The Camden chronicle. (Camden, S.C.) 1888-1981, June 20, 1924, Image 7
WAS FAMOUS CHARACTER
Notorious Sophie Lyons Led. World
Police a Merry Chatte.
Mrs. Sophie Burke, property owner
is dea<l in Detroit, at the afle of 78,
leaving to charity a fortune (includ*
ing jewelry) worth anywhere from
*200, OOt) up?some ?sny $1,000,000.
That is the end of Sophie Lyons.
It is ? good many years since
Sophie Lyon's name was written on a
police blotter. In New York detec
tives have grown gray?haired chatting
big crooks and never had a sight of
her. Hut there is no detective who
hasn't heard of Sophie Lyons, She
was the kind of crook that is met
with nowadays only in Action. She
came of parents of the same sort, and
her first husband was Ned Lyons, one
of the gods of the underworld.
Sophie Lyons herself is mentioned
j? the story of the biggest bank rob
bciy ever pulled off ifl America. She
could bamboozle a police fhief and
pull wool over the eyes of an am
bassador ? and she did. She took
$200,000 out of Franca i*>. a singlo
year, and it was but one year of
many. An expert as a stall, at black
mail and confidence gpmes, at sneak
thievery, an accomplished pickpocket,
an adventuress from a play, with all
the requisite audacity? and a woman
with a sense of humor, in her early
days she turned her firstborn child
over to a nurse so she might go steal
for the fun of it. In later- years she
wept when her convent-bred daugh
t learned whore the monoy ca c
from.
Inspector Tom Byrnes, whose
career was one long war against the
crooks of her generation, called her
the most dangerous woman in the
world. Lombroso, whose prestige as
a criminologist was still undimmed
when Sophie flourished, cited her as
a case. Big Bill Devery, when he
was chief, declared America had
never produced a cleverer thief. And
Devtyy said she would never reform.
How did it come about that Sophie
Lyons, who knew the inside of many
jails and had bluffed her way out of
some and broken out of others,' came
to be the well-to-do old woman living
quietly in Detroit? The story of
Sophie Lyons falls into two phases
upon that question, and on the whole
the second phase is not the less in
teresting.
There are policemen who tell you,
"They never go straight." There are
others who say, "Never . . . well,
hardly ever." ?
"There's only one chance," the old
detective says. ^ "Cut clean from the
past. If they go back to their cronies
and see the easy money (thought it
does not last), they're done for."
Well, listen to Sophie herself. She
Dr. C. F. Sowell
DENTIST
(Office Over Brace's Store)*
CAMDEN, S. C.
DR. G. C. TRANTHAM
DENTIST
First Floor, Crocker Building
PHONE 450
PIANO TUNING
Lewis L. Moore
242-W PHONE or 46
CAMDEN, S. C.
T. B. BRUCE ;
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t'.vltleton St., I'hone 114.
CAMDEN, S. C.
Hayes Bus Line
CAMDEN
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Hhone 181, Camden Hotel
A. R. COLLINS
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. 7W
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Camden, 5. C.
Telephone?Day 41; Night IW
is Mrs. Burke now, gray haired, the
HUthor of a book, "Why Crime Does
Not Pay" (a copy was by her when
she died), and she is addressing the
yOO inmates in the Detroit House of
Correction, She says:, "Tread on the
past ijis you would on a doormat."
That was two or three years ago.
The inmates kuv\W her, and when she
visited them they sang, "Oh,- What a
Pal Was Sophie." She would tell
them to keep straight, and describe
how as a girl she herself, who had
escaped from that same jail, once
tried in vain to change her ways.
. "I found no one willing to receive
me with an open hand," she would
say. And she would tell how she was
kicked down the stairs of a {factory,
and how she spent the night in the
open and ate a crust picked from .re
fuse.
Did Sophie Lyoijs say too much
when she told such things Did she
let her newer role of righteousness
run away with her? She always had
a sense of the dramatic. Yet she
could talk straight: that doormat
figure i is blunt enough. "Trust iafthfe
right; put your faith in your fellow
beings; there is no such thing as
failure. What we term failure is a
stepping stone to success. Don't
think that society will run after you
with open arms; you have to prove
,yoursel{t worthy to be a member of
society."
