Detective

Detective 
 

If Baltimoreans have reason to congratulate themselves upon the possession of one of the most efficient police organizations in the world, this fact is due in great part to the remarkably good work of the detective department. In this branch of the service, it is intelligence, not numerical strength, that has brought such results to the management of the department. The Baltimore Police Department established its first detective unit in 1861. The first five appointed detectives were Thomas W. German, Christian Barnes, William Stevens, Wm. L. Tayman, and Jerome Airey. Every man on the secret service staff has been proven by long experience and delicate operations. It has been his opportunity repeatedly to distinguish himself, and it is safe to say of every one of Baltimore's detectives that he has done it. The present force of these special officers is, so far as thorough training in the special department of police work to which it is assigned is concerned, one of the best equipped of similar organizations throughout the country. This efficiency is due to at least two causes: One is that the marshal of police has the detectives' general management under his immediate supervision. The direct management of the force is in the care of a captain, who is personally responsible to the chief for the work of the subordinates. Baltimore has been fortunate recently to have two such men, Captain Cadwallader and Freburger, at the head of the detective squad. The former's services brought the detective branch of the police force to such a degree of efficiency that when he left the command to assume control of the district he now has, the detectives were all thoroughly conversant with their duties and knew what to do on almost any occasion that might arise and how to do it. This was the condition of the squad when its present commander was promoted to his present rank. While, generally speaking, the detective force of Baltimore is nearly as old as the first police organization, there have always been special policemen detailed to "work up" mysterious cases. Still,  the first recognized organization of secret officers was completed in April 1867, when Mr. William C. Crone was appointed chief. Mr. Crone was a man widely known in this city, having been a deputy sheriff and a private detective for some celebrity. The squad then consisted of ten men, and Mr. Crone's official rank was Chief Detective—as the office now is known, Captain. He, after the marshal and deputy marshal, controlled the disposition of the force. Captain Cadwallader succeeded Mr. Crone in office in September 1881, when the Legislature created the office of Captain of Detectives for him.

On October 14, 1886, Captain Cadwallader was assigned to the Western police district, and Captain Solomon Freburger succeeded him. Since Captain Freburger's accession to the office, there have been several great crimes in which his detectives have taken prominent parts, ferreting out the criminals, and discovering evidence for the courts. All this work was done under his supervision, and the credit belongs to him, as the chief of his department. It was on November 5, 1847, that Captain Freburger was born. His birth-place still stands in Exeter Street, near Baltimore street, East Baltimore. His father's name was John Freburger. The lad received his rudimentary education in the public schools of the city, remaining in them until he was sixteen years old, when he made up his mind to become a machinist, and entered the Baltimore and Ohio Railway shops at Mount Clare as an apprentice. After he had learned his trade he remained for some time as a journeyman, and then went West. He worked for various periods in Chicago, Bloomington, St. Louis, and Lancaster, Pa.; and after an absence of about two years returned home again. For the second time he began work at the Mount Clare shops, and was employed there for about eighteen months, until, in 1874, he was appointed as an assistant engineer at the pump-house of the High Service Water Works at Druid Hill Park. The work in this capacity was much too confining for Mr. Freburger, so, on May 1,1875, he resigned his position and accepted that of a detective on the Baltimore police force. Since this date Mr. Freburger's career has been closely identified with the history of the department. He was the direct cause of the breaking up of a large and dangerous band of burglars, which made the house-holders of this city retire at night with the expectation of arising the following morning without a bit of jewelry or silverware in the house. So valuable were these services, that in 1884, in the Marshal's report to the Legislature appears the following: In the early part of this year (1883) quite a number of cases of housebreaking and robbery took place in the western and northwestern sections of the city, and in some instances those engaged in these offenses eluded immediate arrest, but very nearly everyone of them was eventually arrested; the majority of these have been convicted and are now serving terms in the State prison, while others are awaiting trial. The detective officers and other members of the force engaged in ferreting out these criminals and bringing them to trial deserve much credit for consummate skill and untiring industry. In 1877 Captain Freburger was on duty as a detective at the Camden Railway Station during the terrible strike riots. He was complimented by the Board of Police Commissioners and by Marshal Gray for his faithful and efficient services during those trying times. The captain is a man of fine physique and gives evidence of great strength in every movement of his body. His face is open and pleasing, and the heavy black mustache which shades his mouth makes his countenance very attractive. His appearance is such as would not reassure a criminal who was the object of his pursuit. Detective John S. Pontier is a native of this city. He was born on June 4, 1836. After receiving a rudimentary education in the public schools, and in St. Patrick's and St. Vincent's parochial schools, he learned the carpenters' trade. He did not work long at this, however, for his brother, who was the head of the firm of Pontier & Haslett, dealers in foreign fruits, etc., in Howard Street, offered him a clerkship in his store, which he promptly accepted. A few years later Sheriff Creamer appointed him to a position in the Sheriff's Office, which he continued to hold during Sheriff Dutton's term, or until about 1862. In 1866 he was appointed to the detective squad. He was well-acquainted, personally, with the officers of Adams' and other express companies, and to any case in which these corporations were interested he was usually assigned. One of his early pieces of work was the investigation of the robbery by express messenger II. Clay Potts, who stole money and papers amounting to $60,000 from the Southern Express Company, in August, 1867.

