The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1888-05-18


not patronize low saloons and cheap
groygeries. They, therefore, frequent.
those sporting houses where mans
character has neither value nor mean
ing. and where their company. on ac-f
count of their extravaganza and folly,
is warmly welcomed. These establish
ments are not many in number and
are all familiar to the police. .,
A third method Of locating them is
based on tbsir singular addiction to
the opium habit. They are the best
customers to the opium joints, and
since these were prohibited by law, Of
the private OPIUM clubs which are scat
tered throughout the city. OF the
five or six hundred affairs of this class
it is fair to assume that two-thirds are
made up of crooks. It is also fair to
assume that three-fourths of all the
bunco men are victims OF the habit.
TO the question that is so often put
to the police: "Why don't you sup
press bunco and arrest all bunco
menPn The only answer is the ques-
ton: "How can you do itP'' They
are never disorderly in their conduct,
their victims seldom complain, and
when they do complain usually fail
through excitement to identify the
swindler When an old provision Of
law is called into play, and
they are arrested as Migrants,
it certainly is ridiculous to ac-
cuse man of being without yisi-
BILE means of support who is the best
dressed man in the courtroom, and
who almost invariably has more money
and more jewelry about his person
than the judge or district attorney,
The true remedy would be statute
whereby any confidence operator seen
pursuing his business who can not sat
isfactorily prove that he is engaged in
legitimate business should be adjgdged
a professional criminal or thief and
fined or imprisoned, in the discretion
of the magistrate Until then the only
thing that can be done is for the po-
lice to use their discretion and often
club and drive these thieves from pre-
cinct to precinct, and in everywise
both interfere with their nefarious
trade and call public attention to their
faces and characters.
Though the buncoist has fair seas and
smooth sailing compared with other
criminals, he has but one end--the
state prison. Hungry Joe is in Sing
Sing and Cigarette Harry in Buffalo;
Lew Martin and Sheeny Doc have just
completed terms in Moyamensing, and
John Palmer in New Haven. A dozen
others of lesser note are out ON bail
and all of them live under perpetual
fear of arrest and conviction.
There is no more pitiable object than
the bunco man who sees detective or
police official approach him whom he
knows. Fear, cringing and abject;
hopelessness mixed with puny bravado,
despair and the hope that his turn has
not come yet, are the lights that shine
over his cunning face. There is
another end for some of them-death
from morphinization. These votaries
Of the eastern drug finally reach a
stage when the sharp brain refuses to
act and the supple body to longer
move. Beyond this is Bellevue, Black
wells Island, the morgue. Potter 8
field is the next and final steps. In
the past five years fourteen. confidence
men have thus terminatedttheir career,
and at the present moment over thirty
others are following in the same awful
footsteps. -Alera'ader S. Wallianas, In
spector of Police, Of New York, IN Chi-
odgo Herald.