Chapter IV: Police News and Crime (1)

=Type of story.= Since police news ranges from slight misdemeanors to the most serious of crimes such as murder and suicide, it offers widely different material for news stories. Because of the general interest in the material with which stories of crime deal, the purely informative story is sufficient in itself to insure reading (cf. “Burglary,” p. 54, and “Murder of Business Man,” p. 59). The strong personal element in stories of wrong-doing gives occasion for effective human interest presentation in the informative story (cf. “Forgery,” p. 49, and “Street Car Bandit,” p. 57). Amusing aspects of minor offenses, and even of burglary, hold-ups, or fraud, often furnish inspiration for humorous treatment (cf. “Charged with Intoxication,” p. 48, and “Hold-up,” p. 57).

=Purpose.= In no other kind of news should the effect of the story on the reader receive more careful consideration than in news of crime. The evil effects of news stories of criminal acts on many readers have already been pointed out (cf. p. 8). That these destructive influences can be offset to a considerable extent by constructive handling of news has also been shown. In order that the crime story may have a deterrent effect, the crime must be shown to be wrong, even though the wrong-doer deserves some sympathy. The results of wrong-doing, not only in the form of legal punishment imposed but in the remorse and the pangs of guilty conscience that the wrong-doer suffers, as well as in the disgrace that he brings to others through his criminal acts, when emphasized in news stories tend to deter others from risking the dangers of such penalties.

Constructive presentation of crime news may also include emphasis on underlying causes and responsibility, especially when these can be traced to bad conditions in the community or in society as a whole, since such emphasis leads readers to consider the necessity for changing the conditions that are directly or indirectly responsible for the criminal acts. In so far as the criminal is the victim of these circumstances it may be legitimate to create a sympathetic understanding of his act (cf. “Hold-up,” p. 56, and “Story of Escaped Convict,” p. 68).

A danger in writing stories of crime lies in creating sympathy for the undeserving wrong-doer by a sentimental treatment of him and his act. By making more or less of a hero of him, news stories may lead undiscriminating readers to regard him and his crime as not unworthy of emulation. There is also a temptation in writing crime stories to sacrifice truth and accuracy of detail in order to secure greater picturesqueness or stronger dramatic situations, but such treatment is an indefensible deviation from the fundamental duty of presenting the news fairly and accurately.

Whatever influence a story of crime may have on the reader should be the result of the reporter’s selection and presentation of the actual facts. Moralizing or “editorializing” concerning the facts is not only unnecessary but undesirable in news stories.

=Treatment.= Dramatic narrative and vivid description, when true to the facts of the news, are both legitimate and commendable. It is important to keep consistently to one point of view in arranging and presenting the details, particularly in constructive stories. Available material for making the narration and the description effective includes confessions, interviews with witnesses and persons involved, and clues to the identity of the perpetrator or to the solution of any mysterious phases of the crime. Fairness requires that persons accused of wrong-doing as well as their accusers be given a hearing in news stories. It must also be remembered that a person accused of crime is not a criminal unless he has been convicted; until he has been found guilty, he is described as an “alleged” criminal, or is said to be “charged” with the crime.

=Contents.= In police news and crime stories details of significance are: (1) number of lives destroyed or endangered; (2) names of victims; (3) names of persons charged with the crime; (4) arrests of suspects and detention of witnesses; (5) clues to the identity of the perpetrators when these are not known; (6) causes, motives, and responsibility, known or conjectured; (7) amount and character of loss; (8) methods employed in commission of the crime; (9) measures to prevent similar crimes.

* * * * *

BOY RUNS AWAY

_Chicago Herald_

Somewhere between Chicago and Lansing, Mich.,
Harvey L. New, a fair-haired boy of 14, is
wandering along the dusty roads carrying a
nightcap, a pocket full of feed and Sarah Jane, a
stub-toed chicken.

In his boyish heart he carries a love for his
chicken, the life of which he felt bound to save at
the cost of his home.

Harvey visits his grandfather’s farm near Lansing
every summer. A year ago his grandmother presented
him with Sarah Jane, then only three weeks old.

He brought the chicken to his home at 4969 Prairie
avenue and built a coop in the back yard. Every
morning he arose early and fed and fondled the
chicken. When he returned from school his first
thought was for Sarah Jane.

One night last winter the cold penetrated the
cellar where he kept her and froze off her toes. He
nursed her until she got well.

As time went on his love for the chicken grew. The
chicken also grew, until one day Harvey’s parents
jokingly remarked that she was getting large enough
for a stew.

Harvey shuddered, but said nothing. Last Sunday his
parents again threatened to sacrifice his pet.

Early Monday morning, when Harvey’s father entered
the boy’s room, he found his son gone. In the mud
beneath the bedroom window he saw footprints. He
made a search about the house.

Then he noticed that Sarah Jane also was gone,
likewise a coop that Harvey had made from an old
fruit crate. The boy’s nightcap, presented to him
by his grandmother, also was missing. Harvey has
not been heard from since.

“I believe the boy actually thought I was going
to kill his beloved pet,” said his broken-hearted
father, James New, yesterday. “He probably will try
to make his way to the home of his grandparents
in Michigan. He loved his grandmother more than
anybody else in the world, with the possible
exception of Sarah Jane.”

When Harvey left he wore a gray suit, a brown
overcoat and a blue cap. He stammers slightly when
excited.

Harvey’s father has promised that Sarah Jane never
will be made into stew.

* * * * *

“ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH”

_New York Times_

Frank H. Thompson of 981 West Fifty-second Street,
who runs an elevator on ordinary days, took a day
off yesterday and celebrated so heartily that, when
he tried to buy a ticket to the Crescent Theatre, a
moving picture and vaudeville house at 1,175 Boston
Road, the Bronx, at 6:30 o’clock last evening,
they refused to admit him. Thompson then strolled
down an alley leading to the stage entrance, and
finding no one at the door, stepped inside, leaned
heavily against the wall, and went to sleep.