The safe of the company, containing $45,000 in money and $15,000 in signed requisitions upon the Government for the charges by the company for the transportation of troops, etc., after the war, was placed in the charge of Potts, from Mobile, Ala., to Corinth, Miss. When nearing Corinth, as the train slowed up to the station where the young man was to deliver over his safe and the keys to the next messenger, Potts opened the strong chest and taking out the valuable packages, threw them from the car into a swampy place beside the track. As soon as the train stopped and he delivered the keys to the other messenger, he ran back to where he had thrown the packages; picking them up he made his way to the other side of a branch of the Tennessee River, which was close by. There he found a hollow tree near the waters' edge into which he threw the requisitions and $40,000 of the money. He then hurried back before his crime should be discovered, and took the next north bound train. For some days he was lost sight of. Meanwhile the express company had a recent portrait of the young man engraved and thousands of circulars printed bearing the picture and a description of Potts, and offering a large reward for his capture. These were distributed among all the employee's of the company and sent to the police throughout the country About a fortnight after the robbery, one of the messengers of the Adams Express Company, Mr. Charles Ehrman, saw Potts in a railroad cart near Cumberland, in this State, where it was known that the young man had relatives living. It was afterwards learned that he intended going there, but seeing what he thought an unusual crowd about the depot, his guilty conscience made him timid and he remained on board the train. Ehrman watched the young man carefully for some time, and at last becoming convinced of his identity tapped him on the shoulder with the question: " Is your name Potts, sir ? " Taken by surprise, Potts answered in the affirmative. " Then you're under arrest," said Ehrman. This capture took place near the Relay House station, and Potts was brought at once to Baltimore and placed in the hands of the police. More than $4,000 was found on his person. Upon proper requisitions from the Governor of Alabama, Detective Pontier was detailed to take the young man back to Mobile. On the journey southward the detective succeeded in learning from Potts where he had put the money he had stolen. He stopped off at Corinth with his prisoner and the two went to one of the hotels in the place. A local constable having heard of the important prisoner who was in town, offered his services in guarding him. While they were seated in their room, the proprietor of the hotel knocked on the door and whispered that a crowd of men was in the bar-room and that they were talking about rescuing Potts, who was well-known in Corinth. Leaving his prisoner in charge of the local constable, Detective Pontier went to the bar-room, where he found a crowd of rough-looking men assembled. They all knew who he was, for they had seen him conduct the prisoner to the hotel. Realizing that bravado was his best course, the detective, who is a large muscular man, threw back his coat with a swagger, and bringing his fist down on the bar with a blow that made all the windows rattle in their sashes and threatened destruction to every near-by piece of crockery, summoned all hands to drink. The summons was obeyed without a murmur. Having thus established a speaking acquaintance, the detective carelessly seated himself on the edge of an ice-box in such a manner that his two 32 caliber Colt revolvers protruded into the gaze of the now respectful gathering, and said: " I hear that somebody around here was talking about taking my man away from me! " "Oh, no! " " That's only talk! " " We didn't mean no such thing as that," murmured one and another of the crowd deprecatingly. "Well, I just came down to say," returned the detective, " that he and I are going to sleep in the same room to-night, and I invite any and all of you to try and get in. But don't forget to bring a surgeon along with you when you come." And, tapping his weapons significantly, the officer turned on his heels and went back to his room. He was not disturbed that night. The next morning, shortly after day-break, Mr. Pontier and Potts started out to recover the hidden money and papers. To their dismay they discovered that since the day of the theft the stream had risen and overflowed its banks and had again receded. All the trees in the neighborhood were covered with yellow slimy mud, deposited during the freshet, to a height of several feet. The marks among the underbrush by which Potts expected to locate his hollow tree had been obliterated. They hunted for the tree all day long until in the evening, just as they were about to return to the hotel, they came upon it. The detective put his hand in the hollow trunk and brought forth a number of packages of paper, which, on account of the yellow mud and slime were unrecognizable as bank notes. Wrapping the packages carefully in a newspaper which he had brought for the purpose, the detective carried the precious bundle back to the hotel. Mr. Pontier then ordered a grate fire to be made, and when it was thoroughly blazing he opened the packages one at a time and hung the bills over the backs of chairs before it until they were all dried. When the moisture was evaporated the dust was easily knocked off by a snap of the finger against the bill. Then repacking the notes he placed them in a valise and started off the same night with his prisoner for Mobile, where he arrived late the following day. He turned his man over to the police, and took a receipt for the valise and its contents from the express company's officers. Potts was afterwards convicted of his crime and was sent to the Alabama State prison for fifteen years. Another express company case in which Mr. Pontier's detective skill was called into requisition was the robbery of the contents, of the money pouch of the messenger of Harnden's express in this city, in the summer of 1869. In that year three men, all of them well known burglars, Thomas Hoffman, Edward Dennis, and William Howard, the first a very clever criminal, rented an office in North Charles street, between Lexington and Fayette streets, and pretended to go into the commission business. Howard went to Washington and directed a package, purporting to contain money, to himself at their office, and then returned to this city to await its delivery. The money messenger of Harnden's express company in Baltimore at that time was an old man named Richard Patterson. He was feeble and utterly unfit for the position he occupied. When Patterson delivered the package at the thieves' office they were there Waiting for him. As he took the envelope from his pouch, however, they saw that there were very few more packages in it. He had evidently been nearly over his route. The following day Howard again went to Washington and sent another package, purporting to contain money, to himself as before. When Patterson came this time his pouch was full. As soon as he opened it the three men seized him and "bucking" and gagging him left him on the floor, decamping with the pouch, which contained $14,500 in money. In the course of an hour Patterson succeeded in freeing himself and ran to the office of the express company to inform them of the robbery. The police were immediately notified, and Detective Pontier was detailed upon the case. Circulars describing the thieves and offering §1,500 reward for their capture were scattered broadcast over the country by the company. A few days later a telegram from a constable at Swanton, a mining village up in the mountains of Maryland, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, was received,, announcing that he had two men in custody, who, he thought, answered the description of the burglars. Detective Pontier hastened to Swanton, and found the men to he Howard and Dennis. He brought them to this city, where Howard was prevailed upon to confess the crime, and tell where the money was hidden. " Go to Swanton," he said to Detective Pontier, " and behind the station you will see a zigzag path. Follow this through the woods to the top of the mountains. Then take the middle straight path beyond, until you come to a large tree fallen across it. On your left you will see a pile of dead leaves. The money is underneath those leaves." Accompanied by an officer of the express company, Detective Pontier went to Swanton at once, and followed the instructions. A short distance beyond the top of the mountain they found the dead tree, and brushed up against its trunk was a pile of leaves. On pushing away the leaves they found the packages of bank notes, together with a large quantity of gold and silver coin, not confined in any receptacle, but lying loosely on the ground. They amounted altogether to more than $11,000. The money was brought back to the city and Detective Pontier continued his search for Hoffman, who was the most clever and dangerous criminal of the three. The man was caught some time later in a small place in one of the Western States, and brought hither upon a requisition. The three were indicted and were awaiting* trial when Hoffman escaped from jail by opening his cell door and making his way to the roof, and thence letting himself down to the ground by the leader. He opened the cells of two or three other prisoners also and lot them escape with him, but did not release either Howard or Dennis, against whom he was violently angered for having " Mowed." In jumping to the ground he sprained his ankle. This made it easy to trace him when Detective Pontiers again was put upon his track, this time accompanied by Detective Mitchell. The detectives followed him to the Western Maryland railway and thence to Union Bridge, the last station on the road. On entering the railroad inn there, he found Hoffman sitting in the barber's shop, talking with a boy about sixteen years old, and nursing his ankle. "Who's the boy, Tom?" was the detectives' greeting query. " He's ' Kid ' Johnson, I let him out with me. He was in for picking pockets," replied the thief in an unmoved tone. Then he added, " help me up stairs, detective, and put me to bed, my ankle's badly hurt." They took the injured man up stairs, and while the boy slept in a corner, the detective bathed Hoffman's ankle, and nursed it nearly all night. The next morning the detectives brought the two to the city, where Hoffman was afterward tried and convicted with his accomplices. Each was sentenced to ten years and six months in the Penitentiary. One night in prison Hoffman attacked Howard, whom he had never forgiven for confessing, and nearly killed him. For this he was taken out of prison, tried for assault, and had eighteen months added to his sentence. A third important express robbery, in which the company recovered its money through detective Pontier's skill, was the case of station agent J. B. Stedman, of Harper's Ferry, Va., who in May, 1871, stole $1,200 belonging to the Adams Express Company. One morning Mr. J. Q. A. Herring, the superintendent of Adams Express Company in this city, came to headquarters with a dispatch from Stedman, who slept in the station, saying that on the previous night while he was absent at a Masonic meeting, the station was broken into and robbed of $1,200. Detective Pontier and Mr. Herring went to Harper's Ferry together, and looked over the scene of the robbery. After a few moments the detective called Mr. Herring aside and said: " The station agent did this robbery ! " Mr. Herring was surprised, but when the detective showed him marks indicating positively that the windows had been pried open from the inside, he agreed with him. The detective then went into the other room where Stedman was standing, and accused him of the crime. The man looked frightened, but denied the charge with a show of indignation. The detective then showed him the marks on the window and intimated that he knew of other and more certain evidence. The station agent paled and began to tremble. Then turning to the detective he asked in a choking voice: " Are you a Mason ?" Detective Pontier was not a Mason, but Mr. Herring was. The latter was called in, and Stedman asked him to take him to the hotel, as he wished to talk to him. In the hotel the man confessed that he had stolen the $1,200 and placed it in a brass tube, secured at both ends, which he had sent to Chicago, to be kept till called for. The superintendent telegraphed to the train on which the package had been sent, and had the tube returned to Baltimore the following day. The money was found wrapped up inside of it, as Stedman had declared. The station agent was tried at Moundville, Virginia, and sentenced to five years imprisonment. On August 11, 1867, one of the most horrible murders that ever took place in Baltimore occurred at the rear entrance to Judge Campbell's mansion, on West Franklin street, between Howard street and Park avenue. One of Judge Campbell's house servants, a good-looking and respectable colored girl, had a beau named John Dixon, a bad character. Dixon called to see the girl on this evening, and asked her to marry him. She refused to do so then, saying that if he would stop drinking she would marry him later. The old colored cook, who Avas sitting in the kitchen, heard this conversation. The two went out after a little, as Dixon rose to leave. At the back gate he put his left arm around the girl's neck, as if about to kiss her good-night, and then suddenly throwing her head back, he slashed a razor across her throat, cutting her neck through to the spine. The girl put her hand to her throat and stumbled blindly across the yard into the kitchen, where she fell dead, the blood pouring from her arteries and saturating the surroundings. An alarm was raised at once, and Detective Pontier was sent to capture Dixon. He found him asleep in a house on Rock street, where a notorious negro preacher, known as "Blind Johnny," held forth. On his way to the scene of the crime, the negro, professing ignorance, asked: "What yo' arrestin' me fur, Mr. Pontier?" "How do you know me?" demanded the detective. " I used to wait on you when I belonged to Cunnel Slater," replied the negro. The detective then recognized the fellow as the former slave of a gentleman •who owned Carroll's Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, a great ducking ground, which he used to visit. He then accused the negro of the murder of the girl. The fellow denied it strenuously until brought to the house and unexpectedly confronted with the bleeding corpse. Then he fairly collapsed. Dixon was tried, but the State being unable to prove premeditation, he was convicted in the second degree only, and sentenced to eighteen years imprisonment. Detective Pontier also arrested Hollohan and Nicholson, the murderers of Mrs. Lampley, the story of which is told in the sketch of Marshal Frey. lie was in the company of the marshal, too, when, in 1873, they arrested John Thomas, the assailant of Mrs. Carlotta Sarracco. In the summer of 1876, Detective Pontier arrested a man for whom all the police in the world had been on the look-out for many months. This was Louis Diebel, who, while burgomeister of the little city of Kadowitz in Polish Prussia, Germany, embezzled about $15,000 of the funds entrusted to his care, and disappeared. The German police offered 4,000 marks, or $1,000, reward for the dishonest official's capture, and distributed portraits and descriptions of him in all languages, all over the world. One of these descriptions fell into the hands of Detective Pontier and he made inquiries among Germans of the city, in hopes that somebody might have run across the man. It happened that one of the detective's German friends did know of a man answering to the description, who was living at the old Washington House, a small hotel at Camden and Eutaw streets, opposite the Camden station. Mr. Pontier went thither and found that the man was registered under his own name. At the time, however, the embezzler was in the country bargaining for the purchase of a farm. On his return to the hotel the detective arrested him and found him to be the person he was in search of. The man was sent to Germany by the German Consul, and the reward of $1,000 was received by Mr. Pontier. According to the rules of the police board the money was handed over to the commissioners, but after some weeks it was paid him. Nearly $13,000 of the $15,000 stolen by the burgomasters was recovered, it being found on his person at the time of his arrest. Detective Joseph C. Mitchell was born in this city on July 22, 1827. He is a brother of the late Captain John Mitchell, formerly in command of the Middle district. He attended the public schools in Baltimore, and afterwards learned the trade of coach smoithing, at which he worked for about six years as a journeyman. He then went into the eating-house business, and for many years kept restaurants in various parts of the city. He was appointed a member of the detective squad on April 21, 1867. He never served the police department in any other capacity. Detective Mitchell is one of the only two officers now remaining on the squad who were appointed at the reorganization of 1867. Detective Pontier is the other. In the summer of 1875, a large number of houses in the wealthier part of the city were robbed by sneak thieves, who carried on their operations nearly every day for a month. One of the thieves was evidently an expert locksmith, for the doors of the houses which were robbed were opened with skeleton keys in a very skillful manner. Detective Mitchell was assigned to find out who the thieves were. After inspecting their work, Mr. Mitchell came to the conclusion that they were not Baltimoreans, as there were not to his knowledge any local thieves capable of doing such neat work. He was about to make a tour of the cheap hotels with a view of seeing what strangers were in town, when a negro boy whom he knew told him he had seen "Nat " Jones, alias "Davy" Peyton, and James Sanford, two New York thieves, in town, and that they were committing the robberies that had caused so many complaints. Upon further inquiry Detective Mitchell learned that the two thieves were probably at the Union Hotel, on Pratt street, near Market street. On August 13, he went to the hotel, and giving the clerk a description of the men, asked if they were in the house. "Yes, I think they're about here somewhere now," replied the clerk. Just then the detective saw his men in the reading-room, engrossed in the New York papers, sitting with their feet on the reading-room table. He went up to them, and getting in a convenient position to grasp both the men, if they should attempt to escape, said: " The Marshal wants to see you at the headquarters." The men looked blankly at each other a moment and then replying "All right," 'accompanied the detective. They were locked up and indicted upon evidence against them that was subsequently found, and upon a confession which Sanford made. Their method was to hire a wagon and drive up to the house they intended robbing. Then after ransacking the place they would put their plunder into the wagon and drive off. While awaiting trial Jones broke jail and escaped. He went to New York where he lived in a tenement house in Canal street, near the Hudson river. Detective Mitchell followed him thither and was aided in his hunt for the man by one of Inspector Byrne's detectives. They watched the house in which Jones lived for some days, but did not once see him. Then they learned that the man never came out of his room except at sunrise, when he took a short walk, bought a morning paper and returned to remain until the next day. So the following morning at peep of day the detectives placed themselves before the house. A moment after they arrived their man came out and they took him into custody. Detective Mitchell brought him back to Baltimore, where he was convicted and sentenced for ten years and six months. Sanford was sentenced for five years. Jones served his whole term, and in 1886, as soon as he was released, was taken to Boston to serve out an old sentence in a jail there from which he had escaped. He is still serving his time in Boston, under special guard. Joneshas the reputation of being one of the most successful jail breakers in the country. He escaped from seven prisons in various parts of the United States before he broke jail in this city. Now that he is in custody, his only hope of not spending the rest of his life in confinement lies in making another and final escape, for the total of unexpired sentences that he will have to serve out in one prison and another aggregates more than thirty years. In the centennial year Detective Mitchell became officially connected with a crime that acquired a world-wide notoriety, and which is still frequently spoken of in some circles. The great Kur-Saal at Baden-Baden, in Germany, at that time, still maintained its name of being one of the largest and most magnificent gambling houses in the world. It was rivalled only by the gaming palaces of Monaco and Monte Carlo. The Kur-Saal or Casino, was conducted under semi-official auspices, and it was generally understood to be the property of the Crown of the Duchy of BadenBaden. About 1876 there was much talk about closing the great gambling place on account of the growing prejudice against public gaming, which at that time showed itself throughout the German Empire. One of the assistants of the treasurer of the establishment was a young man named Ernst Goldbach. As was afterwards ascertained he had for some years been systematically robbing the "bank." He lived much beyond his income as a clerk, but as he had been known at times to have made large winnings by his occasional ventures at the tables, no suspicion of his honesty entered the mind of his superiors. On May 30,1886, having learned from what he supposed to be a trustworthy source that the games were to be stopped on June 1, he stole 40,000 thalers (about $30,000) from the safe of the "bank" and decamped. The theft was not discovered until late the following day, by which time Goldbach had crossed the French frontier with his mistress and their son, a child of six years. A few days later the German police got information which led them to believe that the young man had boarded one of the North German Lloyd steamships at Southampton, England, and was on his way to New York. They cabled to the German consul, and he caused the first incoming steamer of that line, which arrived in the port of New York, to be searched for the man. The search having proved fruitless, he telegraphed to the German consul in this city to request the Baltimore police to search another steamship of the same company which had left Southampton at the same time for Baltimore. In response to the request of the consul, Detective Mitchell was detailed upon the case. He procured permission from the United States officials to go down the bay on the revenue cutter. He met the steamer at Quarantine and boarded her. As the revenue cutter drew up alongside of the mammoth craft, all the passengers on board, numbering nearly fifteen hundred, crowded along the rail to look at her. Detective Mitchell had an accurate description of Goldbach, and as he looked up from the deck of the cutter he saw a man in the crowd who answered the description exactly, so far as features and stature were concerned. "That's my prisoner," thought the detective, and his speculation proved correct, for upon inquiry of the purser for Herr Goldbach, the officer pointed the same young man out to him. Goldbach was greatly taken aback at his arrest. He spoke but little English. The detective took him and his mistress and child into custody, and when the passengers were landed, conducted them to the police headquarters. There a gold draft on Brown Brothers & Co., the bankers, for $4,400 was found on Goldbach, besides a large amount in German paper money and English gold and silver coins. A matron on searching the man's mistress found $10,000 worth of German government and other negotiable securities sewed into her clothing, and also a large quantity of cash. The money about the persons of the pair aggregated between $17,000 and $18,000. The prisoners, at the request of the German consul, were not locked up in jail, but were given apartments in a first class hotel. The explanation of this strange proceeding was afterward discovered to be the fact that the young man's connections in Germany were noble and very wealthy. They subsequently so arranged matters that Goldbach was not required to be sent back for trial, and after a short confinement here in the hotel he was allowed to go free. He managed to get as far as New York, when after nearly starving to death he found a situation as waiter in a large German beer saloon and restaurant. At last accounts he still held this situation, his mistress, who was a remarkably beautiful girl, remaining faithful to him. Some years ago a handsome young widow lived at Barnum's Hotel. Besides her attractions of face and form, she was known to possess considerable property. Her name was Mrs. William H. Young. A young gentleman from Washington came to live in Baltimore, and stopped also at Barnum's Hotel. His name was James Ivins. He was connected with some of the best families of the National Capital. Mrs. Young and Mr. Ivins made each other's acquaintance, and they soon became great friends. Though Mr. Ivins subsequently took lodgings in the city, he visited Mrs. Young at the hotel almost daily, and frequently took her to ride in Druid Hill Park or in the suburbs. The other lady guests of the hotel were getting intensely interested in the pair, and the servants retailed romances concerning them that added fuel to the fire of curiosity that was consuming the fair fellow-guests of the beautiful widow. One afternoon Mr. Ivins called. Mrs. Young was out, and he said he would wait for her in her room, which was where the lady was accustomed to receive him. A few moments later he went out, saying he would return shortly. He did not come back, however: Mrs. Young returned, and as she took Mr. Ivin's card from the servant's salver, a smile of satisfaction passed over her countenance. About six o'clock in the evening, however, she rushed down stairs in a great flurry, and announced to the clerk that she had been robbed of all her diamond jewelry, which she had left in her bureau drawer when she went out, amounting in value to $2,500. She had just discovered her loss as she was attiring herself for supper. The police were notified at once, and Detective Mitchell was sent to look into the case. After hearing of all the circumstances, he concluded, contrary to Mrs. Young's belief that one of the servants had stolen the jewelry, that the thief was none other than the handsome Mr. Ivins. When Mrs. Young learned that that gentleman had hastily left town, and also remembered that he was the only person who knew exactly where the jewels were kept, she was forced to agree with the detective. The valuables had evidently been taken by someone who knew their exact whereabouts, for nothing else in the room, and no other drawer except the one from which they were taken was upset. Detective Mitchell, with much difficulty, traced Ivins about from place to place, until finally he located him in Chicago, whither he went and arrested him. Ivins submitted quietly to arrest. He told where he had disposed of the diamonds, and the detective recovered all but three hundred dollars' worth of them. The young man said he had never before stolen anything nor been arrested. This was probably true, for his record showed him to have never been anything worse than a wild youth. He called to see Mrs. Young with nothing further from his mind than stealing her diamonds. Finding the jewels unguarded, however, and being in financial straits at the time, an evil impulse seized him, and ho took the jewelry and fled. He was held in confinement for nearly seven months, at the end of which time, Mrs. Young refusing to prosecute him, he was released. Detective Theoderick B. Hall was born in Baltimore on August 20, 1838, and was educated in the public schools of this city. He was apprenticed to and learned the trade of a bricklayer. At the breaking out of the civil war in 18G1 Mr. Hall enlisted in the First Regiment Maryland Volunteers, U. S. Army, and was commissioned Lieutenant Co. C. lie served one year, when he was honorably discharged by reason of disability contracted in service. In January, 1863, Mr. Hall was appointed to the police force, and after serving one year he resigned to accept the position of conductor on the City Passenger Railway, tendered him by President Tyson of that company. In this capacity he served thirteen years, during which time he personally apprehended nine pickpockets on his car. He also assisted the detective of the railroad company in arresting others. Mr. Hall became an officer in the City's detective department, April 23, 1875. It was he who, in 1877, "turned up " the thieving barge captains who for years had been systematically robbing the grain merchants of this city. For a long time complaints had been made of the enormous "shrinkage" in the barge cargoes of grain shipped to consignees, but nothing could be learned to account for it. Finally, in March, 1877, Detective Hall was detailed to investigate the matter. After much trouble he found that Captain William Deffendorf and four other grain barge captains were engaged in a scheme whereby from two to three hundred bushels of grain were stolen of a night. The men had a sloop, and lying up to the barges, they would load the plunder, a quota being taken from each of the barges of grain entrusted to their care, run the stolen property to Chesapeake City, exchange it for flour, and then sell the flour. The first man against whom Detective Hall secured any evidence was Captain Deffendorf, who made a confession to the officer inculpating his comrades in the crime. In order to accomplish the arrest of all, Deffendorf was allowed to remain at liberty for the time being, of which he took advantage to advise his confederates of their danger and the whole party "skipped." Detective Hall arrested Deffendorf stowed away in a canal barge between Weehawken and Hoboken, after a most exciting chase of seventeen days, which carried him nearly all over the States of New York and New Jersey. Another of the fugitives he arrested in Philadelphia, one in New Brunswick, N. J , and another in Baltimore. The prosecution saw that no conviction could be had unless one of the guilty men was used as States' evidence, and Deffendorf had consented to tell all he knew. After the accused had remained in jail for eight months, on the very day set for the trial of the cases Deffendorf died. There being no other evidence forthcoming, the State's Attorney entered a nolle pros, and the men were discharged. One of them, years afterwards, came to Detective Hall and told him that his arrest was the most fortunate thing that had ever happened him, as a career in crime had been checked and he had since been an honest man. Detective Hall, in conjunction with Detective Gault, in July, 1877, arrested the notorious James Huff alias Porter. Huff, or Porter, had at one time been in the U. S. Secret Service under Chief Brooks and had been dismissed. For five years prior to his arrest Huff had been going about the country representing himself as a secret service officer, and by that means defrauding people under various pretenses. He had baffled Chief Brooks' men, who were constantly hearing of his fraudulent practices, but were unable to lay their hands on him. One night in the month mentioned Marshal Prey received a telegram from Union Bridge, Md., asking him to look out for Huff, as it was thought he would be in Baltimore and would call at the post-office for a letter. Detectives Hall and Gault were detailed to the case, and after considerable difficulty and four days constant vigilance they succeeded in locating their man at Lloyd's Hotel, corner Calvert and Pratt streets. It was late at night -when the officers reached the hotel and Huff had retired. They were, however, shown to the room, and Detective Hall rapped at the door. "Who's there?" was the response. "A friend," was the reply ; '"open the door." " You can't get in here," said Huff. " Open the door, or we'll break it in," threatened the detectives, and the bogus Secret Service man unlocked the door and peeked out. "How do, Huff!" was the salutation of Detective Hall. " My name's not Huff; it is Porter." " Well! Porter is just the man we want," came the reply. " Oh ! I know who you are," said Huff, " you are a couple of these fly detectives who go nosing about other people's business!" " Where did you go to guessing school ?" responded Mr. Gault. "Now you've told us who we are, tell us who you are." " I'll mighty soon show you," said Huff, with an important and threatening air, and going to his coat, produced a large bundle of papers bearing the name of "James Porter." The papers were IT. S. Government blanks connected with various departments, and while they made a brave show superficially and collectively, a closer examination revealed that they were of no importance whatever, but simply useful to impose upon the ignorant and credulous. Huff was removed to the police headquarters, where, upon being searched, it was learned by maps, charts, and other papers found on his person that he was one of the conspirators to rob the tomb of the remains of President Lincoln. He was sent to Hagerstown, and at his trial Chief Brooks and five of his men appeared to prosecute him. Huff was convicted and sentenced to five years in the Maryland Penitentiary. Chief Brooks sent a congratulatory letter to Detectives Hall and Gault for having made this important capture. On December 12, 1882, Detective Hall arrested "Tom" Bigelow, alias Ward, and Louise Bigelow, alias Jordan, alias "English Louise." They were pickpockets. Their plan of working was for the woman to watch about savings banks, and "spotting" some woman who had drawn a sum of money, would follow her, and being joined by Tom Bigelow, who would be hiking in the neighborhood, subsequently relieve the victim of the money in the street car. Detective Hall had four cases against them, but through the failure of the persons robbed to sufficiently identify the pair, they were discharged and sent out of the city. Noah M. Mitchell, the colored swindler, was arrested by Detective Hall on December 7,1885. Mitchell's plan of operations was clever and ingenious, and he showed that he was a man who had enjoyed more than an average education. He would go to a city and have a pamphlet printed, setting forth that a society had been organized whose object it was to secure a higher education for the colored people of the South. He would then go to the prominent men of that city and secure their endorsement of the purposes mentioned in the little book, but would ask no subscription from them. This he did in Washington, and secured as endorsers of the proposed object the names of the President, an ex-President, Senators, Congressmen, prominent lawyers and others. With these endorsements of the plan he came to Baltimore, and represented himself as a solicitor for subscriptions for the society, of which he was the only living exponent and sole beneficiary. Among his victims there were such men as Messrs. Bonaparte, Frank Stevens, Thomas Ruddle, and other prominent citizens. He secured between $500 and $600. He was convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for two years and six months. William Thomas was arrested in August, 1878, by Detective Hall, for attempting to blackmail a citizen through the use of the mails. When the officer put his hand on Thomas's shoulder to arrest him Thomas sprang back and drew a pistol. Detective Hall was too quick for him, however, disarmed him and carried him to headquarters. Thomas was sentenced to one year's imprisonment. Detective Hall is a devout member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and belongs to many of the societies connected with that denomination. To many unfortunates who have been arrested by him he has given good counsel and advice, and some hardened criminals have through him been reclaimed to a better Life Detective Albert Gault There is perhaps no detective in the State of Maryland about whom so much that is favorable is told and so many stories related as Albert Gault. He is a born crime-detecter and his experiences have certainly been varied and thrilling enough to create a fund for sensational story-writers that would be imperishable during the present generation. He has had all sorts of escapes, has captured all manner of criminals, has followed all sorts of clues with such attending circumstances that told in detail would make him not a simple detective, but a creature of romance. He had an opportunity to serve Baltimore when it was perhaps one of the wickedest cities on the American continent. The fact that he is still alive to tell of his deeds is sufficient to prove the man's indomitable perseverance in not allowing wounds, or nearly death itself, to interfere in the prosecution of his duty. He comes of an excellent family which through business reverses was reduced in circumstances. He was born in this city on October 13, 1837. His father was Robert Gault, then a well-to-do type-founder. Young Gault attended the public schools, but lie left them early. At the age of fourteen years he was apprenticed to the firm of gas-fitters, Blair & Co., and learned his trade, which he followed for fifteen years. During the war Mr. Gault started business on his own account, but not finding trade sufficiently remunerative he remained but two years as a "boss." Finally he decided that he would join the police force, so he made his application to the police department and received his appointment on December 8, 1866. He was assigned to the Middle (now Central) district, under Captain John Mitchell, who held his commission from the famous Young and Valiant board of Commissioners. On April 22, 1875, while serving under Captain (now Deputy-Marshal) Lannan, in the Middle district, Mr. Gault was made a sergeant, and on June 29 of the same year he was assigned to work on the detective squad. Mr. Gault had been on the police force but a few days when he fell in with a most important piece of work. At that time the passenger trains from the north on their way to Washington and the south were drawn through the city by horses, from the President street station of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore railroad to the Camden street station of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad company. Gault's beat included the neighborhood of the Marsh Market, by which, on Pratt street, all the trains passed. Many complaints had been received at headquarters within the few weeks previous, of the depredations of sneak thieves who jumped on the trains on their way through the city and stole whatever they could find unguarded. The thieves operated generally at night while the passengers were dozing. One morning at about half past three o'clock Gault was standing secreted in a doorway on the lookout for these car thieves. The ground was covered with newly fallen snow; the night was still and clear. The only sound that could be heard by the policeman as he stood back in his hiding place was a distant tinkling of bells which denoted the approach of another train on its way to the Capital. Suddenly the snap of a whip and the voice of a driver speaking to his horses attracted Gault's attention, and he casually poked his head around the corner to see what was going on. Two hacks had just passed across the Lombard street bridge. By the bright starlight the policeman could see that the curtains in each of the carriages were drawn. The presence of two carriages with drawn curtains in that locality at that hour of the night was so unusual a thing that Gault determined to abandon his watch for the car thieves for a while and follow the strange vehicles at least until they had left his beat. The carriages plowed slowly along, turning up Concord street and finally wheeling suddenly into the narrow lane known as Hawk street, where they stopped before a small two-story house on the north side of the way. Five men instantly jumped out upon the pavement, and shouldering what appeared to be heavy sacks, carried a large number of them into the house. Then the hacks drove off, leaving the five men in the house. All this policeman Gault remarked from a position he had taken in the shadow of one of the market stalls opposite the opening of Hawk street. As soon as the carriages had passed out of sight the policeman made his way to where they had been standing. The footprints of the men were fresh in the snow and a dim light could be seen in one of the rooms on the upper floor of the little house. Convinced that some villainy was on foot Gault, immediately hunted up his sergeant and related to him what had occurred. The latter scouted at the young policeman's suspicions, intimating that new officers frequently got themselves into embarrassing positions by being over suspicious. Gault returned to his post. Though rebuffed he was not convinced, by the sergeant's assurances, and he again examined the ground in the neighborhood of Hawk street. As he passed the suspected house he heard sounds of footsteps within, and the slam of a door. More certain than ever that his suspicions of evil-doing were well-founded Gault again hunted up his sergeant. After considerable argument the latter agreed to go to Captain Mitchell's house, wake him up, and submit the matter to him. The captain lived close by and within half an hour he returned with the sergeant. Gault then led the pair to Hawk street and showed them the footprints and carriage tracks, relating all the movements he had observed on the part of the five men. Captain Mitchell agreed with Mr. Gault that the affair bore a suspicious appearance, but he hesitated to adopt the plan which the policeman urged, of making a raid upon the house at once. After some minutes' deliberation the captain determined to get a warrant before entering the house. Leaving Gault on guard he hastened to the residence of a magistrate and procured the desired paper, with which he returned in a very short time. Gault was boiling over with impatience when the captain reached him. " Have you got it ?" he whispered eagerly. Captain Mitchell drew the document from his coat pocket by way of reply. "Now break right in," said the policeman in an excited voice, " and I'll stand out here on watch." The captain hesitated as if he did not relish the idea suggested. He looked the building over and finally exclaimed : "By Jove, I've left my pistol home ! " " Here," burst forth the young patrolman, as he thrust his revolver into the captain's hands, unable to control himself any longer; "you take my pistol and stand outside here and I'll go in." Half demurring, the captain took the weapon, and Gault, scarcely waiting to give the legal knock on the door, burst through and rushed up-stairs. Two little girls were in bed in the room at the head of the stair-case. They had been awakened by the crash and were rubbing their eyes in astonishment when the policemen addressed them. It was then almost daylight. "Did you see some men come in here last night, carrying bags ? " they were asked. "Yes sir," replied the elder of the children innocently. " They said they had corn for the chickens." " Where are the men now ? " "They went out the back way," said the child. "They're coming back again. They put the bags in that room." And she pointed to the adjoining chamber. Policeman Gault entered the room indicated. The shutters were closed and the light was very dim within. Finally the officer "was able to make out all the contents of the apartment. A high old fashioned bed stood in one corner. Everything appeared to be in an orderly condition with the exception of the freshly scrubbed floor, which was stained with the prints of wet shoes. No traces of bags or packages were to be seen. The footprints led toward the bed. It struck the policeman that perhaps the stuff" Was hidden under it. He lifted the overhanging coverlet. As he did so he started back in amazement. The entire space under the bed was filled with great packages. He hauled them out one by one and found them to be large rolls of heavy cloth. Locking the door on the inside he climbed out of the window upon the roof of the portico in front of the house and called to Captain Mitchell to come up. The captain was dumb with astonishment when he reached the room and saw the bundles lying on the floor before him. There could be no doubt that it was stolen property. After waiting half an hour in the hope that the thieves would return, Captain Mitchell ordered Gault to fetch a large wagon to the house, and all the packages were removed to the Central station, where they were spread upon the floor to await an owner. About half-past eight o'clock Mr. Thompson, the proprietor of a fashionable tailoring establishment on Fayette street opposite the Mansion House, rushed into headquarters and informed the marshal that his shop had been robbed the night before of every yard of cloth in it. The thieves had fairly stripped the place bare, even taking two pairs of shears with them. On being led across to the station-house the tailor recognized his property at once. Thanks to policeman Gault's sagacity and his persistency in going ahead when he felt sure he was right, over seven thousand dollars' worth of stolen property was recovered for its owner within three hours after the robbery and before the crime was discovered by the victim himself. The same day policeman Gault and several other officers succeeded in arresting all the thieves by hunting for them among the well-known haunts of such characters, in the lower part of the city. They were identified by the landlady of the house on Hawk street as the men who had hired her second floor, and the children picked them out as the same ones who had carried in the bundles on the night of the burglary. They were afterward convicted and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. It was on that fearful day in July, 1868, when Baltimore was swept by flood, and part of the town was fairly drowned beneath the waters which raged from the country about, that patrolman Gault discovered that he was not merely an enthusiastic policeman, but a man full of that noble desire to do good which impels one to risk his life for another's benefit. There was a great crowd of terror-stricken citizens standing in High street, near Front street, at about o o'clock in the afternoon of July 24. The yellow flood roared and writhed and twisted itself in apparent deviltry as it rushed on its path of destruction. On its breast was borne all manner of things : parts of houses, great tree trunks from which huge branches had been torn by the angry waters, chicken coops, furniture, produce—but look ! what is this floating upon the tossing waves, half hidden at times by the billows, but always rising with them, always cresting them— making them sacred even in their maddened rush for prey ? It comes nearer the great crowd; it is upon them, abreast of them, and within the cradle which rides the flood a babe looks out and smiles upon the thousand men who stand awe-stricken at the strange sight. There is no motion in the crowd ; not a hand is waved, not a tongue is loosened as the cradle with its precious burden sweeps by, the wreckage apparently making way for it. Again look! a man darts from the midst of the crowd; he wears the familiar uniform of a policeman; his head is bare, his hair streaming in the wind and tossing spray. Over he goes into the raging waters, and amid the cheers of the crowd swims towards the castaway. Tree trunks intervene; great masses of wreckage interpose themselves, but nothing daunts the brave man who struggles toward the object of his endeavors. Struck now and forced back by some heavy drift he begins all over again, and with set teeth grasps the cradle. The baby smiles at him and then gives a little crowd of delight as the rescuer's weight tilts the cradle to one side. Little it knows how near it has been to the end. The policeman landed many squares below the place where he leaped into the flood, but the crowd had followed him, and as he stepped ashore and handed the little one to a lady who was standing near, the immense crowd surged about him and made the air ring with cheers. Three hours after this Mr. Gault, still drenched from his heroic battle with the flood, again leaped into the water at Harrison and Gay streets, and in the presence of fully 500 persons rescued John Steigel, after the latter had almost choked the brave officer to death. In the summer of 1870 Detective Gault gained much praise by his clever capture of a pickpocket in this city. One of the officials at the Union depot had put his aunt, an elderly lady, and her daughter on board a train. They were going to Hartford, Connecticut. Before the train left the Union depot a well-dressed gentleman who was sitting in a seat behind them, with much politeness assisted the ladies in disposing of their baggage, etc. As soon as they were comfortably seated he left the car, telling them that he was going into the " smoker " and would return. At that time it was customary for the trains from the Union depot to stop at Bay View junction to take on the cars that had come up from the President street station. Before they reached the junction the conductor went through the train collecting the tickets. Then the old lady suddenly discovered that her pocket-book, containing the tickets for herself and her daughter and about $20 in bills was missing. She supposed she must have lost it, and returned to the Union depot much chagrined with the next train. When she told her nephew about the polite gentleman who had assisted her with her packages the young man at once suspected that the " gentleman " had stolen the pocket-book. He reported the facts to the police headquarters. Detective Gault was assigned to look into the case. When he learned that the pocket-book contained two Hartford tickets, heat once determined to watch the "scalpers'' offices, suspecting that the thief would try to sell the tickets. As the detective was loitering along Baltimore street in the neighborhood where the "scalpers' " shops are located, he noticed a man answering the description given by the ladies of the polite stranger walking along scanning the signs in front of the ticketmen's offices. Finally he walked into Mr. Spicer's, at the corner of Baltimore and St. Paul streets. After waiting; a few moments for the fellow to open negotiations the detective entered and said: " I want to buy a ticket for Hartford, Connecticut." The man turned towards him and remarked: " I have what you want. What'll you give for it ?" Then began considerable dickering over the price. Finally, the man turning to Gault, said sharply: "Well, don't you want the ticket?" "Yes, " retorted the officer, " I want the ticket and I want you, too." The man started back in amazement at first, and then laughed. " Well, what a chump I am !" he exclaimed. That's so," said Gault; "you've been netted by the police again." The two went to the Central station, where the ladies were sitting. As the officer and his prisoner entered the old lady turned to her daughter and said : " Why, Annie, there is the gentleman who was so kind and polite to us while on the train. I wonder what he can be doing here." " This is the gentleman, ladies," replied Gault, " who relieved you of your pocketbook this morning." John Elbright was about twelve years ago one of the most prominent manufacturers of rubber goods in New York. His family consisted of his wife and one daughter, whom he loved with an affection so deep that it was frequently remarked by his many friends. The daughter had some little money in her own right. Mr. Elbright was worth nearly a million of dollars. Christine, Miss Elbright's given name, was of impetuous nature, quick to take affront at the slightest occasion, and more than ready to do things for which she was quickly sorry. One morning at breakfast something did not please her and she spoke sharply to her mother, who, quite as quick-tempered as her daughter, turned in her chair and boxed the young girl's ears. Christine said nothing. An ominous frown gathered on her forehead; she bit her lips until the blood trickled from them. Then, with an impulsive movement, she arose from her seat, and leaving her mother without a word of explanation rushed upstairs. Hours passed. Christine did not appear. The night approached and with supper time came Mr. Elbright home again. "Why, where's Christine?" he inquired. His wife told him of the morning quarrel, and suggested that Christine was probably in her room pouting. Up rushed the father, and after knocking at his daughter's door and receiving no answer, threw it open. Christine was gone! But she had left woeful traces behind. Upon her dressing table rested her magnificent black hair, which she had sheared off close to her head. That was all. No letter, nothing to indicate in what direction she had gone or when she would return. She was gone without trace. A considerable sum of money which she had in her room and all her jewelry she took with her. The father fell in a swoon. Mrs. Elbright was attacked by brain fever and her life despaired of. John Elbright's life was a ruined one. Detectives were employed and sent to all parts of the country to find some trace of the missing one. Every hour of delay seemed days to the bereaved family. But it was of no use. Money could not find the object of two parents' love. All hope of ever finding her was lost. It was while in this despairing mood that Mr. Elbright visited Baltimore on business, He had promised his wife to devote all of his time to the search for Christine; that he would not return home without some tidings of her. He visited a merchant friend of his during his stay in Baltimore, and told his pitiable story. "Why, Elbright," was his friend's exclamation, "I've got the very man you want. He'll find her if she's on top of the ground." The merchant was a believer in Mr. Gault, and the young policeman was sent for. Again Mr. Elbright recited his tale, his narration broken by sobs. Mr. Gault, too, appreciated the parent's agony, but that did not deter him from questioning the sorrow-stricken father with great care. At last he discovered that in Christine's room was found, with her hair, a time-table, and that part of it having the schedule of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore railway upon it was missing. This was a very small clew, but it was none the less something to begin on. Mr. Gault learned, by further questioning, that Christine had greatly fancied Baltimore, and he immediately came to the conclusion: "Here she is." But it is as hard to find one person in a city of 400,000 inhabitants as a needle in a haystack. He visited all the fashionable boarding-houses in the city, believing that Christine would seek such a home. The search was fruitless. He then turned his attention to the religious institutions. The first one at which he applied was a home under the charge of the Sisters of Charity. The sister superior at once remembered a young woman of Christine's description who had entered the institution and shortly afterward left it to become a governess in the homo of a well-known banker in a fashionable part of the city. The detective found the girl there and brought her to the marshal's office. Meanwhile Mr. Elbright remained in Baltimore. He had offered Mr. Gault $1,000 if he would find his daughter, or at least bring some tidings of her that he might take home, and so save his wife's life. Time hung on his hands, for he counted every hour that lessened the time he still had to prosecute his search. Days went by and no tidings. There seemed to be no hope that his Christine would ever be found. One afternoon he sat in his friend's office. Again and again his daughter's face came before him, smiled into his, cast laughing glances into his eyes, wept with him, teased him, pleaded with him. But, alas! all was but recollection ; the Christine that was. And now where was she ? Perhaps degraded—no, not that; not his pretty Christine—his darling girl. Dead, perhaps, but not that other! But still, where was she ? Had he left any stone unturned to find her; was there the vaguest chance which he had not tried ? He could think of none. Tears filled his eyes, his head sank upon his breast, his weary brain throbbed with the great anxiety to find his child—to save both his wife's life and his own. He had forgotten his surroundings ; he was alone with his thoughts. But hark ! there are footsteps without. His friend's voice is heard: "Hello, Gault! You've got good news, haven't you ? " Hush," Mr. Gault replied. "Where is Mr. Elbright?" "Within here; step in." There was no need to arouse the father. He had heard the conversation. There he sat with his hands stretched out upon the arms of his chair, his teeth clenched, his gaze concentrated upon the doorway through which Mr. Gault entered. " Dead 1" he whispered. "No, " replied the policeman; "she is well, and is at police headquarters. She wants to see you." " Thank God ! Thank—thank !" and the old man fell to the floor in his joy. The good news was too much for him. He had fainted. But joy seldom kills. The aged manufacturer soon recovered his senses. He went to headquarters, and in the Commissioners' private room mot his daughter. They stood gazing at each other a moment, and then, urged by the resistless waves of paternal and filial love, rushed into each other's arms. Then ensued the most pathetic scene ever remembered at police headquarters. So great was the joy of the reunited family that the father and daughter lost strength to stand. The two returned to their home, and the mother's life was saved. A short time after the finding of Christine Mr. Gault received a letter from Mr. Elbright, covering nearly twenty pages of foolscap, in which the latter sought to assure the former of the strength of his gratitude. Tolliver Harris was one of the most desperate negro criminals whoever made Baltimore his abode. He was a man of herculean strength, the most vicious instincts, and endowed with more than ordinary shrewdness and intelligence. Some years ago, while Harris was living in Saluda, Virginia, he assaulted a young woman, and only escaped lynching by being sentenced to be hanged. But bolts and bars of the ordinary kind could not restrain Tolliver. His ingenuity came into play, and one night, while the keepers were congratulating themselves that they would not have long to wait before Tolliver would be out of their keeping the negro was quietly making his way out of the prison and securing his freedom. There was great excitement in Saluda the following morning, when the citizens found that the law had been cheated of its victim. Circulars describing the ruffian were sent into every part of the country, but without any result. Tolliver's shrewdness made him disguise himself so effectually that none but persons who were familiar with his habits would have recognized him. He finally came to Baltimore and lived here for some time without being suspected of the crimes of which he was guilty. It was not less than two years after his arrest that the chief of police of Saluda wrote to the marshal of police of this city, informing him that Tolliver Harris was living here in comparative security. The negro's crime was so diabolical, and his record so notorious, that the police were aroused into most determined energy. The marshal of police gave the case to Mr. Gault, and told him to see what he could do with it. Tolliver, it was known, would fight, and would sell his life dearly if it was necessary. Mr. Gault had already established his reputation as a man who, when he went after anything, seldom returned without it, and so considerable interest was manifested in the department regarding the outcome. It was very hard work to obtain in any sense a satisfactory clue regarding Tolliver's whereabouts. It was simply known that he was in Baltimore. Finally, Mr. Gault " located" him in the " Brick Yard," a section of the city inhabited at that time by the most degraded negroes. One particularly unpleasant night in January, while the rain was falling in torrents, Mr. Gault and another officer set out on their quest. When they arrived at a place near which Tolliver lived, Mr. Gault began to make inquiries. But these questions were without much result until he found a little pickaninny, whom he asked: " Does a lady named Mrs. Harris live about here ? " Oh, yaas, sah," was the reply. " She lib right ober yender." " And is her husband's name Tolliver?" " Oh, yaas, sah, dat are hees name, sah," was the cheering reply. " Is he in, do you know ?" " No, sah; he down among de canaal hoats, sah. ' He working de coal." Here was a pleasant predicament for Mr. Gault. He was with his companion, the only white man within a radius of many squares. It is true that they were both heavily armed, but what effect would that fact have upon a thousand maddened negroes, who would assemble about them when they discovered the policemen's intentions. The officers had nothing to do, however, save to stand without in the blinding storm and wait for Tolliver's return. This they did for nearly two hours, and succeeded in getting chilled through. Finally, Mr. Gault said: " I'm going into Tolliver's house and wait for him. A tussle out here in the lot wouldn't be pleasant." Mr. Gault knocked on the door, and asked if Mr. Tolliver Harris was in. The woman who appeared said that her husband had not arrived home, but that she expected him almost every minute. What was the gentleman's business, and would he kindly come in ? Yes, Mr. Gault would come in. And then he perverted the truth in this wise : " I'm down in the Custom House, and came up this way to make a speech at a colored men's meeting near here. I've heard of Tolliver, and I called in with my brother here (indicating his companion) to get Tolliver to receive a half boat-load of coal for me at my house, and to fix a bin that I've got in my cellar." " Reckon he'll do it," said the woman. The officers remained in the ruffian's house fully half an hour before there was any evidence of Tolliver's returning. All this time Mr. Gault passed in telling of his friendship for the negro race, and rehearsing part of the speech which he said he was about to deliver. Suddenly the woman exclaimed : " There they come !" "Who ?" inquired Mr. Gault, with considerable anxiety, as it would be a serious predicament for him to be in if Tolliver should appear with a gang and discover who his visitors were. "Why, Tolliver and his brother," was the reply. And sure enough two big negroes entered the room. Either one of them was physically a match for both of the detectives. But nothing daunted, Mr. Gault arose and said, before Tolliver had a chance to think anything about the call, what he had already told Mrs. Harris, adding, however, that he wanted him (Tolliver) to come right around to his house, as the meeting would not wait for him. " Take your brother with you, Tolliver," Mr. Gault suggested. It was necessary for the officers to get the negroes away from the neighborhood of their house, because if there was any rough work to be done the noise of the struggle or the reports of the pistols would alarm the whole neighborhood, and the policemen would never leave the place alive. Tolliver seemed contented to leave the house with his brother, and so started out. The four men chatted together on their way down town, but the officers could not in any way persuade the negroes to walk in front of them. Finally the party got down nearly to Baltimore street, in the more frequented part of the city. The negroes were very close behind the officers, and Mr. Gault turned suddenly, grabbed at Tolliver, but the negro leaped aside towards the street, where he ran into a horse and knocked the animal out into the car-track. Then Tolliver ran like a deer up the street. Bang, bang, went the officers' revolvers, and Mr. Gault and his companion pursued. But it was hard to " wing" Tolliver. On, on he went, gradually increasing his distance until, as luck had it, the fugitive tumbled upon a gutter covering, and before he had regained his feet Mr. Gault was upon him using the butt of his revolver as a club. Mr. Gault hammered the negro's head until it was a mass of blood, and after a terrible struggle, in which both the prisoner and his captor were nearly exhausted, got the handcuffs on the captive. As Mr. Gault did this he turned and saw Tolliver's brother standing by looking on. "What are you doing there ? " the officer shouted, presenting his revolver and firing three shots over the darkey's head. Harris never answered, but started on a lope down the street, every now and then turning his affrighted face over his shoulder to see if Mr. Gault was following. He did not stop until he got home, and then he rushed in carrying the door with him. After several struggles with his prisoner, Mr. Gault got him to the Central station. Tolliver was sent back to Saluda, where he is now serving a term of 25 years, to which his death sentence was afterward commuted. Mr. Gault had an exceedingly exciting experience in 1876. 

