Searching for Motive of Confession.
The case worried the police officials. The absolute lack of reason for Devel's confession stimulated their curiosity. He was held in custody for weeks, and then the police gave up in despair, and, as Holz had been arrested and had confessed to everything, the release of Devel was ordered. The order of release proved the move that revealed the truth. When he was told that he was free to return home, Devel broke down and begged the police to keep him in prison, to hang him, to poison him, but not to send him home.
In his agony he confessed that the only reason he confessed the murder was that he desired to get hanged, and that he preferred hanging to life with his wife.
The hard-hearted police set him free—literally threw him out of the prison, and he returned to his wife in Lubeck. The following day he resumed charge of his business.
An English correspondent visited Devel in his shop and made certain inquiries of him regarding the case. As the hanging editor would say, "the condemned man was nervous." He was afraid his wife would read what he said, but the correspondent finally got him to tell.
"I desired to be hung," said Devel, mournfully. "Life is not worth the living, and with my wife it is worse than death. If I had been hanged no other man would marry my wife, and I would save them from my fate. Many times have I planned to kill myself to escape her. That is sin, and I lack the bravery to kill myself, besides. If they will not hang me I must continue to live with my wife."
Devel states, among other things, that these are the chief grievances against married life in general, and his wife in particular:
- She was slender, and became fat and strong.
- She was beautiful, and became ugly and coarse.
- She was tender, and grew hard.
- She was loving, and grew virulent.
- She grew whiskers on her chin.
- She called him "pig."
- She wore untidy clothes, and her hair was unkempt.
- She refused to give him beer.
- Her breath smelled of onions and of garlic.
- She threw hot soup upon him.
- She continually upbraided him because there were no children.
- She scolded him in the presence of neighbors.
- She refused to permit him to bring his friends home.
- She came into his store and scolded him.
- She accused him of infidelity.
- She disturbed him when he slept in the garden on Sundays.
- She made him cook his own dinners.
- She spilled his beer when he drank quietly with friends.
- She told tales about him among the neighbors, and injured his business.
- She served his sausages and his soup cold, and sometimes did not have his meals for him when he came home.
- She did not make the beds nor clean the house.
- She took cards out of his skat deck.
- She talked continually, and scolded him for everything or nothing.
- She opened the windows when he closed them, and closed them when he opened them.
- She poured water into his shoes while he slept.
- She cut off his dachshund's tail.
These things, he said, made him prefer to be hanged to living with her.
Incidentally Holz, who is awaiting execution, expresses an earnest desire to trade places with Herr Devel.
There is no accounting for tastes.
[A CLEVER SHOPLIFTER.]
DETECTIVE WOOLDRIDGE FINDS A FAIR CRIMINAL.
While passing through the Fair, one of the largest retail dry goods establishments in Chicago, Detective Wooldridge noticed one of the cleverest shoplifters that ever operated in Chicago, Bertha Lebecke, known as "Fainting Bertha."
She was standing in front of the handkerchief counter, where her actions attracted Wooldridge's attention, and he concluded to watch her. She called the girl's attention to something on the shelf and as she turned to get it Bertha's hand reached out and took a half dozen expensive lace handkerchiefs, which disappeared in the folds of her skirt.
The act was performed so quickly and with such cleverness that it would have gone unnoticed unless one were looking right at her and saw her take the handkerchiefs.
From the handkerchief counter she went to the drug department, where she secured several bottles of perfume. As she was leaving this counter she met a Central detective who had arrested her before for the same offense. He stopped a few yards from her to make some trifling purchases. She, thinking he was watching her, left the store.
From the Fair she went to Siegel-Cooper's, another large dry goods store several blocks away. Detective Wooldridge followed her. She was seen to go from counter to counter, and from each one she succeeded in getting some article.
As she was leaving the store she was placed under arrest by Detective Wooldridge and taken to the Police Station.
When she was arrested she fainted, and a great crowd gathered around her, and many of the women cried and implored Detective Wooldridge not to arrest her, but he would not be moved by any of them to let her go free.
"Fainting Bertha"
When she arrived at the Police Station she was searched, and beneath the folds of her skirt was found a strong waist pocket which looked like a petticoat. It consisted of two pieces of material gathered full at the top with a strong cord or puckering string run through, and sewed together around the edges. In front of this great bag was a slit two feet long opening from the top to within a few inches of the bottom. This petticoat was worn under the dress skirt. On each side of the outside skirt was a long slit concealed by the folds of the skirt, and with one hand she could slip the stolen articles in through the slit in the inside of her dress and into the petticoat bag to the opening in front. The capacity of the bag was enormous. She had stolen some $40 or $50 worth of goods when arrested. The following morning she was arraigned in the Police Court and heavily fined, and the goods were restored to the merchants.
Bertha Lebecke, 27 years old, is conceded by Illinois state authorities to be the most troublesome person who ever crossed the state line from any direction at any time.
Just how large a cash bonus the state treasury today might be willing to advance could it be assured of Bertha's deportation forever beyond the confines of Illinois is something difficult to estimate, but it is certain that in the asylums for the insane at Kankakee, Elgin and Bartonville, and in the state penitentiary at Joliet there are attendants on salaries who would make personal contributions to help swell the possible fund.
Yet "Fainting Bertha" Lebecke is one of the prettiest, blondest, most delicate handed little bits of well-developed femininity that ever made a marked success in deceiving people of both sexes and all conditions in public, afterwards deceiving officials of jails, asylums and penitentiaries until bars and gates and frowning walls were as cobwebs before her.