Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1910-05-04
"cHIcAGo MAY"
And Her Gang Had Pocket Pickinr
Down To a Science

New York Telegrap h.-If May Will
liams. one OF the two young women
charged with dextrously abducting
$2S,000 from the wallet of Banker Van
Norden, is the Chicago woman OF
that name-as seems probable-the
Chicago police can easily understand
how the money was removed. The
New York officers, and most citizens
who read of the robbery, have been
wondering how on earth the woman
could have got Van Norden's bank
roll if she really got it. Easy. dead
easy, if the prisoner is the Chicago
May Williams.
May Williams, of .cago-persuma-
bly, the prisoner in the Van Norden
case-was one of the last survivors OF
band which included May Heating,
Dora Donegan and May Williams, be-
sides half a dozen minor satellites.
they operated n Chicago 10 severa.
cied BY retirement OF some % MARRIED
/ :e, . cths"s C e Sec-.-tsioI 8 -ce
Str a. yo.ie-. anu Oh ne renalnde~
to other cities. All of the women
were big, good. looking and finely
dressed They worked, as a rule, in
pairs, but never hesitated to operate
alone, fearlessness being one of the
characteristics of every woman in the
crowd
Versatile and ingenious, the only
II, L, III +Hor
could be classed as course was the
way in which they let themselves he
captured after every little affair they
brought off. They did not hesitate
to return to the scene of robbery,
and never objected to a pinch" while
their game in Court was to demand
continuances, time and again, until
the plaintiff would be utterly Wearied
and give up the prosecution. Rura-
lites, of course, could not spare the
time or money to keep coming in from
the woods in this fashion, and thus the
women usually won out in the end.
These young women had some Gle
yer tricks, and May Williams, of Chi
cage, ranked as one of the cIeverest.
They would coax man in a dark hall
way, "just for a talk and inside of
three minutes they would have his
watch and wallet. They were expert
dips (pickpockets) and could bite a
diamond out of a stud without hurting
! their teeth or arousing suspicion.
AS to trick which Van Norden says
was played on him-the lightning re-
moval of his money and the replacing
of his pocketbook-that would be easy
for May Williams or any of the
! crowd Talk about the hand being
switter than the eye-those women
could clean up a wallet and replace
it in so short period that an ordh a.
ry individual could hardly h We O.
pened the pocketbook for Inspections!
During Worlds Fair year, and for
some time after, a few of these women
ran panel houses and it was assert
ed by the Chicago police that 100000
had been stolen, mainly from cattle
men, in one, only one,of these places.
1t is on record that cattleman who
had close one of the biggest sales
on record, was lured into this place
one evening. His wallet, duly appropri
ated, was found to contain 100000 IN
$500 and $1,000 bills. The sight of
such fortune actually frighten the
women, and, instead of dividing the
plumber, they skinned off $500, put
back the rest, and slipped it into the
ranchman's pocket.
Belle Davis-no relation to the
colored singer-was the handsomest
of these women, and there have per-
haps, been few brunettes girls as beau
tiful. Belle, one night, cleaned up the
pockets of Count Toulouse Lautree,
the adventurer who was, for a single
day, King of Bulgaria, and afterward
became the greatest of international
swindlers Lautree had Belle arrest
ed, but, admiring her nerve as well as
her beauty, did not prosecute her,
allowing her to get away with some
$4,000.
The strongest of these women, ply
sically, was Della Mahoney a six-foot
Amazon, with form that would have
made a sculptor rave with joy Della
was a singlehanded footpad, and
held up people with small and usu-
| ally empty pistol Dora Donegan
and May Williams, however, were the
real stars of the gang, and May is
thought to be the last of them still
engaged in piratical occupations.