Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/101

 It is simply impossible to convict counterfeiters, as a rule, without the aid of their confederates. The lesser criminals in this secretly conducted business can alone obtain the confidence of the greater villains. And thus it becomes an absolute necessity to make use of the minor offenders to aid the cause of justice in bringing the leaders to account. The criminal who has had a dozen illegal transactions with his confederate—undertakes the thirteenth in the same good faith which attended the first twelve offences—and finds himself within the grasp of the law through the defection of the man with whom he has long confidently been practising his wrong against the community. Can the use of such "living witness" against the evil-doer, (though a confederate in lesser degree,) be deemed a doubtful move, in any sense, so far as the rights of honest and innocent men are concerned? There can be but one answer to this query. The leading jurists of this country have justly admitted it as a settled rule of evidence that "where the necessities of the case compel the use of an accomplice as a witness, the course is justified; since the principal offender could not otherwise be brought to justice."

In the instance of the arrest of Bill Gurney, a plan was adopted by Col. Whitley (as we have already shown) based upon the theory that to make certain of the capture of this great rogue, resort must be had first to the use of one of his accomplices in guilt, and then, in furtherance of that plan, to bring into the case one of his own subordinates, in disguise, "to consummate the proof of his crime," and bring the commission of the deed directly home to the chief criminal. The success of this ruse, in the use of his accomplice, is already well known to the public.

Wm. M. Gurney is now in the prime of life, in years. He is a large, heavily built man, with hard lineaments and