The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-03-25
SAD MISTAKE OF
 A CONFIDENCE MAN What Happened When He Gave Farmer Knockout Drops WAS HIS REGULAR DOSE The Rustic Took chIoral Hydrate for Fun and MT, Cox Just Gave Him
 Enough to Make Him
 Lively.
WAS HIS REGULAR DOSE

From the Washington Post.
 There's a quiet man working in a sec ond-hand furniture store in Washington who could unfold bigger stock of start ling tales than ever Hamlets ghostly fa- ther carried up his sleeve. But he won't; he prefers selling the humble, but inds pensable kitchen bric-a-brac, slightly used but good as new to poklng in the roc mantle ashes of his dead past. Many a yarn might he dig out of his former life "a changeable topsy-turvy life, a zig gag life, as a confidence man, a sure thing artist, glad-hand citizen, sec ond-story athlete and a dispenser of the knockout drop-whence his reticence.
 Recently, under the mellowing influence of the beers following the exchange of gas stove for a rag carpet, MT. Cox, liver of the mottled life and custodian of the many-freckled memories, loosened mp the lid enough to allow some of his past to leak out, in language as lawless as the life It revived.
 One word had led to another drink, which led MT. Cox to express himself with fervor upon the curse of high l- cense that takes the beer from the poor mans mouth, he said, to build canals 10000 miles away. This led to drunkards, which suggested dope ffends. Whereupon MT. Cox, in moment of absentminded- ness, grew thus confidential:
 It's these here drug habits what's running the country, l tell you. They ruined me, and they're running thousands of other bright young fellers. What? Sure, they ruined me; busted me up in business, and sent me to the pen for two years They're the curse O. this country, l tell you; that's what they is, these drug habits. I wish I'd never heard O the stuff"
 How He Fell.
 Then MT. Cox weeping copiousy in his beer, as the flood of bitter memories swept over him, lald bare the tale of his downfall
 Twas like this: I'd been vibratn' tween Louisville and Cincinnati, doin' a general line of business, accordin' as the chances fell out of the box; con game here, strong arm there, with a little sec ond-story play now and then, and occa- sionally, when my pal was sobet some heavy work with the jimmy or the slung- shot, as we'd run across the bank or the banker first. We'd been turnin' couple of tricks week for about six months, when one night I attacked a laughing hyena that was dressed like a man, and l didn't get. out O bed for two weeks Found out afterward he was a heavy weight known as the Pittsburg Pile driver' and was on his way from q spar rim exhibition when 1 hailed him with my slungshot
 That interview left my right wing in such shape that l couldn't take a rat tie from a baby without a fierce strug- gle. So I hiked 1t up to Cleveland, where, l heard, an old friend who'd been a per feet dream with the brass knucks had reformed and was leading a new life. He had taken up with knockout drops, ac- cordin' to a young mechanic-who was spending daytimes in my closet count of there being $10000 offered for the fellow who'd opened the Columbus bank before regular hours; said he had built up a fine business. So I run up to get acquant- ed with the rock-me- to-sleep- mother game.