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WIL LIT BET HE AEROPLANE How an Unparalleled \Xj > Chain of Murders and \ > 'Robberies by Three Auto= \ mobile Pirates in Paris Has \ Led the Great German \ Scientist, Max Nordau, to Predict a Visitation of Captain IQidds THE amazing series of robberies and murders by automobile bandits In France has brought home the alarming possibilities of applying modern scientific devices to criminal uses. It was the perfect understand ing of automobile mechanism pos sessed by these bandits, their ability to repair the and run them at the highest speed, their knowl edge of whero to steal new high powered machines, and their reck lessness and imaginative daring that enabled them to carry on their crimes successfully for three years. .i Wi I'— -i Wftf' fc ’* ' '• in P f 2s§liF“4yjr* a \ \* KILLED ■ M N\ECM An \C IEN J \\ /v, "s.w'T ' ~ wounded \ \ **.»’ 7* \ b , 3®2M-7 -. ’ >\ V'-Au t ’ V‘:• < X ~\v.vyr - to slay over twenty persons and to carry away $200,000 in money before one of their band was arrested. This staggering career of success ful crime has led Dr. Max Nordau to make the interesting, if alarming, suggestion that we may soon expect to find criminals using aeroplanes. These newer and more wonderful scientific engines may enable daring criminals to operate far more suc cessfully than the automobiles have done. "We find that modern criminals possess a high degree of scientific I knowledge and a reckless daring that quails at no risk of death." writes Dr. Nordau. “How can we -"expect policemen who are neither scientific nor daring to deal with them? We must revise our methods of coping with crime to keep track with the progress of science and ed ucation. “I anticipate that we shall soon hear that the aeroplane has been adopted by some Captain Kidd of the With it may be utilized any one of many new scientific in ventions. With two or three aero planes, a band of criminals could swoop down upon some treasure filled building, take the occupants by surprise, hold the doorways against all assistance, load the treas ure on their aeroplanes, fly away, perhaps in the darkness of the night, and speed to some unknown hiding place." Dr. Nordau's suggestion that aero plane bandits might take a great building by surprise calls up an in teresting vision of what might hap- - 1 ‘ ° ' r ; ■ _ __ ,_ * feWwg&Awx t >KjEgteJd pen to one of the skyscrapers of New York. Suppose, for instance, that the aeroplane bandits descend ed upon the roof of some Wall street sky-scraper, which contains countless millions in cash, notes, gold, securities and other forms of wealth. According to Dr. Nordau the bandits could select the most portable part of this plunder, load it on their machine, and fly away to some secret hiding place—say in the Catskill Mountains. It is true that at present an aero plane would have difficulty in land ing on the top of most New York skyscrapers, but scientific ingenu ity will, it is ex pected, soon make a great improve ment in th : s di rection. Then, according to Dr. Max Nor dau, the police I will be forced to cope with the pi rates of the air by becoming aero planists of supe rior daring them selves. To return to the actual ex ploits of the French automo bile ) a n dits: The last great coup of these criminals was the looting of the branch bank at Chantilly, near Paris, of the Soci ete Genera le, a very great French banking institution. At 8 o'clock In the morn'ne sij men, armed with rifles and pistols, held up an automobile at Montgeron. the historic forest of Senart. killed the chauffeur, named Mathille, and seized the machine. They were seen to return at top speed to Paris. By 10:30 o’clock they were at Chantilly, a wealthy town lying twenty-three miles northeast of Paris. They stopped abruptly in front of the bank. Five of the men got out and entered the bank. They shot the cashier and his assistant, who were behind a desk, and seized SBO,OOO in gold and notes. They then shot a porter who attempted to come to the rescue of his fellow employes. One of the bandits stood at the o/ the Jlir door with a ’epeating carbine, ready to shoot any one who should enter from without. The sixth bandit waited with his hands on the wheel of the machine. By the time the five bandits re turned to the machine a considerable crowd had gathered, attracted by the shots. The bandits poured a volley of bullets into them, wounding many, and disappeared in a cloud of dust. They were reported at As nieres .another suburb, at 11:30, and vanished again After this outrage, the last of many, the French Ministry of the Interior created a special force of auto policemen furnished with fast machines. Before this, the French police had actually attempted to pur sue the auto bandits on horseback. A gendarme on horseback- 1 ' for-in stance, pursued the vanishing auto in the forest of Senart. With the aid of the machines the police suc ,-Aor-,.