loans might have been gathered from the multitudinous woes of the
Greek tragedies or the grand operas. The borrowers are very seldom
unprovided with a dead mother, or an unburied wife, or starving
children, or a dishonest partner, or a stolen pocket-book, or a
deferred remittance, or an absolutely necessary journey, or a
remarkable mishap of some sort. They infest the principal hotels
at the busy hours of the day, and employ their best energies in
introducing themselves to the pockets of the boarders. Nearly every
public house appears to have its special haunters, and one ingenious
story will serve their purpose for a month or more. Borrowing has long
been systematized here, and every season is marked by new inventions
and pathetic fictions to delude the generous and unwary.
The audacity of the professional borrower is grand and exalted. He
will stop your carriage in the park, and invite you to a pecuniary
desperation; will make known his financial embarrassment as you are
walking out of church with the present or future Mrs. —— on your arm;
seek a private interview, with a monetary purpose, before you are up
in the morning.
If you were to be hanged,—of which there is no danger in New York,
whatever crime you may commit,—he would steal up behind the sheriff,
as the latter was drawing the black cap over your eyes, and ask you if
you could not spare ten dollars, now that you were going to a country
where national bank-notes are not current.
Most New Yorkers understand so thoroughly the trick of courteous
cozening, that, whenever any man they do not know intimately seems
anxious to see them, they are convinced that he is in quest of a
loan, and in nineteen cases out of twenty their convictions are just.
Neither friendship, nor love, nor detectives can trace a fellow to
his lair, or scent out his sanctuary, like a borrower. He will pursue
his game round the world, and shame a sleuth-hound from the start.
[Sidenote: AT THE END.]
“Lost in the great city” is often a sad truth; but it may be converted
into a fiction if a man in need of money have his attention called to
the pocket-book of the person supposed to be lost. You cannot so bury
yourself in this Babylon of a new world that the borrower will not
bring you to light. And, if you have had experience, when a stranger
flatters you, you will understand, from the degree of his compliment,
the exact amount of the loan he expects to obtain.
LXX.
AMONG THE DETECTIVES.
DETECTIVE LIFE.—CURIOSITIES OF LIFE IN A GREAT CITY.—NOT KNOWING
YOUR NEIGHBORS.—PECULIAR ACQUAINTANCES.—ROBBERY OF A DRY GOODS
STORE.—INGENIOUS DETECTION OF THE CRIME.—LOVE AND JUSTICE.—A
SURPRISING DENOUEMENT.
There are some men who seem better fitted to live beneath the surface
of the earth than in the open air. Their habits are much like those
of the mole or the weasel, and sometimes they are not altogether
unlike those animals in general appearance. They have the burrowing
propensity of the rat and the woodchuck, and in many instances their
lives are about as reputable as that of the first-mentioned animal.
They seem to avoid the light of day, and to spend their lives in
undermining the works and lives of others. Great cities can furnish a
good supply of these men, and the rural districts are not altogether
destitute of them. They flourish best in large cities, as there they
have a better field for their operations than in the country. In the
country everybody knows everybody else for a considerable distance
around, and can tell you about his family and its antecedents for as
many years as you care to know. Frequently the people observe the
manners and habits of their neighbors with more care than they observe
their own.
In the city men go about their daily occupations, knowing little
and caring little about others, except those with whom they come in
contact or have relations of a business character. In New York, for
example, there is not one householder in five who knows the name and
occupation of his next-door neighbor, and generally he does not care
to know. People may occupy the same house for years without knowing
anything about each other. I can give a personal experience of my own
which will illustrate what I have here stated.
During the first year of my residence in New York, after remaining a
few weeks at a hotel I went one day in search of lodgings in a private
house. I found a house whose exterior pleased me, and on the door-post
there was the attractive announcement, “Rooms to let.” I rang the
bell, made known my object, saw the vacant room, was satisfied, and
engaged it. Next day I moved in. I took my meals at a hotel, and for a
year and a half occupied that room.
[Sidenote: AN ODD EXPERIENCE.]
