The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1888-12-27
A WOaiAN,s urs OF CRIME.

Arrested ut tho Ago Of ~ YSprs-At %
She Goes tn Prison to- Die.
The oldest professional sneak thief
in the country has again been arrested.
And she is woman. Sixty nlnc
yeats ago she began the criminal
career Which she still pursues and yet,
strange Ia say, she bears upon her
features bu, little traces Of the life she
led OF the four score years that have
passed ovs her head more THAN forty
have bcen passed in prison. During
that time all the sunshine that came
10 her was what struggled through the
prison bars Her friends were the
companions with whom crime had
brought her in contact. Honest people
she had scarcely ever known. In
deed, it almost must have seemed to
her that she had no place whatever IN
the great free world outside. A curl
GUS ana sad sight she presented as
she SIT huddlea up in corner OF
tho pen in the Tombs police court
Her clothes were comparatively
neat, hood was en- hSr head, from
beneath which the purest Of locks OF
silver gray showed out. Her face was
pallia, and, dressed differently and
surrounded by brighter circumstances,
she might have passed rs an old Lady
Vi most respectable ancestry. 6he had
no Haunting airs, exhibited no out
ward semblancc Of covering, gave no
furtivc 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 looked upon
her might pity her. She did not sesm
to realize why they should do 50. She
was merely going buck again to the
only home she had ever remembered
Mary Fitzgerald is her name. The
war Of 1912 took from her her father,
and when she was 10 her mother died
She became wsif on the world, drift
ing hitlcr and thither in search OF her
food and of a roof to shelter her.
Many a time she co,ild find neither,
and want, possibly moro than any
evil inclination, made hcr a thiof.
She joined one Of those gangs OF little
criminals who at the time made the
wharves and the river fronts their
homes as we'll 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 IL years OF ege
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
Il al c1> hnI fN
offer then. Indeed through her whole
career she has never had. Stealing
has seemed to be as natural to her as
living, the only variation in her con-
duct before the authorities being
that she would occasionally claim
identity with some other well known
criminal. On one occasion some fl
teen or sixteen years ago she insisted
with the utmost gravity that she
was Sarah Alexander, the notorious
''French Sally" who had made so
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 a place in
the famous rogues' gallery ct police
headquarters. She prepared for the
event as we'll as she could, and to this
day the picture bears evidence Of her
anxiety to look as well as possible. A
broad smile suifuscs her face. and it
had not the slightest trace Of that al
most involuntary if not willful un-
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 nonths-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 presers 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 lsands of an Of
fcer of the Fourth precinct. Both
were eventually arrested, and Mary
will, in all probability; end her life
| within prison walls.-New York Press.