- ip ane-ring qr suspected share in rne outrages is .ibeing i vestigated. The police are trying to make out j that a burly ruffian, Carouy, was among those arrested, but it is much 1 to be doubted that he had the brains to plan these oaring crimes. 1 ha present -,e~ies of outrages be gan on December 10 of last year. On that day a. swift automobile stopped at 2 o'clock in the afternoon in the Rue Ordener, one of the most central thoroughfares of Paris. The men in it shot down a bank messen- At 8 o’clock in the morning of March 26 the bandits steal an automobile tn the Forest of Senart. ■ .. idm 4 < /4/w v■ ~ Ci'" - WSi \ a/ / Murder of Bank Messenger '' . i Caby in the Rue Ordener, ' W'p', - p the First Crime in the Latest Series of Automobile Outrages. All These Were Committed by the Same Man. copyright. 1812, by American-Examiner. Great Britain Rights Reserve® r 1 Di Irr. 'V "xA r- _ \%| x wOtC ' \wvK x -. / “lanuopate il \\ / / / that we shall \ v 11 x \\ / I ,/ s soon hear 'Jr \\ / X / that the aero- \\\\\ plane has \v\' vTx. Ssflr* / /M "' / been adopted x ' x sl hysomeCap- 11 . / tain Kidd of 11 /AL/.\//■ the air. With /—dfiKAj/-# it may he t ' 41^ 4 . tifiri« d a p V ° ne of manv new scien- bfic inventions. With two or three v'// sw r oop a, ’down band ° f crimin3,s col,ld U filled building. hold"fhe°doo ,rcasure . ® '"' < perhaps in the darkness of nl^ki a,nS l a " ass ' s t ance - i°ad the treasure on their aeroplanes, fly away, per who was w a ik in <. *"'’ and s P eed to some unknown hiding place.”—Dr. Max Nordau. street, took lOOOnr » R alon S ,hn from him andfno" f ri rancs in rash bullets into a Y o,ley of ered about, killing d Wh ch gath ’ wounding several One !llan and jumped into their „ Then the ? appeared at a , ine an( i dis miles an nour. “ of “early fifty The cnse was submitted to M Alphonse Bertil ’°n. the scientific rector o f the dPpart . mp ' ,f of Paris, who completely rpron . fructed the <|o ’n.fs of the ban d'fs from the traces they had R v measuring the slight impres kion made by the ’"o auto wheels >n the street," he ; aJ d. "I find that the wheels were exactly four feet alx inches apart, “nd the impres sion made by the car when it was stopped showed that it was ten feet long. These details would cor respond exactly to the measurements of a Panhard ninety horse pow er machine of 1910." ’ Lt liLSa zn&Lzhr/ cpcpy <3 HI ' I . M'H zW ■a-x >F" ' ish > 1 msiwi **— -J I- y. wouwoto y Vis UFJ . ' (> u t V ehin2"l7.u? On Rhnwf ’ ( l that a ma hhjne of this description had been s.oien from M. Norman, of Boulogne, two weeks before the crime. ~ 1 ' “ e rtillon then pointed out ‘hat .he car had been carefully renum bered and the machine stored in a garage, for otherwise the complaint or its owner' would have led to its discovery. 011 she day following the affair in j e Ordener M. Norman's auto w<xS found abandoned in a lonely a reet at Dieppe, one hundred and nny miles from Paris. ihe startling discovery was then made that the leader of the auto bandits was the same person as the head of the gang who plundered the Orient Express in September of last year. This fast train was stopped in the heart of France at night and robbed of thousands of dollars in bags of gold that were being carried to India. The identity of this ban dit was proved by the finger prints he had left while renumbering the stolen auto and others he had made at the time of robbing the express. After carrying off their plunder from the train this band stopped at Chatelet-en-Brie, and executed one of their number, an Italian named Platano, a traitor to their plans, by cutting his throat The man who performed this execution w’iped his hands of blood on the dead man s shirt. The executioner and the leader of the auto bandits in the Rue Ordener were one and the same person. After the execu tion they stopped an auto and mur dered the chauffeur at Chatelet-en- Brie. At 10:30 the bandits who stole the auto in the forest kill the cashier, assistant cashier and porter of the bank at Ch'.ntilly. seize the cash, fusil lade the would be rescuers and vanish- The Interesting fact was also ob served by the police that