Inside the theatre, where 600 persons were gathered
to watch the election returns, which were flashed
on the screen between acts, there was great
excitement, for all the lights went out, even those
of the electric sign outside the place. Thompson
had leaned against the master switch.

They found him there, turned the lights up again
and turned him over to Policeman Fitzgerald, who
locked him up in the Morrisania Station.

* * * * *

CHARGED WITH INTOXICATION

_New York World_

Business has been bad with Isaac Einstein, who
keeps a “gents’” clothing and furnishing emporium,
No. 918 Paris avenue, the Bronx.

To encourage trade he marked down his goods until
it was a shame to take them at the prices he asked.
The gilded youth of the Bronx could buy of Einstein
a suit of evening clothes “like King Edward wears,
$2.98: reduced from $29.80.” Still, nobody would
buy the suit.

The lack of customers made Einstein despondent. It
is suspected that yesterday he sought to drown his
low spirits in others. After a rather long absence
he returned to his store and began to act as if the
thought had struck him, “If I can’t sell ’em I can
give ’em away.”

Einstein pulled in the first man that came along
and made him a present of a pair of trousers.

“They cost me $4 wholesale,” said Einstein,
tearfully. “I can’t sell ’em for $1.50. You’ve got
fine legs; you will show off this check well. Take
’em, my friend, take ’em. But take my advice, too.
You are a married man? Yes. You have children? Yes.
Don’t wear ’em in the house when the babies are
asleep.”

To the next man Einstein gave “a real Panama straw
hat” knocked down from $19 to 90 cents; to the
third a suit of near-silk underwear such as “the
Sultan wears when he goes visiting.”

In a very short time 500 men and boys were
scuffling to get into the store. Patrolman Buck
could not restrain the mob, and sent for the
reserves of the Alexander avenue police station.

“At last I have a bargain crowd,” cried Einstein.
“See what a rush.”

Einstein thoughtlessly left his store. Policeman
Buck grabbed him, charged him with intoxication and
locked him up. Then Buck locked up the store.

* * * * *

SWINDLE

_New York Tribune_

Frederick A. White, fifty-six years old, who says
he is a broker and lives at No. 345 West 116th
street, was arrested yesterday by Detectives
Fitzsimmons and Flood, of the District Attorney’s
office, charged with swindling James H. Burns, of
Knoxville, Tenn., out of lumber land in Marion, N.
C., worth $65,000.

Burns says that through fraud and misrepresentation
White obtained possession of the deeds to the
property on May 10. Burns became suspicious, and,
coming to this city, went to Police Headquarters,
where, according to the police, he picked out
White’s picture, No. 4,391, in the Rogues’ Gallery.
He then communicated with the District Attorney’s
office, and the alleged swindler was arrested in
the office of W. E. Wells & Co., lumber dealers, at
No. 29 Broadway.

Burns, who is staying at the Hoffman House, is the
owner of extensive lumber lands in South Carolina.
He came to this city in January, and advertised
in an organ of the lumber trade that he had some
property for sale. He says White, representing
himself as a broker, called on him in answer to
the advertisement, and said he had a prospective
purchaser of the land. He introduced Burns to
Frederick A. Cannon, who lives in The Bronx, as
the ostensible purchaser. The negotiations which
followed were completed in Washington.

Burns was to receive two bonds for $25,000 each and
three notes for $5,000 each, he says. The bonds, he
understood, were guaranteed by a trust company of
this city. The notes were for three, five and seven
months.

Shortly after the transfer of the property to
Cannon it passed into the hands of the Standard
Lumber Company, of which White is president and
Cannon is vice-president. Burns says he tried to
get possession of the $25,000 bonds but failed,
notwithstanding repeated demands.

When the first note fell due, on August 20, Burns
did not receive the $5,000. Then the man from
Tennessee grew suspicious, and on investigation
he learned that the bonds were not guaranteed. He
learned also, he says, that the Standard Lumber
Company consisted of three shares valued at $5 each.

The title to the land subsequently changed hands
again, this time to the Southern Lumber Company.

White was arrested, the police say, about five
years ago, under the name of Wilce.

* * * * *

FORGERY

_Kansas City Star_

Sister sick. No work. Money gone. Everything that
could be pawned or sold outright gone. Then Laura
Walsington, 20 years old, 14 West Thirty-second
Street, took to forgery.

That was in July. Since then she has cashed forged
checks for sums from $15 to $75. She was arrested
this morning, was taken to police headquarters and
there confessed.

Slumped down in a chair in the office of Larry
Ghent, chief of detectives, she wept bitterly.

“Sister and I were living together,” she said.
“Then she got sick. She had to go to a hospital and
be operated on. We had a little money, but that
soon went. Then I pawned everything I had, and then
everything Sis had. Then those things were gone.
Then I lost my position. I was desperate.”

After that, she said, she decided on forgery.

On receipts for supplies of butter and eggs,
she had the name of a dairyman of Parkton, Kas.
After practicing the name until proficiency had
been acquired, she telephoned to a Lakeview bank
to inquire if the dairyman’s checks were good.
Informed they were, she began, July 23, to cash
checks, signed in his name. The Eagle Clothing
Company, the Smith Garment Company and the Wilson
Coal & Coke Company all cashed checks for her
aggregating $119.

The name of the physician who had attended her
sister was next. After practice, Miss Walsington
issued checks signed in his name for sums totalling
$170. The checks were cashed at the London Cloak
Company, Peck’s, French Cloak and Suit Company and
the Mond Suit Company.

