Toronto by Gaslight: The Night Hawks of a Great City: As Seen by the Reporters of "The Toronto News"Toronto News
History
Toronto by Gaslight: The Night Hawks of a Great City: As Seen by the Reporters of "The Toronto News"
Toronto News
Toronto (Ont.) -- Description and travel
LAID HIS HAND ON THE SHOULDER
of a middle-aged man, accompanied by a young woman. I was quite close by,
and couldn’t hear what was whispered in his ear, but the change that came
over that man’s face was something terrible to see. He turned white, then
red, and finally a greenish yellow shade settled on his wild and drawn
face. Like a boy caught stealing apples he whined, “let me go, let me
go; oh, for God’s sake let me go.” He shook like a man with ague, and
he would have fallen only the detective’s firm hand sustained him. The
girl by his side was, as far as outward appearance was concerned the most
self-possessed of the two, but her startled eyes and pale face told that
she, too, was suffering. A curious crowd had gathered round, from which
the detective skilfully extricated them, and then the trio made their
way to the Central station. They were searched, and a large quantity of
money found on both of them, but the girl was allowed to go to an hotel,
while the man, weeping like a baby, was taken down into the cells. He
went down like a drunken man, stunned, helpless, miserable. The story may
be interesting. He was a country storekeeper, influential, respected,
trusted. He was a Sunday school teacher, he led at prayer-meeting, he was
a delegate to conference, he was grand patriarch of a temperance lodge,
he conducted family prayer in his house morning and evening, in fact he
was looked up to as a model man. He had a wife and six children. The
former was sickly. He engaged a girl young and inexperienced in the world
to assist his wife in household work. She attended his bible class and
looked up to him as
A SUPERIOR BEING.
He wasn’t a bad man as the world goes, but he was not a strong man
morally. He and the girl made a mistake, he, because he was morally
weak—she because she believed that he could do nothing wrong. From that
hour he began his downward career. He borrowed, embezzled and even stole
money, and one afternoon by a preconcerted plan the pair took the train
for Toronto. Deluded wretch, swift as went the train bearing him away, he
thought forever, from the scene of his misdeeds, a tiny wire string along
the track bore a message swift as thought past him. So swift indeed, that
a detective had time to go home, eat a quiet supper, and walk leisurely
down to the Union station and smoke a good cigar on the platform while
waiting for the victims that were sure to come. And all this time the
pair were sitting in the railway carriage planning schemes for the
future, and never dreaming of what was before them. The man was sent back
to his own county for trial, and the girl’s father came down a few days
afterwards and took her home.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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