Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.

Zaren Elizabeth Zaron, Get over here, I'm here, I'm here questions.

Should I sit down?

No?

Yeah?

Stay stay standing?

Okay, you know it's ridiculous.

I do.

So.

You know I've told you recently that that story about uh Keith Richards and John Lennon, right, Well, I did some research and I was bumping around in the Rolling Stones.

I found something interesting about Mick Jagger and uh, you know he was married to Jerry Hall, the model for like a long time.

Yes, well they were made for about twenty three years, and apparently she got really tired of all the like infidelities on his part.

Yeah, and she's like, look, you're a sex addict.

Oh and he's like yeah, probably right.

And so he's like, you need to go to therapy and deal with this if we're going to stay together.

So Mick agreed.

He's like, yeah, I'll do that, you know whatever.

So he goes and h turns out he seduced his sex therapist.

Stop it.

So he just like did the chicken walk?

Can strutten over?

She's like, I gotta have some of that.

All I think about with Mick Jagger is that John mullaney bit about how when he was hosting Saturday Night Live, how he was deciding what, you know, skits they should do, and John Mulaney would pitch one and Mick Jagger would say, not funny.

I thought that for.

You, not funny.

That's ridiculous, right, seducing.

Going to for help?

Who is a sex therapist?

Like she knows this is the one thing I cannot do well.

But you know, I guess she's got she's got weaknesses.

Yeah, let me see what made those lips smile.

For some reason?

These the ladies, they can't resist them.

Yeah, he got the leading man itis.

I guess he's so like that doesn't matter.

It's like a dancing skeleton totally, that doesn't matter.

It's you're not really drawn to like the physical forms charm, it's the attitude.

Hands on the hips, yeah, the est pout, Yeah, not funny.

Do you know what else is ridiculous?

No?

I do not making people.

Believe they can win an unwinnable game, over and over and over.

This is ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons.

It's always ninety nine percent murder free.

And one hundred percent ridiculous.

Oh you damn right, I know I am.

Are you familiar with Alan Pinkerton?

Do you want me to not cuss and go off on a rant and tirage pretend I'm familiar with that.

I was just born.

I don't know.

I think he was in maybe the last century or two, saren.

He was one of the most significant figures in American law enforcement and private security.

Why is that, Elizabeth?

Whatever did he do?

Let me tell you?

You know?

Oddly enough?

Yes, he was a product of the Deer Green Place, my home away from home, Glasgow, Scotland.

Oh really, he was a Glaswegian.

I'd explain some of his tenacity.

He was born there in eighteen nineteen.

Okay, why did they get rid of him?

They do?

What he was like?

I think you're going to be interested.

So his dad was a police search I guessed that.

And he died when Alan was young, and he left the family struggling.

I mean, not on purpose, but you know who knows.

Maybe so Alan he trained as a cooper, not a copper, oh, to make barrel cooper exactly, a barrel maker, and he became active in the Chartist movement.

What is that I thought maybe you'd know it's working class agitation for political reform.

Yeah, I'm trying to play a long.

So okay, so all these workers right, they want workers right, they want you know, it's not just labor issues, but for those like just the working yes, and just you know, votes and all sorts of other stuff.

So he gets really into the chartists, and his political activism brought him into conflict.

With the authorities, you know, as it does.

He went up against the Glasgow cops and maybe didn't always go so great for him.

Yeah, I imagine they used the billy clubs too.

Oh.

Probably.

In eighteen forty two he'd had enough.

He immigrated to the US with his wife.

You got run out of town.

They settled in Chicago after spending a little bit of time in Canada.

So they jumped over the.

Common understand the Scots to go to Canada America.

Yes, yes, And he at first he worked as a cooper again in Dundee township near Chicago, so he had to stick with the Scottish connection Dundee.

Uh.

So he's orbiting Chicago and one time, just by chance, he's out in the woods looking for wood because that's where they keep woods.

That is true in the best place.

That's the name he wants to He's like, I got to build a barrel, dude, and held raw material.

It goes out there and he finds a counterfeitters camp.

I don't know why I enunciated that so hard.

I maybe really wonder what was.

Very formal counterfeit A gang counterfeitters camp.

You know, I'm trying not to allide over everything all the time and slur my speed because remember when we first started doing this, and that guy said that if you play the show on like seven point seventy five or halftime, I sound completely drunk and you sound normal.

Because I talk so fast.

Yeah, anyway, I don't remember what.

People said like that about that.

You do.

I don't you can remind me of what people say about It.

Lives in my head, but I make it pay rent.

He finds his counterfeitters camp eighteen forty seven.

We're talking money counterfeiting, right, yeah, yeah, and.

He he channeled his dad and he helped the authorities arrest the counter and he gained this reputation for vigilance.

And also, I'm going to guess as.

A narc exactly like Yan.

So he gets appointed as a result of this, like a couple of years later, he's appointed the first police detective in Chicago in eighteen forty nine detection.

They had just lance committee.

Yes, and now they're like, how about.

You, you nark, Yeah, we're gonna be you can't.

Mind your own business, you go detect.

So eighteenth Chicago the first.

That's crazy.

Wow.

And so eighteen fifty the next year, he founded the Northwestern Police Agency, later renamed the Pinkerton National Detective Agents.

Yes, now my question what happened at the Chicago PD that.

After a year they're like, a year, you should do this privately.

Yeah, maybe like settle down there, but.

We don't want to pay you for this.

No.

So the agency's logo was this wide open eye with the motto we never sleep.

