KING MCNALLY AND HIS POLICE.
The Confidence Trick is perhaps the form of crime that would most
naturally commend itself to the police banditti of New York. For the force
was engaged all day long in playing a gigantic Confidence Trick upon the
citizens. The gold brick which the swindlers sold to the credulous
countryman was hardly more mythical than the enforcement of the law which
was supposed to be secured by the organisation of the City police. It is
therefore not surprising to learn that the police were hand-and-glove with
the gang of swindlers which, under King McNally, carried on the Green
Goods trade in the City of New York. It was one of the most lucrative of
all the crimes which were carried on under police protection, and one of
the safest. Few of all the stories told before the Lexow Committee display
quite so unblushing a co-partnership between the law-breakers and the law
officers as was revealed in this Green Goods swindle. The rascality of the
rogues was so audacious that it provokes a laugh. For it is possible to
carry impudence to a point where indignation is momentarily submerged by
the sense of the ludicrous. Sheer amazement at the existence of such
preposterous villains begets such a sense of its absurdity, that any
censure seems as much out of place as in the nonsense tales of the
nursery. Yet when the grotesque impression subsides, it is difficult to
find terms strong enough to characterise this systematic misuse of the
powers created for the protection of life and property and the due
observance of the law for the purpose of facilitating fraud and of aiding
and abetting and protecting swindling.
The evidence taken before the Lexow Committee contains a mass of materials
for an exhaustive description of the criminals of New York, and the
various methods by which in 1894 they preyed upon the public; but the
person who undertakes the compilation of such a work is not to be envied.
The Report of the Committee is a very striking illustration of the
wickedness of issuing books without indexes. Here we have five bulky
volumes of evidence without even an index of the names of witnesses. There
is no subject-index of any kind. Witnesses are called and recalled in
bewildering confusion. Nevertheless, even the most cursory perusal of the
evidence brings to light a great many interesting and extraordinary facts
as to the organisation of the criminal classes of the city.
Green Goods are forged or counterfeit bank notes. The pretence is either
that there has been an over-issue of certain denominations of paper money
by the Treasury, or that the plates have been stolen from the Government,
and by this means it is possible to offer to sell ten dollars for one.
McNally, the King of the Green Goods men, employed at times a staff of
thirty-five men. He began his career some twenty years ago as a bully who
was kept by a prostitute. He swindled out of all her money a mistress of
his who kept a restaurant, and started an Opium Joint. He then embarked in
the Green Goods business, kept his carriage, and made his fortune.
The men who work this Confidence Trick seem to have carried their
organised system of swindling to a very high pitch of perfection. Their
master-stroke, however, was the admission of the police to a working
partnership, which enabled them not merely to carry on their swindling
with impunity, but also stood them in good stead whenever a victim had to
be bullied and driven out of the city. King McNally was, unfortunately,
not available for examination, owing to his precipitate departure for
foreign parts as soon as the inquiry began. The Committee, however, was
able to secure evidence which brought out very clearly the main lines of
their operations.
The chief witness was one William Applegate, whose sister accompanied
McNally in his hurried departure to Paris. Applegate had been employed for
three years as one of the gang. He began when nineteen as a
circular-folder, for which he received 8s. a week. These formed the
foundation of the Green Goods business. A Green Goods gang in full
operation is constituted as follows:--
(1) The Backer or Capitalist, who supplies the bank roll--a roll of 10,000
genuine dollar bills, which are shown to the victim. He receives fifty per
cent., out of which he pays the police, and so guarantees the protection
of the gang.
(2) The Writer, who addresses the wrappers in which the circulars, bogus
newspaper-cuttings, etc., are enclosed. He receives the other fifty per
cent., out of which he has to pay the percentage due to the rest of the
gang.
(3) The Bunco Steerer, who is sent to meet the victim at some hotel, fifty
to a hundred miles distant from the city. He is the messenger who gives
the victim the pass-word, and then leads him to the Joint or den where the
swindle is completed. He receives five per cent. of the plunder.
