Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison Part 2

+-----------------------------------------+ | | | TO CATHERINE TWEED. | | | | Presented by | | | | JAMES KELSO, | | | | Superintendent of Police. | | | | "May loyalty and love know no end." | | | +-----------------------------------------+

CHAPTER V.

WHEN BOSS TWEED WAS NEW YORK'S OWNER AND JIM FISK, PROPRIETOR OF OUR JUDGES.

What a look of relief and triumph swept over the faces of Irving, Stanley and White when I gave my consent to their proposal to take the stolen bonds to Europe and negotiate them there. We understood each other now, and casting aside all reserve, their tongues wagged freely, and they eagerly told me how confident they were of my ability to dispose of the bonds successfully, and also of my good faith; and, furthermore, told me I was the only man they would have trusted. Of course, they had no security save my word, for under the circ.u.mstances they could hardly ask me for a receipt, and even had I given one it would have been valueless had I chosen to retain the proceeds of the bonds. Thus, becoming the important member of the firm, I told them to produce the securities and I would sail immediately. It was finally settled that I should go by the steamer Russia of the Cunard line, which was down for sailing at 7 a.m. Wednesday, and they were to deliver the bonds to me on Tuesday night. Upon my demanding cash to pay expenses, their faces fell, but quickly brightened when I told them to give me a thousand-dollar bond and I would borrow that amount from a friend, using it for security. There was no danger of the number of the bond being inspected, and, of course, I would pay the note upon my return and receive the bond again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WALL STREET AND SOME OF ITS CHARACTERS IN MY TIME.--Page 26.]

They told me many amusing lies as to how the securities came into their possession, and as to who were the rightful owners. The truth was, as I afterward learned, they were a part of the stolen Lord bonds.

Bonds issued by our Government and held in Europe, chiefly in Holland and Germany, were so enormous in volume and pa.s.sed so freely from hand to hand, that it was easy for a well-dressed, business-appearing man to sell any quant.i.ty, even if stolen, as by law the innocent holder could not be deprived of them. One great advantage a dishonest man had at that date in Europe, especially an American, was that if he dressed well they considered he must be a gentleman, and if he had money that was a proof of respectability--one they never thought of questioning, nor how he came by it; then, again, it was an article of their creed that all Americans are rich.

The next morning (Tuesday), Irving met me near the Exchange, and, with some trepidation, drew from an inner pocket an envelope containing the thousand-dollar bond. Without waiting to examine it, I walked off, saying: "I'll be back in ten minutes." He was evidently alarmed, and, like all rogues, suspicious of every one. He probably had some wild idea that I was laying a trap for him. In his ignorance of money methods he thought it would be a long, perhaps difficult, negotiation to borrow money on the bond, but, of course, I made short work of it; and "Jimmy"

was more than delighted when within the ten minutes I walked in with ten one hundreds in my hand. A trifle like this made a great impression upon Irving, and from that time on I had his entire confidence. Tuesday evening I said good-bye to my mother, merely remarking in explanation of my journey that I had a commission given me to execute in Europe.

Leaving her, I went to our rendezvous, near Broadway and Astor place, where I found Irving, who handed me over his "boodle" (as he termed it), remarking confidentially that I was to give him on my return his share into his own hands; and, singularly enough, each of the others did precisely the same thing. About 11 o'clock the other two came in, and after some parley White handed over his bonds, and Stanley informed me he would give me his on board before the steamer sailed the next morning. I had already paid my bill and sent my baggage over to Jersey City, so about midnight I set out, they accompanying me as far as the ferry, and there, after shaking hands a half dozen times, we said good-bye. Having bought my ticket and engaged my cabin, I went direct to the steamer and went to bed. In the morning Stanley appeared and gave me his bonds. Ten minutes later the hawsers were cast off and we were steaming down the bay. Two hours later Fire Island sank beneath the horizon, and we were alone on the sea.

Alone on the sea! and a fitting place to tell the story of a famous New York bank robbery.

In the good old days when Bill Tweed was New York's owner, when Jim Fisk was the proprietor of our judges and Kelso sat in Mulberry street, the king of those good men, the police, who defend our lives and property, this city became a spectacle to G.o.ds and men such as we thought then could never be equaled. We thought so then, but we were not endowed with second sight, nor with the gift of prophecy, or we might, perhaps, have reserved our judgment. Still, our masters were a unique collection, and if they have been equaled or surpa.s.sed since, they held with easy grasp the pre-eminence among all American rulers who had shone and flourished up to the time when those great men gave us new ideas upon the science of government. The average and quiet citizen, shocked as he might be and grumble as he did at the impudent plundering by our masters, their contempt of public opinion and the cynical display of their luxury, would doubtless have confined himself to grumbling and to calling for slow-arriving thunderbolts to crash the oppressors who were despoiling him had he felt certain that the plunder would be confined to them, that his property would be safe, at least, from the attacks of those insignificant, despicable but eminently dangerous plunderers who became known to the police as common criminals. This, however, was not so.

