KIDNAPPING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 56, 7 March 1919, Page 7

KIDNAPPING

SOME UNCLEARED MYSTERIES,

A JUDGE’S REMINISCENCES.

One night in Chicago, Pat Crowe, a big burly over 6ft nigh, came to riiy office and stayed until midirght (writes Judge Henry Net 1 , in World's Work). He told mo the lull deta:G cl ho\y a short- time belore he had gone to the Cudahy home in Omaha, Nebraska, ■ and kidnapped the son of Mr and Mrs Cudahy, who were very rich people, hid him in aii| old dilapidated house bn the outskirts of the city, and had Sent a note to the family demanding a ransom which the Cudahys refused to pay. Drowe ha.l been lor many years a worker in the Cudahy meat pnekug •’*- tablishment m Omaha he wa g fied with the wages he received and had taken the kidnapping me'.hod of getting more money out of he Cudahys. The police recognised the handwriting of Crowe in the note, and wore searching for him when he escaped from the city by night and ina.Jo hi® way to a lonely spot Vn the n>.>unUins of Montana.

He told me how he had travelled this 700 miles, by hiding in woods and marshes in- the day-time and walking during thei dark of - the nghc-s. He stayed in the mountains Ur tour moriths, when he was competed by hunger to go to the city ui Butte lor food; there he was recognised by the police, arrested, and sent back to Omaha for trial. He was not convicted because of some technicality in ihe law that did not clearly define kidnapping* After Crowe's escape to the mountains, tue boyf wa® lound and returned to his pome.

WHO STOLE CHARLIE RyES? About 40 years ago, on the outskirts of Philadelphia, where i. them . ■ / ed, two men drove at dusk (along a lonely road, arid picked up, just outside hie owri yard, a four-year-old boy named Charles Ross-, whose parents were ta6o rich. The next day the kidnappers sent Word to the boy’ parents that they would return the boy unharmed if Mr Kosg would put 10,000 dollars in a certain place where they could got it without being seen or known, and that they would maim the boy if the lansom was not paid. . , . The chief of police of the city of Philadelphia • refused to allow Mr Ross tq pay any ransom ’ whatsoever, because it Was thought that if a ranom was paid l it would encourage other kidnappere. live vears ago Mr and Mr® .H° s ? died, after having sj>en: 35 years and their entire fortune in a fruitless search for some trace of their bqy Charlie. They never found out what became of him* No one to this day kraows. THE STRANGEST CASE EVER ' KNOWN. A few days ago Sir Jesse Boot told me that* he* had visited the home of Mrs J. W. Booth, m London, whose two -months-old baby was recently kidnapped. The mother left the baby in its perambulator outside a chop while she went inside to make a purchase. On Coming out of the shop she found that tpe baby was gone. • Sir Jesse Boot offered a reward ( of, £IOO for thq return of the child. The police approved of this offer, and .circulated a description of the child—a small and chubby 'girl, with fair hair Midi; blue -eyes. . Sir Jesse told me that he had ■ never before seeri such /iri'enee suffering -af Was expressed in Mr® Booth’s face ds she told hi®' °f the loss of her child- ■ Be said her grief was not of the mw kincj’, bpt was a deiep anguish that cannot be expressed in sounds, He said thab he was deeply moved by the overwhelming despair of this mother. Fqurieett’ days after this baby waf kidrtapped it was found by Tt* n^other. The Woman who stole it had rift thought of getting a raneqm. She could not resist the impulse to take he baby when she saw it alone in its -perambulator, her desire for the companionship of a baby was eo strong that she took, this baby *o,.hpr hofne and kept it as her owri until the mother found it.

LEGAL KIDNAPPING.

And yet the iaw itself has been for year® guilty of kidnapping children. Uor no crime at alt, but because of the misfortune of poverty, mothers have been legally bereft of their little ones. Children have been kidnapped, by titate, shut up, often practically “incommunicado, on huge pnson-like institutions. Not because their parenjs failed in love or duty. It was simply because they were poor. : But 30 American Jdthtes hate now redeemed themselves from 1 his crime of violating a fundamental huinan infitinbt. . • They.' established a motnera’ pension eystem. Instead' 1 of paying aw institution to, fpr the children of poverty-stricken parents, they f pay the mother herself to care for the children. ’ . . i The phenomenal rapidity with winch, the mothem’ system spread; over the country, once it had out- 1 lined, is explainied by the fact that it appeals to one of the deepest of human emotions. Judge Neil’® mission to England to interest local authorities there to Adopt the, Of subsidising or pensioning the mother to bring up her Child rather than endowing or levying, rated for the upkeep of children's homes, fie received most encouraging help frpm all classes of people in the United -Kingdom*