The Evening World

MOTHER VAINLY
SEEKS HER BOY

Roams Through Streets
in Hope of Finding
the Little Fellow Who
Was Lost a Week Ago.

WATCHES SCHOOL DOORS.

Last Time the Boy Was Seen
He Was Talking to a Wo-
man in the Street, and She
Gave Him Candy.

Mrs. John Lynch is roaming the
streets to-day in the neighborhood of
her home at No. 190½ Chrystie street.
She scans the faces of the dirty chil-
dren who are playing in the streets, and
no nook or corner is too small or too
dark for her to examine closely.

Mrs. Lynch is the mother of pretty
little Joseph Lynch, the three-year-old
boy who was kidnapped last Tuesday.
Ever since that evening, when Mrs.
Lynch came home from work—for she
is a hard-working woman, employed as
a nurse at the Pre-Cathedral on Essex
street—and discovered that her baby was
missing, she has pursued the search.

The police, too, have looked, after a
fashion, and so have the neighbors, but
there are other things to worry about
on Chrystie street, and one child more
or less makes little difference, for there
are many
children in that part of the
city.

The difference it does make to the
mother, the police or the neighbors do
not understand. Since Tuesday night
she has slept little and eaten little.
Her position at the Cathedral she has
ceased to remember. Her search begins
almost as soon as the sun shines upon
the dirt and squalor of Chrystie street,
and it lasts until some neighbor, more
thoughtful than the rest, tells the
mother she must go home and get some
sleep.

This morning the children began
school. One school is within a block
of Mrs. Lynch's home, and she sat on
the door steps and watched the young-
sters on the way with their books and
slates. Some she knew, some of the
younger ones had been playmates of her
boy and these she stopped and asked
If they had seen Joe.

The answer was always the same, and
the woman was soon in tears. The won-
dering children gathered around in
crowds. Even the youngest had seen
death in many forms, and it never meant
grief like this or for so long.

Some of the children tell a story of a
woman who petted Joe Tuesday morning
and gave him candy. The police inves-
tigated and nothing came of it. Joe was
pretty child, and pretty children are
few in that neighborhood, so it was
nothing unusual for him to be petted.

"I will look until I find my boy," said
Mrs. Lynch to-day to an Evening World
reporter. "Where shall I look? Every-
where, but I will find him. I do not
know why any one should have stolen
him, for I have no money to pay re-
wards with. He was pretty, his eyes
were blue and his hair light, maybe
that's why they took him."