People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1895 — DEATH FOR BANDITS [ARTICLE]

DEATH FOR BANDITS

STRONG BILL IN THE ILLINOIS . LEGISLATURE. ' Senator Boganlus Introduce* a Measure J 'Likely to Discourage Train Robbers — I Full Text of the Bill as Presented in Senate. Springfield,: 111., Feb. 14.—Senator Bo- ‘ gardus presented a bulky petition to the Senate this afternoon, in which all of i the Chicago bankers, railway companies. express companies and prominent j business firms unite in asking the legislature to pass a law making train robbery punishable by death. Following the petition the senator introduced a bill embodying the recommendations of the signers of the appeal. The bill of Senator Bogardus delines anew the crime of train robbery, and fixes the penalty in the following language:

“That any person or persons who shall remote, displace or injure any switch, frog, rail, lie, bridge or trestle, or who shall place, upon any railroad track any obstruction or explosive substance, or enter into any conspiracy therefor with the design of robbing any ••oinpnny, agent, employe, passenger or other person on any railway tram, engine, tender, car or coach, on any railway in this stale, or who shall in any way stop, detain or arrest the progress of any such train, engine, tender, car or coach, with the intent to commit robbery thereon, or having in any way gone upon or entered any engine, tender, coach, express, baggage, mail or other car, or any department of sue! train, and shall there rob or attempt to rob, maim, wound, injure or kill any passenger, agent, employe, person or persons, or shall rob or attempt to rob any express company, mail pouch, baggage or car of any money or valuable thing whatsoever; either the property of such company, agent, employe, passenger or other person, or the property of another in his or. their care or custody, or shall assault any agent, employe, messenger, passenger or other person on said train, of connected therewith, with the intention of committing robbery, shall be guilty of train robbery, and if convicted shall be punished by death or confinement in the penitentiary for a term of not less than ten years."