The St. Johns herald., 1893-11-30
TRAIN ROBBERY.
Genesis of the Business Of Robbing
 Railway Passengers.
Some of the Noted Desperadocs Who Died with Their Boots On-The Only Eff caciOus Method of Dealing with
 the Outlaws.


 the Outlaws.
 The first train robbery to attract general attention occurred less than twenty years ago at Gad's Hill, a small station on the Iron Mountain railroad. The public mind was stunned by the audacity of the enterprise, and it has not yet completely recovered from the shock, says the St. Louis Republic. The murderer with mask on his face, who stalks through a train and bullies braver men than he, has been from the first invested with an heroic per sonality that is not his due. He is, generally speaking, a coward, who never shoots unless he has the drop and who would not think of risking his precious carcass by pursuing the comparatively creditable but more hazardous occupation of stealing horses.
 Because his lay was unique the train robber was accepted from the first as a king among outlaws, and though it has been demonstrated again and again that a train, with it's sleepy passengers, it's unprotected express messenger, it's engineer, in whom the instinct of self preservation is strong, and it's conductor, who is more or less human, is easier to hold up than a hen roOst sentineled by faithful house dog, the train robber will have imitators as long as morbid fools read yellow backed literature.
 Every year since the Gad's Hill affair a new crop has been produced. True, the sheriff has usually been in at the harvest as chief reaper, occasionally adding the duties of a hangman to those of gaolkeeper. The lack of ade- quate returns, which is peculiarly char acteristic of the industry, does not de- ter the ambitious neophite, who has intoxicated his so-called brain with ''Sixteen-String Jack"
 The "James Boys and Younger Brothers" who were pioneers in the business, are mostly dead or in the penitentiary; Sam Bass, their earliest and ablest iRnitator, was, with his en- tire following, wiped off the face of the earth during the first year of his career; Cove Johnson and his three heutenants were hanged at Clarksville, Ark, on one scaffold three moaths after they quit holding up plow-handles and went in for holding trains as a means of livelihood; Rude Burrows, who was for time thought to be in- vincible, drew on his boots one morn ing and died before he had a chance to take them off. It was learned that his strength was in the main geographical. He knew the country His neighbors also knew it, and when they finally went out after the reward that had been offered for their quondam friend they got it and him.
 The fate of the Daltons is too recent to require comment. Dozens of the smaller fry of the profession" are in the pCnitentiary. Every mothers son of them has been or will be the subject of a certain book, the title of which is changed from time to time for obvious reasons. This book is the genealogical tree of the train robber. propagates the species.
 Remedies innumerable for the train robbing habit, which just now seems to be epidemic, have been suggested. The most rational and thoroughly practical is to make it dangerous un- dertalzing. If it were a capital offense in Missouri to attempt to rob train the statute might result in driving the bandits across the state line, but it would not reduce the number of rob- berries half of one per cent.
 Viewed from any standpoint the train robber promises to be with us as long as the printing press and the free school. This is not an argument against either of these agencies of civilization. The naturally vicious will be bad in any event, and they run their course sooner, perhaps, in this line than they would in any other.
 Dead train robbers are absolutely harmless, and the most rational way to treat any member of the guild is to shoot him whenever and wherever he is found plying his vocation. Let the railroads put guards on their trains whose business it will be to kill any train robber who shows himself. Such men are easily found and when the rail roads begin to haul in dead bandits, as well as dynamite-shattered express cars, the business of train robbing will soon cease to thrive.