I did not know the name of anybody in the house except the proprietor,
and never troubled myself about the occupants of the rooms on the
floor where I was located. One day, in ascending the stairs, I met an
acquaintance coming down; an acquaintance whose business was in the
very office where I was located, and whose desk was not far from mine.
We hailed each other, and our conversation revealed the fact that he
had been for two years an occupant of that house, and I had been there
nearly a year. Had we been in the country or almost anywhere else in
America than in New York, we should have known each other’s local
habitation and names in less than a fortnight.
City life, politics, and poverty are about equal in the opportunities
they afford for making acquaintances with peculiar people. These
acquaintances may not be formed very rapidly; but as one moves about
in a great city, he is certain, sooner or later, without any effort
on his own part, to be introduced to men whom he would not always be
willing to recognize in public. Without ever going to church he may
make the acquaintance of clergymen. Without touching a playing card or
entering a gaming house he may be acquainted with gamblers. Without
studying the mysteries of the kinchin lay, or familiarizing himself
with the language of the inhabitants of Blackwell’s Island, or the
state penitentiary, he may become acquainted with thieves of various
grades. Without doing anything for which he should be “shadowed” he
may be familiar with detectives, and without speculating in stocks he
may know the men whose fortunes are made and lost on Wall Street. A
great city is an epitome of the globe, and in its streets, and alleys,
and by-ways may be found all the vicious and dangerous elements of
human existence.
[Sidenote: A DETECTIVE’S STORY.]
Some years ago it was my fortune to become acquainted with a
professional detective. He was not of the elegant sort, whose labors
are confined only to the exposure and punishment of crimes of the
higher grades, but he was a man who, to use his own language to me
one day, was ‘ready for anything.’ He told me several stories of
his experience. He did not present documentary evidence of their
authenticity, and some of them were rather too much for my belief.
Others were plausible enough to be true, and as the man always
appeared to have plenty of money, I concluded that he must be an
expert at the business. One evening he told me his experience in
working up a case of robbery, which I will endeavor to give as nearly
as possible in his own words:—
“A dry goods merchant on Broadway had lost a considerable amount
of property at various times, but on no one occasion was there a
large quantity taken. Of course the clerks in the establishment
were suspected, but there was no way of discovering whether they
were guilty or not. A close watch had been set on all of them, but
nothing could be discovered. I was engaged to work up the case, and
to enable me to do so, I was employed in the store as an extra clerk
and salesman. It was thought that the foreman and floor walkers might
be guilty of the robbery, and therefore they were not taken into the
secret. The head of the house explained, however, to the foreman
that I was a relative of his wife, and had been thrown upon him to
provide for. It was therefore understood that I was not to be required
to work very hard, and was to be allowed to go out whenever I asked
permission. With this understanding I went to work at my new business.
I did not know anything about dry goods, nor about selling them, and
consequently they put me upon the commonest articles, which were not
in very great demand. This gave me plenty of time for looking around
and observing the habits of the clerks.
“I became acquainted with one after another, but made no headway for
several weeks in discovering the secret. I accompanied the clerks
to their rooms occasionally, and sometimes we were at the theatre
together. I knew the salaries that were paid in the establishment,
and I knew just how much money each man could afford to spend, and
my object was to find out what man among them was living beyond his
income. All of them appeared to be quiet, well-behaved young men.
Some of them were members of the Young Men’s Christian Association,
and others patronized the Mercantile Library, and spent most of their
evenings there. Three or four were a little inclined to fast lives,
but evidently did not have money enough to carry out their wishes.
“After a time I found out that one, who was the most quiet and
unobtrusive of the whole lot, seemed to be living a little beyond his
means. Upon him I fixed my suspicion and watched him closely both in
the store and out of it.
[Sidenote: MAKING FRIENDS.]
“He and I became fast friends. We went about the city together; we
visited the theatres and beer-gardens, and on Sundays took a trip
to Coney Island, where we occasionally spent several dollars in
entertaining ourselves and chance acquaintances; but the young man,
whom I will call Johnson, was constantly on his guard, and whenever
I proposed any new amusement or any additional expense, he always
opposed it, and said that he could not afford it, though somehow he
generally did afford it before we got through.
