THE MICROBE “CALLOUSITIS”
It has been, and is yet, claimed by companies which make it a business
to supply banking institutions with burglar-alarm systems, that while
bank clerks and night watchmen may be corrupted, the alarm, if kept in
excellent repair, can always be depended upon. While it is true that
the incorruptible cannot be corrupted, nor can the ever inanimate be
imbued with life-blood, yet I shall endeavor to show beyond question
how, in my experience, the burglar-alarm system, with all its boasted
infallibility, was utterly useless. Indeed, one of the thought-to-be
points of wisdom in the device, that which had been conceived as
the most inviting trap for the unwary, was betrayed by the very
over-cunningness of the thing, if I may so express myself.
In the village of Port Jervis, in 1869, Shinburn and I “turned off” the
bank, despite the fact that Holmes’s burglar-alarm threaded the whole
building. Moreover, there was a wire from the bank to the residence of
the cashier, not more than three hundred feet away. And, believe me,
the alarm was in prime working order that night. The whole trouble
was that the banking people placed too much confidence in the efficacy
of the system,--in that instance, at least. This I will make clear;
for, by my faith, the directors rubbed the sleep out of their eyes one
morning, only to look upon a great financial loss. That is, they awoke
to find the big doors of their steel vault and money safe lying on the
floor, and every dollar of the bank’s capital gone.
We forced an entrance through an iron-shuttered window, and the first
thing within the range of my bull’s-eye was an ordinary-appearing
chair. It was close to the window, and seemed a most inviting stepping
from the sill to the floor. In fact, it seemed as though it might
have been placed there for the sole purpose. Be sure I did not avail
myself of this comfort, and my good associate Shinburn was cautioned to
have similar wisdom. Being a young fellow and agile, I sprang to the
floor, my sneak shoes standing between me and any unnecessary noise.
Immediately I was astonished by what I saw at every window and door,
and even in front of the vault. I discovered, with one round sweep of
my bull’s-eye, that an apparently thoughtful hand had supplied these
comforts for the use of those who might, without warrant, visit the
bank by night or day. There was seating accommodation, indeed, for
us and half a dozen guests, had I, perchance, invited them to the
performance. However, as this gathering had in view great retirement
and unostentation, my good Shinburn and I, not having an over-stock
of time, refrained from occupying these much present and hospitable
furnishings.
When I saw an upholstered rocker or an ordinary chair left with such
insistent convenience, that alone was a sufficient indication to me
from my point of view that all was not right. And again, when I saw
a chair left, as by neglect, in front of the vault door, there was
sufficient reason in that for entertaining suspicion. Know that we
didn’t disturb their quietude.
All doubt of the wisdom of my caution would have been swept away, had
I had any, when, upon making a careful examination of these chairs, I
discovered that they were all cunningly attached to the burglar-alarm
system. Be sure that we met the mute, though pathetic, appeal from
these appliances to make ourselves comfortable with a stolid disregard.
I will not assert that this was not a cunning device, though it might
not thus appear to an inexperienced one after something for nothing.
To me, the experienced bank burglar I prided myself on being, it was a
danger worth counting.
At the moment we were loading ourselves with the bank’s funds, this
question came to me: “Do the burglar-alarm people really believe that
a ‘professional,’ once past a window or door alive with their system,
would be stupid enough not to comprehend the meaning of a chair left in
front of a vault door?” I felt as certain as that I was in the bank,
that if I, or my associate, sat in any one of those chairs, even before
I made a close investigation, there would have been a jangling of bells
and the pouncing of police down on our heads. It was a cunning device,
but I must contend that it was very much overdone, and because of it
failed of its original cunning.
In August of 1874, the New York sub-treasury had a burglar-alarm
connected with the First Precinct station-house, now in Old Slip near
the East River, but then in New Street, in the heart of the Wall Street
financial district. Regardless of the fact, I went ahead with a plan to
loot the very rich vault of that institution. It was, on the surface, I
must admit, a scheme sufficiently bold to make the ordinary cracksman
apprehensive of success from the outset. But being a young fellow, as
I have said, and wildly infatuated with the idea, I couldn’t get it
out of my head. The burglar-alarm system in the sub-treasury was the
least of my concern, and for that reason I have taken the pains to
mention this subject at all. I knew that I could cope, handily, with
it, for I had only to pass the word along to the First Precinct police
station that I was ready to “pull off” the trick, and my friends there
would put the wire out of commission. So much for the efficacy of the
burglar-alarm in that case.
