he (lim Peddlers

HAD YOU, dear reader, been standing by
the edge of the dusty, fern-lined Chase
River road near Nanaimo, B.C., one sunny
afternoon in late June, 1931, you might
have seen a high-powered black limousine
swing around the curve and come to a halt
at the gate of Jim
Rallison’s small
farm property.
There was noth-
ing unusual about
a big black car
stopping at the
roadside; for in
June on the
Island’s roads
tourists often stop
to admire the
beauties of this
scenic wonder-
land. This parti-
cular car had two
occupants. And
when the car stopped you could have seen
that they were men. Two neatly dressed,
professional-looking gentlemen, one on the
pudgy side of fifty, wearing horn-rimmed
glasses, and smoking a rather expensive
cigar. The other, small and dapper, remark-
able only for his pronounced Southern
drawl.

The fat and pudgy gentleman was Mr.
William Wallace Anderson, sometimes
known as R. D. Kay, at other times as J. H.
Harris, and still at other times as Doctor
Miles. His smaller companion was James
Henry Howard alias J. W. Miles.

In a sense the car’s occupants were tour-
ists; they had entered Canada from the
United States under a touring permit, but
they had conveniently left their car with its
foreign registration plates in one of nearby
Nanaimo’s down-town garages. The car
they were at present using was hired for
the occasion from an auto livery.

We said these gentlemen were tourists—
and in fact over the years they had done
a considerable amount of touring. For in-
stance Mr. William Wallace Anderson had,
according to the thumbnail history each
well-organized police department main-
tains, been in Vancouver, B.C., in 1913, and
he had-most definitely been in Marysville,
California, in 1921. Proof of this could be
found on the Vancouver Police Depart-
ment’s blotter which would show a sus
pended sentence for theft. And the records
of the Sheriff's Office at Yuba County, Cali-
fornia—of which the beautiful little city of

TWELFTH EDITION

|

Sgt. Carl Ledoux

By SERGT. CARL LEDOUX |

Marysville forms a part—will undoubtedly
show that Mr. Anderson was sentenced to
life imprisonment for robbery, but was sub-
sequently paroled and deported to Canada.
Then came an overseas trip; for on
Christmas Eve, 1926, the hard-hearted
gendarmerie of Sydney, New South Wales,
called Mr. Anderson a vagrant and said
“be off’—not only said it, but put him on
the S.S. Ventura sailing for California that
evening. On Christmas Eve, mind you!
Next Mr. Anderson must have been in
Calgary, for there seems to have been a
little business in June of the next year
involving charges of conspiracy, forged bank
notes in possession and a little matter of
false pretences. The authorities in this west-
ern metropolis must have doubted Mr.
Anderson’s good faith—for they made him
post a bond of $4,000.00. Apparently they
judged correctly—for he failed to appear in
answer to these trumped-up allegations.

But why continue—Mr. Anderson had
seen a‘lot of the world.

Mr. Howard, his companion, had done
his share of touring too. That is, touring
with occasional stopovers. There was a stop-
over for instance in the Illinois State Peni-
tentiary in 1919—a five-year stopover. In
a year or two he was paroled but ah! the
weakness of human nature. He went back
in again in 1922 for a little mixup involving
possession of burglars’ tools. In Chicago in
1925 he nearly had an extremely lengthy
stopover for the charge was accessory to
murder. However he wriggled out of that
one, only to land in the U. S. Pentitentiary
at Leavenworth, Kansas, for counterfeiting,
the next year. In 1929 Kansas City Police
definitely didn’t like him—and told him to
get out of town. They logged that event
in their official records.

And so in California in the year 1931,
Mr. Anderson and Mr. Howard found their
paths converging. As both were men of the
world they thought they would pool their
resources. Not only that, but they could be
of definite assistance to mankind. They
could assist their fellowmen to get rid of
any spare cash by a most philanthropic
effort. They were eye specialists or, in the
parlance of their friends, “glim peddlers.”

From town to town up the coast from
California they had moved, like bees suck-
ing nectar from flowers. Their procedure
was simple. Gaining by subterfuge some
knowledge of a well-known optometrist’s
aged customers, especially those afflicted

with cataract, they called on the customers
and by a smooth piece of team work and
acting, usually.

managed to extract
a nice piece of
change by either
selling cutrate
glasses or pretend-
ing to remove a
cataract with a new
brand of radium.

For a demonstra-
tion of the tech-
nique let us invisi-
bly walk across the
road to the parked
car and watch the
performance, They The late Mr. James Ralli-
have gained knowl- son of Chase River, Na-
edge that farmer naimo, V. I., one of the
Rallison’s eyes are victims lined up for fleec-
in very poor shape, 8 by the jae eye spe-
so they visit Ralli- eee
son. Howard, the dapper little Texan,
leaves the car and jauntily walks up to the
house. Anderson, he of the horned-rimmed
specs, waits in the car.

Mr. Rallison has a hobby—raising prize
rabbits. And at the moment he has just
completed the bedding down of another
litter—a fairly frequent — performance.
Breezily Mr. Howard makes his acquaint-
ance and tells the old gentleman that he
represents a large optical firm. He’s just
touring the district checking up on some
customers and hearing Mr. Rallison’s eyes
are not of the best he thought he would
just drop in and check his lenses. “Oh, no
charge, no charge at all—” is brother
Howard’s glib assurance.

And so the elderly farmer leads the way
indoors to the family sitting room, where
seated in a chair near a window, optical
expert Howard adjusts an optical frame on
the victim’s nose. Next, from a convenient
case of assorted lenses, he tries different
strengths of lenses, working up to the more
and more powerful variety.

At length he has to confess failure. None
of his lenses are powerful enough to afford
Mr. Rallison the satisfaction he should
normally enjoy. A closer examination re-
veals the dreadful truth—Mr. Rallison has
a cataract in his eye! Too bad, probably no
cure. But wait—what is he saying—there’s
just one chance! Sitting outside in the car is
his good friend Dr. Anderson, a specialist
as ever was, a genius in the matter of
diseases of the eye.

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