The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-02

1t may be a saying, confined strictly
to members of the Worcester police
department, that policeman's lot is
not happy one, but there is more fact
than fiction in the saying, as the life
of an ordinary policeman followed from
day to day will show.
When a citizen of Worcester starts in
to try the examination for the police
force, he has to jump around in man
ner that would phase an ordinary ath-
lete, and then he has to do "a few Eek
amples" that would make mind gifted
to-the solution of mathematical prob-
lens think at least once before the an
swer would be written down.
The candidate for the position begins
to be happy when he sees other men
clearing the high-jumping apparatus.
He is kept on the anxious seat for six
or seven months before he is appointed
and then his troubles begin afresh. He
finds that there is not enough clothes
In Worcester to make him suit of
clothes and he has to wait several days
before he gets into trim to walk the
streets of Worcester and get the little
stipend that comes to every officer of
the law for travelling beat
The first night, he travels he is the
cynosure of all eyes,, and begins to
think that even when jumping aboard
of an electric car there is a crowd fol-
lowing him. His first appearance i'll
court is an ordeal that he generally
passes through unscathed, to be
brought around a corner by a. brother
officer and quietly tipped on the mode
OF procedure IN testifying against a
witness. He is looked on as a charita-
BILE charge by every member of the de-
partment for few weeks, and then he
begins to think that he has as much
right to live policeman as any other
| man on the earth, and the first thing
he knows he has failed to answer roll
call and a sergeant has him sent before
the chief.
The chief looks him over, tells him he
has broken one of the fundamental
rules of the police department and then
waves him off with a tip not to let the
matter happen again. He is impressed
with everything in the chiefs office,
from "Bill" Robinson, who wears a
coat like the chiefs and walks around
the office with the air of a bonded
land owner, to the private telephone
system, which opens up at 8 o'clock in
the morning and goes out of commits
sion again at o'clock at night
He goes down stairs and whispers
contidentially to one of his brother Off
GERS about his discoveries in the chief S
office, and he is again tipped that
Willie" is one of the furnishings and
that he has no business wearing a coat
like the chiefs, but he does 1t all the
same.
The new man then begins to realize
that he counts one just the same as the
man who wears five service stripes on
GlaeUo he a.
cides that he is going to make stand
Bill" Ramsdell or some other muggins
expert then gets hold of the new man
and he is taught the national game of
muggins, and Is a full-fledged police
man. He says things about the service
and what he once saw in New York,
which, If introduced into the Worcester
police department, would make it a
metropolitan organization
He is then in an element with his
brothers and is one of them from the
soles of his shoes to the top of his head.
His first arrest is always attended with
strange happenings. He brings the man
into the window at station 1 where he
Is to be booked, and tells the officer in
charge because the prisoner is too
drunk to speak, that the man is five
feet ten and one-half inches tall and
weight 167 pounds. The officer has got
| the weight, size and complexion Of the
prisoner all written down before the
new man has scanned the prisoner at
all and the description differs entirely
In nine cases out of ten from the one
he gives.
As member of the force he begins
to see that he is a guardian of the peace
In a city where people are not easily
pleased. One of the residents on his beat
insists on washing windows outside OF
the hours given in the city ordinance
and because the officer insists on MAX
ing him live up to the law the man saws
things about him. The following morn
ing he is told by the same man that he
got his feet wet passing the window in
front of another store and that he
thinks the officer does not attend to his
business.
Every member of the force has had Q
similar experience. People come out of
their houses and tell him between gasps
for breath that the neighbours children
has made practice of throwing stones
at his house. He wants the neighbor's