Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1879 — A Famous Female Swinder. [ARTICLE]

A Famous Female Swinder.

Special Dispatch to the Cincinnati Gazette. Vernon, Ind., October 17.—The case of Amanda Lamphere, alias Old Bloomer, perhaps the meat notorious woman in Indiana, who Las been on trial in the Circuit Court for nine days past on a Grand Jury indictment charging her with burglary and grand larceny, for stealing some watches, jewelry, and a considerable amount of money, gold coin and bills, irom William Liddell, a wealthy and prominent citizen and businessman of North Vernon, about eleven months ago,, terminated to-day, the jury bringing in a verdict of guilty, and assessing a - fine of 1 cent and six years imprisonment in the penal department of the Female Reformatory Prison. A motion was at once made for a new trial, but there is scarcely a probability of its being granted. This woman has for years been a terror to a good part of the community in which she resided, she having a wide reputation for blackmailing large sums of money from numerous citizens whom rite by some means had managed to inveigle into her power. By this means, it is alleged, she was continually enabled to sap them like a leech, and by these means, and divers others that were no less dark and damning, she always appeared "flush.” In her younger days she was regarded as beautiful, and continually wore tne most gaudy apparel, that of the “Bloomer” costume, from which she took her name. Latterly she has grown more haggard in her appearance, being some CO to <6O years of age, but Kt shows indistinct traces of former aufy. She satin the court room and listened to the verdict as stoical as an Indian chief or a wooden cigar stand, not betraying the least emotion. Her son, a young man of perhaps 25 years, stuck to her with unswerving fidelity, while her daughter, a young lady,who now resides in the family of Mr. Bidden, testified squarely and without hesitancy against her mother. The verdict gives universal satisfaction,and more than one poor sinner whom this woman had in her dutches wili heave a sigh of relief when they know that she is safe within the prison walls). Benny Foster and George Tate, the two modern Jack Sheppards, whose wholesale thieving exploits some two months since were detailed in the Gazette, were brought into court this morning and pleaded guilty to the indictment against them, and threw themselves on the mercy of the court. Foster is lSyears old, and was sentenced to the House of Refuge until he attains his majority. Tate is 19, and his sentence was field in reserve. The court signified its willingness to send him to the House of Refuge, but his age precluded. He will have to go to the penitentiary. Both have widowed mothera, Tate's mother having gone insane over the sad fate of her son.' Ok Tuesday, while Mr. Roberts, a butcher of Syracuse, Kosciusko county* was getting ready to shoot a bog in mi alley in that village, the gun was • discharged accidentally, and the ball struck Mr. Bilderbeck, who just then crossed the alley, killing him en •pot.