The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1913-09-07
Written by Sophie Lyons

police we'll come back and murder you
and your family in your beds"
The check signed, the burglars tied the
banker up again and returned to the en-.
joyment Of their fragrant Havanas and an
assortment of expensive wines and LIQUORS
which they had selected from the side
board.
Dawn was close at hand before this
strange party broke up The burglars
gave their victim a few parting threats
and walked out of the front door like gen.
tlemen-the bag Of loot under Whelans
arm, the check for $1,000 in Ellwoods
pocket.
Servants discovered the bankers plight
few hours later. So deep was the i'm
upon him, however, that he swore his
household to secrecy and made no effort
to stop payment on the check or notify
the police. 1t was several years later,
when Ellwood was under arrest for an
other crime, that the banker confessed
what had happened to him.
Gentleman George" was fond OF good
things to eat and drink-so fond that
when he had finished looting some man
rarely resist the temptation to sit down
in the dining room and enjoy as sump-
tuous repast as the larder Afforded
One night he and Whalen entered a
house IL fashionable section of St. Louis
where lived young man and his bride Of
a few weeks. The couple had just re-
turned from their honeymoon, and the
wedding presents with which their home
overfiowed were what had attracted the
burglars attention
The husband awoke to find the two men
In his room. He put up a good fight, but
was quickly oVerpowered, tied, gagged and
locked in closet.
The burglars then turned their atten-
tion to the wife, who, by this time, was
nearly fatnting from fright. In the most
brutal manner they stripped her fingers
of their rings and tore the diamonds from
her ears. Dragging her from the bed,
they tied her securely to a radiator and
proceeded to ransack the house for valu-
ables
When they had filed their bags with as
much plunder as they could safely carry,
they proceeded to the dining room to get
a little supper. Suddenly what he thought
an unusually bright idea struck Gentle
man George" Why not make the newly
weds, whose unwelcome guests they were,
serve them with food and wine?
They hurried upstairs, unbound their
victims and marched them to the dining
, room at the point of their revolvers.
No stranger scene than what followed
was ever set anywhere. The burglars
lolled at ease around the table, gorging
themselves with food and drink. The
young wife, in her nightgown, pale and
shaking with fright at the desperadoes'
profanity and their menacing pistols,
waited on them with hands that dripped
blood where her rings had been wrenched
ON Her trembling pajama-clad husband
opened wine, lighted matches and executed
all the ridiculous orders the ingenuity of
his tormentors could suggest
AS remarkable a character as Gentle
man George" but in an entirely different
way, was the burglar knew as
Sheeney Mike" told you in a previous
article how ne secured his release from a
Massachusetts prison by drinking soap and
water and by cutting an ugly cash in his
SIDE; but did not go into details about
the amazing methods which made him a
unique figure in the underworld
His real name was .hichael Kurtz. We
called MIN "Sheeney Mike" because of his
naoit OF squeezing every penny he could
from the fences" to whom he sold the
diamonds and costly silks which formed
MS criminal stock in trade. He could make
closer bargain than any other man ever
knew.
"Sheeney Mike" was for years associated
with the gang OF clever burglars of which
George Howard was the leader. This was
one OF the most desperate bands that ever
operated in this country.
Howard had long made a special study
Of safes and locks, and ne held his place
as chief through his expert knowledge OF