Thief-taker

“ A thief is one who creeps behind your back, or into your tent, and rifles your pockets — a practice to which the low, base-born Fellah might stoop, but which the proud Bedawee would scorn. He is a lofty, high-minded robber, who meets you on the desert face to face, and if he attacks you, gives you the opportunity to defend yourself, and if he despoils you, it is by a right which is recognized in all nations, the right of the strongest. ”

“ A greedy Thief was there.
And that ravenous Thief he climbed up even higher,
Till into a chamber small
He crept where lay poor Robin's beauteous Children,
Lovelier in sleep withal.
Oh, fairer was their hair than gold of Goblet,
Beyond Silver their cheeks did shine,
And their little hands that lay upon the linen
Made that Thief's hard heart to pine. ”

“ There is a strange and startling contrast. “The thief cometh to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that ye may have life.” On the one side is our Lord. Him we know. But who is this thief on the other side who has come, not to give life, but to reduce it, contract it, dilute it—destroy it altogether? ”

“ He groped along as stealthily, with as cautious a tread, and as wary an outlook, as a thief entering a chamber where a man lies only half asleep—or, it may be, broad awake—with purpose to steal the very treasure which this man guards as the apple of his eye. ”

“ We have hanged not only the murderer, the ravisher, and the incendiary—​not only the burglar, the highwayman, and the forger, but the sheep-stealer, the petty thief who purloined a roll of cloth or a loaf of bread from a shop-counter. If any nation ought to know how to hang, it should assuredly be the English. ”

“ So might the thief argue as he steals his neighbour's money,—so may the murderer console himself as he stabs his victim! 'It is my nature to stab and to steal—it is my nature to live as a beast—I do not wish to change ”

“ When day dawned, they told the king: ‘A thief is caught in the trap, but he has no head.’ The king went himself, and saw that in truth the thief had no head, and he was amazed. How could a headless man thieve? Then he commanded them, saying: ‘Take his body and put it in the market place, with sentinels to guard it. Whoever passes by and weeps at the sight of it will be guilty, because it will be a sign of pity for the thief ”

“ And the thief he starved that I might be fed, and his eyes were kind and mild.
Yet they were woefully wicked men, and often at night in pain
I heard the murderer speak of his deed and dream it over again;
I heard the poor thief sorrowing for the dead self he had slain. ”

“ Now, I would not trust either of those men with a box of matches; and so I said to the Great American Identifier: "You are the meanest, most despicable thief in the whole stir. I'd respect you if you had the nerve to rob a live man, but you always stole from a cadaver." He was horrified at my language and began to talk of a favorite subject with him—his wealthy relatives. ”

“ All these months you must have thought of me as a thief, condemned me as a thief; but that was not the only reason. There was—there is another, deeper, more vital——”
“A thief!” horror and surprise in her tone, her eyes. “A thief! How could I think that after that night in Wheaton? Why should I have thought such a thing?”
“Why shouldn’t you?” he said bitterly. “What else could you have thought of me when I turned over to you all your jewels with the exception of what was probably of the greatest value among them—a magnificent pigeon’s-blood ruby?” ”

“ The thief common and open are those that by such craft live, on whom one does judgment when one takes them. Of such there are many kinds on land and on sea. The hidden thief is he that steals in corners and secretly, great things or little by (their) fighting, or by treason, or by cunning. ”

“ If they are not thieves, if they are not tyrants, if they are not men-stealers, I should like to know what is their true character, and by what names they may be called. It is as mild an epithet to say that a thief is a thief, as it is to say that a spade is a spade. ”

“ LONDON DETECTIVE FORCE,
FROM
DICKENS’ “HOUSEHOLD WORDS.”
Part XI.
THE MODERN SCIENCE OF THIEF-TAKING. IF thieving be an Art (and who denies that its more subtle and delicate branches deserve to be ranked as one of the Fine Arts?) , thief-taking is a Science. All the thief’s ingenuity, all his knowledge of human nature; all his courage; all his coolness; all his imperturbable powers of face; all his nice discrimination in reading the countenances of other people; all his manual and digital dexterity; all his fertility in expedients, and promptitude in acting upon them ”

