KinSource - Tale of the Week - He Hankers After Tools

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The St. Paul Daily Globe, April 3, 1880, p. 2

HE HANKERS AFTER TOOLS.

Thursday night Detective Bresett encountered James Powers on the street, and thought it safe to take him in, as he is a notorious sneak-thief. Yesterday morning Bergstrom & Ingram, sash and blind manufacturers at the corner of Sixth and Cedar streets, reported the loss of $35 worth of tools by burglary the night before. It was thought Powers was the neat hand who had abstracted the tools, and he was taxed with the theft, but denied it.

Meanwhile he was taken over to the police court and from there to jail on a commitment as a vagrant for sixty days. Just about the time sentence was pronounced Simon Jacobs, a second-hand dealer, No 131 East Seventh street, came to headquarters and reported he had bought a lot of tools the night before for $4. Jacobs and Powers were brought face to face, and Powers was identified as the man who had sold the tools. Later Bergstrom identified the tools as his own. The result will be that Powers will serve sixty days and then come up on the charge of burglary and larceny, with the probabilities of seeing Stillwater at some future day. Powers has been a public nuisance for a long time, his specialty being to break into poorly secured carpenter shops and rifle the tool chests.