The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1902-02-09
CURES FOR WOULD.BE SLEUTHS
POLICE REMEDIES FOR YOUTHS
WITH THE DETECTIVE FEVER,
A YOUNG Man From Poughkeeps Treated
by Hid Miller. Bunco Expert surIy
Cop Amazed-One Amateur Who Made
a strfke-Tcwer Of Them Nowadays.

Con Amazed-One Amateur VINO Maue
q strfke-rewer Of Them Nowadays.
Il don't believe the kids OF this day are
afflicted with such an ache TO become
sleuths as the youngsters OF fifteen or twenty
years ago said an old-time detective oil
Byrnes's staff. Il can remember when
every moon-faced boy that you'd butt into
In the course Of q days prowl hankered
TO hitch I'D with the 'Histr and Eureka
tribe Of Hawkshaws, just as. thirty or forty
years ago, we elderly dodgers lost our
beauty sleep a-dreaming Of the way when
we'd get TO be end men In minstrel shows.
I'VE used to cure up a lot Of EN- down
OF headquarters. Quite a number OF these
Young sinners were sons OF weli-to-do
folks. There were a lot Of ways of changing
these young fellows minds. We always
took 'em seriously when they showed up
and gave them immediate jobs OF what
We cal ed try-out work.
One Of them slid along one afternoon
in the early SOS who had more real money
on his person than seemed necessary or
right to any of the Headquarters gang
There must nave been u 600 In his roll,
and It seemed q sin and a shame
HE was from Poughkeepsie and his
mammals sunshine right. His detective
badge was Of gold, and he had had 1t made
to order at a jewellers.
sHe wanted to be put on, on probation,
he said, he knew that there were q Tow
minor little tricks in the detective business
with which he probably wasn't precisely
familiar, and 20 he was willing 20 hitch
on on probation for about a week.
Wed been tipped of on this ono
There's an angel che-ild,' the Pough-
keepsie police chief wrote. in effect, Just
starting in your direction. He's got a
whole costumer's shop with him and a wad
Of money that's something scandalous'
He belongs to good people here and they
are sad over his determination to become
a terror to ~evil-doers. Fix him out SOS
he'll moult the dough. an when he's all
in, crate him up and tag him back here to
his kinsfolk, and no questions asked. His
dad owns a bank and wants the boy to be
good, so that you needn't care how hard
you whang him.
1T wasn't right or regular, OF course,
but one of the headquarters men ceremoni-
ously introduced the Poughkeepsie pet TO
Kid Miller, New York's premier bunco man
of that day, as the official instructor OF
detectives of the Police Department. Now,
here ne yer was a crook in this or any other
country that had anyt hing on Miller when
il came TO prying currency from hard
losers. He could tease dough from a
%pawnbroker without hooking anything but
his gifted line of conversation.
Miller had been tipped of on this. and it
only took him about twenty-five minutes
to fan-tan this ardent young man from up
the State out Of his little canvas bag and
everything tina il contained. II Pough-
keepsle boy wept q few when he broke out
of the trance ana realized that he had been
buzzed for his bundle. and then he came
a-loping down 10 the Chief with the dirRe
that he'd been piped out with the aid ana
connivance Of one of the headquarters
detectives.
.The Chief gioomcd him and told him to
go away before ZONE hing happened TO
him. and the young fellow, up in the tall
ether in the matter Of funds, had nothing
TO do but to hot-foot for home. Kid Miller
dropped down then and passed the Pough-
beepsie BOYS bundle over to the Chief with
a grin, and the Chief shipped the wad ON
to the young mans father. with a conf
dental letter Of explanation.
The old gentleman wrote back to the
Chief that il he ever woke up in the middle
! Of the night and felt that nothing would
make him happy except the KEYS OF Pough-
keepsie and the freedom thereof in a ~jewelled
| NASktl, All IN u az " bO NgbAb ~ ~
wire to the ~Poughkeepsie bank.
Another one OF them who got the goods
for immediate delivery was a short-chin
who zephyred along from Harrisburg, Pa.
He was told that a certain crook was mas
querading around town in the uniform
Of a policeman, soliciting contributions from
business men for a policemen's burial fund.
He bolted this with the hook and started
right out after the phony COP. He had
been told that the bogus c~lub-swinger
| n,iubt la found around the corner of Broad
way and Twenty-eighth street, as he had
been known 10 be working that district
on the day before.
Now. there happened 10 be on that beat
at the time an eight-foot rough-neck cop
who was so sore and burly on everything
in the world that he had all he could do TO
keep from clubbing himself TO death. He
had a continuance performance crouch on,
and when he walked In tho middle of the
pavement II was you to a X to the scuppers
or wind up in the trepanning ward. He
spelled out OF the ~sou'-souwest starboard
corner Of his face and his mitts looked like
country-cured hams.
This was the harp that the young man
from Harrisburg with the sleuthing bug
was sent up against. A couple of us ar
ranged to stand in a hallway across the street
when II happened, 10 SEQ that he didn't
get any of his fins bitten of close TO the
shoulder.
-'Impostor, you are under arrest! said
the youth from the Keystone State, in a real
rude tone, walking up 20 the rough-neck
and exhibiting his zinc badge. Come
with meH
well, il Ed Hsrrigan had been there
TO see it he'd never have gone to bed until
he'd done II into "A sketch. The Connemara
Turk got into such "A blaze for a minute that
If he'd moved from the spot to which he
was rooted and had given the wind a chance
he'd nave been burned alive standing up.
The Harrisburg g%umshoeist sidestepped
and looked a lot as II he'd rather be fishing
for perch and sun-fish In the Susquehanna,
but he remembered tho Shorty. the Billy
goat Detective stories that he'd burned
the midnight wick over and he passed up his
desire to lam for II.
The cop came TO and tried 10 say some-
thing, but his words just oozed on IN hoarse
whispers. Then he ysnked himself to-
gether, let out a below that sounded like
the def Of a circus lion with a chip on his
shoulder, reached out and caught the
Harrisburg, crime-unrav weller by the right
ear, spat Oh his free hand, got his locust
ut the 'resdv'-and then We emerged from
the hallway and saved a Young life.
w gave the 'as-you-were' bawl TO the
cop as We ran over TO the scene OF the inn
pending slaughter. and as we had framed
I'm two or three other ones on him before