Yes, ominous, but that's where we get the phrase private eye.

Yeah.

So the firm they specialized.

In railroad security, and then they added in like pursuit of fugitives and then later little dash of strike breaking, little which is rich considering what got him in trouble as a lad.

Thank you.

I didn't want to get into all that, but.

I mean like that.

Yeah, so come on, now.

He's like you know what, I know what pays.

Well, it's like you know.

You change as you get older.

So the Pinkerton Agency became the most prominent private detective service in nineteenth century America.

Yes, and the name became synonymous with like brutal private detectives and strongmens and strike breaking, oh, strike breaking and operating outside of the law and yet be thinking they are the law exactly.

So eighteen sixty one, Pinkerton he uncovered a plan.

They're like goons and suits.

Total goons, total goons.

He found out that someone who's going to try and assassinate President elect Abraham Lincoln, Yes, in Baltimore, a Balmore during his you know trip to Washington, d C.

So Lincoln Chicago, right, so that like he then Pinkerton organizes it.

So Lincoln arrives in secret, and he referred to it as the Baltimore Plot, and he was able to foil it.

During the Civil War, he served as head of the Union Intelligence Service, so that's like the pre secret service.

He organized espionage networks behind Confederate lines, although a lot of times his reports like overestimated the.

Confederate troop strength.

Course, but like after the war.

The agency became famous for pursuing criminals like the Reno Gang, the James Younger Game, and then Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch.

Of course, so by the eighteen seventies, oh, he is, he is, he's got star power.

Eighteen seventies, eighteen eighties, they're like, really.

That's when they get into the strike breaking.

Yes, and they're like, you know, we're here to protect industry and destroy lives.

And that tarnished his reputation among organized labor obviously, which again, you know, you look at his origins, it's an about face.

So now this is what he's taking on.

Mother Jones, correct the muckraker.

Now, let's get to what I want to talk to you about today, but not just Alan Pinkerton.

I'd love to hear what you'd love to talk about.

I want to talk to you about your poor performance and our detective agency nose.

I thought if I dressed like the job that I wanted, that's all I had to do.

Time out.

You're wearing an incredible yellow Hawaiian shirt today.

That kind of is very magnum.

Pi, and I feel like you should be out, you know, scoping something with some give.

Me some short shorts and I'm going to be there for.

And some binoculars and then you just go sit in.

The car, keep binoculars in my car for bird watching.

You just did the air exactly.

All right, very magnum.

This this all is going to start for us with one of Alan Pinkton's books.

Ooh, because he wrote he wrote The Expressman and the Detective in eighteen seventy four, the Molly Maguires and the Detectives in eighteen seventy seven, and then Criminal Reminiscence and Detective Sketches in eighteen seven or memoir.

Yeah, so these books widely read, but also they were like totally sensationalized.

So there was you know, a lot of fiction up in that fact and it was mostly you know, just.

To promote the Pinkerton Agency here totally.

I mean him and dashil Hammett basically do it.

And so but it's that last tone that kicks it off for us.

In Criminal Reminiscences and Detective Sketches, Pinkerton wrote, quote, there are some men who naturally choose, or through a series of unfortunate blunders, drift into the life of social outlaws, who possess so many remarkably original traits of character that they become rather subjects for admiration than condemnation when we review their life and character.

It's a lot of words say outlaw folk.

We've talked about a good number of these dudes totally.

But who in particular was Alan Pankerton talking about Zaren Who?

Elizabeth?

Because I do not have any guesses, No.

Neither do I.

It's a guy, We'll put it that way.

He was.

It's just established.

It's a human being and a.

Man, not a dog, a wolverine or a child.

Correct.

Who was a con artist at a riverboat gambler?

He yes, hey, and a card sharp about He's been described by many as, quote the greatest of confidence men, and quote, without a doubt, the greatest three card Monty Sharp ever to work the boats, perhaps the greatest of them all.

Oh old fastthand Matthews.

I like being talked about working the boats.

Work in the boats.

She's working the boats.

So was Sophie Smith.

But he wasn't a three card money guy.

But he was not the fastest.

He was like the best either way.

I'm not talking came out so okay, I love him.

I just kind of wanted to say his name, you invoke his name, bring me there.

This guy has a great name, though it is not as good as Soapy, but it's pretty proper.

Alan Pinkerton and I are talking about Canada Bill Jones.

Are you kidding?

That sounds like I made it up.

It totally sounds like he would make up every Jones over here.

Now and then I'm tempted to just completely make up a criminal and a crime to tell you and just never never revealed it.

I've just made it up.

That would be kind of fun.

So Canada Bill Jones sounds like one that I would make.

I don't know.

We'll find out.

Canada Bill Jones is incredible.

We'll do a little fact checking when we're doing.

So you got the name Bill Jones, are like, you know what, you need a Canada in front of that.

Canada Bill Jones.

Well, it's not even cool.

The Bill Jones part, like, go further with Bill Jones.

So it's it should be like Canada, Jack McGill cuddy exactly.

Canada.

Bill Jones's false flat deflate so William Jones and also.

Implies that there's another Bill Jones in town that you needed to.

Be differentiated from Mexico, La Colorado.

Bill Jones.

Which member of NAFTA are you so, Canada?

Bill Jones?

William Jones born in a tent, of course, in Yorkshire, England in eighteenth forty seven.

I was picturing in Canada.

Born in his.

Family were Romanical.

So the Romantical, often referred to as the Romneys, are a subgroup of the Romany people.

Yes, aka what you know in the olden times they called gypsy.

With this long history, the Romantical have this long history in the British Isles, especially England.

So they trace their ancestry to the Romany people of northern India who migrated westward over one thousand.

Years, with many deviations along the way.

Yeah, and the first recorded Romany groups arrived in England around the early fifteen hundreds.

Okay, so over the centuries the community developed this really distinct identity within Britain, that's what they.

Yeah, Well, this is different.

So that the Romantical or the English branch of the Romany diaspora, and they run parallel to other subgroups like the Welsh, Kale and Wales, the Scottish Travelers, the Irish travelers, although Irish Travelers are actually a separate ethno linguistic group, and they're not truly romany way, don't you.

I mean, I am a font of knowledge, so speak.

I'm just gonna hold on, all right.

It just all came out.

Speaking of language, the Romanical traditionally spoke Anglo Romany, which is this mixed language, the core vocabulary from Romany and the grammar and syntax from English and then Anglo Romany.

That's spoken in a lot of families today, but most of them now, most of the Romanticals speak regional British English as.

Their main language.

So like historically they're itinerant.

They moved in caravans wagons and they made their living through horse trading, tinkering or metalwork, yeah, fortune telling, and then entertainment, music fairs, circuses.

You mentioned also horse breeding, Yeah, that.

Horse trading and breeding.

They did seasonal agriculture work so like fruit picking and gathering hops.

And they you know, they would run run scams and come.

Yeah.

So from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, Romanticals face really heavy persecution in England.

From fifteen thirties to seventeen eighties, there were laws that made it a crime simply to be a quote gypsy, you could get whipped, you could get sent off to America or Australia.

You could be executed on site.

Wow.

Yeah.

And a lot of them get deported to the American colonies in the like seventeen eighteenth century.

A lot of breaking up of families too, right, Like kids go to the poorhouse, family gets seut Australia.

Right.

But like in the US, that's why we have those traveler communities in the South and Appalachia.

Right, they're the ones who were, you know, sent off to Georgia.

I remember growing up there always be outside of town and they were known for the horse trade.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Canada, Bill Canada dry From a young age, he learned handling and short games rigged card players, and so in eighteen sixty he migrated to Canada.

You can see why, like, you.

Know, I got a home not appreciated, and his options.

Are limited, and you know he's being like severely discriminated against.

So in Canada he partners up with this guy, Dick Caty and it was there that he owned three card Monty as a specialist quote thrower, and the thrower is the con artist who performs the card manipulation has this like sleight of hand, their toss techniques to trick spectators into losing their money.

And that's around the time that he gets the nickname Canada Bill, and I suppose like Yorkshire Bill before that, and then he became Canadbill.

He had this really interesting look.

According to Alan Pinkerton quote, his personal appearance, which was most ludicrous, undeniably had much to do with his success.

He was the veritable country gawky, the ridiculous, ignorant, absurd creature that has been so imperfectly imitated on and off the stage for years, and whose true description can scarcely be written.

He was fully six feet high, with dark eyes and hair, and always had a smooth shaven face full of seams and wrinkles that were put to all manner of difficult expressions with marvelous facility and ease.

All this coupled with long, loose jointed arms, long thin and apparently a trifle unsteady legs, a shambling, shuffling awkward gait, and this remarkable face and head bent forward and turned a little to one side like an inquiring and wise old owl, and then an outfit of granger clothing.

The entire cost of which never exceeded fifteen dollars, made a combination that never failed to call a smile to a stranger's face or awaken a feeling of curiosity and interest wherever he might be seen.

He's describing Nick Checker.

I mean, like all also, I love how Alan Pickerton never hesitates to judge like everything.

He's like, god, man, he's.

Like, oh, is there an opening for that.

Let's take a break and when we come back, we're going to continue on following the life of Canada.

Bill nice.

Zaren Elizabeth welcome back.

Yes, So all right, we're talking about Canada.

Bill.

You can see that he's not too put together, like not, but he's not really one way or another anything.

He just seems really charismatic, especial when he's talking about the creases in his face and how they dance.

He's got this like charm that draws people in.

That's that's an important for So you got to be somewhat memorable but not too much and like not too flashy, relatable put people at these So he Bill, he worked his card sharp skills, honed his talents, but he didn't stick around Canada very long.

Soon he moved south into the US riverboat circuit on the Mississippi tributaries because that's where the money was.

Oh yes, yeah, and.

You were the action.

And yeah, he worked with these teams of people and one of them was George Devall.

That name sounds familiar, George Hildreth Deval, Okay, less familiar.

He was born.

I'll just keep adding names to it until it's like unrecognizable.

Born in eighteen twenty nine in Ohio.

He was a riverboat, railroad professional gambler and a card sharp.

He also he wrote the best selling memoir Forty Years A Gambler on the Mississippi.

That's why, Yeah, I figured you probably read that.

So the memoir is like this nineteenth century picuresque filled with bravado and like these kind of stock characters.

It's more of this window onto the milieu and his self presentation.

It's not a work of nonfiction really.

Yeah, no exactly.

And also I mean this is where we get like later on the character Maverick, who is like a riverboat gambler.

Yes, they're imitating the world he described in.

Yeah, and he grew up in it right like so he had he was early into steamboat life as a cabin boy.

And but then he really picked up all of like the card you know, tricks and slights really really easily in his.

Team and had to pick your marks too.

Yeah, and so he was able to be a really good observer of people working on these boats, and so like he's a big part of this Mississippi Valley gaming culture in the eighteen thirties.

