Waterbury evening Democrat., 1893-11-06

CHIEF IlAEEIGAN.
he did. II" fought cunning with cunning
He set the 'cuncy men against each other.
He granted immunity to some after getting
them dead to rights, ON condition that they
turned traitors to their associates. There
was not a gang in the country that did not
have his agents rs nembers. IL was a des-
perate case that required desperate RIM
edy. The money turned out in those days
by such gangs that of Ballard and Nc
Cartney was of such superior work manship
that it readily sold to the showers at 5 to
l. That i, il required leo good money
to buy S5,uN Of the queer The finest coun-
terfriters in all ages have been Italians
Whitelry soon had some Italians on his
staff. The Couutcrivitcr~ had wealth in
abundance and the power and iufiut nee
that money will buy. The government
had. huwrVer, the largest purse. and OF
course il won. One 10y one the masters Of
the profession Nvvrr t.thyn in. but Jhcrs was
much blOuL~hvd anal treasure spent before
the hach bone 81 l Ev conspiracy yy.lS broken.
But broken it WIS. and couutvrfvitiug i
lead TO-DAY.
"Another class Of crime that requires cN-
ecutive ability Of high order, coolness and
courage was what we call bank cracking
The robbery of the Manhattan bank Of New
York, the Chemical of New Nork. and a
dozen Others in the east and New England
Of hundreds Of thousands Of dollars need
not be mentioned in detail. Banks were
tunneled into and circumvented in a dozen
ways
The same tactics were never employee
twice In self defense the hanks met the
skill Of the crack Smen with the skill Of the
shoemaker. There is not a hank safe in
any big hank OF the country today that safe
blowers could open if given - hours unin-
terrupted work ut il. When the safes be
gan TO get too strong for the cracksmen,
they were equal to the emergency. In the
dead of night the robbers entered the home
Of the cashier and with a pistol at his head
he was marched To the hank and forced to
open the safe Of which he knew the comb
nation.
The robbery Of the Northampton bank
was the most striking instance of this phase
of crime The r,-sult was the invention OF
the time lock. From this time the banks
were safe from every source OF attack eX-
cept dishonest cashiers, and to meet even
this an extradition treaty with Canada has
been negotiated In the subtreasury in this
city the time lock combination can only be
operated when the hour of opening arrives
by two men, each Of whom is acquainted
with but oue-half the combination.
For every dollar that the express com
panies have had stolen by train robbers,
they have had SlOO taken by dishonest en-
pluyeCS. The history OF consplracieS against
express companies would fill a large vol
ume, and it would certainly be the most
interesting contribution to the criminal
/ history o. thu world that could be written.
In nine cases cut OF ten, and the cases mum
/ bcred into the hundreds, a messenger or
/ trusted employee WAS implicated, generally
/ in connection with some former employee
| Of the company. Messengers were found
/ gagged and bound, drugged or beaten into
insensibility and bleeding from dozen
/ wounds. II did not take long, however. 10
adopt the rule OF suspeCting the messenger.
That Clrw was marked first Of all The
circumstances surrounding the robbery OF
| Messenger FUtherinEham 10y Fred Witt
/ rock were 80 closely ON the lines Of the old
/ time eXprcSs rObberies that the express Off
Cials and the detectives in charge of the
case were more than warranted in their un-
[ just suspicion of the messenger. They re-
luctantly gave up their theory Of his guilt,
! and not until his innocence WIS manifest &c
the world. 10 perfect i the system OF sur
VIGILANCE now Of express company EN-
ployees that they cannot hope to elude pO
lice vigilance should they join in a crime
against the company"