Show vas leej estoe by vance uc the great express company robbery IT WAS in the early eighties that one of the cleverest crooks in the country of the wired enclosure of an adams express office and looked longingly at it a package of bank notes on a shelf beyond his reach it was near the noon hour and most of the clerks were preparing to go 90 out for lunch the crook noticed that some of them wore linen dusters and that when they left the enclosure they doff coffed doffed ed these office coats and tossed them to one side bide it did not take this gentleman long to come to his bis determination the door leading to the enclosure was partly opened ile he slipped inside and tossing his hat into a corner hastily put on an ink smeared linen duster that had been discarded ile he stuck a pen behind his ear and in that guise readily resembled resemble ed one of the regular clerks lie ile was in the enclosure less than a minute and when he departed he carried with him a package of bonds chih was estimated to be worth A few days after this it was reported that a man entered one of the oldest and wealthiest banks in the city of philadelphia and by means of a sharpened umbrella pulled out a package of money from behind one of the grilled windows and made ills his escape with it tile the sum was placed at 1000 but that was the least part of it it the audacity of tile the theft was what caused consternation in the financial district if such things wore were possible then no institution would be safe these two cases were much talked about and they were especially interesting to francis kelly the famous bank detective who patrolled patr oled the financial district in philadelphia and whose beat included the custom house the sub treasury and the famous banking house of drexel co the philadelphia branch of drexel dresel morgan co kelly was not only a keen student of human nature but he knew the ways of the get rich quick members of the criminal fraternity lie he discussed the matter with one pf af his hia associates id be willing to stake my reputation on the fact that both of these jobs were done by chauncey johnson he said 1 I know his methods like a book and I 1 dont know another man in the united states who could have pulled the nt off as neatly as aa johnson kelly had been in the united states secret service and had also been chief of detectives in philadelphia but at that time was in the employ of the houses in the financial district he acted as he often said as a preventive the bank crooks knew that he was on the job there and as a consequence they gave that section a pretty wide berth 4 but the moth will hover around the flame and one morning kelly noticed a rather st striking looking man in the neighborhood of the drexel bank the detective watched him for some moments and presently the man entered the portals of the bank kelly walked up to him and touched him on the shoulder good morning chauncey he said familiarly what are you doing herer here 1 I dont know you was the gruff reply and not my name why was the cheerful reply everybody knows chauncey johnson and im somebody it was impossible to brazen it out any longer and the famous bank robber admitted his identity ile he insisted however that he had bad no evil intentions on this particular bank and had walked in for the purpose of looking at the largo oil painting of the founder of the house the explanation was accepted but the man was taken into custody and lodged in the city hall ball later he was escorted to new york fork where it was said that he was wanted for the adams express company robbery the moral Is that it Is dangerous to take too many cli chances ances even if you are at the head of your profession W NU servia |