Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1876-07-27
The Dead-Beat Nuisance.

until, us business becomes SIdCk, ut ID
discharged From that day forth his
clothes grow shabby. He begins TO
borrow from those who knew him III
better days, with the promise and, at
first, with the purpose, Of paying; but
at last he wears out his friends, and
begins to prey upon society at large.
He has no resource but borrowing
borrowing on the basis Of any story
that he can invent He wants money
to bury his wife, his child, to feed a
starving family, to get to some place
where he has friends. Many pretend
to belong in the South, and are only
anxious to get back. Many in New
York have just come from the South,
their trunks paWned for paSSage-mOn-
ey, and they want to get to Boston.
Some are just from hospital where
they have for a long time been i'll.
They have been dismissed without
money, and want to reach their
friends The ingenious lies that are
peddled about New Y Cork, in any single
day, by men and women fairly well
dressed, for the purpose Of eXtorting
from sympathetic and benevolent
people, sums varying from one dollar
to twenty-five dollars, would make a
series of narratives quite sufficient to
set up modern novelist. So earnestly
and consistently are these stories
told that it is next to impOS-
sible to realize that they are not
true; yet we suppose that the expert
ence of the general public, like all the
private experience with which we are
acquainted, proves that ninety-nine
times in hundred they are pure, or
most impure inventions.
The genteel female dead-beat is, per-
haps, the hardest to get along with.
She puts on airs and dignities. She
talks of her former fortune, and of her
expectations. She has sources of in
come at present shut up, but sure to
be opened in time. Or she has small
income, terribly inadequate, at best,
but not yet due. She wants something
to bridge over the gulf that yawns be-
tween the last dollar and the next.
Sometimes she lubricateS her speech
with tears, but dignity, and great self
respectfulness, and a beautiful show
of faith in God and man, are her prin-
cipal instruments; and it takes purse
that shuts like q steel trap to with
stand her appeals. Some of these
women selfiShly stay at home, or in
some nice clearinghouse, and push
out their children, and even their
young and Well-educated daughters, to
do their borrowing for them. One
whom we knoW-confessed a nOn-at
tendant at any church-rails at the
church for not supporting her. ''Pret-
ty followers of Jesus Christi she
thinks the church members are.
The moment man begins to lie for
the purpose of getting money, or for
the purpose of eXcusing himself for
the non-payment of debt, that mo-
ment he changes from q man to dead
beat We thus have dead-beatS in
business as well as out of business
men who shin from day to day, and
never know in the morning how they
are to get through. They live con-
stantly by eXpedients. Of course, it
cannot take long to reduce them to the
most disgraceful dead-beats.
We have already, in previous num-
Der, chronicled the statement made by
one of our most truthful public men,
that there is in this city a house that
harbors the professional dead-beat, and
furnishes him with rOmances to be
used in the practical eXtortion of
money. In this house there is a book
kept, in which are recorded the names
of benevolent men and women, with
all their histories, traits, weak points,
etc. These rOmanceS and this knOWl-
edge are impaired in consideration of
certain percentage of the money col
lected through their use. Whether
we call this organized beggary or
organized robbery, it matters little.
The fact itself is enough to put every
man upon his guard, and to make him
decline Gas fixed rule, never to be de-
waited from, except in instances where
his own personal knowledge warrants
him in doing so to give anything to
anybody who comes to him with a
story and an outstretched palm. Nine
ty-nine times in hundred the story is
a lie, and the teller of it professional
dead-beat, who deserves to be kicked
from the door. Personally, we have
never known a case in New York city
of this sort of begging or borrowing
that was not fraud. The money
loaned never comes back, or the beg
gar, by some forgetfulness, comes
round again.
The only safe way to manage these
importunate and adroit scamps is either
to turn them over to the investigation
of some society, or to call a police