Newspaper Page Text
V
WHY CRIME DOES NOT PAY—
1
No. 8 of a Series of Extraordinary Revelations
U
Written by SOPHIE LYONS
The Most Famous and Successful Criminal oi Modern Times, Who Made a
Million Dollars in Her Early Criminal Career and Lost It at Monte Carlo, and
Has Now Accumulated Half a Million Dollars in Honorable Business Enterprises
Written by Sophie Lyons.
Copyright, 1913, by the Star Company.
Sophie Lyons—the “Queen of the Burglars'*
HE bank robbers and other criminals
whom I have been telling you about
in these pages depended for tbe suc
cess of their crimes almost entirely upon
their ingenuity. It was tbelr brains against
the combined brains of the banks and the
police, and to carry out their dishonest
ends they very rarely found It necessary
to use violence.
It Is quite true that most of these rob
bers were always heavily armed, but the
weapons they carried were, as a rule, used
only In the most desperate emergencies—
when a well-aimed bullet was the only
thing that could save their own lives and
liberty. Men like Langdon Moore and
many other successful burglars whom I
have known positively refused) to have
anything to do with crimes where It was
accessary to harm their victims or even
to threaten them with violence.
But with train robbers It la quite dif
ferent. Like the pirates who used to in
fest the seas, these desperadoes can ac
complish nothing without first fli’lng their
victims with the fear of serious Injury or
death. The automatic revolver, the repeat
ing rifle and the dynamite bomb are essen
tial parts of their equipment and on the
Slightest provocation they stand ready to
shoot to kill. Indeed, the train robber, In
his eagerness to get his plunder, often
shoots down helpless men and women
when there is really no necessity fot
bloodshed.
In my previous articles 1 have shown
that the biggest bank robbery ever accom
plished was really an unprofitable under
taking; that the great and "successful”
burglars lived to learn the lesson that a
life of crime Is not really profitable; that
even those who, when caught, have man
aged to escape from prison, profited noth
ing. And to-day in the field of train rob
bery 1 shall prove to the readers of this
page that here, again, the rule bolds true
that CRIME DOES NOT PAY!
Of course, there have been men clever
enough to hold up trains without resort
ing to violence, but they are exceptional
cases. The famous “Black Bart,” the lone
highwayman, was such a man. He boasted
that the shotgun he carried on his exploits
had never been loaded and that never in
all his long criminal career had he takeu
S life or Injured a human being.
This “Black Bart”—Charles Boles was
his right name—was as romantic a char
acter as any swashbuckling pirate of the
story books. He was a well educated man
and bad once had a prosperous business.
Just bow be happened to turn highway
man and train robber was a secret which
be would never divulge.
A Lone Highwayman
"Black Bart” began bis long career as
• bold-up man in the days when the stage
Coaches used *o carry large amounts of
currency and gold dust over tbe mountain
trails of the Far West. He alwdys worked
alone, but by a clever ruse which 1 will
tell you about be led his victims to believe -
that he had several heavily armed accom- •
pliers to help him enforce his demands.
The vein of humor which showed Itself
tn everything he did extended even to the
way he dressed himself up for his rob
beries. He invariably wore a long linen
duster with a Jute bag wrapped around
hie body like an Indian’s blanket. A tall
cone-shaped hat, such as clowns in the
ircus wear, completed a costume more
•utlandlsh than any ever seen outside a
fancy dress ball.
"Black Bart” chose the scene for each of
bis robberies with the greatest care. His
favorite spot was a sharp curve at the foot
of a long hill where the road ran through
a bit of forest or between high cliffs.
A few yards from this point tn the road’
but close enough to be plainly seen from
the halted stage coach, the robber rigged
the ingenious decoy by which he lured his
victims into believing that he was not
alone but had with him a considerable
armed force.
With jute bags or pieces of tent canvas
he built a screen about three feet high be
tween two trees or two plies of rocks. The
outside of this ambush he carefully masked
with branches of trees and chunks of sod.
Behind the ambush he stuck in the
ground a half dozen sticks and on each
stick he hung an old sombrero such as
every cowboy and miner in those days
wore.
