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Show BBl W Hr llJ sS it l " ,. ( v J H .1 '' ' Vximys mXV1 'inspector Reddy Tells of His Experiences in Ferreting Out Crimes Against Uncle Sam's Mail Service'pjf BBJ iCopjrlzbt, 1012, T rUc New Tort: UcraM Co. All tlcbta rourvcd.) A NOTORIOUS bank burglar once remarked tbnt ho would rather be pursued by a pack oC bloodhounds rbnu by a Post Office inspector. BBJ He added that lie had done a thriv- BBJ ing business cracking brink safes, H but he had always eluded capture until, BBf j succumbing to temptation, he blew a little ipost office safe because it looked "dead i "That was my finish," ho said. "Two BBJ Post Office Inspectors camped on my trail B J for nine months. I led them a merry H chase through nearly every State in the H Union before they got me. They got mo H nil right, and I got a lone tprm for the H "measly little $15 I got out of that safe. H I I learned my lesson, and I learned it well. BBJ i 'To-day no one has a more wholesome re- spect for Uncle Sam's property than yours H One of the inspector referred to by the H ' burglar is T. M. Reddy, for twenty-two BBJ ' years in the postal serricc and foe 2 H ' at five or six years attached to the New Hj 'York office A month ago lie resigned to H J become the New York representative of Ht j the Federal Advisory Commission, j For many years Rcddy was attached to HH the North Carolina district. .His tcrri- BBI tory extended into the wild and remote BBI mountainous regions, and there he was 'A brought in daily contact with moonsbinere BBj and other lawless persons who upent their BBJ lives in the fastnesses of the mountain, BBJ i rarely, if ever, com in? out into the open BBI or descending to the lowlands. B r "I guess I bad moro real action right H! there in the North Carolina mountains Hl than I've crcr had before or since," said Hl Keddy. "I have figured in many' big and BBfl sensational cases since I camo to New Hj York, but my life hung in the balance BBj more times in that moonshine country BBJ than I care to think about. Now that it's H all behind me, I often think tint I was BBJ the luckiest man ever born to get away BBH with my life. j i.t ' "yiy Jnitiation into that country was H peculiar in the first place. I was mak- ing my headquarters at Greensboro when H ordered by the Washington office to go to B a point in the mountains about fifty miles weat of Ashevllle. That meant a hor&e- H back ride from Asheville, and it was my H first time on a horse at UiaU A littlu 1 'post olllce hud been robbed, and as this H ' ' was one of a scries of iuch robberies the B fe- Chief was very anxioun to run down the H . band of yeggs who wcro operating so H ' successfully. M The Bell Signals. H "My first day in the mountains con- j H .,'' vinced me that my work waa cut out for ( B me and that I was amoug a class of peo- H ; pie strange and, to say the least, extreaie- H ly rude. I was following a little trail H up a mountainside when a rifle barked Hj and my hat flopped (o the road. 1 looked B oiiotit me, pulling my gun as 1 did. Then H another shot rang out and my -pistol H clattered to the rond. 1 had been shot H through the forearm. I then realized that H . it wuk best to await developments. H i "Narby I heard a bell ring. It sound- H j ed like an old fashioned trlanglo Ubcd at H fionie faruihouscs to cull the hands in for H dinner. In the distance I heard other H and simllur bells .strike. Pretty soon one H of Uie wildest looking specimens of bu- Hl inanity I ever ka,vr clambered from be H4 bind a treo nud slouched up to nio. H " 'Who be ycr, stranger, and whdt ycr Hi after la tbewi parts, anyhow?" was his Hj "I told him I was a stranger trying (p make niy wny before nightfall to the little H! lmmlct v.'hcro (ho Jobbery hid occurred. Hl lie hud me covered with his rifle, and af- ler ordering rae to hold up my hands ho H t'cry carefully inspected thn contents of BL my saddle bugs; made me turn niy pockets inside out, and when assured that I wasn't . v orio of 'them d revenues' he ordered H L ' mo to proceed up the trail ahead of him. He look me to his cabin, where his wife, who was quite as wild and uukempt in appearance ap-pearance as' her husb.ind, bandaged up my ami and theu prepared dinner for me. "The bell I heard was to -warn those further up tho mountain that a suspicious looking stranger had entered the glen. Other signal men seul the note of alarm along until my approncli had been heralded herald-ed for miles beyond the t?pot where 1 got my first tuMc of a moonshiner's bullet. "But the chap who shot mc, after satisfying, satis-fying, himself that I wasn't