The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1893-11-12
HIGHwAYMEN OF THE RAILROAD.

" ~
The recent epidemic of train robbery has
led one of the Pinkertons to write an
article on the "Highwaymen of the Rail-
road" which appears in the North Ameri-
can Review. Train robbery began soon
after the war, and the first important crime
of that kind was perpetrated by the Reno
brothers, of Seymour, Ind, who became
terrors to the community in which they
lived. They could not be reached because,
to a certain extent, local authorities were
either afraid of them or in sympathy with
them. In 1867 John Reno robbed the county
safe in Savannah. Mo-. and was tracked back
to Seymour, where he was seized, and, in
carried back without extradition papers.
This was necessary, says Mr.. Pinkerton,
because there was no chance Of extradition.
He was tried and sentenced to twenty-five
years in the p~enitentiary. A few months
later the other brothers of that name and
Charles Anderson held UP a train near
Marshfield. i'm this State. throwing the mes
senger off the train when moving at full
speed and getting $50, 1000. Two were i'm
mediately arrested in this city, and two
were extradited from Canada One night
the four were hanged by a mob in the cor
ridor of the Jail in New Albany. Subse-
quently, nine of their abettors living in the
vicinity of Seymour were hanged by a
vigilance committee. There has not been
a case of train robbing in southern Indiana
since the execution of the Renos. whereas,
previous to that event, one occurred every
sixty days.
Mr.. Pinkerton proceeds to infinitely de-
scribe all of the subsequent attempts to
rob trains until the present year, which
have not been so numerous as one might
panies put the best detectives upon the
robberies, and sooner or later all Of the
leading outlaws have either been arrested
and sent to the penitentiary for long periods
or nave died violent deaths, being killed
while resisting arrest. The greater part Of
them have "died with their boots on" The
success in hunting down such outlaws in
theIpast shows hat the chances of escape
are not one in a hundred. while the steal
ings, as a rule, are small.
The business depression is, in the judg-
for the recent epidemic of traIn-robbing.
Still, the commission of the crime he be-
lieves to be largely due to the reading of
trashy novels. The minds of country lads
are infamed by this sort of literature and
they become the .dupes of designing men.
The majority of these robbers are recruit
ed in small country towns. He relates an
instance in which one of the three robbers
was a boy who had never seen a train until
that which he assisted to hold UP.
The most important step to be taken to
for Congress to make it a crime against
the United States to hold up trains. Not
only does a State line act as a barrier for
the protection of escaping robbers where
pursued by State or local officers, but
there are sections of the country in which
the local officers dare not take a part in
hunting down and arresting such notorious
criminals as train-robbers. Those who re-
call the career of the James brothers and
their confederates, who for years terrorized
several counties in Missouri, and the Reno
brothers in Jaskson county, in this State,
cannot doubt that officers who undertook
to arrest such desperadoes would forfeit
their lives by so doing.