A greater problem to be solved was the force of inside night watchmen,
of which there was an extremely complicated system. Each time I
made an investigation, there seemed to have been conjured up another
watchman. Finally, I found I’d have to overcome six--too many by far
for me to surmount. Therefore, with the police at my beck and the
burglar-alarm under control, I found myself confronted by an obstacle
beyond my surmounting. It sadly injured my pride to acknowledge that I
must discard the idea of looting the sub-treasury.
Electricity can and will eat its way through the hardest chilled
steel, high explosive will open the strongest door of a vault ever
manufactured after the most ingenious plan of the master mechanic, bank
clerks and night and day watchmen of easy morals can be corrupted,
burglar-alarms may be put out of service by detectives like Tom
Davidson and Joe Seymour of the New York City Detective Bureau, but
there is one safeguard which cannot be broken down by the burglar
craft, and that is Eternal Vigilance!
Eternal vigilance! That safeguard, which should ever be employed by
the high officials of financial institutions, is potent to combat the
greatest genius possessed by a safe-burglar. Eternal vigilance should
be the keynote of safety, struck in every banking house in the world,
if its funds would be kept from the hands of the craft which seek ever
to gain something for nothing. It was this kind of watchfulness that
President Noblit of the Corn Exchange Bank of Philadelphia employed,
and it saved more than three millions of dollars from my clutches and
created within me a profound respect for him. I declare, with all the
earnestness in me, that no shrewder plan was ever devised to loot a
bank. I would have ruined it had it not been for President Noblit’s
vigilance. He, and not high-class steel bolts and bars and faithful
watchmen, stood between me and those millions.
A long experience in studying how best to “beat” steel vaults and
safes has demonstrated to me that real security for personal valuables
doesn’t depend so much on high-grade safes, superior combination locks,
heavily bonded employees, and the most efficient burglar-alarm system
extant, as it does upon a common-sense use of the simple precautionary
methods of protection with which any well-conducted banking institution
should be equipped. Among the safeguards in mind is a systematic
espionage upon the employees of a bank. Their habits should be known
to the president under whom they serve. The fact that cashiers and
tellers are members of a corporation in control of the bank ought not
to exclude them from espionage. In proof of this, I will call the
attention of the doubting one to the columns of the daily newspapers.
Scarcely forty-eight hours pass without its being recorded that a
bank cashier or teller in some part of the country has absconded with
the bank’s funds. A thorough knowledge of the social and business
relations of every man holding a responsible position in a bank should
be had. His habits and general character ought to be an open book
for the daily perusal of his chief. The habits of the associates of
cashiers and tellers should be known. The old saying, that birds of a
feather flock together, ought to be considered in its fullest sense,
and therefore a bank president should know what sort of a flock his
cashier or teller seeks after business hours. That a cashier has been a
faithful steward in a bank for many years is not a valid reason why he
should not be kept under surveillance. Almost every bank employee who
falls into corrupt ways was a “trusted” employee.
A careful espionage upon any one of these fallen cashiers or tellers
would have preserved the bank’s funds, and more than likely would have
prevented a fast and furious downward career, which terminated behind
the bars of a prison cell. Many and many bitter tears of stricken
and shamed wives and disgraced children might have been unshed, and
many happy homes might have been preserved and not have been forever
blighted, had timely warning and strong hands been laid upon the erring
husbands and fathers of these firesides.
In my mind there is no question that scores of former cashiers,
tellers, and other employees of banks are alive to-day, terrible
examples of the wild pursuit after costly pleasures. I do not
hesitate to say that if most of these men had been kept under proper
surveillance, they would not have departed from the narrow path of
rectitude. It is true that this is paying anything but a tribute to
their manhood, but I assert that commendation or condemnation will
not blind the argument, in view of the fact that most men are liable
to fall under great temptation. No man may know what he will do until
the fatal pitfall is reached. If he escape--well, thank Providence.
Were these fallen ones called now to witness to the fact, they would
unhesitatingly declare that espionage upon them would have been
providential. Much woe would not now be upon them and their loved ones.