a 're,v and that I 'Wii? all right, pawed mc along, and r had no further trouble rcachiug my dei-tinntlou. dei-tinntlou. Oil my return trip it was. a description de-scription furnished by tho man who shot me of some strange looking men who had passed over the same trail a day or two previous that led to the capture of thei safe blowers. On this clew I followed! (hem iilto Asheville and then South untili i reached Charleston, S. C. There T got close on their tracks again, and before I had been there two days succeeded in nr- resting six of them, among them 'Ohio Hump,' 'Portland Ned' nnd 'Connecticut Shorty,' three of the most notorious yeggs in the country. All got good long terms. "A strange thing happened in connection connec-tion with that 'pinch.' After s wen ting the 'Ohio Hump' for ten hours without a minute's let up he told me why the gang had made for Charleston. It seemed they got little cash out of their North Carolina jobs nnd they needed funds. A man by the name of Rudolph Ravens was n resident resi-dent of Charleston, and to all intents and purpose a highly respectable citizen and a very prosperous grocer. Tie. it seems, ran a 'fence known to all the yeggs, and ho would always come to their rescue with funds in case they got stranded or were arrested. Wo laid for Ravens, caught him with the goods on him, got a confessipn from him and icnt him to the federal prison for a long term. Lie. was saia to be the wealthiest nnd most powerful pow-erful ally tho yeggs'ever had. Here Rcddy paused to greet a caller who said he had run over from Philadelphia Phila-delphia to "report progress." It transpired tran-spired that he was a reformed money order swindler, a man Reddy, had sent up for five years and at tiro termiuution of whose term had landed him a good job. That was three years ago, and according ac-cording to the former inspector ho has ni'nUc Bd in 'every particular. ' The Money uraer owmaic. "I'll tell you about that chap," safd Rcddy after speeding his guest on bin way "I vas attached, to the New England Eng-land -district when wc received complaints com-plaints from Lewis-ton, Mc, Boston and, other New England cities thut a, uumbcr; of money order blanks had been htolen and that the thief was filling them ont and getting them cashed in stores -at tho rate of About STX) a day. It seemed the swiudler would visit drug stores having sub-post office stations attached and introduce in-troduce himself by stating that he wished to buy that, or a similar establishment. The proprietor, as a rule, would show him o'er the premises and while inspecting inspect-ing the aub-station and its books the visitor vis-itor would invariably manage to steal a number of the money order blnnks. He would then akip town and at the next slop visit some store, make purchases and tendvr n money order for an amount double that of his purchase. He would invariably gel the ehnngo nud then visit other stores with wmihir results. "I trailed that follow for three months. I was always anywhere from two to four days behind him. These money orders would go through tho banks, and that caused delay. After flooding the country with descriptive circulars of him 1 caught him red handed In a piauo store in "New Haven. There he had represented himself him-self as a Yale student and had bought a piano, tendering a money order for $100, out of which ho volunteered to make a first payment of $23 on the piano. He made a clean breast when 1 got him. 1 learned he was from a splendid family nnd as they refused to have anything further to do with him I Interested my-' my-' alf in his behalf, and when he convinced ine. he wanted another chance to make ' good 1 got him ft job. He is doing fine, ' but onco a month he conica-to see mo and reports, lie was put away under tho 1 nanus of Lewis Eckbert, but that isu't ; his right name, and I won't reveal it, for ' only his employer and rayuelf know his ( hlstdry.- ; Returning to his experiences In North i Carolina, Keddy relatcd.nn Incident which L he dcelnree w:h the narrowest escflpo' I from death ho e.tfr had. , ' rtA big mail robbery was reported," the one time inspector continued, "somewhere beiwcon I.tirrlsvillc and Asheville, N. C. The two point-? are about fifty miles apart and the re-ad winds (hrongh one of the wildest and bleakest pnrts of thai country. It was in the dead of winter nnd bitterly cold. A star route carrier by the name of Charles Gilbert would bring the mall from P.urnsvillc to Asheville one dny, returning re-turning the next. It was a horseback trip and n hard one at the best of times. Burnsvillc had many thriving industries and I was