Unfortunately for all parties, however, the "General" took exception to the size of one of our bills and we parted with mutual recriminations, although he had paid us many thousands of dollars in fees and we had saved him many more in judgments. He still owed us a large sum of money, but Gottlieb had tied up his property in such a fashion that the old fellow was judgment-proof. He was thus able to snap his fingers in our faces, a fact that naturally intensified our hard feelings against him. We cherished our anger until an appropriate occasion should present itself for getting even with him, which occurred sooner than any of us, least of all the "General," expected.
It so happened that one of the victims, having failed to "come across" substantially enough, discovered very shortly another libelous paragraph, which reflected very seriously upon his young and attractive wife; and as it was pretty generally known at the time that the "General" and ourselves had parted company, the husband forthwith came to us for advice.
"Of course," said he ruefully, "I can't thrash a white-haired villain who is old enough to be my grandfather, even if I could get to him, which is unlikely. You know he has an inner office 'way off from the rest and sneaks in and out, up and down the back stairs. A suit for libel wouldn't do any good and the publicity would hurt more than the satisfaction I might get out of a verdict. But vengeance I'll have—at any cost. How can I get it?"
Gottlieb pondered the matter for several days and at last sent for his new client, at the same time making an appointment at our office with a well-known feather-weight prize-fighter.
"If you will leave this matter to me I'll guarantee—for a thousand dollars—that the 'General' shall receive as severe a pounding as his old carcass can stand."
The client joyfully wrote out a check to our order and an hour later Hennessey, the celebrated bantam, arrayed in the uniform of an overgrown messenger boy, called with a letter at the "General's" office and asked to see him. He had, he insisted, orders to deliver the letter into nobody's hands but those of the "General" himself, and on this pretext in due course found himself, after being led through a labyrinth of passages and stairs, in the presence of our ex-client.
"Are you General –?" he inquired.
"That's my name," answered the "General."
"I've got a letter for yous," continued the bantam, fumbling in his cap and producing two letters, one of which he handed over.
The "General" took it and his eye glinted for he perceived that it was addressed to a very well-known member of society whose escapades were notorious. Quickly he ran his penknife through the tongue of the envelope.
"Hold on, there!" suddenly cried Hennessey. "I've give yous the wrong letter. Here's yours. That one is for Mr. –. Gimme it back!"
"One moment, my boy!" replied the "General," hastily tearing open the envelope. "Just one moment."
"Don't you take out dat letter! It ain't fer yous!" expostulated the messenger. "Here's your letter."
But the "General," with watering mouth, was already feverishly devouring a violet-colored note beginning, "Darling Guy," his bulbous nose close to the paper and scenting scandal in every line —that is, he devoured it until, quite unexpectedly, the bantam squared off and proceeded to hand him a few "upper cuts," "hooks," and straight leads from the shoulder, until the scandalmonger howled for mercy. But the bantam had his instructions.
"No!" says he. Bing! "I'll teach you to read other people's letters!" Bing! "I'll show yous what yous'll get if yous violates de United States mail—see?" Bing! "Read Mr. –'s letter, will yous?" Bing! "Not wit' me here—see?" Bing! Bing! "You white- haired old son of a printing-press!"
Hennessey's description, on his return to the office, of the "General's" appearance at the conclusion of his drubbing was eminently satisfactory; and he forthwith exchanged his messenger's uniform for his Broadway regalia and a crisp one-hundred dollar bill. That is the only time, so far as I ever learned, that the "General" ever got his real deserts; but I am glad that he did, for once. And the sight of his red nose—somehow it looks redder now than it used to—invariably fills me with satisfaction.
