The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-07-20

reason some OF these reasons are natural
but some are very strange.
II the men are OF the peasant class and
come In companies IN charge or laDOT
agents and enter the employ of some one
Of the City's construction companies this IS
natural. If they come in families in ship
loads and join their friends in some one
Of the city's micrOCOSmS, such as Little
Italy, Little Germany, the Ghetto or New
Erin and enter some one of the many lines
OF occupation specially allotted TO them,
this also is natural. But if a lone man. IN
middle life, leaves all his friends and makes
his way unnOuced, TO foreign city, III
foreign land, half a dozen thousand miles
from hOme-this is unnatural. If he comes
without money, Introduction, occupation
or acquaintance, there is a STORY" IL, IN
addition he has known better things TO the
point Of teaching Sanskrit in a foreign uni
versity and is now selling shoe laces on the
BOweTy, that story is a tragedy.
There are three lines of occupation into
one Of which these men almost invariably
drift; they become restaurant walters, cab
drivers or street fakirs. No one of these
professions requires any previous train
ing in no one of them are there any pre-
scribed conditions of entrance, IN no one
of them is a limited knowledge of English
a serious hindrances while in all OF them
familiarity with some foreign language Is
a distinct advantage Although they do
this work in the busiest city thoroughfares,
they nearly all live in the East Side. In
asmuch as they are nearly all unmarried,
their habitats are cheap furnished rooms in
tenements. In the past five years, there
fore, L have known in this region many or
these persons.
Among them are Germans, French.
Italians, Belgians, Swiss, Alsatians and
Austrians. There are common walters
who can speak six languages. There are
cab drivers whom i sometimes pass beside
the Grand Central discussing Kant and
Hegel. / know one man who sells the 10
o clock edition of the penny papers IN the
theater district who is graduate in music
from Oxford and who could once play
Bach's fugues by the hour. l meet the old
man now and then hobbHng about the fash
iOnable thOroughfares and playing broken
violin for small change thrown to him who
was once "a famous tenor in an opera
house of great European capital. l know
a porter in Thrd-avenue hotel who walks
lame because he has a bullet in his foot
received in the Franco-Prussian war and
who for twenty years has been wanted by
two nations to be executed as spy. A
labOrer who was killed one day by falling
timber in the underground tunnel was
found to be a genuine French count and
son of a high military official. One day
chauffer who had been rendered uncOn-
scious in an automobile accident. was car
ried to a clinic, where, in the Jargon that
he talked in his delirium, one of the doc
tors recognized the language of the thieves
quarter of Paris Two years ago a waiter
in little restaurant took smallpox. Some
Of us had him sent to North Brothers
island but the day after he died German
official who was notified, cabed instruc-
tions for his burial. He was distanty re-
lated to Emperor William.
THEY WISH TO HIDE.
All of these fellows naturally lie about
their antecedents and are identified, if at
all, only by accident or by the efforts Of
detectives searching for them. Mysteri-
ously they turn UP in the city some fine
day and as soon as they begin work sedu-
lousy endeavor to forget their past. 1t
is only the smallest percentage that are
oil of
die as they have Iived-human enigmas.
Having, as many of them do, however,
a grim and terrible sense of humor, they
must often have their own fun in the
presence of the persons whom they serve.
For example, imagine an erstwhile Ger
man university professor selling lead pen
ellis to a country schoolmarm visiting the
city; an eXiled Russian nobleman driving a
young Harlem sport about town in cab,
OF former grand opera star waiting on a
ten-dollar-a-week clerk at a restaurant
after the play And yet those very things
have happened to my knowledge.
One day one of these men-a cab driver
told me that he had just driven from one
of the steamship piers to the Waldorf
Astoria the woman from whom he had
been divorced twelve years ago in Sicily.
one night waiter at the Hotel Manhattan
asked TO be transferred from one table to
another, the reason being that he feared
he would be recognized DS the French
ambassador, who, on d visit here from
had happened to sit down to dinner al that
table. One. night a man selling ibrettos at
the Metropolitan ran to the rescue of one
of The SOlOiStS alighting from badly
driven carriage at the stage entrance She
was so struck by the pure German that he
used in speaking TO the horses that she
handed him dollar. When he turned to
face her. in the light of the street lamp,
they recognized each other as old class
mates in a conservatory in Berlin.
Genius has long been recognized as a
1 cd nj hgd ETD
are many men in the East Side districts
whose genius for some reason has thus
been perverted. For instance the shrewder
class OF thieves are practically all mechdn-
les and expert locksmiths; half the sign
painters on the Bowery are broken-down
artists of no small ability, while l know at
least one fakir in dime museum who was
an actor once with Booth.
There three words which serve as
labels TO a threefOld classificatio of these
persons; they stand partly for cause and
partly for effect and are the DID,. old trio
wine, women and song. For example: OF
| the first class / know one poor wretch who
was once city editor. He has passed
through every stage of degradation and is
now a confirmed habitue of a saloon far
down the Bowery. He has carried one
spark of his genius with him, however
that is he can write the English language
| as. perhaps, no other man in New York
when he wants to, and that is about once a
month. He writes a little now and then,
but only to make money; he makes money
i
dozen editors know him, he can sell any
thing he writes, and he write fine
enough story on two sheets of brown paper
with a broken lead pencil TO earn money
enough for a long debauch. His manu-
scripts have been published in every lead
ing magazine in this country, and any one
who has read them would recognize at
once his nom-de-plume. Genius per-
verted?' Yes" Happy in it, though, -
you say? Then you have not seen what
have seen-the fierceness of the furnace of
his great remorse.
cafe one of the avenues on LenoX Hill,
where q little weakened old Italian keeps a
restaurant much frequented by the profess
siOnal men of that region. L found mine
host, Lagetu %, bothered nervous, rat
| tied and exhausted. fussing over spoons
patrons and at times in blank absorption
sitting down to chafe and bite his nails.
| was the more surprised at this because |
remembered him as self-contained and
| stOlid, and had seen him sit for hours be-
| hind his little cash desk reading reading
TO make change now and then for passing
customers. Rather in my own case to
make more exceptional exceptions, since
we had sat for hours at times and talked
over subjects that are deepest in philos-
| Ophy. But l had not seen him for two
years and never at this season; / asked
one of the walters what was wrong "Oh.
he's this way every New Years eve" he
| answered. But it only lasts tonight.
He'll be himself again tomorrow"
STORY OF a LIFE.
on the ground of this long separation
and upon the basis OF our former intimacy,
| spoke to him, and he grew strangely con-
hdential. The story was that this eve was