Omaha daily bee., 1884-10-24
NOTED CONFIDENCE men.
"reminiscences Of Rush WaEGTal and
Others,
Stories of Their Successful Tricks
and Also of Their Defeats.
The Palmy Days of Sharpcrs Who
Worked the Halfway Trains.

New York Times.
The death of Rush @. Wakeman, the
once noted railway passenger swindler
and expert gambler as reported IN the
Times few days since, has recalled
many "reminiscences among railroad men
and others of his operations and those of
co-workers of his In the palmy days of
their business.
1.-THE flush times of railway confidence
men and gamblers was during and for
few years after the war, says trunk
line conductor. ''Money was plenty
then, morals were rather lax, and rail-
road men did not seem to think 1t any
part of their duty to stand, guard over
the property of credulous travellers, or
those whose cupidity ran away with their
reason. Besides Rush Wakeman-or
Billy Porter, as the boys called him
there are many other bright operators
who were kings in their line. / remem-
ber 'Bunky' Silver and his chum Big
jersey John Baily, and man known
as Red Shirt were the bosses OF the
three-card monte men, and were mar
vellously expert at tricks with cards.
| Red Shirt was product of life among
the Pennsylvania coal mines, and when
not engaged in working railway trains he
made things expensive for the rural Wis
itors at county fairs.
''He was the originator of the brilliant
idea in cards known as the tissue paper
racket His favorite role was that of
man bored to death with the monotony
of riding on a railroad, who was anxious
to find congenial partners for social
game of euchre. In those days the news
boy with his cards and lapboard to hire
to passeugershad not made his appearance
on our railroads, and card playing to pass
the time was comparatively q new thing.
Red Shirt, who would readily have been
taken for the easy going son of wealthy
father, overburdened with both time and
money, always had dainty, brand-new
pack of cards in his valise, and he seldom
had to wait long to get up game, and he
rarely failed to manage to select players
who had blood in them The game OF
euchre seldom progressed far before Red
Shirt would say, in careless, off hand
way, and apparently speaking more to
himself than to any one else:
"'By Jove! this'd be beauty of q
hand in little game of draw!
"Whenever Red Shirt reached that
stage Of the game you could make pretty
big bets that his hand wasn't the only
one around the board that would be
ga BEAUTY IN THE GAME OF DRAW"
and that other hand never failed in be-
ing four aces, cold. The man who held
that hand never failed to- be just game
enough to remark that his hand loomed
up pretty fair for poker hand, too
Then Red Shirt wouldn't say anything
more about it, but make out as if he was
about to proceed with the euchre game
Now, man with four aces in his hand
who has had the value of hands, as re
CARDS poker, suggested to him, is not 1
true-born American citizen if he sacrifice
it at euchre, and nobody knew this fac
better than Red Shirt. The man will
the four aces would invariably propos
that they test the value of the two hand
in the usual way. Red Shirt would a
first prefer not to bet, but fnallywoulc
back his hand. The other man woulc
raise him, of course. And so it would go
back and forth, until it suited Red Shir
to bring the matter to close, when hs
would call his opponent.
"Four aces!" that lucky person would
"Whatw Red Shirt would exclaim, ex
citedly. "Let's see 'em"
"rhe man would throw his cards down
Red Shirt, picking them up, would rur
them over quickly, and then rubbing his
thumb og one of the ace cards, would
shave off a covering that revealed two
more spots, making it tray spot.
" Look here, my friend, he would say
Indignantly, & thought 1 was playing
with gentlemen. You can't run in any OF
your Chicago tricks on me!'
"Then he would throw down hand
that would always beat three of a kind,
and before the others recovered from
their astonishment the money would be
in his possession and he would make a
break for the Car door. He mover failed
to time his play with the movements of
the train, and when the climax came the
cars would be slowing up for station.
1t was no trick at all for him to get off
a train when it was going fifteen or twen-
ty miles an hour, and he never got caught
but once that / know of. Then he was
followed close by his victim, and they
both got off tho train together. Red
Shirt was given most beautiful trounc-
ing, but the man did not get his money
about $500. 1t happened that as Red
Shirt was hurrying out of the Car ne met
John Bailey on the platform coming in,
and quich as flash he passed the money
all crumpled up in wad in his hand, to
John, Red Shirt made thousands of dol
lars during his career, but he
DIED IN A PENNSYLVANIA PooRHoUsE
of consumption few years ago. / think
his name was Brown.
lin the days of which speak emil
grants were the especial prey of these
sharpers as they are yet to great de-
gree. In those days. however, the pres
ent system of exchanging their money for
drafts on landing here or before leaving
their native land, was not In vogue, and
they carried large amounts of available
funds with them on the cars. The trains
were 30 long that it was impossible for
the train men to watch the doings of con-
tidence men, even if they were so inclined.
Sharpers could get in their work and
leave the train before their presence was
suspected, ,or any one knew that swindling
had been perpetrated.
"'Big jersey as quiet, clerical
looking man named Warren Krickmore