Show BANK BURGLARS tile ls lairry irry nul lir pa enee they bruton for tha san francisco Frondi oo CM progress ij not confined to tile th fine arts the exact sciences religion or education the mendicant of oj today to day unfolds a tile of woe ns fus mendacious as 03 a patent medicine label and as full fall of tropes and gilt edged rhetoric aa a transcends trans cende butali tt t the crook is just an as wi wide de awake aw ake as the g guardian cardian of coin and coupons bankers and brokers breakers and burglar burglary burgl arc what an ever everlasting lustin amount of anih tish there exists in it these little blufy ba belonging t to the sanie line ire tire bolts balls bar bai benka beaks and beat beats bolting the bars bare of a bank the bars oi of bridewell nt not to speak of the bars where brandy batters the brain there is the tile leak beak who binds blinds and travels on liis his beit beat bes bestirring tirrill some beat behind the bars as well well as tho tile bounced beat bent the 11 a seem t to beat the balance odthe of the ie le in the criminal book there has lins been a marked ad advance annee ill in the science of doing things and the trade of doing mankind keeps step to the music of pr the rhe rascal has advanced his big craft and cunning nearly as fast flut aa as his victim has invented burglar artof safes and chronometer locks when tho the combination lock was invented it wag was thought that burglars could no moro so go a burglarize ing in 1872 or 1873 however this fond hope was ivas found fallacious when a louisville bank was ims verv very nearly cleaned out of cash this adroit operation aeration was followed for a period of of four years by a number of robberies and attempted robberies which have never been equaled the gentlemen of the jimmy had tho the best of the combination lock sonio idea may be had of the sr serious charat character fer of this fact when the tile reader reflects that during those these years nearly three ill millions illions of money and bonds were stolen from various various banking institutions these there most skilful robberies were tho the work of one gang of men nor was tho the proof necessary to convict obtained until the famous northampton tank robbery in tho the winter of 1876 when four masked men took from the vault money and bands bonds of the face value of nearly one ono and ono quor ter cr million tim THE SIEGE OP or THE ELMIRA I propose to tell the story of tw of tho the exploits of the gang which although not altogether successful will show in part the amount of work required to break a bank it may deter ae lethargic t hardic persons from adopting alie P profession siou bec because ause it will be found foun d that even b burglary bur u aga glara ra have to work for a living robert scott and jimmy dunlap were were the tl le brains of the combination the former born in warsaw ill and the other in scotland they were both I ll 11 nervy mut cular land nobby they I lived in consid considerable erZIe fl fared ared sumptuously every everyday day scott owned the celebrated trotting marc knor nox he ile in in company with the bl blonde mustached dun lap created no end of a sensation one sermon season at long branch being voted stu stunning nning I good fellows by the men while they attracted considerable attention I a among t the lie ladica billy dilly conform Con nore a new crook was also a member odthe of the syndicate the second national bank of 11 elmira amir a w was sele selected eted for attack it was decided to work the bank through the floor of the Y MC A room directly above the tile vault but they were met at the outset by an unexpected difficulty the door of tho the room was an iron one and locked with a hall lock they did not under understand ita its mechanism one of alie party entered th eliouse of tho the secretary of ofilio tile Y M C A while lie ans asleep and searched archal se his pockets to steal wal the keys long canough to get gaian an impression im in wax thu the young oung man ho never had bad fild placed the keys under the c campst arp t in his is room and the robber was alus f foiled oiled A r FES CE TO A LOCKSMITH ITIL they arece now in a quandary and find were almost ready to give it up when connors heared of a lock expert who was em employed loyed by vue of the great new vork york safe makers considerable diplomacy was employed and some half a dozen interviews held before the tile expert consented to reveal the secrets of tho the hall lock for connors comeback came cam eback bark to elmira and dunlap by some a cd ed to have a letter sent to the kew new york safe men making inquiry in regard to their goods As was ox oar I acted the expert was dispatched to elmira to buz the customer lie ile was careful to make known his auf ines etwas it was mentioned in an evening paper inser inserted teda a ballot ball of paper in he the hall lock in consequence of which it was quite natural that the expert should be summoned to repair the same the expert took nn an impression imp of the key and that difficulty was BUT sur su r mounted about this time a certain sirs mrs came to elmira from baltimore and rented a small house J in in the suburbs sh seq her ter husband as a commercial man who was almost always on the rend read it w was a queer kind of ing she kept there was a full set of window curtains to tho the house a few blankets blanket and a few culinary utensils