The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-01-24
TAMMANY GOT THE SWEATER.
He Didn't Win the First Prize, but He
Knew How to Get In.


Tammany is not his name, but that's
| what every one calls him from one end
of Park row to the other. This ism t
to explain how he got the name-that
he hardly knows himself-but to tell
how he got the heavy blue sweater
which he has been wearing during the
cold weather, and which has made him
envied by his less warmly clad compan-
ions. Tammany has worn the sweater
before, but only on those special occa
sions when he goes to prize fights, BIZ
cycle races and football games. He
goes to all of them, and whether the
price of admission is 81 or SO does not
worry him. He gets past the door
keeper on one plea or another usually
as copy boy for the sporting edition.
sometimes as a personal friend of the
main guy of the show" and, as a last
resort as programme boy or chewing
gum salesman, though these things are
distasteful to him. Tammany usually
has a small bet on the result, and the
fact that he seldom picks a winner does
not disturb him much. He can usually
make up his losses in one or two ses-
sions of the crap club which meets at
the base of Horace Greeley's statue be-
fore the first editions are printed.
Tammany'S sweater cuts some figure
with the gang, because it really is a
hand-me- down, cotton kind that some
of the kids bought on the Bowery, and
which pulled to pieces after one or two
scrimmageS. Tammany got his sweater
on the Bowery, but like most of the
things Tammany gets it came easy.
This sweater" he condescended to
explain the other day, came from the
Kids Aid society, and it was an easy
graft / don't very often patronize the
joint, because l can make my own liv-
ing, and more too, and have all the
sport l want besides. But Just before
Christmas l hears that they're going
to have spellin' match up there with
prizes for the guys that do the best
think work. That's meat for me, says
at once. So l joined and stood up in
line with the rest of 'em. A good many
of the gang was in, but most of 'em
might just as well stayed in the crap
game. They had some sort of chance
there. They started us on easy words,
but the kids began to drop out. The
dagos went first. Some of them
couldn't a spelled cat. Then they ran
us up to longer words like shoplifting
and incendiary and such, and the gang
began to feel the gaff. 1 knowed em
all right, fur I'd seen 'em in big type
in the pape often enough, and I WASH t
the only one. l kept my think tank
working at full speed. but there was
another kid that trotted me nose to
nose, and he was a niger kid at that.
Pretty soon we We're the only two alive.
Then the guy that was running the
show springs a word that takes my
breath away. I can't just remember
now what it was. Some disease
"Diphtheria,' suggested some one
Nav, that's too easy. It's something
that ends like brownchitis, only it isn't
that"
"Peritonitis?"
Yes, that's it. People usually die
with it. don't they? Well, could died
when he springs it on me. l had my
nerve at that, though I knew l was up
agln' it, and made bluff, but it didn't
go. Then it was up to the coon. The
gang was dead sore on me for falling
down, but when the niger kid went up
in the air too they gave me the glad
hand. He tried two cracks at the word
and couldn't hit it, l had another
chance then, but l knew my limit on
peri whatever it is-and so I says
give us new one. 1 thought l knew