Bisbee daily review., 1908-03-29

1 "Of course, the local papers vii
 make much of the baffling burglary
 and we hope the papers in the large l cities will be attracted by the case
 As soon as the larger papers lose in terest in the burglary, we will make
 arrangements with some other mem
 bers of the Commercial club for an. other robbery. You can interpose the straight burglaries with holdups bank robberies and any other interest, ing crime that in your judgment will attract attention.
 Well, the burglary started with a l grand hurrah. I drew $100 expense
 money for a first-class burglar kit in spite of the Commercial clubs protest
 that as the windows would be left open for me, I wouldn't need the tools, for explained to the club mem
 bers. that the work must appear to be that of an expert.
 On the first night excursion, which
 was made up to MT. Stanton's house, cleaned up $200 worth of silver ware, eighty-seven cents in cash and Teddy bear. This was followed by several other housebreaking exploits, the mysterious aspects of which drew a few notices from the larger papers so that the members of the robbery and advertising clique were enthusiastic.
 At an enthusiastic meeting of the Commercial club, a few nights later, after giving me vote of thanks for my excellent and efficient 'burglariz- ing, it was decided that I should rob the Citizens State bank. Of course, l immediately put in plea for an ex- pense account of $200 for dynamite, special drills and ether tools, but Mir. Kenton, the president of the bank, ob- jected on the ground that, although he was perfectly willing to allow his bank to be robbed, he didn't want it to be blown up.
 It was suggested that the expense of repairing the bank could be charged to the advertising campaign account, but Mir. Kenton insisted that he would not like to have his private papers and ledgers blown all over town.
 Finally, compromise was effected. In order to give a mysterious aspect to the case, Mir. Kenton was to make a mistake when setting the time lock of the safe cn the night before the robbery, so that the door could be opened at l a. m. At he appointed hour was to break into the bank, open the safe without harming it, take out the money, then set tbe time lock for g a. m. and leave. Of course, the safe would be found locked h proper style the next morning and when it was opened there would be great surprise on finding part of the money gone. The problem far solu- ton then would be: How the theft had extracted the money when the president of the bank had set the time lock the night before and had found it in proper working order the next morning?
 In order for me to understand thor oughly the inner workings of the time lock, MT. Kenton had to take me around to the bank a few mornings later before his employees came down and explain to me all about the safe.
 On the night, or rather morning, of the great bank robbery, I set out properly masked and armed about 15 minutes before 1. As I stole along. the street I noticed eyes peeping out from behind the curtains in the win dows of the Commercial club. Of course, every one who was in the secret wanted a glimpse of the rob Der, who, in this case, they consid- cred neither was bold nor bad.
 After a few minutes work on the safe, I opened the door and beheld as nice a layout of gold, silver and bank-notes as ever met a safe-blow- CTS eye. But at that point the well laid plans of the Commercial club went far out of plumb. Tn place of taking merely nominal sum, which was to be returned to the bank pres ident at the end cf the month, I took about $45,000-in fact, ali that I could carry, and also took the 2:545 a. m. train for the Mexican, line.
 had worked nearly a\month in the town and within few days my S150 would have been due.
 And that was the only $50 I ever earned by robbing. Ii | seems pity not to have collected it. |