arrest of louis rice and tom lands after a long chase—
the forgers acquired almost a fortune.
during the early '80s the officials of the passenger department of several western trunk lines made the [pg 194]discovery that they had been defrauded out of thousands of dollars by the means of forged railroad tickets. these tickets had been distributed or put on the market by ticket scalpers, who then thrived in all the large cities.
these tickets were gotten up on what appeared to be regular paper and in regular form, with the exception of the serial and form numbers, which were necessarily duplicated. the tickets read from boston, new york, chicago, philadelphia and other prominent points on the east to the principal points on the pacific coast in the west. the forms were pronounced perfect and the signature of the various railroad officials were imitated admirably on them.
the discovery of the forgeries were first made by one of the assistants of c. g. warner, general auditor of the missouri pacific railroad at st. louis. the assistant auditor discovered the forgeries, he having noticed the numbers on the tickets were irregular.
at this time i was chief special agent for the missouri pacific, and the case was placed in my hands for investigation, by general auditor warner.
after a lot of tedious work, the details of which would not interest the reader, i, with the help of some of my assistants, learned that rice and lands were railroad ticket scalpers and had offices in several cities in the middle west, from which they had supplied other scalpers with large quantities of these forged tickets. i also learned that rice and lands had established a private printing office in a small town in western illinois, in which the counterfeit tickets were printed; the forms of which had been arranged by rice, who had been a chief clerk for a number of years for a general passenger and ticket agent of one of the large railroad systems of the west, and was, therefore,[pg 195] thoroughly conversant with the details of all of the ticket business.
lands was a crooked lawyer, who had married into an eminently respectable family of the state of indiana. rice was a single man, but was engaged to a young lady, whose family was of considerable prominence. he was also of a good family and had always borne an excellent reputation, and was considered a bright, affable young business man.
after learning all of these facts and reporting them to the proper officials of the missouri pacific system, i was instructed to locate and arrest rice and lands, charging them with having made and issued the counterfeit railroad tickets. i had but little trouble in locating lands, but, as i considered rice the principal, knowing that he was the man who had gotten up the forms of the counterfeit tickets, i decided to quietly place lands under surveillance, by one of my operatives, and then took up the search for rice, as i desired to arrest him first, being very sure that i could apprehend lands any time that i wanted to do so.
i traced rice from kansas city to denver, salt lake city, san francisco to portland, oregon, but lost trace of him there, and after consuming several days with no results, i decided to return to st. louis, and to visit the town in iowa where rice's betrothed resided with her parents, which i did.
after spending several days near the home of this young lady, i was finally rewarded by learning the alias that rice had assumed, and his whereabouts at that time, and i immediately, as the traveling men say, "doubled back" to the pacific coast, boarding a steamship at san francisco for victoria, b. c., and from there went overland to a camp in the kassiar mountains, british columbia, which is about 357 miles from victoria.
on arriving there i learned that rice had left but a few days before my arrival, and that he had undoubtedly passed me on my way to kassiar. he had left word with friends there that he was going back to portland, oregon. he had been prospecting in the mountains for gold and had been unsuccessful, and had exhausted his funds, so he had concluded to go back to portland and seek employment there.
i, therefore, returned to victoria and boarded a vessel for seattle and from there i went to portland, where i succeeded in locating rice. he was working as a day laborer in a bed-spring factory. he was clad in a suit of greasy overalls, when i found him, needed a haircut and a shave, and did not in any way resemble the dapper and stylishly dressed louis rice, whose photograph i had in my possession.
i brought rice back to st. louis, and while en route he made a full confession to me as to his and lands' connection with the counterfeit tickets. he told me about the printing office and gave me the names of various scalpers throughout the country who were engaged with them in handling the bogus tickets.
on arriving in st. louis i secured a lodging house for rice in the suburbs of the city, placed him there, by his consent, in charge of one of my operatives. i did this so that the scalpers who were in collusion with the fraudulent scheme would not become aware of his capture until i would have time to arrange for indictments and arrest all the parties connected with the fraud. i also wanted to arrest and bring lands to st. louis before he had learned his partner was in custody, and proceeded to indiana and took him in charge. his relatives, who were well-known and influential, immediately applied for a writ of habeas corpus, which prevented me from removing lands from the state[pg 197] until permitted to do so by due process of law.
the judge before whom this writ of habeas corpus was returnable was a lifelong personal friend of the family of lands' wife, and the judge, therefore, released lands from custody on the grounds that forged railroad tickets had no intrinsic value.
this was the first and only prisoner that i have ever had released by such a procedure. however, lands was sick at the time of his arrest, and lingered along for a few months after his release, and died, which was the ending of his part of the crime.
in due time rice's trial was called in st. louis, and the judge before whom the case was tried decided the same in this case as had the judge in indiana on the lands case; and, therefore, the ticket forgers went unpunished.
the state laws in nearly every state in the union have since been revised so as to make the forgery of railroad tickets a felony, with the same penalty attached as that of forging any other document or valuable paper.
the farcical termination of the case also caused the passage of laws which have put the ticket scalpers out of business in almost the entire country. prior to that time, every city of any size was infested with numerous ticket scalping offices. the men engaged in the business were usually of the unscrupulous kind, and their crookedness caused the railroads no little amount of trouble.
in working up this case and apprehending lands and rice, i personally traveled, in all, about eighteen thousand four hundred miles, and consumed nearly six months' time, did a lot of hard work and incurred considerable expense.
i will say here that the attorneys of the legal department for the missouri pacific railroad company were[pg 198] fully advised as to all the facts connected with this case and they advised that the parties be located and apprehended: and the work involved in the location and arrest of rice and lands was as good as any work ever done by any one in a similar case. under the laws then existing the cases of rice and lands could not be reached.
after rice's final release he went to the state of iowa, where he engaged in the insurance business. he was successful and finally married the young lady he was engaged to, and when last heard of by the writer, was a prosperous general insurance agent, raising a nice family and respected in the community in which he lived.
