The Burglar Captain; or, The Fallen Star

Catalog Note *The Burglar Captain; or, The Fallen Star,* by Professor J. H. Ingraham, is a romance of mystery and crime serialized in this January 1881 issue of Beadle & Adams's weekly publication. Set in New York forty years prior, the narrative opens with Herman De Ruyter, a dissolute gentleman of handsome appearance and reckless temperament, fleeing to his impoverished widowed mother's ancestral Dutch mansion near Chatham Square after stealing a watch from a street victim. Police officers pursue him into the house; his mother conceals him in a hidden chimney-side closet built during "troublous times." When one officer searches methodically, he nearly discovers the fugitive's refuge by rapping walls and sounding floors. Growing impatient, the officer ignites straw in the fireplace to smoke out the youth, causing a dramatic chimney fire that alarms the neighborhood. Herman survives undiscovered in his hiding place as the officer remains stationed in the house, determined to capture the young thief despite his mother's silent resistance.