Offices Filled With Patrons
It was at 10 o’clock in the morning, when the largest throng of speculators can be found in the offices at 259-261 LaSalle street, opposite the Board of Trade, that Wooldridge and his men swooped down on the place and proclaimed “every one there a patron of a bucketshop and under arrest.”
The wildest excitement prevailed. Telegraph operators, messenger boys, pit men and persons of every station in life were caught. Some of the traders, thinking of their wives and children, pleaded frantically for their freedom. Some attempted to force their way from the betting rooms, but, meeting with armed resistance, they desisted.
“I don’t belong here,” said one man, indignantly. “I only dropped in here to see a friend.” His plea was unavailing.
Another man, attired in a frock coat and a silk hat, attempted to bribe one of the detectives. “I can’t have it get out that I was arrested,” said he. “State your price and I will give it to you gladly.”
The only persons allowed to escape were three women stenographers, who fled through a rear window.
Advertising matter, private correspondence, telephones, tickers, telegraph instruments and everything of consequence was seized and loaded into twelve patrol wagons and taken to the Harrison Street Police Station.
Four hundred and twenty telegraph wires were cut which connected Sullivan’s bucketshops in Chicago and through the country. It took the Western Union Telegraph Company two weeks to get the wires in working order.