ELECTRICITY NOW A FACTOR.
It Has Taken the Place of Dynamite and the Jimmy in Advanced Safe Looting.
Scientific Equipment of Burglar Includes High-Class Automobile.
Jobs at Country Houses Usually Planned Far in Advance, and With Intimate Knowledge of Loot To Be Gained.
HOW BURGLAR UNLOCKS DOORS.
Unlocking a door is one of the easiest tasks of the professional burglar. His ingenuity defies the efforts of locksmiths to invent safety devices. The picture shows how an expert turns a key in the lock, and also a simple device to prevent this.
The up-to-date burglar must have a motor car, the use of which is only a part of his scientific equipment. That the modern burglar does not consider that he is properly equipped unless he possesses a motor car is an incontrovertible fact. House-breaking nowadays has been reduced to a science. The use of gloves renders detection by finger prints impossible. Besides, the modern burglar's tools are most scientifically made. The men who make it their business to manufacture these tools are first-class workmen.
The majority of large country burglaries are planned for days in advance, and every detail is most carefully arranged. In some mysterious manner the word is conveyed to the gang that a visit will be made on a certain day, by a member of the household which it is intended to rob, to a jeweler's shop. The train is met at the terminus and the person followed to the jeweler's or wherever they go.
When they enter the shop a man strolls in casually and makes some inquiries. While an assistant is attending to his supposed wants it is very easy for him to see what the person at the same counter is purchasing and, having obtained all the necessary information, the man leaves and imparts all his information to his confederates.
Before a county ball or such function a visit to the jeweler's is often necessary to get the family diamonds, and the fact that this visit is going to be made is either communicated or anticipated, and the same system of following is put in operation. Equipped with all the desired information, the modern burglar then brings his motor car into operation. There is no tedious waiting for trains; he simply drives down to the "crib" and avoids the old-fashioned way of taking a train at a small wayside station, with the chances of being arrested on his arrival in the metropolis.
If he is noticed on the road he is taken for a rich man touring in his car, and if a great social function is in progress he is regarded as a belated guest. The car is carefully stalled in an obscure place while the robbery takes place. The booty is subsequently placed in it and a quick trip back to town is made. The police are left practically without a single clew.
Those members of the community who make a business, or a profession, rather, of burglary keep up with the march of science quite as closely as do people in a more legitimate calling.
The burglar of today is a vastly differently equipped individual from the one of a generation ago. He must of necessity be an enterprising and daring man, and in addition to that if he would make a success of safe cracking in this twentieth century he must be something of a scientist as well. The great progress made in the manufacture of safes for the storage of valuables has brought about this revolution in the burglar's methods, and it is a regrettable fact to note that no matter how strong and secure safes may be made, the ingenuity of the scientific burglar is pretty sure to devise some method to overcome their security.
The most recent development in the burglar's advancement is the use of electricity to open safes in place of the old-time jimmy and the more recent dynamite.
Old-Time Strong Box.
Years ago the old-fashioned strong box was considered quite an adequate protection for hoarded wealth and was the legitimate successor of the stocking in which the gold pieces were carefully stored and hidden away. The strong box of wood bound with iron and with ponderous locks proved but child's play for the burglar thoroughly intent upon obtaining its contents. Then came the more modern iron and steel safe, with its thick plates of highly tempered metal and ingeniously complicated time locks.
Safe breakers have more than kept pace with improvement in safes, including time locks, chilled steel chests of eight or nine inches thicknesses and electric protective attachments. Their tools are made by some of the finest mechanics and inventive geniuses of the world. A full kit of the most approved modern safe workers' tools costs about $5,000.
The modern burglar is like love in one respect; he "laughs at locksmiths." Yet he is not much of an artist, although he is rapidly improving. The simple tools of the burglars' trade indicate how easily the contrivances made to bar his progress are overcome. Yet these tools give no mark of great mechanical genius. They are as crude as the average burglar is. They are in keeping with his practices of force and brutality. The destructive power of the best pieces of handiwork is their main advantage, and doubtless an illustration of the house-breaker's stunted idea, that the best way to overcome obstacles is in all cases to break them down.
The tools used by the burglar are supplied to him. They are made by men after his own heart, and who make for him what is most effective in his hands. No doubt there are smart men engaged in the business of defying law and setting the rights of honest people at naught. Some of the methods they employ might be used to their credit in a commendable industry.
Jimmy Is Necessary.
There are places where the jimmy is absolutely indispensable to the burglar. Front doors, which a house proprietor usually has doubly bolted and barred and supplied with improved locks, are the last apertures in the world a night marauder would seek to enter.
