The San Francisco call., 1898-05-22

% ID YOU know that there was i private directory in San Fran i cisco that is patronized and made ! } use of by beggars alone? The i - shrewd owner of it has indexed all the philanthropically inclined i people in the city, with their faults,
 weaknesses and what they are inclined i to give. When tramp or beggar l wants "to work any particular class 1 of citizens he goes to the owner Of this directory and obtains from him for
 payment all his private information
 about the people he thinks will give the
 most.
 Of late I have heard more Of the directory, with some detailed informa- tion as to it's possessor and form. The directory itself is a comparatively small
 book bound in leather, after the i fashion of the indeXed notebooks car | ried by collectors, and is arranged by | streets instead of alphabetically. Its ] possessor is creature who, like Solo i mons lilies tolls not, neither does he
 spin, yet he not only keeps himself well
 dressed but smokes a good cigar at times and occasionally goes upon spree with abundant funds to keep him drunk as long as he desires to remain ! enough to part with his directory or to talk about it to the uninitiated.
 For some time 1 have been connected 1 with an institution which deals with
 young tramps and stray boys of all : kinds, trying to teach them manliness 1 and self-reliance. A hard task when
 a boy has learned how easy it is to beg
 and live without any further eXertion than that rendered necessary by change of residence from town to town ! occasionally.
 i The confidence of the boys once ob-
 tained 1t is not long before they tell me
 tales of their exploits in begging that
 would horrify the believer in the dignity of labor But there was no novelty in such tales. The only thing
 peculiar about them was the fact that
 boys who had been in the city but
 few days, coming from distant parts of i the country, had, with singular unan-
 imty, all visited much the same list of people in search of money or clothing, 1 and met with much the same eXperi- i ence, apparently, upon their visits.
 The facts seem to be about like this:
 Every city has a place regarded by the tramp CT hobo fraternity as a hang out" and a boy tramp arriving in San ] Francisco naturally gravitates to one
 CT the other of the numerous hang outs" with which San Francisco has been favored. Here he is shortly ap-
 preached bv the owner of the directory, who suggests that he can put the new
 arrival onto good thing" if he is will
 ing to ''divvy-up" on the proceeds.
 Upon the newcomers agreeing to give the informant from 20 to 50 per cent of 1 the proceeds according to his experi-
 ence or inexperience in such work. he 1 is taken out to certain houses, posted l as to what sort of story to tell, given l a description of the person he is to see l and goes on his way.
 If successful in his first venture he 1 is posted as to other people, and so
 works slowly over the entire list per ! haps, making a stay of some months if he turns out to be a very successful ! beggar. All this resulting to the great ! advantage of the owner of the direct ory. who is all the time enlarging | and amplifying his directory as
 to make it thoroughly up to date and | entirely correct.
 This particular directory man seems
 to be quite a student of human nature, ! too, for he never seems to send the | wrong kind of boy to a place, so that i if a man is fond of relieving homeless orphan boys who are looking for dis
 tant relatives in San Francisco he is not troubled with half orphans who are | to their fathers or mothers. He gets 1 just the kind of cases he is fond of 1 though one would expect him to wonder ] sometimes whether there were no other ! forms of distress in the city