Then, November 10, Miss Walsington, in a downtown
bank, found a deposit slip signed in a woman’s
name. After practicing the signature, she
telephoned the bank, inquiring if checks by that
name would be honored. She drew and cashed checks
on the woman for a total of $45.

Miss Walsington was arrested at the Wilson Coal
and Coke Company this morning. She was recognized
as having previously cashed bad checks there and
detained until the arrival of two detectives.

“I’ll pay it all back,” she cried in Chief Ghent’s
office. “Only give me another chance. Why, I’ve
been respectable all my life until this happened.”

She is being held.

* * * * *

WORTHLESS CHECKS

_Topeka Capital_

Frank Green and Ruth Blair were childhood
sweethearts at New Rapids, Kansas. Five years ago,
when both were 16 years old, Ruth married a man
named Bird, 13 years her senior. The bride moved
away while Frank remained in high school and tried
to forget.

Frank developed into a youthful speaker. A year
ago last September on Labor day, Green, then 20
years old, delivered the labor oration before
1,500 persons at New Rapids. Then he went to Baker
university. Young Green played in several games
with the Baker football team and was active in the
debating societies. He returned to his home in June
to find his former sweetheart back in New Rapids.
Her life with Bird had been unhappy and she had
secured a divorce.

The old friendship was renewed. In a few weeks the
two were married in Atchison, “on the sly,” as
Green said, because his parents did not approve of
the match. With a few hundred dollars the happy
couple left New Rapids to make their way. First
Green tried getting subscriptions for magazines.
This failing, other propositions were tried in
various towns, including St. Joseph and Kansas
City. The store of dollars dwindled until, when Mr.
and Mrs. Green reached Topeka from Lawrence, where
they had looked vainly for work, only $3 remained.
That was a week ago Saturday.

Still optimistic, Green took his wife to the Fifth
Avenue hotel, confident that he could find work and
meet expenses. But work was lacking, Green says.
Meanwhile Frank Long, manager of the Fifth Avenue
hotel, suggested several times to Green that his
bill had not been paid.

Completely discouraged Thursday, Green cashed
several small checks not good. That night two suit
cases were lowered by a rope to the street from the
room occupied by the Greens. Then the young husband
led his wife through the hotel lobby “to find a
dentist to help her toothache,” as he explained
to the night clerk. The two went to the Santa Fé
station and boarded train No. 117, Oklahoma City
bound.

A telegram from Sheriff L. L. Kiene arrived ahead
of Mr. and Mrs. Green. When they entered the
Oklahoma City station they were arrested.

“We were taken to the city jail like murderers,”
said Green.

Saturday Sheriff Kiene arrived. The return trip was
ended last night, when Mr. and Mrs. Green slept in
the county jail.

Penitent would hardly describe the feeling of the
two as expressed to big-hearted Sheriff Kiene.
Pretty Mrs. Green was nearly a nervous wreck
from the continued uncertainty and the shocks.
Apparently it is the first affair with the law for
either.

“My record has been clear,” said Green. “I never
have been arrested before. One hallowe’en night
they almost got me, but I outran the cop.”

How the present escapade will end, is not known.
Last night Green prayed for another chance for his
wife and himself.

“I will make good,” he said.

* * * * *

NOTE--_How, with additional information,
a striking follow-up story can be written a few
hours after the first story was published is well
illustrated by the following two stories, the first
of which appeared in the Saturday evening edition
and the second in the Sunday morning edition of the
same paper._

EMBEZZLEMENT

(1)

_Kansas City Star, Saturday evening edition_

John E. Jones, jr., formerly a clerk at the
Merchants Bank, which day before yesterday was
absorbed by the Commercial Trust Company, is being
detained at police headquarters this afternoon
pending an investigation of his accounts. He is
about 22 years old and is married. It was asserted
there was a discrepancy amounting to something like
$9,000.

The difference was found when an audit of the books
of the Merchants Bank was made in turning over its
money, books and business to the Commercial Trust
Company.

In a statement made to the police this afternoon
young Jones told a queer story. He admitted
falsifying the books for an amount he calculated
to be about $9,800. But he said that he received
only about $500 of that amount, the rest going to
a lawyer friend. The lawyer is being detained and
questioned this afternoon in the office of Larry
Ghent, chief of detectives. There is some doubt as
to whether the lawyer would be criminally liable
although he got most of the money.

Jones lives at 4510 Walker St. He did not dissipate
or spend recklessly and it is believed he can
restore the greater part of the money.

This was the method of the bookkeeper and his
lawyer friend. The friend wrote checks on an
account he had in the Merchants Bank. When the
canceled checks appeared at the Merchants Bank
from the clearing house to be charged against the
lawyer’s account, they first went to Jones, whose
task at the bank gave him that opportunity. He held
out those checks and destroyed them. He covered the
discrepancy by making a false entry on his books.

Jones says he received $160 at one time with which
he purchased a motor cycle, but the rest of his
share went to him, he says, in comparatively small
amounts.

Young Jones told the police that he had been forced
by the lawyer to keep up the system of destroying
checks and falsifying the books after once he
started, for fear of being exposed. The bookkeeper
said that he first fell into the clutches of
the lawyer when the attorney representing an
installment furniture house, threatened to take
back the furniture he had partly paid for. A
payment was due on it and the bookkeeper could not
meet it. He says the lawyer proposed the scheme for
destroying the checks and falsifying the accounts.
Once he started, Jones said, his master made him
keep it up. The amounts of the checks at first were
comparatively small, but they kept getting larger
until one day the lawyer compelled him to put over
a check for $2,000.

At 3:30 o’clock this afternoon the police were
still investigating the lawyer. He cashed the
checks, but was in no way connected with the bank.

