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I S ^^^^^^y Engraving Co., ^ -^ ^ ^ 
 
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 FOR ALL PURPOSES. 
 114=116 niCHIQAN STREET, MILWAUKEE, WIS. 
 
 C. E. STARKEY, 
 
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 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 A 
 
/ 
 
 Twenty-Five Years 
 
 Streets of MilwaSS 
 
 AFTER DARK; 
 
 TOGKTHKR 
 
 WITH SKETCHES OF EXPERIENCES AS NEWSBOY IN 
 
 THE ARMY, CAPTURE AND IMPRISONMENT 
 
 IN IvIBBY PRISON, AND OTHER 
 
 WAR-TIME NOTES AND 
 
 ^' ^ INCIDENTS. 
 
 By C;' B. (DOC) AUBERY. 
 
 J. H. Yewdale & Sons Co., Printers and Engravers, Milwaukee, Wis. 
 
 1897. 
 
 H. 
 
 I'^H'^— \\^- 
 
6^ 
 
 1206 
 
 Copyright 1897 by C. B. Aubery. 
 
 Illustrated Drawings by C. E. Starkey. 
 
 Engraving, Stanley Engraving Co., i 14-116 Michigan Street. 
 Press of J. H. Yewdale & Sons Co., Milwaukee, Wis, 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 On the very day when I confidently expected my book 
 would be ready for delivery to 5,000 cash in advance sub- 
 scribers and an anxiously waiting world for its appearance, 
 with a new era of rejuvinated prosperity trotting alO'Ug by 
 its side, I met the printer who was charged with the great 
 responsibility of producing it and he said to me: 
 
 "Doc, you haven't written a preface." 
 
 ''By the Great Jehovah, and the Continental Con- 
 gress," said I, "that's right. I'll do it." 
 
 As I crossed the street I met an oM-time friend, who 
 said he understood I was getting out a book to be filled- 
 with my hitherto unpublished experiences "On the Streets 
 of Milwaukee After Dark, During Twenty-five Years," 
 and asked what I was doing it for. 
 
 "Fifty cents in paper covers; $1 in cloth," said I, "with 
 no discount victims." 
 
 He looked at me through his eyes fully a minute, then 
 said: "Oh, that's altogether different. Here's a dollar; 
 put me down for two." 
 
 This ought to reveal my purpose and put my friends on 
 for falling in at the first roll call. Some matters of interest 
 may be left untouched. Twenty-five years on the streets 
 after dark have naturally revealed tO' me some things which 
 even a special policeman don't care to touch too freely. 
 But most of them will naturally suggest themselves to 
 the skillful reader, as a wink is as good as a nod to a 
 blind auctioneer. See? 
 
 "Facts are facts — 
 For he who dares think one thing and would another tell 
 My heart hateth like the gates of hell." 
 
 —"Doc." 
 
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 OLD CHIEF'S GOOD ADVICE. 
 
 One day a friend said to me : 
 
 " 'Doc,' you've been out so much nights you must have 
 seen a great many things of interest not reported in the 
 newspapers." 
 
 *'Yes," said I, ''I've seen a great many things, but, to 
 tell you the truth, my boy, they all look pretty much alike." 
 
 June 12, 1897, completed twenty-five years of service 
 for me as special police officer, around a few blocks in the 
 
 ''Don't Tell Everybody About It." 
 Wisconsin street business centre. That takes us back 
 further than we can look ahead. It goes back to the days 
 when there were no telephones, no police patrol wagons, 
 no electric lights or electric cars, no lightning messengers 
 with rusty jointed knees, no bicycles to make an excuse 
 for every person on the street having a-leg-I-see most any 
 hour, without even asking permission, and only a few of 
 some other things which are quite numerous now. Neither 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 5 
 
 did the newspaper reporters have a chib room then, sup- 
 phed with automatic incubators for hatching news, but they 
 had to get out and hustle to get in a good night's work. 
 
 In those old days, William Beck was the -chief of 
 poUce, William Kendrick was first Heutenant, and the 
 venerable Thomas Shaughnessy was second lieutenant. 
 Kendrick has been gathered in in the closing round-up, 
 but Beck and Shaughnessy are still fairly active. There 
 were no sergeants or roundsmen then and only about fifty 
 men on the force, in which there are now 321, of v/hich 
 275 are patrolmen, the balance officers. 
 
 Lieut. Kendrick kept the books at the station, Shaugh- 
 nessy had charge of the men and Beck did the detective 
 work and directed the whole affair, with the help of his 
 brother as special detective, when needed. 
 
 I first met Mr. Beck when I went to him with a letter 
 from Manager Mills, of the Chapman store, for an order 
 for a star, which I still have. Mr. Mills had hired me on 
 a thirty days' probationary period as special officer to keep 
 an eye on the store nights. The noted Wheeler robbery 
 had taken place a short time before and some of the mer- 
 chants on Wisconsin street had decided to employ a man 
 who would try to keep things clean and attend to business. 
 A system of time clocks was put in, at my suggestion, so 
 there could be no mistake as to whether the watchman did 
 his duty. 
 
 When Mr. Beck handed me the order for a star, he 
 said: 
 
 ''Now, my boy, you've got quite an important job to 
 keep up there, and if you should see a cat go along the 
 street with a dog's head on, don't go and tell everybody 
 about it." 
 
 At the time I was not quite sure of just what he meant, 
 but concluded it was a hint, to mind my own business. Tt 
 was a hint worth two kicks. Push it alongf. 
 
 IMPORTANCE OF DRUG STORES. 
 
 I soon learned that the drug stores O'U a beat required 
 special attention at the hands and feet of a night watchman, 
 as, should there be a railroad accident or a big fire and 
 
6 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 someone hurt, a drug store was about the first place to be 
 sought for remedies, and the night clerk, in his haste to 
 get to bed, might have carelessly left a bottle of whisky- 
 right in the way where he would be pretty sure to fall over 
 it in his hurry, just getting out O'f bed from a sound sleep, 
 on an emergency call, and such things had to be looked 
 after. Then, again, some dufifer might«hold the clerk up, 
 and if such a thing should happen, and the man on the 
 beat did not know it, he'd be mighty thirsty the balance of 
 the night. I believe I've never been accused of having 
 failed to perform my full duty in connection with the drug 
 stores on mv beat. 
 
 -'An Evil Spirit Shut the Door." 
 Fred Buckley was a clerk in Donnelly's druj^ store. 
 One stinging cold night in January he got up tO' answer 
 a call. When the customer had left he went out to the 
 corner of the store to look up the alley at the North star. 
 A draft of air or some evil spirit pushed the door shut, the 
 spring lock sprung in with a snap and he was out for 
 keeps, with his key in his vest pocket, inside. It was a 
 still, sharp night, the mercury 22 below, and not a bird or 
 a cat stirring. He had on only his shirt, trousers and slip- 
 pers, and had to go twO' blocks to a hotel and wait while 
 the night watchman went up to Twenty-third street and got 
 the proprietor's key, so he could get in the store again. 
 Of course Mike and I saw that he got 1)ack without being 
 held up by footpads. 
 
OF AIILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 7 
 
 One Wehmer, who kept a drug store at the corner 01 
 Milwaukee and Mason streets, ii^ the years that were, was 
 a character. It made no difference who came to the store 
 in the night, he would never dress, but come out in Ins 
 "slumberette," and wait upon them. He was often to be 
 seen wandering about the store in that costume in the 
 night, which gave his place the name of "the ghost 
 house." He had another characteristic, that of never 
 drinking out of a cup. The night men on the street usually 
 kept an eye to windward, to see that he didn't get held up 
 in his ghostly attire. One afternoon we got a little vial of 
 stuff from a clerk in another drug store and in the evening 
 managed to dump it in a bottle in his back room, the con- 
 tents of which he never drank out of a cup, and there was 
 more than the usual activity in the ghost house that night. 
 
 There was another drug clerk wdiorn it would be unfair 
 not to mention. He still lives, is the husband of a hand- 
 some little woman and has a nice home, on the West Side. 
 He had a reputation for making the best lemonade known 
 to the natives or the night men either. One time a new 
 man came on the beat. He had heard of the "illegant" 
 lemonade my friend could make and had secreted in him 
 a longing to sample it. It was a very hot night and about 
 n o'clock we happened to meet at the right spot. I sig- 
 nalled the drug clerk for two lemonades which were taken 
 care of in due time and nobody saw^ the croton oil bottle 
 touched. The last half of that night was one of the most 
 active ever put in by a new man on a beat. He made 
 a solemn vow not to eat any more cucumbers and green 
 corn that year. 
 
 TROUHLESOME CATS. 
 
 Streubig, the regular man on my beat, was a jolly, 
 good-natured German, and the old women living in the 
 neigliborhood liked him because he would listen patiently 
 to all of their complaints. One night an old lady living 
 on the alley came out and asked Streubig to go in the back 
 yard and chase the cats away so she could sleep. Streubig 
 said he w^ould and she went back to bed. 
 
 In about ten minutes the owner of the buildings came 
 
8 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 along and in a confidential way said to me: 
 
 "See here, 'Doc.' yoj^i are around here all night. I 
 have rented some rooms up in this building to young men 
 for sleeping rooms. I think they need looking after, as 
 one of my tenants has already told me she believed there 
 was something wrong. 
 
 I said: "Oh, that's all right; them's cats. I know all 
 about it, for an old lady living on the alley came out and 
 
 'That's All Right; Them's Cats." 
 
 asked Struebig to go around and drive the cats away so 
 she could sleep." 
 
 He went away satisfied, and as Ed. Carey came along 
 just then the conversation was turned in another direction 
 and the "boys" had their time all right. You see it had 
 been hinted to me that a beat kept clean, with no arrests 
 upon it, and everybody satisfied was all that was required. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 9, 
 
 THE NEW POLICEMAN. 
 
 Then there was the new regular poHceman. There is 
 no place you can put a man where he will appear more 
 awkward than during his first few nights on police duty. 
 
 It was a bitter cold night and the new man remarked 
 that "a. drop of the crathur would be a good thing, aven 
 for a polaceman." 
 
 As I have often said, a drug store cut a figure on a beat. 
 If the watchman and regular beat man don't see that the 
 night clerk does not get held up, they may not get filled 
 up. The new-made "cop" got it, but instead of rye it 
 was Jamaica ginger. He thought it was a mistake and 
 he had been poisoned. 
 
 *'0! for the love of the BHssed Mary,sind for a praist," 
 he cried, in burning words. 
 
 It was some time before we could convince him that 
 it was only a part of the regular program and that he was 
 merely stepping in the footprints of his illustrious prede- 
 cessors. 
 
 After the fire had died out and we were on the beat 
 again, I said to my friend: 
 
 "Mike, we'll get even with him." 
 
 ''And may all the blissed Saints do be helpin' us to do' 
 thot same," said Mike. 
 
 And I reckon they did, for we got even. 
 
 It wasn't long until our friend, the drug clerk, had a 
 night call to fill a prescription. As we merely happened 
 along at the time, we obeyed the inward admonition to see 
 that the clerk didn't get held up while the door was un- 
 bolted. As Mike remarked, it was a "boistorious night,"' 
 early in March. By some means, during the filling of the 
 prescription, an icicle as big as your arm and about a foot 
 long got into the clerk's bunk. You wouldn't have be- 
 grudged two dollars to have heard him yell when he laid 
 his spine on that icicle. 
 
 ABSENT-MINDED BANKER. 
 
 One of my first experiences in guarding business 
 houses was an odd one. It was at the Old Insurance build- 
 ing, before it became "Old" by the building of the New 
 
10 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 Insurance building. At that time there was a bank in the 
 room on the ground floor now occupied by Des Forges' 
 book store. It was a part of my duty to look after that 
 bank. On my first round, one night, about 8 o'clock, 
 I found the front door open. I went in and, to my utter 
 astonishment, the whole thing seemed tO' be running open. 
 Even the vault door was wide open. 
 
 "Holy SmO'ke! James I)rothers, Younger Brothers, 
 and all the other Sunday school combinations," said I to 
 myself, "What in Hellen Blazes does all this mean?" I 
 
 'What in Hellen Blazes Does All This Mean?' 
 
 looked under desks, in the stove, the cuspidors and all 
 other nooks and corners for burglars, but failed to find 
 them. Then I went out on the sidewalk and looked 
 around. The evening star, as well as my own, was in its 
 place, and the gas lights along the street were engaged in 
 their usual efTort to get the legal requirement of -seven 
 feet of gas an hour through five-foot burners. Everything 
 seemed to be all right, except that cussed bank, which had 
 suddenly fallen into my sole-less possession, and T didn't 
 1<:now what on earth to do with it. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK n 
 
 Much to my relief, my friend Streeter, then with 
 Hempsted's music store, across the street, came along. I 
 knew him to be fully as honest as myself, and at once de- 
 cided to take him into my confidence. I offered to divide 
 the spoil with him even and proceed to loot the concern 
 without further discussion or the adoption of any set 
 resolutions. But he proved a disappointment. Whether 
 he lacked nerve or ambition I never knew, but he flatly 
 refused the offer and said: 
 
 "Tuerk lives in the next block to me and as I am just 
 going home I will go over and tell him to come down and 
 close the thing up for the day, ot night." 
 
 In about three-quarters of an hour the boss of the bank 
 hove in sight, coming leisurely down from the First ward. 
 Coming up to me in an indifferent sort of way, he asked: 
 
 " 'Doc,' what's matter?" 
 
 ''Matter? Matter enough," said I. "Why, this thing 
 is all open; even the coal bucket and the cot are open." 
 
 "There, by thunder," said he, feeling in his trowsers 
 pocket, "I haven't got my key, now. It is lying on a shelf 
 up at the hO'Use. I'll have to go back after it." 
 