hut but she was very careful ta to sweep the pavement e every very day lay and hung out an occasional wash we a hero berc tho gang spent their time never going out in daytime and U baing sing every overy p precaution against discovery cov ery tho tile reader will sec oce at once the value of this cover these men it must bo remembered were suspected acted some of them were known tank bank breakers had their presence been known in elmira a dozen of detective would have been at their heels and ill all the banks would have been warned uy by this plan however howver they were enabled to defy pursuit for aind a robbery been committed during their ay there no one knew t they boy were in ill the city they were strangers to everybody ni nobody was fia familiar with their face facer in ill this house they jived lived nearly two mon alii every E very night they went to the Y ina M C A room unlocked the dor door and took up tip the florrid flooring which they hey r were ere also careful to crepy repy replace ace before the morning began to blush over the hills 12 IN N THE THU VAULT there were not more than eix six men engaged in ili this work one of the par party was obliged to side ion after ton of stone was carried upstairs in baskets and deposited on the roof they burrowed through five feet of solid masonry and t thence ce through a layer of heavy iron T A plate of steel nearly two inches in thickness was wms the last barrier between them and the coveted wealth they work upon th tha is the president of the bank sir mr II 11 C pratt had occasion to enter tile vault ono night and observed a quantity of plaster dust upon the floor alio file president suspected and hunted up an officer but t the he midnight masons took the hint and U escaped leaped ill in order to give tho readers of the ala clear conception of a complete operation a description of the inside work on the first national bank of Pittston if appended this was a one ne story building with a tin roof every night the boards were taken up and alid replaced when they left the tin being joined with red putty As an instance of the care it det detail nill it may be mentioned that a violent storm occurred one day buethe but the roof did not leak a drop the last layer of brick briel was removed november 1875 tile top of the vault was taken off oft and scott aud and dunlap dropped inside three men were watching watching outside concealed in various places R ces while another stood at the opening to pass in in the tools required these E spherical safes were inside as well as a burglar alarm by means of an I air pump they applied powder to one of the safes and blew half the door off they found in currency and in bonds they attacked another broke off tho the spindle and blew blex roff off the plates by means of dynamite there was but one more to forc ewhen an alarm was given from the outside A FAILURE some idea iden may be obtained of the danger and risk attending the operation when it is stated that twelve explosions were caused by scott and dunlap when inside the vault and one a most terrific detonation they tiley dared not waste the time required to leave ami the close apartment and actually trusted behind tho the wards with which they summoned tile alarm after tho the last blast one of t the eli p pipers e r s caught eight sight of a man I looking ip ol 01 out t of the window in a he house use near by the robbers de camped in an all immense mense hurry burry scott and ad dunlap ocic yei edra drawn wn from tile vault next door to death their clothing was wringing wet net from their violent ex arcise although it was a bitter cold night they had inhaled the p poisonous olson i mephitic awes liberat a by the explosions of dynamite and powder A quantity of brandy was forced fore e d down their gasping throats they could not walk and their companions were forced to drag them along along for some miles in this terrible plight they walked thirty miles to a railroad station and readied reached new york city the next afternoon sixty thousand do dollars llara worth of bands bonds were compromised back to tho tile bank but the job did not begin to pay about a year after this dt daring iring me operation ration the same pa party r did tho the northampton job the tile same expert aiding in the manipulation of the combination during the last two or it was well known that scott dun lap and connora connors were connected with tho the series of mertio memorable rable safe robberies but so skillfully fully had bad th managed that there was not sufficient proof upon which to put their them away they were tracked and fol ful lowed fur for some months after each operation and many attempts wen made to rope them but it was all al us alees at last however the lock expert angry angry at the nonpayment non payment of hi his the ul ill godun s with the tile secret turned states evidence and the two chiefs brought to justice neither of the I men had the tile appearance of criminals an ali elderly gentleman entered the court room during the trial and tock a scat seat directly in front of the prisoners ho scanned tho the crowd in a vain attempt to single them out then turning to scott ho be anxiously whispered I cant find them villains where mere are tho tile prisoners scott smiled smile and pointing poin flug to himi him self whispered back hero a ono one of th ertil VAI inEN WALTERS philadelphia oct 1882 |