The Portland daily press., 1898-03-28
A BOOK THIEF.
Abiel Woodbridge Accused Of the
Crime.

| u
Arrested Friday Afteruoon-Mr. Coles
worthy Said He Bought the BOOKS
from Him-They Were Taken from
Lawyers Offices.
Friday afternoon the police arrested
Abial Woodbridge on charge of stealing
a number of law books from several OF
| the lawyers offices in the First National
bank building. 1t was the first of the
| week that Woodbridge was party to q
civil suit in the Municipal court. In the
absence of Judge Robinson. Recorder
| Turner presided and took the case under
advisement in order to render his decision
later. Going to the office of Libby, Rob-
inson and Turner in the First National
bank building, Mr.. Turner began look
| ing up the law governing the matters at
| issue in the civil case which he had just
heard. He wanted cory of the Maine
| Reports and turned to the case where ne
keeps them but he could not find the
| book. Thinking that it had been mislaid,
Mr.. Turner procured copy from the
| library of Mr.. Libby. He thought that 1t
was strange that the volume was missing
as he keeps all his reports together ana
began careful search for it. Then he
discovered that several others of his re-
ports were gone and more than this the
| missing volumes were those that are rare
and hard to obtain. 1t was also found
| that one of Mr.. Libby's books was gone
and when Mr.. Turner mentioned his loss
in the office of Messrs. Clifford, Verrill
and Clifford, they instituted a search
through their library and found that
some of their books were missing and as
in the case of Mr.. Turner the search
showed that whoever had taken the books
knew what were the valuable volumes.
Then the news of the losses went up
stairs to the office of Hon. e. Dudley
Freeman and Mr.. Freeman found that he
had lost several volumes. In all there
were over dozen books3missing and they
were all selected with care.
Mr.. Turner at once began a search for
the missing property and caused inquiry
to be made at the bookstores to see if any
not take long to find the books Mr.. Tur
ner's set of Maine Records is one which
he purchased Of Hon. W. S. Choate of
Augusta and in each Mr. Choate had
written his name on page 100. The book
which Mr.. Turner wanted in his examin-
alton of the case he had heard in the
Municipal court was identified in this
way at the Colesworthy book store and
Mr.. Colesworthy said it was one which
he had bought of Mr.. Woodbridge, the
man who was party to the civil suit
and whose case Mr.. Turner was examiu.
ing when he found that the book was
missing. Mr.. Colesworthy said that he
had bought other books of Mr.. Wood
bridge and these were either in his stock
or were in the possession of local dealers.
Yesterday all but one of the stolen vol
! umes had been recovered, that one be-
longing to Messrs. Clifford, Verrill and
Clifford. Among the books taken from
the library of this firm was the 18th
New Hampshire, one of the rarest of the
New Hampshire reports This was
among those which were recovered.
Mr. Woodbridge, the man arrested, is
about fifty years old. He is a man of
education, college graduate, and has
been school teacher. OF late years he
has been solicitor of life insurance and
has recently spent considerable time in
the Office of the New York Life Insurance
company in the First National bank
building although he is not an agent of
that company. Mr.. Woodbridge has visit
ed the lawyers offices in the building and
has looked at the books In their Hbraries
AS he is man of education and one who
would not De unlikely to take an interest
in suoh%publioations, the owners of the
books never suspected that there was any
danger to their property when he showed
80 much interest In it but the statement
that be was the man who had sold the
volumes at Colesworthy's lead them to
take action and be was arrested on COM
plant made by Hon. William II. Clifford,
six charges of larceny being prefered.
Woodbridge spent Friday night in the
lodging room at the police station. He
was arraigned Saturday afternoon and
tinued to next Wednesday and bail was
fixed at 5000. In default of bail, Mr..
Woodbridge is still at the police station.
He has retained Messrs. Soldiers and. Chase
to defsnd him. Mr.. Woodbridge admits
that he sold the books but denies that he
stole them. He says that he bought them
of another man. The police are trying to
find the other man but up to late hour
last night their search had been unavail-
ing. fYl9ii
The books recovered boar traces of the
attempts made to remove the marks
which would show that they had been
stolen. Those taken from the offices of
Messrs. Clifford, Verrill and Clifford CON
tanned the book mark of the late Judge
Clifford This Was pasted on the inside
OF the front cover. The book mark had
been scraped off and then the fly leaf had
been neatly pasted down against the
cover, so that hasty examination would
not be likely to indicate that there was
anything suspicious about the appearance
of the volumes. The name plates Oh the
backs of the books had also been removed.
In one of the Maine Reports belonging to
Mr. Turner, page 100 bearing the name Of
the former owner had been cut out
Lawyers took great interest in the news
of the robberies as many law books are
scarce and hard to obtain, while their alb
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