The Portland daily press., 1895-01-12
THE STRAIGHT TIP.
Detecting Dangerous Crank in
Large City.

How Tpsnector Byrnes Served Jay Gould
and Thereby Laid the Foundation of a
Fortune.
With out entering into the general subject
Of the financial luck of New YORK ponce
officials, it is worthy of comment that there
is scarcely poor man among then'
Byrnes, Williams. Meakim and several other
can count the value of their propety IN SIX
fgures yet the only man who told an ap-
parentIy straight story before the Ae&ow
committee was the Superintendent.
His narrative appeared truthful simply
because many of the incidents IN conneC-
ton with it are matters of police history
and are familiar to older New workers..
The story Of the foundation of Superln-
tendent Byrnes' wealth is an Interesting
one, and shows nothing SO well as the keen
ness of Jay Gould and his power over the
stock market, says the New York Herald.
1t also brings out the great financial
shrewdness of Mr.. Byrnes.
1t was during the latter part of October
1881, that Mr. Gould received long, ram
bling letter complaining of the way In walch
the Little Wizard handled the stock market,
and winding mp with threat of pei sonar
violence. The letter was signed victim.
1t was followed by another and aLothef.
until they began TO get monotonous, ana
Mr.. Gould began to get scared. he was al
ways timid man where question OIL MS
personal safety was involved. He sent for
INSPECTOR Byrnes, who was then IN COM
,nand of the en- tire city detective organlZa-
tion. At that time Byrnes was in the hey
dav of his reputation as detective.
.sThis man is annoying me-" SAID MIR.
Gon1d. 81 wish you would do something
about it,
az will attend to it, replied the Inspector.
Then he took all the letters to his once
and looked them carefully over. Ihey
ware all alike in tenor and composition.
The writer threatened TO kill Jay Gould
IL tne latter did not give Inn tips on the
market. This was simple proposition Tor
the writer. but for awhile it proved rath-
err hard one for the Inspector.
The first peculiarity he noticed about the
Ietters was that they were all post marked
from station E. There were about one
hundred and twenty boxes in this dlsfrlct,
and if would have taken the entire detec-
rive force IN have watched them. Besloes
the detectives have no keys to the boxes'
and watching would do no good. There
fore. after consulting with Mr.. Gould 1t
was decided to insert personal IN the
Herald. Accordingly, on October 20, 1881
the following appeared in the Herald per-
sona1 column.
If the person who sent an anonymous
communication signed "VIctlms TO
prominent Wall street operator, Complain
Ing of his losses in stocks, Will call az rs
office or state where an interview can De
had, everything will be arranged to MS sat
isfaction.
This read very smoothly, according to the
ideas of Mr.. Gould and Inspector Byrnes'
but "Victm'' was not to be so easily Wet
imized. He paid no attention to the bait.
Therefore. on October 81, the Inspector
tried the following
CORRESPONDENT from Texas can receive
advice on security that will make good all
he asks for, and name his own way Oh COM
municatng l have no desire TO nave
personal interview.
To this came a willy answer. asking Mr..
Gould if the decline was TO continue. but
not suggesting any other means of commu-
nication than through the Herald. The let
ter also enclosed the following cipher, which
Mr.. Gould was to use in the formulation OF
his .suersonalS''-