thousand dollars--double
the amount of the robbery.

The question now arose: What shall we do with Maroney? I held a
consultation with the Vice-President, Seward, and Bangs, and suggested
the propriety of placing one of my detectives, named White, in jail with
him. White was in Chicago, but I could send for him and have him in
readiness for the work in a few days. White was a shrewd, smart man to
act under orders, and nothing more was required. I proposed that he be
introduced to to the jail in the following way: He was to assume the
character of a St. Louis pork-packer. It was to be charged against him
that he had been dealing largely in hogs in the West, had come to New
York with a quantity of packed pork of his own to sell; and also had had
a lot consigned to him to sell on commission; he had disposed of all the
pork, pocketed all the proceeds, and then disappeared, intending to
leave for Europe, but had been discovered and arrested. The amount
involved in the case should be about thirty-seven thousand dollars. It
was part of my plan to introduce a young man, who should pretend to be a
nephew of White's, and who should call on him and do his outside
business. I had a good man for this work, in the person of Mr. Shanks.
His duties would be to call at the jail daily, see his uncle White,
carry his letters, go to his lawyers, run all his errands, etc.

White was not to force his acquaintance on Maroney, or any of the
prisoners, but to hold himself aloof from them all. He was to pass a
good deal of time in writing letters, hold hurried consultations with
his nephew and send him off with them. Shanks was to be obliging, and if
any of the prisoners requested him to do them favors, he was to
willingly consent.

Very few people outside of a prison know how necessary it is to have a
friend who will call on prisoners and do little outside favors for them.
No matter how popular a man may be, or how many true friends he thinks
he has, he will find if he is thrust into prison, that all of them will
very likely desert him, and he will then keenly feel the necessity of
having some one even to run his errands. If he has no friend to act for
him, he will have to pay dearly for every move he makes. A man like
Shanks would soon be popular with the prisoners, and have his hands full
of commissions.

There were a good many objections made to my plan, but with Mr. Seward's
assistance, all its weak points were cleared away, and it was