These bats showed above the ambush
Just as they would have if there had been
Teal men underneath them. Below each
hat "Black Bart” stuck a piece of broom
stick painted black to give the semblance
cf rifle barrels.
It all looked very real and very for
midable—for all the world as if six men
were crouching there with rifles in hand
ready to fire on the stage coach at the first
sign of resistance.
When it came almost time for the coach
to be due the lone highwayman would
climb to the top of a wee or a neighboring
cliff and watch for its approach with the
powerful field glasses he always carried.
If there was any indication that the ex
pected money bags were not on board or
that its occupants were heavily armed, he
would quickly dismantle his dummy am
bush and lay it one side to wait for a
more favorable time.
But if every thing looked all right,
"Black Bart” clambered down and took
up his position at the bend in the road
where he could not be seen from the' coach
until It was almost upon him. He carried
the shotgun, which he afterward said was
never loaded, and behind him appeared the
hats of his six dummy "confederates" with
their menacing "rifle barrels.”
"Hands up!” shouted the highwayman,
stepping out Into the road directly In front
of the advancing horses and leveling his
shotgun at the driver’s head.
The driver tugged on the reins, Jammed
the brake down hard and the heavy vehicle
came to a hurried Btop. Everybody looked
in amazement at the grotesque figure in
the road—not quite sure whether to laugh
or to cry.
But any hopes that it might all be a
Joke were quickly dispelled by the busi
ness-like way the highwayman handled his
gun and by the meaning nod ot his head
in the direction of the sombreros and rifle
barrels, which formed such a threatening
background for this little drama.
“Don’t shoot until I give the word, boys,”
be calls over bis shoulder to his supposed
confederates — the scarecrow imitation
bandits who looked very threatening in
tbe bushes beside the road.
His Dummy Robbers
Whatever idea of resistance the driver
or any one else on tbe stage might have
had was Immediately dropped at sight of
the dummy desperadoes to whom "Black
Bart” addressed this stern command.
“I’ll have to trouble you to step out of
that stage for a moment,” says "Black
Bart,” with the courtesy for which he was
famous.
As the men, women and children left the
stage he ranged them in a long line by the
roadside, directly In range of the am
bushed riflemen, whose painted broomstick
guns, significantly enough, kept the little
group constantly covered.
From under his duster he produced a
neat canvas bag. With thi3 in one hand
and his shotgun in the other, he passed
along the line and gently but firmly re
lieved his victims of watches, pocketbooks.
scarf pins and everything else of value.
This operation over, he would make the
driver open the mail bags and the strong
box tn which the valuable shipments were
carried.
From their contents he selected all the
money and gold dust and stowed it away
in his bag. which by this time was bulging
with plunder.
"Now drive on.” said "Black Bart,” mo
tioning his victims back to their places
on the coach, "and If you value your lives
don’t look back. My men and I are dead
shots and will fire at the first head we
see looking around.”
Anything that would take them out of
the range of those guns was welcome to
the frightened people on the coach. The
driver would crack his whip and away the
stage would roll at a great pace—with
never a person bold enough to look back
at the scene of the robbery.
In addition to hts other accomplish
ments, "Black Bart” was something ot a
poet and evidently tdok a good deal of
pride in his verses. Quite frequently, af
ter robbing a stage coach, he would band
one of his victims a bit of paper on which
were scrawled some of his irhymes.
Here is a "poem” which the driver of a
Wells-Fargo stage received from "Black
Bart” as a souvenir of the time when the
highwayman robbed the strong box of
$6,000 tn gold and diamonds:
"Here 1 lay me down to sleep,
To wait the coming morrow—
Perhaps success, perhaps defeat
And everlasting sorrow.
Yet come what will—I’ll try It on,
My condition can’t be worse,
And if there’s money tn that stage,
’Tts money in my purse.
“BLACK BART.”
When railroads began to take the place
of stage routes "Black Bart” proved to his
satisfaction that the methods by which he
had robbed so many stages single-handed
and without taking a life, were equally
well adapted for holding up trains.
Time and again fast express trains on
the western roads would be stopped just
at dusk In some lonely spot by the frantic
waving of a red flag.
