SHERLOCK HOLMES IN REAL LIFE.
From The Chicago Tribune of November 25, 1906.
"Chicago may be surprised to learn that it has a Sherlock Holmes of its own, but it has; and before his actual experiences in crime-hunting, the fictional experiences through which Poe, Doyle, and Nick Carter put their detectives pale into insignificance. His name is Clifton R. Wooldridge.
"Truth is stranger even than detective fiction, and in the number of his adventures of mystery, danger and excitement he has all the detective heroes of fiction and reality beaten easily.
"He has personally arrested 19,500 people, 200 of them were sent to the penitentiary; 3,000 to the house of correction; 6,000 paid fines; 100 girls under age were rescued from lives of shame; $100,000 worth of property was recovered; 100 panel houses were closed; 100 matrimonial bureaus were broken up.
Disguised as a JEW IN THE GHETTO
"Wooldridge has refused perhaps 500 bribes of from $500 to $5,000 each. He has been under fire forty-four times. He has been wounded dozens of times. He has impersonated almost every kind of character. He has, in his crime hunting, associated with members of the '400' and fraternized with hobos. He has dined with the elite and smoked in opium dens. He has done everything that one expects the detective of fiction to do and which the real detective seldom does.
"When occasion requires he ceases to appear as Wooldridge. He can make a disguise so quickly and effectively that even an actor would be astonished. Gilded youth, negro gambler, honest farmer or lodging house 'bum,' it requires but a few minutes to 'make-up,' to run to earth elusive wrong-doers."
The pictures which appear here are actual photographs taken from life in the garb and disguises worn by the author in several famous cases.
"HECK HOUSTON"—STOCK-RAISER FROM WYOMING
In this garb the author makes himself an easy mark for the crooks and grafters of the Stock-Yard district. The hold-up man—the card-sharp—the bunco-steerer—the get-rich-quick stock-broker fall "easy game" to the detective thus disguised.
ASSOCIATING WITH THE STOCK AND BOND GRAFTERS
Disguised as an Englishman who has money and is looking for a good investment, Mr. Wooldridge is easily mistaken for a "sucker." The trap is set. He apparently walks into it; but, in a few minutes, the grafter finds himself on the way to prison.
POLICY-SAM JOHNSON
This is a favorite disguise of the author when doing detective duty among the lowest and most disreputable criminals. Unsuspectingly the crooks offer him all sorts of dirty work at small prices for assistance in criminal acts.
WE NEVER SLEEP
Detectives disguised as tramps: "I am made all things to all men," says St. Paul. The Detective must also make himself all things to all men, that he may find and catch the rascals. To be up-to-date it is necessary to be able to assume as many disguises as there are classes of people among whom criminals hide.
POLICY-SAM JOHNSON SHOOTING CRAPS
An illustration of the way the detective employs himself in the gambling dens. It is often necessary to play and lose money in these places that he may get at the facts. Observe that he is watching proceedings in another part of the room while he is throwing the dice.
SHADOWING ONE OF THE FOUR HUNDRED.
Some of the most dangerous grafters in the world hobnob with the elite. Here we have our author in evening dress, passing as a man of society at a banquet of the rich, shadowing a "high-flyer" crook.
CRAPS AND CARDS
The gambling house is a station on the road to crime. In proportion to population there are, perhaps, more negro gamblers than of any other race.
A LITTLE GAME IN THE ALLEY AT NOON
Many boys and young men spend their noon hour in cultivating bad habits that lead to nights of gambling; and then come crimes to get money that they may gamble more.
A RESTING PLACE ON THE ROAD TO CRIME.
The gilded saloon is the club-room of the crook. Here he hatches his plots; here he drinks to get desperate courage to carry them out; and here he returns when the crime has been committed to drown remorse and harden conscience.
YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE
A GAME OF POKER FOR "A SMALL STAKE"
This is a clangorous stop. Many a ruined man traces his downfall to the day he began in youth to "bet" a little "to make the game interesting."
