The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1876-08-02
The Dead-Beat Nuisance.
DR.. Holland in Scribner's Monthly.


The process by which the dead-beat
is made are various. A young man of
bad habits goes on to worse, until, as
business becomes slack, he is:discharg-
ed. From that day forth his clothes
grow shabby. He begins to borrow
from those who knew him in his bet
ter days, with the promise and, at first,
with the purpose of paying; but at
last he wears out his friends, and be-
gins to prey upon society at large. He
has no resource but borrowing-bor-
rowing on the basis of any story he
can invent. He wants money to bury
his wife, his child, to feed q starving
family, to get to some place where he
has friends. Many pretend to belong to
the South, and are only anxious to get
back. Many in New York have just
come from the South, their trunks
paWned for passage-money, and they
want to get to Boston. Some are Just
from the hospital, where they have
for Il long time been i'll. They have
been dismissed without money, and
want to reach their friends. The in
genious lies that are peddled about
New York, in any single day. by men
and woman fairly well dressed, for the
purpose of extorting from sympathetic
and benevolent people, sums varying
from one to % dollars, would make 4
series Of narratives quite sufficient to
set up a modern novelist. So earnest
ly and consistently are these stories
told that it is next to impossible to
realize that they are not true; yet we
suppose that the experience of the
general public, like all the privat' ex-
perience with which we are acqaint-
ed, proves that ninety-nine times in Il
hundred they are pure, or more i'm
pure, 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
income at present shut up, but sure to
be opened in time. Or she has Il 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 lears, but dignity. and self-re-
spectfulness, and a beautiful show Of
faith in God and man, ARE her principal
instruments and it a purse that shuts
like steel trap to withstand her APP
peals. Some Of these women selfishly
stay at home, or in some nice board
ing house, and push out their children,
and even their young and we'll educat-
ed daughters, to do their borrowing
for them. One whom we know. con-
fessedly a non-atten,lant at any
church,-rails at the church for not
supporting her. "Pretty followers of
Jesus Christ y she thinks the church
members are.
The moment a man begins to lie for
the purpose of getting money, or for
the purpose of excusing himself for
the non-payment of a debt, that mo-
ment he changes from man to
a deadbeat. We thus have dead
beats in business, us well as out
of businessmen who 'sshun'' from
day to day, and never know in the
morning how they are to get through.
They live constantly by expedients.
OF course, it cannot take long to re-
duce them to dead-beats Of the most
disgraceful stamp.
we nave already, in Il previous num-
Der, chronicled the statement made by
one OF our most truthful public men.
that there is in this city house that
harb0rs 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
ali their histories. traits, weak points.
etc. These rOmanceS and this knoWl-
edge are impaired in consideration of
a certain percentage of the money col
lected through their use. Whether
we call this organized beggary or Or
ganized robbery, it matters little. The
fact itself is enough to put every man
upon his guard. and to make him de-
cline (as 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.
Ninety-nine times in u hundred the
story is d lie, and the teller of it pro-
fessional dead-beat, who deserves to
be kicked from the door. Personally,
we have never known Il case in New
York city of this sort of begging or
borrowing that was not a fraud. The
money loaned never comes back, or
the beggar by some forgetfulness
comes round again.
The only safe way to manage these
imp0rtunate and adroit scamps is
either to turn them over to the invest