Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 134, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 June 1911 — FRENCH POLICE ARE SHREWD [ARTICLE]

FRENCH POLICE ARE SHREWD

■With But Blfght Clue Detectives Run Down Murderous Gang In Biums of Paris. ▲ very clever stroke of business has just been accomplished by the' criminal detective department, which has succeeded in capturing a masked .band of four robbers, owing to the simple information that one of them was wearing a top hat when they tried to break into a house in the country in the middle of January. The house was inhabited by a woman in very comfortable circumstances, and her maid, says a Paris dispatch to the London Telegraph. They were aroused on that night from their slumbers by the barking of the dog, and the maid, peering out of a window, beheld several men in the garden, one of whom was trying to pick the lock of the front door. Enjoining silence, he pointed a revolver at her; but she rushed up to the roof and pulled vigorously at an alarm bell, which by previous arrangement with the neighbors was to bring them to the spot if trouble came. Lights promptly flashed out at the windows of the houses near and men called out, “Don’t be afraid; we are coming to your assistance.” The robbers took the hint and were soon speeding toward Paris in the motor car which had brought them. They were all wearing masks and the only clue that the maid could furnish was that one of them was a very big man and had a top hat. The subchief of the criminal detective department argued that there were not many very tall men wearing top hats in Paris who went on such burglarious expeditions, he set to work, and on learning mat a person answering to the description given was often at a certain bar in Paris he Bet inspectors on the track, with the result that the man was captured there. He turns out to be an old offender, and he frankly stated that he and his friends had planned the murder of the old woman and her maid, and had on a previous occasion started for the place, but had had to give the enterprise up that night, as their motor car had broken down on the way. The three accomplices, all of whom are old offenders, too, are in custody.