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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