THE OREGON SUNDAY: JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY .MORNING, NOVEMBER 7, 1920.
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How Professional Thieves
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Jlf rs. Benjtmia Guinness At a Fashionable NevfYork'Fancy Dress Function in the
Costume of the Queen of Nineveh, Wearing Two Million Dollars Worth of Jewels,
Which Included Her Own Collection of Gems and Other Jewelry Borrowed from
Fashionable Acquaintances, Among: Which Is Seen , the Uootoo Jeweled Crown
Loaned, Her. for tha Occasion by Her Friend, MrsJjohn Astox.
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Country Are
Affairs and
Their Victims Until the
Opportunity
Arrives
HASHIONS and customs in crime
change, as in eTerjtnlng else, in ao
l cordance with changing conditions
and circumstances, j .. '
The old-fashioned hank burglar has gone
out 'of business because the vaults of the
modern big banks are too skilfully guarded.
The old-time big jewelry store robberies
have practically ceased because the valu
ables are too carefully protected to afford
opportunity for wholesale thefts. '
The epidemic of bond robberies in the
financial sections which etartled the coun
try "last Winter have been pretty well
ended because brokers, banks, and the
bonding insurance companies have learned
a lesson and are safeguarding securities
more carefully.
At the present moment American thieves
have centred their attention on the Jewels
of wealthy and fashionable American
women, because this is found to be the
easiest field of operations. For the last
six months there has been a more or less
important Jewelry robbery almost every
. night In some fashionable section of the
country, and very few of the burglars )
have been caught. Everybody remembers
the Caruso robbery of nearly half a mill
Ion' dollars' worth of Jewels early last
'June. This case was given wide publicity
In the newspapers, but of the multitude
of other Jewel robberies here and there
throughout tho country very few details
. reached the ears of the newspapers.
Why have professional thieves turned
their attention Industriously to women's
Jewels T The reasons are not hard to seek.
In! the first place the Jewelry possessions
of, wealthy American women run into
countless millions. Where is there a multi
millionaire American's .wife who has not
from a hundred thousand dollars' worth to
a million dollars' worth or more of Jewels?
It has been estimated that within the walls
of one public building, the Metropolitan
Opera House, on many an occasion there
are jewels to the value of ten millions in
the hair, the ears, around the throats, on
the fingers and on the clothes of the
women present i
I Indeed, at some social functions or fancy
dress occasions, one Individual woman of
social prominence sometimes wears not
only all her own wealth of Jewels but
loads down her headdress and costume
with many added ! jewels, borrowed for
the occasion from wealthy friends. The
picture printed elsewhere on this pace of
Mrs. Benjamin Guinness shows the noted
banker's wife costumed as Semircmis,
Queen of Nineveh. She wore with this cos-
tome a splendid Jeweled crown lent by her
friend Mrs.' John Astor, worth $100,000.
and other Jewels r belonging to other
friends, the iwhole collection being worth
not less than $2,000,000. '
I If a wealthy man owns securities run
ning into the hundreds of thousands he
does not keep them In his house or on his
person or In his office. They are securely
locked up in the vaults of a bank' or safe
deposit company. But If his wife owns a
two hundred thousand dollar necklace of
matched pearls and another half million
dollars' worth of miscellaneous rings,
brooches and jewels, they cannot be given
the security of a safe deposit vault if the
owner is to wear them and get any satis
faction out of them. Here lies the secret of
the repeated and successful raids unon the
private jewel collections of fashionable and
Wealthy women. It is easy tor a thief to
make a list of millionaires' wives who own
valuable Jewelry. The next step is to watch
the movements of the owner of the gems.
Sooner or later the opportunity will come
for the thief to find the jewels removed
from their customary hiding place or place
of partial security. !
! If the cautious husband of the owner of
the Jewels has a fairly secure receptacle
in his town residence, then the thief may
have to patiently watch him until the fam
ily moves to the country, and the robbery
is pulled off in the Summer home, as the
Caruso burglary was.
I But If both the town house and the coun
try house are provided with quite secure
receptacles for the jewels, then the thief
may find his opportunity while the jewels
are in transit on! a train. Mrs. Arthur
Whitney was robbed of thirty thousand
dollars' worth of trinkets on an east-bound
. Pennsylvania train.
: ! If neither the town house nor the coun
try house nor the railroad train glVes op
portunity, perhaps the Intended victim can
. be reached while stopping at soma hotel.
Thus Elsie Janls, the actreBS, lost fifty
eight thousand dollars' worth of Jewels at
the Hotel Seelbach, in LouisviLe, Ken
tucky, last April !
t And 30 the ocean steamer, the automo
- bile and other times and places give the
opportunity to the thief who has marked
his victim, patiently watehed her perhaps
for weeks and finds his chance unexpected
ly and seizes the opportunity,
i Sophia Lyons, the most expert American
Ijewel thief known to the police, in a burst
. of confidence told how she and her con-
AO) 1920, Intenattonal Veatuie Serrioa. las.