"Moreover, she used her money to
play Lady Bountiful. There 'was no
temptation of easy money for Sophie
Lyons; she had more than the top
notch criminals of today, who dropped
in to see her when they visited De
troit. It is said she made it in De
troit real estate. This much is
known: that in 1898 she was arrested
in New York for stealing a pair of
gloves ? and gloves were smaller
game than she hunted once upon a
time. She liked to give while she
was alive, and when her will was
opened it was found to leave most
of her estate in .trust for fifty years
to found a home for the children of
convicts.
There is still another contrast in
Sophie Lyons' life beside that be
tween the crook in her heydey and
the old woman cheering up prisoners.
It the contrast between a little
girl in a tough ward of old New York
learning how to pick pockets, and the
woman of the 1880's. That little girl,
first arrested in 1859, had her wits
about her, and probably deeper qual
ities too, or she would not have be
come the sort to do* the things that
the grown Sophie got away with.
Rags and dirt, like a Dickens novel;
wealth, a- patter of art and something
of a turn for music (one daughter
became a, singer), and familiarity
with four languages ? there are two
pictures that explain why even the
police who hunted her said she had
the makings of a brilliant woman.
How much was there^ besides envi
ronment to account for the direction
in which she grew ? Her picture tells
something; a picture taken in 1886,
when she was .36. Byrnes printed it
ItThis book, "Professional Criminals
of America," in which he ranked her
high in more than one branch of
crime. The photograph stands out
from a pagefull of other women; they
are twisted and sullen and most of
them stupid.
Sophie wears ribbons and velvet
and lace in U$e fashion of that day,
and heavy earrings. Not a bad fore
head. Not bad eyes, grey eyes, a
trifle far apart. There is a bit .of
mockery in them. They are the eyes
of a woman who had been ? or thinks
she has been? backed into a corner
of life. That attitude shows, in the
mouth toof no cupid-bow mouth;
large and with a touch of cruelty
in its lines.
Byrne's picture was taken nearly
forty years ago, when the Rogues
Gallery was still a novelty. Sophie
Lyons, a little woman of medium
build, at that time already had a long
jail" record.* > ?
' She began early, under parental
tutelage. There was a pathetic story
once of the child Sophie rebelling at
theft and of her father searing her
arms in punishment. As a mattci of
fact, when Ned Lyons, her husband,
set up a suburban home and
struggled against her bent f^r crime
(for he was proud of being a good
provider), she would steal for the fun
of it when she was out with him, and
surprise him with handfuls of gold
watches.
Not so long ago Sophie Lyons
arrived in New York, homeward
bound on her twentieth trip around
the world, and she said then that her
-father was a Holland Jew, Van r,lkTn7
and that her grandfather was a rabbi.
Long ago, when her boasts had
another bent, she said grandfather
was a cracksman to whom even Scot
land Yard doffed caps.
Levy was the family name, if one
follows the police records. Her father
was known as Sam Levy, housebreak
er and Unce Her mother has a
niche in Tom Byrne's roster? Sophie
Elki ins. ?? of the l~din* profes
sional shoplif*? and
sent up for four, yean from New
York in 1870, under the alias Julia
Keller, for shoplifting.
Sophie was a good looking girl,
with alertness and charm, and she
came from what was, in hor world,
a good family. There is nothing like
that world today, but at that time
there was u conscious pride about the
big crooks, and they married as in
a caste and often passed their craft
from father to son or from mother
to daughter. Sophie, then, was some*
thing of a catch. So was Ned Lyons.
Lyon s>> was big and strong and
handsome and had a heavy red mus
tache, When he met Sophie, soon
after the Civil War, he had been do
ing big jobs for several years. She
helped him to do bigger.
He was still young? eleven years
older than Sophie ? and he made his
real start as a bounty jumper in the
war, enlisting as often as eighteen
times a month. Born in England, he
pame to America in 1850 and began
his career in West Nineteenth Street.
| In time he came to bo tutored by the
Nestor of his kind, Jimmy Hope,
whose son Johnny turned many a
little trick with Lyons. Old Jimmy!
and Lyons and some others robbed
the Philadelphia Navy Yard * in 1870,
a celebrated job. "And the year be
fore they pulled off the Ocean Bank
robbery in New York.
That was a $1, 000#00 bit of work.