 And what do you think he did? Sneaked back home 
 and went to bed. I waited an hour for him; then got the 
 regular officer on the beat to watch the place while I went 
 after him, making my round of the other business houses 
 as I went. After pounding my knuckles sore on his front 
 door without getting a response I pulled a board ofl the 
 fence and actually split the siding on his house pounding 
 it to awaken him. lUit at last I got him out of bed, when 
 he confessed that ho liad forgotten all about the bank 
 when he got home. But he brought the key along that 
 time, and after I saw the bank vault closed and the street 
 door locked, fearing he might have forgotten the way 
 home, I told him the way and went to hunt more burglar- 
 ies. I afterwards learned what I had reason to suspect, 
 that he was a very absent-minded man and had cut up 
 some worse capers than that before, without any malice 
 in 'em. Next day he placed a V in my hand and, with 
 a sort of seven-be-nign, or, maybe, ten smile, said: 
 
 "Don't siimmewav." 
 
12 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 AN EARLY TIME REPORTER. 
 
 One of the first acquaintances I made among newspa- 
 per men was Henry Bleyer, then a reporter on the Sen- 
 tinel, where he has passed through many departments of 
 the work of making a great newspaper, never leaving any 
 yawning chasms in the position he held. He was a regu- 
 lar hustler in those days and used tO' hunt me up, or down, 
 regularly when he learned I was a regular knight of the 
 
 'Yes, There Were Two of 'Em.' 
 
 beat, or beat of the night, for I thought I knew more about 
 police duty than any man who had been "on the force" 
 for years, as all new men do. If Henry did not print all 
 the important happenings on my beat, in the early days^ 
 some of the other fellows can thank his discretion or for- 
 getfulness for it. There were doubtless times when he 
 regarded it as imprudent to disturb existing tranquility in 
 some quiet neighborhoods. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 13 
 
 One night, a little farther on in my experience, Henry 
 thought he had sniffed a piece of sensational news. He 
 came to me with his eyes on end and his hair sticking out 
 and said: 
 
 " 'Doc,' did you see anything a little suspicious along 
 the street half an hour ago?" 
 
 "Yes," said I, "tnere were two of 'em; went towards 
 the Northwestern depot; guess they took the 1 o'clock 
 train for Chicago." 
 
 "I don't care to make trouble," said Henry, **but if 
 I should catch him out that way, I think he'd take his meals 
 down town a few days." 
 
 Then Henry went to the office and an hour later, when 
 the two re-appeared I gave him a tip and got one in re- 
 turn. 
 
 A LIVELY TIME WITH GUNS. 
 
 One winter several young bloods occupied a suite of 
 rooms in the vicinity of 404 Milwaukee street. They fre- 
 quendy had the company of several others of their set 
 for an evening and occasionally there would be an hour 
 or so during which dullness and inertia were as much 
 strangers to their rooms as dyspepsia is to a dog. It was 
 my custom to visit them occasionally, until I became sat- 
 isfied their amusement was of the innocent kind which 
 meant no harm to any one. 
 
 One night the gang trailed up the stairs and I knew 
 by the indications that there was fun ahead. 
 
 In about fifteen minutes the fun began, and there was 
 a lively popping of revolvers for a few seconds. The 
 shooting quickly attracted a crowd on the street and 
 people stood in fear, expecting a horrible murder was 
 being or had been committed. Seeing the crowd was 
 determined an investigation should be made, I insisted that 
 the shooting was up a flight of stairs in the next building. 
 The firing had ceased, the boys apparently realizing the 
 noise would attract attention, but none of the spectators 
 seemed anxious to go up in the dark and investigate. 
 
14 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 Finally I went up — the wrong stairs, of course — looked 
 around, came back and said: 
 
 "O, that's another case of cats. Fellow up there in 
 a room shooting out of the back window at cats in the 
 yard. Told him if I heard any more of it Fd run 
 'im in." 
 
 Then the crowd left and after a little I went up to see 
 
 'Another Case of Cats 
 
 what the boys had been doing. They were sitting around 
 a table taking care of a basket of champagne. They had 
 placed a silk hat on each of the four bedstead posts and 
 the one of four who got the smallest number of holes 
 through a hat with six shots fired as rapidly as they could 
 be fired, had to pay for the champagne. Hence the 
 twenty-four revolver shots had been fired in the space of 
 a very few seconds. The game had come painfully near 
 being a tie, six bullets having went through each ol three of 
 the hats and five through the other one. 
 
 The silk hats were pretty badly cut up, but the Cham- 
 pagne was fine. 
 
 A FAMOUS SPRING. 
 
 When the excavation was made for the basement of 
 a large building only a block from the corner of Wiscon- 
 sin and Milwaukee streets, a big spring was tapped. It 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 15 
 
 yielded a bounteous supply of water, which seemed as 
 clear as crystal. The manager of the concern had it walled 
 up with choice bricks and regarded it as a highly valuable 
 find. The surplus water, that no't drank by the people 
 about the building, was trailed into the sewer. When the 
 building came to be occupied the water from the spring 
 was carried all through it in jugs and was drank in prefer- 
 ence to hydrant water. 
 
 At the time George Peck and his Sun were at the 
 zenith of their glory gained, and Peck's Sun was quoted 
 in a majority of the newspapers throughout the country. 
 
 ^'Big Money in It for You. 
 
 both daily and weekly. One day the author of more 
 than one "Bad Boy" at that time went into the office of 
 the manager of the building and the chief business in it 
 and said to the manager: 
 
 'T've an idea which may interest you." 
 
 "Yes, you seem to have several every week which in- 
 terest a good many people," was the reply. 
 
 "Well, that may be, but this is a new one and there may 
 be big money in it for you," said the "Bad Boys' " author. 
 
 That suggestion cut off all attempts at jesting on the 
 part of the manager. He was all attention and invited 
 the prospective governor to let his idea escape from its 
 hiding place. 
 
 "I have been thinking about thatspringofyours,down 
 in the cellar," said Mr. Peck, "and am pretty thoroughly 
 
J 6 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 impressed with the behef that it is worth more than aU 
 of the religious printing estabhshments in the city, with 
 The Sentinel thrown in for wide margins. 1 have discov- 
 ered a peculiar taste in the water, after it stands awhile, 
 .and am inclined to believe it possesses rare medicinal 
 qualities. If I were in your place I wouldn't let any more 
 of that water go to waste. 1 would save it, bottle it, label 
 it ''Ponce de Leon Spring Water," advertise it as fro'm 
 the spring of eternal youth for which Old Ponce de Leon 
 sought, and make a fortune out of it." 
 
 That idea and suggestion had a decidedly active effect 
 upon the dignified manager. He rushed down into the 
 basement, hatless and coatless, knelt down at the spring 
 .and took a long smell of it. Then he tasted it, smelled it 
 again and tasted it some more. The investigation satisfied 
 him that Mr. Peck was right and he decided to act at once 
 to save the water, of which there was a good two inch 
 stream running into the sewer, as there is yet. He sent a 
 .messenger in haste to a big cooperage factory with an order 
 for 100 new oak w^hisky barrels, to be delivered instantly, 
 and another with a supplementary order for another 100 
 ,to be delivered on call. The entire force of employes was 
 set to barreling water, special men were hired to continue 
 the work, and the night watchman instructed to guard 
 it carefully. The manager sat up nearly all night design- 
 ing a bottle and label for the water and had an artist 
 drawing a picture of Ponce de Leon for the label. 
 
 Peck's Sun went to press next day and quite early in 
 the morning Mr. Peck called again to see if the manager 
 wouldn't like a preliminary "ad." of the spring in The 
 Sun. That suggestion was as promptly accepted as the 
 other had been and, together the heads of two great news- 
 papers set out to write the "ad." While at work on the 
 "ad," Mr. Peck suggested that they ought to have an 
 analysis of the water in order to made the announcement 
 a clincher. It was decided to get an analysis as quickly 
 as possible, but it couldn't be had in time for that issue 
 of the Sun, so Mr. Peck suggested a column of a general 
 and glowing write-up of the spring, at $1 a line, with a 
 •promise of an analysis the next week. As The Sun then 
 liad over 1 HO, 000 circulation, coverino- the whole coun- 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 17 
 
 try, of course $1 a line was cheap, and the cohirnn grew 
 into nearly two couhims, but the article was too good to 
 be cut, and it all went. If 1 remember correctly Mr. 
 Peck told me his bill was a little under or a little over 
 $300, and was paid the next day. 
 
 Some of the water was taken to a chemist with orders 
 to rush out an analysis of it regardless of cost, and the 
 process of barreling the products of the spring went on 
 while a large order w-as placed for bottles and a fine label 
 engraving started. 
 
 In a few^ days the chemist sent word that if they 
 would take the trouble to trace that vein of water back 
 a few hundred feet they would be dead sure to find it 
 running right through the vault of some old outhouse. 
 That ended the spring fortune and the next issue of 
 Peck's Sun contained a humorous apology for the non- 
 appearance of the analysis of the famous water, there was 
 a big lot of new white oak barrels for sale at a discount, 
 and a countermand of orders for bottles and labels was 
 issued. 
 
 IN A DISSECTING ROOM. 
 
 Though the Cosmopolitan restaurant w-as a thing of 
 but a brief period, it lived long enough to have at least 
 one sensation developed in its immediate vicinity. The 
 first intimation I had of the afTair was about two o'clock 
 on the morning before it was made public. At that time 
 I saw a horse and buggy with three men in it go up 
 Wisconsin street at a pretty lively gait, and turn north 
 on Jefferson. A sort of graveyard feeling that every- 
 thing wasn't quite right crept over me and I hustled up 
 to the corner and looked north, but the buggy had dis- 
 appeared. Half an hour later the same rig came off 
 Milwaukee street and went down Wisconsin street at 
 about a 2:40 gait, wdth only two men in the buggy. 
 Suspicion No. 2 got into my think tank then and I would 
 have bet a drink wnth any drug clerk on the beat that 
 something was o{i color somewhere. I kept a close eye 
 on ground floors on my beat the balance of the night, 
 but without discoverv. 
 
,8 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 It was two o'clock next morning when Jim Meba 
 Nahn, one of the smoothest reporters of those days, said 
 to me: 
 
 " *Doc/ did you know there was a 'stifif' on your 
 beat?" 
 
 "What? Who's dead?" said I. 
 
 "No, not that," said he, "but the doctors have got a 
 subject and are hacking it up." 
 
 "Hellendam nation! is that so? Where?" said I. 
 
 ''Alone With a Supposed Corpse." 
 
 "You read the morning paper and you'll get on," 
 said he. 
 
 My discoveries of twenty-four hours previous were 
 still in my think box and this was enough. 1 knew 
 there was but one place on my beat where the thing 
 would likely be, and I made a stroll. With my Vermont 
 Yankee guesser at work I struck it the first time. 
 
 I went down a back basement stairs, lit my bullseye 
 lantern, turned the knob of the door, which was not even 
 locked, and stepped inside. "Jimminy crack," said I to 
 myself, "this is dead easy, unless Dr. Brow Han is here 
 and catches me at it." I listened. All was still. Then 
 I turned the cap of the bullseye, looked around and be- 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 19 
 
 gan exploring. There wasn't a sign of life, or of death, 
 either, in sight; but 1 kept up the search. Around in an 
 obscure corner of the basement was an old table and 
 upon it a bunch of something covered wath an old white 
 cloth, it looked a little spookish, but I lifted up the 
 cloth and there it was, the body of a man, the head and 
 one arm cut off and missing. 
 
 The sight reminded me of the first Johnny Reb. I 
 saw hit by a shell at Bull Run. 1 looked the cadaver 
 over carefully, but there were no visible marks by which 
 it could be identified. Then I left, taking a precaution, 
 which the owner had not, to loose the spring lock on the 
 basement door. 
 
 The morning paper had the story under a big head — 
 not the missing head of the cadaver — of a medical col- 
 lege dissecting room in a basement within a stone's 
 throw of the postoffice. 
 
 Next night, as I w^as going on duty, Douglass Flint, 
 the proprietor of the Cosmopolitan, a good natured, fat, 
 congenial chap who, later, joined an opera troupe, and 
 is still with it, singing bass, was standing on his front 
 step and accosted me with: 
 
 "See here, 'Doc,' come in here and go down in my 
 basement and, bygawd, sir, you'll find there is no medical 
 college in there." 
 
 "Keep still," said I; "that's all right. You keep 
 quiet, put a few of your friends on and after you close 
 up, I'll show you where it is." 
 
 Then I went and tipped ofif a scheme to a drug clerk. 
 After closing time he and I went in the back room, took 
 a piece of board and smeared upon it a horribly distorted 
 face of a man, leaving bear streaks and spots to represent 
 eyes, mouth, numerous cuts and slashes, etc. We used 
 phosphorus paste to paint the thing. Phosphorus, you 
 know% shines in the dark, but makes no show in the 
 light. Then we turned out the light. The thing was a 
 corker. The drug clerk almost fainted at the sight. 
 After taking an unusually large section of precaution 
 against the possibility of the clerk being held up later on, 
 I took the board and planted it in the right spot in a 
 ghostly dingy unoccupied basement in the vicinity, that 
 
20 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 had enough dark alleys and passageways in it to make it 
 a terror, even in the daytime, unless one had a light and a 
 guide. There were two entrances to the basement and 
 I fixed both just right, so the spring locks would work 
 well. 
 
 The Cosmopolitan man had a set of his friends ready 
 in his back room and pretty well ''braced" for the oc- 
 casion. I will not name them, as a number of them are 
 still here in business and have interesting famiUes. 
 
 About two o'clock a. m. I tickled the front door latch 
 and was admitted. The proprietor provided a round of 
 precautionary nerve supporter and I led the way out the 
 back door, the four invited guests to the feast following 
 in silence. Into the basement, as dark as darkest Egypt, 
 we went and closed the door, the spring lock doing its 
 duty. Then I lit a stub of a candle and led them 
 through three or four crooked passageways, enough to 
 aid them in losing their bearings, and back into a corner 
 not far from the side entrance. Of course the body had 
 been removed during the early part of the night, so there 
 was no' danger ot them falling over it. I cautioned them 
 to keep still, saw, by a glance, that my board was all right. 
 Then my light went out and I sHpped out through the 
 side door, closing it, let the spring lock un and slid up 
 onto the street. The sight hunters were alone in the 
 basement, with a supposed corpse and a phosphorus 
 visage staring them in the face. Not until one of them 
 stumbled against the phosphorescent board and found 
 what it was, did they reaHze that they had been sold. 1 
 proceeded to look after my beat. One of the party hap- 
 pened to have matches in his pocket and in about an 
 hour they found a way out. To this day they will all 
 swear that the newspaper story a1)out a corpse being- 
 hacked up in a basement was a base lie. 
 
