Connecticut western news., 1913-06-05
GIPSIES JAILED
Fortune Tellers Charged with Rob-
 ping Patrick Kelley.


 Rosa Polish and Marie Jevonia of Bra gil, each with nursing baby, are in jail in Litchfield, awaiting trial in the Superior court for highway robbery committed in Canaan, last Thursday. These ladies belong to band of gipsies who wander about the country, camping out on the outskirts of the towns and swapping horses with anybody who will trade with them, while the women of the gang go through the towns ostensi- bly, telling fortunes, but according to &C., counts, varying the occult with light fingered exercise, to the misfortune of the patron.
 Thursday afternoon the outfit drove into town with four wagons and eleven horses. and the women proceeded to get busy. The two women named struck a snag when they attempted to do business in Patrick Kelley's wagon-shop. on Church street. While attempting to persuade Mr. Kelley to have his fortune told, they laid hold of him, pulled him about and deftly abstracted $500 from his inside pocket. Kelley made pro- test aud started out to have the women arrested. They clung to him, however, and seeing he was determined, one of them replaced $500 bill in his pocket. Deputy Sheriff Rhoades took three women into custody, on Kelley's com plaint, and lodged them in the lookup, while the male contingent of the outfit -four of the most vilIainous looking vagabonds aginable-protested and muttered Brazilian maledictions.
 The trial took place at o'clock that night, in the voting room of the Town Hall. and was largely attended, by cos mopolitan audience. The High School dance was going on up stairs at the time. added to the enjoyableness of the judicial proceedings, which was accentuated by the familiar pungent smell that distinguishes the delectable place and suggests the urgent need of a plumbers attention with scavenger as- sistant.
 At quarter past the hour for opening court, His Honor, Judge Ford, had not arrived, and Sheriff Rhoades deputized Ozzie Vosburgh to go down town and subpoenae him. and if necessary serve a mittimus or even mandamus on him In due course the Judge arrived and the solemnities began. Attorney J. o. Rora- back conferred with the he-pirates of the gipsy aggregation who were there scowl- ing and jabbering as interested wit nesses. After consulting in Brazilian with these gentlemen for few minutes, MT. Roraback told the sheriff, in En. glish, to bring in the prisoners. and they were led in from the cell room-three dirty, brazen-f faced, sour looking gipsy princesses with tarnished spangles and tawdry apparel.
 l They were put to plea by Lawyer Roraback, and pleaded not guilty, each being eager to tell the lawyer the story of her life from the outset. They were persuaded to keep more or less qulet while the case proceeded in regular order.
 MT. Kelley was called first, and told his story practically as related above. A. L. Higgins, the blacksmith, corrobo- rated the story, but was not sure there were three women In the melee he was | positive there were two, whom he iden- tified as Rosa and Marie.
 While the testimony was being given, the noise of the dancing overhead drowned all other sounds, and the ap- preciative audience, unwilling to lose a word, left the benches and stood up in a huddle all around the court, hemming in 1 the judge, counsel, sheriff and witnesses, until the whole experimentation were thicker than three in a bunk. While the most exciting testimony was being given, dull, sickening thud was heard in the cell-room, succeeded by pro- longed, shrill howl, and Rosa jumped up and added to the din by yelling at the sheriff:
 My baby fall off de floor. Watcha matta ,wid you?" She started for the cell-room, but her husband, the gipsy king, got there first and came out carrying a leather-lunged little zip who stopped squalling when the mother had taken him iii her arms and got him fixed. It appeared that Sheriff Rhoades had stationed a gipsy prince in the cell to take care of the child as governess, in the temporary absence of the mother, but the prince was curious to hear the proceedings, and had left hls charge, and the youngster had tumbled off the bunk and bumped his poor little pate.
 Deputy Sheriff Rhoades told the story of the arrest of the women and turned over ro the judge a $1 bill which Rosa had given him with the information that Kelley had given it to her for telling his | fortune. | The two women-Rosa and Marie denied Kelley's story of robbery and told a trumped-up story of Kelley's purpose in giving the dollar. The third woman, Katherine Adam, (who pronounced it with the accent on the last syllable ]