Red Condemned By Convicts

1919

Jail Kangaroo Court Sentences Nevada Agitator.

TONOPAH, Nevada — But for the intrusion of officers, who rescued him, the attempt of "Long Hair" Johnson, an agitator, to form a soviet among the prisoners in the county jail here, would have resulted in an untimely end for him. Johnson was kangarooed by the prisoners, speedily found guilty and turned over to the crowd for punishment. He is serving ninety days for vagrancy.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 7.

Vags Are Plentiful

1916

The city authorities should insist that vagrants cease their begging from house to house. Housewives should refuse to feed men at this time of the year who refuse to do small jobs about the home. There is plenty of garden spading, rug cleaning and general cleaning up work about the house that would give the man who really wants work sufficient work for a meal.

The facts are, however, that the average beggar will not work when asked to do so. Two such shiftless fellows appeared one after another the other Monday at a home where the housewife was hard at work. They were told they would be fed if they beat a rug. One of them said he would and disappeared after looking at the rug. He said he only wanted a few potatoes anyway and he didn't feel like working until he saw his partner. He never came back. His partner appeared a few minutes later and said he didn't want to work. It made him tired. — Murphysboro Independent, Illinois, March or April 1916.

Bound and Robbed, Now Thought Insane

Kansas, 1911

Chester King, the young man was bound and robbed over in Graham county two weeks ago, has been placed in the county jail at Hill City charged with insanity. It is said he tried to purchase a gun with which he intended to hunt up the two strangers who tied and robbed him the week before.

This is the young man found tied in his own buggy at about one o'clock on the night of January 6th, near a country store known as Corrickville in Sheridan county. The fright and the cold which was intense that night was a terrible strain on the young man and his present condition may be the result of the awful experience.

He is seventeen years old and is the twin brother of Charlie King who was adjudged insane about two months ago for acting queerly on the streets of Hill City.


Got The Limit

Tuesday morning there were three cases before Police Judge Howell. One for selling intoxicating liquor and the other two were for vagrancy.

Oliver Penny was the guilty person in the case of selling "booze" and plead guilty to the charge. He was arrested Tuesday night for selling the "dope" to the soldiers that were going through here, by Marshall Davis and put in the lockup over night. He was fined $100 and thirty days in the county jail, where he was taken Wednesday.

The best thing that can be done with these unlawful people is to give them the limit every time they violate the law.

—Ellis Review-Headlight, Ellis, Kansas.

One Cure For Vagrancy

1900

Policeman's Simple Scheme to Make Door-Sleepers Move On

The New York police force is credited with being one of the best in the world, but at least one member of it is a genius born for greater things. He has invented a method for ridding his beat of vagrants and doorstep sleepers.

This officer is attached to the Church street station, and patrols in the neighborhood of Washington street and the Battery, where cheap lodging houses, small beer saloons, "labor agencies," and the genuine "Weary Willie" luxuriantly abound, so he has almost daily opportunity to test his invention.

The vagrant is not particular where he sleeps, so that it costs nothing, and doorways are favorite lodging places. It was a sleeper in one of these that received a never-to-be-forgotten shock the other day. He was asleep in the doorway of a saloon, with his head thrown back against the jamb and his legs sprawled over the pavement. "Watch me make him more on," said the inventor. His hand went under his coat-tails, and it looked as if he were going for his gun in deadly earnest.

A spectator stood petrified, waiting to see a bloody tragedy enacted, but the bluecoat pulled out a small vial, and leaning over the sleeper, poured some of the contents on his thick, reddish mustache. The effect was electrical. With a wild snort and a gurgling gasp the hitherto inert figure sprang into the air and clawed at his mouth and throat; the tears streamed out of his eyes, which were distended with terror, and he stood gasping and making horrible faces and still clawing frantically at his mouth and throat, while the policeman smiled grimly and waited for the customary denouement. It came in a moment.

As soon as the terrorized doorstep lodger had recovered enough of his breath to permit his moving he started hurriedly up Washington street, sans coat, sans hat, sans everything but a consuming desire to put as much distance between himself and that door as possible.

The policeman laughed heartily as he watched the rapidly retreating figure. "I'll bet he don't come back here again," he said. That dose'll last him for a month. Ammonia's a great thing. It's better than insect powder, and it saves making arrests. That fellow is not only obeying the move-on ordinance, but the dose sobered him up, to boot." — New York Mail and Express.