 I am quite sure, however, that the framework of the 
 object of their search, properly mounted, can be seen 
 in one of Mr. Nehrling's glass cases in the Public Mu- 
 seum. It went there as a present from Dr. Brow Han. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 21 
 
 A MINE SPECULATOR'S JAMBOREE. 
 
 Some years ago a fellow who had made quite a lot of 
 money in mine speculations, and has since figured as 
 chief attraction in a big failure, decided to celebrate his 
 success by giving a banquet to his friends. He had 
 third floor rooms on Milwaukee street in which he de- 
 cided to bring out the affair. At that time the Cos- 
 mopolitan restaurant was in. full blast and regarded as 
 
 .^"^^^ 
 
 •'Mr. 'Doc,' Dey Beats de Berry Debil." 
 
 a first class caterer for well up affairs, and this affair was 
 to be well up — two long flights. A big spread was laid. 
 Champagne flowed like water in a brook or gore in a 
 slaughter house. There was orchestral nnisic and the 
 dulcet notes of the cats in the neighborhood were tem- 
 porarily snowed under. 
 
 The moon had retired from view, the flickering- 
 flames in the gas lamps were beginning to take on a sort 
 of tired, pale hue. The measured step of the regular 
 man on the beat erew fainter. In the semi-silence of the 
 
22 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 hour when skilled housebreakers grow active, the pop- 
 ping of champagne bottle corks was move distinctly 
 heard. 
 
 Suddenly, after a few minutes of comparative stillness 
 in that upper region, there came a crash. It sounded 
 like all of the glass roof-lights in the town were coming 
 down. It was a racket to awaken the dead. Down the 
 stairs came dishes, chinaware, bottles, chairs, colored 
 waiters, tubs of water and chopped ice, tin buckets and 
 things almost innumerable. Colored waiters, furniture 
 and broken crockery came rolUng down those two flights 
 of stairs in startHng confusion. 
 
 The regular man on the beat was four blocks ofif and 
 I was three. We both ran for the scene of the sounds, 
 expecting to find a building collapsed. I got there first 
 and just as the three colored waiters were picking them- 
 selves up and sorting their individual personages out of 
 the wreck. 
 
 "What's matter?" said I. 
 
 "Lawdy! Moses! Mr. 'Doc', Dey beats de bery 
 debil!" sai'd one of them. "Dey's got done eatin' an' 
 drinkin' an' is jes' cleanin' up de room. Golly! but its 
 a long ways down dem sta'rs. Dis niggah's gwine 
 home." 
 
 And the waiters hurried off, rubbing their shins and 
 picking pieces of broken crockery out of their wool. 
 
 ''Be jabbers, Oi was foor blocks aff, but Oi do be 
 thinkin' thim laddiebucks must be about six," said Mike, 
 as he looked at the wreckage. 
 
 The fact was, the banquet was finished, part of the 
 guests had departed and in order to get things out of the 
 way so the balance, the host and his intimate chums 
 could spread out cots and have a snooze, they had 
 thrown everything not needed down stairs in a bunch. 
 Mike and I awoke the proprietor of the Cosmopolitan 
 and helped him clean up about seven bushel basketfuUs 
 of the wreckage before daylight. Next day the host 
 cashed up in full and wisely fenced all knowledge of the 
 affair in from the daily papers. He wanted a time, had 
 it and didn't care what it cost. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 23 
 
 TWO IN TROUBLE. 
 
 An incident occurred on my beat one night. It was 
 a night in January, with the thermometer registering 20 
 below and about the hour when graveyards are supposed 
 to yawn and ghosts stalk forth. A young man room- 
 ing near the postoffice came running down the street 
 with apparently only his shirt, trowsers and slippers on. 
 Whatever else he may have had on earlier had been "dis- 
 posed of. He made a straight rush for a drug store. 
 So did I. I had seen earlier and took in the situation at 
 
 ''She's All Eight. That's Not the First Time." 
 
 a glance. I came up as he was pushing the night clerk's 
 bell and asked: "W^hat's matter?" 
 
 Still pushing the bell he said: *' 'Doc', where can I 
 get a doctor? Man has taken poison in my roorn." 
 
 My first impression was that it was another case of 
 cats. However, I said: "Go back and I'll fetch a doc- 
 tor." 
 
 I got a doctor and we started for the room in a hurry. 
 The doctor took along an instrument which looked like 
 
24 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 a miniature pile driver and went to work, like a fire boat, 
 pumping 'er out. I found on the floor a bottle labeled 
 "laudanum" and, after due observation, went my way 
 to look for more burglars, or cats, or other people in 
 trouble, leaving the doctor working like a night scav- 
 enger. 
 
 In about an hour the doctor came down and I asked 
 him: "How is he getting along?" 
 
 "She's all right," said he. "That's not the first time. 
 I've done that before. It is a case of membretious." 
 
 The fellow at he drug store, whom I will call Goerge, 
 and who sold the laudanum, was badly scared when 
 shown the bottle and told that she had taken all of its 
 contents. 
 
 "If she has she is dead, sure," said he. But she 
 wasn't, though she is now. 
 
 A BATH IN PASTE. 
 
 Did you ever fall into a paste mine? If not you don't 
 know what fun is, real good, sticky fun — for everybody 
 who catches you at it. At least that was my experience, 
 and I had some. One evening, just at quitting-work 
 time, an expressman left a barrel of flour paste at the 
 top of the entrance to the basement of the Evening Wis- 
 consin building. The hands all escaped without taking 
 it dowai into the mailing room, where it belonged. 
 
 Just after dark some Third ward arabs ran against 
 the barrel, stopped, investigated and held a council of 
 war. Then they sent out skirmish lines and soon had 
 reports in to the effect that "dere was no 'cop' around." 
 Then they massed their forces and dumped the 
 barrel down the stairs, end over end. As the bar- 
 rel ended over onto the second step down, the lower 
 head succumbed to the pressure and out went the 
 paste with a slush and flooded over the steps, like an 
 onion poultice on a fried beefsteak. With a yell of tri- 
 umph the kids vanished into the Third ward darkness, 
 doubtless mentally calculating on the extent of that 
 piece of deviltry and speculating on where their next 
 opportunity would develop. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 25 
 
 With the regularity of an Elgin time-piece I went the 
 rounds of my beat. The darkness around the stairway 
 was about as thick as the paste on the steps, but, gazing 
 intently into that fateful pit I became satisfied there was 
 
 '^Thought I Must be a Sight." 
 an object at the bottom which seemed to lie cjuiet, like a 
 crockodile in a Louisiana stream. I got my war cour- 
 age together and started to descend the stairs. 
 
 As my left foot touched the second step it shot out 
 from under me, like a boat going down the shoots, and 
 my whole anatomy came after in a bunch. Ker thump, 
 thump, thump I went down to the bottom, the swell of 
 my pants dismally disfigurinp- the placid countenance of 
 that paste on the steps, and I was right in it at the bot- 
 tom of the pit. 
 
 I tried to get out, but it was useless. Every time I'd 
 crawl up one step I seemed to slide back two. The stair- 
 
26 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 way was paste everywhere and so was I. Just as 
 despair, like a dismal ghost, w^as beginning to take pos- 
 session of me and the pit of paste, George Hansen, then 
 the regular policeman on the beat, came along and pulled 
 me out. Since my escape from Libby prison, in 1862, I 
 had never been so glad to get out of anywhere. 
 
 I thought I must be a sight. George thought so 
 too, and proceeded to emphasize his thoughts with com- 
 ments and a degree of hilarity totally devoid of anything 
 bordering on sympathy. There was paste m my shoes, 
 up my trowsers legs, in my pockets and even in my 
 hair. I was decorated from head to foot with the slimy 
 stuff and will never forget the look John Black gave 
 me as I met him a few minutes later at the Chapman 
 store corner. Nor will I forget the reception a neigh- 
 boring druggist gave me when I went in his back room 
 to clean up. He was a cold-blooded sort of fellow, who 
 couldn't appreciate fun, anyway. 
 
 But the meanest part of the whole transaction was 
 that after the many ways in which I had befriended Han- 
 sen, he should go and peddle the story broadcast, and 
 among people who could neither appreciate real fun nor 
 sympathize with an unfortunate. Yes, sir; Hansen ped- 
 dled and paraded that story during fully a w^eek, to the 
 utter neglect of all other jokes and scandals, even after 
 I had requested him to keep mum. 
 
 But I resolved and affirmed, by the sacred snout of 
 the holy hippopotamus, to get even with Hansen. And 
 I didn't have to wait long for an opportunity. It w^asn't 
 more than a week before Hansen complained to me, one 
 morning that he was suffering terribly from piles. 
 There was my opportunity and I inwardly chuckled with 
 fiendish glee, as T looked up Wisconsin street at the 
 rising sun. 
 
 "That so, George?" I asked. "Why didn't you tell 
 me before? I've suffered many a barrel full with that in- 
 fernal trouble; walked my beat many a night when it 
 seemed as though I couldn't crawl around. But I found 
 a remedy at last that fixed it right off. I've got no fear 
 of piles now. One application does the business every 
 time." 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 27 
 
 He begged to know what it was and 1 earnestly in- 
 formed him that it required but one application of spirits 
 of turpentine to completely cure that sort of human ail- 
 ment. In proof of my sincerity I gave him a two ounce 
 vial of it that I had in my pocket which I carried with me 
 against a possible time of need. 
 
 George thanked me profusely and after receiving in- 
 structions as to how to use the remedy went home. An- 
 other man walked his beat several nights and when 
 George came back he was cured — of telling the story of 
 *Doc' and the paste. I didn't expect he'd ever forgive 
 me, but I guess he did, for he never after mentioned his 
 application or the treatment, and a month later, when I 
 was going away for a week, to attend an Iron Brigade 
 reunion he came along and said: "Here, *Doc,' is a 
 present for you." And he handed me a nice cane with 
 a big silver head and my name engraved upon it. I 
 have it yet and prize it highly, but never look at it with- 
 out thinking of the time I had with that blasted paste. 
 
 SOME WILD ANIMALS. 
 
 In the heart of a great city isn't a natural place to 
 go hunting wild game. Yet, in my time on the streets 
 quite a bag of it has been taken within a block of the 
 postofBce. I can count up six skunks, two coons, a por- 
 cupine, a mud hen, a duck, a big mud turtle, and a mink. 
 
 Where the Windsor hotel now stands was a vacant 
 lot with some piles of stones and old boards and a barn 
 upon it. A colony of skunks had possession of the 
 property. Almost every night one old fellow could be 
 seen going up the postofifice alley on a foraging expedi- 
 tion to the garbage box back of Conroy's. As there 
 was no immediate danger of him holding up a drug clerk 
 I judiciously concluded that the alley belonged to that 
 skunk at that particular hour of night. But one night 
 I let a rock drop on him just as he was approaching the 
 hole under the fence, through which he was accustomed 
 to crawl back into the vacant lot. I didn't remain to ar- 
 gue matters, but all next day people seemed to prefer the 
 other side of the street. 
 
 Dr. Hatchard afterwards killed one of the lot in his 
 
28 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 stairway and did not do any considerable office business 
 for several succeeding days. It was most as bad a stink, 
 in some respects, as he got into before his family moved 
 north. 
 
 When the Tabor house was in existence, on Milwau- 
 kee street, one of the skunks was on the street near the 
 hotel. Dan Daggett, an old time citizen who lived there, 
 came home a little ofif color, as usual, saw the varmint, 
 thought it was a cat and gave it a kick. Moley Hoses! 
 
 ^jrojni' 
 
 , '^Howly Murther! The Divil Take Yez!" 
 Well, he didn't sleep that night. That was a case of cat, 
 for sure. 
 
 Early one morning I discovered a porcupine under a 
 cross walk opposite the postoffice. A driver of a mail 
 wagon said: ''Wait till I get my dog." He had one 
 of those open countenanced, undershot bull dogs, 
 brought him out to the walk and said, "Sic 'im Tige." 
 
 Mr.Tige went under that walk with an energy worthy 
 a better occasion, but. Gee Whiz, you ought to have 
 seen his nose when he retreated. 
 
 We dispatched the varmint and left it lie by the gas 
 post, when along came John Dolan, a Third ward con- 
 tractor. I said: "John, did you ever see such a bird 
 as that?" He grabbed it, ])Ut as promptly let go and 
 howled : 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 29 
 
 "Howly murther! The divil take yez!" Then he 
 began picking quills out of his hands. I ventured the 
 suggestion that I did not tell him to pick it up, which 
 onlv had the effect of doubUng his volume of cuss words. 
 
 ^"Howly St. Patrick! I'll have to go to Dr. Wolkitt," 
 said John, and he went off swearing and picking his 
 hands w^hile everybody else in sight laughed till John's 
 oaths were smothered, like the bleat of a stray lamb in a 
 March gale. 
 
 Tom Fiskin, the lamp lighter, and 1 caught the mud 
 hen under the same crossing and I now have it mounted 
 as one of the trophies of my experiences on the streets 
 aftei dark. 
 
 The duck was evidently a lost in a fog victim. One 
 night, when the fog was so thick I had to work through 
 it edgewise in order to get through at all, the duck fell 
 at my feet in the postoffice alley after flying against a 
 telegraph wire. The bird's misfortune gave me duck 
 for dinner next day, and didn't enrich Charley Higgins a 
 quarter or two. 
 