In August of that year the citizens of Frederick City, Md., and the farmers in the vicinity, complained to the Governor that householders and respectable persons of all classes were held in the most abject terror by a gang of ruffians which made Sugarloaf Mountain its rendezvous. These complaints multiplied daily, until one morning the entire county was aroused by a dastardly crime committed by two members of the gang, Scot Andrews and Charles Nichols. These men ravished a mountain girl of great beauty, and left her on the side of the Sugarloaf for dead. This crime was the climax. Governor Carroll called the attention of the Baltimore police to it, and Marshal Gray detailed Detective Gault to find the men and arrest them. The search was a long and dangerous one. The criminals were leaders of as desperate a gang as ever dwelt in the Maryland mountains. Eut Mr. Gault was sent to get them, and he no more turned back than a sleuth-hound does when after his quarry. He followed these men, accumulating evidence against them all the while, through Maryland and Ohio, and finally into the mountain districts of the latter State. He at last located them in a place named Black Creek. It was a mere hamlet, consisting of a few houses, one or two stores, a tavern, and a flag pole. This place Mr. Gault entered as a " drummer." He announced to the assembled villagers that he had a fine stock of Irish linens and plaids, and that he was prepared to sell them cheap. The appearance of a "drummer" had never occurred before in Black Creek, and the hamlet immediately began to assume the importance of a commercial center. But while the villagers were discs cussing the great mercantile significance of Mr. Gault's visit, the latter was closeted with the sheriff, showing him his credentials as a detective, and asking for assistance in arresting the offenders. The sheriff assigned one deputy to the duty of helping Mr. Gault. It was then the detective's duty to ascertain where the criminals were, what their surroundings were, and the probable trouble he would experience in arresting them. These bits of information he was not long in securing, and not one of them was encouraging. They all pointed to the certainty of having an extremely hard time of it. But with the deputy sheriff, an officer who had accompanied him from Baltimore, and a guide, he sallied forth. The house in which the men lived was situated on the summit of a mountain, in the center of a small clearing. The men who owned the house had the reputation of being moonshiners, among other accomplishments, and had acquired by long and uninterrupted industry the reputation of being particularly bad men. It was nearly dinner hour. Soon a woman made her appearance before the house, and presenting a great cow's horn, blew a blast that aroused all the echoes for miles around. It was the summons to dinner. In groups of two and three the mountaineers could be seen approaching the house. " Which are the strangers, Sam ?" Mr. Gault inquired of the guide. " There they be," was the reply as two stalwart young fellows came out of the forest. "Ah !" ejaculated Mr. Gault, meditatively as he felt for his revolvers. It was no use for him to try to persuade the deputy sheriff or guide to accompany him into the house to arrest the men. They said they had families and lived in that section of the country, and if they were killed in any case like this their families would starve. There was nothing left for Mr. Gault to do but to go into the den of criminals alone, and take out of it two men who were giants in stature and extremely desperate. There was no one else to do it. So he stationed his aids at the front and rear of the house, among the forest trees, and then waited himself until the men had all seated themselves at dinner. Then he walked quietly up to the house, threw the doors of the dining room open, and said loudly : " Hello, Scot, how are you! " The larger of the two men leaped to his feet and stammered: " H-h-how are—," and extended his hand toward Mr. Gault, who rushed to him .and snapped the "bracelets" on his wrists. To place another pair on the hands of his companion, Nicols, was the work of a moment, so surprised were they. Then the detective drew his formidable looking weapons, and said to the crowd: " Gentlemen, these are my prisoners, and the people of the State of Maryland want them. I'm going to take them home with me for ravishing a young girl. They are guilty, and they know it." At this a savage looking fellow arose from the head of the table, and said : " Then you ain't a revenue officer? " "No, " was Mr. Gault's reply. "I'm a Baltimore policeman, and I have followed these men all the way from Frederick City, Maryland. I want them for the crime I told you." " Then, by , you shall have them !" came the answer. The prisoners were escorted down to Black Creek, and after some legal matters concerning the extradition papers were attended to, Mr. Gault and his prisoners boarded a train for Frederick City. There they found the militia drawn up in a hollow square to receive them. Andrews and Nicols were subsequently tried, but such was the public terror of the gang to which they belonged, and because during the trial the gang threatened the jurymen with destruction of their property if their verdict was unfavorable to the prisoners, no agreement was reached. In the latter part of June, 1876, a Pole named Joseph Lewandowski robbed one of his countrywomen named Mrs. Lenka, who lived in the lower part of the city, of her life's savings, amounting to between $2,000 and $3,000. Mrs. Lenka notified the police and the marshal placed the matter in the hands of Detective Gault. After a long and persistent search the latter learned that Lewandowski had been living in Detroit, Michigan, dissipating the stolen money. The detective hurried to Detroit, but only to find that his man had changed his residence to the Canadian side of the Detroit river. By means of a decoy letter from a Polish girl whom the thief had betrayed during his stay in Michigan, Lewandowski was enticed on to United States soil and promptly arrested. With his manacled prisoner in charge the Baltimore detective started for home. Lewandowski was quiet and obedient all the first day of the journey and gave no trouble to his captor. On the second day, however, he frequently complained of cramps in the bowels. Detective Gault removed the man's handcuffs whenever he was attacked with pains and accompanied him to the men's toilet-room. He locked the irons in his hand-bag which he kept in the rack over his seat. The detective found himself obliged to do this as the passengers persisted in handling the manacles when he left them on the seat. His pistol was also in the hand-bag. A little before noon he and his prisoner returned from the toilet-room. The detective reached up for the bag to take the irons from it. When he turned again Lewandowski was half-way up the car rushing towards the open door. " Stop him! Stop him!" cried Gault, frantically, as he dashed after the fleeing criminal; but no one moved. The detective reached the platform just as the fellow stooped down and jumped from the car. They were speeding along at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour. Gault called to the conductor, who was sitting at the other end of the car, to stop the train. The latter did so at once, but before they could come to a stand-still, nearly a mile had been put between the detective and his desperate prisoner. Gault started on a run down the track. It was in the midst of the wild mountain country along the border between West Virginia and Ohio. Not a human habitation was in sight. The detective finally came to the spot where the Pole had jumped from the train. The marks in the soft sand showed plainly where the man had fallen; but he had disappeared and there was no trace to indicate what direction he had taken in his flight. On all sides were tall, craggy mountains. Across a narrow marsh which bordered on the track was the mouth of a deep ravine. Believing it most likely that the man would start for this point in trying to make his escape, the detective hazarded the chance and followed in that direction. The ravine finally led up a steep mountain-side. On and on went the pursuer, fording swift-running brooks, dodging under the trunks of fallen trees and climbing over moss-covered rocks, scarcely noticing whither his way led, only scanning the woods eagerly for any trace of the object of his chase. For two long hours the detective pushed onward, and still he found no mark of the fleeing man. At last, having come nearly to the summit of the mountain, he sank worn out and disheartened upon a bank of moss. Deploring his bad luck he was about to turn back from his fruitless chase, when suddenly he noticed on the ground a little way ahead of him a fresh wad of brown tissue paper. The sight made the detective leap from his resting-pace. On the train he had handed Lewandowski a similar wad of paper and the man had put it in his coat pocket. Running on a few rods further Gault reached a small rocky plateau, the very summit of the mountain. Below there stretched out a beautiful green valley. The instant the detective glanced down over the scene his eye fell on the form of a man walking across a small clearing by the side of a brook, almost a mile away. Gault recognized Lewandowski at once. The latter saw his pursuer at the same moment, and tearing off his boots and coat ran like a deer. The detective tumbled rather than ran down the steep mountain-side. Finally he reached the spot where he had seen his prisoner. The man's coat and boots lay upon the ground where he had thrown them, but there were no signs of footprints visible. Following up the direction which he had seen the man take, the detective was just about passing by the mouth of a second ravine, when in a muddy place he spied the tracks of a man's bare feet. With renewed hope he ran on through the ravine, finally coming out upon a railroad track at the other end of it, where a gang of men were at work. They stood loaning against their picks and shovels and looking down the track as if something unusual had just attracted their attention. Gault called out to them asking if they had seen anybody running in that direction'( "Yes, a barefooted man just ran into the woods down there," replied the foreman of the gang. " What's the matter ?" " He has murdered a man, and there is a $1,000 reward for his arrest," replied the detective, breathlessly, hoping to induce some of the laborers to aid him in the chase by exciting their cupidity. But the ruse was of no avail. Gault was obliged to keep up the pursuit alone. After going about three-quarters of a mile further he came to a farm-house. The farmer stood in the yard with a hoe over his shoulder. On the porch a young woman lay screaming hysterically, while two other women were endeavoring to calm her. The farmer, in reply to inquiries, told Gault that a man had rushed through his house a few moments before, knocking down furniture and frightening his daughter into a spasm. They thought the fellow was mad. He had run through the farm-yard and up the mountain in the rear. The farmer could not be induced to join in the chase, so the detective was again obliged to continue alone. He forged his way up the side of the mountain, which was wet from recent rains. The criminal's foot-prints were plainly visible. When he had gone about a quarter of a mile the detective heard the cracking of a twig, and looking ahead of him he saw Lewandowski standing behind a large tree. The man was panting for breath. The perspiration was rolling from his body. His eyes protruded from their sockets and gave his livid countenance a frightful appearance. For several seconds the two men stood facing each other, both trying to recover breath for the terrible struggle that was about to ensue. The Pole was stout and muscular, but the detective though a much smaller man was in better condition. The silence was broken by the latter. "Come down here and surrender," he shouted, "or I'll blow your brains out!" And Gault reached around as if to draw his pistol, although he knew he had no weapon with him. The maddened criminal made some reply in his own tongue and rushed at the detective. The two men clinched. Down the hill-side they rolled together, struggling desperately all the time, into a puddle of soft mire. Finally Gault by his superior knowledge of wrestling succeeded in getting on top and forced the prisoner's face deep into the mud. Being unable to breathe, the man's struggles soon ceased, and when the detective lifted him up he was in a condition of semi-consciousness. When he could speak again he agreed to surrender and was led to the farm-house, where his captor tied his elbows together behind his back. A small flag-station of the railroad was nearby, and within an hour the detective and his prisoner were again on their way to Baltimore.

