The times., 1898-12-27

what shape 1t is at once put into the
melting pot. and. of course. when reduced
can never be identified. The only part of
the booty that ever turned up was a few
plated spoons which We're found in n
sewer In the west end of the city. The
burglars were experts, and In sizing up
their plunder had discovered that a per-
tion of 1t was not solid, and as they could
not bother with .'srnall stuff found
sewer as convenient place an any to
dispose of it.
The murder OF Charles Robinson by
Dorsey Foultz is still fresh in the minds
OF the people of this city, and while there
was no mystery surrounding the killing,
the murderer was never captured. The
murder occurred about o'clock in the
afternoon of the Goth of May. 1897. In an
alley between Second and Third and p
and Q Streets. and was committed in cold
blood. Foultz Immediately made lis es-
cape, and. though frequently reported I,
be in the city, was never captured.
Another atr0cious and cold-blooded
crime. and one committed fer the gain of
money. was that OF Frank Funk on tho
23d of June OF tae present year. when he
killed an old man named Brooks and at
tempted 10 kill Mrs: Brooks. The crime
attracted considerable attention and while
virtually cleared up. the perpetrator was
never apprehended. Funk deliberately
planned the murder of the old couple In
order to obtain money he knew TO be in
the possession OF Mrs. Brooks. In order
to have no interference with his brutal
work, he made engagements with the two
daughters of the couple 10 meet him at
different places nj the same time.
No possible clew was at first obtainabie
but eventually suspicion rested on Funk
and the detectives gathered enough evil
dence TO prove him guilty. He had taken
flight. however, and has never been heard
from since.
The Aged Shoemaker.
y crime which Was never solved, and
which in all probability never will be. was
the murder of Wesley Hall. the old Grip
pied colored shoemaker, whose horribly
mutilated body was found in his work
shop In Ninth Street above the boundary
about : o'clock on the night OF April 3,
1896. A coiored woman with whom Hail
had been living made the grewsome find
and reported it to the police of the Eighth
precinct. They found on reaching the
place that Hall had been horribly cut with
sharp instrument and beaten with "a
club. His body was lying in q heap in
a corner of the shop. with a cot piled
upon 1t. The shop was wrecked, showing
the awful struggle which had taken place,
ana tne walls were DeSfneared with b.OOd.
There was not the slightest clew TO the
murderer or murderess obtainable and in
spite of the assiduous and Jealous labors
of the police the affair still remains Il
mystery.
As mysterious. possibly. as the murder
of the old shoemaker was the death of
Mary Bean, colored woman ninety
years of age. and the disappearance of
Henry Beck, the aged baker. Both oc-
Cured last January and while the cir
cumstances surrounding the former did
not attract as much attention as the lat
ter, there was perhaps as much mystery
about it. The death of the Bean woman
was caused by drinking poisoned coffee
though the police could not fix enough
evidence on the suspected parties TO
bring them to trial
Beck, the baker, disappeared on a Sat
urday night. The last seen of him was
when he left the house of friends in
South Washington, who stated that he
was intoxicated at the time. The most
thorough search by the police failed to
bring the slightest clew of his disap-
pearance to light until his dead body was
found on the shore of the Eastern
Branch three weeks later. An autopsy
revealed that the mans skull had been
fractured In two or three places. The
fractures resulted from blows delivered
with an instrument like hatchet or a
piece of pipe. The detectives went to
work on the case, but the most search
ing investigation failed to reveal any
thing concerning the death of the man.