The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1907-02-07
Moving Picture Led to a
i HoId-up Mans Arrest.
PENALTY OF VANITY.
One Loomcd Up on the Screen at a
Show and a Detective Found Him
With That Clue-Chance Glimpse
of n Photograph Led Finally to
One Woman's Capture.

have to make big jumps. are COM
planning more and more of how
small the world is growing" he
said. yet there are still plenty of
hiding places. The element of chance
constantly figures in the apprehen-
sion of wanted men. Only couple
Of weeks ago a badly wanted Chi
cago stickup man was snagged at
Pasadena, Cal. through some NOV
ing pictures, says an old detective Ia
the New York Sun.
The stickup man put ball in
the shoulder Of a Chicago merchant
who refused to be frisked with his
eyes wide open. This happened last
winter. The whole country was cir
culated and the Chicago flies had
been doing the dragnet thing to pick
up the stickup mans trail for nearly
year.
Some time ago the moving pic
lures of the Jack O'Brien-Tommy
Burns fight, which took place at Los
Angeles. reached Chicago. A party
of the Chicago flies went to the place
where they were shown to have a
look. Before the pictures showing
the fight were thrown on the screen
there were lot of the moving films
showing scenes in the training camp
of the two scrappers.
In the forefront of one of the
films stood the stickup man, per-
fectly unmistakable. The natural
vanity of all humans causes them to
face moving picture machines when
the pictures are being taken, and the
stickup man away in front, and mag
nifed two or three times in size, was
grinning straight at the detectives.
When the exhibition was over the
detectives had look at the film on
which the stickup man appeared,
and found that they were dead right
One of them Immediately hoped out
to Los Angeles. The stickup man
had seen the fight picture himself,
and he figured that there might be
something doing when the Chicago
detectives had their peek at them.
So he quit playing the Los Angeles
races and laid low in Pasadena,
where he lived, for a while. But the
Chicago detective got on his trail in
Los Angeles. and nailed his man at
Pasadena.
Detectives find out among other
things that the great majority OF
crooks are very vain people and in
spite of their rogues' gallery expert
ences they are forever having their
pictures taken.
1T may be that It's because of
their rogues' gallery experiences that
they do this. Few of them look pret-
ty in their police mugged pictures
and their vanity incites them to have
photographs taken that look like
them when they're in the unsnagged
state. These pictures are often inno-
Gently put on view by photographers
and many crook Is picked up in
this way. l got a noted woman gem
litter that way twelve years ago.
She'd turned two big Maiden lane
tricks and the Jewellers Protective
Association wanted her whole lot.
"A job that WAS good deal like
her work WAS pulled of in Denver
gem house three or four months az
ter her getaway from New York and
was sent out there to prowl some.
1t looked poor to me after I'd been
on the Job In Denver for a week.
knew a number Of stool pouters out
there. but they couldn't give me any
thing about her. The Denver flies
weren't hep to anybody that looked
at all like her.
Il was Just about to flag the Job
and crawl IN with the poor mouth
and the tale of nix nix. when one af-
ternoon l stopped at a Denver pho
tographer's show case to rubber at
the pictures, a new display which had
only been tackled up couple of days
or so. The middle picture resting
against the black velvet was a big,
boudoir size thing, and it was my
woman. In fine clean lace dress,
full figure, with fan in her hand
and looking like a somebody hostess
receiving her guests for a pink tea.
II made the photographers up
stairs plant in three jumps and | had
no trouble in showing him that | had
right to ask him where the woman
| OF the boulder size picture was. The
| photograph had only been taken a
month or so before. and he had only
to turn over few pages OF his book
| to find the name and address of the
| sitter. The name was phony, Of
| course, but the address was all
right. She was living at Manitou
Springs, ] went there and found her
In her fiat, pretty snug, with coin to
toss at the brier birds. She clawed
me up quite a few with her nails
when told her she was the one, but
l brought her back all right.
| Writer'S Plaything.