Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison. English-only reading by default; switch among English, Chinese, and Spanish, or compare languages side by side.
This chapter develops the memoir’s account of Chapter XLII. MANY A MAN MORE DANGEROUS WRITES ALDERMAN AFTER HIS NAME., connecting personal narrative with the financial, legal, and prison-world setting of the period. The chapter’s opening perspective is: Foster’s experience during his four years’ residence in Chicago was decidedly novel, and it had evidently brightened his wits—that is, increased his cunning without adding to his honesty. And as I think it will interest my reader to get a view of life from the actor’s own standpoint, I will relate one of the many stories he told me during the years we worked together.
This chapter is for readers following Bidwell’s memoir chapter by chapter, especially the section titled “Chapter XLII. MANY A MAN MORE DANGEROUS WRITES ALDERMAN AFTER HIS NAME..” It is most useful for readers interested in financial crime history, nineteenth-century banking culture, criminal justice, prison memoir, and the social setting of the period.
Read “Chapter XLII. MANY A MAN MORE DANGEROUS WRITES ALDERMAN AFTER HIS NAME.” as a historical memoir rather than guidance. The banking procedures, legal assumptions, public reputation, social judgments, travel conditions, and prison practices described belong to Bidwell’s nineteenth-century setting and may not match modern institutions.