CHAPTER XIX.ABOUT DETECTIVES.The "Javerts," "Old Sleuths" and "Buckets" of Fiction as Contrasted with the Genuine Article—Popular Notions of Detective Work Altogether Erroneous—An Ex-Detective's Views—The Divorce Detective.
The "Javerts," "Old Sleuths" and "Buckets" of Fiction as Contrasted with the Genuine Article—Popular Notions of Detective Work Altogether Erroneous—An Ex-Detective's Views—The Divorce Detective.
We are told that "all the world loves a lover," and it is, perhaps, equally true that most people like to read the details of clever detective exploits. The deeds of criminals naturally awaken the emotions of horror, fear, curiosity and awe in proportion to their heinousness and the mystery by which they are enveloped. Consequently the detective officer who pierces the mystery—unravels it thread by thread, and by unerring sagacity penetrates its innermost depths and lays his hand on the criminal—is at once invested, in the popular mind, with qualities approaching the preternatural. The vivid and fertile imagination of the literary romancist magnifies the illusion. The detective of the successful novel resembles the Deity in his attributes of ubiquity and omniscience. In whatever city his functions are exercised we may be sure that he knows every man-Jack of the criminal classes, their past and present history, their occupation and their residence. He knows all their names, their aliases and their soubriquets, just as Julius Cæsar, as tradition tells, knew all the soldiers of his army. Moreover, they are invariably individuals of remarkable personality. While endowed with a strong spice of the world, the flesh and the devil, they are at the same time clothed in a sort of white robe of social immaculacy. They are half lamb and half wolf, if such a paradoxical being were possible.
Take, for instance, the Inspector Javert of Victor Hugo: A tall man, dressed in an iron-grey great coat, armed with a thick cane, and wearing a hat with a turndown brim; grave with an almost menacing gravity, with a trick of folding his arms, shaking his head and raising his upper lip with the lower as high as his nose, in a sort of significant grimace. He had a stub nose with two enormous nostrils, toward which enormous whiskers mounted on his cheeks. His forehead could not be seen, for it was hidden by his hat; his eyes could not be seen because they were lost under his eyebrows; his chin was plunged into his cravat; his hands were covered by his cuffs, and his cane was carried under his coat. But when the opportunity arrived there could be seen suddenly emerging from all this shadow, as from an ambush, an angular, narrow forehead, a fatal glance, a menacing chin, an enormous hand, and a monstrous rattan. When he laughed, which was rare and terrible, his thin lips parted and displayed not only his teeth but his gums, and a savage, flat curl formed round his nose. When serious he was a bulldog, when he laughed he was a tiger. His guiding principles—or perhaps instincts is the more appropriate word—were respect for authority and hatred of rebellion. In his eyes all crimes were only forms of rebellion. Give a human face, writes Hugo, to the dog-son of a she-wolf and we shall have Javert. No wonder that his glance was a gimlet, or that his whole life was divided between watching and overlooking. And, as if all this analytic rodomontade was not enough, we are told in characteristic rhetorical vagueness that he was a pitiless watchman, a marble-hearted spy, a Brutus contained in a Vidocq.
Readers of Dickens will remember that Mr. Bucket appears on the scene in Bleak House in a weird and mysterious way, which suggests that Inspector Byrne, of New York, had been a student of lawyer Tulkinghorn's methods when he undertook to pump Alderman Jaehne. The sly lawyer is plying Snagsby with rare old port in the dim twilight and evolving his story, when suddenly the victim becomes conscious of the presence of "a person with a hat and stick in his hand, who was not there when he himself came in, and has not since entered by either of the windows." This composed and quiet listener is "a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of about middle age," and he looks at Snagsby "as if he was going to take his portrait." When the poor, hen-pecked wretch, who has thus been drawn into the legal confessional, learns that Mr. Bucket is a detective officer, "there is a strong tendency in the clump of Snagsby's hair to stand on end."
The method of Bucket consists partly of gross flattery and of being "all things to all men," as Saint Paul somewhere advises. "You're a man of the world," he says to Snagsby; "a man of business and a man of sense. That's what you are, and therefore it is unnecessary to tell you to keep QUIET." He flatters the gorgeous flunkey at Chesney Wold by adroitly commending his statuesque proportions, and hinting that he has a friend—a Royal Academy sculptor—who may one of those days make a drawing of his proportions. Further, to elicit the confidence of the vain and empty-headed Jeames, Bucket declares that his own father was successively a page, a footman, a butler, a steward, and an innkeeper. As Bucket moves along London streets, young men, with shining hats and sleek hair, evaporate at the monitory touch of his cane. When there is a big job on the tapis "Bucket and his fat forefinger are much in consultation together. When Mr. Bucket has a matter of this pressing interest under consideration the fat forefinger seems to rise to the dignity of a familiar demon. He puts it to his ears and it whispers information; he puts it to his lips and it enjoins him to secrecy; he rubs it over his nose and it sharpens his scent; he shakes it before a guilty man and it charms him to his destruction. The Augurs of the Detective Temple invariably predict that when Mr. Bucket and that finger are much in conference a terrible avenger will be heard of before long." Furthermore we are told that "Mr. Bucket pervades a vast number of houses and strolls about an infinity of streets, to outward appearance rather languishing for want of an object. He is in the friendliest condition toward his species, and will drink with most of them. He is free with his money, affable in his manners, innocent in his conversation—but through the placid stream of his life there glides an undercurrent of forefinger."