It must be an amusing thing to the burglar, after noting the precautions taken to prevent his entrance by the street door, when he has walked through the skylight on the roof without the slightest resistance, or dropped through the coal-hole leading to the cellar from the sidewalk, to find that no doors bar his passage from there to the rooms above.
Those are the popular ways of getting into many banks and business houses. The basement door, at the rear, if there is one, is another. In such case the jimmy is the magic wand that opens the way. It is more useful to the burglar than any half dozen of his other implements, and is the first thing he purchases when getting an outfit.
How do safe burglars get their tools? Why, every man of any account in that line has what he calls "his man," who is a practical mechanic, and makes everything in the shape of jimmies, punches, etc., that the burglar uses. A safe blower's outfit consists of many curious tools, some of them being of special design for some particular class of work of which the owner is the originator. Scarcely any two men work alike, and some of the clever ones invent instruments to do a certain part of their work. When a well-known notorious crook was arrested several years ago in his room, the officers found one of the finest kits of burglars' tools that was ever brought into police headquarters. Talk about ingenuity—if that man had applied but one-third of the intelligence to a legitimate business that he had spent in devising tools for robbery, he would have been a millionaire today.
Twenty years ago when burglars started out to rob a safe they filled a carpet sack with highly tempered drills, copper sledges, sectional jimmies, dark lanterns, powder and a fuse. On the way they stole a horse and wagon, filling the latter with the greater portion of the tools of a country blacksmith shop. They would work on the safe from four to six hours, and finally blow it open with a fine grade of ducking powder. Usually the shock would break all the glass in the building, arouse the town, and the burglars would often have to fight for their lives. In those days the men had to be big and powerful, because the work was extremely laborious. If the burglar was an ex-prize fighter or noted tough, so much the better, for he could make a desperate resistance in case he was caught in the act, or immediately after it.
With the modern safe burglar it is almost totally different. Although much more skillful and successful than his predecessor, he is more conservative. He seldom runs his own head into danger, and therefore seldom endangers the head of a law-abiding citizen by permitting his head to come into contact with him or the job while it is under way. Every precaution is taken against being surprised, and it is seldom the robbery is discovered until the cashier's appearance the next morning. The modern safe burglar is an exceedingly keen, intelligent man. He can open a safe having all modern improvements in from ten minutes to two hours without the aid of explosives and by only slightly defacing the safe. Sometimes he leaves scarcely a mark.
A first-class modern safe, whether large or small, generally has double outside and inside doors, with a steel chest in the bottom, forming really a safe within a safe, the inside being the stronger. The outside door is usually either "stuffed" or "skeleton." The inside one is made of eight or nine sheets, of different temper, of the finest steel. These sheets are bolted together with conical bolts having left-hand threads, after which the heads of the bolts are cut off, leaving what is virtually a solid piece of steel, which no drill can penetrate. The best locks are of the combination type, with time lock attachment. In many cities and town safes containing the valuables have an electric alarm attached. Any tampering with it will communicate the fact to the owners or the safe's guardian, which in cities is either an electric protective bureau or a central police station. A recent invention in France is a photographic attachment. As soon as the safe is touched this device will light an electric lamp, photograph the intruder and give the alarm at the electric protective company's office. As a consequence safe-breaking is going out of date in France, as the cleverest criminals have so far failed to find a way to circumvent the camera.
The first thing considered by a gang of the finest experts is a desirable bank's location and the chances for getting safely away with the plunder. Every transportation facility is carefully considered. As the work is almost invariably done at the season of the year when wagon roads are impassible, railroad time tables are carefully considered. In these days of the telegraph and telephone the gang must be under cover in a large city or concealed with friends by the time the crime is discovered, which, at the utmost, is about six hours after the crime has been committed.
From November 1 to March 1 is the safe burglar's harvest time, because then the nights are longest and the chances of detection less, as fewer people are on the streets and houses adjoining, being tightly closed to exclude the cold, exclude noises also. A man can, furthermore, carry tools in an overcoat without attracting attention, that he could not wear with a summer suit. The remainder of the year is spent in "marking" the most desirable banks for future operations. Four men, who compose the ordinary safe mob, will put up from thirty to forty "jobs" for a winter's work, allowing for all contingencies. From six to ten of these will be carried out. A bank safe will be broken into in a small town in Maine, and in ten days the gang will be operating in Texas.
