The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 22, 1899, Page 31

THE SUNDAY CALL. 29 The Most Successful “Woman-Hunter™ of Olr Western World ON THE PARK SDPEED v_’/\\«\ lives and o there admiring storfes they all t from De- i3 the largest part never, while great 16ts to unwise humanity more ing than virtue, sness of those ¥ Do been homes have th their nthony’s s realities, ghtness of K to read it, edles from ling sorrow vily even after 11d aside. but I have chief actor the ak n to spend in telling “H do I manage to find these people?” he repeats, when he is asked this q That T cannot tell you, for I do not know If they are known to have s I generally hunt for isn't a hem the first thing ing of that kir but if there to get a clew from I have to study 7 hard. As for the ‘description: folks give us, do you realize how widely what is known as a ‘general descri oplies? Should arre you be sent out to t a confldence man or a reguls described as being ‘short, dark'—or light, as the case might be—‘well dressed, with a grayish mustache and a habit of smiling appre- clatively and paternally upon young ladies,” you might mistakenly Tug o, in- 2d of the person for whom you are is of our rep- s who would ‘fill the far as listed personal a certaln number of mouth x- all comp e amor inhabi l \ | turnished to the police are generah, ore confusing than helpful. ‘““Women gad girls are harder to hunt up than men and boy cause they are more skillful about ple disgulses and aré generally cleverer about choosing their hiding places. I guess they put me on to that work when I first began just to kind of discourage me and take my pride down”—he crosses ane leg over the other and takes a little half turn in his roomy chalr. “But it didn’t.,” I say with conviction, and he smiles assentingly. “Not entirely, anyway, but then it is mostly luck, after all, that helps me out. I've had girls I was looking for walk right up to me on the street and ask me to direct them somewhere; and then I've had to put in days and nights hunting for others who were hidden almost under my nose. The youngest truant I ever discov- ered was Ethel Lashwood, a flve-year- old baby, who, it was claimed, was kid- naped by Bertha Franklly, known as HE TELLS SOr1E WEIRD TALES OF HYPNOTIC INFLUENCE, DESPERATE CASE AND THRILLIE ADVENTURE A MAN WHO HAS DEVOTED HIMSELF FOR NINETEEN YEARS TO THE TASK OF LOOKING UP FEMININE TRUANTS. RETURNIN THE. PRODIGAL To HER HOME. and went up to Oregoxn, where she foined the Szlvation Army, in which ghe was a shining light vocally and prayerfully un- til her brother hunted her up and brougbt her home, where she was freely forgiven and lovingly reinstated. There was no man in the case whatever, but the girl was one of the kind who hated qulet home life, and so after elght more months of monotonous misery she cut open the back of her mother's trunk with & hatchet, took out $40 and—vanished again. I found her’’—the “wonder” says this in the most casual manner—‘living quite alone in a second class but thoroughly re- spectable lodging house and with only $2 in her possession, the rest of her plnun- der having been spent for cheap jewelry and solitary but presumably soul-satisfy- ing hack rides. “Ida Trapp of Carson City was a girl of the same disposition, with, however, the element of dishonesty left out. Miss Trapp, though the daughter of well-to-do people, had never had any opportunity to (See the world outside of her home towa. She had, however, a small bank account 12 her own name and one day she drew her money and became invisible. For three weeks all manner of theories were put forward to count for her disap- o abduction, suicide and | PETECTIVE ABRAHAM ANTHONY pearance murder. st 'every other dreadful possible reason for her loss was suggested to her distracted family, and then I discovered her hero in San Francisco, boarding with respecta- ble people and happily engaged in seeing all the many places of interest in and about San Francisco in the most conven- tlonal and proper manner imaginable un- der the chaperonage of her estimable hostess. Quite as innocent and yet quite as trylng to her friends was pretty Aggie ‘Ward, who ‘hated to sew’ and wished she ‘was a boy,’ and created wild sensa- tions by having her dainty boots black- ened at bootblack stands, whistling through her fingers when she wanted to stop street cars and taking meteoric drives in the park strapped into a racing sulky behind the fastest horse that she could hire. There was nothing Treally wrong about Aggie”—the detective’'s smile is very kindly as he speaks—‘for all her escapades came merely from a girlish ‘Big Bertha No. 2'; and the oldest was a Mrs. Lamont, who was hunted up at the instigation of her son-in-law, Thomas Jones of Dogtown, Butte County—not be- cause he loved her but because he ac- cused her of having stolen two saddles and a bridle from his barn just previous to her disappearance. Of the young girls who leave their homes the mafority are led away by false promises built on a foundation of romantically secret ‘love af- fairs.’ ‘Street flirtations,’ indulged in at first in a spirit of innocent fun by groups of pretty schoolgirls, are the source of some of the worst crimes that blacken the police annals of our large cities. “There are girls, however, who seem to be naturally incorrigible and who desert their homes not because of outside per- guasion but simply for the reason that they chafe under the bonds of respecta- love of excitement. But when she ran bility and long for adventure and excite- away from home to join a theatrical com- ment and personal freedom. To this class pany that didn’t want her I had to go belongs pretty Marla Knudson, who -at after her and bring her back. I remem- the age of 16 stole ’309_‘12"‘ her mother ber that the saucy little thing Kkissed her ANTHONY' hand to me in the courtroom when her mother took her away and he laughed outright at the recallection. “One of the oddest cases that I ever knew of,” he goes on, ‘“‘was that of a young girl and her stepmother who ran away together from an almost palatial home in Sacramento. The head of the house was a rather stern man of 70 years and his ideas of ‘home rule’ seemed very arbitrary to his wife and child, who came here and ‘set up housekeeping’ for them- selves, but were glad enough to return when I found them, for their money was glving out and neither of them knew how to earn more.” “‘What wes the queerest case I ever knew of?' "—a brief season of retrospec- tion follows this question. ““Well, that one of Ella Wilson of Los Gatos has never been really explained. That girl was lost for two weeks, and when she was dug up in a Montgomery street lodg- ing house she was a sight to behold. She had eaten and drank absolutely nothing for five days and nights, although she had plenty of money and a quantity of valuable jewelry with her. She looked ke a living skeleton, and she claimed that she had left her home and come to this’ city under the hypnotic influence of & woman in Los Gatos, whose name she refused to tell, and that she had been b perfectly unconscious of her actions or surroundings until just before her restor- ation to home and friends. She had been quite alone all of the time and no harm came to her out of the affair except a brief iliness due to her self-imposed star- vation.” Will he tell me of some of the feminine criminals whom he has captured or helped to capture? “The most remarkable one in the line of thievery,” he answers, “was the original ‘Woman in Black,’ who, ten vears ago, stole over $20,000 worth of jewelry and other valuables here in San Francisco, after serving a sentence in Sing Sing for stealing $18,000 in government bonds from a room in the St. Nicholas Hotel' in New York city. Then there were the ‘Noodle Girls,’ and Eva Doherty, known a year or 50 ago as the ‘toughest child in the city.’ “But the girl who has given me the most trouble in that way is Annie Meyers, a German girl, who for more than fifteen years has been a constant source of an- noyance to the police. Annie began to steal when she was 8 years old, her first big exploit being to clear out all the smaller treasures of her own home and distribute them among her playmates. I have arrested this girl over and over, and as her favorite methed of procedure is to answer advertsements for domestics and /ATHLETIC ANNIE A X5 FooT DROP FOR LUBERTY & " e MEYERS> MAKING work just long enough to securs a few articles of value, and she go. nder many! different names I am never e when [ g0 to arrest a dishonest servant, unless Annie is safely behind the re, that she is not the one I am z Annie is ag athletic as she is ger nnered, de- mure and acc tive, for only yvear when I er down on Sixth street she jumy over the railir f a veranda nd and then | sever- tw climbed an eight al blocks to get ive feet from the grou fence y from me nt his wite here for a six m 1t and she got in with to the bad, so that ‘drunken F He didn Coast. s in a sn n he came to m knowing that he was her husband him not to mix up with the w because of her reputation tried kill me right there. It was a hard deal for the man all around, and I always felt sorry for him. “Three years ago Kate Flood was nearly the death of me, too. I arrested her and she begged so hard not to go up to the City Hall in the patrol wagon that I took her on a car instead, and just as we got to Leavenworth street sbe jumped off and it I, nc advised 1 at all pulled me after her when I hung on to her dress. We both fell flat, and I lay right in front of another car and thought I was a dead man for a minute, but I managed to get out of the way just in time, and keep my prisoner, too. “Now, as to what makes 80 many run away from home—sometimes it's one thing and sometimes it's another. “Most people are too easy and careless with their girls and let them run around too much with other gi without any older person to look aft m. And th again, others are too hard with them ani keep them so close that they bound to break out. As for women—I've known some to leave the best of homes and take up with tramps and gamblers and mor- phine flends and worse, and I've known othcrs to give up their lives slaving for worthless husbands and ungrateful chil- dren, and even dread going to heaven be- cause they would bave (o leave these bur- dens behind. “Women and girls are puzzling,” con- cluded Detective Anthony—but he is nei- ther the first nor the last man to so de- cide. F. M AHON. —_— e Women commercial travelers are con- siderably on the increase. Their tact and persuasiveness render them successful. The increase has been largely due to the freedom in traveling .which women now. claim.