Chapter M: J. Beck, "Benedict & Co.," 225 Dearborn street (5)

"Fine," said Mike. "Here's $10; go and bury five of 'em."

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.

A cracksman by the name of Travers was convicted of the crime.

Donaldson used to go to Joliet every day or two to interview Travers. Finally he came back from Joliet and never ate nor slept until he had run McDonald down. Tweaking his nose he shouted:

"Travers has confessed. You are a thief. You are a coward. Within twenty minutes after I was robbed you were dividing my $2,700 with Travers and his pal."

McDonald did not deny the charge or strike back at Donaldson, as the latter apparently hoped he would. Donaldson was a slight man, almost dead with consumption, but he was famous as a man killer, and while with one hand he tweaked McDonald's nose, the other hand was jammed down in his coat pocket, and McDonald knew that if he made a move or said a word he was a dead man.

Donaldson's hatred for McDonald became a mania with him. He was a doomed man, anyhow, and he wanted to kill McDonald before he went. So for the three years before death finally claimed him he would drag himself about the streets until he could stand in front of his enemy and slap him in the face and curse him, and beg him to raise his hand or say a word, or give him the slightest pretext for killing him. It was a great relief to McDonald when grim death finally claimed Donaldson.

RISES IN HIS PROFESSION.

After the fire McDonald opened a place on State street, in partnership with Nick Geary, a celebrated thief, who was subsequently killed in Philadelphia. McDonald next moved to the West Side, and was taken in by John Dowling, who gave him a third interest in his game in consideration of indemnity against police interference, McDonald's political star at this time being on the rise. The firm cleared $100,000 in less than a year.

About this time McDonald formed a partnership with Harry Lawrence and Morris Martin, and for four or five years they had supreme control of the bunko business. None others could work excepting those who took the trouble to see the firm of McDonald, Martin & Lawrence. Among the gang who worked under the protection of the firm were Tom Wallace, John Wallace, "Snitzer, the Kid," John Martin, "Snapper Johnny," "Kid Miller," "Sir James" Arlington, or Gannon, "Appetite Bill," and "Hungry Joe."

There is no telling how much money these individuals took away from the unsuspecting public, but it is estimated at over $1,000,000. Of this, 20 per cent went to the police, 40 per cent to the roper, and 40 per cent to the firm. The latter furnished straw bail, witnesses and juries, and other protection, and the confidence gangs reported to it and received orders. In 1875 "White Pine" Martin shot and killed "Sir James" Gannon in front of "The Store" while quarreling over the division of the proceeds of some job.

THRONE IN "THE STORE."

The firm of McDonald, Lawrence and Martin had opened up the resort known as "The Store" on Clark street, on the northwest corner of Monroe street, where the Hamilton Club stands today. The first floor was operated as a saloon, and the floors above as gambling rooms. After public sentiment became aroused over the bunko business of the firm, Lawrence and Martin drew out, leaving McDonald to run "The Store" alone.

"The Store" was the most famous place in Chicago in those days. It was not only the rendezvous of all the sporting men, politicians and denizens of the underworld in Chicago, but it was virtually the city hall, for from his little office in "The Store" McDonald managed the affairs of the city.

Every form of gambling known flourished on that wonderful second floor. The most expert manipulators of cards that ever dealt a second or shifted a cold deck sat behind the tables. They were Clif Doherty, Frank Gallon, Billy Tyler, Charles Winship and George Noyse.

High-ball poker, in which the roller holds the high ball in his fist and rolls it to the cappers continuously, and faro, with fifty-three cards in the deck, so that the odd could be dealt, were said to have always prevailed in "The Store."

"There never was an honest card dealt in the place," is the epitaph one old-time gambler has written on its dead proprietor.

Big as the place was, it was always crowded. McDonald is said to have coined a very common phrase when, on one occasion, one of his dealers protested against putting in more tables and increasing the size of the gambling rooms.

"I tell you, Mike," he said, "we won't have enough players to fill up all the games."

"Ah, don't worry," McDonald is said to have replied, "there's a sucker born every minute."

In politics McDonald's first great triumph was when he elected Colvin mayor on the democratic ticket. Then he put the elder Harrison in the mayoralty chair, and after that he had plain sailing. His control lasted during the entire Harrison administration of eight years. In all that time there was no bigger man in Chicago than Mike McDonald.

The only time he met with a serious set-back was in 1882, when he tried to elect William J. McGarigle, then chief of police, sheriff of Cook county.

THE BIG COURTHOUSE "JOB."

Another disappointment of McDonald's political career was when he got a bill past the county commissioners and city aldermen authorizing Harry Holland to paint the outside of the City Hall and County Building with a mixture which was guaranteed to prevent the stone from decaying.

Holland applied his marvelous preparation, but when the time came to pay the bill a newspaper man, John J. Lane, who died only the other day in St. Louis, had dug up evidence tending to show that Holland's preparation was nothing but water and chalk, and not quite so efficacious in preventing the decay of stone as prune juice or ice cream would have been, but much cheaper. The county has never yet paid the $80,000 that Holland wanted for the job on the county building.

After the close of the Harrison administration a new day began in Chicago. The independent voter broke the power of party bosses. Mike McDonald's rule was broken. He could no longer do what he pleased with city administrations and be unofficial chief of police.

