Stealing a watch.
--Two white men, named
Chomas Collier and
Mike Walsh, was before the
Mayor on Saturday, charged with entering the room of
Gen. J. P. McCown, on the Sunday night previous, and stealing one gold watch belonging to him. It appears that on the night in question two men entered the room occupied by
Gen. McC., at
Mrs. Barnes's, on Grace, between 8th and 9th streets, one of them with a lighted candle in his hand.
Gen. McC., having just gotten in bed, was not asleep, and immediately raised up and demanded to know the business they had in his room.
The fellows apologized and left, but soon after returned, when they were for the second time ordered to leave, the
General at the same time jumping out of bed and following them to the door, when they, instead of going to some other room in the house, proceeded down the steps into the street.
This conduct excited his suspicions with regard to their intentions, and he immediately felt under the head of the bed, where he had put his watch, but found that it had been taken out. Nothing more was heard of the affair until a few days thereafter, when his watch was found in the possession of
Collier.
The counsel for the accused introduced
a Miss Belia Macarthy, who testified that on Monday night last
Collier and a man named
Jas. Denay came to her house, where they met a man named Fraydeen, who proposed to sell
Collier a watch, which he decided to buy as soon as he could go home and get the money from his mother, which he did, and returned in a short time with it. She did not see the watch, and therefore could not swear that the one claimed by the
General was the one which
Collier had bought from
Fraydeen James Denay, who has been in jail for some days on another charge, was brought into Court as an accomplice of the prisoner, and to see whether
Gen. McC.
could not recognize him as one of the parties who entered his room.
The General thought he was one of them, but could not swear as to
Collier.
The
Mayor, after hearing the evidence, sent all of them on to the
Grand Jury for indictment.
[The accused, as well as Denay, already stand charged with having committed several robberies recently at the
Linwood House, and among others, with stealing a watch from
Dr. Fisher.
Walsh and Denay are particularly notorious, as having concocted a plan to liberate some prisoners from the city jail some time last summer, and also participating in several other exploits, which stamp them as bad characters.]
