Knots Untied; Or, Ways and By-ways in the Hidden Life of American Detectives

by George S. McWatters

To preserve the weaker of the cormorant classes in their "lawful" pursuits, therefore, the detective is absolutely a necessity in society, and as such should be as much esteemed as any other necessity. Obvious is it, then, that the writer of the work alluded to—"Purveyors of Hell"—is an impractical enthusiast in the cause of abstract right and truth. It would seem that he, poor man, believes in some system of abstract and speculative morality as a governing and directing force in society, without any regard to the customs of trade, etc., which obtain in a civilization, the main end of which is to enable its chief individual participants to "make money" by various means of enticing it out of their neighbors' pockets and filching it from the hands of labor.

This sort of abstract morality, spiritual morality, which is talked from every pulpit in the land to audiences composed, for the main part, of people who, however strict attention they may pay to the talkers, punctuate the sentences of their discourses for them with scheming thoughts of what they are going to do in a business-way the next day—has failed of its desired results often enough, one would think, to confound the talkers. The wonder to me is that the intelligent classes do not, more than they do, look things squarely in the face, and see for themselves how utterly hopeless it is to ever do without the detective in society, so long as our legislators make ten laws for the protection of property to one for man; so long as the "sacredness of property" is a phrase which sanctifies the protection of all ill-gotten gains, if they but be gotten in some regular, or not too irregular, way, even more surely than it covers or protects the products of actual hard labor,—the very things of all that need protection, and the protecting of which, in the hands of those to whom they rightly belong, the laborers, would secure all other rights in society; for surely the defrauding of labor is the radical iniquity of the age (as it has been that of all the historic ages, so far as I can learn), out of which spring all the rest of the corruptions of society.

But the talkers do not care to meddle with reforms which have a wise, radical end in view. They hate things which are radical. They dislike to disturb the "foundations of society." They are wiser than their Master, and have so veiled his philosophy and teachings of a politico-economical kind, that he would not, were he to reappear on earth, here in New York, be able to tell the difference, in point of principle, between a Wall Street broker, owning the chief pew in one of the talkers' temples, and being a principal pillar thereof, from one of those wily rascals whom he saw fit to whip out of the sacred places some eighteen hundred and thirty odd years ago.

In those days the detective was as necessary as now; and it was by his aid, probably, that the society of Jerusalem was enabled to cohere. But the money-makers became so sharp and subtle, and got so well established in the practice of their iniquities in the very Porch of the Temple, that it became necessary for the great Detective and Reformer to come out of Nazareth, and search into their "ways which were dark," and expose them. In fact it would seem that the detective system has the approval of very high authority,—so wise as not to be mistaken as to its fitness to "things as they are," and are ever likely to be till some method is invented to do away with criminals, by making crime unattractive, and labor, honest toil, for what a man has a right to have, and no more, respectable and attractive.

I have hinted that the detective's vocation has much to do with "ways that are dark." So it has; and it might be inferred, perhaps, from what I have said, that his vocation has a bad influence upon his own interior nature. It is certain that it has no great tendency to elevate and refine him; but it would seem that the pursuit of devious ways for a good end has not the corrupting influence which the practice of falsehood for the mere aggrandizement of a man's individual, selfish interests, exercises. Detectives are, for the most part, excellent citizens—very punctilious in observing the laws, themselves, as well as being social regulators to enforce others to respect them, also. Still, whatever the intrinsic moral life or character of the detective may be, his art is a devilish one, and civilization is responsible for it.

The use of the detective to society is not fully understood by the majority of the people, especially in country places; and visitors to a city like New York, or Philadelphia, little consider how much of their peace and security, when there, depend upon the quiet, silent, effective operations of the master detectives. The citizen or stranger, on visiting a great mercantile establishment like Stewart's up-town store, usually but little understands what a system of detection is carried on there, not only for the protection of Mr. Stewart's goods, but the purses of his customers, from the attractive powers of the graceful pickpocket's fingers. But the amount of money which Stewart pays out annually for this sort of protection must be something large. In this way is dispensed to others a portion of the money which he, as a merchant, manages to win for himself from the labor-resources of the country by the jugglery of trade. There seems to be a sort of poetic justice in this. If Mr. Stewart, and the other enormous accumulators of wealth, were not obliged to employ others to help them protect it, there probably would be left to the poor but little else than the liberty to die, and be buried in paupers' graves, at a more early date after birth than is now their wont to reach those hospitable quarters.

