From Boniface to Bank Burglar; Or, The Price of Persecution: How a Successful Business Man, Through the Miscarriage of Justice, Became a Notorious Bank LooterWhite, George M. (George Miles)
History
From Boniface to Bank Burglar; Or, The Price of Persecution: How a Successful Business Man, Through the Miscarriage of Justice, Became a Notorious Bank Looter
White, George M. (George Miles)
Bank robberies -- United States; Criminals -- Biography; White, George M. (George Miles)
The time had now come when the treasure satchel was to be opened and
the division made. Eddie Hughes was master of the treasury, and as such
divided the cash and bonds into six equal parts. This was interesting
to me, for I wasn’t sure that I would be reckoned in a share and share
alike, but would be put off with a few hundred dollars. The total
amount of the haul was a few hundreds more than two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, consequently I was given forty-two thousand for my
share, seven thousand of which was in paper money.
Strange things have happened in my life of turmoil, but no incident
has impressed me in so peculiar a manner as when my eyes fell on the
first twenty-dollar bill handed me by Hughes. I read on the face of
the bill the name of “C. L. Beals, Cashier,” and when I saw after
this signature, “First National Bank of Winchendon, Massachusetts,” I
knew that the author of that signature was a man with whom I had done
thousands of dollars’ worth of business, had sold him carload upon
carload of grain and other merchandise. It seemed as though there must
be some hidden significance in that strip of paper money, belonging
away up in New England, coming into my possession as a part of the
proceeds of the first bank burglary in which I had engaged. There I sat
on the side-hill on Ohio soil and looked long on this reminder of my
own native hills far away.
Presently George Wilson asked me if I were magnetized by the money
god, which aroused me from my revery. I said nothing of what had so
engrossed me, deeming it too sacred for discussion. I carefully wrapped
my treasure in a piece of brown paper which Hughes gave me, and put
it in my pocket. All but Wilson did likewise. He scratched away some
dead leaves from under a log and hid his share there. It was in a small
satchel. He said that he wouldn’t lose it in case we were surprised by
the constables.
In thinking over my treasure I could not but feel some satisfaction in
possessing it, though I had committed a crime. But a week before I had
left New York with only a few dollars, five of which I could actually
claim as my own. Here I was, the owner of more than forty thousand
dollars. I felt myself growing so satisfied with having this money,
gained through crime, that I tried to crush the feeling. It seemed
impossible. There was some compensation, at least, in having the “name”
and the “game.” Hitherto I had had the “name” and some one else had the
game. In the former case I had been dealt out rare injustice, in which
I had lost my hard-earned competence, but now, though I had the name of
being a thief, yet I also had the “game,” and that several thousands
of dollars more than I had ever possessed. But on the heels of these
reflections, some of which were far from soothing, I was presently
drawn to the fact that I was not yet out of the woods, possibly my
revery being interrupted by hearing Big Bill tell what his plans would
be when he got back to New York.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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