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od and youth there was not one wholesome or worthy influence. My friends and companions were always criminals, and it is not surprising that in my early womanhood I should have fallen in love with a bank burglar--Ned Lyons.

Following this romance came motherhood and an awakening within me of at least one worthy resolve--that, whatever had been my career, I certainly would see that my children were given the benefit of a tender mother love, which I had never had, and that my little ones should be surrounded with every pure and wholesome influence.

The first few years of my married life were divided between my little ones and the necessary exactions which my career imposed on me. Ned Lyons, my husband, was a member of the boldest and busiest group of bank robbers in the world. Here and there, all over the Eastern States, we went on expeditions, forcing the vaults of the biggest and richest banks in the country. We had money in plenty, but we spent money foolishly. When we crept out of the vaults of the great Manhattan Bank in the early morning hours of the night of that famous robbery, we had nearly ,000,000 in money, bonds and securities. And from the Northampton Bank we took 0,000, if I remember correctly.

But we had our troubles. My husband, Ned Lyons, was a desperate scoundrel, and was constantly in difficulties. My desire was to be with my little ones, but the gang of burglars with whom I was associated had learned to make me useful, and they insisted on my accompanying them on their expeditions. I will explain fully in following chapters just what my part was in many of their various exploits.

Ned Lyons was hungry for money--money, more money--and the desperate risks he took and his continual activity took me away from the children much of the time.

MY ESCAPE FROM SING SING

Always there was something going on, and I had very little peace. Early one winter Ned Lyons, in connection with Jimmy Hope, George Bliss, Ira Kingsland and others, blew open the safe of the Waterford, New York, Bank, and secured 0,000. Lyons and two others were caught, convicted and sent to Sing Sing Prison.

It was not long before I myself was captured, convicted and also sent to Sing Sing for five years. But my husband managed to escape from the prison one December afternoon, and he lost no time in arranging for my escape from the women's section of the prison, which was a separate building just across the road from the main prison.

I was all ready, of course, and when my husband drove up in a sleigh, wonderfully well disguised, wearing a handsome fur coat, and carrying a woman's fur coat on his arm, I made my escape and joined him. I will tell the details of how my husband and I got out of Sing Sing in a subsequent article.

My husband could not let drink alone, and one day he had a street fight with the notorious Jimmy Haggerty, a burglar, who was afterward killed by "Reddy the Blacksmith" in a saloon fight on Houston Street and Broadway. During the fight between Haggerty and Ned Lyons Haggerty managed to bite off the greater portion of my husband's left ear. This was a great misfortune to him as it served as a means of identification ever after. On another occasion, in a drunken dispute, Ned Lyons was shot at the Star and Garter saloon on Sixth Avenue by "Ham" Brock, a Boston character, who fired two shots, one striking Lyons in the jaw and the other in the body.

My husband soon had the bad luck to be caught in the act of breaking into a jewelry store in South Windham, Conn. As soon as he knew he was discovered, my husband tried to make his escape, and the police shot him as he ran, putting one bullet hole through his body and imbedding another ball in his back.

He was also caught in the burglary of a post-office at Palmer, Massachusetts, where they took the safe out of the store, carried it a short distance out of the village, broke it open, and took the valuables. As I have already said, the men had found me very helpful and insisted on my accompanying them on most of their expeditions. Always, if an arrest was made, I was relied upon to get them out of trouble. This took time, money, and resourcefulness, and kept me away from my little ones against my will.

During this time my children were approaching an age when it would no longer do to have them in our home. Our unexplained absences, our midnight departures, our hurried return in the early morning hours with masks, burglars' tools, and satchels full of stolen valuables would arouse curiosity in their little minds. One thing I had sworn to do--to safeguard my little ones from such wretched influences as had surrounded my childhood. With this in view I sent my little boy and my little girl to schools where I felt sure of kind treatment and a religious atmosphere. And I paid handsomely to make sure that they would receive every care and consideration.

I SEE WHY CRIME DOES NOT PAY

I had scarcely gotten the children well placed in excellent schools in Canada when my husband was caught in one of his robberies. I busied myself with lawyers and spent all the money we had on hand, to no avail, and he was given a long prison sentence. Just at this unfortunate moment I was myself arrested in New York and given a six months' term of imprisonment.

On my account I did not care--but what would become of my children? My sources of income had been brought to a sudden stop. I had no money to send to pay my children's expenses. Then, for the first time, I felt the full horror of a criminal's life. I resolved for my children's sake to find a way to support them honestly. I realized the full truth that crime does not pay.

As I went on day after day serving my term in prison my thoughts were always about my little ones. The frightful recollections of my own childhood had developed in me an abnormal mother love. At last I resolved to write to the institutions where my boy and girl were located and explain that I was unavoidably detained and out of funds, but promising to generously repay them for continuing to care for my children.

But I was too late. The newspapers had printed an account of my arrest, and when it reached the ears of the convent and college authorities where my boy and girl were stopping it filled them with indignation to think that a professional thief had the audacity to place her children under their care. So they immediately took steps to get rid of the innocent youngsters, in spite of the fact that I had paid far in advance for their board and tuition. The boy was shipped off in haste to the poorhouse, and my dear little girl was sent to a public orphanage, from which she was adopted by a man named Doyle, who was a customs inspector in Canada at the time.