Sergeant Cuff, of The Moonstone of Wilkie Collins, is "a grizzled, elderly man, so miserably lean that he looked as if he had not got an ounce of flesh on his bones. He was dressed in a decent black with a white cravat. His face was sharp as a hatchet, and the skin of it yellow and dry like a withered autumn leaf. His eyes, of a steely, light gray, had a very disconcerting trick, when they encountered your eyes, of looking as if they expected something more from you than you were aware of yourself. His walk was soft, his voice was melancholy, his long, lanky fingers were hooked like claws. He might have been a parson, or an undertaker, or anything else you like, except what he really was." Then as to Cuff's methods: He is introduced to the reader with the usual air of mystery. He makes no allusion whatever to the business he had been hurriedly summoned to investigate, but "he admired the grounds, and remarked that he felt the sea air very brisk and refreshing." To the gardener's astonishment Cuff proved to be quite a mine of learning on the trumpery subject of rose gardens. As in the case of Bucket, the effective armor of Cuff is flattery. "You have got a head on your shoulders and you understand what I mean," is his typical style of address.
It is unnecessary to remind the reader that the detective of the novelist cannot be foiled or turned aside by false scents from the unerring pursuit of his lawful prey. If bymalice prepenseJavert or Cuff is temporarily beguiled, it is simply for the purpose of showing that the writer himself is in reality a very much more ingenious person than even the subtle detective he depicts for the delectation of his readers. These tricks resemble those feints of failure common to professional gymnasts and trapezists, purposely perpetrated with the object of magnifying in the mind of the excited spectator the difficulty or danger of the performance.
In our American literature the most popular detective stories are not composed of the imaginary performances of fictitious characters. We have made a great advance on that unsatisfactory andeffetestyle. To satisfy the exacting palate of our reading people, we require a real flesh-and-blood detective, with a popular name and reputation, to pose as the figurehead, while an ingenious scribbler does the romancing. There is something thrilling and realistic in this method, and it carries an air of veracity which is irresistibly attractive and convincing. The French people did something of the same kind for Vidocq and Lecocq; but, as in most everything else, there is a pervading breeziness and expansiveness of horizon about the American product that is totally lacking in theblazé,frouzy, over-geometrical, Gallic detective romance.
No doubt the popular conception of the detective has been derived from the flash literature in which the "Old Sleuths" have formed the pervading figure. Concerning them, a clever ex-member of that particular branch of the force recently said:
"Now that I'm out of the business I don't mind telling you what you perhaps already know—that the usual stories of detective work are the veriest bosh. There is not one officer in ten thousand, for instance, who ever disguises himself for any work he may be bent upon. The successful detective is the man who has the largest and most accurate knowledge of a particular class of criminals. For instance, in a counterfeiting case there are one or two United States officers who will look at a bill, and after a scrutiny will say, 'Now, let's see; there are three men in the country who are capable of such work as this. Bad Jack is doing a ten-year stretch in Sing Sing, Clever Charley is in hock at Joliet, and Sweet William is the only one who is at large—it must be William.' So he proceeds to locate William, and when they get him they have the man who did the work."
As to those very interesting newspaper reports about how Detective So-and-So, while strolling down Broadway, saw a suspicious-looking individual whom he "piped" to the east side of the city, and eventually arrested in possession of property supposed to have been the plunder from a certain burglary, they are equally misleading. As the ex-officer, quoted above, said:
"Ninety-nine out of a hundred cases are worked through the squeal of some thief, or ex-thief, who keeps posted on the doings of others of his class in the city. He knows some officer intimately; goes to him and tells him that the night before One-Thumbed Charley turned a trick on Church street, and the stuff is 'planted' at such and such a place. Acting on this information, the officers visit the place indicated, and just sit around and wait till their man shows up. Lots of ability about that, isn't there? Some people have an idea, you know, that after a burglary the detectives visit the house where it occurred, and, after examining certain marks on the window where the man got in, immediately say: 'This is the work of Slippery Sam; he is the only fellow who does this sort of work in this particular style.' Nothing of the kind. It's just as I've told you in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. In the other cases, some citizen gives the officers information that leads to the capture of the man."
If the foregoing illustrations serve no other purpose, they at least emphasize the point which might have been made at the outset of this chapter, that detectives are a recognized necessity of our civilization. Crime and vice permeate every rank and every profession, and just as surely as crime and vice will always exist, so will detectives be employed to discover wrong-doers and hand them over to justice. Crime and vice are two terms used for the infraction of different kinds of laws—social and moral—and detectives may be conveniently classed in the same way. The detectives who deal with the transgression of social laws, including such crimes as counterfeiting coin and notes, railroad bonds, scrip, etc., forgers, embezzlers, swindlers, and the wide class of criminals generally, are exceedingly useful members of the community when they are inspired by a high sense of duty, and guided by principles of truth and integrity. The other class of detectives who enact the role of Paul Pry on breaches of the moral law, as, for example, the working up of testimony in divorce cases, is mostly a despicable, unreliable, corrupt being, whose methods are villainous, and whose existence is a misfortune.
Concerning our New York detectives, a writer of some note said, as recently as 1879:
"It is claimed that in about eight years the district attorney's office in New York has not known of one conviction of a criminal through the instrumentality of their detective police. And in those years the city has been overwhelmed and startled over and over again by depredations of almost fabulous magnitude. Still, although the scoundrels are known, and their haunts familiar to what are called 'the detectives,' they are never brought to justice unless they stagger up against the representatives of some of the many detective organizations in New York. Instead of surrounding the thieves with a net-work of evidence to convict them, the New York headquarters' detectives furnish them with all the facilities for escape known to modern criminal practice."
