The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-02

Beside that he had better way of settling things of this kind. He had friends who saw to it that any person who had him arrested was amply re- imbursed for his loss and trouble.
 a railroad ticket for home in his hand the victim was only too glad to leave | town, and let justice go Although ar rested about three hundred times in his day Lake never served more than six
 months in jail, although the full penal ty for many of his crimes was ten years. In seventy per cent. of his ar- rests he didn't do any time at all, save the few days in district prison wait
 ing for hearing in his case. He dif-
 fered from Hungry Joe in that liberty
 was dearer to him than money. Joe
 would hang in to dollar like grim
 death. Rather than square a matter
 with victim he would hold the money
 he had stolen and fight the case. And
 so he did many day in jail that Lake
 should in common justice have shared
 but did not, because he knew more
 pleasant way of spending the time.
 couple of the best known incidents
 in the career of this remarkable thief
 will serve to illustrate just what his
 methods could accomplish, both in the
 matter of robbing victim and in the
 more complicated matter of extricating
 himself from difficulty Into which the
 too sudden revival of the victim had
 plunged him.
 For many weeks Lake had noticed a
 portly, well-fed man sitting in the sec
 ond-story window of building on For
 ty-second street, not far from the
 Grand Central station. The man ap-
 peared to be well enough endowed with
 the good things of this world to be
 worth some attention at the hands of a
 bunco steerer. On going to this office in the morning and leaving 1t at night, this man was always accompanied by some one, which made it impossible for Lake to do business. Finally he deci- ded to beard the man in his office, and this Is how he did 1t;
 He took into his confidence youth of sixteen who had acted more than once as an assistant to older thieves and was very clever in his way. One morning Lake dropped into the office with this boy. He didn't wait to be announced, but brushing all the clerks aside, he soon stood in the presence of the head of the establishment, the boy beside him. Bef ore the intended victim knew just what had happened Lake had plunged into a greeting, the effusive- ness of which took the business mans breath away. Lake soon made the man think he was an old friend. He tried to invite him to sit down, but Lake had alraedy done so and so had the boy.
 The man tried to say something, but Peter drowned his feeble utterances in 8 deluge of words which soon had the man bewildered. From the shower of words that he was hurling at his vic- tim like shrapnel from gun. Peter managed to make 1t clear that he was an old and honored friend, that he had started out that morning to take his boy to the Grand Central station and see him off for New Haven, where he was student at Yale, that he had come away without any money, that he must have five hundred dollars at once and that the victim had better produce it under penalty of forfeiting his 
 It is hard to conceive how such meth ods could be successful, but then no one ever did succeed in figuring out how Grand Central Pete managed to do what he did. Least of all was vic i'm ever able to explain why he had al- lowed man to talk him into allowing himself to be robbed. At any rate Lake and the boy left the Forty-second street office with three hundred dollars of the mans money in good cash, and 1t was two days before the victim re- alized what he had done. Then he got after Lake and of course the minute he told his story the police knew who the thief was. But Peter didn't mind being way of getting out of the trouble than by reimbursing his victim He had a little talk with the man and told him quite plainly that every newspaper in town would have the story the next lay if he prosecuted him, and the vic tim let the matter go rather than be | leld up to public ridicule.
 On another occasion Lake had accept | ed from victim quite a sum of money, | put just after he got it a detective | spotted him and he made tracks. He | got on a Broadway car going down | own and the detective followed on the | ,ar behind. The detective wasn't sure whether Lake realized that he was be- ng followed or not and so he kept his distance until the time should be ripe or an arrest. He had the man whom Jake had just plundered with him , md he thought there was no hurry.
 At Broadway and Leonard street lake decided to make desperate effort | o get away. He jumped from the car, ut the detective saw him and was af- CT him in 8 second. Lake couldn't | lodge him. There seemed no escape or him. The detective smiled when he aw how he had cornered his man. 'hen to his amazement Lake calmly walked into one of the biggest dry oods houses in the city which was near y. The detective went after him, but lake walked into the private office of he head of the firm before the man in ttendance there could stop him. When the detective tried to follow the ttendant held him up, and no amount f persuasion would induce him to let he officer through.
 When he did finally make the matter lear and succeeded in getting into the nerchant's office, a sight greeted him