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Show PARALLEL STORIES $f FAMOUS CRIMES By HENRY C. TERRY (Copyright by F. L. Nei6on AMAZING CAREER OF A WOMAN THIEF. ' HE criminal records show 0 that very few women have' IrMJ been successful as all-rMA all-rMA around thieves. There is xrtSr no constitutional reason ff why they should not be able to make just as good burglars, pickpockets, sneaks, or do any other kind of criminal work not dependant upon brute force. Women have tried their hands at every sor.t of crime, even to holding up men on the highway. But the common experience expe-rience of women, except in the line of confidence work, forgery and picking pockets, can generally be stamped as failure, and no good reason can be assigned as-signed for It. While many women have been successful suc-cessful in limited branches of thievery thiev-ery few have reached a very high place In the criminal scale. Among these no one Is entitled to a more prominent position than "Peg" Foster, the widow of Denny Brady. She had only been married to Brady two months, and had been with him on several important robberies In Connecticut, Con-necticut, where he was killed while boarding a schooner at Elizabethport, N. J. "Peg" used to be an attractive woman wom-an in face and form, but the hard times which had come her way when I talked with her had wiped-out much of her attractiveness, although her dark brown eyes are as full of fire as et er. "PEG" FOSTER'S STORY. "When Denny died," said Peg, "I thought that I had enough of living on the run all the time. I made up my mind to set". down and live pretty straight. 1 never had been pinched but once. I got out of that scrape by an alibi, so that I had a clean record. But the way you bend a tree It Is bound to grow, and It was not long before be-fore I doubled up with Alec Foster, who Is now in his grave because he would hot listen to me. Alec was always reckless. I tell you the only thing that will keep some men In the traces is a woman. "When I went in with Alec he was doing the hotels and doing them well. Then lie got it into his fiery head he had red hair that his particular business busi-ness would be very rnTtch better If he bad a woman with him. I was willing to do anything, and as it was summer, we started out to do the seaside resorts re-sorts in style. Did you ever see Alec? Well, you remember that he was about as distinguished4ooking a fellow as you would meet in a day's travel. When we went into a swell hotel and registered under some military title, you can bet that It went every time. Alec could fool the best of them, and I was not so very slow myself. "It was a part of my duty to get on very friendly terms with the Women In the hotels. Alec would do the same with the men. By keeping our eyes open we would pick out the rooms It would pay us to make a visit for professional purposes at such times as might be convenient. . ' "It was my work to enter the rooms and do the tapping. If any one should be aroused I could make an exuse that would go much better than a man could. Whenever I was caught after had picked up a lot of things in any of the other rooms I always made a great fuss about being robbed myself. "Alec and I worked the scheme up and down the Atlantic coast. We were never arrested on the whole trip. So far as I know we were never even under un-der suspicion. We never kept the stolen goods around, but would send them concealed with other things, by expsess to New York, or some other city, to be called for and delivered upon payment of charges. We had many amusing times helping detectives detec-tives look for the thieves. It seemed 90 ridiculous to me on several occasions occa-sions that if the men had been smart they certainly would have seen by my manner that I was only a hollow pretender. pre-tender. "After the season had closed Alec nd I made a tour of the country, and It was a star tour. We stopped at all the first-class hotels in the large cities 9nd worked our little game to perfection. perfec-tion. We never took anything but liamonds and money. We immediately immediate-ly pinched the stones from the settings set-tings to prevent positive identification .n case we were discovered. We na3 i little trouble In Chicago, but easily pulled out of it with a liberal use of greenbacks, of which we had plenty on tap. Everything ran smoothly until ive tumbled Into Philadelphia and put Bp at the Glrard House. I got caught ppHE CRIMINAL Tells 8 How He Planned the 1 j Deed and Sought to Close i J Every Avenue of Knowl- g j edge Leading to His Guilt. The Detective Shows How j Futile These Efforts Were and How the Old Adage, Murder Will Out, "Always Holds Good." j dead to rights there-in the room of a banker. Alec, who wj in the corridor, corri-dor, flew