 It was back during the Greely-Grant campaign that 
 Mike, the regular man on the beat, and I caught two 
 coons on the lot where Charley Pfister's tavern now 
 stands. Whether they came in on some lumber vessel 
 from up the lake, or had been brought by some Repub- 
 Hcan enthusiast to use in a celebrating procession after 
 election, we never knew. We ran them up a tree that 
 stood on the lot, Mike borrowed a dog and a pole, down 
 in the Third ward. We pushed the coons off the limb 
 with the pole, the dop" did the balance, and Mike pre- 
 sented them to the Irishwoman who owned the dog. 
 
 One evening in the spring of 'To I found a big mud 
 turtle in an alley 1)ack of Chapman's store. He flour- 
 ished for a time in the Court house park fountain and 
 was then transferred to a soup kettle in a down town res- 
 taurant. 
 
 It is only four or five years ago that I discovered a 
 mink darting under a crossing opposite the postoffice. 
 It wasn't five minutes before there were half a dozen men 
 chasing that ]:)Oor little defenseless mink, as he darted 
 from one crossing and hiding place to another. Walter 
 
30 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 Ellis was among the rush and he came nearest getting 
 the game by trying to fall upon it just as the 
 Httle brat went into a hole under a building. That 
 was the last seen of the mink, but ElUs, in his fall, 
 bursted the knee of a pair of $6 trousers, broke a sus- 
 pend, tore out a buttonhole in his collar and got a pair 
 of clean cufifs ready for the laundry. 
 
 The last skunk killin' around the postoffice was of 
 recent date. It occurred only a few months ago, at the 
 south basement entrance and was made the subject of 
 big headlines and long articles in the daily papers. Half 
 a dozen persons and half as many revolvers figured in the 
 dispatching of the ''critter," and the after effect was 
 noticeable several days. Democrats around the govern- 
 ment building tried to charge the odor to another Re- 
 publican getting a place in the building. Republicans 
 claimed another Democrat had just moved out and the 
 apartments were being cleaned up. Thus the sparring 
 went on while the odor lasted. The smell was certainly 
 bounteous. It wouldn't have made a bad disinfectant 
 for city civil service headquarters in the city hall. 
 
 That afternoon I met Postmaster Forth on the post- 
 office steps and he said: 
 
 " 'Doc,' what the devil was you doin' 'round here this 
 morning to stir up such a smell?" 
 
 I replied: "O, that wasn't me; that was Win Nowell 
 trying to drive you out." 
 
 He took a few sniffs of the air, still fragrant with the 
 smells of the morning, and replied: 
 
 "No; this isn't so bad as that would be." 
 
 Captain O'Connor, superintendent of letter carriers, 
 insisted that the smell reminded him of a poem written 
 by a St. Louis girl, many years ago, when the city was 
 very dirty. He said the poem was published in the 
 Globe-Democrat and created a sensation. The first 
 verse ran: 
 
 "Go see what I have sawn; 
 ' Go feel what I have felt; 
 Go out at early dawn 
 And smell what I have smelt." 
 
 The Captain said there were 763 more verses of the 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 31 
 
 poem and he was preparing to rehearse the whole lot 
 at the house-warming in the new Federal building when 
 it was ready to occupy. 
 
 Quite likely that was the last skunk kilHng that will 
 be witnessed around the old Federal building. It is 
 rumored that Judge Jenkins may put up one of his fa- 
 mous injunctions against their coming. If that wouldn't 
 stop the skunks, it would likely outrival the after effects 
 of their visit. 
 
 A CASE OF JIMS. 
 
 Away back in the old, old times, a year before the 
 present unfinished new federal building was begun, 
 after the properties it now occupies had been condemned 
 by the government and most of the buildings moved 
 off or torn down, there was an old barn standing near 
 the centre of the block and an incident occurred in it one 
 night. 
 
 As the entire property was unoccupied, not much 
 trouble was gone to in the matter of lighting it and it 
 was about as dismal a locality in the middle of a night as 
 one could find in the heart of the city. The regular offi- 
 cer on the beat and I happened to meet about one a. m. 
 on the sidewalk just east of the Milwaukee Club and 
 opposite the dilapidated property. Suddenly we were 
 startled by fearful screams in the old barn. They indi- 
 cated that some poor fellow was being murdered. He 
 was begging piteously for his life. 
 
 We both started on a run for the old barn. There 
 was but one door to the barn that was open. We reached 
 it together and jumped inside, the regular officer shout- 
 ing: 
 
 "Let up, there, you villain!" 
 
 Inside the barn was as dark as a negro dance in a 
 charcoal pit and we stopped just inside the door expect- 
 ing a would-be murderer to try to escape and we would 
 be in position to bag him. Apparently no heed was 
 taken to the officer's command, as the poor victim kept 
 on screaming and begging for his life. 
 
 "Cict outside and ligjit your bug," said the officer. 
 
32 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 personal safety seeming enjoin against striking a match 
 inside to reveal our location to a murderer who might 
 have an arsenal attached to him. 
 
 I slipped outside and around a corner of the barn, 
 scratched a match and lit my bullseye, the pleading still 
 being kept up. I turned the dark slide over the bullseye 
 and jumped into the barn again by the officer's side. 
 Together we felt our way to within a few feet of the place 
 where the tragedy seemed to be taking place, the bulls- 
 eye in my left hand and each of us with a revolver in 
 our right hand. 
 
 By a touch of his left hand the officer gave me the 
 signal to halt and turn on the light. I pushed back the 
 slide and let light onto the scene. 
 
 The barn floor was not flooded with human gore and 
 there was no sign of a murderer there. There was just 
 one poor fellow, in his shirt sleeves, bare-headed, saw- 
 ing the air with his arms and defending himself against 
 an imaginary murderer. 
 
 At the sight of the light he ran into a corner, let out 
 an unearthly yell and stood trembling with fear. The 
 policeman merely said: 
 
 "Jims," and our revolvers went into our pockets, and 
 the officer pulled out his "bracelets." The fellow fought 
 like a hyena, but we downed him by main force, without 
 hurting him and tied his hands with a click. Then he 
 began kicking. While the officer held him I found a 
 piece of twine ofif a bale of hay and we tied his feet. 
 Then we carried him out to the corner and called for the 
 patrol wagon, realizing that it w^ould be useless to take 
 him to his home, though it was but a couple of blocks 
 away. In about six weeks he came home from a Keeley 
 Cure institution and I never heard of him drinking a 
 drop since. He is prosperous in business in a Northern 
 Wisconsin tow^n now. 
 
 A CAMPAIGN INCIDENT. 
 It was just at the rear end of the Tilden and Hen- 
 dricks campaign. The Democrats had a big organiza- 
 tion called the Tilden and Hendricks o^uard. It had 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 33 
 
 bten out for a long parade in the evening and some of 
 the more conspicuous leaders had enjoyed a vigorous 
 piece of the juicy aftermath, which often tags in behind 
 such an occasion, for the purpose of planning the distri- 
 bution of the offices which are to be their's after the 
 
 battle is ended and won. Charley of the Seventh 
 
 Ward was an officer in the tramping column and had 
 evidently become pretty weary, as a residt of one part 
 or the other of the night's program. 
 
 The old Miner residence, which occupied the present 
 
 "What Devil Ye Doin' Here, Charley?" 
 
 site of the Pfister hotel and afterwards served as head- 
 quarters for several political parties and organizations, 
 was then standing and the alley running through the 
 block at the west side of the hotel ran close to it. About 
 5 o'clock in the morning I looked up the alley and saw 
 a dark object handing on the fence, on the alley side. I 
 walked up and there was Charley, his breast bone 
 balanced on the fence, his shoulders, arms and head 
 hanging over, and he was sleeping and snoring as 
 soundly as a whole graveyard. 
 
 It was apparent that some other persons had discov- 
 
34 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 ered him before me and perpetrated a mean joke on him. 
 They had unbuttoned his suspenders, both front and 
 back and let his trowsers drop down around his feet. 
 There he hung and slept, his bare legs and as much more 
 of him as was unprotected by his "seemore" coat, a hap- 
 less victim to the frosty morning air. 
 
 My first impulse was to get a piece of board and 
 arouse him by an application of it to his back settlements, 
 but a lingering spark of humanity and fellow feeling in 
 me got the better of the thought and I gave him a slap 
 on the shoulder and said: 
 
 ''What devil ye doin' here, Charley?" 
 He partially straightened up and replied: 
 "B'n out havin' lot fun 'ith Shtilden 'n' Henr'ks 
 guard. 'T's helva time. Ain't I a daisy b'gosh?" 
 
 "You may be a daisy, but you don't wear the odor 
 of one," said I. ''Come on here; dress yourself and I'll 
 take ye home." 
 
 He was wonderfully and fearfully loaded. I helped 
 him get fixed up and took him to his home, only a couple 
 of blocks away. I never meet him now but he asks: 
 " 'Doc,' how's the Tilden and Hendricks Club?" 
 My answer is: "Owl right, Charley; I saw you up 
 and dressed." Then he says: 
 
 " 'O, memory, 
 Thou art a volume rich in sacred love.' " 
 
 And he moves on whistling: "How dear to my heart are 
 the scenes of mv childhood." 
 
 PAT AND THE PUSH CART. 
 
 Pat H.owe was an old time policeman. The Third 
 ward was his beat and it gave him his hands full. One 
 hot sunmier morning about two o'clock, Pat came up 
 Milwaukee street with a push cart and a load on it which 
 made him pui¥ like a fire tug to keep the wheels roUing. 
 As he came up to the Chapman store corner, he seerned 
 pretty well exhausted. It was before the days of tele- 
 phones or patrol wagons, and a policeman had to get 
 his pickups to the station as best he could, and that night 
 Pat had taken in his hands full. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 35 
 
 "Hello, Pat," said i, "what'smatter? Peddlin' ba- 
 nanas? \\ hat ye goin' to do with it?" 
 
 "Hey, 'Doc','' said he, "for the love of the Saints, 
 come 'n' gimme a lift, plase; Oi'm toired out intoirely, so 
 Oi am." 
 
 Pat had a big Irish woman in the cart. He found her 
 on the street stone drunk and it was his imperative duty 
 to take her to the station. The push cart was the only 
 available vehicle and he was laboring hard with the load 
 and having plenty of trouble to keep the woman's legs 
 from getting tangled in the wheels. 
 
 "Well, now, Pat," said I, "Pm a little particular about 
 
 ''What Ye Goin' to do with It?" 
 
 what sort of a job I undertake. I don't fancy that one 
 very heartily." 
 
 "Sure, Mr. Aubery," said he, "OiVe pushed this d— 
 cart and carcass from beyant Detrite strate, and by me 
 soulOi'm about plaved out. It 'ud be a great favor if 
 ye'd guv me a Hft over til thu station wid it." 
 
 Realizing: that I was only a sort of fifth wheel to the 
 official wagon, anyway and Pat being the best kind of 
 a good fellow, I fell in and helped him to the station. 
 
 About the time we reached the station the woman be- 
 gan to come to her senses, and as the man on duty there 
 helped us lift her out and get her on her pins she real- 
 
36 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 ized where she was. Then she turned on Pat and such 
 a tongue lashing as she gave him. She declared he was 
 no gentleman and his mother before him was no gen- 
 tleman and called him all sorts of things for taking a 
 "dacint, respictable lady" to the station at that hour of 
 night. 
 
 Both she and Pat have been a long time dead. Pat 
 often said that was the hardest job he ever struck while 
 on the ''force." 
 
 AN IMPORTED REPORTER. 
 
 As a rule newspaper reporters have always stood well 
 with the night watchmen. There has been a sort of 
 reciprocity existing between them which has seldom 
 been violated. As a rule, if we give a reporter an item 
 and say, ''don'tgimme'way," the request has been relig- 
 iously regarded. Few nights have passed in the last 
 twenty-five years that reporters haven't come to me to 
 see if I had a tip on an item of news, and there are few 
 of them who will accuse me of having failed to try to 
 help them out. 
 
 One night, soon after the assassination of President 
 Garfield, one came to me and said: 
 
 " 'Doc,' I want an item mighty badly; it is a desper- 
 ately dull night." 
 
 I tapped on my think tank and remarked that we'd 
 have to get an item, then. Said I : 
 
 "There's a pair of old trousers down the alley; there's 
 an old coat over yonder on a basement stairs, an old 
 hat in an ash box up on Milwaukee street and a lot of 
 straw in a crockerv crate a little further on. D'ye see?" 
 
 "Owl right," said he. 
 
 Next morning an efifigy of Guiteau was hanging to 
 the limb of a tree near the Milwaukee Club, and the 
 morning paper had an item of news. 
 
 When the Repul)lican and News was in its clo'very 
 days, an imported reporter was brought in from Canada 
 to' show the home boys how it ought to be done. He 
 was a hummer. He would hunt me up, or down, every 
 hour in the niqlit to sec if I'd caught a burglar or any 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 37 
 
 cats, or cadavers, etc. It was he who reported, in half 
 a column, a man having hanged himself to a gooseberry 
 bush in Wauwatosa. He took somebody's word for it. 
 
 One night he discovered a fire and got the fire depart- 
 ment out. He had met me at Milwaukee and Mason 
 streets and was discussing the scarcity of news, when, 
 suddenly, the light of the blast furnaces at the rolling 
 mills loomed up in tine style. It was the first time he 
 had seen that light and he was sure it was a big fire 
 on the south side. 
 
 With one wild whoop he flew away towards fire de- 
 partment headquarters. It was worth a quarter, at least, 
 just to see his coat-tails fan him along down the street. 
 In less than a minute the department was on the street 
 and racing down Broadway. That was the last time he 
 ever went to the Boardway engine house. The boys 
 swore if he ever came around there again they would tie 
 loose the hose on him. He was too swift for this town 
 and the paper soon exported him back to Canada. He'd 
 shown the home boys how to do it. 
 
 ONE OF HARRY SUTTER'S JOKES. 
 
