The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1896-11-09
SNEAK THIEVES BUSY
Hoboken Apartment Houses a
Fine Field For Their
Industry.

Sneak thieves in Hoboken are becom-
ing extremely active of late. People liv-
ing in fla houses are undergoing such a
state of fear that they are afraid to go
out and leave their apartments without
an occupant for eve a few hours. This
fear rests mostly with the uptown resi-
dents. as II is there the sneak thieves are
getting in their fine work. In some In
stances the thieves have got away With
considerable booty. while in others they
have stolen little or been frightened
away before they could enter the apart
ment where they found no one al home.
h manner in which a sneak thief de-
termines no one Is at home is this: He
viii go to an apartment house or a nat
house and will try one bell after another.
When he rings a bell a number Of times
and gets no answer he concludes no one
is home He then goes upstairs 10 the
apartment n with a skeleton key or a
jimmy it is easy work for him TO gain
an entrance
On Friday some time thieves entered
the apartments of Mrs. Charles Bowden,
at No. l07 Fourteenth street, and helped
themselves to $50 worth of jewelry and
an overcoat of her husbands. as told in
Saturdays News
Around the corner from Mrs. Bowden
lives a Mrs. Palhenner, on the third floor
OF No. 1910 Washington street. on Fri
day evening Mrs. Polhenner's daughter
went TO the theatre. In the early part
of the evening Mrs. Policemen went out
to the store, leaving her rooms without
anyone in them. When she returned a
woman dressed in dark clothes followed
her in the house. When Mrs. Policemen
reached her floor she looked around and
the woman went down stairs and out
into the street. That was at $50 o'clock.
AT ten she went to bed. When her daugh-
ter returned later in the night she was
unable to get the key into the lock of
the front door of their apartments. She
entered by the rear door.
On Saturday morning Mrs. Policemen
went into the front room and tried TO
put the key into the lock; but it would
not go in. She then went out into the
ha--. After looking at the door she first
called in a policeman and next a lock-
smith. The outside of the door was
smashed and broken in the vicinity of the
lock, and there were three places where
the Jimmy had been applied. The door
swung open freely. Fortunately for Mrs.
Policemen nothing q been taken from
her rooms. When the locksrnith came he
took out the old lock, which had been
badly broken, and put in a new one IN
the old lock he found a key broken off
The police think the woman who follow
ed Policemen upstairs and then went back
was connected with the affair.
Mrs, Kraft lives Oh h second floor
of No. 529 Washington street. Her front
room she let's out 10 a ledger named
Seiber. On Saturday afternoon Mrs. Kraft
who was in a rear room. heard some one
in the dodgers room; but thought it was
the lodger himself. She paid no atten-
ton to the person and was thundersJruck
later in the day when the lodger went to
her and told her some one had taken
his new overcoat When inquiries had
been made nj the people in the
neighbeIhood a little girl named Sophie
Miller said she saw a TRANCE man cave
| the house in the afternoon. The descrip-
ton of the overcoat he wore tailed ex-
actly with the one the ledger lost.
John Roarty, a mason Il builder, has
a stable at Eighth n Clinton streets.
Mr.. Roarty raised a good many pigeons
during the summer. Part of these were
kept in a COOP in the yard and the others
| over the stable. On Saturday night a
! thief entered the stable yard and cleaned
| out every pigeon in the coop. One day last
| week some one broke into the stable and
stole a patent rabbit trap as are used
used out West. The trap was in a trunk
and this was demolished SO as TO get at
| the trap.