(4) The Old Man, a respectable-looking old gentleman, who says nothing,
but who sits solemnly in the Joint when the “beat” is being carried
through. He receives five dollars.
(5) The Turner, who is represented as the son of the old man, and does the
selling of the bogus notes. His fee is ten dollars.
(6) The Ringer, a confederate behind the partition, who dexterously
replaces the good money shown in the bank roll by the bundles of bogus
notes. His fee is five dollars.
(7) The Tailer, who remains on guard at the railway station, personating a
policeman, for the purpose of bullying any victim who discovers he has
been swindled, and returns to try to recover his money. This gentleman is
also paid five dollars a victim.
With this staff, and the protection of the police, the Green Goods
business can be carried on very successfully. McNally used to take as much
as £1,600 in a single day. Fortunes of £40,000 were accumulated by the
leading backers, although McNally’s pile was not estimated at more than
£20,000.
The first step is the obtaining of directories and the arranging for the
despatch of circulars. The circulars were of the familiar kind, printed as
if typewritten, and addressed by a staff of writers, of whom McNally had
eight or ten kept constantly at work. Enclosed in the envelope with the
circular were slips printed as if they were cut out of newspapers, the
same with intent to deceive, the slip being carefully written by Mr.
McNally, or some member of his gang, for the purpose of giving the reader
to understand that the offer of the circular was _bonâ fide_ and reliable.
These were sent out by thousands, the printer executing orders for 200,000
sets at a time. A slip was also included giving the address to which a
telegram should be sent, in order to secure the advantageous offer made to
the victim by the circular. These addresses were usually vacant lots in
the city, but arrangements were made by bribing the officials of the
telegraph company to hold all telegrams sent to such fictitious addresses
until called for.
The business was carried on a kind of mutual partnership basis. It was
worked somewhat in this fashion. A writer would send out 10,000 circulars
or more a day. One, or perhaps two, of those would hook a victim, who
would telegraph, making an application for the money offered him at such
tempting terms. This victim would belong to the writer of the circular by
which he had been caught. Having thus hooked a victim, he had to be
landed, and for this purpose he had to be brought to town and personally
conducted by a bunco steerer to the den or joints where three confederates
fooled the victim to the top of his bent, and usually succeeded in
fleecing him by one form or another of the confidence trick.
The victim, who was known as a “Come On” or as a “Guy,” was swindled by a
variety of methods. One favourite plan was to undertake to sell the
credulous rustic 10,000 dollars for 650 dollars. For less than 650 dollars
he was told he could not have the “State rights.” The monopoly for his own
State was promised to the favoured individual, whose 650 dollars had to
be paid down on the spot. A locked box was then given him, within which he
was assured there were 10,000 dollars in coin. In reality, there was a
brick, which was all the poor victim got for his money.
Another method of swindling was thus described by the witness Applegate
when under examination by Mr. Goff:--
Q. I hand you two tin boxes; do you recognise those as belonging to
McNally?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were those boxes used in his business?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Here is a third one, and a fourth one; what were those four boxes
used for?
A. They would put the money in one box for the man, in a box like
that, and that would be a deal of from about 300 dollars to 500
dollars; they would put the money in this box and it would be in front
of the victim, and in the meantime a duplicate box would be behind the
partition, and in the duplicate box there would be a brick and some
paper, and they would put the money in this box here on the desk and
lock it up before the victim; it would be on the back of the desk like
that, and then Billy Vosburgh would say, “Get that book,” and with
that they would lift up the desk and that would hide the box from the
victim, and then Walter McNally, who did the ringing, would open his
trap door and take this box in and put the other box out; it would all
be done in a second.
Q. I will now hand you this fifth box; what is that used for?
A. That was used for the bank roll.
Q. What is there--is there a false lid to that?
A. No; there is one, yes.
Q. How was the bank roll brought into play there; explain about that?
A. The bank roll would be laid right in there, 8,200 dollars; it would
be laid there. There was supposed to be 8,200 dollars done up in
packages, with three elastics around them.