 Fritz Callis was the pioneer saloon keeper at the 
 Academy of Music, and he was something of a character. 
 Once he got a barrel of new cider and put it in his back 
 room. In a few days it got to working. It was a barrel 
 which had some experience before and the faucet hole in 
 the head was plugged with a cork. When the cider got 
 well to w^orking it began to sing. Fritz discovered it 
 and called me in to see what was the matter of it. I 
 told him I guessed it was alive. 
 
 "Yah, I think me so couple times already once," said 
 Fritz. "But vhat I petter done mit him?" 
 
 I suggested that he take a hatchet and tap it gently 
 on the head around the corked hole. Fie did it and zip 
 went the cork to the ceiling and a stream of cider fol- 
 lowed it. 
 
 "Mine Gott!" said ]^>itz, "dot thing he drown me 
 my house out." 
 
 "Stick your thumb in the hole. Fritz," said I, "and 
 stop it." 
 
38 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 Into the hole went Fritz's thumb and by pushing 
 down hard he could stop the flow. I told him I would 
 go to a neighboring saloon and get a wooden faucet to 
 drive in, so he could draw out enough to ease the pres- 
 sure on the barrel. 
 
 A couple of blocks away I met the regular oflicer, a 
 fun-loving Irishman, and told him the snap I had gotten 
 Fritz into. He went down and consoled Fritz about an 
 
 When Charley Kraus Discovered the Bomb. 
 
 hour, when I returned, of course, unable to find a faucet. 
 We kept him at the hole half an hour longer, suggesting 
 various ways for his release, then I whittled a pine tap 
 and plugged the barrel. Fritz always declared that hug- 
 ging a cider barrel an hour and a half was no joke, yet 
 he had a suspicion that I didn't make very great haste to 
 release him. 
 
 After a while Charley Kraus opened a saloon two 
 doors north from Fritz's and it nearly broke Fritz's 
 heart. Charley was a sound Republican, a jolly good 
 fellow and his place promptly became prominent with 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 39 
 
 the boys. He could beat the world on a clam bake and 
 that won him high favor with the Whist Club members. 
 There was a photographer in town by the name of Harry 
 Sutter, who would rather perpetrate a joke on a fellow 
 mortal than photograph a whole family oi babies at a 
 dollar and a half apiece. He was a frequent caller at 
 Charley's place and usually took a friend or two with 
 him. 
 
 One night business was slow and Charley had fallen 
 asleep in his chair. The photographer was ready for 
 business and had been watching for an opportunity sev- 
 eral days. That was his time. He had a piece of gas 
 pipe about nine inches long with the ends corked and 
 a piece of wool twine in one end. He lighted the twine, 
 sHpped in on tip toe, laid the pipe under Charley's chair 
 and escaped. As he reached the sidewalk he let out a 
 whoop which awoke the sleeper. Charley smelled burn- 
 ing twine, looked down and saw the bomb under his 
 chair. 
 
 Wild with fright, he fairly flew from the place, ran 
 to the nearest corner and told those attracted by his 
 strange actions that some one had thrown a bomb in 
 his place and the whole thing would be blown to smith- 
 ereens in about a minute. The photographer led the 
 crowd back to the saloon, picked up the gas pipe and 
 threw it into the street. Quite a crowd had gathered 
 and all took what they liked — on Charley. 
 
 GARNER MURDER. 
 Late in the evening of March 2d, 1876, a carriage was 
 driven up Wisconsin street and turned onto Jefiferson 
 street. About three minutes later I heard a report of a 
 revolver and a minute later the carriage came down 
 Wisconsin street, the horses on a run. Mrs. A. J. Wilner 
 had called Dr. J. E. Garner to the door and shot him 
 dead. She is still living and in an insane asylum. She was 
 insane at the time of the tragedy. It was a case sur- 
 rounded in a mystery which has not yet been satisfac- 
 torily solved as having been based upon any grounds 
 other than the woman's insanity, and probably never 
 will be. 
 
40 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 CHARLEY KNOWLES' FIRE CRACKERS. 
 
 During the Blaine and Logan campaign the Repub- 
 Hcans got pretty enthusiastic, had numerous meetings 
 and parades and frequently made things howl well into 
 the night. One night when they were out and indications 
 were fair for a time or two, George Tillema came to me 
 and said: 
 
 " 'Doc,' there is quite a lot of big fire crackers in my 
 store. If any of the boys happen to want them to-night 
 you sell them for twenty cents apiece." 
 
 About one o'clock in the morning I met Charley 
 Knowles and three or four other enthusiasts who asked 
 if I knew where they could get some fire crackers. I 
 said I did, but they were the big cannon breed and would 
 cost twenty cents each. Price cut no figure with them, 
 so I unlocked the store and they took three dollars' 
 worth, insisting that I take a pair of the weapons for 
 my trouble. They went up near the corner of Jefferson 
 and Wisconsin streets, I having assured them it was the 
 proper time for the policeman on the beat to be at the 
 farther end of his territory. As they went up the street 
 I happened to think that OiTficer Mooney lived only a 
 few doors away and, as I passed his house a short time 
 before he was sitting by the fire reading a paper. I had 
 a suspicion that if they did any shooting in his neighbor- 
 hood he might fall out of the house and look after them, 
 so I stopped at Milwaukee street and waited for develop- 
 ments. 
 
 ''Bung," "Bang,' "Bang," went three of the slumber 
 disturbers and in about half a minute out came Mooney 
 on a run. The boys walked leisurely across the street 
 and met him. I touched a match to the centre of a fuse 
 in a cracker, and about the time Mooney was preparing 
 to run the boys in the thing went ofif. 
 
 "There," said Charley Knowles, "there's where your 
 shooting is." 
 
 I had skipped up Milwaukee street a few doors and 
 as I heard Mooney coming on the board walk, I ran 
 down and met him at the corner. 
 
 'There they went, right down into the Third Ward," 
 said I, and Moonev went in the direction T indicated on 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 41 
 
 a double quick. Then the boys hghted half a dozen 
 at once, shot themselves up Jefferson street and were a 
 block away before the things went off, and Mooney 
 came running back. He never suspected that I had 
 saved the real offenders from going to the station, but 
 the boys realized it. I had good cigars during a whole 
 week and George Tillema gave me fifty cents commission 
 on the sale of fire crackers. 
 
 OLD TIME POLICE. 
 
 One winter night an incident occurred which illus- 
 trated the efficiency of the old time police. The patrol- 
 men went their beats by twos, same as detectives usually 
 do now. At least there were two to each of the down 
 town wards and there was no roundsman to keep tab on 
 them. They had their own way and went together if 
 they chose to. 
 
 There was a shop in the Seventh ward just over the 
 line from the Third in which a hard coal fire burned 
 nights. The patrolmen knew how to open the door and 
 usually those in the Third went up there in the small 
 hours to warm up. Occasionally those in the Seventh 
 ward also dropped in and the four would discuss topics 
 of the day or night. 
 
 One night when they were all in warming up there 
 was a fire in a dwelling house in the Third ward and it 
 burned to the ground without their knowledge. Later 
 the absence of policemen at the fire was reported at the 
 station and the Sergeant went out to hunt them. He 
 hunted me up and asked if I had seen them. I knew it 
 was all day with the boys if they were caught in the 
 shop, so I told him I thought they had chased some sus- 
 pected thieve up through the Seventh ward some time 
 i^efore but had just returned to their territory. 
 
 He went down in the Third ward to look after them 
 and I soon woke the boys up and told them the situation. 
 All four next morning reported an excited chase after 
 a brace of thieves away out into the vicinity of the dam, 
 where all traces of them were lost. There had been a 
 hot fire in the shop stove and they were all in a high 
 
42 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 sweat. It hadn't cooled yet when they met the sergeant 
 as they were trottins;- back to their beats. Whether it was 
 the sweating or the lying that saved them hasn't been 
 decided. 
 
 ROMANCE OF MASK BALLS. 
 
 In the years now behind us, mask balls were popular 
 and the one of the season was always given at the Acad- 
 emy of Music, then owned by the Milwaukee Musical 
 Society. Frequently there would be three or four popu- 
 lar ones in the city during a winter, and there were oc- 
 casionally some ludicrous results. 
 
 One winter there was a leading business man living 
 in the Seventh ward who was having some trouble at 
 home. He and his wife were at outs and each was threat- 
 ening to begin divorce proceedings. 
 
 The man was a fine looker, and the wife was never 
 asked to play second fiddle to him in that respect. I was 
 pretty familiar with the case and was thoroughly con- 
 vinced it was one of unjustifiable jealousv, at least on 
 the part of the husband. I often told him so but he re- 
 fused to beHeve me. 
 
 One time, a couple of days prior to a mask ball, the 
 wife went to Chicago to spend a week with her parents, 
 the husband having refused to go to the ball, either with 
 her or alone. 
 
 His wife, however, was little more than out of the city 
 when he secured a ticket for himself and engaged an out- 
 fit of flashing apparel. 
 
 On the ni^ght of the ball, a few minutes before the 
 grand march started, a carriage drove up hurriedly and 
 a woman in a rich and dazzling garb of Persian royalty 
 stepped out and hastened into the hall. 
 
 My discontented friend had not yet espied a partner 
 to his exact fancy and was eagerly eyeing all late comers. 
 As this particular one entered he was enraptured at once, 
 hastened to her side and begged her company for the 
 march. She as promptly accepted. Her every move 
 was one of grace, elegance and refinement. He begged 
 for her name, but she declined to give it, although, as 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 43 
 
 evidence of good faith he gave his. His only hope was 
 in being able to discover her identity after masks were 
 removed. But ere that hour arrived she had disap- 
 peared and the carriage had rolled away as rapidly as 
 it came. Who she was, whence she came or whither she 
 went was a mystery which refused to be solved. 
 
 When his wife returned from her visit, she was much 
 
 '*The Real Object of Your Flattering Admiration." 
 
 pleased to learn from his own lips that he had not been 
 near the ball, and she seemed inclined to want to drop 
 all of their diflerences and make up. 
 
 But there was something upon the husband's mind. 
 A strange spirit seemed to haunt him. 
 
 A few days before the next mask ball Mrs. re- 
 ceived a letter from her parents in Chicago urging her- 
 self and husband to be with them at a family gathering 
 on the evening the ball was to occur. Unfortunately he 
 
44 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 had some important business engagements with business 
 men from New Y^ork who were to be in Milwaukee that 
 identical night and could not possibly accompany her to 
 Chicago, much as he would like to, but insisted that she 
 should not be deprived of the pleasure, and that she 
 might as well go down the day previous. 
 
 On the night of the ball, at about the same moment 
 in the hour as before, the same Persian royalty robed 
 feminine form alighted from a carriage and entered the 
 Academy of Music. Mr. was eyeing the door, an- 
 imated by a high and throbbing hope and lost no time 
 in getting to her side. Of course he was accepted. 
 Again he worried his brain and her ear in a fruitless 
 effort to learn who she was, but all he could get was per- 
 mission to write her to a certain address, at the Milwau- 
 kee postof¥ice, general delivery. 
 
 Toward the time for unmasking he watched her 
 closely, determined that she should not again escape him. 
 
 But she did, and the same carriage wheeled her away 
 as rapidly and as mysteriously as before. 
 
 A couple of days later his wife returned and was 
 again glad to learn that he had not attended the ball. 
 His assurances of that fact seemed to animate her and 
 she put forth special efforts to make home cheerful for 
 him. 
 
 But somehow lie wasn't happy. He appeared absent- 
 minded, Hke, at times, and had to go to his office on busi- 
 ness nearly every night. At the end of a month he had 
 written at least a score of letters to Her Persian Royal 
 Highness, and had detailed, several times over, his un- 
 happy condition and the disconsolate state of his home 
 and heart. He had received as many letters in return 
 and they had grown full of sympathy for him in his en- 
 forced misery. 
 
 He had 'assured her that a divorce from all of his un- 
 happiness was but a few months distant, at most, and 
 had received permission to call upon her at a house in a 
 fashionable neighborhood, on the west side at 8 o'clock 
 on a certain evening. 
 
 He was there on time to a second and was ushered 
 in by apparently the same form and clad in the same out- 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 45 
 
 fit of Persian royalty, even to the face mask. As he en- 
 tered the house she said: 
 
 "You see I am interested, else I would not have taken 
 the butler's place to usher you in." 
 
 He was delighted with that part of his welcome, but 
 was grieved at not being permitted to look upon her face. 
 Finally, after many entreaties and solemn promises on 
 his part, she pulled ofi her face mask and he stood face 
 to face with his colored housemaid. 
 
 For a moment he was as one stricken dumb and help- 
 less. He attempted to arise from the chair, but was un- 
 able to do so. Before he was able to speak she said: 
 
 ''My mistress felt herself unable to carry out this 
 feature of her part of this grand and interesting farce 
 comedy and I consented to usher you into her presence. 
 Permit me to introduce you to the real object of your 
 most flattering admiration, (the wife, entering the room) 
 
 Mrs. ." 
 
 That was the real squelcher and crusher of his spirits, 
 he sank back in the chair and seemed upon the point of 
 falling from it as his wife stood before him, her face 
 beaming with a triumphant yet pitying smile as she 
 looked him straight in the eye and said: 
 
 "George, from the very depths of my heart I pity 
 you. I have been pitying you for a long time in our 
 own home* and have been sympathizing with you as 
 deeply and sincerely as I could through the postofiBce, 
 and my highest hope now is that out of all of this may 
 come happiness and real home life to both of us. Here 
 are all of your letters, and I trust you have all of mine. 
 Every one of them was written in our own home and 
 to that let us return with them and let their contents re- 
 main sacred between us." 
 
 "Sarah, tell James to drive up the carriage." 
 "Come George, let us go home. The comedy is 
 ended. Let the curtain drop." 
 
 Thev went home and the foolishness ceased. There- 
 after there was no happier couple in Milwaukee or one 
 more devoted to each other. I have suppressed the 
 names l^ecause they ?re both yet living, and in Wiscon- 
 sin, thoueh not in Milwaukee. 
 
