Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the WorldWooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
History
Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World
Wooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
Crime -- Illinois -- Chicago; Police -- Illinois -- Chicago
Attached to a pole in front of her was a paper head, around which was
a white shroud four feet in length. Those in attendance believed this
image to be the spirit of a believer's dead relative. The "medium" had
"spook" images of men, women and children, and could produce them as
circumstances demanded. The light was turned up, and the contemptible
imposition on credulity was exposed to twenty-six dupes, who had
been paying $1 apiece for the privilege of attending meetings of the
"spook" grafters for years. It was the greatest exposé of "spooks"
that has been made in many years. A wagon load of masks, wigs, false
whiskers, tin horns, gowns with safety pins in them, skulls and
skeletons with cross-bones to match, were seized.
WOMEN REFUSE TO TALK.
At the station the women refused to talk. Sarah Nichols, the "spook,"
had donned a house dress before she was taken to the station. Jennie
Nichols, the "medium," was dressed in a neat black gown of rich
material. The mother appeared in a black skirt and a white shirtwaist.
The latter is a gray-haired woman apparently about 50 years old. She
wept copiously. Sarah Nichols also wept. In the scrimmage after the
arrest her ear had been injured, and it was bleeding when the trio was
booked at the station.
Jennie Nichols was the most composed of all. She held a palm leaf fan
in front of her face and above it twinkled a pair of shrewd blue eyes.
As she and her relatives were led from the private room at Harrison
street she even laughed, although her mother and her sister were in
tears, and her victims were denouncing her for having robbed them,
through their credulity, of hundreds of dollars, which many of them
could ill afford to lose.
WOOLDRIDGE MAKES GHOST WALK IN POLICE COURT.
A "spook" sat on the bench with Justice Prindiville. He made ghosts
walk and graveyards yawn.
The "spook" was Detective Clifton R. Wooldridge.
When Miss Sarah Nichols, "the ghost," Miss Jennie Nichols, "the trance
medium," and Mrs. Catherine Nichols, mother of the other two known as
the "overseer," appeared in court to answer to charges of obtaining
money by false pretenses through spiritualistic seances, Detective
Wooldridge crowded to the center of the stage.
He bore a great board, on which were tacked white shrouds, grinning
skulls and cross-bones, the costume of an Indian, and other
instruments of the medium's trade.
"For the benefit of the public at large," he said, addressing
the court, "I ask permission to expose the methods of these fake
spiritualists."
The permission was given, and "Spook" Wooldridge took the wool sack.
"SPOOK" WOOLDRIDGE DEMONSTRATES.
He lit the punk with which the mediums were wont to light up the
skull. He burned incense. He put on a white gown.
"This is Carrie's garment," he said, pointing to where "Ghost" Carrie,
twenty-four years old and buxom, stood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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