Q. Now, I hand you this book, and ask you if those were the packages
there were exchanged for the genuine packages?
A. Yes, sir; these were, as we called them, the dummies.
Q. Explain how they were operated?
A. You see this is a package supposed to be of 5 dollar bills. There
would be a good one on the top, and a good one on the bottom, and here
would lay the same package of genuine money, and Walter would count
out, say, 200 dollars in 5 dollar bills, which would be so much, and
he would say, to save time, “We will measure the packages together,
and, instead of counting each and every bill, we will put the packages
together,” and the victim would think there was the same amount of
money in each one, and then, through sleight-of-hand, he would put
these in the box, and the good money on top; and if the victim wanted
to see the packages again he would show them, and the one on top would
be good money; and if the victim is a hard victim, he might want to
take the money with him, and then Walter would shift these packages,
and, therefore, he got about 60 dollars for 500 dollars or 1,000
dollars.
Q. And the victim would get those packages that we now exhibit,
instead of the packages containing the good money that he has seen?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. There were many of those in use, were there not?
A. Yes, sir, we would never take the elastics off these; we would just
take the elastics off the good money.
Q. Here is a box with a heavy weight; see what is in this box?
A. I guess that is a brick (witness takes out a brick wrapped up in
paper); that is what he would get for his 650 dollars; for a 300
dollar deal he would get half a brick; for 10,000 dollars it would
have to be heavier than for a less amount.--Vol. iii., pp. 2,575-6.
In connection with McNally’s gang there was an Art Gallery fitted up
adjoining a saloon used sometimes as McNally’s headquarters. The chief
feature of this Art Gallery was a great number of pictures representing
treasuries filled with all kinds of money. “Here,” said the Steerer to the
Guy, “is the picture of what you will get in reality.” The effect upon his
imagination of these painted representations of enormous treasure in gold
and silver predisposed the victim to part freely with his money, and
believe the plausible friends who so kindly proposed to point out to him
so short a cut to a fortune. McNally had a private carriage also, with a
footman in livery. “The carriage racket,” as it was called, was thus
described by Applegate:--
Q. Now, proceed and describe the operations of the carriage?
A. Well, previous to the steerer and the guy coming to the carriage,
there would be a satchel put there, a little red satchel.
Q. In the carriage?
A. In the carriage, with a brick and paper in it; there would also be
two or three satchels without anything in it on the seat of the
carriage. Walter Haines would get in with the guy. Walter Haines would
have the money in the bag, the bank roll, and he would put the money
in the satchel, a duplicate satchel to the one that had the brick in
it; he would put the money in the satchel, and after the guy had paid
Haines his money so--we never received theirs before we gave them
ours, and after he made the deal and everything was all right, Haines
would say, “I will go to the depôt,” and the steerer would grab the
satchel and run out, and Walter Haines would slip the money in the
cab, and Haines would say, “The steerer will go with you,” and he
would go away with the steerer.
Q. Were there any cases in which they discovered the fraud before they
left the State?
A. No, we worked kind of snug; when we were working the carriage
racket we worked a little on the snug.
Q. What is that?
A. We did not have the protection we ought to have had, and the
steerer then would have to go with the guy and keep the satchel and
see the guy on the train, and, after he got on the train, he didn’t
care a darn where he went.
Q. And he did not have the facilities as in the turning joint?
A. No, sir; we would not give him the satchel until he got on the
train, and would say, “We will give you this at the proper time and
place.”
Q. Weren’t you in the habit of giving to the guy keys?
A. No; we generally threw the key away and told him to cut it open;
not with the satchel; with the box we gave him keys.
Q. Was there any design in giving the keys with the box?
A. We never gave him the key which fitted the box.
Q. So when they got on the railroad----
A. When a guy gets a box like that there will be some combination on
it, and he will get the wrong key, and he don’t know how to get out of
it.
Q. And you always made sure to give him a key that would not open the
box?
