The Project Gutenberg EBook of American Sketches, by Charles Whibley This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: American Sketches 1908 Author: Charles Whibley Release Date: June 14, 2008 [EBook #25786] Last Updated: February 7, 2013 Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AMERICAN SKETCHES *** Produced by David Widger
"A honey tongue, a heart of gall Is fancy's Spring, but Sorrow's Fall."Johnson cites but one illustration of its use—from Dryden: "What crowds of patients the town-doctor kills, Or how last fall he raised the weekly hills." On the other side of the Atlantic it is universally heard and written. There the word "autumn" is almost unknown; and though there is a dignity in the Latin word ennobled by our orators and poets, there is no one with a sense of style who will not applaud the choice of America. But if she may take a lawful pride in "fall," America need not boast the use of "gotten." The termination, which suggests either wilful archaism or useless slang, adds nothing of sense or sound to the word. It is like a piece of dead wood in a tree, and is better lopped off. Nor does the use of "bully" prove a wholesome respect for the past. It is true that our Elizabethans used this adjective in the sense of great or noble. "Come," writes Ben Jonson in "The Poetaster," "I love bully Horace." {*} But in England the word was never of universal application, and was sternly reserved for poets, kings, and heroes. In modern America there is nothing that may not be "bully" if it meet with approval. "A bully place,"﹃a bully boat,﹄"a bully blaze,"—these show how far the word has departed from its origin. Nor, indeed, does it come down from English in an unbroken line. Overlooked for centuries, it was revived (or invented) in America some fifty years ago, and it is not to Dekker and Ben Jonson that we must look for palliation of its misuse.
* Innumerable examples might be culled from the literature of the seventeenth century. One other will suffice here, taken from Dekker's "Shoemaker's Holiday ":『Yet I'll shave it off,』says the shoemaker, of his beard, "and stuff a tennis-ball with it, to please my bully king."Words have their fates. By a caprice of fortune one is taken, another is left. This is restricted to a narrow use; that wanders free over the plain of meaning. And thus we may explain many of the variations of English and of American speech. A simple word crosses the ocean and takes new tasks upon itself. The word "parlour," for instance, is dying in our midst, while "parlor" gains a fresh vigour from an increasing and illegitimate employment. Originally a room in a religious house, a parlour (or parloir) became a place of reception or entertainment. Two centuries ago an air of elegance hung about it. It suggested spinnets and powdered wigs. And then, as fashion turned to commonness, the parlour grew stuffy with disuse, until it is to-day the room reserved for a vain display, consecrated to wax-flowers and framed photographs, hermetically sealed save when the voice of gentility bids its furtive door be opened. The American "parlor" resembles the "parlour" of the eighteenth century as little as the "parlour" of the Victorian age. It is busy, public, and multifarious. It means so many things that at last it carries no other meaning than that of a false elegance. It is in a dentist's parlor that the American's teeth are gilded; he is shaved in a tonsorial parlor; he travels in a parlor-car; and Miss Maudie's parlor proves how far an ancient and respected word may wander from its origin. One example, of many, will illustrate the accidents which beset the life of words. No examples will prove the plain absurdity which has flattered the vanity of some American critics that their language has faithfully adhered to the tradition of English speech. The vocabulary of America, like the country itself, is a strange medley. Some words it has assimilated into itself; others it holds, as it were, by a temporary loan. And in its choice, or invention, it follows two divergent, even opposite, paths. On the one hand, it pursues and gathers to itself barbarous Latinisms; on the other, it is eager in its quest after a coarse and living slang. That a country which makes a constant boast of its practical intelligence should delight in long, flat, cumbrous collections of syllables, such as "locate," "operate," "antagonize," "transportation," "commutation," and "proposition," is an irony of civilisation. These words, if words they may be called, are hideous to the eye, offensive to the ear, and inexpressive to the mind. They are the base coins of language. They bear upon their face no decent superscription. They are put upon the street, fresh from some smasher's den, and not even the newspapers, contemptuous as they are of style, have reason to be proud of them! Nor is there any clear link between them and the meaning thrust upon them. Why should the poor holder of a season-ticket have the grim word "commutation" hung round his neck? Why should the simple business of going from one place to another be labelled "transportation"? And these words are apt and lucid compared with "proposition." Now "proposition" is America's maid-of-all-work. It means everything or nothing. It may be masculine, feminine, neuter—he, she, it. It is tough or firm, cold or warm, according to circumstances. But it has no more sense than an expletive, and its popularity is a clear proof of an idle imagination. And while the American language is collecting those dried and shrivelled specimens of verbiage, it does not disdain the many-coloured flowers of lively speech. In other words, it gives as ready a welcome to the last experiment in Slang as to its false and pompous Latinisms. Nor is the welcome given in vain. Never before in the world's history has Slang flourished as it has flourished in America. And its triumph is not surprising. It is more than any artifice of speech the mark of a various and changing people. America has a natural love of metaphor and imagery; its pride delights in the