and a
piece of coal such, the police say, as thieves
carry for luck.

Eventually the case was adjourned till tomorrow
without much progress having been
made with it.

The court was enlivened by the presence of
the wives of both prisoners. Porter's wife, a
pretty girl, wore an elegant black mantle
trimmed with beads and lace. and a hat
trimmed with yellow roses. She did not appear
much affectced. Taylor's wife also wore
black, with a violet trimmed bonnet. She was
accompanied by her mother and baby. The
mother, who was weeping, held up his baby to
Taylor, who kissed it with a smile which
softened the hard lines in his face.
Porter's wife had a brlef interview with him.
Porter kissed her, and told her to cheer up, and
it would be all right.

The detectives predict a long term of servitude
in Germany for both.

----end

The Daily News, september 7, 1888, Page 7, Column 1

The Police Courts

BOW STREET.--The Munich Burglary.--Frank
Bailey, alias Frank Buck, and William Davis, alias
Billy Porter, were brought up on remand, under the
Extradition Acts, charged with breaking into a
jeweller's shop at Munich, and stealing therefrom
money and property to the value of 90,000 marks.--Mr.
Mead prosecuted for the Treasury; Mr. Besley defended
Davis; and Mr. Gill, bailey.--The case has
been already fully reported, and as far at the
magistrate was concerned, it was reduced to a mere
question of the nationality of the prisoners, ad, if
they were british subjects, he would be unable by the
obligation of the treaty to hand them over to the
German authorities.--Evidence on both sides having already
been given, and formally committed them to take their
trial in Germany under the Extradition Treaty.

----end

New York Police Inspector Byrnes' dossiers on Buck, Porter and Worth.
Buck and Porter are said to be associates of Worth,

Professional Criminals of America (New York: G. W. Dillingham, 1895), Page 56
by Thomas Byrnes

27. FRANK BUCK, alias "Buck" taylor, alias Buck Wilson, alias George Biddle

BANK SNEAK

DESCRIPTION.

Forty-four years old in 1886. Born in Philadelphia, Pa. Married. Engineer. Stout build. Height, 5 feet 5 inches. Weight, 150 pounds. Light hair, gray eyes, light complexion. Three India ink dots on left hand, one on right hand. Bald on front of head. Generally wears a light-colored mustache.

RECORD.

“BUCK” is a very clever bank sneak. He has been working with Horace Hovan, alias Little Horace (25), since 1881. He has also worked with Johnny Price and other notorious bank sneaks.

Frank Buck, alias Bailey, alias Allen, etc., and Billy O’Brien, alias Porter, was arrested at London, Eng., on june 21, 1888, on an extradition warrant charging them with burglarizing a jewelry store on the Marionplatz, in Munchen, Germany, on April 29, 1888. It was alleged that property of the value of £50,000 was stolen.

Since 1885 he has spent a good deal of the time in Europe. Buck, Porter, Johnny Curtain and other fly American thieves have been engineered in Europe by Adam Worth (215), the American ex-thief, still under indictment in Boston for the famous Boylston bank robbery. Worth is a receiver of stolen goods in London, whose place is the rendezvous of all American thieves when they go to that city. He was formerly a bank burglar in this country, and has made a fortune out of his business.

Billy Porter was discharged from custody in London, on September 27, 1888. He proved that he was born on an English vessel, was an English subject, and therefore not extraditable.

Buck was sentenced in this case to ten years imprisonment, and ten years loss of civil rights and police surveillance, by the Judge of the Circuit Court of Munchen, Bavaria, on September 22, 1889. He was delivered to the German authorities by England on October 10, 1888, and was in prison there until his trial in September, 1889.

Pages 76-77

74, WILLIAM O’BRIEN, alias Bllly Porter, alias Morton.

SAFE BURGLAR.

DESCRIPTION.

Thirty-six years old in 1886. Medium build. Born in Boston. Married. Printer. Height, 5 feet 5 1/2 inches. Weight, about 145 pounds. Black, curly hair, dark eyes, dark complexion. Has fine set of teeth. Has the following India ink marks: Sailor, with American flag and star in red and blue ink on right arm ; star and cross on outside of same arm ; crucifixion of Christ, woman kneeling and man standing up, on left arm. He is a bright, sharp-looking fellow. Dresses well, and has plenty of nerve. Generally wears a black mustache.

RECORD.

