KINKS IN CRIMINALS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6600, 16 May 1925, Page 6

KINKS IN CRIMINALS.

(By P. N. R. Hill.) Nowadays the expert thief is an athlete and a gymnast as well as a criminal. The activities of the burglar who, because of his remarkable ability to scale perpendicular walls and raid second and third storey rooms with no other aid than his fingers and toes —not even a rope ladder —is a case in point. His exploits have earned for him the nickname of “The Cat,” but incidentally he is not the first burglar to bear that title.

That distinction —it can hardly be called an honour —belongs to a man who several years ago commenced operations in the south-western district of London. Robbery after robbery was reported to the police in which entrance had been obtained through an upstairs window, scratches on the outside walls showing how it had been reached. Clearly the thief, like a cat, could cling to nothing, and as “The Cat” he became known to the police. Eventually he was captured at Richmond, crashing from a swinging sign to which he was hanging to avoid the police, who were groping for him in the dark street below.

It is curious how criminals specialise in their particular method of dishonesty. There is, for instance, the swindler who, dressed as a clergyman of the Church of England, preyed upon the charitable in Scotland, professing to be collecting for an orphanage. Actually he was a born gambler, and he adopted this means of raising funds to ruri a betting system.

It was always just before the opening of the flat-racing season that he donned his clerical garb and unctuous manner and proceeded north. He has not been heard of for some time, so perhaps his system has at last secured for him that competency which he sought.

Then there is the “handkerchief” thief. This description does not mean that he steals handkerchiefs, but rather that one always figures in any robery that he commits—it is generally red and wrapped round a brick which he has thrown through a jeweller’s window. This little foible has landed him in prison on more than one occasion, even after he has made a clean “get-away,” but he still persists in it.

A well-known police authority has declared that there is a kink in the brain of every criminal, and the queer things they do would seem to bear him out.