(2)

_Kansas City Star, Sunday morning edition_

After drifting in a current that both knew must
lead to wrack and ruin, two Kansas City men are
on the rocks today. One is Henry A. Black, 47,
smart lawyer and man of affairs. His companion in
dishonor is John E. Jones, jr., 21, a pallid bank
bookkeeper.

Accompanied by detectives and lawyers, Black went
to his offices in the Commercial Building yesterday
afternoon and produced from his safe cancelled
checks totalling $9,800. The checks, drawn on his
account at the Merchants Bank, had been paid by the
bank but never charged against him. Jones, the tool
in this game of foolish finance, pocketed them as
they came in.

Around Black were men in whose class the lawyer
had only recently counted himself. They were all
staring at him. He felt the need of explanation. He
spoke slowly:

“I was under a great financial strain and I had to
resort to methods of raising money that otherwise I
never would have used.”

He said nothing more and the little group
returned to police headquarters. Black and the
young bookkeeper, who for months had juggled the
lawyer-promoter’s account at the bank, were held in
jail over night. Tomorrow both will be charged with
a felony, the prosecutor said last night.

Black is a church member and was for many years a
Sunday school teacher. He is a cold man and even
his close friends have known only in a general way
about his business affairs. He was an exceptional
scholar. In the last ten years he has not practiced
much at the law, but has sought to promote
telephone corporations and large land businesses.
He has a lot of that force that is sometimes called
character but more often described as personality.
He was the first man possessed of any considerable
personal magnetism who ever came into the life of
John Jones, bank clerk.

The man of affairs began to notice Jones months
ago and Jones glowed under the attention. Married
at 18 to a girl a year his junior, earning for a
time $35 a month, while his wife added to this by
wages from a wholesale coffee house, Jones had had
a dull life. He had been graduated from a grade
school at 14 and gone through a business college.
Several jobs followed and he finally worked in
one bank until his salary was raised to $50 a
month. After that he helped his father in a grocery
and then went to work for the Merchants Bank for
$70 a month. When that bank was absorbed by the
Commercial Trust Company last week, he was getting
$75.

This was the young bookkeeper, pallid, unassuming,
rather thin chested, beside whose place at the bank
railing Black, one of the bank’s customers, stopped
one morning.

Black asked how his checks totaled. The bookkeeper,
returning in a moment, told him his account would
be overdrawn $110. Black thanked him, said he would
go out and get the money, and passed a 10-cent
cigar over the railing.

Many times this happened, Jones said yesterday. His
pocket was quite used to the “feel” of one or two
good cigars by now.

Then one day Jones, the bank clerk, needed a
friend. He had lost a little home out on Walker
Avenue which he had sought to buy on installments.
Now an installment house was threatening him for
furniture purchased.

Well, he guessed he had a friend, a lawyer-friend,
too. His intimacy with the man, whom he considered
one of the bank’s best customers, had grown. Black
now was trusting the bookkeeper to notify him
whenever that exasperating account was about to be
overdrawn.

Jones was not disappointed. The installment people
were placated. In one interview his friend of the
10-cent cigars arranged a basis of settlement and
even advanced the first payment of $7.50.

This was the story that Jones told yesterday to
a roomful of lawyers, bankers and bond company
representatives, and to one woman--the little girl
who had married him at 17.

In the next chapter it was his benefactor who
needed a favor.

It was in the power of the bank bookkeeper, the
financial weakling, to favor the man of affairs.
Black had written more checks than he could meet.
He wanted a check for $100 held out for a day. It
would be easy for the bookkeeper to slip it from
the pile that came in from the clearing house. Of
course, the man of affairs might ask Mr. White, the
cashier. But sometimes Mr. White was willing to
favor and sometimes not. It depended a good deal on
how he felt. And this was important.

That $100 check was not made good the next day. It
went over to the “next day.”

Others, at the insistence of the man of affairs,
were added to this.

The picture Jones drew in the minds of those that
heard him was of a nervous young man, hurrying from
the bank to the office of the man of affairs and
greeting him with all the apprehension that had
grown upon him every time he looked at a bank book.

“For God’s sake get this money and get this
straightened up.”

“Now, that’s all right. I’ll look after this.”

And after a few minutes Jones would be surprised
to find himself picking up some of the other’s
confidence. He would go back to his post confident
that the money would soon be raised and his
duplicity toward his employers wiped away.

Jones would get such messages as these:

“Meet me at 7:30 in the morning.”

“Drop in at 6 o’clock at night.”

“93, 94, 95, 96 are coming in. Take care of them.”

It had reached $9,800 when the prospective
consolidation threatened disclosure.

Jones had the advice of the man of affairs--to keep
quiet and trust in him as his lawyer.

When arrest came Friday, Jones called for his
lawyer. The lawyer was at church. The messenger
reached the church too late.

At midnight Black was at police headquarters. The
police would not let him see his young client. At 8
o’clock yesterday morning, and again at 10 o’clock,
Black was back at the jail. But Jones, under the
sweating of the detectives, was keeping his faith.

Then his young wife, leaving their 2-year-old baby
at home, came into the room. She pleaded for the
truth. Then Jones took her hand and told the queer,
pitiful story.

The chief of detectives stared hard.

“Can you tell that story before Black?” the chief
demanded.

In a little while Black was brought into the room.

The two men, so radically different in character,
education and manner, sat on either side of a desk.

Again the young man told his story. Black played
with a lead pencil.

“Well, sir, what do you think of that?” the
detective chief asked sharply.

The answer was ready enough.

“The boy is having a wild dream. It is
preposterous!”

But a little while afterwards Black said, briefly,
that the cancelled checks, given him by the accused
clerk, were in his office safe.