46 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 She had been in Chicago each time exactly as ar- 
 ranged, but, being advised of his movements, had come 
 up to the ball on a train arriving at 8 o'clock and re- 
 turned on one at 11 o'clock. The final act in the drama 
 was performed in the home of another prominent busi- 
 ness man, whose wife had been her classmate in college 
 and who cheerfully gave her the full use of her drawing 
 room and parlors for an hour, together with a solemn 
 promise to ask no questions as to the purpose or out- 
 come of the event. He confessed the whole story to me 
 years after. 
 
 BURGLARIES. 
 
 During_jiiy twenty-five years experience as special 
 policeman there have been three burglaries on my beat. 
 Two of them occurred one Sunday afternoon when I was 
 not on duty, and the other came one night about thirty 
 days later. None of the burglars were caught and iden- 
 tified, but the man whose store was robbed in the night, 
 and whose place was one of my charges, doubled my 
 salary the next month. Somehow I never regarded that 
 act in any other light than as appreciation of my ability 
 to mind my own business. 
 
 SERGT. HOWARD'S FLY DIE,T. 
 
 Years ago, when Sergeant Howard, many years a 
 member of the police force, occupied the position of 
 roundsman, the Windsor Hotel was not kept in as good 
 style as it now is, but it was a place where night men 
 on the force were always welcome. It was long a custom 
 of the house, as it should be of all well regulated hotels, 
 to set out a warm lunch for them about midnight and 
 the men would drop in and eat together. One hot night 
 Roundsman Howard came in to lunch with the others. 
 The light in the room was not very bright and after get- 
 ting about half through with a bowl of soup he dis- 
 covered that it was full of flies. He immediately went 
 out and ''Europed." That was the last of his soup eating 
 there and he never suspected that any on'e in the party 
 had swept up a handful of flies from a wall where they 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 47 
 
 were roosting and salted his soup with them. In return 
 for the night favors it was customary to send persons 
 coming from late trians and inquiring for a hotel to the 
 Windsor. Mr. Howard's diet of flies has always been a 
 fresh spot in his memory. 
 
 JOHN M., AND HIS CANNON. 
 
 John M. Ewing once had a cannon at his command, 
 a regular old bruiser which did service in the war of the 
 Rebellion. It was at the close of the Blaine and Logan 
 
 '' 'Doc/ The Devil is to Pay Here." 
 
 campaign when the result hung in the ballance for days, 
 and Cleveland and Hendricks were finally declared 
 elected. 
 
 Mr. Ewing had served as Secretary of the Republican 
 State Central Committee and was confident of a Repub- 
 lican victory in the whole country. A few days before 
 the election he sent to Madison and had one of the brass 
 cannon which adorn the Capital park sent in for the 
 purpose of firing a salute over the result. 
 
 On election night a big crowd of Republican saviors 
 of the party and country were at the old Miner residence, 
 then standino- on the site of the Hotel Pfister, which was 
 
48 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 headquarters of a Republican club. Returns were being 
 received there by a special wire. John had the cannon 
 brought into the yard and left it there alone to be used 
 at the proper time. He neither placed a guard over it 
 nor took the ramrod away. During the evening I dis- 
 covered it and carried the ramrod over to the Stafford 
 store and put it inside. 
 
 Along about midnight I came around again. John 
 and half a dozen other enthusiasts were out in the yard in 
 a high state of excitement, searching for that ramrod. I 
 had been around to Democratic headquarters and had 
 seen a private dispatch to Ed. Wall, from New York, 
 which satisfied me that it wouldn't be wise for John to do 
 any shooting with that cannon that night. As I came 
 into the yard John ran up to me and said: 
 
 " 'Doc,' the devil's to pay here! Somebody has stolen 
 the ramrod to our gun. Blaine is elected and we can't 
 start the celebration." 
 
 "So-o-o?" said I. "John, did you leave that gun out 
 here without a guard? It's a wonder the enemy hasn't 
 spiked it as well as stolen the ramrod." 
 
 John was in a great sweat. I called him aside and 
 told him not to worry about the ramrod, or be in a hurry 
 about celebrating unless he wanted to do something he 
 wouldn't be proud of in his old age. He upbraided me 
 a little for trifling with him, but nearly fainted when I 
 told him the contents of the private dispatch I had seen. 
 He concluded that it would be just as well to defer the 
 shooting a little while and decided to tell the crowd 
 inside it was because the ramrod had been stolen, but that 
 he had sent a man to make a new one which would be 
 there in less than an hour. 
 
 Before the hour was up the Republicans received in- 
 formation which fully reconciled them to the idea of de- 
 ferring the shooting, and John M. Ewing still insists that 
 I saved him from disgracing himself by celebrating a 
 Democratic victory, through my cuss^dness in stealing 
 the ramrod to his cannon. 
 
 SUTTER'S ELECTRIC LIGHTS. 
 The first electric light that glimmered in Milwaukee 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 49 
 
 was owned by a photographer named Harry Sutter. He 
 had a gallery on the top floor across Milwaukee street 
 from the postoffice and he was a genuine genius. He 
 got his apparatus in shape and produced a brilliant light. 
 Then he got a strong reflector by which he could throw 
 the light any reasonable distance and land it where he 
 pleased. One night he trained it on a window of Henry 
 Wehr's saloon at No. 1, Grand avenue and, though the 
 distance was four ordinary blocks, he poked a glow of 
 light through that window which made the crowd present 
 hop around as though a ball of lurid lightning had 
 dropped among them. 
 
 Harry was watching for the elTect, and before the dis- 
 turbed ones had time to locate the cause of disturbance, 
 he slipped a black card board before the light and waited 
 for matters to become quiet. After a few minutes he let 
 the light on again, just long enough to raise a commo- 
 tion. He kept up that sort of play for nearly an hour, 
 until the placid temper of Henry Wehr actually became 
 ruft^ed and, after much perseverance he was able to lo- 
 cate the light, then he put on his coat and hat and started 
 out to squelch the long range intruder. 
 
 As Henry was passing the lamp post at Broadway and 
 Wisconsin street, Harry discovered him and suspected 
 some disturbance at his end of the show, if he wasn't 
 headed ofif. In half a minute he shifted the reflector and 
 dropped the light plump into Henry's face just as he 
 was at the hallwav at 107 Wisconsin street. Henry was 
 nearly blinded by the dazzling glimmer and dodged into 
 the hallway to escape it. 
 
 Harry saw the movement and turned the light, with 
 full force, upon the stairway entrance. Then he slipped 
 out, locked the door, ran down two flights of stairs, then 
 down Milwaukee to Michigan street and around and up 
 Broadway to Wisconsin. He then walked up Wisconsin 
 street to where the popular saloon keeper was a prisoner 
 and asked him what was the matter. Henry was trem- 
 bling and said he believed an electric gattling gun was 
 trained upon him from that d-^d photographer's place. 
 
 Harry said he suspected it was a young fellow who 
 was learning photography up there and who was playing 
 
50 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 with a big lamp and looking glass reflector, but as he 
 knew Mr. Sutter very well he would go up and ask hirm 
 to stop the annoyance. 
 
 'Ty dunder," said Henry, "eef I know him purty well, 
 I lick him like blitzen the first time I catch him on the 
 street. He haf spoilt my peesiness for the night already 
 vonce." 
 
 Henry refused to leave his fortification until the light 
 was turned off and Harry often said he believed his 
 adroitness saved him from a thumping. 
 
 NEWSPAPER ROOST. 
 
 Away back in the old time newspaper days of the 
 Republican and News the newspaper men of the city 
 had a sort of club room in which there were some pieces 
 of green top furniture and other things not constructed 
 exactly like writing desks. The then manager of the 
 roost now ranks pretty well up, in the papers, as a Mich- 
 igan editor. Whatever was done in that place was done 
 and no disturbing hand was raised against it. The news- 
 paper men were, of course, on good terms with the 
 brewers and pretty nearly every brewery distributing 
 wagon which passed that way left a case of beer at the 
 foot of the stairs. There were some people who thought 
 that was not a good place to leave beer, especially in hot 
 weather, as it might get too warm, or in cold weather, as 
 it might freeze. However that might have been, the 
 night policeman and w^atchmen and some other people in 
 that locality were seldom short of a bottle of beer when 
 they wanted it. They rather appreciated the manager's 
 neglect to take care of the beer when it was delivered. 
 
 SHE DIDN'T DO WASHING. 
 
 Away back in the days when Policeman Dodge was 
 station keeper in the old police station I had a bit of 
 experience with a buxom young woman in it. It was 
 about 2:30 o'clock on a summer morning and the first 
 streaks of approaching day were beginning to show in 
 the east. She came down Wisconsin street with a big 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 51 
 
 market basket full of clothes on her arm and a pair of 
 shoes tied to the handle of the basket. 
 
 "Good morning, my good woman," said I, "you are 
 out early for your day's washing." 
 
 "Well, I may be out early, but I don't do washing," 
 she retorted with a snap in her tone. 
 
 ''Will, I Don't Do Washing." 
 
 That was her fatal mistake. If she'd said: "Yis sor, 
 and Oi'm hurryin' away to Miss Grane's on Twinty-third 
 strate, so to git the job done and be home in time to git 
 dinner," she would have been all right. 
 
 "O, you don't do washing? Beg jour pardon, madam, 
 but T thought from appearance that perhaps you did 
 washing," said I. 
 
 "Well, I don't do washing," she snapped. 
 
52 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 '*But, if you don't do washing, what do you do with 
 so large a basket of clothes as that at this time of night?" 
 I asked walking along at her side. 
 
 "Well, I don't do washing, and that settles it," was 
 her reply. 
 
 I walked along with her and kept her talking until 
 we walked into the old police station, where she told 
 Dodge a highly plausible story about having a sister 
 living somewhere on Fourth street for whom she was 
 looking- Dodge gave her a cot in the women's depart- 
 ment and in the morning she went out to look for her 
 sister. In about an hour a message came from the In- 
 •dustrial school that a girl had escaped during the night 
 and stolen a lot of clothes. Ofificer Pat Howe was de- 
 tailed to look after her and, about noon, found her in 
 Wauwatosa, waiting to take a train for her home in 
 Portage. 
 
 ONE ON MR. HANNIFIN. 
 
 Not all of the good things I have discovered mater- 
 ialized in the night. I usually go down towii in the 
 afternoon and, from force of habit, I presume, linger 
 around the Chapman store, in former years, frequently 
 going inside and taking a general look through the store, 
 so I would know the location of things if anything oc- 
 curred in the night. 
 
 One day when I was in the store Manager Hannifin 
 was in a high rage. It seemed he had ordered a lot of 
 printed matter, which was to have been delivered nearly 
 a week before and it hadn't come yet. He had sent a 
 messenger to the printing office, who brought back the 
 announcement that the job would be done next day. 
 That set Mr. Hannifin on edge and he made use of sev- 
 eral new combinations of very impressive cuss words 
 over the delay. 
 
 A few minutes after the printer who had the job in 
 hand came in with a proof sheet of the work and went to 
 the head of the department in which it was to be used 
 to have it approved. As he started to leave, the head 
 of the department remarked : 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 5-5 
 
 "Mr. Hannifin is hotter than a furnace about this job 
 not having been done on time and swears it is the last 
 job you will ever get from this store. Don't let him see 
 you. Keep out of sight until he cools off. There he is 
 now! Get in the office here and hide behind a desk until 
 he goes off. the floor!" 
 
 ''It's a Terror of a Place. Uh, uh, 0!" 
 
 "Not much," said John. "You just watch my 
 smoke." 
 
 John had entered the store at a lively gait, indicating 
 perfect health in body and limb. Instantly he clapped a 
 hand on his right hip and began hobbling toward the 
 manager apparently in great agony and hardly able to 
 navigate. 
 
 "Hello, John, what the devil is the matter with you?" 
 asked the manager. 
 
 '*Sav, Mr. Hannifin, I think vou ought to have a lot 
 
54 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 of salt or ashes scattered on that walk out there," said 
 John. *'It is awful bad. If some woman Iiad fallen on 
 it she might have been terribly injured and you'd have a 
 big damage suit on your hands. O! O! Ouch!" and he 
 fairly writhed with agony and rubbed his hip and back. 
 
 ''What? Did you fall?" asked Mr. Hannifin. 
 
 "Fall? I should say I did. It's a terror of a place; 
 uh, uh, O!" said John. 
 
 "Really, I hope you are not badly hurt," said the 
 manager, his heart melting in sympathy. 
 
 "Hurt! Uh, uh, O! You can feel a big lump there 
 on my back now. Don't know as I'll be able to- get 
 home," said John. "What I came over for, Mr. Hanni- 
 fin, was to see you about that job of printing. We've 
 been delayed a little getting the paper and I was afraid 
 you would be angry and quit us." 
 
 "O, no, no. That's all right. You know we'd not 
 forsake you, John. No hurry about it. Any time this 
 week will do. Really, I hope you are not seriously hurt. 
 Let me call a carriage to take you home or to a doctor," 
 urged Mr. Hannifin, becoming thoroughly alarmed. 
 
 "No, no, no;" said John. "I'll manage to get back 
 to the office. But I was afraid you'd be angry about 
 the job." 
 
 "Never fear about that. Just count yourself in on a 
 perpetual contract for all of our work as long as I am 
 here. Let me know how you are getting along to-mor- 
 row," said Mr. Hannifin. 
 
 And John hobbled out of the store and kept up the 
 limping until he got around the corner out of sight. 
 The clerks w^ho had witnessed the interview and caught 
 on to the situation were readv to burst with laughter, 
 but held their peace, and I doubt if to this day Mr. Han- 
 nifin knows that one of the smoothest pantomimes and 
 confidence schemes of the age was played upon him 
 right in the big store of which he is the manager. 
 
