The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1892-12-28
4 PROFESSIONAL awEeprR.p
A Young Scamp who Finds begging Nor,
Profitable Than working.

"Jack the Weeper" is we'll known
about the lower part of the town. lie
has been exploited in the newspapers in
connection with arrest and incarcera-
ton, has been interviewed and had his
picture taken, and on various occasions
has sworn off from professional weep
ing. Jack the Weeper" Is n diminu-
tive looking specimen of a seven year
old boy with twenty-year-ol face and
stock of experience and cunning rarely
Accumulated by mankind this side OF
fifty. He is ostensibly u newsboy, but
the fraternity hold him in great con
tempt or know him only to thump him.
His "racket" has been to get bundle of
papers together late in the evening and
weep at the foot of the elevated stairs
down town.
Sympathetic people cast him pennies
and nicl,els and dimes, and sometimes
an occasional quarter or half dollar
found an abiding place in the wecper's
inside pocket-all ON the superstition
that he was an honest lad who had been
stuck" Thus the weeper found that
tears could be coined into cash more
easily and prohtably than by the ordi.
nary course of the news trade. But just
as Jack had worked up a fairly regular
trade In came a policeman, cold and
calculating man of the world, with a
club, and broke up business by arrest,
examination and consequent publicity.
At the foot of a down town stairway
of a Sixth avenue elevated station i'll the
most fashionable part of New York re
nant1yy 1t,hS,l
strated that slack the Weeper" had moi
only not gone out Of business, but had
vastly improved upon former methods
/ 1t was about tho fashionable shopping
hour and the swell women and dilettanut
young men We're focking to the dowr
town trains. A delicate lad, with con
sumptive cough and II bundle of castof
morning newspapers, stood shivering a
the foot of the stairs, two great big
homemade tears blowing their way
through the dirt on his cheeks as tn,
muddy waters of the Missouri seek tn,
sea. Several Of us stopped ont of sym
pathy and began to question the boy
AT the same time nearly every hanl
in the crowd instinctively sought TO
change. An exceedingly sharp eyed lad,
impulsively pulled out bill and pushed
it into his trembling fingers, accompany
ing the act with an appealing lool
around upon the rest of us. 1t worked
Everybody in sight gave silver, and al
} old lady who came in later on the seen
} pressed a two dollar note upon the child
| missed two trains to note the goodl
! sight, and | felt proud of my felloy
! creatures and the beautiful sympathy o
my kind. The boy never said word
He merely coughed and wept and SCOPE
In the coin. In the excitement of tn
: moment l forgot an errand had at tn
; next station and went past it. Then
got out, went up the other side and rod
: back.
, There was a little mob gathered o
the down town side at the foot Of th
stairs. So nearly like the other mo
was it that at first / thought l had mad
another mistake and gone back to IN
starting point. But no; it was the ne1
I station.
Well, "shiver my timbersw as the oil
salt says, if there wasn't the same DO
= with the same graveyard cough, Ii
q Same weep, the same old papers, anC
what was more astonishing, here was ii
same sharp eyed, benevolent lady in til
r midst of a group of sympathetic womei
( just starting liberal subscription.
My first impulse WAS to jump in an
, grab her and yell for the police, but
/ conquered it and walked away, wonde
( ing how much money there was in tn
!, new snap Of tho woman and the weepe
!. New York Herald.