There the checks were found. And Black, who had
gone to the bank officials the day before and
pleaded for time for his client’s sake, now
pleaded for time for himself, time in which to
clean everything up, time to make that restitution
delayed so many months.

In the matron’s room at the jail were the boy and
his wife. They had been crying.

“A headache I’ve had for weeks is gone,” the boy
said.

He was not vindictive.

“I was the fool,” he said. “I thought that he was
prosperous and that it would all come out right.”

The disclosures of the day brought to police
headquarters another wife, Mrs. Black, from the
home at 215 Wilson Place. With her was the Rev.
A. Brittingham Brown, Mr. Black’s pastor. Black’s
7-year-old daughter was at home, asleep and
ignorant of the day’s cumulative events.

Mrs. Black brought for her husband in a valise a
change of clothing.

Black was summoned from the cell-room and conducted
to the office of the night captain. He came in, his
hat pulled forward, head bowed.

Then he saw his wife. They advanced to each other
with open arms. They kissed and hugged. Neither
said a word for a long time.

They all sat down, the wife holding her husband’s
hand.

“We are very sorry, indeed, at this sudden
trouble,” the minister said. “The sympathy of
pastor and of members is with you and we are going
to stand by you. This is a time to stand by a man.”

Black and Mrs. Black wept.

Other friends entered the room. No one spoke of the
case and Black volunteered no information.

After his friends had gone, Black went back to the
cellroom, leaving on the captain’s desk the valise
brought by his wife. The pajamas inside would have
given slight comfort on the iron slats upon which
he was to sleep.

* * * * *

BURGLARY

_San Francisco Chronicle_

Diamonds and other stones to the value of $3500
were stolen yesterday afternoon from the apartments
of Mrs. Dennis M. Patrick at 1907 Woolworth street
by a burglar, who ran away in such haste that he
left jewelry to an equal value spread out on the
bed, besides money and other valuables.

The burglar seems to have been familiar with the
hiding places of Mrs. Patrick’s valuables and with
her movements as well. While she was out of the
house between 2 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon,
he entered the rear door with a key which he took
from the place where she had hidden it, picked up
a screwdriver in the kitchen, and, going straight
to the bedroom, pried open the locked bureau drawer
where the jewels were.

The burglar spread the loot out on the bed and was
evidently engaged in sorting and packing it up when
Mrs. Patrick’s daughter, Dorothy, came home from
school at 3:30 o’clock. The little girl went up to
the back door, and, finding it locked, went back to
the street and down to the corner. Apparently, when
the child tried the back door the burglar ran out
through the front way, as Mrs. Patrick found that
door open when she came home half an hour later.

The stolen jewels included thirty-seven diamonds,
eight emeralds and eight pearls, all set in
platinum, principally in the shape of rings and a
lavalliere. Most of the stones were heirlooms and
prized by Mrs. Patrick beyond their value. The
jewels which the burglar left behind in his hurry
included a diamond bracelet, besides other diamonds
and emeralds, and a quantity of gold jewelry.
Several hundred dollars’ worth of silverware and
about $20 in coin had not been touched. But the
burglar did take about 55 cents from the little
girl’s purse.

A cigarette on the floor, a room full of smoke and
an excellent set of finger prints on a hand mirror,
which Detective M. T. Arey found last night, were
all the clews the burglar left.

* * * * *

BURGLARY

_Chicago Herald_

Helen Walker is 12 years old. Her father is John
Walker, a lawyer, and the family resides in Oakland
Park. Mr. Walker always has been proud of his
daughter. But he boasts about her now.

Helen’s mother, when she kissed her girl good-by
yesterday morning, had said she would not be home
till late. That’s why Helen grew suspicious.

She heard some one walking upstairs when she came
home from school. It couldn’t be her father.
And the step was too heavy for her mother; and,
besides, her mother wasn’t home.

So she tiptoed upstairs and into her father’s room,
and she found a big revolver in a bureau drawer.
Then she walked quietly into the room where the
noise seemed to come from.

She saw a man putting things into a
bag--silverware, bric-a-brac, ornaments,
jewelry--all her mother’s pretty things.

The girl drew in her breath sharply. The burglar
turned. His little eyes glared at her--a slim
little creature with a halo of golden hair and
a revolver--and blue eyes that looked into his
unafraid.

For a moment they kept the pose. Then--

“It’s loaded,” said the girl. “Don’t you think
you’d better drop my mamma’s silver comb?”

The burglar did. Likewise a rope of pearls.

“Hadn’t you better turn the bag upside down on the
bed there?” the girl continued.

The burglar, without a word, complied.

Then she made him turn his pockets inside out, and,
keeping the revolver trained on him, walked him
down the steps and onto the porch.

And there he turned and spoke.

“Say, kid, you’re all right,” he affirmed, and
walked away.

And Helen went and told the neighbors--and was
afraid to go back into the home she had just
defended--until the arrival of her mother.

* * * * *

HIGHWAY ROBBERY

_Chicago Herald_

About to be married and needing money, Edward
Russell, 19 years old, decided it would be easier
to steal the money than work for it.

So he turned auto robber, and was captured with
three other young men, after they held up Edward
Bessinger and took his satchel, containing $3,000.
They told their stories yesterday in the Chicago
avenue police station and gave their strange
motives for becoming criminals.

“I was going to be married and knew I would need a
lot of money,” said Russell. “I couldn’t get enough
by working and thought a holdup would be the best
way.”

John Harper said he joined the other robbers
because his father was in trouble.

“He is a saloon-keeper in Walsingham, Ill., and was
caught staying open after hours,” said Harper. “He
needed money to help him out, and the only way I
had to get it was to steal it.”

