Extraordinary Revelations—A Wealthy Kleptomaniac in the Toils of a Black-mailing Detective.
In the issue of the New York World, bearing date Saturday, May 11, 1867, appeared a long article criticising, exposing, and severely condemning the methods of the city's detective police. "A detective," said the writer, "is presumed to be alike active, capable and honest, and were he such, he would be a public benefactor; but as he is too often either ignorant, indolent, or positively dishonest, he becomes a public pest. That detectives are in league with thieves; that they associate with them publicly and privately on the most intimate terms; that they occasionally 'put up' jobs with them by which the people are alike fleeced and astonished; that although the perpetrators of great robberies are generally known to them, the said perpetrators almost invariably escape punishment; that far more attention is paid to the sharing of the plunder, or the obtaining of a large percentage on the amount of money recovered, than to the furtherance of the ends of justice—all these statements are undeniably true."
Coming to specific charges, the writer said further on: "A handsome female, a Broadway shop-lifter, recently testified that although she had been desirous of reforming her life for a year past, she had been totally prevented from so doing by the extortions of certain members of the detective force, who threatened to reveal her former history unless she 'came down handsomely,' and in order to 'come down,' as they styled it, she was obliged to resort to her old disgraceful business."
The foregoing reference to a concurrent incident was presented to the reader as coldly and curtly as a historic hailstone, striking him but to glance off, and not like a real, breathing story, as it was, appealing strongly to his heart. The following facts, which have been kept inviolate in this office for nearly twenty years, and only brought to light here because those most concerned have passed away, will show what a stirring and pathetic narrative lay beneath the newspaper chronicler's dry words.
Early in the spring of the year above named, an elderly gentleman of undoubted respectability was shown into our private office. He was exceedingly nervous and flurried, and his wan, colorless face looked like an effaced page. In a tortuous, round-about way, he intimated that his married daughter was in great trouble, in consequence of the operation of a great weakness or defect in character which was apparently hereditary. Her mother, his wife, he said, an excellent, kind-hearted, conscientious, truthful woman, had occasionally manifested the kleptomania impulse and had been detected. Happily the crime had been committed under circumstances which obviated exposure; it had been charitably overlooked upon his paying the bill for the purloined goods. Up to the date of her marriage, he had not observed or otherwise become cognizant of the development of the unfortunate trait in his only daughter. Her husband was a noble-minded man who devotedly loved her, and whom she idolized. Two years after her marriage she was caught shop-lifting in an establishment where she was known. By a merciful stroke of fortune, the information and the bill were sent to the father instead of the husband. Great moral and religious influence had been brought to bear on her, and for several years there was cause to believe that she had overcome her weakness. Unfortunately there had been another lapse into temptation. At present she was suffering the tortures of the damned, but in what particular respect she had refused to explain to him. "Father, find me an active, bold and energetic lawyer," she had said in a paroxysm of tears, "and I will tell him what I cannot tell you."
The lady came to the office next morning, alone. She was pale as a lily, and she bore on her forehead that shadow of melancholy which tells all the world that a woman is suffering and unhappy. Her eyes were dark and soft as the darkest and softest violet, and she was dressed with the utmost simplicity. She was in a most desponding mood. She said nothing was worth striving for any more. There was no good under the sun for her. The splendor had gone from the grass—the glory from the flower. Life, affection, family ties, love of good name—all these had ceased to appeal to her.
In the sanctum sanctorum of a criminal lawyer's office the extremes of mental agony and poignant suffering are sometimes revealed in all their phases; but it would be hard to imagine any one suffering more than this fair, prepossessing woman, as she told how that sleepless and merciless vulture of remorse, aided by the machinations of a licensed fiend in human form, dogged her steps by day and made night horrible. The recital recalled the picture suggested by the lines:
"Lean abstinence, pole grief and haggard care,
The dire attendants of forlorn despair."
With pale, quivering lips, she told the story of her humiliation. Primarily, some two years after she became a happy wedded wife, she was impelled by an irresistible impulse to take some article, almost valueless in itself, from the counter of a dry-goods store. She had been making several purchases and had plenty of money in her pocket at the time. Afterwards, as opportunity offered, the wretched larceny was repeated. Then came discovery, and her father's awakening to the realization that his daughter was a thief. He summoned a minister and some worthy Christian women—relatives of his—to talk to her and to urge her to seek strength from that source where it is never withheld when earnestly and penitently invoked. She became a church-member, zealous and earnest in the path of righteousness, partaking regularly of the Sacred Elements, visiting the sick, relieving the distressed, and comforting the afflicted. To use Milton's language,
"Such a sacred and homefelt delight,
Such sober certainty of waking bliss,"