KIDNAPPING A BABY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6551, 31 July 1899, Page 2

KIDNAPPING A BABY.

A SENSATIONAL' CASE. PUBLIC SYMPATHY FOR PARENTS. Since little Charlie Ross was stolen from his home in the outskirts of Philadelphia, twenty-five years ago, never to be seen again by his heart-broken parents, no case of kidnapping has so excited the sympathies of the American people as the one which was happily, closed a few days ago by the recovery of " Baby Clarke." For two weeks (writes the New York correspondent, of the Melbourne " Argus ") the newspapers of the city were full of it, and the journals throughout the land gave much of their space to long reports of the progress of the search for the stolen child. It was on May 16 that a> young woman, calling herself Carrie Jones, applied, in answer to an advertisement, for the place of nursegirl in the family of Arthur Clarke, a young man employed as a publisher's salesman at a moderate salary, who lived within two or three blocks of Central Park. She was accepted, and soon became quite fond of her little charge, the baby Marion, twenty months old. On May 21 she took the child into the park, lifted lief from her little carriage, and bore her away. That afternoon the search began, the police viein"- witilil the newspapers in attempts to trace the kidnapper. There came to the distracted parents a letter, in which they were told that only by remaining quiet and keeping the case from the police could they hope to see the child again alive.- During the' following ten days scores of false clues were investigated by tine Press. This time the police were in advance of the newspapers, although, the latter had offered large rewards for information, and the city officers w-ere about to arrest the kidnappers on June 1, when they were forestalled by the constable of an- obscure town in the hills, about forty miles from the city, and not far from the national military school at West Point, where the thieves had hoped to evade pursuit. They had been living in an isolated farmhouse. The womao. whlo had the child in charge had incautiously carried her 1 in her arms to the cross-roads post office, and there the postmistress, a keen-eyed woman, who had seen little Marion's portrait in the newspapers, suspected that the solution of the mystery was in her hands. A few hours later the kidnappers were in custody, the child had been recovered and identified by her happy father, and a special train was bringing her back to the suffering mother, who had become almost insane. Extra editions of the newspapers were published, and there was universal rejoicing. Upon its arrival the speckil train was besieged by a vast crowd, and' for two days the street in front of Mr Clarke's house was packed with people waiting for hours for an occasional glimpse of the happy mother "with. Marion, . in her arms a.fc a- win.6W. One newspaper ga»vo lOOOdol of its offered reward to the child, upon the ground that she had assisted in the work of recovery by unconsciously identifying herself to -the postmistress. The kidnappers had not been of the criminal class. Carrie. Jones (her real name was Anderson) was the tool of one George Barrow -and his wife. Barrow, foventy-eighfc years old, came to the city from Arkansas, where his father is a Judge and the president of a bank, at the capital of the State. A handsome, wayward, and reckless fellow, his offences had made him an outcast at home, and he was the driver of an automobile public carriage when the plot to steal the child was conceived. His wife is the granddaughter of the publisher of a weekly newspaper in the wild and mountainous district where she tried to conceal herself and the stolen child. Tliey had expected to obtain a ransom of a few hundred dollars for little Marion. It does not appear that any one of the three, conspirators had recently been law-breakers, although Barow in the southern city of his birth some years ago wrecked with dynamite the house of a club which had blackballed him. About fifteen years in the penitentiary will be the punishment of. the trio. Wliile the search was in progress several letters from unknown scoundrels, but purporting to have been Avrttten by the kidnappers, were addressed to Mrs Clarke. These the police intercepted. One of them was of the most fiendish character, describing with the most minute detail the murder and mutilation of the missing-child. The case lias retailed the history of the loss of Charlie Ross. The poor mother of the stolen boy died years ago ; tho father lived his broken live until last year. Occasionally some man of twenty-nine yea's is found whose history tends to identify him with the lost boy. Tlrey are talking now about one Avho lives in Washington, who cannot be sure that he is not Charlie Rosa, but does not believe he is- 1 . • The secret died with the two burglars Mosher and Douglas, who were shot near this city some yeaa's after the boy was stolen. They were the kidnappers, and one of tham lived long enough to admit it. The boy was alive then, but the dying bur glar could not tell where he was, and no trace of him was found afterward.