Newspaper Page Text
O N the Evening of May 15 on Prince
Street, New York, Pretty 16-Year-
Old Susie Ferraro Was Seized by Four
Men, and Flurried Off Into Shameful
Bondage. By Rare Accident and Good
Luck Her Hiding Place Was
FoundandSheWas Rescued
a Few Weeks Ago. One of .
Her Captors Was
Caught by the Police
and Is Awaiting Trial; y
the Charge Is
Abduction, but the
Government May
Prosecute Under the
White Slave Act
/^)N December 12, Three Years Ago,
Miss Dorothy Arnold Disappear
ed—Not a Trace of Her Has Since Been
Found. It Is Believed by the Police
That in the Case of Little Susie Ferraro
They Have a Very Exact Duplicate of
Just What Happened to Dorothy
I* Arnold; Except That She Was
Probably Killed by Her
lllS^V Captors to Avoid
i|kK Discovery. One Was
a Tragedy of the
Tenement District; the
BP Other of Fashionable
Blllliir Fifth Avenue
strength. She wan a sweet, norma), whole
some girl.. No signs of morbidness had
ever appeared in her. She bad never in
her life been seriously ill. The Arnold
family, unlise many others, had never
evinced in any branch of it the slightest
tendency to mental aberrations.
There was nothing ro show that Dorothy
Arnold had ever had longings for a
“career" or for “financial independence.”
She had travelled much in Europe, but had
no special liking for that pastime. She
seemed a girl of ordinary disposi
tion, characterized by nothing more re
markable than a spirit of content with her
surroundings and her place in life. Her
friends were in this respect like herself.
She had entertained two of them at lunch
eon at her home the day she disappeared.
No motive being proven for her volun
tary disappearance, it gradually came to
be the belief of her friends and acquain
tances that the young woman had been
impressed into that sorry army of 600,000
women who disappear every year in the
United States. The large number of these
unfortunates who are later found in lives
of sin is melancholy evidence of the fate
which doubtless overtakes thousands of
others who are never heard of again.
Recoiling at such possibility, Dorothy
Arnold’s father and mother prefer to be
lieve her dead. To that belief they turn
for comfort.
But why does not Dorothy Arnold com
municate with her family if she is still
alive is a question that comes readily to
every one that considers her mysterious
story. For the same reason, doubtless,
that little Susie Ferraro failed to com
municate with hers. Stanley W. Finch,
the special commissioner appointed by
the United States to inquire into white
slavery in this country, answers such
questions in his last report.
The jailors taunt their victims by telling
them that their families would never be
lieve the story that they had unwillingly
entered white slavery. They tell them
their families would turn them from their
doors, that instead of hoping they will re
turn, they pray that they are dead.
Furthermore, even if they wished to
communicate with their families, they are
not allowed to do so. They may not ap
peal to tho police because their masters
convince them that they are partners of
the police, and that if they attempted to
escape they would be surely returned to
their original captors.
Mr. Finch declares the condition of the
women who are seized by these criminals,
as little Susie Ferraro was and as Dorothy
Arnold probably was, to bo practically
hopeless.
T HE evening of May 15 last was dark
and cloudy. Little sixteen-year-old
Susie Ferraro was making her way
through the lower part of New York City
unsuspecting any impending harm. Be
hind her, unseen, two men were following;
across the street two other men were keep
ing pace with her hurrying footsteps.
Across the bright lights of lower Sixth
avenue pattered the little form of Susie,
and in another moment her shadow was
obscured in the relative darkness of Prince
street. Half a block further on she start
ed to cross the street.
Instantly from behind and from in front
came four men. A heavy hand reached
around and sealed her mouth and without
even one single outcry Susie Ferraro was a
captive—-without a moment’s delay the girl
was hurried on to a shameful captivity.
It is only by accident that the occur
rence of that evening in May has been re
vealed to the police. It is only by rare
good luck that Susie Ferraro is at this
moment under protection in the House of
the Good Shepherd, rescued from captivity.
Her evidence will probably convict the
leader of the four men who seized her
and has held her in bondage since last
May.
It was on December 12 three years ago
that Dorothy Arnold disappeared. It is not
impossible that the same kind of hands
which seized Susid Ferraro carried Miss
Arnold into bondage. It is the belief of
the police that in the tragedy which befell
Susie Ferraro we have a very exact pic
ture of what proba'bly happened to Dor
othy Arnold—with the exception that the
excited, hunt for the latter probably in
duced her captors to kill her and dispose
of her body to save themselves from de
tection.
Susie Ferraro is the eldest daughter of
a prosperous butcher who lived at No. 143
Thompson street—the “prettiest girl on
Thompson street” they called her.
