"SWAG" FOR SALE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 106, 3 May 1909, Page 6

"SWAG" FOR SALE.

JIOW SIXES DISPOSES OF

HIS BOOTY

Although it has been impossible to procure proof, .a well-known firm of gold and silver refiners are quite convinced that, they have had the stolen Ascot Cup offered them for sale. A man came to them with an ingot of wonderfully pure gold—2o carat, corresponding with that of which the famous trophy was made—declaring that he got it from metal ill Abyssinia, and wished to sell it. The ingot corresponded-not only in fineness, but also in weight, with the 'Ascot Cup. So it seems, on the face of it, extremely probable that the gold was indeed the smelted remains of the stolen trophy. Thieves, naturally, prefer hard cash of the realm. This is immediately usable, and cannot, unless previously marked, be identified. Banknotes they are shy of. They may be traced by their numbers. As for jewellery, and most other articles of the kind, they are-valuable to the burglar merely for the jewels they contain, or for .the troy "weight of the precious metal.

Bill Sikes has no conscience or sentiment on the subject. Th 9. most wonderful work of art is promptly relegated to the smelting-pot. Three years- ago a fanious motorracing cup was stolen from an exhibition at Olympia. As a work of art, it was worth £800 or £900. The .silver of which it was composed would not 'have fetched a tenth of the money. Yet, so far as is known, this was ruthlessly melted down.

There is a class of burglars who do not deal with 'fences,' or receivers. .They have their own smelting pots and crucibles. The gentleman burglar, 'George Robinson,' who was at last captured while entering- a millionaire's house by means of a rope ladder, had a little workshop of his own, where he melted down all the silverware and jewellery which ho stole.

His furnace, with its gas-oxygen flame, was of the very best procurable, and it is a fact that he sold precious metal of the value of £4800 to the United States Assay Office. Another criniinal of silimar type was George Dickinson, known as the 'Evening Dress Burglar.' He was a skilful mechanic, made his own professional implements, and had a jeweller's furnace and crucibles in his home.

In old days the 'fence' was the burglar's only resort; and, as a rule, the 'fence' paid barely a third of the ordinary market value of the stolen articles. The modern cracksman has done his best to get ahead of the 'fence.'

One dodge is to take the spoil abroad. Three years ago there was a burglary at the house of Mrs Val. Prinsep, and £6000 worth of jewellery was stolen. A couple of months later two Swiss were arrested at Zurich ■jvniU attempting to ,sell part of the spoil to a jeweller in that town.' Again,., some thieves—pickpockets.principally—^who. make a speciality x>f rings,* watches, and "-tie-pins, 'doctor' the -stolen- goods, and so alter them that their owners could never recognise them.

For instance, the names of the makers are erased from watches, and other names worked in; jewels are knocked out from the pins and rings, and given a different setting. A 'thieves' kitchen/ where this kind of 'doctoring' was in full swing, was raided by the police in St. Paul's iload, Canonbury, and three years' penal servitude was the sentence received by the man who ran the place. He was the head of a regular cooperative society of thieves, who were thus quit© independent of the- 'fenceThe stolen articles, when carenilly doctorod, were pawned. At one time cycles were stolen in

immense numbers. The London police discovered a cycle shop in Hammersmith which was entirely stocked with stolen maohines. It was most difficult to identify the bicycles, for name-, plate, pedals, handle-bars', etc., had been altered and exchanged. The total value of the stolen machines was £400