Criminals -- Fiction; New York (State) -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
It pleased Spanish vastly when his mug came out of the gallery. Not that
its presence there was calculated to hurt his standing; not but what it
was bound to go back as a certain incident of his method of life. Its
removal was a wound to police vanity; and, hating the police, he found
joy in whatsoever served to wring their azure withers.
When, according to the rules of Bertillon, Spanish was thumb-printed,
mugged and measured, the police described him on their books as
Pickpocket and Fagin. The police affirmed that he not only worked the
Broadway rattlers in his own improper person, but--paying a compliment
to his genius for organization--that he had drawn about himself a group
of children and taught them to steal for his sinful use. It is no more
than truth to say, however, that never in New York City was Spanish
convicted as either a Fagin or a pickpocket, and the police--as he
charges--may have given him these titles as a cover for their ignorance,
which some insist is of as deep an indigo as the hue of their own coats.
Spanish was about seventeen when he began making an East Side stir.
He did not yearn to be respectable. He had borne witness to the hard
working respectability of his father and mother, and remembered nothing
as having come from it more than aching muscles and empty pockets. Their
clothes were poor, their house was poor, their table poor. Why should he
fret himself with ideals of the respectable?
Work?
It didn't pay.
In his blood, too, flowed malignant cross-currents, which swept him
towards idleness and all manner of violences.
Nor did the lesson of the hour train him in selfrestraint. All over New
York City, in Fifth Avenue, at the Five Points, the single cry was, Get
the Money! The rich were never called upon to explain their prosperity.
The poor were forever being asked to give some legal reason for their
poverty. Two men in a magistrate's court are fined ten dollars each. One
pays, and walks free; the other doesn't, and goes to the Island. Spanish
sees, and hears, and understands.
“Ah!” cries he, “that boob went to the Island not for what he did but
for not having ten bones!”
And the lesson of that thunderous murmur--reaching from the Battery to
Kingsbridge--of Get the Money! rushes upon him; and he makes up his mind
to heed it. Also, there are uncounted scores like Spanish, and other
uncounted scores with better coats than his, who are hearing and seeing
and reasoning the same way.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account