Latest / God Goes to Murderer's Row / Right Way to Do Wrong - Harry Houdini

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Right Way to Do Wrong - Harry Houdini · God Goes to Murderer's Row

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Speaker 1: Preface, Oh, would the deed were good? For now? The
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Speaker 1: devil that told me I did well says that this
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Speaker 1: deed is chronicled in Hell. Shakespeare. There is an underworld,
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Speaker 1: a world of cheat and crime, a world whose highest
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Speaker 1: good is successful evasion of the laws of the land. You,
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Speaker 1: who live your life in placid respectability, know but little
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Speaker 1: of the real life of the denizens of this world.
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Speaker 1: The daily records of the police courts, the startling disclosures
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Speaker 1: of fraud and swindle, and newspaper stories are about all
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Speaker 1: the public know of this world of crime, of the
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Speaker 1: real thoughts and feelings of the criminal, of the terrible
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Speaker 1: fascination which binds him to his nefarious career. Of the thousands,
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Speaker 1: yea tens of thousands, of undiscovered crimes and unpunished criminals.
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Speaker 1: You know but little. The object of this book is twofold. First,
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Speaker 1: to safeguard the public against the practices of the criminal classes,
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Speaker 1: by exposing their various tricks and explaining the adroit methods
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Speaker 1: by which they seek to defraud. Knowledge is power is
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Speaker 1: an old saying. I might paraphrase it in this case
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Speaker 1: by saying knowledge is safety. I wish to put the
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Speaker 1: public on its guard, so that honest folks may be
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Speaker 1: able to detect and protect themselves from the dishonest who
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Speaker 1: labor under the false impression that it is easier to
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Speaker 1: live dishonestly than to thrive by honest means. In the
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Speaker 1: second place, I trust this book will afford entertaining as
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Speaker 1: well as instructive reading, and that the facts and experiences,
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Speaker 1: the exposes and explanations here set forth may serve to
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Speaker 1: interest you as well as put you in a position
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Speaker 1: where you will be less liable to fall a victim.
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Speaker 1: The material contained in this book has been collected by
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Speaker 1: me personally during many years of my active professional life.
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Speaker 1: It has been my good fortune to meet personally and
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Speaker 1: converse with the chief of police and the most fain
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Speaker 1: famous detectives in all the great cities of the world.
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Speaker 1: To these gentlemen I am indebted for many amusing and
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Speaker 1: instructive incidents hitherto unknown to the world. The work of
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Speaker 1: collecting and arranging this material and writing the different chapters
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Speaker 1: has occupied many a leisure hour. My only wish is
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Speaker 1: that the right way to do wrong may amuse and
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Speaker 1: entertain my readers and place the unwary on their guard.
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Speaker 1: If my humble efforts in collecting and writing these facts
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Speaker 1: shall accomplish this purpose. I shall be amply repaid and
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Speaker 1: feel that my labor has not been in vain. Harry
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Speaker 1: Houdini handcuffed King and jail breaker. End of preface, shot
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Speaker 1: one income of a criminal. People of respectability and in
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Speaker 1: experience who have no knowledge of the criminal classes usually
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Speaker 1: imagine that every criminal is a hardened villain, incapable of
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Speaker 1: even the ordinary feelings of family affection and that of necessity.
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Speaker 1: The professional crook, thief or burglar is uneducated and ignorant.
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Speaker 1: In fact, nothing can be more remote from the truth.
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Speaker 1: Do you see that well dressed, respectable looking man glancing
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Speaker 1: over the editorial page of the Sun. You would be
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Speaker 1: surprised to know that he is a professional burglar, and
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Speaker 1: that he has a loving wife and a family of
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Speaker 1: children who little know the business which takes him away
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Speaker 1: for many days and nights at a time. You meet
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Speaker 1: a grave and benevolent looking gentleman on a railway train.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps he shares your seat and interests you by his
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Speaker 1: brilliant and intelligent conversation. You little suspect that he is
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Speaker 1: at the head of a gang of the most expert
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Speaker 1: bank burglars in the country. As a matter of fact,
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Speaker 1: some of the brightest brains and keenest minds belong to
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Speaker 1: professional criminals. They live by their wits and must needs
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Speaker 1: keep those wits sharp and active. Not that I would
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Speaker 1: have you think that all professional criminals go about in
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Speaker 1: the guise of Jim. There are all grades of culture
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Speaker 1: and lack of culture in the various nefarious callings of crime.
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Speaker 1: The sneak thief in the burglar may and often does
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Speaker 1: look the hard citizen he is, but you will never
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Speaker 1: find him lacking in a certain kind of quick wits
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Speaker 1: and a certain kind of brain power. So highly organized
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Speaker 1: is the machinery of the law and police protection and
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Speaker 1: our modern civilization, that one of the first requisites for
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Speaker 1: success as a professional criminal is brains. Does it pay
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Speaker 1: to commit crime? This is a question I have often
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Speaker 1: asked the chiefs of police and great detections of every
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Speaker 1: country in the world. How great are the money rewards
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Speaker 1: of evil doing? Does a good burglar have an income
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Speaker 1: equal to that of a bank president? Can a pickpocket
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Speaker 1: make more money than the fashionable tailor who makes the pockets?
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Speaker 1: Is a gambler better paid than a governor? Can a
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Speaker 1: shoplifter make more money than the saleswoman? In fact, does
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Speaker 1: it pay to be a criminal, And if so, how
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Speaker 1: great is the reward for evil doing? I am aware
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Speaker 1: that it is the general impression, considered simply as a
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Speaker 1: matter of profits, that the professional criminal is well paid.
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Speaker 1: He gets something for nothing. Therefore, you would say at
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Speaker 1: a first glance that he must be rolling in wealth.
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Speaker 1: Many people who get their ideas of criminals from novels
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Speaker 1: and story papers, for instance, imagine a gambler as a
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Speaker 1: man who always has a roll of bills in his
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Speaker 1: pocket big enough to choke a horse, as they say,
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Speaker 1: no doubt. Also, the histories of sensational coups, as reported
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Speaker 1: in the daily press, are chiefly responsible for this false impression.
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Speaker 1: But such colossal frauds and robberies are rarely the work
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Speaker 1: of professional criminals. They are usually perpetrated by men whose
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Speaker 1: previous good character has placed them in positions of trust,
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Speaker 1: men who have led honest lives. When temptation came along
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Speaker 1: and on paper they figured out that they could not lose.
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Speaker 1: Why they stole and fell into the clutches of the law. Disgraced,
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Speaker 1: they are ruined for life, often ruining all their family.
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Speaker 1: It is a terrible thing to have the finger of
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Speaker 1: fate point at you with the remark his father is
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Speaker 1: serving time for doing so and so or her brother
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Speaker 1: is now in his sixteenth year and comes out in
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Speaker 1: five years. Such humble criminals as the area sneak thief,
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Speaker 1: the porch and hallway thieves, and the ordinary shoplifter may
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Speaker 1: be dismissed with a few words. Their gains are miserably small,
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Speaker 1: they live in abject poverty, and after detection, for sooner
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Speaker 1: or later they are detected, they end their lives in
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Speaker 1: the workhouse. If I could earn five dollars a week, honest,
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Speaker 1: I'd gladly give up dragging shoplifting. Set a thief of
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Speaker 1: this type to a New York detective. But I can't
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Speaker 1: stand regular work. Never could. It's so much easier to
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Speaker 1: prig things. No avarice, but simple laziness keeps these thieves dishonest.
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Speaker 1: More lucrative are the callings of the counter thief, the pickpocket,
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Speaker 1: and the buzzer or watch thief. Of those, the pickpocket
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Speaker 1: wins the largest returns. A purse hunter who knows his
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Speaker 1: work would think he had wasted his time if he
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Speaker 1: did not make five dollars on an evening stroll. Race
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Speaker 1: meetings and fares may bring him in one hundred dollars
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Speaker 1: to one hundred fifty dollars a day, but an average
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Speaker 1: day's makings amount to only eight dollars twelve dollars. The
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Speaker 1: passing of bad money, as every one knows who is
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Speaker 1: behind the scenes in criminal life, is a very poorly
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Speaker 1: paid industry, while the punishment rist is heavy. In England,
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Speaker 1: the snide pitchers or shovers of the queer as they
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Speaker 1: were called, used to buy the counterfeit coins at so
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Speaker 1: much a dozen, and working in pairs, pass them out
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Speaker 1: in shops. Highwaymen, robbers and hold up men sometimes make
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Speaker 1: big hauls, but their careers are short. Into their brutal
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Speaker 1: hands pass many a diamond pen or ring, many a
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Speaker 1: gold chain worth twenty dollars or twenty five dollars, even
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Speaker 1: at melting pot prices of some dishonest goldsmith. Happily, for society,
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Speaker 1: these ruffians are speedily brought to book and their ill
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Speaker 1: gotten gains or dearly earned. There is a thieves proverb
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Speaker 1: which runs a six months run in the hook thief
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Speaker 1: is done. The garat and hold up men have far
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Speaker 1: shorter lease of liberty and frequently fall into the clutches
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Speaker 1: of the law within a day or two after release
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Speaker 1: from prison. Both burglars and confidence men may make big
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Speaker 1: coups occasionally, but their income is precarious. The burglar is
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Speaker 1: at the mercy of the fence, as the receiver of
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Speaker 1: stolen goods is called, and realizes only a small part
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Speaker 1: of the actual value of his pelf. I suppose a
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Speaker 1: burglar would be considered very successful if he made three
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Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year actual profit. The fence has much
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Speaker 1: larger opportunities, and his veracity is well known. A detective
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Speaker 1: friend was well acquainted with one who made as much
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Speaker 1: as five thousand dollars a year for several years and
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Speaker 1: finally shot himself to avoid arrest. Another fence actually amassed
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Speaker 1: a fortune, but his wealth did not prevent him from
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Speaker 1: dying miserably in prison. The truth is that a life
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Speaker 1: of dis honesty may pay it first when you are
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Speaker 1: not known to the police, But when an offender once
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Speaker 1: falls into the hands of the ever watchful police, he
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Speaker 1: begins to be a well known customer. He now pays
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Speaker 1: dearer and dearer every time he is brought up for trial.
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Speaker 1: His brief spells of liberty are spent in committing some
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Speaker 1: crime that once again brings him back to the prison.
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Speaker 1: So when you figure out the sentences, he has to
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Speaker 1: serve why his honest gains are contemptible compared to such
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Speaker 1: awful penalties. As this book is not a history of
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Speaker 1: crime or criminals to those wishing to read positive facts
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Speaker 1: of great criminals, and all of them have either died
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Speaker 1: in the poorhouse or are yet counting the weary days
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Speaker 1: in prison cells, divorced from wife, from children, and from
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Speaker 1: all ties that human beings hold. So dear, I can
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Speaker 1: safely call attention to the book called Our Rival the Rascal,
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Speaker 1: written by my friend, Chief Inspector of Police, William B.
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Speaker 1: Watts of Boston, Massachusetts. This book is the greatest book
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Speaker 1: on the subject that I have ever seen. I happen
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Speaker 1: to have a copy with me in Berlin, when the
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Speaker 1: Royal Police, hearing that I had the book in the country,
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Speaker 1: asked me as a favor to allow them to make
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Speaker 1: extracts and photographs some of the famous criminals in the book.
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Speaker 1: This I allowed them to do, and in return they
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Speaker 1: handed me several photos of well known criminals to send
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Speaker 1: a Chief Inspector William B. Watts, in order to put
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Speaker 1: a finish to this chapter. It can be said that
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Speaker 1: it does not pay to lead a dishonest life. And
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Speaker 1: to those who read this book, although it will inform
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Speaker 1: them the right way to do wrong, all I have
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Speaker 1: to say is one word, and that is don't. Yes,
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Speaker 1: my poor brother had no edication and it were his ruin.
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Speaker 1: How was that he forged a name on a check
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Speaker 1: and the spelling were bad? End of shot? One shot too.
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Speaker 1: Professional burglary. The professional burglar is a man of resources
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Speaker 1: and daring. He has usually had a long training in
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Speaker 1: criminal pursuits. A good burglar is a man who knows
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Speaker 1: how to keep his own counsel and is very careful
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Speaker 1: how he tells his plans to anyone else. If the
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Speaker 1: same amount of ability and talent that many a criminal
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Speaker 1: exercises to become a professional burglar were applied to an
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Speaker 1: honest pursuit, he would gain wealth and fame. But once
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Speaker 1: started in the path of crime, it is difficult to
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Speaker 1: turn aside. The burglar who makes the breaking into houses
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Speaker 1: a profession is held by the fascination of the danger
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Speaker 1: and the rewards of his pursuit. The consciousness that he
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Speaker 1: is able to accomplish the almost impossible to plan and
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Speaker 1: bring off coups which fill the newspapers with flareheadings, is
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Speaker 1: as much a matter of pride to him as high
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Speaker 1: attainments and an honorable profession are to another man planning
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Speaker 1: a bold break. When a burglar starts out on a job,
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Speaker 1: he does not do it haphazardly. He carefully selects a
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Speaker 1: house in a favorable location, occupied by a family who
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Speaker 1: are known to have valuable possessions worth taking away. The
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Speaker 1: retired location of the house, the ease of access, every
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Speaker 1: approach in every avenue of escape, if detected, are carefully studied.
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Speaker 1: Then he goes about acquainting himself with the habits of
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Speaker 1: the people who occupy the house. He soon knows when
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Speaker 1: they come and go, how the doors are fastened, how
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Speaker 1: the windows are secured. Perhaps he ingratiates himself by paying
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Speaker 1: marked attention to the sounds of the kitchen and so
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Speaker 1: learns the inside workings of the household. Usually this is
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Speaker 1: accomplished by the aid of a confederate or member of
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Speaker 1: the gang to which he belongs, and if he can
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Speaker 1: induce the cooperation of some servant. His work is made
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Speaker 1: so much the easier. At length, the night of the
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Speaker 1: burglary arrives, the date has been carefully set. You may
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Speaker 1: be sure that there is not a full moon to
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Speaker 1: illuminate the grounds, as he has consulted the almanac. If
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Speaker 1: there is a watchdog, the burglar carries ample means to
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Speaker 1: quiet him, in the shape of a small bottle of chloroform,
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Speaker 1: accompanied by his pal. For most of these burglars work
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Speaker 1: in pairs. They rapidly affect their entrance in accordance with
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Speaker 1: their plan. Usually one man is stationed outside to give
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Speaker 1: warning by means of a peculiar whistle or other sound,
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Speaker 1: in case detection is to be feared. How the burglar
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Speaker 1: overcomes all the obstacles of his entrance into the house
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Speaker 1: will be treated later. But to a professional cracksman, the
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Speaker 1: ordinary locks of doors, the ordinary window fastenings and safety
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Speaker 1: arrangements which the householder attends to so carefully every night,
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Speaker 1: offer but little or no obstacle. When the time comes
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Speaker 1: for him to enter. He enters as quietly and quickly
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Speaker 1: as though he were the master himself, in fact, very
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Speaker 1: much more quietly. Once inside, his glimmering electric dark lantern,
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Speaker 1: which can be hooded in an instant, gives him sufficient
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Speaker 1: light to move with noiseless rubber soled shoes to the
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Speaker 1: different apartments. The absolute silence in which a professional cracksman
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Speaker 1: can go through a house, avoiding creaking doors and escaping
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Speaker 1: every loose board which may betray his presence is astonishing.
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Speaker 1: Many a householder has awakened in the morning to find
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Speaker 1: his house rifled. Who would deem it impossible for anyone
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Speaker 1: to enter his house much less room without immediately arousing
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Speaker 1: him To show how carefully a burglar plans for the
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Speaker 1: cracking of some specially desirable crib, One ex convict declares
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Speaker 1: that he has often expended large sums of money in
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Speaker 1: making the preliminary arrangements for some great coup. If a
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Speaker 1: burglar should happen to be caught in the house breaking act,
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Speaker 1: it is fairly important that he should not be recognized afterwards,
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Speaker 1: So most professional burglars are very careful to provide themselves
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Speaker 1: with a disguise when out on their work. One reform
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Speaker 1: criminal told Inspector Burns that he had several times been
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Speaker 1: seen by people while entering houses, but they had never
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Speaker 1: once been able to recognize him afterwards. His simple plan
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Speaker 1: he described as follows. I always wore a specially made
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Speaker 1: wig with false side whiskers and mustache of the best quality.
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Speaker 1: My wardrobe was extensive and contain reversible coats and reversible
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Speaker 1: trousers after the style used by quick change artists on
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Speaker 1: the stage. With the aid of these, I've been able
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Speaker 1: to make a complete change of appearance in less than
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Speaker 1: two minutes. It is easy to see how rogues take
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Speaker 1: more pains to perpetrate robberies than honest men do to
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Speaker 1: get a living. The Burglar who walked backward, a London
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Speaker 1: burglar who served a long sentence, told the chaplain of
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Speaker 1: the prison the following amusing story of one of his experiences.
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Speaker 1: One of the toughest pieces of work I undertook was
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Speaker 1: a big jewelry shop in the Seven Sisters Road one
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Speaker 1: January night. It was a put up job, that is,
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Speaker 1: the business came to me through one of the brokers
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Speaker 1: who supplied burglars with places for likely hauls and receive
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Speaker 1: in return a large commission. The jewelry store in this
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Speaker 1: case was protected by iron shutters, not easy to open
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Speaker 1: from the street, but valuable goods were supposed to be
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Speaker 1: left overnight in the window. I approached the crib down
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Speaker 1: a narrow entry to the rear, and along this I
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Speaker 1: walked backward, for the ground was covered with snow, and
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Speaker 1: any tracks going forward would attract the next policeman who
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Speaker 1: should pass. I continued on this crab like progress until
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Speaker 1: under the shutter of the rear window. This I got
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Speaker 1: through without difficulty, but was confronted by a door leading
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Speaker 1: into the passage, which was locked. On attempting to force
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Speaker 1: it with a jimmy, the door fell together with its
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Speaker 1: case with a tremendous crash. I need not say. I
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Speaker 1: made myself scarce in a jiffy and hid behind a
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Speaker 1: shed in the yard. Strange to say, nothing happened. No
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Speaker 1: one seemed to have heard the terrible racket. I re entered,
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Speaker 1: and climbing to the top of the stairs, found a
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Speaker 1: heavy trap door fastened with a massive bolt. This gave
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Speaker 1: way after a special treatment, and in the big sitting room,
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Speaker 1: by the glimmer of my tiny dark lantern, I found
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Speaker 1: a few watches. The door leading into the shop was
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Speaker 1: fastened with a mortise lock, and it was necessary to
16:43
Speaker 1: cut the box out, much to my disgust, I found
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Speaker 1: the show window absolutely empty and ran sacking the place.
16:51
Speaker 1: I came across a small iron safe, which, with a
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Speaker 1: vast deal of trouble, I dragged into the basement, where
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Speaker 1: I set to work with my safe opening tools, feeling
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Speaker 1: sure or I should find my plunder. But again I
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Speaker 1: was disappointed, for the safe was empty. Almost all English
17:07
Speaker 1: safes are keylocked, not combination as in America. Where was
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Speaker 1: the stuff? Clearly the jeweler had some hiding place. I
17:16
Speaker 1: resolved not to get cold feet on this job, so
17:19
Speaker 1: went back to make a systematic search. Outside the old
17:22
Speaker 1: couple's bedroom, I listened carefully, all was quiet. I entered
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Speaker 1: as silently as a shadow, and found the old jeweler
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Speaker 1: and his wife sleeping soundly. A revolver was on the
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Speaker 1: chair by his bedside. I have always considered the practice
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Speaker 1: of keeping revolvers about the house most dangerous, especially to
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Speaker 1: casual night visitors, so I pocketed this one, gathered up
17:43
Speaker 1: the loose money, two gold watches, and turning found arranged
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Speaker 1: along the wall the rods of jewelry and watches from
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Speaker 1: the shop window. I selected as many as my pockets
17:53
Speaker 1: would hold, and cautiously made my way downstairs again. Upon
17:57
Speaker 1: leaving the house, I walked backward again through the snow
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Speaker 1: and almost collided with the milkman just starting on his rounds.
18:05
Speaker 1: You have a very remarkable way of walking, he said, Oh,
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Speaker 1: I replied, it is an agreeable change after the monotony
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Speaker 1: of always walking forward, but in the daytime I cannot
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Speaker 1: practice it. Owing to the remarks of foolish people who
18:18
Speaker 1: will not mind their own business, he seemed to enter
18:22
Speaker 1: into the joke, but no sooner had we reached the
18:24
Speaker 1: road than he shouted police and stop thief. For all
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Speaker 1: he was worth. I had a good start, however, and
18:31
Speaker 1: two hours later a Hoxton fence received a considerable addition
18:35
Speaker 1: to his store of valuables, concealed under the floor of
18:37
Speaker 1: his bedroom. The question has often been asked how burglars
18:42
Speaker 1: get away with their booty, especially when it makes, as
18:45
Speaker 1: it often does, a bulky bundle. The police are apt
18:48
Speaker 1: to be suspicious of people who carry bundles in the
18:51
Speaker 1: small hours of the night, and ask inconvenient questions. If
18:55
Speaker 1: any one doubts this, let him try the experiment of
18:57
Speaker 1: going out between two and three in the morning carrying
19:00
Speaker 1: a bag heavily loaded with bricks. He will not proceed
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Speaker 1: many yards without being pounced upon by a cop. A
19:07
Speaker 1: story end point is told by an ex convict to
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Speaker 1: a well known detective. I had a pow with me
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Speaker 1: and we broke into the country palace of one of
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Speaker 1: the wealthiest dukes in England. The silver plate we got
19:18
Speaker 1: filled two bags. We had just dragged the sacks into
19:21
Speaker 1: the thicket near the house when the alarm was raised.
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Speaker 1: Think of the tight place we were in two o'clock
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Speaker 1: in the morning, and a policeman every thirty yards all
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Speaker 1: around the grounds, every road guarded in every path. Safe
19:33
Speaker 1: enough inside the ring we were. But when daylight came,
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Speaker 1: what would happen? Still the next day dawned and no
19:39
Speaker 1: trace was found either of the plunder or of us,
19:42
Speaker 1: And by evening of that same day it was all
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Speaker 1: melted and sold to the fence in the city. The
19:48
Speaker 1: police were utterly baffled as to how the perpetrators of
19:50
Speaker 1: the robbery got away with two sacks full of plate.
19:54
Speaker 1: No one had passed the cordon of police except a
19:56
Speaker 1: couple of countrymen from the home farm who were driving
19:59
Speaker 1: a cart to market containing a slaughtered sheep. Now I
20:02
Speaker 1: might tell the police something that would interest them. If
20:05
Speaker 1: they had turned that sheep over, they would have found,
20:08
Speaker 1: instead of the usual bodily organs, that the cark has
20:10
Speaker 1: contained a valuable collection of silver, and if they had
20:13
Speaker 1: looked under the straw, they might have found the rest
20:16
Speaker 1: of the Duke's missing property. The second story man, the
20:22
Speaker 1: professional burglar of standing in his profession, looks down somewhat
20:25
Speaker 1: with condescension upon the second story burglar, whose wrists are
20:29
Speaker 1: not nearly so great, and whose rewards, of course, are
20:32
Speaker 1: proportionately smaller. The second story man avoids breaking and entering
20:36
Speaker 1: a house his fort is obtaining an entrance by means
20:39
Speaker 1: of convenient porches, overhanging boughs of trees, water conductors, and
20:43
Speaker 1: lightning rods, up which he climbs with the greatest ease,
20:46
Speaker 1: and enters to an unguarded window in that part of
20:49
Speaker 1: the house where he has planned to make his robbery.