'TIS NOT A VERY NICE THING FOR ME TO BE DOING, BUT I MUST GET MONEY, SOMEWAY, TO BUY MY WIFE WHAT SHE EXPECTS FROM ME ON CHRISTMAS DAY. IF SHE DOESN'T GET WHAT SHE WANTS, THERE'LL BE TROUBLE.
MY WIFE WANTS SO MANY THINGS AND I HAVEN'T THE DOUGH. SO HERE GOES! I'LL SOON HAVE PLENTY OF CASH!——
I'LL LIGHT THIS FUSE, THEN SNEAK!
AH! THAT'S A BEAUTY!! THE GUY WHO OWNS THAT SAFE DOESN'T BANK ANY MORE AND—
HUH! PSHAW! THERE WAS ANOTHER SAFE INSIDE! WELL! I'LL HAVE TO BLOW THIS ONE UP!
IF MY WIFE KNEW HOW I HAD TO HUSTLE TO GET MONEY TO BUY——CHRISTMAS GIFTS FOR HER SHE'D PITY ME. THINK OF A—MAN OF MY SOCIAL STANDING OUT AT THIS HOUR OF THE NIGHT WITH A JIMMY FOR HER.—
WELL! I'LL BE BLOWN! IF THERE ISN'T ANOTHER SAFE INSIDE OF THAT ONE, TOO! HUH!
I'LL BLOW THIS ONE UP AND SURELY I'LL GET TO THE MAZOOM THIS TIME!
THAT OUGHT TO DO THE TRICK! IT'S A SPLENDID CHARGE! !—
THIS IS SO DISCOURAGING. THERE'S ANOTHER SAFE INSIDE! WELL, I'M GOING TO KEEP ON YEGGING 'TILL I GET THE COIN IF I YEG—ALL NIGHT! I'M HERE AND I MIGHT AS WELL STAY AND FINISH THE JOB—
UM! THIS IS LIKE PEELING A BANANA OR AN ONION, ONE SAFE INSIDE THE OTHER! TSI! TSI!
I'LL BLOW THIS LITTLE ONE TO SMITHERINES! SURELY THE MONEY IS IN THIS ONE! THERE IS NOT ANOTHER ONE INSIDE THIS ONE I AM POSITIVE!
Having decided on a bank, the habits of the cashier and other chief employees are carefully studied; but, above all, of those who visit the bank after working hours, chief of whom is the watchman, if the bank has one. If the watchman drinks, or spends time visiting women when he should be at the bank, the bank is an easy prey. Weeks, and sometimes even months, are spent in putting up a job of magnitude, and a number of smaller jobs are done to carry out one where the proceeds may run into the tens of thousands of dollars.
Men visit the town who have a legitimate business as a "blind." They make all preliminary preparations. The greatest ingenuity is employed to obtain exact information, such as the evenings the cashier or teller is likely to visit the bank and the exact time.
Scientific Burglary.
Burglars whose chief qualification is the mechanical ability to open bank vaults and safes and steal thousands of dollars in bonds or cash cannot be classed with those who break open a store door and filch a lot of buckets, brooms or dry goods.
The man who makes the defects of a combination lock, safe or vault a study must have intelligence and mechanical knowledge equal to that of a man who draws a big salary for what he knows. Whenever any new combination lock is brought in the market for vault or safe use the scientific burglar obtains one, and by patient study discovers its weakness or defect, something which every safe or vault has.
The combination of a safe or vault has often been learned by these burglars by obtaining an entrance to the banking house after banking hours, removing the dial of the combination and placing a sheet of tin foil behind it. Then, replacing the dial, the turning of the combination in opening or closing makes the impression of letters or numbers on the soft foil, which is removed by the burglar at the first chance he has to get into the banking house. Having the combination impressed on the tin foil, he and his accomplices open the vault or safe, secure the contents, and then often change or put out of order the combination, so the doors of the vault or safe cannot be opened for some hours after the regular time for opening, and then only by an expert of that particular safe company. This, of course, gives the thieves several hours of valuable time in which to effect their escape.
The tools required by the mechanical burglar who forces open safes are the air pump, putty, powder, fuse, sectional jimmy, steel drills, diamond drills, copper sledges, steel-faced sledges (leather covered), lamp and blow pipe, jack screw, wedges, dynamite and syringe, brace with box slide, feed screw drills, steel punches, small bellows, blank steel keys, skeleton keys, nippers, dark lantern, twine and screw eyes. The latest, most dangerous set of tools manufactured is the second power in mechanics—the screw.
