The financial profits in a professional offender's career are not easy to determine, but they must be taken into consideration in all accounts of his life, no matter how short. I saw more of the pickpocket, during my police experience, than of any other professional thief, and it was possible for me to learn considerable in regard to his winnings. CHAPTER III. THE BUSINESS OF PICKING POCKETS. Next to the tramp, who is more of a nuisance on American railroads, however, than a criminal offender, the pickpocket is the most troublesome man that a railroad police officer has to deal with. He has made a study of the different methods by which passengers on trains can be relieved of their pocketbooks, and unless he is carefully watched he can give a railroad a very bad name. The same is true of a circus, in the wake of which light-fingered gentry are generally to be found. Circuses, like railroads, hire policemen to protect their properties and patrons, and there are certain "shows" which one can attend and feel comparatively safe; but in spite of the detectives which they employ, many of them are exactly what the owner of a circus called them in my presence--"shake-downs." Everybody is to be "shaken down" who is "green" enough to let the pickpockets get at him, and, if pocketbooks are lost, the proprietor will not be held responsible. A railroad company, on the other hand, is severely criticised, and justly, if pickpockets are much in evidence on its trains, and as they are the most numerous of all habitual offenders, the railroad police officer is kept very busy during the summer season.