Watching Social
Following
, federates had sometimes spent an entire
year watching a woman before the oppor
tunity offered. One enormous (haul of
jewelry was made from an American
"woman's bedroom in a hotel in Monte
'Carlo after; they had watched her. New
York residence," her country house at New
port and followed her on social visits to
Chicago and Washington, had crossed the
ocean with her on the steamship, had
taken rooms in the same hotel in London
andin Paris and in Nice and finally caught
her ; off her guard one night after her re
turn from the Monte Carlo Casino to her
hotel apartments. It was a long invest
ment, Sophia Lyons explained, of time,
. patience and money, but it paid handsome
ly when the thieves at last got into their
hands a million dollars'' worth of jewels.
How the watchful robbers seize time and
s opportunity has been 'vividly illustrated by
. several recent robberies' where the thieves
have awaited the occasion of a social func
tion when the women "had the Jewels on
their necks, bosoms and fingers. Here the
coveted valuables were in the open, away
from their! customary places of hiding or
security. Could the thieves follow those
Jewels and get hold of them before the
owners took the time or precaution to
lock them away or hide them away?
Sometime during the night of October
13 tnoreihan a hundred thousand dollars'
worth of gems were taken from the bed
rooms of the members of the Sleepy Hol
low Country Club at Scarborough-on-the-Hudson,
near New York. The ladles had
attended an exclusive dance on the floor
below. The festivities were carried over
so far Into the early morning that many
of the guests decided to remain at the
club over night instead of returning to
their homes.
Here was the opportunity. Whatever had
been the custom of the owners of the Jew
els, whatever had been the hiding place ofi
security in the homes of the owners, here
came the j moment when Bomewhere in
those bedrooms, probably within the reach
. of a thief's fingers, the jewels at last were
lying unprotected. ; ,
Even bolder and more , cruelly crude
were the operations of two Chicago jewel
thieves who watched the departing guests
from a whist party at a residence on South '
Troy street in the early morning hours of
that very same day when the Sleepy Hol
low Club Jewels were being stolen near
-New York.:
As six women guests at the whist party
were leaving in an automobile two rob
bers, pistols In handr Jumped on the
running-boards. One held his revolver at
the chauffeur's head while It was still
within sight of the bright lights of the
South Troy street residence and ordered
the driver to go to the entrance of a
nearby park. Here the thieves stripped
the ladies of their Jewels and escaped
through the shrubbery.
At the home of Mrs. George McFadden
' Crest Britain Bights Reserved
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.Jelphia, t h 1 e v es
in the night made
their way to a
box containing
jewelry to the
value of $250,000.
This " included a
string of j pearls
worth $150,000
and was one of
the finest owned
in the United
States,
of this
found
now.
No trace
has been
and by
probably,
the rope, consist
ing of 165 pearls,
has been taken
apart and -each - : '
pearl put in,
another Betting.
This robbery was d!scoveredaffer;a
reception at the house, and while the
McFaddens felt confident of the integrity
of all their guests and servants, the de
tectives inclined to the belief that some
traitor guest or servant was the theif.
At the home of Mrs., William Sackett
Duell, of Meadowbrook, Pa., a function of
note was held a couple of weeks ago. Soon
after the last guest had departed Mrs.
Duell retired x to her room and to her
amazement and dismay saw that her jewel
'box had been ransacked and rare famHy
Jewels worth over $25,000 abstracted. Her
distress was the more acute because she
was forced to the realization that she had
actually been graciously entertaining the
thief that evening, that, perhaps, she had
even been reckoning the thief on her list
of cherished friends.
. Toward early Summer $75,000 worth of
jewels were stolen from the home of Mrs.
Hamilton Fish, the well-known social
leader, at No. 810 Fifth avenue. New York
City. This robbery has always been
shrouded in mystery, as neither the family
nor the police would admit anything. . But
the robbery was reported. Just the same,
and a servant suspected.
And so it haa gone. These are but some
of the more important Jewel robberies that
have had police, detectives and the surety
companies by the ears for the past ear,
not In New York alone, but "all over the
country.
There seems little to suggest in safe
guarding household jewels. Samuel B.
Brewster, who has charge of the burglary -department
of the American Surety Com
pany, says that employes and their ref
erences should be more carefully exam
ined. Nine out of ten letters of recom
mendation are forgeries..
Women should-be less ostentations of
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' Some of tK
Jewel of
the Famous)
and Valuable
Collection pf
Mrs. William
B. Leeds.
Photo by .
Amie Dupont
Airs. John R. J
Drexel Wearing
Some of Her J
Famous Jewels,'
The Useless Birrglar Alarm Jewel
Case in Which the Caruso Jewels
Were Kept, but Which Afforded
No Security Because the Thief Was
Able to Pick Up the Whole Thin
Under His Arm and Carry It Oflv
their jewelry In public. They should be
very careful about showing it where there
are strangers.
They should also be more careful about
their Jewelry at home. They, misplace
eome of It and think it has been stolen.
Later it is found. That encourages the
servants to abstract some of 11 at a later
date, hoping that the mistress will think
- uhs ume,u is mislaid.
But even a strict obedience to these
suggestions would not seem to be a very
efficient safeguard for household jewels. '4
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