The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-03-29

The Detectives and tho Goodrich Case.
We were but too well prepared for the do
tectives to blunder in the Goodrich murder
case. From the absurdly incompetent treat
ment of the Rogers and the Nathan cases in
New York we were scarcely ready to be san
guine that the Brooklyn Dogberries would
improve ON it. Eight days have elapsed since
the discovery Of the murder and 'the woman"
is still missing To be sure woman has
been arrested, and thereupon, from the full
blown Chief down to the humblest patrolman,
an air Of owl-like wisdom has per-
vaded the Brooklyn official world The
Importance which swells the most incompetent
detectives bosom, when the public eye is
upon him, is study for the curious; but the
overpowering effect which this official mono
syllable reserve has wrought upon the report
ers of the local Brooklyn journals moves our
deepest feelings Every time the eye of the
Chief deliberately winks it is noted down, and
the patrolman who shakes his head sagely
when questioned is in imminent danger of i'm
mortality. To weak headed chief and be-
logged detectives this problematio Immortality
has proved very strong temptation to diverge
from fact in regard to the woman who had
been arrested. The poor, Woodworking
illy-paid, badly dressed, pale, thin seamstress,
of twenty-six, Lucette Myers, OF Lucette Arm
strong, who was hurried over by the detec-
tives to the Central Office, is limited by the
Chief to the reporters as wonderfully delibe-
rate woman, who lives in furnished apart
ments and on whom the deceased used to call
often twice o day There, too the de-
ceased would occasionally go to take tea.
Then he could throw out hints that Brooklyn
would be "thunderstruck' when they found
how the deed was done. We fear Brooklyn
must wait for the thunderbolt. And as to the
facts about this woman. She knew the de-
ceased, the Chief says, and calls him "Char-,
ley" So probably did great many people,
women included. She admits, says the Chief,
having been to the house three times, and,
says the Chief, with emphasis, she calls him
her "beau." She did not, says the Chief,
wish to see the man as he lay murdered. All
these things, breathed as though they were
only 1.-THE of the information he had gained,
filed the listeners with creeping sensations.
We confess, however, to not being much
moved Lucette Myers lived, previous to her
arrest, with her aged parents, whom she sup
ports by her hard-won earnings in the shirt
shop of Mrs. Levy. The family-fve in all
habited two poor back rooms on the fifth
floor of crowded tenement house.
They are furnished rooms, wonderful to re-
late How much furnished nothing but the
implied magnifcence Of the Chief would
induce us to say. 1t can be judged from one
fact-the poor people make their beds on the
floor. Here, then, o Chief! is where the
owner of row Of houses in Brooklyn used
to 60 take tea! These are the furnished
apartments of Ia petite maitresse. Some time
since the family were turned out of tene-
ment house hard by for non-payment of
rent Three dollars week and five in
family make this plain, too plain, we
fear, for the oracular Chief and his
luminous detectives. If the detectives were
not so clumsy we would tell them that they
had committed an outrage in arresting this
poor woman, when all these facts and good
many more were within easy reach, without
laying bare the honest poverty of these people.
The woman they could have learned, was at
home on the Thursday night and at work the
next day. Fortunately for the family, Fosters
execution enables them to fix these points
with precision. What the relations of
Goodrich were with Lucette Myers we do
not care to take on the word Of the Chief A
detective who had learned his business would
have found it all out without an arrest, and
could have discovered the greater part without
the woman being once aware Of it. To be
sure they knew no better than to drag her from
the workshop and put her through course of
cajolery varied by browbeating in the Central
Office, and then we must remember that their
conception of duty was to furnish morsels for
the Chief to hold before the bullying eyes of
Brooklyn's reporters.
Mr.. Goodrich seems to have been ladies'
whom he had the quarrel and who wrote the
reproachful letters about the child limited at
as being born of the intimacy is not the
woman arrested, all the furnished apartments,
tea-taking moonshine of the Chief to the
contrary. Every day wasted in furnishing
sensation when it should be devoted to clear
thought and rapid, careful action, is a gain to
the criminal or criminals AT the inquest yes
terday it was limited by Mr.. w. w. Goodrich
that his brothers body had been dressed after
the murder. Beyond that nothing novel was
adduced. In addition to our warning to the
detectives not to further befog themselves with
theories, we now tell them not to waste valua-
BILE time in building empty sensation. Their
stupidity in arresting Lucette Myers does not
promise much for the rational course of their
future movements The woman against whom
the evidence they possess points is still at