The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-06-07
Durham Should Have Been
Taken Two Hours After He
Left His Horse.
A Way for the Southern Pacific to Stop
Train Robb ry-Should Keep
Trackers at Fresno.

1OAOc O1fDdn IEdI-ClSCO dliQ OtAOI C1LlCos
There is a man in this town now who has
theory as to what could be done, and he is
man of vast experience. For q number
of years he had a squad of black crackers
under his command in North Queensland.
He says it is the easiest thing in the world
for the railroad and the officials to trail
down the desperate criminals. Get
a squad of black crackers, he says; with
these he is willing to guarantee that no
desperate character can here commit
crime and get away, unless he manages to
do so aboard ship. or by a to him fortunate
circumstance in getting an early passage
out by train.
Had we had some of the skilled black
crackers of Queensland here when the
two bandits robbed the Oregon and Cali
fornia train, and besides killing brave
Sheriff, got away with $4,000 in coin, we
would have speedily apprehe nded the rob-
Der who survived. Had he been able to
hide his coin as he did at the time of the
robbery without interruption, no guileless
tramp like Harms could, he says, have
come along, found the money and got
away successfully, as Harms did.
The gentleman IN question is J. j. Brook,
a nephew of the Duke of Fife. He was for
five years in North Queensland, in charge
OF crew Of the black crackers. He car
ried great deal of gold from the mines
across the desert to the cities. He usually
only had four or five men with him, and
robbers could have held him up and de-
spoiled him of his wealth at any time they
chose. 1t was no trouble 10 do that. In
= ~, Il r. IL
that that was the easiest thing to do in the
world. But it was after the money was
stolen that the trouble came. They could
not possibly elude the black crackers, who
glued themselves like Nemesis to their
footsteps.
There was no such thing as shaking
them off. go where they would, over
sandy deserts. rocky dehle, into the for
est and jungles. They might walk in the
water, but the place where they went in
and the place where they came out was
perfectly known to these black-skinned
men who toiled under the tropical sun
and who had been trained from infancy
and who had the blood of skilled crackers
for many generations behind them to aid
them in their work.
criminals have escaped in California has
frequently astonished me-" is the remark
which Mr.. Brook made in summing up
the matter. Here is this latest fiend,
Durham. The man might just as we'll
have been captured as not and at once.
From the very moment that he left his
horse in the deep valley near Mount Ham
ilton it ought to have been no trick at all
to have captured him. If / had had a
squad of these native crackers of North
Queensland and got them there any time
within twenty-four hours from the time
his horse was found it is as certain as GER
tain can be that he would have been
quickly caught. Ii the black crackers had
been with the officers when the horse was
caught two hours would not have been
more than were necessary before the MUIR
derer could have been TAKEN"
The theory of Mr.. Brook, though he is
somewhat modest as to recounting the
whole of it because, as is understood, of
restrictions put upon him at the time he
was in the employ of the North Queens
land Government, is that dozen Or so of
the most skill d black crackers should be
brought here and kept for just such emer-
gencies as those that have been reeounted.
These native black crackers are accus-
toned to very hot climate. 1t has been
suggested that place like Fresno would
be admirable as permanent living place
for them. There they coulu live much
after the same manner, if they chose, as
in their own country.
81 have had great deal of experience
IA hio0E of fip
another" said one of the gentlemen yes
terday. ~ think people here, although
they have heard much ABOUT the powers of
these native blacks do not by any means
know the phenomenal skill that the
best crackers possess. 1t is peculiar art.
and the natives, who are the widest and
the farthest away from civilization, pos
sess it in the most. Civilization seems to
dull this intuitive, almost supernat-
ural, knowledge that they possess in re-
gard to tracking. You must re-
member that from their earliest infancy
they are taught to watch the track of
every little bird, insect and animal. 1t is
the way they make their living. Their
lives depend upon it. Each child has to
learn to track an opossum, wallaby, or
whatever else it may want to satisfy hun
ger. This makes the natives won derfully
acute. They can not only tell track
when they see it, even where you would
not suppose there was a track, but they
can tell how old 1t is and arrive at all
kinds of CERTAIN conclusions in regard to
it. A little bent twig, the turning of
blade of glass. the angle at which a leaf
rests, and hundred other things of that
kind is whole alphabet to the black
tracker.
IAN ordinary man steps on stone, for
instance. Well, you look at the stone, and
you don't see anything, The trail is lost.
But black tracker comes up and looks at
the stone, and be sees there, perfectly out
lined, the whole impression of the foot.
He's got little black, beady eye that sees
like microscope. Perhaps he sees sand
on the stone, and he blows it away with
his breath, and he then looks again, and
he sees that other sand is packed down by
the middle of the sole of the foot firmly,
and he knows in sizing it up how old that
track is. All he has to do is to follow it
along.
''These native crackers are a timid