SOCIAL REPTILES.

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 532, 2 March 1889, Page 17

SOCIAL REPTILES.

' These private detectives are getting to be a horrible nuisance in the community,' said a suburbanite to a Chicago Herald reporter. 'Do you see this advertisement ? I clipped that out of our town paper. I've seen it, too, in half-a-dozen local papers printed in Chicago suburban, towns. It reads : ' Private detective work done at reasonable charges and in strict confidence. Shadowing a specialty. Evidence in divorce cases procured, and anxious doubts of married people confirmed or dispelled by investigation. Address Lock, Box 4,144.' What a horrible advertisement that is. To my personal knowledge four families in my town have been broken up by it. You know how suspicious men and I women naturally are of others, even of those they love best. A wife suspects her husband ol wrong-doing. It is mere suspicion, and in ninetynine cases out of a hundred absolutely groundless Yet here is the temptation before her eyes to have her husband shadowed. She hires a detective for that purpose, a low wretch of a fellow, as most of these private detectives are, and, of coune, something is found. That is the detective's first report, which, while not conclusive, sets the woman crazy. It seems desirable that the shadowing be continued, that the worst may be known. This calls for more money, and the woman, wild and excited, raises the required sum in one way or another, even by lying to the man she is having watched. Once one of those private detectives gets a woman on his books, I he'll keep her there as long as a dollar is to be squeezed out of her. I know of a case of this sort, A woman neighbour of mine became jealous of her husband, without reason. Her health is bad, and among her fancies was one that he was untrue to her. She employed a shadower, paid him in all 175d015., was driven almost crazy by his reports, and yet was absolutely forbidden by the detective to say a word to her husband, as that, according to the wretch of a sleuth, would spoil all. She endured this misery for two or three months and then, during her husband's temporary absence from home, fled to her father's where she is now between life and death. The husband has explained all, the sum and substance of his offending being an occasional lunch with a mostestimable lady who works in the office where he is employed, and about which, he had said nothing to his wife on account of her nervous troubles and morbid suspiciousness. I know another case in which a bad woman was hired to entrap an honest man into a compromising though not guilty, situation, and on the basis of this evidence a happy home has been broken up and a divorce suit is now pending. I do not think a jury could be found to convict a man of murder for killing one of these social snakes. At any rate I'll risk it if one of them ever crosses my path.'

—Jinks : ' How is your new book, " The Way to Wealth," coming on?' Minks—' It is finished, but I can't find a publisher.' ' Why don't you publish it yourself ?' ' Can't afford it.'