I know whereof I speak, when I say that a bank’s executive should know
whether or not his bright young men are habitués of the pool-room,
the horse-race track, or are in the habit of taking a “flyer” in Wall
Street stock gambling. Expensive living in a bank clerk is a sufficient
reason for suspecting that he is not a desirable employee. It is
his province to prove his fitness under the circumstances. The mere
statement of a bank cashier or a teller, that the money he spends so
lavishly for luxuries far out of the reach of his salary comes from his
wife’s private fortune, ought not to be accepted as an all-sufficient
reason for his extravagance. The bank’s executive should know whether
it is true or false; it should be known beyond any possible doubt just
what money he is spending. If a cashier or a teller objects to so
severe a scrutiny of his affairs, the wisest thing in that case is to
declare a vacancy, and fill it with a man whose life is not weighted by
secrets. Having cognizance of the solemnity of the obligations resting
upon a bank president, an honest, trustworthy cashier, teller, or bank
clerk will not object to the closest scrutiny. Neither will he consider
that his honor has been trampled on, when a careful inquiry is made as
to his habits and as to those of his associates. On the contrary, an
honest, upright employee will be pleased to have his trustworthiness
put to the test and found not wanting. Beware of the bank employee
whose honor is so tender that it can’t be handled without gloves.
There’s sure to be a screw loose in almost every case. It’s an honor
with a subcellar, and dark things are hidden there.
I have already said that lax business methods, as practised at the
Ocean Bank in New York City, and the expensive habits of John Taylor,
one of the bank’s trusted clerks, were the prime factors in making my
plan to loot the vault an assured success. There is no doubt of this,
therefore I would call especial attention to that chapter. That I may
more deeply impress the fact upon the minds of those I would advise,
permit me to mention yet another marked laxness in providing protection
for bank funds, and that is the selection of the numbers used on
combination locks.
Experience taught me to observe the custom of banks, as to the manner
in which the combination numbers were used, and I soon found it to be
the prevailing rule among cashiers to use figures easily divisible.
For example, a train of numbers selected would be four, sixteen, and
thirty-two, or twelve, twenty-four, and thirty-six. Such trains should
be avoided if first-class protection against robbery is desired. I
will give a sufficient reason for thus advising my friends. In a
certain bank robbery, the identity of which I purpose not to disclose
at present, I was reasonably sure that I possessed the first number of
the train used on the vault-door lock. The number was twelve. I tried
it at the first opportunity with twenty-four and thirty-six, and in
five minutes was inside the vault. Finding that the numbers easily
divisible seemed to be the custom of the bank, I tried four, sixteen,
and thirty-two on the inside money chest. The result was not at all
astonishing to me, but the officials were undoubtedly panic-stricken,
the next day, when they learned that a large amount of ready cash had
been carried away. No holes were drilled, and no explosive was used.
Therefore I would advise more care in the selection of combination
numbers. Do not think it a task to change the combination often.
The old Louis Lillie combination locks, where the spindle dial could
be unscrewed, and a few other makes of the present day, most of them
antiquated, could be successfully manipulated. In fact, these locks
were what I termed a “dead walk-over.” I must assert, however, that if
it is necessary to work out a properly arranged, first-class, three or
four tumbler combination lock, it can be safely said that it is, in
nearly every case, a physical impossibility to master such a lock in
forty-eight or even seventy-two hours.
In using combination locks, it is best to change the numbers
frequently, especially when a clerk is about to leave the bank’s
employ. Of course what I am speaking of now, more particularly, has to
do with small banks in the villages and small cities, where clerks are
loaded with greater responsibility than are those in the institutions
of large cities. As an illustration of what might happen to a safe,
I’ll mention the case of a New York business house. There had been
a pestiferous leakage of money from the safe. Small amounts ranging
from five dollars to four times that sum disappeared, leaving no trace
of the thief. About all the employees were suspected. Every one was
wondering if every one else wasn’t the thief. Finally the firm hired a
private detective, and, behold, one night a man was detected red-handed
opening the street door with a duplicate key, and the safe with a
secret combination. The person proved to be a discharged clerk. Had
the combination numbers been changed at his leave-taking, he couldn’t
have opened the safe, and perhaps, having failed the first time, he
wouldn’t have been tempted again. It doesn’t pay to be lax in business
methods.
I was introduced to a “right” watchman in Boston once upon a time, and
having in view the looting of the bank in his charge, wanted the vault
examined. The outer door of the vault was of wood and was next to the
steel one. The watchman reported to me the next day what I wanted and
more. The president had asked him if he’d opened the wooden door. He
promptly denied it. But the president knew the door had been unlocked
and opened and, not suspecting the watchman, believed that burglars,
in some manner, had been tampering with the vault. How he knew it was
this: Every evening before leaving the bank, the president closed the
wooden door and put a certain kind of paste on one of the hinges.
