Many of my readers probably don’t know or don’t remember two things–that the United States Government once had a lot of jewels presented to it by foreign powers, and that these jewels were stolen from the Patent Office at Washington. But these two things are facts, and a New York man had something to do with the robbery.
These Jewels were not so tremendously valuable, and were not so very ancient either, but they were real jewels, nevertheless and had a history of their own. Among ‘em was a present from the Imaum (or grand head centre) of Muscat to President Van Buren, and a snuff box of gold, set in diamonds, that was presented to the United States Minister to Russia by the Emperor Alexander I. Then there was a sword scabbard of pure gold, and a pint bottle of attar of roses, worth over a dollar a drop, and a lot of pearls and gold medals, the whole assortment being valued at about $7,500.
Well, these Jewels were put for safekeepin’ in the charge of the Patent Office, and were kept in a hall under lock and key in the city of Washington. One mornin’ the hall was broken into and the jewels were missin’.
A great time was made over the robbery, of course. It was the first and last time such a thing had occurred, and the Government offered a reward for the recovery of the jewels and the arrest of the thief or thieves.
Then the Government received two letters from some unknown party, statin’ that the jewels would be given up if the Government would take away its printin’ from a certain New York newspaper, against which the writer of those letters seemed to have a spite.
And then at last the jewels ‘emselves were found in the cellar of a New York house, in the charge of a man by the name of Jones; and another man, well known to the police under the name of Jacob Shuster, alias Tom Hand, was arrested and tried for the robbery.
Barton Key, who was afterward shot by Dan Sickles, was the prosecutor in the case for the Government. The lawyers for Hand, or Shuster, tried to show that their client was the victim of circumstances and of a conspiracy to crush him, the object of this conspiracy bein’ to prove him guilty, so as to get the reward from the Government.
The two letters that had been received by the Government from the unknown party were exhibited durin’ this trial. They were not much in the way of letter writin’; all the big I’s were written as little i’s. “Medals” was spelled “meddles,” and there was a reference to the Almighty as “him that noweth the harts of all.” But the meanin’ of the letters was plain enough–plainer than the handwritin’.
The first letter said that there were three men in New York who were scamps, liars, villains, thieves, traitors, blackmailers, and the deuce only knows how many other things besides. These three men, accordin’ to the writer, were, as he spelled their names George Wilks, Marcus Cicero Stanly, and Kamp or Camp. Accordin’ to the writer, Kamp or Camp, dare not go through the State of Delaware, for fear of the whippin’ post, while the other two were two devils, all but the horns and tails. In fact the writer hurt his own cause by makin’ his three enemies out too black and showin’ his own spite against ‘em on every line. Then the writer went on to speak against three flash newspapers, windin’ up with an attack on the old Police Gazette, with which George Wilkes was then connected as editor. Then he “let his cat out of the bag” by promisin’ the Government that if it would take away its printin’ from it (the advertisin’ of deserters), he would return the stolen jewels, which he confessed were then in his possession. Durin’ the course of his letter the writer made the very modest proposition to the Government that “it ought to pension him for life to keep him honest,” though I’m decidedly of the opinion that the Government couldn’t have raised enough money to keep such a fellow as that “square” for a year.
On the receipt of this letter the Government pretended to be about to take away its printin’ from the Police Gazette, but the fellow that wanted a pension to keep him honest wasn’t satisfied with promises, and wrote a second letter to the Government stating that he wouldn’t return the stolen jewels on any promises or “taffy,” but intended to wait till he saw the Government printin’ given out to some other paper.
There was a good deal of what now would be called “expert” testimony about the handwritin’ of these two letters, and it amounted to neither more nor less than expert testimony generally–that is, just nothin’ at all.
They couldn’t prove anything on Shuster, or Hand, about these letters, but the man Jones, in his testimony, showed that Shuster or Hand had somethin’ to do with the stolen jewels.
This Jones was a shoemaker, and swore that Shuster or Hand had come to him one day and said he wanted to raise $600 on some jewels; that Jones had loaned him the money on a package containin’ what was afterwards found to be the stolen property. Then he, Jones, had lent Shuster or Hand, who pretended to be an agent for other parties, $400 more, and then had hid the jewels away till the hue and cry got too hot for him to hold ‘em.
