Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-12-28
A WOMAN's LIFE OF CRIME.
Arrested at the Age Of IL Years-At so
She Goes to Prison to Die.


The oldest professional sneak thief
in the country has again been arrested.
And she is a woman. Sixty-nine
years ago she began the criminal
career which she still pursues, and yet,
strange to say, she bears upon her
features but little traces of the life she
led. Of the four score years that have
passed over her head more than forty
have been passed in prison. During
that time all the sunshine that came
to her was what struggled through the
prison bars. Her friends were the
companions with whom crime hal
brought her in contact. Honest people
she had scarcely ever known. L.
deed, it almost must have seemed to
her that she had no place whatever in
the great free world outside. a cuyi-
Gus and sad sight she presentedas
she sat huddled up in q corner Of
the pen in the Tombs police court.
Her clothes were comparatively
neat, hood was on her head, rom
beneath which the purest of looks of
silver gray showed out. Her fac was
pallid, and, dressed differently and
surrounded by brighter circumstances,
she might have passed as an old lady
of most respectable ancestry. She had
no Haunting airs, exhibited 10 out
ward semblance of covering, gave no
furtive chances that indicated the soul
of the criminal looking out through
the eyes. The place seemed natural
for her. Well, perhaps it might, for
many and many time, she had been
there before. Others who locked upon
her might pity her. She did not seem
to realize why they should do so. She
was merely going back again to the
only home she had ever remembered.
Mary Fitzgerald is her rane. The
war of 1912 took from her her father,
and when she was 10 her mother died.
She became waif on the world, drift
ing hither and thither in search of her
food and of roof to shelter her.
Many time she could find neither,
and want, possibly more than any
evil inclination, made her thief.
She Joined one of those gangs of little
criminals who at the time made the
wharves and the river fronts their
homes as well as their headquarters.
The fields and woods that then stood
where fashionable up town now ex-
lists would have afforded those urchins
better quarters, though ones not SO
safe. Mary was only II years of age
when she first was brought before the
courts, and had to be held up in the
arms of the sergeant SO that the judge
could see her and hear the little story
she had to tell She had no excuse to
offer then. Indeed through her whole
career she has never had. Stealing
has acemed to be as natural to her as
living, the only variation in her con-
d,:ct before the authorities being
tint e... would occasionally claim
identity with some other we'll known
criminal On one occasion some tif-
teen or sixteen years ago she insisted
with the utmost gravity that she
was Sarah Alexander, the notorious
French Sally" who had made 50
many little storekeepers mourn her
visits to their establishments. One Of
the peculiarities of this trial was that
the Judge who presided had only a
short time before sentenced the origi-
nal Sarah Alexander and informed
Mary of the fact Her persistence in
this matter was the only bit of char
acter she had ever exhibited, and she
was then deemed worthy of place in
the famous rogues gallery at police
headquarters. She prepared for the
event as well as she could, and to this
day the picture bears evidence Of her
anxiety to look as well as possible. A
broad smile suffuses her face, and it
had not the slightest trace of that al
most involuntary if not willful I'M
willingness to be photographed, that
marks the pictures of nearly all the
other criminals.
Mary's last stay out of prison was
one of the longest she had ever made
five months-and the police were
beginning to hope that at least the
sunset of her life might be in the
honest air of the open world, but they
were doomed to disappointment She
was arrested by Detective Sergeant
Woodbridge for picking the pockets of
Beatrice Mezzano in an auction room
on Catharine street. The detective
was present and saw the interesting
performance. He arrested Mary, and
was marching along with her, when
Thomas Whalen, a resident of Cherry
street, who is alleged to be the wo-
mans accomplice, assaulted the detec-
tive. In the melee Mary escaped, but
only to fall into the hands of an Of
ficer of the Fourth precinct. Both
We're eventually arrested, and Mary
will, in all probability, end her life
within prison walls.-New York Press.