surprised to learn that the missing registered package had contained $7o.000 in negotiable securities aud about ?3,000 in caih. As tho ponch from which the registered matter had Ikjou taken was found to have n long slit in It I at onco laurmiscd that Gilbert had either stolen the 'money or else lost it. So I camped nil along his route for three weeks. I wqtchcri ihim from every possible angle nnd nn-jtnge nn-jtnge point nnd nearly froze to death doling do-ling so. I "One dny my long vigil bore fruit. As Gilbert descended a steep mountain path. Instead" of' keeping to tho'benten trail he mnde a detour into the woods. -I wa close behind him. lie dismounted am tying his horse plunged Into the undf-r-bruslnnd, making his way to-a wild and rugged glen, descended to ''the bottom of a precipice wlioie sides were nlmost per-pendioulnr. per-pendioulnr. V ' "He scratched n round in the leaves for a time and finally began tofdig. He worked away until he biouglit to the surface n tin box, which be unlocked. Hq took out ficvoral bank notes and reburied the rest of his loot.' - The Fight in the Woods. "Then he" began his tortuous climb up the side of the precipice. Mnny times he would have to climb hand over hand, hut as he had the.strength of an ox that was not difficult for him. I was stationed behind a big tree with my pistol in hand. As he reached the surface I stepped out and, ordering "hands up," approached him. "He knew he wat. caught all rigljt, ho he made no resistance at lifMt. I took his tno pistols from him and was getting the handcuffs adjusted to his wrists when he caught me off my'guard nnd with a blow-to blow-to my jnw sent me staggering. I dropped my pistol in the sculile, So wc slood on even terms, neither having a gun at hand. "Believe mo when I tell you that for the next five minutes thqrc was tho liveliest live-liest knock dowu and drag out fight jou would care to see. We scrapped all over that road, ho trying hi best to work mc over to tho bide of the precipice nnd there drop me 0'6i "Finally I gdt an arm free and succeeded succeed-ed in lauding a stiff punch on his mouth, which I was enabled to follow up with another. an-other. Several moru blowa flush on his jaw managed to wcakou him, and I then threw him. Bcforu I finished the job I had him handcuffed and hog tied, hand nnd foot. I had decided it was best to take no more chances with thut tartar. "I dug up his treasure box and found all the securities Intact and nearly all of tho money Then I took ,Mr, Gilbert into Asheville. where he was tried and sent to the Federal Prison at Atlanta for n long Htaj But for pure cusscdncss and brute strength tlwt fellow and ho was a man close to fifty years old took tho palm. He could hiflike a trip hammer, and the worst of it was he knew how to hit, for Ids blows cut liko njknifc. f was n sight 'when 1 got to Asheville. and 1 don't think I iny own mother would have recognized me until I was able to remove some of the 'stnjns of the battle- " Rcddy bears several of the scars of that battle to this day, uud they wilf go with him to his grnve. Upon the departure" of a silk hntted and frock coated visitor to tho Rcddy offices of-fices Uk "crdtwlllle inspectorbnrat Into laughter, saying: "I never seo a man in that uniform thnt it docsn'i recall one of the most amusing, but for a time one of the squalliest, experiences I ever had. A rural carrier hnd falsified his application blank nnd a Civil Service iuspector came down to look up the case. Washington notified me to accompany him. Wo went to High Point, N. C, aud, procuring a buggy and pair of horses, Htartcd off Into the back country for a forty mile drive. Wo were proceeding through a dense forest, for-est, which I knew wns a moonshine stronghold, when suddenly a shot rang out and lmlN begun to ring. At ouce I knew what I was up against The Civil Service agent had been fcent from Washington Wash-ington at short notice and he wore a high hat nud a frock coat. -"Well, sir, 'when the second fusillade of lots rung out, depite the fact my horsed ere snorting" and plunging in a frenzy of ear, rriy giut took a flying leap from the buggy, and the next 1 saw of him he was slreukiug it down the road as if the devil hirnnjlf wns aftrr him. As serioua as the situation wns the ridiculous oidc. of it appealed so strongly to ine that 1 was in paroxysms of laughter until I realized that about n dozen rilles were barkipg cut at the retreating form of the fleeing agent. "My horses had become nlmost uncontrollable uncon-trollable until one was laid low by a bullet and the top of my buggy riddled. Then two men, rilles in hand, sprang from the