KinSource - Tale of the Week - Successful Burglars

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The St. Paul Globe, May 29, 1882, p. 5

SUCCESSFUL BURGLARS.

They Had A Busy Night and Got Some $287 in Cash as Their Reward -
Mullholland's Boarding House and the Wilber House Raided -
Discovered by a Boarder, but Were Not Captured

That Minneapolis is cursed by the presence of a gang of professional cracksmen is very evident. Every night attempts to burglarize houses in various parts of the city are being prosecuted with varying results. Fortunately most attempts during the past week have been frustrated by the occupants of the houses upon which the scamps had designs, they having been awakened by a noise accidentally made by the burglars. At an early hour yesterday morning, however, the persistent burglars met with their reward in a big haul of "filthy lucre."

Mullholland's boarding house on First avenue north, between First and Second streets, was the first place of operation. Here they robbed a young man, a boarder, of $112 cash. The victim had just come down the river on a drive and drawn his pay.

The money was in his hip pocket of his pants, and the pants were beneath his pillow. The robbers succeeded in extricating the pants without arousing the young man. They took them to an adjacent hall and rifled the pockets.

They then visited other rooms and in like manner secured small sums of money. From Tom Healey, another boarder, they stole $25.

The burglars went from this house to the Wilber house, where they made a raid upon many of the sleeping rooms, secured the clothing of the occupants, carried it into the outer hall, and there emptied the pockets of their contents. One of the Wilber house boarders lost $40 and another $10. The clothing was left in a huge pile upon the floor of the hall.

One of the boarders was awakened by the marauders, and suspecting that all was not right stepped to the door. He discovered a man passing along the hall, whom he mistook for an inmate, and therefore his apprehensions being appeased, no alarm was given, and the burglars made good their escape.

The vigilant eyes of the detectives are now being cast about the city with the vain hope of discovering the hole in the wall in which the successful cracksmen are stowed.