Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 November 1893 — SPANKED THE BANDITS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SPANKED THE BANDITS

A Desperate Organisation In Near Jersey and Hour It Was Broken Up. There is a feeling of deep relief in the town of Bark Ridge, N. J. Time locks have been removed from hen coops, pianos fastened to the floors have been released, and those who wear wigs now go to bed without

their bats, and all because the “Red Rangers of the Passaic,” or the “Boy Bandits of Park Ridge,” have been disbanded b y tbe stern authority of the law. A number of young men in knee breeches, stirred to deeds of mible emulation ,by flve-cent library literature, organized a band of bravoes, elected one of

their number chieftain, and set out to rob hen roosts and make war generally upon society and property interests. They had a robber camp in the woods, where they gathered to divide their plunder and regale each other over the evening fire with bandit literature. Oq Sunday they went t j Sunday school regularly, and for a long time nobody connected them with the frequent disappearance of various valuables. The “rangers” all wore flanging red shirts. Where the garments, used by their parents for underwear, were too commodious, they were cut down and roughly sewed up to a Baxter street fit. Only one of these uniforms fell into tbe hands of the police, and that was the property of the chieftain of the band, little 12-year-old “Georgie” Reed. He was the youngest of the gang of seven, whose ages ranged from 12 to 15 years. This chieftain’s shirt was of red, sewed with half-inch stitches of black thread, with a white strip on the sleeve to designate his rank. Each little bandit had a mask fashioned out of a gory-colored piece of flannel, the close

position of the apertures for eyes, nose and mouth indicating the size and age of its wearer. They had billies fashioned from hoehandles, with strips of lead at the bottom, nails for shields for the hands and shoestring cords. Finally the organization was discovered, and the parents of the “rangers” put them through a postgraduate course of spanking, and they have now gone out of the bandit business.

GEORGE REED.

FOUND IN THE RENDEZVOUS.