Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1882 — A Detective’s Story. [ARTICLE]

A Detective’s Story.

Our readers were no doubt nearly all apprized of the robbery of a U. P. train last summer and the capture of the band by our heroic, efficient and astute detective officer, Mr. Steve Mead ; how, after the first robbery had been committed, Mr. Mead joined the robbing band and effected the capture and subsequent imprisonment of that desperate crowd. Mr. Mead yesterday regaled us with an account of the leader of the band, who was captured a short time ago. The story is as follows : “After having jugged the gang, I was called East, and had to forego for the time the pleasnre of handing their leader over to justice. I knew that he had fled to California, and there I was foroed to leave him. Not long ago, however, while working up another case in San Franoisoo, I received a note one day in my hotel, in whioh the writer requested me to call at a oertain place and time and hear of something to my advantage. I never pay attention to anonymous notes, but something impelled me to do so in this case. I called at the time and place mentioned, and found both time and place anything but assuring. The house was a rookery in the Chinese quarter. I was met at the door by a man of remarkable height, stoutly built and wearing long whiskers. He ushered me inside in a manner at the same time polite and suspiciously mysterious. I observed mine host very carefully, and the furtive glances he shot at me made me wish I had remained at my hotel. I never before or since was looked upon by eyes such as he seemed to pierce through me with. They actually glittered in hfh head with a mocking, cutting glance that made me uncomfortably nervous. He addressed me by name, treated me kindly arid politely, but would answer no questions. His manner impressed me as being,unusually strange, and I watched his every movement. It was well for me that I did so, for suddenly, while in the midst of a courteous speech, he leaped upon me in my chair and hurled me backward to the floor, and with his knees upon my breast and his hands tightly clutched about my throat with an embrace like an iron vise. It was the most desperate struggle I ever had, and I have had several. Over and over we rolled, now one on top and then the other. I broke his hold upon my neck by an almost superhuman effort. It was a long and tight struggle for the mastery. My right arm was lamed at the time from rheumatism and that made matters worse. However I managed to get out my ‘billy.’ A blow of that peacemaker soon quieted him, although I struck him with my left hand, the right arm, as I remarked, being crippled with rheumatism. The nippers were soon on him. In the struggle, the whiskers, which were false, were pulled from his face, revealing the wellknown mug of the leader of the train robbers.

“Had the struggle lasted much longer without giving me a chance to get my billy he would have overcome me, owing to the weakness of my rheumatic aim; but the rheumatism and a struggle for life never caught me together again. I got rid of the robber and the rheumatism together. The next day, while reading an account of the struggle in the San Francisco Call, I noticed an advertisement of St. Jacobs Oil, the Great German Remedy, and I immediately and sensibly purchased a bottle of that peerless medicine. I had tried so many different liniments and so-called remedies before I tried St. Jacobs Oil, and found them all useless, that I am warranted in calling that medicine peerless. The way in which St. Jacobs Oil knocks the rheumatism is astounding. I had not used it more than a day before I noticed a remarkable change in my arm, and after a week I felt as though it would be a delight to meet with another adventure just to have a chance to wield it. In less than twelve days’ time my rheumatism had disappeared, a complete and permanent cure being the result of using St. Jacobs Oil, and I can truly say that I have never felt the least sign of pain in my arm since. Could I but rid the West of train robbers as fast as St. Jacobs Oil can knock the rheumatism, travel on the U. P. would be safe.”—Cincinnati Times-Star.