Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1886-08-24
NEwARK,s MINSTAUR.

A Nav Jersey Heal Estate Agent Con.
fronted in Court with Thirty of HIS
| child victims.
NEW. DIRK, Aug zO.--The police court
room at Newark looked like nnrAery
this morning, or like the girls ward of
an orphan asylum. All the morning the
police we're bringing in young girls In age
between nine and sixteen TO appear
against Matthias l.. Darby, real estate
dealer, with offices In Newark and Eliza
beth, and who had been arrested at his
home in the latter city at 2 O'Clock this
morning and brought to Newark. The
charge against hi was of having made
little dark room at the back OF his Office
In Newark den into which he lured
young girls for immoral purposes.
The affair at first came out
through two young girls about
fourteen years old who were recently
found nearly naked roaming around on
the beach In disreputable part of Coney
Island late at night They said they had
come from Newark and been taken into
low house, where they were detained for
several days and then cast out as found.
They were committed to an institution,
and there told story of their treatment
previously in Newark that cast their Coney
Island experience into the shade. Inves-
tigation resulted In the discovery that,
although the two girls had for some time
been very hard cases, indeed, there was
apparently horrible basis for the tale
they told. Darby's only known business
In Newark was the care OF large factory
building, for which he was the agent.
His Office was small building against
A nd n
it. Workmen in the factory
frequently, 1t is said, heard screams
coming from the rear room OF the office,
and through holes they bored in the
partition saw sights that turned their
blood cold On account of Darby's
influential position as the representative
OF the owners of the building they allege
they thought it was best to keep their
mouths shut. Acting on the information
given by the two girls found at Coney
Island, the police found some thirty
others who had been in Darby's back Of
fee, and whose experiences there make
chapter beside which the Pail Mall Ga
zette's cha ges are tame. When he was
arraigned seven formal charges
were ready to be presented against
him. He was remanded for further
examination, however, and put under
$500 bail on each case. He admits that
he knows the two Coney Island girls and |
many of the others, and that they used
often to visit him at his office, but he de-
MES that he has ever mistreated them. |
He is tall, gray haired, fne-looking man,
with wife and several grown children. |
His reputation has always been above re- |
proach, but he was quiet, peculiar man, |
OF whom little was known. Most of his |
victims are girls whom he met |
at skating rink, and are ac-
customed to run about the streets
good deal, but several of
them are the children of parents of re.
speciality and means, who received
from the police to-day the first suspicion
they had ever had of their daughters
habits. These people are greatly enraged
at Darby, and the police guard him con.
stantly to prevent violence being done
him. 1t is said that many girls were
brought to the mans den by an Italian
woman, whom he paid S for every girl.
The age OF consent in New Jersey is ten
years, so that 1t will be difficult to find a
law under which to inhict anything like
adequate punishment upon the villain.
Two years ago he was in trouble over
similar charges made by young girl, but
succeeded in hushing the matter up be-
fore 1t became public.