Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-12-27
TIE LAN OF HEREDTY. Young Jesse James Seems tc be Following in the Foot
 steps of His Father. THE NOTORIOUS GANG. Sons of Baptist Minister They Developed an Amazing Ca
 pacity for Crime.
THE NOTORIOUS GANG.

to Stand in Their Way-Their Adventure
 With the Guileless Cashier of a County
 Fair.
 The dominating power of heredity over the individual is once more forcib- ly illustrated by the arrest in Kansas City, of Jesse James, Jr., for the al- legged participation in the holdup and robbery of a Missouri Pacific express train.
 Not yet has the elder generation of the public forgotten the criminal ex- ploits of the famous James Boys" re- spectively. and father and the uncle of Jesse, Jr., who for a quarter of a century headed a gang of train rob- bers and bandits that terrorized the Southwest.
 They were the sons of respectable Baptist minister. The father went to California in 1S49 and died there in 1851, driven away from home, 1t is said, by his wife, from whom the sons seem to have inherited their deviltry. The latent evil in them was brought out by the war. Early in 1861 Frank James, who had just reached his majority, joined Quantrell's band of guerillas, in which he soon became noted for feres cious daring. Jesse joined a year later, and soon eclipsed his brother and all other members of that gang of murder CTS and cutthroats, masquerading as soldiers. Both brothers participated in the sacking and burning of Law renee, Kan, when nearly every male inhabitant was puthlessly murdered, and ill the massacre at Centralia, Mo, where, after the village itself had been plundered, the guerillas waylaid an east-bound train. robbed the passen- gers and killed thirty-two sick soldiers en route for the St. Louis hospitals, be- side fifty members of a company of Iowa volunteers, who had hurried to the rescue.
 When the war ended the State be- came too hot to hold the guerillas. Jesse James, with 8 congenial spirit named George Shepherd, fled to Texas, while Frank followed the fortunes of Quantrell into Kentucky, where he es- capped by the merest accident from be- ing in the fight when QuantrelI was mortally wounded and his band exter- minated.
 Comparatively little is known of the Jameses, except a personal adventure or two, from this time until 1868. In that year they began the life which made them famous as bank and train robbers. Early in the spring Jesse James, accompanied by Cole" Young CT, ZAP and George Shepherd and Jim" White, dashed into RusselIville, Ky, and robbed the bank of $1400O Part of the party entered } the bank, while the others remained outside and began a fusillade up and down the street to prevent the approach of help. rode away, and, though vigorously pur- sued, escaped.
 One of their most daring atrocities was committed at Kansas City in the autumn of 1872. The County Agrfcul- tural Fair was going on, when three men were seen to ride up to the gate of the grounds. They were well mounted and wore long linen dusters and wide brimmed hats. On reaching the gate one dismounted, handing his bridle reins to his comrades. He approached the ticket office, and, looking through the window, said to the cashier;-"I l was to say I was Jesse James, and told you to hand out that tin box of money, what would you say?"
 "Td say I'll see you in first" :" was the contemptrIous reply.
 Well, that's just who I am-Jesse James-and you had better hand 1t out pretty quick, or PlI'-and the rest oi the sentence was finished by Ievelling a huge navy revolver at the cashier. The box was handed out with its con- tents of $10,000. Jesse remounted. and the three desperadoes began firing their pistols, and hurriedly rode off. The alarm became general. and almost i'm mediately pursuing party was organ ized, but with no results.
 Train and stage robberies followed the bank rob5eries. In many of their murderous exploits members of the gang were killed or caught, but such was the terror inspired by the James. es that for more than ten years during which price was set on their head. no one was found to earn tue naone, by betraying them.
 The offer of these sums led to tn killing of Jesse James in April, 1882, b, Robert Ford, a lad of twenty, who wa in collision with the detectives, bu who had been accepted as promising recruit by the unsuspicfous bandi' Frank James a few months lateg gay himself up, was tried and was acqult ted on successive charges of robber and murder in the teeth of the plafnes evidence, but amid the pIstudias of Western assemblage. He then settle down in his father-in-1aw's home. in In dependence Mo. In the fall Of 1896 h accepted a position as special messen ger on an express train, his duty bein