Although sixteen years old Susan was
regarded as a mere child by her parents
and the neighbors.’ She was demure, in
dustrious and of practical mind. If there
were any ideas of romance in her smooth,
dark little head she concealed them with
consummate skill. Her father was proud
of her. Her mother did not know what she
would do without “her good little Susan, who
minded her little brother and sister when
she was not in the shop.” The girl, save
for her remarkable beauty, was a type
of the little mothers, who are the female
lieutenants of the large New York families
in the crowded districts. She had never
had a love affair—of that her parents are
positive.
Little Susie began to want to earn her
importer. She lived with her parents, her
sister Marjorie and two brothers.
On the afternoon of December 12, three
years ago, she told her mother she was
going to the shops in search of a new
evening gown.
“Shall I go with you?’’ her mother asked.
“No; why tire yourself, dear,” the daugh
ter said to the semi-invalid. “If I see any
thing I think will do I will telephone you
to come to look at it.”
Miss Arnold was seen at Brentano’s on
Fifth avenue, where she bought a book,
and also at Park & Tilford’s in the same
block, where she bought a box of candy.
No further trace of her movements was
ever found. She disappeared as complete
ly as if the pavements on the avenue had
opened and swallowed her.
When she did not return to dinner the
family grew anxious. Friends were tele
phoned, but all reported that they had not
seen her for several days.
Her father asked the aid of private de
tectives and Police. Headquarters They
worked with the greatest secrecy for
six weeks, when the District Attorney per
suaded the aged father to furnish the news
of her disappearance and her photographs
to the newspapers. Though he wept at
thought of the publicity, he consented. But
even the widest publicity through the print
ed page brought no results.
Miss Arnold had had a suitor, George S.
Griscom, Jr., an elegant idler, the son of a
wealthy Pittsburgher. Mr. Griscom was in
Italy that Winter and cabled inquiries
to him were followed by a visit of one
of the brothers to him at Florence. High
words followed the meeting. Blows were
exchanged, but the impetubus brother af
terward apologized. Griscom, at the re
quest of the Arnold family, came to this
country and aided in the search. Soon it
became apparent that he was no more ef
fective than they. His standing in the
affair was, after all, only that of a rejected
suitor, aud gradually those who were
searching for the girl eliminated him from
any knowledge of the mystery.
The search continued, quietly at times,
publicly at others, for two years. Alleged
Dorothy Arnolds were disclosed in various
quarters of America and Europe, only to
prove to be some one else.
It was established that the girl was
healthy in mind and body. Her athletic
training had made her a model of physical
own living. She aspired to a purse of her
own with which she could buy little bits
of finery as she saw other girls doing. At
first her parents said, “No; you are too
young.” Susie pleaded so hard, however,
that at last her parents asked the advice
of friends who had lived longer in this
country than the Ferraros.
“Let her go,” said these friends. “It
will do no barm.” They told them of a
laundry where a cashier was needed. On
May 15 Susie set forth, her dark eyes shin
ing with eagerness, to ask for the place.
She never appeared at the laundry.
That evening when she did not return
for dinner her father searched the neigh
borhood for her. “Have you seen Susie?”
he aSked of every one. The question final
ly become, “Do you know any one who has
seen Susie?”
Several of the neighbors had met a
woman who told them of having seen the
child crossing Sixth avenue at Prince
street, walking in a group of four men and
nearly hidden by their burly forms. The
woman had thought it curious, but since
the child had made no outcry supposed
that the men were relatives of the girl and
that she was on her way with them to
Staten Island or one of the beaches. Pic
nics of Italians on Staten Island are every
day events when the weather gets warm,
including a visit to the former home of
General Garibaldi at Clifton. This was
the only clew the distracted father could
find.
For seven months George Ferraro vainly
sought his vanished daughter. He gave
up his business. He moved to a poorer
quarter of the city. Every day he walked
the streets and visited the police stations
asking for the daughter. The neighbors
shook their heads and pointed to their
temples when he passed.
“Ferraro go mad,” they said under their
breath.
The police promised to help him. “We’ll
try, old man,” they said, touched by his
grief. But though they tried to encourage
him there was little confidence in their
hearts that anything would come of their
efforts. They feared that the worst fate
any girl can meet had long since swal
lowed up pretty, black-eyed Susan Ferraro.
The one photograph of Susan taken since
she was a baby was carried in the pocket
of a patrolman and that until it was
faded and cracked, but the men did not
give up. Many of them had daughters of
their own and this made them all the more
eager to help this grief-stricken old man
find his girl.
Tlie Latest Photograph of
Dorothy Arnold.
