Show PEOPLE WHO THINK ALOUD Instances of Crime Discovered by Hearing People Talk to Themselves Philadelphia lines I It is interesting to sqmetimep hear the remarks people make yfhq jtallcfojthem selvea while walking on theatreeti I said a Pinkertondetective in tlie < ont ental Hotel yesterday They are Bi imply thinking think-ing aloud The habit itself altogether foolish but I can tell yod the tenor pf some of the expressions is just the reverse re-verse always make a point to listen to these onesided conversations Now you may consider that impolite ana ven mean but in my business I dont think so for detectives sometimes gaiiyvaluable information by bverhearing person talk to themselves remember years ago when I was a private detective in this city how I cleared up a case justin just-in that way Several thousand dollars had been stolen from a prominent merchant mer-chant He suspected his son a rather fast young man and employed me to find whether his suspicions were correct I shadowed the young fellow for weeks but I could not discover any good reason for connecting him V with the robbery Finally late one night when I was thinking of giving up the case I noticed him going up Chestnut street and heard him talking to himself I got up close behind him and listened and in a minute min-ute I knew he was the thief The affair worried him and for relief he talked about it to himself and thus gave the whole thing away A more important instance occurred to mo in New York about a year ago A little girl was found murdered in one of the worst parts of the city The child had been smothered to death and for several weeks I tried to discover the murderer But I found the person at last in the most unexpected manner It was during the winter and one bitter cold day as I was going through Central Park I saw a woman ahead of me acting very strangely She was poorly dressed and I thought at first that she was intoxicated in-toxicated She was throwing her arms around wildly and talking to herself You should have heard that woman She was raving about a child that was murdered and called on heaven to forgive for-give her for having murdered it Then she moaned out something about the child having been cold and freezing and starving and she couldnt seeit suffer any longer IjsoonJound out that she was the very person I was looking for Well I arrested her but the poor thing died before be-fore her trial came off I was glad she didBut But the funniest things are said by drunken people I often see comical instances in-stances of intoxicated men staggering home swearing at themselves for getting drunk and solemnly promising not to do it again Then again they often have a serious conversation with themselves as to how their wives will receive them when they get home Philadelphia Press |