OCR Text |
Show "ARE THE H0LDUP3 PROFESSIONALS?" A man-about-town, who has come in contact with many tough characters, asked to give his opinion as to whether the men who held up the Oregon Short Line train early Monday at a point near Five Points, were skilled train robbers or inexperienced operators, made this surprising statement : "Holdups, who devote their time to robbery, are always well armed, but they never shoot to kill, except as a last resort. . I am of the opinion that the men who did the work near here were of that typ and that the formidable display of weapons was for the purpose of pTeTenting any show of resistance or the possibility of a ' tragedy. Take the man who robbed the Northern Pacific. He was a most inoffensive-looking little chap, with no thought of murder. He got away with $40,000, came to Ogden, had a good time, returned to the north, robbed the same train a second time, obtaining $48,000, again visiting Ogden. The day the girl was drowned in Ogden canyon can-yon he helped to rescue the body from the stream. In all his career as a professional holdup, he had never planned or thought of shedding blood. At one time he had two confederates, and not a man of the gang wielded a gun to kill." The man-about-town may be right, but we are inclined to view holdups, professional or otherwise, as possessed of as widely different temperaments and as swayed by as many conflicting emotions emo-tions as other criminals. The holdup knows he is in a dangerous undertaking when he starts out to rob, and the thought must be uppermost in his mind that he must be prepared to escape, if cornered, and the means of escape is to shoot, and, if need be, to shoot to kill. A man thus resolved re-solved is apt to use him gun on the least provocation. Tho best proof, to our mind that the local holdups were not amateurs ama-teurs is the clever manner in which they planned the robbery and covered up their trail. With the horse-and-rig theory exploded, it is made evident that the holdups made back into Ogden as soon as they could do so, without exposing themselves to possible capture. Selecting a place which made a return to Ogden easy, they proved themselves to be adepts at the old game of robbers and police, and marked themselves as anything b.ut tyros. |