JF Ptak Science Books  

As long as there is something worth stealing it is probably the case with the human race that what that something is won’t be, and will be stolen.  This has been the case forever, and as vigilant as an owner of property might be–whether that bit that stood for labor exchange units was a cow or land or gold or money itself–there will be someone else out there in the anti-vigilant world tempting fate and chance and skill at taking someone else’s belongings away.  

We have a little window that has opened to reveal a piece of that world–an unusual one, for the 19th century, anyway.  That is what I saw when breezing through the memoirs of George Washington Wallace (1823-1891), Recollections of a Chief of Police, which was published in 1887. Wallace was police chief of NYC, making him THE police chief (sorry, Chicago), and he had some pretty good recollections to recollect. (Which is a good thing he recorded this book when he did, because he would be deads four years later.) 

But as I said, the image that stopped me was the one shown below, displaying the tools criminals would use to creak/creep their way into someone else’s life.  

And this:

And the interesting bit inside the interesting bit?  The wall-mounted collection of mugshots: