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
The other type is just the plain swindler. The man who works along
the secondary lines, as they may be called, would scorn to be a
matrimonial agent. He is either a reverend gentleman of the cloth,
a minister to whom some languishing widow is looking for spiritual
direction, and he thinks that she "needs she should get married," to
quote the East Side phraseology; or he is a lawyer who has a wealthy
client, who, not being a business woman, is incapable of running her
own affairs, and he again thinks of marriage as a solution; or, again,
he is "an employment agency." This secondary type is generally a cheap
sort, grafting on the gullible for five or ten dollars, or even as
high as $100.
CONCRETE EXAMPLES.
TYPE NO. 1.
September 8, 1905, John H. Harris, 168 Hamlin avenue, editor and
publisher of The Pilot, a marriage agency paper, and manager of
a cheap mail order house, was raided and arrested by Detective
Wooldridge.
Among the letters seized were complaints from his patrons. They
received no returns for money paid him, and averred his paper was
being used to blackmail men and women. Complaints were also made that
many of the names which appeared in the paper were not authorized, and
other names attached to the order were forgeries.
The following is the copy of a letter dated September 1, 1906, and is
only one among hundreds of others sent out by the thousands by Harris.
Many more thousands were sent through the mail to his sub-agents, who
worked on a commission. This agent employed other agents, who started
an endless chain by copying the letter and having the friends do
likewise.
Chicago. Ill., Sept. 1, 1905.
Dear Sir:
We have a very recent application from a brown-eyed widow
of 41, medium size, musical, has no children. She informs
us that she has recently come into possession of a fortune
of over FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS, and that she wishes
to marry an honest, affectionate gentleman. We also have
a recent application from a pretty, blue-eyed lady of 20,
who estimates her present means at FORTY THOUSAND DOLLARS,
and her inheritance at twenty thousand dollars. Her form is
graceful, her education good, her disposition gentle and
she desires a steady, honest husband. We believe she would
start her husband in business. And to accommodate those
ladies and quickly find a husband for them we make the
following SPECIAL OFFER:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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