It was at 10 o'clock in the morning, when the largest throng of
speculators can be found in the offices at 259-261 LaSalle street,
opposite the Board of Trade, that Wooldridge and his men swooped down
on the place and proclaimed "every one there a patron of a bucketshop
and under arrest."
The wildest excitement prevailed. Telegraph operators, messenger boys,
pit men and persons of every station in life were caught. Some of the
traders, thinking of their wives and children, pleaded frantically
for their freedom. Some attempted to force their way from the betting
rooms, but, meeting with armed resistance, they desisted.
"I don't belong here," said one man, indignantly. "I only dropped in
here to see a friend." His plea was unavailing.
Another man, attired in a frock coat and a silk hat, attempted to
bribe one of the detectives. "I can't have it get out that I was
arrested," said he. "State your price and I will give it to you
gladly."
[Illustration: He'll have to act faster, or somebody will slip between
his fingers.]
The only persons allowed to escape were three women stenographers, who
fled through a rear window.
Advertising matter, private correspondence, telephones, tickers,
telegraph instruments and everything of consequence was seized and
loaded into twelve patrol wagons and taken to the Harrison Street
Police Station.
Four hundred and twenty telegraph wires were cut which connected
Sullivan's bucketshops in Chicago and through the country. It took the
Western Union Telegraph Company two weeks to get the wires in working
order.