Lakeland Evening Telegram Newspaper, May 16, 1913, Page 7

SULY SIDE OF I | How an Aspiring Society Girl Was Taught a Lesson in | Slumming. By CLAUDINE LISSON, It was strange that Jack Ashton should be bored. He was a young man of wealth and social privileges, eollege educated, a member of tourl! or five clubs, rather a favorite with | the fair sex, always invited every- ' where-—baseball, football, regattas ang the races, with a trip here or there | every few months. It seemed like a | crime to be bored. And what does a young man do| when he is bored? There is. Africa with its big game and mosquitoes. There {8 Mt. McKinley to be climbed. There are theatrical compantes to be “angeled.” There is the chorus girl to be won aud divorced again. Young Mr. Ashton thought of all thesc things and rejected them. He went to a Sunday newspaper editor ud hud a talk with him, and the re. sult was that he did just what no gricud of his would have looked for bim to do. On the next Sunday, and pu ¢very succéeding Sunday for many vecks, there was an article signed Toff.” It was descriptive of life in he underworid. The underworld said ¢ them: “Believe me, dat guy is surely one pf us!" There was no remarks made about he sudden appearance of a “strange y" in the hang outs of the under. vorld. He might be a yeggman, pick- ockct, burglar or what, so long as he as not a detective. He didn't talk oo much. He didn't listen too closely. e made few inquiries. He played poker with murderers and pool with purglars. He spent his money just as he others did—not too freely. He pinted at a prison term or two, but id not go into particulars. After be- ng watched for a spell to make sure hat lie was not a stool-pigeon for the police, he was in a way admitted to lie underworld. That is, he was not placliiucked or robbed as a slummer, nd ow and then he was offered a wrincrship in a “job” to be done. The articles of “Toff” made a sen. | tion. They were were read and com- cuted on by the under as well as the pper world. To get the local color ey said the writer must speak from ersonal observation and experience. 'as he a Raffles taking a vacation o crime? Was he some young pun not yet so hardened in crime that e could not be saved it he could only | ARG, - = AL S be IHv'n'iFu] Among Miss (] and wrestled with? ara Converse, She ha been ipl"r( Sted in and haq taka: sloo:lg Part in mission work. Indeed, she had, as she fondly Supposed, beén the direct meang of reforming several ard cases. She had furnished them money to go West and make a new start and grow up with the country, and the Police, not wishing to hurt :1::'. fte:nnghs, had concealed the fact ey ha; i ¥ had gone to Sing Sing in- It was on account of her mission in. terest, ang ip the hope of Interesting others that Miss Converse made one of a slumming party ome evening, They saw just what they were in- tended to see ang no more. The un- derworld doesn't do any safe-cracking or b]ackjacking before the eyes of | slummers, Misg Converse had g mental photograph of “Toft,” and she looked for him, At leng'h, in a den frequented alto- gether by men whe had shed human blood, as the the party, He looke guide solemnly assured | the man was discovered. d intelligent ang almost re- spectuble. Met in g walk along Fifth avenue, he might have been taken | 1or a rising young lawyer, hoping that Some workman might be killed and his widow bring suit for damages. The only crime “Toff” was commit. ting just then was tha. of beer drink- ing. This greatly astonished the slummers. They looked for blood on his hands, but they wepe cleanet than a trolley car conductor's.