This celebrated criminal is well known all over America as the partner of Johnny Irving, who was shot and killed by John Walsh, alias “John the Mick," during a fracas in Shang Draper's saloon on Sixth Avenue, New York City, on the morning of October 16, 1883. Walsh was killed at the same time, and Porter was tried for killing him, but was acquitted by a jury on November 20, 1883.

Porter, or O'Brien, the last being his right name, began his criminal career early in life, and has been arrested in almost every city in the Union, and is considered second to no one in his business.

Gilbert Yost, burglar, mentioned in this record, died in the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City, Ind., on July 10, 1886.

After Porter's discharge for the Marks jewelry robbery in Troy, N. Y., in September, 1886, he went to Europe. The following is an account of some of his doings there. Billy Porter and Frank Buck, alias Bucky Taylor (27), was arrested in London, Eng, on June 21, 1888, charged with having burglarized a jewelry store at Munich, Germany, on April 29, 1888. Buck was taken to Germany, convicted and sentenced (see record of 27). The English authorities refused to surrender Porter as he was an English subject.

He was arrested again at Toulouse. France, in March, 1890, in company of Horace Hovan, alias Little Horace (see No. 25). They attempted to burglarize a bank there. When discharged in France (date not authentic) he was reported to have been rearrested and taken to Munich for the jewelry store robbery, and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment and banishment to one of the South Sea Islands, where it is said he died. This advice is dated London, Eng., October, 1890.

Pages 147-148

215. ADAM Worth, alias Edward Gray, and Henry Raymond.

BANK BURGLAR AND RECEIVER

DESCRIPTION.

The Liege, Belgium, police describe Worth as a man over fifty years of age, “speaking and writing very good English, speaking German and sometimes a little French with an English accent." A robust man, nervous, sanguine, bilious temperament. Short, dark hair, whiskers and mustache Russian style. Eyebrows very gray, mustache less so. Brown eyes. High, forehead. Large nose. Irregular teeth. His measurements, according to the Bertillon method, viz.: Height, 1 metre 61 cent. 5 millim (5 feet 3 3/4 inches). Largeness of head, 15 cent. 2 millim, etc.

RECORD.

ADAM WORTH is a noted receiver of stolen goods, who has been in London for many years. American thieves driven out of this country made it a point to look up Worth and get posted. As a “fence" Worth had accumulated a great deal of money. He was an expert bank burglar in this country before the United States became too hot for him. His first achievement was in 1869, when, with Charles W. Bullard, alias Piano Charlie, and Isaac Marsh as his associates, he plundered the vaults of the Ocean Bank. This robbery netted a large sum of money for the gang, but it was squandered within a year. Their second exploit was the robbery of a messenger of the Merchants’ Union Express Co. on the New York Central Railroad. Bullard and Marsh broke into the express car and gagged the messenger, while Worth and his confederates were on the train to cover the retreat of Bullard, who got off with $100,000. The burglars got off to Canada, and were arrested there, but Worth escaped.

Bullard broke out of the White Plains Jail, where he was confined, and his next operation was to hire a house next to the Boylston Bank in Boston. Worth joined him there, and together they cut through the side wall into the bank vaults and secured cash and securities to the amount of $450,000. They carried the plunder off to Europe, and Bullard opened the “American Bar,” a gambling café in Paris; but after a short career he was arrested and sentenced to a years imprisonment for keeping a gaming house. He returned to New York later and was captured and tried for the Boylston Bank robbery on November 20, 1869, for which he got twenty years. Worth made his home in London, returning occasionally to this country to visit an old sweetheart, and, it is said, that negotiations have been opened with representatives of the Boylston Bank by a lawyer so as to enable Worth to return to his native land. The only time Worth was arrested in New York City was for bloWing open the safe in Stiner's tea store in Vesey Street, several years ago.

Worth, alias Henry J. Raymond, the noted American bank sneak, resident for years in London, was sentenced in the Liege Assize Court at Liege, Belgium, March 21, 1893, to seven years imprisonment for the robbery of 60,000f, committed in Liege, October 5, 1892. Worth has been a member of a notorious band of American thieves, two of the members of which were tried at Liege in 1884 for breaking into the Modera Bank at Verviers. Worth, who was concerned in some of the most daring bank robberies of recent years, passed under various aliases, and was well known to the American police. He spent a considerable time in London, where he lived in extravagant style, and acted as the receiver of an international agency of thieves.

Pic of Worth

----end

The earlier edition of Byrnes' book has pictures of Buck and Porter.

