Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1906-02-01

last, when a posse put b~loodhounds
upon the trail after the bank was
robbed and fought a battle with the
thieves, killing one and capturing the
rest.
Sometimes, too, a bank robber grows
careless with his wealth and excites
suspicion by displaying it. This was
the undoing of Harry Stewart, who
was arrested in St. Louis December
4 while attempting to dispose of 81, 900
worth of stamps which had been part
of the loot in a robbery at Shelbyville,
Mo-, a few days before. Stewart con-
fessed to completely in the robbery.
The greater part of these rowing
rogues, however, get away without a
fight or a capture. They almost in
variably work between midnight and
two o'clock, when citizens are wrapped
in slumber. Indeed, their methods are
Mississippi valley to the other that
one might readily suppose all the rob-
berries were the work of the same gang.
Detectives, however, know better.
The Robbing Formula.
The formula for robbing a bank is
simple. simpler than n not familiar
with the workings of a gang of safe
crackers would suppose.
The gang gets a few sticks of dyna-
mite, takes the nitroglycerine out Of
it and carries this violent explosive
away. 1t has been the case, too, that
quantities of nitroglycerine have been
stolen from a manufacturing plant
where the deadly explosive is made
in the northern part of Indiana. 1t is
the supposition of Capt. Kinney, of
the Indianapolis detective department,
that the robbers have this explosive
hidden away in some woods and car
ry away small quantities of it as they
need it.
Besides the explosive the other es-
sential to robbing a safe is a bar of
soap. Sometimes the gang has bur-
glar tools, some Of them of remark
able workmanship; but the possession
of these is rare.
For the most part the gangs work
with nothing but the nitroglycerine
and the soap. They pick out a small
city, rarely one with a population of
more than 5000 OIL 1000, generally one
with less. Such towns have but a
small night police force, If, indeed,
they have anything more than a night
marshal.
The gang sends a man in town dur
ing the day to locate the bank. At
midnight the whole quartette moves
in. The night marshal is hunted up
and gagged. Bank robbers have their
own colloquialisms for all these things,
and If they were telling it they would
say they stuck up" the marshal and
put him away" This mean they thrust
a gun in the officers face, compelled
him to throw up his hands, bound and
gagged him, and laid him out Of
harms way behind some building, or
back in an alley. Looking after the
night marshal is almost always an
easily accomplished preliminary. Few
Of them q discover there are bank
robbers in town until 1t is too late,
and a case where robbers were antici-
pated by the marshal and routed be-
fore they robbed the bank is sufficient
ly rare to be called unknown.
Actual Work at Bank.
After the way has been cleared in
this manner the thieves go to the
bank, either pick or break the lock
of the bank door with a crowbar, and
enter the chamber Of wealth. II the
safe is inside the vault they first 60
to work with the soap and soup
1.-THE latter being their name for nitro
glycerine) and blow their way in.
The safe next. They make
a soap lip at the top crack of the
safe door, calk the crack Of the safe
door all the way down, and pour the
nitroglycerine into the lip. from