When the engineer Jumped down to see
what the trouble was he was confronted
by "Black Bart,” dressed as usual in the
eccentric garb which distinguished him
from every other train robber.
At the point of his shotgun the robber
forced the engineer and fireman to un
couple the engine and run it a few hun
dred feet down the track. ,
By this time the passengers and train
men were pouring out of the cars to learn
the cause of the delay. “Black Bart”
wasted few words on them. Nodding his
head significantly tn the direction of the
"riflemen,’’ whose hats and "gun barrels”
showed from the usual ambush at the side
of the track, he said loud enough for all
to hear: •
“Don’t fire unless I give the word,
boys!”
The hint was quite sufficient. Convinced
that they were at the mercy of a large
band of desperate men, passengers, train
men and Express messengers quickly
handed their valuables over to “Black
Bart.”
When he had secured all the plunder
he could, be uttered his usual threat about
not look'ng back on penalty of being shot
at and allowed the train to move on.
“Black Bart” Es Caught
After eluding the police and express
companies for years, “Black Bart” finally
lost his nerve in a way that seemed strange
in view of the coolness he had displayed
on so m^ny previous occasions.
He had held up a Southern Pacific train
In the usual way. As he was packing the
last of the plunder into his bag a farmers
boy came walking down a mountain trail
toward the train.
The hoy had been hunting and carried a
rifle. He was innocent of any Intention to
interfere with "Black Bart"—In fact, had
he had any Idea that a train robbery was
going on he would promptly have taken to
his heels.
Strangely enough the sight of this lone
boy with the rifle filled the train robber
with the greatest alarm. Hurriedly throw
ing his bag of booty over his shoulder he
started off In the opposite direction as fast
as he could run.
The passengers and trainmen were
dumfounded. Why should this robber run
away when he had six armed men over
them to protect him?
Just then a passing gust of wind blew
two of the sombreros off the “heads” of
“Black Bart’s” dummies. That laid hare
for tbe first time his clever ruse—the ruse
which had enabled him to steal thousands
of dollars from trains and stages single
handed!
The express messenger was the first of
the victims to come to his senses. Seizing
the rifle from the astonished farmer’s boy,
he fired several shots at the fleeing robber.
But none of them took effect and “Black
Bart” soon disappeared in the woods high
up the mountain side.
Detectives who visited the scene of the
robbery found that in his hurried flight,
"Black Bart” had dropped the first clue to
his identity they had ever been able to
find. It was a handkerchief, hearing in one
corner the Initial ”B’’ and the mark of
a San Francisco laundry.
A close watch was set in the vicinity of
this laundry. When, a few weeks later,
“Black Bert” left his lonely cabin in a
wilderness of the Sierras and came to San
Francisco to dispose of the proceeds of his
latest robberies, he was promptly arrested.
His senseless panic at the sight of the
farmer’s boy and his rifle had proved his
undoing.
"Black Bart” pleaded guilty. At his
trial he amused the court by relating how,
frequently, on his visits to San Francisco,
he bad discussed his crimes with some of
the very detectives who were searching
for him.
After serving a long term in San Quen
tin prison, he reformed, and the last I
knew of him he was living honestly, au
the money his crimes brought him had
been gambled away and he was penniless
when he left prison and bad to struggle
hard to make a living. For this daring
and unusually lucky desperado surely
crime did not pay.
“Old Bill” Miner was another famous
train robber who generally worked alone
and who, like “Black Bart,” never posed
as a bad man and never took human life.
He was one of the first train robbers to
operate on the Pacific Coast and js said to
have originated the expression, "Hands
up!”
Only a few years ago he figured in a
daring series of robberies along the Cana.-
dian Pacific Railway. The crimes fol
lowed each other In rapid succession—
hardly a week passed that this bold man
did not hold up some fast train and make
his escape with large sums in currency
and gold dust.
The reward of $16,000 which the Cana
dian Government offered for his capture
seemed to have no terrors for Miner. One
May evening, when the search for him
was at its height, he stopped a fast train
near Furrer, British Columbia, on almost
the exact spot of one of his previous rob
beries.
