The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1859-08-18

ton of justice against the horse THE YES,
burglars and bogus manufacturers and
dealers with whom all the frontier
counties of that State have been so
long infested, the piratical scoundrels
have come out of their dens and swamps
and recommended their piracies with
an activity and boldness which seem
to have been increased by their brief
vacation. From various of the frontier
counties of this State, and Indiana, we
have accounts of their depredations;
whilst in this county, our fellow citizens,
A. ]. Gardner & Co., have recently
been made the victims of one of the
boldest, and at the same time, one of
the most adroit of their operations.
On Saturday, July 3Oth, young man
about twenty-five to twenty-five years
of age went to Gardner & Co.'s Livery
Stable in this village, told them that his
name was Hass, that he was a brother
of Squire Hass who resides in Pokagon
township, about FIVE miles from here,
that he owned farm in that township
and wanted to hire double team until
Monday noon for the purpose of going
to South Bend to collect some money:
and stating also that he had a team of
his own but had full employment for it
upon his farm. Messrs. G.. & Co.
accordingly let him have an establish
ment consisting of the horse, mare,
carriage and harness, described in the
advertisement in another column. As
the propertywas notreturned according
to contract, Mr.. Thomas J. Gardner of
the firm of Gardner 6 Co., prepared
on Tuesday morning, August, I'd, to
start in pursuit of it, but was detained
and his suspicious allayed by represen-
tations made to him by an old man of
venerable and apparently artless ap-
pearance, of the name of Thomas
Taylor, who came to the stable with
the excuse on behalf of the self-styled
Mr.. Hass for his omission to return the
team and carriage on Monday, that a
girl whom he had taken with him had
been i'll; and stating that he knew Mr..
Hass well, that he was an honest, res
pectable young man of good habits, and
would return the property that evening,
and that Mr.. G. might be perfectly easy
and have no anxiety about it.
On Wednesday, Mr.. G. learned that
the old man was the father of the pre-
tended "Mr Hass," that the sons name
was Nathan Taylor, the he (the sony
was recent graduate Of the Indiana
State Prison, to which he had been
sent from South Bend for horse stealing,
that he took his father with him over
to Plymouth, some ten miles beyond
South Bend on Saturday, (thc day of
thepretended hiring of the conveyance,)
returned into this county on Sunday,
leaving the old man at Plymouth; and
on Monday morning, went back toward
the State of Indiana, with another man
in the carriage with him, and owned no
land or other property.
Pursuit being then made by Mr..
Gardner, he traced the thief and stolen
property back to Plymouth, and thence
south westerly some seventy or more
miles, into the vicinity of that general
rendezvous and hiding-place of felons
and stolen property, the great Kankakee
swamp where he lost the trail and was
unable to recover it.
Soon after Mr.. Gardeners return home
in last week, old Mr.. Taylor again called
on him, making enquiries if he had OBJ
tanned any information of the property
or missing man, and pretending great
anxiety. In the conversation which
followed with Mr.. G. and others, he
admitted that the young man was his
son; that he knew when he endorsed
him as "honest," respectable" and
"of good habits" that he had been in
the Indiana State Prison for horse
stealing; that the girl had not been sick !;
and that after his first interview with
Mr.. G. and making the representations
by which Mr.. G's suspicious were tenn
porarly Quoted as above mentioned,
he had returned to Plymouth facts
which Mr.. G. had otherwise previously
learned. He also in conversation con-
tinued at intervals through several
hours, made many contradicting state
ments, and various other admissions
indicative of his participation in the
larceny of the property, affecting how
ever, throughout, degree of physical
and mental imbecility which, if real,
would have left him scarcely capable of
travelling five miles day or distinguish
ing his right hand from his left.
Upon the proof thus obtained, he was
arrested and on Friday eyan,;nnd