Near to Penitentiary.
While Mike was running the place at 89 Dearborn street he became involved in an affair that put him in jail for three months and made the portals of the penitentiary loom up largely across his path. It looked for a time as if his career was about to be nipped in the young bud.
In 1869 Charles Goodwin, assistant cashier of the Chicago Dock Company, was found to be a defaulter to the extent of $30,000. He fled from Chicago and went to California, but in a few months came back and surrendered himself to the authorities.
He testified that McDonald had lured him into the game at 89 Dearborn street, where he had played and lost his money in a series of brace games that lasted during a period of several weeks. At first he lost a few hundred dollars, and he was persuaded to go back to the Dock company's office and get money out of the safe in order that he could return the next evening and win back the money he had lost.
He never won anything back, but kept getting in deeper. At length the poor, deluded victim was told to make a big haul and skip the town. He made a last pull at the strong box for $15,000 or $18,000, and his friends at 89 Dearborn street let him play one last farewell game, at which they took the trouble to see that the boy should not be bothered in his flight from justice by lugging a big bag full of money around with him.
Case Finally "Fixed."
McDonald was arrested, and the Dock company also proceeded against him civilly, as it was not certain he could be held on a criminal charge owing to the guarded manner in which he had conducted his operation. McDonald was put under bail of $60,000, and, being unable to supply it, remained in jail for several months. Things were finally "fixed" all right, though. A few days before his trial he was released from jail, John Corcoran and Alderman Tom Foley going on his bail bond.
The trial was a farce. All the gamblers, "con" men, bunko steerers and strong-arm men in Chicago lined up in court and told how the defaulting clerk had begged to be permitted to play the brace game, with tears in his eyes, and that most of his money had been spent on wine, women and song. The jury solemnly declared McDonald innocent.
The expense of his trial on the charge of stealing the Dock company's $30,000 had made McDonald poor, and he had to get out and do a little "hustling." Soon after his release from the county jail John Donaldson, a California gambler and a high roller, made a winning in McDonald's place of $2,200 at poker. He took the money back to the hotel with him and was robbed of it and $500 besides before he had been in bed ten minutes.