Professional Criminals of America (New York: Cassell, 1886)
by Thomas Byrnes

Pic of Buck

Pic of Porter

----end

A German police bulletin regarding Porter.

Bayer[isches] Central-Polizei-Blatt, No. 81, October 20, 1888, Page 341

[Mayerling]

Fascinating material. And this is a nice introduction to the head of the Detective police squad in New York City, Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes. He is the inventor (showed in his book about professional crooks) of the mug shot - those photographs he had taken of all the criminals that he had arrested. This became known as the "Rogues Gallery" and was a big step ahead for police around the globe in recognizing criminals. In fact, Alphonse Bertillion, when he invented his measurement system of identification, included photos of the criminals to his cards of measurements.

Byrnes is a transitional figure in criminal history. His steps forward we approve, but he was corrupt - doing special favors for wealthy Wall Street investors, bankers, and speculators by keeping the criminal element out - and getting many nice stock tips back as a result that made him (when he resigned in 1894/95 after a scandal) a rich man. Byrnes also was willing to use the "3rd degree" (beating up on prisoners) to get confessions. So we would not approve of his methods today thoroughly. But, in the 1890s, he was cutting edge major city police investigator. He died in 1910.

Jeff

[TradeName]

The New York Police also had a "museum of crime."

Harper's Magazine, Volume 74, March, 1887, Pages 514-515

The New York Police Department
by Richard Wheatley

The Museum of Crime, opposite the private office of Inspector Byrnes, is a shuddering horror; not so much from what is seen as from what is suggested. Speaking likenesses of shop-lifters, pickpockets, burglars, and eminent “crooks” glare from the walls upon visitors. Sledge-hammers whose heads are filled with lead, drags, drills, sectional jimmies, masks, powder-flasks, etc., that were used in the Manhattan Bank robbery of October 27, 1878, challenge inspection in their glass cases. The rascals made away with $2,749,400 in bonds and securities, and about $15,000 in money, on that occasion; but, thanks to our unequalled detective system, did not retain all their booty. Here are samples of the mechanical skill of Gustave Kindt, alias “French Gus,” a professional burglar and maker of burglars tools, which he let out to impecunious thieves on definite percentages of their robberies. The assortment of burglarious kits, tools, keys, wax impressions, etc., is complete. The genius of Kindt and Klein, so wofully perverted, ought to have made their fortunes in legitimate fields of operation. Nat White's bogus gold brick; Mike Shanahan's eighteen-chambered pistol; counterfeit Reading Railroad scrip; the lithographic stone on which ten or twenty thousand spurious tickets of the elevated railroad were printed; stones for printing fractional currency; bogus railroad bonds used by confidence operators; the black caps and ropes of murderers; the pistols where with various persons were slain; the lock curiosities of Langdon W. Moore, who knew how to open combination locks through studying their emitted sounds; the box in which the same thief, known as “Charley Adams,” put $216,000 in government bonds, stolen from the Concord Bank, Massachusetts, in February, 1866, and which he first buried four feet below the surface of the Delaware River, and then dug up and surrendered when under arrest; the pipes, pea-nut oil, lamps, liquid raw opium, and pills used for smoking in opium joints—-are all here.

----end

This book has a brief description of the museum and a number of illustrations.

Darkness and Daylight; Or, Lights and Shadows of New York Life (Hartford, Conn.: A.D. Worthington, 1892), Pages 525, 659, 660, 662, 663, 664, 665, 666, 667, 668, 669, 671, 683, 685, 694, 695, 696, 735
By Helen Campbell

In the Museum of Crime on the first floor of the Headquarters building may be found photographs of notorious shoplifters, pickpockets, burglars, murderers, and eminent "crooks." Here are sledge-hammers whose heads are filled with lead, drags, drills, jimmies, blow-pipes, jackscrews, sandbags, dark-lanterns, masks, powder-flasks, etc. An interesting exhibit is all the paraphernalia and implements used in the famous Manhattan Bank robbery, when the adroit rascals made away with nearly three million dollars in bonds and securities. Here are samples of the mechanical skill of makers of burglars' tools, showing workmanship of the highest order. Here also is the celebrated bogus gold brick, and the lock curiosities of a man whose ear was so delicately trained that he was enabled to open combination locks of safes through studying their emitted sounds. There are no end of dirks, knives, and pistols, and a good assortment of black caps and ropes of murderers that make one shudder to look upon. Here may also be found all the paraphernalia used for smoking in opium-joints.

---end