What hand Sophie had in it is not' re
corded, but she had a reputation as a
stall. The bank was at Fulton and
Greenwich streets. The gang hired
the basement beneath it as an ex
change, cut through the floor, and
spent a week-end ransacking the
bank. Vaults were flimsier then;
often a jackscrew would suffice, forc
ing successive wedges, each wider,
into the vault door. The gang left
a wad of securities and a heap of
gold, too heavy to carry.
That was the biggest thing of its
Hind until 1879, when Jolyiny Hope
and others robbed the Manhattan
Savings institution, at Bleecker street
and Broadway, of $2,747,750 ? a loss
reduced to $20000 net because the
loot was chiefly securities. Lyon's
name was mentioned in that case, too,
though he does not appear to have
had an active hand in it. But it was
through big stuff of that sort ? $50,
000 here, $150,000 there ? that Lyons
became a good provider.
/ Lyons was proud of his wife, and
he thought a woman's place was in
the home. She had to steal on the
quiet, so he would not know. Old
Mrs. Mandelbaum, the fence, who
had taught her, never had an apter
pupil than Sophie. But after the
birth of their first child Ned Lyons
bought a farm on Long Island and
furnished the house, according to a
contemporary account, with every
thing a woman could want."
He imagined that mother-love
would keep Sbphie quiet. It did ?
T* ? - ? ______
lor six months. Then she put little
George out to nurse and camo back
tQt New York -and was caught ami
sent to KlackwelPs Inland. Little
George also went his way. lie was
sunt to prison twice before he was
lull grown, and he died ^ in prison.
"Cut " off in his prime," said his
mother.
Sophie Lyons was now in full
bloom. For thirty years she bore the
title "Queen of the Underworld/' She
never would stand the sight of blood,
but of clean work there was no
branch in which she was incapable,
The police said in the '80's that she
had never let it interfere either with
work or with the later process of
beating back. She kept a steady
hand.
The stories of her come from all j
parts of America and a gtnxl bit of
Europe besides, Some are unbeliev
able, yet Sophie Lyons could be un
believablo. There was, for instance,
the adventure of the charming
American widow in Paris. A gen?
darme near the Are de Triomphe
happerred to see the widow's hand in
a man's pocket.. Arrest, and then
furor.' The American colony was set
by the ears at this horrible mistake
(for who could believe it?) and the
prefect of police himself was bluffed
off the boards by Sophie. Mores The
American minister took a hand in
her behalf. The upshot was that
Sophie got off.
Then there was the actress in Bos
ton* The actress wore diamonds,
said to be real. That is the doubtful
part of this story. In a box is a
matron who goes behind the scenes
after the show to express admiration.
Invitations to tea, a bandying of
socially great names, a bow and de
parture from the dressing room ?
with the diamonds.
The merchant in Boston is a docu
mented casd. It was Sophie's debut
as a blackmailer.
"She had appeared before the pub
lic of late years," Byrnes wrote, "as
an adventuress and has blackmailed
scores of business men."
A business man in Michigan re
fused to give up money, so Sophie
sat on the horse block in front of
his homq day by day until he turned j
the hose, ?n her. A^ banker in Illinois j
politely picked up her handkerchief
while an accomplice of hers walked j
off with a handful of money. [The
tale stretches from Peoria to Paris,
and to Bath, where Sophie more than j
paid the rent of the villa in which
she played cards with bluebloods.
There was diamond-running from
Amsterdam, with novel fashions in
false-botom trunks and, hollow heels.
There was a fake marriage bureau
out West. And in London once there
appeared the widow of an American
gold miner who had left little ready
cash but plenty of pigs of solid gold. |
The incident gives Sophie's setting:
it was still the age of gold bricks, j
with the more sophisticated mail
order bunch hardly yet invented.
She was arrested often enough.
She Was in prison or jail in New
York, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
Missouri, Canada, France. Once, jht>|
a Kentucky jail she listened while six
men kilted one ttuothei with koivt?a
made from tin plates, . Of all the
jails she said the Ann Arbor House
of Correction, where later she was to
come to make speeches, was the West.
I.ombroso, summing her up in his
laborious study, says that when she
left America ^he abandoned her chil
dren to charity, thouRh she was very
rich. This does not seem to have
been true; the woman herself denied
it always. All her own references
to them are marked by that sense of
the romantic which remained with
her in her reformation. Ned Lyons
was a devoted husband. Sophie
Lyons a devoted mother. Lyons
came on hard lines, in prison and out ;
his skill went from him. In the nine
ties they were divorced and Sophie
hail gone with Hilly Burke an able
man, in his f>wn specialty, lie died
i some years ajjo.
