Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-09-21

nen a lllLle Child dies OF the 10ul air, or goes
crazy with over-study to excel in a mob, as
they occasionally do die or go crazy, there are
scores of applicants for its eight inches of
space within few hours. Of the 165, 600 or
upward who are now in school, perhaps 5000
will come out at the close of the term little
short OF physical or mental wrecks. And the
percentage of moral wrecks among the little
ones who are debarred educational facilities
altogether Is too sad to contemplate.
With city government absolutely gorged
with fat offcehOlders this neglect is little less
than criminal. A few years hence New York
ers will have to pay for asylums Sorkhouses
jais and policemen the money that should have
been invested originally in the proper and ade-
quate means Of education. If the matter of
New York City ought at least to look forward
to the time when she can send Representatives
to Congress who can read and write and speak
the English language well enough to be under
stood OFT the Bowery:
An Electric Mystery.
THE other day one Of the wires in the sub
way got out of order, and the earth be-
tween the tracks of the Broadway road became
heavily charged in a certain spot with elec-
tricity. There was no visible evidence of any
thing wrong until the first car came along,
when the horses got over the spot as if it were
red-hot iron plate. The driver didn't know
what was the matter. Neither did the horses.
Nor did anybody else for considerable time.
In the meantime, as soon as team would strike
the spot streaks of the electric current would
make the circuit of their spines IN a way that
made them Jump Jim Crow" People began
to crowd the front office windows and gather
upon the sidewalk at loss to understand the
cause 1t was at first supposed to be steam
heat, but no steam came up through the ground.
Nobody seemed desrous OF making close in
vestlgation for fear of one of those sudden e1-
plosions incidental to our modern street life.
Finally one of the Broadway squad, Spurred
on by the necessity of the hour, went out and
examined the ground He discovered nothing.
Yet one of the next car horses jumped about
three feet high when he struck the place, while
his fellow animal made no unusual movement.
The next team passed along without display
OF undue emotion. Most of the crowd went
away, some went out into the street and looked
and crossed over no wiser than before. Not so
young man who came out of the Equitable
building. He had an iron extension to his one
short leg. Hurrying across the street he hap
pened 10 plant that metalicl foot right on the
particular spot. With slightly suppressed
yell he jumped into the air like a man who had
trodden on a hornets nest in his bare feet. He
had discovered what it was A few minutes
later gang of workmen found that an cleo
trical leak had followed an old gas pipe, and
the current was making break for liberty at
that particular place.
Red Jim McDormott.
1T IS very amusing to read occasional cable
notes of Jim McDermott, alias Red Jim,"
alias ''Sir James McDermott," alias THE In
former" McDermott's first important figure
in life was cut as a prosecuted Brooklyn re-
porter on the celebrated Beecher trial Jim
was moving wide swath in Brooklyn politics
about that time, nominally attached to the
Brooklyn Eagle as City Hall reporter. He
was sued for $4,000 by 'our mutual friend
Moulton," and would have willingly confessed
Judgment for $50 if he could have gotten out
that way. But he went West to grow up with
no of ha
in Chicago with some sort of connection with
the old Courier, and with the same mysterious
relation to the City Hall there he enjoyed in
Brooklyn. He was one of the then Mayors
personal staff. as that distinguished
individual informed me one evening
when surrounded by severalcity officials
what this means in Chicago is not clear. At
any rate McDermott was flying pretty high,
and as caterer to the Mayors pleasure and as
professional Irishman seemed to hold his
own. l was then publishing paper in North
ern Indiana, aud Jim used to come over to
Notre Dame quite often. where he was favor
ite with the jesuit Fathers.
He was one of the most interesting characters
1 ever met. While in South Bend he was
about my editorial rooms much of his time and
sat at the same hotel table with me day after
day. He told me he had been a soldier iu the
Pope's bodyguard in Rome. and this was con-
frmed by a Jesuit priest To me he was only
rolicking, witty, well-educated, big-hearted
Irishman, something of the Lever type-a SOL
with everybody, was liberal and always enter
tanning 1t seemed to make no material differ
ence whether he had $40 or so cents. He was
an inimitable story teller, and could chase dull
care away about as successfully as any man L
ever met. There was redhot political fight
going in my town. and during the row
succeeded getting bullet through
my lungs. McDermott was at my bedside when
l made my ante-mortem statement, and
charged him with my (supposed) dying breath.
as one knowing all about 1t, TO hX things up IN
the next mornings issue. Well, he did. He
wrote an elegant obituary notice of myself
was scheduled to die in an hour, and, while 1
still fingered over time. the paper could not
afford to miss the early malls-and then filled
the rest of the editorial page with the most
bitter and virulent attacks upon my opponents,
going so far as to charge innocent people by
name with my murder. That cost me Sl0,OOO
libel suit afterward. Somehow the people of
my town objected to McDermott's style. and
within three days he was laid up with three
broken ribs was well long before he was
give him better obituary notice than he wrote
of me. That was Is years ago. His subsequent
career is pretty familiar.
At an Imag ginary Banquet.
ONE afternoon last week a man sat in a
Broadway car talking to himself. 1t is a
very bad habit. but then you are always as
sured of an appreciatiye audience. This man
was so satisfied with his that he paid no attention
to the fact that the car was filling up and that
the other passengers were becoming interested
in his style-nis remarks were inaudible. He
must have been rehearsing an after-dinner
speech, for he paused now and then and
beamed upon a table filled with imaginary
guests. Finally he was so carried away with
his own silent eloquence that he applauded by
gently clapping his hands. The rest of us then
clapped our hands. We didn't know what it
was-as is usually the case with dinner guests
but took the cue and did our duty. You
never saw an afterdinner orator SO broken up
in your life-not even at the Glover Club. The
way he boted from that car would have done
a policeman infinite credit.
A Privilege of the Poor.
THERE is a bronze statue of William Earl
Dodge surmounting granite pedestal, the
base of which is a drinking fountain for brutes,
on the fiat-iron point of ground, where Broad
way crosses Sixth avenue at Thirty-fifth
street. On the north side of the monu-
ment Is a semi-circular stone seat with
massive high curved stone back, making snug
little plaza Of some 20 feet radius, and designed
for weary travellers. The other night was
going home from the theater in raw, drizzling |
rain, which seemed to cut to the bones. and |
in this space saw what had seen but in one
place before and that in Trafalgar Square, |
London beneath the Nelson monument. They
were men, women and children huddled to-
gether and solitary on the cold stones, oblivi- |
GUS to rain and exposure, asleep! Cla ad in rags
and soaked to the skin were seven human be- !
ings, homeless, fr1endless. unknown, resting
there for the night No man would have al |
lowed his beasts to remain out of doors
on such night unsheltered. My at
tention was first attracted to man
sitting bolt upright in plain sight on the further
end of the seat. Approaching him saw that
he was asleep. His ragged coat was drawn
tightly around under his matted beard, sug-