Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-08-02
MORE TRAIN
 ROBBERIES
]" Diamond Special
 Held Up.
Four Highwaymen Secured
 Everything Thirty Pas- sengers Had Several Tn. jured Because They Were Slow in Giving valuables

| e-
 Chicago, Aug. 2.-Four highway
 men, all heavily armed and two of them wearing masks. last night held
 up the passengers on the Illinois Cen rals Chicago & St Louis express
 train, known as the Diamond special,' on the outskirts of Chicago. as it
 neared Matteson, III
 The robbers secured all the money
 and valuables carried by the 30 pas sengers in the two Pullman sleeping cars, stopped the train and escaped in the darkness. The forward sleep CT was entered first, the occupants were aroused and, with nothing on but their night clothes were marched back to the Pullman car behind. Two of the passengers who were slow in re spending to the commands of the rob- bers were hit on the heads with q. hatchet and one was seriously injured. It was impossible last night to obtain the names of the injured passengers. When the passengers in the two cars had been lined up in the rear Pullman two of the robbers stood guard, one at each end of the cars with drawn revolvers The third, who is supposed to be the leader, ordered the passengers who had been com pelled to bring along their clothes from the first car, to throw the gar
 ments on the floor of the car. The l passengers in the rear car were then commanded to deposit their clothes in | the same heap. Then the leader with l the utmost coolness, began to search l the clothing for valuables. When he | had finished this search he made a close examination of the passengers for any money they might have se-
 creted.
 When the search had been completed all the booty was placed in four sack and the three robbers joined their companions who had stood guard III l the vestibule from the train. Pulling l the bellrope. the signal to the engi-. neer to stop was given and when the speed of the train had slackened
 sufficiently the robbers after having locked the doors of the car, Jumped off and fled in the darkness.
 So systematic was the work Of the robbers, and with so little confusion. that the train crew was unaware of what was going or. 1t was not untl' the engineer. in response to the signal, brought his train to stop, and seeing nothing of the remainder of the crew, walked back to the rear of the train to ascertain what was the matter, that ha learned of the robbery.
 No attempt was made to rob the mail or express cars.
 The robbers secured more than $1.O00 in money and yal1ables.
 E. H. Groce superintendent of teIegraphs for the Illinois Central who was one of the men robbed, left the train at Kankakee, and notified the Illinois Central police and detectives were sent out on a train to begin the search for the robbers.
 Superintendent Groce's story, as told at Kankakee, was as follows:
 "The men must have boarded the train at Harvey, for we were but few miles out when they appeared at the door of the last Pullman and, cursing the brakeman and porter, or dered them into the smoking compart- ment. They went through the car and ordered all the men out. At first the men seemed to think the affair joke and did not hasten. One of the ban dits then fired into berth whose oc- cupant was slower than the rest. He came scrambling out in hurry and the rest responded more readily to the orders after that.
 ''One other passenger, a boy IS years of age, was but partly awake and the shot startled him. He, too, was slow and when bandit told him to get into the aisle the robber struck him with a hatchet. He was cut se- yerely.
 '"aThey drove all the men to the smok ing compartment and there two of them searched us while the others stood guard at the doors. They took $1OO from me and $500 from man near me. I guess those were the largest individual amounts they ob- tained. They searched the women who were quite awake, but did not bother those who were in the berths where the curtains were drawn. In the second Pullman there were only five or six passengers and they had an experience like the rest of us."
 The train which left Chicago at 9:27 | o'clock carried many passengers for | the St Louis fair and all remained on | the train despite their experience.