Читать книгу Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World - Clifton R. Wooldridge - Страница 28

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One of the last exploits of Detective Wooldridge before his completion of the twenty years of service, was the breaking up of the cock-fighting mains, which infested Chicago during the latter part of 1906 and the early part of 1907.

The story savors of the burlesque. Wooldridge obtained information as to the whereabouts of a cock-fight which was to be pulled off. Then he sought out and purchased a pair of decrepit old roosters, that would not fight an English sparrow, bundled them into a sack and started for scene of action. Arrived in what he knew to be the neighborhood of the fight, he declared that he had been sent to deliver some "fightin' chickuns." He was directed to an old, abandoned building. Here he was admitted and left the antique roosters. Then he said he was going for more birds. Instead he went for a patrol wagon. And that was the end of the chicken fight.

The trapping of the Wildcat Insurance companies furnishes one of the most dramatic chapters in the financial history of the United States, if not in the world. It involves millions of stolen dollars, brutal filching from the poor, heartless commercial brigandage and finally the running to earth and conviction of the ringleaders and promoters of the "WILDCAT INSURANCE COMPANIES" OF CHICAGO, by Detective Wooldridge.

The police and postal authorities worked together. Two thousand eight hundred letters were sent out asking for information and gathering evidence.

At the trial of Dr. S. W. Jacobs, on one of these cases, there were 200 witnesses present. Five of these witnesses were victims, and lived in tents. Three were living in wagons: One, Samuel James, of Westfield, Illinois, a carpenter, 64 years of age, had a wife and six children. He had built his house morning and evening.