As for the safe-expert, Evans, he is engaged in legitimate business, and is prospering. In compiling this chapter from the records, the writer has, by request, changed some of the names of the parties, who since that time have reformed, and are now respected members in the communities where they reside, and the author has no desire to injure them.
The Susquehanna Express Robbery
The Susquehanna Express Robbery
t Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, are located the great shops of the Erie Railroad, where fifteen hundred men work throughout the year. These men receive their wages on a fixed day toward the end of each month, the pay-roll amounting to many thousands of dollars. It was customary, fourteen years ago, for the company to have a sum of money sufficient for this purpose shipped from New York by express a day or two before the date when the wages were to be paid. Following out this practice, on the night of June 20, 1883, the Marine National Bank of New York shipped by the United States Express Company a sealed package containing forty thousand dollars for the Erie Railroad Company, in care of the First National Bank of Susquehanna. The package contained United States currency and bank-notes, almost entirely in small bills, none larger than twenty dollars.
The usual precautions were observed in shipment, a trusted clerk of the Marine Bank carrying the package to the express company's office and taking a receipt for it from the money-clerk, who examined it first to make sure that the seals of the bank were intact and that in all respects it presented a correct appearance. Having satisfied himself on these points, the money-clerk placed the package in one of the canvas pouches used by the United States Express Company, sealed it carefully with the company's private seal, and attached a tag bearing the address of the company's agent at Susquehanna.