Part 74

The petty impostors, who solicit loans from five dollars to fifty cents, have usually met with so many rebuffs that they make their approaches with a diffidence that usually undoes them. They mention five dollars with an infirmity of voice, evincing that they have no expectation of obtaining it, and drop down to three, two, or one with a precipitancy revealing their familiarity with disappointment. As a last resort, they inquire dolefully for postal currency representing half a dollar; and it is seldom they fail to get it, through sheer commiseration, from the person besought.

One of the most transparent and impudent orders of swindlers are those who tell you they are in a certain strait, and could be easily helped if they would apply to their father, brother, or some other near relative. But they are too proud, they take pains to inform you, to demean themselves in that fashion, and therefore they have recourse to a stranger on whom they have not the slightest claim. This mode of borrowing, an insult to the lowest intelligence, deserves to be answered with the boot; and yet, as it involves a certain sort of flattery, it frequently meets with a practical response.

It is estimated that, independent of all regular or mercantile transactions, the denizens of New York lose from five to six million dollars annually by swindlers claiming to be philanthropists, reformers, scholars, business men, and gentlemen in temporary distress. These miscellaneous borrowers have pretexts of every kind, all of them appealing to the best part of our common nature, if they were only true.

The sole difference between professional borrowers and beggars is, that the former always promise to pay, and the latter never promise, though one can be as much depended upon for settlement as the other.

[Sidenote: CONSTANT CALAMITIES.]

Such recurring calamities as visit these unblushing negotiators of loans might have been gathered from the multitudinous woes of the Greek tragedies or the grand operas. The borrowers are very seldom unprovided with a dead mother, or an unburied wife, or starving children, or a dishonest partner, or a stolen pocket-book, or a deferred remittance, or an absolutely necessary journey, or a remarkable mishap of some sort. They infest the principal hotels at the busy hours of the day, and employ their best energies in introducing themselves to the pockets of the boarders. Nearly every public house appears to have its special haunters, and one ingenious story will serve their purpose for a month or more. Borrowing has long been systematized here, and every season is marked by new inventions and pathetic fictions to delude the generous and unwary.

The audacity of the professional borrower is grand and exalted. He will stop your carriage in the park, and invite you to a pecuniary desperation; will make known his financial embarrassment as you are walking out of church with the present or future Mrs. —— on your arm; seek a private interview, with a monetary purpose, before you are up in the morning.

If you were to be hanged,—of which there is no danger in New York, whatever crime you may commit,—he would steal up behind the sheriff, as the latter was drawing the black cap over your eyes, and ask you if you could not spare ten dollars, now that you were going to a country where national bank-notes are not current.

Most New Yorkers understand so thoroughly the trick of courteous cozening, that, whenever any man they do not know intimately seems anxious to see them, they are convinced that he is in quest of a loan, and in nineteen cases out of twenty their convictions are just. Neither friendship, nor love, nor detectives can trace a fellow to his lair, or scent out his sanctuary, like a borrower. He will pursue his game round the world, and shame a sleuth-hound from the start.

[Sidenote: AT THE END.]

“Lost in the great city” is often a sad truth; but it may be converted into a fiction if a man in need of money have his attention called to the pocket-book of the person supposed to be lost. You cannot so bury yourself in this Babylon of a new world that the borrower will not bring you to light. And, if you have had experience, when a stranger flatters you, you will understand, from the degree of his compliment, the exact amount of the loan he expects to obtain.

LXX.

AMONG THE DETECTIVES.

DETECTIVE LIFE.—CURIOSITIES OF LIFE IN A GREAT CITY.—NOT KNOWING YOUR NEIGHBORS.—PECULIAR ACQUAINTANCES.—ROBBERY OF A DRY GOODS STORE.—INGENIOUS DETECTION OF THE CRIME.—LOVE AND JUSTICE.—A SURPRISING DENOUEMENT.

There are some men who seem better fitted to live beneath the surface of the earth than in the open air. Their habits are much like those of the mole or the weasel, and sometimes they are not altogether unlike those animals in general appearance. They have the burrowing propensity of the rat and the woodchuck, and in many instances their lives are about as reputable as that of the first-mentioned animal. They seem to avoid the light of day, and to spend their lives in undermining the works and lives of others. Great cities can furnish a good supply of these men, and the rural districts are not altogether destitute of them. They flourish best in large cities, as there they have a better field for their operations than in the country. In the country everybody knows everybody else for a considerable distance around, and can tell you about his family and its antecedents for as many years as you care to know. Frequently the people observe the manners and habits of their neighbors with more care than they observe their own.

In the city men go about their daily occupations, knowing little and caring little about others, except those with whom they come in contact or have relations of a business character. In New York, for example, there is not one householder in five who knows the name and occupation of his next-door neighbor, and generally he does not care to know. People may occupy the same house for years without knowing anything about each other. I can give a personal experience of my own which will illustrate what I have here stated.

