The evening world., 1889-06-17
CONFESSED THIEVES.
Well Organized Plan by Which q Grocery
Firm Was Robbed.
Austin, Nichols & Go, Victimized to
the Extent of $4,000.
Three Arrests Made and All Confess
Their Guilt.

vantine 4 Wehrman. who keep q well-ap-
pointed little grocery at 81 Spring street.
have been buying S25 sugar at sl0 and $l2 a
barrel for the past three years.
Colin vantine. the senior member Of tho
firm. is now under lock and key in Chief In
spector Byrnes's stronghold at Police Head
quarters.
So are Henry Mailer. of "A South Sixth
street; George H. C~oggswell, of IA Division
avenue. and Thomas O'Brien, all Brooklyn
men.
Mailer was receiving clerk at the big
wholesale grocery house of Austin. Nichols
Il Co. Hudson and Jay streets. Coggswell
was a driver for the Brooklyn Sugar Refining
Company. and O'5rien was q mutual friend
of all three of his fellow prisoners.
Shortly after Thurber, Whyland & Co. fer
reted out the wholesale fraud by some Of their
employees last Fall. ~ which they had been
the victims of systematic robbery by theft,
fraud and forgery, Austin, Nichols d 20. dis
covered that their shipping clerk, William
Houston, had been permitting one of their
truck drivers to carry away with each load IN
extra barrel of sugar, which he sold cheap to
q small grocer at Broome and Ridge streets.
Houston aud the driver got eighteen
months each at Sing Sing in Recorder
Smyth's Court, and the grocer only escaped
bv disappearing and leaving his bondsmen
in the lurch.
Austin, Nichols Il Co. felt hat there wero
other crooks in their employ, and Inspector
Byrnes set Detectives Heidelberg, Dolan and
Freel to ferret them out.
The result was the arrest of the four worth
les named above.
For three years according to the confession
Of Vantine. Mailer and Coggswell, they have,
with O'Brien, been systematically swindling
the firm.
MAILER. a. receiving clerk. receipted for
all the refined sugar trucked over from the
Brooklyn Refinery by Coggswell. Coggswell
sold from FIVE barrels ont of q truckload up
to the whole load itself TO Vantine. at FROM
$40 to S12 a barrel, O'Brien assisting IN the
delivery. while CoGgswell went on to Austin,
Nichols d Co.'S to get his receipt signed Ivy
Mailer.
Valentine paid cash on delivery for the
sugar, and Coggswell. who made a clean
breast of the whole matter when arrested.
says that during the three years Of this pc;
cnliar c~opartnership the firm has been robbed
Of $50 barrels of ~granulated cut. loaf sugar.
worth about %. 600 and, for which, BY ar
rangements made between Mailer and Colin
V9ntine, they, received about $4,000.
which they divided equally, less the amounts
paid to 0'Brien for his work. which was
usually about q q barrel:
Mailer corroporatos this story IN every
part. and O'Brien is sid to have turned
0' MS. M SEceCSGfSS; of Is. firm of Austin.
Nichols & Co.. saws -FOUR business is 30
large that an annual loss of $4,000 to 90. OOO
worth of goods might be attributed to shrink.
age. leakage and waste. but this thievery,
being all in sugar, was more easily detected.
I'VE placed implicit trust in Henry
Mailer, who had been our receiving clerk fol
six years. Now he says he originated thii
achema. nroDOsed n To COOQ6Well and made
arrangements with VantiDe to act as the
fence and receiver of the stolen goods
All the prisoners will be ~arraigned in the
Tombs Police Court to-day.