Connecticut western news., 1880-03-17
The HoOdlum and His Haunts.
NOTABLE CHARACTER OF SAN FRANCISCO AND FEW OF HIS CHARACTERIsTICs-A SAD STORY.

SAD STORY.
 An entirely original product of San Francisco is the hoodlum. He is, says 8 correspondent to the Tribune, cross between the New York street Arab and the Sixth avenue corner " "statue." Ordinarially he is ragged and dirty. On Sunday, however, he is arrayed in short black sack coat, old-fashioned "spring bottom" trousers that cover three-quarters of his higb-heeled boots, 8 felt hat with sugar-loaf crown, and necktie 50 lurid that it would light up the Harlem tunnel. His face is gener- ally meagre, sallow and unwholesome. His shock of long hair shines with an odorousf aitation of Macassar. He walks with the Bowery swagger, and usually hand in hand with the female of his species. She is coarse, loud-tongued gypsy-faced, in cheap and eaudy dress, 8 " "Pinafore hat, with flaming rib bon, set jauntily on her head. She chews gum with the stolid contentment and the rotary jaw.motion of the domestic COW. She rattles off glibly> y>the slang of the street, and, if vexed, she shows un- expected resources in blasphemy. Her the hoodlum calls his " chunk" There are thousands of these creatures in the city who are scarcely more than chil- dren i'll age, but who have absorbed all the vices, European and Oriental.
 4~o oR atS S4r is known as "Tar Flat "-a low-lying 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 Cor man corner grocery, demand unlimited schooners of lager, maui about the mazard the proprietor who refuses, leave the spigots running, and depart for fresh fields of conquest just as the guardian of the peace appears in the distance. He delights also to beleaguer the Chinese wash-house and Lombard it with stones. If he can break the wil- dows and soil the clean linen on the roof he retires with the conviction that he is public benefaetor. These sports have become hazardous, though, of late, as the police justices do not seem to ap- preciate the point of such playful prac- tical jokes. No empty house is safe from the hoodlum's depredations. He confscates gas fixtures, lead-pipe, win dow-glass-everything that may be sold to the junk-dealer. He is the terror of solitary pedestrians in the suburbs. He loves to finger about the street corners after nightfall, smoke cigarettes, tell ribald stories, and insult any passers-b by who look incapable of resenting the outrage. If attacked he invariably whips out knife or pistol, and he is reckless in the use of either. He cruises ab out the Barbary Coast, place given up to thieves, street walkers and sailors, aud is ready for any crime. He forms the larger share of the white patrons of the cheap Chinese gambling dens. The hoodlums of both sexes herd together like beasts in large, squalid lodging houses, 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 disgorgea it's load at the Police Court every morn. ing, carries many of this class whose beardless faces show their precocious de. bauchery, The hoodlum evil has grown with the growth of hard times. There are very few manufaotories to give em' ployment to the half-educated children of the poor. Necessity drives them into the street and inclination keeps them there.