Evening star., 1900-07-07
JusTIc9;.. HONG DELAYED

l uc Winu-up QlaS queer piece ol Woih
as ever I heard Of came a couple of weeks
ago in my town, eFhen a well-known crook
was accidentally shot by an officer. who
was resisting crowd of street car strikers.
and died in hospital. after telling his story,
said a st. Louis detective who was In
Washington on a still hunt last week.
The job logan eight years ago, and 1t got
a perfectly innocent woman into two years
OF that sort of trouble which consists in
wearing a gray dress the shape Of gun
nysack ana of going to sleep at night be-
hind two-inch iron bars. Ill have to take
you to theYbeginning of it, to give you the
connection.
One summer afternoon, about eight
years ago. truck drove up In front OF a
swell st. Louis house, not far from Shaw's
Gardens, and one Of the three men In the
truck walked up the front steps and pulled
the bell. The only person who happened to
be In the house was the maid of the lady
OF the house. 1t was an afternoon on for
the other servants and the mistress OF the
household was down town on shopping
expedition.
Heres that sofa,' said the man who
pulled the door bell
My mistress didn't tell me she was ex-
pecting any sofa,' said the young woman to
the man. in some surprise.
We'll, 1t must ha' been ordered-heres
the name and address, said the man on the
steps, producing card. The card was all
right, and 1t showed that the sofa, or.
rather, the box couch as 1t proved to be.
had been ordered from a well-known St.
Louis furniture establishment.
The maid was in a quandary as to
where she should have the couch placed,
the establishment being already pretty well
stocked with articles of furniture Of that
sort but she finally directed the three men
to carry 1t to the second floor and place it In
one of the bed rooms. The men deposited
the box couch according to the maids
directions. and went their way. The maid
went to her own room on the third floor to
90 some sewing for herself, and couple OF
hours later the mistress of the establish
ment returned. The mistress OF the estab-
lishment hadn't been in her room two min
utes before she discovered that she was
out just $4,000 worth of diamonds. The
jewels had been left by her in a jewel box
in a bureau drawer, where she had. seen
them only few moments before leaving
the house on her. shopping expedition, but
when she opened the bureau drawer upon
her return the box was gone. The mistress
or the Establishment made careful search
of the room. and Of the adjoining rooms.
before she summoned the maid. Then she
rang for the maid and cross-examned her
with reference to her visitors during the
afternoon. The maid told the mistress that
the three men with the box-couch had been
the only visitors, and showed her mistress
the box-couch. The mistress at once said
that she hadn't ordered any box couch, and
accused her maid Of being in cahoots with
the three men who had brought it, declar-
ing that the maid had arranged for them
to bring the couch in order to divert sus-
picion from herself. The girl cried and pro-
tested and went on her knees, but the mis-
tress of the establishment was convinced
that the maid was the thief or at least the
accomplice of the thieves, and she locked
the doors and declared that when her hus-
band returned from his office she would
have the girl arrested. She did summon
couple of men from the St. Louis central
office when her husband returned from
business and announced his belief too that
cd i,
league with crooks and the detectives gath
cred the girl In. They investigated her and
they found that she had a first cousin who
was well-known sneak thief. They failed
to find that the girl had ever had anything
to do with the crook. but the mere fact
that she had such relative was enough
Of the jewels it was the biggest point
against her. The chief tried to put the girl
through the third degree, but she stuck to
her assertion that she was innocent, in the
lace of all sorts of promises of lighter pun
ishment If she would own up and make
some sort of a statement that would give a
line as to where the jewels could be re-
covered. The nerve with. which she stuck
to her assertion that she was innocent got
lot of her questopers going, but she was
convicted Of grand larceny, anyhow, and
sent away for, two years.
The girl didn't get any good time for
good behavior, for she became thoroughly
hardened over what she called the injustice
of her conviction, and she cut up so in
prison that she had to do her entire two
years. She came out OF prison a pretty
sore woman, and = pretty hard one. and for
a couple of years she went a pretty crassy
course-the central office, people had their
eyes on her all the time. She didn't do any
thing to get herself behind the bars again
but for all that she was often pretty close
to It, Well, some good women of St Louis
came along and took an interest in the girl
who had lot Of good traits that they saw
and they built her up. They took care of
her while she was studying to DO a trained
nurse. and couple of years ago they got a
fine position for her as one of the trained
nurses in a leading St Louis hosp;tal
We'll. couple of weeks ago a sneak
thief well known to the st. Louis police
happened to get mixed up with d bunch CT
street car strikers who were attacking a
car, and when one Of the officers on the car
blazed away into the crowd this crook got
the bullet in his stomach. He was taken to
the hospital in which this young woman T m
telling you about was a trained nurse and
as soon as the surgeons looked him over
they told him that he was a soner, The
man was perfectly conscious and pretty
debonair at that for chap 50 near the hjp.
divide, and when the consultation OF the
doctors around his bunk was over, and he
saw white-capped nurse sitting at his side
he gave bit of a start when he examined
her features He looked at her intently for
a while and then he asked he- to bend close
to him, for his voice wasn't particularly
strong. He then asked her if she hadn't
done her little two-year bit on the charge
of lifting She frankly told him that she
had, and then he said to her:
well, I'm glad I've run in.o Won before
going into the discard. I got you those two
years. and I always meant to s,u4re you
some time, but they've watched me SO close
that l never had a show. 1t was me that
made you do the time
Then he told her how the lob had been
cooked up, and how he was inside the box
couch on the afternoon when ii was de-
posted in the bed room on .he second floor
of her mistress estabishmeat-how air
holes had been duly bored in the thing so
that he wouldn't smother-and how. when
the young woman had gone Upstairs to 90
her sewing, he had lifted the lid of the box
couch. done his little 5000 worth OF rum
maging. and tp-toed downstairs and cut
| the basement door. The nurse called the
superintendent OF the hospital no knew
her story, to listen to the crooks state
ment and take 1t down when the man re-
| peated it with his dying breath COPY of
the dying crooks confession has been filed
with the papers in connection with the
young woman's trial and conviction. and
any time she wants home and the best
going with the mistress who helnel IN
swear her into states prison on circulnstan
| tial evidence, all she has to do is to saw the
word