Josephine Miller, a well-known actress, enjoys the saintly quarters of the Rev. Julian Smyth, Boston Highlands. [more]

An Actress Accused of Stealing.

Josephine Miller, an amateur actress and public reader of high reputation, was arrested the afternoon of Oct. 4 on the charge of stealing property from the residence of the Rev. Julian Smyth, pastor of the Church of the New Jerusalem, at Boston Highlands. When Mr. Smyth made preparations to start on his summer vacation in June, he let his residence, at 26 Montrose street, to Miss Miller. On Sept. 1 Mr. Smyth and his family returned home and found their house vacated and over $200 worth of bric-a-brac, house furnishings, etc., missing. There were dozens of empty wine bottles left behind, and soon bills came in for several cases of champagne, which had been charged to the clergyman. He made inquiries of his neighbors and the police and learned that the house had been every night the scene of the wildest revelry, which lasted usually until sunrise.

The police hadn’t interfered because the place had been the resort of the best known bloods about town. Mr. Smyth was scandalized and caused the arrest of his former tenant.

Inspectors Burke and Robbinson tried every means to ascertain where Miss Miller was stopping, but not until this morning did they learn that she was living in the Hotel Albemarle, on Columbus avenue. They went to her apartments, and there found a considerable part of the stolen property. More of the property was found stored away in the cellar of the hotel and at the Boston Storage company’s building on the Back Bay. When questioned at police headquarters, Miss Miller said that she did not intend to steal the property, but that it was packed up by mistake.

Miss Miller is a strikingly handsome young woman of about twenty-five years with dark hair and eyes. When taken to police headquarters she was attired in an elegant costume. She has appeared in many of the entertainments given throughout New England as a reader, and in “Pygmalion and Galatea” and “Love a Rainstorm.”

Reprinted from: The National Police Gazette, Oct. 22, 1887.

A “friendly” poker scheme exposed at Bogota, N. J., by one of the players squealing.  

Some months ago there moved into a neat cottage at Bogota, N. J., on the east side of the Hackensack River, opposite Hackensack, N. J., a family who introduced themselves as the Larkins.

When Mrs. Larkins and her daughters, Julie, Clytie and Bell, first settled in Bogota the were regular in their attendance upon worship in the "old church on the green,” where their presence was at once remarked, and they were classed as inhabitants of ultra sweldom by the staid Dutch worshippers, who cling to the belief of their forefathers that gaudy colors and silks and satins are an abomination. But it has just leaked out that Mrs. Larkins has been running a little game of draw in her quiet little cottage.

It now appears that “Mrs. Larkins: and her “family” were reaping a rich reward from the visitors among whom were at least three well-known local poker experts, who are known to have been regular in their visits Saturday nights. The handsome “father” of the house is said to have been a professional gambler, who plucked the larger game, while the callow youth were left to the fair but expert misses.

Under such circumstances it would be impossible to say how long the pleasures of the place might have been enjoyed had it not been for the rashness of one young man, who, while presumably headed with wine, imagined that the fair Clytie held one card too many at a moment when the inducement was a jackpot of generous amount. Clytie smilingly protested her innocence, but the youth lost his temper, and so far forgot himself as to impeach her veracity in a word of four letter preceded by a powerful adjective. When a constable wen with a warrant to pull the house he found in large black letters “To Let” on the door.

Reprinted from National Police Gazette, January 4, 1890.