It was also shown durin’ the trial that, suspecting Shuster or Hand to be the thief, the United States Government had offered to let him off with only two years’ imprisonment if he would restore the jewels and make a confession, but that Shuster, accordin’ to his lawyers, “strong in the consciousness of his own integrity, had indignantly spurned the offer.”
A man by the name of Webb–Jim Webb–was also suspected of havin’ a hand, and a big hand, in the robbery, and had been looked, for but not found, by the New York detectives. At last an ordinary policeman, Officer Bowyer, captured this Webb in Jersey City, and gave him up to the New York authorities. And then, in some mysterious way, this Webb had disappeared again, leavin’ Shuster, or Hand, to face the music. It was a pretty well mixed up case altogether, the only thing certain bein’ that the jewels had been stolen; that Jones, Shuster (or Hand) and Webb knew somethin’ about ‘em, and that the jewels had been got back again, most of ‘em in a rather dilapidated condition.
The lawyers managed to get some fun out of this case durin’ the trial. Key, the prosecutor, declined to state the Government’s case against the prisoner, and then the prisoner’s counsel undertook to state the Government’s case for him, and of course turned the whole case of the Government inside out, and made everythin’ for instead of against the prisoner, which made Key mad, of course, and amused the court. Then the lawyers got up some jokes about “the jewels” ’emselves. When they were brought into court, one of Shuster’s counsel put on frills and pronounced the word ruse as if it was the word rouge, and then when Key corrected his pronunciation, the lawyer said that “he was more particular about his facts than his French, and that he would recommend the Government to use all the rouge it could to get to help it to blush at the weakness of its case against his innocent client.” Then he advised the Government officers to take a long smell out of the bottle of atar of roses, to help them sustain their droopin’ spirits when they saw that they would never be able to win their case against his unjustly persecuted client. One lawyer stated that he didn’t believe they bottle had attar of roses in it at all; only rose water, or perhaps whisky.
Then Key got up and said that certainly it couldn’t be whisky or the learned counsel on the other side would have found it out at once, and wouldn’t have left anythin’ at all in the bottle by this time. Finally, when the Government officials swore to the value of the stolen jewels, the lawyer for Shuster, or Hand, said he didn’t feel obliged to accept the Government’s valuation, because once before the Government had made a big mistake about the value of its own goods. To show this he got off a story about General Jackson and General Eaton.
It seems that a fine Arabian steed, or what was of course supposed to be such, had been presented to President Jackson. He considered it the property of the Government, and as such, permission was asked and granted to sell it to the highest bidder. General Eaton at that time wanted a fine horse, and so he bid for this “fiery, untamed steed” and bought it. He was very proud of his “Arabian,” had a splendid stall made for him, fed him on the finest kind of horse feed, and put on a lot of airs as the lucky proprietor of such a first-class animal. But after a while his “Arabian” turned out to be “a snide.” There were plenty of circus horses that could beat him in every respect. The only thing he had no equal in was eatin’. The “Arabian” could eat his own weight in feed in a short time, and not show it, either. So General Eaton said he had been swindled by the United States and tried to get his money back, and the cost of his feed, from Uncle Sam.
This story made the court laugh more than all the jokes, but between the stories and the jokes they forgot about Shuster, or Hand, who got off without any punishment, and this was the end of the Government jewel case.
[Editor’s notes: In devoting space to the insults traded by the lawyers in the case, and the anecdote about General Eaton, the above column misses the intriguing story behind this case. It also misses the result: In May, 1849, Jacob Shuster, alias Tom Hand, was convicted and sentenced to a three-year term in prison for the jewel robbery.
The same jewels had been stolen earlier, in 1841, and it is likely that Tom Hand committed that crime, too. In that earlier case, as in the “Great” robbery of 1848, the object wasn’t really the jewels–the object was to return the jewels in exchange for the release of prison inmates who were confederates of Hand. Such horse-trading was common between authorities and thieves, a practice held as corrupt by the muckraking New York editor, George Wilkes of the National Police Gazette.
For more background, read a summary of the jewel robberies (as well as an explanation of why jewels would be at the Patent Office). But I invite readers to go down the rabbit hole, and read the string of stories on Hand that appeared in the National Police Gazette.]