“I found he had a sister living in Harlem. Occasionally, but not
often, she called at the store. She rarely bought anything, and never
remained longer than a few minutes. He visited her every few days,
though sometimes a week or two might intervene between his journeys
to the place where she lived. Several times, when he was absent and
I knew he was to be away for the evening, I visited his room, and
searched it carefully; but never a thing could I find to implicate him
in the robbery. Not a scrap of silk or lace or anything of the sort
could ever be discovered in the room.
“I next managed to be introduced to his sister, and of course I
pretended a great liking for her. She was living in a very quiet way,
in a boarding-house, and was a teacher, on a small salary, in one of
the public schools. Having ascertained her salary, and, calculating
her expenses, making an estimate of the value of her clothing as
nearly as I could, I was satisfied that she was living somewhat beyond
her salary.
[Sidenote: SEARCHING A LADY’S ROOM.]
“One day Johnson told me that he was going with his sister to a school
picnic. He had obtained leave of absence from the store, and I thought
it an excellent time to make investigations. So I went to his sister’s
boarding-house, inquired for the young lady, and of course was told
that she was away. I explained to the landlady that I had received a
message, saying that she would be at home several hours earlier than
she had expected, and that I was to meet her that afternoon, to go on
another excursion. I said it was about time for her to reach home,
and, if the landlady had no objection, I would wait in the parlor. As
I had been there frequently, and the landlady knew me, she made no
objection. Luckily she went out a few minutes after, and gave me more
freedom to operate than I had expected.
“I immediately went to the young lady’s room,—of course it was very
impolite for me to do so,—and searched it thoroughly. It is of no use
telling you all I found there, unless you have never been in a lady’s
room, and do not know what it contains. She had a very good wardrobe,
better than most young women in her position. It struck me as very odd
that she had four dresses of rich black silk, which did not appear to
have been made a very great while. Four dresses of black silk are a
pretty good supply for a school teacher on a small salary, and I made
up my mind that the silk came from the dry goods store where Johnson
was engaged.
“There is a great difference between believing a thing and proving it.
You may be certain of it from the circumstances, but it may not be
very easy for you to go into court and show its reality. Now, here
was my predicament. I thought four dresses were too many for one young
lady, just as I once thought, when I searched a man’s trunk, and found
fourteen coats of different sizes, and no trousers or vests, that it
was a remarkable wardrobe for a gentleman to have. But how was I to
get at the fact, and show the connection between the wearing apparel
of Miss Johnson and the Broadway dry goods store?
[Sidenote: A DETECTIVE MAKING LOVE.]
“To help matters along, I made love to Miss Johnson in the regular
way, referred to my relations with the dry goods house, and obtained
an indorsement from the head of the firm, as a relative of his wife.
I was getting along very well, only I did not want to propose and get
an engagement, because that might make the situation a little awkward.
I deferred the day of proposal on the ground that my uncle in the
country, from whom I had expectations, was opposed to my marriage,
except to a lady of his choosing; and that I should be obliged to
wait until he had handed in his checks, which would be before a great
while, as he had a lovely cough, and the rheumatism, supplemented with
the dyspepsia and gout, so that the situation was perfectly charming.
“Johnson approved of my attentions to his sister, and of course we
became warmer friends than ever. All this time I was studying to
entrap the two, so as to fasten the robbery of the dry goods house
upon them. One day I pretended a great admiration for a certain kind
of silk that I had seen at the store. I told Laura that it suited
her complexion exactly, and was just the dress she ought to wear. It
was a light-colored silk, of a peculiar shade, which had been made
expressly to order for the dry goods house, and I knew that they had
the monopoly of it. I spoke about it several times, and said I hoped,
one of these days, to be able to present her with a dress of this
sort, but did not know when it would be, as my income, just at that
time, was too small for any lavish expense.
“Love for me made the girl incautious. Four or five days later, twenty
or thirty yards of this silk were missing from the store; and in a
week or more, when I made a call, Laura surprised me with a dress of
the material I had so much admired. I praised it, and I praised her,
and she was happy.
[Sidenote: A SUPPER AT DELMONICO’S.]
