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[Illustration: George Miles White]




  FROM BONIFACE TO
  BANK BURGLAR

  OR

  THE PRICE OF PERSECUTION


  HOW A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MAN, THROUGH
  THE MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE, BECAME
  A NOTORIOUS BANK LOOTER


  BY
  GEORGE M. WHITE
  ALIAS GEORGE BLISS


  BELLOWS FALLS, VT.
  TRUAX PRINTING COMPANY
  1905




  COPYRIGHT, 1905,
  BY B. F. SLEEPER, WESTMINSTER, VT.


  Norwood Press
  J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
  Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




PREFACE


While paying the penalty of a last misdeed, I resolved that no more of
life’s precious years should be spent in sowing to the wind and that
my life’s sun should not set in eternal night; and I have been able to
keep my resolution. In the awful moments of lonesomeness in the prison
cell, I conceived the idea of publishing my life history in so far as
I could make it interesting to the financial world and general public.
Many hours of solitude, while others slept, I devoted to rummaging
through the past in search of facts, dating them from the innocent days
of my young manhood and resurrecting them from period to period, until
I succeeded in compiling a life history which, I sincerely trust, will
prove not only a helper to those who have the care of great sums of
money devolving upon them, but will also be accepted by those tempted
to depart from the path of rectitude as a warning not to be lightly
regarded.

I have endeavored to be accurate in my treatment of each part of this
history, and if there shall be discovered an error here and there,
kindly, dear reader, attribute it to a lapse of memory. I kept no
record of events, for in leading the life of a transgressor it is not
conducive to safety; so I have been forced to depend solely upon my
memory, which, as it dwelt on the past, soon became alive again with
old scenes. Acts long forgotten returned to me clothed as they were
more than twoscore years ago, and I found myself living over the bright
days, the dark days, the days of wealth, and the days of poverty. I
started to write a small book, but facts crowded upon me until I have
been enabled to issue a volume of no mean proportions.

                    G. M. WHITE.




CONTENTS


                             PART I

  CHAPTER                                             PAGE
      I.  MY HOTEL DAYS                                  1

     II.  THE WALPOLE BANK BURGLARY                      9

    III.  ONE SHERIFF I KNEW                            17

     IV.  THE UNEQUAL FIGHT                             22

      V.  HANGING OF THE MILLSTONE                      31

     VI.  PERSECUTION                                   56


                            PART II

      I.  SIDETRACKED                                   73

     II.  VISITED BY THE WHITECAPS                      83

    III.  THE CADIZ BANK LOOT                           96

     IV.  AN EXPENSIVE CHICKEN                         109

      V.  A ROCK CLEFT FOR ME                          130

     VI.  ’TWAS A SWEET BABE                           156

    VII.  POLICE SHIELD NOT WORN FOR HEALTH            165

   VIII.  SHERIFF SMITH’S BRIBE--THE LITTLE JOKER      185

     IX.  BREVOORT STABLES                             207

      X.  I CORRUPT A BANK CLERK                       215

     XI.  A COLOSSAL BANK BURGLING ENTERPRISE          232

    XII.  JUGGLING WITH DEATH                          244

   XIII.  CAPTAIN JOHN YOUNG’S GRAB                    272

    XIV.  PLOTTING AGAINST YOUNG                       286

     XV.  MY PATENT SAFETY SWITCH AND JIM IRVING       303

    XVI.  HARD WORK UNDER GREAT DIFFICULTIES           319

   XVII.  MARK MAKES PI OF LOCK TUMBLERS               337

  XVIII.  DISPOSITION OF OCEAN BANK LOOT               341

    XIX.  A CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH                       356

     XX.  TALL JIM MOVES FROM COLUMBUS PRISON          368

    XXI.  JIM BURNS AND HIS CONGRESSMAN PAL            380

   XXII.  WILLIAM HATCH, ESQUIRE, DAY WATCHMAN         403

  XXIII.  THE PLOT THAT FAILED                         421

   XXIV.  THE PERFIDY OF CAPTAIN JIM IRVING            440

    XXV.  SOME DETECTIVES I FOUND USEFUL               463

   XXVI.  THE MICROBE “CALLOUSITIS”                    480




FROM BONIFACE TO BANK BURGLAR




PART I




CHAPTER I

MY HOTEL DAYS


“Here I am back again, Ellis,