Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Zaren Elizabeth Zaron, Get over here, I'm here, I'm here questions.
Speaker 3: Should I sit down?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Stay stay standing? Okay, you know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 3: So. You know I've told you recently that that story
Speaker 3: about uh Keith Richards and John Lennon, right, Well, I
Speaker 3: did some research and I was bumping around in the
Speaker 3: Rolling Stones. I found something interesting about Mick Jagger and uh,
Speaker 3: you know he was married to Jerry Hall, the model
Speaker 3: for like a long time. Yes, well they were made
Speaker 3: for about twenty three years, and apparently she got really
Speaker 3: tired of all the like infidelities on his part. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and she's like, look, you're a sex addict. Oh and
Speaker 3: he's like yeah, probably right. And so he's like, you
Speaker 3: need to go to therapy and deal with this if
Speaker 3: we're going to stay together. So Mick agreed. He's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'll do that, you know whatever. So he goes and
Speaker 3: h turns out he seduced his sex therapist. Stop it.
Speaker 2: So he just like did the chicken walk?
Speaker 3: Can strutten over? She's like, I gotta have some of that.
Speaker 5: All I think about with Mick Jagger is that John
Speaker 5: mullaney bit about how when he was hosting Saturday Night Live,
Speaker 5: how he was deciding what, you know, skits they should do,
Speaker 5: and John Mulaney would pitch one and Mick Jagger would say,
Speaker 5: not funny.
Speaker 3: I thought that for.
Speaker 2: You, not funny. That's ridiculous, right, seducing.
Speaker 3: Going to for help? Who is a sex therapist? Like
Speaker 3: she knows this is the one thing I cannot do well.
Speaker 2: But you know, I guess she's got she's got weaknesses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me see what made those lips smile.
Speaker 2: For some reason? These the ladies, they can't resist them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he got the leading man itis.
Speaker 5: I guess he's so like that doesn't matter. It's like
Speaker 5: a dancing skeleton totally, that doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: It's you're not really drawn to like the physical forms charm,
Speaker 3: it's the attitude.
Speaker 2: Hands on the hips, yeah, the est pout, Yeah, not funny.
Speaker 2: Do you know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 2: I do not making people.
Speaker 5: Believe they can win an unwinnable game, over and over
Speaker 5: and over. This is ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd
Speaker 5: and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine
Speaker 5: percent murder free. And one hundred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Oh you damn right, I know I am. Are you
Speaker 2: familiar with Alan Pinkerton?
Speaker 3: Do you want me to not cuss and go off
Speaker 3: on a rant and tirage pretend I'm familiar with that.
Speaker 2: I was just born. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think he was in maybe the last century or two, saren.
Speaker 5: He was one of the most significant figures in American
Speaker 5: law enforcement and private security.
Speaker 3: Why is that, Elizabeth? Whatever did he do?
Speaker 2: Let me tell you? You know? Oddly enough?
Speaker 5: Yes, he was a product of the Deer Green Place,
Speaker 5: my home away from home, Glasgow, Scotland.
Speaker 2: Oh really, he was a Glaswegian.
Speaker 3: I'd explain some of his tenacity.
Speaker 2: He was born there in eighteen nineteen.
Speaker 3: Okay, why did they get rid of him? They do?
Speaker 3: What he was like?
Speaker 2: I think you're going to be interested. So his dad
Speaker 2: was a police search I guessed that.
Speaker 5: And he died when Alan was young, and he left
Speaker 5: the family struggling. I mean, not on purpose, but you
Speaker 5: know who knows. Maybe so Alan he trained as a cooper,
Speaker 5: not a copper, oh, to make barrel cooper exactly, a
Speaker 5: barrel maker, and he became active in the Chartist movement.
Speaker 2: What is that I thought maybe you'd know it's working
Speaker 2: class agitation for political reform.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm trying to play a long.
Speaker 5: So okay, so all these workers right, they want workers right,
Speaker 5: they want you know, it's not just labor issues, but
Speaker 5: for those like just the working yes, and just you know,
Speaker 5: votes and all sorts of other stuff. So he gets
Speaker 5: really into the chartists, and his political activism brought him
Speaker 5: into conflict.
Speaker 2: With the authorities, you know, as it does.
Speaker 5: He went up against the Glasgow cops and maybe didn't
Speaker 5: always go so great for him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I imagine they used the billy clubs too. Oh.
Speaker 2: Probably.
Speaker 5: In eighteen forty two he'd had enough. He immigrated to
Speaker 5: the US with his wife. You got run out of town.
Speaker 5: They settled in Chicago after spending a little bit of
Speaker 5: time in Canada.
Speaker 2: So they jumped over the.
Speaker 3: Common understand the Scots to go to Canada America.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, And he at first he worked as a
Speaker 5: cooper again in Dundee township near Chicago, so he had
Speaker 5: to stick with the Scottish connection Dundee.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 5: So he's orbiting Chicago and one time, just by chance,
Speaker 5: he's out in the woods looking for wood because that's
Speaker 5: where they keep woods.
Speaker 3: That is true in the best place.
Speaker 5: That's the name he wants to He's like, I got
Speaker 5: to build a barrel, dude, and held raw material. It
Speaker 5: goes out there and he finds a counterfeitters camp. I
Speaker 5: don't know why I enunciated that so hard.
Speaker 3: I maybe really wonder what was.
Speaker 5: Very formal counterfeit A gang counterfeitters camp. You know, I'm
Speaker 5: trying not to allide over everything all the time and
Speaker 5: slur my speed because remember when we first started doing this,
Speaker 5: and that guy said that if you play the show
Speaker 5: on like seven point seventy five or halftime, I sound
Speaker 5: completely drunk and you sound normal.
Speaker 3: Because I talk so fast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, I don't remember what.
Speaker 3: People said like that about that. You do. I don't
Speaker 3: you can remind me of what people say about It.
Speaker 5: Lives in my head, but I make it pay rent.
Speaker 5: He finds his counterfeitters camp eighteen forty seven.
Speaker 3: We're talking money counterfeiting, right, yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 5: He he channeled his dad and he helped the authorities
Speaker 5: arrest the counter and he gained this reputation for vigilance.
Speaker 2: And also, I'm going to guess as.
Speaker 3: A narc exactly like Yan.
Speaker 5: So he gets appointed as a result of this, like
Speaker 5: a couple of years later, he's appointed the first police
Speaker 5: detective in Chicago in eighteen forty nine detection. They had
Speaker 5: just lance committee. Yes, and now they're like, how about.
Speaker 2: You, you nark, Yeah, we're gonna be you can't.
Speaker 5: Mind your own business, you go detect. So eighteenth Chicago
Speaker 5: the first.
Speaker 3: That's crazy. Wow.
Speaker 5: And so eighteen fifty the next year, he founded the
Speaker 5: Northwestern Police Agency, later renamed the Pinkerton National Detective Agents. Yes,
Speaker 5: now my question what happened at the Chicago PD that.
Speaker 3: After a year they're like, a year, you should do
Speaker 3: this privately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe like settle down there, but.
Speaker 3: We don't want to pay you for this.
Speaker 5: No. So the agency's logo was this wide open eye
Speaker 5: with the motto we never sleep. Yes, ominous, but that's
Speaker 5: where we get the phrase private eye.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the firm they specialized.
Speaker 5: In railroad security, and then they added in like pursuit
Speaker 5: of fugitives and then later little dash of strike breaking,
Speaker 5: little which is rich considering what got him in trouble
Speaker 5: as a lad.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I didn't want to get into all that, but.
Speaker 2: I mean like that. Yeah, so come on, now.
Speaker 3: He's like you know what, I know what pays. Well,
Speaker 3: it's like you know.