He bowed pleasantly to the inevitable, and stepped down and out. He was wise in that he saw the handwriting on the wall, and gracefully submitted instead of "kicking against the pricks" and wasting his time and his money, as did other gamblers and sports, who were finally crushed out simply because they could not recognize that new conditions and new men had come.

McDonald quit every sphere of his old life and went into business.

It was he who, with William Fitzgerald, built the first elevated road in town, the Lake street "L." Then, in 1891, he thought he would like to be an editor. He bought control of the Globe, a daily morning paper, and ran it for over two years. It was not a financial success, and finally McDonald gave it up. "I guess I was never cut out for a literary man," was his laughing remark. "There are other things I know more about."

DOMESTIC LIFE ROUGH.

A great deal has been said about McDonald's domestic unhappiness, but it was not until his body had been buried that the truth was known.

His first wife was Mary Noonan, whom he married in the days when "The Store" was the sporting and political Mecca of Chicago.

It was a great scandal in the community later when she suddenly disappeared, and it was reported that she had run away with "Billy" Arlington, a minstrel man. It was the greater shock because her devotion and loyalty to McDonald had been the talk of the town.

One time she had stood, with a pistol, in her husband's gambling house, and defied the police when they raided the place under instruction of some blundering chief of police, who did not realize that he was toying with the lightning when he laid violent hands on anything that belonged to McDonald. Mary McDonald had held her ground at the door in "The Store," and declared she would shoot the first policeman that attempted to enter. She was as good as her word, and one of the officers was carried to a hospital with a bullet through his arm. Mrs. McDonald, through her husband's pull, was never prosecuted.

McDonald went to San Francisco and brought his wife back and installed her in the house he had built at Ashland avenue and Harrison street, considered in those days a veritable palace. McDonald gave it out to the world that he had built the mansion for his wife, and his taking her back after she was reputed to have run away with another man was accepted as a wonderful instance of his great-heartedness and magnanimity.

SAM BARCLAY TELLS "HOW MIKE MCDONALD'S COIN WON DORA AWAY."

"Sam" Barclay (Harry is supposed to have been his baptismal name) was one of the great ball players of the long ago, and the shadows of the drama that wrecked his life are, therefore, interwoven with the world of sport, and even with the career of Charles Comiskey, "the master of the White Sox."

Barclay, a trim and graceful fellow, came into prominence twenty years ago and played with Pittsburg and St. Louis. At St. Louis he was under the command of Comiskey, who therefore knew him well, and was always interested in his doings.

On two or three occasions quarrels over the contracts of Sam Barclay nearly wrecked organized base ball. He was a wonderful second baseman, and one of the fastest and most scientific players of the day.

In 1889 Barclay's knee went back on him, and, while he regained full use of the leg, he was never fast enough to play his former game. He also began to take on flesh, and was glad to retire from the diamond.

OPENS SALOON IN CHICAGO.

Coming to Chicago, Barclay opened a saloon on West Madison street. Back in 1894, West Madison, from Halsted to Elizabeth, was the real red-light district, full of saloons and concert halls. Barclay's place was the headquarters of revelry, but Sam himself kept a good name for personal honesty and unbounded generosity to his friends.

When the red-lights went out on Madison street, Sam leased a saloon at 15 North Clark, where for some time he held the same kind of sway he had maintained west of the river. This place was ultimately lost, and he went over in Garfield park district, without much success.

"Sam" Barclay, former husband of Mrs. "Mike" McDonald II, 451 West Lake street, freely discussed his life with Mrs. McDonald.

It was an interesting story, in which he told of Mrs. McDonald's attempt to commit suicide once in Kansas City, of brawls in his saloon, the "Half Moon," and of how "Mike" McDonald, assisted by "Bunk" Allen, lured his wife away from him. Here is what he said:

"They have printed stories that are not true about this
case. Mrs. McDonald's mother was a Mrs. Feldman, who at one
time lived at 619 Harrison street. At the time I knew her
Mrs. Feldman had been divorced from her husband and he was
living in the Ghetto.

LIKELY LAD OF 200 POUNDS.

"It was in '89 that I met Dora. I was in the Kansas City
ball team, and was a likely lad. I weighed 200 pounds,
trained down, and it was a good man who was able to floor
me.

"Dora came to visit her brother-in-law in Kansas City. He
is Dick Vaughn, and a very good 'pal' of mine. I met her
there at his house.

"We took a liking to each other, so I used to have her in
the best seat every day at the games when we played on home
grounds.

"And she never was slow, I tell you, of giving me credit
when I made a double play or lined out a hot one.

NOTHING LIKE REAL LOVE.

"Well, the season came to a close. I liked the kid, but I
didn't feel nothing like real love for her. I was going to
leave Kansas City, and nothing was said about taking her
with me. I noticed that big tears came in her eyes when I
told her, but she didn't say much. That night they sent for
me. They told me that Dora was dying.

"I got to Vaughn's house and found her unconscious. She
had taken laudanum, the doctor said. She was in a stupor.
The first chance I got, I asked her what was the matter,
and she said to me, as the tears rolled down her cheeks:

"'I don't want to be left alone.'

"That, you know, touched me. We got married. I've got the
license right here. It was all doped up by a fellow in the
Washingtonian Home, who thought he owed a lot to me. He
certainly did some fine pen and ink decorating with birds,
and shadings and such things.

"So, after I quit the national game, I went into the saloon
business at 292 West Madison street, first, and then
started the 'Half Moon.'

