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
1,400,000 matrimonial stock photographs seized and
destroyed.
500,000 photographs sent to the matrimonial agencies by
men and women who were seeking their affinities seized and
destroyed.
40 wagon loads of matrimonial literature seized and
destroyed.
110 turf frauds raided and closed: $8,000,000 lost by the
public.
$20,000 bribe was offered Wooldridge by the turf swindlers
to let them run, but he refused to take it.
105 panel houses raided and closed.
$1,500,000 was stolen annually from 1889 to October, 1896.
At that time there were 64 uniformed officers stationed
in front of the panel houses. Detectives Wooldridge
and Schubert were assigned to break them, which was
accomplished in three weeks' time.
100 bucketshops raided and closed; $5,000,000 lost through
them.
July 31, 1900, Detective Wooldridge, in charge of 50
officers, arrested 415 men and landed them in the Harrison
Street Police Station, and dismantled the following
bucketshops:
10 and 12 Pacific avenue, 25 Sherman street, 14 Pacific
avenue, 10 Pacific avenue, 210 Opera House Block, 7
Exchange court, 19 Lyric Building, and 37 Dearborn street.
It was one of the largest and most sensational raids ever
made in Chicago, and will be long remembered.
73 opium joints raided and closed; $100,000 spent, and hundreds of
persons were wrecked and ruined by the use of opium.
75 girls under age rescued from a house of ill fame and a life of
shame, and returned to their parents or guardians, or sent to the
Juvenile School or the House of Good Shepherd.
50 home-buying swindles raided and closed; $6,000,000 lost.
48 palmists and fortune tellers raided and closed; $500,000 lost.
45 spurious employment agencies raided and closed; $200,000 lost.
40 bogus charity swindles raided and closed; $300,000 lost.
38 blind pools in grain and stock raided and closed; $500,000 lost.
35 bogus mail order houses raided and closed; $3,000,000 lost.
34 sure-thing gambling devices raided and closed; $2,500,000 lost.
33 fraudulent and guarantee companies raided and closed; $900,000 lost.
30 fraudulent book concerns raided and closed; $1,000,000 lost.
28 panel-house keepers were indicted and convicted.
15 owners of the property were indicted and convicted.
This broke the panel-house keepers' backbone and they never recovered
to resume business again.
Emma Ford, sentenced to the penitentiary April 5, 1902,
for five years. Pearl Smith, her sister, sentenced to the
penitentiary June 19, 1893, for five years. Mary White, May
20, 1893, for two years. Flossie Moore, March 27, 1893, for
five years. Seventy-five thousand dollars is said to have
been stolen by her in eighteen months.
$8,000 bribe was offered Detective Wooldridge to let Flossie Moore
slip through his fingers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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