 ATTEMPTED ROBBERY" AT 416. 
 Here is one which is a trifle too new to require the 
 use of names. The circumstances are still quite fresh in 
 the minds of quite a number of persons. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 55 
 
 A woman had rooms' on Milwaukee street not a bolck 
 from the headquarters of the Associated Charities. She 
 also had a fine array of diamonds and was reported as 
 carrying considerable money with her constantly. One 
 night as she was going to her rooms a man seized her in 
 the second floor hall, threw her to the floor and pro- 
 ceeded to try to rob her of her diamonds and money. 
 She screamed wildly and, being unable to smother her 
 noise, the would be robber became alarmed, and rushed 
 down the stairs, the woman close at his heels shouting: 
 
 "Thief! Murder; Robber! Stop you villain!" 
 
 Quite a number of persons who had heard her cries 
 were running toward the place. As the robber broke 
 across the street they followed him and he was captured 
 at the police patrol barn on Oneida street and locked 
 up in the station. He had failed to get either the wo- 
 man's diamonds or money. 
 
 The fellow was held in jail for trial, but I don't 
 remember of havino- ever seen in print any report of his 
 trial. 
 
 JOE HORWITZ AND THE BURGLAR. 
 
 Did you ever stop by a large plate glass window, in 
 the night, put the tip of a finger along the glass, press 
 pretty snug and drive your finger along the glass at a sort 
 of stuttering or jumping-sliding gait? Just try it some 
 night when there is a clerk alone in the rear part of the 
 store and then get him to try to describe to you the fiend- 
 ish noise it makes. 
 
 I tried it one night, years ago, when one Phillips had 
 a shoe store where the Hanan De Muth shoe store now 
 is. "Joe" Horwitz was clerking for Phillips and was 
 in the rear of the store alone shining his shoes prepara- 
 tory to going out to an 11 o'clock engagement. As my 
 finger went across the glass "]ot'' wouldn't have 
 dropped that shoe brush quicker if it had been a red hot 
 brick and came out of the store on a run. I fell back a 
 few steps and was just advancing again leisurely as he 
 ca.me out, pale, trembling and so frightened he could 
 scarcely speak. Running up to me he said, panting for 
 breath : 
 
56 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 "Uh, Uhu, liu, 'D — Doc!' There's a burglar in the 
 store." 
 
 "O, pshaw," said I, "it's another case of cats. There's 
 no burglar in there." 
 
 ''Y'e-yes there is," said he, ''right back there in the 
 office. 'Si — 'si was blacking my shoes he yelled at me 
 in the most helhsh voice 'J-J-Joe-o-o-o!' He's in there, 
 sure. I wouldn't go back there for a thousand dollars." 
 
 ''Well, go on away, then," said I, ''and have your 
 time. "I'll take care of the store and the burglar, too." 
 
 And he went, at a lively gait, looking back about 
 every ten steps until he was a block away, confidently 
 expecting a burglar to come out and shoot me. I 
 locked the door, which he had forgotten to do, and, out 
 of mercy to "Joe," kept the story to myself. 
 
 SOME GOOD ONES ON ME. 
 
 Not all of the jokes and tricks played upon persons 
 on my beat have been at the expense of others. I have 
 been the victim my share of the time. Jake Janssen, of 
 Ladd & Janssen, and Herman Hammersmith, in Camp's 
 jewelry store, got one on me once. Ladd & Janssen re- 
 ceived a consignment of choice wine. I paid for a couple 
 of bottles and ordered them sent to my house, for a 
 special occasion close at hand. The occasion came and 
 I pulled the corks. The bottles contained only Lake 
 Michigan water which costs about seven cents a thousand 
 gallons. Hammersmith had suggested emptying out the 
 wine and filling the bottles with water. After a while they 
 asked how my wine was and I re])lied: 
 
 "O, I lost the whole of it. Hired girl put it in the 
 refrigerator to get cold and a cake of ice fell on the 
 bottles and crushed both of them. At least she said so, 
 and I guess it was so, for I saw her clearing the broken 
 bottles out from the ice." 
 
 Not so long ap-o l:)Ut I rememlx^r it very distinctly Mr. 
 Hammersmith wanted to sell me a bicycle. I took rather 
 kindlv to the idea and he said if I would go up to the 
 Farwell avenue riding school and learn to ride he would 
 deduct the cost at the school from the price of the 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 57 
 
 wheel. I thought it would be rather nice to ride a wheel 
 home and surprise my family, so I went up to the school 
 and learned. I did it all in one afternoon, but my hands 
 were blistered and torn, my knees were skinned and I 
 was pretty nearly pounded into a mass of pulp. I took 
 care of my beat that niglit, went to bed in the morning 
 and remained there for three days with one of the worst 
 cases of rheumatism I ever had. I also had a plenty of 
 riding a wheel. All of the roseate hue on the idea of 
 surprising my family on a wheel nad vanished, like flow- 
 ers that bloom in the sprinp-. 
 
 A few years ago a stranger shot himself in a hallway 
 on Milwaukee street. It was early in the evening and 
 his body was soon found. I promptly identified him as 
 Col. Charley Wheeler. A messenger w^as sent to Mr. 
 Wheeler's house to notify his familv and, to the messen- 
 ger's surprise, Mr. Wheeler opened the door. The real 
 identity of the suicide has not yet been learned. 
 
 SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION. 
 
 Tonce discovered an actual case of spontaneous com- 
 bustion. There was opportunity for two cases, but only 
 one materialized. A woman pretty well known in Mil- 
 waukee had manicure rooms on Wisconsin street. In 
 connection with them w^ere her private parlor and sleep- 
 ing room. One morning about 2 o'clock, as I was on 
 the opposite side of the street, she came hurriedly down 
 stairs and excitedly called to me to come over there, 
 quick. I ran across the street and she said there must 
 be a fire in the building as her rooms were full of smoke. 
 
 I ran up the stairs and opened the door. There was 
 no blaze in sight, but the room was quite thick with 
 smoke. I at once suspected it was a smoulderer, only 
 waiting for a draft of air to start a blaze. Scratching a 
 match I began to investigate. On a rear window sill 
 was a bunch of waste from which smoke was issuing and 
 there was a strong odor of linseed oil. T picked up a 
 water pitcher and drenched the waste. There was a his- 
 sing sound, as though the .water had struck hot metal. 
 
 Being satisfied that was the source of the smoke, 1 
 
58 TWENTY-FIVE YEx^RS ON THE STREETS 
 
 opened the windows and the smoke soon disappeared. 
 Investigation showed that the woman had oiled a portion 
 'Of the floor after 9 o'clock that night, rubbing the oil on 
 with a handful oi cotton waste, and then had laid the 
 waste on the window sill, on top of half a dozen iron 
 screw eyes, a piece of brass or copper wire and a handful 
 of rusty nails. In five hours spontaneous combustion 
 had developed. 
 
 The woman had been asleep and her lungs were 
 pretty well filled with smoke. Sitting at an open win- 
 dow gave her some relief, but she thought a swallow of 
 brandy was necessary. I trotted ofif to a drug store and 
 got her a four ounce bottle full. She got outside of 
 the brandy and was soon all right. As I was leaving 
 she wanted to know who I was, declared I had saved her 
 life and wanted to reward me, then and there, but being 
 paid by property owners for my services I was forced to 
 decline the reward offered. 
 
 A CASE OF DEAF AND DUMB. 
 
 Some years ago a deaf and dumb man worked both 
 sides of the street for several months. He had a pitiful 
 story on his slate and the kind hearted contributed 
 liberally. I had watched him some time and came to the 
 conclusion he could talk if he wanted to. One afternoon 
 I caught him in another part of town. His coat was 
 buttoned over his slate. He went into a saloon. So did 
 I, but paid no attention to him, and ordered a beer. Sud- 
 denly I turned and invited him to have one. He heard 
 instantly, responded promptly and talked freely. I re- 
 ported the fact to the station and he was taken in a day 
 or two later. He had in his grip at his boarding house 
 between $600 and $700 in gold. That ended his im- 
 positions upon Milwaukee people. 
 
 A COSTLY CANDIDACY. 
 
 "Ed." Hackett, *Tom" Ramsey and a few others of 
 the old set in which they travelled in former years, once 
 put up a very successful job on Fred Callis. It was 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 59 
 
 when Fred kept a saloon on Milwaukee street, between 
 Wisconsin and Michigan streets and had a good stock 
 of the best imported goods. A city election was ap- 
 proaching and there was considerable talk about Alder- 
 manic candidates. In those days only a saloon man 
 stood any show of an election in the Third ward. 
 
 One night the crowd in question went to Fred's place 
 at about 11 o'clock, seated themselves in a private room 
 and entered into an apparent earnest consultation. In- 
 stead of the usual Milwaukee brew, they ordered a bottle 
 of Champagne. Callis nearly fell over at the order, but 
 the boys were good payers and being the only ones then 
 in the house, he gave his best attention. 
 
 When Fred came in with the order, room for another 
 had been provided at the table and he was invited to 
 the vacant scat. Proper gravity was observed and as the 
 second filling of the glasses was ready for use one of the 
 party informed Mr. Callis that they were there on no 
 less important business than that of a committee from 
 Democratic headquarters with instructions to secure his 
 consent to become a candidate for alderman for the 
 Third ward, assuring him of the most hearty support and 
 a certainty of the nomination, if he would accept it. 
 
 The proposition had the proper swelling efifect upon 
 the head of the innocent Michlenberger, which was con- 
 siderably enhanced by the further announcement that the 
 decision had been made that the Irish in the ward, who 
 had always ruled it in the council, w^ould give him their 
 united support, following the lead of Hacket, Ramsey 
 and the other lights of the party. After due considera- 
 tion Fred gave his consent to accept the nomination. 
 During the discussion a full dozen bottles of Champagne 
 were put out of sight, all furnished by the house, in 
 recognition of the honor about to be conferred upon its 
 head. 
 
 The matter was left for a further consultation the 
 next night, when other partv leaders were to be present, 
 and Fred was cautioned to keep profoundly silent about 
 it until all details could be arranged. 
 
 The next night the crowd was so much increased by 
 leading lights in the party that it took two bottles to go 
 
60 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 around. The conference was quite lengthy and about 
 two dozen bottles were emptied, all in recognition of the 
 coming honor. The proceeding was kept up about ten 
 days before all details were arranged. During the time 
 the party lights consumed over 200 bottles of Fred's 
 Champagne, and large numbers of best cigars, all at 
 his expense. During the last few days prior to the nom- 
 inating convention Fred's candidacy became known and 
 he received the congratulations of nearly everybody in 
 the Third ward, as well as of large delegations from 
 other parts of the city, all of whom, of course, were prop- 
 erly entertained. His candidacy cost CalHs something 
 over $700 and when the time came, of course an Irish- 
 man was nominated. Germany was as far from receiv- 
 ing recognition as it had ever been before or as it has 
 been since in the Third ward. 
 
 THE CPIAPMAN STORE FIRE. 
 
 I recall the night of the fire in the Chapman store. 
 About a quarter of ten as I was oassing the front I 
 thought there was a suspicious look around the gas jet 
 burning at the rear of the store. Every w^atchman knows 
 more fires have been discovered through smoke around 
 a burning gas jet than in any other way. 1 watched it 
 and my suspicion grew stronger that something w^as 
 wrong. The fire chief had often told me to take no 
 chances, so I ran to the nearest fire box and pulled in an 
 alarm. 
 
 The fire laddies came flying, and by the time they 
 arrived there was plenty of fire. Before morning $600,- 
 000 worth of property had gone up in smoke. 
 
 Next morning Mr. Chapman stood on the opposite 
 corner. Some of his lady clerks were there lamenting 
 over the great loss. Turning to them, he said: 
 
 "See here, ladies; the store is gone, but T am here yet. 
 Worse things than that might happen." 
 
 A Miss Davis said to me: "Mr. Aubery. unless I mis- 
 take the man there will be a new store built here inside of 
 six months." 
 
 She was right. On the ()th of the following April 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 6l 
 
 •occurred the opening of the new store, which still occu- 
 pies its position as one of the finest institutions of the 
 kind in the West, and a grand monument to the skill and 
 energy of the man whose efiforts made it. 
 
 LEG OF THE TABLE. 
 
 One winter a company of Seventh ward young bloods 
 set out to organize a minstrel show. They had a couple 
 
 'Let's Get Him Out of Here and Thaw Him Out.' 
 
 of rooms in which to rehearse, the same rooms as have 
 for some years been occupied by W. C. WiUiams as a 
 law office, just across the alley from Heyn's store. Among 
 their paraphernalia was a dummy man, stuffed with 
 shavings. After a few rehearsals they bursted up, quit 
 the business and threw the dummy out through the win- 
 dow into the alley. Not long after, I came that way 
 -and discovered the dummy in the alley. Having been in 
 the rooms one night during rehearsal, I readily under- 
 stood what it was. There was a snow squall on at the 
 
62 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 time and I straightened Mr. Dummy along the side of 
 the building and went away. 
 
 Policeman McCormick was then on the Third ward 
 beat and I watched for him. In about an hour he came 
 along and I said to him : 
 
 "Mc, there's some poor devil laid out down here in 
 the alley. I guess we'd better go and take care of him." 
 
 McCormick was agreed and we went to the alley to 
 save the fellow from freezing. As Mc. looked at the 
 prostrate form he said: 
 
 *'Ah, sure, an' Oi know who it is right well. Sure, 
 it's 'Lig of The Table'." 
 
 "Leg of The Table" was a nick-name by which a cer- 
 tain Third ward character was known. 
 
 "Well, 'Mc.'," said I, "let's get him out of here and 
 take him to the station and thaw him out. You get hold 
 of his shoulders and I'll take his legs and we'll carry him 
 out." 
 
 As "Mc." got his grip on the shoulders the thing fell 
 apart and the shavings scattered out in the alley. Mc- 
 Cormick's disgust and chagrin at being sold and having 
 identified the thing was inexpressible. He stood and 
 looked at the wreck fully a minute and then said: 
 
 " 'Doc' xA^hbry, yez can laugh much as ye loik, but Or 
 say thot was a dhirty blaggairdin' thrick. Oi w'uldn't 
 moind the joke, but fur hevin, ixprissed me poshitive be- 
 laif thot it was 'Lig of The Table,' so Oi w'uldn't." 
 