mysteries of a technical vocabulary; it is happiest when it can fence itself about by the privilege of an exclusive and obscure tongue. And what is Slang but metaphor? There is no class, no cult, no trade, no sport which will not provide some strange words or images to the general stock of language, and America's variety has been a quick encouragement to the growth of Slang. She levies contributions upon every batch of immigrants. The old world has thus come to the aid of the new. Spanish, Chinese, German, and Yiddish have all paid their toll. The aboriginal speech of the Indians, and its debased lingo, Chinook, have given freely of their wealth. And not only many tongues but many employments have enhanced the picturesqueness of American Slang. America has not lost touch with her beginnings. The spirit of adventure is still strong within her. There is no country within whose borders so many lives are led. The pioneer still jostles the millionaire. The backwoods are not far distant from Wall Street. The farmers of Ohio, the cowboys of Texas, the miners of Nevada, owe allegiance to the same Government, and shape the same speech to their own purpose. Every State is a separate country, and cultivates a separate dialect. Then come baseball, poker, and the racecourse, each with its own metaphors to swell the hoard. And the result is a language of the street and camp, brilliant in colour, multiform in character, which has not a rival in the history of speech. There remains the Cant of the grafters and guns, the coves that work upon the cross in the great cities. In England, as in France, this strange gibberish is the oldest and richest form of Slang. Whence it came is still a puzzle of the philologists. Harrison, in his 'Description of England' (1577), with a dogmatism which is not justified, sets a precise date upon its invention. In counterfeiting the Egyptian rogues [says he of the vagabonds who then infested England], they have devised a language among themselves which they name Canting, but others Pedlars' French, a speech compact thirty years since of English, and a great number of odd words of their own devising, without all order or reason: and yet such is it that none but themselves are able to understand. The first deviser thereof was hanged by the neck,—a just reward, no doubt, for his deserts, and a common end to all of that profession. The lingo, called indifferently Thieves' Latin or St Giles's Greek, was assuredly not the invention of one brain. The work of many, it supplied an imperious need. It was at once an expression of pride and a shield of defence. Those who understood it proved by its use that they belonged to a class apart; and, being unintelligible to the respectable majority, they could communicate with one another—secretly, as they hoped, and without fear of detection. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the flash tongue grew and was changed; it crossed the Atlantic with the early settlers, and it has left its marks upon the dialect of the American underworld. But its influence upon the common Slang has been light in America, as in England. It is as severely technical as the language of science, and is familiar chiefly to policemen, tramps, and informers. As Slang leaves the tavern and the street-corner, to invade the theatre, the office, and even the drawing-room, those who aim at a variety of speech need owe no debt to the Cant of the vagabonds, and it is not surprising that to-day the vulgar tongue, in America as in England, borrows more from﹃soldiers on the long march, seamen at the capstan, and ladies disposing of fish,﹄than from the common cursetors and cony-catchers who once dominated it. The use of Slang proves at once the wealth and poverty of a language. It proves its wealth when it reflects a living, moving image. It proves its poverty when it is nothing more than the vain echo of a familiar catchword. At its best it is an ornament of speech; at its worst it is a labour-saving device. And it is for this reason that the vulgar American delights in the baser kind of Slang: it seems to ensure him an easy effect He must be picturesque at all costs. Sometimes he reaches the goal of his ambition by a purposed extravagance. What can be more foolish than the description which follows of a man equal to the most difficult occasion: ﹃He can light his cigar, when the battle is on, with the friction of a passing cannon-ball.﹄In yet worse taste is another piece of fustian, invented by the same author:﹃When a 'twister' off the hills gets ready to do business in a 20-knot sou'wester it sends no messenger boys ahead to distribute its itinerary handbills.﹄There is no fault of style which these few lines do not display. They combine, with a singular success, commonness and pomp. The epic poets of old were wont to illustrate the life of man by the phenomena of nature. The vulgar American reverses the process—he illustrates nature from the pavement. Exaggeration, then, is one easy artifice of effect. Another is the constant repetition of certain words and phrases which have lost their meaning by detrition and are known to all. Not to be disappointed is sometimes as pleasant as to be surprised. A catchword passed from one to another is often a signal of sympathy, and many a man has been taken for a wit merely because his tinkling brain has given back the echo which was expected. In stereotyped phrases, in ready-made sentences, in the small change of meaningless words, the American language is peculiarly rich.﹃To cut ice,﹄"to get next to," "straight goods," {*}—these and similar expressions, of no obvious merit in themselves, long ago lost their freshness, and are not likely to assume a dignity with age. But they save trouble, they establish an understanding between him who speaks and him who hears; and when they are thrown into a discourse they serve the purpose of gestures, To exclaim "I should smile" or "I should cough" is not of much help in an argument, but such interjections as these imply an appreciation not merely of slang but of your interlocutor.
