Since his time, many minor fellows have been so named. The newspapers stressed what they called this criminal’s uncanny ability to enter houses, but I think that the stress should have been upon his knowledge of just where to go, after entering houses.
Whether he had the property of invisibility or not, residents of Mayfair reported losses of money and jewelry that could not be more mystifying if an invisible being had come in through doors or windows without having to open them, and had strolled through rooms, sizing up the lay of things. He was called the “cat burglar,” because there was no conventional way of accounting for his entrances, except by thinking that he had climbed up the sides of houses—always knowing just what room to climb to—climbing with a skill that no cat has ever had. Sometimes it was said that marks were seen on drain pipes and on window sills. Just so long as the police can say something, that is accepted as next best to doing something. Of course, in this respect, I’d not pick out any one profession.
The “cat burglar” piled up jewelry that would satisfy anybody’s dream of expensive junk, and then he vanished, maybe not in a thin, greenish vapor, but anyway in an atmosphere of the unfair mystification of crosswords that have been made difficult with “vars” and “obs.” Perhaps marks were found on drain pipes and on window sills. But only logicians think that anything has any exclusive meaning. If I had the power of invisibly entering houses, but preferred to turn off suspicions, I’d make marks on drain pipes and window sills. Everything that ever has meant anything has just as truly meant something else. Otherwise experts, called to testify, at trials, would not be the fantastic exhibits that they so often are.
New York Evening Post, March 14, 1928—people in a block of houses, in the Third District of Vienna, terrorized. They were “haunted by a mysterious person,” who entered houses, and stole small objects, never taking money, doing these things just to show what he could do. Then, from dusk to dawn, the police formed in a cordon around this block, and at approaches to it stationed police dogs. The disappearances of small objects, of little value, continued. There were stories of this “uncanny burglar or maniac” having been seen, “running lizardwise along moonlit roofs.” My own notion is that nothing was seen running along roofs. There was such excitement that the “highest authorities” of Vienna University offered their mentalities for the help of the baffled policemen and their dogs. I wish I could record an intellectual contest between college professors and dogs; there might be some glee for my malices. There are probably many college professors, who at times read of strange crimes, and sympathize with civilization, because they had not taken to detective work. However, nothing more was said of the professors who offered to help the cops and the dogs. But there was a challenge here, and I am sorry to note that it was not accepted. It would have been a crowning show-off, if this perhaps occult sportsman had entered the homes of some of these “highest authorities,” and had stolen from them whatever it is by which “highest authorities” maintain their authority, or had robbed them of their pants. But he did not rise to this opportunity. After we have more data, it will be my expression that probably he could not practice outside this one block of houses. However, he got into a house in which lived a policeman, and he went to the policeman’s bedroom. He touched nothing else, but stole the policeman’s revolver.
Upon the afternoon of June 18, 1907, occurred one of the most sensational, insolent, contemptible, or magnificent thefts in the annals of crime, as viewed by most Englishmen; or a crime not without a little interest to Americans. On a table, on the lawn back of the grandstand, at Ascot, the Ascot Cup was upon exhibition, 13 inches high,
Whether he had the property of invisibility or not, residents of Mayfair reported losses of money and jewelry that could not be more mystifying if an invisible being had come in through doors or windows without having to open them, and had strolled through rooms, sizing up the lay of things. He was called the “cat burglar,” because there was no conventional way of accounting for his entrances, except by thinking that he had climbed up the sides of houses—always knowing just what room to climb to—climbing with a skill that no cat has ever had. Sometimes it was said that marks were seen on drain pipes and on window sills. Just so long as the police can say something, that is accepted as next best to doing something. Of course, in this respect, I’d not pick out any one profession.
The “cat burglar” piled up jewelry that would satisfy anybody’s dream of expensive junk, and then he vanished, maybe not in a thin, greenish vapor, but anyway in an atmosphere of the unfair mystification of crosswords that have been made difficult with “vars” and “obs.” Perhaps marks were found on drain pipes and on window sills. But only logicians think that anything has any exclusive meaning. If I had the power of invisibly entering houses, but preferred to turn off suspicions, I’d make marks on drain pipes and window sills. Everything that ever has meant anything has just as truly meant something else. Otherwise experts, called to testify, at trials, would not be the fantastic exhibits that they so often are.
New York Evening Post, March 14, 1928—people in a block of houses, in the Third District of Vienna, terrorized. They were “haunted by a mysterious person,” who entered houses, and stole small objects, never taking money, doing these things just to show what he could do. Then, from dusk to dawn, the police formed in a cordon around this block, and at approaches to it stationed police dogs. The disappearances of small objects, of little value, continued. There were stories of this “uncanny burglar or maniac” having been seen, “running lizardwise along moonlit roofs.” My own notion is that nothing was seen running along roofs. There was such excitement that the “highest authorities” of Vienna University offered their mentalities for the help of the baffled policemen and their dogs. I wish I could record an intellectual contest between college professors and dogs; there might be some glee for my malices. There are probably many college professors, who at times read of strange crimes, and sympathize with civilization, because they had not taken to detective work. However, nothing more was said of the professors who offered to help the cops and the dogs. But there was a challenge here, and I am sorry to note that it was not accepted. It would have been a crowning show-off, if this perhaps occult sportsman had entered the homes of some of these “highest authorities,” and had stolen from them whatever it is by which “highest authorities” maintain their authority, or had robbed them of their pants. But he did not rise to this opportunity. After we have more data, it will be my expression that probably he could not practice outside this one block of houses. However, he got into a house in which lived a policeman, and he went to the policeman’s bedroom. He touched nothing else, but stole the policeman’s revolver.
Upon the afternoon of June 18, 1907, occurred one of the most sensational, insolent, contemptible, or magnificent thefts in the annals of crime, as viewed by most Englishmen; or a crime not without a little interest to Americans. On a table, on the lawn back of the grandstand, at Ascot, the Ascot Cup was upon exhibition, 13 inches high,
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