The method of work with the screw is to first rig a brace, and then drill a hole in the safe, cut a thread in the hole and then insert a female screw. Then, with a long steel screw with a handle so long that two men can turn it, the screw is inserted in the female screw, and by turning it goes in until it strikes the back of the safe. Then either the back or the front must give way. In nearly all cases it is the latter, as that is the weakest, and it gives enough to insert the sectional jimmy, which the screw handle is part of. The jimmy is then inserted in the part forced out, and the safe is then torn asunder and its contents easily appropriated. This work is accomplished without much noise.
Invent New Devices.
However, these new one-piece safes have not discouraged the malefactors. They have only suggested to them the creation of special appliances which enable them, without stopping to pick the lock, to remove from the side wall of the safe a circle of the metal large enough to allow of an arm to be put inside.
One of the most important of these new devices for assisting the safe-crackers in their crime is formed of an iron hoop furnished with well-tempered steel teeth, which is fixed by means of a simple pivot on the safe after a screw worm has been previously driven in. The instrument is then turned on its pivot and plows a groove in the safe wall each time it revolves.
Science has not left the burglar weaponless, however. The progress accomplished has merely compelled him to obtain higher qualifications, and in the continuous strife between the armor plate and the desperado who would pierce it the thieves have had hitherto the last word. For many years dynamite was their chief reliance, and then a product was discovered some years ago by a chemist, who gave it the name of "thermit," by which the cracksman was able to melt sheet metal, inches thick, with comparatively little trouble.
Melts Hardest Steel.
This substance known as "thermit" is in current use for repairing, heating or soldering large pieces of metal and consists of a mixture of aluminum and oxide of iron, the latter being replaced, according to the requirement, by oxide of lead, peroxide of sodium or peroxide of barium. This composition is thoroughly mixed together, or is used in the form of cartridges or tablets, which ignite by means of a piece of magnesium fixed in the substance like a wick. The heat developed is more than sufficient to cause the hardest steel to melt.
Although this process is rapid and silent and really marvelous from the point of view of the result obtained, it is not without much danger to those using it, for at the high temperature produced by it an inexperienced operator runs the risk of being seriously burned. In consequence the prudent and careful burglar uses accessories which render him secure against such accidents. He protects his eyes by means of heavy dark glasses, wears shields of aluminum over his hands and applies the mixture through a small hole in the bottom of a crucible. When the reaction takes place it lasts long enough to allow the operator to charge the crucible again and again in proportion as the melting of the metal plate is effected, thus making an opening of the desired size in the safe. It is a simple enough operation for a skilled burglar, but a very dangerous one for an amateur.
Tests with Electricity.
But even this has been discounted by an experiment before a United States government commission, showing that electricity can be so applied as to give the scientific cracksman a greater field for operation than ever before. The experiment was made by an expert burglar, who, having retired from business after amassing a sufficient competency, was requested to favor the commission by contributing the light of his knowledge.
He demonstrated that by the aid of electricity he could, within a short time, reduce safes of the highest repute to old iron. For this purpose he took out of his pocket a style in the form of retort carbon, similar to those used for arc lamps; a few yards of electric wire, black eyeglasses and a plate pierced in the middle. It was with this simple outfit he pierced in less than three minutes a circle of holes in a cast steel safe with walls one and a half inches thick.
His method of procedure was simplicity itself. To the electric supply current of the chandelier overhead he connected two wires, one of which he fixed on the safe, and the other at the extreme of his carbon style. It was suitably insulated by a wooden handle. Then, having inserted this pencil in the hole of the plate, whose purpose was to protect him against the heat and light, he produced a voltaic arc of immense power between the point of his style and the wall of the safe, thus melting the metal with the greatest ease.
Some Concrete Examples.
Burglars Use Acetylene Flame to Open Safe Door.
In Paris, January 4, 1908, burglars broke into the premises of Martin and Baume, colonial traders, at Marseilles, and stole money and goods to the value of $20,000. Most of their booty they took from a safe, the door of which they burnt through with an apparatus giving an acetylene flame of sufficient heat to melt the metal.
The case recalls one at Antwerp recently, when the thieves melted a safe with a combined oxygen and acetylene flame.
The police believe that the Marseilles burglars are past masters of the art, and that probably not more than a dozen possess such apparatus for melting safes. One or more of the burglars may probably have been employed at a motor factory, where acetylene lamps are in frequent use.
In any case, even the finest lock or the best steel safe can't resist, if burglars take to using oxygen and acetylene lamps with blow-pipes. Safe manufacturers have a new problem to solve.
The Bank Sneak.
