The young mail Robber.
--The train boy who was arrested at
Chicago for robbing Western mails of $10,000, assumed the name of
Wm. H. Hudson, in order to shield his relatives from the disgrace of his present condition.
He is the son of a retired Scotch clergyman, residing in
Michigan.
His parents are pious and excellent people, and have striven by every means in their power to check the waywardness of their son, who left them some three years ago to carve out his fortunes for himself, running away from his home, having shaken off parental restraint.
During the three months that he has been employed as train boy he has stolen over twelve thousand dollars, as he asserts, entirely unaided.
His manner of robbing the mails was to select always one of the canvas sacks, and as he lay upon the pile, break up and crush apart the packages in the bag, then slowly work them down to the mouth.
where, by introducing a finger or two, the letters would be drawn out. He never opened a mail bag, and yet once actually abstracted the entire contents of a bag sent from
Chicago to
Quincy, leaving nothing but the
wrapping paper and twine of the packages within, to the greatest mystification of the post-office officials.
Nothing in his bearing or conduct has indicated that he was lavish in expenditure.
He was living cheaply, and yet must have realized considerable cash sums from his peculations.
It is remembered that at one time not long since he was somewhat free with money, saying that his father had sent him $200. In its general aspects, truthfully stated, the case is that of a willful boy, reckless of consequences, who had turned his back upon home and home influences.
He was drunk on the discovery, and so less cautious, and the other events have followed.
He makes a full confession, and, indeed, everything is too clear against him to admit of a defence.
He is entirely broken down by his terrible position, and wept bitterly, pleading that his fictitious name of
Hudson might be kept up, in order to shield his friends, and particularly his mother, from a knowledge of his inevitable fate, doomed to pass long years of his young manhood within prison walls.
