The Camden chronicle. (Camden, Tenn.) 1890-current, 1902-01-31

POINTS REGARDING AN INDUSTRY
THAT THRlVES m CHICAGO.

frightened ua Hia victim IL = FfettN /
Sure and Safe Method Of Protection.
The Chicago Tribune recently con-
tanned the following article:
Most persons who have never met !
a hold-up man while the later is ply |
ing his vocation have a wrong con
ception OF him. To most men he rep |
resents an angry, hungry beast prey
ing on society. The conventional |
highwayman must be ugly and have
broad shoulders and curse horribly.
He must have a trusty weapon and
maybe two, one as trusty as the other
He says stop throw up your hands!"
as automatically as any Jack
Sheppard or Claude Duval, and under
no circumstances must his demand for
money be denied. That Is the good
old idea Of him. It is romantic and
no highwayman Of that class could
work to advantage without a set Of
footlights and freshly painted seen.
cry and perhaps an orchestra to dole
out slow and creepy music.
But that is not the sort Of highway
man that gets arrested. And as those
who are taken into custody may be
called fair examples of those who es-
cape, it is easy to see that the hold
up man this winter, or any other win
ter for that matter, is neither a chiv-
alrous Robin Hood nor a heartless
rufian More often he is the latter,
but the general rule is that he is
an experienced, thick-witted criminal
trying to make living cheaply. OF
course, Red Sullivan, the short man
of the famous team of the long and
short men, who terrorized the town
four winners ago; Harry Featherstone,
Kid Murphy, and few others of that
sort, the hierarchy of their profession,
as it were, must not be considered fair
examples of the hold-up man. They
had more daring and more strength
than the men who will work this win
ter. The successors to those Grim
inals are ordinary stock, and once
they are understood successful high
way robberies will be less frequent.
Much of their strength is fictitious.
The idea of an attack in the night
carries freight with it to many men,
and the appearance of the highway
man is exaggerated in ferocity by
the previous impression of his kind
Those hold-up men who are known to
the police now are, with few excep-
tons, the cheapest sort of cheap GRIM
inals. They are born usually in a
neighborhood where honesty is
quoted at a considerably lower figure
than the ability to get away from the
police. They grow up on the streets,
and then fall into the all night saloon
habit One saloon in the levee dis
trict is the harbor of most hold-up
men who are, as the actors say, at
liberty" A night scene in this
place is interesting. Boys just out of
the reformatory at Pontiac, paroled
convicts and some men freed from
Joliet the amateurs who are going
into lives of crime because they i'm
agine there is glory in them, and
some men and boys who get into the
! place by mistake, are there to drink
: and talk crime and criminals. The
l police of the Harrison street station
let the place run because they believe
in the concentration of the habitues
: 1ney never have to go far to look fol-
. the men they may happen to want
3 The police have "stool pigeons" who
: are hired spies, in the place and they
D watch it closely. Hold-up men in EN-
r bryo are to be found there, and in g
Q few other places of the sort. But the!
i are sadly lacking in the qualities thu
s appeal to the seeker after the pic
r turesque in criminals. They are mo-
9 the exceptions to the rule that hold
up men are cheap thugs. The excep
Q tions are safe in Jail
p The common variety go armed, o
Q course, but the armament is as old
Il fashioned, usually, as the custom o
s mounting Quaker guns Of wood. Al
@ soon as one of them is arrested hi
revolver is confiscated and a needs
n is not found in a haystack more sci
It dom than is a good weapon found oi
" hold-up man. The guns are usual,
cheap bulldog revoIvers that nigh
r have cost a dollar and a quarter. !
II the industrious hold-up man paid NOR
j." than two dollars for his weapon h
e was grossly swindled. Some of then
carry sacks filled with lead, and wit
o these weapons made in the humbl
home of the operator must be classe
!" the slungshot or bit of plugged leatt
er which is more often than not cor
d structed at home and to sui
the individual taste of tn
* man who is to WELD it. Man
times have hold-up men been arreste
%, ~ L.. IL. 1.nrr. =.