After being flayed by iniquitous taxes, which he knew were destined to add to the stores of Tweed, Connolly & Company, he had every day abundant proof that what the big rascals left him, the little ones would soon try, by burglary or robbery, to ravish from him, and that they would do it with perfect immunity, unterrified either by the fear of present arrest or of later punishment. The Mulberry street office was divided into three or four little pools, each with its clientele of dependents, all of whom faithfully and immediately reported to their patrons the result of any little job they had been engaged in, handing over to the representative of the pool the 20 per cent. of the result, which was Headquarters' established commission. This was the ordinary rate when gentlemen skilled in transferring other people's watches and portemonnaies from the pockets of their owners to their own, or when others who had devoted their talents to demonstrating practically the enormous power of the jimmy and wedge originated and carried out by themselves the operations peculiar to those cla.s.ses of industries.

It sometimes happened that special cases offered, for which special terms were arranged. Such cases stood by themselves. They were confided only to the acknowledged heads of the profession. Standing outside of all recognized rules, they were treated apart. Headquarters men were always sent to the seat of operations to prevent interference, and, in case of need, to protect their partners. Many a mysterious robbery was perpetrated to which no clue was ever found; many an anxious search was undertaken by the bloodhounds of the law to find the robbers, that they might crack a bottle together and rejoice over the success of their operations, and sometimes they were joined by men the mention of whose names in such company would have excited incredulous and unbounded amazement.

The gigantic heavings of the war were struggling to rest, but the men whose minds were unhinged and thrown off their balance by the possession of large sums flowing from transactions, a little irregular, perhaps, but which the necessities of Government permitted, were endeavoring, by any means, to open up new fountains of wealth in place of those which the close of the war had exhausted.

One of the resources presenting itself most naturally to men in a position to profit by it was speculating with other people's money, and very naturally the result of such speculation was disastrous in the highest degree. When detection became inevitable the defaulter generally fled, hoping to find in a foreign land safety from the stroke of justice and a shelter from the reproaches of his victims.

Occasionally, one more resolute, dreading flight as much as detection, flung himself into schemes which, if they failed, meant the most hideous and utter ruin, but which, if they succeeded, rendered discovery impossible, and made his position more solid than ever before. One day, late in the sixties, in the parlor of a bank in Greenwich street, a gentleman was anxiously scanning the books of the establishment. He alone in all the inst.i.tution knew of a secret which would horrify his brother officials and carry desolation to scores of homes, the first to suffer being his own. Perhaps had it been possible to exempt this one home, the misery of the others would not have greatly affected him. But suffering must be kept from his own house, and all and any means to banish it would be and must be good.

The gentleman in whose mind these thoughts were pa.s.sing was the president of the bank, who knew himself to be a defaulter to an enormous amount, and who was now anxiously reflecting upon the means to cover up his robberies. Fortunately for him he was acquainted with the one man who more than any other in all America was able to help him. This was Capt. Irving. The president was a man of nerve. He knew, as everybody else knew, the relations in which the police stood to the thieves, and he felt that if he could arrange to have his own bank robbed, his difficulties would vanish, and his share in the defalcations be covered up.

Little time was left to him before the inevitable discovery, but the prompt and skillful use he made of it to extricate himself from the fearful danger of his position makes one almost regret that a man of such resolution and such opportunities should prove to the world that high qualities may exist when the moral sense is entirely wanting.

Irving was quickly taken into his confidence, the position explained, the proposition to rob the bank broached, all possible co-operation in the way of leaving safes unlocked and doors open, or what, of course, amounts to the same thing, of furnishing keys and information to open everything, promised, and then Irving was asked if he could find men to carry the job into execution. New York in those days was well supplied with such artists, but the right men to carry out so momentous an operation had to be sought. The difficulty, however, was not great, and Irving promptly a.s.sured the honorable president that he might confidently count on the right men at the right time.