No doubt this deplorable condition of affairs was very largely due to the prevailing practice of the victims of robberies compromising with the felons. In this way detectives eagerly seize the opportunity of acting as go-betweens, and hence their relations with the criminal classes are established and maintained. They are thus largely interested, not in the prevention and discovery of crime, but in its perpetration and concealment. By this method they thrive, and their large incomes and accumulated property are no doubt largely attributable to the success of these delicate negotiations.
We are glad to bear testimony to the fact, however, that there is a great improvement in the detective force of this city, noticeable during its present administration. The men now engaged on the local detective force are as a class, those who have kept their eyes open, and have formed a wide acquaintance among criminals in the district, and are therefore able to obtain information from these crooks about the movements of those suspected of having been mixed up in certain criminal work. For when the reader reflects how easily criminals keep out of the reach of the police in St. Petersburg, Paris and Vienna, where every concierge, every porter, every storekeeper, every housekeeper, is required to report to the police at least once a week all the details of strangers with whom they may have come in contact, it should be no wonder that criminals can elude the police in New York and other American cities.
Concerning the private detective agencies, it has been said by one of their number:
"They are no better than the regular officers so far as skill is concerned. The only real difference is that there is a superior intelligence in the make-up—their disguise—of the agency people. They are first-rate at shadowing a man, but any man with ordinary good sense, who knows how to keep his mouth shut, will make a good shadow. If you will watch the private agency men carefully you will find that they associate largely with the high-toned criminal class. They are solid with one or two leaders and all the gamblers. All thieves of any prominence are gamblers, and as soon as they turn a big trick, they are sure to turn up here or in some other city and 'play the bank' a little. The agency men who are associating with the gamblers hear of this as soon as the crook strikes town, and a little inquiry set on foot will show where the crook came from. If, then, in the course of a few days, a complaint is lodged with the agency people from the town where the suspected party has been that a big confidence game has been played, or that a forged or raised check has been worked on some bank or other institution, it is not very hard to imagine that the thief who was recently so flush is the one who turned the trick."
There are a great many private detective organizations in New York City, some of which are located in elegant and commodious quarters, with a net-work of agencies covering the whole country and extending even to Europe. Between these reliable firms and the guttersnipe operator there are among detectives, as among other professions, every grade of reliability and respectability, some making a handsome living and some earning a bare existence. There are some thousands of them, and they all occasionally find something to do which pays. It may be watching some money-broker's exchange down-town, for the dishonest boy of some establishment clandestinely selling the postage stamps of his firm. It may be shadowing a confidential clerk, whose blood-shot eyes and generally "used-up" air have attracted the notice of his employers, who thereupon desire to learn where and how his evenings are spent. It may be some bank clerk, hitherto enjoying the confidence of the directors, but who now, in consequence of certain rumors, desire to have him watched. Or it may be any of a thousand instances in which an employee ceases to retain the full confidence of his employer, and the convenient private detective's services are at once put in requisition. Undoubtedly it would greatly surprise the army of clerks, cashiers and assistants of this and every great city to learn how many of them are thus under detective espionage. The young fellow may have fallen into the web of the siren. He may be down at Coney Island or at the races enjoying himself; utterly unconscious that a pair of watchful eyes is observing every motion and chronicling every act. Some fatal morning the reckoning comes. He may be a bank teller, and he is requested by the board of directors to show his books and give an account of the situation and prospects of the bank. Despite his proficiency in bookkeeping, he will be unable to figure up and cover the money he has squandered in gambling houses, on the street, or at the race-course."Crimine ab uno disce omnes,"says Virgil. From a single offense you may gather the nature of the whole.
The detective who accepts employment for the purpose of procuring testimony in divorce cases is undoubtedly at the nadir of his profession. No self-respecting member of the private detective organizations will undertake the service even when the pecuniary inducement, as is frequently the case, is large and tempting. For testimony so procured is regarded by the courts with suspicion. The veracity of a person who would crawl into a house, peer through a key-hole or crane his head through a transom window for the purpose of witnessing an act of immorality, can hardly be considered higher than his sense of honor, decency and self-respect. When he stoops to this kind of business he will hardly manifest any remarkable zeal for truth-telling, and he will be quite likely to offer to sell his evidence to the other side—a course which invariably transpires when the other side is willing to pay for the information.
Violations of conjugal faith are, unfortunately, not unknown, but in the majority of cases the intrigue progresses in secure secrecy until some wholly unforeseen accident brings it to sudden and relentless publicity. The recent case of a Brooklyn lady, who was carried into the city-hospital of that city about the beginning of last June, with both legs broken, illustrates this position with singular force and aptness. To quote from the article of the New YorkSunof June 7, 1886:
"Mrs. Williams is young and pretty. 'She is not bad,' her melancholy husband said of her yesterday, 'only gay like.' She has been married about ten years, and two little children—a boy and a girl—are now longing for a mother's care and tenderness, which she cannot give them perhaps ever again. The faithful husband of the unfortunate woman is a hard-working man, honest if not dashing, devoted to his home, fond of his wife and proud of his children. 'I have been way down,' he says, 'but I am getting good wages now and getting on top again. But Lizzie wasn't content with these things. She was full of life, and I ought to have watched her long ago. Then this wouldn't have happened.'
