The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-12-30
THEY EXPECT TO Be ROBBED.
IT'S PART OF THE GAME FOR SOME
OUT or TOWN VISITORS.
hot They're Long Chances. says the Hotel
DetectIVe-Mcn Who Make a Practice
SC Using an Assumed Name In New
York ITS No Use TO warn Them.

York Its Ma Use 10 warn Them.
s~ionally visit New York from other cities
and towns who confidently expect TO be
frisked every time they come here, and
their confidence is rarely abused at that,
said a hotel detective. They're the chaps
who trek 10 New York from all over the
country for the deliberate and express
purpose of taking the lid Of. About min
out of ten Of these visitors get rolled at
some stage OF their whoop up-generally
the final stage, when they're about all in.
I'm interviewed every morning at diff
ferent hours by bleared, dazed and tired
looking chaps, guests OF the house, who
want TO be staked to a bit Of advice. and
the frisk thing is always the burden OF
their lamentations. Not that they lament
30 anybody else can hear them. They're
careful not 10 do that.
1T happened here or there or the other
place, or they don't just exactly remember
where-their frisking. They're sore as
butchers over it-all those who don't come
here with the confident idea Of being rolled,
that is. They say it's a dickens OF a town
where a man can't pop in a few drinks
and go out for a little whizz just to lop a few
OF the gray. edges of of life, and so forth
and 90 on-a string IL.
If the man who comes to me with this
kind Of a narrative OF grief has only a vague
sort of an idea as to where and how he was
frisked and who vent through him there's
nothing on earth to be lone for him-and
not many of them remember much Of Whist
happened to them. They unreel tie names
of a whole lot Of places where they went
on the previous night. Most Of the places
are joints where they had no right on earth
TO be unless they were drinking vichy and
milk poured out of the original packages
right under their own eye. They all know
this perfectly well.
Well l tell them when they uncoil it
in this indefinite way, that's about min
places, all OF them the toughest Of the tough
and the worst ever, that you blew into
last night and this morning. and you we're
probably drinking with about ninety differ
ent mark snaTers at these nine places,
weren't your
They re p~enitent and down in the mouth
enough to admit all Of this, but they in
variably claim that they got the knockout
drops. 1t doesn't make any difference,
90 far as concerns getting back their stuff,
whether they we're staked to the quick
sleep bolus or not. The point is that they
were trimmed Of their junk at some dump
that they haven't the least idea Of, and by
some roller of rollers that they couldn't
identify under the violet rays. 1 remind
them that New York is a big place, with a
large, teeming and somewhat careless
population, and when l add something
about the needle and the haystack they've
got a pretty fair line on it.
Then you don't believe I'll be able to
get my stuff backf' is the slow music ques-
ton that they put to me.
Not a chance on EARTH l have to tell
them, and then they go away mumbling
about New York being a helluva town,
where a stranger within the gates can't
a step out of lis hotel without being
set upon by a pack of thieves. They gen.
orally wind up by swearing that they're done
with New York orever. All Of which is
Just pinkish paper. They all come bach
some more il they live.
The firing isn't a particle more salts
when the man who comes to me
with his woe story has a pretty definite idea
Of where he got rolled and who did il. The
last he remembers of the whirl, he SAYS,
was at such and such a place, and he was
drinking with a couple of sharp eyed ducks
who looked thus and so-he is there with a
pretty fair description of them. While
with these fellows his light went out all Of
q sudden, and he NOW that it's a perfect
pipe that those two fellows took him for his
roll and his jewelry.
@'All right l say to the man who uncoils
Il that way, there's a chance for you to get
piece of yours back, anyway. I'll drop
to the Tenderloin station with you
and you can tell EN- down there what you
Of the ooks of the pair of rollers
who frisked you. They'll probably nave a
line on that pair and will know :Ist where
10 go out and get them, and in has L-z them
in they may drag down at leass part OF
your stuff. After you pair are pnched,
of course you'll have to go into a
police court and make you complaint
them and tell what you know about
how it happened. You're willing to do that,
This is the spot where he orawfishes
they all do.
What he ~gurgles, and have it get
into the papers here n then telegraphed
out to the papers in my home town how
Of New York dives and have my folks and
friends all read it-and me going back home
In a couple Of daysr Not muchl Not in a
years.
And that usually settles il. | should
say that not more than one man in five
hundred will put his name TO a complaint
In such a case. They'd rather stand for
the loss, no matter how big that loss may
be, than show themselves up by making a ,
complaint.
But during the last few years a certain
of chaps who have become so used
TO being rolled every time they come to
New York that they look upon il as a part
Of the game have at the same time become
foxy. They put up at a different hotel
every time they come here, and every time
they put up under a different name and
the name Of a different town tackled
10 the asssmed name. They do this with
the deliberate anticipation that all kinds
things are likely to happen to them while
on their New York spree. They're
not only likely to be rolled, they know,
but they're pretty apt to be pinched for
fnvolling around too tumultuously. In
any casc they've got their fixed up names
10 fall back upon.
line assumed name il a great thing