A Thieves’ School in New York
The arraignment last week in New York City of Alexander Sachs, seventeen years old, of 67 Ludlow Street, brought to light another chapter of a story of real life in New York on the lines of Dickens's narrative of Fagin, the Artful Dodger, and kindred characters in 'Oliver Twist.' According to the story told by the detectives, there is in New York a man who has gotten together no less than 300 boys, principally from the east side, who have been thoroughly trained in picking pockets, and during the last two months have gathered in no less than $1,000 a day in watches, brooches, pocketbooks, and valuables of various kinds. The detectives say that they have discovered evidence showing that on the east side, in one of the dingy thoroughfares of Cherry Hill, there has been conducted a thieves' school, where boys, ranging in age from ten to sixteen years, have been taken off the street and graduated into expert thieves.