The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1919-12-23
NEW YORK1CITY.
By o. o. McMTYRE

WV 1tts ht III ~
Brothers, an aggregation OF hard
eyed sinking men living on the
crumbs of a happier period. are hold
ing meetings at mysterious hours in
haunt that Is theirs in the Tender
loin-a stone throw from Times
Square. The clan Is composed OF
former prison convicts who fear the
police. yet 1t is the police who know
they are meeting.
The leader Is The Gray Ghost. a re-
formed convict who has the gray
pallor of prison still and gray hair
and to complete the picture wears
salt and pepper clothes. There is a
500-page novel in every life of these
men and they represent the wrecks
of a big city mobilizing for common
good.
Chiefly they want reforms in prison.
They go so far as to let the news
trickle to Newspaper Row that one
of their members, now turned
straight, has the entree to the White
House. Furthermore he moves in the
best society. None but those who
have done time know his history and
they guard II warily.
There are reports at police head
quarters that two of the most able
reporters in New York have been
working for six months to learn the
name of The Gray Ghost-who has
been immortalized in fiction and the
movies. But they can learn nothing
save that he is a flesh and blood
person and running clean"
The rendezvous of the gray broth
ers" is a Tenderloin hotel whose grill
contains a poem lettered on the side
wall which indicates the creed of the
ex-convicts. 1t runs:
This is the law of the jungle, as old
and as true as the sky.
And the wolf that shall keep 1t may
prosper
But the wolf that shall break it must
die.
As the tendril that circles the tree
trunk.
The law runneth forward and back.
For the strength of the pack is the
wolf,
And the strength Of the wolf is tho
pack
1t means that a 'snitch' will he
killed and that only progress can be
made by standing with the leader
The Gray Ghost.
This is a tale along Broadway. An
old-time- mama bout-town dropped into
a certain bar near Forty-second street
the other night and after talking with
group at table said: I'D give my
right eye for a drink" Someone in
the crowd motioned him to follow
and took him to a place on Seventh
avenue where bootleg whisky is sold.
The old timer was ignorant of the
chemical reaction and he gave both
eyes" in hospital IS hours later.
lie had been given drink of wood
alcohol.
Children on the East Side are now
being taught arithmetic. geography.
nature study and Americanization by
moving pictures. Many prominent So
ciety women are renting the halls
and the films to teach the children
at night and they are being amused
as well as instructed.
Now that the cold weather has set
in. the Kindling Women are seeping
up from the tenement districts to Fifth
avenue and Broadway hunting for
bits of wood to keep up their fires
and prevent suffering from cold
weather. They are invariably old.
with leather-like faces and blue lips.
Their skirts drag the pavement and
their feet peep out from WORKOUT
shoes. Once they have collected their
pile of wood they tie string about
it. put it upon their head. and with
hands on their hips trudgc back to
their cheerless homes. The contrast
with the giittering befurred women of
the avenue is as striking as it is de-
pressing.