A GREAT DETECTIVE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 258, 24 October 1908, Page 3

A GREAT DETECTIVE

According to tliv Sump-Book olio ol t.lie onost extraordinary nit'ii in the world is ill the Detective Bureau ot Nu'vj Vork. Here is how it tells his atory:j The bureau ol identification is ail apaiinient on the Mott >Street side of the headquarters building. It is lined up lo the ceiling with cabinets containing numerous small drawers lettered on the outside. Each drawer contains the history ol a criminal and ol some ol' '"is crimes. At a desk before the window ot this room sat a inaa of middle age, broad of nlioulucr aim deep ol che.-c..

The man was Lieutenant Wiiliam 11.l 1 . .Sheridan, ehiel of the bureau of identilication of the New \ ork Police Department, vvJiu is known in police circles all over the world. He is now forty-seven i years of age, and he has been a -member ol the detective bureau for twentyone years. In all that time he has never failed lo identify a criminal whom Jk i has once sccu. It makes no diH'ereneo to .Sheridan whether he has seen his man or his photograph (or years—ln* can always recognise man or photograph when either is brought lo his attention. There are twenty-two thousand photographs iu the rogues' galleiy at police headquarters; and, while he does not claim that he could go through them all and name the original of evenone, the fact remains that not one criminal whose photograph is in the collection, or one single photograph of a criminal in it, has yet been brought under Ids notice during his more than two score years of service that he has not been able to identify almost always at the first glance. Oue night, last year. Detective Iv'tu arrested two men on the JJowery as suspected criminals. When they were " lined up ' at police headquarters for identification, however, not one of the three hundred and fifty detectives :n that bureau remembered having seen either man before.

Following tho customary routine ill these circumstances they were taken before 'Sheridan in the bureau of identification, and the usual question was put to him: "Do you know these men';" ''Yes," said the lieutenant brielly. "Joseph Fay, alias "Mott llaven Red, and Frank Codd, safe-burglars." Fay is a little, red-haired man, inclined to be impudent. " Where -in h did you ever see me before?" lie asked Sheridan. "I'm not Joseph Fay, or ' Mott Haven Red.' I'm an honest man."

"Never saw you before," replied the man of memory. ''Saw vour pictuio. You're just out of Danueinoni, where you did nine years and eight months for blowing a safe iu Syracuse." "You're crazy," declared the redhaired man.

"Take off his coat and pull up his right shirt-sleeve," said Sheridan to Kear. "You'll find 'W.L.U.' tattooed ;on the forearm."

'A scrutiny of the arm disclosed the letters as prognosticated. "fttav look at his left hand," directed Sheridan. " You'll.find the little finger bent double where the cord has been cut, and you'll find a sear under his hair over his left eve where a wedge flew out of a safe he was burglarising and struck him."

Investigation proved that Fay was marked «s designated, but he refused to admit his identity to Sheridan, even when his photograph, taken eight years before, was sli'own him. When he was taken back to McCall'erly, however, lie said:

"That's 'feller's got me all right. I'm Mott Haven Eed, but 1 wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of telling him

Codd was less difficult l« please. When Kear asked Sheridan "How aboat this fellow?" 'Sheridan replied: "He's just done five years and six uroliths in Trenton for burglarising a safe in a jewellery store in l'aterson." "I throw up both my hands," saitli Codd. "You're all right, Johnny. Xo kick coming as far as I am concerned. - ' It was found that Fay and Codd. with | another burglar known as '• l'awtuekct Billy," were "wanted" l>y the United States authorities for "blowing" safes in the post-olfices at Eagle Mills, Highlands, and Rhinebeck.