The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-02
DAzED DUPES WITH TALK.
GRAND CENTRAL PETE USED Nh
 WEAPON BUT HIS TONGUE.

and Successful ROgues New York
 Has Known-As Adrott i'm Ev.d,nu
 Their Punishment as in Enectiny
 His Crimes.
 Peter Lake, alias Grand Central
 Pete, the bunco steerer who was arrest
 ed in front of the barge office one day
 last week on suspicion of being about to
 work off gold brick or a package of
 green goods on an unsuspecting immi-
 grant, Is one of the old school confi-
 dence men, very few of whom are
 around nowadays As an enemy of so-
 ciety, Grand Central Pete doesn't
 amount to much any more. but there
 was time when he was one of the
 most successful thieves in the city of
 New York. That was in the days of
 a crook known to the public as Hungry Voe. Hungry Joe was much exploited in
 the newspapers of robbing a country
 man when he got one in his tolls, and
 because his abnormal appetite for food and money gave the story-tellers a
 magnificent field for the play of their tmaginations.
 Old-time detectives, and many of the old-time thieves who are still around, say that Peter Lake was more suc
 cessful and more skilful operator than Hungry Joe, and that some of his ex- ploits put into the shade anything ever done by the better-known bunco man with the appetite. However that may be, it Is fact that the man who de- clares that the Vanderbilts named their big railroad station after him, was most successful criminal, considering that he never carried weapon, never approached man any other way than face to face. and depended entirely upon his tongue, his personality and his skill as student of human nature, in footing his victims.
 A race-track man who knew Lake in his palmy days described his peculiar powers in this somewhat exaggerated fashion the other day: e
 Peter would approach man who had money in his pocket and would talk that money from the mans pocket into his own. It was all done by the power of the tongue. I sometimes think that he never used his hands in his operations at all. It wasn't ne- cessary, because that tongue of his could coddle the money from it's owner to himself. One think I know, because 1t was told to me by man who saw it done, and that Is that Lake frequently talked his victim into getting his mon- ey out of his pocket and then putting it into his own, the whole operation be- ing done by the victim In this partic ular case, the victim came to before Peter had had a chance to get safely away. But when the case came into court the victim simply had to admit that he took the money from his own pocket and put it into Peters. Result, Peter was discharged, and that, too, without giving up the money"
 Ut appears to have been Lakes meth od to go at man on the rapid fire plan. He would hurl words at the vic tim So fast that the man couldn't squeeze in a remonstrance. His elo- quence would counteract the first i'm pression of impudence that a man would get. Then would come famil- iarity that from any one but man gifted like this one, would be simply astounding to the victim and would be speedily resented With Lake it rarely happened that his victim failed to succumb to his eloquence. Next, by any one of thousand different schemes he had at hand he would an- mex all the victims cash, and then take his departure He wasn't averse to taking checks. Sometimes he de- manded them when the spare cash wasn't up to expectations. It was in the matter of check, drawn from a man under its spell, that Lake demon strated in amazing fashion the persua- eiveness in his tongue.
 With what ready money the victim had, Lake managed to depart from the | scene of his operations, with a check l as we'll in his pocket. It was quite large check and when the victim came out from under the spell he realized | that something was wrong with the | transaction he had just taken part in | He was quite convinced that some l thing was wrong few minutes later l when a station agent told him that his late friend was notorious bunco | steerer and he hastened to the bank and stopped the check. For once in his life Lake had put too much confi- dence in himself. He figured that the victim would be longer coming to and so didn't hasten to the bank with the check When he did come he found the man standing by the paying telers' window, smiling. Lake was equal to the emergency.
 With a cheery good day." he showed the check into the teller's hands. It was handed back with an explanation that MT Blank had stopped it. MT. Blank smiled. Peter esmiled. MT Blank accepted an invitation to go in a corner and talk the matter over, lust what Peter said no one but him and Mr. Blank will ever know, but in less than fifteen minutes the pair were back at the teller's window and the lupe was ordering the teller to honor Inc check Peter went aut smiling and he stranger actually shook hands with him. It is said than an hour after this the man was heard using very violent language around the bank and declar- Ing that because he was an ass there was no reason why every official in the oank should be an ass too.
 It very often happened that the spell Lake threw over his victims passed ,way too soon for the comfort of that individual, but it had to be a very diff icult predicarent that he could not