The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1901-11-03
IRE NOT PICTURESQUE
Highwaymen in These Days
Are Just Common Thugs.
PISTOLS ALWAYS CHEAP
Their Habits and the WAY
They Attack.
PISTOLS ALWAYS CHEAP

The old question as TO the place to
which all the pins go is not half so inter
esting or important just now as the one
IN which inquiry is made as to where
the hold-up men come from, what work
may be expected from them this fall
and winter and what should be done if
on some dark and lonely street an honest
pedestrian is brought suddenly face to
face with q dismally grim-looking re-
volver with a dismally- man at
| the other end, says the Chicago tribune.
This IS an early season for the hold-up
/ man. What mas sometimes been de-
scribed as Carnival Of crime" has not
set IN, but there have been several rob
berries on the street and more unsuccess-
ful attempts in the same direction. Flat
robbers and porch climbers and thieves
who work while householders eat must
be eliminated from the class of hold-up
men. They are not hold-up men, A hoIa-
up man in police history is a citizen, who
! as Chief O'Nein says. is one, who,
1 pressed by necessity, and aided by op-
/ portunity," commands persons on the
street to stand and deliver.
! Most persons who have never met a
/ hold-up man while the later is plying his
vocation have d wrong conception of him.
/ To most men he represents and angry.
/ hungry beast preying on society. The
/ conventional highwayman must be ugly
and have shoulders and curse horribly.
He must have a tTusty weapon and may
be two. one as trusty as the other. He
says: Stop. Throw up your hands, as
fundamentally as any Dick Sheppard
CT Claud Duval and under no circum-
stances must his demand for money be
denied. That is the good old idea of him
1t is romantic, and no highwayman of
that class could work to advantage with
out set of footlights and freshly painted
scenery, and perhaps an orchestra to dole
out slow and creepy music.
But that is not the sort of hghwayman
that gets arrested. And as those who
are taken into custody may be called
fair examples Of those who escape, it
is easy to see that the hold-up man this
winter, or any other winter for that
matter, is neither d chivalrous Robin
Hood, nor a heartless rufian. More often
he is the latter. but the general rule
is an inexperienced, thick-witted Grim
,
course, Red Sullivan, the short man Of
the famous team of the long and short
men, who terorized the town four win
tiers ago; Harry Featherstone, whom the
Tribune was instrumental in sending to
Joliet; Kid Murphy, and a few others Of
that TX, the hierarchy Of their profess
sion, as it We're, must not be considered
fair examples of the hold-up man. They
had more daring and more strength than
the men who VIII work this winter. The
successors to those criminals are ordi-
nary stock, and once they are under
stood successful highway robberies viii
be less frequent.
Much of their strength is fictitious {
The idea of an attack in the night car (
ries fright with it 10 many men, and the /
appearance of the highWayman is exag- |
gerated in ferocity by the previous i'm /
preston OF his kind. Those hOld-up men /
who are known to the police now are a /
sort Of cheap criminals, with a few eX- /
ceptions. They are born usually in neigh /
borhoods where honesty is quoted at I
considerably lower figure than the ahil- /
ity TO get away from the police. They 1
grow up on the streets and then fall into /
the all-night saloon habit. one saloon (
in the levee district is the harbOr of
most hold-up men, as the actors say, are /
lat liberty" \ night scene in the place /
is interesting. Boys just out Of The re-
formatory at Pontiac paroled convicts,
and some freed men from Joliet, the am
ateurs who are going into lives of crime
because they imagine there is glory in
them. and some men and boys who get in
the place by mistake are there to drink
and to talk crime ana criminals. The
police of the Harrison street station let
the place run because they believe in
the concentration OF the habitues. They
never have to so far to look for the men
they happen TO want. The police have
stool pigeons" who are hired spies in
the place. and they watch it closely
Hold-up men in embryo are TO o. found
there and in few other places of the
sort. But they are sadly lacking in the
qualities that appeal 10 the seeker after
the picturesque in criminals They are
not the exceptions TO the rule that hold
up men are cheap thugs. The excep-
tons are in Jail.
The common or garden variety go
armed. of course, but the armament is
as old-fashi0ued usually as the custom
of mounting Quaker guns OF wood. AS
soon rs one of them is arrested. his re-
volver is confscated and needle is not
found iu g haystac5 more seldom than is
a good weapon found on q hold-up man.
Tie suns are usually cheap bulldog re-
volrers that might have cost a dollar and
a quarter. II the industrious hold-up
man paid more than two dollars for his
r--,-,-, no vras r-oss-.- sv-fr.7lad Some