In the legislature, Johnson secured a charter for a largely bogus insurance company, which helped funnel money to the members of the club, while the Clerk of the City
Orphan's Court (a member of the club) used his agency's funds to inflate the bank's deposits.
In Dorothy Rolle's case, for instance, Sadie Alexander informed her client that the validity of her claim on Tony Rolle's estate would turn not only on the question of whether she and Tony were legally married, but also on her conduct since the two had separated: "If you have been living a good life since you left your husband and there is no man with whom they could connect you and if you now live, as you state, with your mother and father and have a good reputation, you have nothing to fear." (268) As Alexander knew from experience, the
Orphan's Court judges, in deciding which claimant was truly married to Tony, could be subtly influenced by their own assumptions of morality and desert.
