The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-10-04

Denver, Oct $50 far as the police
could learn last night, the California
gang of female pickpockets is broken
up at last, and its members gone out OF
Denver with but one exception. The
exception is May Bigelow. 1t was this
woman who brought the aggregation
of criminals here from San Francisco
in the first place and she has been
the director of their criminal opera
tions ever since they came to infest
Market street. Bigelow has been i'll for
several days and is still confined to her
room, having undergone a surgical OPP
Grafton about a week ago. On this ac-
count her subordinates had been acting
on their own account anu were bereft
of her advice and Succor when Police
Chief GoulCing and Judge Weber
made the final move to eradicate their
den of thieves and force them to seek
new pastures.
Two of the three women who were
fined 5000 and costs apiece by Police
Magistrate Weber on Monday gave no
tice of appeal yesterday and fled their
bonds in the police court. These were
Ella Reardon. The third woman, Mat
tie Meyers, threw up the sponge yes
terday and when the detectives visited
her room in the afternoon she had her
trunk packed ready for shipment to
San Francisco, her old stamping ground
Her landlady told the officers last night
that she had taken an evening train
for the coast.
INVISIBLE TO DETECTIVES
On orders from Chief GouIding, De-
tectives Stockton and Connors spent
three hours last night sleuthing for
the remainder of the gang. They had
orders to arrest all of the Bigelow pu-
pills they could find. The lodgings of
Ella Reardon and Emma Robinson,
the duo who showed fight by appealing
from Magistrate Webber's sentence,
were vacant and search OF their 9TH
er hauntS failed to discover them. Ac-
quaintances of theirs told the officers
that both women had left the city. 1t
is possible that they are in hiding, but
Chief Goulding says they will be jailed
again just as soon as they show UP on
the streets, and he promises to repeat
the operation every twenty-four hours
whether or not they appeal from the
police court. In all probability, how
ever, the women have followed Meyers
or may have gone in her company.
Two other members OF the gang, May
Sheridan and Lille Mead, have gone
TO Dallas, Texas, to prey upon those
who will be attracted v the Corbett-
jFitzsimmons prize fight, but whether
tney Will remain IS an unsettled QueS-
ton. Should they return, Chief Goul-
ding promises to Jail them every twen-
ty-four hours until they conclude to go
for good Minnie Sheridan was May
Bigelow's first assistant and she, as
we'll as her sister crooks, has several
appealed cases against her awaiting
trial before County Judge Steele.
APPARENTLY EFFECTIVE
The movement inaugurated last week
by the police magistrate and chief of
police is the only one which in any way
affected the doings of the California
gang. Prior to it's inception these wo-
men, open and dangerous thieves, all
of them, had managed to laugh at the
law and its officers. They were arrest
ed time and time again on clear evil
dence of robbery but through their va
ried and powerful pull in certain quar-
tiers, not one of them was ever con-
victed Of offense. When bound over
for trial to the district court the cases
were nolle pressed or side tracked in
some other way, and when fined in the
police court they appealed, and owing
to some hitch in the machinery of the
city attorneys office, the appeal cases
were not set for trial in the county
court.
If the police department persists in
Its present mode of dealing with such
women there will be room in Denver
for no more California gangs.
Last night Fannie Clarke and Emma
Handley, two suspected pickpocketS.
were arrested