underbrush and held me up. It didn't take me long to tell who I was and what wc were doing there. Satisfying thei that wo were not revenue agents I went after my friend, whom I found hiding in the bushes about a railo down the road. He decided then nud there tbnt he had hnd enough of the moonshine country, nnd undijr no circumstances would he make the return trip over thnt road. I had to send him around another wny nud make my way back to High Point with one horte, leaving the other dead in the road. One of the men who held us up told me that he had never seen a high hat before and that he had taken a potshot at It for luck. And he had riddled it." Moonshiners Are Generous. " A moonshiner's generosity and hospitality, hospital-ity, once he knows the Invader of his stronghold Is not connected with the Internal In-ternal Revenue Department or on mischief mis-chief bent, is second only to his ferocity, Rcddy declares, and he cited many instances in-stances whcie, after having been put through the third desree, his tormentors tried to outdo each other in heaping favors upon him, mostly in tho form of jugs of "corn 'likker." "Au episode of this sort camo mighty ncar getting me in trouble once," said the former inspector, "and for a time revenue officers thought they had in me a pcdler of the wet goods for a ncorby blind tiger still. i ' 'T'hn'd to investigate tho robbery of a roinote,and isolated little post office in Stokea county, North Carolina. My route lay through tho very stronghold of moon-shlntfrs moon-shlntfrs in North Curolina, There wax a still every mile or so, and the men who owned them were all banded together for self-preservation uud protection. It was a country in which revenue officers ouly visited insquads. When a raid was planned not less than a hundred officers were sent. That meant a pitched battle, lasting sometimes several days. Thcso battles wore fought with varying results. Sometimes a few of the moonshiners were captured and their stills broken up, but moro often the rcvonuc party retreated with depleted, ranks, bearing their dead and wounded among them. "I had been through the country on several previous occasions and was known to all the pickets. They passed me along from post to post, and I reached my destination without mishap of any sort. On the return trip all tho sentries were on the lookout for me. Each came to my buggy aud silently deposited a gallon gal-lon jug of newly made corn whiskey or apple brandy. By tho time I had cleared tho moonshine district I had every inch of available space in my buggy filled. "As I approached the next town I met a party of a dozen strangers riding along. "They were armed to the teeth, and I at once surmised it was a group of raid bent Revenues. i y . p t - -' ' W J m VNC ' '7 '&'': Tft'.crij. boon Tittc 'iSSuS Vans I V M & W - , "I told him I was just winding up a s' . ,'.' s ' :X k V '' forty mile drive. 1 ' 'Y' l ' ' ' . '"What ycr got in them jugs?' was the . , t ' next query. HcvTr3'ing His Best to Work Mc Over to the Side of the Precipice .. .Corn uquor' I told him. and There Drop Me Over. ; ' ' ' "'Throw up your hands,' -aB the next " 'Thcrd .you bcen?'Z'tiie 'lcadeF Vang out. "I told him I was just winding up a forty mile drive. 4t 'What ycr got in them jugs?' was the next query. " 'Corn liquor,' I told him. " 'Throw up your hands,' -was the next command, nnd as I glanced up I was looking look-ing into the muzzle of. a do7cu rilles. "Then" they unloaded my buggy. They were experts, all right, for they seemed to know the brand contained in every jug. 1 hnd to tumble out 'of the buggy nnd stnnd covered while the buggy wns searched. A Post Office Inspector they had never heard of, and they greeted the declaration that I was a government officer with derisive laughter. The Dog Swindle. "The jngs wero reloaded in the buggy, T wns ordered to resume my scat and silently they surrounded mo and took up the march to the next town. I was under arrest and all my protestations went for naught. Of course, when wc arrived at the Post Office I hnd no trouble In establishing estab-lishing my identity, but ray captors confiscated con-fiscated the liquor. They said they intended in-tended to destroy it, but I always had my doubts as to Its final disposition. And it was the very best stuff made iu North Garoliua, too(' "I'll tell you of an amusing case in which a number of wealthy New York sportsmen were swindled by a 6lick countryman coun-tryman living at Kernersville, a little town between Greensboro and Winston-Salem. Jordon was his name Sam Jordon and he e.cnnod up $12,500 befo- I got him. He inserted advertisements