BOY BANDIT OF NEW YORK

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 126, 18 November 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

BOY BANDIT OF NEW YORK

MATES HELD FOR KAXSGM. Although ten-year-aid Eddie Carroll and his father, Michael, of Lincoln Avenue, New York, stuck stoutly to their story that Eddie and another small boy had ben held captive by fourteen-year-old Willie Bruso in a cave and a little hut, Eddie's companion in his hut was scornful upon the subject of his captivity. This boy is twelve-year-old John Bauer. While John and Eddie were ransomed for fifty and twenty-five cents respectively, John says there wasn't a time during the three days they were in the hut that they couldn't have escap. ed. "' - v

"You bet we didn't want to escape," said John. "We were having the time of our life, and we didn't want to get away."

John has what Shakespeare calls a smiling morning face, but when he tells of his adventures there comes a hardening of his little features, and there is a positive gleam of admiration in his eyes when he speaks of the boy known to the youngsters as "the boy bandit." "You see," continued email John, "when I met Willie Bruso I wasn't sleeping at home. Eddie Carroll and I decided that we didn't want to go to school any more, and so we slept under the outside counter of a fruit store on a lot of paper*. "In the morning when we were crawling out Willie Bruso—we know him—came along.

"'Say, fellows,' said he, 'you look pretty hungry.'

"We said we were, and he says: '• 'Come along; 1 know a place where I can. steal some milk and warm rolls.' "We went with him and he went into a liathouse and took a lot or rolls and milk oil' a dumb-waiter Then he took us to a little shanty back near the Central Railroad tracks. We went to tiie shanty and had breakast. "Then after that Willie asked us if we wanted to go to the moving pictures. We said we did and that we didn't want to go home ever again. Willie said he didn't have to, and he showed us a cave a little further up the track, it was a hole in the stone bridge. He said we could sleep there. "Then Willie said we'd have to get some supplies. Just then another boy came running up to the hut and told us that a little girl was walking along the street swinging a purse. Willie ran up to' her and took the purse away. There was a dollar and 18 cents in the purse, and we went to the pictures. "We slept in the hut that night. Willie said the next morning that we had better get more supplies. Willie opened the side door of a fruit, stand. The man was asleep in there, and he chased Willie- out. But Willie had some apples.

"Then we went to Clason Point, All the stands were shut up, but Willie said that some of those men left change in them for when they opened up on Sundays. Willie found a screw-driver and was opening some of the stands when a man chased us off the place. "The next day my sister Emma heard 1 was around with Willie, and she came up to a lot of us boys She yelled at me, but I got away and ran "back to the shanty. But after a time Willie took a crowd of us boys out again. We went into a candy store in Third Avenue. He told the lady to give him a quarter's worth of chocolates. He took the bag, and when she held out her hand for the quarter he said:

"'Give me ten cents' worth of peppermints.' ' "She went to get the peppermints iind then Willie ran out of the store. She didn't catch him." About this time certain small boys who knew "the boy bandit" approached John's mother and sister and offered to bring John home for 50 cents. It was paid, and Willie allowed John to be captured by the other boys. "And Willie only got 20 cents out of that 50," sighed John. Eddie Carroll arrived home through the payment of 25 cents by his parents, according to John, though Eddie's father says that when they asked him for the 25 cents he refused to give it, and so frightened the boys that they brought Eddie home. A reporter asked John's sister if John might not show him the shantv, but John's sister and his mother insisted that he should stay in the house. So. following John's instructions, the reporter came to.the hut. Tt was neatly built against a large hoarding. William Pettit, 14, Raymond firav. 14 and Harry Madden, !>, told the reporter that Willie was a squatter, as they had built the hut for their own amusement, but Willie had taken forcible possession. The Alexander Avenue police, directed by Mrs. Pettit. found the hut. but didn't find Willie. Then they were guided to the hole in the foot of the railroad pier, but as they approached Willie emerged, and scrambled up the steep bank. He stood for a few seconds and made faces at the three detectives, then vanished into a thicket. The police say they will get him and send him to the, Catholic Protectory. His mother tells the police she hopes they will.