Speaker 2: You change as you get older.
Speaker 5: So the Pinkerton Agency became the most prominent private detective
Speaker 5: service in nineteenth century America. Yes, and the name became
Speaker 5: synonymous with like brutal private detectives and strongmens and strike breaking, oh,
Speaker 5: strike breaking and operating outside of the law and yet
Speaker 5: be thinking they are the law exactly. So eighteen sixty one,
Speaker 5: Pinkerton he uncovered a plan.
Speaker 3: They're like goons and suits.
Speaker 5: Total goons, total goons. He found out that someone who's
Speaker 5: going to try and assassinate President elect Abraham Lincoln, Yes,
Speaker 5: in Baltimore, a Balmore during his you know trip to Washington,
Speaker 5: d C. So Lincoln Chicago, right, so that like he
Speaker 5: then Pinkerton organizes it. So Lincoln arrives in secret, and
Speaker 5: he referred to it as the Baltimore Plot, and he
Speaker 5: was able to foil it. During the Civil War, he
Speaker 5: served as head of the Union Intelligence Service, so that's
Speaker 5: like the pre secret service. He organized espionage networks behind
Speaker 5: Confederate lines, although a lot of times his reports like
Speaker 5: overestimated the.
Speaker 2: Confederate troop strength. Course, but like after the war.
Speaker 5: The agency became famous for pursuing criminals like the Reno Gang,
Speaker 5: the James Younger Game, and then Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch.
Speaker 5: Of course, so by the eighteen seventies, oh, he is,
Speaker 5: he is, he's got star power. Eighteen seventies, eighteen eighties,
Speaker 5: they're like, really.
Speaker 2: That's when they get into the strike breaking.
Speaker 5: Yes, and they're like, you know, we're here to protect
Speaker 5: industry and destroy lives. And that tarnished his reputation among
Speaker 5: organized labor obviously, which again, you know, you look at
Speaker 5: his origins, it's an about face.
Speaker 3: So now this is what he's taking on.
Speaker 2: Mother Jones, correct the muckraker.
Speaker 5: Now, let's get to what I want to talk to
Speaker 5: you about today, but not just Alan Pinkerton.
Speaker 3: I'd love to hear what you'd love to talk about.
Speaker 5: I want to talk to you about your poor performance
Speaker 5: and our detective agency nose.
Speaker 3: I thought if I dressed like the job that I wanted,
Speaker 3: that's all I had to do.
Speaker 2: Time out.
Speaker 5: You're wearing an incredible yellow Hawaiian shirt today.
Speaker 2: That kind of is very magnum.
Speaker 5: Pi, and I feel like you should be out, you know,
Speaker 5: scoping something with some give.
Speaker 3: Me some short shorts and I'm going to be there for.
Speaker 2: And some binoculars and then you just go sit in.
Speaker 3: The car, keep binoculars in my car for bird watching.
Speaker 3: You just did the air exactly.
Speaker 2: All right, very magnum.
Speaker 5: This this all is going to start for us with
Speaker 5: one of Alan Pinkton's books. Ooh, because he wrote he
Speaker 5: wrote The Expressman and the Detective in eighteen seventy four,
Speaker 5: the Molly Maguires and the Detectives in eighteen seventy seven,
Speaker 5: and then Criminal Reminiscence and Detective Sketches in eighteen seven
Speaker 5: or memoir. Yeah, so these books widely read, but also
Speaker 5: they were like totally sensationalized. So there was you know,
Speaker 5: a lot of fiction up in that fact and it
Speaker 5: was mostly you know, just.
Speaker 2: To promote the Pinkerton Agency here totally.
Speaker 3: I mean him and dashil Hammett basically do it.
Speaker 5: And so but it's that last tone that kicks it
Speaker 5: off for us. In Criminal Reminiscences and Detective Sketches, Pinkerton wrote, quote,
Speaker 5: there are some men who naturally choose, or through a
Speaker 5: series of unfortunate blunders, drift into the life of social outlaws,
Speaker 5: who possess so many remarkably original traits of character that
Speaker 5: they become rather subjects for admiration than condemnation when we
Speaker 5: review their life and character.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of words say outlaw folk.
Speaker 5: We've talked about a good number of these dudes totally.
Speaker 5: But who in particular was Alan Pankerton talking about Zaren Who?
Speaker 3: Elizabeth? Because I do not have any guesses, No.
Speaker 2: Neither do I. It's a guy, We'll put it that way.
Speaker 2: He was. It's just established. It's a human being and a.
Speaker 3: Man, not a dog, a wolverine or a child.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 5: Who was a con artist at a riverboat gambler? He yes, hey,
Speaker 5: and a card sharp about He's been described by many as,
Speaker 5: quote the greatest of confidence men, and quote, without a doubt,
Speaker 5: the greatest three card Monty Sharp ever to work the boats,
Speaker 5: perhaps the greatest of them all.
Speaker 3: Oh old fastthand Matthews.
Speaker 2: I like being talked about working the boats. Work in
Speaker 2: the boats.
Speaker 3: She's working the boats.
Speaker 2: So was Sophie Smith.
Speaker 3: But he wasn't a three card money guy. But he
Speaker 3: was not the fastest.
Speaker 5: He was like the best either way. I'm not talking
Speaker 5: came out so okay, I love him. I just kind
Speaker 5: of wanted to say his name, you invoke his name,
Speaker 5: bring me there. This guy has a great name, though
Speaker 5: it is not as good as Soapy, but it's pretty proper.
Speaker 5: Alan Pinkerton and I are talking about Canada Bill Jones.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: That sounds like I made it up.
Speaker 3: It totally sounds like he would make up every Jones
Speaker 3: over here.
Speaker 5: Now and then I'm tempted to just completely make up
Speaker 5: a criminal and a crime to tell you and just
Speaker 5: never never revealed it.
Speaker 2: I've just made it up.
Speaker 3: That would be kind of fun.
Speaker 2: So Canada Bill Jones sounds like one that I would make.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: We'll find out. Canada Bill Jones is incredible.
Speaker 2: We'll do a little fact checking when we're doing.
Speaker 3: So you got the name Bill Jones, are like, you
Speaker 3: know what, you need a Canada in front of that.
Speaker 2: Canada Bill Jones. Well, it's not even cool. The Bill
Speaker 2: Jones part, like, go further with Bill Jones.
Speaker 5: So it's it should be like Canada, Jack McGill cuddy exactly.
Speaker 2: Canada.
Speaker 5: Bill Jones's false flat deflate so William Jones and also.
Speaker 3: Implies that there's another Bill Jones in town that you
Speaker 3: needed to.
Speaker 2: Be differentiated from Mexico, La Colorado. Bill Jones. Which member
Speaker 2: of NAFTA are you so, Canada? Bill Jones?
Speaker 5: William Jones born in a tent, of course, in Yorkshire,
Speaker 5: England in eighteenth forty seven.
Speaker 3: I was picturing in Canada. Born in his.
Speaker 5: Family were Romanical. So the Romantical, often referred to as
Speaker 5: the Romneys, are a subgroup of the Romany people. Yes,
Speaker 5: aka what you know in the olden times they called gypsy.
Speaker 5: With this long history, the Romantical have this long history
Speaker 5: in the British Isles, especially England. So they trace their
Speaker 5: ancestry to the Romany people of northern India who migrated
Speaker 5: westward over one thousand.