At the point of his revolver. Miner
forced the engineer to uncouple the com
bination mall and express car from the
rest of the train and take It a mile or so
down the track. As Miner knew, a heavy
shipment of gold dust had been made on
this train and he expected to make a rich
haul.
But to his surprise, when he came to
rifle the car, he found not one of the ex
press company’s strong boxes. The only
thing of value the car contained was a
small quantity of registered mail.
Women Train Robbers
The frequent robberies had made the ex
press messenger apprehensive for the
safety of his treasure. Just before reach-
the point where Miner had waved his red
lantern across the track he had taken the
boxes of gold dust out of the express car
and secreted them In a vacant stateroom
In a sleeping car at the rear of the train.
Disgusted at his failure to find the gold
dust where he had expected and fearing
some trap if he attempted to search the
rest of the train. Miner abandoned the
robbery and fled.
But again he was to be foiled by the
quick wits of this same express messenger.
As the train robber jumped on hts horse
and rode away, the messenger climbed a
telegraph pole, cut a wire and with an
emergency key, flashed the news of the
robbery to the nearest garrison of the
Canadian Mounted Constabulary.
As a result, several armed posses were
Boon hot on Miner’s trail. They surround
ed him five days later and after a desper
ate gun fight, succeeded in making him a
prisoner. He is now in a Canadian prison
serving a life sentence—this was the kad
reward of all his crimes.
I am thankful to say that I never had
any inclination for this kind of crime and
never assisted in holding up a train. The
fact that I was a woman would not have
prevented my doing this had I wished, for
there have been many successful woman
train robbers.
Etta Place was one of these. She was
the recognized leader of the desperate
band known as the ’’Wild Bunch,” whose
operations for years terrorized the rail
roads of the West
Yet, although I was never a train rob
ber myself, 1 was the friend of many men
and women who were active In this branch
of crime, and the incidents I am giving
you here are as they related them to me.
There was always a more or less close
connection between train robbers and
bank burglars, because they both usually
had to face the problem of getting into
safes. They frequently sought one an
other’s advice as to the best means of
breaking open some particularly refrac
tory type of strong box.
Many bank burglars eventually took up
the robbing of trains to gratify their crav
ing for excitement and many men who had
been train robbers in their early careers
later became bank burglars.
In the latter class were Ike Marsh and
Charley Bullard, who were associated with
Mark Shinbum and my husband In some
of their most famous attacks on the banks.
One of their first successful crimes was
the robbery of an express car on the New
York Central Railroad of $150,000 In cash
and Government bonds.
This was an "Inside” Job—suggested by
Putnam Brown, the messenger in charge
of the express car which was robbed, and
carried out with his assistance. Here is
the ingenious way it was arranged.
Brown was to notify the robbers the
night when an unusually large shipment
of valuables would be made in his car from
Buffalo to New York City. Bullard and
Marsh would be waiting at Albany and
when the train stopped there, Brown would
open the door on the side of the car away
from the station platform and admit them
without detection
Thieves' Clever Plan
Once inside the car tDe roooers would
Saw a hole in the door through which they
had entered. This hole was Just large
enough for a man to reach his arm through
and slide back the bolt on the inside of
the door.
The purpose of this was to create the
Impression that the robbers had gained
entrance to the car without the messen
ger’s knowledge or consent—by climbing
up on the side of the car and sawing
through the door.
As soon as Brown had handed over to
them the contents of the safe they were
to bind and gag him and inflict several
cuts on his face and hands to indicate the
hard struggle he had made to protect his
employer’s property. He was also to chew
on a small piece of soap to produce foam
on his lips and thus add reality to his ap
parent sufferings.
As the train slowed down at some sta
tion in the outskirts of New York City,
Bullard and Marsh would Jump off and
make their escape with the booty.
At the end of the route the messenger
would be discovered lying helpless in the
car—to all appearances almost dead.
After he had been revived he would
tell a story of the robbery that had been
carefully rehearsed in every detail with a
view to deceiving the express company’s
detectives and the police. He was to lay
particular stress on his descriptions of the
robbers who had entered the car and at
tacked him—making them as little like the
real Bullard and Marsh as anything well
could be.
