The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-12-28
NO MORE BANK BURGLARS
MECHANICAL DEVICES AT LAST
BAFFLE MOST EXPERT THIEVES.
Petty Thieving Their LOt-OnIy a Few
Famous Cracksmen, Stricken with
Age and Poverty, Are Left.
Star.


ders it utterly impossible for one to dis
turb vault protected with it without de-
lection, but it also gives a signal at the
first attempt to raise a window, file bar,
or enter a door. So thoroughly does it pro-
tect the repositories of great wealth that
it has defied all of the wonderful skill
Of the cracksmen, until to-day the few
living experts in that class of crooks are
found either in abject poverty or devoting
the genius which brought them millions
twenty years ago to the practice of crime
of the most petty character. One can
scarcely fail to notice the utter absence OF
great bank robberies during the past five
or ten years. A few have been successfully
performed in that time, but with one single
exception the money was obtained during
banking hours from the cashier as he
glanced down the barrel of a six-shooter
The exception was when a stranger en-
gagged a bank cashier in conversation while
he hooked out a roll of bills with the aid
of piece of wire from under the Of
ficials nose.
The electrical burglar alarm of to-day,
the great modern safes, which will even re-
sist dynamite are the result of q series
of bank robberies extending over a period
of twenty or thirty years, which were con-
Ceived and successfully carried out by
band of criminals, many of whom are alive
to-day. Strange as it may seem, these men
have driven themselves out of business.
The almost fabulous wealth which they
stole made the invention of mechanical de-
vices which would outwit their skill necess-
airy, and they came in the course of time,
until to-day a robbery like that of the
Manhattan Bank or one like that of the
Ocean Bank of New York city, where over
$1,000 900 in money and securities were
ried away, is wholly impossible without
collision with the custodianS of the vaults.
Even then it is doubtful if one could be
successfully carried out no matter how
much care was employed, for experiments
have shown that even the men who safe
guard the vaults of the great banks of the
country by surrounding them with net
work of wires cannot go through these
silent guardians without giving an alarm.
TOOK BRAINS AND SKILL.
Twenty years ago a bank robbery with
proceeds up in the hundreds of thousands
was possible. but could only be success
fully carried out by men of brains and skill,
who had the patience to study their enter
prise well before entering upon it. Bank Of
| ficials were not one whit less vigilant in
those days than they are now, but the
brain of the crook had gone ahead of the
brain Of the honest man, a condition hard
to understand to-day, when the very re-
verse is the fact. Few people have any idea
| or the amount of study put into a job by the
| cracksmen before any real attempt to real
| lie is made. One of the best living illustra-
| lions of the old school of crooks is Maxi
/ milan SChoenbein, better known TO the
police of the world Count Max Shin
! burn. After defying the vault and safe
| makers of the world and looting banks in
| this country and abroad for an aggregate
! gain of $5,O0O,O00 this great criminal fell a
| N darn cnin IL ola cod
! not long ago from the Clinton On. " Pris-
on, after five years term for robOing the
Middleburg Bank, penniless, gray with age,
! broken in health and spirit. The story of
| the mans life is like a romance, and is full
/ of chapters which one finds it hard to be-
heve. In his prime he was truly the great
| butcher, who fought his way to freedom
scores of times over the bodies of his own
| victims, excelled him in daring perhaps,
but no criminal that ever lived had his
mechanical genius
Shinburn is a German, was taught the
trade of machinist and lOcksmith by his
| father, came to this country before he was
seventeen years old, and had launched on a
! career of crime before he was eighteen
He had wonderful skill as locksmith and
| was taken up by two noted criminals,
George Bliss and Fairy Mcclure, whom
| he met in a New York gambling house.
They used him in robbing a New Jersey
| bank, and the success of the venture was
| due primarily to his skill. He progressed
| rapidly, and as his ability became known in
! the crook world his services were in con-
slant demand. He probably engaged in
| twenty robberies before his name became
| known to the authorities. He had scarcely
attained his majority when he was plan
ming out big robberies for himself. At that
| time the only safe in general use in banks
| and business houses in this country was
that made by the Lilly Company Shinburn
figured that a man who could master the
| secret of the Lilly combination lock could
loot every Lilly safe in the country
LEARNED TT All,
He decided to go to work for the Lilly
Company. Bliss and Mcclure agreed to
keep him in funds while he studied Such
an expert machinist as Shinburn had no
difficulty in getting the job he wanted 1t
took him over a year to obtain all the
knowledge he needed for the successful
contamination of the series of robberies he
had planned, but he kept at the work with
patience. The most important discovery he
made at the time was that person with
acute hearing could, by putting his ear
near the lock of a Lilly safe and turning
the DIAL discover at what numbers the
tumblers dropped into place. He made a
careful study of difficult combinations and
is credited with a discovery that is alleged
to have driven the Lilly safe out of the
market He removed the combination from
a safe, and then placed an impressonable
piece Of paper under it. Then he turned
the dial slowly and found that whenever a
combination NUMBER was reached the i'm
preston on the paper became more dis
tinct. BY using a microscope Shinburr
was able to tell what the combination
numbers were With this mass Of valuable
information Shinburn and his associates
plundered Lilly safes all over the country
finally driving the Lilly Company out OF
business Time and again the man was ar
rested, and several convictions are on rec
ord against him, but no prison was ever
strong enough to hold him for long. With
the police of the country after him Shin
| burn went to New York city and invested
a large sum of money in the stock market
He was warned to fly, but he calmly
waited to see how his investment would
turn out. A sudden rise in the marke
brought him fortune and with over Z
million dollars of stolen money he saileC
| for Belgium, with which country tn,
United States had no extradition treaty a
that time. He purchased the title ant
estate of a descrepit nobleman and bios
somed forth as Count Shinburn. He spen
thousands of dollars entertainments
the magnitude of his operations on tn
bourse staggered the native speculatOrs
were commented on all over Europe Fo
fifteen years he kept w this gait; thel
came a series of misfortunes, and tn
great bank burglar peHniless one
more.
IN FOREIGN PARTS
: He went 10 Paris, met some fugitiv
: American crooks there and planned tn
robbery Of the Provincial Bank at WHERE'S
: Belgium. The merest accident in the wor
resulted In the arrest of Shinburn an
his pals; he was sent TO jail for five years