Speaker 3: Years, with many deviations along the way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and the first recorded Romany groups arrived in England
Speaker 5: around the early fifteen hundreds. Okay, so over the centuries
Speaker 5: the community developed this really distinct identity within Britain, that's
Speaker 5: what they. Yeah, Well, this is different. So that the
Speaker 5: Romantical or the English branch of the Romany diaspora, and
Speaker 5: they run parallel to other subgroups like the Welsh, Kale
Speaker 5: and Wales, the Scottish Travelers, the Irish travelers, although Irish
Speaker 5: Travelers are actually a separate ethno linguistic group, and they're
Speaker 5: not truly romany way, don't you. I mean, I am
Speaker 5: a font of knowledge, so speak. I'm just gonna hold on,
Speaker 5: all right. It just all came out. Speaking of language,
Speaker 5: the Romanical traditionally spoke Anglo Romany, which is this mixed language,
Speaker 5: the core vocabulary from Romany and the grammar and syntax
Speaker 5: from English and then Anglo Romany. That's spoken in a
Speaker 5: lot of families today, but most of them now, most
Speaker 5: of the Romanticals speak regional British English as.
Speaker 2: Their main language.
Speaker 5: So like historically they're itinerant. They moved in caravans wagons
Speaker 5: and they made their living through horse trading, tinkering or metalwork, yeah,
Speaker 5: fortune telling, and then entertainment, music fairs, circuses.
Speaker 3: You mentioned also horse breeding, Yeah, that.
Speaker 2: Horse trading and breeding.
Speaker 5: They did seasonal agriculture work so like fruit picking and
Speaker 5: gathering hops.
Speaker 2: And they you know, they would run run scams and come. Yeah.
Speaker 5: So from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, Romanticals face
Speaker 5: really heavy persecution in England. From fifteen thirties to seventeen eighties,
Speaker 5: there were laws that made it a crime simply to
Speaker 5: be a quote gypsy, you could get whipped, you could
Speaker 5: get sent off to America or Australia.
Speaker 2: You could be executed on site.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And a lot of them get deported to the American
Speaker 5: colonies in the like seventeen eighteenth century.
Speaker 3: A lot of breaking up of families too, right, Like
Speaker 3: kids go to the poorhouse, family gets seut Australia.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 5: But like in the US, that's why we have those
Speaker 5: traveler communities in the South and Appalachia. Right, they're the
Speaker 5: ones who were, you know, sent off to Georgia.
Speaker 3: I remember growing up there always be outside of town
Speaker 3: and they were known for the horse trade. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So Canada, Bill Canada dry From a young age, he
Speaker 5: learned handling and short games rigged card players, and so
Speaker 5: in eighteen sixty he migrated to Canada. You can see why, like, you.
Speaker 3: Know, I got a home not appreciated, and his options.
Speaker 5: Are limited, and you know he's being like severely discriminated against.
Speaker 5: So in Canada he partners up with this guy, Dick
Speaker 5: Caty and it was there that he owned three card
Speaker 5: Monty as a specialist quote thrower, and the thrower is
Speaker 5: the con artist who performs the card manipulation has this
Speaker 5: like sleight of hand, their toss techniques to trick spectators
Speaker 5: into losing their money. And that's around the time that
Speaker 5: he gets the nickname Canada Bill, and I suppose like
Speaker 5: Yorkshire Bill before that, and then he became Canadbill. He
Speaker 5: had this really interesting look. According to Alan Pinkerton quote,
Speaker 5: his personal appearance, which was most ludicrous, undeniably had much
Speaker 5: to do with his success. He was the veritable country gawky,
Speaker 5: the ridiculous, ignorant, absurd creature that has been so imperfectly
Speaker 5: imitated on and off the stage for years, and whose
Speaker 5: true description can scarcely be written. He was fully six
Speaker 5: feet high, with dark eyes and hair, and always had
Speaker 5: a smooth shaven face full of seams and wrinkles that
Speaker 5: were put to all manner of difficult expressions with marvelous
Speaker 5: facility and ease. All this coupled with long, loose jointed arms,
Speaker 5: long thin and apparently a trifle unsteady legs, a shambling,
Speaker 5: shuffling awkward gait, and this remarkable face and head bent
Speaker 5: forward and turned a little to one side like an
Speaker 5: inquiring and wise old owl, and then an outfit of
Speaker 5: granger clothing. The entire cost of which never exceeded fifteen dollars,
Speaker 5: made a combination that never failed to call a smile
Speaker 5: to a stranger's face or awaken a feeling of curiosity
Speaker 5: and interest wherever he might be seen. He's describing Nick Checker.
Speaker 3: I mean, like all also, I love how Alan Pickerton
Speaker 3: never hesitates to judge like everything. He's like, god, man, he's.
Speaker 2: Like, oh, is there an opening for that.
Speaker 5: Let's take a break and when we come back, we're
Speaker 5: going to continue on following the life of Canada.
Speaker 4: Bill nice.
Speaker 5: Zaren Elizabeth welcome back. Yes, So all right, we're talking
Speaker 5: about Canada.
Speaker 6: Bill.
Speaker 5: You can see that he's not too put together, like not,
Speaker 5: but he's not really one way or another anything.
Speaker 3: He just seems really charismatic, especial when he's talking about
Speaker 3: the creases in his face and how they dance.
Speaker 5: He's got this like charm that draws people in. That's
Speaker 5: that's an important for So you got to be somewhat
Speaker 5: memorable but not too much and like not too flashy,
Speaker 5: relatable put people at these So he Bill, he worked
Speaker 5: his card sharp skills, honed his talents, but he didn't
Speaker 5: stick around Canada very long. Soon he moved south into
Speaker 5: the US riverboat circuit on the Mississippi tributaries because that's
Speaker 5: where the money was.
Speaker 7: Oh yes, yeah, and.
Speaker 3: You were the action.
Speaker 5: And yeah, he worked with these teams of people and
Speaker 5: one of them was George Devall.
Speaker 3: That name sounds familiar, George Hildreth Deval, Okay, less familiar.
Speaker 2: He was born.
Speaker 5: I'll just keep adding names to it until it's like unrecognizable.
Speaker 5: Born in eighteen twenty nine in Ohio. He was a riverboat,
Speaker 5: railroad professional gambler and a card sharp. He also he
Speaker 5: wrote the best selling memoir Forty Years A Gambler on
Speaker 5: the Mississippi.
Speaker 2: That's why, Yeah, I figured you probably read that.
Speaker 5: So the memoir is like this nineteenth century picuresque filled
Speaker 5: with bravado and like these kind of stock characters. It's
Speaker 5: more of this window onto the milieu and his self presentation.
Speaker 2: It's not a work of nonfiction really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no exactly. And also I mean this is where
Speaker 3: we get like later on the character Maverick, who is
Speaker 3: like a riverboat gambler. Yes, they're imitating the world he
Speaker 3: described in.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he grew up in it right like so
Speaker 5: he had he was early into steamboat life as a
Speaker 5: cabin boy. And but then he really picked up all
Speaker 5: of like the card you know, tricks and slights really
Speaker 5: really easily in his.
Speaker 3: Team and had to pick your marks too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and so he was able to be a really
Speaker 5: good observer of people working on these boats, and so
Speaker 5: like he's a big part of this Mississippi Valley gaming
Speaker 5: culture in the eighteen thirties. And he positioned himself as
Speaker 5: like this fighter as well as a gambler, so like
Speaker 5: he would brag about getting into these tussles in order
Speaker 5: to settle table outcomes or like protect his cash. So
Speaker 5: here's this bruiser and he teams up with Canada Bill
Speaker 5: and they did this thing old decking, which is like
Speaker 5: introducing a pre arranged pack second dealing or palming. They
Speaker 5: had marked cards and they ran just tons of card cons.
Speaker 5: They exploited this like transit environment. So we have riverboats,
Speaker 5: junction towns, and like later the rail corridors because like
Speaker 5: jurisdictional enforcement was thin in these areas.