A. Yes, sir; the reason of that is that we gave him a key that fits
the box with the money in, and that would not fit the box that had the
brick in.--Vol. iii., pp. 2,613-5.
There were many ways of swindling the unfortunate guy. When once they are
hooked, they can be played with to almost any extent. In this, as in
higher regions, the saying holds good--
Faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
A guy will pay his money down and expect the notes to be sent to his
order. When they fail to turn up, he will come back and buy some more,
which are to be expressed to him. When they do not arrive, he will come
back the third time and do another deal, and see them checked at the
station with his ticket. The baggage-man is accused of stealing the money,
and the guy comes up for a fourth time. In this final purchase he never
allows the box or bag to go out of his own hands. Not until he opens the
precious parcel and finds the brick or counterfeit notes or rolls of
paper, does it dawn upon him that he has been done.
The need for great secrecy and the importance of getting a long way off
the city before opening the box do not seem unreasonable to a man who
knows that he is engaged in a more or less fraudulent transaction. It is
the knowledge of the guy that he is doing a more or less crooked business
which enables the gang to plunder him with such impunity.
Some such methods are probably familiar to the police of all the cities in
the world, but that which was peculiar to New York was the arrangement
made for carrying on this business, not merely with the cognizance of, but
with the active co-operation of the police. This partnership was so close
that in McNally’s case all the business was carried on in conjunction with
a police captain of the name of Meakin, who had as his agent at
headquarters a detective of the name of Hanley. It is difficult to repress
a smile on reading, at the very opening of Applegate’s evidence, how
things were worked.
Every now and then, when the newspapers made too much fuss concerning the
scandals of the Police Department, the authorities would order what is
known as a “general shake-up”--_i.e._, the captains would be shifted all
round, the assumption being that a new broom would sweep clean, and that
by changing the captains from one precinct to another the abuses that had
created any fuss would be rectified. Unfortunately the whole system of
blackmail and corruption was so elaborately organised that the shifting of
the captains made no change. Each newcomer succeeded to the business, and
carried on the collection of blackmail without losing a single day.
“Business carried on as usual during alterations” might have been posted
up over every police-station in New York; but in the case of Green Goods
men, their business was too profitable to be lost by the captain who had
once got hold of it. The consequence was that, when the shake-up took
place, and Captain Meakin was transferred from the “down-town precinct” to
Harlem at the other end of the island, he carried all the Green Goods men
with him up to his new station. As soon as the order was given that the
shake-up was to be enforced, Captain Meakin sent word to McNally that he
must follow him to Harlem. McNally thereupon told all his writers, Bunco
steerers and Turners that they must pack up their traps, and follow the
Captain to the precinct to which he had been transferred. The notice was
short, and for a moment it seemed as if the smooth course of the Green
Goods business would be interfered with, for several victims were on
their way to the rendezvous fixed by the writers in Captain McNally’s old
precinct. The resources of roguery are not so easily exhausted; the Bunco
steerers were ordered to bring their victims from the down town precinct
to some saloons in Harlem until the gang had arranged with the Captain as
to where the victims were to be plundered in the new precinct.
The saloon in which the confidence trick was played, and the room in which
the victim was relieved of his money, was known as the “Joint,” or the
place where they “beat the victim.” The first thing necessary was,
therefore, to find out a saloon that would be available for the purposes
of the gang. Captain Meakin was a man of resource. He and his wardman met
McNally at a drug store, and arranged with a saloon-keeper of the name of
Hawkins that the joint should be opened in his saloon. The arrangement
made with Hawkins was that he should have a sovereign for every man that
was fleeced at his place.
Very little time was lost in bundling the boxes, with the bricks and all
the other paraphernalia of the craft, into an express waggon. The King
drove up in his carriage with the bank-roll and his liveried coachman,
while the Turners followed by the Elevated Railway. As soon as the
arrangement was fixed up with the King and the Captain and the
Saloon-keeper, the signal was given, and the victims, who were planted at
various saloons in the neighbourhood by the Bunco steerers waiting until
the Police Captain and the King had fixed up arrangements as to the joint,
were brought down and fleeced. Thus, without the loss of a single day the
business was transferred, and was running merrily under the protecting
ægis of Captain Meakin and his police.