Quite naturally our firm attracted a number of strange wastrels in the way of clients, all of whom were picturesque and many of them profitable. Among these was a gentleman known as the "Human Dog," who frequented the main thoroughfares during the crowded hours and simulated the performances of a starving animal with a verisimilitude that I believe to have been unsurpassed in the annals of beggary. He would go on all fours snuffling along the gutters for food and when he came to a morsel of offal he would fall upon it and devour it ravenously. If he found nothing he would whine and sit on his hind legs—so to speak—on the curb, with an imploring look on his hairy face. If a police officer approached the "Human Dog" would immediately roll over on his back, with his legs in the air, and yelp piteously; in fact, he combined the "lay" of insanity with that of starvation in a most ingenious and skilful manner. He was a familiar sight and a bugbear to the police, who were constantly arresting him; but, as he never asked for money, they had great difficulty in doing anything with him. Usually the magistrate sent him to the "Island," for thirty days and then Gottlieb would get him out on a writ of habeas corpus. Some of these writs attracted the attention of the bar and several appear in the reports. I am under the impression that we secured his release some twenty-nine separate times. At last he died in a fit of apoplexy caused by overeating; and when we administered his estate we found that he had already laid by, in a comparatively brief career, the very creditable sum of forty-one thousand dollars.
The "Human Dog" was but a clever variation of the "Crust-Thrower" —the beggar who tosses a dirty crust of bread into the gutter when no one is looking and then falls upon it with a cry of fierce joy. These "crust-throwers" have plied their trade for over six hundred years and were known in England and Flanders long before the discovery of America. Gottlieb was very shrewd at devising schemes that came just within the law and used to amuse himself by so doing in his leisure moments. One of the best—the idea which he sold for three hundred dollars and which is still being used in New York, Chicago, and elsewhere—is the following:
An old man, with a square of plate glass in a newspaper and a bundle of glass-cutter's tools by his side is seen sitting dejectedly on a curb with his head in his hands. He has no coat and the icy wind blows through his straggling locks of gray hair—a pathetic picture. He seems utterly discouraged, but no word of complaint passes his lips. Presently a well-dressed woman approaches and her pity is instantly aroused. She accosts him, and the aged one informs her in a faint voice that he works in Harlem and has been sent by his boss to set a pane of glass on Varick Street; but not knowing exactly where Varick Street is, he has got off the elevated at Fifty-ninth Street and finds that he is still several miles from his destination. What woman, unless she had a heart of granite, would not be moved by such a tale! She opens her purse and pours its contents into his lap; for it is a psychological truth that, if you can once get a woman up to the point of giving anything, she will give all that she has. How often have I seen these old men—the children of Gottlieb's brain—sitting patiently and silently on the streets! And how often have they paid us handsome fees to get them out of the "jug"!
In this catalogue of clients I must not forget "Banana Anna," who recently, I am sad to say, met her Waterloo. Anna was a lady so peculiarly gifted by the Almighty that she was able at will to simulate a very severe physical mishap. I shall not describe with any greater degree of particularity what her precise affliction was, save to say that if genuine it would have entitled her to the sympathy and generosity of mankind. It was the kind of thing that might easily result from a fall; but which, in fact, under ordinary circumstances gave her no inconvenience whatever.
Anna would conceal a bit of banana peel in her muff and, dropping in upon a station platform, would put her heel upon it and fall prostrate, uttering a groan of pain. The guard would come hastily to her assistance and find, to his horror, a woman with every mark of respectability suffering terrible agony from a condition obviously the result of a fall caused by a bit of banana skin carelessly left lying upon the premises. An ambulance would be summoned, but she would insist upon being taken to her own home—an imposing mansion —and calling her own physician. In due course the railroad would send its doctor, who would report that her condition was serious; and, as the leaving of a banana peel upon a public platform is in its very nature "negligent," the company's lawyer would recommend settlement. Thus "Banana Anna" was able to live in comfort if not in luxury; and an infirmity that might under other circumstances have been a curse became, in fact, a blessing. Of course she took a new name and hired—temporarily—a new residence for each accident; but, as she moved from city to city, she was able to keep up the same old ruse for years.
Perhaps our most interesting client was the one who made his living by supplying "to the trade" all kinds of corporate bonds and certificates of stock. Some of these bonds had originally been issued by corporations in good standing, but had been exchanged, cancelled, outlawed, or in some other way had become valueless. How our client secured them I never discovered. He also dealt in the repudiated bonds of Southern cities and States, which can be purchased for practically nothing almost everywhere.