And he positioned himself as like this fighter as well as a gambler, so like he would brag about getting into these tussles in order to settle table outcomes or like protect his cash.

So here's this bruiser and he teams up with Canada Bill and they did this thing old decking, which is like introducing a pre arranged pack second dealing or palming.

They had marked cards and they ran just tons of card cons.

They exploited this like transit environment.

So we have riverboats, junction towns, and like later the rail corridors because like jurisdictional enforcement was thin in these areas.

A lot of times you're just down to us marshalls.

Right, And the techniques like that he used, he just lays them out in the memoir.

Canada Bill and Deval had like a really intense partnership, and so they had these like spectacular wins together.

But then they had this dramatic break after they accused each other of cheating.

Oh for real.

Yeah, and that was right around the time that the Civil War broke out.

So it's not entirely clear what Bill did during the Civil War.

Well, because all the riverboat traffic stops basically, so these guys all see it coming.

And so that's why imagine when they were doing the it's like one of those I'm gonna get one last score before the war.

I bet that's why they that was.

But then it's like, I don't know what he did, laid low, whatever he.

Did, I'm probably stage coach.

Yeah, that would be a good guess.

I'll give you that mark that down, good guess.

You got to keep it moving, he always do.

So.

After the war, though, he popped up in Kansas City and he was hanging out with this guy, Dutch Charlie.

Canada Bill and Dutch Charlie.

Now there are a few bad dudes named Dutch Charlie floating around.

Really, Yeah, there's a but it was there was a prospector in the Gold Country.

There was like a terrible Desperado in the Northwest, just terrorizing the Northwest.

There was this murderous former fire chief in San Francisco.

Yeah, but Bill's Charlie was not one of those guys.

And from what I've read, this actually was a very common nickname for German guys in those days.

Dutch charged the Dutch, so they're actually not Dutch.

They're usually like the Pennsylvania Dutch exactly.

So Bill and Charlie they worked to trains together on the Maha Kansas City Corridor.

They ran mostly three card monty, Okay, and it is impossible to beat the dealer in three card manti.

Just can't be done.

People should know that they still fell for it.

So this shill would like sidle up to a mark and pretend to conspire with him, like let's go cheat the dealer, like I know how to break this, and the Mark is like this is my lucky day.

I'm and this plot I can beat the house at their own game.

Shill obviously works for the dealer, not the mark.

The Kansas City Star newspaper broke down the con in this nineteen seventeen article, quote, three card Monty was played with three cards, not the ordinary playing cards.

They were cards made for the very purpose.

One of them had a picture of an elephant on it, another the picture of a snake, and the third a star.

The operator holds the star card in one hand and the other two between his thumb and forefinger in the other hand, and throws them on the table or cloth.

He bets, you can't pick the star card, but here's the Canada Bill worked it in the first place.

Most of his work was done on the railroad trains.

You know how lonesome you get riding along in a smoker car.

Canada Bill always had a capper who was a good makeup man too.

The capper singled out his victim and took a seat alongside him and began to exchange confidences long before Canada Bill appeared.

When the capper and the victim became good friends, Canada Bill would heave in sight.

Sometimes he would be a Montana sheep man, sometimes a retired farmer, sometimes a country merchant.

He would plant himself in the seat opposite the capper and the mark and pull out a roll of greenbacks and began to brag about having the best of luck.

Then he would tell about going into Butte and playing three card monty, and he would produce a set of cards which he said he'd bought.

The capper would ask him what kind of game it was, and so Canada Bill would throw the cards and the capper would try his luck at picking out the Star card, and he'd win three out of four bets.

By this time, the sucker would be getting interested.

Seeing good pass Then Canada Bill's psychology mill would begin to work.

While the cards were laying on the cloth or the car seat, he would turn his head and hunt a spittoon, and quick as a flash, the copper would turn the star cards so the sucker could see it.

And nine times out of ten, the sucker plays because he thinks he's got a sure thing.

When the cards were switched, the copper would encourage the sucker to make a huge bet.

Whatever card the sucker picked would prove to be an elephant or a snake, and he would lose his money.

That was because Canada Bill had definitely replaced the star with superb sleight of hand.

Moreover, when the sucker lost, he was generally afraid to complain because he'd have to fess up that he thought he had a sure thing.

Yeah, he thinks he's cheating.

It's so simple, like it plays on psychology, ego, hope, it's genius.

It's like an instantaneous con.

You know, you do very quickly conning and then they get them to think, oh, I'm going to get over on you, right.

Right, you know you can be the con.

So the Union Pacific Railroad was not so happy to be this rolling thing you for this con, so they cracked down on Monty.

Bill actually tried to buy an exclusive franchise for the game from the railroad.

Really, he's let me have this one.

He wrote to the head of the railroad and said that he was going to offer them money, and then some accounts it was ten thousand a year.

Others say it was one thousand a month.

There's one that said it was like thirty grand a year that I'll offer you money if you let me run three.

Card MONTI.

Yes what I'm doing.

No matter how much he.

Offered, the railroad passed on the opportunity, like they don't want to give him a carve out on the ban on three card Monty.

For a reason, we're into this legitimate business because we're like this, we're.

Like that, and people don't want to ride the rails if they're going to get taken.

So Canada Bill really put his game on in Omaha, Nebraska.

He got really good at it there and so you know, he always he played the he dressed the part, you know, going to be a farmer.

But like he didn't go overboard, right, So if he.