During the first year of my residence in New York, after remaining a few weeks at a hotel I went one day in search of lodgings in a private house. I found a house whose exterior pleased me, and on the door-post there was the attractive announcement, “Rooms to let.” I rang the bell, made known my object, saw the vacant room, was satisfied, and engaged it. Next day I moved in. I took my meals at a hotel, and for a year and a half occupied that room.

[Sidenote: AN ODD EXPERIENCE.]

I did not know the name of anybody in the house except the proprietor, and never troubled myself about the occupants of the rooms on the floor where I was located. One day, in ascending the stairs, I met an acquaintance coming down; an acquaintance whose business was in the very office where I was located, and whose desk was not far from mine. We hailed each other, and our conversation revealed the fact that he had been for two years an occupant of that house, and I had been there nearly a year. Had we been in the country or almost anywhere else in America than in New York, we should have known each other’s local habitation and names in less than a fortnight.

City life, politics, and poverty are about equal in the opportunities they afford for making acquaintances with peculiar people. These acquaintances may not be formed very rapidly; but as one moves about in a great city, he is certain, sooner or later, without any effort on his own part, to be introduced to men whom he would not always be willing to recognize in public. Without ever going to church he may make the acquaintance of clergymen. Without touching a playing card or entering a gaming house he may be acquainted with gamblers. Without studying the mysteries of the kinchin lay, or familiarizing himself with the language of the inhabitants of Blackwell’s Island, or the state penitentiary, he may become acquainted with thieves of various grades. Without doing anything for which he should be “shadowed” he may be familiar with detectives, and without speculating in stocks he may know the men whose fortunes are made and lost on Wall Street. A great city is an epitome of the globe, and in its streets, and alleys, and by-ways may be found all the vicious and dangerous elements of human existence.

[Sidenote: A DETECTIVE’S STORY.]

Some years ago it was my fortune to become acquainted with a professional detective. He was not of the elegant sort, whose labors are confined only to the exposure and punishment of crimes of the higher grades, but he was a man who, to use his own language to me one day, was ‘ready for anything.’ He told me several stories of his experience. He did not present documentary evidence of their authenticity, and some of them were rather too much for my belief. Others were plausible enough to be true, and as the man always appeared to have plenty of money, I concluded that he must be an expert at the business. One evening he told me his experience in working up a case of robbery, which I will endeavor to give as nearly as possible in his own words:—

“A dry goods merchant on Broadway had lost a considerable amount of property at various times, but on no one occasion was there a large quantity taken. Of course the clerks in the establishment were suspected, but there was no way of discovering whether they were guilty or not. A close watch had been set on all of them, but nothing could be discovered. I was engaged to work up the case, and to enable me to do so, I was employed in the store as an extra clerk and salesman. It was thought that the foreman and floor walkers might be guilty of the robbery, and therefore they were not taken into the secret. The head of the house explained, however, to the foreman that I was a relative of his wife, and had been thrown upon him to provide for. It was therefore understood that I was not to be required to work very hard, and was to be allowed to go out whenever I asked permission. With this understanding I went to work at my new business. I did not know anything about dry goods, nor about selling them, and consequently they put me upon the commonest articles, which were not in very great demand. This gave me plenty of time for looking around and observing the habits of the clerks.

“I became acquainted with one after another, but made no headway for several weeks in discovering the secret. I accompanied the clerks to their rooms occasionally, and sometimes we were at the theatre together. I knew the salaries that were paid in the establishment, and I knew just how much money each man could afford to spend, and my object was to find out what man among them was living beyond his income. All of them appeared to be quiet, well-behaved young men. Some of them were members of the Young Men’s Christian Association, and others patronized the Mercantile Library, and spent most of their evenings there. Three or four were a little inclined to fast lives, but evidently did not have money enough to carry out their wishes.

“After a time I found out that one, who was the most quiet and unobtrusive of the whole lot, seemed to be living a little beyond his means. Upon him I fixed my suspicion and watched him closely both in the store and out of it.

[Sidenote: MAKING FRIENDS.]

“He and I became fast friends. We went about the city together; we visited the theatres and beer-gardens, and on Sundays took a trip to Coney Island, where we occasionally spent several dollars in entertaining ourselves and chance acquaintances; but the young man, whom I will call Johnson, was constantly on his guard, and whenever I proposed any new amusement or any additional expense, he always opposed it, and said that he could not afford it, though somehow he generally did afford it before we got through.

