Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1875-10-07
THE CHARLEY ROSS MYSTERY.

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fathers and mothers of the country as
the most heartless and terrible crime
Of our era has unfo,ded, in the slow and
uncertain methods of the law, details
Of iniquity that must make every read
cr's blood both freeze with horror and
boil with indignation. The letters of
these kidnappers are without doubt
far ahead of anything the imagination
of Sue OF Reynolds fabricated for the
special delight of their morbid reads
ers. 1t would be folly to go back TO
fiction for astounding boldness, craft
and mercenary rascality combined SO
long as on. courts can present us with
such records as these. No imaginary
plot can equal in defiant villiany and
successful mystery this actual OCCURS
ence. Mosher and his confederates
worked against the most fearful odds,
and, SO far as the fate of Charley Ross
is concerned, they fulfilled their threat
and won 1t was, without exception.
the most daring challenge that rascality
had ever made to our authorities. And
our authorities had everything on their
side. The boy for long time must
have been carried by human means
from point to point, and during that
time, while the attention of the entire
American people was called to his case,
while his features and general appear
ance We're made familiar to everybody
by photographs and descriptions circu
lated broadcast in circulars and news
papers, and the police off dozen cities
were stimulated to the utmost by offers
of reward and the eagerness of the
public, while we say 100000 eyes
were looking for the lad and for his
abductors these secure miscreants
who carried him off were negotiating
with the parent through the public
press. 1t seems incredible now, with
the advantage of telegraph and all the
skill of the police the country affords,
with the community itself turned into
an Argus-eyed watcher, that this one
man could live and move and carry on
his devilish plot as safe from discovery
as if he possessed one of those malign
charms that in olden times were ac-
credited to human agents of Satan. We
turn from the cruel story with NORTH
cation at the inadequacy of our methods
of common protection, and with sorrow
confess that, in the stories Of real life,
the mystery and power and romance
are all with the villains.
The trial of Westervelt in Philadel-
phia for being an accomplice in this
plot leaves very little doubt in the
public mind Of his relation to the prin,
cipals. But the conviction is forced
upon every thinking mind that from
the very start he played the deeper
part by battling the police at the very
time he was supposed to be aiding
them. In word, one of the principal
police agents was himself the confed-
crate of Mosher. Two weeks after the
abduction of Charley Ross, the police
of New York had satisfied themselves
that Mosher was the man. Indeed,
this conclusion was reached from two
widelysseparated starting points. Pink
erton's men had struck the trail in one
place and the men of the Central Office
had crossed it in another There can
be no doubt now that if Pinkerton's
men had not also run across the path
of the New York detectives, and to
avoid squabble with the central Office
been called of, Mosher would have
been captured alive. The efforts to
to secure the kidnappers and to dis
cover the whereabouts Of Charley Ross
were from that time to the present
confined to the execution of a number
OF stock devises presented for all cases
alike by the formula of the central
Office.
Accident may one day reveal the
story of Charley Ross. Nobody now,
for moment, dreams that the police
will unravel it. 1t is mystery planted
in the glare of the century, and in
which every mother and father in
Christendom, is interested a mystery
which is Incompatible with the age,
and alike disgraceful to our era and
our civilization. But it shows us how
far superior is ordinary craft devoted
boldly to the accomplishment of given
purpose to the hobbling and misdirect-
ed intelligence which we employ in
the detection Of crime.
Coon ADVICE. There are thousands
OF men in the South who, we hope, do
not need this sound advice from the
Richmond Wing, though there are