The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-08-31

Manifest "down-and-outers'' every one of these. And how came they to be down and out? Thereby hangs many a moving, dramatic and tragic history. a history, oft-times, of gradual descent from lofty heights to the lowest depths Could we learn the story in each indi-
 vidual case, the result would be such
 series of human documents as has rare-
 ly. if ever, been placed before the read
 CTS of the world.
 They once called themselves self-re-
 specting citizens, did many of the sand
 wich men of London They are nearly
 all ex-something, ex-actors, ex-business
 men. ex-clergymen, ex-policemen, ship
 captains. army men and physicians-these
 sad ghosts of the gutters. And even now
 thei rlives are full of tragic surprises,
 relieved occasionally by~strokes of for
 tune. as when they find money or ar
 ticles of value during their weary wan dering.
 It is not easy to obtain from the sand
 wichmen themselves any information
 about their often chequered histories
 Hiding under assumed names. as many
 of them do. they have buried their past
 and few will consent to resurrect its
 memory. But those there are to whom
 the secrets of many of these derelicts
 have been revealed, and from two of
 these it has ben the writer's privilege
 to learn real life histories as strange
 as any ever imagined by Dickens or Hugo
 or Eugene Sue.
 Today the largest employer of sand
 wichmen in London, and probably in the
 world, is A. A. Felton, who specialzes
 in theatrical advertising. and whose
 premises are located in Church street.
 Shaftesbury avenue, just in the rear of
 the Palace theatre. MT. Feiton has had
 many years experience of the sand
 wich" industry, and some two years ago
 he Acquired the business of another fam ous employer of sandwichmen, namely.
 w. R. Smith-"Smith of Ham Yard as
 he was known, who had had perhaps more experience with the humble carriers or the banner than any other one per son. Ham Yard'' is an obscure little court just behind Piccadilly Circus, and there for over 40 years Mir Smith made a living for himself by carrying on the sandwich business.
 In a recent conversation with Mir. Eel ton, I mentioned some of the extraor-
 nary tales of sandwichmen that 1 had heard from the ips of Smith of Ham Yard" most of them tales of men who, from occupying responsible and, in many @ ses, prominent positions in the coni-
 munity, have sunk, either through their own weaknesses ir those of others to the humble role of carrying sandwich boards in the streets of London.
 MT. Felton remarked that his own eX- perience has made him acquainted with many such cases, and he gave me the details of a comparatively recent one. You never can be sure,' he said, who or what sandwichman is or has been. Sometime ago I noticed among the men working for us quite a young fellow, well built, apparently sound and in good health, who had certain air of class about him and who was dressed far bet ter than most of the men who are re- duced to carrying boards. Impressed by lis whole appearance, 1 took him aside one day and asked him what he@was do- ing in a job like that? He answered evasively that he had tried to get some- thing better but couldn't. He was evil dently indisposed either to tell anything about himself or to be assisted. and in the end I gave it up.
 "A few days later he failed to apply for his pay for his days work, and the next morning I got telephone message frim either Vine street or Marlborough street police station, forget which, tell ing me that a pair of our sandwich boards had been left there. Connecting the two things, I inquired of the young chaps companions in the line and heard i this queer story. The men were mak- 1 ing their way along Regent street when l suddenly an expensive motor car that was being driven past, stopped. It con tained a fashionably dressed man and l woman and the former jumped out, ran i up to the young fellow in the sandwich | line and after short, excited conversa- | tion almost carried him to the car, board and all, whereupon he ordered his chauf | feur to drive at once to an address in a fashionable neighborhood. Evidently, on