“I invited her to accompany me the following evening to a theatre,
and told her she must wear that dress; that I wanted her to be the
prettiest and best dressed woman there; and, dressed in that, I knew
she would be. We went to the theatre, and afterwards to Delmonico’s,
where I had arranged to be shown to a private room for supper. I had
invited her brother to join us, and, to avoid his suspecting anything,
I told him that the day before, I had received a remittance of fifty
dollars from my uncle, and was going to have a pleasant evening,
without regard to the expense.
“But her brother was not the only person to be there that evening. The
head of the firm was waiting where he could see us enter, and with him
was a policeman.
“Our supper was brought, and was progressing finely; we had each taken
a glass of champagne, and possibly two glasses, and, as the servant
came into the room bringing something I had ordered, he was followed
by the head of the firm and the man in blue. Johnson was arrested
for theft, and his sister for being an accessory to the theft. Both
turned pale; the young lady fainted, so that we had to dash water
in her face—seriously injuring the elegant dress she wore. Johnson
stoutly denied his guilt. He was taken from the room before his
sister recovered. When she came to her senses, we told a pardonable
falsehood, and said that he had confessed everything. She supposed
our statement true, and then acknowledged that she had first urged
her brother to the commission of the theft, in order to gratify her
love for finery. With an eye to economy, she had always induced him,
when stealing on her account, to take enough to pay for making up
the material, so that she would not be subject to any expense at the
dress-maker’s.
[Sidenote: A CONFESSION.]
“Johnson maintained his innocence until his sister told him that she
had made a confession. Then he acknowledged his guilt, and explained
how the robberies had been carried on.
“He had managed to ingratiate himself with the porter who swept out
the place after the day’s work was over. During the day he would fold
the silk he intended to steal into a bundle that might resemble a lot
of waste paper, watch his chance, and throw it in a place just large
enough to receive it, under a shelf, a few inches above the floor.
When the porter swept the store, he brought out the package with his
broom, taking care to have a sufficient quantity of waste paper and
rubbish lying near to prevent attracting attention to the package.
In this way he would get it outside, and take it to his home, where
Johnson would call for it. The porter received something for his
efforts in the cause of dishonesty, and the stolen property would be
taken to Laura’s house, whence it would go either to the dress-maker
or to a receiver of stolen goods.
“The porter was arrested an hour later, and both he and Johnson
received the punishment due to them for their crime. As for the
girl who was the cause of the theft, she was allowed to escape,
on condition of leaving the city immediately. The firm would have
prosecuted her, had it not been for my intercession. I liked the girl,
and was ashamed of the trick I had played upon her; but then, you
know, it was in the interest of justice, and a man ought to be willing
to do anything for the sake of honesty.
“It is a little off color to make love to a girl, and pretend you want
to marry her, just for the sake of entrapping her into the disclosure
of a crime; but this is the way of the world, and anybody who thinks
differently does not know the whole duty of the detective. Why, I have
been to a fellow whom I suspected, and told him that his wife and
children had been killed by a railway accident, and got him worked up
to a terrible condition of anguish. I did it just to throw him off his
guard, make him a little crazy perhaps, and then, while he did not
know what he was about, I would accuse him of a crime, and get him to
own up.
“If a man is going to be a good detective, he must not go frescoing
around with anything like fine feelings. If he does not go in for
all the tricks of the business, he is not likely to succeed in his
profession.”
LXXI.
WAR AND PRISON ADVENTURES.
EXPERIENCES OF AN ARMY CORRESPONDENT.—RUNNING THE BATTERIES OF
VICKSBURG.—EXCITING SCENES.—PERILOUS SITUATION AND HAIR-BREADTH
ESCAPE.—SHOT, SHELL, STEAM, FIRE, AND WATER.—TWO YEARS AS A
CAPTIVE.—TUNNELLING.—ITS MODE, MANAGEMENT, AND MISHAPS.—TOILING
FOR FREEDOM UNDER GROUND.—BOLD AND PROSPEROUS EFFORTS FOR
LIBERTY.—LIFE IN A DUNGEON.—PERISHING BY INCHES.—DEATH ON EVERY
HAND.—SUBTERRANEAN SEEKING FOR THE LIGHT.—SELF-DELIVERANCE AT LAST.
