The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1906-12-10
R0bbER EMULATEs
HERO OF BOOK
James Fitzgerald, the Man
Who Entered the Hoeher
Home, Inspired by Novel
FINGERS .BETRAY HIM

There is touch of romance IN the
work of James Fitzgerald, the cockney
burglar who entered the room OF MISS
Edith Hoefier on Friday morning he
is literary person-this young second
story man. In his room the police
found quite library Of selected litera-
ture. Passing over the fact that it
bears marks of having been selected
from public libraries and secondhand
book stalls, 1t is good literature. On
the table was wellwor copy or the
Bible. Beside it lay a book which bore
the title What Next-An Honest
Thief" and among the other works was
John Fiskes Discovery OF America,
but it was the Honest Thief which
Fitzgerald had been reading on the
night he entered the Hoefier house
The book is an ardent story of love,
and the theft is the abduction OF the
girl from the home of her parents by
the enraptured lover who was hopeless
ly outside the circle in which the OBJ
ject Of his love, and her thief. moved
with her exclusive father and beJeWeled
mother
INFLUENCED BY STORY
That Fitzgerald had been under the
spell of this bold tale was evident from
his manner when an allusion was made
to it yesterday at the Bush-street sta
lion, where the curly-headed little
cockney was sharing cell with half a
dozen "vags." Allusion was made to
the volume as detective story.
It's not detective story he retort-
ed, and his eyes lit UP with emotion.
Its a good book. You read it and
you will see."
This cockney has moved on the edges
of good society-as a steward at the
tables of a Red Star liner. An Elton
jacket uniform with the buttons OF that
line, which was found in his room,
bears evidence of that fact. There was
a photograph, too, in one Of the pockets
of an aristocratic young girl, which
had been taken by an Antwerp artist.
The cockneys excursion in literature
had got him beyond his depth. His
feelings had strayed beyond the sphere
of the Elton Jacket and the buttons OF
the liner. He was ripe to be Influenced
by this tale of abduction. In the room
of his lodging house he read the story
till after midnight, and when he laid
down the book beside the old copy of
the Bible he went out to enter the
Hoefler house. The case is plain and an
action should lie against the author or
THE Honest Thief as an accessory be-
fore the fact.
"I did it because I was hard up, Is
the defense Fitzgerald assumes. He
will not tell his secret and he denies
that he was ever in the bedroom OF
Miss Hoeher. But the police have the
proof.
what cigarettes do you smoker he
was asked and he gave the name of a
well known brand.
BETRAYED BY CIGARETTE
Then he was told that he had left
the burned end of cigarette of that
brand in Miss Hoefer's room, and that
the box from which il had been taken
had been found in his possession But
he was true to his first explanation of
an assistant burglar who had been on
the second story. He admits having
entered the house.
The police claim to have other evil
dence that 1t was Fitzgerald who en-
tered the room where Miss Hoefier wa 8
sleeping. The thumb prints on a box
which he lifted from her bureau are
identical with the impression of Fitz-
gerald's thumb. Frank Depew of the
State Bureau of Identification has so
decided, and Captain Duke has changed
his mind and now holds the opinion
that Fitzgerald took no accomplish
with him.
There is proof Of other wanderings
from the path Of rectitude by young
Fitzgerald. During the night of the
5th Horace Hamlet, who lives at 421
Pierce street, found In the bathroom a
pair of old shoes and an overcoat. AS
it seemed unusual that they should be
there he examined them, but thought
little more Of 1t till the morning, when
it was found that the house had been
robbed. Hamlet has identified the coat
and shoes of the literary burglar as
those he saw in the bathroom.
But Fitzgerald denies all this and