Far from being tough or vicious in his manner or conversation, the little Alderman is very quiet. There is, indeed, a kind of gentleness about him. His English is, I should say, quite as good as that of the average man, while his thinking is much above the average as to quickness and clearness. As between himself and Bathhouse John, the other First Ward fixture on the Board of Aldermen, it is generally conceded that Hinky Dink is the more able and intelligent. On this point, however, I was unable to draw my own conclusions. The Bathhouse was ill when I was in Chicago. [Illustration: Two rabbis, old bearded men, performed the rites with long, slim, shiny blades] In the ordinary conversation of the Honorable Hinky Dink there is no trace of brogue, but a faint touch of brogue manifests itself when he speaks with unwonted vehemence--as, for example, when he told us about the injustices which he alleged were perpetrated upon the poor voters who live in lodging houses in his ward. The little Alderman is famous for his reticence. "Small wonder!" said my friend the police reporter. "Look at what the papers have handed him! I'll tell you what happens: some city editor sends a kid reporter to get a story about Hinky Dink. The kid comes and sees Kenna, and doesn't get anything out of him but monosyllables. He goes back to the office without any story, but that doesn't make any difference. Hinky Dink is fair game. The kid sits down to his typewriter and fakes a story, making out that the Alderman didn't only talk, but that he talked a kind of tough-guy dialect--'deze-here tings'--'doze dere tings'--all that kind of stuff. Can you blame the little fellow for not talking?" I could not. But he talked to us, and freely. The police reporter told him we were "right." That was enough. As the "red-light district" of Chicago used to be largely in the First Ward before it was broken up, I asked the Alderman for his views on the segregation of vice versus the other thing, whatever it may be. (Is it dissemination?) "I'll tell you what I think about it," he replied, "but you can't print it." "Why not?" I asked, disappointed. "Well," he returned, "I believe in a segregated district, but if I'm quoted as saying so, why the woman reformers and everybody on the other side will take it up and say I'm for it just because I want vice back in the First Ward again. I don't. It doesn't make any difference to me where you have it. Put it out by the Drainage Canal or anywheres you like. But I believe you can't stamp vice out; not the way people are made to-day. They never have been able to stamp it out in all these thousands of years. And, as long as they can't, it looks to me like it was better to get it together all in one bunch than to scatter it all over town.