"I'll tell you the truth about how Dora met Mike McDonald.
She went to McVicker's theater one day with Harry Summers,
who is now treasurer of the Illinois theater.

"Dora was with Mrs. Elliott. She used to be a model in
Ryan's store, at Madison and Peoria streets. Summers
introduced Dora to Mike McDonald, and that's the way they
started.

DAY OF HARRISON FUNERAL.

"Well I remember the time--it was on the day that Carter
Harrison's funeral went past the house, at 319 Washington
boulevard, where we were living at that time.

"'I met an old gentleman today who has lots of money,' Dora
said to me, as we looked out of the window.

"'It's funny how a man gets up in the world and then loses
it all when he's laid away in the narrow box,' I said,
keeping my eyes on the hearse.

"I was thinking, then, but not about what my wife said.
Afterward the words came to me, but I didn't realize the
meaning of her expression or what it had in store for me
then.

DEEP GAME WELL PLAYED.

"A few years passed. They went quick, then. Money made the
time fly, and Dora certainly was a spender. Then one night
they pulled off the game that was to separate us and give
Mike McDonald a young wife.

"I was boozy with wine. Bill Hoffman and 'Bunk' Allen were
masters of the ceremonies. They bundled me in a cab and
drove me to a place on Wood street. Detectives came in, and
my wife, too, and they there and then laid the basis of the
divorce suit which ended the game between Dora and I."

Barclay then told of a fight in his saloon, in which one man was almost killed and another badly wounded. Then he said:

"That's how they wound up the 'Half Moon.' Jimmy Quinn said
he was my friend, but he stabbed me in the back. I was
getting too strong in politics, so he got me and I was put
down and out."

Barclay had seemed perfectly happy with her, but one night when he was living in rooms over his saloon at 15 North Clark street he learned that Mike McDonald had come into her life, and it was not long before the ball player's romance was ended.

WIFE GETS DIVORCE.

Mrs. Barclay obtained a divorce--with McDonald's money, so Barclay always said--and the ball player was left alone. The blow proved his utter undoing. Barclay lost ambition and energy. He spent hours in his rooms, gazing mutely at a huge crayon portrait of his wife, taken a year before she left him, and he seemed to have no desire or ability left for business.

SECOND WEDDING IN MILWAUKEE.

Mrs. Barclay was married to McDonald in Milwaukee. At the time she was in the chorus of the Chicago Opera House. Her mother is Mrs. Fanny Feldman, 338 South Marshfield avenue. She has two brothers, Harry and Emil Feldman, both known in West Side political circles. Harry Feldman was employed in the city clerk's office during William Loeffler's term.

When McDonald took his new wife to his house on Ashland boulevard there was a red-hot family row. Guy, the elder of the two sons of McDonald, had a pitched battle with her, and the fight was carried into the street. The boy was victorious at first, but his father sided with the stepmother, and eventually the boy left home.

Harold Barclay, 10 years old, Mrs. McDonald's son by her first marriage, was adopted by McDonald, and with his two sons, Cassius and Guy McDonald, has an equal share in the estate.

INDUCES HUSBAND TO DISINHERIT SON.

Shortly after her marriage to McDonald, Dora became angry at her husband's son, Harley. The latter objected to his father contracting further matrimonial alliances, and did not hesitate to say so. Mrs. McDonald prevailed upon her husband to disinherit the son, and later, of her own initiative, caused the arrest of the young man.

The charge was threats against her life. The case came up at the old Armory police court, and the young man was placed under bonds to keep the peace.

The breach between father and son is said never to have healed. Young McDonald went into the sign painting business soon after the episode.

Guy married Miss Pearl Flower, and lives in Chicago. Mrs. McDonald once had Guy McDonald arrested on the charge of writing threatening and obscene letters.

The case was hotly fought in the United States court. A juryman, and warm personal friend of Mike McDonald, saved him from conviction, which would have carried with it a penitentiary sentence.

THE STING AND CURSE OF ILL-GOTTEN MONEY.

"Mike" McDonald, the king of gamblers, was buried like a king of men. There were flowers, tears, friends, orations and processions. But as clothes are not, neither is a funeral, an index to character--nor even is the obituary column.

Strangers, reading the story of the last day above the sod of McDonald's body, might has thought that Chicago had lost a leading good citizen. They were told that McDonald had amassed wealth, but they were not told how he got it. They read of the great men whom he had befriended, but they were not told of the men whom he had ruined. They were not told that Mike McDonald living, had violated the laws of the land, of society and of the home.

"Mike" McDonald died worth a million dollars. A young man beginning life, familiar only with the post-mortem, story of McDonald, and seeing no condemnation of his method of getting rich, might feel encouraged to hold to the idea that the accumulation of money bars all criticism for the way it is acquired.

Though the publicity of cold type has put no brand on the dead McDonald, the story of "Mike" McDonald's life and fortune is not yet finished.

Suppose he did die worth a million dollars, whom will it benefit? What good will it do?

There will be a fight in every dollar, a quarrel in every penny.

There will be a strife among men and women over this fortune.

Much of it will go to lawyers to defend a woman charged with murder. Much more of it will go to other lawyers who will try to break his will. As McDonald's money was ill-gotten, so will it be spent to no good purpose.

In a few years McDonald will be forgotten except by those whom in life he ruined. His fortune will be gone. No one will remember him for the good he did, if he did any good.