"What has happened is this: When Lizzie went down on Fulton street on Saturday a week ago, ostensibly to make some purchases, she didn't return that night. Her husband's anxiety was increased when on Sunday he had no tidings of her. Day after day passed without word, and he sent for a young woman friend of Mrs. Williams to come in and look after the children and the household.
"On Thursday a young man from East New York, a friend of Mrs. Williams and a relative of a certain young lady friend of hers, stuck his head in the basement window of Fainter Williams' house and said:
"'Lizzy is in the City Hospital. She was hurt by a runaway, and both her legs are broken.'
"Mrs. Williams had first sent word to her East New York friend, who had thus taken the first tidings of his wayward wife to her anxious husband. Williams went at once to the hospital and found his Lizzie. She told him she had been driving with a friend in Fulton avenue and had been hurt.
"'Who was he?' Williams asked eagerly, the suspicions which he had been putting away from him for a long time suddenly becoming convictions.
"'None of your business,' said pretty Lizzie, defiantly. This reply was calculated to satisfy her husband that all was not right. In fact, it convinced him that everything was wrong, and in his excitement and pain he upbraided his wife with such vehemence that she called upon the hospital attendants to put him out of the ward unless he quieted down.
"Superintendent of Police Campbell heard of the alleged runaway in Fulton street, and he wanted to know why it had never been reported to him officially. He began an investigation and learned that the mishap had occurred out on the Coney Island boulevard. Mrs. Williams was confronted with this report. She denied its truth vehemently and protested 'before Almighty God' and in the presence of nurses and patients that she was run over and hurt in Fulton street. Nothing could move her from this statement, and when fifty witnesses to her accident sent word to the Police Superintendent of what they had seen, she was not discomfited, but repeated her false statements with determination.
"Mr. Williams says that his wife has for a long time nodded to sportive-looking men as they have passed his Bergen street house, and her absences from home have been irregular and sometimes prolonged indiscreetly into the evening. He has felt that her love of attention and social excitement was leading her beyond the bounds of propriety, but he had no doubt until now of her faithfulness to him and her children.
"Who took Mrs. Williams to drive on this eventful Saturday afternoon a week ago is her secret, shared only by her escort. Where they met is not known by anyone, but they started about four o'clock and drove through Prospect Park to the Coney Island boulevard. The day was fine and many fashionable turnouts and flashy rigs were on the road. Mrs. Williams, in her close-fitting and becoming dark habit, sat beside a young man not over twenty-five years old, in a road wagon of approved style, and behind a well-kept and fleet-footed horse. It was unmistakably a private rig. Her escort was of light hair and complexion, fashionably dressed, and of a style that is called 'giddy.'
"Down the level road they drove at a good pace toward the King's Highway, which crosses the boulevard about two and a half miles from the Park, and just north of John Kelly's hospitable road house. A short distance before this point was reached ex-Alderman Ruggles of Brooklyn came bowling along at a 2.40 gait, and he gave the young man who was driving Mrs. Williams a brush along an open stretch of road. As they were speeding on toward Coney Island a dog-cart suddenly loomed up, coming from the opposite direction, and bore down upon the racers.
"Mrs. Williams and her friend were on the right side of the road and Alderman Ruggles was in the middle. The dog-cart undertook to pass between them, and in doing so struck the wheel of the light road wagon, throwing Mrs. Williams' companion out. He was not hurt, and he held on to the reins just long enough to check his horse's speed and change his course. The spirited animal turned short across the road right in front of Kelly's and the wagon was upset, throwing Mrs. Williams out. She fell under the wagon and her left ankle and right thigh were fractured. A great many people saw the upset and ran to the injured woman's assistance . . . . . .
"When Mr. Williams was told about the accident he said, 'If that's so, I give her up. If she has done that I am through with her. She cannot come back to me. As long as she lies to me, to shield this other fellow, she may go to him. She can't come to me.'"
This giddy Brooklyn woman reckoned too much on her influence over her husband, when she expected to soothe his resentment by holding her tongue. Those women who deceive good, indulgent husbands, frequently discover, to their sorrow, that the most unmerciful and inexorable of men are those who have been deceived by their idolized partners. Yet men of this kind would be far more likely to thrash a private detective, who had possessed himself of the particulars of the amour in a sneaking way, than to recompense him, and properly, while the courts would absolutely refuse to receive such testimony unless abundantly corroborated. For those and other considerations, which will readily occur to the thoughtful reader, the detective who engages to get up testimony in cases of marital unfaithfulness is regarded as quite ghoulish by his fellow-detectives, and looked upon as being entirely unworthy of credence by lawyers and courts.
After all that has been said the press is, on the whole, the best detective—the most reliable and efficient agent against evil-doers. When a crime is committed the daily newspaper, with its Argus eyes, gives such minute and circumstantial details, together with such exhaustive particulars concerning its environment, and the details of its perpetration and supposed authors, that the public at large, so instructed and informed, become detectives. Hence "crooked" and wicked people are really more afraid of the thunderbolt exposure of the newspapers than of the slower and more uncertain action of the law.
CHAPTER XX.GAMBLING AND GAMBLERS.The Delusins that Control the Devotees of Policy—What the Mathematical Chances are Against the Players—Tricks in French Pools—"Bucking the Tiger"—"Ropers-in"—How Strangers are Victimized.
