SURPRISING METHODS OF THE THIEVES WHO WORK ONLY DURING BUSINESS HOURS AND WALK AWAY WITH THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS UNDER THE VERY EYES OF THE BANK OFFICIALS  
One day before I was as well known to the police as I later became I was walking down Broadway in New York when I met a prominent citizen of the underworld with whom I had been associated in numerous burglaries. So far as I knew at that time he was still a burglar. After we had stood chatting for several minutes I was surprised to have him press a hundred-dollar bill into my hand and say:
 
"Just as the clocks strike noon to-day I want you to go into the Manhattan Bank and have this bill changed. Walk right up to the paying teller's window and ask for some silver and small bills. When he hands you the money take your time about counting it, and keep his attention engaged just as long as you can."
 
"But what do I get for running errands for you?" I jokingly inquired.
 
He refused to explain any further, and, as I was just dying with curiosity to find out what sort of game he was up to, I agreed to do as I was told. Of course, I knew it was some crime he was [Pg 213]inveigling me into, but just what it was, or what part I was playing in it, I had no more idea than a babe unborn when I strolled into the bank promptly on the stroke of twelve.
 
The paying teller proved to be a very susceptible man, and I found no difficulty in getting him into conversation. As there were few people in the bank at that hour, he was glad enough to relieve the monotony of his day's work by a little chat with a pretty young woman.
 
Well, to make a long story short, we talked busily for fully fifteen minutes, and during all that time I succeeded in keeping his eyes riveted on me. When, at last, a man approached the window to transact some business I put my money away in my satchel, gave the courteous teller a parting smile, and strolled leisurely out of the bank. While I was in the bank I had seen nothing of the man who had sent me on this mysterious errand, and I did not see him until I called at his hotel that evening.
 
"We've done a good day's work, Sophie, and here is your share of the profits," he said, handing me a fatter roll of crisp bank notes than I had laid my hands on for several weeks. As I hurriedly counted the bills over I was amazed to find that the roll contained $2,000.
 
"While you were flirting so deliciously with the paying teller," my friend explained, "I slipped into the bank by a side entrance, reached my hand through a gate in the wire cage and grabbed a bundle of bills, which I later found to contain $4,000."
 
[Pg 214]
 
That was my introduction to the work of the "bank sneak"—a thief whose methods were then in their infancy, but who developed ingenuity and boldness so rapidly that he soon became the terror of the banks and every business man who ever has to handle large sums of money or securities.
 
What I have to tell you to-day about "bank sneaks" and their methods will furnish as good an example as anything I know of the fact that CRIME DOES NOT PAY.
 
The stealings of a clever "sneak" often run as high as $100,000 in a single year. But what benefit does he get out of this easily acquired wealth? It invariably goes as easily as it comes, and, after a few months, he is as badly in need of money as he was before. I can count on the fingers of one hand the "sneaks" who are getting any real happiness out of life—and they are all men and women who, like myself, have seen the error of their ways and reformed.
 
If crime could ever prove profitable to any man, it would have proved so to Walter Sheridan, long the foremost "bank sneak" in America. So varied and far reaching were his adroit schemes that within twenty years the gangs which he organized and led stole more than a million dollars. He was a past master in the art of escaping punishment for his crimes, and he was also a shrewd, close-fisted financier, who claimed the lion's share of all the booty and carefully hoarded his savings.
 
Yet what did all his cleverness avail this prince[Pg 215] of "sneaks"? His fortune was swept away, and he finally died a pauper in the prison cell to which he was sent when he was picked up starving in the streets of Montreal.
 
Sheridan introduced many ingenious new methods in "bank sneaking," just as Mark Shinburn did in burglary. He was the first to conceal a pair of tweezers in the end of his cane and use them to pick up bundles of money which were beyond the reach of his arms.
 
This cane was a really wonderful device. To all appearances it was only a fine, straight piece of bamboo, nicely polished and fitted with an ivory handle—the sort of walking stick any prosperous man might carry.
 
Only when you unscrewed its heavy brass ferrule was the dishonest purpose for which it was intended revealed. The bamboo stick was hollow, and in it were two narrow strips of steel which dropped down below the end of the cane and could be operated like tweezers when you released the spring, which was concealed under a heavy band of solid silver just below the handle.
 
When Sheridan was his natural self he was a stout, good looking man of dignified presence and refined manners who would readily pass for a well-to-do merchant or manufacturer. But when occasion required he could change his appearance so that even his closest friends wouldn't recognize him.
 
Once when he was arrested in New York he [Pg 216]effected in his cell in the Tombs a transformation which mystified the authorities and nearly resulted in his release on the ground of mistaken identity.
 
He exchanged his expensively tailored suit and fine linen for the dirty rags of a tramp who was locked up in the adjoining cell. With a broken knife blade he hacked off every bit of his long flowing beard. He dyed his reddish brown hair with coffee grounds and clipped and twisted it to make it look a life-long stranger to comb and brush. By eating soap he managed to reduce his portly figure to a thin, sickly shadow of skin and bones.
 
When the prison keepers came to take him into court for trial they were amazed to find in place of the well-dressed, well-fed broker they had locked up a few days before a repulsively dirty, ragged, emaciated tramp, whose actions indicated that he was not more than half witted.
 
This ruse of Sheridan's failed, however, through the persistence of William A. Pinkerton, head of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Mr. Pinkerton, who had been on Sheridan's trail for years, identified him positively in spite of his changed appearance, and succeeded in having him convicted and sentenced to five years in Sing Sing prison.
 
It was from this wizard of crime, Walter Sheridan, that I learned the value of the clever disguises which so often stood me in good stead and which enabled my comrades and me to get our hands on hundreds of thousands of dollars that didn't belong to us.
 
[Pg 217]
 
Early in my career I conceived the idea of furthering my dishonest plans by posing as a wealthy old widow, so crippled that she had to transact whatever business she had with the bank from her seat in her carriage. This plan succeeded beyond my fondest expectations, and I am ashamed to think how many thousands of dollars I stole through this simple but extremely effective little expedient.
 
This ruse proved its merits the first time we tried it—in the daylight robbery of a Brooklyn, New York, bank, where one of my two companions walked away with $40,000 while I sat outside in my carriage listening to the old cashier's advice about investing the money my lamented husband had left me.
 
But let me go back to the very beginning and show you just how this bold robbery was planned and carried out.
 
We had had our eyes on this bank for a week—Johnny Meaney, Tom Bigelow, and I. Between the hours of 12 and 1 each day we found there were few customers in the bank and the institution was left in charge of the old cashier and a young bookkeeper.
 
But the cashier, although over sixty years old, was a keen-eyed, nervous man, whose suspicions were apt to be easily aroused. And, besides, the window in the wire cage where he did business with the bank's customers was so situated that he could always see out of the corner of his eye the vault and the long counter where the money was piled.
 
We all agreed that it was not safe to attempt the robbery while the cashier wa............