™ Miss Con- verse spoke to Lim, and he talked in a gentlemanly way. In fact, she boasted afterward that he “almost used as good grammar as a floor-walker in a department store.” She did not want to preach to him before his wicked companions, and so she qQuietly left him her card. In return she received a look which she interpreted to mean: “For heaven's sake, don't betray my identity here!" and she heeded the request. After she had passed out, “Slippy,” the pickpocket lifted up the card with a laugh and showed it around and said: | “Another of the sex gone bug-house | over saving us from ruin! Why didn't : some of you pinch her diamond breast. | A weck later, one rainy afternoon, | Migs Converse received a caller. The Lutler who brougcht in the w ritten card caid that the owner wppearcd to be a bill celleetor, but he w wdmitted, and after’: a nent was recognized as Taff, 't come to pay a €o- | ciul call td come at the request of a dying burzlir who wanted to make a confession to her and say how ) psorry he was that he had not started | out in the ministry instead, “I will go with you at once,” replied the impulsive and enthusiastic young | lady. DN 1vzested that she come | by herself, s0 as™0 escape observation | and remark. She must wear her old- | L those who hoped so was | €6t hat on her head and a raincoat te | bere! cover her clothes, and she hadn't bet- ter mention her errund to any one. was Blank street and the number was 426. She was to go right up to the fourth floor and knock on' the door on which he had chaiked a cross. 'He would be there to answer. It was a trap so simple that a girl of ten ought to have suspected ft. Through eight or nine blocks of dirty and wicked streets to find Blank street! Then two block down to reach “But you will please let me out of appealed the girl. “Oh, certainly. Got any money with It | you?” “Two or three dollars.” “No good. I want your check for & | thousand dollars!” “But—but—" “Talk business. You've got an ac- count at the Third National bank. Here's a blank check, and here's pen and ink.” “And thén I may go?” “Yes, at 11 o'clock tomorrow fore 426! It was an old tenement with brok- | 1008 I've got to draw the cash firat, en windows and rickety stairs, and there was not a tegant on any floor. We don't take any chances on you swell people. You'd beat us as quick A policeman would not have mounted i B8 Wed Deat you. the stairs without first making sure | el that his revolver was in order, but { Wailed Miss Converse, Miss Converse scarcely noticed any- thing and certainly felt no fear. Up the dirty stairs to the dirty “But 1 can't stay here all night!” “You'll just have to.” “but my parents!"” “Oh, the flunky will tell them that fourth floor, and there was the chalk | you are out on the reforming busi- mark on the door. Her knuckles | bad scracely touched the panel when ' A d the door was opened by “Toft.” It was | Then she went over and beat with her a back room and the windows were bearded up, and the light came froth a lamp on a table. As for furniture, there were only two chairs, “Is this the place?” asked Miss Con- verse as she peered about her. ness.” The girl stood up and screamed. fists on the dcor. Then she realized her helplessness and sat down and began to sob. “Toft” turned to ciga- rettes and had nothing more to say. There was no furthér appeal to him. The time drifted to close on mid- “ bk ! night. Then a key was so scftly in- It is, Miss," was the reply of the serted in the lock of the door that no young man as he Jocked the door and bocketed the key, “But where's the dying burglar?” | sound was heard till the door was flung open. A young man appeared "He's put off dying 'till after the! and pointed 4 revolver at the guardian Panama canal has been finished!” and quietly said: “Sir, I want to leave this place ln-{ et oatiofiihis stantly!” exclaimed the girl as she WA realized that she had been lured into TOl" 88 by went a trap. “Take a chair and make yourself at home. I want to talk to you a bit.” “Unlock that door or I'll scream!” “Go ahead.” She cried “murder!” and “help” l.' dozen times, and “Toff" only grinned at her and replied: “Youw'll crack your voice and do no good.” ¢ “But what do you want with me!" was demanded. “That’s more sensible. I want to ask You, first if you can't see the silly side of this thing? You and others come down to the slums and pose as reform- ers. Reform nothing! All of us re- | gard you as bug-house and easy-marks, We live as we live and do as we do, and a thousand like you couldn't change us in a hundred years. We prefer this sort of life to any other, The idea of reform makes us laugh. Do you get that?” “I=1 don’'t know!" stammered Miss Converse as she looked around and shivercd. . “Then take my word for it. It's