Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-08-29
PAVEMENT DEREL|CTS
Stories Told of the City's
Sandwich Men.
DRIFT UP AND DOWN
SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE WHO
HAVE BEEN ROUND THE WORLD.
Wreck Told in One Word, Their
Fondness for Strong
Drink
DRIFT UP AND DOWN
Copyright, 1eoa by Guy t. viskniskki)


Above the mans head swayed sign. kept
in it's aerial position by two bands of iron
passing around pair of stopped shoulders.
1t bore d legend: Elegant table d'hote din
ners, to 8, at the famous White Horse
Restaurant, 40 cents, with wine.
The sign itself was the only refreshing
thing about the bearer. His clothes were
frayed by wear, discolored by weather, and
spotted beyond comparison. Their wearer
was in even worse state. One eye-socket
was empty, one arm crippled and all but
useless, one leg shorter than it should have
been by an inch or two, and rum-blotched
cheeks and bloodshot eye made them
selves evident despite a weeks growth of
scraggy beard and a bushy, unkempt brow.
He was a veritable derelict of the pave
ment. Even the poorest appearing and
most shabbily dressed men who passed him
he stood on the corner looked prosper
Gus in comparison. And when he moved he
further showed that he was a derelict; he
drifted down the street, needless of the
crowd humping into it here, being buffeted
by it there. and all the while the sign abo, 6
him swayed and signaled like the protrud-
ing mast of a sunken drifting, ocean
wrecked ship.
The Wrecks of the Street.
He was a typical sandwich man. Keep
your eyes open in the busiest thoroughfares
of big city and you will see other men
like him-scores of them, hundreds of them.
All day long they drift in the current of
commerce, sometimes driven hurriediy
along by its impetuosity, sometimes checked
in its qu1eter stretches frequently hurled
against street post of some sort TO be set
adrift again little later on and always
avoided by the trim human craft that sight
in time the sign warnings. For they are
human wrecks, these sandwich men, and
they know it.
Dye think" said one, "I'd be maxim a
signboard O. meself if 1 could help it? Dye
think I'd stand bein' jeered at by dago
bootblacks if could help it? Dye think,
sir. I'd stand lettin me friends in the lodgin
house shake me when they see me trampin'
up and down, if 1 could help 1t? Damn me,
sir. l can't help it; neither can the rest.
But once. before drink. sir"
1t Is drink that creates sandwich men,
The face among them that does not show
the handiwork of the black bottle is the
exception. And so they are men dragged
down from higher estates to be peripatetic
sign bearers-derelicts among the surging
crowds about them that still keep off the
shoals by retaining control of the rudder Cf
self-respect.
Not infrequently the wreck has been
big one. Consider the story of a derelict
who has drifted up and down New York;
shopping center for years. He told it after
his thirst had been appeased at no cost to
iiiiHSell, anu Ills tdle WAS VeTlneQ later by
others of his class to whom in their
months of intercourse-a sort of pathetic
comradery prevails among them-he had
related snatches of his life of better days
The Life Story Of Derelict.
He began with the words of a well-read
man.
Il nurse no self-f1attering delusions' to
quote Watts. l can't 1 catch too many
glimpses of myself in the course of a day
in bar room mirrors. and my brain has
plenty of time to think. for my shoulders
bear the brunt Of my struggle for bread. A
little Madeira would serve to awaken mem
cries more fully; was once a connoisseur
along that line. Thanks.
We'll, twenty odd years ago l came to
this town-no matter where l came fro n.
came with fathers financial reputation
behind me and a check in my pocket with
" hich to start up for myself l chose to
become broker, and for four years / won
out.
Then I began drinking [ had never
tasted drop of anything intoxicating be-
fore. But once the taste, of liquor got On
my tongue craved for more and more. MY
father was teetotaier, but he had never
harangued against drink; and l cannot ac-
count for its getting hold of me. But it
did-and you know what always happens
so came 20 this. AT first 1 rebeIled
against 1t. But time and whisky work
wonders. know myself from what | am
a derelict-and am content to drift even
though ] bring up against an old school
mate once in u willie And when that hap
pens l stare him steadily in the face and
drift on again l am safe. for how, in
Gods name, could he recognize anything
familiar in me-ne?"
But low as this man has fallen he still re-
ta1ns one custom of his former estate-he
religiously buys newspaper every morn
ing, and as he drifts along reads first the
stock reports and then the general news of
the world. He is thoroughly posted on all
a fol
depend upon him to inform them of any-
thing that might interest them. He is espe-
cially in demand the morning after prize
fight, for to the average sandwich man y
contest IL the manly sport is the acme of
mundane events. But he himself is NOT of
brawling disposition.
NO, sir, we're peaceable" protested one
of them;, and the keeper of a lodging housa
near the Bowery in New York which is
recognized as headquarters for sandwich
men in the city. agreed. Even Sober Mix
Is tame he said, land Mikes fought all
round the world"
The Last Days Of Soldier of Fortune.
Sojer Mike is a six-foot specimen of
wrecked manhood who still has clinging
to him some of the marks of long and
varied military service. A mere boy, he
began his army experiences in the civil
war, and because of bravery at Antietam
was made a sergeant. This rank he held
until the wars close, and then, the mar
tfal fever hot in his veins, he set out on
his career as a soldier of fortune.
He fought with the French in II. Upon
his release from German prison he be-
came a. Tommy Atkins. and saw fighting
in India and under Gordon, and was at
the famous charge of Tel-El-Keber After
that he went hither and yon over the
world seeking battle and often finding it
in out-of-the-way places--serving under al
most any flag that offered itself
Finally he wound up in South Africa
with the outbreak of the Boer war and
threw in his lot with Kruger's men For
the second time in his life he became a
prisoner of war, and was shipped of by
the English to the Bermudas. There he
remained till the end of the war, and then
came back to New York, whence he had
sailed in the late sixties on his worldwide
fighting expedition.
He landed without money; he landed
without friends: he knew nothing of the
ways of trade; there was no fighting to be
done. and he was too old to enlist in the