The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-08-10

The archives of the most of the large
police departments of the country con-
tain records OF mysterious crimes,
mostly murders, which have never, and
probably never will, be solved. st.
Paul is no exception to the general rule
which prevails. That such should be
the case reflects no diScredit on the
department. The police in most in
stances of this kind have had nothing
to work on, and the perpetrators still
remain a matter of conjecture.
To many, the detective is omnipres-
ent, omniscient creature, witt asNhst,
analytical mind, capable of unraveling
a mystery from a cigar butt. These
are the detectives bred of fiction read
ing. The Sherlock Holmes and the
Monsieur Lecoqs are creations of the
mind, and their prototypes never exist
ed. Given an imaginary crime, 1T is
not so difficult a matter to lay chain
of deductive circumstances, beginning
with most trivial, and carrying it along
until the villain is either safely behind
the bars or commits suicide.
In real life the unraveling of crime
is an entirely different affair. The
murderers who are caught are usually
apprehended through a combination of
circumstances, entirely unlocked for,
and by their own plumbers. A person
mcditating the crime of murder begins
to plot and thereby piles up evidence
against himself. AS a rule his reason
is one that can be easily learned, either
from himself and others, and his ar
rest will follow in due course of time,
and perhaps his conviction.
The murder that is committed with
spontaniety is an entirely different af-
fair, and frequently leaves absolutely
nothing in the way of clue except the
motive robbery"
In the detective story of fiction there
is much mystery in the beginning, but
the sleuth is endowed by phenomenal
powers Of discernment, and he soon
ferrets out a clue to work on. In the
detective story OF real life the detective
hears many stories from persons who
heard the Shots" or who saw three
strangers standing in front of the door"
some time during the evening. One of
the greatest difficulties thu police have
to contend with is the various stories
that are told by persons who are under
any other circumstances reliable. Let
a murder occur, and imagination runs
riot with the ordinary truth telling in
diVidual, and in the course of a few
days his private opinions become facts,
as far as he is concerned.
This failing is evinced at nearly ev-
cry cOroner's inquest, whether the
death has been the result of a street
nine cases out of ten no two witnesses
tell the same story. The nearest they
usually can get to an agreement is
that some person has been killed.
In fiction the detective author evades
all trouble of this character, and his
hero starts in with the clue that event.
ually ends with his running down the
perpetratOr of the crime.
Middleton Mystery.
The murder of Arthur Middleton in
September, 1898, is one of the deepest
mysteries of later years, and although
the police department worked In run
ming down clues, the murderer was
never brought to justice. At the outset
the police ran against a snag in Mid
dleton, who told an untenable story
about two burglars attempting to break
into his tea and coffee store, 269 West
Seventh street. The story told by the
dying man was, in the opinion of all
the detectives who worked on the case,
an attempt to shield the murderer.
Arthur Middleton was found by pa
trolman at 2 o'clock in the morning ly-
/ ing in front of his store, with a bullet
wound in his breast. Middleton was