Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/156

Rh money, (about $8,000,) as he did—in the right direction. In the instance of the notorious counterfeiter, Hank Hall, brother-in-law of Joshua D. Miner, several times picked up by the police for manufacturing or dealing in "coney," the course of Felker was absolutely disgraceful; for no sooner would this rogue be caught and reported, than Sam Felker would indirectly find his way to his aid, and for a consideration, get the culprit eased off, or released.

The unblushing effrontery of this man, even while he temporarily held his position as self-constituted Detective, was notable. He might almost have been deemed insane in his utter recklessness, but for the "method in his madness" exhibited, and the success he enjoyed in forcing those temporarily within his power to disgorge. He did not hesitate openly to boast that he "was in the Detective business to make money out of it." He tried his hand at the blackmailing business upon a New York cigar dealer; but failed in carrying out his design, the merchant defying him. And Felker dropped out of the job he essayed to put up on this "spunky" individual, who proved "one too many" for him.

In the attempt to discover the murderer of the Joyce children, in Bussey's Woods, a few years ago, this adventurer took a hand, when large rewards were publicly offered for the arrest of the offenders. This shocking, double crime, is still fresh in the recollection of the people. Two children, a pretty girl and boy named Bel' and Johnny Joyce, of Roxbury, Mass., remarkable for their beauty and guilelessness, were inveigled into the woods one afternoon, and never returned alive. Their gashed and mutilated dead bodies were discovered a few days afterwards, and both the friends of the murdered pair and the authorities offered large rewards for the capture and conviction of the assassins.