As they boarded the train the men were in a most painful condition. They were covered with blood and mire and their clothing was in shreds. Gault had left his ticket and his money in his satchel on the other train, and not being able to pay the fares, the conductor was on the point of putting the two off the train when a gentleman who knew the detective happened along and lifted him out of his dilemma. At Grafton Mr. Gault recovered his satchel, which had been left there by the conductor of the other train. The two men arrived in Baltimore the following morning. The news of Lewandowski's escape had been telegraphed on the night before and the Marshal expected to receive Gault without his prisoner. He was no less surprised than gratified, therefore, at seeing the detective enter the office in company with the Pole. Gault's own right arm was in a sling, and two of his fingers were broken. Lewandowski pleaded guilty of robbing Mrs. Lenka and was sentenced to five years imprisonment in the Maryland penitentiary. Mr. Gault's experiences have been so many that there is not space enough in a brief biographical notice to give any but the briefest of them. There have been very few important cases in the detective department during the last ten years in which he has not figured very prominently. As an evidence of what his superiors think of his ability, it is only necessary to say that he has at present the most important regular assignment of any man in the squad. He is detailed to guard the banks and moneyed institutions of the city. Detective George W. Seibold was born in Saratoga street, near Fremont street, on February 15, 1839. He received his early education in the public schools of this city. As a young man he was employed in various businesses until 1863, when on July 28, he received an appointment as patrolman in the Western district, the headquarters of which was then the old Greene street station. On December 8, 1864, he was made a sergeant, and the following winter, on December 13, was promoted to be lieutenant. He served in that capacity until April 23, 1867, when the force was reorganized. The new commissioners appointed him a reserve officer and acting clerk at the Western district station, under his former captain, "William II. Cassell, who was reappointed. On March 23, 1874, he received a commission as a patrol sergeant, which position he held until he joined the detective squad, on September 6, 1881, taking the place of William C. Crone, who resigned. On January 14, 1871, when a reserve officer under Captain Cassell, Mr. Seibold arrested "Dr. " Ernest Schaar, a notorious confidence man and swindler, whose victims were generally poor persons. His method was to go to some German grocer, and showing a lot of receipts and papers, say that he had a small quantity of tea, coffee, or sugar in a warehouse in the business portion of the city. It was, he would explain, the remnant of a large stock which he had just closed out. He would bargain with the grocer to sell the goods at a sacrifice, and would induce him to send his wife or a boy with a basket to get the stuff, telling the man to give them the money to pay him. He would then conduct the boy or woman to the alleged warehouse, which was always situated on the corner of two streets, so as to have a side entrance. Arriving at the place, he would tell his victim to give him the money and wait for him on the sidewalk till he brought down the goods. Then he would go into the office of the warehouse, and after asking a question or two of some clerk, slip out of the side entrance to the building and disappear. The charge upon which Schaar was arrested by Officer Seibold was preferred by John Schutte, a shopkeeper in the eastern part of the city, from whom Schaar got ten dollars in the manner described. The swindler was convicted and sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment in the Maryland penitentiary. On August 24, 1872, Detective Seibold, who was then patrol sergeant at the Western Station, arrested John Connell, alias William Baldwin, a clever burglar, whose portrait adorns the rogues' galleries of many cities. He was charged with breaking into and robbing the dwellings of Messrs. George Biscoe and Lewis M. Cole, near Woodbury, Baltimore County. Connell was convicted at Towsontown and sent to the penitentiary for five years from March 10, 1873. He was again arrested on February 12, 1883, by Detectives Seibold and Droste, charged with robbing the dwelling of Mrs. Olivia Kimberly, on Calhoun street, and four other houses on Hollins street. He pleaded guilty, and was again sentenced to the Maryland penitentiary for five years. Connell always worked alone. The silverware, clothing, etc., that he stole from the houses on Hollins street he hid in the cellar of a vacant building in the same row. The detectives arrested him while he was at supper in an eating-house near the Broadway Market. In the early summer of 1874, the residences of Andrew Reid at No. 75 Mount Vernon Place, and Mrs. C. 0. Bassford, at No. 313 Park avenue, were entered, the thief carrying away large quantities of clothing, jewelry, etc. Sergeant Seibold arrested William H. Dorsoy, colored, on suspicion of being the burglar. When searched Dorsey was found to have some of the stolen articles on his person, and other stolen articles were recovered from where he had secreted them. He was convicted and sentenced to the Maryland penitentiary for five years and four months, from October, 1874. He was arrested on July 13. The long time which elapsed between his arrest and his trial was caused by the obstructions which the man's counsel put in the way of the prosecuting officers. A removal of the case to another county was demanded, and the trial took place in Baltimore county. This was not the first time Mr. Seibold arrested Dorsey. In October, 1869, the policeman, with Sergeant Cadwallader, now captain of the Western district, arrested him and another negro burglar, named Wilson, for entering the dwellings of J. R. Clark, Thomas II. Folsom, Leander Warren, Mrs. Theodore Appold, and others, and stealing more than $3,000 worth of goods. Dorsey turned State's evidence at his trial and escaped punishment. His father then sent him to Navassa Island. On his return in 1874, he again began to commit the burglaries which ended in his arrest. Sergeant Seibold, in company with officer Connery. of the Northwestern district, on November 17, 187G, arrested William Jennis, colored, alias Brooks, alias Joe Russell, a notorious burglar and sneak, who was charged with burglariously entering the dwellings of Mr. P. E. Kent, No. 85 North Carey street; Mr. Moses Kahn, No. 26G West Fayette street; H. R. Williar, North Carey street, and others, and stealing money, silverware, jewelery, clothing, etc. He was tried and convicted in the Criminal Court of Baltimore, and sentenced to the penitentiary for six years, from January 27, 1877. Jennis was arrested also on February 20, 1874, for robbing the dwelling of Mr. George W. Flack, No. 142 Mulberry street. He then gave the name of Joseph Russel. He was sent to the penitentiary for one year. This man worked alone, and invariably entered a dwelling house from the rear by climbing sheds, porches or lattice work to the second story window, while the family was below at supper. He always used the old fashioned blue head sulphur matches, which were found plentifully strewn about the floors, in the bureau drawers, etc. His work was frequently identified by these matches. About six months after his last release from prison, he went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and robbed several houses there. He was caught, tried, and sent to Cherry Hill prison for twelve years. Shortly after his appointment as a detective, Mr. Seibold became officially connected with the sensational case of Harriet Dennis, alias a score of other names, the colored female Fagin whose villanies caused so much horror in this city when they were discovered, in November, 1881. Harriet Dennis was a repulsive looking negress, about forty years of age. She was in the habit of answering advertisements inserted in the newspapers for cooks. She had a little girl with her which lent her an appearance of respectability, and usually aided her in securing situations. As soon as she was installed in a place she would locate the money and valuables in the house and remain long enough to get an opportunity to steal them. She would then hastily decamp and disappear from the city, turning up some weeks afterward with a new name, and repeat her operation in some other house. The little girl she used as a spy to find out the location of the valuables, and afterward as a guard to warn her if anybody should approach while she was engaged in the stealing. This woman continued her depredations in the city and in Baltimore county for two years before she was finally captured. At last, on November 6, 1881, Mr. Samuel Rosenthal made a complaint that his house had been robbed of a watch and chain and other articles, and at the same time a new colored cook whom his wife had engaged the previous day had disappeared. Detectives Seibold and Gault were assigned to the case. They came to the conclusion that the colored cook was Harriet Dennis, notwithstanding the fact that this time she had no child with her. Being led to suspect from several circumstances that the negress would attempt to pawn the stolen articles at a certain pawnbroker's office, Detective Seibold went to the place and disguising himself as a clerk there, waited for developments. They were not long in transpiring, for on the following morning the looked-for negress appeared with the watch and chain. The detective waited on the thief, and she showed him a note purporting to come from a woman on Raborg street, asking for a loan of §20 on the property. Recognizing the watch as the one belonging to Mr. Rosenthal, Detective Seibold arrested the negress. On finding herself captured at last, she broke into loud and violent lamentations. She was conducted to the marshal's office and searched. Among; other things found on her person was a fetich bag, or " lucky bag," as she called it, a small leathern pouch filled with herbs, small pieces of bones, fragments of leaves, etc. When this was taken from her the woman burst into violent weeping again and begged piteously to have it returned to her. She admitted that she was the person who had committed so many robberies within the previous two years. When asked where the little girl was who had accompanied her on previous occasions, the woman stubbornly refused to answer. She admitted, however, that the child was not her daughter, but asserted that the little one was an orphan who had been given to her to care for. The detectives having captured the woman, were determined to complete their undertaking, and finding a clew to the place where she was in the habit of taking refuge after having committed a theft, they went thither and learned that the girl was living with a respectable family in Greene street, near Lombard street, in this city. At this dwelling the girl was discovered and taken to police headquarters, where she described in detail the actions of the woman. Among other things she said that Dennis had had her arrested on Christmas eve of the previous year on the charge of stealing a dollar, and sent to Towsontown jail, so as to prevent her from exposing the thefts, as she had threatened to. The girl had by that time become old enough to understand the criminality of the deeds, and she had refused to participate in them any longer. As it was proved that the woman had put the money on the girl for the purpose of convicting her, the prisoner was released. The girl then said that the woman was not her mother, and had stolen her from her parents and taught her to steal. The police records were searched and a clew obtained which finally led to the reuniting of the girl and her parents. It was discovered that on January 20, 1873, nearly eight years previously, Ida Reilly, aged seven years, daughter of John and Victoria Reilly, colored, had been kidnapped from her parents' house on the Philadelphia road, by, it was supposed, a colored woman who lived next door, and who had disappeared at the same time, leaving her husband behind her. The parents of the child had advertised for their missing daughter, and searched everywhere without success, though in one instance the woman came near being detected by a piece of dress pattern which she had left at her home. The parents, who had given up all hope of ever finding their child, were taken before the girl. The moment the mother, father, and daughter were brought into each other's presence a striking resemblance was noticeable. They gazed at one another, trembling in every limb, and as each point of recognition, such as a mark on the girl's throat, and her recollection of past scenes and incidents were brought out, the father and mother gave utterances to their feelings in illiterate, but pathetic exclamations, while the little one cried and shook with joy. To establish the child's identity beyond dispute, all three persons were taken before the woman Dennis, who confessed having stolen the girl, and corroborated all that she had asserted concerning her parents, and Mr. and Mrs. Reilly returned home overcome with joy, taking their daughter with them. The woman Dennis was tried and convicted of stealing Mr. Rosenthal's watch, and Judge Pinckney sentenced her to four years imprisonment in the penitentiary. On January 19, 1882, Detective Seibold captured August Schumann alias Walters, alias Miller, alias Brennan. The story of his career is exceedingly interesting. He was born in Germany in 1821, of a wealthy and respected Bavarian family living in Berlin. He studied for the priesthood. Like many other young German students, whether ecclesiastical or otherwise, his habits became dissolute. One time as a favor to one of the professors of his university, who was ill, he went with a large draft to a bank and cashed it, returning the money to its owner. Noticing how readily the bank paid the money to him, he forged another draft a few days later for a still larger amount. The bank cashed it without question, and the young man sailed for America. Here he became acquainted with a large number of priests and lived for many months upon the hospitality of the pastors of various Catholic churches, usually departing only after cleverly swindling his benefactors out of a sum of money, larger or smaller, as the opportunity offered. He traveled in this way nearly all over the United States, and accumulated a, small fortune before he was caught and sentenced to a short term in prison for a small offence in Wisconsin. Upon his release he made a long tour through South and Central America, and finally went to Australia. In Sydney, N. S. W., he was convicted of swindling and sentenced to five years imprisonment. After serving this term he returned to the United States. His second career here was not so successful as his first, for he was caught several times and suffered a number of sentences of from one to three years before he came to Baltimore, where Detective Seibold captured him. In December, 1882, he gained the confidence of Father Zeigler of Saint Alphonsus' church, and left a number of papers and bogus checks in the priest's hands. On December 23, he appeared at the priest's house and said that he was pressed for money. It being after banking hours the priest saw no harm in cashing a check for §400, and did so without any hesitation. On the following day when he presented the check for payment, the reverend gentleman was amazed to learn that it was worthless. The authorities were notified, but Schumann was no where to be found, so quiet was his actions, until the middle of January following. On the fifteenth of that month, he called upon Father Danenhower, of St. James' Catholic church, and requested him to cash several checks. The priest pursuaded Schumann to leave the papers, which he did. The former then immediately went to the banking house of Messrs. Nicholson & Sons, where his suspicions that the checks were worthless were verified. The police authorities were notified at once. Detective Seibold was detailed upon the case. After a diligent search of three days he found the man in a house in Hanover street. Schumann was convicted on the charge of obtaining $400 from Father Ziegler and sentenced to two years imprisonment. His portrait has graced Baltimore's rogues' gallery for many years. During the years 1882 and 1883 Mr. Cowman, of the drygoods firm of M. Cowman & Co., was annoyed by having his store robbed at short intervals of small sums of money. These robberies, he discovered, after they had continued for some time, always took place at night, and the money was usually abstracted from a tin box which was kept under the regular money-drawer. He suspected all of his employees in turn, until he satisfied himself of each one's innocence. The peculiar feature was that although the doors of the shop, having been locked securely at night, were always found undisturbed the next morning, the peculations continued with unbroken regularity. Sometimes not more than $3 would be taken, at other times as much as $ 10. Mr. Cowman at last called upon the police for help. Detective Seibold was detailed upon the case. For some nights he and Mr. Cowman watched the entrance to the store from a position on the opposite side of the street. No one was seen to enter, still it was found that money had been stolen. At last the detective asked to be locked up alone in the store. This was done by Mr. Cowman after all the employees had left in the evening. At half-past ten o'clock, while he was sitting in the back part of the shop without any light other than that which shone in from an electric lamp on the opposite side of the street, detective Seibold heard a noise in a rear room. A few moments afterward the transom over the door just above the officer's head was opened, and the woolly skull of a young negro appeared. An instant later his body came through the opening and the fellow let himself drop softly down upon the floor. Although it was almost quite dark in the place at the time, the negro noticed a shadow where the detective was sitting. He turned to advance that way when Mr. Seibold sprang at his throat, wrenching it so as to render him unconscious for a few moments. The " nippers" were on the burglar's wrists before he recovered his senses. Dragging his prisoner to the front of the store, Detective Seibold rapped on the glass of the front door and Mr. Cowman unlocked it for him. The negro turned out to be James Gates, who had been employed by Cowman & Co. about two years previously. He confessed that he had been getting through a small window in the rear of the establishment ever since he was discharged, by going up a small alley back of the store. Gates was convicted and sentenced to two years and six months imprisonment in the penitentiary. Detective Seibold went to New York city on May 26, 1884, and in company with Detective Thomas F. Adams, of Inspector Byrnes' staff, arrested August Lydecker alias George Kline, the confidence man and swindler, who was charged with obtaining a gold watch and chain valued at $75, by means of a worthless check passed on Mr. Charles F. Wagler, thejeweler in West Pratt street. Lydecker was brought back on a requisition. In the autumn of 1886, after being released, Lydecker remained in Baltimore until December 1, when he went to New York city, and on February 15, 1887, he went to Tiffany's jewelry store, and representing himself as a nephew of the Rev. Dr. Sayle, and upon presenting a forged letter of credit, obtained a valuable gold watch and chain, was caught almost immediately near the store by a special officer employed by the firm. He was convicted and sent to Sing Sing prison for eight years. Lydecker on one occasion went to a prominent undertaker in Broadway, New York, in great distress and said that a particular friend of his had died, and that he wanted him huried as nicely as he could afford. He selected a casket and gave the undertaker the number of the house in which the dead man was lying. Then telling the undertaker to make out the bill, which was $55, he gave him a check for $75, getting $20 change. When the undertaker went to deliver the casket, he found that there was no dead man in the house.