20:52
Speaker 1: Many successful second story men work only in the daytime,
20:55
Speaker 1: and are prepared with all sorts of plausible excuses to
20:58
Speaker 1: explain their presence of detective in a house. A burglar
21:02
Speaker 1: engaged in going through the premises after jewels known to
21:04
Speaker 1: be in the house may in a second's time assume
21:07
Speaker 1: all the appearance and actions of the honest workmen come
21:10
Speaker 1: to repair the plumbing, and by his clever effrontery, escape
21:13
Speaker 1: even after he is detected. Usually, however, the second story
21:17
Speaker 1: man so plans and times his work as to enter
21:20
Speaker 1: the house when most of the family are absent, and
21:22
Speaker 1: thus avoid the risk of detection. Ordinary criminal. The ordinary
21:30
Speaker 1: criminal's hand has a peculiarly rough shape, the thumb being
21:34
Speaker 1: very plump and short, while the fingers are uneven and heavy.
21:37
Speaker 1: The small finger is turned inward, and bluntness is the
21:41
Speaker 1: hands chief characteristic. End of shot two. Shot three. Difficulties
21:50
Speaker 1: of burglary. Every man who lives by his wits and
21:54
Speaker 1: defies the law of the land must confront difficulties unknown
21:58
Speaker 1: to the ordinary citizen. In the first place, the house
22:02
Speaker 1: must be entered, locks must be forced and picked. Burglar
22:06
Speaker 1: alarms must be circumvented, and every effort made to escape detection.
22:11
Speaker 1: Most people who carry a loaded revolver or have one
22:14
Speaker 1: in their bedchamber think that they are protected. As a
22:18
Speaker 1: matter of fact, a burglar finds the least of his
22:21
Speaker 1: danger at the muzzle of a pistol in the hands
22:24
Speaker 1: of the excited and frightened citizen who awakes in the
22:26
Speaker 1: middle of the night to find his house being robbed.
22:29
Speaker 1: A revolver is not especially dangerous. Of course, the burglar
22:33
Speaker 1: is likely to get a bullet, but the citizen seems
22:36
Speaker 1: quite as apt to shoot himself or some member of
22:38
Speaker 1: his family as he is a burglar. Nor do ordinary
22:42
Speaker 1: burglar alarms present any great difficulty to the expert cracksman.
22:47
Speaker 1: If he knows his business. He is found out beforehand
22:49
Speaker 1: all about these pretty little toys, where they are located,
22:53
Speaker 1: how they are handled, et cetera. His first care, of course,
22:57
Speaker 1: is to cut the wires, or, by other means known
22:59
Speaker 1: to him, make the burglar alarm harmless and noiseless. Once silent,
23:04
Speaker 1: he may proceed to pick all the locks in the house, and,
23:06
Speaker 1: clad in the darkness and the garment of silence, which
23:09
Speaker 1: every burglar knows how to assume, he soon gets away
23:12
Speaker 1: with his ill gotten plunder. A pet dog may make
23:16
Speaker 1: an able bodied burglar more trouble on a midnight expedition
23:19
Speaker 1: than half a dozen pistols or shotguns in the house.
23:23
Speaker 1: These little animals are certainly light sleepers, and their bark,
23:26
Speaker 1: while harmless, is very apt to arouse every inmate in
23:30
Speaker 1: the place. If the burglar is expert, he has probably
23:33
Speaker 1: cultivated the acquaintance of the dog in advance when he
23:36
Speaker 1: paid court to the kitchen girl at the back door,
23:39
Speaker 1: and a little bottle of chloroform judiciously placed puts the
23:42
Speaker 1: dog to sleep very quietly. The window bars, which are
23:46
Speaker 1: supposed to be such a protection to basement windows, also
23:49
Speaker 1: call for remark. They are usually set from four to
23:52
Speaker 1: six inches apart, and are then of very little use.
23:55
Speaker 1: For a miniature screwjack is made for the profession which
23:58
Speaker 1: will force these bars sufficiently apart to allow a thin
24:01
Speaker 1: man to enter. When going away for the holidays, it
24:05
Speaker 1: is a great mistake to shut up the house. This
24:08
Speaker 1: is simply to make public announcement that the place is
24:10
Speaker 1: unoccupied and may be entered with safety. The wiser plan
24:14
Speaker 1: is to make it look as much occupied as possible,
24:16
Speaker 1: and to give notice to the police that you were
24:18
Speaker 1: going away. The next door neighbors, if you know them
24:22
Speaker 1: to be above suspicion, should also be warned. The question
24:26
Speaker 1: is often asked, where is the safest place to keep
24:29
Speaker 1: one's valuables. My advice is to keep them at your banker's.
24:33
Speaker 1: But if it is really necessary to have them in
24:35
Speaker 1: the house, then the best place is the least likely one.
24:39
Speaker 1: One communicative burglar gave us two pathetic instances of wasted
24:43
Speaker 1: labor and disappointment that had befallen him. One night he
24:46
Speaker 1: went through a saddler's premises with extraordinary care, but without result,
24:51
Speaker 1: owing to the fact which subsequently leaked out, that the
24:54
Speaker 1: cash was kept in an old saddle. The other case
24:57
Speaker 1: was that of a wealthy merchant's house, which was is that,
25:00
Speaker 1: in pursuit of cash and securities none could be found,
25:03
Speaker 1: though the house was thoroughly ransacked. It was afterwards found
25:07
Speaker 1: that they were concealed in a dummy book placed among
25:09
Speaker 1: the volumes in one of the library bookcases. It is
25:13
Speaker 1: not altogether the wisest plan to keep one's valuables in
25:16
Speaker 1: the bedroom, for the simple reason that a determined burglar
25:19
Speaker 1: who has learnt their whereabouts will not hesitate to visit
25:22
Speaker 1: the bedroom, in which case it is very possible that
25:25
Speaker 1: the occupant will not wake up next morning. I shall
25:29
Speaker 1: conclude this chapter with some account of burglar proof appliances,
25:33
Speaker 1: as described by mister Herbert Howard, a writer in the
25:36
Speaker 1: London magazines, as follows burglars laugh at locks. The holiday
25:43
Speaker 1: season is the harvest of the enterprising burglar, and the
25:45
Speaker 1: dark days of the late autumn and winter provide a
25:48
Speaker 1: happy hunting ground for the professional housebreaker. The need, then,
25:52
Speaker 1: for securely guarding the house against uninvited visitors, is one
25:55
Speaker 1: that appeals forcibly to every one who values his own
25:58
Speaker 1: goods and chattels and is willing to take a little
26:00
Speaker 1: trouble to protect them. The hints given in the present
26:04
Speaker 1: article are the result of a long experience of a
26:06
Speaker 1: very practical character. If any man knows better than another
26:10
Speaker 1: the relative value of the various modes of protecting a house,
26:13
Speaker 1: it is the professional burglar. He smiles at the futility
26:16
Speaker 1: of many a massive lock and bolt, while on the
26:19
Speaker 1: other hand, he grinds his teeth with rage as he
26:22
Speaker 1: thinks of certain simple contrivances that have defeated his nefarious designs.
26:27
Speaker 1: The weakest point about a house is usually a window,
26:30
Speaker 1: and for that reason it is one of the most
26:31
Speaker 1: convenient modes of entry for the burglar. The ordinary window
26:35
Speaker 1: catch is the most foolish contrivance possible, and must have
26:38
Speaker 1: been invented by somebody who wanted to break in with
26:41
Speaker 1: as little trouble as possible. You have merely to insert
26:44
Speaker 1: a thin putty knife between the sashes, and the catch
26:47
Speaker 1: can be pushed back without much difficulty. An attempt is
26:50
Speaker 1: sometimes made to prevent this by the assertion of a
26:53
Speaker 1: screw or other contrivance behind the catch so that it
26:55
Speaker 1: will not slide back. In this case, the judicious use
26:59
Speaker 1: of a jimmy or crowbar under the bottom sash will
27:02
Speaker 1: simply force out the screws. Always very slight affairs by
27:06
Speaker 1: which the catch is fastened to the window, and thus
27:08
Speaker 1: the difficulty is overcome without any noise or trouble. The
27:12
Speaker 1: only really secure mode of fastening a window is by
27:15
Speaker 1: means of strong thumb screws passing through both sash frames
27:19
Speaker 1: on either side. These screws should work through metal plates
27:22
Speaker 1: let into the sashes. These screws, if properly placed, will
27:26
Speaker 1: resist the application of the crowbar, and as they are
27:29
Speaker 1: quite inaccessible from the outside of the window, they can
27:32
Speaker 1: only be tampered with by removing the panes of glass.
27:37
Speaker 1: The door next calls for attention. Usually it is fastened
27:40
Speaker 1: during the day by a light latch, which yields at
27:42
Speaker 1: once to a very mild amount of pressure with a
27:45
Speaker 1: jemmy for purposes of protection, this latch is utterly worthless.
27:49
Speaker 1: The large old fashioned lock, especially if mortis into the door,
27:52
Speaker 1: is much better. Certainly it can be forced, but only
27:56
Speaker 1: with great difficulty, and it is apt to make a
27:58
Speaker 1: noise like the report of a pistol when it gives way.
28:01
Speaker 1: The best plan, from the burglar's point of view is
28:04
Speaker 1: to attack the door post and try to force out
28:06
Speaker 1: the socket into which the bolt of the lock shoots.
28:10
Speaker 1: Locks used frequently to be picked, and skeleton keys were
28:13
Speaker 1: much in vogue, and by gone days. Now, however, locks
28:16
Speaker 1: have been so greatly improved that they are seldom picked,
28:19
Speaker 1: unless cheap locks are used. Ordinary door bolts present no
28:23
Speaker 1: difficulty to the burglar who has his tools with them.
28:26
Speaker 1: They are quickly forced out screws and all, or they
28:29
Speaker 1: are silently cut through with a saw of diamond. Steel.
28:32
Speaker 1: Chains are the best of all fastenings for doors. They
28:35
Speaker 1: are difficult to cut or force, and they are apt
28:38
Speaker 1: to rattle and make a noise, which is the thing
28:39
Speaker 1: of all others that a burglar dreads most. The presence
28:43
Speaker 1: of the loose chain is not usually discovered until the
28:45
Speaker 1: locks and bolts have been forced, and the first indication
28:48
Speaker 1: of it is generally an audible one. The business of
28:51
Speaker 1: cutting a chain is a troublesome and risky one, owing
28:53
Speaker 1: to the difficulty of keeping it still. There is a
28:56
Speaker 1: special tool for the purpose, but it is not much used.
29:00
Speaker 1: A glass paneled door, especially if it has no shutters,
29:03
Speaker 1: is a thing of delight to the intruder, who can
29:06
Speaker 1: only too easily remove the glass and so get access
29:09
Speaker 1: to the locks and bolts. A letter slot without a
29:12
Speaker 1: box is also a helpful contrivance, as it enables him
29:15
Speaker 1: to insert a strong wire loop with which to pull
29:18
Speaker 1: back the latch. The best way to secure the house
29:20
Speaker 1: door is to provide it with a chain at the
29:22
Speaker 1: extreme top and bottom, in addition to one or two
29:25
Speaker 1: thumb screws passing through the door into the frame. This
29:28
Speaker 1: will effectually defy the best efforts of the burglar, unless
29:31
Speaker 1: he is prepared to cut out the framework of the door,
29:34
Speaker 1: a long and risky job. The ordinary window shutters are
29:38
Speaker 1: quite useless, both on account of their weak construction and
29:41
Speaker 1: of the primitive simplicity of the usual fastening, which can
29:44
Speaker 1: be undone without any trouble. Iron shutters are, however, a
29:48
Speaker 1: good protection, but only when fastened by screws in the
29:51
Speaker 1: way we have described. Inner doors, especially of rooms that
29:55
Speaker 1: contain valuables, should always be locked at night, but the
29:58
Speaker 1: key must be taken on. Many people have the idea
30:02
Speaker 1: that by leaving the key in the lock, of course
30:04
Speaker 1: on the inside of the door, they are making it
30:07
Speaker 1: impossible for the lock to be picked from the outside.
30:10
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, they are simply putting the
30:12
Speaker 1: key into the burglar's hands. Examine the average door at
30:16
Speaker 1: the hotels, and you will find that when the key
30:17
Speaker 1: is in the lock, the end of the barrel slightly
30:20
Speaker 1: projects from the keyhole on the other side of the door.
30:23
Speaker 1: Now the burglar has in his tool bag a neat
30:25
Speaker 1: little instrument resembling in shape a very small piano key,
30:29
Speaker 1: with which he is able to grip the projecting end
30:31
Speaker 1: of the barrel, and so turn the key around and
30:33
Speaker 1: unlock the door. The best of all fastenings for the
30:36
Speaker 1: bedroom or other inner door is a simple wedge of
30:39
Speaker 1: wood pushed under the bottom of the door. If this
30:41
Speaker 1: is correctly shaped and properly placed, it is absolutely impossible
30:45
Speaker 1: to open the door from the outside without cutting a
30:47
Speaker 1: piece out of the panel. And no burglar will risk
30:50
Speaker 1: this with a person sleeping near at hand. It is, however,
30:54
Speaker 1: sometimes practicable to pass a knife or other article under
30:57
Speaker 1: the door and so push the wedge back. To prevent this,
31:01
Speaker 1: it is only necessary to place some obstacle in the way.
31:04
Speaker 1: A strong screw passed into the floor will serve, especially
31:07
Speaker 1: if it passes through a hole in the wedge. Burglars
31:10
Speaker 1: have no hesitation in poisoning small dogs when they are
31:13
Speaker 1: in the way of their getting out an especially valuable hall.
31:16
Speaker 1: Sometimes this is done by feeding poisoned meat through the
31:19
Speaker 1: letter slot, while dogs kept in kennels outside are practically
31:22
Speaker 1: useless for protection, as they may be easily disposed of.
31:26
Speaker 1: If your watch dog suddenly dies under suspicious circumstances, look
31:30
Speaker 1: out for a burglary within the next few nights. Several
31:35
Speaker 1: cases have been known where policemen have taken up the
31:38
Speaker 1: profession of burglary and escaped detection for many years. They
31:42
Speaker 1: yielded to the temptation for gain and fell. I would say, however,
31:46
Speaker 1: on behalf of the police that cases are known where
31:48
Speaker 1: crooks have gained positions on the police force in order
31:51
Speaker 1: to forward a nefarious and nocturnal work of burglary visitor
31:56
Speaker 1: in jail. Do you never hear the still small voy
32:00
Speaker 1: of conscience? Convict No, I'm hard of hearing. End of
32:07
Speaker 1: shot three, shot four. Burglars superstitions. Some people imagine that
32:15
Speaker 1: a burglar is forever on the still hunt for plunder,
32:18
Speaker 1: that the breaking into houses forms a nightly part of
32:21
Speaker 1: his program, and that he would be a lonesome individual
32:24
Speaker 1: unless he had a dark lantern in one hand and
32:27
Speaker 1: a jimmy in the other. The truth of the matter
32:30
Speaker 1: is the professional burglars rarely make more than eight or
32:33
Speaker 1: ten good hauls in the course of a season, and
32:36
Speaker 1: that to be out on more than one job inside
32:38
Speaker 1: of a week or ten days would be considered rather dangerous.
32:42
Speaker 1: Of course, there are cases where gangs and burglars are
32:45
Speaker 1: working certain sections of the city, where a number of
32:47
Speaker 1: startling robberies are committed one after another. But your careful
32:51
Speaker 1: and successful cracksman limits his work and increases his safety.
32:56
Speaker 1: The burglar, no doubt, may be a quiet citizen, a
33:00
Speaker 1: householder himself, and one known as a respectable man to
33:03
Speaker 1: his neighbors, and when occasionally he disappears for a week
33:06
Speaker 1: or a fortnight, it is attributed to business in a
33:09
Speaker 1: distant city. His business brings him in another rich hall,
33:14
Speaker 1: and when that is disposed of, he is on easy
33:16
Speaker 1: street again, until inclination or necessity compels him to go
33:20
Speaker 1: forth in quest of other plunder Sailors are superstitious, but
33:25
Speaker 1: burglars share that honor with them, for there is no
33:28
Speaker 1: class of individuals who look more carefully to signs of
33:31
Speaker 1: good and evil omen than n as your professional crib cracker,
33:36
Speaker 1: an ex convict whom I once befriended in Omaha, and
33:39
Speaker 1: from other sources, I learned the following most common superstitions
33:42
Speaker 1: of thieves and burglars. A black cat is a certain
33:46
Speaker 1: forerunner a disaster to the burglar, and householders who suddenly
33:49
Speaker 1: find their black cats poisoned may take it as a
33:52
Speaker 1: warning that the robbery of their domain has been decided upon.
33:56
Speaker 1: For the criminals take care to destroy their dumb enemies
33:59
Speaker 1: before paying a minsight call. Dogs. On the contrary, they
34:03
Speaker 1: fear but little, however savage they may be, because they
34:07
Speaker 1: take care to carry in their pockets pieces of ivory,
34:10
Speaker 1: a certain cure for dog bites. The cries of an
34:14
Speaker 1: infant warn the marauder that misfortune awaits him in the neighborhood.
34:17
Speaker 1: He will not stay in a house if he finds
34:19
Speaker 1: a clock stopped, a broken mirror, or an unframed oil painting.
34:24
Speaker 1: These are infallible omens of disaster. One of the chief
34:28
Speaker 1: terrors of the burglar is a newly painted house. Several
34:32
Speaker 1: years ago in a northern town, some disciples of the
34:34
Speaker 1: Jimmy broke into a large domicile, but remove nothing, though
34:38
Speaker 1: they favored the next house with a visit the same
34:40
Speaker 1: evening and stole everything of value. They were captured as
34:44
Speaker 1: they were scaling the garden wall, and at the trial
34:47
Speaker 1: one confessed that they had spent eight weeks in making
34:49
Speaker 1: preparations for entering the house from which they removed nothing,
34:53
Speaker 1: and upon doing so, found it to have been freshly painted,
34:56
Speaker 1: so transferred their attention to the adjoining building, thereby by
35:00
Speaker 1: bringing about their capture. A criminal studies the weather quite
35:04
Speaker 1: as carefully as the farmer does. He will not perpetrate
35:07
Speaker 1: a crime on the night of a new moon, nor
35:10
Speaker 1: if the orb has a halo or mist around it,
35:12
Speaker 1: And were he to plunder a house during an eclipse,
35:15
Speaker 1: he might as soon give himself up to the law
35:17
Speaker 1: at once, For his days outside of prison walls would
35:20
Speaker 1: be numbered. Even more trifling incidents are of equal significance
35:24
Speaker 1: to the robber. It is bad luck to be followed
35:27
Speaker 1: by a dog, and any undertaking or plundering plan will
35:30
Speaker 1: be abandoned for the time, as it means capture or failure.
35:34
Speaker 1: If the house selected has crepe on the door, to
35:37
Speaker 1: enture would be to court disaster, and to kick against
35:40
Speaker 1: a piece of coal on the road would bring about
35:42
Speaker 1: a similar result. Pickpockets are very careful not to rob
35:46
Speaker 1: a cross side or club footed person. To rob a
35:49
Speaker 1: blind man would be to bring down misfortune, but curiously enough,
35:53
Speaker 1: a blind woman can be victimized with impunity. A stolen
35:57
Speaker 1: purse that contains a battered coin or lock of hair
36:00
Speaker 1: is thrown away intact, or the thief will find himself
36:03
Speaker 1: a prisoner before the day is out. Talismans are freely
36:07
Speaker 1: carried and implicitly believed in Burglars in the olden days
36:11
Speaker 1: used to rob a house by the light of a
36:12
Speaker 1: candle made of human fat, but the superstition has nearly
36:16
Speaker 1: died out owing to the difficulty of procuring material to
36:19
Speaker 1: make them, although it is still prevalent to some extent
36:22
Speaker 1: in Scotland. And Ireland. When Burke and Hare were murdering
36:26
Speaker 1: human beings for the medical profession in Scotland in eighteen
36:29
Speaker 1: twenty eight, it is claimed they also supplied human fat
36:33
Speaker 1: to burglars, the doctors giving Hair a few bottles as
36:36
Speaker 1: they were told it was a good cure for rheumatism.
36:39
Speaker 1: The medicos treated it as a joke, but Hair sold
36:42
Speaker 1: it to some of the housebreakers he was intimate with.
36:45
Speaker 1: Old nails, broken horse shoes, curiously shaped pebbles, and endless
36:49
Speaker 1: other trinkets have times without number been found in the
36:52
Speaker 1: pockets of captured criminals who have begged that everything else
36:55
Speaker 1: they possessed should be taken from them rather than the
36:58
Speaker 1: talisman to which they penned their faith. Charles Peace, perhaps
37:03
Speaker 1: the greatest burglar who ever lived, said that his success
37:06
Speaker 1: was due to the ponticket of a violin he pawned
37:08
Speaker 1: when he was a boy, in which he always carried
37:11
Speaker 1: with him safe cracking. Our chapter on burglary would scarcely
37:17
Speaker 1: be complete without some reference to safe cracking as a
37:20
Speaker 1: special division of the profession. It is a comparatively small
37:24
Speaker 1: matter to break and enter a house and get away
37:26
Speaker 1: with valuables, but to effect an entrance into a well
37:29
Speaker 1: guarded bank and succeed in opening safes which have been
37:32
Speaker 1: constructed with every appliance known to the modern safe builder's
37:35
Speaker 1: art is an entirely different proposition. The cracking of such
37:40
Speaker 1: a crib as the work of an experienced and especially
37:42
Speaker 1: skillful man. My friend James Sargeant of Sergeant in Greenleaf, Rochester,
37:48
Speaker 1: New York, invented the timelock. Cracksman would route the cashier
37:53
Speaker 1: out of his bed with a loaded revolver and force
37:55
Speaker 1: him to go to the bank and open the safe.
37:57
Speaker 1: But now with the timelock and other safety electrical safeguards,
38:01
Speaker 1: the old burglar tools are worthless. Where once tools were
38:05
Speaker 1: used in cutting off locks, tearing off plates, drilling through
38:07
Speaker 1: the lock so as to pick the combination. The cracksman
38:11
Speaker 1: has kept a pace of the times and utilizes modern
38:13
Speaker 1: scientific methods to open safes. To open a time lock,
38:17
Speaker 1: they first start in and by hammering the safe break
38:20
Speaker 1: the clockwork. Now they resort to either a large carbon
38:24
Speaker 1: and get their electricity by tapping the trolley car current
38:27
Speaker 1: and burning circles around the lock, or they make use
38:30
Speaker 1: of a terrible compound invented by Goldschmidt, a man I
38:33
Speaker 1: met in Essenruher, Germany. This compound is called thermot. This
38:38
Speaker 1: is a kind of a mixture of fine aluminum filings
38:41
Speaker 1: or powder and iron oxide. When this mixture is ignited
38:45
Speaker 1: by suitable means, it gives the extraordinary heat of three
38:49
Speaker 1: thousand degrees centigrade. This compound or concoction, if allowed to
38:53
Speaker 1: flow on top of a safe, will burn a hole
38:56
Speaker 1: clear through most any safe made. I was in Berlin
39:00
Speaker 1: when the first tests were made, and one enterprising safe
39:03
Speaker 1: manufacturer built a safe that was invulnerable to this immense
39:06
Speaker 1: heat and calls it the anti thermit Geltshriank. Burglary is
39:11
Speaker 1: no longer crude robbing, but an art. The only men
39:14
Speaker 1: who are able successfully to overcome the obstacles of the
39:17
Speaker 1: safe makers and locksmiths, and at the same time avoid
39:20
Speaker 1: the police are the ones who employ as much care
39:23
Speaker 1: and thought in their work as a successful businessman. The
39:27
Speaker 1: man who once turned to burglary as a last resort
39:30
Speaker 1: chose a dark night to force his way into a store,
39:32
Speaker 1: and after hours of work with files and saws, forced
39:35
Speaker 1: the door from the safe can no longer succeed. The
39:39
Speaker 1: only men who succeed in their efforts to open safes.
39:41
Speaker 1: Now are the ones who often spend weeks studying conditions
39:44
Speaker 1: and preparing their instruments. The resistance offered by the fine
39:48
Speaker 1: grades of steel used in safes usually destroys the tools
39:52
Speaker 1: used to open the locks. The ingenuity of the safe
39:55
Speaker 1: cracker is greater only than that of the burglar and
39:58
Speaker 1: sneak thief, who depends on the useth of skeleton keys
40:01
Speaker 1: and jimmies to make his way past locks and bolts.
40:04
Speaker 1: The skeleton key can only be used in picking simple
40:07
Speaker 1: locks with wards. The burglar's jimmy is often a plain
40:10
Speaker 1: iron bar sharpened at one end that permits its insertion
40:14
Speaker 1: beneath a window or at the side of a door.
40:17
Speaker 1: Some of the professional burglars, however, carry sectional jimmies that,
40:20
Speaker 1: for efficiency, are greater than any other burglar tool manufactured.
40:25
Speaker 1: Safe burglars often purchase old safes and practice on them. Nowadays,
40:29
Speaker 1: they work almost entirely on the lock. The method is
40:33
Speaker 1: first to remove the dial with a special jimmy, and
40:35
Speaker 1: then drill a small hole five eighths of an inch
40:37
Speaker 1: above the spindle, and with a knitting needle or fine
40:40
Speaker 1: wire pick up the combination and thus open the safe
40:46
Speaker 1: end of shot four shot five. Thieves and their tricks.
40:53
Speaker 1: A thief is one who appropriates any kind of property
40:56
Speaker 1: or money to his own use without the consent of
40:58
Speaker 1: the owner. As distinguished from a burglar, a thief does
41:02
Speaker 1: not break into a house or enter in the night time,
41:05
Speaker 1: but takes his plunder wherever he can find it. A
41:08
Speaker 1: thief may gain entrance to a house and steal a
41:10
Speaker 1: valuable diamond, but he uses his sharp wits to pass
41:13
Speaker 1: the door instead of the burglars, jimmy and skeleton keys.
41:17
Speaker 1: There are thieves of various kinds, from the common sneak,
41:20
Speaker 1: thief and shoplifter to the expert pickpocket and clever swindler
41:25
Speaker 1: who sometimes makes hauls amounting to many thousands of dollars.
41:29
Speaker 1: The use of the word thief, however, is generally confined
41:32
Speaker 1: to such classes of criminals as shoplifters, pickpockets and the like.
41:37
Speaker 1: Overcoat thieves ply their trade in the residential sections of
41:40
Speaker 1: the city. They will sometimes ring the front doorbell and
41:43
Speaker 1: ask for the master or mistress of the house, giving
41:46
Speaker 1: some plausible pretext and usually the name of the party
41:49
Speaker 1: living there. While the servant has gone to tell the
41:52
Speaker 1: mistress of the caller. He quietly picks up what garments
41:56
Speaker 1: are in sight on the hat rack and makes off
41:58
Speaker 1: with them. The Venetian blind thief got his name from
42:02
Speaker 1: the practice of the English thieves of making the pretexts
42:05
Speaker 1: that they had come to repair the blinds of the house.
42:08
Speaker 1: A thief will call at the door, claiming to be
42:10
Speaker 1: a mechanic, to look over the house for necessary repairs,
42:14
Speaker 1: and in his rounds will gather up any valuable article
42:16
Speaker 1: that he can lay his hands on. This class of
42:19
Speaker 1: rascal even impersonates the plumber or the gas inspector, with
42:22
Speaker 1: equally successful results. Thieves at church are a very common occurrence.
42:28
Speaker 1: A case is related in London long ago where a
42:31
Speaker 1: chapel had been furnished with one hundred new Bibles. They
42:34
Speaker 1: were first used at the afternoon service, and when the
42:37
Speaker 1: congregation gathered for evening they had all disappeared. A very
42:41
Speaker 1: common experience of church officers is to find that books
42:44
Speaker 1: disappear gradually. Not only books, but hassocks and cushions are
42:48
Speaker 1: taken from houses of worship. Petty robberies from the collection
42:52
Speaker 1: box are not infrequent. In some localities. The custom of
42:56
Speaker 1: covering one's offering with one's hand so that other worshippers
42:59
Speaker 1: shall not see the amount given gives the thief his opportunity.
43:02
Speaker 1: For in the rapid passing of the plate, it is
43:04
Speaker 1: easy for the skillful professional thief to put in a
43:07
Speaker 1: penny and at the same moment take out a dollar.
43:10
Speaker 1: This is sometimes done by a sticky substance put upon
43:13
Speaker 1: a single finger umbrella. Thieves and pickpockets also apply their
43:17
Speaker 1: trade in church as well as in other places of
43:19
Speaker 1: public gathering. How can you detect a church thief is
43:23
Speaker 1: a question I have often asked detectives. There seems to
43:27
Speaker 1: be no real answer, but as a general rule, it
43:30
Speaker 1: is just as well to look out for your property
43:32
Speaker 1: as carefully when you are in church as when you
43:34
Speaker 1: are out thieves as wedding guests, there is scarcely a
43:40
Speaker 1: fashionable wedding where the contracting parties are wealthy that does
43:43
Speaker 1: not suffer from the presence of wedding thieves. For this reason,
43:46
Speaker 1: the more expensive items of jewelry are often imitated and
43:49
Speaker 1: paste before they are put on exhibition among the gifts,
43:52
Speaker 1: while the originals are sent to the bank. The wedding
43:55
Speaker 1: gift lifter works his game as follows. Disguised as a
43:59
Speaker 1: tradesman or a assistant, he gains the confidence of the servants,
44:02
Speaker 1: gets a description of a diamond, tiara or other article
44:05
Speaker 1: of great value, which he then has a duplicate made
44:08
Speaker 1: of set with imitation paced diamonds. He will even go
44:11
Speaker 1: as far as to pay fifteen dollars or one hundred
44:14
Speaker 1: dollars for a good imitation article. Armed with this and
44:17
Speaker 1: perfectly dressed, he makes his way among the party of
44:20
Speaker 1: guests and finds it no great risks to adroitly change
44:23
Speaker 1: the counterfeit for the genuine jewel. Trick of the van thief.
44:29
Speaker 1: Vans that are covered entirely with tarpaulin or canvas and
44:33
Speaker 1: have a loose back present opportunities to the van thief.
44:37
Speaker 1: A favorite trick is for the thief to wheel a
44:39
Speaker 1: hand cart covered with sacking under which a confederate lies
44:42
Speaker 1: concealed behind one of these vans. The confederate quickly puts
44:46
Speaker 1: the upper part of his body inside the van, his
44:49
Speaker 1: feet remaining in the cart being concealed from view by
44:52
Speaker 1: the loose tarpaulin. He seeses a package dropping back with
44:56
Speaker 1: it into the cart, which is pushed off at once.
44:59
Speaker 1: A wet day is referred for this trick, as then
45:01
Speaker 1: not so many people are about, and the driver is
45:04
Speaker 1: likely to be holding his head down as a protection
45:06
Speaker 1: from the rain, in consequence of which he will not
45:08
Speaker 1: look behind the trick satchel thieves. It is when the
45:13
Speaker 1: dark days come round that the railway station thief most
45:16
Speaker 1: safely conducts his operations. The summer tourist he loves not,
45:20
Speaker 1: for his luggage contains few valuables, and there is then
45:23
Speaker 1: too much light about a dull afternoon, and well to
45:26
Speaker 1: do people going off by train or what the platform
45:29
Speaker 1: prowler asks for, And here is shown as a warning
45:32
Speaker 1: if needs be an artful appliance that stationed thieves have
45:35
Speaker 1: used of late years. It looks like an ordinary portmanteau,
45:39
Speaker 1: and so it is, with a difference. It is especially
45:41
Speaker 1: made portmanteau, the bottom of which closes up on pressure
45:45
Speaker 1: being applied. Thus, when as shown in the illustration, the
45:49
Speaker 1: trick portmanteau is placed over a smaller one that lies
45:52
Speaker 1: upon the platform, the larger one comes down as a
45:55
Speaker 1: cover over it by a movement of the thumb of
45:58
Speaker 1: the hand that holds the portmanteau hand powerful springs are released,
46:02
Speaker 1: which tightly grasped the portmanteau that is inside, and it
46:05
Speaker 1: can thus be carried away completely enveloped from sight. If therefore,
46:10
Speaker 1: you see a suspicious looking character hanging about, don't set
46:13
Speaker 1: him down as a genuine passenger just because he has
46:16
Speaker 1: a bag diamond in a chew of gum. One of
46:20
Speaker 1: the cleverest and most unscrupulous diamond thieves I ever heard
46:24
Speaker 1: of perfected a scheme for daylight robbery of unmounted gems,
46:27
Speaker 1: which for a time simply defied detectives of London and Paris.
46:31
Speaker 1: The game was played as follows. A lady, well dressed
46:35
Speaker 1: and looking like a respectable and wealthy matron, who might
46:37
Speaker 1: be the wife of a banker or large merchant, enters
46:40
Speaker 1: a jewelry store and asks to see some unmounted diamonds.
46:44
Speaker 1: The clerk shows her the stones, and while she is
46:46
Speaker 1: looking at them, a second lady, equally respectable in appearance,
46:50
Speaker 1: enters and approaches the same counter. She seems to be
46:53
Speaker 1: interested in diamonds. Suddenly, one of the most valuable gems
46:57
Speaker 1: is missing. The proprietor is summoned, the detectives rush in,
47:01
Speaker 1: and an officer is called. The women who both declare
47:04
Speaker 1: their innocence, are carefully searched, but the diamond has absolutely disappeared. Eventually,
47:10
Speaker 1: both the women are released, but the diamond is never recovered.
47:13
Speaker 1: The way the trick was played is this. One of
47:16
Speaker 1: the women, both of whom are members of the gang,
47:19
Speaker 1: deftly concealed the diamond in a piece of chewing gum
47:22
Speaker 1: and sticks it on the under side of the front
47:24
Speaker 1: edge of the counter. There it remains safely hidden away
47:28
Speaker 1: while the frantic search is going on. A third member
47:31
Speaker 1: of the gang slips in afterward with the crowd of
47:33
Speaker 1: curious and removes the gum containing the diamond and makes
47:36
Speaker 1: off with it. Said the fond mother. Never would I
47:43
Speaker 1: call a boy of mine alias if I had a
47:45
Speaker 1: hundred to name men by that name? Is Allahs cutting
47:49
Speaker 1: up capers. Here is Alias Thompson, Alias Williams, alias the Nighthawk,
47:54
Speaker 1: All been took up for stealing. Teacher, how many of
47:59
Speaker 1: my scholars can remember the longest sentence they ever read? Billy? Please, Mum,
48:05
Speaker 1: I can, teacher, what is there only one? Well, William,
48:11
Speaker 1: you may tell the rest of the scholars the longest
48:13
Speaker 1: sentence you ever read? Billy Imprisonment for life end of
48:21
Speaker 1: Shot five, Shot six, the Aristocrat of thievery. There are
48:29
Speaker 1: kings of crime as well as kings of finance. Much
48:32
Speaker 1: the same talent which enables John D. Rockefeller to pile
48:35
Speaker 1: up a thousand million dollars or Henry H. Rogers to
48:39
Speaker 1: control unnumbered millions in Wall Street, applied in a different direction,
48:43
Speaker 1: develops that high grade of criminal whose robberies are exploited
48:47
Speaker 1: in scare head stories and newspapers, and are the chalk
48:50
Speaker 1: of the country for many days. The case which occurred
48:53
Speaker 1: at Liverpool a short time ago was the work of
48:55
Speaker 1: a bright man. The circumstances related to me by a
48:59
Speaker 1: newspaper man follows. One day Messchuur's Old Field and Company
49:04
Speaker 1: of Liverpool received a telegram purporting to come from Missus
49:08
Speaker 1: Braddlebank of Garston, then staying in London, ordering a quantity
49:12
Speaker 1: of diamonds to be sent to her Garston residence. Missus
49:15
Speaker 1: Bradlebank being a wealthy customer and well known to this
49:18
Speaker 1: jewelry house, A package of valuable stones was made up
49:22
Speaker 1: and sent by registered posts after being insured for five
49:25
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. After the arrival of the package in Garston,
49:29
Speaker 1: a well dressed gentleman, representing himself to be mister Lang Miller,
49:33
Speaker 1: a wealthy South African ship owner and a friend of
49:36
Speaker 1: the Brattlebanks, called at the residence, having previously explained by
49:40
Speaker 1: telephone that he was coming to take the package to
49:42
Speaker 1: Missus Braddlebank in London. The whole affair seemed so open
49:47
Speaker 1: and above board, and the appearance of mister Miller so
49:50
Speaker 1: honest and convincing, that the valuable package was handed over
49:53
Speaker 1: to him without question. Neither mister Miller, who is now
49:57
Speaker 1: suspected to be one of the most expert confidence men
50:00
Speaker 1: the Kingdom, nor the diamonds have ever been seen since
50:05
Speaker 1: the swindler who lowered a check. The crime of raising
50:09
Speaker 1: a check is often attempted, and sometimes successfully, but it
50:12
Speaker 1: is seldom that a criminal attempts to lower the figures
50:15
Speaker 1: on a check and cash it for a less sum
50:16
Speaker 1: than it was made out for. The following incident occurred
50:20
Speaker 1: in Wall Street not long ago, showing that the man
50:23
Speaker 1: who conceived it must have had a ready wit and
50:25
Speaker 1: a clever brain, as well as considerable daring to put
50:28
Speaker 1: it into execution. It is said that this ingenious swindler
50:32
Speaker 1: had already realized between two and three thousand dollars by
50:35
Speaker 1: his startling new method of lowering checks. For instance, a
50:40
Speaker 1: stock exchange broker sells one thousand shares of a stock
50:43
Speaker 1: to ten customers in blocks of one hundred shares at
50:46
Speaker 1: ninety one. Each purchaser prepares a check for nine thousand,
50:50
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars for the seller when the messenger boys
50:53
Speaker 1: make their rounds. If the checks are not ready, when
50:56
Speaker 1: the messenger calls out to the cashier, who usually cannot
50:59
Speaker 1: see the boy, he is told to come back later.
51:02
Speaker 1: This swindler follows a messenger boy, and when the boy
51:06
Speaker 1: is told to return later, the fellow returns himself in
51:08
Speaker 1: a short time against the check, which is readily handed
51:11
Speaker 1: over to him. Having secured the check for nine thousand,
51:15
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars, the swindler hurries away, and, knowing that
51:19
Speaker 1: safety does not lie in presenting the check for so
51:21
Speaker 1: large an amount, reduces it to nine hundred ten dollars,
51:25
Speaker 1: makes it payable to bear by the use of chemicals,
51:27
Speaker 1: and secures the money. A daring train robbery. Among the
51:33
Speaker 1: clever coups that have come to my attention here is
51:35
Speaker 1: one related by an ex convict and published recently in
51:38
Speaker 1: an English periodical which presents some rather interesting features. The
51:42
Speaker 1: writer says, a certain lady of high social position was
51:46
Speaker 1: known to possess an exceptionally valuable collection of jewelry, and
51:50
Speaker 1: some of us had long been casting covetous eyes upon it.
51:53
Speaker 1: One day she started from Saint Pancras and the Scotch
51:56
Speaker 1: Express for her husband's seat in the Highlands, the jewelry
51:59
Speaker 1: being securely packed in one of her numerous trunks. These
52:02
Speaker 1: were duly placed in the luggage van, which was locked
52:05
Speaker 1: and only opened by the guard. At the two or
52:07
Speaker 1: three places where the express stopped. No one save the
52:11
Speaker 1: railway servants entered the van or left it. Neither had
52:14
Speaker 1: the doors been opened while the train was in motion.
52:17
Speaker 1: But when the trunk in question was unlocked far away
52:19
Speaker 1: in Scotland, the jewel case was gone, and from that
52:22
Speaker 1: day to this not the slightest clue has been found
52:24
Speaker 1: as to its disappearance. Here was a case for a
52:28
Speaker 1: Sherlock Homes or a Martin Hewitt, but either these gentlemen
52:31
Speaker 1: were not forthcoming, or they totally failed to solve what
52:34
Speaker 1: is perhaps the most mysterious railway robbery of recent days.
52:39
Speaker 1: Let me lift the veil and show how the little
52:42
Speaker 1: job was worked. Two men, both of whom were still
52:45
Speaker 1: making a very comfortable income as railway thieves, got to
52:48
Speaker 1: know of the lady's proposed journey and discovered the train
52:51
Speaker 1: by which she intended to travel. Accordingly, they also traveled
52:55
Speaker 1: north by that train, though they did not go as
52:57
Speaker 1: far as Scotland. On the contrary, they only booked to Leeds.
53:02
Speaker 1: Their luggage consisted of two portmanteaus and a massive wooden trunk,
53:06
Speaker 1: strongly hooped and padlocked. It was an honest, straightforward looking trunk,
53:10
Speaker 1: but any one who examined it very closely might have
53:13
Speaker 1: discovered a quantity of small holes in its sides, practically
53:16
Speaker 1: concealed by the iron hoops, between which and the woodwork
53:19
Speaker 1: there was at intervals a slight space. That trunk did
53:23
Speaker 1: not contain the large assortment of wearing apparel that might
53:25
Speaker 1: have been supposed. In fact, it only contained one suit
53:28
Speaker 1: of clothes, and that suit in case the limbs of
53:31
Speaker 1: a boy of fourteen. As soon as the train was
53:33
Speaker 1: well on its journey, one end of the trunk opened
53:36
Speaker 1: and the small boy emerged with the aid of a
53:39
Speaker 1: goodly stock of skeleton keys and picklocks. The English hamper
53:42
Speaker 1: locks can be opened with a button hook. They are
53:44
Speaker 1: so simple. He opened the various hampers bearing her Ladyship's
53:48
Speaker 1: name and presently discovered the jewel case, which he removed
53:51
Speaker 1: to his own box. He then locked up the trunks,
53:54
Speaker 1: returned to his hiding place, closed the sliding panel, curled
53:57
Speaker 1: himself up comfortably in the box, and went to sleep
54:00
Speaker 1: for the rest of the journey. At Leeds, the two
54:03
Speaker 1: men alighted, called a porter who got their luggage out
54:06
Speaker 1: of the van for them, and then drove in a
54:08
Speaker 1: cab to a certain temperance hotel and brigdate, where in
54:11
Speaker 1: the privacy of the room they had secured the boy
54:14
Speaker 1: was let out of the box and the jewel case
54:16
Speaker 1: gleefully examined its contents. Traveled back to London by the
54:20
Speaker 1: next train and were safely on the continent before the
54:22
Speaker 1: news of the robbery had reached Scotland. Yard a check
54:27
Speaker 1: for thirty thousand dollars a single plant on a Chicago
54:31
Speaker 1: bank was pulled off recently, whereby the clever swindler coppered
54:34
Speaker 1: out thirty thousand dollars for himself with very little effort.
54:38
Speaker 1: The bank officers tried to hush the matter up as
54:41
Speaker 1: much as possible, and for the sake of the depositors.
54:43
Speaker 1: I shall not give the name of the institution, but
54:46
Speaker 1: the facts which I am certain are substantially as follows.
54:49
Speaker 1: A depositor of several years standing appeared a few days
54:52
Speaker 1: ago in the bank President's office with a draft on
54:54
Speaker 1: London for six thousand pounds, which was perfectly good. The
54:58
Speaker 1: depositor informed the president he desired to deposit this London
55:02
Speaker 1: draft and at the same time to check against it,
55:04
Speaker 1: presenting his check for thirty thousand dollars for the president
55:08
Speaker 1: to okay. The latter put his initials on it and
55:10
Speaker 1: thought no more of the transaction. The depositor then went
55:14
Speaker 1: out into the bank and deposited his London draft, and
55:17
Speaker 1: on the following day presented a check for thirty thousand dollars,
55:20
Speaker 1: which was paid the teller, knowing that the amount was
55:22
Speaker 1: to his credit on the books. Later in the day
55:25
Speaker 1: he again appeared at the window and presented the check
55:27
Speaker 1: for thirty thousand dollars, which had been initialed by the president.
55:31
Speaker 1: This check was also paid. Nothing more has since been
55:34
Speaker 1: seen of the depositor. In Bessler's Wife, you are a
55:41
Speaker 1: thief and a criminal. Never speak to me again inm Bezzler.
55:45
Speaker 1: But I stole it all for your sake in Bessler's Wife. Yes,
55:50
Speaker 1: but didn't you go and give it all back again?
55:53
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Commercial Tribune. What did that man do to make
55:59
Speaker 1: himself so famous? Asked the inquirer, gazing curiously at an
56:03
Speaker 1: individual who formed the center of a social group. To
56:06
Speaker 1: the best of my knowledge, replied the cenic, he did
56:09
Speaker 1: the public end of shot six, Shot seven. Pickpockets at work.
56:17
Speaker 1: Among the most interesting classes of thieves is the pickpocket,
56:21
Speaker 1: whose clever subterfuges and skill of hand have been so
56:24
Speaker 1: often exploited in novel and storybook. Your professional pickpocket is
56:29
Speaker 1: naturally a rover and travels the country over attending large
56:32
Speaker 1: gatherings of professional pickpockets. There are a number of types,
56:37
Speaker 1: each adapted to the class of work in which he engages.
56:41
Speaker 1: It is the usual opinion that a pickpocket is a
56:43
Speaker 1: forbidding and suspicious looking fellow, but a glance at the
56:47
Speaker 1: rogues gallery and any police headquarters will show you that
56:50
Speaker 1: they look much like ordinary individuals and are of more
56:53
Speaker 1: than average intelligence. The pickpocket is usually very well dressed
56:57
Speaker 1: and of prepossessing appearance. Those who seek to make only
57:01
Speaker 1: large halls or entertaining talkers and easy in their manner,
57:05
Speaker 1: They are generally self possessed, and while dexterous, are very
57:08
Speaker 1: cautious in their operations. It is needless to say that
57:12
Speaker 1: women make the most patient as well as the most
57:15
Speaker 1: dangerous pickpockets. It is simply amazing how quickly an expert
57:19
Speaker 1: pickpocket with a delicate touch seemingly accidental, will locate the
57:23
Speaker 1: resting place of a well filled purse or other article
57:26
Speaker 1: of value, which he chooses to abstract. When once discovered,
57:30
Speaker 1: they follow their intended victims until the proper opportunity comes.
57:34
Speaker 1: A common pickpocket trick is for the operator to carry
57:37
Speaker 1: a shawl or overcoat carelessly over the left arm, and
57:41
Speaker 1: to take a seat on the right side of the
57:43
Speaker 1: person they intend to rob in a street car or
57:45
Speaker 1: other vehicle. Sometimes a small and very sharp knife is
57:49
Speaker 1: used to cut the side of the dress or pantaloons
57:52
Speaker 1: of the victim, so that the purse may be abstracted
57:55
Speaker 1: without going into the pocket directly. Others of this light
57:58
Speaker 1: fingered gentry where life overcoats with large pockets removed, they
58:03
Speaker 1: will endeavor to stand near a person, preferably a woman,
58:06
Speaker 1: who is paying her fare and has displayed a well
58:08
Speaker 1: filled purse. The pickpocket then carelessly throws his coat over
58:12
Speaker 1: her dress, and, by inserting his hand through the outside
58:15
Speaker 1: opening of his own pocket, quietly proceeds to abstract her purse.
58:20
Speaker 1: Pickpockets either work alone or in pairs, or what is
58:24
Speaker 1: called a mob. Most female pickpockets seem to prefer to
58:27
Speaker 1: work alone, sometimes, however, working in conjunction with a man thief,
58:31
Speaker 1: to whom they pass their plunder and thus make detection
58:34
Speaker 1: impossible if they are suspected and searched. The mob is
58:38
Speaker 1: a gang of expert pickpockets under the direction of a
58:41
Speaker 1: leader who has had experience and knows all the tricks.
