Armed robbery

“ England swarmed with vagrants, who easily passed into robbers, or even murderers. The author of Utopia traced the evil to its roots. Soldiers, he said, were discharged on their return home, and, being used to roving and dissolute habits, naturally took to vagrancy. Robbery was their only resource, and the law tempted a robber to murder. Hanging was the penalty both for robbing and murder, and the robber, therefore, knowing that he would be hanged if he were detected, usually killed the victim whom he had plundered in order to silence evidence against himself ”

“ In 1720 ladies going to Court were escorted by servants armed with blunderbusses “to shoot at the rogues.” Wright gives a detailed account of five-and-twenty robberies perpetrated within three weeks in January and February of the year above mentioned. A few of the most daring cases may be quoted. Three highwaymen stopped a gentleman of the Prince’s household in Poland Street, and made the watchman throw away his lantern and stand quietly by while they robbed and ill-used their victim. ”

“ The remainder ransack the house from top to bottom, take away any money or valuables they can find, and consume any drink there may be. If they cannot find any money or valuables, they threaten him with death until he disgorges. And lonely women suffered in like fashion.
The demand for arms used to be merely a blind for committing robbery. The location of every firearm in a district was well known from the beginning of the war. ”

“ The police regulations were extremely severe against heresy, but brigandage was common, and the darker streets were unsafe at night to strangers. People were not infrequently robbed in their own doorways, and there was a recognized system of violent robbery known as "doorway robbing." ”

“ In fact, that is what the appearances suggested, for it is manifestly improbable that a person who had committed a crime would take the risk of pawning the product of robbery with violence in the very neighbourhood where the crime had been committed, and after an interval of time which would allow of the hue and cry having already been raised. Your sergeant is probably right in assuming that the man with the mole had nothing to do with the affair. But the finding of this bag is a different matter. It connects that disappearance with the river and it offers a strong suggestion of crime. ”

“ And in the game of war the same conventions, though unspoken, apply. Manslaughter is no longer to count as manslaughter; robbery counts no longer as robbery; theft is not thieving but ‘requisition’; villages burnt represent, not conflagrations, but ‘positions taken’. ”

“ The weapons used by the robbers is a short thick club, slung stone balls, and knives. They seldom use fire-arms, but dread them. The savage, dissipated negro, or Peruvian robber, may come up bravely with his dagger, intent to commit murder; but let him hear the click of a revolver and he vanishes; the noise is offensive to him. Robbers waylay travelling merchants, lonely strangers, and trains of merchandise with loads of silver. The mules are turned from the road into a wild mountain gorge, where none but robbers live, and forever lost to the owner. ”

“ Robbery seems to be the fashion; on the one hand masked burglars with pistols at your heads and gags in the mouths of your wife and children, and on the other hypocritical, lying, false-swearing, thieving scoundrels who get your money under fair pretences, and because of your trust in their characters and good faith, and then waste it in speculations and in luxurious living. ”

“ The scene of the actual conflict was that part of Division Street on which the bank faced, and scarcely a full block in length. Here the five mounted robbers went riding back and forth, up one side of the street and down the other, doing their utmost with voice and arms to keep up the reign of terror which they had begun. The citizens whom they had driven in were looking for weapons, and the bolder ones were coming back, some armed and some unarmed, around the margin of the field. ”

“ The Golden Farmer being now at a place convenient for his purpose, “Very well, then, sir,” said he, [Pg 103] “should I find any money about you, and convert it to my use, it is only actionable, I find.” “That is a robbery,” said the barrister, “which requires no less a satisfaction than a man’s life.” “A robbery!” replied the Golden Farmer; “why, then, I must commit one in my time:” and presenting his pistol, he instantly demanded his money or his life. ”

“ The reason therefor is that the robber usually engages in robbery with the determination to murder his victims if necessary to carry out his purpose.
“It is sad to behold a young man like yourself, who, by an upright and virtuous life, might have been an honorable and useful citizen, enjoying the blessings of the most refined and elevated society, banished, as it were, from all that renders life desirable. ”

“ I was engaged in a detective operation which required my presence in the city, and had been in consultation with some of the express company's officials, for whom I was attempting to discover the perpetrators of a robbery of one of their safes. Turning a corner I came upon a scene that stirred my feelings to the utmost.
It was the market square, and the merchandise disposed of were human beings. There was the auction-block and the slave-pen. Men, women and children were being knocked down to the highest bidder. Wives were sold away from their husbands, and children from their parents. ”

“ Robbery and plunder became common, and that not only on the track of armies or the route of smaller bodies of soldiers, for bands of mere marauders, taking up the cry of the faction that happened in any neighbourhood to have the ascendancy, plundered houses, robbed travellers, and were guilty of all sorts of violence. ”

“ They had not gone very far, when, riding across a mountain, they caught a glimpse of several armed men hiding amongst some trees in their path, and remembered suddenly some talk they had heard of a band of twelve robbers who lay in wait for rich travellers. The robbers were more like savage beasts than men, and lived somewhere at the top of the mountain in caves and holes in the ground. ”

“ Hardened murderers, thieves, and assassins were here associated with boys in their teens who were undergoing imprisonment for some trifling robbery. It was not pleasant to rub elbows with miscreants who lounged past, almost smiling defiance, whilst the slim warder, in his straw hat, shirt sleeves, and drawers told you how such a fellow had murdered his mother, how another had killed a policeman, or a third had destroyed no less than three persons in a few moments. ”

“ The cases of robbery complained of, have been effected without any violence or noise, and have principally been by concealment in stores, which, added to the great want of a single lamp, or other light, in any one street at night, must reasonably facilitate the design of the robber, and defy the detection of the most active and vigilant body of police. ”