Let not "Mike" McDonald's success in securing money encourage you to follow his method.

If you, young man, had an opportunity of entering a gambling venture, with a certainty of securing for yourself a fortune of a million dollars, you would be a fool to take advantage of that opportunity.

There is nothing in the life of even a successful gambler worth imitating and nothing that he does worth admiring.

"Mike" McDonald may have been better than the ordinary class of gamblers, but the occasional good deeds that men of his character do are always exaggerated.

Ninety-nine gamblers out of a hundred that amass fortunes die paupers. The money that a few accumulate, even as McDonald did, is, as a rule, a curse to those that inherit it.

But if McDonald had sense--and we believe he did have sense--in the closing years of his life he cursed the day when he started on a career that wrecked him, socially and morally, and left him in his dying hour a bankrupt in everything but the possession of a few hundred thousand dollars, which he could not take beyond the grave.

And what has happened after McDonald's death, and what will happen in the courts of law, will prove to men that ill-gotten money carries a sting to its possessor and a curse to those who inherit it.

WIFE NO. 1, WIDOW; NO. 2, REPUDIATED.

BURIAL OF "MIKE" MCDONALD SERVES TO OPEN NEW CHAPTER IN HIS TROUBLES--OLD SCANDALS DENIED.

MARY NOONAN NOW CLAIMS INNOCENCE AND FIGHTS TO PROVE DIVORCE ILLEGAL.

The grave out at Mount Olivet that closed over the body of "Mike" McDonald refused a final sanctuary to the life-tragedy of the political boss and millionaire gambling king.

The same hand of death that closed his eyes on his triumphs and afflictions raised the curtain on an unforseen last act in this drama of Chicago life.

In this new part of the plot Mrs. Dora Feldman McDonald, who turned the old gambler's head and broke his heart through the shooting of Webster Guerin, appears as a wife solemnly repudiated in death-bed rites. At the same time Mrs. Mary Noonan McDonald, the divorced and exiled first wife, steps upon the scene to cleanse her name of the scandals to which it has been linked for twenty years.

While the two wives and the relatives stood before the coffin it came out that McDonald, shortly before his death at St. Anthony de Padua hospital, had uttered a formal repudiation of his second marriage, in the presence of the Rev. Maurice J. Dorney, pastor of St. Gabriel's Catholic Church, and several witnesses, in the persons of hospital attendants. This having been done, McDonald was permitted the last sacraments of the church and burial under the Roman ritual.

FIRST WIFE DENIES CHARGES.

As the second wife passed under the ban, the first one came forward to claim that of which she had been dispossessed by human passion. Sitting in her apartment last night at the Vincennes hotel, Vincennes avenue and Thirty-sixth street. Mary Noonan McDonald gave her version of the romance and tragedy that have measured forty years of her life.

"For the sake of my two boys, it is now my duty to tell the
world the truth about the slanders with which my name has
been blackened," she said. "I am not perfect, and I have
done things for which I am sorry, but I am guiltless of the
charges with which I have been hounded about the world for
twenty years. This I can prove, and to do so I shall remain
in Chicago as long as necessary."

REPUDIATION OF SECOND WIFE.

It was after the solemn requiem mass over McDonald's body in the Church of the Presentation that the Rev. Father Dorney consented to tell the story of the gambler's dying repudiation of his second wife.

"I told 'Mike' McDonald before his death," said Father
Dorney, "that in the eyes of the Roman Catholic church
there was no such thing as divorce; that he had but one
wife, the mother of his children--Mary Noonan. I told him
he must publicly repudiate this other woman, and only when
he said he did so could he receive the last sacraments,
penance, holy eucharist, and extreme unction.

"Although he was critically ill, he said, firmly, that he
would do as the church wished: that he was sorry for his
sins, and he wanted to receive the last sacraments. Then,
in the presence of witnesses, as is required, he made the
repudiation. Later he went to confession, but what he told
there I can never reveal.

"Afterwards the other woman, Dora Feldman, came to see
him at the hospital, but if he was conscious he never
recognized her. He was true to his promise, true to his
resolution to put her out of his life."

CHURCH NOT INTERESTED IN WILL.

Father Dorney's attention was called to the fact that McDonald probably had left a considerable portion of his estate to his second wife.

"I suppose he did, but this is a legal matter in which the
church is not interested. Mike McDonald and Mary Noonan
were legally married in the eyes of the law, and the
church, in a Catholic church edifice. We never recognize
divorce. Of course, we know it is impossible at times for
men and women to live together, and the church permits them
to reside apart, but remarriage is impossible as long as
both of the parties are still alive.

"McDonald never remarried in the eyes of the church,
because his first wife was not dead. By his actions with
Dora Feldman he gave great scandal, but before his death
he repented of it. If Dora Feldman followed Mike McDonald
to his grave, she could not do so from an ecclesiastical
standpoint, and in my sermon this morning when I referred
to the wife of the dead man I meant Mary Noonan McDonald,
the mother of his children."

MRS. MARY MCDONALD CHANGED.

