The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1922-09-21
COLD WAVE HITS
SUCKER s MECCA
IN LII OLE n. !.
Beggars Hard Hit by Arrest and
Expose of Luxurious Life
of Panhandler.
POLICE ROUND UP SEVERAL
Diamond Dan Recalls Old
Days When the Profession
Was in Its Heyday.
BIZ WESTBROOK PBGLER

I
Tinted Ne1cs staff Correspondent
NEW YORK. Sept. 21.-Somewhere.
maybe. in this long-green land, the
sun is shining on the crippled beggar
and the straight-worlzing street-corner
pan-handler, but there's frost on the
business in the suckers mecca, the
CRITTERS" paradise, New York. Fine
business locations on the subway stairs
and beats along Broadway which
steady. industrious moochers built UP
and defended against competition in
recent years. have been abandoned in
the last few weeks.
It is a toss-up whether the state Of
affairs which is now causing so much
worry in the two beggars' clubrooms'
one in a saloon basement on Eliza
beth St. the other in a speak-easy
on Second Ave, should be classed as
r,olfce news or business troubles. The
grief set in when the police recently
snatched a captain Of the industry and
discovered that he was keeping his
family in vulgar luxury at one OF the
good hotels and behaving himself in
the dignifed manner of a business
man in the bosom Of his family after
his DAVIS work was done. This caused
scandal because a beggar is expected
To live in a howell, subsist on scraps
and crusts and get drunk at night on
twenty-cent snorts Of ten-cent stuff.
The police rounded up some of the
hest beggars in New York and the
charity organizations, which always
have resented the competition of these
independents, came out Monday with
a statement which will just about muir
der the business. And fall is coming
on, too.
Average $50 Day
Five thousand beggars Of all kinds
in New York have been collecting a
daily average of 500, 600 or S36,O00,OOO
= wear. the statements Of the various
opposition organizations agreed. This
is $50 a day for the average beggar
and is considered too much. No 1alr
figure was suggested, leaving the pub
lie to assume that the subway and
street-corner casuals are utterly IN
deserving.
For information on begging there Is
no authority like our famous old
friend. Diamond Dan O'ROurke. the
tremendous bowery saloOn-keeper, who
was there on the old line when the
Iong-vanished plug hat saloon was
mere skuIl-cap and the flea bag hadn't
a flea to justify the name. In the old
generation-in the day when Roose-
welt was commissioner in police head
quarters Just over there on Center
St-Diamond Dams Darkroom was
known as a sort Of pan-handler's 70
tary club. Tom Lees place at number
nine. Bowery, not far away, was an
other headquarters and Lee spoiled
the whole thing by importing several
hundred workers from Hinky Drinks
IN Chicago. at his own expense, to
work New York.
He brought on f1t-throwers, double
POINTERS, scream workers, cry-babies,
gfmps. paralytics and crutch-walkers
and for a year you couldn't hear any
thing along the old Bowery but
cheyenne said old Dan. This 'Chey-
enne' was a kind Of word they made
up out Of the word Chi because they
all came from Hinky Drinks.
NOtUHE new Gays Oah
'sThev have had some good workers
in the business around here the last
few years, but don't see that they've
got anything new that the boys didn't
have in my day. There was a fellow
named Papa Johnny in Lees crowd
that invented the soap trick for max
ing his eyes red around the lids. Just
q little soap would do it and the in
fiammation would last all day and
tears would roll down his face. Pop
was a great worker. He used to say
his wife and baby were lying dead out
West somewhere and he'd flash a tele-
gram 10 prove it, telling how his other
little girl was all alone without any
money. -Jeez, how Papa mopped up
Then they had a guy named Sticks.
because he was an artist with the
crutches. I was training Jim Jeffries
for the Sharkey fight at Coney Island.
and about a week before the fight
JEFF goes stale from entertaining, so
we take him up on Broadway to get
him slushed up a little bit so he would
have something to work off in that
week. Some Of us got pretty well
bottled and as we came down Forty
Second St here comes this guy Sticks.
on his crutches.
JEFF sees him and he says 'Jeez.
DAM he says. That guys in tough
shape and he hauled off and give this
guy Sticks a pound. so you know this
Sticks looked bad. So I offer to give
him back his finn if he can beat
Sticks down TO Forty-First St. and
hack Well, Sticks threw down those
stills of his and the way he burned
up his dogs you'd have thought JEFF
was giving him the bat all the way.
He wins. standing up. and JEFF says,
'Jeez.' he says, I'll never fall for one
of them dam CRITTERS again as long as
I live Jeff kept the stills but they
only cost thirty cents apiece at the
supply house in those days.
Keep Sores Fresh