58:44
Speaker 1: Their usual game is to frequent some crowded platform or
58:48
Speaker 1: railway station and raise an apparent row in which two
58:51
Speaker 1: men seem to engage in a scuffle or quarrel and
58:53
Speaker 1: come to blows. Others rush in attempting to separate them,
58:57
Speaker 1: and the attention of the whole crowd of people for
59:00
Speaker 1: the moment directed strongly that way. At the same moment,
59:04
Speaker 1: other single light fingered members of the same gang crowd
59:07
Speaker 1: in with the citizens who are being jostled and abstract
59:10
Speaker 1: their pocket books and watches without any trouble. Recently, a
59:14
Speaker 1: gang has successfully worked in several of the subway stations
59:17
Speaker 1: in Boston, and the same gang has successfully applied this
59:20
Speaker 1: vocation in New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The false arm game,
59:26
Speaker 1: or the third mit, as it is known to the
59:29
Speaker 1: professional pickpocket, is said to be little employed in this country. Now.
59:33
Speaker 1: A loose cape overcoat is worn in one of the
59:36
Speaker 1: sleeves of which a false arm in hand are fixed.
59:39
Speaker 1: Thus a detective who may be watching the pickpocket will
59:42
Speaker 1: see apparently both of his hands in view, while in reality,
59:45
Speaker 1: the light, skillful fingers of the operator's left hand are
59:48
Speaker 1: going through the pockets of the man beside of whom
59:51
Speaker 1: he is standing. This dodge is very much employed on
59:54
Speaker 1: the continent by shoplifters. One of the many fertile dodges
59:58
Speaker 1: by which a pickpocket is s scape's detection is known
1:00:01
Speaker 1: as the horse dodge. The thief so arranges as to
1:00:04
Speaker 1: meet his victim by the side of a horse standing
1:00:06
Speaker 1: by the curbstone he has previously located the watch or
1:00:10
Speaker 1: purse he wishes to lift, and with a quick blow
1:00:12
Speaker 1: he knocks his victim's hat over his eyes, grabs the pocketbook,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: or watch or whatever else he is after, and immediately
1:00:19
Speaker 1: darts under the horse and hides himself in the traffic
1:00:21
Speaker 1: on the other side. By the time the victim has
1:00:24
Speaker 1: got the use of his eyes and is able to
1:00:26
Speaker 1: look around, the thief has entirely disappeared, and he would
1:00:30
Speaker 1: not be apt to look in the right direction at
1:00:32
Speaker 1: any rate. In the outskirts of London, among the small shops,
1:00:36
Speaker 1: a rather unusual trick has been played frequently upon unsuspecting shopkeepers.
1:00:41
Speaker 1: Two men, in earnest argument over some matter, enter a
1:00:44
Speaker 1: small grocery store and approach the proprietor, who is behind
1:00:47
Speaker 1: his till. One man says to the proprietor, my friend
1:00:52
Speaker 1: and I have gotten into an argument over a peculiar matter,
1:00:54
Speaker 1: which we believe you can settle for us. I have
1:00:57
Speaker 1: bet him that my hat, taking off an old fashioned
1:01:00
Speaker 1: stove by pat will hold more than four quarts of molasses,
1:01:04
Speaker 1: while he contends that it will hold hardly three quarts.
1:01:07
Speaker 1: We are willing to buy the molasses if you will
1:01:10
Speaker 1: fill this hat and prove the question to decide the bet.
1:01:13
Speaker 1: The shopkeeper good humoredly agrees and brings the hat room
1:01:17
Speaker 1: full with sticky molasses, at which one of the thieves
1:01:19
Speaker 1: slaps it over the shopkeeper's head, and before he can
1:01:22
Speaker 1: extricate himself and call help, they have robbed the till
1:01:26
Speaker 1: and disappeared. End of shot seven Shot eight. Beggars and
1:01:34
Speaker 1: dead beats. There probably is not a reader of this
1:01:38
Speaker 1: book who has not frequently been accosted on the street
1:01:41
Speaker 1: corners by the poorly dressed, shivering wretch who asks in
1:01:44
Speaker 1: a whining voice for a coin or two to get
1:01:46
Speaker 1: him a night's lodging. Who has not experienced the mingled
1:01:50
Speaker 1: feeling of repugnance and pity which their stories are intended
1:01:53
Speaker 1: to produce. Who has not, rather than run the chance
1:01:57
Speaker 1: of turning away an honest man in real distress, us
1:02:00
Speaker 1: put his hand in his pocket and dropped a dime
1:02:03
Speaker 1: or a quarter into grimy outstretched fingers, and went on
1:02:06
Speaker 1: his way, more than half convinced that he had paid
1:02:09
Speaker 1: money to a fraud. Beggars there have been since civilization
1:02:13
Speaker 1: created the distinctions of wealth and poverty, and must needs
1:02:17
Speaker 1: be till a higher better civilization makes misery and crime
1:02:20
Speaker 1: impossible or unnecessary for ages, The Mendicant has flourished, plying
1:02:26
Speaker 1: his vocation on the credulous and making profit out of
1:02:29
Speaker 1: the fact that humanity and religion make alms giving a virtue.
1:02:33
Speaker 1: In the Middle Ages, beggars became so numerous that they
1:02:36
Speaker 1: threatened to overrun the continent. The begging friars and other
1:02:39
Speaker 1: religious orders encouraged it, and the beggars throve Today the
1:02:44
Speaker 1: modern law on most lands forbids begging. But still most
1:02:47
Speaker 1: people would be surprised to note what extent it is practiced,
1:02:51
Speaker 1: that is, to what links and in what numbers the fraudulent, cheating,
1:02:54
Speaker 1: professional beggar prays upon the almsgiving over credulous public. I've
1:03:00
Speaker 1: watched the beggars of most of the great cities of
1:03:02
Speaker 1: America and Europe, and have made some little investigation into
1:03:05
Speaker 1: their methods, and I do not hesitate to say that,
1:03:08
Speaker 1: in ninety cases out of one hundred, the man who
1:03:10
Speaker 1: asks for alms on the street corner is a cheat
1:03:13
Speaker 1: and a fraud. If the public would take my advice
1:03:16
Speaker 1: and absolutely refrain from giving to beggars, this nuisance might
1:03:20
Speaker 1: soon be done away with. If the beggar no longer
1:03:23
Speaker 1: found his calling profitable, he would soon go to work
1:03:27
Speaker 1: or seek other fields of activity. As a rule, the
1:03:31
Speaker 1: beggars we see upon our streets belong to well organized gangs,
1:03:34
Speaker 1: and their individual members are controlled by a chief whose
1:03:37
Speaker 1: word is law. For simple begging, the territory is laid out,
1:03:41
Speaker 1: and each man keeps within his own beat. At night,
1:03:44
Speaker 1: they assemble at some cheap lodging house, where each one
1:03:47
Speaker 1: turns over his day's takings to the leader, who acts
1:03:51
Speaker 1: as treasurer, and even often deposits a fund in the
1:03:53
Speaker 1: bank to be used in emergencies or for bail money.
1:03:57
Speaker 1: A certain portion of the income for the day is
1:04:00
Speaker 1: divided each night among all members, either equally or in
1:04:04
Speaker 1: certain shares agreed upon. It is said that a leader
1:04:07
Speaker 1: or treasurer is always faithful to his trust, for if
1:04:10
Speaker 1: he were to appropriate the money, he would at once
1:04:13
Speaker 1: be barred out of the United Order of American Beggars
1:04:17
Speaker 1: or Sons of Rest, and blacklisted all over the country.
1:04:22
Speaker 1: Sometimes the leaders will take in young boys and train
1:04:24
Speaker 1: them in the art of deceiving the public. Chief Watts
1:04:28
Speaker 1: tells one such story of a young man known as
1:04:30
Speaker 1: Kid Johnson, an orphan boy who came under the influence
1:04:34
Speaker 1: of Friscoe's Slim, the burly leader of a gang of
1:04:37
Speaker 1: Boston beggars. This wily mendicant filled the lad's mind with
1:04:41
Speaker 1: stories about easy money, and showed him how he Frisco's Slim,
1:04:46
Speaker 1: had doctored his arm with a chemical to give it
1:04:48
Speaker 1: the appearance of a frightful burn. With that arm, said Frisco,
1:04:53
Speaker 1: I call her many a dollar every day of my life.
1:04:56
Speaker 1: I'll fix your arm in another style that'll catch on great.
1:05:00
Speaker 1: So the mere boy was enrolled as Kid Johnson and
1:05:03
Speaker 1: taken to a resort known to the gang, where his
1:05:05
Speaker 1: arm was put in a plaster cast and he was
1:05:08
Speaker 1: sent out to beg on the street. His scanty clothing
1:05:11
Speaker 1: was thin and ragged, his toes peeped through his shoes,
1:05:14
Speaker 1: and he looked the picture of weariness and hunger. In
1:05:17
Speaker 1: a short time, the kid proved one of the best
1:05:20
Speaker 1: money getters of the whole gang, but his master's demands
1:05:24
Speaker 1: grew faster than his ability to bring in the coin.
1:05:27
Speaker 1: He was required to bring in a certain amount each day,
1:05:30
Speaker 1: and ill treated if it fell short. His life was
1:05:33
Speaker 1: that of a slave. He was finally rescued by the
1:05:36
Speaker 1: police and given a chance to reform and lead an
1:05:38
Speaker 1: honest life, But the taint of crime had entered his nature,
1:05:42
Speaker 1: and he soon ran away to take to the road
1:05:44
Speaker 1: and street again. The Magic Cap, a German organist who
1:05:50
Speaker 1: came to Saint Petersburg from Orenburg on a visit to
1:05:53
Speaker 1: his relatives, met with an adventure which caused him to
1:05:56
Speaker 1: wonder whether he had, by accident, been transported into the
1:05:59
Speaker 1: mystic East and carried back to the times of the
1:06:01
Speaker 1: Arabian Nights. The story of his adventure might well be
1:06:05
Speaker 1: entitled the Magic Cap, and it will be seen that
1:06:08
Speaker 1: it bears a strong resemblance to the story of Aladdin
1:06:11
Speaker 1: and his Wonderful Lamp. On arriving at Saint Petersburg, the
1:06:16
Speaker 1: German visitor purchased a cap, which he thought would be
1:06:19
Speaker 1: more comfortable than his ordinary head gear for exploring the town,
1:06:23
Speaker 1: with which he was not well acquainted. On arriving home
1:06:26
Speaker 1: in the evening after his first day's sight seeing, he
1:06:29
Speaker 1: was greatly surprised to find in the pockets of his
1:06:31
Speaker 1: overcoat two purses, one of them containing over ten pounds.
1:06:36
Speaker 1: He marveled greatly at his mysterious luck, and sallied out again.
1:06:39
Speaker 1: Next day, when he came home again, he found in
1:06:42
Speaker 1: his pockets several more purses and began to feel alarmed.
1:06:47
Speaker 1: When on the third day he came home with another
1:06:49
Speaker 1: windfall in his pockets, he became frightened, but his Teutonic
1:06:53
Speaker 1: common sense would not allow him to believe in the
1:06:55
Speaker 1: existence of magic, and he decided to have recourse to
1:06:59
Speaker 1: the prosaic police force in order to elucidate the mystery. Accordingly,
1:07:03
Speaker 1: he sought out the Chief of police and told him
1:07:05
Speaker 1: all the facts. The astute official examined him closely as
1:07:09
Speaker 1: to the clothes he was wearing, and particularly as to
1:07:12
Speaker 1: the cap he had bought in Saint Petersburg, and on
1:07:15
Speaker 1: receiving his replies, sent the German with the policeman to
1:07:18
Speaker 1: the Hatter's shop. The shopkeeper explained that the cap was
1:07:22
Speaker 1: an exceptional kind. Some time ago, a man had called
1:07:25
Speaker 1: on him and given him a large piece of English cloth,
1:07:28
Speaker 1: out of which he was to make fifteen caps of
1:07:31
Speaker 1: exact similarity. On concluding this order, the hatter found that
1:07:35
Speaker 1: he had a piece of the cloth left over, and
1:07:37
Speaker 1: of this he made an extra cap, the identical one,
1:07:40
Speaker 1: which was sold to the German. On the strength of
1:07:43
Speaker 1: this information, the Chief of police arranged for a detective
1:07:46
Speaker 1: to accompany the German on his next day's sightseeing, and
1:07:49
Speaker 1: then the mystery of the magic cap was fully cleared up.
1:07:53
Speaker 1: Watching his charge carefully, the detective saw various men lounge
1:07:57
Speaker 1: furtively up to the German and transfer something from their
1:08:00
Speaker 1: hands to his pockets. On each occasion. The man thus discovered,
1:08:04
Speaker 1: was arrested, and in the course of two or three days,
1:08:07
Speaker 1: during which the same plan was pursued, the police made
1:08:10
Speaker 1: prisoners of about a dozen men. They turned out to
1:08:13
Speaker 1: be a gang of pickpockets, and all wore a cap
1:08:16
Speaker 1: of the same pattern as that purchased by the German.
1:08:19
Speaker 1: Their plan was to pass on their plunder to a
1:08:21
Speaker 1: confederate for whom the German had been mistaken. A very
1:08:26
Speaker 1: favorite trick of begging letter writers is to try to
1:08:29
Speaker 1: obtain money on behalf of some bogus society in which
1:08:32
Speaker 1: they think the celebrity written to might be interested. The
1:08:35
Speaker 1: swindler will even go so far as to get the
1:08:37
Speaker 1: name of a fictitious institution printed on a number of letters,
1:08:40
Speaker 1: and writing as a secretary asked for a subscription. Probably
1:08:44
Speaker 1: in nine cases out of ten, this will be sent
1:08:47
Speaker 1: without any further inquiries being made by the recipient of
1:08:49
Speaker 1: the request, the printed letter paper being considered a sufficient
1:08:53
Speaker 1: guarantee as to the genuineness of the appeal. Often professional
1:08:58
Speaker 1: beggars are actually men of wealth. Not long ago, a
1:09:01
Speaker 1: beggar died in New York who had eleven bank books
1:09:04
Speaker 1: concealed about his person, with deposits amounting to thousands of dollars.
1:09:09
Speaker 1: Beggars frequently owned real estate, stocks and bonds. This is
1:09:13
Speaker 1: putting a beggar on horseback with a vengeance. An actual
1:09:17
Speaker 1: incident of this kind was disclosed in one of our
1:09:19
Speaker 1: largest cities not long ago, in a smart little villa
1:09:23
Speaker 1: in one of the suburbs with an equally smart, young
1:09:26
Speaker 1: married couple. Mister Cecil brown Smith was the name on
1:09:29
Speaker 1: the door plate. And every morning mister Smith went into
1:09:32
Speaker 1: the city, and every evening came home. If a neighbor
1:09:35
Speaker 1: asked about business, he would reply, oh, pretty good, I
1:09:39
Speaker 1: can't complain. So the pretty little wife was happy from
1:09:42
Speaker 1: morning till night, and all went well in the city.
1:09:46
Speaker 1: Shuffling painfully along one of the principal streets, a miserable
1:09:50
Speaker 1: object had for some time touched the hearts and pockets
1:09:53
Speaker 1: of stockbrokers and citymen, even the poor almost beggars themselves,
1:09:58
Speaker 1: have dropped their might into the cigar box full of matches,
1:10:01
Speaker 1: which he carried in his one hand, for he was
1:10:03
Speaker 1: an object of such abject misery. One arm hung helpless
1:10:07
Speaker 1: by his side, his head hung with the weakness of paralysis.
1:10:11
Speaker 1: His right leg was paralyzed, and he laboriously dragged it
1:10:14
Speaker 1: after him. No one on earth would have supposed a
1:10:17
Speaker 1: connection between the crippled match sellar, always so grateful for alms,
1:10:22
Speaker 1: and the snug suburban home. But for some reason, two
1:10:25
Speaker 1: disguised detectives, for some hours took a close interest in
1:10:28
Speaker 1: the beggar's business. When the match vender's day's work was over,
1:10:33
Speaker 1: one of the detectives followed him and witnessed an astonishing transformation. First,
1:10:38
Speaker 1: said the detective, the lame man dragged himself to an
1:10:40
Speaker 1: adjacent tobacconist's shop, where he changed his silver and coppers
1:10:44
Speaker 1: into bills. Here, too, he left the cigar box and
1:10:47
Speaker 1: the matches until the morrow, and then he boarded a
1:10:50
Speaker 1: car to a cheap lodging house. And by the time
1:10:53
Speaker 1: he had arrived there, his lameness had disappeared, and he
1:10:55
Speaker 1: went up the steps two at a time. Finally, he
1:10:58
Speaker 1: went home to the smart little villa already described. He
1:11:02
Speaker 1: was a gentleman who lived there with his wife and child.
1:11:05
Speaker 1: One afternoon, as the match peddler was shuffling painfully along
1:11:09
Speaker 1: with a cigar box as before, Detective number one suddenly
1:11:12
Speaker 1: confronted him. You're an impostor, said the detective. Can you
1:11:18
Speaker 1: prove it, demanded the beggar. The officer said he could,
1:11:22
Speaker 1: and at once arrested him for begging. As the prisoner
1:11:25
Speaker 1: declared he could not walk and objected to the publicity
1:11:28
Speaker 1: of an ambulance, he was conveyed to the police station
1:11:31
Speaker 1: in a cab in the dock. At the police station,
1:11:34
Speaker 1: he presented the appearance of an intelligent and fairly well
1:11:37
Speaker 1: dressed man of twenty nine. One of the most amazing
1:11:40
Speaker 1: features of the case was a statement that Smith's wife
1:11:43
Speaker 1: was surprised to hear of her husband's goings on. She
1:11:46
Speaker 1: knew nothing about Smith's occupation in the city. Begging cards
1:11:51
Speaker 1: covered with the worst kind of doggerel poetry are often
1:11:54
Speaker 1: used by beggars who has not, at one time or
1:11:57
Speaker 1: another received one like the following, entitled The Cripples appeal.
1:12:01
Speaker 1: Kind people, do not fear me or turn me from
1:12:04
Speaker 1: your door. I ask you, but to hear me or
1:12:07
Speaker 1: read my story, or tis the same old tale of hardship,
1:12:11
Speaker 1: misfortune and of woe that others have told before me.
1:12:15
Speaker 1: And you've heard it all I know, from house to
1:12:18
Speaker 1: house in the city. This little appeal I've made, And
1:12:21
Speaker 1: it's with a hope for pity that I ask you
1:12:24
Speaker 1: for your aid. Did you ever give a nickel or
1:12:28
Speaker 1: a dime to the person who handed you such a card?
1:12:31
Speaker 1: If you did, you gave to an out and out
1:12:33
Speaker 1: professional beggar. Indeed, nine times out of ten, yes, ninety
1:12:38
Speaker 1: nine times out of one hundred, every coin that goes
1:12:42
Speaker 1: into the tin cup or the hand of a street
1:12:44
Speaker 1: beggar goes to a fraud of the worst description. Visitor
1:12:51
Speaker 1: at the gal, poor, poor man, May I offer you
1:12:55
Speaker 1: this bunch of flowers? Man behind the bars, you've made
1:12:59
Speaker 1: a misas stake. Miss the fellower that killed his wife
1:13:02
Speaker 1: and children is in the next cell. I'm here for
1:13:04
Speaker 1: stealing a cow. It would be helpful to you, said
1:13:10
Speaker 1: the prison visitor, if you could take some motto and
1:13:13
Speaker 1: try and live up to it. That's right, replied the convict.
1:13:17
Speaker 1: I'd like to select, for instance, we are here today
1:13:20
Speaker 1: and gone tomorrow. End of shot eight Shot nine. Begging
1:13:27
Speaker 1: letters swindles every section of the country. Almost every city
1:13:33
Speaker 1: has one or more begging letter writers, who ply their
1:13:36
Speaker 1: trade with greater or less success, and exercise their arts
1:13:39
Speaker 1: upon the simple and credulous. These clever rascals range all
1:13:43
Speaker 1: the way from the ignorant crook that writes a pitiful
1:13:46
Speaker 1: story of want and misery, and who neither receives nor
1:13:49
Speaker 1: expects more than a few dollars at a time, to
1:13:52
Speaker 1: the master of the craft, who goes about it like
1:13:54
Speaker 1: a regular business, has a well organized office and a
1:13:57
Speaker 1: force of stenographers and clerks who are busy day in
1:14:01
Speaker 1: and day out sending off and receiving mail. Several remarkable
1:14:05
Speaker 1: cases have been unearthed only lately, where the fake was
1:14:08
Speaker 1: receiving hundreds of letters daily, the large majority of them
1:14:12
Speaker 1: containing money. The post office authorities, however, have been getting
1:14:16
Speaker 1: after this class of rogues very sharply of late, and
1:14:19
Speaker 1: any organized plundering by the use of the mails is
1:14:22
Speaker 1: almost certain to come to an untimely end sooner or later.
1:14:27
Speaker 1: If anyone has reason to believe that a business of
1:14:30
Speaker 1: the kind is conducted on fraudulent lines. A complaint to
1:14:33
Speaker 1: one of the post office inspectors in any large city
1:14:36
Speaker 1: will quickly bring a fraud order against the party, restraining
1:14:40
Speaker 1: them from use of the mails, and a rigid investigation follows.
1:14:44
Speaker 1: Then the game is up and it's back to the
1:14:46
Speaker 1: tall timber for them. It is a well known fact, however,
1:14:50
Speaker 1: that this recourse to the fraud order is frequently used
1:14:53
Speaker 1: by unprincipled persons out of spite and to obtain revenge
1:14:57
Speaker 1: upon those who are actually conducting a legitimate at business.
1:15:01
Speaker 1: The fraudulent advertisement is often an adjunct to the bogus
1:15:04
Speaker 1: letter scheme and designed to get names to whom a
1:15:07
Speaker 1: special kind of letter may be written. One of the
1:15:10
Speaker 1: most daring schemes of this kind was unearthed a short
1:15:13
Speaker 1: time ago in New York City. A man fitted up
1:15:16
Speaker 1: a suite of offices and elegant style in one of
1:15:19
Speaker 1: the large office buildings. He then traveled to South Dakota
1:15:22
Speaker 1: and under the laws of that state, incorporated a stock
1:15:26
Speaker 1: company with a capitalization of five million dollars. It was
1:15:30
Speaker 1: called a Commercial and Mining Company. Returning to New York,
1:15:33
Speaker 1: he instructed the Press Clipping Bureau to save from the
1:15:36
Speaker 1: obituary notices of all males that died in the states
1:15:39
Speaker 1: other than New York, just far enough away from the
1:15:42
Speaker 1: center of operations to be comfortable for him. Using these
1:15:46
Speaker 1: obituary notices for guides, he would write to the dead
1:15:49
Speaker 1: man notifying him that the last payment was due on
1:15:52
Speaker 1: the five hundred or one thousand shares of stock which
1:15:55
Speaker 1: he had bought at fifty cents a share. He congratulated
1:15:58
Speaker 1: the man on his foresight on an besting in this stock,
1:16:01
Speaker 1: as it had gone up several points and was still
1:16:03
Speaker 1: rising in value. He begged that a remittance and final
1:16:07
Speaker 1: payment of this stock should be sent at once. A
1:16:10
Speaker 1: beautifully engrossed certificate of stock was enclosed in the letter
1:16:13
Speaker 1: to the dead man, and the inevitable result was that
1:16:16
Speaker 1: the surviving relatives, thinking the departed one had bought this
1:16:19
Speaker 1: stock quietly and forgotten to mention it, sent on a
1:16:22
Speaker 1: check for all the way from five hundred to one
1:16:25
Speaker 1: hundred dollars as requested. It was one of the prettiest
1:16:28
Speaker 1: schemes that has been worked for a long time, and
1:16:31
Speaker 1: the actual amount of money realized by the swindler will
1:16:34
Speaker 1: never be known. Such a snap could not last long, however,
1:16:38
Speaker 1: and the promulgator of the swindle was soon detected and
1:16:40
Speaker 1: brought to trial. One man advertised to sell ten yards
1:16:45
Speaker 1: of good silk for twenty five cents, and so worded
1:16:48
Speaker 1: his announcement as to suggest a bankrupt sale or smuggled goods.