His principal line of goods, however, was the bonds of companies that he incorporated himself and disposed of at cut rates to a clientele all his own. These companies all bore impressive names, such as Tennessee Gas, Heat, and Power Company, the Mercedes-Panard- Charon Motor Vehicle Supply Company, the Nevada Coal, Coke, Iron, and Bi-product Company, the Chicago Banking and Securities Company, the Southern Georgia Land and Fruit Company, and so on. He had an impressive office in a marble-fronted building on Wall Street, doors covered with green baize inside and gold lettering outside, and he wore a tall hat and patent-leather shoes. He also had a force of several young lady stenographers and clerks, who acted as the officers and directors of his various concerns, all of which were legally incorporated under the laws of West Virginia and New Jersey. His clients were the gilt-edged "con" men of Wall and Nassau Streets, who, when they needed them, could purchase a couple of hundred engraved one-thousand-dollar bonds of imposing appearance, in a real corporation, for a few hundred dollars in cash.
Our client did not act as an officer of these himself, but merely took a power of attorney from the president, secretary, and treasurer, authorizing him to sign their names to these bond issues. Yet no one ever saw these officers, all of whom had names connotative of wealth and financial responsibility. The Gates, Morgan, Rogers, and other families multiplied and brought forth at the mere wave of his pen. If you wished a half-million bond issue you simply called him up on the telephone and some "Light and Power Company" would hold a directors' meeting and vote a fifty-year debenture gold seven-per-cent security that you could peddle around at fifty- eight and one-eighth to unsuspecting investors, so as to net them merely thirteen per cent. on their money—when they got it. You could buy a million in these bonds for about three hundred and seventy-five dollars and fifty cents; but they were real bonds in real companies and legally issued against some form of property, even if it had no market value. Sometimes, I am told, these securities paid interest for a year or so, and the suckers got their friends in while there were a few left—bonds, I mean—there are always suckers.
Like other egoists, our client became careless as time went on and one day took it upon himself to issue a few hundred bonds in a company without holding a directors' meeting. He should not be severely blamed for neglecting a detail of this sort when he was so well aware of its purely formal if not farcical character. Still, it was one of those little slips that even the most careful of us will sometimes make, and the district-attorney took an underhand advantage of our friend and indicted him for forging the names of the officers of the company to an unauthorized issue of bonds. Gottlieb and I had, perforce, to defend him; but, unfortunately, his real defence would have been even worse than the charge. He could not say that there was no real company and that there were no such human beings as the persons whose names he had written across the back of the bonds in question.
Poor fellow! He was an absolutely innocent man. Yet he went to Sing Sing for seven years for committing no crime at all. How could he forge the names of persons who did not exist? However, he had invented these financial Frankensteins and they finally overwhelmed him. Somewhere lying around I have my share of the fee in this case—I forget just where. It consists of fourteen millions in the securities of the National Mortgage and Security Company of Jampole, Mississippi.
CHAPTER VII
The fear that most people have of the criminal law has its origin in their ignorance of it. They are, luckily, most of them unfamiliar with bailiffs and constables, except at a distance. The gruff voice of authority has echoed but dimly for them. They have heard of the "third degree," "the cooler," "the sweat-box," and "the bracelets," yet they have never seen the inside of a station-house; and their knowledge of jails, if they have any at all, is derived from reading in their childhood of the miraculous escapes of Baron Trenck or the Fall of the Bastille. They picture officers of the law as human bulldogs, with undershot, foam-dripping jaws and bloodshot eyes. The bourne—from which so many travellers never return—bounded by the criminal statutes, is a terra incognita to the average citizen. A bailiff with a warrant for his arrest would cause his instant collapse and a message that "all was discovered" would—exactly as in the popular saw—lead him to flee at once.
Upon this dread of the unknown the criminal attorney plays whenever possible. It is his strongest asset, his stock in trade. The civil lawyer, vaguely believing that there must be a criminal law to cover every obvious wrong, retains him to put the screws on the evil-doer and bring him to terms. The man who has done a dirty business trick—in reality a hundred miles from being a crime— engages the shyster to keep him out of jail. The practical weapon of the criminal lawyer is the warrant of arrest. Just as at civil law any one can bring a groundless suit and subject his enemy to much annoyance and expense, so almost anybody can get almost anybody else arrested. Of course if there is no justification for it a suit for malicious prosecution and false arrest may arise; but most persons who resort to such tactics are "judgment proof" and the civil law has no terrors for them at all. At least fifty persons out of every hundred would gladly pay an unrighteous claim rather than be subjected to the humiliation of arrest, even if their confinement were of the most temporary character.