The early accounts mention four
children by Lyons; two boys, both in
jail, and two girls, in h convent.
Sophie herself in recent years enum
erated five, including George, who
died, and a daughter by her second
husband. Now there is also a grand
daughter. Sophie herself appeals to
have spared no expense on them.
Once, arriving in New York from
abroad (it 'was her seventeenth trip
across and back), she detailed to re
porters her tour, with daughters and
maid, along the Riviera, and how she
had rubbed elbows with the Prince
of Wales and American notables at
a musicale and how she had spent
$20,0.00 in four years on the educa
tion of one daughter who was about
to go into opera.
When she talked of Dean Farrar
' and of how she visited Ben Johnson'*
monument and saw Marie Correlli,
reform was already an old story to
Sophie Lyons. Perhaps the change in
| her existence dated back to when she
( began to lose her skill, or possibly to
I that day twenty-five years ago when
i she was. arrested rtt, a fashionable
funeral in Trinity church. She told
the police she was there to worship.
"Well, Sophie," ? they said, "if you
wan to get religion you'll have to
go to the Salvation Army; we can't
| let you in Trinity with all the swells."
To which Sophie replied: "If I have
i to get it at the Salvation Army I'll
| do without."
She didn't do without, however,
i Sophie got on the first pages again
j ten years ago when she stepped oft'
' a steamship with a jewel box in
| which the inspectors found only a
! prayer book; with a prayer of thanks
I heavily marked. Theatrical, per
haps, yet when she got back to De
j troit on tha?~ trip the neighbors
strewed flowers on hor doorstep}.
"Twenty yeajrs ago I heard t1u>'
voico calling," .4 he said at that period,
"and I own forty hoUHes," Then she
offered a $85,000 situ for a children's
home. ?
The ohl detective who has ideas
about reclamation may say, "Well, if
it's real why don't t hoy give the
money hack?" Hut Sophie Lyons
couldn't make restitution. There
were too many, even had nhe wanted.
?She did her host in her will, however,
not overlooking hor children, ami once
she said: "I want something more
than property; I Want the respect of
good people,",
TKKS1WSS NOTlCK
All person^ hVo hereby nVohibiied
from entering on the lands of tho
undersigned, situate in Kershaw
County, about lut'lvc miles southeast
of the City. -of (tunden, on tho waters
of Swift ('rook, containing thirty-six
(86) acres, more or iosM. and hound'
ed on the northeast by lands of Hoy.t
Moseley, south by (i. VV. Moseley,
west by the Hoyle Place.
Any. person nov persona violating
this notice will be prosecuted.
MRS. H. <\ AUK ANTS
May <29, 11)24 lM2pd
CLEMSON COLLEGE
Scholarship Examinations
Competitive examinations to till
vacant scholarships in forty- two
counties will be held on Friday, .July
11, 1024 beginning at 0 a.m., under
tno supervision of tho County Super'
intendents of Education.
Four-year ? scholarships ? Open t??
students desiring to pursue four-year
csJlege courses in Agriculture, Win*
ners of these scholarships must moot
fully the requirements for entrance
into the Freshman Class.
Two-year scholarships ? Open to
students desiring to pursue, the Two
year Course in Agriculture. Common
school education sufficient.
Each scholarship is worth $100.00 a
session and free tuition of $10.00
Membership in the Reserve Officers
Training Corps ? R. O. T. C. ? is also
equivalent in money to a scholarship
during the last two years in college.
For catalogue, application blanks
and other information write to
THE REGISTRAR
Clemson College, S. C.
! Winthrop ColleRc
SCHOLARSHIP AND ENTRANCE
EXAMINATION
The examination for the award oH
vacant Scholarships in Winthrop.
College and for admission of new
students will be held at tho County
Courthouse on Friday, July 4, at
9 a. in. Applicants must not be less
than sixteen years of age. When
scholarships are vacant after July
5 they will be awarded to those
^making the highest average at this
examination, providing they meet
the conditions governing the award.
Applicants for Scholarships should
write to President Johnson before
the examination for Scholarship
examination blanks.
Scholarships are worth $100 and
free tuition. For further informa
tion and catalouge, address Pres. IX
B. Johnson, Rock Hill South Carolina.
n 4 i*
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