The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-05-28
A BIG ROBBERY RECALLED.
The Trick by Which an Old Man Was Plum
dered of Lifetime's Savings.

NEW YORK. May 27-An old white-haired
man, blind, bent with age and hardly able to
walk, was found wandering aimlessly in Charles
street when the storm was heaviest on Monday
afternoon He had no overcoat, and battered
old hat was set awry on his snow locks He was
so helpless that policeman who saw him was
touched with pity, and led him into the Charles
street station house. The sergeant grow inter-
ested in him, too, and called an ambulance.
which took the old man to ST. Vincents Hos
pita. He told the policeman that he was eighty
Ave years old, and that he had once been rich.
He said his name was Luther G. Bryant. At the
hospital House Surgeon DAWN was called to see
the patient He started in establishment when
the queer old man, in a stammering voice, said,
in a rambling way, that he was Bryant, the old
coin collector" The old mans words had re-
called to the doctors mind the curious old coin
collector and the gigantic robbery of which he
had been the victim twelve years ago. At that
time Bryant, then in his seventy-fourth year,
kept a little stand opposite the old post
Office building. at which he sold old coins and
stamps He had kept the stand for years.
Everybody thought he was a poor man, eking
out a very modest living. He lived alone in two
little rooms on the third floor of a cheap old
tenement on Forsyth street. A detective sud
denly bounced down on him one night in October,
1874, IN his rooms, and carried him off to prison,
on warrant charging him with selling stolen
stamps He was locked up in the Tombs on this
charge. In the middle of the night three bur-
glars burst open the door of the old mans rooms
and carried off the greater part of their con-
tents The burglary was the sensation of the
day. 1t was shown that the old mans imprison-
ment was only part in an amazing plot, in
which detective took part, to rob the coin col
lector. Two noted crooks-"Rat" Reilly and
Bobby, the Welchman," the latter an employe
of the Department Of Charities and Correction
had somehow discovered that the old man
had fortune in gold and greent acks
and treasures OF costly bric-a brac
stored away In his rooms. The detective
had trumped up the charge of selling stolen
property to get the old man out of the way while
$40, 900 in 500 gold pieces stored away in a secret
drawer in a bureau. In another place was pile
Of nearly $50, 900 in greenbacks. The gold was
packed in silk and brown paper. The foolish old
man had feared to put the savings Of lifetime
In a bank or a trust company, and had hidden
the money away in his miserable hole, believing
that no one would discover his secret He fell
the robbery was brought to him, and struck his
head. The blow brought on paralysis Of the op
tic nerves that made him totally blind. He was
honorably discharged the day after the burglary.
and Rat" Reilly and Bobby the Weichman'
were sent to Sing Sing for twenty years The
old man never recovered any of the stolen money
except few OF the gold pieces. He had marked
every one with peculiar punch, and gold pieces
thus punched vera returned to him from out of
in the natural course of business from innocent
holders. The old man is now destitute aud dy-
ing He claims to De brother of the late
William Cullen Bryant