The Washington times., 1901-11-03
MEN Who LIVE NOWHERE.
Many Persons Conceal Their Iden-
tity or Residence.
Various Methods Adopted to Remain
Incog.-The General Delivery VIM
dow-Privnte Letter Boxes-TeIe-
phone Service in Gaming Houses.

dow-Privnte Letter Boxes-TeIe-
phone Service in Gaming Houses.
In city like this there are at all times
thousands of persons who, for one reason
or another. legitimately or illegitimately.
temporarily or permanently, wish to con-
eeal or withhold either their identity on
their whereabouts, and there are many
ways in which this can be done. Entirely
aside from the problem of eluding the Wig
ilance of police and detectives actually
Hv'ng in hiding. or disappearing from
slght. which are the expedients of the
Tcaiiy criminal classes. men can generally
manage to keep themselves to themselves
If they want to. Perhaps some question
able act or plan is at the bottom of such
desire. perhaps there are business rea-
sons, but quite as often probably the
chlef motive Is the desire not to be both
cred" II is an impossible wish to crafty
In the country. and this fact goes a good
way to explain why certain classes OF
people flock to the cities.
FnVate letter-box agencies, of the kind
that played such an important part In
evidence in the Molineux trial, were. up
| - Ie" years ago, enc of the chief re-
sources for all sorts of shady transac-
tons and clandestine correspondence.
Ihere were between go and 800 Of these
places, most of them in cigar stores or
small shops. A box could be rented for
70 year or thereabouts, and 1t implied
tne flght TO have mail addressed to that
particular street number just as though
the recipient really lived or did business
there. Ii does not require much imagina-
ton to see to what abuses such a scheme
would inevitably lead
Chief Devery, before he was chief snols
| as the practical policeman and not the
| CRATER when he said that If the POST
once Department could succeed in clos
ing up these places 1t would perform cns
| Oh the most useful acts possible FOR the
city. When Postmaster Van Cott was first
appointed, his attention was drawn forci-
Dly to the subject by his accidentally go
ing into one of these letter-box agencies
ut bore the sign Of an umbrella meuderl
to get his umbrella repaired He tried TO
get bill through Congress against them.
| out failed. In his next term as postmas-
Ter, however, a general order from the
department at Washington ACCOMPLISHED
the same result without legislation. On
the certain morning about two years ago.
the mail addressed to all the agencies was
stopped simultaneously and notices sent
saying that the addresses could get their
letters by applying at the general post
once. There were about 1000 letters held
up IN all, and the character of the sub
Jccts to which they related can be guessed
from the fact that only about 900 of the
letters were ever called for The rest
went to the Dead Letter Office. Since
then, attempts to go into this line of BUSH
ness have been promptly suppressed. 1t
is successful pretext, however in some
instances, to have letters addressed to tho
bona-fde tenant at a certain address, an
inner envelope bearing the name or the
assumed name of the man who does not
care to get these particular letters at his
home or office. Once in a while the sign
Letter-boxes rented" is still to be seen
on side street
Inc general delivery, or poste restante
Is primarily a convenience for travellers
and new arrivals in the city who have rot
yet fixed upon place sf.residence yet
some people use it whd Gular and
permanent addresses ~ mjebt
just as well use. So 1&g.as a person is
idenuhed satisfactorily, Afhe authorities
cannot refuse to deliver mail matter Some
or the recent cases of threatened I.idnap-
ping in which the blaekmailers hired small
boys to go to the general delivery for an
swers to their propositions will occur to
newspaper readers in this connection. In =
each of these instances detectives were
waiting at the window when the letters
were handed out
The telegraph, as is well known, Is a
common carrier. and through it the
'green-goods" games, are usually con-
Quoted. The lotteries. since they moved
out of this country and were denied the
use of the mails, have resorted to the ex-
press companies. Both these methods,
for purposes of private business, have
the disadvantage that a receipt is re-
quired from the receiver, and 1t is too
easy to find him again.
TIE recent poOlroom raids and the rev.
elations concerning the system of tip
ping off, have revealed the usefulness of
the telephone to those classes who do not
live exactly in the fierce white light Of
publicity. Some of the telephone numbers
of these places are not in the telephone
directory, but one of the best known gam
bling houses in the city is there, entered
as its proprietOr's residence To en-
tirely different reasons. however, are to
be attributed the hundreds of private tel
ephone numbers which are omitted from
the book and known only to those whom
the subscriber chooses to tell. Usually
these instruments are in residences, and
the owner. to save himself and his fam
lily from the annoyance of being '.rung
up by Tom, Dick, and Harry, simply or
ders the number omitted from the pub
lished list. Most men of wealth and posi-
tion have telephones in their houses,
yet comparatively few of them will be
found alongside the same mems office
There are 4 number of business
men and lawyers who have, besides the
regular telephones of their firm or estab-
lishmcnt. private telephone wires the
numbers OF which no others know. On
these they can call up others, always be-
ing sure of clear line at once but can
not be called up by outsiders. 1t is like
a turnstile gate. good for exit, but not for
Just exactly the same desire of busi-
ness men and men Of affairs to keep their
homes as completely disconnected as pos
sible from their daily activities is shown
by q careful examination of the city di-
II either of mans addresses
IS omitted. it is almost always that of his
house. TIE agents sent out by the pub
ishers to collect and verify the addresses
say that this is their greatest difficulty.
often. even a personal letter fails to Sc
,ure the home address of man who is
,nIy too glad to have his place of bust
less inserted IN the directory. In only
lbout hundred cases in the entire city
las information as to a mans business
,een refused point-blank Tor this years
irecory. In such instances the entry is,
Jones, John (refused) W.
street" One reason for the requests to
e kept out of the directory entirely is
widespread but entirely erroneous be-
ef that this will secure complete eXemp-
ion from jury duty.--New York E-ening
'ost-