When my six months were up my first thoughts were of my children, and I started off to visit them, thinking, of course, that they were still in the institutions where I had placed them. I called at the convent, and when they saw me coming one of the sisters locked the door in my face. I was astounded at this, but determined to know what it meant. As my repeated knocks did not open the door, I resorted to a more drastic method and began to kick on the panels quite vigorously. The inmates of the convent became alarmed at my persistence and feared that the door would be broken open, so they thought it best to open and let me in. I then demanded to know the cause of their peculiar conduct, and one of them spoke up, saying:

"You are a thief, and we do not want you here."

"Oh, is that it?" I replied. "Well, where is my little girl? I want to see her."

"Your child has been placed in a respectable family, and you will not be permitted to see her," answered the sister.

Then my blood began to boil with fury, and I demanded to know why they had sent my girl away without letting me know, especially as I had given them considerable money, and they knew all her expenses would be paid. But she refused to give me any satisfaction. In desperation I sprang at her. She screamed and called for help. The mother superior then made her appearance and, dismayed at the sight of the determination I had displayed, she reluctantly gave me the address of the man who had my little girl.

I did not have a dollar with me at the time, but started off to walk to Mr. Doyle's house, which was some distance in the country. After a few hours' walking I met a man driving by in a buggy, and he stopped and offered me a ride. I, of course, accepted his invitation and got into the buggy. He asked me where I was going, and I said I was searching for a man named Doyle. He wanted my name and the nature of my business, but I said that information would be given to Mr. Doyle himself, and nobody else. He then said his name was Doyle, and asked me my name, and I told him I was Sophie Lyons. As soon as he heard this he stopped the horse and ordered me out of the buggy, and shouted:

"You are a very bad woman. I have your little girl. I'm going to keep her. You are not a fit mother, and should be kept in jail, where you belong."

FOR MY CHILDREN'S SAKE

"We will not discuss that here," I replied. "What I want now is to see my little girl, and I wish you would drive me to your house."

"You shall never see your child, and you had better not come near my house," he cried as he whipped up his horse and was soon out of sight, leaving me alone on the road.

I continued my walk, however, and shortly afterward reached the Doyle house and stood outside the gate, while Doyle, with his two sons and two hired men and a dog, watched me from the piazza. I stood there a few moments, and then Doyle came out and asked me what I was doing there, and demanded that I leave the neighborhood at once. He said: "This is my home, and you must go away."

"It may be your home, Mr. Doyle," I answered, "but my child is in there, and I am going to wait here until I see her."

"I have adopted your girl," he said, "and she will be better off here than with you."

"It takes two to make a bargain," I said, "and you did not get my consent when you adopted the girl."

Realizing that it was useless to try to persuade me, he went inside and left me at the gate, where I stood waiting developments. After another long wait Doyle came out again and said:

"Are you still there? What do you want? You know very well it is better for the girl that she remain with us, and not with a thief like you. I will take good care of her, but you shall not see her."

"I know my rights," I replied, "and I will hire a lawyer and compel the convent authorities to show me their books and explain what they have done with the thousands of dollars I left with them to care for my girl. I will make it hot for you and for them before I finish."

This threat must have frightened him a little, for he then asked me if I had had anything to eat that day, and I told him I had not. Then he invited me into the house to get some food, and said he would hitch up the buggy and drive me back to town. I said:

A MOTHER'S LOVE WINS AT LAST

"No, you will not drive me back to town. I will not go back without my girl."

"Now, be reasonable, Mrs. Lyons," he said. "Your little girl is happy here, and she does not like you because you are a bad woman."

"Well," I answered, "if she does not like her mother then you have made her feel that way; you have taught her to dislike me."

After a little more parleying he went into the house and sent out my little girl to talk to me.

"My darling," I said, "don't you want to kiss your own mother?"

"No," she said; "I do not like you, because you are a thief. You are not my mother at all."

My eyes filled with tears at this, and with sobs in my voice I asked her if she did not remember the little prayers I had taught her and the many happy hours we had spent together. The little dear said:

"Yes, I remember the prayers, but I do not want to see you. You are a thief! Go away, please!"

Those words cut me to the heart--from my own precious daughter. And again I was made to realize that crime does not pay!

I lost no time in setting matters in motion which very soon brought back to my arms my daughter. Meanwhile I hastened to the academy where my little boy had been left and demanded to see him. When my boy was brought out to me he was in a disgraceful condition, he seemed to have been utterly neglected, his clothing was ragged and his face as dirty as a chimney sweep's. I was shocked at this and demanded an explanation from the professor who had charge of the institution. He turned on me angrily, and said:

"You have an amazing assurance to place your good-for-nothing brat among honest children. How dare you give us an assumed name and impose on us in this manner? Get your brat out of here at once, for if honest parents knew your character they would take their children out of the school without delay."

"A false name, is it?" I said to the proud professor. "What name did you give when you were caught in a disreputable house?"

This remark startled him. He changed his manner at once and implored me to speak lower and not let anybody know what I said. I had recognized this professor as a man who had visited Detroit a year or so before and had been caught in a disreputable resort by the police on one of their raids. The professor, of course, did not imagine that anybody in Detroit had known him, and so he thought it perfectly safe to assume the r?le of superior virtue. He apologized for his neglect of my child and begged me to forget the abuse he had heaped upon me. I congratulated myself that the child had not heard his remarks to me, and I departed with my boy.

But my joy over the fact that my little one had not had his mother's wickedness revealed to him was of short duration. I had brought the child to Detroit, where I had begun preparations to make a permanent home, honestly, I hoped. Several persons there owed me money, and among them a barber I had befriended. I tried persistently to get from him what he owed me, but without success.

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