Said he was, that's right, and he didn't have it like tuck behind his ear, straw behind his ear and he would just look like, I'm a prosperous farmer, you know.

If he was like a merchant.

He he never overdid what they called the makeup, the costume of it, and people just would remember him.

And so he pulled these cons over and over and it got him press as well as attention from the authority.

That's not what you want.

It didn't stop people from becoming victims of his scams.

But still so like in the April twenty third, eighteen seventy three newspaper Omaha Evening Bee, Bill Is.

Reported read a minute the papers called the Omaha Evening b.

Yes, not a morning paper.

Usually the B is the morning paper.

They're like the night paper might be to ad at night.

It's the it's the B side to Gregory, Isaac's night nurses might be the night be so Billy, they reported.

Bill that morning At appeared in court.

He was charged with conning a man and wife, last name of Jarvis, at eight hundred dollars at three card Monty in a saloon south of the Omaha Union Pacific Depot.

It's like the courtroom's packed.

Everyone's loving this.

They want to see it.

So the first up to testify is the wife of the saloon owner, Missus Gosman.

She tells the Omaha Evening Bee, right, they noted in there in the paper that she's a little deaf.

It's like, okay, was she asked him?

Repeat questions, Gosman.

Who's a little deaf?

She testified, So she said, they're written in parentheses like the whispering.

Well, I think this part is important, she said.

She really wasn't sure what was going on out in the bar room because she was at the stove in the kitchen.

All right, so I did actually happen.

What was she doing in there?

Well?

What was she doing there?

Elizabeth?

Thank you zer, and I'm so glad you asked?

She was making a cup of coffee for Canada Bill to study his nerves.

Yeah, and then Henry the owner, he said he saw Canada Bill like a bunch of times before, and yeah, I saw him on that day, but I don't.

Know what he was doing in there.

I don't know anything about gambling.

And so the deputy City Marshall, Marshall Snowden, he found Canada Bill later that day and Bill like straight up told him, yeah, I beat a couple out of.

Some of the months of money.

And then he's like, but I gave it all back except for like one hundred and fifty bucks.

I kept one hundred and fifty.

I was going back and forth.

I have to take you.

To jail, like you conned them.

That was the extent of the testimony.

So Bill's lawyer makes this really good case of like why he shouldn't get in trouble for it, and then when he's rendering his judgment, the judge is like, I am convinced that Bill is guilty of the charges against him, and he said I was also sure quote that three card Monty was a swindle and all who played it were swindlers dealers as well as Kapper's being equally guilty.

And he was like, you know, if we keep letting this go.

It's a blight on our beautiful city.

He wants the.

Authorities to crack down otherwise people aren't going to want to come here anymore.

But like, he also points out that apparently there were other witnesses set to testify who just didn't turn up, and so the testimony that they had just wasn't enough to convict.

So all he could do was hand out like a severe reprimand, and so he imposed a fine of fifty bucks bills on his way.

Legend intact.

I've talked about Bunkomen before.

Oh yeah, so those and like the three card body guys, they befriended unsuspecting visitors in town all across the US, and they'd lure these roubes into card games, like you know Canada Bill and his fellow card sharps, and they always had like muscle in the wings waiting to put down an uprising, and much to the chagrin of like the judges, the Omaha police generally just left it alone.

They left all this just.

So it's kind of like, but see the real pressure on Canada Bill and his compatriots were the railroad detectives.

So let's go back to Alan pinkertized, I.

Just about to say, I'm sensing some pankritis.

Here's another of his observations on Bill.

Quote Canada Bill's peculiar genius never failed to give him victory.

And it is said of him that he never made a mistake and never failed to win money whenever he attempted it.

Okay, so he said that, oh yeah, he what set Canada Bill?

According to Pinkerton, set Canada Bill apart from all the other card sharps was quote the fact that he was the thing.

He seemed to be.

Oh right, so he's not putting on some kind of airs, and he goes.

On quote Old gamblers and sporting men could never fathom him.

He was an enigma to his closest friends.

A short study of the awkward ambling fellow would give one the impression that he was simply supremely clever in his manner, and makeup that he was merely one of the most accomplished actors in his profession ever known, and that he only kept up this appearance of guilelessness for the purpose of acquiring greater reputation among his fellows.

But those who knew him, as far as it was possible to know, the wandering vagabond that he was, assert that he was the most unaffected, innocent and really simple hearted of human beings and never had been anything and never could have been anything save just what he was.

So he's almost like a holy fool, but without so much of the aspect that we would describe to being dumb.

Yeah, it's just an innocent lacking about And I.

Really think it's because of his upbringing, Like he learned the cons as part of his culture.

Yeah, he's what he knows and part of survival.

He didn't carry the shame others may have hangen around those activities.

So that's just who he is.

Church.

Yeah.

Yeah, So there's this there's this great article in the Beaver Crossing Times.

You were just am I making him up to say from eighteen ninety two that echoes much of what others said.

Quote he was large, formed man with a cleanly shaven face, square jaw, deep set eyes, the expression of a sphinx.

His favorite disguise was the makeup of a cattle drover, and as there were more members of that class on the road Canada, Bill had no difficulty in passing himself off as one of them.

He always carried two or three confederates or cappers with him, and the money that he won with his three little cards during half a dozen years would buy a bank and pay officers' salaries for twenty years.

Whenever arrested, Bill would plead guilty, and no matter how large a fine would be imposed, he would flash up a bundle of greenbacks, thank the court for doing its duty, and bow himself into the street.

How much was the fine?

I got to go?