When I was a small boy, and fed my miniature mind with thrilling
accounts of the adventures of famous men, of their incarceration in
prison, and of their escapes, I had no expectation of one day sharing
in experiences of a very similar character. I can understand now why
I felt so much interest in the biographies of Baron Trenck, Walter
Raleigh, Cervantes, Silvio Pellico, and other noted personages who had
spent much of their life in confinement. I little dreamed then that I
should be for two years a prisoner, and last of all a prisoner in my
own country, held by my own countrymen.
As may be supposed, the fortunes of war—our Great Rebellion—proved
adverse to me, and I became the occupant of no less than eight
different southern prisons.
The way I chanced to fall into the enemy’s hands was this. Having
been a war correspondent for twice a twelvemonth, and having learned,
under a variety of circumstances, how it feels to be shot at, and what
the feeling is of just escaping death, I had a curiosity to enjoy the
sensation of running the formidable batteries of Vicksburg during the
spring of 1863. I communicated my intention to two of my companions,
and they said that they would go with me. We were at Young’s Point,
Louisiana, whence the army had already begun to move, by land to New
Carthage, designing to cross the Mississippi River there, and attack
Vicksburg in the rear. A number of gunboats and several transports
had already run the batteries, and on none of these had I been able
to obtain permission to go. Just at this time, another expedition,
consisting of two large barges loaded with provisions, and bound to
a steam-tug, was fitting out, and almost ready to start. Running
the batteries was considered extremely perilous—so much so that the
soldiers accompanying the transports, instead of being ordered to that
duty, were allowed to obey their own inclination. The custom was for
the officers of the regiments to announce that so many privates were
needed, and that those who wished to take the risk would step forward.
[Sidenote: A HAZARDOUS EXPEDITION.]
The special expedition in which we military journalists were concerned
was deemed an unusually dangerous one, for the reason that the river
had then fallen, and there was considerable probability that the boats
might get aground in front of the great guns, and be shot to pieces.
Moreover, the moon was at the full, and at the hour of our starting—a
little after midnight—would be in the very zenith of the heavens. The
other vessels had gone down on dark and stormy nights, when they could
hardly be seen from the Mississippi shore, and when the probability of
their being struck was very small. Several old south-western pilots
advised me not to try the experiment; for, if I did, the chances were
twenty to one against my coming out alive. “I know the river,” one
said, “and the state it is in just now. Besides, those two big barges
will be so clumsy, hitched to that little tug, that they’ll be dead
sure to stick on that bar opposite Vicksburg, and then you boys’ll
have a lively time. The rebs will riddle you from stem to stern, and
there won’t be a Yankee left to tell the tale.”
I laughed at this gloomy picture, quoting, “The gods take care of
Cato.” The pilots, who had never read Cato, or even heard of Addison,
replied in their literal way that they didn’t know my name was Cato,
and that they were sure there was no such steamboat on the river.
[Sidenote: A SLOVENLY PREPARATION.]
The night we cast off our lines and floated down the Mississippi
on our eventful expedition was as lovely a night as I have ever
seen in any part of the world. The sky was without a cloud; the air
was deliciously soft, and the heavens were so bright that we could
read the newspapers without the slightest difficulty. There were
thirty-five of us in all, including some twenty enlisted men, who
had volunteered to go along in order to resist the enemy, if our
vessels should be disabled and boarded. Never was any expedition worse
prepared. The two barges were laden with barrels of pork and boxes
of army bread, and on the top were bales of hay. The hay, which was
extremely dry, was scattered all over, so that a spark—not to speak
of a bursting shell—might ignite it in a moment, and so destroy our
vessels inevitably. In addition to this, we had not a bucket on board,
in the likely event of fire; nor had we a single small boat to get
away with, should the flames master us. Still, all being volunteers,
none of us were obliged to go unless we wished, and, as we said, the
greater the danger, the greater the sensation, and the more we should
enjoy its memory, provided we were fortunate enough to escape. It is
due to the prudence of Captain ——, who fitted out the expedition in
such an admirably reckless manner, to say that he did not intend to
accompany us.