The Pestiferous Corner Loafer

Chicago, 1910

A week's attendance at any police court will convince anyone that the curse of the town is the loafer, the professional "out of work" cuss who pretends to be hunting a job, and hunts well that the job may not overtake him.

He manages to live off of some one. If foolish relatives do not supply him with a living, he makes it by his wits, with the help of a brace and bit and a "jimmy" and friends (?) who through fear, or by influence will take the stand to testify to his character, hence he escapes and the community suffers. He can always find a way around the vagrancy laws, and like the poor, he is always with us.

Lost to all sense of shame or decency, he lives off a mother, brother or sister's work, or even a woman's shame, anything but work by his own hands. The health department is great on prescribing remedies for all sorts of evils, and we sincerely wish they would tackle this job of getting rid of the pestiferous loafer.

—Suburbanite Economist, Chicago, Aug. 19, 1910, p. 1.

Note: The typesetting on this editorial had some of the words and portions of lines switched around, and apparently some words left out. I patched it up to make it make sense. The question mark (?) after "friends" is as in the original, which may have been someone in the typesetting department with a bad manuscript wondering what was going on with the context. I think it's questioning whether the loafer's friends are really friends. But with the botched up text, the "com-" from community is hooked on to "friends" and someone might be saying, "What???"

Vagrant Ordered Out of Town, Stays Anyway, Now In Jail

Reno, 1905

Lincoln Hayes Likes Judge Nash's Court

Lincoln Hayes, who came before Judge Nash on the charge of vagrancy last Saturday was given a floater at that time of six hours to leave the city. After thanking the judge very kindly and promising to go on to his rich relatives he left the court.

As the judge seemed kind and easy to Hayes he didn't hurry off to any other metropolis. He thought he liked the town and concluded to camp.

On Sunday Hayes got loaded and wandered into the Palace saloon, at which place he tried to re-arrange the furniture to suit himself. An officer was called and Hayes was placed in jail to answer a charge of disturbing the peace. When he came to trial yesterday morning before Judge Nash, however, the judge disregarded the latter charge and gave him thirty days on the former charge of vagrancy.

—Daily Nevada State Journal, Reno, NV, Feb. 28, 1905, p. 3.

Resourceful Prisoner, 'Jumbo' Carlson, Escapes Moline Jail

Rock Island County, Illinois, 1903

PLANS HIS ESCAPE FROM JAIL BUT IS CAPTURED

While Incarcerated In the Rock Island County Jail He Makes a Key From a Comb and Unlocks Leg Irons By Which He Is Bound, Runs Away But Is Discovered As He Leaves Jail and Landed After Hot Chase

"Jumbo" Carlson, the well known Moline character, who has been spending most of his time of late in the Rock Island county jail on some charge or other, yesterday attempted his second jail delivery within a period of a few months. He was less successful than on the former occasion, however, being recaptured by Sheriff Heider after a chase of a few blocks and is now back in jail, where he will be kept in close confinement.

Carlson is in for vagrancy and he was sent from Moline early in the winter for a period of six months. He still has four months to serve. Soon after he had been committed he scaled the wall of the workhouse where he had been set to crack rock and got away. The weather being very cold, however, he returned to his old haunts, and was recaptured at the end of a week.

The approach of spring seems to have stirred within him during the past few days a renewed desire for liberty and he exercised considerable ingenuity in his unsuccessful attempt to regain it. Since being brought back after his former attempt he has not been allowed outside of the grated bars without a "leg iron" attached to him to handicap him in the event that he attempted to run away.

From seeing the iron put on and taken off by his guard Carlson he became familiar with the shape of the key and he decided to make one for his own private use. So he obtained an aluminum comb and with patience that would be commendable in a worthier cause he rubbed it on the stones of the prison till he had gotten it in shape, finishing the operation with a sharp piece of steel that he appears to have taken from the sole of a shoe.

At noon yesterday he was taken out into the jail yard ironed as usual, and getting out of sight he used his key to free himself and then ran back through the kitchen, raising a window and getting out on the street.

He might have escaped had it not been for the fact that he was noticed by boys as he ran away from the jail and a crowd was quickly in pursuit. He wound back and forth and tried to dodge out of sight, but to no avail. Finally he wound up in David Don's barn between Second and Third avenues on Thirteenth street, where Sheriff Heider, who had joined the pursuit, effected his recapture.

—Davenport Daily Republican, Davenport, Iowa, March 14, 1903, page 6.