The Alaska citizen., 1913-11-10

OuS FoODer ana 1diI breaker, from his last prison term Ills pictur. esque career. which included clash. es with the laws of more than a score of states and several Canad. ian provinces. ended last night al the Georgia state prison farm.
 Miners criminal career began nearly sixty years ago. He left his home in Jackson county. Ky. before he was h years old, and went West. He admitted numerous stage coach robberies and train holdups and was several times imprisoned for robbing banks. Three years ago he was brought to the state prison farm here for robbing train near Lulu. Georgia.
 Bill Miners career is a matter on which there is little authentic infor- nation. outside of the records of states prisons where he has served sentences at different times for en- terPrises of his which went wrong Shortly after his arrival at the c or gia penitentiary he gave to news paper man there an account of his life which is probably as near acCu- racy as has been obtained
 Let Is begin at the beginning" he said, in relating the details of his picturesque life. "l was born in the family of a prosperous law-abid- ing farmer n Bowling Green, Ky, in the year 1S45. attended school until I was 16, when like the major ity of boys. 1 became imbuad with the fever to go West. III company with two of my boy friends, made for Texas, going through California, where my first robbery was turned"
 Miner said he gave the greater part of the $75.000 taken from the stage coach to his friends and secur ed them jobs, going into the voca- tion of mining. He was never caught for that first holdup
 After finding the trick so easy, he robbed several stage coaches. many of the jobs being turned by himself alone. He was very successful unt he was caught in an attempt to rob a stage in Oregon. The only reason given for his capture was that he gave up rather than shoot fellow man, the driver.
 In the Oregon courts he was sen tenced to twenty-five years. How. ever on good behavior, he only serv- ed nine, and was freed. When he inhaled breath of liberty. he found himself short of funds. Three days afterward a prominent express company or Greg found themselves s25 900 short from safe rfleG near San Francisco. on the Frisco road A few weeks later found Bill Miner in the mining camps of Aus tralia
 T was never caught for tha, rob bery, and not even suspected" he says proudly
 Miner went from Australia to Tur key, and made the acquaintance of slave dealer. who carried him around on his various slave buying trips.
 After touring about Australia. making money in the mining camps he went to Europe and finally grow ing tired of foreign countries, re- turned to America, where he mined extensively. The love of adventure came back. and shortly after his re turn another express train was rob bed of large sum in Oregon and Miner was suspected. He fled, trav- cling from coast to coast in luXuri- ous parlor cars, staying at the best hotels in the large cities, and occu- pying a box in some big theater every night.
 His life of luxury, however, soon came to a termination. His funds grew short, and he had no means of accumulation so he began to hobo his way back West where he tray eled on burros, slept in woods or hollow logs, his pipe and plug his only cancellations.
 Miner soon wearied of life in a miners camp, and he decided 10 again hit the trail of the dynamited safe" In 1906 he, with two others, held up and robbed a Southern Pa cific mail and express train near San Quentin, Cal He was suspect ed of being the leader of the hold up and was carefully watched He worked north into Canada and was soon caught for attempting to rob Canadian Pacific railway train near Kamloops, British Columbia. This came near being his undoing. and "Old Bill" Miner was arrested, tried and sentenced for life in the Westminster penitentiary in British Columbia
 This was not Miners first job of train robbery in British Columbia. More than year before he was taken for the Kamloops robbery he had robbed train near Mission.