HOW BULLARD GOT OUT
A criminal's reputation for cleverness among his fellows depends very largely upon his ability to escape—or to help his friends to escape. Mark Shinburn used to take more pride in the way he broke into the jail at White Plains, New York, to free Charley Bullard and Ike Marsh, two friends of his, than he did in some of his boldest robberies.
After reconnoitering the ground and carefully planning the jail delivery, Shinburn and his companion, Raymond, put in a hard night's work burrowing into the jail. They took Marsh and Bullard out, but what was gained? Marsh was soon in trouble again and Bullard was taken again and ended his days in prison.
And now one more instance—a very curious one.
Of all the ways by which thieves have cheated the law out of its due, the most ingenious was probably the way "Sheeney Mike" brought about his release from the Massachusetts State Prison. He feigned illness so cleverly that the eminent physicians of the State Medical Board pronounced him suffering from a mysterious and incurable disease and ordered his release after he had served only three years of his twelve-year sentence for one of his daring burglaries.
It was the robbery of Scott & Co.'s silk warehouse in Boston that sent "Sheeney Mike" to Charlestown Prison, from which he so ingeniously escaped. He discovered that the watchman was vigilant all through the night except between the hours of 12 and 1 o'clock, when he went out to get something to eat. Mike secured a false key which unlocked a door to the warehouse, and arranged for two trucks to be on hand at a few minutes past 12 one night.
When the truckmen arrived they found Mike at the door of the warehouse coolly smoking a cigar. Quite naturally they thought he was the proprietor. After helping the men to load the trucks with $20,000 worth of expensive silks, "Sheeney Mike" turned out the lights, locked the door, and drove away to Medford, a suburb of Boston, where the goods were unloaded.
Before Mike found an opportunity to ship his plunder to New York he was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
He tried every means of escape he could think of without avail. At last, in his desperation to get out, he began drinking large quantities of strong soap suds. This made him deathly sick and unable to retain any nourishment. His sufferings became so intense that he had to be removed from his cell to the prison hospital.
In the prison hospital the doctor in charge began watching his patient to be sure that some trick was not being played on him. A careful examination of Mike revealed no organic trouble—the doctor could find no reason for the strange symptoms. And yet right in front of his eyes Mike would be taken with violent pains in the stomach, followed by vomiting.
The prison doctor was worried. He gave stomach tonics. Still the spasms and nausea continued. He put his patient on a cereal diet—but his vomiting was not lessened. He changed the diet; he gave beef juice; he changed it to milk and brandy—nothing brought relief.
The prison doctor was worried. Here was this once vigorous man wasting away to a pallid skeleton in spite of his best efforts. The doctor was a conscientious man and he called a consultation of two outside physicians at his own expense. They patiently went over the record of the case and examined "Sheeney Mike" minutely—there was nothing to account for the patient's alarming condition. Still, it might possibly be this or that, and so they would recommend trying a few things that had not yet been tried by the prison doctor.