“I found he had a sister living in Harlem. Occasionally, but not often, she called at the store. She rarely bought anything, and never remained longer than a few minutes. He visited her every few days, though sometimes a week or two might intervene between his journeys to the place where she lived. Several times, when he was absent and I knew he was to be away for the evening, I visited his room, and searched it carefully; but never a thing could I find to implicate him in the robbery. Not a scrap of silk or lace or anything of the sort could ever be discovered in the room.

“I next managed to be introduced to his sister, and of course I pretended a great liking for her. She was living in a very quiet way, in a boarding-house, and was a teacher, on a small salary, in one of the public schools. Having ascertained her salary, and, calculating her expenses, making an estimate of the value of her clothing as nearly as I could, I was satisfied that she was living somewhat beyond her salary.

[Sidenote: SEARCHING A LADY’S ROOM.]

“One day Johnson told me that he was going with his sister to a school picnic. He had obtained leave of absence from the store, and I thought it an excellent time to make investigations. So I went to his sister’s boarding-house, inquired for the young lady, and of course was told that she was away. I explained to the landlady that I had received a message, saying that she would be at home several hours earlier than she had expected, and that I was to meet her that afternoon, to go on another excursion. I said it was about time for her to reach home, and, if the landlady had no objection, I would wait in the parlor. As I had been there frequently, and the landlady knew me, she made no objection. Luckily she went out a few minutes after, and gave me more freedom to operate than I had expected.

“I immediately went to the young lady’s room,—of course it was very impolite for me to do so,—and searched it thoroughly. It is of no use telling you all I found there, unless you have never been in a lady’s room, and do not know what it contains. She had a very good wardrobe, better than most young women in her position. It struck me as very odd that she had four dresses of rich black silk, which did not appear to have been made a very great while. Four dresses of black silk are a pretty good supply for a school teacher on a small salary, and I made up my mind that the silk came from the dry goods store where Johnson was engaged.

“There is a great difference between believing a thing and proving it. You may be certain of it from the circumstances, but it may not be very easy for you to go into court and show its reality. Now, here was my predicament. I thought four dresses were too many for one young lady, just as I once thought, when I searched a man’s trunk, and found fourteen coats of different sizes, and no trousers or vests, that it was a remarkable wardrobe for a gentleman to have. But how was I to get at the fact, and show the connection between the wearing apparel of Miss Johnson and the Broadway dry goods store?

[Sidenote: A DETECTIVE MAKING LOVE.]

“To help matters along, I made love to Miss Johnson in the regular way, referred to my relations with the dry goods house, and obtained an indorsement from the head of the firm, as a relative of his wife. I was getting along very well, only I did not want to propose and get an engagement, because that might make the situation a little awkward. I deferred the day of proposal on the ground that my uncle in the country, from whom I had expectations, was opposed to my marriage, except to a lady of his choosing; and that I should be obliged to wait until he had handed in his checks, which would be before a great while, as he had a lovely cough, and the rheumatism, supplemented with the dyspepsia and gout, so that the situation was perfectly charming.

“Johnson approved of my attentions to his sister, and of course we became warmer friends than ever. All this time I was studying to entrap the two, so as to fasten the robbery of the dry goods house upon them. One day I pretended a great admiration for a certain kind of silk that I had seen at the store. I told Laura that it suited her complexion exactly, and was just the dress she ought to wear. It was a light-colored silk, of a peculiar shade, which had been made expressly to order for the dry goods house, and I knew that they had the monopoly of it. I spoke about it several times, and said I hoped, one of these days, to be able to present her with a dress of this sort, but did not know when it would be, as my income, just at that time, was too small for any lavish expense.

“Love for me made the girl incautious. Four or five days later, twenty or thirty yards of this silk were missing from the store; and in a week or more, when I made a call, Laura surprised me with a dress of the material I had so much admired. I praised it, and I praised her, and she was happy.

[Sidenote: A SUPPER AT DELMONICO’S.]

“I invited her to accompany me the following evening to a theatre, and told her she must wear that dress; that I wanted her to be the prettiest and best dressed woman there; and, dressed in that, I knew she would be. We went to the theatre, and afterwards to Delmonico’s, where I had arranged to be shown to a private room for supper. I had invited her brother to join us, and, to avoid his suspecting anything, I told him that the day before, I had received a remittance of fifty dollars from my uncle, and was going to have a pleasant evening, without regard to the expense.

“But her brother was not the only person to be there that evening. The head of the firm was waiting where he could see us enter, and with him was a policeman.

“Our supper was brought, and was progressing finely; we had each taken a glass of champagne, and possibly two glasses, and, as the servant came into the room bringing something I had ordered, he was followed by the head of the firm and the man in blue. Johnson was arrested for theft, and his sister for being an accessory to the theft. Both turned pale; the young lady fainted, so that we had to dash water in her face—seriously injuring the elegant dress she wore. Johnson stoutly denied his guilt. He was taken from the room before his sister recovered. When she came to her senses, we told a pardonable falsehood, and said that he had confessed everything. She supposed our statement true, and then acknowledged that she had first urged her brother to the commission of the theft, in order to gratify her love for finery. With an eye to economy, she had always induced him, when stealing on her account, to take enough to pay for making up the material, so that she would not be subject to any expense at the dress-maker’s.

