The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1875-10-08
WEsTERyELT AND HIS WIFE.
Poverty ene Of the lRseparable
Conditions of Crime.

The trial Of Westerveli, charged with /
being accessory to the abduction of
Charley Ross, has brought ont in strong !
relief the peculiar phases of criminal
life. The characters who figure la this I
most exIrau-ss mary tragedy are excellent
types of The class to which they belong
Mosher and Douglass were professional
burglars, and had all the cunning that
distinguishes the successful honSebreak |
er. Neither =ere they deficient in hrnte
courage They moved abont stenlihilv
like foxes, bn; when resisted and brought
TO hay they fought like tigers. The
correspondence that Mosher kept up
with Mr.. Ross shows him to have been
a person Of keen intelligence, but ex-
ceedinglv illiterate. His stratagem= for
snrrendering the captured hoy and re-
ceiving the ransom, without exposing
himself to the danger of being arrested,
were singularlv ingenious. The writers
of PLAYS of the "Jack Sheppard" order
couId not improve on some of the plots
devised by this ignorant, brutal kidnap-
per.
Although these men were constantly
engaged in dangerous enterprises. and
sometimes carried off considerable hooty
from the houses which they plundered,
they were miserably poor. Their fam
lilies lived in wretched novels, and were
FL, r.
Mosher and Westervelt waged per-
petual war with society, but in spite of
their crimes and their debased modes of
life they seemed 10 have retained their
domestic affections. Even in the homes
of thieves and burglars and kidnappers
there appears to be such thing as con-
jugal constancv. Mosher married n very
young girl without the consent of her
parents, and in her frequent interviews
with newspaper reporters his widow
never intimated that she repented of
her folly On the contrary, there is
some reason TO believed that her devo.
ton to her late husband has to some ex-
tent corrupted her own nature, and it
seems probable that she knows more
about the fate of poor little Charley
Ross than she is willing to tel
Mrs. Westervelt was married AT the
age of sixteen, and is still young wO-
man. Although she is under indictment
for being concerned in the Charley Ross
affair, and is further disqualified from
being a witness by reason her marital
relations with the accused, she neverihe
less was allowed to testify in behalf of
h'r husband, the counsel for the Com
monwealth making no objection. No
doubt the picture which she gave of her
home life was entirely true, although
her testimony concerning some more es-
sential matters was probably false. The
family, which consisted of Westervelt,
! his wife and two children. occupied a
couple of rooms in tenement honse,
for which they paid 81 per month. Like
most of the great criminals of New
York, Westervelt was at one time on the
police force, and for some time hefo-e
the abduction of Charley Ross had beeD
out of employment. The object of call
| ing his wife to the witness stand
was to show that he was not in
/ Philadelphia during the last week
of June, 1874, and that he was at home
on the afternoon of the 9th of July.
when Miss Peers says she saw him and
Charley Ross in BROOKLYN street car
The poor woman pretended to identify
the days by an incident that often oc-
ours in poverty stricken homes. The
time for paving the rent was approach
ing and they had no money. On the
Goth of July her husband told her to
take breastpin to a pawnbroker's and
get enough of money to pay the rent,
but small watch had to be added be-
fore the 81 was raised. Ofthis the land
lord only got $5, Westervelt keeping the
other 50 to take him to a picnic on the
Fourth of July, where he expected to
make something by keeping bar at one
of the refreshment booths.
By such incidents as these, which
show the extreme poverty in which
| they lived, Mrs. Westervelt accounts for
her husbands whereabouts every day
from June 26th to July 9Th, the last
named day was her birthday, her hus
band did not get up until noon; after
dinner he took pillow and an old blan-
l<et and lay down in the hall; as he pass
ed her he said: This is your birth
day and will give you twenty seven
slaps."
This alibi may not be regarded as sat
isfactory by the jury, but it shows that
Mrs. Westervelt is devoted wife, and
that if her husband was associated with
Mosher in his crimes he got very
small share of the booty. In the spring
of 1874 Westervelt and Mosher both got
into the moth Powder" business, but
although the former travelled extensive
ly and the profits on each box of the
powder sold was about ten times the
original cost, he was so poor that the
children's savings box, in which they
had boarded forty cents to buy fire.
crackers for the Fourth of July, had to
be broken open two days beforehand and
the money used in procuring food TO
keep the family from starving. Poverty
seems to be one of the inseparable con-
ditions of crime Baltimore American.
Our HONEST ADvICE.-We know
The American Rural Home, published
at Rochester, N. Y, to be a thoroughly
good journal for the farmer and the
farmers family. 1t is practical, honest,
handsome and clean. You can trust it
and it will benefit you and yours. Just
how its publishers can afford to send it
thirteen weeks on trial for but thirty
cents, postage paid. as they now offer,
we cannot understands; but they are re-
liable, and will do all they agree. And
our honest advice is that you forward