On February 15, 1887, Detective Seibold accomplished a very clever piece of work and made an important arrest in Ellicott City. On the Saturday night before the arrest, the dwelling of Mr. Isaac Strassburger, in Main street, Ellicott City, was entered during the absence of the family. The thief broke open a trunk containing a pocketbook in which was $200, made up of one $100 bill, four $20 bills, two $5 bills and $10 in silver. Chief of Police Vansant considered the robbery a very mysterious one. Captain of detectives Freburger, in this city, was applied to for assistance. He detailed Detective Seibold to cover the case. After consulting with the Ellicott City chief of police, the detective learned that suspicion pointed to a colored woman named Lizzie Johnston. The woman was known as a shrewd negress who, up to a month previously, had been a domestic in Mr. Strassburger's family. She lived about half a mile from the city. Detective Seibold disguised himself as a peddler, obtaining the outfit from a " fakir " who had been arrested a few days before in Ellicott City. Providing himself with a small tin trunk which contained spectacles, suspenders and a few cheap watches, Detective Seibold started out to ply his new vocation. The woman Johnston was leaning out of the window when the detective rapped at a door several houses above, and waited until he came to her door, and after long dickering bought a silver watch for $6. " Can you change a note, sir?" asked the woman, " If not too large, madam," replied the peddler. The woman went into the basement, and after remaining ten minutes returned and gave the detective a new crisp $100 bill, which she said was $10. Giving her $4 change the detective left. Being satisfied that he had found the guilty party, he reported the fact to State's Attorney Joseph Maguire and Chief of Police Vansant. A search warrant was obtained and the woman was put under arrest. In the cellar of the house about $70 of the remaining money was recovered. This included three of the $20 bills and most of the silver coins. Having completed his work Detective Seibold returned to Baltimore covered with glory. The newspapers contained detailed accounts of his adventure and he was loaded with congratulations.

Detective Seibold while an officer in the old Western district made many important arrests in connection with sergeant, now captain, Cadwallader. The district at that time included what are at present the Northwestern and the Southwestern districts. Mr. Seibold is well versed in the German language, and this fact has been of the greatest importance to him in his career as a detective.

In the midst of the fertile agricultural lands of Howard county, Maryland, lie the well cultivated acres of farmer John W. Rhine. The old white farm-house, covered with running rose-vines and trumpet creeper, is half hidden from the broad Marriettsville turnpike, near which it stands, by a row of thick boughed young maples that line the road in front of the door yard. The 26th of April, 1886, had been a bright, warm, spring day, and Mr. Rhine and his two hired men, wearied after long hours of labor in the fields, retired to bed as soon as they finished their evening chores. A feeling of well-earned satisfaction filled the breast of the thrifty farmer as he closed the doors of his trim barn and granary, and glancing through the small windows saw his eight well-fed horses contentedly munching their evening oats. The moon was just rising over the distant hills into the starlit heavens when the last light in the farm-house was extinguished. All was still save for the merry chirrup of the crickets. The big black Newfoundland watch dog had buried his nose between his paws on the front porch after having made a final tour about the yard, when a sinister visaged old man with white hair and a stubby gray moustache clambered stiffly over a stone wall on the opposite side of the road and made his way silently toward the shadow of the budding maple trees. The man had a peculiar limping gait, and his clothing, as shown in the bright moonlight, was old and patched, like that of an ordinary farm hand. As he shuffled stealthily along under the trees the big dog came out to meet him. It was evident that the animal knew the man, for he did not bark at him, but walked along wagging his bushy tail and looking up into the old man's face in a manner that might have indicated surprise or wonderment on the part of the intelligent brute. At the entrance to the farm yard, a few rods beyond the house, the man stooped and caressed the dog for a moment. Then snapping his fingers for the animal to follow, he led him to a kennel close by. Suspicious, yet obedient, the dog allowed himself to be chained there, and then lay down quietly, as the old man left him and walked toward the barn. Passing around to the rear entrance he poked a stick up through a knot-hole in one of the boards, and lifting the latch on the inside, opened the door without a noise. A moment later the sound of horses' hoofs as they sprang to their feet in their stalls was heard, and then all was quiet again until the old man reappeared leading a large heavily built bay mare out into the barn yard. He walked the animal around to the door of the granary, where he tied her to a ring in the side of the building. Then by poking a stick through a knot-hole in the door, as before, he entered the granary. The sound of horses' hoofs was again heard, and in a few minutes the old man again reappeared leading a neat limbed young colt, across the back of which a blanket was strapped with a surcingle. Fastening the colt to the same ring to which he had tied the big mare, he loosened the latter and led her into the granary, where he left her.

Then taking the docile colt by its headstall, the man made his way around the barn and down to the road, only stopping to speak a few low, pacifying words to the Newfoundland dog, which, at the sight of the colt, had begun to tug at his chain and growl. A short distance down the road the man again tied the colt and returned to the barn and granary, in each of which he remained for several minutes. When he left he did so hastily, looking cautiously about him, and then hobbling diagonally across the adjoining newly planted cornfield to the spot where he had left the colt. The animal suffered itself to be led close up to the stone wall, from which the old man clambered upon its back. They then disappeared quickly down the road. It had grown late, and some young farmers, a few minutes afterwards, were returning along the turnpike towards Carroll's Manor on their way home from a rural entertainment. They

had passed by the thrifty looking farm-yard and were speaking, perhaps somewhat enviously, of farmer Rhine's well filled barn and granary, when suddenly a bright light burst out about them. Each man wheeled in his tracks as if moved by the same instinct. The entire roof of John Rhine's great barn was a mass of red, leaping flames.

"Fire ! Fire!" shouted the young men, as they ran back in the direction of the conflagration. When they drew nearer they saw that the granary was also in flames. They were too late to save anything. The fire fiend raged in complete control of his prey. It was impossible to approach either building. Both were burning fiercely from within. Farmer Rhine and his family, suddenly awakened by the roar of the flames, stood helplessly by in scanty clothing as they saw the results of years of toil and economy wither away in the consuming fire. The hired men at first hurried to dash pails of water through the windows of the building, but it was a hopeless task, and the heat, too, grew so intense that they were driven away. Half dressed neighbors from adjoining farms began to hurry toward Mr. Rhine's house. They offered what words of consolation they could, but in the intensity of his grief he scarcely heard them. The roar of the flames increased as the roofs of the buildings began to cave in. Burning brands flew high into the air and floated away in the great column of brown smoke, till they became scarcely distinguishable from the stars. Then the floors of both the barn and the granary fell through. The heavy mowing machine, which was standing on the barn floor, was heard as it fell upon a new light buggy that had been put in the basement of the building the previous day. One of the great doors burned from its hinges at the top, fell over, and the unfortunate horses were seen still struggling in their horrible agony. In the granary there were three horses. Some boards being burned away at the top fell outward, and showed the poor animals here also kicking and writhing in mortal pain.

The holocaust was soon over, and the neighbors with parting words of sympathy dispersed to their homes. They had done nothing. They could do nothing. Leaving one of the hired men to keep watch, Mr. Rhine and the family sadly returned to their beds to get what needed sleep they could. Meanwhile the old man had ridden the colt rapidly in the direction of Baltimore. It was evident that the jolting of the

animal caused him pain, for he grasped the animal's mane tightly to steady himself, and once in a while gave vent to a low curse. When he had gone about two miles he drew his horse up on one side of the road and turned his face in the direction from which he had come. Thus far no one had passed him on the way. He had been standing scarcely a minute when the blaze of light burst out upon the sky from farmer Rhine's burning barns. Then quickly taking a firmer hold of the colt's mane with one hand, and in the other holding the halter which he had converted into a bridle by tying it tightly around the animal's under jaw, he resumed his rapid ride towards Baltimore. At the outskirts of the city the old man dismounted, and throwing away the blanket and surcingle, began to lead the animal. The sun was peeping above the tall roofs of the great city and had faded the gray dawn into daylight when the first person appeared who had crossed the old man's path since he left Mr. Rhine's farm-yard.

This man appeared to be a farmer. He was driving a two-horse truck-wagon out toward the country. The old man stopped him, and in broken English of a German accent, asked him to buy the colt. But the farmer refused and drove on. The next person the old man met was also a farmer, and to him, too, the colt was unsuccessfully offered for sale. Having been thus twice repulsed the man did not again approach anybody until he reached the Marsh Market, where he met a man named Quigley, an English gypsy, who lived in a cottage at Homestead, Baltimore county. Quigley made a business of trading horses, and he readily bought the colt when it was offered to him for $75. The gypsy's son, a bright, blackeyed boy about eleven years old was standing by when his father paid the old man the money. The latter took the roll of bills eagerly, and with trembling hand unbuttoned a curious leathern flap that covered his trousers pocket. He put the money in the pocket, and after feeling of it carefully several times to make sure it was there, laboriously buttoned the flap down again. At the time when this scene was taking place the farm-yard of Mr. Rhine in Howard county presented a rueful appearance. The black, sooty ruins of his barn and granary lay within their stone foundations, still smoking in some places. The charred remains of the horses and other livestock lay half exposed in the ashes. It was a severe blow that had fallen upon farmer Rhine, and the grief of his family was deep and poignant. But in their great sorrow the calamity which seemed to sink deepest into their hearts was the death of their beautiful colt, which they called " Billy." He was Mrs. Rhine's particular pet. Her lamentations were all for him. "My poor Billy," she cried; "burned to death. He will never come to the door to beg for sugar again !" And the griefstricken lady again burst into tears. Farmer Rhine sat silently on the broad stone door-step of the farm-house kitchen. A number of the neighbors dropped in to see the results of the conflagration, and various speculations as to the probable cause of the fire were discussed. An old maiden lady who lived in a small cottage about a quarter of a mile down the road advanced the opinion that it was the result of Divine wrath, for she had seen Mr. Rhine trimming his grape vines on the previous Sabbath. The suggestion was countenanced if not exactly upheld by the Baptist dominie who had driven up in his buggy. But the more practical neighbors were convinced that the buildings must have been deliberately set on fire. Suddenly a cry of surprise was heard from one of the farm-hands, who had been poking over the ruins in idle curiosity with the long handle of a rake which had been left standing against the barn the night before, and the teeth of which had been burned away. He had discovered that there were but four car cases lying underneath the barn where five horses had been left the night before. The big bay mare which had been in the middle stall was missing. A hasty examination of the ruins of the granary showed three car cases lying there, which was the right number. The incendiary, then, was a thief, who had stolen the old mare and had burned down the two buildings to conceal his crime ! It seemed too heartless to be true. Yet there was the big bay missing while the remains of the other animals were in their places. Desperate with grief and indignation, Mr. Rhine hastened to the nearest telephone and called up the marshal of the police in Baltimore. Marshal Frey had just arrived at his office as the telephone bell rang, and he answered it in person. He heard the farmer's brief story, and at once put the case into the hands of detectives. Captain Lewis W. Cadwallader, a most able and efficient officer, was at that time at the head of the detective bureau.

