Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-09-24
MEANEsT OF CROOKS

nacle. barney Is just what his name. or
Its derivation. Indicates He preys upon
and blackmails fellows with whom he has
cone time In the same prison-one-time
Offenders. generally. who. after having
done their bits. have pulled themselves out
OF the mire and gone to work to ma &c
something Of themselves.
"Barneys work Everywhere. Not few
of them have bden chased out of Wash
irgton My workmafe and hot-footed one
of them only a few months ago. We had
heen running across him. logged to the
tops and with pink shave and shine
and all that. on exhibition. We knew that
he was lag, and we were pretty we'll con-
WINGED that he was barneying.
SO. one afternoon we followed him. He
went into ar office building where a lot OF
real estate men on small scale have dess
room. He entered one Of these offices on
the third floor. and when he came out,
about five minutes later. he had satisfied
look about him.
When he had gone my partner and
strolled into the office Of the real estate
man. 1 at once recognized him as man
who. number of years ago. had got into
some kind of a mix while acting as executor
OF an estate. the outcome of which was
that he'd been compelled to do a bit of a
tenn I introduced myself and my work.
mate to the real estate man. who was mid
dle-aged. and l didn't make any bones
about coming out and telling him that We
were after the crook who was. we knew,
barneying him.
"Well. the alarm expressed in the face OF
that real estate man when l mentioned
these things to him was pitfful. He was
all for having us quit it right there. He
said that the barney who had been bleed
ing him for years was so vfndfctive devil
that he was afraid Of him. and that he
couldn't stand for being held up and ex-
posed. no matter what price he had to pay
for immunity. He was still begging US to
let the thing slide whenwe left him.
1--WE didn't let it slide, of course. and
when we met the prosperous-looklng barney
in front of a down town hotel on the fol-
lowing morning we herded him into an
areaway and told him that he was going
to stop sandbagging the real estate man
with whom he had happened to do the Ut
tie trick up the road. or stand for 'vag' or
suspicious person pinch every twenty min
utes. Told him, out and out, that 1t was
going to be a headquarters frameup Tor
his If we found him in Washington three
days later.
He was old lag enough to know what
a headquarters frameup meant, and ne Iel
to quaking at the promise of that kind OF a
deal He was out of Washington inside OF
twelve hours. and the real estate man
hasn't got through thanking us yet, Tor the
barney has never communicated with nor
bothered him since.
That's about the only way the police
can nab the barneys-by getting wise TO
Them stalking them, and then corraiilns
them red-handed. The trouble is that we
haven't got much time for that sort or
thing and 50 the barneys can generaiiy
operate without much fear of police inter-
ference The barneys' great bulge Is that
not one in twenty of their victims mas the
nerve to make straight for headquarters
with his story. If they'd all do this IN
stead of going on yielding to the demands
of the barneys for years at stretch, II
would be easy enough to wipe out the
mean parasites. 80
.sThe barneys run into sunken rocks OF
another kind. once IN a while. There was
one Of them an. old-time con man, VINO
made a bad day of it over In Baltimore
couple of years ago
zone of his victims, whom he had peen
tapping for years for good money, nad,
fter his release from prison for a juvenile
bad-check transaction, worked ms way up
to the position of manager OF a Dig Wnoie-
sale chinaware- ana :cut-slass hnn1r
ment in Baltimore. He stood for the heaVy
and constantly hunched gougeS OF the
barney who had been in the same prison
with him until the time whlrled around
for him to get married TO a nice Baitit .not
girl. and then he made up his mlnd that'
with domestic surroundings and conditions
he was going to have use. for the money
that he was dishing out to the barney
. $50 one day he told the proprietor OF his
store that he wanted to have talk with
hin, after business hours, and, working ms
nerve up to tension! he came right out nat
and told the, boss that he'd once been lag
case Then he told his employer how the
barney had been preying upon him for
years.
the Young man told his boss. You're one
of them, the other one Is the girl L want
to marry. 1 want to know how stand
with you before 1 tell him to do the worst
he knows
employer's smile broadened the story
was unreeled. When it was finished he
said:
money and worry If you had told me this
story years ago. I'm ex-lag myself.
They had me in Joliet for arson. and I
was only released after it had been con-
clusively proven by my friends that J
hadn't burnt up my Chicago store for the
insurance I'm your friend, and I'll help
you to get shut of this dog. The next
thing you want to do Is to tell the young
woman you're going to marry, as well as
her father Just what you've told me, and
If the girl is worth marrying and the old
man worth having for a dad-in-law they're
not going to hold 1t against you. Put on
your hat right row and I'll go along with
YOU
And that's just what they did. They
went to the girls home together, the en-
ployer, who had had his little hard dose
himself and the employee, who was still
taking the bitter medicine. The young man
told the girl. and she gave him hug and
asked him if he thought such thing would
ever make any difference to woman who
honest-Injun cared for a man.
1.-The employer told the girls father all
about it, and the old man replied that he
wasn't bothering about what kinds of devil
ment young wheps had figured in when
they were eighteen or nineteen years old
their records since they had been able to
raise hair on their faces was what cut ice
with him.
THE barney visited the young mans
store few days later to make dig The
young man took him up to a loft where they
had been holding these conferences and
then he almost beat that barney to death.
After polishing him off he booted the dog
all the way down the stairs to the street
and told him that he could go as far as he
liked. ..... .-..e - 81.
1.-The barney knew that the young fellow
had made a clean breast of it to the people
that he cared anything about, and he
scratched the young fellows name off his
list of victims. He went ON barneying other
Baltimore victims for six months or So
however until. rightly or wrongly, the
lariat was pulled taut over him by the
Baltimore police and he was sent away to
do a five speaker.
Remarkable Hosting.
From Mines and Minerals; :.
At the De Beers mine, in Kimberly, some
very acknowledgements has been done IN
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