Of a promiscuous crowd, taken almost anywhere, the pickpocket in it is
the smartest man present, in all probability. According to
Ecclesiasticus, it is "the _heart_ of man that changeth his
countenance"; and it does seem that it is to his education, and not to
his heart, that man does violence in stealing. It is certainly in exact
proportion to his education that he feels in reference to it, and does
or does not "regret the necessity."
And, indeed, that universal doctrine of contraries may work here as
elsewhere; and it might not he difficult to demonstrate that a majority
of thieves are better fitted by their nature and capacity for almost
any other position in life than the one they occupy through perverse
circumstance and unaccountable accident. Though mostly men of fair
ability, they are not generally successful. Considering the number of
thieves, there are but few great ones. In this "Rogues' Gallery" of the
New York Police Commissioners we find the face of a "first-rate"
burglar among the ablest of the eighty of whom he is one. He is a
German, and has passed twenty years in the prisons of his native land:
has that leonine aspect sometimes esteemed a physiognomical attribute
of the German, and, with fair enough qualities generally, is without
any especial intellectual strength.
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