In New York the right of having the defendant arrested in certain classes of civil cases is a matter of statute. It is a preliminary remedy not half as much availed of as it might be. The young lady who brings a breach-of-promise suit against her faithless follower has the right to put him under arrest and make him give bail; and the young gentleman who would laugh ordinarily at the mere service of papers may well settle her claim if a sheriff whispers in his ear that he has a warrant for his person.
In the early days, before Gottlieb and I practised at the criminal bar, a judgment creditor could arrest and lock up his delinquent debtor. This was a most ancient and honorable form of redress; and the reader has undoubtedly read dozens of novels in which some of the scenes are laid in "Fleet Street." This locking up of people who owed other people money but could not meet their just obligations was sanctified by tradition and deeply rooted in our jurisprudence; but the law governing the procedure in such cases was highly technical and the wind of destiny was somewhat tempered to the shorn lamb of the creditor. Thus, a warrant for the arrest of a debtor could not be executed on the Sabbath, and, of course, had no value outside of the State. Accordingly the neighboring cities of New Jersey harbored thousands of bankrupt New Yorkers who could not pay their bills and suffered a voluntary exile until they should be in funds again. Indeed, there were certain hostelries entirely given over to their accommodation. The man who had defied his creditors simply converted his available property into ready cash and slipped across the river to Jersey City or Hoboken, where he remained six days in every week and returned to the bosom of his adoring family on the seventh.
Later on civil orders of arrest were limited by statute to certain classes of cases, such as, for instance, the conversion of money.
Among our clients there was a certain exceedingly attractive young lady of French extraction, named Mademoiselle Valerie Carrell, who was a popular favorite upon the light-opera stage when light opera was in swaddling-clothes. Our fair client, like many another histrionic genius, had more charm than business ability and was persuaded by an unscrupulous manager to intrust to him a large sum of money for investment in his various enterprises. Time went on, and, although he seemed to be successful in his ventures, he insisted that he had no money and was absolutely unable to repay her. In utter desperation she came to Gottlieb and myself for assistance and we speedily secured judgment for the full amount—fifteen thousand dollars—after a hotly contested trial, in which the defendant perjured himself very unlike a gentleman. The only result was that Mr. Brown, the manager, gayly offered to settle for fifteen hundred, and, on receiving a curt refusal, transferred his residence to Hoboken, from which place he managed his business and paid furtive visits to the metropolis in the night-time. On Sundays, however, he always appeared in full regalia on Broadway and could invariably be seen entertaining his friends lavishly in the restaurants.
Gottlieb suffered this course of conduct to become a habit and then informed me that he proposed to collect the full amount of Mademoiselle Carrell's judgment upon the following Monday. I expressed some incredulity at the idea, but later events proved that my partner was well justified in his prophecy. We had long before procured a warrant for Brown's arrest and the only difficulty lay in executing it upon a week-day. Sunday came and as usual Brother Brown, with his customary bravado, made his appearance in the city. That evening Gottlieb invited me to dine with him at the resort ordinarily frequented by our quarry. True to his invariable custom, Brown turned up there with a party of his cronies and spent the evening in merry feasting, presumably upon the money of our client. It was a clear, moonlight night and when the glowworm showed the matin to be near—or, more correctly, when it neared twelve o'clock— Brown beckoned to the waiter, paid his bill out of a fat roll of greenbacks, winked good-naturedly at us, and bade his friends good- night. A moment or two later Gottlieb whispered to me to follow him and we stepped forth upon the street. Brown was strolling quietly down Broadway toward Twenty-third Street. A short distance behind followed a thick-set man with a square-cut jaw whom I had frequently noticed in Gottlieb's office.