The Delusins that Control the Devotees of Policy—What the Mathematical Chances are Against the Players—Tricks in French Pools—"Bucking the Tiger"—"Ropers-in"—How Strangers are Victimized.
"And there were several offered any bet,Or that he would, or that he would not come;For most men (till by losing rendered sager),Will back their own opinions with a wager."—Byron's "Beppo."
Some people are born gamblers, and resemble Jim Smiley, of Mark Twain's "Jumping Frog." Jim was "always betting on anything that turned up, if he could get anybody to bet on the other side; and if he couldn't he'd change sides. Any way that suited the other man would suithim—any way just so's he got a bet,hewas satisfied." If there was a horse-race, we are told, "you'd find him flush or you'd find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he'd bet on it; if there was a cat-fight, he'd bet on it; why, if there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly first."
Despite all efforts of repressive legislation, games of chance are in vogue all over the country. Gambling is practiced everywhere. Tourists to and from Europe engage in draw-poker and other games of chance, while they make pools and lay wagers on the distance sailed per day, or the length of the voyage, and on the number of the pilot-boat that will first be hailed. Gambling prevails on board those splendid steamers that ply up and down the great rivers of the country, and more than one passenger, driven to distraction by his losses at the gaming-table, has thrown himself overboard. Our legislators occasionally while away the time in traveling between Albany and New York in a poker-game, and they frequently meet each other at their lodgings around the capitol for the same purpose. At picnics in summer, when Nature wears her most enticing garmenture, groups of young men may be discovered separated from the merry-making multitude, jammed into some nook with a pack of cards, cutting, dealing, playing, revoking, scoring and snarling, wholly engrossed in the game.
No game of chance is more extensively played in New York City than policy. Many people are disposed to regard policy as the negro's game exclusively, but this is a great mistake. Policy embraces all classes in its ranks, and the white devotees of the game outnumber the colored five to one. Among the patrons of the policy-shops which, despite police raids and surveillance, still flourish in the district, of which the Post Office may be considered the focus, may be seen lawyers, journalists, advertising agents, book-keepers, mechanics, liquor-dealers, bar-tenders, peddlers, insurance agents, etc. Gamblers, as a class, are very superstitious, and the white policy-player is hardly less so than his colored brother. The latter dreams a good deal, while the former divides his time between trying to guess the lucky numbers and avoiding evil omens. Bad luck walks arm in arm with him beneath every ladder, and below every safe that is being hoisted to a top-floor room. If he forgets anything when he is leaving home in the morning, and has to turn back, he is ruined for the day. If he washes with a piece of hard untractable soap, and it darts from his hand and scoots along the floor, his "luck has dropped" and "slidden" likewise. If he, by some malign fate, meets a cross-eyed person, especially the first thing on Monday morning, he is plunged into despair.
It is estimated by an old policy-player that every dollar a man gets out of the game costs him at least five. To show how slim is the chance of winning, it is only necessary to explain that many men play the numbers 4, 11, 44 every day regularly, and this well-known "gig" only comes out about once a year, or say once in every 600 drawings. This is especially the negro's "gig." He watches for its coming day after day with fond anticipation. He would rather "ketch dat 'ar gig" for five dollars than receive a present of ten.
The lotteries now sold surreptitiously in New York are supposed to be drawn in Kentucky; but years ago numbers were drawn from a wheel on the steps at the old City Hall in the park. When the State Legislature annulled the charter of the lottery company and declared the game illegal, it moved over to New Jersey, where it was drawn as late as 1850.
"It was a standard joke in the old time," said an experienced operator recently, "to find out what numbers a man had played, and then to volunteer to stop at the City Hall and take a copy of the numbers drawn. A false slip was invariably brought back, and when the player examined it, seeing all the numbers he had bought, he generally dropped his work and went to collect the winning. When the lottery was driven from New York, interested persons used to cross over to New Jersey to witness the drawing, and the numbers were taken from the wheel amid the greatest noise and excitement. Some numbers were received with derisive hoots and howls, and others applauded; and all through the drawing certain favorites would be loudly and continually called for, and if they failed to appear curses filled the air. After being driven out of New Jersey, the lottery men found refuge in several other places, notably Delaware, Maryland, and other Southern States. The principal drawings now take place at Covington, Ky., opposite Cincinnati. The numbers from 1 to 78 inclusive are put into glass globes and placed in a wheel. This wheel is turned until the numbers are well mixed, when a trap in the wheel is opened and a boy, with his eyes tightly bandaged and arm bare, draws forth one of the globes, which is unscrewed and the number in it called. From ten to fourteen numbers are thus drawn, according to the size of the lottery. The drawing is immediately telegraphed on to New York in cipher, certain words standing for certain numbers. After the drawing is translated the runners are furnished with a list of the numbers on a 'running slip,' as it is called, which they immediately take to the various policy shops. No 'hits' are paid on the running slips, as some of the numbers are invariably wrong. About an hour or so after the drawings are received in New York, a printed slip is sent to every office, and then all claims are promptly settled. The managers, being in an unlawful business in this State, have the opportunity to swindle as they please. The players have no redress. Ten thousand dollar 'hits' have been made, according to tradition, and 'hits' of from $500 to $1,500 are known of sometimes. Three-number lottery tickets are sold on every drawing, and constitute a very lucrative branch of the business. Prizes are supposed to range from $30,000 down, and any ticket with one draw-number on it entitles the holder to the price originally paid for it. The first three drawn numbers constitute the first prize, and that ticket nobody ever gets."