He immediately warned his men to look out for anybody trying to sell a " large round-bellied bay mare," which was the description the farmer had given of his missing animal. Mr. Rhine came to Baltimore the same afternoon and called upon the marshal. Captain Cadwallader's detectives had returned and reported that they could find no animal answering the description given among the horses offered for sale in the city. Detectives Freburger and Pontier said, however, that they had come upon a young bay gelding in the hands of a gypsy named Quigley, who lived out on the Belair road, in Baltimore county, which the gypsy had purchased that morning under suspicious circumstances, having paid only $75 for the animal, its real value being nearer $250.

"You'd better go out and see the colt," suggested the marshal to Mr. Rhine. "No ; there's no use in doing that," replied the farmer in a hopeless voice. " My horse is a big bay mare. No one could mistake her for a colt." " But why not try it ?" persisted the marshal. " This colt is the only horse sold about here this morning by a stranger, and the animal you describe is not in any stable in the city." But argument was useless. The farmer replied somewhat peevishly that he had experienced enough trouble in one twenty four hours without undertaking a wild goose chase in addition. He promised, however, to examine the car cases in the ruins when he reached home, to make certain which horse was missing. Heavy hearted, Mr. Rhine turned his face homeward. As he entered the gate of his front yard his Avife met him and cried excitedly: " It's colt 'Billy' that's been stolen, not the big mare!" — " How do you know ?" demanded the farmer in astonishment. " Why, the blacksmith was here, and he noticed that there were shoes on all the dead horses, while the colt had never been shod!" Sure enough. The bay mare had been substituted in the colt's stall before the fire. " Then the detectives were right after all," exclaimed Mr. Rhine. " If it's not too late; we will get back our ' Billy.' ' A spark of joy lighted up the gloom that had fallen upon the household, and preparations were made for the return of the family pet. The thief had evidently placed the other horse in the colt's stall, so that if the loss was discovered a wrong description would be given the police. Farmer Rhine was at police headquarters in Baltimore next morning almost before the marshal. Somewhat shamefacedly he apologized to Mr. Frey for his stubbornness on the previous day, and begged to be directed to the place where the gypsy Quigley lived. Captain Cadwallader and detective Freburger, who had found the colt the day before, went to Homestead with Mr. Rhine. As they approached the place the latter recognized the colt standing in a field, and gave a peculiar whistle. The animal raised his head, and seeing his master, ran toward him with a neigh of joy. Tears came to the farmer's eyes as the affectionate beast stretched its head over his shoulder and then sniffed at his pockets for the accustomed lump of sugar. The gypsy allowed the colt to be led away without protest when detective Seibold told him how it had been stolen, and he gave a minute description of the man from whom he had bought the animal.

* * * * * *

But the night of the conflagration was not the first appearance of the old man on Mr. Rhine's farm. The dastardly outrage committed by the aged incendiary and thief was accompanied by circumstances which made the crime doubly atrocious. It was a chilly evening some months before the events above related took place, when the same old man arrived, hungry, foot-sore and shivering at the door of Mr. Rhine's house. The man was so old and his condition so pitiable that the kind-hearted farmer, accustomed as he was to the sight of tramps, took him in and gave him food and shelter. All through the winter until late in

the following March the old man was allowed to stay there. He did light work about the place and received regular wages from Mr. Rhine. On three occasions during that time he fell sick and was nursed with motherly care by Mrs. Rhine. Toward the close of March, just as the season was at hand when he might have been of some use on the farm, the old man suddenly made up his mind to go to Baltimore. The following day he left, after bidding all a friendly adieu. What he did in Baltimore was never known. He was of an extremely economical disposition, in fact miserly, and he had in his possession the whole of the wages Mr. Rhine had paid him during the winter. He was probably living on this money up to the time he went out to his benefactor's farm on the night of April 20, and set his buildings on fire. For a long time the identity of the perpetrator of the outrage was an unfathomable mystery. The detectives were certain that he was someone who had lived on the farm, and were from the

first strongly inclined to suspect the old man, whose name was Henry Leentoe. Mr. Rhine and every member of his household were so positive, however, that "old Henry" would never be guilty of such a crime, that the police did not publicly charge that he was the guilty man. They hunted for him, nevertheless, high and low throughout Baltimore and the State, but without success. Finally Marshal Frey caused a thousand postal cards, containing the description of the old man as given by the gypsy Quigley and his little son, to be printed and sent to the police departments in every part of the country. Several replies to the card were received at the police headquarters, but none of them proved satisfactory. On one occasion two detectives were sent to Newberne, North Carolina, to look at a man who had been arrested on suspicion in that town. But he proved an alibi and was released. Finally, more than three months after the commission of the crime, on the morning of July 26, 1886, the Marshal found among the letters in his morning mail one bearing the imprint of the sheriff's office of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. The letter stated that an aged German, who exactly answered the description given of the barn-burner on the postal card received from the Baltimore police headquarters, was in custody at the Lancaster jail. The man was known in Lancaster county, having been convicted there in 1870 of a similar crime, and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment. He served the whole term, less the commutation for good behavior. Detective Seibold and patrolman Frank Devon were sent at once to Lancaster.

After interviewing the prisoner they were convinced that they had run down the right man at last. In his possession were found the trousers with the leathern flaps over the pockets, which the son of the gypsy Quigley had described. The aged prisoner was evidently accustomed to his surroundings in jail. He was dogged when spoken to about barn-burning, however, neither effectually denying nor admitting it. The gypsy boy was sent for and the old man was brought before him for identification in the midst of a dozen other aged prisoners.

The boy stepped up to him at once and pointed him out, saying: " Don't you see he's got something the matter with his eye, the way I told you ?" Mr. Rhine was then shown the prisoner, and recognized him at once as "old Henry." Not until that moment was the farmer thoroughly convinced that he was the guilty man. At the sight of Mr. Rhine the aged criminal endeavored to turn away. Hardened as he was, he was unable to meet the eye of the man whose kindness he had abused so atrociously. The farmer did not speak. "With one reproachful glance at the prisoner he turned and left the room. A requisition signed by the Governor of Maryland effected the delivery of the white-haired scoundrel to the custody of  Detectives Seibold and Freburger, who brought him to Baltimore. He was shortly afterward tried in Ellicott City, Howard county, on a charge of horse-stealing and convicted. The leather-patched trousers found in the prisoner's possession in Lancaster played an important part in the trial. Judges Miller and Jones sentenced him to fourteen years imprisonment from October 6, 1886. The maximum penalty for arson in the first degree, such as old Leentoe had been guilty of, is death, in the State of Maryland. His best chance to escape this punishment lay in pleading guilty when arraigned on the other indictment for barn-burning. His counsel, assigned to him by the court, advised him thus. He therefore plead guilty, and Judge Duffy, of the Baltimore Criminal Court, before whom he was brought this time, sentenced him to twelve years additional in the Maryland penitentiary, making twenty-six years in all. As the prisoner was sixty-nine years of age when sentenced, he will probably never live to see freedom.

The career of Leentoe, as developed at the trial in Ellicott City, had been a most extraordinary one. He emigrated from Germany in 1853 and lived for some years in the mountain counties of Maryland, until he was convicted of horse-stealing in 1858, and sentenced to nine years imprisonment. After serving this long term he drifted up into York and Lancaster counties, Pennsylvania, where he fell into the hands of the law several times for small offences and suffered short imprisonments. Finally, as has been stated above, he was convicted of horsestealing and barn-burning, and sent to prison for twenty years in 1870. This crime bore a remarkable resemblance to the one in Howard county. He stole a bay horse from the stable of his employer, a large farmer, one night, and then to conceal his crime set fire to the building. Seventeen horses and cows perished in the flames. He was met by two neighbors of the farmer about a mile from the burning barn with the stolen horse in his possession. He was arrested, and the horse being quickly identified, was held for trial. More than two-thirds of the man's life since he landed in America has been spent in prison. He has come to regard a cell as his natural home, and after his late trial he said he was happier in confinement than free.

THE DETECTIVE FORCE (concluded)

Among the most widely known detectives on the police force is William Henry Droste. His life has been an exceedingly eventful one, having to do with the stirring scenes of the civil war, as well as those scarcely less exciting events which occur in the life of a patrolman and detective. He is a man of large physique and of immense muscular development. His features are clean cut; his nose betokening to the student of physiognomy an incisive and inquiring intelligence. His eyes are sharp and noticeably bright. He wears a slight black moustache. His career as a policeman has- been a long one, and he has made quite as many arrests as any other member of the force. The heads of the department place the greatest confidence in his judgment and sagacity. Mr. Droste was born at No. 107 Hill street, the same house in which he now lives, on October 16, 1838. His father's name was John II. Droste; he was a German  blacksmith. Young Droste, from the outset, was of adventurous disposition, and as a result he did not altogether fancy the confinements of school life, so when he was quite a boy his father apprenticed him to a firm of ship joiners, Messrs. John E. Mills & Brother. He did not remain long in their yard, but he clung to his trade and finished his apprenticeship in the employ of Skinner Brothers. Droste worked at his trade until the breaking out of the war. He was a warm Southern sympathizer, and no sooner had the first gun been fired than he went South. He was employed by the Confederate Government as a ship-joiner and was put to work upon the famous Merrimac, then building. Mr. Droste claims that he did about the last bit of work on that terror of Northern shipping. He placed the " combing" above the batteries which had so much to do with making her armor so effectual a defense against the shots of the Federal men-of-war. When the Merrimac was completed Mr. Droste went to Nashville, Tennessee, where he was to do considerable work reconstructing some river steamers into gun-boats. He got there just about as the battle at Fort Donelson was being fought. On the Saturday previous to the surrender of Donelson, Mr. Droste and a number of other men were sent down the Cumberland river with orders to erect works, so that further navigation could be obstructed. On Sunday, however, work on these forts was stopped and the place abandoned, for Donelson had fallen and the Federal troops were practically masters of the entire region. Two large river steamers upon which Mr. Droste had been working were burned, partly on his suggestion, in order to save them from capture by the enemy. Nashville, after the surrender of Donelson, became rather warm for Confederates, owing to the arrival of the Northern army, and so Mr. Droste went to Richmond, where he was immediately employed in the construction of what was then known as the " Ladies' Gun-Boat," but which was afterwards given the name of " The Virginia." After this work was ended Mr. Droste enlisted in the Confederate army and served at the battles of Drury's Bluff and Seven Pines.

But even war was not adventurous enough for Mr. Droste. He wanted something that was more exciting—perhaps, too, more profitable. So he began blockade-running. His first trip was from the Potomac river to Baltimore, in an eleven-foot metal life-boat, for the purpose of getting supplies for the army. His trip was comparatively uneventful. He returned to his starting-point in a big fishing-boat, in company with four other men and with a load of valuable army and navy stores. This trip turned in a large amount of money. The profits enabled Mr. Droste to make a much more extended trip the next time; he went to New York, purchased supplies there, made the run down the coast without event and landed safe and sound on the Virginia shore. The next trip was somewhat disastrous. He had made a run from Curtis's creek, near Baltimore, to the Virginia shore in a small boat laden with valuable supplies. He entered the Potomac and made his way to the Kappahannock river, landing finally in a little stream running into the larger body of water. At about that time a regiment of Federal cavalry was raiding the North Neck, but of this Mr. Droste was not aware. He could see the morning after he came to anchor that there had been trouble on the other side of the river, and he determined to cross to ascertain the reasons. He found out with a promptness that was not immensely amusing to him, for a squad of cavalry swooped down upon him and captured both him and his goods. He was taken up to the military prison at Falmouth, and after being imprisoned there for a short time was paroled. He -immediately went " down country" again and got some goods which his friends had saved for him, amounting in value to perhaps $400; this put him on his feet again, and he made another trip to New York, which was very successful. This expedition was so profitable that he resolved to repeat it on a larger scale. He chartered a boat called the Cora Hatch, and loaded her with leather hose for the Richmond fire department and hemp packing for the water department of the same city. He purchased a big yawl and put it on the Cora Hatch, intending to use it for the landing of the goods when the Southern lines should be reached.

Mr. Droste cleared New York all right and got down the coast without event until the Virginia shore was reached. Then one very dark night the yawl was run overboard and the goods were packed into her. Mr. Droste was in the yawl helping to load when he discovered, to his alarm, that she was not water-tight.

The men on the Hatch persisted, however, in loading her down, and despite Mr. Droste's protestations, piled the valuable supplies so high that the yawl was actually top-heavy. Then the Captain cut her adrift with Mr. Droste and two other men on board. The party in the yawl thought the shore was only a short distance away but they were mistaken. The darkness of the night had deceived them. The boat was unseaworthy and the breakers were dangerous. At every lurch the boat shipped large quantities of water, soaking the supplies and threatening the men with death. They tore the crowns out of their hats and tried to bail, but the water came in faster than they could get it out, and they felt that the probabilities of their ever seeing shore again were very small. Bailing and rowing alternately they had got near the shore when a big wave struck the boat and she almost filled and was about to sink, when Mr. Droste tossed over the goods, losing within five minutes nearly $5,000. Finally only a trunk and a

keg of whisky were left. Tearing open the former, Mr. Droste seized the tray and used it with such good results that the boat was made navigable again. But all three men were exhausted from the terrible exertions they had made to save their lives. The Afhisky brought them strength again and they finally reached the shore nearly expiring from their long exposure. Mr. Droste had just sufficient strength to enable him to drag himself to a farm-house nearby. There, after telling of his companions, he fell to the floor, remaining unconscious for two days. His feet had been frozen, and had it not been for his extraordinarily strong constitution he would never have recovered from his experience.

He gathered together the remainder of his goods on board the Cora Hatch and recovered sufficient from their sale to repair his losses. Not yet disheartened he returned to New York, and on his next trip cleared about $20,000. Again he went back to the metropolis, and buying a large boat loaded it up with all sorts of supplies. Among the men whom he consented to have return with him was a young man who had been sent North by Colonel Kane, afterwards Mayor of Baltimore, for the purpose of buying clothing for the Confederate troops. He had a big hand-bag with him containing, unknown to Mr. Droste, documents important to the Confederate Government and addressed to President Jefferson Davis. The boat made its way to the Narrows in New York harbor, and had got right under the guns of the forts when she was stopped and boarded by a number of detectives. Inquiries followed and were answered apparently satisfactorily when one of the officers suggested that a search be made. The suggestion was carried out, when, to the delight of the Federal detectives and the consternation of Mr. Droste, the hand-bag was discovered. It was opened, its contents discovered and the men on the boat were immediately placed under arrest. The unfortunate owner of the bag was sent to Boston, to be tried as a spy. He would have been hanged in all probability had ho not leaped from a window of the train on the way there and so escaped. Mr. Droste was held a prisoner on his boat for about six weeks, when the war was ended and he was discharged. He immediately entered business in New York as a butcher, and remained until the autumn of 1805, when he went to New Orleans and worked at his trade as ship-joiner for six months, making considerable money and many friends. After a few months he returned to Baltimore and again worked at his trade until June 5, 1868, when he was appointed a patrolman on the police force of this city and was assigned to the Southern District, then commanded by Captain (now Marshal) Frey. Since that time Mr. Droste has been concerned in the detection and arrest of so many criminals that the mere enumeration of them would exceed the limits of this sketch. There have been few great crimes  occurring in this city during the last fifteen years that he has not assisted the police department in ferreting out. His name appears frequently in the narratives in other chapters, and he is deservedly regarded as one of the shrewdest and most experienced men under Captain Freburger. His first murder case was the shooting of Samuel Barrett in 1870. The hight had been given over to political parades, the partisan feeling in that year running very high. The Democrats were marching through all the main streets, cheering for their candidates and arousing enthusiasm among the citizens of like faith. At Gay and Baltimore streets a party of men, all Republicans, were standing talking with Mr. Barrett about the chances for victory. As the Democratic procession marched along Barrett answered its cheers with one for his candidate. The Seventeenth Ward Association happened to be passing at the time and a row immediately ensued, in the midst of which a pistol-shot was fired from the ranks of the procession and Barrett fell dead. A meagre description of the murderer was given to the police, and the case was turned over to Sergeant Droste, who had obtained that rank on April 21. The Sergeant followed clew after clew, which led to a notorious character named "Dick" Willing, and finally fastened the crime upon him so conclusively that he felt himself justified in arresting him. But the court required direct evidence instead of such as Mr. Droste had secured and Willing was acquitted. It was in this year that the negro emancipation celebration was held in Baltimore, and Sergeant Droste saw what was perhaps his severest service on the force. For two days and nights he was unable to get any sleep, so necessary was it for the police to guard the public from any possible race riots. Sergeant Droste remained in the Southern District until March 18, 1875, when he was transferred to the Middle, or what is now the Central District. It was while in this District that he had the greatest number of cases, as he served both as reserve and patrol sergeant and so was continuously occupied. He made frequent raids upon  gambling houses and policy-shops, and acquired an enviable distinction by always succeeding in making these raids effectual, not alone seizing the "lay-out," but capturing his men. Among his arrests during his service as sergeant, was that of Charles Spottswood, a notorious old thief, who had a record as dark as that of any criminal in the country.

