Desperadoes

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 2, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 46.

ON the night of November 17 a lone highwayman boarded one of the Southern Pacific's fast trains at San Jose, California, and when the train was well under way he entered the mail-car, and at the point of a revolver commanded the three mail-clerks to lie down on the floor and put their heads in mail-sacks, so that they could not see what was going on. The train made no stops between San Jose and San Francisco, a distance of about fifty miles, and he had about an hour in which to work. He busied himself tearing open the registered mail, and securing whatever valuables he could find in the mail-car, and when the train slowed down in San Francisco he jumped off and made good his escape.

A similar robbery of a mail-car was committed on the same line a few weeks ago, and in a very similar manner, the highwayman boarding the train near San Francisco, and robbing the mail-car in the same way that this was done. It is supposed to have been the same person. Another train coming into Oakland was looted by a bandit. So far no clew seems to be obtained that will lead to the arrest of the desperado, or desperadoes, that have been doing this work.

Criminality of this character is becoming bolder and more daring. One of the chief reasons for it lies in the fact that we have so many corrupt officers that can be bribed, and who are not on the alert to catch criminals. Another cause lies in the delays and technicalities that are permitted in our courts of justice.

But deeper down still, at the very foundation of all this evil, is the fact that the moral backbone of society is crumbling. Some men seek to talk very earnestly and very eloquently on the other side of the question, and to tell us of the great things that are being done in the world for the moral uplift of society. But if society in general were not in a deplorable condition, we would need none of these organizations and great institutions that are working so heroically to better conditions. We should recognize the fact that society as a whole is going to pieces under its corruptions, and we should further recognize what these conditions signify.