(CRIME.) Pinkerton's National Detective Agency. Quarterly criminal bulletins, including two with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Bulletins #1, 4, 7, 10, and 15 (new series), all titled "General Information Issued to Members American Bankers' Association." Each bulletin, 19 to 26 pages plus 2 plates. Large 8vo, original printed wrappers, some wear along spines. [New York?], August 1898 to March 1902
These bulletins were issued by Pinkerton to keep the nation's banks posted on the latest bank criminals--bad check artists, forgers, and bank robbers. About 15 or 20 suspects are featured in each bulletin, with descriptions of their crimes, detailed physical and biographical descriptions, reproductions of their signatures, and photographs when available. The December 1900 bulletin features a report on three men who held up a bank in Winnemucca, NV, then "fled from the scene on horse back, taking up relay mounts along the route." The men were not named, but their full physical descriptions are given. In the March 1902 bulletin, two of these men are identified with mug shots and additional information about a July 1901 hold-up in Montana: Charles Parker, alias Butch Cassidy; and Harry Longabaugh, alias Harry Alonzo (the Sundance Kid). Camilla "Deaf Charlie" Hanks, an accomplice from the 1901 heist, is also pictured. This bulletin came a little too late to be useful; the two masterminds had departed for South America on 20 February 1902, where they are believed to have spent their remaining years until gunned down in 1908. Each of these bulletins bears an instruction on the front wrapper, "Carefully Preserve," which seems to have been followed in this case. Only 3 libraries report any holdings of this fascinating series, which ran from 1898 to 1909, all of them in incomplete runs; none have been traced at auction. An earlier series of Pinkerton bulletins from 1895, with tipped-in photographs instead of plates, appears to be yet scarcer; only 2 institutions hold copies.