[Sidenote: A CONFESSION.]

“Johnson maintained his innocence until his sister told him that she had made a confession. Then he acknowledged his guilt, and explained how the robberies had been carried on.

“He had managed to ingratiate himself with the porter who swept out the place after the day’s work was over. During the day he would fold the silk he intended to steal into a bundle that might resemble a lot of waste paper, watch his chance, and throw it in a place just large enough to receive it, under a shelf, a few inches above the floor. When the porter swept the store, he brought out the package with his broom, taking care to have a sufficient quantity of waste paper and rubbish lying near to prevent attracting attention to the package. In this way he would get it outside, and take it to his home, where Johnson would call for it. The porter received something for his efforts in the cause of dishonesty, and the stolen property would be taken to Laura’s house, whence it would go either to the dress-maker or to a receiver of stolen goods.

“The porter was arrested an hour later, and both he and Johnson received the punishment due to them for their crime. As for the girl who was the cause of the theft, she was allowed to escape, on condition of leaving the city immediately. The firm would have prosecuted her, had it not been for my intercession. I liked the girl, and was ashamed of the trick I had played upon her; but then, you know, it was in the interest of justice, and a man ought to be willing to do anything for the sake of honesty.

“It is a little off color to make love to a girl, and pretend you want to marry her, just for the sake of entrapping her into the disclosure of a crime; but this is the way of the world, and anybody who thinks differently does not know the whole duty of the detective. Why, I have been to a fellow whom I suspected, and told him that his wife and children had been killed by a railway accident, and got him worked up to a terrible condition of anguish. I did it just to throw him off his guard, make him a little crazy perhaps, and then, while he did not know what he was about, I would accuse him of a crime, and get him to own up.

“If a man is going to be a good detective, he must not go frescoing around with anything like fine feelings. If he does not go in for all the tricks of the business, he is not likely to succeed in his profession.”

LXXI.

WAR AND PRISON ADVENTURES.

EXPERIENCES OF AN ARMY CORRESPONDENT.—RUNNING THE BATTERIES OF VICKSBURG.—EXCITING SCENES.—PERILOUS SITUATION AND HAIR-BREADTH ESCAPE.—SHOT, SHELL, STEAM, FIRE, AND WATER.—TWO YEARS AS A CAPTIVE.—TUNNELLING.—ITS MODE, MANAGEMENT, AND MISHAPS.—TOILING FOR FREEDOM UNDER GROUND.—BOLD AND PROSPEROUS EFFORTS FOR LIBERTY.—LIFE IN A DUNGEON.—PERISHING BY INCHES.—DEATH ON EVERY HAND.—SUBTERRANEAN SEEKING FOR THE LIGHT.—SELF-DELIVERANCE AT LAST.

When I was a small boy, and fed my miniature mind with thrilling accounts of the adventures of famous men, of their incarceration in prison, and of their escapes, I had no expectation of one day sharing in experiences of a very similar character. I can understand now why I felt so much interest in the biographies of Baron Trenck, Walter Raleigh, Cervantes, Silvio Pellico, and other noted personages who had spent much of their life in confinement. I little dreamed then that I should be for two years a prisoner, and last of all a prisoner in my own country, held by my own countrymen.

As may be supposed, the fortunes of war—our Great Rebellion—proved adverse to me, and I became the occupant of no less than eight different southern prisons.

The way I chanced to fall into the enemy’s hands was this. Having been a war correspondent for twice a twelvemonth, and having learned, under a variety of circumstances, how it feels to be shot at, and what the feeling is of just escaping death, I had a curiosity to enjoy the sensation of running the formidable batteries of Vicksburg during the spring of 1863. I communicated my intention to two of my companions, and they said that they would go with me. We were at Young’s Point, Louisiana, whence the army had already begun to move, by land to New Carthage, designing to cross the Mississippi River there, and attack Vicksburg in the rear. A number of gunboats and several transports had already run the batteries, and on none of these had I been able to obtain permission to go. Just at this time, another expedition, consisting of two large barges loaded with provisions, and bound to a steam-tug, was fitting out, and almost ready to start. Running the batteries was considered extremely perilous—so much so that the soldiers accompanying the transports, instead of being ordered to that duty, were allowed to obey their own inclination. The custom was for the officers of the regiments to announce that so many privates were needed, and that those who wished to take the risk would step forward.

[Sidenote: A HAZARDOUS EXPEDITION.]