The Great Taxicab Robbery

New York: John Lane Company, 1912. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Inscribed by Commissioner George Dougherty on the front endpaper. Very Good, lacking the jacket. Red buckram, lightly rubbed, with black ink lettering on the spine and front board with a pictorial pastedown illustration by Carter Housh. Firmly bound with a slight forward lean, gift inscription and signatures on the front endpaper, frontispiece of Rhinelander Waldo, a few stray stains on the pages, clean otherwise. A true crime story that seemingly works as police propaganda to help "the public [understand] that there is nothing secret, tyrannical or dangerous in good police practice, and that our laws safeguard even the guilty against abuses." In the Preface, George Dougherty is called "the directing mind in the case." A former Pinkerton detective, he would go on to promote developing a fingerprinting database of criminals in the United States.