Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the WorldWooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
History
Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World
Wooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
Crime -- Illinois -- Chicago; Police -- Illinois -- Chicago
Some beggars even assume the appearance of blindness, and haunt the
homes of comfortable people, led by a little girl and asking alms
in the name of an affliction that is always eloquent of need. He
will sometimes carry a small basket full of pencils, or other little
trinkets, and glazes over his evident beggary with the appearance of
sales. But he does not hesitate, once the money is in his hands, to
ask his patron to give back the pencils, as he cannot afford to buy
any more. These people can sometimes see as well as the child that
seems to lead them, and yet their eyes, when they choose to assume
their professional attitude, seem covered with a film through which no
light can penetrate.
The public should be chary in bestowing charity, and especially to
able-bodied men who appear blind, deaf and dumb, or are still claiming
to be victims of some recent disaster. Most any one who has charity to
bestow can easily think of some deserving and honest unfortunate in
their own neighborhood.
PARALYTIC A BAD ACTOR.
The most transparent fraud on the streets of the great cities is
the pseudo-paralytic. At almost any street corner can be seen what
purports to be a trembling wreck of a man. His legs are twisted into
horrible shapes. The hand which he stretches forth for alms is a mere
claw, seemingly twisted by pain into all sorts of distorted shapes,
trembling and wavering. The arms move back and forth in pathetic
twistings as if the pains were shooting up and down the ligaments
with all the force of sciatica.
The head bobs from side to side as if it were impossible to keep it
still. And the words which come from the half-paralyzed mouth are
a mere mumble of inarticulate sounds, as if the tongue, too, were
suffering torture.
A more pitiable sight than this could not be conjured up. And the
extended hat of the victim of what seems to be a complication of St.
Vitus dance, paralysis, sciatic rheumatism, and the delirium tremens,
is always a ready receptacle for the pennies, nickels and dimes of the
thoughtless. This is one side of the picture; now look on the other.
It is dusk. Just that time of day when the lights are not yet
brightening the streets, and when the sun has made the great tunnels
between the sky-scrapers, ways of darkness. Detective Wooldridge is
watching. He has been watching two of the deplorable fraternity for
two hours. As the dusk deepens he sees them both arise, dart swiftly
across the street and board a car. By no mere chance is it that they
are both on the same car. The detective follows. Before a low saloon
on the West Side the victims of innumerable diseases descend from the
car, walking upright as six-year soldiers on parade. They enter the
saloon. They seat themselves at a table behind an angle in the back
which conceals them from the street. The detective loiters down to the
end of the bar and watches. From every pocket, even from the hat rim,
pours a pile of coins.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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