1:16:52
Speaker 1: For a time. He reaped a rich harvest. Money came
1:16:55
Speaker 1: thick and fast to each of his dupes. He mailed
1:16:58
Speaker 1: ten yards of sewing silk. Another rascal offered a complete
1:17:03
Speaker 1: and perfect sewing machine for one dollar. He also gathered
1:17:06
Speaker 1: in the dollars at a rapid rate till Uncle Sam
1:17:09
Speaker 1: put a stop to his operations. He sent his victims
1:17:12
Speaker 1: a common sewing needle. This is quite in line with
1:17:16
Speaker 1: a fellow who advertised a few years ago to tell
1:17:18
Speaker 1: a sure way of getting rid of chinchbugs for one dollar.
1:17:22
Speaker 1: After the victim had sent the dollar, he received by
1:17:25
Speaker 1: mail a card upon which was printed the following Catch
1:17:29
Speaker 1: the chinchbug, Hold it by the legs, carefully between the
1:17:32
Speaker 1: thumb and forefinger, Lay its head on the anvil, and
1:17:36
Speaker 1: hit it with a hammer as hard as you can.
1:17:40
Speaker 1: Many of these advertisements are inserted merely to receive names
1:17:43
Speaker 1: and addresses of credulous people. The lists of names are
1:17:46
Speaker 1: then sold or rented out to fake mail order houses
1:17:49
Speaker 1: who proceed to circularize them. Chain letter schemes are now
1:17:53
Speaker 1: declared illegal, but for some time a number of clever
1:17:56
Speaker 1: dodges of this kind were worked throughout the United States
1:17:59
Speaker 1: as well as on the continent. A brief description of
1:18:02
Speaker 1: one of these schemes will show the character of this
1:18:04
Speaker 1: kind of enterprise. The scheme was where a trip to
1:18:10
Speaker 1: the Paris Exposition with two hundred dollars for expenses was
1:18:13
Speaker 1: offered as a prize. Each person entering the contest was
1:18:17
Speaker 1: required to pay thirty cents, then send to friends two
1:18:20
Speaker 1: letters requesting them to send their names to the original promoter,
1:18:24
Speaker 1: and send duplicate letters to two of their friends. The
1:18:27
Speaker 1: operation to be repeated indefinitely. Each person writing to the
1:18:31
Speaker 1: original promoter was to receive an offer allowing him to
1:18:35
Speaker 1: start a chain on his own account on payment of
1:18:37
Speaker 1: thirty cents, the trip and money going to the one
1:18:40
Speaker 1: whose chain brings out the largest number of letters. The
1:18:43
Speaker 1: ostensible object was to secure names for employment at the exposition.
1:18:49
Speaker 1: End of shot nine shot ten Tricks of bunco Men
1:18:56
Speaker 1: Something for Nothing has ever tempted the simple and unsophisticated. Indeed,
1:19:01
Speaker 1: it is a trait of human nature upon which the
1:19:03
Speaker 1: swindler everywhere and in all ages has relied to his profit.
1:19:08
Speaker 1: The origin of the term bunco comes from an old
1:19:10
Speaker 1: English game of chance, in which a checkered cloth covered
1:19:13
Speaker 1: with numbers and stars is covered with a hood called
1:19:16
Speaker 1: a bunco. The game was to throw dice which counted
1:19:19
Speaker 1: up to a certain concealed number. The man who knew
1:19:22
Speaker 1: the game was called the bunco man or the banker,
1:19:25
Speaker 1: and later, when this form of swindle became notorious, the
1:19:28
Speaker 1: term was corrupted into bunco. To day, the word is
1:19:32
Speaker 1: used to denote almost any swindle where the victim is
1:19:35
Speaker 1: made to believe he is to receive a large sum
1:19:37
Speaker 1: of money or valuables and then gets nothing at all.
1:19:41
Speaker 1: The real simon pure bunco game, as practiced in the
1:19:44
Speaker 1: United States some years ago by Tom O'Brien, The King
1:19:47
Speaker 1: of Bunco Men, was played as follows. The victim, some
1:19:52
Speaker 1: wealthy farmer, usually was lured to a room at a hotel,
1:19:55
Speaker 1: and a game was proposed. A confederate took the part
1:19:58
Speaker 1: of another player. A pack of forty eight cards and
1:20:01
Speaker 1: eight sets. Each set numbered from one to six, was produced,
1:20:05
Speaker 1: shuffled and dealt out eight cards to each player. The
1:20:09
Speaker 1: total sum of the numbers in each hand was then
1:20:11
Speaker 1: compared with the number carrying a prize on the chart.
1:20:14
Speaker 1: If it corresponded, the hand won the prize. The cards
1:20:19
Speaker 1: are gravely counted and compared. The dealer then says to
1:20:22
Speaker 1: the Confederate and dupe, gentlemen, you have drawn the grand
1:20:26
Speaker 1: Conditional Advertising Prize. You're entitled to ten thousand dollars apiece
1:20:31
Speaker 1: on condition that you prove yourselves worth fifty thousand dollars
1:20:35
Speaker 1: and promise to advertise our battery. Whether you win or lose,
1:20:39
Speaker 1: you will have to put up ten thousand dollars apiece
1:20:41
Speaker 1: against the ten thousand dollars prize. Then you draw once more.
1:20:45
Speaker 1: If you draw star number, you get only the ten
1:20:48
Speaker 1: thousand dollar prize and your money back. If you draw
1:20:51
Speaker 1: any other number, you get its prize added to your
1:20:53
Speaker 1: own money and the big prize. The Confederate says he
1:20:57
Speaker 1: is worth more than fifty thousand dollars and a clar
1:21:00
Speaker 1: where's his intention of going in getting the ten thousand
1:21:02
Speaker 1: dollars steak? The dupe is also persuaded to put up
1:21:06
Speaker 1: the cash, and both winners go away to get the money.
1:21:09
Speaker 1: They return and the money is put up. Four cards
1:21:12
Speaker 1: are dealt each. The total of each hand is twenty eight.
1:21:16
Speaker 1: Why gentlemen, says the Bunco man in apparent surprise, twenty
1:21:20
Speaker 1: eight is the state number the total blank. You've lost all.
1:21:25
Speaker 1: The confederate pretends to be very much broken up, condones
1:21:28
Speaker 1: with his fellow victim, and gets him out of the
1:21:31
Speaker 1: room as soon as he can. In a few moments,
1:21:33
Speaker 1: he gives a farmer the slip, joins his partner, and
1:21:36
Speaker 1: they escape from town as quickly as possible. Such is
1:21:40
Speaker 1: the principle of the bunco game, and it is worked
1:21:42
Speaker 1: under many guises with cards dice at the pool or
1:21:46
Speaker 1: billiard table our pool room. Bunco is known as selling
1:21:49
Speaker 1: the lemon as bets are made on the yellow ball,
1:21:52
Speaker 1: but always with the idea of making the victim believe
1:21:55
Speaker 1: he is going to get something for nothing. A variation
1:21:58
Speaker 1: of the Bunco game, often played in the farming districts,
1:22:01
Speaker 1: is for a well dressed, plausible man to drive up
1:22:04
Speaker 1: to a well to do farmer's home and inquire if
1:22:07
Speaker 1: he knows of a good farm for sale. If he does,
1:22:10
Speaker 1: he is invited to drive with the stranger to take
1:22:12
Speaker 1: a look at it and give his advice. The farmer
1:22:15
Speaker 1: finds his new acquaintance bright in entertaining. The property is
1:22:19
Speaker 1: reached and the sharper, with apparent satisfaction, inspects the land
1:22:23
Speaker 1: and buildings and closes a bargain without much haggling. In
1:22:27
Speaker 1: the course of conversation, the man from the city flashes
1:22:30
Speaker 1: a big roll of bank notes of high denomination, and
1:22:33
Speaker 1: the farmer is duly impressed. As they drive homeward, a
1:22:37
Speaker 1: confederate will appear, who stops the carriage to make some inquiry.
1:22:41
Speaker 1: The three enter into conversation in good natured chaffing leads
1:22:44
Speaker 1: up to a proposal of some game of cards or bet.
1:22:48
Speaker 1: The farmer is induced to take a hand, the first
1:22:50
Speaker 1: swindler often to put up his half of the stake.
1:22:53
Speaker 1: When the two partners, the farmer and the first swindler,
1:22:56
Speaker 1: have won a large sum, the loser asked for proof
1:22:59
Speaker 1: of their ability to make good their steak. The first
1:23:02
Speaker 1: swindler produces the cash, and the farmer drives with him
1:23:05
Speaker 1: to the next town to draw his money out of
1:23:07
Speaker 1: the bank to make good his claim. Now comes the
1:23:10
Speaker 1: rapid denouncement. The first swindler asks the farmer to oblige
1:23:14
Speaker 1: him by taking charge of all the money, including the
1:23:17
Speaker 1: money with which he is to buy the farm, until
1:23:19
Speaker 1: he can return and close the bargain. The countryman, naturally
1:23:23
Speaker 1: pleased at this confidence, is induced to put his own
1:23:26
Speaker 1: money in the same convenient tin box which the stranger
1:23:28
Speaker 1: has ready. At that point, the stranger and the farmer part,
1:23:32
Speaker 1: the former to parts unknown, the latter with his precious
1:23:36
Speaker 1: tin box under his arm, and when he gets home
1:23:39
Speaker 1: he finds instead of money, that the box is filled
1:23:41
Speaker 1: only with heavy folded papers to give it the same weight.
1:23:44
Speaker 1: A rapid shift has been made before his eyes without
1:23:47
Speaker 1: his detecting it. His money is gone, and two adroit
1:23:50
Speaker 1: scoundrels are far away. Among the most famous or infamous
1:23:54
Speaker 1: bunkolmen of this country are Tom O'Brien mentioned above, William
1:23:59
Speaker 1: Raymond doc mentioned George Post, William Barracks, Lewis Ludlow, and
1:24:05
Speaker 1: Clay Wilson. O'Brien is serving a life sentence for murder,
1:24:09
Speaker 1: but Post is supposed to be still at his old tricks.
1:24:13
Speaker 1: Jacob Sendheim alias al Wise has a star game. His
1:24:18
Speaker 1: lay is to persuade a gull of a person that
1:24:20
Speaker 1: he has a secret process by means of which genuine
1:24:22
Speaker 1: gold coins can be sweated or robbed of a portion
1:24:26
Speaker 1: of their gold by a certain solution without impairing their appearance.
1:24:30
Speaker 1: Several times he has induced speculative individuals without conscience to
1:24:34
Speaker 1: construct tanks in the basement of their houses and put
1:24:37
Speaker 1: in from ten thousand to twenty thousand dollars in gold
1:24:40
Speaker 1: pieces for treatment. Twenty days are to be required for
1:24:43
Speaker 1: the process. Before that time, he removes all the gold,
1:24:46
Speaker 1: which is needless to say, has lost not a grain
1:24:49
Speaker 1: of its weight, and makes his escape. The victim, after
1:24:52
Speaker 1: getting tired of waiting, opens the tank to find a
1:24:55
Speaker 1: liberal deposit of paving stones instead of gold coins. Then
1:24:59
Speaker 1: he wakes up. If men did not try and get
1:25:03
Speaker 1: something for nothing, they might often be able to retain
1:25:06
Speaker 1: that which they have. One of the latest dodges of
1:25:10
Speaker 1: a bunco nature is a bogus express company which caters
1:25:13
Speaker 1: to those who never receive packages by express, but who
1:25:16
Speaker 1: want to. In a large room above its showy office,
1:25:19
Speaker 1: a force of skilled workmen are employed manufacturing bundles and
1:25:23
Speaker 1: filling them with old bricks and newspapers. The Express Company,
1:25:27
Speaker 1: having made up a convincing looking parcel, sends out a
1:25:30
Speaker 1: postal card to its perspective victim, on which it says,
1:25:34
Speaker 1: mister e Z Mark Steiner, three ninety eight j Street,
1:25:40
Speaker 1: please furnish us with your address, as there is a
1:25:42
Speaker 1: package addressed to you at our office, Come and go
1:25:46
Speaker 1: Express Company. The fact that the Express Company has written
1:25:50
Speaker 1: to him at his address to ask him what his
1:25:52
Speaker 1: address is does not strike the victim as strange. The
1:25:55
Speaker 1: company does it in order that it may get in
1:25:57
Speaker 1: writing for mister Steiner a request to deliver the package,
1:26:01
Speaker 1: thus making him its debtor to the extent of the
1:26:03
Speaker 1: Express charges, usually two dollars. When I was once in
1:26:10
Speaker 1: danger from a tiger, said an old convict. I tried
1:26:14
Speaker 1: sitting down and staring at him, as I had no weapons.
1:26:17
Speaker 1: How did it work, asked his cell mate. Perfectly. The
1:26:21
Speaker 1: tiger didn't even offer to touch me. Strange. How do
1:26:25
Speaker 1: you account for it? Well? Sometimes I thought it was
1:26:28
Speaker 1: because I sat down on a top branch of a
1:26:30
Speaker 1: very tall tree. Arrested when dead, A splendid funeral procession
1:26:38
Speaker 1: was proceeding from Hongo, Japan to bury the remains of Tarofi,
1:26:42
Speaker 1: the head of a gambling den, when the police stopped
1:26:45
Speaker 1: the ceremony as the deceased was believed to be an
1:26:47
Speaker 1: escaped convict. The accusation was found to be true and
1:26:51
Speaker 1: the dead man was taken to the prison burial ground.
1:26:56
Speaker 1: End of Shot ten, Shot eleven The Game of Wits.
1:27:02
Speaker 1: When the corn husking is over and the county Fairs
1:27:05
Speaker 1: begin their annual three and four day sessions in a
1:27:07
Speaker 1: thousand agricultural centers, a silent army of confidence men and
1:27:12
Speaker 1: swindlers make ready for their richest harvest of the year.
1:27:16
Speaker 1: The county fairs are rich fields for their particular work,
1:27:19
Speaker 1: and they intend to make the most of their opportunities.
1:27:22
Speaker 1: The three shell game man has been a feature of
1:27:25
Speaker 1: such gatherings from time immemorial. The game, in some form
1:27:29
Speaker 1: or other, has been played ever since Rome was founded.
1:27:33
Speaker 1: Three half walnut shells or metal covers are used, and
1:27:36
Speaker 1: a small and exceedingly lively pea made of soft rubber.
1:27:40
Speaker 1: The gaping yokel is invited to pick the shell under
1:27:43
Speaker 1: which the pee reposes. The clever manipulator tosses it from
1:27:47
Speaker 1: one to another, then, with an apparent awkward twist seems
1:27:51
Speaker 1: to throw it under a certain one. The rustic backs
1:27:54
Speaker 1: his opinion with his coin. The shells are lifted. The
1:27:58
Speaker 1: former was mistaken and pays for him experience. It is
1:28:01
Speaker 1: only another case of where the manipulation of the hand
1:28:04
Speaker 1: deceives the eye. They say that a new sucker is
1:28:07
Speaker 1: born every minute. Certain it is that this old game
1:28:11
Speaker 1: finds its dupes as plentiful as in the days of
1:28:13
Speaker 1: our grandfathers. The callow youth of today is willing to
1:28:16
Speaker 1: bet his last scent that he can put his finger
1:28:18
Speaker 1: on the shell that covers the pea, for he has
1:28:21
Speaker 1: seen it put there. But if the unsuspecting countryman is
1:28:24
Speaker 1: an easy mark for cheats at his county fairs, he
1:28:27
Speaker 1: is often even more accessible when he comes to the city.
1:28:31
Speaker 1: The following story, copied entire from the New York Telegraph,
1:28:34
Speaker 1: is especially good on account of its breezy style and
1:28:37
Speaker 1: truder life description of the methods of the quick witted gentry.
1:28:41
Speaker 1: The story is entitled was Kind to Strangers. Oh the
1:28:47
Speaker 1: shame of it that S. G. Dabdoub of Jersey City
1:28:50
Speaker 1: should journey all the way from his native heath to
1:28:52
Speaker 1: Boston and there accept bad money from a stranger, hideous circumstance,
1:28:58
Speaker 1: malicious fate. If there is a this is dab dub,
1:29:01
Speaker 1: what will she say? Dab dub? The very name smacks
1:29:05
Speaker 1: of caution. But when he reached Boston and saw all
1:29:09
Speaker 1: the houses and still was gazing upon them from his
1:29:12
Speaker 1: point of vantage at the railroad station, a stranger who
1:29:15
Speaker 1: had been peering furtively from the dense underbrush observed him.
1:29:19
Speaker 1: After retiring behind a freight car and throwing a few
1:29:22
Speaker 1: joyous hand springs as if pleased at something. The stranger muttered,
1:29:27
Speaker 1: he will do I have not waited in vain tonight,
1:29:31
Speaker 1: in my palatial residence, there should be joy and feasting
1:29:34
Speaker 1: and seeming laughter. Ah, it is good to live. After
1:29:38
Speaker 1: this mysterious and in growing conversation sometimes eclept monologue, the
1:29:44
Speaker 1: stranger dashed up to mister Dabdoub of far Jersey and said,
1:29:48
Speaker 1: in his panting tone of a man who had gone
1:29:51
Speaker 1: seven furlongs under the spur of cruel circumstances? Can you
1:29:55
Speaker 1: give me change for a fifty dollars bill? Mister Dabdoub
1:29:58
Speaker 1: could would, and and the stranger, without stopping to count
1:30:02
Speaker 1: the money, placed a bill in the Jersey man's hands,
1:30:05
Speaker 1: expressed his thanks in a monosyllable, and hurried away horrors.
1:30:10
Speaker 1: The bill he left behind was a confederate one. Mister
1:30:14
Speaker 1: dab Dube, incensed, pursued, but the stranger wore the seven
1:30:18
Speaker 1: league boots of successful guilt, and it is unlikely that
1:30:21
Speaker 1: Nick Carter could have caught him. Dab Dub went to
1:30:24
Speaker 1: the police, who wept with him and addressed him as
1:30:27
Speaker 1: if he had been a public meeting. Here is another
1:30:31
Speaker 1: adroit swindle that might also be considered better than a
1:30:34
Speaker 1: gold brick. Some time ago, a young fellow with a
1:30:37
Speaker 1: violin under his arm, entered a marketplace in one of
1:30:40
Speaker 1: our large cities, made his purchase, and then found himself
1:30:43
Speaker 1: short of money. However, he offered the fiddle of security
1:30:47
Speaker 1: while he fetched the necessary amount of cash. Scarcely had
1:30:51
Speaker 1: he left the place when a well dressed man entered
1:30:53
Speaker 1: and saw the fiddle on the counter. He examined it
1:30:56
Speaker 1: and cried out that it was a stratavarius. I'll give
1:31:00
Speaker 1: you three hundred dollars for it, he said. The shopkeeper
1:31:04
Speaker 1: refused to sell it without consulting the owner, and the
1:31:06
Speaker 1: second stranger went away, leaving five dollars for the refusal
1:31:10
Speaker 1: of the treasure presently. The first rogue returned, was informed
1:31:14
Speaker 1: of the offer and said he would agree, providing the
1:31:17
Speaker 1: tradesman would give him one hundred and fifty dollars down.
1:31:20
Speaker 1: The victim complied, and neither of the swindlers ever returned.
1:31:24
Speaker 1: The fiddle was worth about one dollar fifty cents. But
1:31:28
Speaker 1: don't get the idea that farmers and small shopkeepers are
1:31:31
Speaker 1: the only prey of the bunco man, the swindler, and
1:31:33
Speaker 1: the confidence man. A city man on a farm the
1:31:36
Speaker 1: first time and trying to run it is of a
1:31:38
Speaker 1: greener green than a farmer in a city buying gold bricks.
1:31:41
Speaker 1: Here's some games successfully played on the dwellers in cities.
1:31:45
Speaker 1: The clever sofa game of all the men who lived
1:31:49
Speaker 1: by their wits, the English crook who conceived and carried
1:31:52
Speaker 1: into successful execution the so called sofa game certainly deserves
1:31:56
Speaker 1: the palm. So ingenious, so daring, and yet so simple
1:32:00
Speaker 1: is this scheme that it deserves a special description. The
1:32:04
Speaker 1: reader will notice that it partakes both of the nature
1:32:06
Speaker 1: of a confidence game and a first class burglary job.
1:32:10
Speaker 1: The game requires the cooperation of several members of a gang.
1:32:14
Speaker 1: One of whom must be a boy or a young
1:32:15
Speaker 1: man of small stature and slender physique. Sometimes a young
1:32:20
Speaker 1: woman is employed, who, if discovered, throws herself upon the
1:32:23
Speaker 1: mercy of the householder. The gang first selects the residence
1:32:27
Speaker 1: of some wealthy citizen. If inside information about the silver
1:32:31
Speaker 1: and jewels to be looted can be secured, so much
1:32:33
Speaker 1: the better. The habits of the members of the family
1:32:36
Speaker 1: are closely observed, and then at an hour when the
1:32:39
Speaker 1: fewest possible people are at home, the plan is put
1:32:42
Speaker 1: into execution. This is what happens. A furniture wagon drives
1:32:47
Speaker 1: up to the house, and a well dressed man of
1:32:49
Speaker 1: respectable appearance and plausible address rings the front door bell.
1:32:53
Speaker 1: The door is opened. The following conversation ensues. Is this
1:32:57
Speaker 1: the residence of mister John Ronner. Yes, but mister Ronner
1:33:02
Speaker 1: is not at home, Dear, Dear, that is unfortunate. But however,
1:33:06
Speaker 1: it does not matter. I have been commissioned as chairman
1:33:09
Speaker 1: of a committee of the dearborn Lodge naming some order
1:33:13
Speaker 1: to which the householder actually belongs. To present mister Ronner
1:33:16
Speaker 1: with his beautiful sofa indicating an imposing piece of furniture
1:33:20
Speaker 1: on the wagon. Shall my men bring it in? Why? Yes,
1:33:25
Speaker 1: if you are sure this is the right place, No
1:33:28
Speaker 1: mistake about that, madam. Mister Ronner is greatly esteemed by
1:33:32
Speaker 1: the members of the lodge, and this gift is to
1:33:34
Speaker 1: be a complete surprise. So when the sofa is carried
1:33:38
Speaker 1: and deposited in a place of honor in the drawing room,
1:33:41
Speaker 1: the polite Lodge member depreciating all thanks to parts, and
1:33:44
Speaker 1: the team drives away. A few hours later, the polite
1:33:48
Speaker 1: Stranger reappears in hot haste, and the wagon drives up again.
1:33:52
Speaker 1: He is profuse in his apologies, but an error has
1:33:54
Speaker 1: been made, so unfortunate, So sorry to inconvenience to you.
1:34:00
Speaker 1: As you know, I have made such a stupid blunder
1:34:02
Speaker 1: about the address. The sofa is to go to Brother
1:34:05
Speaker 1: John Ronner of South Main Street instead of North Main Street.
1:34:08
Speaker 1: Would it be too much bothered to allow my men
1:34:10
Speaker 1: to enter and take it away. We are very anxious
1:34:13
Speaker 1: to deliver it before brother Ronner returns, as it is
1:34:16
Speaker 1: a surprise for him. Of course, there is nothing to
1:34:20
Speaker 1: be done but let the beautiful sofa go, And amid
1:34:22
Speaker 1: the apologies and excuses of the Polite Stranger, the sofa
1:34:26
Speaker 1: is again carried forth to the wagon and is driven away.
1:34:29
Speaker 1: The polite stranger also disappears, and it is needless to say,
1:34:33
Speaker 1: is seen no more in that part of the town.
1:34:36
Speaker 1: The next act on the program is a startling discovery
1:34:39
Speaker 1: that the house has been robbed of perhaps many thousands
1:34:41
Speaker 1: of dollars worth of jewels and silver. How was it done?
1:34:45
Speaker 1: The explanation is very simple. The sofa, especially constructed with
1:34:50
Speaker 1: a hollow compartment of considerable size inside A girl has
1:34:54
Speaker 1: been concealed, who, when the sofa is left alone, quietly
1:34:58
Speaker 1: comes out and ransacked, and retreats with her plunder into
1:35:02
Speaker 1: this convenient hiding place. Girl, plunder and sofa are then
1:35:06
Speaker 1: all carried away together and the thieves make good their
1:35:09
Speaker 1: escape without delay. This is a new game, and, as
1:35:13
Speaker 1: I say, has been worked with many variations and usually
1:35:16
Speaker 1: with success in almost every city in England and on
1:35:19
Speaker 1: the continent. Rap I look upon you, sir, as a
1:35:25
Speaker 1: rascal party. You are privileged to look upon me in
1:35:30
Speaker 1: any character you desire to assume. Sir, did you ever
1:35:36
Speaker 1: go to a military ball, asked a list being made
1:35:39
Speaker 1: of an army veteran, No, my dear, growled the old soldier.
