THE POLICEMAN'S ROMANCE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1920, 25 October 1884, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE POLICEMAN'S ROMANCE.

"It is four years ago that I was doing patiol duty down on Eighth avenue. The wind howled round the coiners lhat night, catching up the snow that had fallen during the day and whirling it in drifts in the dooi-ways. " There are lots of hig stores down theie, and the street is always crowded of evenings, but this evening it was a sight to me. Theie weio hundreds — yes, thousands — of pretty girls out doing their last shopping before Christmas. "It was getting along toward nine o'clock, when my attention was attracted to a pretty little girl who was tripping across the street. '• Just as she reached the curb she slipped upon a patch of ice and fell heavily. " It took me about half a second to icach the littlo woman and pick her up. Suo was dazed by the fall, though not injured, and I had to support her for a moment. "Then 6he locovoied herself all of a sudden, straightened up primly, and saying, ' Thank you, Mr. Officer,' tripped away, giving me a pietty look that went clear through mo. "I had tramped up and down my beat thiee or four times, and had got back to Twenty-third street when a bare-headed cash-boy ran out of one of tho big stores and yelled at me : " ' Come quick ! tho manager has caught a shop-Liter ! ' "I was met at the door by a floor- walker, who piloted me to the book-keeper's den at the back of the stoic. "Two men were in there, and a woman was standing in the corner with her face covered with her handkerchief, weeping as if her heart would break. '"Ah ! officer, 1 said the manager, who was a meie business machine, 'I am glad you have come. One of our clerks at the lace counter discovered that a valuable piece of lace had been stolen, and gave the alarm. This woman hurried away from the counter. She was detained and brought here and searched. The lace was found in an outside pocket of her sacque. This is the piece on the desk here.' " ' Have you asked the woman for an explanation?' I asked, hoping that some explanation would fix the matter up. "'What can she say?' cried the businessmachine. ' She was caught red-handed xn the act. She is the thief. That settles it.' " There was a sudden movement on tho part of the woman. She snatched her handkerchief from her face, extended her right arm and finger, which shook with lage, and turning her blazing eyes upon the businsss machine, she fairly screamed : " ' Tis false ! lam no thief ! ' Then she fell in a heap upon the floor. " As she turned her pallid face upon the manager I started as if some one had struck me. It was the black-eyed little girl that I had picked up scarcely half an hour before. " I lifted the girl up gently and placed her in a chair, and called for water with which I bathed her temples. " Pretty soon she camo out of the swoon. As her eyes met mine they lit up with a glad light, and she cried : " ' Oh ! I'm so glad. This officer will tell you that 1 am not a thief, won't you ? ' "Here was a pretty predicament. There was nothing for mo to do but my duty, so I told her I was sorry for her, and asked her if she would walk ahead of me quietly. " She made a brave effort to calm herself that touched me hard. I couldn't believe the girl a thief, but the evidence was too strong for me to doubt that she bad given away to temptation. " The poor girl walked ahead of me a few paces and gave me no trouble, I found myself wishing that she would melt away or in Borne fashion or other vanish, when she stopped under a lamp in a side street, and waited until I came up. "As I came up 7 she turned her pale face up in

