The Lottery Ticket.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 184, 25 December 1886, Page 5

The Lottery Ticket.

THE tory lam going to give wa^ related to me by a crook named Jim Davis, alias "Little Jim," and I have every reaaon to kuow that he told the truth. I will give it in his own language. "Before tho war, whoa thousands of tickets in tho Koyal Havana Lottery were sold ia the United States every month and when e\erybody knaw the drawings to bo square, every gambler, pugil'Pt, thief, and burglar made it a solemn duty to invest in at least one ticket per month. I happoned to be in New York with my 'pal' in May one year, and each of us bought a ticket for tho May drawing, paying therefore fivo dollars each. Our stay in the city waa brief. We hud a job laid out in an Eastern State, and wont to Gotham aftor tooh to do it with. When we purchased the tickets each of us took tho number of both on n flip of paper. After a few days we fot down to our work, We had planned to crack the safe in the office of a bier iron mill, and we had gone over the ground and worked out the details until we felt sure of the boodle. The pay-day at the mill came on the 20th of the month. Tho money was drawn from the bank on the 19bh, and of course kept in the safe overnight. It was i thenigbtof the inth wo tackled it. There was a watchman on the promisee, and we bound and gauged him and laid him in a corner and went to work. The safes of thoee days were mere shells, while the tools were almost as perfect as now. We had the door open in an hour, and in ten minutes more we should have been off with the cash, but that infernal watchman worked himself loose I while we were busy, and gave the alarm. I There waß another watchman acroea the street in another mill, and between the I blowing of whistles, ringing of belle, and ! shouting for help we got rattled, and started off without getting a dollar. " We ran out the back way and through the yards, but were pursued by three or four men ; some of them fired at us with revolvers. We cut for a ravine, tripping and stumbling, and in the dark became peparated. My pal ran along the edge of it, and was shot through the body by one of the men, while I plunged down among the rocks and bushes and got safe off, though badly used up by several falls. I did not know until noxfc morning that my partner had been hurt, and I learned of his shooting and his death at the same time. The body was taken io charge by the undertaker, and I deemed it wit-e to leave that locality. I was in Boston when I saw a list Of the lucky numbers for May, and while my ticket wa3 not named, my partner's had hit 30,000 dole. 1 compared the numbers over and over again, and there was no mistake. An agent in New York stood ready to cash all prizes, but where was the ticket? I had seen it in my partner's wallet only the day before he was killed Aa the coroner had taken charge of the body, he must also have the man's personal effects in his possession. I went over to New York and cooked up a plan with a sharp, shrewd old woman, who at once proceeded to the place i have not thought best to name to you and passed herself off as the dead man a mother. She had eyerything so straight that the coronor did not doubt her, but we reaped no profit from the plan. Nothing had been found on the body except a few kevs and a knife. The man had probably thrown his walleb away while running, that no compromising papers might be found. "As we didn't want the body, which had of course been buried, the woman dropped out of sight and I began to hunt for the wallet. In one disguise and another I hung around the mill »nd ravine until I had looked every foot of ground three times over. If the coroner hadn't the wallet feome one else had. By a aeries of lucky turns I finally discovered that one of the watchmen, a man named Islinger, had the wallet, I got *onto ' this fact just the day before he started for New York to get the lottery ticket cashed. Be had quit his job on pretence o£ sickness, and evidently proposed to keep tho matter very quiet. I followed him to Gotham, suw him get hie cash, and then followed him to a brother of hie, 200 mile" away. He had that money in his possession juafc four days." u How did he lose it?" I asked. 41 A burglar got into his brother's house in the night and secured it." 11 And the burglar was " " Dm !" He was silent for a moment, and then he said " Poor Bill's body was taken out of the pottarefield, re-buried in a lot coating 200 dols., and the monument erected over his remains coet 1,600 dols. to a cent. That was all anyone could do for him " *• And the rest of the money ?" 11 Oh, that went for a trip to Europe, a lot of diamonds and into the hands of the gamblers. No crook gets any good out of hia boodlas,"— An ex-Detective in the "De troit Free Preea."

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