The most of the money spent in policy is on "gigs" and "combinations." A "gig" is composed of three numbers, and they must all come out of the same lottery to entitle the player to win. Besides "gigs," there are "saddles," "capitals," "horses," "cross-plays," and "station numbers." In fact there are almost as many ways of playing policy as there are numbers in the wheel. As an old gambler explained it:
"You see there are placed in the wheel 78 numbers, from which are drawn 12, 13, 14, or 15, as the case may be. The latter number will not be drawn but once a week. Suppose 13 to be drawn. The rates—that is, the sum the player will receive if he wins—are as follows: For day numbers, 5 for 1; for station or first numbers, 60 for l; for saddles, 32 for 1; for gigs, 200 for 1; for capital saddles, 500 for 1; for horses, 680 for 1; and for station saddles 800 for 1. Cross plays—the numbers to come in either lottery—may be made at the same rate, subject to a deduction of 20 per cent. You see that some of these offer a remarkable margin for profit. The station saddle, with its 800 for 1, seems to offer unequaled facilities for making a fortune. But since the game was started, no one has ever been known to hit one. To get a station saddle you must not only guess two of the thirteen numbers drawn, but you must also guess the position they will occupy in the slip. The chances of this is so very remote that the policy-player, sanguine as he generally is, very seldom attempts it. The next in order is the capital saddle, with its 500 for 1. A capital is two of the first three numbers drawn. Of course there must be a first, second, and third number, and either two of these three constitute a capital saddle."
The chances of playing a "capital saddle," "gig" or "horse" in policy are easily determined by the following formulæ, well known to all students of the advanced branches of Algebra:
The number of combinations that can be formed ofnthings, taken two and two together, is
n* [(n– 1)/2]
Fornthings, taken three and three together, the number is
n* [(n– 1)/2] * [(n– 2)/3]
Fornthings, taken four and four together, the number is
n* [(n– 1)/2] * [(n– 2)/3] * [(n– 3)/4]
Applying these formulæ to policy, it will be seen that to ascertain the number of "saddles" in any combination you multiply by the next number under and divide by 2; for "gigs," multiply by the next two numbers under and divide by 6; while for "horses" you multiply the next three numbers under and divide by 24. Thus,
78 X [(78 – 1)/2] = 3,003 "saddles."
78 X [(78 – 1)/2] X [(78 – 2)/3] = 76,076 "gigs."
78 X [(78 – 1)/2] X [(78 – 2)/3] X [(78 – 3)/4] = 1,426,425 "horses."
In other words, there are 3,003 "saddles" in 78 numbers, and it follows that any person playing a capital has two chances in his favor and 3,001 against him.
There is a joke among policy-players that the game is the best in the world, because so many can play it at once. Different players have various ways of picking out the numbers they think will come out. Some go by dreams exclusively, some play chance numbers they run across in the streets, or signs or express wagons, while others make a study of the game and play by fixed rules.
As we have already hinted, the business of policy-playing is insignificant in comparison to what it used to be. Still we are assured that New York City is still spending a good many thousand dollars a day in "policy," two-thirds of which professedly, and really more, goes to the managers and agents. If policy-players would stop awhile and think seriously of their ways, they would cease playing; or if they would keep an account of all the money spent on the game for a month or two, they would discover that they had chosen a wrong road to fortune.
Pool gambling at the various race-courses in the suburbs of New York is now under stern interdict of the law. This feature is greatly deplored by those who are in the habit of patronizing this exciting pastime. Of course the business is carried onsub rasain the city, in a sort of sporadic form. No doubt, if we are to reason from analogy, the pool-fever, emboldened by being "winked at" and tolerated, will, by and by, assume its noisy, epidemic manifestations.
It is hardly necessary to dwell on the familiar auction pool, with its close, stifling, dingy room; its crowd of solemn, stupid, wide-awake gentlemen seated in chairs before a platform, backed with a blackboard, on which are inscribed the names of the horses expected to start; and its alert, chattering auctioneer, gay as a sparrow, and equally active, fishing for bids, with strident voice and reassuring manner. A few words, however, may be spared to touch lightly on what is designated the "Mutuel" system, which was invented by M. Joseph Oller, an ingenious Frenchman, about 1866. Those who had the good fortune to attend Paris in 1867 may remember that M. Oller's indicators were prominent race-course features during the Great Exposition. They are now familiar to all frequenters of our American race-courses, and their mode of operation needs no explanation. The pool-seller's profit is safe as in all big gambling schemes. He subtracts a commission of five per cent., and thus makes a handsome profit when business is at all brisk.
The "Paris Mutuel" would appear to be a pretty square arrangement, but, according to those acquainted with its true inwardness, it has been "easily manipulated by those in control." There are two ways of cheating, according to one authority, and "both are practicable during the last moments of the race, when the horses are coming up the home-stretch. At this time everybody is anxiously intent upon the contest and nothing else, so that it is an easy matter for the operator to see what horse is ahead, and then quietly add five or ten tickets to his record on the indicator; or, on the other hand, if the horse favored by the 'ring' is away behind, he can quietly take off some of his tickets and so save $50 or $100 out of the five. The former, however, is the easier method and can be with difficulty detected, for very few people keep transcripts of the French pools, more particularly that before they are closed everybody is off trying to secure a good place to see the race."
