Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1885 — How to Steal. [ARTICLE]

How to Steal.

“You ask me to tell you how a man reconciles his judgment with a life of systematic stealing. Well, that is answered easily enough. They don’t do it.” The speaker was Col. A. G. Sharp, the Chief of tho Postoffice Inspectors, who has, in one capacity or another, spent many years of a life not yet passed the middle line in tracking down and bringing to justice that class of criminals who violate trusts reposed in them.

“Take the case of Bruggeman,” continued the Colonel. “He was an honest man and an upright citizen; his great ambition in life apparently was to get together enough money to complete the payment on his house, and thus secure a home for his family, in whose society he found his chief happiness. When he saw this opportunity of making money his judgment undoubtedly condemned it. It told him that it was wrong, and that in the event of discovery he would be ruined for life. But the desire for sudden acquisition, for the rapid accumulation of money, overcame his judgment. He had not the moral courage to resist the temptation, and so fell. It was not because his judgment had proved defective, that his reason had failed him, but because this desire for money overpowered them and became the dominant influence of his life. I can well understand his state of mind when in court, as the sentence was about to be imposed, he had nothing to say but blame for himself. “I used to be an Assistant Warden in a Penitentiary,” went on the speaker, after a brief pause, “and in that capacity came in contact with a great many criminals. I have been told by thieves that when they first began to steal they were troubled in their minds to such an extent that they could not sleep, and would be afraid to meet most people in the streets. The second theft did not disturb them so much, and finally reached a state of mind that they would steal with the same unconcern as they would eat their meals. Their conscience, their moral nature was deadened, and they no longer were disturbed by thoughts which at first made them start at shadows. But this is the ordinary experience.”—Washington Star.