Chicago, then about 300,000 inhabitants, was virtually in the hands of the gang. The heelers from the assessors' office boldly reduced the valuation on property to those who stood their assessments for what they called electioneering purposes, while raising the assessment on those who refused to bribe, until the burden on the honest taxpayer became griveous to bear.

Cases are said to be on record where two vacant lots lying side by side were assessed, one five times as much as the other, and that not one of our aldermen paid personal property tax, while families whose income was less than $400.00 per year, were heavily assessed on their household effects.

John Wentworth ("Long John"), one of Chicago's early mayors, who had fought the Indians at Fort Dearborn, with several other large land holders, refused to pay their taxes until the court of last resort decided they must pay as assessed, but the effect of the attempt was good, for the following year the valuation on real estate was cut down nearly one-half.

This so diminished the income of the Cook County wolves that a panic ensued, which incensed the ever-irritable element and finally swelled into anarchy, consummating in the Haymarket Riot, in 1886, in which several officers were maimed or killed, and for which a few of the chief conspiring anarchists were executed, and thus civilization was restored.

Good men were then selected for responsible positions, while the dirty constables and rotten, self-elected magistrates, who held courts in extreme corners of the county, where victims were summoned to appear, only to find that judgment had been rendered against them, were at last stamped under the heels of decency.

Mr. Story, editor of the Chicago Times, who had amassed a large fortune, as the story ran, became infatuated with a feminine spiritual medium, who acted both as advisor and architect in the construction of a marble mansion on Grand Boulevard, whose apparent cost would have been four times his capital. The warmth of the medium did not offset the chill of old age, and becoming weary, he laid down the burden of life and the mansion was never completed.

Philip Hoyne was perhaps then the most noted criminal lawyer in Chicago, and this was the story of how he first became famous.

A man had been arrested for horse stealing who had no lawyer and the judge appointed Hoyne, then a young man, to defend him.

"What shall I do for him?" inquired Hoyne.

"Clear him if you can," said the judge.

Hoyne took the prisoner into the ante-room, used for counsel, and said to him:

"Mr. O'Flerity, did you steal the horse?"

"I did, your honor."

"Do you expect to go to the penitentiary?"

"I do, sir."

"Do you want me to clear you?"

"If you can do it. I swear by the Holy Virgin Mary that I will come to your wake and bring all me relations."

Hoyne raised the window and said, "Do you see those woods yonder?"

"Indade, I do, sir."

"Now, I will hold my watch and see how long it takes you to run there."

When Hoyne returned to court the judge inquired where his client was.

"I do not know."

"Did I not place him in your charge?"

"Yes, but you said, 'Clear him if you can,' and the last I saw of him he was entering the woods about two miles away."