The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-12-23
FAMILIAR PERsONAGES.
Character Sketches of the Corner Man
and Men That We're.

The corner man is altogether super
fiuous sort OF person. There is no rea
son why he should not be- Yet there he
Is. OF course, he only corners where
the public house finishes off the street.
The opposite corner has no attraction for
him whatever. Where he leans against
the wall the swing doors are forever
frequent on the hinge. If he cannot en-
ter and assuage his thirst, at any rate he
is near the fount where thirst can be
assuaged, and where he is likeliest to
meet the chances of assuaging it. Mean
time ne leans against the wall that
knows him and does his share in defl-
ing the pavement and lending luridness
to the ambient air. What is he? A labor
er he would naturally declare himself
on the police charge sheet. I doubt he
has done a stroke of honest work for
years. His hands show no more trace of
toll than they do of soap. The working
man SHES him. The corner man and he
find no affinity. Nor do the foregather,
even casually The one takes his drink,
inside, at the bar. The other swallows
his in haste and shambles forth again
The cab touts feel themselves a bit
above this utter loafer. They come back
with the coDpers juggling -cheerily in their
fist, but they do not dispense him any
hospitality. Who does? And from what
mysterious source does the corner man
derive the wherewithal to cover himself
and keep alive? At the other end of the
town I should have less difficulty in
/
behold a variety about whose avocations.
after dark, you need have more doubt
than has the policeman who takes stock
of these birds of prey as he moves by.
and who recognizes among them more
than one acquaintance. He is not a
pleasant or desirable feature in the Lon
don landscape. A more advanced civil
ization Will, doubt, make a clean
sweep, and of street loafers generally.
But he looks as though he did not in
tend to be moved on yet awhile.
The man that was has, naturally, al
ways been. The number of men that
were, though, and still are seems to me
to be on the increase in a way which
the increase of population, chiefly fem
mime, scarcely accounts for. You cannot
are men who have always been failures,
and. therefore, have never been other
than they are. The man that was is the
man who has not merely, as the lady
who lets the lodgings puts it. seen bet
ter days. there are plenty of us who
have done that. He is the man who,
more or less definitely. has lost caste.
and he seems plentiful as are the
broken punters at Monte Carlo, where.
mayhap, he first learned to lose it. One
night he drove me back from a theater
in hanson cab. When / handed him
his IS pence he pushed back his bowler
so that I might see his face, and called
me by nickname of old days, when he
able seat of learning. Yes. he had come
down to that. he said. His people had
/ got tired of it, and had chucked him.
There he was. He had spotted me at
once Knew I would be good for some
/ thing for old times sake. And he sat
to do its office upon him in no great
while. He is man that was, for good
and all now. Another that was, and still
is, whom 1 had last seen when he was on