So again, he's you know, he's not remorseful.

He's not he doesn't feel guilty because he doesn't think that there's no shame in this.

He think it's an operating cost.

Yeah, except cost of doing business.

Now, the Canada Bill Gang broke up in eighteen seventy candid, Yeah, and most of the members they just went west and hit up like the gold and silver fields of California and Nevada.

But they left this mark on Omaha and.

The city had a reputation for illegal card rackets for decades after because of them.

I was gonna say, my grandfather, who was the son of farmers, and one of his his father's named James Garfield after the President.

All right.

They he used to always warned me when I would go to that, like when I went to San Francisco and he would tell me, like, you know, you got to make sure you don't get involved in like three card MONI I'm like, yeah, people don't really do that.

And then they get to North Beach and there was something throwing the car.

I was like, I'm putting down twenty on this.

I gotta see it.

Well, that's what the omaha.

They gave this reputation to him.

Let's let's stop here for a second and we'll get more Canada Bill after the.

Break, please, Zaren Elizabeth.

Zaven So Canada Bill, can.

I tell you how much I'm digging this?

You know, is any great?

I love nineteenth century crime?

But this guy, I mean, if he existed, Canada Bill, now he's real.

He cheated a lot of people.

It sounds like that's he wasn't a bad dude.

No, he gave them entertainment and they don't feel like such suckers that they're like losing their.

Homes or like and and there were parts when he really was not a bad dude at all.

Because Zaren, close your eyes.

Yeah, as it closed, I want you to picture it.

It's the spring of eighteen seventy four.

You are a newspaper reporter based out of Chicago.

You're on the Lake Shore Train headed out to Toledo.

Going to visit some family.

You sit in the smoking car, puffing on a pipe with your notepad in your lap app thinking about a collection of short stories you're working on.

The train chugs along in a mesmerizing rhythm.

The door to the carriage slides open and a man enters.

You'd know him anywhere.

That's Canada, Bill Jones.

Everyone at the paper is fascinated by him.

There's a twinkle in his eye.

He nods at you and takes a seat across the aisle.

He starts sort.

Of carelessly tossing cards around on the chair opposite him, laying cards on the seat, flipping him, sorting, shuffling.

A man approaches and watches Bill.

Bill offers a game of three card Monti.

This is gonna be good.

You think the guy wins a hand.

You know he must be a capper.

He's in on it.

There's just no way.

This is cemented in your mind when he wins a second round.

Soon, two more gentlemen approach and watch.

One of them takes the bait, and you wait for him to lose his bet.

He does, and he wins.

More men gather and watch.

The second fellow tries again and loses, but he doubles down on a third try and wins.

The gathered group lets out hollers and whoops it.

They can't believe their eyes.

Bill shakes his head and hands over twenty dollars.

Why that very well may be worth five hundred and fifty dollars one hundred and fifty years time or so.

That's some cash.

Just then, a country boy with a pipe in his mouth approaches, bow legged and obviously out of his element.

He stares at Bill.

You'd clocked him watching all of this from the end of the car, and now he's standing right here next to you, assessing the game for himself.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a stuffed billfold, producing ten bucks.

He bets Bill he can pick the right card.

Bill tells me he's on.

In quick successive hands, he manages to double his money.

The gathered men chuckle and cheer.

He racks up more wins, three than four, then five hands, then six.

You don't take this guy for a capper based on what you know of this con Bill has been luring this guy into a false sense of confidence in his skills at an unwinnable game.

With each win, the guy increases his bets, ballooning the amount of money at stake.

But then his luck changes.

He loses and loses again and again, and he gets desperate.

He tries to increase the bets in order to make his money back.

The smoking car is now silent, just the sound of the train rolling down the tracks and the occasional clearing of a throat.

To accompany a massive loss, the man runs out of money.

Two men stand behind you watching the scene.

One turns to the other and asks how much the guy lost because he wasn't keeping track.

Six hundred dollars, the other man says, man whistles.

In one hundred and fifty one years time, in twenty twenty five, that would be seventeen thousand dollars lost in a card game.

In the smoking car of a train on a.

Regional railroad, the country boy stands and straightens himself.

Out car remains quiet.

He looks dazed.

Excusing himself, he shuffles past the gathered group and out into the next car.

The men all disperse, some to other ends of the car, some to other carriages.

Canada Bill Jones gathers his cards and tucks him in the front pocket of his jacket.

He pulls his soft leather cash bag from the interior pocket of his jacket and places his winnings in there, a bundle of cash, Joining a crowd of other ill gotten bills.

He takes a newspaper from the seat beside him and begins to scan the articles.

You all ride along in silence.

You think about what you've just witnessed, think about how to incorporate it into a short story.

Then there's a commotion.

The door to the smoking car flies open, and a woman enters, dragging two small children with her.

She's crying.

She scans the faces of the men in the car, most of her their eyes not Canada Bill.

He looks straight at her.

She approaches Canada Bill, she asks, yes, ma'am.

He answers bawling.

She tells him that she her husband, and their two small children and had sold out everything they'd owned in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, and were on their way to Kansas to start a new life.

All the money they had was the six hundred and some odd dollars that her husband had just lost in three card money.

She then collapses to her knees, holding onto the seat across from Bill.

Her kids stare wide eyed at the scene.

She exclaims that children and I must starve mister, just because my man was a fool.

Canada Bill shows no expression.

He stares at the woman and every soul in the smoking car seems to simultaneously hold his breath.

Slowly, Bill reaches into his pants pocket.