No greater contrast could be conceived than that between the woman reputed to have deserted her husband in turn for a renegade French priest and a minstrel, and the woman who rose to greet the interviewer who called at the Vincennes hotel for Mrs. Mary Noonan McDonald. Twenty years of sorrow have left snow white hair that still crowns her head with the same wealth as that of younger days, and twenty years of struggle to support herself have dulled the fire of those gray eyes that once looked over a smoking revolver with which the girl wife held at bay the police raiders of her husband's gambling house. But the slender figure appeared as erect as ever, though standing forth with an added frailty beside her stalwart, brown-faced son, Guy, and her face, though pale and sad, scarcely confessed to her 60 years of age.

This is the woman who began her career in Chicago as the helpmate of an old-time gambling king, and is ending her days in the work of rescuing wayward girls; this is the woman who was driven to abandon the name of McDonald and bury her identity for the last fifteen years under the alias of Mrs. Grashoff, holding communication only with her children and secretly visiting Chicago periodically to see them.

TELLS HER STORY AT LAST.

"It is sixteen years since I have talked to a newspaper
reporter," said Mrs. Mary Noonan McDonald. "Again and
again have I been besought to tell my story, but long ago
I determined to remain silent until after the death of Mr.
McDonald. For the sake of my children's relations with
their father I held my peace, and now, for the sake of my
children's name, I have decided to give my story to the
world.

"The lies that have been printed about me for the last
twenty years are but a feeble testimonial of the tremendous
power wielded by Mr. McDonald and his friends. None knows
better than I how he made and unmade public officials, set
judges on the bench, determined public politics in the old
days, and fought his enemies with a ruthlessness that made
him feared far and wide. When I became his enemy, I, too,
began to feel his power, as it was manifested in the public
press.

"The lies have multiplied day by day, but I have so far
refused to answer them. Only during the last week the
papers have said that Dora McDonald, who ruined Mike
McDonald's life, and I, met at the bedside of the dying
man. We have never met. The only time I ever saw her was
in a Providence (R. I.) hotel, ten years ago, where I was
stopping while at a convention of charities. We sat at the
same table, and I heard her say to a girl with her that I
looked like Guy's mother. Then I knew who she was. I have
not seen her since, not even at the grave today, though I
was told she was there."

Guy McDonald interposed to explain that his stepmother had not been allowed to attend the funeral service at the church, being taken directly to the cemetery.

SAYS CHARGES WERE INVENTED.

"The statement I want to make to the world," resumed Mrs.
McDonald, "is that all the stories told of my conduct at
the time I was separating from Mr. McDonald, are absolutely
false, and were maliciously invented and circulated.
The trouble between my husband and me grew out of his
brutality. He was a big, red-blooded man, but when under
the influence of liquor he was rough and disorderly. He
often struck me at such times, and mistreated me in other
cruel ways.

"I finally came to the conclusion that I could stand the
life no longer. So I ran away. But I went alone, and not
with Billy Arlington, the minstrel, as the story was told
afterwards. I went to San Francisco and visited with
friends, and while there I met Arlington. He was only a
casual acquaintance, and I never saw him after I left San
Francisco. I went from there to Cincinnati, and thence to
New York, with friends. We stopped at the Gilsey house, and
there William Pinkerton, Al Smith, the old-time gambler,
who had a resort at 86 Clark, and Mr. McDonald, coaxed me
to come back home.

"But it was not long before the old trouble began again.
Mr. McDonald was extremely abusive when in liquor, and Mr.
A. S. Trude will tell you that I went to his office one
day and asked him to get me a divorce. He tried to smooth
matters over, and succeeded for a time.

NO CHAPEL IN HOUSE.

"Then we went to live in the new house at 308 Ashland
avenue. There my troubles began afresh, and grew until
1888. The newspaper stories have dwelt at great length on
insinuations of my conduct with a priest for whom I was
said to have built a chapel in my house. Nothing could be
more preposterous on the face of it, as any Roman Catholic
will tell you. The church does not sanction the erection
of altars, the giving of communion, and the receiving of
confessions in private homes. Dispensations for temporary
masses can be obtained in rare instances.

"There was a priest named Father Price, from Asheville, N.
C., who was raising money for his church in Chicago. We
gave a recital that netted him $500, after which he was a
guest for two weeks at our house.

"He obtained a dispensation to say mass a few times, and
did so before a temporary saint's altar set on a bureau.
When he departed the altar went with him, and that is as
close as we ever came to having a private chapel in our
house.

"The French priest with whom I was said to have eloped was
Father Moysant. He never said a mass in our house, and I
never knew him except as one of the priests of the parish
who were entertained frequently by Mr. McDonald.

LEAVES HUSBAND; GOES TO SISTER.

"I did not run away with Father Moysant or any other
person, the fact being that, unable to stand Mr. McDonald's
treatment, I left his house in the fall of 1887 and went to
live with Mrs. Peter McGuire, whose house stood on the site
of the present Studebaker building. I begged Mr. McDonald
to let my boys come to me, but he refused. At the end of
three weeks I went to New York alone, sailed for Havre,
still alone, and went to visit my sister, Mrs. Catherine
Phillpot, who lived in Paris.

"I remained there eleven months and returned to New York.
At the Fifth Avenue hotel, where I stopped, I found
Pinkerton detectives, hired by Mr. McDonald, watching me.
I complained to Mr. Philips, the house detective, of the
annoyance, as he will tell you. I was traveling under
the name of Armstrong, my mother's maiden name--she was
English and my father, Irish, you know. The annoyance of
the detectives became so great that I returned to Paris on
the same boat on which I had come to America. That was the
middle of October, 1888.

