Arizona republican., 1898-03-16
WHOLESALE CATTLE THIEvING
Organized Gangs in New Mexico-He-
 roic Measures Adopted.

Very few people outside of the range cattle business have any idea of the
 enormity of the operations of cattle ! thieves and the magnitude of the sys-
 tenn under which they work. It is the
 bane of the cattle industry in the west
 and the efforts to suppress 1t thus lar have mostly proved inadequate to cope with the forces of the thieves. It will
 take well directed state movement l with courage, force and perseverance to wipe out this giant system of rob ! bery. A recent dispatch from Denver to the Globe-Democrat says: The war on rustlers and thieves who are depop-
 ulating the ranges has assumed serl- ous phase. The territory of New Mex ico has taken up the matter, and the
 outlook is fair for some sudden deaths on the ranges. The largest stock firms have been literally driven from the ranges. Several have just saved i themselves from bankruptcy by hur- | riedly selling their cattle before the losses became too great. For many weeks the matter has been in the
 hands of ThieIs detective agency.
 Special agents have received commis- sions as territorial stock inspectors. etuu lHcy nave QuIelIy SdtuoTou IulOf- nation which reveals an alarming state of affairs.
 It is stated that not oniy are there several organized gangs at work on | the ranges, but hundreds of the con- panies' trusted men have stolen right and left.
 The territorial sanitary inspection board will meet at Las Vegas next fn foI cfn fO 11n tI1 organized gangs and to terrorize the individual thieves. The reports of the inspectors will be received. although
 every member of the board has been kept informed of devlopmnts The board is empowered to appoint any
 number of special inspectors, who are paid by the state. The plan suggested i is to form an organization similar to those proposed for Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, men accustomed to frontier | life, coura geous and with sufficient power to put summary end to the outlaws. The inspectors will be es-
 lected to some extent from the names selected by the detective company which has worked up the case, and they will probably be started out on the ranges in less than a week.
 Upon receipt of this dispatch by the | Globe-Democrat a representative of
 that paper called at Thiel's detective 1 agency in that city and secured the in formation that the present movement | against cattle thieves in New Mexico i Wyoming. Colorado, Idaho and Utah
 was first brought into life by the rob bery of a bank at Montpelier, Idaho l This bank was insured against robbery
 by an insurance company of Des 1 MOines, Iowa, which takes that class
 of risks. Naturally, the insurance
 company wanted to get some portion
 of the money back, and Thie1's detec-
 tive agency was engaged to send a
 man out to investigate. The robbers
 had been so careless in their work and l felt so secure in the organized vil-
 lainy that it was not hard to trace
 them to Vernal, Utah, a small town
 where the cattle thieves had a strong hold. It is so situated that a small
 force of determined men would have
 little difficulty in defending it from
 the attacks of much larger force
 After thoroughly going over the
 ground the detective came to the con- clusion that it would almost take a
 regiment of soldiers to capture the 200 robbers who made Vernal their | headquarters, and he so reported to
 the agency. Not far from the Wyom-
 ing and Utah state boundary line he found another stronghold of the rob-
 bers, near the town of Green River Tn
 Wyoming was another rendezvous
 called the Robbers Roost. Capt w
 s. Seavy, formerly chief of police ot
 Omaha, who works for the Denver
 branch of the Thiel agency, was also
 put upon the work of ferreting out
 this gang of wholesale robbers. and
 the result was that it was found that
 the thieves were so well organized and
 so numerous that they had the people
 thoroughly terrorized, and he reported
 that it was as much as a county off
 cer's life was worth to attempt making
 an arrest. It was found that the
 leader of the gang was a man named
 Cassidy; that he was assisted by ble
 and desperate lieutenants, and that
 their system of work was pretty near.
 1y perfect. The plan of getting the
 governors of the three states to co.
 operate was suggested by Capt Seavy |