* To the Englishman who knows them not, the following quotations will explain their significance:— "Tain't what ye ain't or what ye don't do that cuts ice with me." "Well, invested capital has got to protect itself when the law won't do it. Ain't them straight goods?" "Boston don't want Bishop Potter to come up here an' tell her 't she ain't next to the latest curves in goodness. Hully gee, no!"Slang is better heard than read. The child of the street or the hedgerow, it assumes in print a grave air which does not belong to it, or, worse still, it is charged with the vice or the vagabondage which it suggests. And so it is that Slang words have a life as closely packed with adventure as is the life of those who use them with the quickest understanding. To ask what becomes of last year's Slang is as rash as to speculate on the fate of last year's literature. Many specimens die in the gutter, where they were born, after living a precarious life in the mouths of men. Others are gathered into dictionaries, and survive to become the sport of philologists. For the worst of their kind special lexicons are designed, which, like prisons and workhouses, admit only the disreputable, as though Victor Hugo's definition—"L'argot, c'est le verbe devenu forçat"—were amply justified. The journals, too, which take their material where they find it, give to many specimens a life as long as their own. It is scarcely possible, for instance, to pick up an American newspaper that does not turn the word cinch to some strange purpose. The form and origin of the word are worthy a better fate. It passed from Spain into the Western States, and was the name given to saddle-girths of leather or woven horse-hair. It suggests Mexican horsemanship and the open prairie. The explanation given in the Century Dictionary will make clear its meaning to the untravelled:﹃The two ends of the tough cordage, which constitute the cinch, terminate in long narrow strips of leather called latigos, which connect the cinches with the saddle, and are run through an iron ring, called the larigo ring, and then tied by a series of complicated turns and knots, known only to the craft.﹄In the West the word is still used in its natural and dignified sense. For example:﹃At Giles's ranch, on the divide, the party halted to cinch up.﹄And then in the East it has become the victim of extravagant metaphor. As a verb, it means to hold firm, to put a screw on; as a noun, it means a grip or screw, an advantage fair or unfair. In the hand of the sporting reporter it can achieve wonders. "The bettor of whom the pool-room bookmaker stands in dread"—this flower of speech is culled from the 'New York World'—"is the race-horse owner, who has a cinch bottled up for a particular race, and drops into the room an hour or two before the race begins." The idea of bottling a cinch is enough to make a Californian shudder, and this confused image helps to explain the difference between East and West. Thus words wander farther and farther from their origin; and when at last their meanings are wholly forgotten or obscured, they become part of the common speech. One kind of Slang may succeed to another, but cinch is secure for ever of a place in the newspaper, and in the spoken language, of America. Caboodle, also, is firmly established. The long series of words, such as Cachunk or Kerblunk, which suggest the impact of falling bodies with the earth, will live as expletives with Say, Sure, and many other, interjections which fill up the pauses of thought and speech. There are two other specimens of Slang beloved by the journals, for which it would be rash to prophesy a long life. To call a man or a thing or an act "the limit," is for the moment the highest step, save one, in praise or blame. When the limit is not eloquent enough to describe the hero who has climbed the topmost rung of glory, the language gasps into simplicity, and declares that he is It. "I didn't do a thing," says an eminent writer, ﹃but push my face in there about eight o'clock last night, and I was It from the start.﹄Though the pronoun is expressive enough, it does not carry with it the signs of immortality, and the next change of fashion may sweep it away into the limbo of forgotten words. The journals do their best to keep alive the language of the people. The novelists do far more, since their works outlive by months or years the exaggeration of the press. And the novelists, though in narrative they preserve a scrupulous respect for the literary language, take what licence the dialect and character of their personages permit them. It is from novels, indeed, that future generations will best be able to construct the speech of to-day. With the greatest skill the writers of romance mimic the style and accent of their contemporaries. They put into the mouths of those who, in life, knew no other lingo, the highly-flavoured Slang of the street or the market. Here, for instance, is the talk of a saloon-keeper, taken from W. Payne's story, 'The Money Captain,' which echoes, as nearly as printed words can echo, the voice of the boodler: "Stop it?" says the saloon-keeper of a journalist's attack.