The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-04-18
BANDITS ROB MAIL
TRAIN IN CALIFORNIA
Continued from Pace One J

and fireman to get into the mail car.
which was in charge of Herbert J. Black
and his assistant Thomas Clancy.
throw out the registered mail
pouches" ordered the robbers.
Black started to toss out newspaper
sacks, but the robbers showed their famil-
iaTity with the situation BY detecting the
ruse at once. They threatened to kill the
clerk unless he gave them the registered
mail at once. Black complied. The en-
CINE crew then was forced to carry the
nine sacks to the engine.
The engine and mail car then were I'M
coupled from the coaches filled with
sleeping passengers and run down the
track two miles. Here the mail pouches
were thrown out upon the ground. the en-
CINE was uncoupled, its throttle pushed
wide open and it began its wild Journey
toward a passenger train coming west
bound at Tolenas, Is miles east, passing
the first of this train on a siding at Cye-
nus.
As the engine passed the station at SUI
sun the operator on duty there noticed
that II was running wild. with no one in
the cab He Immediately reported this
fact TO the dispatcher's office at Oakland
and received Instructions to call up Tole-
mas by wire and order them to deran the
oncomtng engine. Second section of train
No. j. westbound, had just arrived at
TOlenas under orders to wait there for the
China-Japan mail
DeraIs Wild Engine.
The switch was thrown and the runa
way engine, which by this time was
pretty well relieved of steam. run on a
siding and smashed into a string of box
cars. The operator a Suisun had aVerted
what would have been a serious wreck
In the meantime the robbers were max
ing their escape across San Pablo bay
where the Sacramento river empties into
it The news Of the robbery had gone
up and down the line and posses were
forming.
Just before fleeing with the sacks of
mail, the robbers fired four shots, with
the purpose of frightening off any i'm
mediate pursuit. Even this did not waken
the passengers. The porter heard the shots
and locked all the doors to the sleeping
cars. The ChinaJapan Mail lay engine7
less for some time While an engine was
being secured from Sacramento 1t then
was hurried into Sacramento. arriving at
8 O'Clock this morning.
A fairly good description of the ban
dts was furnished by a man on the Porto
Costa ferryboat. who had observed them
as they hung about waiting for the train
they intended to rob. The men had the
appearance of being railway mechanics
and from the familiarity which they
showed with the engine there is no doubt
in the minds of the officials that the
men are former hallway employees.
The trail of the men has been followed
to the rough hill country between Mar
tinez and Oakland and il is believed that
they are headed toward San Francisco
and that they have good chance to es-
cape.
Escape in RoWboat-
Near where the bandits left the en-
CINE a road leads to the east bank of
the bay. The men ran down this road to
a rowboat they had concealed in the
bushes. The four sacks which they did
not take with them were found later by
other trains along the edge of the track.
They evidently had fallen from the en-
CINE after it had been uncoupled from
the train.
From the point where their boat was
moOred. the bandits rowed directly across
the bay TO Bulls Head Point, one and one
half miles east of Martinez. There they
abandoned the boat. In climbing the bank
one of the men slipped and lost a 49,
calibre Colts revolver and a pair of field
glasses. This made three clues for the
officers 10 work on in the Identification