Weekly Arizona journal-miner., 1904-12-21

Fred Roemer was pretty busy mar on Saturday last and did not find time to get down and lay in supplies for Sunday and buy Christmas pre- sents for the children. In fact before he got ready to do his Saturday even- ing shopping the moon had set behind the Sierra Prieta mountains, and the electric light lamps of the streets were on duty according to the Philadelphia schedule.
 The hour being so late, MT. Roemer brought his wife up town with him. It may have surprised them to find the stores all closed on their arrival, but whether it did or not MT Roemer, a resourceful man decided not to be thwarted in his purpose of purchasing supplies on this ac- count so he selected J. I. Gardner's store as most likely place to secure what he wanted and proceeded to en- ter the place through the skylight of the building, leaving his wife in the
 
 The particular hour of the day that this peculiar entrance was made to the store was about 1 o'clock on Sunday morning and to the utter surprise and astonishment he found MT. Gardner and MT. Mcdonald one of his employ ees waiting in the store for him.
 If be was not surprised in find ing the stores all closed he certainly was more than surprise1-he was as- tonished to find Mir. Gardner waiting for him in the store, and was still more greatly surprised to find him armed with a great big SIX shooter.
 MT. Gardner's reception was not of the most cordial kind, as he had been missing goods from the store for months and had finally decided to make a determined effort to capture the man who was stealing them. For this purpose he had been sleeping in the store for more than two weeks and had also placed @ great big bear trap underneath the sky light in the hopes of catching him in that way as he en- tered the building.
 When Mir. Roemer found that be had been caught in the act he pleaded for mercy and wept and begged to be al- lowed to see his wife who was waiting for him in the alley.
 Mir. Gardner was not filled to over- flowing with a mercifuI spirit at that time so telephoned for an officer to take Roemer to the county jail, his wife being permitted to return to their home to care for their six children, the youngest being only a few weeks old.
 After daylight officers visited the Roemer residence which is in the old brewery building directly across the creek from the new brewrey. Here they found the greatest aggregation of plunder probably that was ever gotten together by one robbeT. The building was filled to overfowing and wagons were secured to haul it to the court house.
 All day long the work proceeded, seven wagon loads in all being hauled and stored away in the basement of the court house on Sunday, when they thought that they had secured all that he had on Land.
 On visiting the place on Monday
 q had been placed in the building re- gently. Just out of curiosity it was decided to take up few boards and see if everything was right and proper, when it was found that there was a cellar beneath this new floor and that it also was stored full of a miscellan- eous assortment of goods.
 Several wagon loads were secured from this new cache and brought up and added to the previously accumu lated stock
 The articles recovered cover the widest possible range and embrace nearly every sort of article that acn be thought of. To partially enumerate them, there were large and heavy pieces of furniture in considerable number, consisting of chairs, bureaus with mirrors, bureaus without mirror, extension tables, carpets, curtains, rugs, pictures, window shades, boots and shoes, clothing for men and boys, toy guns, cigars, groceries, Christmas tree ornaments, table knives and