“I was just trying to collect what Bessinger owed
me,” declared Arthur Raymond, who planned the
robbery. “I worked in the Bessinger restaurant at
Halsted and Hamilton streets and got paid next to
nothing for it. You can’t work for such small wages
and have any money.

“I decided I would get enough out of Bessinger to
pay me handsomely for the time I worked there. I
knew he carried money in the satchel and planned
the holdup.”

“Let the others talk themselves into the
penitentiary if they want to,” said George Wilson,
the fourth prisoner. “I have nothing to say about
it. We tried and fell down. That’s all.”

The four men were arrested after they had run their
automobile into a fence while trying to escape
with the satchel. They had knocked down Bessinger,
who is a collector for the Bessinger Restaurant
Company, and the automobile ran over his leg,
causing the machine to swerve. The money satchel
was recovered.

* * * * *

THEFT OR LOSS

_Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin_

It will be Christmas without the “merry” for Jules
Alexander, Brussels, Belgium, who will spend it
in Milwaukee penniless, because of either an evil
twist of fate or the daring of a hotel thief.

Monsieur Alexander, a young Belgian, is an American
representative of a large machinery plant in
Brussels. He has been in Milwaukee about two weeks
and is staying at the Hotel Pfister.

Thursday afternoon M. Alexander decided that his
suit needed pressing. Hurriedly--it must have been
hurriedly--he made a change of wardrobe, rang for
a bellboy and had the suit taken down to the hotel
tailor.

Little did M. Alexander know that a $130 roll of
crinkly American bills, practically his assets
in toto, reposed in the left hand hip pocket of
the tailor-bound trousers. In the newly donned
suit there was not a franc, not a sou, not even a
centime.

Later in the afternoon, having left the hotel, M.
Alexander had use for some change. He felt in his
hip pocket and found nothing. He found the same
thing in all his other pockets. All at once it
dawned on him that he had left the precious roll of
bills in the other suit.

M. Alexander went back to the hotel on the run. He
told the clerk of his loss. Quickly but quietly
a search for the lost or stolen money was made
through the hotel, but without avail. Evidently
both tailor and bellboy declared that they knew
nothing of the money.

M. Alexander is positive that the roll of bills
was in the pocket of the trousers sent down to the
tailor. As the tailor is in the same building,
there was no chance of the money’s dropping on the
street, and yet the hotel corridors, elevators and
lobbies have been searched inch by inch.

This morning M. Alexander went to the central
police station and reported the loss, or theft.
Detective Paul Pergande was detailed on the case.

“It was 650 francs I lose; all I had, aussi,” said
M. Alexander this morning, with a deprecatory
French shrug of the shoulders. “I do not know what
shall I do if the gendarmerie, the police, soon
do not find the money. It is of a probability,
certainement, that I can get some more, but it will
take time and I am what you call ‘broke’--n’est-ce
pas?

“You see, monsieur, my compagnie--it is in
Bruxelles--allow me an expense account and we
representateefs do not carry with us so much. That
which one has stolen is all that I had. Voila!

“I must find that money, monsieur. Certainement I
can explain to our New York agents and they will
send me some money to live with. Assuredly I hope
that they will not doubt my explanation and wonder
how I use so much expense account. Six hundred and
fifty francs--it is much, monsieur!

“King Albert, I? Oh, oui, we have a new and fine
king, but just now I worry so about my money that I
have not thought much of our new king.”

* * * * *

HOLD-UP

_Kansas City Star_

Liquor was responsible for starting out two young
men last night on a brief career as holdup men
which lasted only a few hours and ended in cells
at police headquarters at midnight. The men are
Herbert Wilson, 24 years old, 910 East Nineteenth
Street, and Sherwin Carter, 28 years old, 143 Payne
Avenue. Carter is married.

The holdups were eight in number, occurring in the
district between Twenty-first and Thirty-seventh
streets and Penn Street and Forest Avenue. The loot
obtained amounted to $12 in cash, eight diamond
rings, four purses and three watches. The robberies
came in quick succession and so did the calls of
the victims to police headquarters. Two policemen
in a motor car finally caught the pair at Linwood
Boulevard and Forest Avenue.

Carter is the son of Dr. Eugene Carter, Hampshire
Apartments, president of Standard Lumber Company.
Doctor Carter, when notified of his son’s arrest,
immediately blamed liquor for the young man’s
downfall and said that ordinarily he was a “good
boy.”

“I’d been drinking for three days and didn’t know
what I was doing last night,” young Carter said
this morning at police headquarters. “I was out of
a job and didn’t have any money to speak of. And,
say, I’m kind of responsible for Wilson’s getting
into this, too. It was my scheme to hold up people.

“I’ve been a little wild, but I’ve never been in
trouble for holding up people. Say, this’ll be hard
on my wife.”

Wilson, too, blamed liquor.

“I’d never have dreamed of robbing people if I
hadn’t been drunk,” he said. “Carter thought it
would be an easy way to get some money and so we
went and borrowed a gun from a negro that he knew
and went to holding up people. I’d hold the gun and
Carter would search them.”

Both men were shaking and wild-eyed this morning.
After their continued drinking of whisky for three
days, their nerves were far from steady.

* * * * *

HOLD-UP

_Kansas City Star_

.......................................................
. See now how real life beats the reel life every .
. now and then. Here, for instance, is the strange .
. history of The Man in the Black Mask, as acted upon .
. the stage of Kansas City’s streets in the deserted .
. hours of the morning when everybody slumbers except .
. holdup men, belated wayfarers and policemen. .
.......................................................

REAL I.

Ed Wilson, alias E. Harry Miller, known in the
family album at police headquarters as a “gunman,”
fares forth very early this morning with a
companion to make his living. At 2:30 o’clock at
Thirteenth and Charlotte streets, they meet a man
and begin their pleasant labors.

