The Caldwell watchman. (Columbia, La.) 1885-1946, 1911-05-19
By FREDERIC REDDALE
Copyright by W. G. Chapmap)


and became a free lance
N91M2 on his own account the
n0S6S7I city of New York, and in.
o deed the whole United
States, were greatly ex.
cited over sequence Of more or less
mysterious crimes when, because of
their peculiar environment, became
known to press and public as "The
Taxi-Cab Murders"
The first incident in the series, al.
though out Of the common, occasioned
no more than passing interest in the
commercial capital. But when Sec
ond, third and q fourth repetition
occurred under almost precisely the
same conditions, only the locality and
the identity of the victim being
changed, the police and the communt-
ties concerned began to "sit up and
take notice." as the talk of the day
phrased it.
III every case "magnate" or
~plutocrat" of the financial or indus
trial world was the "malefac-
tors Of great wealth"-death, sudden
and mysterious overlook each and
every one; SO, also, the interior of
one Of those convenient vehicles,
public taxicab, was the tiny theater
OF the crimes; and the companion of
the victim always managed to disap-
pear without trace.
No lover Of criminal annals could
ask more puzzling settings for set
of apparently inexplicable crimes
without motive, without profit, so far
as could be seen. For, after the Sec
ond tragedy, the consensus Of opinion,
legal and lay, was tina, a great wrong
had been committed by a master
criminal actuated by mind of fear
full ingenuity. But let US enumerate
in regular order the Facts.
Early In October, on one Of those
bright, snappy autumn mornings for
which New York is famous, two men
hailed and entered ,axicab from a
public stand outside the Astoria no.
tel. One Of the men was elderly, cor
pulent, purple of face from gross liv-
Ing and predatory providing; as fire.
quenter of New York's after-dark the
aters and lobster palaces, no less than
because he was one of Wall streets
autocrats, he was well-known to the
night life of the city and also to its
cabmen as the great Philo B. Live
ridge.
The second man was comparatively
insignificant, so much so that the
driver Of the taxi failed to notice him
particularly and could afterward fur.
nish no adequate description Of his
physical characteristics. Yet 1t was
this smaller man who gave the order
to drive to the Chrome National bank.
When the taxi stopped at the curb
In front Of this famous financial In.
stitution on lower Broadway, the
smaller man had disappeared; his
companion, the aforesaid moneyed
autocrat, was discovered to be dead!
It was thought that the second man,
finding that the financier was beyond
help. and fearing trouble. had some
where en- route, perhaps during TEN
porary traffic block, opened either OF
the cab doors and quietly stepped out,
Immediately vanishing in the crowd.
When, where or how Mveridge had
breathed his last was puzzle to
friends and foes alike. AS has been
already intimated. Phllo B. was a
gross liver, patron Of the Tender
loin's more or less shady night life,
and the friend or protector Of certain
well-known feminine habitues there
of, albeit he was also one Of Amer
ica's money.kings, suspected Of sway
ing presidents and cabinets upon &C.
casion.
Yet. because Of these notorious
facts. well-known to the initiate, the
theory was generally and generously
adopted that Philo B. Liveridge had
suddenly come to the end Of his physi-
cal tether, seeing that he was well on
to the scriptural age limit Of three
score years and TENN fact, "old
enough to know BETTER" as one scribe,
more irreverent than his fellows.
chose to note In his obituary notice.
So they held perrunctory inquest,
the illegal and illogical verdict Of
"heart failure" was returned, the re-
mains were inferred to an tntoned
service by fashionable rector, and
philo B. Liveridge would have been
forgotten by all save those who were
uabbling over his ill-gotten millions
had 1t not been for second occur.
renee almost identical in scene and
setting.
Scarcely had Liveridge come to be
alluded to as ''the lase," and what was
left of him laid to rest in Trinity cen-
etery. than another Of the same iden'
tical financial group met his death n
similar manner.
This time 1t was old Zenas Roker.
4 money king Of "purest ray serene.
Again a taxicab had ,peen hired oy
two men from the Belsonia; again
from the one last to enter the vehicle
had issued the order "drive around the
mark" Somewhere between the Casino
and One Hundred and Tenth street
one Of the passengers had vanished.
when the cabbie stopped for further
orders he found the remaining rare
insensible, On driving to the Arsenal
headquarters Of the Central PARK po
lice, for instructions. life nad oepare