The bank sneaks of the country were formerly among the most troublesome criminals with whom the police had to deal. The money and jewelry stolen by them aggregated hundreds of thousands of dollars annually.
The bank sneak is the cleverest of crooks, and as bold and daring as any of them. But modern police methods, the system of exchanging Bertillon photographs, and the organization of bankers' and jewelers' associations, together with perfect burglar alarm equipment, have combined to put him out of business, and his work nowadays is on a limited scale.
During the past ten years not more than five good bank sneak games have been pulled off, while there has been a similar reduction in the raids on jewelry shops.
The Bertillon photographs facilitate the identification of the sneak and the bankers' and jewelers' organization put up the money with which to pursue him remorselessly, and soon catch him. Concerning the bank sneak and his mode of operating:
An expert professional bank "sneak" thief and his associates study the habits of all employes to determine when the greatest number are absent (which generally happens at the noon hour), decide how many confederates will be necessary to engage the attention of the remaining employes, while the sneak thief noiselessly enters a vault, teller's cage, or goes to a safe, and commits the robbery.
Confederates are usually of good appearance, understand business methods, can discuss loans, mortgages, sale of securities, etc., long enough to allow the "sneak" to operate without discovery. A "sneak" thief, wearing rubber-soled shoes, will frequently pass within a few feet of the official or clerk in charge, enter a vault or teller's cage, or rob a safe or money drawer, without creating the slightest noise.
A ruse to make the way clear for the "sneak" is for a confederate to drive in a carriage to the bank or store to be robbed, as a pretext exhibiting a crutch, or accompanied by a female, requesting some passer-by to ask the cashier or some other official to step out to the carriage, which usually occurs when few of the employes are in the place.
Another device is to hold a large blue print of some property on which is pretended a loan is desirable, or a bundle of maps offered for sale, in such position that the view of the official being interviewed is obstructed, thereby covering the "sneak" and giving him opportunity to operate.
Another more recent artifice is the telephone; the confederate of the "sneak" at an appointed minute "calls up" the bank and requests that the paying teller be sent to the 'phone, and there detains him in conversation while the "sneak" thief operates; confederates, as may be necessary, engaging the attention of other employes.
Circus Day Brings a Harvest.
Many sneak robberies were formerly committed in medium-sized towns on circus days, while most of the employes were at windows or doors watching the circus parade. This offered "sneak" thieves the opportunity to enter the building by some unguarded door or window, or having, prior to the parade, concealed themselves in the bank or store, to commit the robbery while the parade is passing, virtually behind the backs of the employes.
A favorite scheme, especially in savings banks, is for one thief to attract the attention of a customer who is counting money, to have a bill purposely dropped in front of him on the floor by the thief and, while he stoops down to pick it up, believing it part of his money, another thief steals the then unprotected money he, the customer, was counting. Often professional "sneak" thieves have posed as bank clerks or porters, wearing office coats or porter's uniforms and, when the opportunity presents itself, committed robberies of considerable magnitude.
Some of the old-time "sneaks" used specially made steel instruments of various shapes to move packages of money from one section of the teller's cage to a point nearer the teller's window, so that it could be more readily extracted. This practice, while the utmost caution is necessary to avoid suspicion, has been quite successful.
At times thieves have used large satchels or dress-suit cases to stand upon and, with a long wire hook, extracted money by reaching over the wire screen surrounding a paying teller's cage.
A method sometimes used to commit money drawer or "till" robberies in stores is to select some innocent-appearing storekeeper, usually a foreigner, whom one of the thieves wearing a silk hat would approach, informing him that they had just made a wager that the hat would not hold more than a gallon of molasses, and requesting that the storekeeper measure a gallon of molasses into the hat at their expense, to decide the wager.
Blinding Victim with Molasses.
Seeing the prospect of a sale, even if the wager was a peculiar one, the groceryman would concede to this request. The hat being partly filled, one of the thieves would place it quickly on the merchant's head, blinding him with the molasses, while they stole the contents of the money drawer.
The "sneak" who commits the robbery, to be successful, usually is of small stature, active, alert and noiseless, as upon him mainly depends the success or failure of the venture. He must judge from the operations of his associates when the opportunity to commit the robbery has arrived. There are no signals or conversations between the confederates and the "sneak" designating the moment for him to act. He must decide this from observation of what his confederates have accomplished in preparing a safe way for him. If there is a suspicion or a discovery by employes, it devolves upon his confederates to do their utmost to confuse and obstruct the pursuers.