1:35:44
Speaker 1: But once I had a military ball come to me,
1:35:47
Speaker 1: and what do you think it took my arm off?
1:35:52
Speaker 1: End of Shot eleven, Shot twelve Fake Fake Fake. There
1:35:58
Speaker 1: are certain classes of men and women too, who, while
1:36:02
Speaker 1: not actually criminal, are yet so close to the boundary
1:36:05
Speaker 1: line in their practices as to need some special mention
1:36:08
Speaker 1: in this book. Take, for instance, the many so called
1:36:12
Speaker 1: divine or mental healers who pretend to cure all sorts
1:36:15
Speaker 1: of diseases by the laying on of hands or simply
1:36:18
Speaker 1: absent treatment. Or the old style patent medicine fraud who
1:36:22
Speaker 1: retailed sweetened in colored water under some high sounding name
1:36:25
Speaker 1: as doctor so and So's Elixir and Tonic from the
1:36:29
Speaker 1: tail end of a cart after having attracted a crowd
1:36:32
Speaker 1: of the curious with a lecture or open air minstrel show.
1:36:36
Speaker 1: Far be it from me to decry the actual healing
1:36:39
Speaker 1: and curative value of many excellent proprietary medicines and preparations
1:36:43
Speaker 1: on the market today. But among the good, there are
1:36:47
Speaker 1: many that are worthless, and I should advise my readers
1:36:49
Speaker 1: to take such remedies only on the advice of their
1:36:52
Speaker 1: family physician. The fake doctor is still with us, and
1:36:56
Speaker 1: his advertisements are often to be seen in the newspapers
1:36:59
Speaker 1: of a Maria. They usually advertise under some honest sounding
1:37:03
Speaker 1: name and assume all the titles and learned degrees of
1:37:06
Speaker 1: two continents. Some are actually physicians, and failing in the
1:37:10
Speaker 1: regular practice, have set out to make a living by
1:37:13
Speaker 1: deluding suffering humanity. It would be amusing if it were
1:37:17
Speaker 1: not sorrowful, to see the crowds of patients who bring
1:37:19
Speaker 1: their ailments to such doctors. The game is to give
1:37:23
Speaker 1: the sufferer some relief at first in order to encourage him,
1:37:27
Speaker 1: and then prolong his case through many weary weeks and months,
1:37:30
Speaker 1: until they have gotten all the money he can afford
1:37:32
Speaker 1: to spend. Such doctors usually call themselves specialists, but their
1:37:37
Speaker 1: real specialty is in exhorting money from their dupes, and
1:37:41
Speaker 1: my advice is to keep as far away from them
1:37:43
Speaker 1: as possible. Thanks to the energetic efforts of the authorities,
1:37:47
Speaker 1: many if not all, of these practitioners have been driven out,
1:37:50
Speaker 1: and it is to be hoped that such tragedies as
1:37:53
Speaker 1: that unearthed in the Susan Geary case will be rare
1:37:55
Speaker 1: in the future. The case of France's Truth alias wi
1:38:00
Speaker 1: wil Beemus the self styled divine healer attracted no little
1:38:04
Speaker 1: attention throughout the East, especially in Boston a few years ago.
1:38:08
Speaker 1: The man was a handsome, plausible, smooth spoken man who
1:38:12
Speaker 1: claimed to have some mysterious mesmeric power by which he
1:38:15
Speaker 1: could cure any disease simply by the laying on of hands.
1:38:19
Speaker 1: His advertisements bristled with testimonials and brilliant promises, and he
1:38:23
Speaker 1: did a good business among the credulous. Many who doubtless
1:38:27
Speaker 1: had nothing whatever the matter with them, were hypnotized into
1:38:30
Speaker 1: the belief that they were cured. Finally truth or Beamus
1:38:35
Speaker 1: found his money getting limited because he could only treat
1:38:38
Speaker 1: a limited number a day. Then he had recourse to
1:38:41
Speaker 1: the absent treatment dodge. He would tell his patients that
1:38:45
Speaker 1: he would give them an absent treatment at a certain hour,
1:38:48
Speaker 1: and at that time they were to retire to their
1:38:50
Speaker 1: rooms and think of him, and they would receive the
1:38:52
Speaker 1: healing influence. As the number of his dupes grew, he
1:38:56
Speaker 1: branched into a mail order feature, until hundreds and thousands
1:38:59
Speaker 1: of people who had never seen the healer were sending
1:39:02
Speaker 1: him money by mail. He received hundreds of letters each
1:39:06
Speaker 1: day until the Post Office was forced to deliver them
1:39:09
Speaker 1: in great bags, and his income amount of to thousands
1:39:12
Speaker 1: of dollars a week. Truth lived in great style, drove
1:39:16
Speaker 1: about in his own carriage, had quite an office force
1:39:19
Speaker 1: of stenographers and clerks to handle the mail, and was
1:39:22
Speaker 1: getting rich hand over fist when the post office authorities
1:39:25
Speaker 1: and the police put an end to his career. Advertising mediums,
1:39:30
Speaker 1: clairvoyance and astrologers have hosts of dupes, and some invite
1:39:34
Speaker 1: the methods of the confidence man with mystical advice and
1:39:37
Speaker 1: fortune telling. Not long ago, a certain miss ethel L
1:39:42
Speaker 1: Blank of Malden, Massachusetts, visited a so called medium in Boston.
1:39:47
Speaker 1: As soon as she entered his inner sanctum, she was
1:39:49
Speaker 1: surprised to have him caution her about a large sum
1:39:51
Speaker 1: of money which she was carrying. This occult knowledge so
1:39:55
Speaker 1: inspired her confidence that she asked his advice about a
1:39:58
Speaker 1: suit she was interested in. He told her he would
1:40:01
Speaker 1: have to put her in a trance, which he did.
1:40:04
Speaker 1: When she came out of it, he cautioned her to
1:40:06
Speaker 1: go directly home and to hold her fingers crossed until
1:40:09
Speaker 1: she reached her own room, where she must remain for
1:40:12
Speaker 1: two days. It was actually some hours before she realized
1:40:16
Speaker 1: that she had been robbed of one thousand dollars, which
1:40:19
Speaker 1: she had in her pocket. Of course, the medium had disappeared.
1:40:24
Speaker 1: I must say that, with all its boasted culture and learning,
1:40:27
Speaker 1: Boston seems to be a favorite city for all sorts
1:40:30
Speaker 1: of schemes of this kind. Astrologers, mediums, clairvoyants, test mediums,
1:40:35
Speaker 1: and the like abound in the Hub, as in few
1:40:37
Speaker 1: other places. It has been my good fortune to visit,
1:40:40
Speaker 1: and I have been all over the world. Chicago also
1:40:44
Speaker 1: has its share. New Yorkers pride themselves in believing in
1:40:47
Speaker 1: nothing at all, and yet it was only a short
1:40:50
Speaker 1: time ago that a man named Rigily and calling himself
1:40:53
Speaker 1: the East Indian Mystery, victimized many people of wealth and
1:40:56
Speaker 1: fashion in that metropolis. This remarkable combined the facure of
1:41:01
Speaker 1: the East with the modern magnetic healer and the voodoo
1:41:04
Speaker 1: doctor of French Louisiana. The man himself is seventy years old.
1:41:09
Speaker 1: He is small, spry, alert, and wonderfully shrewd. His beard
1:41:13
Speaker 1: is bushy and black except where age is white in
1:41:16
Speaker 1: the edges and grows thick and curly at the sides.
1:41:19
Speaker 1: The nose is as flat as a negro's. He denies
1:41:22
Speaker 1: Negro blood, however, and abhors the race. He claims to
1:41:26
Speaker 1: be from Hindustan and talks to others in the house
1:41:28
Speaker 1: in a strange tongue. The eyes of the man are small, shrewd,
1:41:33
Speaker 1: and dark. The forehead, from each side of which grows gray,
1:41:36
Speaker 1: bushy hair that hides the ears, is high, receding and intelligent.
1:41:42
Speaker 1: I knew you were coming, says this wizard like man,
1:41:45
Speaker 1: and I determined to receive you, though warned against you.
1:41:48
Speaker 1: Now you want to know what I am, what I do.
1:41:51
Speaker 1: Let us be honest with each other. He chooses big
1:41:55
Speaker 1: words as he proceeds to describe himself. They are used
1:41:59
Speaker 1: aptly but mispronounce The th h becomes d and there
1:42:03
Speaker 1: are other things not unfamiliar in the southern Negro. The
1:42:07
Speaker 1: East Indian proceeds to read your character and to tell
1:42:10
Speaker 1: you of your life. He does it well. I am
1:42:13
Speaker 1: not a fortune teller, he explains. They are frauds, and
1:42:17
Speaker 1: I am a physiognomist. I read from the apex of
1:42:20
Speaker 1: the nose to the top of the forehead. I don't predict,
1:42:23
Speaker 1: I tell you, and I don't ask you to say
1:42:26
Speaker 1: if I am right or wrong. It is said that
1:42:30
Speaker 1: Among this man's patrons have been men and women whose
1:42:32
Speaker 1: names are a part of the life of New York.
1:42:35
Speaker 1: It is also said that a recent marriage which astonished
1:42:38
Speaker 1: New York society, came after the woman in the case
1:42:41
Speaker 1: had consulted this strange combination of charlatan and physician. She
1:42:45
Speaker 1: confided to him her desire, told him of her repeated
1:42:49
Speaker 1: failures to secure her wish, took the treatment, and in
1:42:52
Speaker 1: three months was married. Then followed so the story goes.
1:42:56
Speaker 1: Many presents, among them a tenement to the East. Indian
1:43:01
Speaker 1: Spiritualism has many followers, and at one time I was
1:43:04
Speaker 1: almost a believer, but this was before I made a
1:43:07
Speaker 1: thorough investigation which I have followed up even to the
1:43:10
Speaker 1: present day. I have never seen a materialization or a
1:43:13
Speaker 1: manifestation which I cannot fully explain. Of course, I cannot
1:43:18
Speaker 1: explain those that I hear about, as no two people
1:43:20
Speaker 1: see the same one thing alike. Spiritualism is really a
1:43:25
Speaker 1: beautiful belief for those that are honest and believe in it.
1:43:28
Speaker 1: But as I have visited the greatest spiritualistic meetings in
1:43:31
Speaker 1: the world, I am sorry to say that no one
1:43:34
Speaker 1: has ever produced anything for me that would smack of
1:43:36
Speaker 1: the spiritual In Germany, spirit mediums are put in jail
1:43:41
Speaker 1: for obtaining money under false pretenses. In England, maskin Line
1:43:46
Speaker 1: of Maskin line In Cook has done a great deal
1:43:49
Speaker 1: to keep the so called fraud spiritualistic mediums out of England.
1:43:53
Speaker 1: In the future, I contemplate writing a book on spiritualistic
1:43:56
Speaker 1: methods and how they do their tricks. I do not
1:43:59
Speaker 1: mean genuine and spiritualists who have no tricks, but those
1:44:02
Speaker 1: mediums who use their knowledge of magic to gain a living.
1:44:06
Speaker 1: The Davenport Brothers, during their short but strenuous career, had
1:44:10
Speaker 1: a terrible time of it in their journeys abroad. They
1:44:13
Speaker 1: were driven out of England, but they made enough money
1:44:16
Speaker 1: to last them the rest of their lives. End of
1:44:20
Speaker 1: Shot twelve, Shot thirteen Bogus Treasures. Never believe that a
1:44:27
Speaker 1: so called antique piece of furniture or a painting by
1:44:30
Speaker 1: one of the old masters is genuine until its authenticity
1:44:33
Speaker 1: has been proven beyond a possible doubt. That is my advice.
1:44:38
Speaker 1: And if you reader could see some of the impositions
1:44:40
Speaker 1: practiced upon wealthy collectors and curio hunters, you too would
1:44:44
Speaker 1: take that view. The people who purchased this class of
1:44:48
Speaker 1: goods are usually new made. Millionaires ambitious to own an
1:44:51
Speaker 1: art gallery of old masters, it would give them little
1:44:54
Speaker 1: satisfaction to know that some of their priceless treasures are
1:44:57
Speaker 1: simply copies, and often poor ones at that. Monsieur Felix
1:45:02
Speaker 1: Duxnelle of Paris, famous as an art critic, says that
1:45:06
Speaker 1: certain galleries of ancient masters contain few pictures more than
1:45:09
Speaker 1: ten years old. Forged pictures are regularly included in sales
1:45:14
Speaker 1: of private collections in which they never belonged. Nor is
1:45:17
Speaker 1: a written in duly attested pedigree of the least value.
1:45:21
Speaker 1: I knew of one case in London where a dealer
1:45:23
Speaker 1: in fake antiques sought out an impoverished nobleman whose only
1:45:27
Speaker 1: property besides his title was an ancient manor house that
1:45:30
Speaker 1: was heavily mortgaged. The house was in a remote spot
1:45:34
Speaker 1: and had scarcely a stick of furniture left in it.
1:45:37
Speaker 1: The dealer bought it and sent out to it many
1:45:39
Speaker 1: vanloads of paintings, black oak furniture, arms, armor, moth eaten tapestry, etc.
1:45:46
Speaker 1: In a few weeks he announced the sale of art
1:45:48
Speaker 1: treasures at the ancient home of the last of an
1:45:50
Speaker 1: ancient race. The sale actually lasted several weeks, as though
1:45:54
Speaker 1: the very cellars had been packed with art treasures on
1:45:58
Speaker 1: the continent. To my certain knowledge, the case is even worse.
1:46:02
Speaker 1: One man that began life as a sculpture's assistant, but
1:46:05
Speaker 1: soon began the manufacture of invitations of ancient statues and
1:46:09
Speaker 1: antique furniture, and now makes about seven five hundred dollars
1:46:13
Speaker 1: a year and employs several workmen. His masterpieces are certain
1:46:18
Speaker 1: Greek heads attributed to Fidius, but he also makes eighteenth
1:46:21
Speaker 1: century in Empire furniture. The opinion of such an authority
1:46:25
Speaker 1: is valuable, he says. You can take it as a
1:46:30
Speaker 1: fact that even an art expert can no longer tell
1:46:33
Speaker 1: if a piece of furniture is a forgery. At least, yes,
1:46:36
Speaker 1: he can tell if he takes the furniture to pieces,
1:46:39
Speaker 1: but few will dare incur that responsibility, because you spoil
1:46:42
Speaker 1: the piece. This cultivator of the artistic sense talks to
1:46:47
Speaker 1: his friends of one of the best known Paris collectors,
1:46:49
Speaker 1: who bought at an enormous price an eighteenth century writing desk.
1:46:54
Speaker 1: He purchased with a written guarantee from a respectable dealer
1:46:57
Speaker 1: who was in good faith. Will this take comes from
1:47:00
Speaker 1: my own workroom. Only if I told the owner, he
1:47:03
Speaker 1: probably would not believe me. A dealer who lives not
1:47:06
Speaker 1: far from the Church of the Madeline in Paris, keeps
1:47:09
Speaker 1: the choicest fakes in his bedroom. He never shows his
1:47:12
Speaker 1: private collection, as he calls it, until the wealthy amateur
1:47:16
Speaker 1: cheerfully begs to see it. The gem of the collection
1:47:19
Speaker 1: is the dealer's own bed. In Louis the sixteenth style.
1:47:23
Speaker 1: He has sold his bed five or six times, but
1:47:26
Speaker 1: still sleeps well, I suppose because he lies so easy,
1:47:30
Speaker 1: like a most honorable Frenchman. At this moment. Eighteenth century engravings,
1:47:36
Speaker 1: including colored prints, are counterfeited on a vast scale. Jewelry
1:47:40
Speaker 1: is made to look old by steeping in sulfuric acid
1:47:43
Speaker 1: for silver or aqua regia for gold. The surface is
1:47:47
Speaker 1: worn with ground brick. The stones are then inserted and
1:47:51
Speaker 1: the hole is greased with tallow and rubbed in white soot.
1:47:54
Speaker 1: Greek and Roman jewels, Renaissance enamels, Episcopal rings and then
1:47:59
Speaker 1: of the new Tosal plate are made in Germany. Vienna
1:48:03
Speaker 1: is specialized in counterfeiting sixteenth century enamels. Abbeville and Armians
1:48:09
Speaker 1: make flint arrow tops and hatchets for museums of geology.
1:48:13
Speaker 1: Old pewters are manufactured at Rodin Etruscan pottery comes from
1:48:17
Speaker 1: Leeds in Holland. I met a student who was in
1:48:21
Speaker 1: demand as he could forge any of the old master's
1:48:23
Speaker 1: signatures on oil paintings. End of shot thirteen Shot fourteen
1:48:31
Speaker 1: Famous swindles. For years, it has been a constant wonder
1:48:37
Speaker 1: to me how bare faced swindling operations are carried on
1:48:40
Speaker 1: in almost open defiance of the laws of the land.
1:48:44
Speaker 1: There are one thousand and one get rich quick schemes
1:48:47
Speaker 1: that each find their victims. It is needless to say
1:48:50
Speaker 1: that they bring wealth only to the promoter. There are
1:48:53
Speaker 1: more ways of swindling than with loaded dice and gold bricks.
1:48:58
Speaker 1: Stock is sold in mining proper where neither gold or
1:49:01
Speaker 1: silver ever existed, and the only medal about the proposition
1:49:05
Speaker 1: is the brazen cheek of the organizer of the company.
1:49:08
Speaker 1: Great promises of dividends are made, which are sometimes even
1:49:11
Speaker 1: paid out of the money received from the sale of
1:49:13
Speaker 1: the stock. Oil wells, gold mines, silver mines, and copper
1:49:18
Speaker 1: mines are exploited in this way to the great profit
1:49:21
Speaker 1: of the exploiter. A species of swindle that has been
1:49:24
Speaker 1: perpetrated times without number all over this country is the
1:49:28
Speaker 1: old gold brick game. It does seem as though this
1:49:32
Speaker 1: had been exposed so frequently that the most ignorant countrymen
1:49:35
Speaker 1: would know enough to keep away from anyone who offers
1:49:38
Speaker 1: to sell an ingot or brick of pure gold at
1:49:40
Speaker 1: a sacrifice. But still there are pigeons to be plucked.
1:49:45
Speaker 1: The usual method is to meet a likely person, and
1:49:48
Speaker 1: with great show of secrecy, unfold the story of the
1:49:50
Speaker 1: poor Mexican miner who has a lump of pure gold
1:49:53
Speaker 1: valued at five thousand dollars, which he will sell for
1:49:57
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars. Down. The pigeon comes fluttering, drawn by
1:50:01
Speaker 1: the tempting bait, meets the miner, sees the glittering brick,
1:50:05
Speaker 1: handles it, even tests it with acid, and finally is
1:50:08
Speaker 1: induced to put down his good money. With great show
1:50:12
Speaker 1: of secrecy and caution, the brick is handed over and
1:50:15
Speaker 1: the victim departs, only to learn later that all is
1:50:18
Speaker 1: not gold that glitters, and that he is out his
1:50:21
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars. Much ingenuity is exercised in fixing up
1:50:26
Speaker 1: the bricks so it will stand inspection. Sometimes even wedges
1:50:30
Speaker 1: of good gold are inserted in the cheap metal, and
1:50:32
Speaker 1: the operator saws or files into this wedge should take
1:50:35
Speaker 1: out gold for the victim to test. In these enlightened days,
1:50:39
Speaker 1: I do not need to tell you that all such stories,
1:50:41
Speaker 1: no matter how plausible, should be questioned and rejected at once.
1:50:46
Speaker 1: The green goods swindle is an elaborate game which begins
1:50:49
Speaker 1: with some very adroit correspondence in which the writer claims
1:50:53
Speaker 1: to be in possession of some old and discarded steel
1:50:55
Speaker 1: plates used in printing United States money, and for that
1:50:59
Speaker 1: reason he is able to produce actual greenbacks which will
1:51:02
Speaker 1: pass anywhere. The letter usually begins something like this, Dear sir,
1:51:08
Speaker 1: I am in possession of a good thing, and with
1:51:10
Speaker 1: your confidential and friendly cooperation, I can make you independently
1:51:14
Speaker 1: rich and at the same time better my own condition.
1:51:17
Speaker 1: You will see that my goods are not what the
1:51:19
Speaker 1: law can class as real counterfeits, inasmuch as they are
1:51:23
Speaker 1: printed from genuine plates and can easily be passed in
1:51:26
Speaker 1: your section of the country. The letter goes on to
1:51:30
Speaker 1: explain the necessity of a personal interview, offers to guarantee
1:51:33
Speaker 1: traveling expenses, and quotes prices, usually as follows. Three hundred
1:51:38
Speaker 1: dollars real money buys three thousand dollars, one thousand dollars,
1:51:43
Speaker 1: buys thirty thousand dollars, et cetera. The pigeon is given
1:51:47
Speaker 1: a password in number with which he must sign all telegrams. Finally,
1:51:52
Speaker 1: not to go into too many details, the green goods
1:51:55
Speaker 1: operator and the victim meet with great secrecy. A package
1:51:58
Speaker 1: of real money is produced us for inspection. The purchase
1:52:01
Speaker 1: money is paid over, and the package, which has been
1:52:04
Speaker 1: definitely exchanged for another package containing worthless paper, is given
1:52:08
Speaker 1: to the purchaser, who departs to learn his loss as
1:52:11
Speaker 1: soon as he opens his bundle. Of course, there is
1:52:14
Speaker 1: no redress possible. The whole game is a swindle. Never
1:52:19
Speaker 1: but once, to the best of my knowledge, have actual
1:52:21
Speaker 1: original plates been stolen from the government, and that was
1:52:24
Speaker 1: when Langdon W. Moore was able to use his influence
1:52:27
Speaker 1: with a gang of counterfeiters and secure the return of
1:52:30
Speaker 1: the five twenty bond plate in the early eighties, as
1:52:32
Speaker 1: described in chapter fifteen of his autobiography. Even if the
1:52:36
Speaker 1: plates were stolen, as the green goods man pretends, the
1:52:40
Speaker 1: bills printed from them by unauthorized persons would be counterfeit
1:52:43
Speaker 1: in the eyes of the law. Keep just as far
1:52:46
Speaker 1: away from any such scheme as you can end if
1:52:51
Speaker 1: shot fourteen, shot fifteen the fair criminal. There have arisen
1:52:59
Speaker 1: in every country and in every age, celebrated women criminals
1:53:03
Speaker 1: whose daring deeds have become part of history, from Lucretia
1:53:07
Speaker 1: Borgia of the fifteenth century to Cassie Chadwick of the
1:53:10
Speaker 1: present day. The list is a long one, and yet
1:53:13
Speaker 1: police officials and prosecuting officers will no doubt agree with
1:53:17
Speaker 1: me when I say that there are vastly fewer women
1:53:20
Speaker 1: criminals than men who lead dishonest lives. The truth seems
1:53:25
Speaker 1: to be that when lovely woman stoops to crime, she
1:53:28
Speaker 1: usually goes to the greatest links of iniquity, and the
1:53:31
Speaker 1: comparatively few women who have perpetrated great crimes are made
1:53:34
Speaker 1: more conspicuous and more talked about by reason of their sex.
1:53:38
Speaker 1: In the United States, authorities claim that only one tenth
1:53:42
Speaker 1: of persons accused of crimes or women, while in France,
1:53:45
Speaker 1: statistician Tarde declares that one six is the usual proportion.
1:53:50
Speaker 1: Women criminals are certain to end their careers in wretchedness
1:53:53
Speaker 1: if not in prison. Mothers of wayward girls are often
1:53:57
Speaker 1: much to blame for the beginnings of careers of vice.
