CHAPTER IX
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A CROOK
The writer of the following sketch received a sentence of twenty-three years imprisonment. He is a bright and brainy criminal. It is the general opinion that had he used his talents and business sagacity along honest lines he would have been a different man to-day. He has brains in abundance, but he uses them wrongly. Let him tell his own story.
“My father and mother as well as all my relatives on both sides of the family were exceptionally well connected and highly respected in the community. My father in his best days had plenty of money. My earliest recollection of my father was as a railroad manager, always full of business—seldom at home except for meals or on Sundays. After the New England road changed hands and became part of the New York, New Haven and Hartford, he lost his job. This was a calamity to my father as it compelled him to begin over again, which at his time of life was a very serious task. I was then ten years of age, and although unable to take in the situation fully, I knew something was wrong.
“Without flattery I wish to say I was not a bad boy at this age. I attended school and like other boys, I cut up once in a while, but when my teacher sent word home to my mother recounting my pranks, she always punished me soundly for my conduct. After leaving the railroad company, my father went into a little town near New Haven, where he sunk sixty thousand dollars in what afterwards proved to be an unprofitable business. When I was fourteen years of age my grandfather died and left my mother ten thousand dollars. This money came like a god-send. Again my father started in business. This time it was keeping a hotel. It was not so successful as we had expected, but my father made a living out of it. When I was fifteen years old I left school and for a whole year simply spent my time loafing. I would not work. I mixed in with all kinds of company—mostly bad. I listened to men as they told how to commit crime and escape punishment. At first my conscience would scourge me for allowing myself to be in such company, but I would dismiss my fears by saying, ‘There is no harm in that as long as a fellow does not get caught.’ I was yet of tender years, although I felt I was at heart a degenerate. I can see now where I made the great mistake of my life.
“I can see now that my mother was far too lenient with me, and should have punished me often for my mean ways, when she only admonished me with kind words. If I had known that I was to be punished for many of my youthful pranks, I certainly would not have repeated them. But I knew that I could impose on mother and make her prevent father from punishing me even when I deserved it. This made me reckless and daring, so I did not care what I did as long as I was not to be punished. I could steal a few pennies from my mother’s wallet, smash a pane of glass in anger, and steal the horse from the barn against my father’s will, and yet be immune from punishment. All this tended to make my downward career swift and sure.
“On my bed at night I often thought of my mad and foolish ways. I knew I was doing wrong—sinning against light and deceiving my kind-hearted mother. It was not kindness I needed as much as a firm hand over me. I confess I suffered greatly from moral struggles within. I came from a good New England ancestry. My relatives were all respectable people. Why should I do anything that would bring disgrace upon my family? But I would not work. I preferred to be an indolent loafer than an industrious young man. Then the inward struggles would return to me again. I fought them to the death, continued to trample God’s laws under my feet and went on to do my own will.
“I believe now that my unrestrained pranks led to my final criminality. I was now seventeen years of age. I was not a gambler, nor was I a drunkard or profane. But I positively refused to work. I spent my days loafing around the village in all kinds of company, getting trained for a downward career.
“One day my father took me aside and said, ‘George, you must go to work at once or leave this house.’ Several words passed between us that had better not been said. I refused to go to work, and left the house the next day. I stayed around the village for several days, living with friends. I soon found myself hard up. Like the man mentioned in the Gospel, I refused to dig, and to beg I was ashamed. I said to myself, I must get some money somewhere, I cannot stand this any longer. I had no wish to be a criminal and yet I must get money without working for it. It was summer time. I saw many houses empty, the Devil said, ‘This is your chance.’ The people had gone to the seaside and the mountains. I selected a house where I thought there was plunder and that night burglarized it. This gave me plenty of ready money. I followed this with a number of more burglaries. After a time this kind of crime became my second nature. Then I became reckless and soon after was arrested, convicted and sent to Wethersfield State Prison for two years and two months.