﹃What I got to stop it with? What's the matter with you fellows anyhow? You come chasin' yourselves down here, scared out of your wits because a dinky little one cent newspaper's makin' faces at you. A man 'd think you was a young lady's Bible-class and 'd seen a mouse.... Now, that's right,﹄he exclaims, as another assailant appears; "make it unanimous. Let all hands come and rig the ship on old Simp. Tell him your troubles and ask him to help you out. He ain't got nothing better to do. Pitch into him; give him hell; he likes it. Come one, come all—all you moth-eaten, lousy stiffs from Stiffville. Come, tell Simp there's a reporter rubberin' around and you're scared to death. He'll sympathise with you—you sweet-scented skates." It is not an elegant method of speech, but such as it is, it bears as close a resemblance to the dialect of Chicago as can be transferred from the ear to the eye. If we compare the present with the past, we cannot but acknowledge that American Slang has grown marvellously in colour and variety. The jargon of Artemus Ward and Josh Billings possessed as little fire as character. These two humourists obtained their effect by the simple method, lately advocated by Messrs Roosevelt and Carnegie, of spelling as they pleased. The modern professors of Slang have invented a new style. Their pages sparkle with wit and allusion. They interpret their shrewd sense in words and phrases which have never before enjoyed the freedom of printer's ink. George Ade, the best of them all, has shown us how the wise ones of Chicago think and speak. His 'Fables in Slang' is a little masterpiece of humour in substance and wit in expression. To quote from it would be to destroy its effect. But it will discover the processes of Slang, as it is understood in the West, more clearly than any argument, and having amused the present generation, it will remain an historical document of enduring value. Slang is the only language known to many thousands of citizens. The newly arrived immigrant delights to prove his familiarity with the land of his adoption by accepting its idioms and by speaking the American, not of books but of the market-place. And yet this same Slang, universally heard and understood, knocks in vain for admission into American literature. It expatiates in journals, in novels of dialect, and in works, like George Ade's, which are designed for its exposition. But it has no part in the fabric of the gravely written language. Men of letters have disdained its use with a scrupulousness worthy our own eighteenth century. The best of them have written an English as pure as a devout respect for tradition can make it. Though they have travelled far in space and thought, they have anchored their craft securely in the past. No writer that has handled prose or verse with a high seriousness has offended against the practice of the masters—save only Walt Whitman. The written word and the spoken word differ even more widely in America than elsewhere. The spoken word threw off the trammels of an uneasy restraint at the very outset. The written word still obeys the law of gradual development, which has always controlled it. If you contrast the English literature of to-day with the American, you will find differences of accent and expression so slight that you may neglect them. You will find resemblances which prove that it is not in vain that our literatures have a common origin and have followed a common road. The arts, in truth, are more willingly obedient than life or politics to the established order; and America, free and democratic though she be, loyally acknowledges the sovereignty of humane letters. American is heard at the street corner. It is still English that is written in the study.
* A stool-pigeon is a thief in the pay of the police; a squealer is a grafter who betrays his brother. ** This strange collection of documents, a whole literature in itself, bears the prosaic title, "Investigations of the Police Department of the City of New York."In every line of this amazing testimony you may detect a contempt of human life and justice, an indifference to suffering, an eager lust after unearned dollars, which are without parallel. The persons who play their part in this austere, begrimed tragi-comedy, come for the most part from oversea, and have but a halting knowledge of the language spoken by judges and senators. Yet their very ignorance stamps their speech with authenticity, and enhances its effect. The quick dialogue is packed with life and slang. Never were seen men and women so strange as flit across this stage. Crook and guy, steerer and turner, keepers of gambling-hells and shy saloons, dealers in green-goods, {*} come forward with their eager stories of what seems to them oppression and wrong.
