SOME EXTRAORDINARY DOUBLE LIVES

Evening Star, Issue 12028, 28 October 1903, Page 8

SOME EXTRAORDINARY DOUBLE LIVES

Tho history of crime abounds in curious instances of double living, and (he United States has itr. share of them. In New York | .John Webber is awaiting trial for burglary. ' Webber was a member of the Salvation Army j and leader of a mission in the slums. In a pleasant suburb he lived quietly with his wife, who was greatly astonished to leant that lie had committed bnrvlary in thirty houses durbig tho las’, six months. In Philadelphia. George Dickinson has been sent to the Penitentiary for fifteen years. A regular atton- | danl at .Sunday school and church, bo had j Ik-iii promoted bv his employer io a partneri -.hip in a profitable manufacturing business, j and was about io marry a young woman to j whom he seemed a model of integrity. But j he was guilty of burglary in not less than j one hundred houses, and at his lodgings was | found a runarkaiLy fine collection, of bnr- * -j'ar's. tools. In Ohio, the Rev. Amos T. ; Whitman lias closed a career of deception and i crime by going to gaol. When this term of imprifOitmeut. is ended, other prison doors will open for him. He is wanted in a dozen States. Whitman was an eloquent pulpit o.aior. and lie moved from place to place as au eiangeliri. His real purpose was to steal horses, and ho had organised a band of con- ! fcdrivlos. who ured ihc information which lie j obtained at the homos of the good people ; who entertained him. A curious case, which cannot be classed with these is that of Frank La Bouniio, the confidential clerk of a firm of lawyers engaged in the care of estates at Buffalo, a large city at the western extremity of the Si at oof New York. Happily married, and the respected member ef a church, this clerk, as, it now appears, had stolen / over £IOO.OOO from his employers. A remarkable feature of this crime is the fact iliut the stolen money was so well invested that the linn will gain £25,000 by the detection of La Bounties theft. The man had a genius for speculation in real estate. The money which l-.c- acquired by a criminal manipulation of accounts entrusted to his euro he invested in I ambitious suburban projects. Thus he caused the erect ion of a large factory, and of 125 cottages for tho i*ersor.s employed in it. Tho profit, resulting from those operations already exceeds £25.000, no part of which had come into the clerk’s possession. It is not. certain yet. that, ho will he prosecuted. Admiring his ability and willing to tafie tho risk of his disj honesty, a company of real estate speculators have offered t<* employ him at. a salary of £2,500 a year I