I once asked an old-time professional "sneak" thief how he was first introduced into a band of first-class bank "sneaks." He explained that he was raised in a small village having a general store presided over by a widow; that she at times would go to the cellar for certain merchandise, leaving the store unguarded. This suggested to him how easy it would be to rob the money drawer during her absence in the cellar, which he afterward did, and which was his first successful "sneak" robbery. Afterward he stole from a small window in the same store, packages of chewing tobacco, pipes, etc., also occasionally again robbing a bakery of pies and cakes, and occasionally again robbing the "till." But one afternoon, before a Fourth of July, in attempting to steal some packages of fire-crackers and some loose torpedoes, a couple of the torpedoes dropped to the floor, causing an explosion and resulting in his discovery and arrest and final imprisonment. In jail he met with other criminals, and finally became one of them, joining with the first-class "sneak" band of professional criminals. This man for years was a most successful leader of "sneak" thieves, stealing fortunes, finally dying in prison and leaving a family in actual want.
Rarely Use Pistols.
Among the old-timers were some of the most remarkable criminals operating in any part of the world; their thefts requiring, in almost every instance, dexterity and great presence of mind, a quick eye and unflinching courage, yet few of these "sneaks" used firearms or weapons of any kind in the commission of their crimes.
Among the younger element appear the names of the cleverest thieves of today, some of whom have operated extensively in this country and abroad.
The Lord Bond Robbery.
One of the largest "sneak" robberies ever committed in the United States occurred late in the sixties, and has always been referred to as the "Lord bond robbery." Lord was a wealthy man, and had an office at 22 Broad street, New York City. He had invested $1,200,000 in 7-30 United States bonds, all being coupon bonds, payable to bearer, which any one with a knowledge of finance could easily dispose of at this time. A band of "sneak" thieves, consisting of "Hod" Ennis, Charlie Ross, Jimmie Griffin and "Piano" Charlie Bullard, planned to steal these bonds.
Awaiting their opportunity until a morning arrived when Mr. Lord was absent from his office, they entered it when it was in charge of only two clerks.
Bullard and Ross engaged these clerks in conversation, while Ennis "sneaked" into the vault, seized the tin box containing the bonds, and walked out with it. While these thieves were expert in their particular line, they did not fully understand the negotiating of the bonds, and for this called in George Bidwell, since renowned as the Bank of England forger, who went to England and disposed of a large part of them. The thieves were at the time suspected, and Ennis fled to Canada, but was subsequently extradited to the United States and convicted of a crime committed some time before. He was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment. Charlie Bullard settled in Paris, but afterward returned to the United States, and with Adam Worth, successfully committed the Boylston Bank robbery, after which both returned to Paris and opened the celebrated American bar under the Grand Hotel, 2 Rue Scribe, which flourished for many years. Bullard afterward was arrested for an attempted bank burglary in Belgium, and was sentenced to prison for a long term. Bullard, Ross, Ennis and Worth all stole millions of dollars in their day and died poor.
BLIND.
JUSTICE—"I CAN'T SEE IT."
One Man's Bold Operations.
Another celebrated robbery was on January 7, 1878, of $500,000 in bonds and securities from the office of James H. Young, a banker and broker at 44 Nassau street, New York City, by "sneak" thieves headed by "Rufe" Minor, alias "Little Rufe," exceptionally clever in his line, and who had with him George Carson, Horace Hovan and "Billy" Marr. They were located at Petersburg, Va., on March 23, 1878, and found all of the stolen property in Minor's trunk. Minor was a Brooklyn-raised boy, small of stature, of good appearance and engaging manners, a most expert "sneak" leader, and was in his lifetime concerned in many great "sneak" robberies, among them being: $80,000 from the Commercial National Bank, Cleveland, Ohio, 1881; $12,000 in bonds from the Bank of Baltimore, Md.; $114,000 in bonds from the Erie County Savings Bank, in 1882; $73,000 from the Middletown Bank, Middletown, Conn.; $32,000 from the Detroit Bank, Detroit, Mich.; $70,000 from the Boston Safe Deposit Co., and $71,000 from the Guarantee Safe & Safety Deposit Co.'s vaults, Philadelphia, Pa.
In Chicago, many years ago, a band of professional bank "sneaks" planned to rob the Subtreasury, then located in the Arcade Court. Philip A. Hoyne, a leading republican politician in those days, had an office in this building. He was also a candidate on the republican ticket for some local office. At a ball game "Joe" Parrish, a professional pickpocket and bank sneak, picked the pocket of a clerk. Among other articles found in the pocketbook was a key and the personal card of the clerk, which showed he was employed in the Subtreasury.