Among the professionals who twenty-three or four years ago were considered "valuable" men at Police Headquarters were Mike Hurley, Patsey Conroy and Max Shinburn. These were the men whom Irving instantly determined to employ, and whom he forthwith set about to find. That not being a matter of any difficulty, the same night the three men met Irving at his own house, and were delighted over the revelation he made to them.

One would like to know with what sentiment a man occupying an honorable and responsible position, a Sunday-school superintendent, the head of a great financial inst.i.tution, well known in the money world and respected in society, slunk to a midnight meeting with burglars.

Did no feeling of shame crimson his face, no sinking of disgust oppress his heart, as he slipped into a house, where, although he kept aloof from actual contact with the ruffians, the details of an enormous crime of which he was the author were debated and settled?

Prudential reasons doubtless kept him from forming a personal acquaintance with his agents. The risk of exposing himself to future blackmail must not be incurred, and one may well believe that he shrank from clasping the hands of these men, who were eagerly awaiting him.

Whatever were his feelings, his desperate position suffered no halting.

The storm was ready to break at any moment. In an instant he might be a wretched fugitive, with terror before him and infamy howling behind. But one way led out of this labyrinth. He had resolutely planted his feet in that way, determined to tread it to the end. He did tread it to the end, and he came out victorious.

If the suspicions of any afterward pointed toward him, no syllable of the suspicions was breathed. Who dared suspect that an honorable citizen had ever, in the dead of night, crept like a robber to a meeting of outlaws, to concoct the details of an outrageous breach of trust, of a crime which--none knew it better than he--would carry life-long misery and suffering to the families of nearly every man who trusted him?

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE DETECTIVES SIGNALED THE BURGLARS: 'THE COAST IS CLEAR.'"--Page 57.]

"The evil that men do lives after them," but where does the responsibility of its author end? Who will ever say what crimes may spring from the one act of wrongdoing, crimes committed, it may be, by persons who were directly led into them by the consequences of an act the perpetrator of which had never heard of those affected by it? How far does the responsibility of the wrongdoer extend? What weight of horror is he acc.u.mulating on his head?

Such questions may perhaps occur afterward, when the pleasure has been tasted and is gone, and nothing remains of the detected crime but the ruin it has wrought; but in the excitement of laying the plot, in the glamour which the hope of success casts over the schemer, they probably never intrude, conscience is smothered, and he is left to carry out his schemes to the end.

Doubtless no such thoughts disturbed the president, as he waited that night while Irving acted as go-between, carrying messages from him to the agents and from the agents back again to him. At last the arrangements were made. Duplicate keys of the safe were to be provided, and a way, to be presently explained, was to be left open to each of them. Whatever the robbers found in the safes was to be theirs, and the task of getting it was to be of the easiest. This, of course, was highly satisfactory to the thieves, but something more must be prepared for the stockholders and the public. Bank safes are not so easily emptied; there must be the appearance, at least, of great effort to effect the robbery, and marks of the effort must be left behind.

It was, therefore, settled that powerful tools were to be provided, tools able to tear open any strong-box in the world. Such articles are expensive, and the burglars had no money to procure them. No man who knows those people will be surprised at this, for, however much money they may obtain, they never have anything. It melts out of their hands, and they would be themselves embarra.s.sed to say what becomes of it.

The president's first necessity, therefore, was to pay out about a thousand dollars for the jimmies, wedges and all the paraphernalia of the burglars' industry. This he did. Irving took charge of the money, and he had far too great an interest in the scheme to suffer the cash to be squandered. The agreement was that on the following day Conroy should present himself at the bank to hire a vacant bas.e.m.e.nt, the roof of which formed the floor of the room where the safes were lodged. The president undertook to smooth any difficulties in the way of requiring references, and promised that he should be accepted as a tenant.

This agreement was punctually carried out. Conroy made his application, the bas.e.m.e.nt was granted to him, the rent paid in advance for the edification of the clerks, and he at once entered in possession. Hurley and Shinburne joined him, and the following Sat.u.r.day they removed so much of the ceiling that but a few minutes' work was required to complete a hole which should serve as a doorway to the vaults above when the bank closed in the evening.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MACHINE FOR WEIGHING GOLD.]

CHAPTER VI.

CHEATED VISIONS AND VANISHED HOPES.

Sat.u.r.day night was the time chosen to get into the bank, and the plunderers were to remain there until Sunday. The members of Irving's ring were to keep watch to prevent any officious interference from pa.s.sers-by or from ward policemen. Carriages were to be in waiting at some convenient place on Sunday morning, and when the men inside received a signal from their police accomplices on the outside, they were to leave the bank, abandoning their tools, and carrying away nothing but the money and the securities they had stolen. So far, the way was plain; the keys had long before been prepared, tested and found to work properly; full instructions were given as to the way to use them, but the way inside was not yet open.