In all the sporting journals describing his fine kennels ken-nels of hunting dogs. These he offered at prices from $75 to $200. All were registered, regis-tered, his advertisements stated, and each had a, pedigree dating back a century. "From the number of complaints that began to pour in on me it was evident thot Sam had been doing a land office business. Many of the complainants wrote that after sending their chtck for (he dog they specified, speci-fied, either a gun shj', measly, half breed pointer or setter would arrive, or else a letter would come from Jordon saying thnt the dog purchased died on the day of shipment, but a.s he was the property of the purchaser from the moment the check was sent tho los was his and not the writer's. i "I learned that there had been an epidemic epi-demic of dog stealing in and around Kernersville, Ker-nersville, but, .strange to say, Jordon was not suipectcd. Some of the dogs stolen were valuable hunting dogs, but more ofteu they were half breeds that hnug around livery stables. I soon got on Sam's trail and arrested him.'- H0 mado i wfKSBak a clean breast of the whole swindle, and be left Kernersville for tho Greensboro Jail, where he served out his term. But before ho was caught up with some of Kcrncrs-ville's Kcrncrs-ville's best known stray dogs were gracing grac-ing the kennels of some of our wealthiest sportsmen. I might add that the same pedigree did service for every dog shipped." Commenting on his retirement from the service Rcddy said he now hoped to settle down to normal life. Meanest Criminals. "Men in the Bervico," he ndded, "never know one day from the other where they will be sent. Even a gypsy's life Is more stable than ours, and the number of swindles swin-dles wc arc constantly called on to run down go a long wny toward destroying one's confidence in fellow man. Unless you had access to the Post Office records you would bo surprised to know the number num-ber of men enjoying untarnished reputations reputa-tions who engage in nefarious schemes, by use of the mails, to separate the unwary from their hard earned savings. The get rich quick artist plies a flourjshing trade here in New York, and together with E. II. KIncald, a brother inspector, my whole time since coming to New York" has been taken up in investigating these concerns, Pi ' s and they were legion ' ' "Within tho Inst six years, or since Kincaid was placed in charge of tha. local fraud cases, nearly a thousand concerns have been investigated and put out of businn..- Most of these we worked up together. There arc a hundred others flourishing hero now. All aro being watched. Soma are manifestly' crooked, yet they arc sailing just within 'the law. They will become careless or more greedy as time wears on and do something that will bring the inspectors down upon them. Then it will be all off with them, ami it will bo the pen for theirs. "There is no meaner criminal than he who lures unsuspecting and confiding widows and persons of small means t6 Invest In-vest their little horde in his, cnterprives upon promises of big dividend.. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred It is the poor who fall for these schemes. And the strangest part of it is that they ap-pnrently ap-pnrently resent our interference, believing, believ-ing, I suppose, that had the crooks been let alone all would have worked out well and they would have received their promised prom-ised dividends. "Take the Burr Brothers' raid, for Instance. In-stance. I worked on that case from beginning be-ginning to end. Of thejmillions of dollars dol-lars that flowed Into their offices the greater part of it was in sums ranging from fifty to a hundred dollars, subscribed sub-scribed by poor persous who believed that the chance was at hand whereby they could quadruple their little capital. It was practically the same with all the other get rich quick raids. When the crash came an army of weeping, frenzied men and women would crowd around, begging us to save something out of the wreck that they might not bo left penniless, penni-less, i "That's one rcasou why I preferred my work iu the South. There we had many hard cabes to work up involving mental and physical exertion and every hardship that could be heaped upon a .stranger in a. strange laud. But it was a different class of criminal wc had to deal with. It was either the hardened and ever dangerous yeggman or elsesome insignificant in-significant carrier or postal oflloial who stole what was in sight. We never had those cases there where a hand of men iet out to rob the poor. In all my stay in the South I didn't have half a dozen