Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 149, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1910 — PLANS TO PREVENT MAIL TRAIN ROBBERIES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PLANS TO PREVENT MAIL TRAIN ROBBERIES.

LANS to protect railway mail I trains from robberies are aI.J. _most -aa numerous as the poatal trains in the service of the country. The government and ■ *TnTilr railroad officials for years have been trying to find some way to head off such occurrences. Every time there is a train robbery the railroad, express, and mall authorities are flooded with suggestions from persons who live in this country and in others, as to how to avert a

train holdup or to save life and property. One of the express companies has been keeping a file of such letters and papers. One single volume of the file —and there are several of the same size—is ten inches wide and long and four inches thick. It is filled to the covers with the greatest variety of ideas that ever came from the head of a human being. Some of the ideas are accompanied by crude drawings, but some of them have been prepared by competent draughtsmen and artists at the work. There is an endless array of designs for bomb-like cars, compartments made of steel with openings large enough only to stick the barrel of a rifle through. Then come the different ideas in alarms, whistles and flashes to be set off by any member of the crew that first discovers the presence pt a hold-up man. Some of the cars that have been designed by the public are little short of rolling arsenals. They are equipped with every kind of a gun from a small pounder to a magazine rifle and automatic pistol that keeps on shooting aa long as a shooter may crook his finger in a trigger grip. An engineer on the Monon in Southern Indiana once contrived a system that not only would alafm the whole train crew, but would set off a volley from secreted fire arms located about the train. He was a thorough student in the use of air, he had a lot of practical ideas, and he actually harnessed up the entire braking system of his engine and train for the purpose of giving an effective holdup alarm. Even with a bandit standing close to him in the cab, he could send the alarm without the knowledge of the intruder. For years one of the express companies operating out

of Chicago made use of an armored car, writes J. L. Graff in Pennsylvania Grit. In the center was a steellined compartment in which was racked a great assortment of shooting irons. There were numerous portholes, some of them bored in steel projections from the side of the car. From one of these holes a sharpshooter could rake the right of way on either side of the train, its entire length. This car was always on the rear end of the train, where rode all the train crew and the guards. A well-known express official says that of all the contrivances that have been suggested by the grgat army of cranks and others who have contributed them to the safe transportation of valuables, an explosive toreh has claimed the most attention and dismission. Some of the officials to-day are strongly favoring its adoption. When the torch is exploded by electricity, it sets off a that may be seen for miles. Its light illuminates the entire train, it -out over the right of way on either side and reaches ahead and far back of the markers on the last car. It is claimed that such an alarm is more dreaded by the holdup gentry than any other that has been presented. In late years the robbery of malls is said to have been more frequent than of the express car. In, nearly every instance the robbers have sought out the registered mail. But compared with a period twenty to thirty years back, the robberies are few. There is no longer so much wild country, civilization has spread through the region where once it was hazardous to haul money and compared with the business now being handled there are much fewer interruptions of the kind that this locality furnished the most recent occurrence.