BANK BURGLARS WHO DISGUISED THEMSELVES AS POLICEMEN, AND OTHER INGENIOUS SCHEMES USED BY THIEVES IN BOLD ATTEMPTS TO GET THEIR PLUNDER  
No honest man can accumulate a million dollars without constant industry, self-denial, perseverance, and ability.
 
The same is true of the professional criminal. In addition, he must possess ingenuity, tact, and resourcefulness of a high order.
 
I have mentioned a number of professional criminals who, in the course of their careers, obtained over a million dollars apiece. Although these men accumulated vast fortunes, there was not a single one of them who really derived any lasting benefit out of his ill-gotten gains. Many of them spent a large portion of their lives in jail. Behind prison walls, their buried loot availed them nothing. Others dissipated their fortunes almost as rapidly as they made them and their last years were spent in poverty. Some of them died violent deaths.
 
Yet every one of these men, as I have intimated, possessed valuable qualities which, had they been put to a legitimate use, would undoubtedly have brought them wealth without any of the penalties incident to a life of crime. Living honestly they might not have accumulated millions, but their skill, ingenuity, and perseverance would undoubtedly[Pg 174] have netted them large incomes, and they might have enjoyed the peace of mind which none but the law-abiding can know.
 
Without the ability which these men possessed, it would be useless for anyone to hope to achieve the "success" which attended their criminal operations. But anyone possessing their ability would be most ill-advised to attempt to follow in their footsteps when their careers have so clearly demonstrated that CRIME CANNOT PAY. Whereas, if properly applied, such ability must inevitably bring success.
 
I intend to give you some idea of the skill and resourcefulness these men possessed by referring in detail to some of their more remarkable exploits.
 
In the course of a criminal career covering some forty years, Harry Raymond, all-round burglar, committed several hundred important burglaries. It was he who stole the famous Gainsborough painting, as I have previously related. The magnitude of his crimes will be indicated by the fact that his booty aggregated between two and three million dollars. Yet, despite the number and importance of this man's offenses, he was caught only once in the whole forty years, and then through the carelessness of an accomplice. No better proof of the judgment and resourcefulness of a professional criminal could be presented than such a record as that.
 
His robbery of the Cape Town Post Office will illustrate this point more concretely.
 
His first step was to cultivate the friendship of the Postmaster of the Cape Town Post Office. He[Pg 175] went at it very systematically and patiently, but at the end of two or three months he had made such progress that he readily found an opportunity to get temporary possession of the post office keys. That was all that was necessary. He made a wax impression of them and put the keys back without arousing any suspicion.
 
His next step was to prepare three parcels addressed to himself, and mailed them by registered mail from out of town. He came in on the same train with the packages. He waited until the registered mail sacks had been delivered to the Postmaster and locked up for the night, and then, just as his friend, the Postmaster, was leaving for the day, he stopped hurriedly into the post office and explained that it was of great importance for him to get that night certain packages he understood were arriving by that day's registered mail. The Postmaster readily consented and went back into the office with the burglar. He opened the safe and ascertained that the packages Raymond had described were there, and while he was making certain entries in his book, Raymond succeeded in making wax impressions of the keys to the safe.
 
Raymond now had wax impressions of the keys to the post office itself and of the keys in which the registered mail and other valuables were kept. Making the keys from the impressions was not a very difficult task, although it required many subsequent visits to the post office and the exercise of a considerable amount of patience before the keys[Pg 176] were properly fitted. Then Raymond waited for the diamonds to come from the mines, his plan to get them into the post office safe having been very carefully thought out.
 
At one stage of the trip the diamond coach had to make, it was necessary for it to cross a river. This was accomplished by means of a ferry which was operated by a wire-rope cable. Raymond decided to spoil this plan. Before the coach arrived at the ferry he succeeded in severing the wire cable. There was a strong current running and the ferryboat naturally drifted down the stream.
 
When the coach arrived at the river, there was no ferryboat to take it across, and there was no other means of fording the stream. As I have mentioned, the schedule of the coach had been arranged so that it would reach the docks just in time to catch the steamer for England. The delay at the river resulted, as Raymond had known it would, in the coach missing the steamer, and the next steamer wouldn't sail for a week. In the meanwhile, the diamonds were deposited in the post office safe.
 
It was an easy matter for Raymond to get into the post office the following night, and the keys he had made gave him access to the safe. The diamonds and other valuables he had planned so cleverly to get were worth $500,000. He abstracted them all and buried them.
 
Instead of fleeing the country with his booty, his prudence dictated that he was safest right there, and he remained there for months. Subsequently,[Pg 177] he disposed of the stolen diamonds in London, but he was blackmailed out of a large portion of the proceeds by the accomplice with whom he had made his first attempt to rob the diamond coach, and who at once concluded when he heard of the successful robbery that it was Raymond who had committed it.
 
Although it netted the burglars only $100,000, the robbery of the Kensington Savings Bank of Philadelphia was one of the most cleverly arranged crimes of modern times.
 
The theft was committed by a band of the most notorious bank burglars of the time, including Tom McCormack, Big John Casey, Joe Howard, Jimmy Hope, Worcester Sam, George Bliss, and Johnny Dobbs. No more competent crew of safe cracksmen could possibly have been gotten together.
 
On the day these burglars planned to rob the bank, the president received, information that the crime was contemplated and would probably be committed that night or the night following.
 
This information came apparently from the Philadelphia Chief of Police, the messenger stating that the Chief would send down half a dozen uniformed men that afternoon, who were to be locked in the bank that night. The president was told to keep the information to himself as it was desired to catch the burglars red-handed, and it was feared that word might reach them of the plan to trap them and they would be scared off.
 
That afternoon half a dozen uniformed policemen called at the bank shortly before the closing[Pg 178] hour. They were called into the office of the president and introduced to the bank's two watchmen. After the bank was closed the six men were secreted in different parts of the building and the watchmen were told to obey whatever orders the policemen might give.
 
Nothing happened until about midnight, when some of the policemen came out of their hiding places and suggested to one of the watchmen that it might be a good idea to send out for some beer. One of the policemen volunteered to take off his uniform, but changed his mind, saying that it would perhaps be safer for one of the watchmen to go.
 
"If the burglars see one of you fellows going out of the building," he said to the watchmen, "they will suspect nothing, but if they see a strange face leaving the bank at this hour they will know there is something unusual going on." The watchmen agreed.
 
No sooner had the watchman left the building than one of the policemen raised his nightstick and brought it down with all his might on the head of the other watchman. The man dropped to the floor like a log. He was quickly bound and gagged and taken inside the cashier's cage.
 
A few minutes later the other watchman returned with the beer, and as he set foot in the room where the policemen were congregated he was accorded the same treatment.
 
The............