Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/82

Rh Pete, not infrequently, one or two hundred thousand dollars' worth of the "queer" at a time, disposing of it for circulation in Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, and the Territories. Biebusch was also the confidential business manager for Ben Boyd and Bill Shelley, the engravers, and employed both these notorious artists to cut plates for him. He amassed wealth rapidly, and though often trapped and caught, he contrived to get out of the clutches of those who nabbed him from time to time, so frequently and so readily, that it was not uncommon, upon Fred's release from custody, to hear the query propounded, "How much did he put up this time, to get out o' quod?"

The record of this coney man's criminal career, his numerous escapades, his manner of managing the various arrests to which he was subjected, and the uniformly successful results that attended both his business and his interests, for three decades of years, are certainly very curious, as well as interesting. Whatever genuine skill, sharpness, ingenuity, or the ready outlay of money, when needful, could accomplish, Fred Biebusch availed himself of.

His whole life has been given up to crime. His arts, his genius, his time, his brains, have all been devoted to the one vile purpose of manufacturing and circulating counterfeit money. He furnished the capital for engravers and printers, he helped to get up plates, and to establish presses, to secure paper and ink, and in general to find and supply the right agents and shovers of the queer, everywhere. He was a wonderful man, as cool and subtle as he was daring and unprincipled. And fortunate indeed is it for the community at large that such an accomplished cheat and forger has met with his deserts, for the present, at least, at the hands of violated justice and law.

Like his quondam pal and long-time associate, Pete