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.