On a hot, sultry weekday of summer, in the bank of the small agricultural town of Geneva, business has been bustling all afternoon. Just after the doors have been closed for the day, a knock is heard – and inwards burst two men, who seize the clerks and bind them – and then lock them into the safe!

If in the punishment of Eugene Pearson, Dr. Johnson, Newton Edwards and Thomas Duncan, the young men of to-day who are tempted by folly or extravagance learn that their condemnation was but the natural and inevitable result of thoughtless crime – and if their experience shall be the means of deterring one young man from the commission of a deed, which the repentance of years will not obliterate, I shall feel that I have not labored in vain. – Allan Pinkerton.