He pulls out an enormous wad of money.

Slowly, he counts off six hundred dollars and hands it to the woman.

Here's your money, madam.

I never rob women and children, but I want you to keep it to yourself in the future, as that husband of yours doesn't know enough to go without a guardian.

She is about to say something, but he raises his hand to stop.

He then continues to peel Bills off the stack twenty after twenty.

Then he speaks, here's a present for the babies, Now run back to them and stop your crying.

So Canada Bill.

I love him.

Wasn't all bad, dude, I mean, like, okay one that was fantastic scene like, you know, I listened to, as I say, often a lot of old radio shows that felt like something from like Frontier Gentleman or from like Have Gunwheel Travel totally, I mean even gun Smoke.

I was like, oh, that was an amazing scene.

And then I love that he like wants to protect the women and the women and the children from the idiocy of the husband, like I know.

You shouldn't be traveling hat a guardian.

What a great line, babe.

And also how amazing is it what people used to do before we had cell phones, iPhones and whatnot.

But there's whole industries like that made for boredom.

You're just sitting on a trail and all the sudden you got gambling.

Everyone gets all excited.

Yeah we get none of that now.

Yeah, no exactly.

And so and he's he refuses to rob women and show.

Yes, love this outlawful caro.

But you know, here's the thing.

So not even his former partner in crime with whom he'd had a falling out, would bad mouth him.

Here's what Devaal said quote there never lived a better hearted man than Canada Bill.

Many a time I've seen him walk up to a sister of charity and present her with as much as fifty dollars.

Once I saw him win two hundred dollars from a man on a boat, and shortly after the little boy came running through the cabin and Bill gave the boy two hundred dollars, telling him to take it to his mother.

He had no heart for suckers, however, and he often said gullible people had no business with money.

Yes, I'm with him on that.

So by eighteen seventy four he was in Chicago.

As we saw on the train, he teamed up with Jimmy Porter and Colonel Charlie Starr.

Colonel Charlie Star and.

Who those guys were is lost to history, but their names pop up with Bill and news reports.

But I guess they didn't build the reputation and legacy that build it.

So the guys they ran their train and boat cons but they were also opening gambling houses in Chicago.

What a time in that city right now.

So okay, So here's a good final anecdote about him.

One day Bill was operating on the train.

He's waiting for a mark and he's strolling down the aisle when he happens upon this young man sitting alone, and Bill could tell he's green.

He's a greenhorn.

So he slaps the kid on his shoulder, asks his name, how you doing, son, what's your name?

And the young guy he's just like stoked to have someone talk to him, and so he invites Bill to sit down, tells him his name and he's you know, says I'm I'm the nephew of Alexander Ramsey, Sheriff of Ellis County and now sheriff.

Ramsey was one of Bill's nemeses.

Yeah, it was very cat and mouse with those and so Bill he saw like, this is my chance to get even with Ramsey.

So he sits down and like in a few minutes, he's got all the young guys money, like and his watch like every bill on him and the jewel.

Oh yes, after he had fleeced him.

Bill turns to the boy and he says, quote, you go home now and tell Ramsey that Canada Bill got all your money.

Don't forget now, tell him that Canada Bill got your money for old acquaintance sake.

Tell him you.

Had to go without your supper because I had your money.

And then I haven't forgotten the time he put me off that Union Pacific train and made me walk.

It was like a crentin Tarantino.

See can't tell him Canada Bill was the one.

You said to go without dinner.

Take this car and I'm gonna ride on a Canada Bill hand this to Ramsey.

The boy gets to his destination, his uncle's like picking him up at the depot.

Tells his uncle what happened.

The sheriff uncle like he Ramsey.

Order, yeah, So he and his buddy like top on horses and they chase the train to the next station and there they boord the train.

They find Canada Bill and Bill he's like in the smoking ca again.

He's like just you know, flouncing around.

Ramsey comes in.

Ramsey he like pulled his hat over his eyes and he went to the seat where Canada Bill had been playing, and like started he bet on the game that had just started, so like of course he lost, but he didn't say anything until about one thousand dollars was put up.

And that's when Sheriff Ramsey pulls out two six shooters, pulls him on Bill and said, quote, turn down that card, you know me hand that money over damn quick and Bill.

Bill's not scared Bill is just like so cool, and Conice hands over the cash and says, quote, of course the money's yours.

You want it, you hold the winning cards in your hand, Fine take it.

I like that.

The man of law and order now is the criminal in the start.

He's the one robbing Bill.

So the law man who'd heard about it later told a reporter that the sheriff's play just like broke Bill, but quote, he knew it wasn't worth fooling with Ramsey.

Bill was good.

Hearted, but he liked to snake in the Greenies.

And I'm not exactly sure what he means, like I like to snake in the Greenies, like snake in the grass, right.

That's what I'm assuming.

Yeah, and they getting by.

You don't want to all someone a snake in the grass.

Now I'm going to go snake in the greenies.

But I love it.

You want to like slide by.

You don't want to get good?

Yeah, you don't want to get the hollies.

Take your head off doing it for me.

So in eighteen seventy seven, Bill fell ill with consumption, totally broke.

He was absolutely destitute.

Well once he can't operate, well, you know, because it turns out not banking.

You know, he's not a guy that's saving for his retirement.

But even more so, he was a card sharp, but he was a rube when it came to farrow.

He Oh my god, I really love.

To play farrow.

He could not stop.

That game really fell off.

I still have poker, we can still find money.

