The Savannah morning news., 1902-03-30

three sons and two daughters. He has
educated the boys and girls at colleges
and surrounded them with every lux
ury on the money which the thieVing
game of policy has wrung from the
poor of the city. He has striven hard
to protect his family from the bad
name his trade had given him.
Early in his career he decided to be
personally unknown. In a measure he
has been successful, for while the name
of Al Adams has been a by-word in
New York for years, comparatively few
persons know the policy king by sight.
Pat Sheedy can not walk a block on
Broadway without a hundred heads
turning to look at him, and he is
man who has been little of the last ten
years in New York. AL Adams could
walk UP one side of Broadway and
down the other between Fourteenth
and Forty-second streets, and it is
doubtful whether half dozen persons
would turn to look at him. He is per-
sonallY unknown, and there is really
nothing in his appearance to attract
the attention of the casual observer.
He is tall, rather fies&y, with iron
gray hair and a gray moustache. He
always wears dark clothing of good
make, ready made neckties and white
linen. Outside of a Scarfpin, a watch
attached to a heavy gold chain and
two or three badges of secret societies
to which he belongs, he never wears
jewelry. His face is not intelligent,
and he has rather shifty eyes. His
general appearance is that of pros
porous business man. and out of a
dozen selected at random he would be
about the last who would De picked
out by a stranger as Al Adams, the
policy king. He has .arried the Iolicy
of self-concealment to the very eX-
IRENE. He rarely goes to see ANYBODY
connected with the policy business.
They always go to see him. His 81 000,
600 worth of real estate has furnished
an excuse to hide behind a Legitimate
business. For years he has mad Office
room in some real estate office, the
door of which bears some ether mans
name. About all the other man has
done has been to manage the Adams
real estate. and that has kept him
pretty busy. Three different men have
acted as shields for Adams in this way
within the past few years.
Al Adams Private Office.
In his private office, the door of which
is always labeled. Mr.. Adams" the
policy king meets the men who assist
and the men who allow him to loot
the poor of New York. His runners.
his managers, his quiet" men. go
there to take his orders, and it is from
an innocent looking real estate office
that the tremendous policy system is
conducted. Adams gets around for
work by 9 o'clock in the morning at
the latest. and sometimes before s.
He works harder than the poorest paid
of his clerks, rarely taking more than
a few moments for luncheon, and never
quitting before o'clock. lie goes
straight home from his office and Incst
nights he is in bed and asleep by 10
or IL o'clock. He has few pleasures out
side of his home. and it is said that he
doesn't go to the theater more than
twice a year, and then only to some
vaudeville show. His mania is MAX
ing money and keeping it, and his only
weakness is his children.
1t is a strange antithesis that a man
so utterly lost to all regard for the
rest of the world as to be willing to
| plumber its poorest creatures should
have so fine a feeling in another di-
rection. Adams cried like child when
a newspaper, in describing the mar
riage Of one Of his daughters, men
! toned that she was the child Of