The Savannah morning news., 1904-10-02

the whole party in gale OF merriment.
Meantime the barber and his two
"brothers," under cover Of this out
side diversion, were slowly cutting
their way through the wall and into
the back of the vault that stood next
10 IT, The job was long and tedious
nowadays Il would have been impossi-
Bile, for so important a vault would
net back up against any partition wall
whatever; but when 1t was finished the
rogues were many thousand dollars
richer, to say nothing of what they
had made honestly by shaving their
patrons, among them some OF the offi-
Gals Of the very hank against which
their secret labors had been success
fully directed
Posed as oyster Dealers.
In another famous robbery con-
Quoted along much the same lines. the
thieves lived, for several of the months
that are spelled with an r, as peace
full oyster dealers, working up pay
ing trade In the harmless biValves in
the basement of the banking building
and directly under the vault In an
other case IL was a dentist instead Of
a barber who hired rooms over the
bank and even filled teeth for some
OF its unsuspecting officials. thus. one
might say, restoring IN advance some
OF the gold which he ana his COM
panions later successfully extracted
from its supposed strong boxes. And
In yet another instance the room adj
joining the vault was turned into a
shoemaker's quarters, where the dis
guised cracksmen cheerfully cobbled
all day and then spent a portion OF
each night slowly wormlng their way
into the bank.
Despite the great number OF success
full burglaries Of this knd-~and from
about 1850 to the last decade Of the
century they were almost too numer-
GUS 10 mention-the number OF unsuc-
cessful attempts was very much great
or. The bank robber was not always
as smart as he thought himself, and
he by no means invariably succeeded
IN opening a safe even when he had
oil night TO do II in Sometimes the
safe folied him. more frequently the
gang WAS interrupted before IL had
been given fair chance" at the
vault at all; and at other times the
sound OF the explosion made In blow
ing a lock of. or bursting steel doors
In, aroused outside suspicion.
Nearly Wrecked the Building.
The story is told Of one gang Of rob-
bers who so completely misjudged the
amount Of explosive necessary to open
O ohA' AAidA AiNFS liNN oiti9 nearly WItNh-
ed the whole bank building itself but
woke up everybody IN the neighbour
hood In the great majority Of cases,
In fact the burglars we're unsuccess-
full, although, as In other professions,
the most expert among them made
comparatively few failures.
One Of the most picturesque Of Amer
lean bank robberies occurred in a
good-sized Eastern city where, even
n officials were still as gulllble the
modern safeguards OF bank vaults. 10
say nothing Of the practical and moral
value Of such institutions rs the Holmes
Patrol or the Bankers Protective As
ISOLATION, would nowadays unquestion-
ably prevent a similar occurrence.
In POIicemen's Clothes.
IN this case the cashier was ap-
preached late IN the afternoon by "A
stalWart policeman who demanded an
audience IN the name OF the local chief
Of police. Naturally the audience Was
granted and the stalwart officer ex-
planned that the authorities had dis