Parrish imparted this information to Walter Brown, Sam Perry, Little Joe McCluskey and Jimmy Carroll, all members of a noted bank "sneak" band, then operating.
Hire a Band to Help Them.
After several visits to the Arcade Court and trying the key in different doors, it was finally found to open a rear door to the Subtreasury office. On the day the robbery was planned to be committed, the thieves hired a brass band to play in the Arcade Court as a serenade to Candidate Hoyne, the plan of the thieves being to start cheering for Mr. Hoyne, expecting that the band and the cheering would attract the attention of the Subtreasury clerks from their desks to the windows, giving Little Joe McCluskey, the "sneak," an opportunity of using the key to the bank entrance, passing into the office at the back of the clerks and stealing as much money as he could carry. About the time the plans of the thieves were completed Mr. Pinkerton learned of them, and communicated with Elmer Washburn, then chief of the United States Secret Service at Washington.
On the day the robbery was to occur the band appeared as arranged, the Arcade soon filled with people, and there was prolonged cheering for Mr. Hoyne. Not one clerk left his desk, and when McCluskey tried to open the door with the key he found it would not fit. Through precautions taken by Mr. Washburn, the lock had been changed and instructions given to all clerks to remain at their desks when the band played, which prevented what would have been a very heavy loss to the government. Owing to the way the information had been obtained, and not wishing to expose the source, no arrests were made.
Walter Sheridan, known under many aliases, an accomplished "sneak" thief, was a Southerner by birth and of gentlemanly, dignified appearance. In addition to being a sneak, he was also a general all-round thief, counterfeiter and forger.
Importance of Being on Guard.
One night in 1873, at Chicago, while Mr. Pinkerton was on his way home, he recalls seeing Walter Sheridan, "Philly" Pearson and Charlie Hicks on a street car. He followed them to the Chicago & Alton Railroad station, where he saw them purchase tickets for Springfield, Ill. The following day the vault of the First National Bank of Springfield was robbed of $35,000 by Pearson, while Sheridan engaged the attention of the bank officials, and Hicks remained on guard outside. Later Hicks was arrested, taken to Springfield, convicted and sentenced to eight years in Joliet prison. Pearson fled to Europe. Later Sheridan was arrested at Toledo, O., for this robbery, at which time Mr. Pinkerton identified him, and $22,000 of the stolen money was recovered. Sheridan was mixed up in a great many crimes, but in the last years of his life was looked upon as being cleverer as a first class bank "sneak" than in any other line, although he has been a successful leader of bands of note counterfeiters.
"Billy" Coleman, undoubtedly one of the most expert "sneaks" of modern times, who, between 1869 and 1904 was arrested thirteen times, and who spent almost half of his lifetime in prisons, is now serving in the Auburn, New York, state prison, a four and one-half-year term for the theft of $30,000 worth of jewelry from a safe in the Clark Estate building at Cooperstown. The stolen jewelry belonged to Mrs. Ambrose Clark, a daughter-in-law of Mrs. Potter, wife of Bishop Potter.
Looked Like Coleman's Work.
Mrs. Clark arrived at Cooperstown to spend the summer only a few days before the robbery, and placed the jewelry in a safe in the Clark Estate building for safety. Investigation showed the thief had entered this building, which in many respects resembles a bank, at the noon hour, when all the employes were absent, opened the vault, the lock of which had been left on the half-turn, taking therefrom a tin box, which he carried to the cellar of the building and pried open with tools found on the premises, taking therefrom all the jewelry and also valuable papers. From descriptions of the thief we obtained from witnesses who had seen him loitering in the vicinity of the Estate office, and from the manner in which the robbery was committed, we believed it bore the earmarks of Coleman's work. Subsequent developments satisfied us that our conclusions were correct, and we caused Coleman's arrest, two weeks after the robbery, in New York, by Police Headquarters' detectives.
The tin box left by the thief in the cellar was covered with blood. From this an incorrect inference was drawn, that the thief had cut his hands with one of the instruments used to open the box. A careful examination of Coleman showed no cuts or bruises of any kind, on any part of his person, from which blood would have flowed. The grand jury refused to indict him for the crime.
On his release, knowing that Coleman had most mysterious ways of hiding the proceeds of his robberies, he was placed under surveillance, which continued for some time without result, but eventually he was traced and found quite early one morning, digging at the side of a building through the snow into the ground, whereupon he was re-arrested and, in uncovering the spot where he had been digging, most of the stolen jewelry was found in an ordinary fruit jar, buried in the ground about two feet.
Diamonds Buried in Jar.