to my rescue, and was shot through the lungs by a night watchman. watch-man. "I had always urged him if ever I got pinched to stay out of the scrape, as a woman always had a better show of getting free on the plea of kleptomania. klepto-mania. Alec was taken to a hospital and died In a few days. I was tried, convicted and sentenced to five years in the penitentiary. While in jail I became a party to a little romance, which I do not care to talk about. It ended In my being pardoned from rhe penitentiary after I had served less than a year. "Two years after this I became reckless reck-less again and joined Jimmy Porter and Abe Norrls, w-ho made a specialty of robbing postoffices and country banks. I was In many jobs with them and used to do the planting as the agent for a sewing machine. "The last big trick I was In was very disastrous in the end. We spent two weeks in putting up a job in the Mlddletown, N. Y., postoffice and bank. I sold machines In the town for a while. I soon got onto two valuable facts. Money to take up $200,000 in bonds was in tie safe at the bank. The safe at the postoffice was the- repository re-pository for the valuables of many of the residents. The safe in the bank was the toughest one I ever saw for a small one. It took four hours' hard work to get into the strong box. We did the box in the postoffice in less than half an hour. When we started from the bank we had about $250,000 In cash and jewelry. It was a rich haul for a little place. We had to run the gantlet when we left the bank and had a lively chase for several miles. Fortunately our (ursuers were thrown off the track by mistaking the road which we took, and we reached New York safely. It looked as If everything ev-erything was covered up In good shape, but the turn had come to our luck, as It does in time to every crook." DETECTIVE BRITTON'S' STORY. "The Mlddletown postoffice robbery," rob-bery," said Detective Britton, who was formerly a postoffice inspector, "aroused "arous-ed the authorities to feverish action. large force of men was turned out to run down the gang. "One great difficulty in postoffice and bank robberies is that the thieves get plunder that can be used without arousing suspicion. Money, of course, goes everywhere. Thieves know enough not to try and put bonds that j will be questioned Into Immediate cir-i cir-i dilation. I hunted high and low to i find a place where the thieves might j have tried to dispose of their booty; I to get, 'if possible, a description of j some of them. "t was within ten miles of the place, and heard of the robbery early in the morning after it had occurred. I got to Mlddletown as quickly as possible. There I found a startling slate of affairs. af-fairs. The thieves actually had been seen at worn: in the Middletown bank by the local police, which consisted of three men. Still they permitted them ; to get away. ! "The escape was made through the ! cunning of one of the gang, who had. been posted as an outlook In front of the hank. It seemed that the police had seen four strangers in the town who acted suspiciously. One of them was recognized by a constable as a woman, In spite of her being dressed in men's clothes, who had sold his wife a sewing machine. "It was about 11 o'clock In the evening. H6 notified the other constables, con-stables, and together they kept watch on the gang. The constables had followed fol-lowed them for a time when they observed ob-served a man that seemed to be watching them. When the thieves got into the bank, he entered with them. Shortly after he emerged and in a shadow of a tree kept up his vigil. The chief of the constables after a while approached the stranger, who seemed startled when spoken to. When the constable said he was a policeman the stranger appeared delighted and said he was just the person h& had been looking for. "The stranger In a very few words explained that he was a secret service agent. He said he had been on the track of the thieves who were In the bank for a week. He outlined a plan which would certainly lead to their capture and also the capture of two other thieves, who had just robbed the postoffice, which the constables at that time had not heard of. "The bogus secret service man and the three constables watched the thieves break open the safe door with a drag, saw them pack the money and other valuables into a sack, put out the lights and leave. The stranger kept the constables from making an attack at that time by explaining that he had three assistants waiting near the spot where their wagon was waiting. wait-ing. By going there the force would be large enough to bag the whole gang- without trouble. "When the thieves came out the stranger did not follow them, but went in another direction. He