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The reason that the "wire-tapping" game was supposed to come within the scope of the McCord case was this: it deluded the victim into the belief that he was going to cheat the pool room by placing a bet upon a "sure thing." Secondarily it involved, as the dupe supposed, the theft or disclosure of messages which were being transmitted over the lines of a telegraph company a misdemeanor.
"Wire-tapping" became an industry, a legalized industry with which the authorities might interfere at their peril. One crook bred another every time he made a victim, and the disease of crime, the most infectious of all distempers, ate its way unchecked into the body politic. But the evil did not stop there.
"If we're goin' to do poolroom work, nowadays, we've got to do it big and comprehensive, same as Morgan or Rockefeller would do their line o' business. You've got to lay out the stage, nowadays, to carry on the show, or something'll swallow you up. Why, when we worked our last wire-tapping scheme with a hobo from St.
He formerly ran a gambling house, and at different times has been involved in bunco game and wire-tapping tricks. He is one of the cleverest crooks in New York. In the present case he has been the go-between for this man Trubus, who, posing as a reformer to cover his activities, has kept in touch with the work of the Vice Trust, managed by Clemm.
"Sir," replied the knave unabashed, "I am one of those who do make a living by their wits." John Felix, a dealer in automatic musical instruments in New York City, was swindled out of $50,000 on February 2d, 1905, by what is commonly known as the "wire-tapping" game.
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.
Shimmering and saucy and debonair as a polo pony, she had seemed a departure from type, something above the meretricious termagants round whom he so often had to weave his accusatory webs of evidence. Then, the following autumn, she was still again mysteriously involved in the Sheldon wire-tapping coup.
"Stone that was the man's name was running a tapless wire-tapping game. You've read about the trick, I expect. Every one has known about it since Larry Summerfield was sent to Sing Sing. But it was new then. There are lots of ways of doing it. Stone's was to hire a room and fix it up to look like a branch of the Western Union Telegraph Company.
While "wire-tapping" differed technically from the precise frauds committed by McCord and Livingston, it nevertheless closely resembled those swindlers in general character and came clearly within the doctrine that the law was not designed to protect "rogues in their dealings with each other."
McPherson turned out to be Christopher Tracy, alias Charles J. Tracy, alias Charles Tompkins, alias Topping, alias Toppin, etc., etc., arrested some eight or ten times for "wire-tapping." The "trusted cashier" materialized in the form of one Wyatt, alias, Fred Williams, etc., a "wire-tapper" and pal of "Chappie" Moran and "Larry" Summerfield.
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