Last month Officer Hardin, who
had carried the photograph for four
weeks, stood on a cornel of Morris
Park and looked keenly into the
face of a slender slip of a girl who,
with a crimson shawl over her head,
was hurrying past him. With a
signal to Officer Kehoe he followed
walking swiftly,
her. The quarry,
turned several corners, looked back
twice as if fearful of being followed,
but the patrolmen distracted her at
tention from them by shifting their
gaze. She turned into an apartment
house. The two policemen watched out
side. After watching the house and those
who visited it for an hour they went to
headquarters and secured two warrants—
one for Susie and one for her companion,
James, or Vincenzo, Mirendo.
In court the magistrate counselled the
child, who wept bitterly and seemed too
terrified to speak; “I shall send you to the
House of the Good Shepherd to remain
until you are of age,” he said.
Mirendo was held for the Grand Jury on
a charge of abduction. He has already
served two prison sentences for carry
ing concealed deadly weapons.
Inside the protecting walls of the House
of the Good Shepherd little Susie is be
ginning a new life. No one of the other
inmates will ever know her story unless
she herself tells it. That it is a story of
terror is evidenced by the silent horror
with which she sits brooding over it. Her
nerves have been sorely shaken and she
starts in fear at the slightest noise. Her
case is exciting the greatest interest be
cause it is believed it was in similar fash
ion that Dorothy Arnold, the beautiful New
York heiress, dropped out of sight one
bright December morning in 1910.
Dorothy Arnold was, save in the matter
of beauty, more favored by circumstances
than was little Susie Ferraro. She was
the niece of Associate Justice Rufus Peck-
ham of the Supreme Court of the United
States. She was twenty-five and college
bred. Four years before her mysterious
disappearance she had been graduated
from Bryn Mawr. Her father is a wealthy
The Philosophy of Men’s Clothes- -By the Chevalier Andre de Fouq
The Proper
“Aspect of En
nui” that Har
monizes w i t 1
Evening
Clothes.
Straight
Canes
and
Straight
Lines
for the
Atfernoon.
Paris, Dec. 21.
M ASCULINE elegance and style
are a new order of the day.
We hear much about dandy
ism. But what is dandyism?
Chateaubriand has drawn a most
uninviting portrait of the dandy.
“The dandy,” said he, “lowers the
fine independence of his character by
stretching out his boots under the
noses of the ladies, who are seated
in admiration before him; he gets on
his horse with a stick, which he car
ries like a candle in front of him,
not Caring for the horse which he be
strides. We might say that he does
not seem to know whether he is
alive, whether the world is alive,
whether there are any women around,
or whether he ought to bow to his
neighbor.”
This outline brings to view the
dandy as he existed in England at
the beginning of the nineteenth cen
tury. It is the dandyism of Sir
George Brummel, who was master
and creator in one, and you may eas
ily guess that I would not enter upon
any panegyrics about him.
To me there seem to be two kinds
of dandyism: practical dandyism and
theoretical dandyism, or to use the
expression of a newspaper; “Clothes
dandyism and literary dandyism.”
It seems that our democracy, by a
split. The buttons should be hid
den. The material should be of a
blue or grey shade, falling into soft
lines.
In the morning for walking out,
the short overcoat with strapped
seams is very much in favor. 1
think we must put aside altogether
the turned-up trouser, which has be
come far too common.
White gaiters appear to be stylish
this year.
In the afternoons we should wear
almost exclusively black or very
dark blue ties. Straight canes and
bamboos are to be preferred.
In a word, the elegance for which
we stand, which we advocate, must
all be virile, without weakness or
archness. This is what is becoming
to the young men of to-day, all of
whom are more or less athletic, all
well filled out, with that ease which
flows from habitual exercise in field
and gymnasium.
And if I may be permitted to add
to these accessories of life, let me
say that it is necessary to fight con
stantly against ugliness, for our «own
pleasure and to please those charm
ing companions who have chosen U3.
It pleases us especially to boast
that tlie “dandies” of to-day are
chivalrous, brave,, ignorant of ennui,
smiling at everything—and, in true
French style, even at death.
A very simple costume is most en
ticing when worn by one person and
ridiculous when worn by another. A
small, young man dressed in Ameri
can style may be most attractive,
while the man of forty-five would be
grotesque. It Is legitimate for a
man to dress to please, and to study
style for the pleasure which he takes
in It.
If Paris is incontestably the tem
ple of feminine style, London is the
temple of masculine elegance.
Really, in England we find that
straightness and sobriety of line so
The
Thoroughly
Up-to-Date
Back.
Sample
Lines for
the Too
Stout.
“Our Sober, Modern Elegance.”
Copyright, 1913. by the Star Company. Great Britain Rights Reserved.