He had just left the penitentiary after serving out a sentence of fourteen years, during which time he had made a desperate attempt to escape, and when captured by Mr. Droste was fresh from a daring burglary in the upper part of the city. He was sent back to the penitentiary. On November 6, 1876,

Sergeant Droste captured Edward Lillie, alias Henry A. Watson, a confidence man whose work has extended over all parts of the country. When arrested he had just swindled a Baltimorean out of $280, and was enjoying himself hugely with his ill-gotten gains. He gave Mr. Droste no trouble in the arrest, the description given of the swindler being so good that he was captured within a very short time. On December 31, 1878, the Sergeant secured the conviction of Henry Snitzer, a notorious thief, for stealing a large amount of tobacco from some downtown warehouses. Snitzer was tried on two indictments and sentenced to the penitentiary for two years and four months. Sergeant Droste was transferred from the Central District to service on the detective squad at police headquarters on April 16, 1882. Since that time he has been steadily engaged as a secret service officer, and has frequently received the thanks of the department for his work. It was on January 16, 1883, that Detective Droste captured one of the most dangerous criminals. in the country, a confidence man named Benjamin Spandauer. He pretended that he was expecting to receive a large amount of money from Germany, and on" these expectations he induced an old German living in this city to advance him §1,500. He also fastened his claws upon a divorce case at that time, and by, as the police termed it, "playing the two ends against the middle," succeeded in swindling all the parties out of a very large sum of money. The descriptions furnished of Spandauer were so accurate that Detective Droste had little difficulty in running the fellow down and getting him a sentence of three years in prison. When he was released he was promptly arrested and sent back for another crime. In April, 1883, the up-town police districts were visited and "worked" with much thoroughness by a gang of burglars from New York. These men were in the habit of visiting the houses they intended to enter, early in the evening while the families were at church or at places of amusement, and within half an hour ransack each place. The only clew that could be obtained was the fact that in one house the detectives found a piece of watch chain which had been apparently broken while the owner was endeavoring to escape. Detective Droste, shortly after this clew was found, arrested John Randall, James Howard, and George W. Boadley as suspicious characters. Their lodgings were searched and there a quantity of "stuff" was found which clearly proved that they were criminals of considerable importance. In the fire-place of one of the rooms was found the remainder of the watch chain. Upon this evidence the men were sent to the penitentiary for four years.

On September 17, 1884, Detective Droste captured another New York criminal who was reaping a harvest in this city. His name was James Lee, and he was known to have swindled persons in almost every large city in the country. His manner of working was to ring the doorbell of a house which he knew had been left in charge of servants while the family was in Europe, and inform the person who answered the summons that the family had sent a case of goods home "from the other side." "This case is now at your disposal," he would explain. " There are $9.98 still due upon it, and if you will pay that amount you may have this bill of lading which will entitle you to the goods." The $9.98 was forthcoming in almost every instance. A photograph of such a swindler was obtained from New York and was identified by one of the victims. Detective Droste followed this clew with so much celerity that within twenty-four hours he had found out where Lee lived and had arrested him. Lee got a long term in the penitentiary.

Detective Droste prides himself upon the fact that he has never yet been attacked by a prisoner or received any bodily injury in the discharge of his duty. Detective Thomas Barranger was born in this city on March 14, 1845. He was educated in the public schools, and entered the Police department when twenty-two years old, receiving the appointment as patrolman on July 20, 1867, and being assigned to duty at the Central Station. He was promoted to a Sergeancy in his district on September 9, 1874, and was transferred to the City Hall for detective duty on April 3, 1883. The first case of importance with which Detective Barranger was connected was the capture, after a most exciting chase, of an escaped negro convict named Albert Fortune, from the Richmond, Virginia, penitentiary. Fortune was a notorious horse thief and was undergoing a long term of confinement when he conceived an ingenious escape. A wall was building around the prison yard and a derrick had been erected within the inclosure. By some means Fortune secured a rope and file which he secreted in his cell. He then sawed through the bars over his window and throwing his rope over one of the derrick's guys, swung himself to the top of the wall, jumped to the ground and was at liberty. Circulars announcing his escape were sent over the country, and the police here were on the look-out for the fugitive. On the morning of April 19, 1873, Officer Barranger and Sergeant Frazier espied a negro on Baltimore street, who they thought answered the description of Fortune, and followed him. Before the man reached Liberty street he knew he was observed, and ran, with Barranger and Frazier in hot pursuit. He turned into Liberty street, and three or four citizens who tried to stop him were knocked down. He then tried to burst open the door of a house, hoping to escape through the dwelling. By the delay caused by this attempt Officer Barranger was enabled to come up with him, but while reaching out to grab his man the policeman was thrown violently to the ground. The fugitive then ran through a feed store in Liberty street, above Fayette street, up stairs through a bed room, upsetting a cradle with a baby in it on his way, jumped out of the second story window to the yard below, scaled a fence nearly twenty feet high into Park street, and then ran through several other houses and got into Lexington street, where the officers ran him to cover in a soap factory, and brought him to bay under a tank, after levelling their revolvers at him and threatening to shoot him. He offered his captors $300 to "go about their business.',' They turned him over to the Richmond authorities. Fortune was desperate, and succeeded in escaping from the Richmond officers between Washington and that city. He was recaptured, however, and returned to the penitentiary.

On July 11, 1872, Officer Barranger arrested "Dick" Moore, Frank Johnson and "Jere " Crosson, all colored, for highway robbery. They "held up " an old colored man named Edward Davis, who had just returned from Guano Island, and robbed him of $74.50. Mr. Barranger happened to be coming along the street and heard the cry of " police ! " Seeing three men running, he gave chase and captured one at Ilolliday and Fayette streets. The other two he arrested subsequently in South street. The three culprits were each sentenced to two years imprisonment. On January 13, 1871, he arrested George Dexter, alias Wilson, for burglary at Bernard's restaurant, where he stole $60 worth of cigars. Dexter was sentenced to three years imprisonment. On July 2, 1882, he "picked up " John S. Thro, a bogus check man, for passing a worthless check for $40 on Charles McCrae. On the night of Saturday, June 4, 1882, Edward H. Frames was shot and killed in the northeastern district. Late in the evening young Frames and a companion named Weldon observed two men and a woman going towards McKim's Hill, and the young men followed them. Without warning one of the men with the woman turned and fired a pistol, killing Frames. The case excited great interest and a large number of officers were engaged on it. During the' next day, Sunday, Officer Barranger and Sergeant Ryan succeeded in locating the woman who had accompanied the murderer, and she made a confession to. The officers. They accordingly proceeded to arrest Charles, alias " Polly " Hopkins, whom they found at Greenmount avenue and Eager streets. The next day Charles Digan surrendered himself at the Marshal's office, as the other man in the party. Hopkins was tried in Baltimore County for the murder of Frames and convicted, and is now serving his sentence of eighteen years. Digan was tried in Baltimore City and acquitted. Miles Jackson was arrested by Sergeant Barranger on February 23, 1883, for burglary in the store of Robert Bogue, where Jackson was employed as porter. Jackson broke into the place with a hatchet in the night-time and stole silks valued at $465. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment. On March 20, 1875, Harry Loughlin, a notorious thief, since dead, was arrested by Sergeant Barranger for stealing a gold watch worth $165 from George T. Clark. He also arrested William Emry, alias " Husky Bill," a notorious pickpocket, on September 3, 1878; George Croswell on October 9, 1878, who was convicted in six cases of obtaining goods on false pretences from different merchants, and was sentenced to two years imprisonment and to pay $50 fine; on April 12, 1879, he captured Mary Lanehart for picking the pocket of Miss Amanda Smith of $27; and on July 3, 1880, he arrested Charles Benderfield on the charge of embezzlement of $500 from Kruger Brothers. The notorious bank-sneaks, "Jim " Burns and "Tom" McCormack made Sergeant Barranger's acquaintance in his official capacity on December 1, 1876, when he arrested them here and locked them up. They were picked up before they had done any work in the city, and after being detained several days were sent out of town. Burns is now serving a term in a European prison and McCormack is in durance somewhere in the West. On the same day that he made these arrests Sergeant Barranger captured George Harris, alias " Old Boston," and James B. Norris, alias "Jimmy" Brown, also bank-sneaks, as suspicious persons and made them leave the city limits. On the night of September 14, 1883, during the "Oriole," Barringer noticed a man at Baltimore and Eutaw streets acting in a suspicious manner in the crowd and arrested him. His prisoner turned out to be John Nolan, alias McGovern, and on him were found seven pocket-books which he had stolen. Six cases were proved against him and ho was sentenced to four years in the penitentiary.

On information received from the authorities of Talbot county, Maryland, Detective Barranger was detailed to find William Harris, alias "Jim" Wilson, who was charged with stealing a team in that county. Accordingly on September 16, 1884, he arrested his man in Paca street with the stolen property in his possession. Harris was turned over to an officer of Talbot county, who after placing hand-cuifs on his prisoner's wrists started back home with him. On his way Harris jumped from the train while it was in motion and made his escape. Going to a farm-house about three miles from Upper Marlborough, he represented to the farmer that he was a commercial traveler and had been attacked by a party of tramps who hand-cuffed him and then robbed him of his goods and money. The farmer believing his story had a team hooked up and sent his son and a colored man as driver to carry Harris to Upper Marlborough, where he said he wanted to go and have the manacles cut off his wrists. Shortly after starting he knocked his two companions out of the wagon, and driving within a mile of the town turned the team loose. He then secured the services of an old negro to cut off the hand-cuffs, imposing on him with the same story he had told the farmer. Through this negro he was afterwards brought to justice. About six months' after he was arrested in Laurel, Maryland, where he had married and engaged in business. Harris was convicted and sentenced to seven years and six months imprisonment. On December 29, 1883, Detective Barranger arrested John Saylor, alias "Hen" Smith, for robbery committed upon Wells, Fargo & Co. in California. Saylor had been "wanted" for five or six months, and circulars had been sent to the police throughout the country with his description. Detective Barranger and Captain Cadwallader succeeded in locating him at a well-known saloon in this city, and learned that he intended to set sail for Europe on the following day. They arrested him at Fell's Point on his way to the ship. William Lee, alias Burch, alias Layton, a bogus Custom-house officer, fell into Detective Barranger's net on February 21, 1884. Lee's plan of operations was to go to various institutions and represent that a valuable cabinet of minerals had arrived from Europe for the institution, which would be delivered on payment of the custom duties. Eight cases were proved against him and he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. Another criminal in the same line of business was James Lee, alias "Joe" Hartman, alias J. E. Cottman, alias Harman Goethe, who was arrested by Detective Barranger accompanied by Detective Droste, on September 18, 1884. His victims were private citizens, Mrs. Ross Winans being among the number. He pleaded guilty to eight charges and was sentenced to four years' imprisonment. Lee had previously served a term in New York where he was arrested by Detective Silas Rogers. Thomas Mitchell was arrested by Detective Barranger on December 26, 1884, for burglary and sentenced to two years in the House of Correction. On June 21, 1885, he arrested John Smith, colored, for a burglary committed in Martinsburg, West Virginia. He recovered all the stolen property. Smith was returned to Martinsburg and sentenced to three years' imprisonment. One "would hardly expect to find among the ranks of desperate criminals a deaf mute, but such was John Bitzer, a horse-thief, whom Detective Barranger arrested on August 8,1885. The stolen horse was sold at a bazaar in this city and was subsequently recovered in Kent county. Barranger arrested Bitzer on a Saturday night at a little inn at Tomansville, Baltimore county. Congregated about the place were forty or fifty white and colored men who evidently sympathized with Bitzer. The latter " showed fight" when the detective undertook to arrest him.

"See here," called out the bartender, when Barranger attempted to put the hand-cuffs on his prisoner, " don't you hurt that man," and the crowd grew threatening. "I'll put these hand-cuffs on him or kill him," replied the detective as he drew his revolver. "Permit me to assist you," said the awed bartender, and the bracelets were adjusted and the prisoner removed. A pair of "bunco-steerers" were balked in their game by Detective Barranger on February 18, 1886. He observed the men first in Baltimore street and thinking they were " crooks" he watched them. Presently they approached the Rev. Dr. Gouchar of Baltimore county and inveigled him into a room on St. Paul street above Mulberry street. Barranger immediately sent word to headquarters for assistance, and Detectives Pontier and Freburger came. While Detective Freburger covered the rear of the house, Barranger and Pontier entered, arrested the men and captured their "lay-out" and "boodle." The prisoners were "Tom" O'Brien, alias Hudson and George Post, alias Potter. They gave bail and decamped.

A Washington confidence man named Robert Johnson, alias "Bob" Murphy, was arrested by Detective Barranger on May 31, 1883, for obtaining by a confidence game §200 from John W. Waters, in Washington. Johnson was returned to that city for trial. On August 15, 1883, he arrested Came Shibe, alias Trayner, for robbing Robert Comas of $200. On October 12, 1883, he captured Walter Gordon, colored, for stealing a gold watch and chain valued at §150 from Daniel Hays. Gordon was sentenced to three years in the penitentiary.

A notorious "fence" was caught by Detective Barranger on March 15, 1884, when he arrested Franklin C. Bishop. For a long time the cars of the Baltimore and Ohio, Northern Central, and Philadelphia, "Wilmington and Baltimore Railroads had been subject to the depredations of thieves, but the efforts to discover them were unavailing. Finally Detectives Barranger and Gault traced a stolen caddy of tobacco to Bishop's place, made a raid and recovered more than two wagon loads of stolen property. With Bishop they also arrested Foley Humphries, George Biley, George Billups, and " Jake " Emerine, all boys. who had been robbing the cars and carrying the plunder to Bishop. The boys were sent to the House of Correction and Bishop is now serving a term of three years under a conviction for receiving stolen goods in another case. After these arrests the depredations on the railroad cars ceased, the whole gang being broken up.

Early in the summer of 1886, a young man calling himself J. E. Adams made his appearance in Baltimore, evidently attracted by the facilities of enjoyment offered a man of means by the gay city. He immediately began a life of dissipation, and among a certain class soon became known for his lavish expenditure of money. He rented a furnished house on Raborg street above Pine street, in which he installed a woman known as Sadie Gordon. Two other women were soon after placed there under his protection. Drives, expensive suppers, and all the associations of a fast life was the daily program of young Adams and his female companions. Shortly after the arrival of the stranger, information was received at police headquarters that one Charles H. Hock, a clerk in the office of the West Shore Railroad Company at Boston, had stolen $837 of the company's money and absconded. The case was placed in Detective Barranger's hands, and an investigation disclosed that the fast young man, Adams, and the embezzling clerk, Hock, were identical, and on July 9, 1886, Detective Barranger took him into custody at the house on Raborg street. He was turned over to Inspector Watts of Boston, and taken to that city for trial. Detective Stephen J. O'Neill's connection 'with the police force of Baltimore began on June 22, 1875, when he was appointed a patrolman and assigned to duty in the Western District.

He was never connected with any other district than the Western until he received his assignment to the Detective Squad onNovember 11, 1880. Mr. O'Neill was born in Philadelphia on December 12,1848. When he was seven months old his parents moved to Baltimore. Since that time he has lived constantly in this city. As a boy he attended the St. Peters Roman Catholic school, and afterwards learned the trade of machine moulding in the Mount Clare shops of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway Company. His apprenticeship ended in 18G9, and at once obtaining employment as a journeyman, he worked for the Baltimore and Ohio Company for six years, or until his appointment to the police force in 1875. In 1881, on September 6, he was promoted to be sergeant, and three years later, having done much meritorious service in that position, he was raised to the rank of lieutenant. His commission was dated July 17, 1884. Finally, having acquired a good deal of celebrity by his arrest of John Thomas Ross, the murderer of Emily Brown, in the notorious burking case, and a vacancy occurring in the detective squad, he received an appointment as a detective on November 11, 1880. The story of Mr. O'Neill's career on the police force is full of thrilling encounters with noted thieves, and sensational incidents in which celebrated criminals find the leading parts. He is now considered one of the ablest officers on the detective force.

In 1877, while he was a patrolman in the Western District, he arrested a notorious negro ruffian named Matamora Cole. Policeman O'Neill was patrolling his beat on Howard street, when he saw Cole, whom he knew to be a professional sneak thief, enter Hecht's pawn-shop with a large quantity of clothing on his arm. O'Neill followed the fellow into the pawn-shop and found him trying to drive a bargain with the proprietor for the sale of the articles. „ Convinced that the goods were stolen the policeman sharply questioned the negro concerning them, and not receiving satisfactory replies to his queries took him into custody. The negro carried the clothing, consisting of coats, trousers, a saddle cloth, a riding habit, etc., on his right arm, while the policeman grasped his left. Suddenly the thief turned and quick as a flash flung the things around his captor's feet, completely tying him up. He then wrenched himself loose and started to run. Finding himself unable to move Officer O'Neill drew his pistol, and firing two or three shots into the air in rapid succession called to the fellow to halt. The latter, frightened at the whizz of a bullet close by his ear, obeyed. By this time the policeman had succeeded in ridding his feet of the incumbrance about them and he recaptured his man. It was discovered on reaching the station that the articles which Cole was trying to pawn had been stolen by him the night before, November 21, from the carriage house of Dr. George Rueling, in the rear of his residence, No. 79 West Monument street. Cole was sentenced to four years confinement in the Maryland State Penitentiary at hard labor. In prison he gave his keepers no end of trouble. He refused to work, and being forced to do so spoiled large quantities of the material which was put into his hands. He was finally set to cutting leather shoe soles, with a man watching him constantly to prevent him from doing mischief. Finding himself absolutely forced to work, he one day thrust his hand into a steam cutting machine and had the tops of the fingers of his left hand cut off. This expedient was unsuccessful, for as soon as the wound healed sufficiently he was set to laboring harder than ever. He was released in 1881, and shortly afterward was convicted of another theft and recommitted to prison, where he has spent the most of his time since.