"After six months with my sister in Paris I returned
directly to Chicago. When I arrived I found my daughter
dead and with my own hands I buried her baby the next day.
I found also that I had been divorced by Mr. McDonald in
proceedings before Judge Jamieson, though no notice ever
was served on me."

PAWNS HER DIAMONDS.

Mrs. McDonald spread out her ringless fingers significantly, and continued:

"I went to a pawnbroker that day and sold my diamond
rings, ear-rings, and cross, and with the proceeds opened
a rooming house at 1235 Wabash avenue. Mr. McDonald often
came to see me and dine there, and it looked as if there
might be a reconciliation. But soon after that he met Dora
Barclay, and from that time we were friends no longer, but
bitter enemies.

"The reputation of my house was ruined by the arrest of
Mike Coleman, alias Charles Wilson, the safe-blower, who
had lived there a few weeks, and at first I thought Mr.
McDonald was behind this plot to ruin me. I went to the
Animosa, Pa., penitentiary, saw Coleman, and learned that
Mr. McDonald was innocent. But after that a story was
started that I lived with Coleman for years. I never saw
him after that time at the penitentiary.

"After the World's Fair I removed to St. Louis and
started a boarding house at 2686 Locust street. But soon
Mr. McDonald's detectives were hounding me there, the
newspapers began to print stories of our troubles, and my
business was ruined.

DRIVEN TO HIDE IDENTITY.

"I saw that if I was to live peacefully I must bury my
identity, and so, assuming the name of Mrs. Grashoff, I
went to New York, and obtained employment with the Board
of Charities at Fourth avenue and Twenty-third street, of
which Mr. Van Vordenberg was the head. For fifteen years I
have been in charitable work. I founded the Destitute Old
Ladies' Home at Paterson, N. J., and at present my work is
with the Crittenden Rescue Homes for Unfortunate Girls. It
is not the least solace for my many misfortunes that I have
been able to save many girls from continuing their wayward
careers.

"So much for the lies circulated about me for twenty years.
I never saw Father Price after he left Chicago, nor Father
Moysant after I went to Mrs. McGuire's. Both are living, so
far as I know, but where, I do not know."

But the records show, according to Mrs. Mary McDonald, that her husband repented of the wrongs he had heaped upon her, and called her to his bedside when he was dying, acknowledging her as his wife, and begging her forgiveness. They were reunited, and a few days later McDonald died.

OPPOSED BY DOCUMENTS.

For Mrs. Dora McDonald, on the other hand, an entirely different case is made out by her attorney, Colonel James Hamilton Lewis. He said that he had procured new evidence in the shape of affidavits and sworn statements of witnesses in the suit for divorce brought by "Mike" McDonald against Mary C. McDonald in 1889, and letters in the handwriting of Mary McDonald, and others.

The divorce bill, according to Colonel Lewis, was filed in the Superior Court of Cook County on September 11, 1889. In the complaint, McDonald alleged that he married his first wife November 20, 1870, and lived with her until May 1, 1889. He alleged misconduct in the complaint, naming Joseph Moysant, or Father Moysant, a renegade priest, and gave dates and places of alleged misconduct. He also alleged that Mrs. McDonald had fled to France with Moysant, and that she was not a resident of Chicago, or the State of Illinois.

JOINT LETTERS IN EVIDENCE.

Letters were offered in evidence which were alleged to have come from Mrs. McDonald to women friends. Some of these are said to have been signed Mrs. J. Moysant, and to have been partly in the handwriting of Mrs. McDonald and partly in the handwriting of Moysant. These letters are said to have shown that Mrs. McDonald had a knowledge of the divorce suit pending against her.

An attempt was also made to prove that Mrs. McDonald was deeded certain property by McDonald in connection with the divorce proceedings, and that she negotiated and disposed of that property in part, thus, acquiescing in the terms of possession and establishing the legality of the divorce.

Mrs. Mary McDonald, now a white-haired woman upward of sixty, declares that she has brought suit to establish her legal status as the widow of "Mike" McDonald for the sake of her two sons, Guy and Cassius, for whom she desires to clear her name of any stain. Her petition for an injunction restraining the trustees of the estate from paying to Mrs. Dora McDonald any money as dower rights was heard by Judge Barnes on November 18.

The contest was long and bitter between the attorneys. Crimination and recrimination flew thick and fast. In the end, however, Judge Barnes decided that the divorce of Mike McDonald from Mary Noonan McDonald was legal, that the law could not go back of the records, and that, therefore, Mary Noonan McDonald was not entitled to any share of the McDonald estate.

But the sordid contest over the ill-gotten money of the gambling king was not yet at end. Dora McDonald failed to pay her attorney's fees, and the estate was again brought into the courts on an injunction obtained by James Hamilton Lewis, who threatens to throw the estate into involuntary bankruptcy.

Thus the long battle over tainted gain goes on. Let those who think gambling an easy way to wealth and power read aright the lesson of the life of Mike McDonald; one continual tissue of law-breaking, imprisonment, divorce, scandal upon scandal, murder, adultery, leaving a name covered over and associated with all vileness, all the mud and slime of society, to go down to the grave with a broken heart. Is that an alluring spectacle? Is such a life worth living? Who would emulate it?

HAVE YOU READ

The Devil and the Grafter

And how they work together to Deceive, Swindle and Destroy Mankind. A Thrilling and Graphic Story of Truth Stranger than Fiction.

