A WOMAN BANDIT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 46, 23 February 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

A WOMAN BANDIT.

DEATH RECALLS DARING EXPLOITS OF TWENTY YEARS BACK.

A special to. the New York "World" from Virginia City says: Esther Vance is dying. To the present generation, remarks that paper, this means nothing-; to people whose recollection goes back twenty years it means much of romance and daring. Esther Vance was, in her day, the star giri bandit of the United StatesWounded many times, chased often by posses of determined men, imprisoueO once in the penitentiary, she has lived tc end her days as quietly as a ■ country housewife or a city seamstress. Her home is a squalid hut on the mountain side, where once she rode and robbed. Esther Vance was born In St. Charles, Montana, nearly forty years ago. Her father was a banker. In her teens the girl was remarkable for her wit and vivacity, her music and her literature. Beautiful, clever, daring-, she soon made for herself a place in the society of her home town that eclipsed any one's. Her contempt for her girl companions waa marked. They tried to ostracize her in. revenge; they failed. One day Esther Vance disappeared. In 1574 she suddenly reappeared in San Francisco. She wanted to go on the stage. There was no opening-. So she contented herself with giving- exhibitions in saloons with a handsome brace of silver-mounted pistols which she always carried. "1 hate the conventional life"," -she always declared. But never a breath of scandal attached to her name. Oue day a woman patient was admitted to St. Luke's Hospital in San Francisco. She had several gunshot wounds and two broken ribs. The San Francisco police records bore no account of how this could have happened. It was a week's mystery, and then everybody forget it. She was Esther Vance, but no once guessed. Next came the hold-up of the California Express in Napa Valley. Three persons made the attack and were wounded by the valiant messenger, who did his best to defend the treasure entrusted to him by Wells, Fargo and Co. All three got away. The ROBBERS WERE HOTLY PURSUEb, but made off to the eastward, crossing the American river some fifty miles above Sacramento, where further trace of them* was for the time lost. A few days later Jerome Lincoln, a director in the Bank of California, received by post all the bank cheques and drafts which had been taken ■I'om the train. The inclosure had been posted at Marysville. It had been addressed irt a flowing female hand, and neatly done up and sealed with a curious stamp representing a female shooting- down a man with a pistol and carrying the Spanish inscription "La Vengadora" (feminine form of The Avenger). This was Esther Vance, turned stage robber and adventuress. She had been wounded in the affray and the physician who attended her notified the authorities. Train robbery after train robbery occurred after this along the line of the Central Pacific, and slowly the form of Esther Vance began to figure in all oi them. She was finally identified in trie daring robbery on the night express on the Denver and Rio Grande. The evening train westward was just pulling Into Colorado Springs when a man and a woman drove up in a buckboard with a large case containing an enormous dog. The woman hailed the agent and prepaid the express charges on the dog at Sail Lake. She attended the box to the car door, and handed the express messenger a five-dollar gold piece. "Take good care of my dog, won't you?" she said. "I will send him something- to eat on the train—at Marshall Pass, say—and give him water, won't you?" At Marshall Pass a man appeared at the car door with some meat and a pan of water. "1 reckon I had better feed him' myself," he said. "He'rt rather fierce." And thus he gained admisison to~the car. The pan would not go into the box and the stranger began with a knife to cut a larger opening for it. In the meantime the train started and the messenger told his visitor he .must leave the ear. "Jn just a minute," was the reply, and as the messenger walked back to open the door to give him exit the stranger fired upon, and SHOT HIM FATALLY, in the neck. He then admitted hig a<S' complices, who were hidden ott the front platform, and leisurely looted the car; Then two of them passed thfotigh tile train and deliberately robbed eVery i>&saenger. One of those who gathered the watches and money was told by the other to let the women alone. "Not at all," was the scoffing retort. '"They don't need the money they never earned, and can get more the same way." It was Esther Vance who shot the messenger nnd robbed the passengers. After that her name was a terror to trainmen. She stole and shot right and left. At last she was caught—she was so badly wo.Uhded in 1887 while trying to hold up the Beowawe stage in the Sierras that shfc couldn't escape. Her trial was a dramatic one. She was borne to her trial oh a. litter. She was convicted. She received a sentence of life imprisonment. Sfife lay back on her pillows in court and cursed every one connected with the prosecution. ■ ""■/■■•". Four years later, still ou crutches^'* Esther Vance was pardoned. She -Went to Virginia City to live. On December 15th the doctors told her she could not llvfl* The old wounds are killing her. So She wrote this letter to her1 pastor: "Dear and Reverend Sir: I am tola that I am dying and that 1 cannot survive till Christmas. Oft that day I would beS forty years of age. I am glad t6 go ftfiS would, have welcomed death at any time within the iast fifteen years. It seems to me that I never saw or knew any good in living, and I have only your word and that of the Rev. Mr Davis of the prison at Carson that there is any good hereafter. "I want, however, to Save you knowthat I appreciated your kindness more than 1 have benefited by if\ and that your successful efforts to secure my release from prison secured my thanks for your good result which the hunger for liberty might Havo suggested. "You taught me that there were gOOd men on earth, and in your charity ©$ heart and acts forced upon me the knowledge that is common to many W6mej», that I must reach the degradation from Which there is no redemption before It was or is ever helpfully offered. I repent my wrongdoing, but I don't mind it*except I think you would prefer I,didn't feel so. With gratitude which thanks do not express, I am, sir, ESTHER VANCE,"