For four months this went on, until at last the scandal became so great
that the Police Commissioners received representations from the
inhabitants, and it became evident that the Hawkins saloon would no longer
serve as headquarters. A friendly communication was sent to the thieves by
Detective Charlton. He told them that they would have to quit, but at the
same time he obligingly suggested that the saloon of a man named Day in
the immediate neighbourhood would be quite as convenient, and would serve
equally well as a place for “beating” their victims. To Day’s saloon,
therefore, the Joint was transferred, and business went on for five
months, ten or twelve writers being busily employed in sending out
circulars, as many as fifteen thousand being sometimes despatched in a
single day.
At last an order was issued from headquarters ordering the arrest of all
the Green Goods men of New York. This looked serious, but when you have a
friend in the force you do not get arrested, excepting as a friendly
put-up job. When the order was issued from headquarters, Detective
Charlton was sent by Captain Meakin to inform McNally that they were
going to raid the Joint, and advised him to remove all the stuff before
the police arrived. This timely hint was promptly acted upon, and when the
place was raided nothing was found. The Green Goods men in the meanwhile
had transferred themselves to Jersey, which, being a foreign State, was
beyond the jurisdiction of the Superintendent. But everything was done to
make their sojourn in Jersey pleasant; Captain Meakin gave them a
recommendation to a detective in the Jersey force, who saw to it that they
were not interfered with. In return for those services, Captain Meakin
received from McNally £90 a month, the tariff being fixed at £10 per
writer. The money was paid to Detective Charlton, who handed it over, no
doubt after collecting his commission, to the Captain.
If the matter had only stopped here, the case of the Green Goods men would
not have differed materially from that of the disorderly houses, which all
subsidised the police, and were protected in return. But in the case of
these swindlers, who elevated the confidence trick almost to the level of
a fine art, there was a further development. If any of the writers were
behind in their payments to the King, McNally promptly denounced them to
the Captain, and the defaulting writer was as promptly arrested. By this
means discipline was enforced in the gang and all bad debts avoided.
Again, if any writer refused to follow McNally to the district where he
wanted him, or in any other way allowed his personal preferences to
interfere with the orders of the King, he was denounced and run in by the
obedient, uniformed myrmidons of his majesty.
In order to enforce discipline over the whole of New York City, it was
necessary to supplement the arrangement with Captain Meakin by a similar
understanding with an officer at the headquarters department. This officer
was Charles Hanley. “He was McNally’s right hand man, and any time he got
into trouble or his men got into trouble, the first man he sent for was
Hanley; and Hanley was always sent for.” He represented the Detective
Bureau, and his services were necessary when any unfortunate victim,
discovering that he had nothing but a brick in his box, came back to the
city and made complaint. A considerable number of the guys, or the
victims, never came back, being too thoroughly ashamed of their folly to
face an exposure; but a certain proportion did. These “Come-backs,” as
they were called, naturally applied to the Detective Bureau at the police
headquarters, and there they were taken in hand by McNally’s partner.
Applegate explained the working of this system as follows:--
In cases of a come-back of any kind; in case a man has been swindled
who has found the brick in the box before he has left New York; and as
a rule he would go to the central office and make a holler; Hanley
would always seem to be the detective that would get the man in
charge; the man would be brought up town to try and identify the
people, which he never could do; then we always got the tip to go
away; the man would be brought down town and chased out of town as
being a counterfeiter; and they would pay 500 dollars, and 250 dollars
would go back to the police; the police claimed half of the
deal.--Vol. iii., p. 2,590.
