The Sussex Republican., 1895-04-13
cHIcAeo's APOSTOLIC Newssox.


One of the ouriosities Left Over From the
Big Exposition.
Probably 800, 900 people know him by
sight. Certainly not 500 know his name,
but anywhere he would be marked
man. He looks like old pictures of the
apostles. His long black hair hangs
about his neck in locks which curl at
the ends. His beard is like fringe
about his olive colored. oval face. His
eyes are large and lustrous He quotes
Scripture with the air of prophet He
lives in the cheap temperance hotel and
saves exactly the same amount of money
every day of his life.
He is one of the curiosities left over
from the Worlds fair. When the great
exhibition was at its height, he drifted
into the oity. He came from Kentucky,
but neither whisky nor fast horses had
the slightest attraction for him The
first day he struck Chicago he became'ss
newsboy. His peculiar dress, his awk-
ward manners and his strange personal
appearance made him at once the object
of the sharp wit and the rough jokes of
the little arabs whose business it is to
sell papers on the streets.
But Willie, as they call him in
derision, met all their attacks with
oalmness which was disarming. When
they upset him and spilled his papers,
be got up and gently reproved them by
quoting verse from the Bible Whenx
they put Jumps of ice down his BAG
he shook them out of his trousers
and bade them "do unto others az
would have others do unto them.
Gradually he won their respect
have rough but strict rules of
among themselves, and theI
Willie was always ready to
the very letter of the law.
change either way was y
grave concern to Willie. Th1
boys found friend in Willie
willing TO take their part Oh
oasion. and his long black
waved in the thickest Of M
fought fight in Newspaper e
ways he played the part of
or and smote only that the
prevail
At the same time Willie
to look after his own interests
day of his adventures as new
great city Willie took his stant'
corner of State and Madison S.
and there he has stood every da,
spite of winds and weather sickness
and repeated attacks of other boys who
had come to regard that crowded corner
as their particular property. Their first
plan was to fairly surround Willie with
small and shrill voiced boys, who
his deep below with their
treble yells and cut off every possible
customer by darting between him and
the strange long haired vender.
But the small boys found Willie i'm
He had come there to sell pa
pers. and sell papers he would though
all the newsboys in Chicago should try
to prevent him. If he could not make
himself heard above their uproar he
,ould keep quiet. So early in the en-
,agement he spiked their guns in that
direction, and SO for months Willie has
lot called his papers. He simply stands
ike an oriental figure ON the busy COR
Ter, holding up copy of the paper be-
ore the eyes Of every passerby.
1t is said of him that he never ''gets
tuok" on his papers, because he never
,oes home until the last one is sold;
hat he lives on exactly the same amount
# money every day, and that he has
lever sworn or told lie in his life, in
ii of which particulars it may be OBJ
erved that his apostolic appearance is
lorne out.-Chicago Tribune