The evening world., 1894-09-22

Mary Hall is old and scanned and
weather-beaten, but she has not bad
face, except for the marks of drink.
She weighs about as much as a witch
say, seVenty-tiSe pounds. She wore n
faded and tattered black cotton ker-
chief over her scanty gray-brown hair;
"A tattered brochet shawl hung from her
shoulders to her heels, showing a tat
of badly broken shoes at the bottom;
stockingless feet pecped through the
many holes in the bregans.
Her right arm Is stiff at the elbow
stiff in every finger joint, and 1t hung
helpless at her side; her left elbow will
bend, but the fingers of the hand are
bent backward. and she did not look
strong enough to life a pound.
But she was charged with stealing
fat and heavy two-year-old Baby Jennie
Cohen from her home, 81 Roosevelt
street.
She protested that she was just a
weak old woman, with neither stregth
nor means to provide home. and that
she had never done harm to any one.
But there was the market basket.
Policeman Flay held 1t up to the gaze
OF the magistrate, and the motley cour-
tiers who thronged the nastiest court
And Mrs. Rebecca Cohen held Baby
Jennie up TO view. too, and told how
Johnnie Ring a nice little schoolboy
living at SO Roosevelt street, gave the
alarm yesterday morning, telling her and
her husband, the tailor Louis Cohen,
that an old witch had stolen her mar
k keG sidse5 an and HdaPPing Baby into IL
away to witchland with her prey.
Frank Il. Albinger of Van Nest ave
nue., Long Island city, going home from
baby squalling in the midst OF a gaping
crowd at Beekman and Nassau streets.
The baby was evidently lost 1t was
very dirty after an all-day campaign in
to tht city Hall police station. From
there Sergt. Timms sent her with a big
policeman to Matron Travers, at Police
Headquarters,, where Papa and Mama
In the mean time, Mary Hall, thin
and weak, hobbled through Roosevelt
street with market basket on her arm.
She looked just like the old witch that
Johnnie Ring saw, and Policeman Flay
arrested her.
| suppose I must be pretty near sew
enty years old" said Mary In Police
Court, - and | never harmed any one.
/ bought that basket for five cents, of
poor old woman at Cherry and Roose-
welt streets.
THE rheumatism has spoilt me hands
and ! can't work any more. | lived
for twenty-five years in Blind Dan Muir
phys house, % Cherry street, till two
years ago. Since then | could pay no
rent and | have just lived any way /
could
George Hall Is my little husband, and
he's as good a little man as ever lived.
He peddlcs in the country and gives me
money to pay for my lodgings. l don't
know where he Is. Sure ] never saw
that child ard know nothing about her. "
Johnnie Ring was not in court, and
Mrs. Hall was remanded to cell until
tomorrow morning, when Johnnie will
be called to testify as a witness. He
is eight years old.
Mrs. Cohen, stout, fond mother, is
sure that Mary Hall Is one of a band
Of consurators who seek to rob her of
her children. for on Thursday a man
almost got her other child, six-yeGr-old
Louis Cohen.
I'VE were sitting in the front door
of the tailor shop in the afternoon when
along comes a man." says Mrs. Cohen.
HE was eating pear, and he says.
Don't you want "A pear" TO the it'll,
fellow. / says: Go long with him and
get a pear,
so the little one went down the
street. 1t was a long time, and he didn' I
come back. by and by one OF my neigh
h1rs came and told me n strange man
was taking my boy away.
Il ran down the street and caught IN
with the man and the little boy Just q :
! they were going on a ferry-bOdt at the
| foot Of the street.
but Louis had the pair all right"