The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1890-07-26
SLICK "CON." NAN WELDON NIPPED.
The King Bee Captured and His
Swarm Lost.
Msliette SwIndled Out of Fifteen Hun
dred DOllars-HOw AN Alleged
Bunco- Man Is Supposed
To Have Done 1t.

Alta late hour Wednesday afternoon
farmer looking chap, with game
leg and carrying a cane and grip
came to Ottawa on Rock Island
train and was Immediately taken to a
room at the Clifton. There was some
thing about his make up which could
not help but attract the attention OF
the passer-by hut perhaps the most no.
ticeable feature Of all is that game leg
which paced at 2:40 clip. He was
Detective John II. Norris, Of Spring
field Ohio, one of the oldest veterans
in the business. With nine bullet
holes in his body he still manages TO
move around and is a terror to crimi-
mails all over the United States. His
chief business is hunting up Con
men, thieves and crooks of all kinds.
Norris speciality is confidence men.
He studies each mans game separate
ly: and though the methods, and the
results are in the main, in all cases
identical yet TO the expert each crook
Of this kind has his characteristic
points IF attack and variations of de-
tail which are as detinable as the diff
ference between mems footsteps, the
sound of which will enable the trained
ear TO pick one particular man out
of a hundred passing by at nighttime.
Norris, in his study Of confidence men,
has, it is said, become so expert that
he can name the one man, Tor two, if a
pair out of the hundreds he knows.
who has perpetrated each individual
case as he reads the story the story of
the occurrence in the newspapers.
And so these men have sort of terror
of Norris, to show their weak and
strong points are as familiar as water,
and who seems to have natural in
stinct for tracing them as hound
does fox. They, of course, have
their hard stories tC tell Of Norris:
hut, barring their testimony, he does
not seem TO have the abiding faith in
their general usefulness to society eX-
pressed by one confidence man, who
said he and his class were real hene-
factors Of society, in that they exposed
the dishonest men who are nlaSque-
rading in society as honest, high
minded men He was philosopher,
and understood human nature thor
Oughly. He was an expert swindler,
too, and yet he maintained that he
could never swindle a man in a monte
game who was not at heart dishonest.
But to Yesterdays arrest:
On May 9th, an old man named ia
cob Hoffman, of Greene, Iowa, was
swindled out of $l,245. Norris was
employed OH the case to recover the
money. He procured a requisition and
arrested Weldon. The money was re-
covered but the man got away on a
habeas corpus. Hoffman worried over
his loss and finally took dose of poi
son-toO large, however, to kill him.
Elvi Martelle, "a French Canadian,
living at Kankakee, was tleeced out of
81 800 by 'con." men following Wallace
& Co.'S circus on August 81. 1889. The
men got Martelle into little game by
which he could make some money and
at the proper moment took the ST. 800
and skipped. A detective was employ
ed in the case and tracked the men to
MacOmb, ILL.,, but they smelled rat,
so to speak, catching the detective and
giving him good trOuncing. Detect
i've Norris was then employed and
came to Ottawa Wednesday to arrest
Weldon. Norris we'll knew that if he
showed himself in the city the gang
would skip, so he sent for Sheriff Sill
vers, of Rock Island. to identify We'll
don. Deputy Sheriff Reed was fur
niShed a minute description of the
man and at once began search. He
spotted Weldon on Main street Thurs
day morning, traced him past the
court house where SilverS was conceal
ed ready to identify him. The identi-
location was complete and Reed push
ed out and arrested the man, placing
him behind the bars at the county
Jail.
Richard Weldon had the lunch priv
ilege with Wallace d. Co.'S circus and
carried special car Of his own. Car
No. %, is the number. In this car is
served lunch and refreshments for the
circus employees and gambling room
is run, in connection on the q. t.
When the Wallace show left its WIN
ter quarters at Peru, Ind, for the sea-
son of 1889, r. w. Weldon, John Hum
mel and John Hamilton. all well
known gamblers were given the privi-
legeS. A gang Of fakirS and gamblers
followed them and did the "buncO"
work.