Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1905-12-19
CAREER SHORT LIVED.
Two Bold Bank Robbers Caught in
the Village of dgar.

Frank Weise and Fred Kirby, tive
farmers living in Langlade county be
tween Amigo and Nation, were
arrested Sunday afternoon in saloon
in Edgar and brought to this city hand
cuffed and were lodged in Jail. These
fellows had evidently been spending
the long winter evenings in reading OF
the business transactions of Jesse James
Quantrill, Tracy, Black Bart and others
of that stripe, the record of whose lives
will continue to please dime novel
readers as long as demoralizing books
of that class are allowed to be sold to
youths and soft Drained adults. They
need I'd money and decided to take a
short cut to fortune. They started out
right but ''broke" before they reached
the quarter post, and now have a pretty
good chance of operating knitting
machines for the state within the walls
of Waupun prison for term of twenty
years. They certainly were novices at
the business. The record of their do
ings is this:
Saturday afternoon they landed IN
the village of Colby and hired a livery
rig and drove to Abbotsford Knowing
thai the Wisconsin Central BY Co. had
deposited large sum of money in the
Abbotsford bank that day to pay off a
construction crew, it was their inten-
ton to rob the bank. A steady stream
of railroad men was pouring into the
bank all afternoon, and fearing their
plans might fail when so many men
were in the village, they decided on
another plan. They drove back to
Colby, reaching there at about $50
o'clock. They got out of the rig in
front of the Colby State bank and
entered that institution The teller
was in the bank alone and was getting
ready to close up for the day. They
walked up to the window, and thrust
ing revolVers under the teller's nose,
demanded $1,000 The teller, when he
saw the revolvers pointed at his head,
became convinced that they needed
the money and went to the vault and
handed out 81 ZOO They backed out of
the bank, keeping the teller covered
with their revOlvers, and when they
reached the sidewalk, jumped into
their rig and drove away at breakneck
speed. Near Withee they hired a
farmers boy to drive the rig back to
Colby and on Sunday hired another
farmer to drive them to Edgar. When
they reached Edgar they went to the
livery stable of Martin Keefe, who is
also village constable, and wanted him
to drive them to Wausau. He did so,
but they rode securely handcuffed. Mr..
Keete had been notified of the robbery
and spotted these men as the ones
wanted. Summoning several assistants
to his aid and arming them, he found
the two men in saloon, where they
were spcnding.mOney, Coal Oil Johnny
like. They were covered and, taken
by surprise, meekly submitted to arrest
Upon being searched, one was found to
have a "A calibre Colts revolver, a
murderous looking weapon about
foot long; the other had two 3S calibre
Smith& Wesson double action revolvers.
On both was found large sums of money
and when the same was counted it was
ascertained that nearly all of the
amount taken from the bank was in
the roll, F" except what the robbers had
paid out for livery rigs and spent for
drinks. They were then brought here
and locked up. Yesterday morning
the Sheriff of Clark county came over
and took the prisoners to Neillsville
for hearing, and it is quite likely that
they will plead guilty and enter upon a
prison term.
When locked up here, they freely
admitted their guilt and had no explain
ations to make for their conduct other
than that they needed the money and
decided to take this method of getting
it. One of them said he had been
operating a wood saving machine,
which he owed for, and he also had
several notes falling due which he
desired to meet Both of them were
Bertillioned and while this work was
being done one of them broke down
and wept, and pleaded to be allowed to
go home and see his family be-
fore being taken to Neillsville. Both
are young men, one being about %
years of age, the other about 26