Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1889 — LOOKING FOR DESERTERS. [ARTICLE]

LOOKING FOR DESERTERS.

The Difficulties in the Way of Convicting Men When Caught. New York Bun. Efforts are being made to j capture deserters from the army of Uncle Sam, and to punish them severely in the hope thereby of reducing the number of desertions. It is said that there were so many desertions from the army last year' that the Secretary of War contemplated raising the reward of S3O for the apprehension of a desferter to SIOO. Local detectives are all the time on the lookout fbr deserters. - * -Most of the recruits find the life of a soldier entirely different from what they pictured it to be,” said Detective J. M. Fuller yesterday, “and after three or four" weeks in idleness become deserters. Our lists show that nearly 500 have deserted during the summer. I. believe that nearly all of these men came to this city. lam informed by army officers that there is a set of men who follow up enlisting in the army and then deserting as a business. It is certain that some of those whom I have captured have admitted that they enlisted twice or three times. The purpose was to defraud the Government out of bounty money and their clothing. “As a general thing it is easier to learn that a man is a deserter than it is to prove it. The information in possession of the Gbvernment of an inlisted person is meagre indeed. The color pf his hair and> eyes, and miy birth marks he may," halve recorded. Some of the men,,do not recollect themselves thO name under which they enlist; so that the name sometimes is. worse than useless.”