Speaker 3: A lot of times you're just down to us marshalls.
Speaker 5: Right, And the techniques like that he used, he just
Speaker 5: lays them out in the memoir. Canada Bill and Deval
Speaker 5: had like a really intense partnership, and so they had
Speaker 5: these like spectacular wins together. But then they had this
Speaker 5: dramatic break after they accused each other of cheating.
Speaker 3: Oh for real.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that was right around the time that the
Speaker 5: Civil War broke out. So it's not entirely clear what
Speaker 5: Bill did during the Civil War.
Speaker 3: Well, because all the riverboat traffic stops basically, so these
Speaker 3: guys all see it coming. And so that's why imagine
Speaker 3: when they were doing the it's like one of those
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get one last score before the war. I
Speaker 3: bet that's why they that was.
Speaker 2: But then it's like, I don't know what he did,
Speaker 2: laid low, whatever he.
Speaker 3: Did, I'm probably stage coach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be a good guess. I'll give you
Speaker 2: that mark that down, good guess.
Speaker 3: You got to keep it moving, he always do.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 5: After the war, though, he popped up in Kansas City
Speaker 5: and he was hanging out with this guy, Dutch Charlie.
Speaker 5: Canada Bill and Dutch Charlie. Now there are a few
Speaker 5: bad dudes named Dutch Charlie floating around. Really, Yeah, there's
Speaker 5: a but it was there was a prospector in the
Speaker 5: Gold Country. There was like a terrible Desperado in the Northwest,
Speaker 5: just terrorizing the Northwest. There was this murderous former fire
Speaker 5: chief in San Francisco. Yeah, but Bill's Charlie was not
Speaker 5: one of those guys. And from what I've read, this
Speaker 5: actually was a very common nickname for German guys in
Speaker 5: those days.
Speaker 3: Dutch charged the Dutch, so they're actually not Dutch. They're
Speaker 3: usually like the Pennsylvania Dutch exactly.
Speaker 5: So Bill and Charlie they worked to trains together on
Speaker 5: the Maha Kansas City Corridor. They ran mostly three card monty, Okay,
Speaker 5: and it is impossible to beat the dealer in three
Speaker 5: card manti. Just can't be done. People should know that
Speaker 5: they still fell for it. So this shill would like
Speaker 5: sidle up to a mark and pretend to conspire with him,
Speaker 5: like let's go cheat the dealer, like I know how
Speaker 5: to break this, and the Mark is like this is
Speaker 5: my lucky day. I'm and this plot I can beat
Speaker 5: the house at their own game. Shill obviously works for
Speaker 5: the dealer, not the mark. The Kansas City Star newspaper
Speaker 5: broke down the con in this nineteen seventeen article, quote,
Speaker 5: three card Monty was played with three cards, not the
Speaker 5: ordinary playing cards. They were cards made for the very purpose.
Speaker 5: One of them had a picture of an elephant on it,
Speaker 5: another the picture of a snake, and the third a star.
Speaker 5: The operator holds the star card in one hand and
Speaker 5: the other two between his thumb and forefinger in the
Speaker 5: other hand, and throws them on the table or cloth.
Speaker 5: He bets, you can't pick the star card, but here's
Speaker 5: the Canada Bill worked it in the first place. Most
Speaker 5: of his work was done on the railroad trains. You
Speaker 5: know how lonesome you get riding along in a smoker car.
Speaker 5: Canada Bill always had a capper who was a good
Speaker 5: makeup man too. The capper singled out his victim and
Speaker 5: took a seat alongside him and began to exchange confidences
Speaker 5: long before Canada Bill appeared. When the capper and the
Speaker 5: victim became good friends, Canada Bill would heave in sight.
Speaker 5: Sometimes he would be a Montana sheep man, sometimes a
Speaker 5: retired farmer, sometimes a country merchant. He would plant himself
Speaker 5: in the seat opposite the capper and the mark and
Speaker 5: pull out a roll of greenbacks and began to brag
Speaker 5: about having the best of luck. Then he would tell
Speaker 5: about going into Butte and playing three card monty, and
Speaker 5: he would produce a set of cards which he said
Speaker 5: he'd bought. The capper would ask him what kind of
Speaker 5: game it was, and so Canada Bill would throw the
Speaker 5: cards and the capper would try his luck at picking
Speaker 5: out the Star card, and he'd win three out of
Speaker 5: four bets. By this time, the sucker would be getting interested.
Speaker 5: Seeing good pass Then Canada Bill's psychology mill would begin
Speaker 5: to work. While the cards were laying on the cloth
Speaker 5: or the car seat, he would turn his head and
Speaker 5: hunt a spittoon, and quick as a flash, the copper
Speaker 5: would turn the star cards so the sucker could see it.
Speaker 5: And nine times out of ten, the sucker plays because
Speaker 5: he thinks he's got a sure thing. When the cards
Speaker 5: were switched, the copper would encourage the sucker to make
Speaker 5: a huge bet. Whatever card the sucker picked would prove
Speaker 5: to be an elephant or a snake, and he would
Speaker 5: lose his money. That was because Canada Bill had definitely
Speaker 5: replaced the star with superb sleight of hand. Moreover, when
Speaker 5: the sucker lost, he was generally afraid to complain because
Speaker 5: he'd have to fess up that he thought he had
Speaker 5: a sure thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he thinks he's cheating.
Speaker 5: It's so simple, like it plays on psychology, ego, hope,
Speaker 5: it's genius.
Speaker 3: It's like an instantaneous con. You know, you do very
Speaker 3: quickly conning and then they get them to think, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm going to get over on you, right.
Speaker 5: Right, you know you can be the con. So the
Speaker 5: Union Pacific Railroad was not so happy to be this
Speaker 5: rolling thing you for this con, so they cracked down
Speaker 5: on Monty. Bill actually tried to buy an exclusive franchise
Speaker 5: for the game from the railroad.
Speaker 3: Really, he's let me have this one.
Speaker 5: He wrote to the head of the railroad and said
Speaker 5: that he was going to offer them money, and then
Speaker 5: some accounts it was ten thousand a year. Others say
Speaker 5: it was one thousand a month. There's one that said
Speaker 5: it was like thirty grand a year that I'll offer
Speaker 5: you money if you let me run three.
Speaker 2: Card MONTI.
Speaker 3: Yes what I'm doing.
Speaker 2: No matter how much he.
Speaker 5: Offered, the railroad passed on the opportunity, like they don't
Speaker 5: want to give him a carve out on the ban
Speaker 5: on three card Monty.
Speaker 3: For a reason, we're into this legitimate business because we're
Speaker 3: like this, we're.
Speaker 5: Like that, and people don't want to ride the rails
Speaker 5: if they're going to get taken. So Canada Bill really
Speaker 5: put his game on in Omaha, Nebraska. He got really
Speaker 5: good at it there and so you know, he always
Speaker 5: he played the he dressed the part, you know, going
Speaker 5: to be a farmer.
Speaker 2: But like he didn't go overboard, right, So if he.
Speaker 5: Said he was, that's right, and he didn't have it
Speaker 5: like tuck behind his ear, straw behind his ear and
Speaker 5: he would just look like, I'm a prosperous farmer, you know.
Speaker 2: If he was like a merchant.
Speaker 5: He he never overdid what they called the makeup, the
Speaker 5: costume of it, and people just would remember him. And
Speaker 5: so he pulled these cons over and over and it
Speaker 5: got him press as well as attention from the authority.
Speaker 3: That's not what you want.
Speaker 5: It didn't stop people from becoming victims of his scams.
