Today -100: April 22, 1916: Of train robbers & watches, footpads, red crosses, and movies

Eoin MacNeill, head of the Irish Volunteers, cancels plans for maneuvers scheduled to begin Easter Sunday, in a unilateral decision not to go ahead with the other... activities planned alongside them. Not everyone gets the word.

A train robber – yes, that’s still a thing – sticks up a Union Pacific train in Wyoming, all by himself, although he did have two revolvers, as was the custom. He gives the conductor a watch he says he took at his last robbery and promises that at his next robbery he’ll return one of the watches he’s taken this time, for some reason. He’ll be caught tomorrow.

Elsewhere in archaic-criminal news, a “footpad” is shot by a cop in the Bronx.

The American Red Cross says people should stop sending in relief supplies for Germany and Austria, as the Entente won’t let any of them in.

An American motion picture company pays a cardinal in Rome to let it film the Holy Week activities, but the pope vetoes the project. Pope Benedict has grave objections to the twentieth century.

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