A Private Assurance Company and a Public Insurance Company

by Allan Pinkerton

This sketch relates to an insurance company and an assurance company. The former got the worst of it, and the latter were the worst.  

The insurance company in question was the Royal Fire and Life Insurance Company of Liverpool and London, whose American office was, at the time I write of, located at No. 56 Wall Street, in New York; and the Assurance Company was composed of the eminent Dan Noble, Jimmy Griffin, Frank Knapp, and Jack Tierney, sneak-thieves; and while New York was their general headquarters, it may be truthfully said that their operations extended into all cities of the United States, while their risks were high and their profits very large.  

Dan Noble himself has always been noted as a brilliant and gentlemanly rascal of the confidence game, sneak-thief order, and, at about the time he organized the company of precious rascals referred to, was at the height of his business prosperity as a professional sneak-thief. Noble never did much of the actual “sneaking” himself, but he was a most brilliant general of these matters, and was, nearly always successful in, first, planning a huge robbery; second, in bringing the right parties together to assist in doing the work; and, third, in having immediate and direct charge of all the neat little work of the robbery… Read More