How a great army of 600,000 criminals in America, under the influence, guidance and leadership of Satan wage continued war with justice, law, society and religion.

BY

Clifton R. Wooldridge

The World's Great CRIMINOLOGIST AND DETECTIVE

After twenty years of heroic warfare and scores of hair breadth escapes, in which he suffered wounds and bruises by the hundreds, and baffled death so often that his criminal enemies declare "he leads a charmed life." Mr. Wooldridge, while still "in the harness," has given this volume to the public with the belief that he is sending forth a book with a mission of good to the world.

No man in all our country is so feared by evil doers of all classes as the author of this revelation of the ways and wiles of wicked men and women, who graft and swindle, rob and corrupt their fellows in defiance of law and justice.

"The Incorruptible Sherlock Holmes of America" is the title by which Mr. Wooldridge is favorably known. Hundreds of times large and tempting bribes have been offered him by wealthy criminals; thousands of dollars at a time might have been his for a "wink" at a nefarious practice, or for the loosing of his hold upon a rich criminal's wrist. But like Cæsar's wife, he stands "above suspicion." He is still a poor man, but deeply and earnestly studying the science of criminology, laboring and lecturing for the cure of crime by wise laws and scientific means--declaring himself to be the enemy of crime, but the friend of the criminal, whose disease of crime he believes can be cured, and that it is his mission to help the world suppress crime and find out the way for its elimination.

With an aim so lofty, and a motive so pure, the good people of every religion, all trades, all professions and all classes are in hearty sympathy, and the circulation of this book will not only serve to warn the people against the snares and pitfalls of the Devil and the Grafter (into which thousands of new victims fall and one hundred and sixty millions of dollars of the people's money are lost every year), but it will tend to make Grafting impossible and turn the Grafters into honest, legitimate channels and good citizenship.

This Book should be in the Hands of Every Minister, every doctor, every student, every teacher, farmer, business man, mechanic and laborer, every wife and widow--statistics show that ninety widows out of every hundred are swindled out of what their husbands leave them. It should be in the reach of all, male and female, for there is not a postoffice in all the land where the mail, every time it comes, does not bring the alluring literature of the Grafter to swindle or tempt the unwary.

PRICE CLOTH, ILLUSTRATED $1.00

HANDS UP

IN THE WORLD OF CRIME OR 12 YEARS A DETECTIVE

by CLIFTON R. WOOLDRIDGE

Chicago's Famous Detective

A BOOK OF

Thrilling descriptions about the capture of Bandits, Robbers, Panel House Workers, Confidence Men and hundreds of other criminals of all kinds.

TELLS IN GRAPHIC MANNER

How Criminals of all classes operate, illustrations showing arrests of Murderers, Safe Blowers, Diamond Thieves, Procuresses of Young Girls, etc., etc.

The contents of this book is a narrative of the authors twelve years' experience on the Chicago police force. His long and successful experience with the criminal classes justly fitted him for the work of bringing before the public in presentable form the many and interesting features of a detective's life.

In detail he tells the story of his life, and without coloring of any kind produces an accurate account of his twelve years' experience, many times under fire; his famous efforts to apprehend criminals, who, by means of revolvers and other conceivable methods tried to fight their way to liberty.

=The book contains over 500 pages=, is profusely illustrated from specially drawn pictures and photographs of desperate criminals and law-breakers, such as murderers, highwaymen, safe blowers, bank robbers, diamond thieves, burglars, porch climbers, shop lifters, bicycle thieves, box car thieves, lottery swindlers, gamblers, women footpads, panel-house thieves, confidence men, pickpockets, procuresses of young girls for immoral purposes, women gamblers, levee characters, etc.

This great production is not a ponderous volume filled with dry statistics, but made up of thrilling accounts which depict the most noteworthy incidents in the lives of criminals in large cities.

During Detective Wooldridge's service on the force he has made 20,000 arrests, secured 125 penitentiary convictions, recovered $75,000 worth of lost and stolen property, which was returned to its rightful owners; seventy-live girls under age were rescued by him from houses of ill-fame and a life of shame and returned to their parents or guardians or sent to the Juvenile School or House of the Good Shepherd.

It is well known in police circles that Detective Wooldridge has refused at many different times, bribes of from $500 to $4,000; $10,000 was offered for his discharge or transfer from the levee district by criminals against whom he had waged a warfare.

_He has letters from Carter H. Harrison, the mayor, three state's attorneys, eight chiefs of police, three assistant chiefs, six inspectors, nine lieutenants, six police justices and others too numerous to mention, which testimonials are printed in the book together with their autographs. The book contains all the General Superintendents of Police of Chicago from 1855 to 1901._

Detective Wooldridge has a wonderful record in police annals.

PRICE

CLOTH, ILLUSTRATED $1.00 PAPER, ILLUSTRATED 50c

Transcriber's Notes

Minor punctuation errors have been silently corrected. Some illustrations have descriptions added for the benefit of the plain text version readers.

Title Page: Changed "COVICTIONS" to "CONVICTIONS."
(Orig: 200 PENITENTIARY COVICTIONS)

Title Page: Changed "CRIMINAL" to "CRIMINALS."
(Orig: AN ARMY OF 600,000 CRIMINAL AT WAR WITH SOCIETY AND RELIGION)

Table of Contents: Added listings for the last 15 chapters.
Changed "Wails" to "Wiles" and "Tellers" to "Telling" to match the
chapter title: "Wiles of Fortune Telling."
(Orig: Wails of Fortune Tellers)

Page 28: Changed "acomplished" to "accomplished."
(Orig: it was acomplished successfully.)

