Crime -- Illinois -- Chicago; Police corruption -- Illinois -- Chicago; Political corruption -- Illinois -- Chicago
The fakes of a great city are beyond enumeration. There are fake
information bureaus, fake advisory brokers, fake safe systems of
speculation, fake music teachers, fake medical colleges, fake law schools,
fake lawyers, fake "Old Charters for Sale," fake corporations, fake relief
and aid societies, fake preachers and fake detective agencies. The latter,
and the street fakers, are friendly with the police. So are the fruit
vendors, and the all night lunch counters on wheels. The latter stand
where the officers say they shall stand, and the location once found, the
officers at once become landlords.
As to private detective agencies, without reference to agencies of an
established local and national reputation, they are principally
constituted of thieves, pickpockets, blackmailers, and porch climbers.
In the trial of a case before the Criminal Court of Cook County, a few
months ago, a witness acquainted with their inside history, swore that
there were men connected with these fake organizations who would commit
murder for $50. They enter into conspiracies to ruin the private character
of men and women in divorce cases, and for blackmailing purposes. Three of
these hounds were lately convicted of conspiracy in less than one hour, by
a jury in the same court. These three worthies comprised the entire
agency. Their punishment was fixed at imprisonment in the penitentiary.
They were employed in getting revenge on a man, who was supposed, by their
employer, to have been the cause of his discharge from his commercial
position. In getting this revenge they fell upon their shadow, pummelled
him with great severity, and badly injured him. So grievous was the
offense, that the State's Attorney demand no less a punishment than the
jury awarded.
They manufacture testimony in divorce proceedings, at the suggestion and
upon the request of the parties willing and desirous of cutting the
matrimonial tie; or, upon the instigation of one of the parties, they will
endeavor to entrap and compromise the other. They revel in the destruction
of the character of a good woman, as the vulture revels in the foulness of
a carrion. The man of wealth must be on his guard against their attacks,
for they would as lief magnify his peccadillos into felonious crimes and
attempt his plunder by blackmail, as they would accept the earnings of the
Mistresses Overdone, the exhausted bawds, whose pimps they are.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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