Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/88

 Preparedness Against Bank Burglars

���The military force of a peace- f ul Chicago bank waiting for the lone burglar to appear. These men were put through a course of target-shoot- ing to be pre- pared for holdup men who had been molesting the bank and its neighborhood for many weeks

��PREPAREDNESS for war was not nearly so important and timely a subject with the bankers of Chicago recently as was preparedness for gunmen. For weeks there was an t[)idemic of holdups in the city. In the iieighl)rho(jd of one bank, the Lincoln Slate Hank, masked bandits ijwarmcd at all hours of the da\', \ictimizing no less llian fifteen patrons of the bank in a single week. With the police seemingly liclpless to cope with the situation, the bank took steps to protect itself and its depositors.

The entire clerical force was mobilized in the basement of the building one morning and the hrst lesson in a course on how U> shoot bandits (jn sight was given. Each man was supplied with a

��revolver, a pistol range was erected, and target-practice was held. After the men were told to keep their eyes open when they shot and point the gun at the target instead of at themsehes, they displayed marked proficiency with their firearms. After a week of practice there wasn't a bandit intrepid enough in all Chicago to venture a visit to the b.uik. Indeed, the preparedness campaign became such a success that the holdup men forgot all about the bank and the surrounding neighborhood and migrated to other puts. In time the clerks became such crack shots and such confirmed militar- ists that the\- almost regretted ihc fact tiiat they didn't have an i)pporUinity to substitute a gunman's heart for the nuuh maligned bull's eye.

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