* Forged dollar-notes.With the simplicity which knows no better they deplore their ill-rewarded "industry," and describe their fraudulent practices as though they were a proper means of earning bread and butter. They have as little shame as repentance. Their only regrets are that they have been ruined by the police or forced to spend a few barren years in the State prison. And about them hover always detective and police-captain, ill-omened birds of prey, who feed upon the underworld. There is nothing more remarkable in this drama of theft and hunger than the perfect understanding which unites the criminal lamb and the wolfish upholder of the law. The grafter looks to his opponent for protection, and looks not in vain, so long as he has money in his pocket. The detective shepherds the law-breakers, whom he is appointed to arrest; he lives with them; he shares their confidences and their gains; he encourages their enterprise that he may earn a comfortable dividend; and he gives them up to justice when they are no longer worth defending. No dramatist that ever lived could do justice to this astounding situation, and it is the highest tribute to human ingenuity that few of the interlocutors fall below their opportunity. And it may be admitted that New York gave, and gives, an easy chance to policemen bent upon oppression. What can the poor, ignorant foreigners, who throng the east side of the city, do against their brutal and omnipotent guardians?﹃An impressive spectacle was presented to us one day,﹄reports the Committee,﹃in the presence of about 100 patrolmen in uniform, who during the period of three preceding years had been convicted by the police commissioners of unprovoked and unwarranted assault on citizens.﹄Still more impressive than "this exhibit of convicted clubbers" was﹃a stream of victims of police brutality who testified before the Committee. The eye of one man, punched out by a patrolman's club, hung on his cheek. Others were brought before the Committee, fresh from their punishment, covered with blood and bruises, and in some cases battered out of recognition.﹄The whole city seemed the prey of a panic terror. One day ﹃a man rushed into the session, fresh from an assault made upon him by a notorious politician and two policemen, and with fear depicted upon his countenance threw himself upon the mercy of the Committee and asked its protection, insisting that he knew of no court and of no place where he could in safety go and obtain protection from his persecutors.﹄From all which it is plain that too high a price may be paid for the philanthropy of Tammany Hall, and that a self-governing democracy cannot always keep an efficient watch upon its guardians. What is it in the life and atmosphere of America which thus encourages crime, or rather elevates crime to a level of excellence unknown elsewhere? In the first place, the citizens of New York are the disciples of Hobbes. To them life is a state of war. The ceaseless competition for money is a direct incentive to the combat. Nature seems to have armed every man's hand against his fellow. And then the American is always happiest when he believes himself supreme in his own walk. The man who inhabits the greatest country on earth likes to think of his talent as commensurate with his country's. If he be a thief, he must be the most skilful of his kind; if he be a blackmailing policeman, he must be a perfect adept at the game. In brief, restlessness and the desire of superiority have produced a strange result, and there is little doubt that the vulgar American is insensitive to moral shocks. This insensitiveness is easily communicated to the curious visitor. A traveller of keen observation and quick intelligence, who has recently spent﹃a year amongst Americans,﹄accepts the cynicism of the native without a murmur. After yielding to that spirit of enthusiastic hope which is breathed by the Statue of Liberty, he thus discusses the newly-arrived alien: Even the stars in their courses [thus he writes] fight for America, if not always for the immigrant when he lands. The politicians would fain prevent his assimilation in order that his vote might be easily manipulated by them; but first of all he must have a vote to be handled, and to this end the politicians provide him with naturalisation papers, fraudulent it may be—the State Superintendent of Elections in New York estimates that 100,000 fraudulent naturalisation papers were issued in New York State alone in 1903,—and thus in the very beginning of his life in America the immigrant feels himself identified with, and takes delight and pride in, the American name and nature; and lo! already the alien is bound to the "native" by the tie of a common sentiment, the [Greek word] of the Greeks, which is one of the most powerful factors of nationality. Poor [Greek word]! many follies have been spoken in your name! But never before were you identified with fraudulent naturalisation! Never before were you mistaken for the trick of a manipulating politician! Such being the tie of a common sentiment, it is not surprising that the Americans are universally accustomed to graft and boodle. With characteristic frankness they have always professed a keen interest in those who live by their wits. It is not for nothing that Allan