The prohibition placed upon pool selling naturally renders the book-maker's occupation to be at a premium. Book-making is reckoned a "science," and is based upon the principle of the operator betting up to a certain limit, "play or pay," against every horse entered.
Despite all statements, official or otherwise, to the contrary, there are a large number of "hells" or gambling houses in New York city, in which millions of dollars are lost every year by unwary persons. The New YorkHeraldof June 14, 1886, contains a synopsis of the experiences of an educated and high-toned young man belonging to a good family, who had descended from gambling to the practices of a sneak thief. According to the story he told Inspector Byrnes, he was in love and at the same time
"became infatuated with the gambling craze. I wanted to make my sweetheart some presents, and hoped to make enough at the gaming table to purchase what I wanted. My game wasrouge el noir—"red and black"—and the establishments that I visited were on Sixth avenue, between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth streets, and in Thirty-second street, near Jerry McAuley's Mission House. Instead of winning I lost. I bucked the game and it 'bucked' me. Then I was penniless and became desperate. By honest ways I knew it would take a long time to pay my debts, and as I was in desperate straits I determined to steal. As I did not associate with professional thieves I had no reason to fear betrayal, so I became a rogue again."
There is this insuperable difficulty with the born gambler that he is unteachable. The fool who ruins himself at Homburg or Monte Carlo belongs to the same type as the young man above, whose identity was betrayed by a love-letter. Gamblers are always discovering some infallible system of beating the bank. The first word in La Bruyére's famous work—"Tout est dit" "Everything has been said,"—is true of gambling against the bank's system, which is to take a positive advantage which must win in the long run. Not only has everything been said, but everything has been done to beat the bank. Every move has been tried, and the result is evident to all but those who are given over to "a reprobate mind" and will not be convinced. "To gamble against the bank," said an eminent authority, "whether recklessly or systematically, is to gamble against a rock."
If the odds are so much against the insane gambler who, secure in an infallible system, hastens to place his foot on the neck of chance in what is called a "square" game, how must he inevitably fare in a "skin" operation. And the stranger who comes within our gates, bent on backing his methods by a wager, is almost sure to be beguiled into the "skin" game; for he is likely to meet, lounging around his hotel, some fashionably dressed young man who spends money freely, and who, by and by, kindly offers to show him around. He has run across a "roper-in," as he is well named, whose business it is to track the footsteps of travelers visiting the metropolis for business or pleasure. It is the engaging mission of those suave and persuasive gentlemen to worm themselves into the confidence of strangers, with or without an infallible system of beating the game, and introduce them to their employers, the gambling-hell proprietors. And when the poor, misguided pigeon is plucked, the adroit "roper-in" receives his commission on the profits realized. This hunting after pecunious strangers is so systematically carried on that it might be dignified by the name of a science. Keepers of gambling-houses are necessarily particularly wide-awake. They take care to be regularly informed of everything transpiring in the city that may be of interest to their business, and their agents and emissaries leave nothing to chance. They are not impetuous. They never hurry up the conclusion of the transaction. When the unwary stranger is in a fit condition for the sacrifice he is led to the gaming-table with as much indifference andsang froidas butchers drive sheep to the shambles.
The reader, among other of Gotham's gambling devices, may have heard of what is aptly designated "Skin Faro," but it is altogether unlikely that he may be acquainted with themodus operandiof the game. Skin faro is not played at a regular establishment in which the player against the bank is fleeced. The game is liable to drift against the stranger in his journey to New York, or indeed on any railroad or steamboat, and the "point" is to get the unsophisticated countryman to be banker. In this "racket" it is the banker who is to be skinned. According to a recent authority the ordinary process is something like this:
"After the topic has been adroitly introduced and the party worked up to the desire to play, it is proposed that the man with the most money shall act as banker. Now, in an ordinary square game, few would be unwilling to stand in this position, for though the risk is considerable, the profit is generally slow but certain. At this point the question rises as to who has a pack of cards. The question is soon answered; there always is a pack handy, and the swindlers have it; and this pack, if examined, will be found to contain a neat round pin-hole through the center of the pack. The object of this pin-hole is as follows: the player against the bank makes his boldest play on the turn, that is, at the end of the game, when there are only three cards out, tarry; five, nine and all the aces, except spades, can beguessedwith almost uniform certainty by any one looking on the dealer's hand just before he is about to turn the last two cards (excluding the one left inhoc).As the bank pays four for one 'on the turn,' it is a very good thing for the player, and the faro banker, for the nonce the would-be sport, soon finds himself cleaned out."
The people who frequent gambling-houses may be divided into two classes: occasional gamblers and professional gamblers. Among the first may be placed those attracted by curiosity, and those strangers already referred to who are roped in by salaried intermediaries. The second is composed of men who gamble to retrieve their losses, or those who try to deceive and lull their grief through the exciting diversions that pervade these seductive "hells."
CHAPTER XXI.GAMBLING MADE EASY.The Last Ingenious Scheme to Fool the Police—Flat-Houses Turned into Gambling Houses—"Stud-Horse Poker," and "Hide the Heart."
The Last Ingenious Scheme to Fool the Police—Flat-Houses Turned into Gambling Houses—"Stud-Horse Poker," and "Hide the Heart."
