HIGHWAYMEN DE LUXE

Hokitika Guardian, 14 April 1928, Page 4

HIGHWAYMEN DE LUXE

An elegant motor car hound northward moves swiftly out of New York. At a crossing a traffic policemanTfialts it. He glances indifferently at the occupants. hut sees nothing amiss. Why should her How is he to know that the car lias been stolen and that the five men inside are modern highwaymen intent on securing rich booty now on its way from Connecticut to New York? (writes AY. F. Bullock in the •• Daily Mail ”). The policeman raises his hand as a signal for the car to go forward, and it leaps ahead like a greyhound released. The ear pursues its swift way until it reaches a lonely stretch of road, where it turns off and hides beneath the shelter of low-hanging branches, ostensibly to make a needed repair. There is awaits the arrival of a heavy lorry carrying a valuable cargo of fragrant tobacco. When the lorry is heard coming down tlie road the motor-car driver prepares to shoot out- of hiding and follows it towards New York. At a favourable spot the highwayman at the wheel sounds his horn and the lorry driver moves over to the right so that the motor car may pass.

But something seems to go wrong and the lory driver finds that lie is forced nearly off the road and is obliged to put on his brakes that an accident may be avoided. He turns to curse the awkward “ guy ” who has driven him into such a dangerous predicament. But the curse dies on his lips. The motor car, too, has stopped and out of it liavc leaped four men. now showing guns. The lorry driver and his companion have no time to draw their revolvers before they are menaced with instant death unless they throw up their hand's. They are ordered oil’ the lorry and forced into the motor car. their places being taken hv two of the bandits. Now the car and the lorry part company, the sar being driven to some spot where the two victims of the hold-up can he safely deposited and the car abandoned, while the lorry and its valuable load are taken to receivers. who quickly dispose of the tobacco at a huge profit.

•Nothing is heard of that robbery. The company who sent the tobacco to New York prefer to sailer their loss in silence rather than risk publicity damaging to their trade. A week later a similar incident occurs on a New .Jersey highway along which pass daily rich silks Irani the Paterson and Newark factories. An other motor ear toots its horn and another lorry is driven to the kerb. Before the driver is certain of the next move in this surprise game hall a dozen revolvers settle the matter for him. Sulkily he climbs down from bis seal to make room lor another man, uno lakes the cargo not to the warehouse, u bit her it was bound bill to some see lei rcndezvious Irom which it can be distributed without detection. .Men bants and trucking companies are spending more than a million sterling annually on the protection ol tlicit’ goods. Sometimes a lorrtimm puts up a light and story ol a ntuidei finds its way into the newspapers. But more often the robbery is planned an I executed with lost secret dispatch and the company bears its loss modcstIv and quietly.

Silks, furs, perfumes and tobacco are the most voidable merchandise taken into New York, either for shipment abroad or for sale within the great city. AYiien bullion is carried irom bank to bank armoured cars are generallt list'd. These call travel as a rule m S afetv. for they operate within metropolitan limits and are dillicult ol appmai h. They cannot, be held up with the celerity demanded in a modern highway robbery.

lint armoured ears are expensive and factories are chary of employing them. One company, handling millions ol dollars worth of goods each year, has abandoned motor lorries for horse teams, arguing that a horse-drawn waggon is too slow for the robbers, who must make an immediate getaway it the coup is to he success! ill. Other merchants for their most valuable shipments attach live men to a track and arm them with heavy ealibred revolvers. The instructions are ' shoot (jist and inquire afterwards.” zllut, the employment of these guards is costly ,„„1 the men cannot he engaged for less valuable stock. We weave romantic and exciting tales around pirates and highwaymen whose deeds date hack three Inquire I or four hundred years. But when tbe\ scour tltt' broad highways ol New \Ol s States ami New Jersey they become pests of society, to be shot, it possible, without warning or mercy.