The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-11-20
MATCHES BY. DAY
AT NIGHT HE WAS AN OPEN-HANDED
 HIGH ROLLER.
Hike Man With Twisted Lip. Cecil de Smith Really Lived a Life Like the One Described by Doyle in One
 of His Famous Sherlock
 Holmes Stories.
'peciaI Correspondence of The Washington

special Correspondence of The Washington
 Post.
 Standardization may have learned from a few cabled lines that 6 real life parallel to that famous Sherlock Holmes story, "The Man with the Twisted Lip, has just turned up in London. but 1t Is doubtful of they have been told how strik ingly the true story resembles that which was imagined by Dr. Conan Doyle.
 The Man with the Twisted Lip'' was of course. a professional street beggar. who. however, ous of ''buslness hours, lived in South London suburb in quite a stylish way He had wife who supposed him to be something in the city," to which he went daily. He operated in the vicinity of the London Stock Exchange. and his little game was to feign paralysis. He pretended to sell matches. but really relied on the gratuities which his pathetic appearance drew from passers-by. and which made up quite handsome income.
 Cecil de Smith, the man calls himself, who was arrested the other day by the Lon don police as an impostor, also lives in a South London suburb in a comfortable way. He too, was supposed by his wife to be pursuing some respectable calling in the city. where he went every morning. But in reality he. too, was a professional beggar, and, incredible as it seems, frequented the neighborhood of the Stock Exchange and worked on the sympathies of pedestrians by posing as a paralytic with matches to sell!
 Was a High Roller.
 As usual. however. in point of queerness, the true story leaves the imaginary one far behind. Dr. Doyle merely made his began realize enough to keep up a respectable menase. But when Cecil de Smith ceased at the end of the day to be a street nendi- cant, he became a veritable high-rolIer. One of his suburban neighbors, who testi- fled against him in court the other day, de- elared:
 We used to think he was making lots of money on the Stock Exchange. I never saw such person for clothes! He'd have new suits, new overcoats, and nothing but the best would suit him. In the evening, after he had returned from office he would dress up to the 'nines,' with shin ing silk hat, and off he would go to the West. He would dine at one of the restaur- ants In Leicester Square and spend the even Ing at the Empire of the Alhambra."
 Though de Smith did not find 1t neces- sary to jistort his features as did Neville St. Clair in Doyles story. 1t would be hard to imagine a more pathetic object than he made as he dragged himself about Throg- morton and the neighboring streets Wretchedly clad, and doleful of counte- nance, he moved slowly with his head wag- ging on one side, and dragging one Ieg painfully after him. When he wanted to cross street. kind hearted policemen in- Sariabiy stopped the traffic for him. He got coppers and occasionally larger sums from all sorts of people. particularly poor people. for one of the detectives testified that scrub women were among his best patrons
 Astonishing Change at 6 O'Clock.
 Another detective gave some vivid details of the astonishing change that came over this apparently wretched paralytic soon After the hour of o'clock had chimed from fhe church tower of St. Mary woolnoth ir Lombard street The beggar went home From business from London Bridge station and on the way thence kept up after fashion. the bluff of being disabled But once through the gates he dropped the pre-