Knots Untied; Or, Ways and By-ways in the Hidden Life of American DetectivesMcWatters, George S.
General
Knots Untied; Or, Ways and By-ways in the Hidden Life of American Detectives
McWatters, George S.
Detectives
Mr. McWatters' onerous vocation as a policeman did not forbid his
finding time for earnest participation in many matters not pertaining
to his special duties as an officer. Indeed, it would seem that, with
all his labors, he found more time to devote to good causes outside of
his police duties than many men of leisure and benevolent spirit think
themselves able to bestow. It is said that none find so little leisure
time to do anything as the wholly indolent and unoccupied, and the more
a man has to do of daily labor, the more time can he find to attend to
extra calls upon his services. Officer McWatters seems to have
practicalized this "doctrine," for, judging from the several hundred
extracts before us, taken from the New York journals for the last ten
years, one would be led to think that Officer McWatters possessed the
attribute or faculty of ubiquity, for we find him "here, and there, and
everywhere" in the city, and without it, in attendance upon reform
meetings; or advocating humanitary measures from the rostrum, for
Officer McWatters is a forcible public speaker. The suffering and
starving people of Kansas (1861) we find elicited his warm sympathies
and active exertions in their behalf, expressed by the practical mode
of raising contributions for their aid. In the Evening Post of October
2, 1861, we find allusion to Officer McWatters as the Secretary of the
Patriotic Association of Metropolitan Police (of which, in conjunction
with the late Inspector Carpenter, if the writer is not mistaken,
Officer McWatters was the originator), which was organized to afford
support to the families of policemen who joined the Metropolitan
Brigade in the war for the Union.
PERSONAL INCIDENTS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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