It was hateful to find that it did not always
do the good it ought to. I bring to mind the aged bookkeeper and
his wife whom I found in a Greene Street attic in a state of horrid
want. He had seen much better days, and it was altogether a very
pitiful case. My appeal brought in over $300, which, in my delight,
I brought him in a lump. The next morning, when going home at three
o'clock, whom should I see in a vile Chatham Street dive, gloriously
drunk, and in the clutches of a gang of Sixth Ward cutthroats,
but my protege, the bookkeeper, squandering money right and left.
I caught sight of him through the open door, and in hot indignation
went in and yanked him out, giving him a good talking to. The gang
followed, and began hostilities at once. But for the providential
coming of two policemen, we should probably have both fared ill. I
had the old man locked up in the Oak Street Station. For a wonder,
he had most of the money yet, and thereafter I spent it for him.
On another occasion we were deliberately victimized--the reporters
in Mulberry Street, I mean--by a man with a pitiful story of hardship,
which we took as truth and printed.
Pages:
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334