Speaker 5: But still so like in the April twenty third, eighteen
Speaker 5: seventy three newspaper Omaha Evening Bee, Bill Is.
Speaker 3: Reported read a minute the papers called the Omaha Evening b. Yes,
Speaker 3: not a morning paper. Usually the B is the morning paper.
Speaker 3: They're like the night paper might be to ad at night.
Speaker 5: It's the it's the B side to Gregory, Isaac's night
Speaker 5: nurses might be the night be so Billy, they reported.
Speaker 5: Bill that morning At appeared in court. He was charged
Speaker 5: with conning a man and wife, last name of Jarvis,
Speaker 5: at eight hundred dollars at three card Monty in a
Speaker 5: saloon south of the Omaha Union Pacific Depot. It's like
Speaker 5: the courtroom's packed. Everyone's loving this. They want to see it.
Speaker 5: So the first up to testify is the wife of
Speaker 5: the saloon owner, Missus Gosman. She tells the Omaha Evening Bee, right,
Speaker 5: they noted in there in the paper that she's a
Speaker 5: little deaf.
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, was she asked him? Repeat questions, Gosman.
Speaker 2: Who's a little deaf?
Speaker 3: She testified, So she said, they're written in parentheses like
Speaker 3: the whispering.
Speaker 2: Well, I think this part is important, she said.
Speaker 5: She really wasn't sure what was going on out in
Speaker 5: the bar room because she was at the stove in
Speaker 5: the kitchen.
Speaker 3: All right, so I did actually happen.
Speaker 2: What was she doing in there?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 3: What was she doing there? Elizabeth?
Speaker 5: Thank you zer, and I'm so glad you asked? She
Speaker 5: was making a cup of coffee for Canada Bill to
Speaker 5: study his nerves. Yeah, and then Henry the owner, he
Speaker 5: said he saw Canada Bill like a bunch of times before,
Speaker 5: and yeah, I saw him on that day, but I don't.
Speaker 2: Know what he was doing in there. I don't know
Speaker 2: anything about gambling.
Speaker 5: And so the deputy City Marshall, Marshall Snowden, he found
Speaker 5: Canada Bill later that day and Bill like straight up
Speaker 5: told him, yeah, I beat a couple out of.
Speaker 2: Some of the months of money.
Speaker 5: And then he's like, but I gave it all back
Speaker 5: except for like one hundred and fifty bucks.
Speaker 2: I kept one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 3: I was going back and forth.
Speaker 2: I have to take you.
Speaker 5: To jail, like you conned them. That was the extent
Speaker 5: of the testimony. So Bill's lawyer makes this really good
Speaker 5: case of like why he shouldn't get in trouble for it,
Speaker 5: and then when he's rendering his judgment, the judge is like,
Speaker 5: I am convinced that Bill is guilty of the charges
Speaker 5: against him, and he said I was also sure quote
Speaker 5: that three card Monty was a swindle and all who
Speaker 5: played it were swindlers dealers as well as Kapper's being
Speaker 5: equally guilty. And he was like, you know, if we
Speaker 5: keep letting this go. It's a blight on our beautiful city.
Speaker 2: He wants the.
Speaker 5: Authorities to crack down otherwise people aren't going to want
Speaker 5: to come here anymore. But like, he also points out
Speaker 5: that apparently there were other witnesses set to testify who
Speaker 5: just didn't turn up, and so the testimony that they
Speaker 5: had just wasn't enough to convict. So all he could
Speaker 5: do was hand out like a severe reprimand, and so
Speaker 5: he imposed a fine of fifty bucks bills on his way.
Speaker 5: Legend intact. I've talked about Bunkomen before. Oh yeah, so
Speaker 5: those and like the three card body guys, they befriended
Speaker 5: unsuspecting visitors in town all across the US, and they'd
Speaker 5: lure these roubes into card games, like you know Canada
Speaker 5: Bill and his fellow card sharps, and they always had
Speaker 5: like muscle in the wings waiting to put down an uprising,
Speaker 5: and much to the chagrin of like the judges, the
Speaker 5: Omaha police generally just left it alone.
Speaker 2: They left all this just.
Speaker 5: So it's kind of like, but see the real pressure
Speaker 5: on Canada Bill and his compatriots were the railroad detectives.
Speaker 5: So let's go back to Alan pinkertized, I.
Speaker 3: Just about to say, I'm sensing some pankritis.
Speaker 5: Here's another of his observations on Bill. Quote Canada Bill's
Speaker 5: peculiar genius never failed to give him victory. And it
Speaker 5: is said of him that he never made a mistake
Speaker 5: and never failed to win money whenever he attempted it. Okay,
Speaker 5: so he said that, oh yeah, he what set Canada Bill?
Speaker 5: According to Pinkerton, set Canada Bill apart from all the
Speaker 5: other card sharps was quote the fact that he was
Speaker 5: the thing. He seemed to be.
Speaker 3: Oh right, so he's not putting on some kind of airs,
Speaker 3: and he goes.
Speaker 5: On quote Old gamblers and sporting men could never fathom him.
Speaker 5: He was an enigma to his closest friends. A short
Speaker 5: study of the awkward ambling fellow would give one the
Speaker 5: impression that he was simply supremely clever in his manner,
Speaker 5: and makeup that he was merely one of the most
Speaker 5: accomplished actors in his profession ever known, and that he
Speaker 5: only kept up this appearance of guilelessness for the purpose
Speaker 5: of acquiring greater reputation among his fellows. But those who
Speaker 5: knew him, as far as it was possible to know,
Speaker 5: the wandering vagabond that he was, assert that he was
Speaker 5: the most unaffected, innocent and really simple hearted of human
Speaker 5: beings and never had been anything and never could have
Speaker 5: been anything save just what he was.
Speaker 3: So he's almost like a holy fool, but without so
Speaker 3: much of the aspect that we would describe to being dumb. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just an innocent lacking about And I.
Speaker 5: Really think it's because of his upbringing, Like he learned
Speaker 5: the cons as part of his culture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's what he knows and part of survival.
Speaker 5: He didn't carry the shame others may have hangen around
Speaker 5: those activities. So that's just who he is.
Speaker 3: Church. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So there's this there's this great article in the
Speaker 5: Beaver Crossing Times. You were just am I making him
Speaker 5: up to say from eighteen ninety two that echoes much
Speaker 5: of what others said. Quote he was large, formed man
Speaker 5: with a cleanly shaven face, square jaw, deep set eyes,
Speaker 5: the expression of a sphinx. His favorite disguise was the
Speaker 5: makeup of a cattle drover, and as there were more
Speaker 5: members of that class on the road Canada, Bill had
Speaker 5: no difficulty in passing himself off as one of them.
Speaker 5: He always carried two or three confederates or cappers with him,
Speaker 5: and the money that he won with his three little
Speaker 5: cards during half a dozen years would buy a bank
Speaker 5: and pay officers' salaries for twenty years. Whenever arrested, Bill
Speaker 5: would plead guilty, and no matter how large a fine
Speaker 5: would be imposed, he would flash up a bundle of greenbacks,
Speaker 5: thank the court for doing its duty, and bow himself
Speaker 5: into the street.
Speaker 3: How much was the fine? I got to go?
Speaker 2: So again, he's you know, he's not remorseful.
Speaker 5: He's not he doesn't feel guilty because he doesn't think
Speaker 5: that there's no shame in this.
Speaker 3: He think it's an operating cost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, except cost of doing business.
Speaker 5: Now, the Canada Bill Gang broke up in eighteen seventy candid, Yeah,
Speaker 5: and most of the members they just went west and
Speaker 5: hit up like the gold and silver fields of California
Speaker 5: and Nevada.