tho light, and clutched my coat sleeve tight with hor hands as she said : " ' Mr. officer, you don't ically think mo a thief, do you ? ' " Well, I couldn't soy ' yes,' and I couldn't conscientiously say ' no,' so I said neither. I only said that 1 was sorry for her and wished that I could help her. " 'Are you really sorry for mo ? ' sho said, and her black eyes filled with tears. 'Oh ! lam glad to have one friend, for in all this big city I don't think I have another.' "Then she told mo her little story. She was an oiphan, and had been brought up by an old aunt in Connecticut. About six months before this her aunt had died, and she camo on to tho city, and turned her hand to lace-making and had been able to support heiself decently sinco then. Sho said she had stopped into tho store to make some small purchases and was arrested when walking away. She protested that she did not know how the lace camo to be found in her pocket. "I told hor that I was soiry again, and in a minute moie wo were at the station. " I explained the caso to the sergeant and got his permission foi her to sit in a chair in the office instead of occupying a cell all night. "I was terribly woniect about that girl. Somehow I couldn't get tho sonowful look of those black eyes out of my mind, and I couldn't sleep, and when daylight came time hung on a peg until coiut time. I walked aiound thinking over the caso, trying to anivo at some solution favorable to tho girl. " At nmo o'clock I took her around to Jefferson I Market Police Couvt. " Of course, when we got to court, Minnie — that was her name — was convicted in one-two-threo order. Sho made no statement — just stood dazed like — and the judge held her for tual in the court above. "As they led the ghl away she was tho picture of death. I gave her a nod of encouragement, but sho returned it with a look that said just as plainly as words could have said, ' My heart is broken.' "I jammed my helmet down over my eyes and plunged out into the stieet. I had a big job on hand. "On tho way to couit I had questioned her closely as to the appearance of the people who had btood near her at tho lace counter. She could leineniber none save one flaslily dressod woman, who had attracted hor attention because of a remarkable mutilation of one of her eais — as if a piece had been cut out in a triangular form. " I peisuaded the captain to grant mo a leave of absence for a couple ot days, and went to work. I oveihaulcd tho pictmes at the Central Office, and ga7cd hard and earnestly at the features of every female ' crook ' in the Eogues' Gallery,' but I could not find the one I was after. "At last I fell to leading tho remaiks under tho picture of a lcmaikably bold, handsome face, and was knocked all into a cocked hat by the words : ' Has a hiangular pteee cut out of her left ear.' ' Maybe this is my woman,' said I. I had a long talk with a detective friend of mine, and after a while he was able to place the woman, and told me where she most frequented. " All that day, and neaily all tho next, I beat up and down Eighth Avenue, on tho look-out for that woman, and was despaning, when a handsome, laige woman swept past, actually brushing against mo wnh her seal-skm cloak. "I glanced up and fairly staited, for ono of her ears was mutilated just as the gul and the note in the cential office had described. " Tho woman swopt on, and 1 followed. Sho entered the voiy store where I had arrested Minnie, and went up to tho very counter where tho laco was stolen, and began examining the stock. And then selecting a trifle, paid for it, and turned to go. "I was in a qaandary. But I was determined to make an effoit and run tho lisle of making a serious mistake. " Stepping up to hor, I touched her shoulder and whispered, ' Como with mo. I want you a moment ' — at the same timo looking straight into her eyes. "Eveiy diop of blood left the woman's face. She iairly heinbled for an instant, and then sho looked back defiantly and went with me. Wo had moved but a step or two in tho dnection of tho book-keeper's don, wheic tho gnl had beon searched tin cc days before, when something struck my foot. I stooped and picked up a bundle of laco. The woman had dropped it. 1 was right. I had found my thief. " Seeing that she was caught, tho shop-lifter owned up that she had siolcn the pieco of lace. Tho business machine was fniious. He said the fiim was being ruined by thieves. "But I had not jet found oat about the theft of the other d.iy. So I again looked sternly at the woman and ha/aidrd ; ' This is not what I was looking for you ioi, it was the theft of tho other day, when jou thiust the piece of laco into a young woman's pocket on the alarm being raised.' "For a moment the woman looked boldly at me, and then she broke down completely and sobbed. The confession was complete, and the mystery w as cleared up. " In less than half an hour I had the dischargo papers m my hands, and had the girl fiee. " My ! but wasn't that a grateful little woman I She just ran and placed her aims around my neck and kissed me. "I was kind of taken aback ; for although I rather enjoy kissing, I don't like too many witnesses ; so I got her away as "50011 as I could, and took her to a restauiant wheie wo could talk quietly for a fow minutes. I manied her two weeks afterwards, and tho business machine gave her a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar outfit, and was glad to get out of an awkward fix at that pi ice." Crlld Hammond.

Bismahck one evening attended a gathering of prominent men at the house of a Eussian nobleman. During all the conversation he was particularly sarcastic, cutting friends and opponents unsparingly. When he rose to take his leave, and walked down stairs, the host called a pet dog that was frisking about and led him to one side. " Are you afraid the dog vail bite me?" asked Bismarck. "Oh, no," replied the host ; " I'm afraid you'll bite the dog." And the Chancellor was in such a grim mood that he took this a3 a compliment, and went away smiling.

Foe a Bussian the Czar is a poor linguist ; he speak 3 only three languages, French, German, and Russian. Nearly every educated Russian speaks at least five languages fluently. A Russian nobleman, in the Baltimore American, describes pleasantly some of the Czar'a characteristics. "He is the first emperor," he says, " who speaks Rusbian in his family, while his father spoke only German, and his grandfather French. The Emperor is military, like his father, but not so exclusively so as he. Bodily he is probably the strongest man in Russia, When he was Grown Prince, instead of leaving a visiting-card when calling, he would frequently twisi a gold piece and leave it, so great was his pride in showing his friends how strong he was.

Some interesting experiments relative to the depth ol sleep were recently made by two German scientists, who worked upon the principle that the depth of sleep is proportional to the strength of the sensory stimulus necessary to awaken the sleeper— that is, to call forth some decisive sign of awakened consciousness. As a sensory stimulus they made use of the auditory sensation produced by dropping a lead ball from a given height. The strength of the stimulus was reckoned as increasing, not directly as the height, but as the 0.59 power of the height. For a perfectly healthy man the curve which they give shows that for the first hour the slumber is very light ; after one hour and fifteen minutes the depth of sleep increases rapidly, and reaches its maximum point at one hour forty-five minutes ; the curve then falls quickly to about two hours fifteen minutes, and afterwares more gradually. At about four hours thirty minutes there is a second small rise, which reaches its maximum at five hours thirty minutes, after which the ourve again gradually approaches the base line until the time of awakening. Experiments/made upon persona not perfectly healthy, or after having made some exertion, give curves of a different form,