Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-01-08
THE DOWNFALL OF MOONY

| on used to know Moony, didn't YOU ~
said gentleman to a Star reporter at an
uptown hotel gently. He was fine
newspaper man, il. you remember rightly"
the speaker continued. Everybody liked
Moony. He had worked on all the large
| payers of the. cduntry. He was popular
with everybody aid was known as one of
the brightest menSsn the profession He al
ways had scientific turn of mind, and the
! fact Of the mattEt is he was well up in
most physiological subjects. Everybody
predicted brilliant future for him. 1t Is
sad thing shout mis- downfall"
The Star reporter had Tot heard of this
expressed surprise and wonder at it.
I Why, 1 thought everybody had heard of
hoony, was the answer. You know he
Is glass eater and sword swallower On the
Bowery. always had most friendly feel
ing toward him, and when was in New
York the other day. he told me the whole
story or his downfall and how he came to
nave his present position. Like all the
newspaper men on Park Row N New York
Moony was addicted to the quick-lunch
habit 1t Is habit which. when it once
taxes mold OF man, seldom deserts him.
Moony worked on an afternoon paper, and
comes second nature. He had been
working on morning paper in Chicago,
and except under extraordinary circum-
stahces, had usually plenty OF time to eat
MS meals. When he came to New York,
however. on this eveaing paper, he told
me ne used to take, at the most, three min
utes In which to dispose of hts ham and
TWO out and draw one. and the like. He
was reprimanded several times for being
ten or fifteen seconds late by his city edi-
tor, and as a necessity became so proficient
that he could throw enough for ordi-
nary meal into himself and finish with bis
fr1n fNr 2frrI%
onds by the watch AS consequence, the
usual thing resulted. Moony grew case Of
indigestion that would have been worth
thousand dollars to any medical museum i'll
the country. He became morbid, and 1t
was noticed that he spent all his spare time
at the Central Park Zoo. He never wrote
any stories about II, and it was wondered
what was his game. Whenever he was
seen in the Zoo he was in front Of the in
closure containing the Ostriches. He would
stand there and look at them for hours.
ana would always turn away with
mournful expression when he left. / was
told all this by persons who knew MccHy.
was told that he was conducting scen-
t!fc experiments and had to change his
boarding houses several times in conse-
quence. The climax was almost reached
one night, when he led full-grown ostrich
into his bed room and told the landlady
please not to have the bird disturbed, as he
wished tc experiment with it. He had
bought the ostrich Cor a large sum at some
animal store down near Park Row.
The landlady wouldn't stand for
Moony's experiments with the ostrich. The
consequence was he rented an entire fiat,
which, as may be imagined, made big
hole III his salary. He was q clever space
writer, and made enough to do this, how
ever. Two three mon:hs after this it
became rumored that Moony had an appe-
tite which would put hippopotamus to
sleep in the first round. Queer stories be-
gan to circulate about Moony in the news
paper office in which he worked. Paper
t>"gan to disappear like magic. Ink bot
ties could not be kept over twenty-four
hours Six pairs disappeared most mys-
teriously, and one of the Office boys who
went into the city room late one afternoon
swore he caught MooIy swallowing one.
The globes from the incandescent lights
disappeared mysteriously, and another Of
flee boy, who was put on to watch one af-
ternoon, declared that Moony, who Rad re-
mained in the Office with some excuse about
writing something, had been seen to take
one OF the globes from the lights and
slowly chew it up SIN ticking his lips as If
he liked it. The boy was SO badly frighten-
ed he did not remain longe-. Paper weights
ard electrotypes could no more remain in
that office than buckwheat cakes and mo-
lasses in front of hungry boy.
Such tales were told about Moony that
the outcome was he had to resign his posi-
ton, and the next heard of him was when
he was seen a glass eater and sword
sWallower On the Bowery. He recognized
me when l went IN, and told me to wait I'M
I'll alter the performance and he would tell
me the story. j had some little curiosity in
regard to the matter and when the show
was finished We went to a nearby restaur-
ant. He bit two or three pieces out Of his
glass remarking at the same time he could
not help doing it if he was to be shot for it.
His tale was indeed a sad one Accord
ing to his account, after he had become af-
hicted with dyspepsia, he had conceived an
idea of experimenting with the stomach
of an ostrich. He had studied the subject
thoroughly and experimental with such
terrible success that his downfall resulted
in consequences. He had conceived the idea
of making pepsin out of the stomach CT an
ostrich just the same as it Is made from
the stomach of hog. He made the pepsin
and had taken SO much of it that his stom-
ach had become exactly like that Of the
ostrich itself. Moony could not break him
self of the habit of eating all sorts and
manner of the food. The only thing for
him to do, he told me. with tears in his
eyes, was to accept the position which he
held when l talked with him, and he said
that ne had proved to be one of the most
successful of the kind known.
'Moony seemed to think that the awful
moral furnished by his case was that a
newspaper man should stick to his profess
sion and not go outside of 1t to mix up
with any scientific subject Of any kind