“Don’t do it, gents,” says the stranger, “don’t do
it. It ain’t perfessional. I’m one of the same.
Here’s my gun and here’s my black mask. See?”

“Excuses,” says Spokesman Ed. “Have ’em back. Luck
to you.”

REAL II.

Frank Mathis, one of those belated wayfarers who
afford occupation to holdup men, is held up half
an hour later at Thirteenth and Charlotte streets
by two men. By the illumination of an arc light he
observes the two closely. So does Timothy Dalton,
policeman. Timothy comes up rapidly and the two
flee, bombarding the air, Timothy doing the same.
The robbers escape.

Mathis then furnishes Timothy descriptions of the
two, which Timothy, in turn, furnishes police
headquarters, which, in turn, furnishes them to
whatever policemen can be reached by telephone.

REAL III.

(_In two scenes._)

SCENE I--Frank Hoover, another policeman with
insomnia, sees a man approach him at Eleventh and
Charlotte streets about 4 o’clock. The man seems
to answer the description of one of the two holdup
chaps.

Hoover runs and so does the man.

Another batch of shots are fired. This time they
find lodging.

The fleeing man drops with a bullet in the left
leg and another in the left hip. Hoover stoops
down, picks up something clutched in the wounded
man’s hand, stares at it curiously, puts it in his
pocket. The ambulance arrives and the wounded man
is taken to the General Hospital.

SCENE II--Furnished with descriptions of the two
fleeing holdup men, another policeman at 4 o’clock
at Tenth and Holmes streets, arrests Ed Wilson, our
hero of “Real 1.”

REAL IV.

At police headquarters today Wilson is identified
by Mathis as one of the pair who held him up.

Wilson agrees with him and tells his partner’s name.

Mathis then goes to the hospital, but fails to
identify the wounded man, who gives the name of
Harry Walters.

From this Wilson gathers that the wounded man is
not his pal.

But who, then, is he?

“You say this Hoover cop picked up something when
he shot the fellow?” queries Wilson.

“What was it?”

“A black mask, eh? Well, ain’t that the limit?”

“Why, that must be the fellow we held up to begin
with and turned loose because he was in the
business.

“And here he goes and gets shot because a cop
thinks he looks like me. That’s luck for you!”

* * * * *

STREET CAR BANDIT

_Los Angeles Times_

Two pairs of arms entwined the neck of Harry
Blair, wounded and confessed streetcar bandit, as
he lay chained to a cot in the Emergency Hospital
yesterday morning. While his young wife embraced
him, sobbing, their year-old baby laughed and
cooed. He crawled across the pillow on which
Blair’s head rested, and, snuggling close to his
father, threw his chubby arms around Blair’s neck.

Hospital folk and the police are used to pathetic
scenes in the hospital, but that sight seemed too
much for them, and silently they stole from the
ward and closed the door, leaving the wife to her
grief, the husband to whatever thoughts he had, and
the innocent babe to its joy.

It was a decidedly hard-luck story that the Blairs
related to the detectives and nurses. The first
year of their married life happiness and prosperity
smiled on them, they said. But when the stork
visited the Blair household in Dallas it brought
not only a bright-eyed baby but also a nemesis.

Their savings went for doctor’s bills and clothing
for the little one. Then Blair had difficulty, he
says, in finding steady employment at his trade,
painting. When they were reduced almost to poverty
they decided to come to Los Angeles. They have been
here six weeks. In that time, Blair says, he was
unable to earn enough to provide properly for his
sick wife and impoverished baby.

The last dollar the couple had went a few days
ago for rent. Weary of tramping the streets in
quest of work, weak from lack of nourishment, and
worried because he couldn’t buy food, clothing
and medicine, Blair says he conceived the idea of
turning highwayman.

“Even then my nemesis followed me,” he said,
choking. “I got a few dollars from the conductor
and was hurrying home to give it to my wife for
food and things when I was stopped by a police
officer. I escaped from him and was climbing a
fence when the bullet caught me in the leg.”

Blair will be confined in the criminal ward at the
County Hospital until he is physically able to be
arraigned. He will be charged with highway robbery,
the police say.

* * * * *

FREE-FOR-ALL FIGHT

_New York World_

With whistle screeching and hundreds of passengers
yelling for help out of the windows, a northbound
Third avenue elevated train was held in panic late
last night by a crowd of roughs, who terrorized the
passengers and assaulted a conductor.

More than a dozen women, returning from the
theatre, fainted, and Mrs. Sadie Arthur, of No.
991 East One Hundred and Seventy-eighth street,
was thrown into violent hysterics and taken to the
Lebanon Hospital.

The riot started at One Hundred and Thirty-eighth
street and continued all the way to One Hundred
and Sixty-sixth street. There policemen shoved
through a great crowd, which had been attracted
by the whistling, and arrested Adolph J. Weiss,
eighteen years old, of No. 444 East One Hundred
and Sixty-fifth street. His companions in the
excitement managed to escape.

Weiss, who is somewhat of a fighter, was the
ringleader of the disturbers. They began their
horseplay by throwing hats about the car, smashing
hats and jostling the passengers. Dresses were
torn and women insulted; yet no one took a hand to
suppress the outrage.

“Shame on you men,” cried some of the women.
“Haven’t any of you enough spirit to protect us?”

Just as one woman received a severe blow in the
face, Conductor Thomas J. Boyce, of No. 108 East
One Hundred and Twenty-first street, who is known
on the road as “Scrappy Tom,” jumped into the
fracas and hit straight from the shoulder.

“Beat him up,” yelled the gang, and they all jumped
on “Scrappy Tom.”