On the corner of the cross-town thoroughfare Brown paused, looked first at the moon and then at his watch, and proceeded on his constitutional toward the ferry. The street, save for a distant and presumably somnolent policeman, was deserted. The thick-set man crossed to the other side of the way, quickened his steps, overtook and passed Brown, recrossed and sauntered toward him. A moment later there was a collision between them, voices were raised in angry altercation and presently Brown was rolling undignifiedly on the pavement, his calls for the police rending the stillness of the night. The officer hastily approached, whistling wildly for aid. Gottlieb and I took refuge in an adjacent doorway. Abruptly, however, Brown's outcries ceased. It is probably that a sudden vision of the consequences of an appeal to police protection came to him as he lay like an overturned June-bug upon the sidewalk. But the law had been invoked. The car of Juggernaut had started upon its course.
"What's the trouble here?" cried the policeman, as he arrived panting upon the scene.
"This fellow here assaulted me!" instantly answered the man with the bulldog jaw.
"It's a lie!" bellowed Brown, climbing to his feet.
"Well, what have you got to say?" inquired the officer.
Brown hesitated. If he made a counter charge he realized that he would have to go to the police station to make the complaint. This would keep him in the city until after midnight.
"Well?" continued the policeman.
Still Brown paused, rapidly taking account of stock. If he did not deny the charge in terms he would be locked up, which was just as bad. But the bull-jawed chap spoke first.
"I want this man arrested!" he insisted. "He deliberately attacked me!"
"I did no such thing!" shouted Brown. "He came at me without provocation and knocked me down."
"It took you long enough to say so," commented the officer. "I'll have to take you along to the house. Come on, both of you."
Grasping Brown by the arm, he marched him down the street. Suddenly the unfortunate manager began to pour forth a long explanation, quite incoherent so far as the policeman was concerned. He was the victim of a frame-up—it was a job to get him arrested. The officer remarked unsympathetically that he had heard that sort of thing many times before. Gottlieb and I skulked in the rear. When the police station was at last reached the thick-set man made a charge of assault against the manager and Brown was compelled perforce to make a similar charge against his adversary. Then both were locked up to await a hearing the next morning in the magistrate's court, when, after a prolonged examination, Brown was discharged with an admonition against a too free indulgence in alcoholic liquors.
"Don't be hard on him, judge," said the bull-jawed man. "I had no trouble in defending myself. I think he has had lesson enough."
Much the worse for wear, Mr. Brown passed out of the court-room, only to be confronted on the sidewalk by a marshal with a warrant for his arrest. It was Monday morning. His period of immunity was over. His eye caught Gottlieb and myself standing on the corner.
"Well, boys," he exclaimed ruefully, "I'm caught. How much is it going to cost?"
"Fifteen thousand dollars," answered Gottlieb, adding, after a moment's pause—"and disbursements."
I need hardly add that Mr. Brown lost no time in raising the necessary ransom and within the hour had paid his judgment in full and secured his discharge. The days are long since over, however, when judgment defaulters had anything to fear; and now a beneficent bankruptcy law, merely for the asking, washes all their debts away. But the power to secure another's arrest is even more easily available now than in the days of my early practice owing to the great number of new crimes created by the statutes.
One of the most ingenious devices for extorting money that ever came to my attention was invented by a client of mine named Levine —a poor sort of character, to be sure, but cleverer than many a better man. In detail his method was as follows: He first bought at wholesale a large quantity of cheap watches covered with gold plate. To the inexperienced they looked as if they might possibly be worth forty or fifty dollars apiece. They cost Levine about two dollars and twenty-five cents each. His next step was to select some small shop belonging to a plumber, grocer, or electrician which was ordinarily left in the charge of a clerk while the owner was out attending to his work or securing orders. Levine would find some excuse for entering the shop, engage the clerk in conversation, and having secured his attention would produce one of his watches and extol its merits at length, explaining what a great bargain it was and how—only owing to an exceptional concatenation of circumstances—he was able to offer it for the ridiculously low figure of thirty dollars.
Now it never made any difference to Levine whether the clerk wanted the watch or not. His procedure remained the same in all cases. He would first offer to let the fellow have it by paying one dollar a week on the installment plan. If this did not appeal to the clerk Levine would persuade him to keep it for a short time on approval, paying down a dollar "as security." Almost all of his victims would agree to this if only to be rid of him. In default of aught else he would lay the watch on the counter and run away.