throwing time and money away. If you pull anybody out of this sort of lite it's some body that wants to make 4 stake out of you. Youll simply meke a liar and a hypocrito of him.” “Just as you say,” replléd the false “Oh, sir—oh—" began the girl; but the man interrupted her with; “Let’s get out of this!” ———————— I No Lie on the Can No Lye in the Can Peaches Apricots Pears Cherries Hawaiian Pine Apple Pure Food Store W.P, Pillans & Co. PHONE 93 ot oy Ilngly made proposals to both England and France for a division of the sick man's estate, but kis overtures were deglined. Nicholas, however, was only repeating an old {llustration. Sir They were within a block of her | Thomas Roe, ambassador from Eng- home when she asked: “Won't you come in and help me to explain?” It was In the explaining that he had to give his true name and non de plume, and to admit that he was no longer a bored young man. He was in love, Mr. Jack Ashton has now dropped his “Toft" articles, and the late Miss Clara Converse {s no longer a slum- mer or a reformer, (Copyright, 1913, by the MecClure News- paper Syndicate,) SR Sick Man of Europe, The phrase “The sick man of Eu- rope,” frequently used with reference to the Turkish empire, was made pop- ular by the Emperor. Nicholas 5 ot Russia. Conversing in 1853 with Sir George Hamilton Seymour, the idng- lish ambassador at St. Petersburg, he used the foilowing words: “We have on our hunds a sick man—a very sick man. It will be a great misfortune if one of these days he should slip away from us bef.re the necessary arrange- ments have been made.” He accord- land to Constantinople, in the time of James II had written home in dis patches: “Turkey is like the body ot an old man crazed with vices which puts on the appearance of health, though near its end.” ACKOWLEDGE IT. de anything for me and as one of my relatives had been cured of kid ney disease by Doan's Kidney Pilla, I thought that it might be well for me to try them. I got a box and soom . after using them I improved. I glad- ly confirm my former statement ia which I told of my experience with Doan’s Kidney Pills. I still use this remedy occasionally and it alwaye brings the best results.” For sale by all dealers. Price B4 cents. Foster-Milburn Co., Buffale, New York, sole agents for the Unit¢- ea States. Lakeland Has to Bow to the Inevit-| Remember the name—Doan’s—and able—Scores of Citizens Prove It, After reading the * public state- ment of this representative citizen of Lakeland given below, you must come to this conclusion: A remedy { vhich proved so beneficial fours m'.u’. ‘wilh the kidneys, can naturally be cevpected to perform the same work ir similar. cases. Read this: Mrs. W, E. Browning, 236 S. Ten- ressee Ave.,, Lakeland, Fla., says: “I think that the uric acid in my sys- Tem was the cause of my poor health, Atbout a year ago one of my fingers began to swell and became very stiff, I went to a doctor, but he could not take no other. British Emplre Stretches Far, More than 12,000,000 square mile ire embraced fn the Pritish empire, UPHOLSTEL NG AND MATTRESS MAKING. Ola Mattresses made over; cushiom of all kind made to order. Drop ma a postal card. Arthur A Douglas 416 8. Ohfo Street. The Services of Artists Are Yours When You Bring Lakela: Your Printing to the id News Job P oy o et s g e NP0 Ao i o A rintin Office OU get your work done by people who know—-who. will {10t let some foolish error creep into your work that will make your pfinted matter ineffective, and perhaps subject it to the amused comment of discriminating people. . . Our plant turns out ten newspapers every week--two of them being s1xte?n-page papers of state-wide circulation; but this does not mean that we do not a!so‘ give t.he closest attention to the small work. An order for visiting cards, gr for' printing a rib- bon badge, or a hundred circulars, is given the same careful consolderz.itlon that en.ables us to secure and successfully carry out our large contracts. And, having had to fit up for the bigger work naturally enables us to do the smaller work better. KENTUCKY BUILDING For Printing--a Line or a Volume--We Are At Your Serbice THE LAKELAND NEWS JOB OFFICE ,-,’i,?‘:i_\v.w. s S g