The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1895-04-18
AMERICAS VID0CQ.
THE CAREER OF ByENEs, NEW
yORK'S FAMOUS DETECTIVE.
He Broke Up the Strongest and Clev'
crest Band OF Burglars Ever
Organized-A Dramatic
Lexow Witness.
TTHOMAS BYRNES was n plain
youno Irisbman when hp was


then Just come home from the war,
where he had served in Ellsworth's
Zouaves in the same company with
William Murray, whom he succeeded
as Superintendent OF Police twenty
nine years later.
Byrnes did his first police duty in
the Fifteenth Precinct, where he was
afterward to do his greatest work,
that which secured him promotion
and fame as detective. Five years
he patroled, trying doors and chasing
drunks about. Then ho became
rouudsman, and in the following year,
1869, sergeant. On July i, 1870, he
was made captain and assigned to the
Twenty-third Precinct.
He served in turn in the Twenty
third. the Twenty-first and Fifteenth
Precincts, and on the Broadway squad.
Then he went back to tho Fifteenth,
and did not leave the Mercer Street
Station House again until he was
called to headquarters, on March, IL,
1850, to take charge of the detective
force.
The immediate cause OF that pro-
motion was his successful campaign
against the burglars who. in the fall
Of 1878, robbed the Manhattan Saw
ings Bank of S3,O00,0OO. The bank
was in Byrnes's precinct, and he took
up the pursuit of the band OF burglars
the strongest and most cleverly or
ganized TINT had ever worked in any
city-with a persistency and skill that
finally won its reward.
The band was broken up, run to
earth or scattered. Most of its men,
bers were sent to prison for long
terms. So conclusive was the victory
over lawlessness Of that form that no
bank safe In New York has ever since
been "cracked." Bank robbers have
found it healthier elsewhere.
To Byrnes was given the task of re-
organizing the detective force, then
troop of broken-down policemen, who
worked, il they worked at all, without
system or purpose. He began by cstab-
fishing an office in Wall street on the
day of his appointment, and in MAX
ing Fulton street the deadline against
crooks, below which mono of them was
allowed. If one ventured nearer the
financial centre. he was arrested on
general principles. His plan worked
we'll. Wall street has been safe since
from the kind of robbery the police
can prevent. II brought Bylnes his
reward too. He testified before the
Lexow Committee chat his solicitude
Tor the rich had brought him cool
$3.50, 900 at least through "oppor-
tunities" afforded him by Gould and
others.
At Headquarters he put back on
post twenty-one of the twenty. eight
detectives he found there, and put
other men in their places. The de.
tective staff, when he had remodeled
it and made it a very efficient body,
numbered forty men with the rank of
sergeant. He himself had been made
Inspector in order to give him
authority in the precincts.
! His ambition reached ont for
supreme control, and all the ward men
were put under his rule at one time,
but the police system was not elastic
en- ough to let him have the desired
free play with these, and that part OF
the plau was dropped.
Inspector Byrnes became justly ia
nous for his management of the de-
tectve force, and, had he rested there,
would have been q very unique per
sonage in police history. He drove
thieves and rascals into exile under an
IRON rule and rigid system of ac.
,ount kept with and of, all malefac.
tors, which bore good fruit for the
,ity. But on April IL, 1892, he sue
seeded Murray as Superintendent, and
his troubles began.
He was too big man for the job,
or not big enough, according to the
way one looks at it. At all events his
ambition was too big. From the first
he was not in accord with the Police
Board. He desired autocratic powers
and meddled constantly with legisla
ton to secure his end. The history oi
his chieftaincy has been a record Of
pulling and hauling between him and
the Police Commissioners, to which
even the Lexow Committee busines!
did not put an end.
The story OF the committee is well
remembered. 1t disclosed gross cor
ruption in the Police Department, bu
failed to smirch Superintendent Byrne
personally. His testimony on thu
stand, with his acknowledgements of hi
wealth acquired through his service
to the rich, made the dramatic ending
OF the investigation. New York Sun
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