Читать книгу Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World - Clifton R. Wooldridge - Страница 22

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In 1900 Chicago's great building trade strike occurred in which 60,000 men were thrown out of employment. Many acts of violence were committed. Several men were killed and many maimed and injured.

Detective Wooldridge was placed in charge of thirty picked detectives from the detective bureau with orders to suppress these lawless acts and arrest the guilty offenders. Through his vigilance and untiring efforts law and order were soon restored, and he was highly complimented by Chief of Police Joseph Kipley and the public press.

Literally speaking, the darkest situation into which his experiences have led him was the tunnel by which inmates of Mattie Lee's famous resort at 150 Custom House place escaped when the place was raided. Mattie had decided that it was a nuisance to go to the station every time the police wanted to arrest her, so she had the tunnel dug.

After that when the police called on her Mattie greeted them with an empty house and a sweet smile, while underground the inmates were crawling on their hands and knees to safety. Wooldridge found the tunnel and, crawling in, "snaked out" six colored men and women whom he found in the darkness. Versatility is a requisite with the successful detective.