“ What meant this robbery, this defiance of the law, of her uncle’s edicts and of McNamara? They were common thieves, criminals, outlaws, these men, deserving punishment, and yet she recalled a darker night, when she herself had sobbed and quivered with the terrors of pursuit and two men had shielded her with their bodies.
She turned and sped towards the tents, bursting in through the canvas door; instantly every man rose to his feet at sight of her pallid face, her flashing eyes, and rumpled hair.
“Sluice robbers!” she cried, breathlessly. “Quick! A hold-up! The watchman is hurt!” ”

“ The very demand of a man who robs 'Your money or your life!'-jmplies that human life is in jeopardy; so that, when a number of persons agree to and enter upon the commission of the crime of robbery, and a person is killed, who is an innocent person, in the execution of that purpose to rob, all the parties who have so entered into the agreement and enter upon the execution of the purpose to rob are equally responsible. The pistol or gun fired is the pistol or gun of each and every one of them. ”

“ Travellers could hardly trust themselves to go about unarmed, and even the mail-coaches, in which (besides the driver and guard) some passengers generally journeyed, had to carry weapons of defence placed in the hands of the guard. Many instances of highway robbery by highwaymen who made a profession of robbery might be given ”

“ Armed with this, on a dark night, the robber walks down a street, and just as he passes a man, he strikes back over his left shoulder, so that the peak catches his victim in the back of the head, and knocks him endways. ”

“ Quite frequently bank burglars devote as much as three or four months of hard labor in preparing for an important robbery and, in a large percentage of cases, they find that, after all their patience and industry, it is impossible for them to execute the robbery they have so carefully planned and all their work goes for nought. Sometimes, too, they are interrupted in their work and have to flee, leaving behind their kits of valuable tools. Watchmen's bullets are ever threatening their lives and prison walls constantly loom up before them. ”

“ There are so many sharpers about on the Continent—gangs of them in league together. They follow people to Nice and Monte Carlo, and all these places, and rook them in all sorts of ways. They are regular birds of prey, living by their wits. Some think the police are in their pay. Robbery after robbery takes place in trains and custom-houses; at least, jewels, money, and letters of credit disappear from locked and registered luggage, and the thieves are scarcely ever found out. I say, where do you think she spent the afternoon of the day she came to Les Oliviers?—Ah! ”

“ With a death-dealing pistol in each hand, they fired with incredible rapidity, and at each discharge an unfortunate wretch fell to rise no more. Terror-stricken, the robbers fled in every direction. Some were arrested in their flight by the unerring aim of the outlawed brothers; and some more fortunate escaped to the mountains with life only, everything being left behind in order that they might save it. ”

“ Robbery stories may include anything from petty thievery to bank defaulting. Some of the possibilities are horse and automobile stealing, burglary, hold-ups, train and street-car robbery, embezzlement, fraud, kidnapping, safe-cracking, shop and bank robbery. It is well for the reporter who has to cover a story of this class to acquaint himself with the distinctions that characterize the various kinds of robbery and the various names applied to the people who commit this sort of crime: e.g., robber, thief, bandit, burglar, hold-up man, thug, embezzler, defaulter, safe-cracker, pick-pocket. ”

“ You see, if a thief comes up to a man armed with a revolver, and demands the man's purse, the man produces that revolver, and the thief says, "Pass on, friend." If a thief who has stolen money meets the man he stole it from, or a policeman, and can pull out a revolver, then he can say to the man or the policeman, "Let me pass, or I will shoot you down;" ”

“ A robbery is proposed to the intoxicated servants, who readily acquiesce, more out of drunken gratitude for the liquor furnished by the thieves, than any motive of crime or gain. They are often induced to act as guides in directing the bandits to the home of their master. ”

“ When thieves wish to commit a robbery, they must consult the officers of the guild and get their permission, and they must pay a certain amount of the profits for the support of the association.
"Sometimes they go in parties of a hundred or more; they surround a house and plunder it by force, and they usually manage it so that the occupants cannot make any resistance. ”

“ Every daylight robbery in any part of the country, from the Alleghenies to the Rockies, was laid at our doors; we could not go out without a pair of pistols to protect ourselves from the attack of we knew not whom; and finally, after one of the young ruffians who had helped in the robbery of the Missouri Pacific express car at Otterville “confessed” that we were with the robbers we decided to make one haul, and with our share of the proceeds start life anew in Cuba, South America, or Australia. ”

“ As detectives these soldier-police are quite useless, and crime, unless openly committed, is rarely detected. Robbers have continued in their profession for years though perfectly well known, and no attempt has been made to capture them. There was one who was notorious for the impunity with which he had committed a long series of crimes. When he entered a house he [Pg 290] intended to rob, he stripped, rubbed his body with oil, and crawled in, knife in hand. Unluckily for him, one night, being disturbed in his operations, he stabbed his assailant, who proved to be a Senator. ”

“ If, in committing such robbery, they cause another person to suffer injury by shooting him with a firearm, or assaulting him with an explosive, or subjecting him to torture or cruelty so as to have him undergo serious hardship, Lord says that they the gang robbers be punished with twenty years' imprisonment or life imprisonment. ”

“ And if any of these low people commits a robbery, concerning which a complaint has been made to the king or to the governor, they send to take the robber, and if they find the thing stolen in his hands, or if he confess that he did it, if he is a Gentile, they take him to a place where they carry out executions, and there they set some high posts with sharp points and a small stand, through which passes one of those points ”

“ May the robbers keep still aloof, though my German lad sleeping over there says they are plenty and bad above, and tells a story of what they lately did, to put me in bodily fear, shooting a woman, and tying two men to a tree. He is armed, and thinks that is his protection. ”