But everywhere throughout a great city, in the horse-cars, in Wall Street, in all the great stores, at the churches on Sundays, in the lager-beer gardens, on the steamboats at the wharves, on the ferry-boats, throughout the large manufactories, around various dens of iniquity, at the theatres, etc., the detective is at his work. To-day he perhaps personates one character; to-morrow, another. To-day he is a trader from the West, making purchases among sundry dealers in tobacco, perhaps; and as he glides around their establishments, prizing this or that stock which he is to purchase, 'unless he can do better elsewhere,' he is carefully noting everything; for he is for the time in the employ of the General Government, and it is suspected that the tobacconists are defrauding the Treasury of the taxes, and he is in pursuit of evidence to convict them. Yesterday he hailed from New Hampshire, perhaps, and in the character of a countryman, was getting an insight into arts by which a sharper was fleecing, not only country people, but some of the residents of the city, too, by inveigling them into subscribing for stock in a fabulous gold, or silver, or lead mine, or some great colonizing project, and inducing them to advance ten or twenty per cent. on the nominal par value of the stock as a part of the working capital.

The detective, in the character of the countryman, presenting himself in fancy as my pen traced the lines next above, memory reverts to a notable instance, which I conceive is well worth recording here, wherein a detective friend of mine, in his rôle of a sort of Brother Jonathan, from New Hampshire, caught a bogus gold-mine speculator of New York in a very clever way, and accomplished the restitution of several thousand dollars (which had been advanced as per centage on the stock subscribed for by several different persons). The speculator, who was a man of considerable moneyed means, and therefore "responsible," and thought to be, of course, "reliable," on account of his being a man of property, had, in a very ingenious manner, organized a company to work a supposed gold mine in Virginia. He was president of the "company," and his cousin was secretary. A northern geologist (a professor in a college not over a hundred and fifty miles in a bee line from New York city), was taken by this cousin on to Virginia to examine the mine, and make a report, which was duly done, the professor making a very attractive report. He found considerably more gold to the ton of quartz than is considered among miners "a fair, average yield." The mine was indeed a very valuable one in his opinion, and would have been so in fact, if his conclusions had been drawn from honest premises; but the poor professor had no suspicion that the gold he found in his assay of the quartz, which he actually saw taken from the mine in question, got into his crucible in a mysterious way, and never belonged to the quartz which he had taken so much pains to pulverize.

The president had so deftly drawn up the printed constitution, or articles of incorporation, and by-laws of the company, that he could easily and legally resign his position, and withdraw when he pleased from the association, and carry off all the funds advanced, without fear of legal trouble from his victims. But after a large amount of the stock had been subscribed, and the advanced assessments of twenty per cent. called in (when somewhat over half the nominal stock had been subscribed), one of the victims got his eyes open, and wanted his money back. He saw that it was of no use to complain to the president (I will call the latter Sharp, and my friend the detective, Flat, for short), so he made his case known to a lawyer, who directed him to engage Flat, who, he thought, and thought rightly, would "work up the job safely." Flat managed to get himself into Sharp's acquaintance outside of business hours, as a curious fellow,—a nondescript old bachelor,—from Alton, New Hampshire, owning several farms, and with more money than he knew what to do with.

Of course Sharp needed him, and used his best arts to get him to take stock. Flat agreed to call and look into the "darned thing," and if he liked it he'd "go in." He called. Sharp showed him the books. Flat found the amount of stock subscribed just as Sharp told him, and of course was pleased at first, and was about to subscribe, himself—when a "notion struck him."