Page 28: Changed "connetion" to "connection."
(Orig: he severed his connetion with the railroad)

Page 32: Women's names omitted in original book after the sentence:
(Orig: The following are the names of the women arrested:)

Page 38: Changed "rerevolver" to "revolver."
(Orig: he pushed his rerevolver in Wooldridge's face.)

Page 46: Changed "Woolridge" to "Wooldridge."
(Orig: One of the last exploits of Detective Woolridge)

Page 51: Opening quotes retained; no closing quotes in original. (Orig: "A 'grafter' is one who makes his living (and sometimes his fortune) by 'grafting.')

Page 71: Retained "salonkeepers," possible typo for "saloonkeepers."
(Orig: salonkeepers and others that buy them)

Page 92: Changed "phychological" to "psychological."
(Orig: what he considers the right phychological moment,)

Page 97: Changed "knowns" to "knows."
(Orig: it isn't because the public knowns any more than)

Page 110: Retained "senualist;" possibly a typo for "sensualist."
(Orig: it is the senualist whose vice is read in his lips,)

Page 114: Changed "POSSSESED" to "POSSESSED."
(Orig: THE BANKER WILL END LIFE POSSSESED OF WEALTH)

Page 115: Changed "OFERED" to "OFFERED."
(Orig: IN WHICH THEY WERE MAILED ARE OFERED WITH THEM.)

Page 125: Changed "allegitimate" to "illegitimate."
(Orig: he was in an allegitimate business,)

Page 134: Changed "weathy" to "wealthy."
(Orig: ten or twelve weathy ladies,)

Page 136: Changed "Los Angelese" to "Los Angeles."

Page 137: Changed "is" to "it."
(Orig: give it the consideration is deserves.)

Page 140: Retained "Caverley," possible typo for "Caverly."
(Orig: was arrested and fined $15 by Caverley.)

Page 173: Changed "shoudl" to "should."
(Orig: to find if there shoudl be a chord)

Page 203: Changed "vigliance" to "vigilance."
(Orig: he is under the eternal vigliance of our police)

Page 222: Changed "snoke" to "smoke."
(Orig: I don't snoke.)

Page 240: Changed "nof" to "not."
(Orig: "Sophomoric" period is nof fully passed.)

Page 283: Changed "Dicharged" to "Discharged."
(Orig: Insane asylum, Nevada, Mo. Dicharged after several escapes.)

Page 294: Changed "indentification" to "identification."
(Orig: the finger print indentification.)

Page 296: Changed "lot" to "lost."
(Orig: sailor has lot his honorable discharge paper)

Page 301: Changed "rougues" to "rogues."
(Orig: spreading through the rougues' galleries)

Page 347: Opening quotes retained; no closing quotes in original. (Orig: each witness claimed that the "contract was covered up and they were shown just the part of the paper on which was the space for signature; and Daubach performed many acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.)

Page 351: Changed "slighest" to "slightest."
(Orig: It makes not the slighest difference)

Page 360: Changed "is" to "it."
(Orig: This is not merely because is loosens general morality)

Page 370: Changed "cildhood" to "childhood."
(Orig: toward speculation, even from cildhood.)

Page 373: Changed "nickle's" to "nickel's."
(Orig: good for a nickle's worth)

Page 378: Retained "sideway," possible typo for "slideway."
(Orig: clamp referred to down through the sideway)

Page 382: Sentence possibly missing "do" after "to."
(Orig: Very few are expert enough to this trick without detection.

Page 387: Changed "sailers" to "sailors."
(Orig: the goods were sold to soldiers and sailers.)

Page 406: Changed "torents" to "torrents."
(Orig: the rain which was beating down in torents)

Page 408: Incomplete sentence in original book. (Orig: His counsel asked for the arrest of judgment so he might have time to write up the record and present it to the)

Page 419: Changed "mammonth" to "mammoth."
(Orig: Prisoner accused as principal in mammonth swindling plot)

Page 462: Changed "numerious" to "numerous."
(Orig: clear Chicago of its numerious "Fake" patent medicine)

Page 465: Changed "Lavatories" to "Laboratories."
(Orig: Columbus Lavatories conducted the tests.)

Page 465: Retained "either," possible typo for "ether."
(Orig: Aristol is soluble in either, and makes a dark brown)

Page 467: Changed "sppply" to "supply."
(Orig: I have in stock and can sppply without delay.)

Page 468: Changed "Sargeant" to "Sergeant."
(Orig: Desk Sargeant Mike White)

Page 471: Retained original 300,000,000 but the math is incorrect.

Page 494: Changed "felling" to "feeling."
(Orig: the trusting investor the felling that there is a strong hand)

Page 514: Retained "grizzy," possible typo for "grizzly."
(Orig: look out for Indians and grizzy bears.)

Page 563: Retained Joseph Koehy/Koehly variations.

Page 565: Changed "answr" to "answer."
(Orig: to answr for the murder of Webster Guerin)

Page 568: Changed "women" to "woman."
(Orig: Dora McDonald was a wonderfully beautiful and younger women)

Retained spelling variations: R. W. McClaughrey and R. W. McClaughry.