Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 246, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1919 — STOLE SAVINGS OF LIFETIME [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

STOLE SAVINGS OF LIFETIME

Thieves Make Complete Cleanup in Office of Aged New York Sexton. ','"'"l". mt-.. - GOT UP FIRE ESCAPE Bold Robbery, Which Leave* Qld_ Gentleman Practically Penniless, Committed With Police Officer Less Than a Block Away. New, York. —When Thomas Brown, the aged sexton at st. Agnes’ chapel of Trinity parish, at No. 121 West Nine-ty-first street, entered iiis office hej).l» covered that $7 on<> in cash und Liberty bonds, representing his savings of more than fifty years, had been stolen from the safe. - ~ - ———-— — Brown has been sexton of St. Agnes* chapel since it was built 27 years ago. For 15 years previously he had been a at old Trinity. Office Found In Chaos. Papers were strewn about, books upset, the safe door open and the pffice In a state of confusion, Mr. Brown said, when lie discovered his loss. A fire-escape ladder hangs from the sexion's office, which is on the second floor, and it is Mr. Brown’s theory that the burglars used tiffs to reach his office. They forced the window and ransacked the office at leisure. — Of the loot, $5,500 was in Ltberty bonds, which were unregistered and, are therefore transferable. The rem air ting $1,500 was in bills. Resides,there were stickpins, cuff links and other a-H-bdes of jewelry, which weretaken. Many of these, Mr. Brown said, he treasured for their sentiineuAaLvaTuei “That’s nil there was for them to take,” said Mr. Brown, “But they made certain that they would noT overlook anything. They went through and overturned everything.” Mr. Brown sleeps in the parish house, lmt, so fur away that, as he says, “they could have burned the office and 1 wouldn’t have known it.” Patrolman Block Away. Apparently the burglars made their escape the .same way as they came in, although a policeman was oh post less than ~a' block"hw'aj™ the money or- the bonds.” said Mr,_ Brown, sadly. “When the police

called they took a lot of fingerprints, threw things around a bit and caused a little more confusion than before. Then they told me they hoped 1 would get the money back. But there’s no chance of it, I guess. “Yes, that was absolutely all I had. And here I am, an old man now.”

Office Was In a State of Confusion.