Pinkerton, the eminent detective, called affectionately "the old man," is a national hero. His perfections are already celebrated in a prose epic, and he is better known to west as to east than the President himself. And this interest, this sense of heroism, are expressed in a vast and entertaining literature. Nowhere has this literature of scoundrelism, adorned by Defoe and beloved by Borrow, flourished as it has flourished in America. Between the dime novel and the stern documents of the Lexow Committee there is room for history and fiction of every kind. The crooked ones of the earth have vied with the detectives in the proper relation of their experiences. On the one hand you find the great Pinker-ton publishing to the world a breathless selection from his own archives; on the other, so practised a novelist as Mr Julian Hawthorne embellishing the narrative of Inspector Byrnes; and it is evident that both of them satisfy a general curiosity. In these records of varying merit and common interest the attentive reader may note the changes which have taken place in the method and practice of thieving. There is no man so ready to adapt himself to new circumstances as the scoundrel, and the ingenuity of the American rogue has never been questioned. In the old days of the backwoods and romance Jesse James rode forth on a high-mettled steed to hold up cars, coaches, and banks; and James Murel, the horse-thief, celebrated by Mark Twain, whose favourite disguise was that of an itinerant preacher, cherished no less a project than an insurrection of negroes and the capture of New Orleans. The robber of to-day is a stern realist. He knows nothing of romance. A ride under the stars and a swift succession of revolver-shots have no fascination for him. He likes to work in secret upon safe or burglar-box. He has moved with the times, and has at his hand all the resources of modern science. If we do not know all that is to be known of him and his ambitions it is our own fault, since the most expert of his class, Langdon W. Moore, has given us in 'His Own Story of his Eventful Life' (Boston, 1893) a complete revelation of a crook's career. It is an irony of life that such a book as this should come out of Boston, and yet it is so quick in movement, of so breathless an excitement, that it may outlive many specimens of Bostonian lore and culture. It is but one example out of many, chosen because in style as in substance it outstrips all competitors. Without knowing it, Langdon W. Moore is a disciple of Defoe. He has achieved by accident that which the author of 'Moll Flanders' achieved by art. There is a direct simplicity in his narrative which entitles him to a place among the masters. He describes hair-breadth escapes and deadly perils with the confident air of one who is always exposed to them. He gives the impression of the hunted and the hunter more vividly than any writer of modern times. When he is opening a safe, you hear, in spite of yourself, the stealthy step upon the stair. If he watches for a pal at the street end, you share his anxiety lest that pal should be intercepted by the watchful detective. And he produces his effects without parade or ornament. He tells his story with a studied plainness, and by adding detail to detail keeps your interest ever awake. Like many other great men, he takes his skill and enterprise for granted. He does not write of his exploits as though he were always amazed at his own proficiency. Of course he has a certain pride in his skill. He cannot describe his perfect mastery over all the locks that ever were made without a modest thrill. He does not disguise his satisfaction at Inspector Byrnes' opinion that﹃he had so deeply studied combination locks as to be able to open them from the sound ejected from the spindle.﹄For the rest, he recognises that he is merely a workman, like another, earning his living, and that nothing can be accomplished save by ceaseless industry and untiring toil. Like many another hero, Langdon W. Moore was born in New England, and was brought up at Newburyport, a quiet seaport town. The only sign of greatness to be detected in his early life was an assault upon a schoolmaster, and he made ample atonement for this by years of hard work upon a farm. He was for a while a typical hayseed, an expert reaper, ready to match himself against all comers. He reached his zenith when he was offered fifty dollars in gold for six weeks' toil, and he records with a justified pleasure that﹃no man had ever been paid such high wages as that.