Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 135, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 June 1911 — TALES OF GOTHAM AND OTHER CITIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TALES OF GOTHAM AND OTHER CITIES

Horse Stealing Reduced to Science

NEW YORK. —Not the wild and woolly vest, but New York city with its great police powers and its highly organized civilization is the most fruitful field for horse thieves in the country. The amount of property stolen by horse thieves in the country’s metropolis in one year probably exceeds that stolen in Kansas. Nebraska, Colorado and Texas in ten year a This crimeis so easy of execution and so hard of detection in a great city like New York that detectives have been able to make but little headway in checking it and recovering any of the stolen property. On an average five horses and wagons are stolen in the city every business day. To place the amount lost every year is difficult, but it is estimated that property valued at from $1,000,000 tp $1,500,000 is stolen. Ordinarily the theft of a horse from the streets attracts little attention. The thieves

have a way of changing the appearance of both horses -and wagons and the task of recovering the stolen property is rendered extremely difficult. No man’s horse Is safe in the streets of the city. The horse of the big department store Is as likely to disappear as the horse and wagon of the small grocer or butcher. Detectives say that the theft is easily covered up. Within six hoars after the horse and wagon disappear a transformation is made, which is so complete that few owners can identify their property. The horse Is shorn of his mane and tail, white legs are dyed a color corresponding with the body of the horse, and cares havo been known where a stolon horse was described as having a bobbed tail, where the horse when finally recovered was found to have had a very beautiful tall, attached to the former stub. The same With the wagon. A gayly painted wagon 1b soon transformed into a dilapidated peddler’s wagon. The top is removed, dashboard knocked off, and a dirty drab or brown coat of paint reduces the wagon that cos* from $l6O to s£oo to one that, wfi«« the thief sells It, will not bring mon than SSO.