fraud cases. "But the life has its thrills and rarely gets monotonous. Undo Sam is just as relentless in bis pursuit of the fellow who steals a postage stamp as one who robn the mails of thousands. I, have gone hop-skipping and jumping over this entire en-tire country after a man whose total tbcft3 didn't -amount to $25. He had violated vio-lated the postal laws, however, uud it was up to me to get him. Cost does not! enter Into the consideration, Wherovcr the trail lies wc must go, and the secret of our success is that distance has no mwmml am lffiM' EH terrors for us, for wc must never allowj Bj the trail to grow cold. That's how I IH rounded up 'Ohio nump' nnd his pals. - K Just by keeping constantly after them, HE night and day. Other yeggs havo led mc BE even merrier chases, but I never al--Bfl lowed them to get beyond my reach. One band took mo from tho Southern uioiin-' tains to the Pacific slope. But I got BB them. Others have given up when they Bfl learned that wo wcro so hot after them, Br relying upon surrender and confession as Bs a factor toward mitigating thtir sentences. B "There was one yeggman who caused Bfl me a lot of trouble. He was known as B8 Tennessee Tom,' and he operated with BC his puis all through tho mountain dis- jBj tricts. Post Office safes and railroad sta- W tions were easy for them, and they could -M enter a town, fininh up their job and get BM nwny without being seen by a soul. H Thero wns no one for the lougest time Bfl who could give me tho slightest clew to M their identity. No one hnd seen them H and I had no description to aid mc. M A Three Months' Chase. I "After closely examining the blown BJ safes and realizing that it was the work H of expert cracksmen or that of men who H were artists in the use of nitro-glycerine, j' BJ I knew I was In pursuit of old and sea- K H soncd yeggmen. J "After several weeks' work I found a Bjl storekeeper in a town where a robbery had , BJ been committed who hnd sold dynamite , E to a stranger. I got a good description of w the purchaser. At that time yeggmen S& bought their nitro-glycerine, only a few WS of them extracting it from dynamite ' Bp sticks, as they do now. I got in touch j K2 with headqunrters nnd learned that "Ten- , m nessee Tom' wns nbout the only extractor 5 of nitro-glycerine who could be in the m South, all the others being accounted for ' m' elsewhere. Pf "That was my clew, so I set out w with something tangible to work -non. p1 Every onre in a whilo I would learn of ' -another purchase of dynamite, and invari- -ably it was made by a person whoo dc- scriptlon tallied with that of 'Tom.' TLj fc trail lay across Carolina, then into Ten- K nessee, through the lower corner of Vir- H. ginin nnd thence into Kentucky, through , HE Cumberland Gap. Every day or two I K would lenrn of another looted post office tB just ahead of me. That kept up for sev- i H eral months. j, Clews Difficult. "Finally I found myself in Denver. ; There the trail grew cold for a week nnd ': I was beginning to become discouraged. But one day, disguised as a laborer, I was , prowling around the freight yards when j I iw my man, 'Tennessee Tom.' Dirty t: and dusty, after a long ride on the brako ( rods of a flyer, he slouched through the V yards, three of his pals with him. The odds were too great for me to tackle the job , alone, so I shadowed them through the city until they reached the dive they headed for. I got In touch with the lodal post office and B two litsnoetora rame down to alii m Thon IS we closed in on the gahg. It was a fight '' H to the finish for awhile. Even after taking ff their weapons away they fought desper-vB ately, aud we were compelled actually to -B club them Into submission before' we land- S ed them in the lockup. But our cno was B clear, and after puttiug them through the ' flj third degree 1 learned that every job I H suspected them of had been theirs and that H they were about two days ahead of mo through (be entire trip from Western Carolina to Denver. All went away for long terms, Tom,' as the ringleader and ; manufacturer of the 'soup,' or nitro- glycerine, gettiug a longer terni thnn the others. f "But the greatest difficulty In our work, especially eases in remote places, is in t getting a lead. Once wo get a tnngiblo clew wc can go ahend with clear sailing, but sometimes the enses are so shrouded h in mystery that they look almost hopelesd f when we start in to unravel them. But I f am not of the service now and I Intend ji HI to take It easy for n, time, at least, and S become acquainted with my family. I 3 haven't seen much of them for the last j. 9 tew years' '' IR |