The San Francisco call., 1898-04-24

of the pursuing detective. He must ex- pect these obstacles; and if he cannot surmount them, he must find means of getting around them.
 AS an example, let me give you one of the many embarrassing murder cases which I have successfully coped with. On November 2 1885, Antonio Soloa, a Chinaman, whose real name was Ching Ong, was brutally murdered and mutilated in his little restaurant at the corner of Wooster and Spring streets, New York. The murder had been done with the restaurant keepers own knife; and the most protracted search of the place revealed no clew as to the murderer's identity.
 Soloa, or Ching Ong, had lived many years in Cuba, where he exchanged his Chinese patronymic for a Spanish one, and learned to speak not only Spanish, but also a little French and Italian. In New York he set up tiny basement restaurant, and throve in a modest way.
 It was an exceptionally puzzling case At first I fancied that the push cart peddler Daly, who first discovered the dead body, might have been the murderer. But one Coughlin, a resi- dent of Wooster street, had seen Daly from the time he entered the street to the time he ran wildly up the China mans stairs with the news that An tOnlO SOlOa ndQ been KllleO. COuSnlln s evidence cleared Daly.
 I was disappointed, but I started off on a new tack. The mutilations which had been inflicted upon the body were suggestive of the barbarouS East. At once the idea occurred to me that the ugly work had been done by highbind- CTS. The peculiar quiet with which the crime had been carried out also pointed toward a concerted plot of the dead mans treacherous fellow Mongols.
 I went around among the different Chinese haunts, and had all the trains leaving town watched for suspicious Chinamen. But try as 1 would I could not faSten the guilt upon any of Soloa' s countrymen. Many of them came to his restaurant; but not single China man had been seen in the neighborhoOd on the day of the killing.
 Next I sought zealously among So- loa'S Cuban customers, but here, for a time at least, my efforts were equally fruitless. I did not despair. Once more l began at the beginning-made a thor ough research of the little underground restaurant and instituted minute in quiries as to the identity of every per son who had passed along Wooster and Spring streets on the day of the murder.
 At last I made discovery. Some children playing at the next corner had seen boy pass by the restaurant door at about the time, according to medical evidence, of the killing. I went after that boy with all my energies. All the shops in the neighborhood. all the fac tories and most of the private houses were inquired at, until. in the long run, located the much-d desired lad. He turned out to be a nervous, timorous child, George Mainz by name, office boy to William Schimper, a nickel platter.
 For some time neither Mir Schimper nor myself could get much out of George. But finally he broke down and confessed all he knew. Sure enough as he had passed the corner of Wooster and Spring streets that day he had seer a little man answering the description of Soloa quarreling with a tall, strong mulatto. The mulatto had knife ir his hand, and George had seen hin stick the knife into the others breast Then both disappeared down stairs and the boy, terribly frightened, ran away He did not tell his employer because he was afraid that the mulatto would pur. sue and kill him.