﹄But his energetic spirit soon wearied of retirement, and he found his way to New York, not to be fleeced, like the hayseed of the daily press, but to fleece others. The gambling hells knew him; he became an adept at poker and faro; and he soon learned how to correct or to compel fortune. His first experiment was made upon one Charley White, who dealt faro bank every Saturday night; and it is thus that Moore describes the effect of an ingenious discovery: He kept his box and cards in a closet adjoining his room. One night during his absence I fitted a key to his closet, took out his cards, and sand-papered the face of eight cards in each deck. I then removed the top of his faro-box, bulged out the centre of the front plate at the mouth, and filed the plate on the inside at both corners to a bevel. I then replaced the top, put in a deck of cards, and made a deal. I found the cards not sanded would follow up and fill the mouth of the box after each turn was made; and if the mouth remained dark and the edge of the top card could not be seen, one of the sand-papered cards was next, and a loser. This would give me several "dead" turns in each deal. By this means the great man, still despised as a Boston bean-eater, was able to bring his adversary to ruin. The adversary at last discovered the artifice, and "for the next five years," to quote Moore's own words, "we met as strangers." It will be seen that from his earliest days Moore possessed a scientific ingenuity, which the hard experience of life rapidly improved. And it was not long before a definite direction was given to his talent. Arrested in 1856, as he thought unjustly, he determined﹃to do no more work until obliged to do it for the State.﹄He therefore turned his skill of hand to account, and went into the "green goods business." His success in this venture was so great that he made the best dollar bills ever put upon the market, and he boasts legitimately that in the game he "never lost a man." Presently he discovered that there was a quicker profit in stolen bonds. "From my first venture in this bond-smashing business," to quote his own simple words,﹃in 1862 up to 1870, I made more money than in any branch of industry I was ever engaged in.﹄"Branch of industry" is admirable, and proves that Moore had a proper appreciation of his craft. But bond-smashing compelled a perfect knowledge of locks and bolts, and in this knowledge, as has been said, Moore was supreme. At the end of his career, when he had hung his arms upon the wall, and retired to spend a green old age at Boston, it was to his treatment of Yale and Lillie locks that he looked back with the greatest pleasure. But no exploit flattered his vanity more easily than the carrying off from the Bank at Concord—the Concord of Emerson and Hawthorne—of some three hundred thousand dollars. That he purchased his freedom by an ample restitution mattered nothing to the artist. His purpose was achieved, his victory won, and if his victims came by their own again, he at least had the satisfaction which comes of a successful engagement. Of this adventure he writes with more enthusiasm than he is wont to show. He wishes his readers to understand that it was not a sudden descent, but the culmination of five months' steady work. He had watched the bank until he knew the habits of its manager and the quality of its locks. He﹃was satisfied from all he saw that by hard persistent work the bank could be cleaned out completely.﹄It was on a July day in 1867 that the scheme first took shape in Moore's mind. He had stopped at noon at the hotel at Concord for food, and saw the cashier of the bank returning from his dinner. The bank had been closed during his absence [thus he tells his simple story], and he now unlocked the street door and left the key in the lock. I followed him upstairs and saw him unlock the outer and inner doors of the vault, and also the door of the burglar-box. I presented a hundred-dollar note and asked to have it changed. Being accommodated, I left the place, observing as I went out that the lock on the street door was a heavy one of the familiar tumbler variety, and that it had a wooden back. Thus the train was laid, and in three months came the explosion. Impressions were taken of locks, keys were provided, a waggon and team were held in readiness, and one day as the cashier left the bank to get his dinner, Langdon W. Moore, with a meal-bag concealed under his vest, quietly opened the front door and entered the bank. One check he knew. As he went in a girl of twelve tried to follow him—a near relative of the cashier. The exercise of a little tact satisfied her that the directors were in session, and she ran off to her playmates under the big elm at the opposite corner of the street. Moore lost no time in locking the door behind him, in opening all the locks, which yielded to his cunning and foresight, and in packing the meal-bag full of bonds, bank-notes, and plate. He accomplished the deed without haste, and by the time that the cashier had finished his dinner Moore had disappeared with his bag, and his waggon, and his friends, and left no trace behind. Another masterpiece, in Moore's opinion, was what he magniloquently calls the great robbery of an express car. Here, too, he proved the fineness of his craft. He left nothing to chance, and he foresaw, with the coolness of a practised hand, every step which his adversaries would take. His first care was to obtain the assistance of the messenger who travelled on the car which he proposed to rob, and the zeal and energy wherewith he coached his accomplices ensured success. Again and again he rehearsed every scene in the comedy. Before his eyes the messenger was attacked by two masked ruffians, of whom one caught him by the throat, while the other put a pistol to his head, saying,﹃If you open your mouth I will blow a hole through your head large enough for a pigeon to fly through.