DARING ROBBERY IN BOSTON, U.S.

Press, Volume XVI, Issue 2164, 25 March 1870, Page 4

DARING ROBBERY IN BOSTON, U.S.

a bask enteeed upon a sunday, and from £60,000 to £100,000 stolen. The " New York Tribune " states that a gang of thieves, entered the Boylston National Bank on Sunday, November 21, and perpetrated one of the most successful robberies we have known for many months. On Monday morning the Bank officials, on opening the outer safe at the usual hour, were aetonished to find a hole in the rear of the safe. This hole is about large enough for a man to crawl through easily, and is about three feet from the floor. The shelves in the safe, whichj contained 25 to 30 tin boxes, deposited there for safe keeping at the owners' risk, were missed, and on looking through the hole their contents were seen scattered promiscuously over the floor of a room in the adjoining building. The steel safe, which was on the left of the outer safe, and contained the funds and collateral securities of the Bank, was undisturbed. The scattered papers were collected and carried to the president's room. An examination

of what was left by the robbers was then "made, and it was discovered that all of the national bonds belonging to various parties, and to a very large amount, had been taken, while all the other valuable documents that the trunks contained had been left. Two vigilant watchmen are employed by the Bank, and yet no sound was heard, and there was no suspicion that all was not right until the safe was opened on Monday morning. Want of time, or the difficulty of the work, probably kept the robbers from at- | tempting to force an entrance to the steel safe within. It appears that about the 20th of October, a man giving the name"of W. A. Judson bought out a barber's shop in the adjacent building, on the second floor (the same as the Bank), paying therefor some hundreds of dollars. Between tiiis room and the back room are two walla of the building, together twenty inches thick. The walls of the room wero wainscotted up to the ceiling, that or boarded, the boards running : laterally. .. The * rogues then went to work and cut off a front corner of the room by a little partition, making an inner private office. This little office was parallel to the location of the Boylston Bank safe on the second floor of the next building. The wainscot or wooden sheeting of the wall in the private office of Judson and Co. was then cut so as to form a door, behind which-'was the trick wall. This door was 6 feet high and 4 feet wide, and was fixed on hinges at the top. An;-old-fashioned secretary was set against iiLsayjfl w, hide it;!: When the rogues worked they no doubt hauled away the secretary or book-case, raised the door, and cut out from the wall brick by brick, ; These bricks and the defiris were packed in boxes and labelled medicine. When tired, the door or moveable piece of the wainscot was shut down, the hinges being above, and the secretary wheeled back against it. In this way, by repeated operations, they cut a hole through two brick walls, together 20 inches, thick, carefully ~packing the debris, as they went, till the; back of the iron safe in*the next Wilding was exposed to view. To work on this, of course, requiredga day when; no one was in the iTEe-Sabbath was that day, when, no doubt, the rogues in their private room pulled away the secretary, Raised tie door in thewafnscoty and \vitk drills bored a number ,of,holeß in the> back of the safe in a circle of 18 inches in diameter. Then, at some propitious moment, they knocked out, or drew out, and tent

down the piece enclosed by the-drill-holder, and t«»us made a hole 18 inches across into the back safe. Through this :they took out all/the private boxes which were ranged on the shelves of the "safe,- broke them open, selected the bonds, and scattered the rest, mortgages, papers, and boxes, over the floor. No doubt they had „ enough without risking detection liy bs&kijjg open th% steel box of the Bank. It was an easy : matter how, protecting the bonds, to leave their room in the building, No. 425, Washington street,__and, locking it, walk off in the onen .streets with the proceeds of iheir villany.' The total loss is (estimated at from 300,000 dole, to 500,000 dols.