There was for various reasons a delay
of several weeks before this crafty plan
could be put into execution. When it
finally was undertaken it went through
without a hitch.
But Brown had, up to this time, been
an honest man and this sudden plunge into
crime began to trouble his conscience. His
story of the robbery, at first entirely
plausible, began to weaken under the per
sistent questioning of the detectives. Final
ly he gave so many conflicting versions of
various points that he was placed under
arrest for complicity in the crime.
Alarmed at this turn of affairs, Bullard
and Marsh fled to Canada. They were
caught there and the greater part of what
they had stolen was recovered. I told
you In a previous chapter how they broke
out of the White PlainB Jail—they were
never recaptured.
Brown, the unfortunate messenger who
had yielded to the temptation to get rich
quick by stealing, was finally released on
account of his previous good record. The
experience taught him a valuable lesson
and he never committed another crime.
A very extraordinary chapter in the his
tory of train robbing Is that which includes
the crimes of Oliver Curtis Perry. His ca
reer was not of long duration, but it was
marked by a diabolical Ingenuity and a
reckless disregard of his own life and the
lives of others such as few men have ever
shown. His crimes were all the more re
markable because they were not com
mitted la some lonely region of the West,
but in a thickly settled section of New
York State.
Late one evening In the early Fall a
sturdy, well built and well dressed young
man walked through the New York Cen
tral yards at Albany. Several of the rail
road’s watchmen saw him, but he was
such an Intelligent, clean-cut looking fel
low, and so evidently going about his busi
ness, that they took him for an employee
and thought nothing strange of his being
there at that hour.
At the station a limited express train
stood ready to start on its trip westward.
I
tbi
ha
do
Th
thi
cri
out.
The train consisted of an Arpress
directly behind the engine, and 'bar
that a baggage car and a long strln; of
sleepers and day coaches.
The athletic young man approach
station Just as the train was pulling
With the ease of an experienced railload
man he grasped the railing on the ! ont
platform of the express car It' pa sed
him, and swung himself on board.
This young man who crouched li/fhe
shadows of the platform until the brig itly
lighted Albany yards had beer, left be ind
was Oliver Perry. Having made on t &
poor success of burglary and served sev
eral prison sentences, he was now a Cut
to try his hand at train robbery.
The express car, as I have said, was the
first car In the train. Its front doo -a
solid panel of metal and wood—was se
curely locked.
The front half of the car was filled rith
a miscellaneous assortment of boxes, >ar-
rels and other freight, making one i alld
pile from the floor to within a few fei t of
the ceiling. In the rear half of the car
were two safes and a desk at which the
solitary express messenger was at i ork
sorting way bills.
The train was about forty miles wes: of
Albany when, above the clatter of the
wheels, the messenger thought he hea d a
voice.
“Hands up!” was what he though.it
said—but how absurd!
He was not a nervous man and, fee ing
sure that he was all alone In the car he
thought his Imagination and the noisi of
the train must have deceived him. W Ith-
out even raising his head he went on i ith
his work.
But again the voice sounded. This t me
it was unmistakable, and to the original
command there was somethingia^ded.
“Hands up,” it said, “or I’llVblaw ;
head off!"
Looking up, the astonished messetler
saw Perry’s ugly face leering at him Mom
rig
re'
his
■ his
frt!
h.
pe
pri
ha
he
co
hr’
thi
wa
in
eir
pr<
jui
mi
thi
mi
SOI
ms
ca
Oliver Perry’s Darftg Ej
Perry lay flat on his stomach on the
half suffocated by the smoke from the en
to death at every motion of the speedi
himself along to a steel ventilator shaft
Fastening one end of a long rope to this
waist. He gripped the rope tightly with
himself cautiously down the side of the <
only a man of almost superhuman strer
attempt. Hanging in midair by one arn
hand and smashed the glass in the door
“Open that door or I’ll kill you!” he
The astonished express messenger
would stop the train, but before his hand
Then, reaching his hand through the br
the door open and swung hfmself down i
' T