the auto bandits were teetotallers. Probably that was why they were so proficient in their work. Common criminals have always been drinkers of alco hol. Alcoholic drinkers are forced to stop frequently to take more drink, alcoholic if they can find it, but drink of some sort. They have to stop frequently to attend to their physical needs, and are incapable o' continuous, unswerving exertion. Now, in all the searches the police made they found no traces of men with a fresh supply of money in the common drinking resorts of crimi nals, no breaking open of saloons such as always follows a successful coup by common burglars, no aban doned bottles along the road. These men were teetotallers and able to refresh themselves by frequent stops at roadside fountains and horse troughs. The bandits had a habit of con stantly stealing fresh automobiles and abandoning the old ones. They bad a profound knowledge of ail kinds of machines. The machine abandoned near Dieppe showed by its speedometer that it had been running for the trip at the rate of 40% miles per hour, the third speed of this machine. Now, this rate of speed proved that the car had left Paris just three hours and three-quarters before it was abandoned. This was exactly half an hour after the robbery, just time to get out of Paris. The police here did a clever pieca of detective work. They estimated that the criminals had stolen a fresh machine about half an hour after the robbery and sent, perhaps, one accomplice to Dieppe to get rid of the old machine. They made inquiries, and soon found that a 70-horsepower Levas seur car had been stolen at the time specified from the garage of M. Buisson at Saint Mande, a quiet, aristocratic suburb of Paris, border ing on the Park of Vincennes The police found the tracks of this machine running in the direc tion of Alais. They wired to Alais, and tho police there waited in am bush. But the bandits were too clever, guessed the police plans, turned around, came back by a different road and passed the octroi gate of Paris at 6 o’clock, always going full speed. At R:OS they overturned t vegetable dealer's cart in the Rue de Rivoli and their machine was in jured, a fact shown by a streak of gasoline along the roa’d. At 6:30 they stopped.in the Place du Havre to mend a leak in the gas- oline tank. A policeman named G 81 * nier, not suspecting they were great bandits, put his foot on the step to warn them against breakin? the speed law. They left him dead with three bullets in him. As they flew away, many terrified pedestrians were able to distinguish three men in the car. with a tremen dously thickset giant at the wheel, his face concealed by automobile goggles. Did justice hold the bandits at last? Not yet. Once more they vanished in a cloud of dust, and orders were wired to the police and gendarmerie (the national military police force) in every direction to watch for a flee ing or an abandoned auto. Soon a report came of an auto abandoned in a back street of St Ouen, a suburb of Paris. It was the auto of M. Buisson, It St Mande. It had been set on tlrs and all its combustible parts de stroyed, hut this time the speedome ter showed a distance of 215 mllea covered in one trip On the back of the carriage were the marks of two • revolver bullett. This showed that the bandits had travelled far out of Paris, had been concerned in another crime (for no bulle*s had struck the machine be fore), and had been compelled to return to Paris for some reason. At this point word came from Fontolse, another suburb, five miles from St. Ouen, that at 5 o'clock that morning, before daybreak, some men had been surprised in the office of M. Tintant, a leading lawyer of the town, engaged in breaking open hig safe. M. Tintant had discovered them and fired at them from his window as they were getting mtn an auto. A journeyman baker named Coquerel, who was up at. that early hour on account of his trade at tempted to hold them and was shot dead. At this point the bandits disap peared completely. It was not until after they attacked and bombarded the Societe Generale at Chantilly., an episode described earlier in this article, that any of them were ar rested. Among the other crimes attributed to them besides those already m •.< tioned are: Bank messenger named Gouy Pal! Dt robbed of $30,000 in Paris Jan uary 31. 1912. Freight station robbed, two meu murdered, at Les Aubrais, near Or leans. January 31. Battle with burglars, in which one policeman was killed and one buiv glar committed suicide. Angervilia, January 3L