The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-03-15

LOLA int " ru-liAA-E Qn L-OSI.
The sign pension checks cashed here
,ras put up behind the bar in many a
.aloon OF low order yesterday. and be-
-i,re the closing hOul. many an old soldier
went down before the bar drunk and
ne unless For it was quarterly pension
ia v. and the bill for the relief of drink
iE seased pensioners has not been made
law by congress
Last night shiIrpers crowded lower
T,snnsylvania avenue and its cross streets:
IS sreputable women of the lowest class
II tied in and ont of the side doors of sa-
@ ons: fakirs y 18th brass watches and tin
lings cried their wares. all eager TO
10 uck the poor. old. helpless soldiers-the
fsscrepit OLD warriors who have drifted
TO Washing ton in the years gone by to
s,se about their pensions. and who have
lever since had enough money to get
Iway. 1t seems strange that so great
an effort should be made by the sharpers
jor so small gain, but when one re-
members that, although the pension of
most OF these old soldiers is $50 a quarter.
there are thousands of them in the dis
l-ct. and that the hundreds of these who
u in he robbed are through old age and
dependence as guileless and gullible as
children, one sees why the fakirs regard
quarterly pension day a greater graft
tbs.n big Thursday at a country fair
After getting their money many of these
- customers sleep in police station cells
nd next morning line up in the police
curt and tell, as best they can, how they
acre drugged, beaten and robbed: how
MS or that woman appeared and pre-
ended to be a good Samaritan, and how
This or that man said that he knew them
put in Pike county. The police court is
"a sorrowful place the day after quarterly
pension day, and ones heart bleeds when
il is forced upon him that men and women
can fall so low as to willingly prey upon
these old defenders of the flag who have
been weak, many of them, mentally and
physically, from privation and wounds
since long before the last shot of the war
was fired.
OF course. it must not be supposed that
all the pensioners are men who throw
themselves in the way of any form of
HemptatiOn, or that even cne-fourth of
them belong to the class who will be rob
bed The percentage of those who cannot
care for their pension is very small.
There are many thousands of pensioners
in the District of Columbia, and probably
not over thousand who will be robbed
or who will place themselves in a way to
re plucked.
The evil exists in every city which has
pension agency. The Assistant Secretary
{ War has collected extensive statistics
tn regard to the matter, in the interest
&c the desire of the Grand Army of the
ttebublic to help those unfortunate COM
lades. These statistics show that in big
rites, where the pension agencies hand
out thouands upon thousands of checks,
the police court docks the day after the
quarterly pay day frequently have hun
dreds of pensioners, whose money is gone
and who must be cared for in some way
until the next pay day. In Topeka Kan
where prohibition is supposed to prevail
the number of intoxicated men frequently
runs up to 100
Judge Kimball says that in Washington
from thirty to sixty old soldiers appear
before him the day after each quarterly
day, and that their cases are, indeed pit
lfll. Many have contracted such a strong
desire for drink that at their time of
B fe it cannot be broken. Further, on &C
c cunt of the poverty and the desire of
he saloon keepers to pluck them thor
0ughly, these unfortunate drinkers are
u OF given whisky at all, but a fusel oil
doncoction, which burns out their stom-
. chs and fires their brains to the point of
The Sixth police precinct is the great
stamping ground of the drinking class of
pensioners. The pension agency is at
Fourth and G streets, and the old COM
rades who drink seldom get many blocks
away. Checks are cashed in nearly all
cashing of a check in a saloon necessi-
1ates the buying of drink, the debauch
down to the saloons which are every
other door on Pennsylvania avenue. In
these places a few drinks make him help
less. Then he is led to some of the low
dives on First street, right under the
capitol and often drugged and pluckeJ
avenue; frequently he is inveigled to cross
the Botanical Gardens, and is conducted
alley, and once in these places he is for
Iunate if he escapes with his shoes. Extra
"details of police are put out to protect
him, but what can a few officers do
against so many lawless ones?
The drinking pensioner is a character
pitiful, yet humorous in his way His |
stories, his vivid imagination his help
essness, all combine to make him a per- |
on of interest His cry When was at
q tarts some strange story of the war; |
auses a laugh, but it must be remember
that these old men really were at An |
Z ietam, and at Gettysburg, and at Shi- |
B oh, and at Vicksburg, and at Atlanta, |
q nd at Appomattox, and that every one |
1as hero. These old men who sit around |
t he stoves in these out-of-way retreats |
o Missouri avenue and First street, are !
n OF the worthless characters that some |
i nagine. There are lawyers and profess |
ional men, worn out from disease and |
/ elpless from the trials of life and the adj
1t was only last night that one of these |
! nen was telling story in a soldiers lodg- |
] ng house as Post reporter entered. This |
lenSloner was lawyer, and has been in |
Washington for years. He is known sim |
Iiy as Old Man Emerson. No one here |
yer heard his first name, and the bar
;eeper who cashes his check regularly, has |
lever accommodated the curious by telling |
It. 1t is simply Old Man Emerson, and if
SON." would probably be written on his |
tombstone His check is his life. 1t is an
Jicipation, realization, and oblivion with
MIN from one quarters pay day to anoth-
er.
They say that Old Man Emerson once
taught school out in Lebanon, ILL.,, but that
is all past now and Emerson has almost
forgotten himself He spends much of his
ZINE in the workhouse. Other veterans
nave wondered at the old man, so last
might when he tilted his chair against the
wall, and held match to his stubby pipe,
snd started story about opportunity and
fortune, the others listened.
It is said that fortune raps once at
each mans door," the old man commence
ed. 1T has Numbered at mine three times.
and did not know how to entertain the
mckle dame. Yes, comrades, though you
may not believe it, l was rich three times
IN one year. After the war / settled down
in Illinois. not far from Cairo, and kept a
store. / had intended to be a lawyer, but |
tour years of fighting knocked all of the
law out of me. So. / kept store, and mar
ried, and did fairly well. The strange part
of my career commenced when my wife ran
'aWay-took the baby, and went to St. Louis
with another man. l followed them, and
would shoot the man, the woman, and the
BABY too, guess, if I'd ever came up with
them. So twas lucky, l guess, that never
found them. Well, | went back to my lit
Lle CountEN store and inst ahnmt the