In the jar were found several settings from which some of the diamonds were missing; sixty-nine of these were found in Coleman's home, hidden in a small pasteboard box in the earth at the bottom of a rubber plant jar, and one of the largest diamonds removed from the ring was found sewn in a ready-made four-in-hand necktie. After his second arrest Coleman acknowledged committing the robbery, and explained that a year previous he had made a tour through several New York State counties to locate a bank which would not be difficult to "sneak" in the daytime. He found the Clark Estate building in Cooperstown, which he believed was a bank. He visited it at that time, while the employes were absent, but did not obtain anything, although he made a note of it as an easy place to rob some time in the future.
When he did commit the robbery, and did not find any money in sight, he picked up the tin box, little suspecting it contained a fortune in valuable jewelry. When Coleman was questioned about the blood stains on the tin box, he explained that, as the day of the robbery was very hot, and he had to work quick, in his great excitement his nose bled freely, covering the tin box as it was found. Coleman has been a professional bank "sneak" all his life, and in times past was renowned for entering bank vaults and paying-tellers' cages in the day time without being observed. He never used firearms, and there is no record of his having shed blood of anyone in the commission of a crime. After all of his years of successful stealing, he is again in Auburn (N. Y.) prison, without means.
Joe Killoran's Smooth Work.
"Joe" Killoran, alias "Joe" Howard, a rather picturesque type of criminal, came from good old New York stock, was a rather brainy planner of bank robberies, and was usually the one of a band to engage an employe in conversation while the "sneak" committed the robbery. Killoran had the appearance of a well-to-do business man, such as might negotiate a loan from the bank, representing himself as from some firm of brokers. He has frequently played the part of the sick man seated in the carriage with a crutch, and not able to go into the bank. He is notorious as escaping from the Ludlow Street jail, July 4, 1895, with Harry Russell and Charles Allen, then United States prisoners. He was in many "sneak" robberies in the United States, and one which I especially recall was the theft of $22,000 by him from the First National Bank, Plainfield, N. J., on July 2, 1895. He was accompanied by George Carson, "Sid" Yennie and Little Patsy Flannigan. Yennie, Carson and Killoran held the attention of the employes while Flannigan committed the robbery. After Killoran's escape from Ludlow Street jail he fled to Europe, and, strangely enough, met with an accident which necessitated the amputation of one of his legs, which made him in reality carry a crutch until those he operated with supplied him with a wooden leg.
He was arrested about two years ago in New York City, decidedly broken in health, and was sent to Illinois to serve a term for robbing the government postoffice at Springfield. After his release he returned to Europe, and was, in September, 1905, arrested at Vienna for stealing $100,000 from a depositor in front of the paying teller's window in the bank in that city, and was, on March 19, 1906, sentenced to six years in an Austrian prison. It looks as though he had committed his last robbery, and that this crime will cause him to end his days in prison.
The Hotel Sneak.
The Use of False Keys.
"Hod" Bacon is an illustration of the professional "sneak" who confines his operations more particularly to the rooms of hotel guests. He works systematically and prepares his plans as the skilled detective works to capture the expert criminal. This thief frequently would follow a victim thousands of miles to commit a successful robbery. He would watch hotel guests continuously for several days, until he observed them purchase theater tickets or going out for the evening, first determining how many (if a family) occupied the apartment, and how many servants they had, and assuring himself before committing the robbery they were all absent. He enters the rooms with false keys, locks himself in, and works at his leisure; also unlocks, with false keys, the trunks, bureau drawers, etc., abstracting from them such valuables as he considers worth taking. He invariably takes from the ladies' trunks some ladies' wearing apparel, endeavoring to cast the suspicion that the theft was committed by a chambermaid or other employes in the hotel having access to the apartment. On one occasion Bacon robbed a traveling jewelry salesman's trunk in a Chicago hotel. Not satisfied with the valuable loot of jewelry he obtained, he stole the salesman's overcoat, after which he secured sleeping car passage from Chicago to Pittsburg via Pennsylvania railroad. On the same evening's train, it so happened that the salesman he robbed was then enroute east, and, peculiarly enough, had been assigned a berth opposite the thief, in the same car. After the train left Chicago, observing his stolen overcoat hanging in the thief's section, he telegraphed to Pittsburg, and on arrival of the train the thief was arrested, and identified as "Hod" Bacon.
CASE OF TOOLS AND RELICS COLLECTED BY DETECTIVE WOOLDRIDGE
CAPTURED BURGLARY IMPLEMENTS AT CENTRAL POLICE STATION