Los Angeles herald., 1909-07-25

order to leave no trace. That gloves
are valuable in keeping the officers OH
the trail has been proven several times
and a recent instance when one or
trio Of northern safe blowers, In the eX-
citement attendant upon blowing open
the safe to be cracked, removed his
gloves for an instant and left a trace
of his hand in the dust on window
pane. proves my point
THE print on the window pane was
photographed and the Bertillon i'm
pressions at various police identifica-
tion bureaus were searched for a cor
responding thumb and hand print. One
was found which exactly corresponded
to the impression made by the careless
cracksman and he was soon captured
and, through his arrest, the other two
men were landed, and they are now all
safely housed in the penitentiary.
THE capture of Black Bart who
operated as a lone train robber, illus
trates my point that time often brings
about a capture when at the beginning
the scent is hard to find. nave a way
Of saying that trail is best picked up
in the middle, and 1t is hotter often
month after the commission of a crime
than 1t was at its outset.
May Capture PoItera Murderer
although the capture of Bart may
appear to many as an accident, yet 1t
also proves that the officers of the law
are always on the lookout for their
men and never relax the pursuit.
Improbable as it may seem, time
may enable us to capture the Poltera
murderer, but even if we made this
capture it would be hard to know it.,
for there is no witness to the crime and
no one who could confirm us In our sus-
picions If the arch fiend was actually
in our clutches. In a case of this kind
people remember that the criminal Is
still at large, but they too often forget
the hundreds of arrests, the large
amounts of property recovered and the
crimes which are frustrated"
Here the sheriff showed the IRE
covery" and capture" books, and after
a careful examination the scrutinizer
was forced to admit that there was
surprising amount of effective work re-
corded in the books of which the pub
lie never hears.
Nevertheless, next to the class of
men whom we employ in our depart
ment," continued the sheriff, 1--WE find
that things which make it possible for
us to cover ground quickly are of the
most value. More valuable than tips,
and most valuable in the long run, are
the automobiles which can take us
quickly to the scene of crime.
Record Runs Made
I'm making arrests, we sometimes go
at a speed greater than a locomotive,
and to enumerate our record runs
would fill more space than news
paper is able to spare. Some of our
fast runs are as follows:
1--WE ran from Mojave recently in
four hours and a half, deducting the
hour we had to stop in San Fernando
for food and supplies. Trains cannot
beat that.
mot long ago we beat the train to
Indio by four hours, and on the pur-
suit of a crook known as the Rabbit,
we had run him down in % minutes
after we received notification of his
escape.
when we go out to make an arrest
we don't waste any time worrying
about the safety of our necks and our
one idea is to get to the place where
we are needed as quickly as possible.
Sometimes we have to build small
bridges across bad places in the roads.
Often we have to act as a sort of
pioneer corps, but we always get to
the place for which we start and our
automobile work has become terror
to evildoers.
zone of our fast runs was at the
time when we brought Arizona Jack,
an alleged murderer, from Saugus We
left here at 1880 in the morning and
were back and had Arizona Jack in
jail by $3.50 o'clock that night.
1--WE recently captured some horse
thieves after pursuing them for fifty
eight miles and we had them in the
car and under arrest in one hour and