Speaker 2: But they left this mark on Omaha and.
Speaker 5: The city had a reputation for illegal card rackets for
Speaker 5: decades after because of them.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, my grandfather, who was the son
Speaker 3: of farmers, and one of his his father's named James
Speaker 3: Garfield after the President. All right. They he used to
Speaker 3: always warned me when I would go to that, like
Speaker 3: when I went to San Francisco and he would tell me, like,
Speaker 3: you know, you got to make sure you don't get
Speaker 3: involved in like three card MONI I'm like, yeah, people
Speaker 3: don't really do that. And then they get to North
Speaker 3: Beach and there was something throwing the car. I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm putting down twenty on this. I gotta see it.
Speaker 5: Well, that's what the omaha. They gave this reputation to him.
Speaker 5: Let's let's stop here for a second and we'll get
Speaker 5: more Canada Bill after the.
Speaker 7: Break, please, Zaren Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Zaven So Canada Bill, can.
Speaker 3: I tell you how much I'm digging this?
Speaker 2: You know, is any great?
Speaker 3: I love nineteenth century crime?
Speaker 5: But this guy, I mean, if he existed, Canada Bill,
Speaker 5: now he's real.
Speaker 2: He cheated a lot of people.
Speaker 3: It sounds like that's he wasn't a bad dude. No,
Speaker 3: he gave them entertainment and they don't feel like such
Speaker 3: suckers that they're like losing their.
Speaker 5: Homes or like and and there were parts when he
Speaker 5: really was not a bad dude at all.
Speaker 2: Because Zaren, close your eyes.
Speaker 8: Yeah, as it closed, I want you to picture it.
Speaker 5: It's the spring of eighteen seventy four. You are a
Speaker 5: newspaper reporter based out of Chicago. You're on the Lake
Speaker 5: Shore Train headed out to Toledo.
Speaker 2: Going to visit some family.
Speaker 5: You sit in the smoking car, puffing on a pipe
Speaker 5: with your notepad in your lap app thinking about a
Speaker 5: collection of short stories you're working on. The train chugs
Speaker 5: along in a mesmerizing rhythm. The door to the carriage
Speaker 5: slides open and a man enters. You'd know him anywhere.
Speaker 5: That's Canada, Bill Jones. Everyone at the paper is fascinated
Speaker 5: by him. There's a twinkle in his eye. He nods
Speaker 5: at you and takes a seat across the aisle.
Speaker 2: He starts sort.
Speaker 5: Of carelessly tossing cards around on the chair opposite him,
Speaker 5: laying cards on the seat, flipping him, sorting, shuffling. A
Speaker 5: man approaches and watches Bill. Bill offers a game of
Speaker 5: three card Monti. This is gonna be good. You think
Speaker 5: the guy wins a hand. You know he must be
Speaker 5: a capper.
Speaker 2: He's in on it. There's just no way.
Speaker 5: This is cemented in your mind when he wins a
Speaker 5: second round. Soon, two more gentlemen approach and watch. One
Speaker 5: of them takes the bait, and you wait for him
Speaker 5: to lose his bet. He does, and he wins. More
Speaker 5: men gather and watch. The second fellow tries again and loses,
Speaker 5: but he doubles down on a third try and wins.
Speaker 5: The gathered group lets out hollers and whoops it.
Speaker 2: They can't believe their eyes. Bill shakes his head and
Speaker 2: hands over twenty dollars.
Speaker 5: Why that very well may be worth five hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty dollars one hundred and fifty years time or so.
Speaker 2: That's some cash.
Speaker 5: Just then, a country boy with a pipe in his
Speaker 5: mouth approaches, bow legged and obviously out of his element.
Speaker 2: He stares at Bill.
Speaker 5: You'd clocked him watching all of this from the end
Speaker 5: of the car, and now he's standing right here next
Speaker 5: to you, assessing the game for himself. He reaches into
Speaker 5: his pocket and pulls out a stuffed billfold, producing ten bucks.
Speaker 5: He bets Bill he can pick the right card.
Speaker 2: Bill tells me he's on.
Speaker 5: In quick successive hands, he manages to double his money.
Speaker 5: The gathered men chuckle and cheer. He racks up more wins,
Speaker 5: three than four, then five hands, then six. You don't
Speaker 5: take this guy for a capper based on what you
Speaker 5: know of this con Bill has been luring this guy
Speaker 5: into a false sense of confidence in his skills at
Speaker 5: an unwinnable game. With each win, the guy increases his bets,
Speaker 5: ballooning the amount of money at stake. But then his
Speaker 5: luck changes. He loses and loses again and again, and
Speaker 5: he gets desperate. He tries to increase the bets in
Speaker 5: order to make his money back. The smoking car is
Speaker 5: now silent, just the sound of the train rolling down
Speaker 5: the tracks and the occasional clearing of a throat. To
Speaker 5: accompany a massive loss, the man runs out of money.
Speaker 5: Two men stand behind you watching the scene. One turns
Speaker 5: to the other and asks how much the guy lost
Speaker 5: because he wasn't keeping track. Six hundred dollars, the other
Speaker 5: man says, man whistles. In one hundred and fifty one
Speaker 5: years time, in twenty twenty five, that would be seventeen
Speaker 5: thousand dollars lost in a card game.
Speaker 2: In the smoking car of a train on a.
Speaker 5: Regional railroad, the country boy stands and straightens himself. Out
Speaker 5: car remains quiet. He looks dazed. Excusing himself, he shuffles
Speaker 5: past the gathered group and out into the next car.
Speaker 5: The men all disperse, some to other ends of the car,
Speaker 5: some to other carriages. Canada Bill Jones gathers his cards
Speaker 5: and tucks him in the front pocket of his jacket.
Speaker 5: He pulls his soft leather cash bag from the interior
Speaker 5: pocket of his jacket and places his winnings in there,
Speaker 5: a bundle of cash, Joining a crowd of other ill
Speaker 5: gotten bills. He takes a newspaper from the seat beside
Speaker 5: him and begins to scan the articles. You all ride
Speaker 5: along in silence. You think about what you've just witnessed,
Speaker 5: think about how to incorporate it into a short story.
Speaker 2: Then there's a commotion.
Speaker 5: The door to the smoking car flies open, and a
Speaker 5: woman enters, dragging two small children with her.
Speaker 2: She's crying.
Speaker 5: She scans the faces of the men in the car,
Speaker 5: most of her their eyes not Canada Bill.
Speaker 2: He looks straight at her.
Speaker 5: She approaches Canada Bill, she asks, yes, ma'am. He answers bawling.
Speaker 5: She tells him that she her husband, and their two
Speaker 5: small children and had sold out everything they'd owned in
Speaker 5: Mercer County, Pennsylvania, and were on their way to Kansas
Speaker 5: to start a new life. All the money they had
Speaker 5: was the six hundred and some odd dollars that her
Speaker 5: husband had just lost in three card money. She then
Speaker 5: collapses to her knees, holding onto the seat across from Bill.
Speaker 5: Her kids stare wide eyed at the scene. She exclaims
Speaker 5: that children and I must starve mister, just because my
Speaker 5: man was a fool.
Speaker 2: Canada Bill shows no expression.
Speaker 5: He stares at the woman and every soul in the
Speaker 5: smoking car seems to simultaneously hold his breath. Slowly, Bill
Speaker 5: reaches into his pants pocket. He pulls out an enormous
Speaker 5: wad of money. Slowly, he counts off six hundred dollars
Speaker 5: and hands it to the woman. Here's your money, madam.
Speaker 5: I never rob women and children, but I want you
Speaker 5: to keep it to yourself in the future, as that
Speaker 5: husband of yours doesn't know enough to go without a guardian.
