Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1903 — MANY BANKS ROBBED. [ARTICLE]

MANY BANKS ROBBED.

Illinois and Nebraska Head the List with Seven Burglaries. Fifty-six bank robberies in the United States in less than four months is the record which is worrying the country bankers. Illinois and Nebraska head the list with seven robberies each, Indiana has flee, Missouri and Texas four each. New York, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Tennessee have three each as their share. lowa, Kansas, Minnesota and South Carolina each have two. The singles are Kentucky, Montana, New Mexico and Utah. t In the bank burgling industry there Bre, so to speak, captains, lieutenants and privates. There is the “plant hunter,” who goes about as a beggar or peddler and finds out where there are safes to bo robbed. He seldom takes part In the actual robbery. Then there are the men, usually two in each gang, who understand, the use of explosives and perforin the real operation of blowing the nafe. And finally there are the “stick up” men, the men who stand outside and shoot at you if you venture on the street or pop your head out of a window. There was a question not long ago as to whether the common use of powerful currents of electricity by street railway and lightning companies would not provide the intelligent bank burglar with a means of resuming operations on a larger scale by attaching temporary wires to trolley wires aud melting out the locks of bank safes, but this feat can be accomplished only when all the conditions are prearranged for it, and It is not regarded as a feasible method for thieves. There are few, if any, improvements on the old-fashioned jummies, pullers, braces, spreaders and wedges of bygone days, but they are no longer used. Instead of seventy-five pounds of steel tools the modern bank thief carries a rubber bottle of nitroglycerin, a cake of brown soap, a fuse and a handful of detonating caps. The door of the safe is blown off —not pried off —and the man who does it is not the well-dressed, high-living crook of old, but a tramp, a hobo, an outcast even in the society of crime.