[Illustration: CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE.] Twenty Years a Detective IN THE WICKEDEST CITY IN THE WORLD. 20,000 ARRESTS MADE 12,900 CONVICTIONS ON STATE AND CITY LAWS 200 PENITENTIARY CONVICTIONS The Devil and the Grafter AND HOW THEY WORK TOGETHER TO DECEIVE, SWINDLE AND DESTROY MANKIND AN ARMY OF 600,000 CRIMINALS AT WAR WITH SOCIETY AND RELIGION BY CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE The World-Famous Criminologist and Detective "THE INCORRUPTIBLE SHERLOCK HOLMES OF AMERICA" After twenty years of heroic warfare and scores of hair-breadth escapes, in his unceasing battle with the devil and the grafter, Mr. Wooldridge tells in a graphic manner how Wildcat Insurance, Fake Mines and Oil Wells, Turf Swindlers, Home Buying Swindlers, Fake Bond and Investment Companies, Bucket Shops, Blind Pools in Grain and Stocks, Pool Rooms and Hand Books, Fake Mail Order Houses, ordinary Gambling Houses, Panel Houses, Matrimonial Bureaus, Fake Underwriting, Fake Banks, Collecting Agencies, Fake Medicine Companies, Clairvoyants, Fortune Tellers, Palmists and other criminals of all classes operate, and how their organizations have been broken up and destroyed by hundreds. THE WORK ALSO CONTAINS Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge's "Never-Fail" System _For Detecting and Outwitting All Classes of Grafters and Swindlers_ COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE. Chicago Publishing Co., 83-91 Plymouth Place, Chicago. PREFACE. In presenting this work to the public the author has no apologies to make nor favors to ask. It is a simple history of his connection with the Police Department of Chicago, compiled from his own memoranda, the newspapers, and the official records. The matter herein contained differs from those records only in details, as many facts are given in the book which have never been made public. The author has no disposition to malign any one, and names are used only in cases in which the facts are supported by the archives of the Police Department and of the criminal court. In the conscientious discharge of his duties as an officer of the law, the author has in all cases studied the mode of legal procedure. His aim has been solely to protect society and the taxpayer, and to punish the guilty. The evidences of his sincerity accompany the book in the form of letters from the highest officers in the city government, from the mayor down to the precinct captain, and furnish overwhelming testimony as to his endeavors to serve the public faithfully and honestly. No effort has been made to bestow self-praise, and where this occurs, it is only a reproduction, perhaps in different language, of the comments indulged in by the newspapers of Chicago and other cities, whose reporters are among the brightest and most talented young men in all the walks and professions of life. To them the officer acknowledges his obligations in many instances. Often he has worked hand-in-hand with them. They have traveled with him in the dead hours of the night, in his efforts