Nothing more would occur for a couple of weeks, during which the clerk would hold the watch pending its owner's return, little suspecting what was going on meantime. Levine, having "landed" his watch, immediately swore to a verified complaint in an action at law for "goods sold and delivered," setting forth on the date in question he had sold—not to the clerk, but to his employer– a gold watch for the sum of fifty dollars, which the latter had then and there promised to pay for at once. The complaint further recited that the money had been duly demanded and payment refused, and asked judgment for fifty dollars and the costs and disbursements of the action. Levine would then procure from some irresponsible person an affidavit that the latter had personally served a copy of the complaint in question, together with a summons, upon the defendant, and place the case on the calendar for trial. Of course no papers were in fact served upon anybody and Levine would in due course secure judgment by default for sixty-odd dollars. Armed with a certified copy of the judgment and a writ of attachment, and accompanied by a burly deputy marshal selected for the ferocity of his appearance, Levine would wait until some opportune time when the owner of the shop was again absent and the shop had been left in charge of the same clerk or a member of the family. Bursting roughly in, he would demand whether or not it was the intention of the owner to pay the judgment, while at the same moment the deputy would levy on the stock in trade.
The owner of the shop, having been hastily summoned, would return to demand angrily what the rumpus was all about. By this time the clerk would have recovered his wits sufficiently to denounce the proceeding as an outrage and the suit as baseless. But his master, who saw judgment against himself for sixty dollars and his goods actually under attachment, was usually in no mood to listen to, much less believe, his clerk's explanations. At all events, they availed naught, when Levine, with an expression of horror at such deliberate mendacity on the part of the clerk, was wont to say:
"Ask him, pray, whether he has not got the watch in his pocket at this very moment!"
Usually this was indeed the fact, as the clerk had no idea what else to do with it until Levine should return.
"So-ho!" his master would shout wrathfully. "What do you mean by saying that you did not agree to buy the watch? Why, you have kept it all the time! What's more, you've pretended to buy it in my name! And now my shop is turned into a bear garden and there is a judgment against me and my goods are attached! A fine result of your extravagance!"
"But I never agreed to buy it!" insists the clerk. "This man left it here on approval!"
"Pish!" answers the employer. "That is all very well; but what have you to say to the judgment of the court? Now, my fine fellow, you will either pay up this money that you owe or I'll advance it myself and take it out of your wages."
In every case, despite the protests of the clerk, the money would be handed over and the shop released from levy. Unfortunately, after working the game for several years, Levine came a cropper by carelessly trying it on one of the same clerks that he had victimized some time before. The clerk, being of an unusually vindictive disposition, followed the matter up. Having first arrested the man who made the false affidavit of service, he induced him to turn State's evidence against my client and landed the latter in jail. Being a great reader, however, Levine did not find his incarceration particularly unpleasant; and, hearing of the Court of Appeals decision in the McDuff case, he spent his time in devising new schemes to take the place of his now antiquated specialty. On his release he immediately became a famous "sick engineer" and for a long time enjoyed the greatest prosperity, until one of his friends victimized him at his own game by inducing him to bet ten thousand dollars on the outcome of a prize-fight that he was simple-minded enough to believe had already been fought and won.
This was an elaborate variation of the ordinary wire-tapping game, where the sucker or lamb is introduced to a person alleged to be an inside official of a large telegraph company, who is ready to sell advance information of the results of sporting events in return for a share in the profits. The victim is taken to a supposed "branch office" of the company and actually hears the results of the races coming in over the wires and being telephoned to the pool- rooms. Of course the whole place is merely a plant fitted up for his benefit. He is then taken to a supposed pool-room and gives up his money for the purpose of having it placed as a wager on a horse-race already won. Under the McDuff case, it had been held by the courts that he had parted with his money for an illegal and dishonest purpose—to wit, in an attempt to win money from another who was wagering his own money in good faith—and the rogue who had seduced his conscience and slit his purse went free. This was Levine's favorite field of operations.