



Produced by ellinora and The Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from
images generously made available by The Internet Archive)






                           Transcriber’s Note

 Obvious spelling and punctuation errors have been corrected.

 Spelling variations have been kept as in the original.

 Italic text is indicated by underscores surrounding the _italic text_.

 Small capitals in the original have been converted to ALL CAPS.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               THE GREAT
                            TAXICAB ROBBERY

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Illustration:

  RHINELANDER WALDO
  Commissioner of Police, New York City
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               THE GREAT
                            TAXICAB ROBBERY

                        _A True Detective Story_

                                   BY
                            JAMES H. COLLINS

               WRITTEN FROM RECORDS AND PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
                    OF THE CASE FURNISHED BY THE NEW
                         YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT


                                NEW YORK
                           JOHN LANE COMPANY
                                 MCMXII

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
                           JOHN LANE COMPANY

------------------------------------------------------------------------




             This book has something to say about practical
             results of wiser police administration in New
                 York. It is respectfully dedicated to

                         HON. WILLIAM J. GAYNOR

                         MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY

           the official who took the initiative in improving
                               conditions

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                                PREFACE


There are several reasons for this little book, but the best of all is
the main reason—that it is a cracking good story, and right out of life.
The characters will be found interesting, and they are real people,
every one of them. The incidents are full of action and color. The plot
has mystery, surprise, interplay of mind and motive—had a novelist
invented it, the reader might declare it improbable. This is the kind of
story that is fundamental—the kind Mr. Chesterton says is so necessary
to plain people that, when writers do not happen to write it, plain
people invent it for themselves in the form of folk-lore.

But apart from the story interest there are other reasons.

When the New York police department had run down all the threads of the
plot, and accounted for most of the characters by locking them up, they
had become so absorbed in the story themselves, as a story, that they
thought the public would enjoy following it from the inside.

While the crime was being dealt with, the police were subjected to
pretty severe criticism. They felt that the facts would make it clear
that they knew their trade and had been working at it diligently.

The story gives an insight into real police methods. These are very
different from the methods of the fiction detective, and also from the
average citizen’s idea of police work. They ought to be better known.
When the public understands that there is nothing secret, tyrannical or
dangerous in good police practice, and that our laws safeguard even the
guilty against abuses, there will be helpful public opinion behind
officers of the law, and we shall have a higher degree of order and
security.

The directing mind in this case was that of Commissioner George
Dougherty, executive head of the detectives of the New York Police
Department. Thousands of clean, ambitious young fellows are constantly
putting on the policeman’s uniform all over the country, and rising to
places as detectives and officials. The manufacturer or merchant may
find himself in the police commissioner’s chair. Even the suburbanite,
with his bundles, may be, out at Lonesomehurst, a member of the village
council, and thus responsible for the supervision of a police force
that, though it be only two patrolmen and a chief, is important in its
place. So in writing the story there has been an effort to show how a
first-rate man like Commissioner Dougherty works. His methods are plain
business methods. Most of his life he has earned his living following
the policeman’s trade as a commercial business. What he did in a case of
this kind, and how, and why, are matters of general interest and
importance.

Finally, the story throws some useful light on criminals. It shows the
cunning of the underworld, and also its limitations. To free the
law-abiding mind of romantic notions about the criminal, and show him as
he is, is highly important in the prevention of crime.

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                     FACING
                                                      PAGE

            Rhinelander Waldo, Commissioner of
              Police, New York City

                                      _Frontispiece_

            George S. Dougherty, Second Deputy           20
              Police Commissioner

            Edward P. Hughes, Inspector in Command       40
              of Detective Bureau, and Dominick G.
              Riley, Lieutenant and Aide to
              Commissioner Dougherty

            Geno Montani, Eddie Kinsman, Gene            60
              Splaine, “Scotty the Lamb” and John
              Molloy

            James Pasquale,