“ Manners, situation, example, fashion, have a prodigious influence on exterior deportment. But do they penetrate much deeper? The thief will not steal by day; but his having this command over himself does not do away his character or calling. ”

“ In theory, a thief could escape by hanging four days, after which the executioner would pull out the nails. Sometimes a culprit managed it, but when the nails were pulled, the thing that toppled was already a corpse.
The sun was sinking in the west, and it blinded him. Asir knew about the sun—knew things the stupid council failed to know. A thief, if successful, frequently became endowed with wisdom, for he memorized more wealth than a score of honest men. ”

“ Quickly and on tiptoe the major stole toward the hall where he could see the front door. It was his hope, his belief now, that the thief would speedily effect an entrance; and from the darkness of his lair the major could see and identify him, let him in, follow him on tiptoe to the dining-room, there seize and confound him in the very act, and so, fastening the crime on some one guilty man, dispel at once and for all the cloud of suspicion that hovered over a woman's fair fame. ”

“ My fifth category is made up of what a friend calls "the unknown thief," whom he considers the most dangerous and despicable of all. He means, by the unknown thief, the man in official life, or in any position which permits of it, who protects, for the sake of compensation, the known thief. ”

“ Sneak thieves and larger depredators found spoil on every hand. In this terrible calamity each one seemed to throw off his mask, and become what he really was—the brave man, the noble gentleman, the selfish coward, the bully or the thief. ”

“ On the night previous to your intended departure, a thief enters your house, takes possession of all you have, and makes off, and you never hear of it more. Or suppose you are already on your journey, and after many days of fatiguing travel, find yourself near the place of your destination; when you are met by the highwayman, who, with a pistol at your breast, robs you of your last farthing.—Now I suppose this would be a case, where theft and robbery would stand out in their worst features. ”

“ The thief that follows a thief finds little by the road. We are under no obligation to search a prisoner remanded from another prison.”
Impulsively I wrung the hand of the dear sententious; I looked into his eyes.
“The Goddess of Reason disown thee!” I said. “Thou shalt never be acolyte to a harlot!—And I—if all goes well, I will remember. ”

“ The thieves knock at doors during church hours; if nobody answers, they know that nobody is in. Should any one answer the door, the thief asks for a glass of water, or would they be kind enough to tell him in what part of the street Mr. So-and-so lives? But we must not omit to say that houses are frequently watched for several Sundays together; and when the habits of the inmates are ascertained, the thieves take their measures accordingly. ”

“ Only the thief is more valiant and the honester man of the two.
"And then, when ye are apprehended, nothing but torment ensues; for when ye are once clapt up in gaol, as I have hinted before, you soon come under the hangman's clutches, and he hangs you up, like so many dogs, for using those scaring words, 'Stand and deliver!'
"The effect which theft works in the world to come is eternal, and there is no helping it. ”

“ If such a warning is so clearly given, how can He be said to come as a thief? He Himself teaches us perfectly clearly that the meaning of the illustration is that, as the thief comes without giving notice, so He will return without previously giving any such notice of His approach as will arouse the sleepers. The thief does not tell you when he is coming; and when he comes, he neither knocks the door nor rings the bell. But he comes quietly. He does nothing to disturb those that are asleep, and His object is to enter unobserved. ”

“ The young thief thought that the voice must be the voice of a maid-servant reciting a story, as he had learnt was the custom in the palace every night, for composing the king and queen to sleep. But how to get up into the third loft? The inner doors were all closed, and there were guards everywhere. But the young thief had with him nails and a hammer: why not drive the nails into the wall and climb up by them? ”

“ And the thief answered, “I will not take aught but the whole.” “Take half,” rejoined the traveller, “and let me go.” But the robber replied, “I will take nought but the whole, and I will slay thee [to boot] .” ”

“ But in thy sleep A thief might slip up And steal slyly the ring.
Say, how wouldst thou save thyself then?
Alberich Most shrewd to himself seems Loge;
Others always Figure as fools. If I had to ask for Advice or aid On bitter terms, How happy the thief would be! ”

