FROM THE MORGUE
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Copyright 2007 by William A. Mays, Proprietor
April 1, 1882
| THE BANDIT'S BOAST. |
We have received a communication from the grave. From a veritable corpse. Yes, a dead man. Not only a dead man but a dead man who has been riddled to hash by bullets and slashed to ribbons with bowie knives. That is, if we can believe the newspapers. The alleged corpse that has written us is none other than the remains or the ghost or what is left of the much-killed Jesse James, the terror of Missouri.
This famous bandit, train robber and desperado has been killed so often, however, in newspaper reports and has turned up safe and sound thereafter, that the people of Kansas have lost faith in death. Every time he was reported positively defunct he would resurrect himself, board another train at an unexpected point, clean out the express packages and the passengers and then hie him away to the setting sun with many merry cuss words on his lips and his thumb pivoted on his nose and his fingers agitated in insulting suggestions to the minions of the law. Wasn't it provoking? The railroad companies thought it was. And unprofitable, and so they made up a pool of $7,000 which they offered as a reward to the man who would capture or kill the desperado.
Then began a regular hunt in all quarters of Kansas. Every clerk who had a holiday and every tenderfoot who was out west selling tape and shoelaces shouldered his little gun and went out to capture or slaughter the famous bandit.
After a hunt of a month a party of detectives came up with his band and engaged in a desperate battle. Jesse himself retreated pell mell and was pursued by a man named Shepherd, who, as we reported last week, returned wounded, with the bandit's pistol and bowie knife in his possession and gave other proofs that he had killed him. The $7,000 reward was paid over and he divided it with James and joined the band. Another grand laugh at the authorities. More despair among the citizens. Less confidence than ever in death.
Another hunt was started for the harlequin bandit who still played "hanky panky" with his pursuers. On the 8th ult, a very pale and broken-up man who called himself a deputy sheriff rushed into Moberly, Mo., and announced that Jesse James had been captured this time after a desperate battle. A sheriff's posse had surrounded him in a log cabin in a heavy timbered district of Missouri and after a long and bloody siege in which he had been wounded and seven of the officers had been killed, he was obliged to surrender, owing to his ammunition giving out. This story was received with caution for the public had been there before.
Of course the next day Jesse turned up miles away, safe and sound and as saucy as ever. And moreover he received his POLICE GAZETTE regularly, for his eye fell on our report of his doings and he occupied his leisure moments in writing us a letter, of which the following is a photographic fac simile:
This famous bandit, train robber and desperado has been killed so often, however, in newspaper reports and has turned up safe and sound thereafter, that the people of Kansas have lost faith in death. Every time he was reported positively defunct he would resurrect himself, board another train at an unexpected point, clean out the express packages and the passengers and then hie him away to the setting sun with many merry cuss words on his lips and his thumb pivoted on his nose and his fingers agitated in insulting suggestions to the minions of the law. Wasn't it provoking? The railroad companies thought it was. And unprofitable, and so they made up a pool of $7,000 which they offered as a reward to the man who would capture or kill the desperado.
Then began a regular hunt in all quarters of Kansas. Every clerk who had a holiday and every tenderfoot who was out west selling tape and shoelaces shouldered his little gun and went out to capture or slaughter the famous bandit.
After a hunt of a month a party of detectives came up with his band and engaged in a desperate battle. Jesse himself retreated pell mell and was pursued by a man named Shepherd, who, as we reported last week, returned wounded, with the bandit's pistol and bowie knife in his possession and gave other proofs that he had killed him. The $7,000 reward was paid over and he divided it with James and joined the band. Another grand laugh at the authorities. More despair among the citizens. Less confidence than ever in death.
Another hunt was started for the harlequin bandit who still played "hanky panky" with his pursuers. On the 8th ult, a very pale and broken-up man who called himself a deputy sheriff rushed into Moberly, Mo., and announced that Jesse James had been captured this time after a desperate battle. A sheriff's posse had surrounded him in a log cabin in a heavy timbered district of Missouri and after a long and bloody siege in which he had been wounded and seven of the officers had been killed, he was obliged to surrender, owing to his ammunition giving out. This story was received with caution for the public had been there before.
Of course the next day Jesse turned up miles away, safe and sound and as saucy as ever. And moreover he received his POLICE GAZETTE regularly, for his eye fell on our report of his doings and he occupied his leisure moments in writing us a letter, of which the following is a photographic fac simile:
Return to Morgue mainpage.
| The Much-Killed Jesse James Writes to the Police Gazette. |
| How the Bold Missouri Brigand puts His Case and Relieves the Minds of Those who have Hunted Him. |
As Mr. James by his own avowal will not be brought to justice until he is good and ready and as the authorities will only enrich him by offering rewards for his slaughter, the wise course would be for Missourians to Boycott him, so to speak. Let them depopulate the State so he may have no one to kill, let them stop all the railroads so that he may have no chance to rob. Then when he grows weary of living alone he may, like Robinson Crusoe, have a hankering after civilization and may of his own volition come in and go cheerily to his dungeon cell as a variation to the monotony of his lonesome life. That is the only way to fix it. Jesse James says so himself and surely he ought to know. It is plain anyhow that he is the most knowing person in Missouri as far as we've got.