Emma Ford (Sisters) Pearl Smith
Mary White, Flossie Moore
FOUR FAMOUS NEGRO WOMEN GRAFTERS
As confidence workers, highway robbers, and desperate criminals they were the terror of officers and courts. Together they stole and robbed people of more than $200,000.00. They were finally run to earth and put in prison. Our author followed one of them across the continent and back.
THE DESTINATION OF THE GRAFTER.
"The way of the transgressor is hard." "Be sure your sin will find you out." The penitentiary is full of bright men who might have been eminently successful—an honor to themselves and a blessing to mankind, if they had only heeded the old adage—"Honesty is the best policy."
WOOLDRIDGE'S CABINET OF BURGLAR TOOLS.
At the police headquarters in Chicago, one of the most attractive curios is the above cabinet of burglar-tools and weapons taken by the author from robbers and crooks during his eighteen years of service.
TURNING THE BOYS FROM CRIMINAL PATHS
This is a photograph of the Juvenile Court in Chicago, where boys who commit crimes are tried and sent to the Reformatory, instead of to prison with hardened criminals. The author claims that our prison system is filling the country with criminals.
CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE
AMERICA'S FOREMOST DETECTIVE.
Clifton R. Wooldridge was born February 25, 1854, in Franklin county, Kentucky. He received a common school education, and then started out in the world to shift for himself. From 1868 to 1871, he held the position of shipping clerk and collector for the Washington Foundry in St. Louis, Missouri. Severing his connection with that company, he went to Washington, D. C., and was attached to the United States Signal Bureau from March 1, 1871, to December 5, 1872. He then took up the business of railroading, and for the following nine years occupied positions as fireman, brakeman, switchman, conductor and general yard master.
When the gold fever broke out in the Black Hills in 1879, Mr. Wooldridge along with many others went to that region to better his fortune. Six months later he joined the engineering corps of the Denver & Rio Grande railroad and assisted in locating the line from Canon City to Leadville, as well as several of the branches. The work was not only very difficult, but very dangerous, and at times, when he was assisting in locating the line through the Royal Gorge in the Grand Canon of the Arkansas, he was suspended from a rope, which ran from the peak of one cliff to the other, with his surveying instruments strapped to his back. This gorge is fifty feet wide at the bottom and seventy feet wide at the top, the walls of solid rock rising three thousand feet above the level of the river below. The work was slow and required a great deal of skill, but it was accomplished successfully.
Mr. Wooldridge went to Denver in 1880 and engaged in contracting and mining the following eighteen months. He then took a position as engineer and foreman of the Denver Daily Republican, where he remained until May 29, 1883. The following August he came to Chicago and took a position with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. In 1886, he severed his connection with the railroad and founded the "Switchman's Journal." He conducted and edited the paper until May 26th, when he was burned out, together with the firm of Donohue & Henneberry at the corner of Congress street and Wabash avenue, as well as many other business houses in that locality, entailing a total loss of nearly $1,000,000. Thus the savings of many years were swept away, leaving him penniless and in debt. He again turned his attention to railroading and secured a position with the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy railroad and had accumulated enough money to pay the indebtedness which resulted from the fire, when the great strike was inaugurated on that road in February, 1888. The strike included the engineers, firemen and switchmen, and continued nearly a year. On October 5th of that year Mr. Wooldridge made application for a position on the Chicago police force, and having the highest endorsements, he was appointed and assigned to the Desplaines Street Station. It was soon discovered that Wooldridge as a police officer had no superiors and few equals. Neither politics, religion, creed, color, or nationality obstructed him in the performance of his police duties, and the fact was demonstrated and conceded times without number that he could not be bought, bribed, or intimidated. He selected for his motto, "Right wrongs no man; equal justice to all." His superior officers soon recognized the fact that no braver, more honest or efficient police officer ever wore a star or carried a club.
The mass of records on file in the police headquarters and in the office of the clerk of the municipal and criminal court demonstrate conclusively that he has made one of the most remarkable records of any police officer in the United States if not in the world. Mr. Wooldridge has seen twenty years of experience and training in active police work. Ten years of this time he was located in what is commonly known as the Levee district, a territory where criminals congregate and where crimes of all degrees are committed.