﹄Then the messenger was gagged and bound, a piece of soap was put into his mouth, that he might appear in the last extremity, and presently he was set to learn by heart the tale that he should tell his employers. By long practice each actor became perfect in his part. The car was raided, one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars was the modest spoil, and Pinkerton and his men were gallantly defied. A hasty trip to Canada still further perplexed the pursuers, and if we may believe Moore, he not only baffled the great detective, but persuaded the Express Company to dispute his claim. Moore, in fact, took a sportsman's as well as an artist's pleasure in the game. After the discomfiture of his enemies, he loved nothing better than a neat job. He professes a frank delight in explaining how once upon a time he opened the Honourable Benjamin Wood's safe, and did not soil his carpet. And there was good reason for his scruple. No sooner had he flashed his dark lantern on the office than he observed that the floor was newly covered, and that fresh paint and paper shone upon the walls. Now he had no objection to easing the Honourable Benjamin of fifty thousand dollars. Being a gentleman, he would scorn to spoil a new Brussels carpet. Accordingly he took some papers from Mr Wood's file and spread them carefully on the floor. The rest of the dramatic recital shall be given in his own words: When this was done, we drilled two five-eighth-inch holes through the fire-proof door into the bolt case, jacked the plate from the frame,... and opened the door. I then put in a wooden wedge at the top to keep the plate from springing back, took down the jack, and shook out all the loose filing upon the papers. This I gathered carefully up, and put the lime, plaster, and papers in the coal-hod, placed some more clean papers under the door, and made everything ready to leave the building as soon as the boodle was transferred safe to our pockets. After looking through the books and papers, the money was taken out and counted. It amounted to but a single one-dollar note. Was ever an artist so bitterly deceived? Langdon W. Moore rose to the occasion. He was no pilferer, and scorned to carry off so mean a booty. In the words of the police-captain, he would not add larceny to burglary. But he paid the penalty of greatness. His work was instantly recognised.﹃I know the man,﹄said Captain Jordan, "for there is but one in the world who would take all that trouble to save your carpet while breaking open your safe." It reminds you of the story told by Pliny of Apelles the painter, who once upon a time called upon Protogenes, another master of his craft, when Protogenes was not within. Whereupon Apelles, seeing a picture before him, took a pencil and drew in colour upon the picture a passing fine and small line. Then said he to the old woman in the house,﹃Tell thy master that he who made this line inquired for him.﹄And when Protogenes returned, and had looked upon the line, he knew who had been there, and said withal, ﹃Surely Apelles has come to town, for it is impossible that any but he should make in colour so fine workmanship.﹄Thus genius is betrayed by its own perfection, and he who refused to soil the carpet could not but be recognised by his skill. And Langdon W. Moore was forced to pay another and a more grievous penalty for his renown. As the fame of his prowess spread abroad, he fell a prey to the greed of detectives. Do what he would, he could never rid himself of the attentions of the police. Henceforth it was almost impossible for him to work in safety, and whatever booty he obtained he must needs share with his unwelcome companions. He was like a fly condemned to spend his life in the irk-some society of the spider. When he had not much to give, his poverty was rewarded by years in prison; and then, as he says himself, he﹃was welcomed back into the old criminal life by crooked police officials.﹄These officials had no desire to help him. "I was not asked by them"—again it is Moore who speaks—"if I was in want of anything, but was told that if I wanted to make some money they could put me on to a good bank job where I could make a million." And, if we may believe the historians, Moore's experience is not singular. The truth is, the thief-taker still flourishes in America. Jonathan Wild, his occupation gone in England, has crossed the ocean, and plies his trade with greater skill and treachery than ever. He thinks it better to live on the criminal than to catch him. And thus he becomes a terror not to the evildoer but to the law-abiding citizen. It is his business to encourage crime, not to stamp it out. If there were no thieves, where would the stool-pigeon and detective find their profits? "W'y," said a pickpocket {*} in New York, ﹃them coppers up there in the Tenderloin couldn't have any diamond rings if we didn't help to pay for 'em. No, they couldn't. They'd sit down in the street and actually cry—an' they're big men some of 'em—if we guns was run off the earth.﹄In other words, the lesson of the American Underworld is that the policeman may be a far greater danger to the community than the criminal. Jonathan Wild will always do more harm than Jack Sheppard. The skill and daring of the cracksman makes him a marked man. But quis custodes custodiet?
* See 'The World of Graft,' by J. Flint (1901), p. 154.
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