The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1900-02-12
Story of Hanson's Jew
elry Store Break.
The Booty Found Bur led i'm n
Coal Pile.


10 TO 81 years. ole In the hands Of the
pcIi.e. charged with buralarizing n
jewelry store % Congress sire {, about
O'Clock last Tuesday morning. Not
only are the burglars themselves In
the hspns of the police. hut the tooty
amcu 1ting In value tn $50 fas heen re-
covered WITH the exception OF one uiR-
moad ring. This Iewelry wns found in
an old market basket buried In q coal
yile on North street. The work which
the pulics have done In this case, CON
sid.ring the slimness of the cues they
had t, follow, Ia highly creditable and
adds another good job to the long list
which the police of Portland have done
in the past.
Fred L. Harson's Jewelry store Is ut
553 Congress street, in the same stors
with bennett. the florist. He IA a young
nan and while he does not carry large
sock of gooais what be had represented
large outlay Of money. On last Tues
day morning the Waterman at tie Bax-
ter building, scross the street from the
jeweiry store. happened to 60 out on tine
dswsik for "a minuts at about / O'Clock
way of the jewelry store. The window
Of the store wac well lighted at the time.
but the wntchman did not recognize the
men or pay much attent ton to them. The
next morning when Mr.. Hanson came to
open his store he found that the window
n the rear had been forced and 5000
worth of jswelry had been removed. or
cuurs, tina police wsre nodded at once
and to tell the truth this officers Of the
entisp department. regarded this bold
break AS q sort of disgrace to them. Not
that Il was due to any fault Of theirs, but
the mers fact that burglars should be so
bold as 10 enter well ligats store on
Congress street showed that whoever
thsse men were they held the police in
oouteIu pit and 1t was expected that osher
and more serious breaks would OCCUR.
So the police went to work on this CASE
and put In every moment OF the day ana
night trying to trace the burglars l.
vas al up hill job. They ut first could
not find a single trace OF the thieves.
or course they watched the pawn shops
where stolen articles usually make their
appearance within short time after
burglary, but no articles were pawnsd
which seemed to have came from the
jewslry store. Then tae police realized
that they were working against no in
experienced thieves. but against men
who were as willy as they were bold.
From the Waterman Of the Baxter
building they learned that at about
O'Clock on the morning Of the burglary
he had seen four men standing In the
doorway OF Hanson's store. Then Officers
Ball and Fell remembered that on Mon
day night they had seen four men stand
ing together on Oak street. near the
store which was robbed. Two of these
men the officers had recognized. They
were James d. Hadigan and Edward J.
Owens, aud both Of these young men
the police regarded as suspicious persons.
On Thursday evening Officer McGrath
saw Hadigan and Owens enter pool
room on Washington street and some
time later they saw Nathan Iruker.
This man. who Is pretty sharp at making
q trade, exhibited to the officers a Masonic
charm which he had purchasej for 81.
1t was clearly worth $40 or more, and
Officer McGrsth and Officer Moore at
once suspected that 1t had tesn stolen
from lannon's store. Druker told them
Of whom he had purchased it and after
communicating with the police Officer
McGrath and Mo rs went to the Wash
ington street pool room and arrested
Owens and Hadigan.
The two young men were at once
put 'unusr the screws This process OF
trying TO extract Information did not
WORK well with Owens and Hadigan.
They kept their secrets to themselves ar
refused to say anything excepting to deny
all knowledge of the burglary. The pc
lice felt sure that they bad the right mon,