Speaker 5: She is about to say something, but he raises his
Speaker 5: hand to stop. He then continues to peel Bills off
Speaker 5: the stack twenty after twenty. Then he speaks, here's a
Speaker 5: present for the babies, Now run back to them and
Speaker 5: stop your crying.
Speaker 2: So Canada Bill.
Speaker 3: I love him. Wasn't all bad, dude, I mean, like,
Speaker 3: okay one that was fantastic scene like, you know, I
Speaker 3: listened to, as I say, often a lot of old
Speaker 3: radio shows that felt like something from like Frontier Gentleman
Speaker 3: or from like Have Gunwheel Travel totally, I mean even
Speaker 3: gun Smoke. I was like, oh, that was an amazing scene.
Speaker 3: And then I love that he like wants to protect
Speaker 3: the women and the women and the children from the
Speaker 3: idiocy of the husband, like I know.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't be traveling hat a guardian.
Speaker 3: What a great line, babe. And also how amazing is
Speaker 3: it what people used to do before we had cell phones,
Speaker 3: iPhones and whatnot. But there's whole industries like that made
Speaker 3: for boredom. You're just sitting on a trail and all
Speaker 3: the sudden you got gambling. Everyone gets all excited. Yeah
Speaker 3: we get none of that now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no exactly. And so and he's he refuses to
Speaker 2: rob women and show.
Speaker 3: Yes, love this outlawful caro.
Speaker 2: But you know, here's the thing.
Speaker 5: So not even his former partner in crime with whom
Speaker 5: he'd had a falling out, would bad mouth him. Here's
Speaker 5: what Devaal said quote there never lived a better hearted
Speaker 5: man than Canada Bill. Many a time I've seen him
Speaker 5: walk up to a sister of charity and present her
Speaker 5: with as much as fifty dollars. Once I saw him
Speaker 5: win two hundred dollars from a man on a boat,
Speaker 5: and shortly after the little boy came running through the
Speaker 5: cabin and Bill gave the boy two hundred dollars, telling
Speaker 5: him to take it to his mother. He had no
Speaker 5: heart for suckers, however, and he often said gullible people
Speaker 5: had no business with money.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm with him on that.
Speaker 5: So by eighteen seventy four he was in Chicago. As
Speaker 5: we saw on the train, he teamed up with Jimmy
Speaker 5: Porter and Colonel Charlie Starr.
Speaker 3: Colonel Charlie Star and.
Speaker 5: Who those guys were is lost to history, but their
Speaker 5: names pop up with Bill and news reports. But I
Speaker 5: guess they didn't build the reputation and legacy that build it.
Speaker 5: So the guys they ran their train and boat cons
Speaker 5: but they were also opening gambling houses in Chicago. What
Speaker 5: a time in that city right now. So okay, So
Speaker 5: here's a good final anecdote about him. One day Bill
Speaker 5: was operating on the train. He's waiting for a mark
Speaker 5: and he's strolling down the aisle when he happens upon
Speaker 5: this young man sitting alone, and Bill could tell he's green.
Speaker 2: He's a greenhorn.
Speaker 5: So he slaps the kid on his shoulder, asks his name,
Speaker 5: how you doing, son, what's your name? And the young
Speaker 5: guy he's just like stoked to have someone talk to him,
Speaker 5: and so he invites Bill to sit down, tells him
Speaker 5: his name and he's you know, says I'm I'm the
Speaker 5: nephew of Alexander Ramsey, Sheriff of Ellis County and now sheriff.
Speaker 5: Ramsey was one of Bill's nemeses. Yeah, it was very
Speaker 5: cat and mouse with those and so Bill he saw like,
Speaker 5: this is my chance to get even with Ramsey. So
Speaker 5: he sits down and like in a few minutes, he's
Speaker 5: got all the young guys money, like and his watch
Speaker 5: like every bill on him and the jewel. Oh yes,
Speaker 5: after he had fleeced him. Bill turns to the boy
Speaker 5: and he says, quote, you go home now and tell
Speaker 5: Ramsey that Canada Bill got all your money. Don't forget now,
Speaker 5: tell him that Canada Bill got your money for old
Speaker 5: acquaintance sake.
Speaker 2: Tell him you.
Speaker 5: Had to go without your supper because I had your money.
Speaker 5: And then I haven't forgotten the time he put me
Speaker 5: off that Union Pacific train and made me walk.
Speaker 3: It was like a crentin Tarantino. See can't tell him
Speaker 3: Canada Bill was the one.
Speaker 2: You said to go without dinner.
Speaker 3: Take this car and I'm gonna ride on a Canada
Speaker 3: Bill hand this to Ramsey.
Speaker 5: The boy gets to his destination, his uncle's like picking
Speaker 5: him up at the depot.
Speaker 2: Tells his uncle what happened. The sheriff uncle like he Ramsey.
Speaker 5: Order, yeah, So he and his buddy like top on
Speaker 5: horses and they chase the train to the next station
Speaker 5: and there they boord the train. They find Canada Bill
Speaker 5: and Bill he's like in the smoking ca again. He's
Speaker 5: like just you know, flouncing around. Ramsey comes in. Ramsey
Speaker 5: he like pulled his hat over his eyes and he
Speaker 5: went to the seat where Canada Bill had been playing,
Speaker 5: and like started he bet on the game that had
Speaker 5: just started, so like of course he lost, but he
Speaker 5: didn't say anything until about one thousand dollars was put up.
Speaker 5: And that's when Sheriff Ramsey pulls out two six shooters,
Speaker 5: pulls him on Bill and said, quote, turn down that card,
Speaker 5: you know me hand that money over damn quick and Bill.
Speaker 5: Bill's not scared Bill is just like so cool, and
Speaker 5: Conice hands over the cash and says, quote, of course
Speaker 5: the money's yours. You want it, you hold the winning
Speaker 5: cards in your hand, Fine take it.
Speaker 3: I like that. The man of law and order now
Speaker 3: is the criminal in the start. He's the one robbing Bill.
Speaker 5: So the law man who'd heard about it later told
Speaker 5: a reporter that the sheriff's play just like broke Bill,
Speaker 5: but quote, he knew it wasn't worth fooling with Ramsey.
Speaker 2: Bill was good.
Speaker 5: Hearted, but he liked to snake in the Greenies. And
Speaker 5: I'm not exactly sure what he means, like I like
Speaker 5: to snake in the Greenies, like snake in the grass, right.
Speaker 3: That's what I'm assuming. Yeah, and they getting by.
Speaker 5: You don't want to all someone a snake in the grass.
Speaker 5: Now I'm going to go snake in the greenies.
Speaker 2: But I love it.
Speaker 3: You want to like slide by. You don't want to
Speaker 3: get good? Yeah, you don't want to get the hollies.
Speaker 2: Take your head off doing it for me. So in
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy seven, Bill fell ill with consumption, totally broke.
Speaker 2: He was absolutely destitute.
Speaker 3: Well once he can't operate, well, you know, because it
Speaker 3: turns out not banking. You know, he's not a guy
Speaker 3: that's saving for his retirement.
Speaker 5: But even more so, he was a card sharp, but
Speaker 5: he was a rube when it came to farrow.
Speaker 3: He Oh my god, I really love.
Speaker 2: To play farrow. He could not stop.
Speaker 3: That game really fell off. I still have poker, we
Speaker 3: can still find money. But Pharaoh, it just fell off.
Speaker 5: Everything he made with the cards he turned around and lost.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 5: So? On October twenty second, eighteen seventy seven, he.
Speaker 2: Died at the age of around forty Yeah.
