The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-04-17
The HOOdlum.

A correspondent at San Francisco Of
the New York Tribune, writes as follows.
An entirely original product of San
Francisco is the hoodlum. Ordinarily
he is ragged and dirty. On SUNDAY
however, he is arrayed in short black
sack coat, old-fashioned "sprino-bot.
tom" trousers that cover three-ouarters
of his high-heeled boots, felt hat with a
sugar-loaf crown, and necktie 50 lnrid
that it would light up the Harlem tunnel.
His face is generally meagre, sallow and
mwholesome. His shock of lone hair
shines with an odorous imitation of
Macassar. He walks with the Bowery
swagger, and usually hand in hand with
the female of his species. She is coarse.
long-tongued, gypsy-faced, in cheap and
gaudy dress, 'Pinafore' hat, with a
flaming ribbon, set jauntily on her head.
She chews gum with stolid contentment
and the rotary jaw-motion of the domes-
tic COW. She rattles off glibly the slang
of the street, and, if vexed, she shows
unexpected resources in blasphemy. Her
the hoodlum calls his ''chunk.', There
are thousands of these creatures in the
city who are scarcely more than children
in age, but who have absorbed all the
vices, European and Oriental.
The center of the hoodlum's activity is
known as "Tar Flat "a low-lving
quarter, thickly covered with small
houses. Here he bids defiance to the
police. One of his favorite pastimes is
to come down like the Assyrian, under
cloud of night, upon the peaceful Ger
man corner-grocery, demand Unlimited
schooners of lager, maal the
proprietor who refuses, leave the
spigots running, and depart for fresh
fields of conquest Just as the guar
dian OF the peace appears in the distance.
He delights also to beleaguer the Chi
nese wash-house, and lombard it with
stones. If he can break the windows
and soil the clean linen on the roof he
retires with the conviction that he is a
public benefactor. These sports have
become hazardous, though, of late, as
the police justices do not seem to appre-
ciate the point of snch playful practical
jokes. No empty house is safe from the
hoodlum's depredations. He confscates
gas fixtures, lead pipe, window glass
everything that may be sold to the junk
dealer.
He is the terror of solitary pedestrians
in the suburbs. He loves to linger about
the street corners after nightfall, smoke
cigarettes, tell ribald stories, and insult
any passers-by who look incapable of re-
senting the outrage. If attacked he in
variably whips out knife or pistol, and
he is reckless in the use of either. He
cruises about the Barbary Coast, place
given up to thieves, street-walkers and
sailors, and is ready for any crime. He
forms the larger share of the white pat
rons of the cheap Chinese opium dens.
The hoodlums of both sexes herd to-
gether like beasts in large, squalid lodg-
lighthouses, where the amateurs in vice
and crime receive professional polish.
Half the persons arrested for street
drunkenness and assaults are hoodlums.
The "Black Maria" which disgorges its
load at the police court every morning,
carries many of this class whose beard
less faces show their precocious de-
bauchery. The hoodlum evil has grown
with the growth of hard times. There
are very few manufactures to give en-
ployment to the half-educated children
of the poor. Necessity drives them into
the street and inclination keeps them
there. ~