The method, it will be seen, was extremely ingenious. The swindlers had
passed forged notes upon their victim. When he made a complaint, he was
promptly arrested or driven out of the town by the confederates of the
gang in the police for having counterfeit notes in his possession! No
wonder things went “nice and easy.” Applegate described one scene which
had evidently afforded the gang great amusement. A victim, who had been
swindled, and had applied to the police for redress, was handed over in
the usual course to Hanley, who took him up town to the saloon where he
had been robbed, to see if he could find the Bunco steerer who had
inveigled him into the Joint. Applegate himself acted as the go-between on
that occasion. He warned the Steerer to keep out of the way, and then
asked Hanley to bring the Guy down past the windows of the saloon, where
the men who had swindled him could have some fun in watching him as he was
trotted about the street on a false scent. By some strange mistake, and
despite all warnings, the Steerer ran into the Detective and the Guy; but
even this difficulty was overcome, for a few words from the Detective put
it all right, and the Steerer went off without being arrested. For his
part in that little comedy Hanley got one-half of the money of which the
man had been swindled. In this case Hanley’s share of the plunder amounted
to £50. The victim was chased out of the town under the threat of arrest
and imprisonment for having counterfeit notes in his possession.
“You see,” said the witness, apologetically, “the guy is a guy, and you
can do almost anything with him.” It is certainly not difficult, when you
have the police to stand in whenever you get into a tight place.
The only terror which seemed to haunt the mind of the Green Goods men was
that of being shot down by some sharper who made himself up as a guy in
order to possess himself of the bank-roll of genuine money. Appo, a man
who spent most of his life in picking pockets when he was at liberty, and
in doing time in gaol when he was caught, had a rough experience of the
murderous possibilities that the Green Goods man has to face. On one
occasion a Tennessee detective made himself up as a country bumpkin. When
the critical moment came, he clapped his revolver at the head of Appo,
shot out his eye, lodged the bullet in his skull, from which it was never
extracted, and made off with all the money at that time on Appo’s person.
When examined before the Committee, Appo thus explained the _modus
operandi_ by which Green Goods men occasionally got cleaned out and
murdered in the bargain. He said:--
... I take a man; I rig him up; I say, “Do you want to make 5,000
dols. or 10,000 dols.?” “Yes, sir.” “Well, you go up to a hotel room,
and I will touch the wires to a party band, bring him there with his
bank roll, and you play guy; when he comes in and shows his goods,
take your gun, stick him up, and take his money away from him. If he
goes to make a kick, shoot him; he cannot do that much; the law will
protect you; see how Tony Martin got killed there in Brooklyn; them
men got out; it was cold-blooded murder--wilful, deliberate,
premeditated murder.” Fixed up? My case was fixed up there in
Poughkeepsie; the man sneaked up behind me in cold blood and shot me,
and sent me to State prison for three years and two months.--Vol. ii.,
p. 1640-1.
Another ingenious precaution which was taken by McNally was to have the
detectives at the various railway stations surrounding New York in his
pay, so that in case any Guy were to discover that he had been swindled,
and make a fuss at the station, he could be promptly arrested for holding
counterfeit money, and so bullied as to make him thankful to get home
without saying more about it. The detective at the Central Depôt was paid
£10 a month for his services.
The facts as they were detailed before the Lexow Committee were proved by
such overwhelming evidence that the chief criminal, Captain Meakin, of the
police force, was seized with an illness which rendered it impossible for
him to appear in the witness-box. Perjury to an unlimited extent was
familiar enough to the police captains, but the evidence about the Green
Goods gang was too strong even for a police captain to brazen it out. So
it came to pass that Captain Meakin was too dangerously ill during the
sitting of the Committee for his evidence to be taken even at his own
bedside.
The Lexow Committee reported on the subject as follows:--
It appears conclusively that a heavy traffic of this kind has been
systematically carried on by these swindlers, who, in exchange for
protection, shared a large part of their ill-gotten gains with the
police.... The evidence indicated that the first step in the
initiation of business of this character was to establish relations
with the captain of the precinct in which the work was carried on.
