Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1902-01-16
WAYS OF HOLD-UP MEN.
POINTS REGARDING AN INDUSTRY
THAT THRlvES IN CHICAGO.

HOld-Up The Highwnynan OFTEN as
Frightened AS His Victim Is - A Pretty
Sure and Safe Method of Protection.
The Chicago Tribune recently con-
tanned the following article:
Most persons who have never met
a hold-up man while the later is ply
ing his vocation have wrong con-
ception of him. To most men he rep
resents an angry, hungry beast prey
ing on society," The conventional
highwayman must be ugly and have
broad shoulders and curse horribly.
He must have a trusty weapon and
maybe two, one as trusty as the other.
He says Stop, throw up your hands,"
as melodramaticallly as any Jack
Sheppard or Claude Duval, and under
no circumstances 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 without set of
footlights and freshly painted seen
cry, and perhaps an orchestra to dole
out slow and creepy music.
But that is not the sort of highway
1IlttH tleiL S5etS dlIeSIcu. Allu lIOoC
who are taken into custody may be
called fair examples of those who es-
cape, it is easy to see that the hold
up man this winter, or any other win
ter for that matter, is neither a chiv-
alrous Robin Hood nor a heartless
rUfIian. More often he is the latter,
but the general rule is that he is
an experienced, thick-witted criminal,
trying to make living cheaply. OF
course, Red Sullivan, the short man
of the famous team of the long and
short men, who terrorized the town
four witners ago; Harry Featherstone,
Kid Murphy, and a few others of that
sort. the hierarchy of their profession,
as it were must not be considered fair
examples of the hold-up man. They
mad more daring and more strength
than the men who will work this will
ter. The successors to those Grim
inals are ordinary stock, and once
they are understood successful high
way robberies will be less frequent.
Much of their strength is ficticious.
the idea of an attack in the night
carries freight with it to many men,
and the appearance of the highway
man is exaggerated in ferocity by
the previous impression of his kind.
Those hold-up men who are known to
the police now are, with few excep-
tions, the cheapest sort Of cheap Grim
inals. They are born usually in a
neighborhood where honesty is
quoted at considerably lower figure
than the ability to get away from the
police. They grow up on the streets.
and then fall into the all night saloon
habit. One saloon in the levee dis
trict is the harbor of most hold-up
men who are, as the actors say, "at
liberty" A night scene in this
place is interesting. Boys just out of
the reformatory at Pontiac, paroled
convicts and some men freed from
Joliet. the amateurs who are going
into lives of crime because they i'm
agine there is glory in them, and
some men and boys who get into the
place by mistake, are there to drink
and talk crime and criminals. The
police or the Harrison street station
let the place run because they believe
III tlLC COHCCnll tllOu VI tllt ldDllutS.
Aney never have to go far to look for
the men they may happen to want.
Inc police have stool pigeons" who
are hired spies, in the place and they
watch it closely. Hold-up men in en-
bryo are to be found there, and in a
lew other places of the sort. But they
are sadly lacking in the qualities that
appeal to the seeker after the pic
turesque in criminals. They are not
the exceptions to the rule that hold
up men are cheap thugs. The excep-
tions are safe in Jail.
The common variety go armed, of
course, but the armament is as old
fashioned, usually, as the custom oi
mounting Quaker guns of wood. AS
soon as one of them is arrested his
revolver is confiscated and a needle
is not found in haystack more sell
dom than is good weapon found on
a hold-up man. The guns are usually
cheap bulldog revolvers that might
have cost a dollar and a quarter. If
the industrious hold-up man paid more
than two dollars for his weapon he
was grossly swindled Some of them
carry sacks filed with lead, and with
these weapons made in the humble
home of the operator must be classed
the slungshot or bit of plugged leath-
e" which is more often than not con-
structed at home and to suit
the individual taste of the
man who is to WELD it. Many
times have hold-up men been arrested
with revolvers which have not en-
joyed the completeness that goes with
a weapon which is fit for shooting pur-
poses. Sometimes it is the cylinder
that is missing. Sometimes there is
no hammer, and often the trigger,
that constant companion of a we'll
enuinned raNNlYer has heen miSsinlr