Patient is uncertain about the time and place of birth, but believes
he is about thirty years of age at present. He entered school at seven
or eight, but proved to be a confirmed truant, and his father finally
had to take him out of school entirely. He was in the habit of running
away from home and school, to wander about the country, where he would
stop at different farm houses, claiming he was an orphan and without a
home, until his father would discover him and bring him back home.
After giving up school definitely he worked as a farm hand, earning
the ordinary wages paid for this labor. He changed places frequently,
was a spendthrift, and assisted his parents financially very little.
This mode of existence he led until 1904, when he forged his father's
name to a $25 check and received a five-year term of imprisonment,
part of which he spent in the Minnesota State Reformatory and part at
the State Penitentiary. In the fall of 1907 he was paroled, but broke
his parole by enlisting in the army, under the name of Kimlicka, at
Fort Snelling, Minn. About a month later the fraud was discovered
through his father. He was given a dishonorable discharge and sent
back to the penitentiary, where he remained about six months. At the
end of this time (December, 1907) he was granted another parole, and
went to work for a man named George Hall, on a farm in Minnesota. He
was there nearly two months, when he cut his foot while chopping wood.
He says that after this accident he was not able to do much work, and
his employer did not seem to like to have him hanging around, so he
went back to prison, which he says paroled prisoners were supposed to
do when they lost their jobs. As his time was up in two months, the
prison authorities made no effort to get him a new job, but kept him
there until his sentence expired. He left the penitentiary in March,
1908, and went home for a couple of weeks. He then went to Minneapolis
and enlisted in the navy under the name of James Hall, but did not
tell the recruiting officer about his prison or army experiences.
About four months after he enlisted he was caught with another sailor
in civilian's clothes in Newport, R.I. This was against the navy
regulations. Patient says he did this because they did not allow him
in dance halls, theaters, etc., in sailor's clothes. He used to keep
his civilian's clothes in the Y. M. C. A. building in town, and would
change there. He received a dishonorable discharge for this escapade.
He says he had one court-martial before that, in July, 1908. He then
went to Providence, R.I., and enlisted in the army under the name of
Herman Hanson. In Fort Andrews, Boston Harbor, patient was caught in
civilian's clothes again, and got into a brawl with a sergeant.
Patient says the sergeant was drunk and provoked the quarrel. As a
result the patient was put in the guard-house, receiving a sentence of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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