“ Thief. I do it to accommodate you. Must I be even plainer? Imagine that I go away, refusing to take anything in spite of your protests. Imagine it's to-morrow. The police and the reporters have caught wind of the story. Something has been taken from every house in Sargent Road—except one. The nature of the articles shows that the thief is a man of rare discrimination. To be quite frank—a connoisseur.
Clara. A connoisseur of what? Humph!
Thief. And a connoisseur of such judgment that to have him pass your Rubens by is to cast doubt upon its authenticity. ”

“ The thief (if thief it were) must have already taken the alarm, and descended to the lowest regions. I fancied I could detect the same footsteps, but more distinctly marked, walk by me with a hurried, frightened movement, accompanied by a quick, sobbing breath; and, as I paused to consider what such a mystery could indicate, a pair of heavily-shod feet rushed past me, or seemed to rush, upon the stairs. I heard an angry shout commingle with a faint cry of terror below the landing whereon I stood; then, the discharge of a firearm, followed by a low groan of pain—and all was still. ”

“ The Little Thief understood her; he saw through her cunning, and said: ‘What is the use of this morsel of flesh? Come with me and I can give thee a whole dishful. Thou canst eat and give to thy friends; it will be of service to thee.’ The old woman’s head swam with pleasure. She turned [95] back and went with the Little Thief. Whenever the deceitful old woman was enticed into the house, he drew out his dagger and cut off her head. Then he took her body, and buried it also under the couch. The king waited for news, but the old woman never came. ”

“ One of the laws of Ina runs, “If a far-coming man, or a stranger, journey through a wood, out of the highway, and neither shout nor blow [8] his horn, he is to be held for a thief, either to be slain, or redeemed.” To come to later times—there is a tradition that the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds was instituted for the purpose of putting down thieves. ”

“ A chill went through him. "Ridiculous!" he protested loudly.
"You have put your honor in another man's keeping," she went on. "And that man is a thief."
"Narcisse!"
"A thief!" she repeated with emphasis. "They don't call each other thieves downtown. They've agreed to call themselves respectabilities and financiers and all sorts of high-flown names. But thieves they are, because they're loaded down with what don't belong to them, money they got away from other people by lying and swindling. Is your honor quite safe in the keeping of a thief?" ”

“ Dacre.'
'In years perhaps; in feelings but a day. My forefathers came over to steal, and, lord! how well they accomplished it. They stole the whole country—something like a theft, say I—under that prince of robbers whom you have well named the Conqueror. In our secret hearts we all admire a great thief, and if not a great one, then an expert one, who covers his tracks so perfectly that the hounds of justice are baffled in attempting to follow them. ”

“ Can you tell us, please, if there is any particular line in which you excel?"
"Yes," said the second Thief; "I am able to cut the soles off a man's boots as he walks across the road without his being aware of what has happened. What can you two do, pray?"
"I," replied the first Thief, "can withdraw the eggs from under a sitting hen without disturbing her." ”

“ He who climbs up into position or who is foisted into it by any other instrumentality than by the toil necessary to fit him for the position, the same is a thief and a robber. The police forces of Nature will speedily put him under arrest. ”

“ In “One of the Guilty” he shows how a public schoolboy can become a criminal. Never before has the life of a thief, of a successful thief, been presented so graphically, so dramatically, so intimately. ”

“ So the thief returned in haste to his fellows, who said, ‘What is behind thee?’ Quoth he, ‘Get you gone and flee for your lives and save yourselves, O fools; for that much people of the dead are come to life and between them are words and contention.’ So the thieves fled, whilst the two sharpers retained to Er Razi’s house and made peace with one another and laid the thieves’ purchase to the money they had gotten aforetime and lived a while of time. ”

“ He gets one hundred from her, goes away, and finds a thief still stabbing a dead man whom he has murdered. Out of compassion the simpleton gives the thief eighty gold pieces, rescues the corpse, and expends the remaining twenty pieces in having it honourably buried. ”