It appears, moreover, that men notoriously engaged in the swindling or
confidence business had their headquarters in the city, known to the
police, where they might be ordinarily found, and that those who were
receiving protection plied their trade unmolested, while others, who
had not been fortunate enough to establish relations with the police,
or those who intruded upon districts not assigned to them, would be
warned off and in case of failure to obey would be summarily dealt
with.--Vol. i., p. 39.
Strange and incredible though it may appear that the police should
actually join hands with the criminals of the type of the Green Goods
gang, it was entirely in keeping with the principles which had been
elaborated into a system in dealing with every form of robbery.
The Lexow Committee reported:--
It has been conclusively shown that an understanding existed between
headquarters’ detectives, pawnbrokers and thieves, by which stolen
property may be promptly recovered by the owner on condition that he
repay the pawnbroker the amount advanced on the stolen property. In
almost every instance it also appears that the detective, acting
between the owner and the pawnbroker, receives substantial gratuities
from the owner of the property for the work done in his official
capacity.--Vol. i., p. 40.
But there was a still worse form of co-partnership involved in the
procedure adopted in robberies in houses of ill-fame. A witness of the
name of Lucy C. Harriot, who at the time when she gave her evidence was an
inmate of the workhouse on Blackwell’s Island, but who had an extensive
experience in the disorderly houses of New York, explained the system in
some detail. The police, she said, were able to make robberies in what
were known as panel houses, safe for the thief and profitable to
themselves. When a man was robbed and went to the station-house for
redress, the Captain usually sent down a wardman to the house, who made it
his first duty to represent to the victim the prudence of saying nothing
about it, and of avoiding what would be otherwise a painful exposure. If
the victim persisted, the wardman would pretend to endeavour to find the
girl, but always discovered that she had gone off to Europe, or had
disappeared in some mysterious way. The matter always ended in the man
being scared off. I quote the evidence as given in the Report:--
By Mr. Goff: And after the stranger is scared off, the wardman goes to
the house, and isn’t it a rule that the money he is robbed of is
divided with the police?
A. I have heard it ever since I have been round; that is about nine
years.
Q. Where do you come in when you steal 180 dols.; where does your
profit come in?
A. If the man went away quietly, the wardman would have received 90
dols. of the 180 dols., and I would have got 45 dols. out of the
remaining half.
Q. And the madam for 45 dols.?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And the wardman gets, in this case, fifty per cent. of the loot?
A. Yes, sir, that is so.--Vol. i., p. 3,620.
By Chairman Lexow: How many houses have you been into to which the
rule as to payment of money and the division of property applies?
A. Every one that ever I entered.
Q. How many?
A. About two dozen, I guess.--Vol. i., p. 3,622.
By Senator Bradley: What you say is a general custom?
A. A common occurrence.
Q. Is that tariff fixed ... the payment of fifty per cent. to the
wardman, or the policeman, in case of panel theft?
A. Yes.
Q. That he should get one-half?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And that applies to all these twenty-four houses you speak of?
A. Yes, sir, every house I went into of that kind.--Vol. i., p. 3,623.
Excepting in the most barbarous regions of Turkey, where Pashas are
sometimes suspected and accused of winking at the raids of bandits in
consideration of a share of the spoil, has there ever been such a story as
this?
The principle of territorial jurisdiction is so deeply rooted in the
American mind that the New York police seem to have acted upon it in all
their dealings with the criminals whom they shepherded. For instance, they
appear to have parcelled Broadway into blocks, allotting each block to a
different thief, who, of course, paid quit rent for his district to the
police. The understanding was that the policeman was to be free to arrest
the thief if there was a complaint made by the victim, but that so long as
no complaints were made the policeman would “close the other eye,” and
allow the pickpocket a free run. Mr. Goff stated that there was once a
fight between the thieves; that one trespassed upon the other’s domain and
went to a pawnshop about it, and the authorities at police headquarters
threatened to send the first thief up the river if he ever invaded the
second thief’s privileges (vol. v., p. 5,193).
This reverent regard for territorial landmarks is very touching. The New
York police appear to have been as much opposed to poaching as are English
gamekeepers.
[Illustration: DELMONICO’S.]