The following timely article on the newest racket in gambling in the City of New York is from theSunday Mercuryof June 20, 1886:
"Since the gambling houses in the upper part of the city, where night games flourished, have been closed and their business almost entirely suspended, a new method of operations has been introduced. AMercuryreporter a few days ago was hurrying down Broadway, near Wall street, when he was tapped on the shoulder by a young man not yet of age, whom he recognized as a clerk in a prominent banking house, and whose father is also well known in financial circles. After interchanging the usual courtesies the young clerk pulled a card-case from his pocket, and, asking if theMercuryman liked to play poker, presented a neat little piece of white Bristol board which read:
Harry R . . . . n,
First Flat, No. — Sixth Avenue.
"'If you want to play a nice quiet game,' remarked the promising clerk, 'you can take that card and go up there any evening, or come with me to-night and see how the whole thing is done, but whatever you do don't lose that card, for you can't get in without it.'
"Suspecting the nature of this 'quiet little game,' the reporter agreed to meet the banking clerk that evening.
"'You will find a very nice set of fellows in this party,' remarked the clerk. 'There's none of those toughs or men you see in regular gambling houses there, but young men like myself and some of the best business men in this town. Why, I have seen young fellows there whose fathers have got loads of rocks. They lose a good pile once in a while, but don't mind that, because a fellow's no blood who cries just because he drops from ten to fifty dollars of a night.'
"The house was one of a row of French flat buildings, the ground floor of which is occupied by stores. The clerk, on entering the vestibule, gave an electric button a familiar push with the index finger and almost immediately the hall door swung itself open. As soon as the head of the first flight of stairs was reached, a colored man, wearing a white tie, was met standing near a door. To him the clerk gave a card, and the reporter following the example, both were ushered into what happened to be a reception-room. Two heavy and rich Turkish curtains at one end of this room were quickly pushed aside and the front or card parlor was then entered. There were five round and oblong baize-covered tables in different parts of the elegantly furnished apartment. A number of costly oil paintings hung on the frescoed walls and a well-stocked buffet at one side completed the furniture. The adjoining rooms consisted of two sleeping apartments and a rear connecting kitchen, in which a colored cook seemed quite busy.
"At the center table, where a game of draw poker was in full blast, was noticed two celebrated professionals, a couple of race-horse owners and two clerks in a public department office down-town. At a side table were the sons of a prominent Hebrew merchant and property owner, two college students and several young men whose appearance would indicate they were employed in mercantile houses. Another side table was surrounded by a gathering of Broadway statues and gambling house hangers-on, who were engaged in a game called 'hide the heart,' and the last table had a circle of big, heavy-bodied and solid-looking men about it who were putting up on a game known as 'stud-horse poker.' The reporter and the clerk were quickly accommodated with seats at the center table, where 'draw poker' was in operation. The colored attendant with the white tie was at hand, and pulling out a ten-dollar bill the clerk gave it to the negro with the request to get him that amount of chips in return. The reporter followed suit with a crisp five-dollar bill. The colored man went away with the money to the further end of the room, where he passed it over to a clean-shaven and well-dressed young man with a big diamond in his shirt front. This, the clerk informed him, was the proprietor of the place, who sat at a separate table, and, after receiving the cash, handed out to the waiter several stacks of white and red ivory chips, which were then brought back for the money. The play or 'ante' to the game was fifty cents, with no limit. The white chips represented half a dollar each and the red ones just double that sum. In the first two hands of cards the clerk lost his ten dollars, while the reporter made a profit. A short time convinced the reporter the two professionals were hard to beat.
"While an extremely close game was carried on, the house was certainly sure never to lose, as it put up no money and as 'banker' reaped a steady percentage deducted from the chips of all winners who cashed in.
"The clerk was broke in two hours' sitting and confessed he had lost sixty dollars, more than three weeks' salary, and while he wore a gold chain over his vest, he had left his watch in pledge with the game-owner for twenty dollars' worth of chips besides. As the reporter and his guide reached the sidewalk, one of the young men who had been in the place was asked what he thought of the place. Not suspecting the reporter's motive, the player answered glibly: 'Oh, that racket in French flats is getting to be all the go now, and I tell you it's immense. The police can't get on to it, and now as all the faro games are closed or not making expenses, and afraid to open, it is doing well. Then there is such a better class of people that go to these places, people who would not care to be seen or caught in a regular concern. Now up in Harry's you see how nice it is. There's your parlor to play in. Then if it's an all-night play you can sleep in turns or lay off during the day, and get anything you want to eat right there. 'Get pulled?' Why, there ain't the ghost of a show for that in those flats. In the first place, no one is let in without he is known or has a card; then a 'copper' can 't go in without forcing an entrance or a warrant, and if he does, what evidence can be produced to show the place is a gambling house? Why, gambling in the Fifth Avenue clubs is no better protected. No one in the house up-stairs suspects what's going on. The halls are all carpeted and so are the stairs, and you never can hear any one pass up and down. Then if any raid is made, can't a man swear he was only having a game of cards in his own house with a party of friends?' In society, next to progressive euchre, poker comes the highest.
"'Are there many of these private flat games?' asked the reporter. 'Oh, yes; there's at least half a dozen I know of. There's one on Fifty-ninth street, one on Forty-fifth street, and several more on Sixth Avenue and Broadway, and any quantity now in other private houses run as social club rooms. You see, no games but poker—draw, stud-horse and straight, and hide the heart—are allowed to be run. Now if you never was in Harry's before, and you were seen to be all right, you would be given some cards to pass around to your friends confidentially, which would tell them where to go for play and would get them in without bother."