Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-04-08
WOE TO DESERTERS
Failure to Settle Board Bill
Leads to Capture.
TROUBLE OVER REWARD
Landlady Claims $50 and Policemen
Want Share, So Dividers
Are Named.

Deserters from the army are eagerly
looked for by the police, for 1t means
$50 every time one is picked up and re-
turned to the post from which he came
But the case Of two young deserters
who boarded for while with a family
on Massachusetts avenue northeast is
one of the very first in which landlady
claimed part of the reward for apprehen-
sion, and based her claim partly on the
allegation that the deserters had skipped
their board bill
The deserters gave the names of Ray
mond ST. Claire and Frank Morris They
and three other young men went to the
Massachusetts avenue house and induced
the landlady to let them have rooms for
while. When it came time to settle up
there was vacant expression on the
faces Of the young men, and the state
ment was Forthcoming that a poker game
had consumed the available funds of the
money coming from Philadelphia in day
or two, 1t was said, so the matter was
held over for q while.
The five kept council with each other
In many strange and devious ways. One
of the mysterious things they did, ac-
| cording to the police, who afterward ar
rested them, was going out to buy sand
Wlches and consuming them furtively in
their bedrooms But the thing the land
lady objected to was the mystery con-
nected with the board bill. That mystery
would not be solved, so on a Friday
night, woe be it to the deserters, the bag
gage of the five was taken into the land
lady's strong room and the police of two
precincts were notified.
Seized Their Baggage.
One Of the men who came over was
Policeman Dawson, generally to be found
at Union station. He is one of Can't
Boy1e's bluecoats, and before examining
the seized baggage he phoned Capt. Daley
of the ninth precinct
Among the evidence found was a letter,
torn to pieces. but when rearranged and
pasted on several sheets of thicker paper
IT was round to be communication to
Friend Bob. 1t was delicate bit of
soldier humor, in which the sgner ex-
planned to Bob that the food at Fort Slo-
cum was pretty bad, but that there were
hopes of a good dinner THANKSGIVING day
He also explained how he had peen re-
lieved from drills and had a job as a
clerk In the colonel's Office, and that the
sergeant was looking at him right now
and believed he was typewriting a gov
eminent ''docterment" To complete the
bit OF humor. the writer had signed him
self Your superior officer and had grab
bed hold OF the rubber stamp belonging to
the captain of the 4th Company oath Reg
This friend Bob" was one of the five
young men, and he and the writer hap
pened to be among those wanted by I'm
Gle Sam. Five husky bluecoats began
snuffing around with thumb prints and
lookout sheets. and at the proper moment
confronted st. Claire and Morris with pho
tographs sent out by the War Depart
ment. The two said that the allegation
was true-they were all that and perhaps
more.
So exeunt Morris and st. Claire, and en-
ter 500 reward
Many Claimants to Reward.
Now comes the effort to get part OF that
reward. The landlady wrote to Maj. Syl-
vester and said she ought to have $50 of
it, because the boys owed her that much,
to say nothing of a broken rocking chair,
valued at s.. Other aspirants We're Capt
J. c. Daley, Policemen w. E. Smith. j.
G. Dellamico, J. A. Thomas, Capt. Byrnes
and Policeman Dawson.
1t was difficult a question that Maj
Sylvester had to appoint board of de-
serters' reward dividers composed Of In
spector GeSSford, Inspector Cross and In
spector Boyle. They recommended that
the landlady get $50 Of the reward. Mai.
Sylvester, however, took $50 of the hun
dred for the decrepit police pension fund
and let the landlady have $40. Capt.
Daley gets So. so, so do all the others, ex-
cept Capt. Byrnes and Policeman Daw-
son, who get IS.