Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1886-12-24
DOWN TO ID cath.
A Detective Tells How Men Are De-
cOyed Through Charity.
From the SER YORK Maj and Espress.
{. W hat becomes of the people who are


reported as missiug?' an old detective
was asked by a reporter at police head
quarters.
well, that is a hard question to
answer. Some leave the country TO es-
cape their families, and others are killed
in dives about the city"
"DO many return after several years"
Eyes, | have known cases where people
have been missing for twenty years,
where their wives have married again,
and they have returned to surprise, much
more than delight, those who at first
mourned their loss. How some people
disappear was explained to me several
years ago in case which never became
public. A young man VINO was studying
tor the clergy was standing one night in
front of WaIlack's theatre, waiting for
the time when the performance should
begin. when a young girl, shivering in
thin dress and shawl, which scarcely
covered her shoulders, touched him on
the arm and begged MIN for Gods sake to
give her some money, as her mother was
starving and she had no means by which
TO obtain food for her. the gentleman
told the girl that 1t was against a rule he
bad made ever TO give money to people on
the street. The girl looked at him with
ptitul expression, and begged him, If he
did not believe her story, to come to the
house where she lived, which was not far
away, and see tor himself il the story she
had told him of the starvation and want
of her family was not true.
TOUCHED WITH PITY,
Touched by The girls pathetic look the
young man dec ded to follow her. She
took him around the corner of Thirteenth
street, nearly to Avenue A, to a house
with no blinds in the windows, with
oh, tYrK. /,
and with battered front door. She took
nm up one flight OF stairs to a room
which was utterly bare OF furniture ex-
cept one broken down bed, which stood in
a corner. On mantelpiece sputtereG a
tallow candle, which only gave light
enough to show the deep darkness of the
corners.
"She told him she would go into the
next room and tell her mother that "A kind
stranger had come to ser her. W nile she
was going she asked him to sit on the
bed, which was the only seat she had to
offer. The young man, Mortified at such
poverty, and never thinking of any evil
results to himself, seated himself on the
edge of the bed. Scarcely had ne done so
when two arms reached out from under
it and seIzed him by the legs. With all
his force he could not keep himself from
being dragged under. He threw himself
the bed, but in the position in which he
was he could do nothing. Slowly but
surely he felt himself dragged downward
by the powerful arms.
GAS his hand slipped from one hold in
the bed to the other they happened to
touch the heavy walking stick which be
carried, AS a last resort he seized the
cane and with all his strength thrust it
under the bed. The heavy IRON ferue
h w i0h no nf no q
came in contact with something soft. A
horrible curse filled the room. With
desperate energy the young man again
and again thrust the cane
into the darkness under the bed. Slowly
the vice-like grip of the hands which held
his legs relaxed. He made one final and
desperate effort and found himself free.
He rushed downstairs and from the
house.
LAUGHED AT HIM.
"When he reached the corner, he
thought that, disheveled and hatless as he
was, it was impossible for him to 90
home. Seeing a policeman on the next
book, he went to b m and told him of the
experience he had had. The officer
laughed at him and insinuated that he
had better go home and take nothing more
TO drink. But when he found the young
man was really in earnest, he called for
which the young man pointed out as the
one in which he had been assaulted.
Whey they knocked at The door il was
opened by man who had every appear
ance of just having been awakened from
a sound sleep. The young man insisted
on gong ups sairs, and followed by the
police he rushed up and into the room
which he had lately lett. In it there was
nothing that he could recognize or iden
| tify. A carpet covered the floor, pictures
| were hanging on the wall, a piano stood
in one corner, and everything looked as if
| it ad been recently occupied by a woman
| of refined tastes. The young man was
| asLounded by the change and tried to ex-
| plain that he must have got into the
wrong house. The police returned to
| their original theory that the young man
| had been drinking and again advised him
| to 90 home.
''There is no question in my mind that
| if the young man had not been successful
In breaking away from the grip of the man
| who held him from under the bed, another
| unknown body with nothing to identity it
would have been found floating in the
| river, and would have been buried in Pot
| ter's Field, unknown and uncared for,
| while another one of the mysterious dis
| appearances, which so often thrill the
| New York public, would have mad it's
nine days run OF wonder and then have
been forgotten"