The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1874-11-12
ORGANIZED BURGLARY.
A Fact, ana n Hint. and . Remedy,

The successful masked robberies in
banks and in private families suggest
some efforts at remedy, and in rela-
ton to bank robbers we find one m the
following statement of the Hartford
Times as to an occurrence in the at
tempted robbery of the bank at New
Canaan, in Fairfield county:
Mr.. Raymond, the State Treasurer of
Connecticut, lives in New Canaan. One
night, about o'clock, he was awakened
Tor perhaps he may not yet have gone
to sleep) by peculiar booming sound,
like an explosion. He awakened his
wife and asked her what that could be.
She said it must be somebody blasting
down the line of the new railroad but
Mr.. r. (who was one of the bank direc-
tors) felt that nobody was engaged in
"blasting" at that hour, and he hastily
dressed and went toward the bank.
This was three quarters of a mile from
his house. Before reaching the bank
he saw three men around the bank
steps, and another in front of the
dwelling house opposite. Then an
other and another appeared and Mr..
R., wisely deeming it unsafe to go
further, ran to the nearest house and
rang up the inmates, then ran to another
and awakened the family there, and
then aroused the family in the next
house. The robbers, seeing through
the darkness the figure of man run
ming from house to house, beat pre-
cipitate retreat. Their wagons were
ready waiting, and they all slid off in
the darkness, ten or a dozen of them,
Mr.. r. thinks-driving toward the New
York line.
On entering the bank, the neighbors
found the watchman bound and gagged.
The outer door of the safe was blown
off, but the inner one had not been
opened. The watchman, on being re-
leased from the gag, said he was sud-
denly and silently seized by three men,
in the darkness, on the bank steps, as
he was coming down, and his hands SO
held that he could not reach his re-
volver, while third robber, with the
stern command, "Not word p held
the blade of long glittering butcher
knife against the watchman's throat.
Meantime three others had taken
possession of the house and family op-
posite the bank, and held the man,
wife and children in one group, under
threat of loaded revolvers and that
family, standing by the front window,
were compelled to see all that was going
on across the way with the bank watch
man. After binding and gagging this
functionars, the robbers placed him
about ten feet from the safe, and, fill
ing the lock with powder, lighted the
fuse-one of the rascals remarking to
the helpless watchman, "We will wait
minute out doors" The explosion
that followed was the sound that awoke
Mr.. Raymond and led to the arousing
of the neighbors. Luckily for the
watchman, though 1t blew off the heavy
outer door of the safe, 1T didn't hurt him.
Before lighting the fuse, the watch
man says one of the robbers said to
him "l'm going to take out your gag
for minute to ask you question. Ii
you make any noise drawing a huge
knife, and placing the keen edge of the
glittering blade upon the prisoners
throat" if you 'holler' I will cut
your throat and I would as soon do it
as L would kill rat y The watchman,
with the knife on his throat, saw that
the villain meant it and the latter con-
tinued "And if you don't tell me
the truth, 1 will kill you. Now:
Does the cashier of this bank ever
come here in the night, after nine
o'clock"
The watchman answered "No."
"Does he keep the key to this safe p
in the secret"
"Who has the key to this combina-
tion ?"
81 cannot say. I am only a hired
watchman I know nothing of these
things"
Finding this to he the case, they re.
gagged and bound the watchman, and
left him in the building while the fuse
was burning for the explosion. For
this explosion the guarded family op-
posite waited in compulsory silence,
with almost as much interest as the
poor watchman. The latter official,
when he was seized, saw some of the
robbers at the opposite house, one of
them tall man over six feet high, who
had been seen in the village for nearly
q fortnight, often passing the bank.
Another had been seen about New
Canaan for a few days before the night
in question. Evidently they had thor
oughly informed themselves of the
character and habits of the bank off
cials, and had decided to blow open the
safe, rather than go for the cashier.
Mr.. Raymond says that if they had had
twenty minutes more, the robbers
would have secured $150,000 in money.
AS it was, they got nothing. 1t was
Mr.. Rs. wise course in quickly arousing
number of citizens that decided the
robbers to beat hasty retreat. They
didn't relish the idea of an aroused
neighborhood. Had he, or any two
men of New Canaan, gone among them,
their lives would probably have been
sacrificed.