The morning after the watchman opened the door, the paste was found
scraped back by the turning of the hinge. It was a faithful witness to
the fact. Had the watchman admitted that he’d heard suspicious sounds
which led him to open the door, the president would have thought no
more about it undoubtedly. As it was, the watchfulness of that bank
official spoiled my plans. It was a simple obstacle in my way, but it
was effective in preserving the bank’s funds.
Jimmy Hope, a notorious bank burglar, got into a certain bank in
Bleecker Street in New York City, and, taking off the dial of the
vault lock, drilled a hole through the door to strike the steel dog
in the lock. The object was to get at the dog and break it. Bad aim
resulted, and the dog was missed. Too much time had been consumed to
drill another hole, and putty was used to fill up the useless one. For
months the tampering was undiscovered, not to mention the marks on the
dial plate caused by the unscrewing of the dial. Not to have discovered
these plain evidences of tampering seemed to me the rankest sort of
neglect. The bank was afterward robbed.
I will mention the American Hotel in Hartford, Connecticut, as the
scene of another robbery which emphasizes what I’ve already said as to
carelessness. The hotel changed hands some thirty years ago, and one of
the retiring partners retained a key to the office safe. Not having the
“nerve” of the “honest” crook to do the work himself, he confided in a
“putter up” of crooked jobs, a native of Wayne County, Pennsylvania.
Now this “putter up”--though the telling may perhaps call forth a
doubt as to the veracity of this tale--was a justice of the peace. His
brother was a well-to-do, respectable physician. The justice of the
peace was given the key by the ex-hotel man, and it was passed along to
a man with whom I had been acquainted many years.
The next move to win was when a pair of expert safe burglars appeared
at the American Hotel in the guise of two extremely busy business
men from New York. They quite captured the good will of that Yankee
hostelry. When they left instructions at the desk to be awakened in
time for a two o’clock train the following morning, the porter, the
only employee on duty at that hour, knew he’d lose his situation if
the travellers were allowed to oversleep. He wasn’t dilatory, and
the “guests” were up betimes. While one of them kept the porter busy
searching for a mythical piece of baggage, the other, with the key,
cleaned out the safe and locked it again. Presently the guests were
bound toward New York. Meanwhile the obliging porter hugged a generous
tip for his faithfulness, and when he slid off into a dream that seemed
to occupy the rest of his watch, he thought himself a millionaire. His
awakening, however, was sad. The haul was more than the crooks had
anticipated, and they were well paid for the journey. It was long a
mystery to the hotel people how the money vanished from the safe. The
moral is: “Keep tabs on the safe keys when partnerships are dissolved.”
The laxity of bankers in conducting their business affairs was ever a
mystery to me. I have given the subject much thought since renouncing a
criminal career, and have arrived at this conclusion: That a criminal
has a much better opportunity to judge whether or not the success of
his unlawful projects came through the carelessness of others, than
has the man who leads a life within the pale of the law. I must say
that a great deal of the success which came to me was the outcome of
gross carelessness on the part of bank cashiers, tellers, clerks,
and watchmen. Therefore I would urge upon those in charge of public
funds to look well after the little things, in the way of providing
protection.
Kindly do not think it my purpose to coin words or phrases for the
use or misuse of posterity, but I would, in all sincerity, warn the
bankers of the land against a microbe which I will call “callousitis.”
Keep it out of your business. See to it that bank employees be not
infected with it. It is germinated in the rush of financial affairs--is
given life through the constant handling of immense sums of money.
Afflicted by the “callousitis,” the bank employee, who once realized
a keen responsibility in handling one dollar of another’s money
intrusted to his care, feels no added responsibility when he, through
promotion perhaps, is called upon to manipulate a million dollars. In
other words, he becomes callous to the fact that large sums of money
are passing through his hands. As the laborer’s palms become callous
through constant contact with rough surfaces, so the brain of a bank
employee arrives at a stage of indifference through his daily mental
contact with millions of dollars. The wood-chopper’s hands, once
blistered with the friction of the axe helve, at last became hardened
to the work and there was no more tenderness. Thereafter he wielded
the axe industriously, without pain to his hands. The bank employee’s
brain was awed at the first handling of a million dollars, but that
sensation gave place to indifference, when in time he came to handle
ten times a million dollars. And so he became, eventually, a victim of
“callousitis.” Thus afflicted, the victim may or may not be aware of
it, but in the majority of cases he is, and such a victim is very prone
to be lax in business affairs, and such laxity eventually leads to
disaster when thieves abound.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of
inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.
Text contains many occurrences of dialect and non-standard contractions.