A night watchman was employed on the premises, and he, of course, was to be got rid of. Little ceremony was to be used in treating him. He was to be seized, overcome by any means, bound, gagged and rendered helpless until Monday, and the fact that he always pa.s.sed Sunday in the bank, prevented any remark at home upon his continued absence. The details of the plot were thus satisfactorily settled, and at a late hour the conspirators separated.

In the early morning of that day the three burglars were standing in the cellar to which they had lowered their booty, waiting for the signal to come out. At last it was given, when the precious trio slipped out, carrying their precious bags. A covered carriage was posted in an adjoining street, into which the whole party entered, flurried and excited, and rapidly drove to Irving's residence. There the contents of the bags were carefully examined. The actual cash was easily disposed of, but what was to be done with the bonds?

The arrangement finally agreed upon, to be detailed presently, shows that if there be circ.u.mstances in which a little learning is a dangerous thing, one of them is not just after the perpetration of a gigantic burglary.

The Monday following its execution confusion and amazement reigned in the bank. The clerks on their arrival were astounded to find the safe doors wide open, torn and smashed by the tools which lay scattered over the floor, and the night watchman, gagged and bound, was discovered, nearly dead, in a neighboring room. One of the clerks jumped into a cab and rushed to Police Headquarters in Mulberry street to report the robbery. Irving was sitting in his office, busy with the night reports, when the messenger was introduced to tell of the bank's calamity.

The excellent chief listened with breathless attention, and was naturally horror-struck at the perpetration of such a crime. Calling a couple of his trusted sleuths, he hastily communicated the surprising news, and the three hurried with the clerk back to Greenwich street.

Arrived there they minutely examined the premises, and gave it as their opinion, judging from the style of the work and from the tools which lay around, that the burglary had been committed by a well-known burglar named Harry Penrose, and that the night watchman, whom they immediately placed under arrest, must have been his accomplice.

The president had sent word to the bank that he was unwell, and would not be able to attend to business that day, but the terrible news was immediately telegraphed to him, and, in spite of his illness, he hurried to town. It is impossible to describe his astonishment and distress at the sight which met his eyes. In the presence of the clerks he held anxious consultations with the detectives, who a.s.sured him that they had already taken the first steps to unravel the mystery, and that every possible effort would be made to discover the criminals. In the privacy of his own office he explained to the reporters that he had left in the bank four hundred thousand dollars in cash and bonds, every farthing of which had disappeared.

As soon as the news was published the excitement among the depositors and the stockholders of the bank was, of course, immense. A run set in, which the directors by the help of friends and of their own private resources were able to meet, but the Wall street appreciation of the calamity was shown in the drop in value of the bank's stock from 130 to 40.

I repeat, a little learning is a dangerous thing. Much knowledge is not to be looked for among men who engage in such crimes, but one would fancy that the everyday experience of Irving and his people would have given them some idea of financial business. The fact is, they were, if possible, more ignorant than their felonious partners. The financial ideas of the latter scarcely went further than "making cheap pennyworths of their plunder, giving to courtesans and living like lords till all be gone," so that negotiating the sale of bonds was a mystery far too high for them--something which they could never hope to attain to. But the company included one man who was a rare exception to the ordinary ride of such society. This was Max Shinburne, a German, a man of considerable education, who, in some inexplicable way, had fallen so far from honor and respectability that when he saw a thief he "consented unto him."

How is it that such men are often found in the ranks of professional criminals? They would probably have difficulty to explain it themselves.

A want of savoir faire, the fact that they have never been taught to make a practical use of their acquirements, the pressure of temptation at a critical moment, the absence, possibly, from harm, leading to the hope of immunity--all, perhaps, enter into the explanation of the secret promptings which have led to the first false step, to the first planting of the feet in the path which leads to destruction. Once the step is taken, to retrace it seems impossible. The line which society draws, and which it proclaims no man shall overstep without punishment, may be approached very closely, but once on the wrong side, once the fateful step is taken, the act is irretrievable; to attempt to retrace it is to attempt to undo the past; it is all but impossible.

Thus probably it is that the fall of an educated man is more hopeless than that of one who knows no better. A carpenter or a blacksmith who has got himself in a tangle has only to move to another town, and if he shakes off perverted thoughts and perverted influences, he is not much worse off than before. He has kept his trade, and his trade will keep him.