Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-08-23
GOTHAM DROPS BLASE VEIL
TO JOIN IN HUNT FOR BABY
Child Kidnapped From Poor
Parents Is Object of City,
Wide Search = Mother Is
Frantic
BY ROBERT T. SMALL
Geased Wire Service to The Journal
iriA 1nO2

Copyright, 1929
NEW YORK, Aug. 21.-For three
days now heartless, money-mad lit
tie old New York has forgotten all
of its wickeder pursuits to join in
the search of a kidnapped baby. 1t
is not a rich baby, with Fifth ave
nue. millions to ransom it, but just
a poor baby, taken from its badly
worn little carriage in front of
five-and-ten cent store in the poorer
shopping district of West Eighteenth
street.
Once this was a very fashionable
center, with great shops of great
names, with broughams and victorias
and coachmen and footmen in livery
choking the streets, but since New
York moved up town Eighteenth
street draws virtually all of its trade
from the teeming East and lower
West sides This, then, was the
scene of the kidnapping, the most
pitiful crime of it's sort that New
York has known in many a long
year.
1t is certain that the kidnaper
could not have been looking for
money. None of the surrounding"
suggested ability to ransom. The
baby had on clean but inexpensive
garments, little lace bonnet
trimmed with baby ribbons of pink,
a bib, handworked with the tedious
care that only a happy eXpectant
mother can bestow upon such a tiny
bit of baby wardrobe.
The wiser criminologists from the
first have held to the theory that
the baby was taken by some hungry
hearted woman, denied the joys and
privileges of motherhood, There
have been such cases before, and
this was another of those impulsive
crimes which had no generalization,
no coid-blooded calculation of profit
back of it,
Diet Is Published
In the hope that it was a woman,
misguided though she be, who stole
the little baby, just three months
old, the mother has had its feeding
formula published. for she knows
that if little Lillian Mckenzie does
not get exactly the right sort of
food she will not live long. She has
been under weight since birth and
it has taken the tenderest sort of
care to rear her thus far in her lit
lie life. All of the big metropolitan
New York papers have published the
formula on their front pages, hop
ing it will reach the eye of the kid
naper. This is how it read:
The child should be, fed seven
times a day, getting at each feeding
four ounces of the following mixture;
Take ten ounces Of cows milk and
stir together with a teaspoonful of
deXtri-maltose and two teaspoonfuls
of specially prepared barley, dis
solved in water. The mixture should
be slightly heated"
Little Lillian is the daughter of
Mr.. and Mrs. Peter Mckenzie. Peter
is just a foreman of trucks, whose
daily vase is barely enough to care
for his meager family. Mrs. Nc
I<enzie was shopping on Saturday
afternoon. She took her six-year-
old son inside the store with her,
| leaving Lillian in the perambulator
outside. 1t was a careless thing to
do. Other babies have been kid
mapped through just such negligence
here in the big city. But the store
was crowded with the late Saturday
shoppers and Mrs. Mckenzie thought
if she left the boy outside with baby
he might stray into the street and
be crushed by the heavy trucks that
were rumbling by.
Since the discovery of the little
empty carriage all of the detectives
and all of the blue-cOated policemen
Of the greater city have been on the
| lookout for the baby. No murderer
could have been so closely pursued
And this is significant, too, for muir
der will be the charge against the
kidnapers if baby Lillian should die
| from neglect or from i'm proper nour
ishment during the period of her
captivity. Knowing how quickly
babies wilt and die in summer wealth
er when the wrong food is admin
istered, Mrs. Mckenzie feared that
today's dawn had found her little
one dead
City-Wide Search
Not only have the police of New
York been engaged almost wholly iY
the search, but they have been aid
ed by thee reporters of all of the
New York newspapers and by
countless thousands of amateur de
tectives, men and women. The Wei
intentioned activities Of the latter
have somewhat hampered the chase
for they have sent the regular de