Speaker 3: Who is thought early sixties?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 5: So in his funeral was something so the Chicago Inter
Speaker 5: Ocean newspaper, they said of the event, quote, his funeral
Speaker 5: was probably the strangest ever seen in the Charles Evans Cemetery,
Speaker 5: for there were neither tears, nor women nor minister about
Speaker 5: the grave that now holds the remains of a man
Speaker 5: who died penniless in a strange land, but had the
Speaker 5: name one time of having won nearly half a million
Speaker 5: dollars at three card montellion dollars and then turn around
Speaker 5: and blew it all.
Speaker 2: But you know he also he spread the money around.
Speaker 2: He took care of people really paid.
Speaker 3: Yet he's got payroll for people.
Speaker 5: Right, So a bunch of fellow crooked gamblers paid for
Speaker 5: his funeral, yes, And they gathered at the cemetery to quote,
Speaker 5: do the last honors for the old sport who'd won
Speaker 5: money on nearly every railroad in the United States east
Speaker 5: of the Rocky Mountains. So the hearse rolls up the
Speaker 5: carriage and the undertaker and his staff go to like
Speaker 5: pull the walnut coffin from the carriage, and then one
Speaker 5: of the con men asks if Bill's remains are actually
Speaker 5: in there, and the Undertaker's like, yeah, they are, but
Speaker 5: like the group's not happy with that, and they're like,
Speaker 5: unscrew that lid right now. We want to make sure.
Speaker 5: And the main guy, who was like kind of the
Speaker 5: ringleader of all these cons said, quote Bill was in
Speaker 5: many a tight box and worked himself out somehow or another,
Speaker 5: and it's no dead sure thing that he ain't got
Speaker 5: out of the trip to the cemetery.
Speaker 2: Yes, so there's just like and this.
Speaker 5: So like the undertaker he starts unscrewing the lid, and
Speaker 5: one of the mourners pointed out that the screws weren't
Speaker 5: solid silver like they'd paid for. Oh and then another
Speaker 5: said quote, Well, Bill's game wasn't one of the squarest,
Speaker 5: but I guess there are tricks in all trades, as
Speaker 5: well as the Monty players.
Speaker 2: So they're just like respect, fair play.
Speaker 3: Everybody.
Speaker 2: Everyone cracks up, like they all thought that was hilarious.
Speaker 5: So Bill's body was in fact in the coffin and
Speaker 5: they're like, okay, wow, he's dead. And the guy who
Speaker 5: was supposed to read like a short prayer never showed up,
Speaker 5: so they screwed the lid back on the coffin, lowered
Speaker 5: him into the ground, and there was That's the end
Speaker 5: of Canada.
Speaker 2: Bill.
Speaker 3: There was no one to say words over him, No.
Speaker 5: Because the guy who's going to read a prayer and
Speaker 5: say something didn't show up, So no one.
Speaker 2: Else that was not their jobs, Darin, I get it.
Speaker 5: So Bill, he was known for two famous quotes. They
Speaker 5: may or may not have been things that he actually said,
Speaker 5: but they're attributed to him in films like Rounders or Yeah,
Speaker 5: or in American Gods by that super creep Neil Gamon. Okay,
Speaker 5: so the first is quote, it's immoral to let us
Speaker 5: sucker keep his money.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you it is kind of like the street wisdom.
Speaker 5: Yes exactly, We've heard similar sentiment from other con artists.
Speaker 5: And then there's quote, I know it's crooked, but it's
Speaker 5: the only game in town, which is so often this story,
Speaker 5: so often the story. So, Saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I just loved this ride. And I'd
Speaker 3: like that his earnestness ironically allowed him to do crime
Speaker 3: without having like you didn't mention him getting beaten really badly,
Speaker 3: nobody like taking potshots at him, no angry people. Also,
Speaker 3: he was just a great guy in terms of like
Speaker 3: how he separated a wife and the children from like
Speaker 3: the sucker husband and realized that, you know, suckers are
Speaker 3: one thing, families or another thing. So he has a
Speaker 3: very simple view of the world. And I think it's
Speaker 3: a little bit ridiculous that he's out of all the
Speaker 3: people you're mentioning, you know, Allan Pinkerton, the Ramsey, the sheriff,
Speaker 3: he's the most moral person that you mentioned. Yeah, yeah's
Speaker 3: you're a ridiculous takeaway, Elizabeth.
Speaker 5: I was really struck by him not having the built
Speaker 5: in shame, yes, and that it actually allowed him to.
Speaker 2: Be more moral.
Speaker 5: I think because he wasn't trying to cover up any
Speaker 5: of his behaviors, and he just was exactly what he
Speaker 5: was and unapologetic in it.
Speaker 2: But that allowed him to kind of let things come
Speaker 2: and go.
Speaker 3: I found have you found that have you've known Rama?
Speaker 3: I found that often to be the case with the
Speaker 3: roma I've known, is that because there's like not those pretensions,
Speaker 3: they're allowed to just be a person. You know, they
Speaker 3: don't have all these well I gotta shave face and
Speaker 3: act like I'm this and I go to church on
Speaker 3: Sunday to forget what I did on Saturday.
Speaker 2: They just are understanding that things come and go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, That's what I mean. It's just part that's
Speaker 3: like how nature is. So you're much more in tune
Speaker 3: with the rhythms of nature than the pretensions of man.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and so I just that's one of the fascinating
Speaker 5: things about him was that that element of it.
Speaker 2: What I would love to cap this all off with
Speaker 2: is a talk back.
Speaker 3: I can't help you, producer, d can you? I got you?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I like.
Speaker 6: His eyes. My name is Morgan. I'm a new listener
Speaker 6: to the podcast and I love it. It's so funny,
Speaker 6: but the other day, I was listening and Zara said
Speaker 6: he had a cuddle site with the interns, and I
Speaker 6: had no idea who the interns were, so I seemed
Speaker 6: a little inappropriate, but Elizabeth them clarified that they are
Speaker 6: four legged interns, not too so thank you for clarifying
Speaker 6: that you have mutant four legged human interns. Thanks guys,
Speaker 6: sorry for that.
Speaker 2: Workplace.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's not that kind.
Speaker 2: And they're also they're not mutants.
Speaker 3: And they started the cuddle fight. I just responded, and
Speaker 3: they are dogs. They are.
Speaker 2: That's the funniest thing ever. I love Thank you for that.
Speaker 2: That's it for today. With the notion of you just
Speaker 2: like aggressively cuddling like college students.
Speaker 3: You take this pillow, hit me with it, I'll hit
Speaker 3: you back, don't give me a hug.
Speaker 2: All the iHeart lawyers line. That's it for today. You
Speaker 2: can find us online at ridiculous crime dot com.
Speaker 5: Did you know the website got a speeding ticket over
Speaker 5: the weekend.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry about the house. I should have told you.
Speaker 5: The website lost its license and now it rides a
Speaker 5: bike everywhere.
Speaker 3: That explains why it was locked up next to mine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5: We're also Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky and Instagram. We're
Speaker 5: on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime Pod. You can email us
Speaker 5: at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2: Most importantly, leave a talkback on the iHeart app reach out.
Speaker 5: Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
Speaker 5: produced and edited by inventor of twelve Card Monty Dave Cousten,
Speaker 5: starring Analys Rutger as Judith. Research is by Riverboat Detective
Speaker 5: Marissa Brown. The theme song is by Card Sharp Cappers
Speaker 5: with Hearts of Gold Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post
Speaker 5: wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and
Speaker 5: makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Pinkerton
Speaker 5: HR representatives Ben Bollen and Noel Brown. Gridicous Crime, Say
Speaker 5: It One More Times Crime.
Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts
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