Among the many dangerous and curious characters who live by their
wits in a great city none is more interesting to the outsider than
the blackmailer. To the reader of sensational literature the ideal
is a person who holds some great family secret which he turns into
money at rapidly narrowing intervals. Although this character is
generally overdrawn, no one familiar with city life pretends to doubt
his existence. The blackmailer is a well known character in all large
cities, and certainly the arch swindler of the day.
Blackmailers are ever on the alert to learn anything detrimental to
a person's character, and let them once obtain this, they fatten on
it. Men's passions are taken advantage of by that particular class
of thieves known as "badgers," and their operations are very rarely
followed by exposure or punishment. A pretty woman is the bait used
by these thoughtful rascals, who know full well that where a hundred
men will resist a burglar, scarcely one will resist a robbery where
disgraceful publicity must surely follow.
Briefly the mode of procedure is as follows: A house is rented in a
quiet side street, not far from the principal thoroughfare. One man,
occasionally two men, run the house--that is, they do the actual
stealing, while they have from three and often as high as a dozen
women out on the street picking up the victims.