1:54:00
Speaker 1: A good home was the best protection, and upon every
1:54:03
Speaker 1: fair reader, I urged the wisdom not only of choosing
1:54:06
Speaker 1: for herself the better way, but of safeguarding her sisters everywhere.
1:54:11
Speaker 1: Sophie Lyons may be taken as a typical case of
1:54:14
Speaker 1: a born woman criminal. She came of a race of criminals.
1:54:18
Speaker 1: Her grandfather was a noted burglar in England. Her father
1:54:22
Speaker 1: and mother, who came to America before she was born,
1:54:24
Speaker 1: both had a criminal record. She was taught to steal
1:54:28
Speaker 1: as soon as she could walk, and at twelve was
1:54:30
Speaker 1: arrested for shoplifting. At sixteen, she was married to Mary Harris,
1:54:35
Speaker 1: a pickpocket, but her husband was sentenced to two years
1:54:38
Speaker 1: in state prison before the honeymoon was over. Later, she
1:54:41
Speaker 1: married Ned Lyons, the noted burglar, and became one of
1:54:45
Speaker 1: the most expert female pickpockets in the country. Sophie Lyons
1:54:50
Speaker 1: was a beautiful girl with brilliant dark eyes, abundant auburn hair,
1:54:54
Speaker 1: and a fascinating manner. At the county fairs, she would
1:54:57
Speaker 1: make the acquaintance of men of wealth and roughly relieve
1:55:00
Speaker 1: them of their watch or roll of banknotes while they
1:55:03
Speaker 1: were fascinated with her blandishments. If caught, she was a
1:55:07
Speaker 1: consummate actress and could counterfeit every shade of emotion. Real
1:55:11
Speaker 1: tears of injured innocence would flow from her beautiful eyes.
1:55:15
Speaker 1: Lions pulled off a big coup about two years after
1:55:18
Speaker 1: their marriage, bought a villa on Long Island with the proceeds,
1:55:22
Speaker 1: and though a professional burglar himself, tried to keep his
1:55:25
Speaker 1: wife from stealing, the taint was too strong. However, she
1:55:30
Speaker 1: picked pockets for the love of it. Eventually, both husband
1:55:33
Speaker 1: and wife were sentenced to sing Sing prison, from which
1:55:36
Speaker 1: they make a sensational escape and got away to Paris
1:55:39
Speaker 1: in France. Under the name of Madame de Varney, she
1:55:43
Speaker 1: continued her brilliant career of crime. Sophie Lyons is supposed
1:55:47
Speaker 1: to be at large at the present time, somewhere in America.
1:55:50
Speaker 1: She has one son serving a term in state prison,
1:55:53
Speaker 1: and two daughters who are being carefully educated in Germany,
1:55:56
Speaker 1: kept as far as possible in ignorance of their mother's
1:55:59
Speaker 1: actual care character. The career of Cassie Chadwick, the Duchess
1:56:04
Speaker 1: of diamonds is of more recent date. She is a
1:56:07
Speaker 1: woman of about fifty years of age, and has neither
1:56:09
Speaker 1: great physical beauty or great personal charm. Yet she must
1:56:13
Speaker 1: have had wonderful powers of persuasion, for she victimized such
1:56:17
Speaker 1: men as Andrew Carnegie and made banker Ira Reynolds believe
1:56:20
Speaker 1: she was an illegitimate child of the Scotch millionaire. With him,
1:56:24
Speaker 1: she deposited a bundle of securities alleged to be worth
1:56:27
Speaker 1: five million dollars, and a note for half a million
1:56:30
Speaker 1: dollars bearing Carnegie's signature, assigned paper from Reynolds attesting the
1:56:35
Speaker 1: fact that he held five million dollars worth of securities
1:56:37
Speaker 1: in trust for her. Became her stock in trade, and
1:56:40
Speaker 1: she fleeced bankers and businessmen to the tune of one
1:56:43
Speaker 1: million dollars in money and one hundred fifty thousand dollars
1:56:46
Speaker 1: worth of jewels in four years. In March nineteen o five,
1:56:50
Speaker 1: she was convicted and is now serving a ten year
1:56:53
Speaker 1: sentence in the Ohio State Penitentiary. Thanksgiving nineteen oh five,
1:56:58
Speaker 1: during my engagement at Keith's Theatre, I gave a performance
1:57:01
Speaker 1: for the prisoners in the County jail in Cleveland and
1:57:04
Speaker 1: missus Chadwick was to be entertained in her cell. But
1:57:07
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes before I was to show her a few
1:57:09
Speaker 1: conjuring tricks, she changed her mood, gave the jailer an argument,
1:57:13
Speaker 1: and refused to allow anyone near her cell. Of the
1:57:18
Speaker 1: army of women's shoplifters, petty thieves, stool pigeons for confidence men,
1:57:22
Speaker 1: et CETERA little need be said. Shoplifting seems to be
1:57:26
Speaker 1: the most common crime. Many women steal for mere wantonness,
1:57:30
Speaker 1: having no need of the articles or money. Kleptomania is
1:57:33
Speaker 1: a polite word for this offense, and doubtless there are
1:57:36
Speaker 1: cases of mental disorder and moral degeneracy which takes this form.
1:57:40
Speaker 1: The time worn badger game, as it is called, is
1:57:43
Speaker 1: still frequently employed to fleece men. The confidence woman gets
1:57:47
Speaker 1: acquainted with some man of means, preferably a married man
1:57:50
Speaker 1: of family, and invites him to call at her apartments.
1:57:54
Speaker 1: She carries on her part of the firtation to perfection
1:57:57
Speaker 1: till suddenly the doorbell rings, and an apparent right she exclaims,
1:58:01
Speaker 1: there comes my husband. He is furiously jealous and will
1:58:04
Speaker 1: kill you. The fictitious husband rushes in a scene takes
1:58:08
Speaker 1: place and the husband threatens to shoot or call on
1:58:11
Speaker 1: the police. Eventually, the matter is settled by the victim
1:58:14
Speaker 1: giving up a large sum of money rather than face
1:58:16
Speaker 1: a scandal. This is only one form of blackmail resorted
1:58:20
Speaker 1: to to extort money, as the victim is often threatened
1:58:23
Speaker 1: with public expose, et cetera. Pirates and petticoats frequently apply
1:58:28
Speaker 1: their trade on ocean and lake steamers. They are well
1:58:31
Speaker 1: dressed and ingratiate themselves with the passengers of both sexes
1:58:35
Speaker 1: watching their opportunity to steal jewelry or practice their threadbare
1:58:38
Speaker 1: confidence games. A woman named Grace Mordaunt cleared many thousands
1:58:43
Speaker 1: of dollars in New York by occasionally advertising the following
1:58:46
Speaker 1: personal and the herald young widow financially embarrassed wishes loan
1:58:52
Speaker 1: of one hundred dollars on a diamond ring worth twice
1:58:54
Speaker 1: as much a dress box blank. Miss Mordaunt was beauty
1:59:00
Speaker 1: and fascinating. She would produce a genuine diamond ring and
1:59:03
Speaker 1: go with her victim to a jeweler to have at
1:59:05
Speaker 1: priced at his office. She would receive her money and
1:59:09
Speaker 1: ask him with tears not to wear or show her
1:59:11
Speaker 1: ring for a few days, but lock it up in
1:59:13
Speaker 1: his safe. She then takes the ring, wraps it up
1:59:16
Speaker 1: in tissue paper, puts it in an envelope, and hands
1:59:19
Speaker 1: it sealed to the victim and leaves, promising to repay
1:59:22
Speaker 1: the money with interest in a few days. She never returns,
1:59:26
Speaker 1: and at length the victim opens the envelope to find
1:59:28
Speaker 1: a brass ring with a glass diamond worth about twenty
1:59:31
Speaker 1: five cents. While in Austria some years ago, I heard
1:59:35
Speaker 1: of a most remarkable adventuress who went under the name
1:59:38
Speaker 1: of Madame Calorice b. Blank. Her particular form of swindle
1:59:42
Speaker 1: was to get acquainted with young men of good family
1:59:44
Speaker 1: and wealth and entangle them in her meshes and get
1:59:47
Speaker 1: declarations of marriage from them. She would get all she
1:59:50
Speaker 1: could out of her poor dupe and then notify the
1:59:52
Speaker 1: family of the engagement. The young man's parents would then
1:59:56
Speaker 1: be forced to buy her off with a large sum
1:59:58
Speaker 1: of money when she would go to pastures knew. But
2:00:02
Speaker 1: Madame Clarice met her waterloo in Vienna. There she met
2:00:06
Speaker 1: an American student upon whom she worked her whiles, even
2:00:08
Speaker 1: to the extent of going through a marriage ceremony with him.
2:00:12
Speaker 1: After a time, she left him and went to Paris.
2:00:15
Speaker 1: But the adventuress, who had broken so many hearts, found
2:00:17
Speaker 1: her own touched at last. She was actually in love
2:00:20
Speaker 1: with her student husband, whose face haunted her dreams. After
2:00:24
Speaker 1: a few days, she returned to Vienna, sought him out,
2:00:27
Speaker 1: and confessed all but threw herself on his mercy and love.
2:00:31
Speaker 1: The denouncement. Unusual in such cases was that the couple
2:00:34
Speaker 1: were actually married and today or living happily on the continent.
2:00:38
Speaker 1: Many many more incidents might be related of the clever
2:00:41
Speaker 1: work of the fascinating woman criminal, but these should be
2:00:44
Speaker 1: sufficient to warn the unwary against trusting either their honor
2:00:48
Speaker 1: or their pocket book to an unknown woman, no matter
2:00:50
Speaker 1: how beautiful. Teacher instructing prisoner class on manners now Willie Brown.
2:01:01
Speaker 1: For example, if you were sitting in an electric car,
2:01:03
Speaker 1: every seat occupied, and an old lady enters, what would
2:01:06
Speaker 1: you do, Tommy, please, sir, I would pretend I was sleeping.
2:01:14
Speaker 1: End of shot fifteen, Shot sixteen the brace game. Of
2:01:22
Speaker 1: all classes of criminals, the professional gambler has probably played
2:01:25
Speaker 1: the most conspicuous part in fiction and melodrama. We all
2:01:29
Speaker 1: know the stage gambler, while the penny. Dreadful novels and
2:01:32
Speaker 1: storybooks are too often filled with descriptions of this kind
2:01:35
Speaker 1: of crime. The gambler of the stage and in the
2:01:39
Speaker 1: novel is but an exaggerated portrait of this type. Gambling
2:01:43
Speaker 1: is the playing for money of games depending solely on chance,
2:01:46
Speaker 1: like roulette, or games of skill and chance like poker
2:01:51
Speaker 1: and other card games, or billiards and the like. A
2:01:54
Speaker 1: gentleman may have the moral right to back his own
2:01:57
Speaker 1: opinion in a wager with money, and with true sportsman
2:02:00
Speaker 1: instinct stands success or defeat. Even a small stake at
2:02:05
Speaker 1: cards is dangerous, for it cultivates the habit of gambling,
2:02:08
Speaker 1: which may soon become a passion. Gambling in itself is
2:02:12
Speaker 1: bad enough even when the game is square, But your
2:02:15
Speaker 1: professional gambler never plays the game that way. He is
2:02:18
Speaker 1: an expert with cards. His seemingly innocent shuffle of the
2:02:22
Speaker 1: pack gives him a full knowledge of where every card
2:02:25
Speaker 1: is located. He deals you a hand good enough to
2:02:28
Speaker 1: induce you to make dangerously high bets, but not high
2:02:31
Speaker 1: enough to win. He lures his victim by small winnings
2:02:35
Speaker 1: to destruction. In the end, he uses cards so cleverly
2:02:38
Speaker 1: marked on the back, that he can read the values
2:02:40
Speaker 1: of your hand as well as if he were looking
2:02:42
Speaker 1: over your shoulder, and govern his play accordingly. In Pharaoh
2:02:47
Speaker 1: and Roulette, he uses mechanical devices for controlling absolutely the
2:02:51
Speaker 1: winning numbers, and so cheats his victim from beginning to end.
2:02:56
Speaker 1: When a gambler employs a fraudulent deck of cards, or
2:02:59
Speaker 1: a cheating roulette wig or farrow box, it is called
2:03:01
Speaker 1: a brace game. No novice can go up against a
2:03:05
Speaker 1: brace game with any hope of winning. He must lose.
2:03:08
Speaker 1: Even if the game were on the square, The victim
2:03:11
Speaker 1: will invariably lose in the long run, for the percentage
2:03:14
Speaker 1: of chances against him. If the exposures which I feel
2:03:18
Speaker 1: at liberty to make in this chapter may warn the
2:03:21
Speaker 1: unwary and deter the youth of this land from the
2:03:23
Speaker 1: fascinations of the green cloth, I shall feel that my
2:03:26
Speaker 1: efforts have not been in vain. Marked cards employed by
2:03:30
Speaker 1: gamblers are specially engraved packs of cards, in which the
2:03:34
Speaker 1: usual decoration design of scrolls and flowers on the back,
2:03:37
Speaker 1: instead of being exactly identical on the fifty two cards,
2:03:41
Speaker 1: is varied slightly for each of the high cards. This
2:03:44
Speaker 1: would not be noticed and cannot be detective without close examination,
2:03:48
Speaker 1: but it renders the back of the cards as legible
2:03:51
Speaker 1: to the gambler as the face. The turn of the
2:03:54
Speaker 1: leaf in the scroll work may mean that that card
2:03:56
Speaker 1: is the Ace of diamonds, while a slightly different turn
2:03:59
Speaker 1: may mean the Ace of hearts, and so on. With
2:04:02
Speaker 1: such a pack of cards, the gambler has the poor
2:04:05
Speaker 1: dupe at his mercy. Long cards and strippers, as they
2:04:09
Speaker 1: are called, are special packs in which the high cards
2:04:12
Speaker 1: are slightly different in shape and width, enabling the gambler,
2:04:15
Speaker 1: for instance, with a single motion, to take three of
2:04:18
Speaker 1: the aces out of a pack. The holdout, as it
2:04:21
Speaker 1: is called, is a mechanical contrivance used for holding a
2:04:24
Speaker 1: card fraudulently withdrawn from the pack until it is wanted.
2:04:28
Speaker 1: The holdout, illustrated in this chapter I purchased from a
2:04:32
Speaker 1: notorious gambler who has now retired and perfected it for
2:04:35
Speaker 1: use in certain card tricks. I have found, however, that
2:04:39
Speaker 1: certain professional gamblers have got hold of it, and I
2:04:41
Speaker 1: shall therefore expose its operations, so that the unwary may
2:04:45
Speaker 1: be warned. The machine is adjusted to the arm inside
2:04:48
Speaker 1: the coat sleeve. The mechanism is worked by a band
2:04:52
Speaker 1: passing around the chest. By taking a long breath, the
2:04:55
Speaker 1: machine is made to move and pushes its mechanical fingers
2:04:59
Speaker 1: down inside the sleeve to the hand. As the breath
2:05:02
Speaker 1: is exhaled, the fingers go back in the sleeve, taking
2:05:06
Speaker 1: with them the card or cards the gambler wishes to
2:05:08
Speaker 1: hold out. The same operation causes the cards to be
2:05:12
Speaker 1: returned to the hand. It is as though the gambler
2:05:15
Speaker 1: were gifted with a third and invisible arm in hand.
2:05:18
Speaker 1: It cannot be detected. In operation. Other holdouts are attached
2:05:23
Speaker 1: under the table. One called the goose neck is brazenly
2:05:26
Speaker 1: advertised in a certain catalog. I have on my desk
2:05:29
Speaker 1: as I write, and the price is fifteen dollars. This
2:05:33
Speaker 1: I quote from the catalog is worked by the knee
2:05:36
Speaker 1: or foot, making the cards come up over the edges
2:05:39
Speaker 1: of the table into the hand. A vest holdout is
2:05:43
Speaker 1: made and sold vest and all for thirty dollars, and
2:05:47
Speaker 1: a new cold deck hold out for substituting an entirely
2:05:50
Speaker 1: different pack of cards which has been previously stacked for
2:05:53
Speaker 1: thirty five dollars. Concerning this latter contrivance, the manufacturer says,
2:06:00
Speaker 1: maid to hold a full deck cards can be arranged
2:06:03
Speaker 1: to suit you, and when opportunity presents itself, make the switch,
2:06:06
Speaker 1: and you can clean up everything in sight. A mere
2:06:10
Speaker 1: list of the fraudulent contrivances for cheating at gambling should
2:06:13
Speaker 1: be sufficient to prevent any honest man from ever going
2:06:16
Speaker 1: up against a gambler's game. The Lucas spindle, as it
2:06:20
Speaker 1: is called, is apparently a very simple contrivance which the
2:06:23
Speaker 1: novice thinks must certainly be on the square. As a
2:06:26
Speaker 1: matter of fact, it is fraudulent and made with that intention.
2:06:30
Speaker 1: Its makers claim that it can actually be handed to
2:06:33
Speaker 1: an officer for examination without detection. The old simplicity squeeze
2:06:38
Speaker 1: spindle works on a different principle, but is just as effective.
2:06:42
Speaker 1: It is under control of the gambler and can be
2:06:45
Speaker 1: stopped on whatever figure will win him the most money.
2:06:48
Speaker 1: The high Man Wins arrow is for use in bar
2:06:51
Speaker 1: rooms and is a brace game, the house being a
2:06:54
Speaker 1: large winner. One of the most malicious little devices I
2:06:58
Speaker 1: have ever run across is sometimes called a vest pocket
2:07:01
Speaker 1: roulette wheel. It would seem that this must be square,
2:07:04
Speaker 1: and that the player would have even a greater chance
2:07:06
Speaker 1: to win than on an ordinary wheel, because there is
2:07:09
Speaker 1: only one zero. As a matter of fact. However, it
2:07:12
Speaker 1: is a fraud, pure and simple, as the mechanism is
2:07:15
Speaker 1: so arranged that the pointer will stop on zero three
2:07:18
Speaker 1: times when it will stop on any other number once.
2:07:22
Speaker 1: So beware of the man with a little Monte Carlo
2:07:24
Speaker 1: in his pocket. Among other things used by professional gamblers
2:07:29
Speaker 1: to cheat with are loaded dice which may be bought
2:07:32
Speaker 1: or made to order, adhesive palming cloth for palming cards,
2:07:37
Speaker 1: chips dice, et cetera. Adhesive dice which almost defy detection,
2:07:42
Speaker 1: shaped dice which are not exact cubes, brace dice boxes,
2:07:48
Speaker 1: magnifying mirrors, set in rings, shading boxes made to sew
2:07:53
Speaker 1: on inside of coat and used to shade or mark
2:07:55
Speaker 1: cards while the game is in progress, marked decks of cards,
2:08:00
Speaker 1: ring holdouts, bouncers for roulette wheels, cement for plugging dice,
2:08:07
Speaker 1: silver amalgam for loading dice, brace, farrow boxes, et cetera,
2:08:12
Speaker 1: et cetera. With such an equipment, united with years of
2:08:16
Speaker 1: experience and skill, what chance has any law abiding citizen
2:08:20
Speaker 1: against a professional gambler. The reader does not need my
2:08:23
Speaker 1: secret of escaping from handcuffs to shake off the shackles
2:08:27
Speaker 1: of this alluring siren, gambling end of Shot sixteen, Shot seventeen,
2:08:36
Speaker 1: cheating Uncle Sam. Under this heading I should group such
2:08:40
Speaker 1: crimes as counterfeiting and the kindred crimes of forgery and
2:08:44
Speaker 1: raising notes, as well as smuggling. It is a serious
2:08:48
Speaker 1: matter to get into trouble with a federal government. The
2:08:51
Speaker 1: criminal is pursued relentlessly, and the sentence, when conviction follows
2:08:55
Speaker 1: the almost certain arrest, is always a heavy one. For
2:08:59
Speaker 1: these reasons, such crimes are usually attempted only by the
2:09:02
Speaker 1: boldest and most skillful criminals, or by those whose positions
2:09:06
Speaker 1: of trust and government employ afford them special opportunities. The
2:09:12
Speaker 1: three great crimes against any government, aside of course, from
2:09:15
Speaker 1: actual treason, are counterfeiting its money, either gold, silver, or bills,
2:09:21
Speaker 1: evading its custom laws, or smuggling. Counterfeiting, which offers enormous
2:09:26
Speaker 1: rewards if successful, is frequently attempted. Indeed, scarcely a month
2:09:31
Speaker 1: passes that does not see the appearance of some new
2:09:34
Speaker 1: and dangerous counterfeit of some United States bill. Notice is
2:09:38
Speaker 1: at once sent to all the banks by the authorities,
2:09:41
Speaker 1: and often published in the newspapers, so that the public
2:09:43
Speaker 1: at large may be warned against the spurious bill in circulation.
2:09:48
Speaker 1: Many years ago, when the art of engraving and plate
2:09:51
Speaker 1: making was in its infancy, the paper money in circulation
2:09:54
Speaker 1: was much more crude than today. Then it was comparatively
2:09:58
Speaker 1: easy for the counterfeitter to engrave just as good a
2:10:00
Speaker 1: bill as the government could produce, But now the matter
2:10:04
Speaker 1: is much more difficult, owing to the delicate and intricate
2:10:07
Speaker 1: work of the lathe and tool work, and the special
2:10:09
Speaker 1: fiber paper upon which it is printed. The conditions of
2:10:13
Speaker 1: caution surrounding the government printing works make it almost impossible
2:10:16
Speaker 1: for an original plate to be stolen. The paper is
2:10:20
Speaker 1: made especially for this purpose, and under strictest government supervision.
2:10:25
Speaker 1: In designing, lettering and engraving the bills, only artists of
2:10:28
Speaker 1: the foremost professional standing are employed. Every banknote or greenback
2:10:33
Speaker 1: is truly a work of art, so that an exact counterfeit,
2:10:37
Speaker 1: one that will deceive even an ordinary businessman accustomed to
2:10:40
Speaker 1: handle money, is each year more and more difficult to produce.
2:10:46
Speaker 1: The counterfeits of silver and gold coins are mostly of
2:10:49
Speaker 1: two kinds, either molded or stamped with a dye. The
2:10:52
Speaker 1: die made counterfeits are usually much more difficult to detect
2:10:56
Speaker 1: if the metal employed has anywhere near the right weight,
2:10:58
Speaker 1: ring and color. Electroplating is employed by counterfeiters with some success.
2:11:04
Speaker 1: One dangerous counterfeit now in circulation is a compound of
2:11:08
Speaker 1: antimony and lead heavily electroplated with silver in this way,
2:11:12
Speaker 1: the gold ten dollar piece of eighteen fifty eight and
2:11:15
Speaker 1: the gold five dollar pieces of eighteen forty seven, eighteen
2:11:18
Speaker 1: forty eight, eighteen sixty two in eighteen sixty nine have
2:11:22
Speaker 1: been counterfeited with the platinum coin heavily gold plated. The
2:11:26
Speaker 1: most successful, and therefore the most dangerous, of all counterfeits
2:11:29
Speaker 1: are those composed of actual gold and silver, but with
2:11:32
Speaker 1: a mixture of metal. The actual value of the gold
2:11:36
Speaker 1: in the counterfeit five dollar gold pieces dated eighteen eighty
2:11:39
Speaker 1: one and eighteen eighty two has been determined by assay
2:11:43
Speaker 1: to be four dollars forty three cents. Genuine gold and
2:11:47
Speaker 1: silver coins are often tampered with. These schemes are known
2:11:51
Speaker 1: as sweating, plugging, and filling. For instance, one hundred gold
2:11:56
Speaker 1: ten dollar pieces subject to an acid bath would lose
2:11:59
Speaker 1: perhaps thirty five five dollars or forty dollars worth of
2:12:01
Speaker 1: their gold and remain unchanged in appearance. The coins are
2:12:05
Speaker 1: put in circulation again, and the gold which has been
2:12:08
Speaker 1: sweated off of them is easily extracted from the acid
2:12:11
Speaker 1: bath and sold coins are also robbed of precious metal
2:12:15
Speaker 1: by drilling a hole, the cavity being filled with an
2:12:18
Speaker 1: alloy and the filling covered with a light gold wash.
