Show TRAIN ROBBERIES As The Herald remarked yesterday the train robbing industry has had a boom in Wyoming The bandits who wrecked the express car near Wilcox In that state are doubtless members of the gang that has infested southeastern southeast-ern Utah for years Several have died with their boots on two or three are in prison and a price is upon the heads of others Sooner or later they will be run down and the last one killed or captured for the people are getting tired of them The first train robbery to attract general gen-eral attention occurred about twentv five years ago at Gads Hill on the Iron Mountain road in Missouri But in those days the robber went through the passencer coaches with a mask over his face terrifying women and bulldozing men who really had more courage than they possessed but who were probably paralyzed with amazement amaze-ment The modern trainrobber con fines his operations to the express rand r-and rarely kills any one but an engineer en-gineer or a messenger Nearly all of the pioneers in the business are dead The James boys and Younger brothers Y > r it I BsUsuah4 o fr j A Woman In the Case have ceased to furnish themes for the yellowback novelist while their imitators imi-tators are nearly all clothed in cerements cere-ments or stripes Sam Bass and his entire band were wiped out within a year after they began business Rude Burrows Gove Johnson and his three lieutenants the Fords the Daltons and a score of smaller fry have died violent deaths either upon the scaffold or In their tracks Several of the McCartys who used to operate In southeastern Utah fell under a fusillade at Meeker Colo after they had robbed a bank California has stamped out one nest after another from Chris Evans down to Joaquin Millers unnatural son and the HoleintheWall crowd Is doomed to meet the common fate of bandits There was a time when the highwayman highway-man was Invested with romance and fitted out with a heroic personality which he never deserved and which made him an object of interest not to say admiration But he has grown stale People have found out that he isnt a hero that he hasnt a righteous grievance against society that his example ex-ample is in nowise worthy of emulation that his business is far from profitable I profita-ble and that he is generally a coward at heart who never shoots unless he has the drop on some one that he is too lazy to work and steals from nure cussedness Experience has taught him that a train load of sleepy passengers an engineer en-gineer with hIs eye on the track and an express messenger In whom the Instinct In-stinct of selfpreservation Is strong are really less formidable on a dreary night than the average watermelon patch is with its watchdog or a wakeful wake-ful farmer with his old army musket loaded with salt and pepper Many preventatives for trainrobber ies have been suggested but the most effective is to make it extremely hazardous haz-ardous to begin with and the trail exceedingly ex-ceedingly hot as an after consideration considera-tion When trains begin to pull into stations sta-tions with dead bandits on board in the place of shattered safes the moral effect ef-fect will be felt all along the line And when posses are organized and equipped equip-ped for a general roundup that will continue while a highwayman is known to be at large the trainrobbing business busi-ness will become less and less popular and profitable until it almost ceases to be We say almost for so long as humanity hu-manity has weaknesses there will be thieves and so long as there are thieves they will have a diversity of lays Individual robbers will continue to do business at the old stand but the gaD s should be broken up This much the posses can do and the states interested Inter-ested should give them all necessary aid and encouragement |