“After I had reached State’s Prison and had donned the convict’s garb, I was totally ashamed of myself, not to say mortified. I made many resolutions and even cried over my worthless life, but was no better inwardly or outwardly. The fact is my heart was evil continually. I was twenty years of age when I left prison. I was not reformed, nor had I any desire for inward reformation. My heart was still on the old life. During my two years of enforced servitude I had learned the bakery business. I thought when I got out, if all things failed, I could earn a living by it. After my discharge I went to a place called Long B—— in a neighboring state. Here I found employment in a bakery which was kept by a widow woman. I worked so faithfully for her that after a few months she made me her manager. I now made up my mind to do what was right, so I shunned crooked companions. Many wealthy people lived on the Beach, where they had summer homes. As many burglaries had been committed in the neighborhood, I was appointed special watchman. I served in this capacity for two years, during which time I gave entire satisfaction to all concerned.
“After a few years of sweet liberty, I was in prison again. This time, I assure you, it was by mere accident, as I had no intention of being back again in crime. While playing with a pistol, I accidentally shot a girl. I was convicted of criminal carelessness, and was sent to prison for two years—simply because I was an old offender.
“I had been a free man several years. I never expected to go to prison again. This sentence was a surprise to me and everybody else. It was unlooked for. I was mad with myself. In prison I became sullen and brooded over my trials. My wife had abandoned me. Before I left prison I wrote asking her to secure a divorce from me. I assured her I would not oppose it.
“After leaving prison, I came to New York, where I operated extensively as a scientific burglar. In my last prison experience, I met some expert crooks who willingly perfected my criminal education. I believe the curse of our prisons to-day is the lack of segregation. I am satisfied nearly all the prisons are schools of crime.
“As long as the authorities mix young beginners with men old in crime, so long will our prisons be seminaries of vice of the darkest and vilest character.
“With my new ideas I found New York a profitable field for criminal enterprise, but was not confined to this place alone. I visited a dozen cities where I worked as a criminal. In New York City alone, I managed to perform sixty-five burglaries in a brief space of six months. In some of them I netted as much as $12,000. The police could not get ‘the drop on me,’ but were pleased to call me a ‘Twentieth Century up-to-date Second Story Man.’ I eluded them for three years. All this time I took great chances. My plans were so perfect that I never believed I could be detected.
“My methods were to hire a room or two in a respectable part of the city—usually on the top floor—go up on the roof through the scuttle at night when all were in bed, and return with my plunder before morning. I never robbed the house in which I lived, nor any place near to it. I usually crossed over a dozen houses. If one house was ten or twenty feet higher than another, I overcame the difficulty by lassooing the chimney with my silk ladder. Then I let myself down into any window I wished to enter. I overcame all difficulties. I always carried a pair of pistols ready for any emergency, a bull’s-eye lantern and a set of burglar tools in a leather case in my hip pocket.
“In July I committed six burglaries on one street near Fifth Avenue, New York, and made a big haul each time. The gold and silver heirlooms I could not sell I melted and sold for their intrinsic value.
“I was so successful in all my operations as a burglar that I became careless. I had laid my plans so carefully that I did not think I could be found out. I burglarized the house of a well known millionaire. He afterwards offered a reward of a hundred dollars for my detection, for I had taken away all his valuable bric-a-brac. A month or two afterwards I again hired rooms in the same neighborhood and went over the old grounds. This was the mistake of my life, as they were on the outlook for ‘my kind.’ I wanted more money and took chances. I became reckless in my methods. The night I was caught I was coming up the fire-escape with a pillow slip of silverware on my back. A woman servant heard me, came to the window and gave the alarm. I ran to the roof with haste and threw away my booty. I was cornered before I knew it. Three cops met me with loaded guns; when I was shot I surrendered.”
Brooks was one of the most remarkable and dangerous men that ever followed the profession, so he was characterized on the day the Judge sentenced him to twenty-three years imprisonment. Before passing sentence, the Judge said, “Brooks, I doubt if there was ever a criminal in this city like you. Cold, calculating, scientific, systematic, you have pursued your criminal career like a mechanic without interruption, for years. In the course of a few months you have committed thirty-nine burglaries and stole more than $65,000 worth of property.”