But Pharaoh, it just fell off.

Everything he made with the cards he turned around and lost.

Are you kidding me?

So?

On October twenty second, eighteen seventy seven, he.

Died at the age of around forty Yeah.

Who is thought early sixties?

No?

So in his funeral was something so the Chicago Inter Ocean newspaper, they said of the event, quote, his funeral was probably the strangest ever seen in the Charles Evans Cemetery, for there were neither tears, nor women nor minister about the grave that now holds the remains of a man who died penniless in a strange land, but had the name one time of having won nearly half a million dollars at three card montellion dollars and then turn around and blew it all.

But you know he also he spread the money around.

He took care of people really paid.

Yet he's got payroll for people.

Right, So a bunch of fellow crooked gamblers paid for his funeral, yes, And they gathered at the cemetery to quote, do the last honors for the old sport who'd won money on nearly every railroad in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains.

So the hearse rolls up the carriage and the undertaker and his staff go to like pull the walnut coffin from the carriage, and then one of the con men asks if Bill's remains are actually in there, and the Undertaker's like, yeah, they are, but like the group's not happy with that, and they're like, unscrew that lid right now.

We want to make sure.

And the main guy, who was like kind of the ringleader of all these cons said, quote Bill was in many a tight box and worked himself out somehow or another, and it's no dead sure thing that he ain't got out of the trip to the cemetery.

Yes, so there's just like and this.

So like the undertaker he starts unscrewing the lid, and one of the mourners pointed out that the screws weren't solid silver like they'd paid for.

Oh and then another said quote, Well, Bill's game wasn't one of the squarest, but I guess there are tricks in all trades, as well as the Monty players.

So they're just like respect, fair play.

Everybody.

Everyone cracks up, like they all thought that was hilarious.

So Bill's body was in fact in the coffin and they're like, okay, wow, he's dead.

And the guy who was supposed to read like a short prayer never showed up, so they screwed the lid back on the coffin, lowered him into the ground, and there was That's the end of Canada.

Bill.

There was no one to say words over him, No.

Because the guy who's going to read a prayer and say something didn't show up, So no one.

Else that was not their jobs, Darin, I get it.

So Bill, he was known for two famous quotes.

They may or may not have been things that he actually said, but they're attributed to him in films like Rounders or Yeah, or in American Gods by that super creep Neil Gamon.

Okay, so the first is quote, it's immoral to let us sucker keep his money.

I'm telling you it is kind of like the street wisdom.

Yes exactly, We've heard similar sentiment from other con artists.

And then there's quote, I know it's crooked, but it's the only game in town, which is so often this story, so often the story.

So, Saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?

Oh my god, I just loved this ride.

And I'd like that his earnestness ironically allowed him to do crime without having like you didn't mention him getting beaten really badly, nobody like taking potshots at him, no angry people.

Also, he was just a great guy in terms of like how he separated a wife and the children from like the sucker husband and realized that, you know, suckers are one thing, families or another thing.

So he has a very simple view of the world.

And I think it's a little bit ridiculous that he's out of all the people you're mentioning, you know, Allan Pinkerton, the Ramsey, the sheriff, he's the most moral person that you mentioned.

Yeah, yeah's you're a ridiculous takeaway, Elizabeth.

I was really struck by him not having the built in shame, yes, and that it actually allowed him to.

Be more moral.

I think because he wasn't trying to cover up any of his behaviors, and he just was exactly what he was and unapologetic in it.

But that allowed him to kind of let things come and go.

I found have you found that have you've known Rama?

I found that often to be the case with the roma I've known, is that because there's like not those pretensions, they're allowed to just be a person.

You know, they don't have all these well I gotta shave face and act like I'm this and I go to church on Sunday to forget what I did on Saturday.

They just are understanding that things come and go.

Yeah, exactly, That's what I mean.

It's just part that's like how nature is.

So you're much more in tune with the rhythms of nature than the pretensions of man.

Yeah, and so I just that's one of the fascinating things about him was that that element of it.

What I would love to cap this all off with is a talk back.

I can't help you, producer, d can you?

I got you?

Oh my god, I like.

His eyes.

My name is Morgan.

I'm a new listener to the podcast and I love it.

It's so funny, but the other day, I was listening and Zara said he had a cuddle site with the interns, and I had no idea who the interns were, so I seemed a little inappropriate, but Elizabeth them clarified that they are four legged interns, not too so thank you for clarifying that you have mutant four legged human interns.

Thanks guys, sorry for that.

Workplace.

Yeah, no, it's not that kind.

And they're also they're not mutants.

And they started the cuddle fight.

I just responded, and they are dogs.

They are.

That's the funniest thing ever.

I love Thank you for that.

That's it for today.

With the notion of you just like aggressively cuddling like college students.

You take this pillow, hit me with it, I'll hit you back, don't give me a hug.

All the iHeart lawyers line.

That's it for today.

You can find us online at ridiculous crime dot com.

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I'm sorry about the house.

I should have told you.

The website lost its license and now it rides a bike everywhere.

That explains why it was locked up next to mine.

Yeah, exactly.

We're also Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky and Instagram.

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Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by inventor of twelve Card Monty Dave Cousten, starring Analys Rutger as Judith.

Research is by Riverboat Detective Marissa Brown.

The theme song is by Card Sharp Cappers with Hearts of Gold Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton.

Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred.

Guest hair and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre.

Executive producers are Pinkerton HR representatives Ben Bollen and Noel Brown.

Gridicous Crime, Say It One More Times Crime.

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