The desire to acquire wealth and possessions easily, or at least without regular, honest exertion, has ever been a fruitful source of crime. The depredators, whose name is legion, the birds of prey ever on the alert to batten upon the property of others, have flourished always, in all ages and climes, often unchecked or with long impunity. Their methods have varied almost indefinitely with their surroundings and opportunities. Now they have merely used violence and brute force, singly or in associated numbers, by open attack on highway and byway, on road, river, railway, or deep sea; now they have got at their quarry by consummate patience and ingenuity, plotting, planning, undermining or overcoming the strongest safeguards, the most vigilant precautions. Robbery has been practised in every conceivable form: by piracy, the bold adventure of the sea-rover flying his black flag in the face of the world; by brigandage in new or distracted communities, imperfectly protected by the law; by daring outrage upon the travelling public, as in the case of highwaymen, bushrangers, "holders-up" of trains; by the forcible entry of premises or the breaking down of defences designed against attack--by burglary in banks and houses, "winning" through the iron walls of safes and strong-rooms, so as to reach the treasure within, whether gold or securities or precious stones; by robberies from the person, daring garrotte robberies, dexterous neat-handed pilfering, pocket-picking, counter-snatching; by insinuating approaches to simple-minded folk, and the astute, endlessly multiplied application of the time-honoured Confidence Trick.