On July 12, 1881, Officer O'Neill arrested a negro named Elijah Brogdon, alias Charles Diamond, for safe-burglary. Brogdon was a notorious criminal, and though but thirty years of age had already served more that twelve years in the prisons of Maryland and Pennsylvania. After being released from the Moyamensing, Pennsylvania, prison, he came to Baltimore and got employment as a porter in the wholesale hat store of Mr. James E. Trott. While there he learned the combination of the safe-lock, and on the night of July 11, opened the safe and stole $100 in bills. The following morning Mr. Trott notified the police of tlie robbery. Officer O'Neill was put on the case. As soon as lie learned that Brogdon was employed in Mr. Trott's store he felt convinced that he was the guilty man. He arrested the fellow and brought him to the station, where the negro afterwards confessed. Brogdon was sentenced to the penitentiary for four years.

The " Oriole" of 1883 brought a great number of criminals from all parts of the country to Baltimore, and the police force of the city was put to its utmost resources to protect the property of the citizens from the depredations of the rascals. Wherever a policeman saw a professional "crook" he was ordered to arrest him as a suspicious person, to be held until the celebration was ended. Many such persons were incarcerated in the station prisons on the night of September 4, 1883, the gala night of the " Oriole." About midnight, when the people returned from witnessing the parade, several complaints of burglary, simultaneously reached the Western District station. As many as half a dozen private residences within the District had been entered during the parade and ransacked from top to bottom. Detective O'Neill, at that time a Sergeant of Police, was detailed to investigate the burglary of No. 23 South Fremont street. He learned of several facts which led him to suspect three Philadelphia thieves, two of whom were at the time locked up in the station, having been arrested by Captain of Detectives Freburger, and the third of whom was a boy of seventeen named Frank Cochran, alias Frank White, as vicious a youth as has ever been brought before the criminal bar in Baltimore. After searching all night for this youthful burglar, Sergeant O'Neill finally located him in a house of ill-fame in Raborg street, where he found him asleep and arrested him. In the station the sergeant succeeded in extorting a confession from the boy, and induced the latter to agree to show him where the plunder he had stolen was hidden. Cochran led the sergeant to an out-house in the rear of No. 29 Raborg street, where he had been captured, and there brought forth a quantity of jewelry, etc., which was returned to its owners. At the trial of the three burglars they were convicted and sentenced to five years each in the penitentiary. They are still serving their terms. One of the most violent prisoners Detective O'Neill ever arrested was Edward Capp. This man was one of the phenomena of wickedness who are happily known to few outside of the police. He was a reckless criminal from his boyhood, and for years previous to this arrest he never made any pretence of working honestly. He had served many terms in various prisons, scarcely leaving one place of confinement before he was caught at some crime that brought him into another. Strangely enough he was married to a respectable and pretty young woman, whom he treated with great brutality, and several times nearly beat to death. On the night of June 4 1884, he and a " pal" undertook to rob the house of Mr. Richard Sutton, the Baltimore street dry-goods merchant, who lived in North Calhoun street near Franklin street. The burglars entered the lower part of the house and turned the gas on to light it. They let it blow for some time before applying the match, and a considerable amount of gas thus escaped up-stairs. Mrs. Sutton happened to be awake, and smelling the gas, feared there might be something the matter in her daughter's room. She arose and was going thither when she noticed a light below. Thinking it was her son, who had a habit of getting up early at that season of the year to go gunning, she went down stairs. On seeing two strange men bending over her sideboard she screamed and raised an alarm. The men rushed out of the house, but Capp's " pal " was caught by a policeman who saw him running through an alley. Detective O'Neill when he recognized the "pal" suspected at once that the other burglar was Capp. He went to the house of the latter in Burns's court, near the Western Schuetzen Park in South Baltimore, and there found his man lying across a bed in a semi-nude condition. Capp did not move as he saw O'Neill enter, and the latter understood at once that the man was going to resist arrest. The policeman ordered him to get up and dress, but the command was ignored. Capp's wife then begged him to submit peacefully to the officer. This aroused the brute to make a violent kick at her, which had he struck her must have inflicted severe injuries. Then the policeman grappled with the fellow and a struggle began which lasted more than twenty minutes without a respite. The two rolled about the room, breaking furniture and almost shaking the rickety house down. Capp bit and scratched and struck his captor at every opportunity. Finally they reached the top of the stairs and tumbled down the steep steps in each other's embrace. The fall seemed to have hurt Capp, for after he reached the bottom he threw up his hands and said he would surrender. He asked to be allowed to go up stairs and put on his clothing. As soon as O'Neill freed him the fellow made another blow at his wife. Then another struggle ensued in which Detective O'Neill came out victorious and took his man to the station, being obliged, however, to club him every few minutes to subdue him. Capp was tried for burglary, and being convicted was sentenced to the State Penitentiary for four years. A few weeks before the expiration of his sentence he committed suicide by jumping off a high corridor in the prison. His death ended the career of one of the most desperate white criminals who have troubled Baltimore in recent years.

Detective Aquilla J. Pumphrey was born in this county on November 10, 1852. He was educated in the public schools of this city, his parents having removed him hither when he was a child, and he afterward learned the fruit-canning and preserving business. He worked at this trade until his appointment to the police force in 1875. He became a patrolman on February 12, and was detailed to the Southern precinct. His first promotion was to the position of station-house clerk in 1884. On June 16,1885, he became a squad sergeant in the Southern district, afterward being made patrol sergeant. He served in the latter position until January 10, 1887, when he was appointed to his present position on the detective squad. While he was a policeman in uniform Mr. Pumphrey made a number of important arrests, and since his connection with the detective force he has been extremely active in the pursuit of criminals.

On October 29, 1881, at the time when he was a private in the Southern station, he arrested Thomas Cooper, a noted burglar who had robbed a large number of bouses in the new portions of the city. Baltimore at that time was suffering severely from the depredations of burglars, and the police seemed unable to prevent the robberies that were of almost nightly occurrence. On policeman Pumphrey's beat was the old Three Tuns Hotel at Pratt and Paca streets. The hotel, though formerly a very respectable house, was at that time known to be a favorite stopping place for thieves. One night the policeman noticed a man on the hotel porch who he thought carried himself in rather a suspicious manner. As soon as the man saw the officer approaching he walked away. After he had done this several times Mr. Pumphrey inquired of the hotel clerk who the man was. " Oh, he's a farmer from the country," replied the clerk. "His name is Thomas Cooper."

Notwithstanding this information the policeman followed the man whenever he saw him leave the hotel. He usually walked about through the better streets, occasionally stopping to scrutinize a house, but always returned to his hotel and disappeared to his bed-room before one o'clock. One night the policeman saw him stop before the house of Mr. Alfred S. Gardner at No. 305 Lombard street, and look it over carefully. The man then returned to his hotel as usual, and the policeman assuming that he had retired for the night resumed the patrolling of his beat. A few hours later he learned from another officer that Mr. Gardner's house had been robbed. Notwithstanding the fact that he had seen the man go to his hotel apparently for the night, Policeman Pumphrey could not help connecting him with the burglary. He hurried back to the Three Tuns Hotel and inquired of the night clerk whether Mr. Cooper was in. " Yes; he came in a little while ago, with a bundle," replied the clerk.

Feeling convinced now that the thief was none other than Cooper, the policeman went to a drugstore on the opposite corner where he kept a suit of civilian's clothing. He hastily took off his uniform and dressed himself in the other suit. Then placing himself on watch before the hotel he was soon rewarded by seeing his man come out with a small package in his hand. This package was addressed and stamped for mailing. Cooper laid it on top of the letter box at Portland and Green streets, and then returned toward the hotel. As soon as he saw him enter the building, Policeman Pumphrey ran back to the letter box and looking at the package saw that it was addressed to a well-known Philadelphia "fence." He took the package and gave it to a clerk in the drug store on the corner for safe keeping, and then went back to the hotel intending to go to Cooper's room and arrest him. But just as he reached the hotel the man was coming out again with a large bundle. After letting him walk for a block or so Pumphrey arrested him. The fellow took his capture coolly enough. In his bundle was found a lot of clothing, silverware, and jewelry, which were afterward identified by Mr. Gardner as his property. The small package which was captured contained about $3,000 worth of bonds and checks which, together with a watch and $380 in money, the thief stole from Mr. William T. Shoemaker, a drover who was visiting Mr. Gardner at the time of the burglary. Mr. Shoemaker had his vest containing his valuables under his pillow. The burglar drew the garment from its place and abstracted the watch, money, and papers without awakening the sleeping man. He then went through the entire house, facetiously stopping a clock at twenty minutes past two in order to inform the family what time the robbery took place. He had entered the building from the rear by boring two holes in a window sash and then loosening the catch by putting his fingers through the openings Thanks to the skill and energy of policeman Pumphrey all the stolen property was returned to its owners the same morning on which the burglary took place, before the hour when the family usually breakfasted. Cooper promptly admitted not only that he had entered Mr. Gardner's house but that he had been the author of six other burglaries within the previous fortnight. Turning to policeman Pumphrey in the station-house, he said: " I always had a suspicion about you." "Then it was a case of mutual suspicion," returned the officer with a laugh.

Cooper pleaded guilty to one indictment and was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment. He was one of the coolest and cleverest burglars who ever visited Baltimore. Yet he was almost always caught at his crimes, and he said that out of fifty years of his life he had spent more than twenty behind the bars. A safe burglary remarkable for its effrontery rather than for its importance, was that which took place in the counting-room of Mr. C. E. Eichler's feed store at South Howard and Pratt streets on October 14, 1882. At about two o'clock in the afternoon, when large numbers of persons were passing along both streets, a young man named Edward Stephens went by the Howard street entrance to Mr. Eichler's store, and seeing the office vacant walked in. He swung back the door of the large safe, and taking a small chisel pried open several of the interior drawers till he found the one in which the cash was kept. He shielded his actions from observation from the street only by turning his back to the open window. Just as he opened the money drawer Mr. Eichler's son, a youth of nineteen, saw the fellow and ran toward

him. Stephens had time only to seize a five dollar bill and turn. A small memorandum book chanced to be between this bill and the money underneath it. Seeing himself confronted by young Mr. Eichler, the thief drew a' revolver and pointing at the young man kept him off till he escaped through the door. But policeman Pumphrey, who happened to be outside gave chase and pursued the fellow until he finally caught him in a vacant house on Eutaw street into which he had run. He was hiding in a closet when caught. Stephens was convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment. 

Another clever capture that won officer Pumphrey much praise was the arrest of Josiah Brooks, a colored thief who within a few days in December, 1881, committed burglaries upon Rouse, Hempstone & Co., Meyer, Reinhard & Co., Burgunder & Greenbaum, and Broderick & Brothers, all large mercantile houses in this city. The burglaries caused the police much perplexity, as the thief left no clew by which he could be traced. The burglary at Broderick & Brothers was discovered shortly after it occurred, and policeman Pumphrey heard of it from another officer. A few minutes later as he was patrolling Dover street near Green, it being then half-past five o'clock in the morning and dark, he saw a young negro standing in the second story window of a house smoking a cigar. He thought this a rather suspicious occurrence, and he determined to investigate the circumstance as soon as the negro left his house. It was ten o'clock before he saw the fellow go out. Then under pretence of wishing to inspect the sanitary condition of the house, officer Pumphrey got into the room in which he had seen the negro smoking that morning. There he found on the bed two blankets which had been stolen from Broderick & Brothers, and also a number of other articles, proceeds of the same burglary. Pumphrey waited until the thief returned and arrested him. His name was Josiah Brooks. He was only twenty-one years old, and the series of robberies he had just committed were the first he had been engaged in. His arrest blighted his criminal career while it was still in the bud. He pleaded guilty to one charge and was sentenced to the penitentiary for three years. 

Shortly after officer Pumphrey's appointment to the detective squad the cities of Baltimore and Washington were flooded with counterfeit silver dollars. Several persons who had been imposed upon gave the police a description of the man who was passing the spurious coins, and Detective Pumphrey was detailed to hunt the counterfeiter. On March SO the detective learned that the man had been working in the vicinity of Liberty and Baltimore streets. He went thither at once and began to make a tour of the shops in the neighborhood. In O'Brien's saloon in Liberty street he found the man trying to pass one of his coins on the bartender. Recognizing the detective the counterfeiter made a break for the street and started to run. He had not gone more than a block, however, when Detective Pumphrey caught him. At the police station he gave his name as Frederick Jordan Mezza, an Italian. He had already served three terms for counterfeiting.

The case of Arthur M. Morrison, who was arrested by Detective Pumphrey on April 24, 1887, created a considerable sensation in this city and in Brockton, Massachusetts, the young man's home. Morrison is the "black sheep" of a highly respectable old New England family. His parents live in the quiet village of Brockton, his father being a wealthy farmer, cultivating a large tract of land just outside of the village. On April 5, Morrison, who is about thirty years old, arrived in Baltimore and registered at the Carrollton Hotel. He represented himself to be a detective engaged on the Rahway murder case, and hired a horse and buggy from Mr. Manly, the Carrollton Hotel livery stable proprietor. He drove the horse to York, Pennsylvania, where he placed it in a stable, and hiring another and more valuable animal drove to Pittsburgh. He was attired in black clothing of a somewhat clerical cut, and on his way to Pittsburgh he called upon several Methodist clergymen, representing himself to be a foreign missionary on his way through the country collecting money to prosecute his mission work in Africa. He preached two missionary sermons in different country churches and delivered three missionary discourses. In each church a collection was taken for the alleged missionary, and in one of them more than thirty dollars was secured. Morrison sold the horse and buggy when he arrived in Pittsburgh, and was next heard of in Brockton, Massachusetts, whither Detective Pumphrey went and arrested him at his parents' home. The young man was formerly a student at the Middletown, Connecticut, Wesleyan University, and afterward studied theology at College Hill, Massachusetts. He was tried and convicted in three days, and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment in the Maryland Penitentiary, where he is now learning to make shoes. Detective John E. Reilly was born in Baltimore on February 24, 1844. He was educated at public and private schools in the city and afterwards entered business as a butcher. He began his connection with the police Department as a patrolman on May 1, 1867, and was assigned to duty at the Central Station. On May 7, 1886, he was promoted to the sergeantcy, and on May 5, 1887 he was made a detective. While acting as patrolman Mr. Reilly greatly distinguished himself for coolness and bravery in connection with the explosion and fire at the Maryland Sugar Refinery at O'Donnell's wharf, in July, 1870. On the day of the occurrence he was patrolling his beat, and pausing for a moment at a street corner about two squares from the refinery, stood idly gazing in that direction. Suddenly he heard a terrific explosion and saw the air about the tall building filled with flying debris. He immediately ran to the place of disaster and found the employees running away from the refinery in every direction. He saw that the explosion had occurred in the boiler room, which was almost completely wrecked, and had been deserted by the panic-stricken men employed there. Nothing daunted, officer Reilly immediately entered and discovered that one of the large boilers had exploded, and that the furnaces under the remaining five were burning fiercely. He tried to find the safety-valve rope, so as to allow the steam to blow off, but the explosion had shattered everything so thoroughly that the ropes were missing; and then, as the only other resource to prevent other explosions, set to work singlehanded drawing the fires from the furnaces. This herculean task he accomplished safely, and thereby undoubtedly saved much valuable property and perchance human lives from destruction. The explosion had injured several of the employees. By this time the fire engines had arrived on the scene. The fire resulting from the explosion had communicated to that part of the State Tobacco Warehouse No. 5, in which cotton was stored, and Officer Reilly perceiving smoke issuing from the roof of this building, after his gallant deed at the furnaces ran to see what be could do towards saving property in that direction. He went directly to the third or top story of the warehouse and saw that the tops of the bales of cotton immediately under the roof were burning, and tried to extinguish the flames. The fire spread so rapidly that he was driven off, hut he did not give up his single-handed fight until nearly overcome by the heat. He escaped, but not without injury, and was incapacitated for duty for three weeks. Officer Reilly was highly commended by the press and public at the time for his courageous behavior, and the Board of Police voted him fifty dollars as a reward for his services. The following letter was issued by the Board in regard to the matter :

OFFICE BOABD OF POLICE COMMISSIONERS.

Baltimore, August 3, 1870. JOHN T. GRAY, ESQ., Marshal of Police. SIK :—The Board of Police desire to express their high appreciation of the faithful manner in which the members of the force that were present at the scene of disaster at the recent occasion of the explosion of a boiler in the building of the Maryland Sugar refinery, performed their duty on that trying occasion, and especially commend the conduct of Sergeant Fields and patrolmen J. E. Kelly, J. T. Schaeffer, S. McElwen, Thomas Kernan, John E. Merrick, and J. H. Sappington. The Board further signify their approval of the courage and promptness* displayed by officer J. E. Reilly in reducing the fires in the remaining furnaces of the establishment, thereby probably preventing greater destruction of property and the loss of life, and have directed the treasurer to pay him the sum of $50 as a substantial recognition of his services on that occasion.[Signed] JOHN W. DAVIS, President. In the spring of 1873 many complaints were made by ladies who had had their pockets picked of various sums of money about the Central Market. The manner of the larcenies showed that the thief was an adept at the business, but for a long time the officers were unable to fasten the crimes upon any one. Finally Officer Reilly, whose beat then took in the Central Market, was informed by a Mrs. Selinger that her pocket-book  containing $80 and some papers had been stolen while she had been in the market. The officer's suspicions had been directed to Mary Moore, a woman who frequented the place, and he went in search of her. He found her at No. 8 Fish Market Space, arrested her, recovering the greater part of the money. The remains of the stolen pocket-book he found in the fire-place where Mary Moore had tried to burn it. She was recognized as a well known pickpocket, and had previously served a term of imprisonment. She was convicted and sentenced to five years in the penitentiary. In the autumn of 1875 Officer Reilly arrested Dr. Paul Shoupe, a bogus check man, who hailed from the northern part of New York State. The crime which got him into trouble here was the obtaining by means of a bogus check a quantity of jewelry from the store of Mrs. Rapine. He was tried, convicted, and a sentence of three years in the penitentiary imposed upon him. After his sentence he made a speech to the court with such telling effect that the judge reduced the sentence to one year in the City jail. After serving eight months of this term he was pardoned through the influence of the prison missionaries, whose sympathy he had enlisted in his behalf. He was a well-educated man and very plausible of address. The next Officer Kelly heard of him was the announcement that he had been drowned at Watertown, New York.