Читать книгу Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World - Clifton R. Wooldridge - Страница 61

Trembling, cringing, whining specimens of humanity were found in charge of each of these fakers' dens when Detective Wooldridge swooped down upon them. They were typical of their graft—small, mean, snake-like, cowardly. None among them was found who would bid defiance to the officers, who would resist intrusion by the law or who would go into court and fight. All were cheap and dirty in mind, loathsome, shrinking, snarling, but not daring to bite.

Among those driven out of business by Detective Wooldridge were the Twain Novelty Company, the Leslie Novelty Company, the Illinois Industrial Company and Blackney & Company.

"I have raided all classes of swindling institutions," said Wooldridge, "but it gave me more pleasure to run down these fellows than all the others put together. They did not dare try to get money out of people who could afford to lose it, or who were out in the world where they could talk with others of more experience. Their dupes were in almost every instance the most pitiable objects of the communities in which they lived. The facts disclosed by these raids were enough to fill the heart of the blackest grafter with indignation and a desire to trounce the perpetrators."