The Savannah morning news., 1901-03-12

and gold mounted, was found on the body
of an unknown lady who not long since
committed suicide in a flrst-class railway
carriage near Scarborough, on what
should have been her wedding morning.
Another mysterious railway carriage
tragedy, one which was the talk of Eng
land for days, is recalled by a pair of
ladys kid gloves-about which there still
fingers the faint, sweet odor of stephanotis
and a long-bladed stiletto-like knife.
fragment of ordinary notified soap,
reposing upon worn and rusty pocket
book, is reminiscent of the career of
Tomlnson, the would-be train wreclSer,
whose exploits caused something very like
panic among the company's servants
In the autumn of 1898,
Four separate and determined attempts
at derailing trains tok place within a
week. in the vicinity, respectively, of
Northampton two, Peterborough and
Bedford. The latter it was that proved the
miscreants undong. A man was seen
washing iron rust off his hands near the
place where the train dashed into the OBJ
struction, and on Tomlinson's arrest on
suspicion, some days afterward, a cake
of soap was found him stained with
iron rust. Also, concealed i'm the lining
of his great coat was the pocketbook In
question. wherein were noted down tho
exact arrival of the trains upon which
the attempts had been made at the points
where the distractions had been placed.
That piece of soap and that pocketboolS
sufficed to send their owner into penal
servitude for twenty years.
The robbery of railway trucks in
transit and when left temporarily I'M
guarded in sidings, has Of late years been
reduced to something very like a science
among the peculiar brand Of professional
| criminals who make a speciality of this
class Of work, and very varied and inter-
esting is the collection of tools which
has been accumulated at the expense of
the fraternity
One specimen IL shown, for instance
which might be described as a regular
| truck robbers wade mecum comprising
as It does in one instrument a Jenny.
| wrench. saw. screwdriver, glmlet, wedge,
| center bit and pincers
other single jemmies there are, made 10
unscrew into several parts, so as to be
conveniently slowed away about the per-
| son; and side by side with these latter
| are several queer-lookng lengths of rub
| Der tubing and metal siphons. used by
wine and spirit thieves for tapping the
/ contents of casks,
! Hundreds of gallons OF costly liquor are
i often distracted while in transit, by the
| aid OF these pieces OF apparatus, by or
| ganized gangs OF clever rascals, some of
whom even go so far as to don complete
suits OF uniform similar to that worn by
| the company's servants, I'm order the bet
ter to prosecute their nefarious calling.
The highest class OF railway depredator
and the most difficuh TO clrcumvent. IL
| the professional forger Of waybills. There
are. in the Derby Museum. innocent-look-
ing bits of yellow paper by means OF which
property TO the value Of thousands OF
pounds has been stolen. Printing, en-
| tries and signatures are all forged, but
so clevery as 20 deceive In some In
stances even the very clerks who made
out the original and genuine documents
and the officials who signed them.
Then there are also piles on piles OF
forged tickets-used mostly by low-class
betting men on big race days-notes on
the Bank of Engraving, and bad money
of every kind. And in a separate depart
ment is the "Rogues' Gallery" where
ranged along the walls are the portraits
of pretty well all the known criminals
who make speciality OF railway "busi-
ness"
These portraits are printed by the gross
and copies exchanged, not only with the
chiefs Of the detective departments of all
English railways, but with most of those
on the continent and In America. SO that
a railway crook" once arrested and pho
tographed. stands little chance of escap-
| ing Identification II captured In the flu
ture, no matter where he may choose to
renew his depredations.