AN INQUIRER REPORTER RETURNED TO CITY SOLICITOR COLLIS and asked if he had enough evidence to keep Wooster since ransom notes had arrived after his incarceration.
“Does not the fact that letters have been received by Mr. Ross since Wooster’s confinement, evidently penned by the same hand that wrote those in which you believed you detected the chirography of Wooster, weaken your belief that he was the author of the former letters?”
“Not at all,” Collis replied. “The class of men to which he belongs are practiced in all kinds of villainy, and it is not at all improbable that they may all have accustomed themselves to write the same handwriting. In this way they may hope to clear their confederate of suspicion.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer disagreed that men could share “the same handwriting” and continued to question Wooster’s authorship in editorials, citing the debate over Wooster as another reason for the police to release the letters.
A police spokesperson again defended the decision to hold them back, saying the letters would “shock and incense the community beyond conception.” On July 22, the Evening Bulletin stepped back from its public defense of the force and echoed New York’s attacks and the Inquirer’s questions. The paper blamed the “shameful and unbearable” incompetence of the police for making kidnapping an “easily committed” crime. The same day, the Inquirer asked citizens to hire “the whole detective force of the country.” It challenged readers to contribute $10,000 within twenty-four hours towards a reward for finding Charley. Prominent bankers and merchants raised funds, and a bank president offered his services as a treasurer. Twenty-four hours later, the paper published the names and donations of contributors. They had raised only $410. However, even though they fell tremendously short of their initial goal, the Inquirer had successfully, and somewhat indirectly, encouraged the city to rebel against its leadership. By investing their faith and their finances in a reward fund, Philadelphians were actively challenging the mayor’s authority and questioning the ability of the police to maintain public safety.
Stokley watched as his constituents’ actions validated New York’s verbal assaults on his administration. Less than three weeks before, he had paraded around the city in his carriage on the Fourth of July, preparing himself for the fame that would come with hosting the world at the Centennial celebration. Those who had applauded him on that day now accused him of ineffective leadership. As figurehead of the city, Stokley would receive either blame or accolades for the Centennial preparations and execution. If the mayor wanted to reclaim his public approval and refocus the spotlight on the city’s Centennial plans, his only choice was to agree to his voters’ demands and convince the city leaders to offer a municipal reward. On July 23, the city papers published the official notice.
MAYOR’S OFFICE, CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, July 22, 1874 – At the instance of the citizens of Philadelphia, I hereby offer a reward of twenty thousand dollars for the arrest and conviction of the abductors of Charles Brewster Ross, son of Christian K Ross, of Philadelphia, and the restoration of that child to his parents.”
W. S. STOKLEY
Mayor of Phila.
The statement included descriptions—of Charley, the kidnappers, the horse, and the buggy—as well as a reminder that the kidnappers could have altered Charley’s hair and clothing to make him look feminine. Stokley asked for “every newspaper in the United States and Canada” to give his notice “the widest publicity.” Clerks in the mayor’s office printed large reward posters soliciting the help of detectives nationwide, and Chief Jones wrote a letter asking stationmasters and postmasters to attach the signs to prominent places along their railroad routes. Packages of these posters and letters were then mailed throughout the country.
The municipal reward angered Christian. He insisted that the kidnappers’ behavior would become more erratic and violent with a price on their heads. Increasingly longer ransom notes reinforced his concerns: the kidnappers continued to betray their fears by repeating demands, arguing with statements in the press, and explaining new procedures for a ransom exchange. Detectives had continued to try to shift public attention from Charley toward the kidnappers, explaining that regardless of the child’s fate, copycat crimes were sure to multiply nationwide, and the only way to forestall future crimes was to arrest the criminals. Although they didn’t fully realize it, much of the public agreed with Christian’s position. They had asked the mayor to offer money for the child, not the criminals, as the Inquirer’s fund stipulated.
The mayor’s reward also revealed to the public that his police probably had the wrong man in custody. An Illustrated New Age reporter applied and received a permit to speak with Wooster in his cell at Moyamensing Prison. The criminal used the opportunity to identify himself as a pawn in the ongoing tensions between police officers and private investigators.
Wooster greeted the reporter with his trademark good humor.
“You must excuse the looks of this cell. I haven’t fixed it up yet.”
“I was anxious to see the bad man about whom there has been so much talk,” the reporter replied.
“That’s right,” said Wooster. “That’s right, always see all concerned. Don’t believe everything you hear on the streets. God knows I’m bad enough, but the police have got me for something now that I don’t know anything about.”
Wooster said he had “played along” with his arrest, referring to Detective Taggart with his nickname. “Down I went with Josh—and, by the way, he is a pretty good sort of fellow, but he wants badly to do something, he and the Central men being at loggerheads.”
In between telling the reporter an exaggerated account of his life history and the circumstances that had led to his life of crime, Wooster acknowledged that his trademark blackmailing jobs were what had him detained after his arrest. Police had confiscated letters that Wooster had written to his wife, compared them with mailings he had sent to his victims, and believed that his handwriting resembled that of the ransom note writer.
“I don’t always write the same way,” Wooster insisted. “I’m of a very nervous temperament, and you might pick out four of my letters and they might all appear to be written by different persons. They found two letters which they said compared with the handwriting of those sent to Ross. Now that’s all bosh. I think they ought to be convinced that I did not write the letters for this reason: a four-page letter was received by Ross since I have been in prison.”
When an officer came to say that the district attorney’s office had sent someone over and it was time for the reporter to go, Wooster waved him off.
“No, not yet,” he said, “give him a little longer. I want to talk to him.”
The guard obeyed.
“They may let me out today,” Wooster continued. “I think they are satisfied.”
Before he was released, Wooster asked to speak with Detective Taggart. He asked why he was locked up for something he didn’t do.
Taggart told him sources said he was involved in a kidnapping plot.
Wooster said they were right. But, he told Taggart, he had planned to take a different child before the Ross kidnapping. He said he had abandoned the plan when his accomplices learned that the child was nine, old enough to remember his captors’ faces.
Taggart didn’t believe in the coincidence of two separate plans to steal two different children at two similar times.
Wooster insisted that he wasn’t guilty of taking Charley. “[And] even if I was,” he said to Taggart, “you know I wouldn’t give anybody away.”
The police released Christopher Wooster from custody on July 23, just as he had predicted. The New Age reporter who had interviewed him said he celebrated by “getting gloriously drunk.” Later, Wooster told the press that he “had no hard feelings against the authorities” and wanted “to lead a different life if the police would let him.” He began planning a lecture tour to showcase his story.
Several days later, due to a lack of ticket sales, he postponed his “tour.”
PHILADELPHIA, JULY 24—Ros. we have seen yu reply in personal (yu agree to the terms in every particular) we accept yu offer for we consider yu fuly understand the great an momentus obligation yu place youself under when you assented tu this agreement. we be sory that we cannot effect the chang to-day. our creed is such that it forbids us to any bisines of this kind only at a certain quarter of the moon an the phace of the moon has just passed over so we have got tu wate one week befor we can transact any bisines between us. this delay may be a great sorce of torture tu yu but it cannot be avoided.