2:12:22
Speaker 1: Filling a coin is sawing it through the edge in
2:12:24
Speaker 1: two parts, scraping out the gold, and putting the two
2:12:27
Speaker 1: parts together again, filled with some base or metal. Thomas
2:12:31
Speaker 1: Ballard was the first counterfeitter to successfully reproduce government fiber paper,
2:12:35
Speaker 1: which he did in eighteen seventy. The next year, he
2:12:39
Speaker 1: and his gang were captured, but escaped from jail and
2:12:42
Speaker 1: found a hiding place from which they continued to issue
2:12:44
Speaker 1: dangerous counterfeits. In eighteen seventy three, his counterfeit five hundred
2:12:49
Speaker 1: dollars treasury note alarmed banks and government officials. Ballard was
2:12:54
Speaker 1: finally captured in his layer in Buffalo just as he
2:12:56
Speaker 1: was about to produce a counterfeit five dollar bill of
2:12:59
Speaker 1: a Canadian bank. This bill, he boasted, was to have
2:13:02
Speaker 1: corrupted all Canada. John Peter McCartney was the counterfeiter who
2:13:07
Speaker 1: successfully removed all the ink from genuine one dollar bills
2:13:11
Speaker 1: so that he could secure government paper on which to
2:13:13
Speaker 1: print counterfeit bills of much higher denomination. He made a fortune,
2:13:17
Speaker 1: so it is said, but was brought to book at
2:13:20
Speaker 1: last to a counterfeiter named one Eyed. Thompson is given
2:13:25
Speaker 1: the credit of being the first to transform bills of
2:13:27
Speaker 1: small denomination to larger by cutting and pasting. He also
2:13:32
Speaker 1: had an ingenious trick of cutting up ten dollars or
2:13:34
Speaker 1: one hundred dollar bills into strips and making eleven counterfeit
2:13:38
Speaker 1: bills of the same denomination. A German by the name
2:13:42
Speaker 1: of Charles Ulrich won the distinction of having produced the
2:13:45
Speaker 1: most dangerous Bank of England notes ever made. Langdon W. Moore,
2:13:50
Speaker 1: one time expert bank robber, forger and counterfeitter who is
2:13:54
Speaker 1: now reformed and is leading an honest life, has written
2:13:57
Speaker 1: an interesting autobiography in which he tells of his own
2:13:59
Speaker 1: exprest vperience in raising notes, counterfeiting, and getting the counterfeits
2:14:03
Speaker 1: in circulation. At one time another gang of counterfeiters declared
2:14:07
Speaker 1: war on him. He sent the spy into the enemy's camp,
2:14:11
Speaker 1: learned where they were going to put out their next
2:14:12
Speaker 1: batch of queer, and then proceeded to carry out a
2:14:15
Speaker 1: plan for outwitting them. Postage stamp counterfeits are common enough,
2:14:20
Speaker 1: but mostly practiced to impose on the collectors of rare stamps.
2:14:24
Speaker 1: For instance, a certain issue if Hawaiian stamps are very valuable,
2:14:28
Speaker 1: as there are not supposed to be more than a
2:14:29
Speaker 1: half a dozen or so in existence, and when one
2:14:31
Speaker 1: is found, it sells for thousands of dollars. One of
2:14:35
Speaker 1: the most daring stamp counterfeitters planted about twenty forgeries of
2:14:38
Speaker 1: this rare stamp into collections of wealthy philatalists and realized
2:14:42
Speaker 1: many thousands of dollars. Another daring gang introduced a beautifully
2:14:47
Speaker 1: engraved stamp into Paris by posing as the King of
2:14:50
Speaker 1: Sodang and sueet Sodang being an island that existed solely
2:14:55
Speaker 1: in the imagination of the clever swindler. A stamp dealer
2:14:59
Speaker 1: was the prince scip victim and paid the king a
2:15:02
Speaker 1: large sum of money for a number of the stamps
2:15:04
Speaker 1: of this fictitious kingdom. Speaking of stamps recalls a method
2:15:09
Speaker 1: of secret writing which defied detection. The plan was to
2:15:13
Speaker 1: put a fake letter inside the envelope, but to write
2:15:16
Speaker 1: the real message in microscopic characters in the upper right
2:15:19
Speaker 1: hand corner, and over this pace the stamp. The correspondent,
2:15:23
Speaker 1: who was of course in the secret, would simply soak
2:15:25
Speaker 1: off the stamp. This trick is often made use of
2:15:28
Speaker 1: by convicts who wish to send a secret message to
2:15:31
Speaker 1: their friends on the outside canceled posts. These stamps are
2:15:35
Speaker 1: frequently washed and sold or used again. I have in
2:15:38
Speaker 1: my possession a receipt given me by a Russian convict
2:15:41
Speaker 1: which will do this perfectly, removing every trace of the
2:15:44
Speaker 1: cancelation mark, but leaving the stamp perfect. Such a secret
2:15:48
Speaker 1: is too dangerous, however, for general publication on the continent.
2:15:53
Speaker 1: I have known of a clever dodge being practiced which
2:15:56
Speaker 1: reaches the same result. Before the letter is mailed, the
2:15:59
Speaker 1: stamp is covered with the transparent paste. When the letter
2:16:02
Speaker 1: is received, the correspondent can simply wash off the stamp
2:16:05
Speaker 1: with water, and of course the cancelation marks with it.
2:16:09
Speaker 1: The penalty for this crime is so severe and the
2:16:11
Speaker 1: rewards so small, that not even hardened criminals are willing
2:16:14
Speaker 1: to risk the attempt. A clever gang of smugglers adopted
2:16:19
Speaker 1: this ruse in order to get their trunks to the
2:16:21
Speaker 1: custom house free. They had counterfeit labels made, such as
2:16:25
Speaker 1: an inspector places upon a trunk. Passing among the trunks
2:16:29
Speaker 1: where the inspectors were at work, they would slyly poke
2:16:32
Speaker 1: the inspected label on all their own trunks. Each official,
2:16:36
Speaker 1: seeing the labels would suppose some other official had actually
2:16:39
Speaker 1: inspected the trunks, and so would pass on to others.
2:16:43
Speaker 1: Instances might be multiplied, but all goes to show. The dishonesty,
2:16:47
Speaker 1: whether to your fellow men or to the government, is
2:16:50
Speaker 1: the worst of all policies. In the end end of
2:16:55
Speaker 1: Shot seventeen Shot eighteen. Humbugs, A humbug or a hoax
2:17:02
Speaker 1: is often comparatively harmless in its nature, more in the
2:17:05
Speaker 1: way of a high practical joke upon the public. Long
2:17:08
Speaker 1: ago P. T. Barnum, the great American showman, declared, the
2:17:12
Speaker 1: American people want to be humbugged. I believe he was right,
2:17:16
Speaker 1: and certainly his great success in the show business would
2:17:19
Speaker 1: seem to point to the same conclusion. In my own
2:17:22
Speaker 1: particular work, I find there is so much that is
2:17:24
Speaker 1: marvelous and wonderful that can be accomplished by perfectly natural means,
2:17:29
Speaker 1: that I have no need to find recourse to humbugging
2:17:31
Speaker 1: the public. In my case, at least truth is stranger
2:17:35
Speaker 1: than fiction. At the present day, a firm in New
2:17:38
Speaker 1: York makes a business of manufacturing fakes like double bodied babies, mermaids,
2:17:43
Speaker 1: and fake mummies. Doctor L. D. Weiss of New York
2:17:47
Speaker 1: discovered that he could detect a fake mummy from an
2:17:49
Speaker 1: original by placing it under his X ray machine. Another
2:17:54
Speaker 1: clever hoax, which created much amusement at the time, was
2:17:57
Speaker 1: contrived by some English students years ago and purpetu traded
2:18:00
Speaker 1: at a county fair. On a vacant lot near the fair,
2:18:03
Speaker 1: a large tent was erected and a huge placard announced
2:18:06
Speaker 1: that the Great Woosser was on exhibition within admission free.
2:18:11
Speaker 1: It was supposed that some payment or purchase would be
2:18:14
Speaker 1: required inside, but it was not so. The crowd, eager
2:18:18
Speaker 1: for free amusement, was formed into a long queue, and
2:18:21
Speaker 1: the people admitted only one at a time, were escorted
2:18:25
Speaker 1: through a maze of hurdles into a darkened compartment of
2:18:27
Speaker 1: the tent before a curtain. There they were entreated not
2:18:31
Speaker 1: to irritate or disturb the animal in any way, and
2:18:34
Speaker 1: the curtain went up, disclosing a sorry and spaven looking donkey.
2:18:39
Speaker 1: This is the great wisser, explained the showman, And when
2:18:42
Speaker 1: the bewildered spectator asked what it meant, he was told
2:18:45
Speaker 1: that though you may have seen as bad a donkey,
2:18:48
Speaker 1: you certainly never saw a whisser. Then, when the victim
2:18:52
Speaker 1: of the hoax became indignant, he was besought to keep
2:18:55
Speaker 1: it quiet and take his revenge by allowing the remainder
2:18:58
Speaker 1: of the crowd to be hoaxed. This request showed a
2:19:01
Speaker 1: deep knowledge of human nature, for the victim always complied,
2:19:05
Speaker 1: and many went among the crowd and spread the most
2:19:07
Speaker 1: astonishing accounts of the great wusser, and waited to see
2:19:10
Speaker 1: their comrades taken in. Eventually, however, rioting arose, and the gestures,
2:19:15
Speaker 1: being arrested for creating a disturbance, had to pay over
2:19:18
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars in fines and damages. But humbugs are
2:19:23
Speaker 1: not also harmless. An adroit rascal was caught not long
2:19:27
Speaker 1: ago in London who was posing as an American bishop.
2:19:30
Speaker 1: He was certainly a great humbug, for he looked the
2:19:33
Speaker 1: part of the bishop to perfection. It seems that he
2:19:36
Speaker 1: called in his carriage, mind you at a well known
2:19:38
Speaker 1: jeweler's and asked to see some bracelets, mentioning that he
2:19:41
Speaker 1: was returning to America and wished to take a present
2:19:43
Speaker 1: to his wife. Nothing very expensive, he said, I could
2:19:47
Speaker 1: not afford that, but something about seventy or eighty pounds.
2:19:52
Speaker 1: Eventually he agreed to take a bracelet that cost one
2:19:54
Speaker 1: hundred pounds. He said he would pay for it with
2:19:57
Speaker 1: a hundred pound note, which he had with him. It
2:20:00
Speaker 1: was the only money he had with him at the moment,
2:20:02
Speaker 1: but he would wait while they send it to the
2:20:04
Speaker 1: bank to ascertain that it was all right. He should
2:20:07
Speaker 1: really prefer doing this. They sent it to the bank
2:20:09
Speaker 1: and received answer that it was perfectly correct. Having paid
2:20:13
Speaker 1: for his bracelet, the bishop took it and was just
2:20:15
Speaker 1: about to step into his carriage when a policeman tapped
2:20:18
Speaker 1: him on the shoulder and said, hello, Jim. You're up
2:20:21
Speaker 1: to your old tricks again, are you. You just come
2:20:23
Speaker 1: along with me, and he took him back into the shop.
2:20:27
Speaker 1: The jeweler said there was some mistake that the gentleman
2:20:30
Speaker 1: was an American bishop, that he had bought a bracelet
2:20:32
Speaker 1: and paid for it with an excellent note. Just let
2:20:36
Speaker 1: me look at the note. Will you, said the policeman.
2:20:38
Speaker 1: He looked at it and said, yes, it's just as
2:20:41
Speaker 1: I thought. This note is one of a particularly clever
2:20:44
Speaker 1: batch of forgeries, which are very difficult to detect. And
2:20:47
Speaker 1: the man is no more a bishop than you are.
2:20:50
Speaker 1: We will go off to the police station at once.
2:20:52
Speaker 1: I will take the note and go on with the
2:20:54
Speaker 1: prisoner in advance, and you must send your salesman to
2:20:56
Speaker 1: me and meet us and bear witness. So the policeman
2:20:59
Speaker 1: took the bishop and the bracelet and the note. But
2:21:02
Speaker 1: when the jeweler's man reached the police station, they had
2:21:05
Speaker 1: not arrived, and they have never been heard of since.
2:21:11
Speaker 1: Warden to new arrival, who happens to be enjoying the
2:21:13
Speaker 1: name of Moses Eichenstein. Well, mister Eichenstein, as this is
2:21:18
Speaker 1: your first visit. It is our rule to always allow
2:21:21
Speaker 1: prisoners to select their own workshop. And if you will
2:21:23
Speaker 1: tell me what your trade or profession is, will put
2:21:26
Speaker 1: you in that branch of employment. Eigenstein. Is that so well?
2:21:31
Speaker 1: I am a traveling salesman. End of shot eighteen shot
2:21:37
Speaker 1: nineteen Houdini. How does he do it? That is the
2:21:43
Speaker 1: usual question I hear asked about my work in the theater. No,
2:21:47
Speaker 1: dear reader, it is not my purpose to tell you
2:21:49
Speaker 1: how I open locks, how I escape from a prison
2:21:53
Speaker 1: cell into which I have been locked, having previously been stripped, naked,
2:21:57
Speaker 1: and manacled with heavy irons. I do not intend to
2:22:00
Speaker 1: tell you in this book how I escaped from the
2:22:02
Speaker 1: trunk or the tightly corded and nailed up box in
2:22:05
Speaker 1: which I have been confined, or how I unlock any
2:22:08
Speaker 1: regulation handcuff that can be produced. Not yet, some day
2:22:13
Speaker 1: I may tell all this, and then you will know.
2:22:16
Speaker 1: At present, I prefer that all who see me should
2:22:19
Speaker 1: draw their own conclusions. But exactly how I accomplished these
2:22:23
Speaker 1: things I shall still leave you to guess. Gentle reader,
2:22:26
Speaker 1: I should not want you to go into the show business.
2:22:29
Speaker 1: It's a hard life, so they say, have you ever
2:22:33
Speaker 1: been stuck at it? I think I hear you ask.
2:22:36
Speaker 1: Not yet. I have had some pretty close calls, but
2:22:39
Speaker 1: have always pulled through somehow. The nearest I ever came
2:22:43
Speaker 1: to giving in was during my engagement at Blackborn, England.
2:22:46
Speaker 1: There I offered a prize to the man who could
2:22:48
Speaker 1: fasten me in such a way that I could not escape.
2:22:52
Speaker 1: One man accepted my challenge. He was an instructor in
2:22:55
Speaker 1: athletics and was out for blood. He evidently looked upon
2:22:59
Speaker 1: my challenge as personal affront to him. At any rate,
2:23:02
Speaker 1: he started in to shackle me. He first handcuffed my
2:23:05
Speaker 1: hands in front, then locked elbow irons, the chain of
2:23:09
Speaker 1: which went behind my back. Then he handcuffed my legs,
2:23:12
Speaker 1: and after this bent me backward and chained my back
2:23:15
Speaker 1: and feet together. I had to kneel down. Every chain
2:23:19
Speaker 1: and handcuff was fitted to the limit. I started in,
2:23:22
Speaker 1: but at the end of an hour I suffered so
2:23:24
Speaker 1: under the strain that I asked to be let out.
2:23:27
Speaker 1: My back was aching, my circulation was stopped in my wrists,
2:23:30
Speaker 1: and my arms became paralyzed. My opponent's only reply was,
2:23:35
Speaker 1: this is a bet. Cry quits or keep on. The
2:23:38
Speaker 1: music hall where I was playing was packed, and while
2:23:41
Speaker 1: watching me became fairly wild. I kept on, but I
2:23:44
Speaker 1: was only about half conscious. Every joint in my body
2:23:48
Speaker 1: was aching, and I had but little use of my arms.
2:23:51
Speaker 1: I asked as a favor that he freed my hands
2:23:53
Speaker 1: long enough for the circulation to start again, but he
2:23:56
Speaker 1: only laughed and exclaimed, this is no love affair. This
2:24:00
Speaker 1: is a contest, say you're defeated, and I'll release you.
2:24:04
Speaker 1: I gritted my teeth and went at it once more.
2:24:07
Speaker 1: For two hours and a half, I exerted myself, fighting
2:24:10
Speaker 1: for my professional good name. In the meanwhile, the audience
2:24:13
Speaker 1: was cheering itself hoarse. Some cried give it up, and others,
2:24:18
Speaker 1: keep on, you'll do it. I don't believe any such
2:24:21
Speaker 1: scene was ever acted in a theater. The house was
2:24:24
Speaker 1: crazy with excitement, and I was covered with blood brought
2:24:27
Speaker 1: on by my exertion to release myself and chafing irons.
2:24:31
Speaker 1: But I did it. I got free of every chain
2:24:33
Speaker 1: and handcuff. Then they had to carry me off the stage,
2:24:37
Speaker 1: and I suffered from the effects for months afterwards. As
2:24:41
Speaker 1: for the prison cell, I have never been locked in
2:24:43
Speaker 1: one I could not open. I have had the honor
2:24:46
Speaker 1: of making my escape from securely locked cells in jails, prisons,
2:24:49
Speaker 1: and police stations in almost every large city in the world,
2:24:53
Speaker 1: and under the most rigid conditions. The chiefs of police,
2:24:56
Speaker 1: the wardens, the jailers, the detectives, and citizens who been
2:25:00
Speaker 1: present at these tests know that they are real and actual.
2:25:03
Speaker 1: Perhaps the most historic American feat that gained for me
2:25:06
Speaker 1: the most notoriety, was my escape January nineteen o six
2:25:10
Speaker 1: from cell to Murderer's Row in the United States Jail
2:25:14
Speaker 1: at Washington, d C. From the very cell in which Gatu,
2:25:18
Speaker 1: the assassin of President Garfield, was confined until he was
2:25:21
Speaker 1: led forth to be hanged. Since my return from abroad
2:25:25
Speaker 1: October nineteen o five, I have escaped after being locked
2:25:28
Speaker 1: up in a nude state from cells in New York City, Brooklyn, Detroit, Rochester, Buffalo, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Providence,
2:25:38
Speaker 1: and city tombs in Boston and Lowell. In all cases
2:25:42
Speaker 1: I submitted to a close search, being stark naked and
2:25:45
Speaker 1: heavily manacled into the cell, which was also thoroughly searched.
2:25:51
Speaker 1: I am an American by birth, born in Appleton, Wisconsin, USA,
2:25:55
Speaker 1: on April sixth, eighteen seventy three. To my lot has
2:25:58
Speaker 1: fallen more experience's, more strange adventures, more ups and downs
2:26:02
Speaker 1: in my thirty three years of life than to most men.
2:26:06
Speaker 1: When about nine years of age, my mother, to whom
2:26:08
Speaker 1: I am greatly attached, apprenticed me to a mechanic to
2:26:12
Speaker 1: learn that trade. But after an uneventful term with the
2:26:16
Speaker 1: tools of the trade, I resolved to see the world
2:26:18
Speaker 1: with my own eager eyes. So I ran away from home,
2:26:22
Speaker 1: and in this way made an early acquaintance with the
2:26:24
Speaker 1: corrugated side of life. I joined a small circus and
2:26:28
Speaker 1: soon learned to conduct the punch and judy show, to
2:26:31
Speaker 1: do a ventriloquial act, and to play town clown on
2:26:34
Speaker 1: the bars galled arnt. I also doubled in brass. That is,
2:26:38
Speaker 1: I beat the symbols. I here gained the experiences that
2:26:42
Speaker 1: possibly ripened me into the world's handcuff king and prison breaker,
2:26:46
Speaker 1: a title which I have justly earned. But there was
2:26:49
Speaker 1: a time when I was not recognized as I am. Now.
2:26:52
Speaker 1: Those were the days of small things. That was in
2:26:55
Speaker 1: the Middle West. After that, London, and an engagement at
2:26:59
Speaker 1: the Alhambra, after that, everywhere on the continent, and all
2:27:03
Speaker 1: over America. I have not yet been to Australia. I
2:27:06
Speaker 1: do not wish to be so far away from my mother.
2:27:09
Speaker 1: While touring Germany, I brought suit against the police in
2:27:12
Speaker 1: a newspaper because they said my act was not genuine.
2:27:15
Speaker 1: I won the case. To have lost it would have
2:27:18
Speaker 1: meant ruin again. In Russia, I was bound by the
2:27:21
Speaker 1: officials of the spy police and locked in a Siberian
2:27:24
Speaker 1: transport cell. Had I failed to escape, I would have
2:27:28
Speaker 1: been compelled to journey to Siberia. As the key that
2:27:30
Speaker 1: locks these cells does not open them. The Governor General
2:27:34
Speaker 1: in Siberia has the only key to open them. I
2:27:37
Speaker 1: was out in twenty minutes. If there were more room
2:27:40
Speaker 1: in this book, I would like to tell you of
2:27:42
Speaker 1: the many places in which I have played, both in
2:27:45
Speaker 1: America and Europe. I have many certificates from police officials.
2:27:49
Speaker 1: I was almost too busy to write this book, although
2:27:52
Speaker 1: I have been collecting the material for a long time.
2:27:55
Speaker 1: But now I am pleased it is written, and trust
2:27:57
Speaker 1: it may please you. I believe that the reading of
2:28:00
Speaker 1: this book will so familiarize the public with the methods
2:28:03
Speaker 1: of the criminal classes that it will enable law abiding
2:28:06
Speaker 1: citizens to protect themselves from the snares of the evil doer.
2:28:10
Speaker 1: I hope it will warn you away from crime and
2:28:12
Speaker 1: all evil doing. It may tell the right way to
2:28:16
Speaker 1: do wrong, But as I said in the beginning, all
2:28:18
Speaker 1: I have to say is don't metal. Illustrated is the
2:28:23
Speaker 1: result of my winning the contest from the Eighth Seagull Company,
2:28:26
Speaker 1: expert Packers and mister B. F. Keith. By the way,
2:28:30
Speaker 1: also presented me with a most magnificent and costly Tiffany
2:28:33
Speaker 1: time piece during my engagement in Boston. Sincerely, Yours, Harry Houdini,
2:28:41
Speaker 1: end of Shot, nineteen conclusion. A certain fascination, without doubt
2:28:47
Speaker 1: lingers about crime and the methods of criminals. Much of
2:28:51
Speaker 1: this fascination, and consequently much of the temptation to do wrong,
2:28:55
Speaker 1: arises from ignorance of the subject, ignorance of the mean,
2:28:59
Speaker 1: sordid life and the disgrace and punishment which are the
2:29:02
Speaker 1: certain result of a career of crime. The wayward youth
2:29:06
Speaker 1: sees only the advantage to be gained by unlawful acts.
2:29:10
Speaker 1: He does not see the years of ignominy, the furtive
2:29:13
Speaker 1: hiding from the law, the shame of not being able
2:29:16
Speaker 1: to look as fellow man in the face no, nor
2:29:19
Speaker 1: the inevitable arrest, conviction, and punishment which ends at all
2:29:22
Speaker 1: in ninety nine cases out of every one hundred. In
2:29:26
Speaker 1: this book, I have told of the methods of criminals
2:29:28
Speaker 1: and held them up to your gaze, not as heroes
2:29:32
Speaker 1: but as malefactors, not as examples to be emulated, but
2:29:36
Speaker 1: as corruptions to be shunned, as you would shun a plague.
2:29:40
Speaker 1: To the best of my belief, this book, if you
2:29:43
Speaker 1: read it rightly, is a sermon more powerful against wrongdoing
2:29:46
Speaker 1: than many that are preached from the pulpit. It is
2:29:49
Speaker 1: my hope and wish that it may carry this warning
2:29:52
Speaker 1: into the hearts of thousands of young men. Then shall
2:29:55
Speaker 1: my labor not have been lost? End of shop, end
2:30:02
Speaker 1: of the right way to do wrong? An expose of
2:30:05
Speaker 1: successful criminals by Harry Houdini