quieted the suspicion of the constables bv telling them the thieves were jjolng the wrong way just to see if hny one wo jld follow them. By hurrying tbey would reach the wagon before the thieves and could lie in ambush for them. The police walked rapidly foi a few moments and then a sharp whistle whis-tle was heard. The stranger cried ou1 for all hands to get under cover, as the thieves were coming toward them. Everybody jumped Into the shadow. In a few moments when the constables hunted for the stranger he could not be found. All the simple-minded rural police could hear was the clatter of a team of horses going up the road, fully half a mile away. They got a team as soon as they could, but the thieves had obtained such a start that it proved to be useless to follow them. Not one of them had recognized, In the smooth-faced young man who had duped them, the woman sewing machine ma-chine agent. "I got a good description of all the thieves. While I had a general Idea who was in the gang, I was not certain until I made a little more investigation. investiga-tion. I dropped the gang altogether and did not try to find what had become be-come of them. I knew that it would only be a waste of effort after giving them a twelve-hour start. The only one I was interested in was the woman. wom-an. I made up my mind from her description de-scription that I knew her, but I had to verify It This task took me to a farm owned by Samuel Hooper, about ten miles out of Pittsburgh. The woman I was after was his wife. It was just as I suspected. She was not at home and Hooper bad not heard from her for a long time. "It Is necessary to maloe a little explanation ex-planation at this point. Peg Foster, a very clever thief, was convicted of robbing hotels in Philadelphia several years before. The papers had been full of her beauty and Innocence. Hooper, who was a very eccentric chap, read all about it. After Peg had been sent to Jail he visited her, offered to marry her and worked for her release if she would promise to lead an honest life. She led Hooper along for several months and then married him in jail. Hooper worked night and day for a year, and finally induced the governor gover-nor to pardon his wife. Everybody aided Hooper in his efforts. When he took Mrs. Hooper home he was praised prais-ed for his philanthropy. "I met Hooper several times and took such an interest in the case that I visited Peg Foster in the penitentiary peniten-tiary and also at her home after she got out of jail. She seemed quite happy as a farmer's wife, but after six months' trial she went away with all of Farmer Hooper's spare cash. "I put up a little scheme with Hoopers' Hoop-ers' consent. I had a story published in the Pittsburgh papers about Hooper's Hoop-er's infatuation for Mrs. Hooper. It stated that he. was very sick and had made a will In which he had ieft an estate of $300,000 to her upon condition condi-tion that she appeared to claim It within one year after his death. It she did not appear the money was to be used to build a home for ex-convicts. The story was copied" everywhere. every-where. In two weeks it bore fruit In the shape of a letter from Mrs. Hooper to the farmer, begging to be forgiven and promising to return and live with him to the end of his days If he would let her. It was a beautiful letter, and could not have been better worded if it bad come from a broken heart. "I fixed up the answer for Hooper. It was directed to an address in West 15th street, New York. I started at once for New York and telegraphed Hooper to mail the letter after I had .put a plant upon the house, which had long been suspected as a fence for stolen diamonds and Jewelry. The letter let-ter told of Hooper's love for the. woman wom-an who had deceived him, anA promised prom-ised her everything If she would return. re-turn. "The letter was delivered all right, but It was not until the next day that there were any developments. Then my old friend. Peg Foster, turned up, looking as sweet as a rose. She wenl away wilh the letter in her hand, which showed that she was living in some other locality. "I shadowed her, with two assistants, assist-ants, to Madison Square. She went to a house next door to the one occupied by Judge Reilly. There was no sign of life in the place until after dark. Then an expressman took several trunks away. Teg came out a few moments mo-ments afterward. With her were two notorious pugs, Jimmy Oliver and Abe Norris. They didn't go very far, as I gave the signal to my partners and we closed in on them. They were the most astonished crooks I ever saw, and we had the cuffs on them before they got over their surprise. They were identified by the constables at Middletown, and were sent away for fifteen years each" |