“Come on, all of you,” he roared, his fighting
Irish blood aroused. One, two, three of the
brawlers hit the dusty mat, and finally Boyce
reached Adolph and landed hard on his jaw.

The fight ranged up and down the car, with Boyce
taking care of the entire gang. Three or four
women who had fainted and fallen to the floor were
trampled upon.

Windows were raised throughout the train. Yells
of “Murder!” “Police!” alarmed the Bronx. The
motorman started his whistle going, and this tipped
Policemen Wilson and Dempsey, of the Morrisania
station, who lay in wait at One Hundred and
Sixty-sixth street.

The crowd that was bunched there prevented their
making more arrests and furnished a means of escape
to Weiss’s “pals.”

Pieces of hats, feathers, ribbons and lingerie were
scattered from end to end of the car. A number
of the women had not revived, and Mrs. Arthur
appeared to be in a critical condition. A hurry
call was sent to Lebanon Hospital, and Dr. Singer,
hastily treating the others, hurried Mrs. Arthur
to the institution. He said she was in a dangerous
hysterical condition.

The line was tied up for half an hour by the riot.

Weiss looked as though he had stayed in the ring
twenty rounds with Bill Papke. His face was
unrecognizable.

“I never knew that any of these conductors could
fight,” he sputtered through swollen lips, as he
was led to a cell.

“Over in the old country,” said “Scrappy Tom,” as
he watched the ex-champion led to a cell in the
Morrisania station, “I used to throw a couple of
lads like you over my head before breakfast just
for an appetizer.”

* * * * *

MURDER OF BUSINESS MAN

_New York Tribune_

Walter H. Hammond, a well known business man of
Jersey City and a brother of Colonel Robert A.
Hammond, was shot and instantly killed yesterday
afternoon in the Pennsylvania Railroad Company’s
ferry house at Jersey City. Peter Grew, a man he
had befriended, was arrested as the slayer of
Hammond.

Mr. Hammond was about to have his luncheon in the
restaurant in the railway station, on the second
floor. He had ascended the stairs and turned toward
the restaurant, when he was confronted by Grew, to
whom he made a cheery remark. Without a word in
reply, the police say, Grew drew a revolver, which
he carried in his coat pocket, and fired at him.
The bullet entered the left temple and ploughed
into the brain. Two more bullets were fired into
his body after he fell.

Calmly replacing the weapon in his pocket, Grew
started to walk down the stairs to the street,
but Patrolman Amann, who was on duty at the ferry
house, dashed up the stairs and, meeting him half
way, arrested him. Grew remarked, Amann says, as
he handed the revolver to the officer: “The thing
is all over, and I might as well give up.” Later
he persistently refused to admit that he did the
shooting.

The police say their investigation has revealed
that Grew, who has been regarded as eccentric
and impulsive, had frequently threatened to kill
Hammond. They say that Grew had recently been
drinking excessively.

The victim of the shooting was the head of the
Hammond and Wilson Stock Company, dealers in
butterine and eggs at Jerome and 4th streets,
Jersey City. He was a bachelor and forty-two years
old. He was a director of the Second National Bank
and of the Commercial Trust Company, and an active
member of the Union League Club, of Jersey City. He
lived at No. 314 Harrison avenue, Jersey City.

Grew had been in the same business. Some time ago,
the police say, he was arrested in Brooklyn for
making and selling oleomargarine without stamping
it properly. Hammond gave him a new start in
business. His business dwindled to nothing, and
he accused Hammond of persecuting him. Grew owned
a flathouse at No. 244 3d street, Jersey City, in
which he, his wife and six children lived. This
house he conveyed to his wife during his business
troubles. It is said that Grew complained that his
wife was under the influence of Mr. Hammond and
refused to permit him to have any of the revenue
derived from the rental of the building. Ten days
ago he was arrested for beating her. Judge Harmon,
before whom he was arraigned, ordered him committed
to jail for ten days, but relented when he promised
to refrain from abusing or beating his wife.

Otto S. Wilkins, of No. 21 Park street, who has a
butter business at No. 52 Hudson street, Jersey
City, met Grew less than an hour before the
shooting. He told Captain Larkins, at the Jersey
City Police Headquarters, of a conversation he had
had with Grew. He said that Grew asked him to give
him a job.

“I then told him,” Mr. Wilkins said, “that I
understood that he was in such a financial
condition that he could live without working. He
said, ‘No,’ that his property brought him in $120
a month, and that after he had paid the interest
on a small loan which stood against it, with taxes
and repairs, it left very little to live on; that
his wife would not let him have any of that, and
that Mr. Hammond was responsible for her attitude
in withholding funds from him. He was in a natural
state of mind to-day, cool and collected, and
talked to me in the same strain that I have always
known him to use. He used to tell me four or five
years ago that he had it in for Mr. Hammond and
would shoot him some time.”

In a statement to the police Grew said he had known
Hammond for sixteen years and had done business
with him. “I am not going to answer that,” was his
reply when asked if he had had any trouble with
Hammond. He said that he was on his way home from
Manhattan when he met Hammond, and that Hammond
spoke to him, but he did not reply. “I had the
revolver in my right hand in the inside pocket of
my sack coat,” said Grew, “and that is all I have
to say.” He stated that “Hammond had been pounding
me and had got the inspectors to pound me.”

Mrs. Grew said that her husband’s mind had been
affected by brooding over his failure in business,
and she shared her husband’s opinion that he had
been persecuted.

* * * * *

MURDER IN LITTLE ITALY

_Kansas City Star_

MURDERS IN LITTLE ITALY SINCE JANUARY 1.

January 9--Mario Ippolito shot down and killed by
unidentified assassin.

January 11--John Kanato shot by John Herwetine;
died two days later.