 POOR LITTLE ORPHANS. 
 
 A good many years ago there was an organization in 
 the city known as the Poor Little Orphans club. It was 
 composed of a lot of wealthy men, such as James Petley,, 
 Q. A. Matthews, I. G. Mann, E. O. Riddell, Rufus Allen, 
 and others of that class, all of Yankee birth. During 
 winter months they usually held a meeting and had a 
 dance each Friday night, always in Severances' hall. 
 Their meetings were o>f the real, old, down east Yankee 
 sociable order and their lunch always consisted of dough- 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 63. 
 
 nuts, pumpkin pie and cider. One evening's supply was 
 usually a bushel of doughnuts, a dozen pies and two to. 
 four gallons of cider, which they always got by the bar- 
 rel from York state. They were a jolly set and never 
 required the presence of a policeman to keep order. The 
 club was one of the pleasant organizations which came 
 and has gone during my time as guardian of mercantile 
 interests in the nights of twenty-five years. 
 
 A MASHER MASHED. 
 
 Not very long ago a Seventh ward dude took a stroll 
 down Wisconsin street on a mashing expedition. He 
 is an inveterate smoker, and smokes only the best Bar- 
 rister cigars. He stepped up to a healthy looking young 
 woman who was passing up the street and in an instant 
 I saw an umbrella descending upon his head with a mus- 
 cular feminine arm at the helm. She not only pounded 
 him over the head, but jabbed him in the ribs and soon 
 gave him the worst of the deal. I said to myself: 
 "That's the kind of girl who ought to come around 
 here oltener." I finally went to his rescue, about the 
 time the girl went triumphantly away, assured him he had 
 been treated badly and advised him to go to a Barber 
 shop, as the police were onto his game and might run 
 him in. 
 
 POLICEMAN LOST AN EAR. 
 
 Back in the old days there were some high times in 
 the Third ward. It was justly entitled to be called "The 
 Bloody Third." It held some of the toughest nuts the 
 town ever harbored. After there had been several times 
 and pieces of times down there in swift succession a 
 burly policeman was sent into the territory to straighten 
 things out. The "laddiebucks" were a trifle suspicious 
 of him and kept in line for awhile. But finally "de b'ys'^ 
 got out for a time and he dropped upon them right in the 
 midst of trouble. 
 
 Lnmediately there was a change of front on the part 
 of the combatants. The contending forces ceased theM- 
 
64 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 contentions and lined up as one man against the "cop." 
 He came out of the melee minus an ear and wearing 
 various other wounds and blemishes. One oi the old 
 Third's thoroughbreds had bitten off the ear. 
 
 A few days after one old resident of the ward re- 
 marked to another: 
 
 ''Gud mornan', Mr. O'Brine. Oi hear yer bye has 
 got in trouble wid a polaceman." 
 
 "Indade he have, sir," said Mr. O'B., and Oi do be 
 thinkin' it's a purty bad mess he's in, so Oi do." 
 
 "And do he still be havin' the aer phat he bit off the 
 afifisher?" 
 
 ''Yis, he have that same; he have it tacked on the 
 corner av the house as a warnin' til the nixt cop phat 
 do be sint into the warrud." 
 
 *'Yis, Mr. O'Brine; but if the polaceman do be dyin', 
 you'll have to shoot the bye. Sure Oi did be hearin' 
 that same this mornin', down to Paddy the Jews." 
 
 "Bedads, if the polaceman doies, then let him come 
 afther the bve an' take 'is own revange," said Mr. 
 O'Brien. 
 
 FELLOWS MADE HAPPY. 
 
 Not all of my discoveries have turned out bad or been 
 without pleasant memories connected. 
 
 One night, a lot of years ago, Mr. A. B. Severance, 
 the owner of Severance hall, came to me and said: 
 
 " 'Doc,' I wish you'd keep an eye on my hall nights." 
 
 ''Why, what's matter?" said L 
 
 "Well," said he, 'T think there's somebodv sleeping 
 up there on the third floor, nights, just outside the danc- 
 ing hall door." 
 
 "Owl right," said I; "T'll look after 'em.'' 
 
 About 2 o'clock next morning I went up the stairs 
 to the third floor and I had him. There lay a lad about 
 a dozen years old, sound asleep. I yanked him up and 
 said: 
 
 "What'n thundernation ve doin' here? This is no 
 place for vou to sleep. Come out of here and go to the 
 station." 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 65 
 
 The little fellow began to beg not to be taken to the 
 station and then began to cry. That was too much for 
 me. When the little fellow began to squak I weakened 
 and thought he was some mother's boy and was not 
 personally responsible for his being, or for being home- 
 less. So I took nim to a w^arm place where he could 
 sleep till morning and then took him home with me. In 
 a day or two I got him a job in the Sentinel office at 
 three dollars a week. My wife fixed up his clothes, made 
 him some more and we gave him a home until things 
 shaped differently for him. He cut up a few capers that 
 were not quite on the square, but finally got down to 
 business, got some education and is now a Milwaukee 
 business man and doing well. 
 
 Another youngster in whom I took an interest, hasn't 
 forgotten it. He was a little fellow, one of two small 
 brothers. Their mother was a widow and sickly and 
 the two little ones wxre working to support her. The 
 one I picked up was carrying messages for the Western 
 Union telegraph ofhce. I got acquainted with him, 
 learned his historv. saw he was made of the right stufi 
 and one night asked him if he wouldn't like a better job. 
 He said that was just what he did want so he could earn 
 more for his dear mother. Next day I got him a job in 
 a grocery store where he got much better wages. He 
 grew up working in that store, and is now a traveling 
 salesman for one of the largest whol'sale grocery houses 
 in the state, lives in a northern Wisconsin city and has 
 a fine familv. 
 
 One day not long ago a fine looking man came to 
 me on the street and said: 
 
 "How are you, 'Doc?' I am very glad to see you, 
 for I owe you a lot." 
 
 ''Guess you're a Httle off," said I. 'T don't recollect 
 ever lending you a quarter." 
 
 "Neither do I," said he, "but I do remember when I 
 was a friendless little kid carrying messages for $1.50 a 
 week and trying to live, and you got me a job as bell 
 boy at the Kirby house at $3 a week and board. That 
 was my start and set me up in life. I'm running a big 
 insurance office in Chicago now^: got a fine home and a 
 
66 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 nice family, and I owe it all to you. Wish you'd come 
 to Chicago, stay a month and be my guest. You bet I'll 
 never forget you and my job at the old Kirby. Come 
 and see me; give me a chance and I will try to recipro- 
 cate." 
 
 But my pick ups haven't all been boys. O, you think 
 something now, do you? Well you're off again. I've left 
 the other fellows to do the picking up of the she boys. 
 
 One day while looking around town I dropped into 
 a hotel on the east side. An intelligent looking man 
 was sitting alone. I casually dropped down by him and 
 said, "howdy." He responded and I saw at once that he 
 had a case of blues. It didn't take me long to find tnat he 
 was a foreigner, just arrived here, was a physician and 
 financially short. After a few minutes talk I said to him: 
 
 ''Come 'long 'n' take little walk with me,'t'll do ye 
 good." 
 
 Somehow he seemed to have a bit of confidence and 
 came. I took him up street to a drug store, introduced 
 him to two resident physicians and suggested that they 
 give him a bit of a show. He is one of the prominent 
 physician of the city now and has o^ten told me that I 
 caught him on the verge of the barren pastures of de- 
 spair and turned him into a clover patch which had no 
 fence around it. 
 
 But not all of my finds were of this agreeable finish 
 kind. I'll make a chapter somewhere in this book of 
 some of the others. 
 
 T. A. CHAPMAN. 
 
 At the time of the soldier's reunion here, in 1880, I 
 made application to Mr. Chapman and other merchants, 
 for a week's furlough. When I said to him: ''Mr. Chap- 
 man, I want to get off duty for a week," he looked at me 
 and replied: ''What? Whv. that's just the time you 
 ought to be on duty." 
 
 "Now, see here," said I, "you take into consideration 
 the fact that I put down the rebellion and taught more'n 
 half of the Wisconsin troops the manual of arms, and was 
 right there every time they won a victory, from start to 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 67 
 
 finish, and you know very well if I were chained to that 
 lamp post the boys would release me. You can bet on 
 that." 
 
 ''Say no more, say no more," said he; "it is all right. 
 Put a good man on the beat and enjoy yourself." 
 
 So it was, and we had a good time. 
 
 T. A. Chapman was a part of the noblest work of 
 God. He was loved by all who knew him. After many 
 years of the hardest work and getting his business in 
 proper shape he made Mr. Mills manager of the store, 
 thus getting for himself some relief. Then he took to 
 being out of doors much, for recreation and health. And 
 he seemed to take an interest in evervbody's welfare. He 
 purchased some property on Jackson street and prepared 
 to build upon it. He was there much of the time super- 
 intending the work and enjoyed it. 
 
 I had recently bought a little home which abutted 
 against his propertv. One day I was out in the yard 
 fixing up a chicken house when he saw me and came 
 over and this is about the conversation which followed. 
 
 "What are you doing over there, 'Doc?' " 
 
 "Hello! Is that you, Mr. Chapman? O, just fixing 
 up my chicken coop. Looks like I am going to have 
 some new neighbors, see? and I don't want to lose any 
 of my white Leghorns." 
 
 He took in the situation, for he always liked an in- 
 nocent joke. 
 
 "Why don't you fill your lot up there a little, bring it 
 to a level, move the barn over on the line and fix it up 
 in shape?" said he. 
 
 "Now, look here," said I, "I've just got my little 
 home paid for, but have no money in the bank. Another 
 year, if I can, I intend to do just that same thing, b'gosh." 
 
 "O, that's it, is it?" said ae. 
 
 "Yes, sir; that's the size of the pile and just what's 
 troublin' Hannah and yours truly," said I. 
 
 He ran his fingers through his hair, as he was ac- 
 customed to do when thinking, looked me in the eye 
 and said: 
 
 "Look here, 'Doc', you go up to Owen Goss, the 
 house mover, and see what it will cost vou to have that 
 
68 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 work done, and done right. D'ye hear? Let me know in 
 two days." 
 
 The third day following I met him at the same place 
 and he said : 
 
 "Well, 'Doc,' did ye find out about that business?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; I did," said I. 
 
 "How much will it cost?" he asked. 
 
 "Ninety-eight dollars and fifty cents, sir," said I. 
 
 ''O, 'twill, will it? Look here, you go and have that 
 done right off. Send me the bill and I will make you a 
 present of it. Don't let them rob us down at the store." 
 
 That was Timothy A. Chapman, my employer, who 
 was a poor boy nimself once, but who proved himself 
 one of the noblest works of God, an honest, good man. 
 
 It is not strange that there was general mourning 
 when he died. His life history was full of just such acts 
 as the one I have related. 
 
 WHERE I CAUGHT A THIEF. 
 
 Years ago, I lived on the west side, out on Third 
 street. My usual route down to my beat was across 
 Oneida street bridge. One cold night I met a fellow on 
 the bridge with a buffalo robe under his arm. I wobbled 
 around just a trifle and as I met him said: 
 
 "H'war ye? What got, eh? Buf'lo, eh? Want sell 
 
 He allowed he didn't want to sell it, as he had just 
 brought it with nim from Denver and was taking it 
 home. I bantered him for a price on it and he finally 
 said: "Ten dollars." 
 
 I wanted the robe mighty badly, but had only five 
 dollars with me. But I had a friend only a block up the 
 street who would lend me the other five. He finally con- 
 sented to go back and get the money and in a couple of 
 minutes we walked into the old police station. Lieut. 
 Kendrick was on duty and stretched back in his chair as 
 we walked in. Giving him a signal squint with my lar- 
 board eye I said : 
 
 "Cap'n, I want t' buy this man's buf'lo robe for ten 
 
OF MILAVAUKEE AFTER DARK 69 
 
 dollars and only got five with me. '11 ye lend me five till 
 morn'n?'' 
 
 He said he'd lend me the five and keep the robe for 
 security. That was satisfactory and he got up, took the 
 robe and walked the fellow into a cell. Next day he. was 
 sentenced for six months. 
 
 Less than ten minutes before E. R. Pantke had been 
 in and reported the theft of a buffalo robe from a hook 
 in front of his store and several officers had been sent 
 out to look for the thief. The balance of that winter 1 
 wore a pair of warm fur gloves, a present from Pantke. 
 
 DAN DAGGETT ON FREE LUNCH. 
 
 About 3 o'clock one morning, Dan Daggett, in his 
 normal condition for that hour, had full possession of 
 the Wisconsin street sidewalk, on the postoffice side, and 
 was water-logging up the street toward his rooms. He 
 was the same Dan that, one other morning, kicked a 
 defenseless skunk off" the sidewalk, mistaking it for a cat. 
 
 Earlier in the night a bill poster had spilled a bucket 
 of paste on the sidewalk, and it made a big, gray puddle. 
 Dan approached the mess, rolling like an old schooner 
 in a heavy sea, braced l^imself, cocked his head to the 
 left and looked at it and blurted out : 
 
 " 'At fel' mus' struck mighty big free lunch, hie, 
 b'gosh. Damfool, might known couldn't git 't all home 
 'ith 'im." 
 
 EXPERIENCE WITH A MAD DOG. 
 
 There was, in my early years on the street, a pretty 
 tliorough sport in town known as Flarry. He was a 
 genuine .rounder and could carry more booze in his tank 
 and not show it than any other three fellows in the city 
 Harry had two dogs, one a pretty fair-sized bull, the 
 other apparently a cross between a water spaniel and a 
 Scotch terrier. They knew his haunts as well as he did 
 and would take his trail at Tenth street and locate him 
 in some one of the half-dozen saloons then on Milwau- 
 kee street at any hour, day or night. Harry was a thor- 
 
70 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 ough stayer and comer. He was last to turn in at night 
 and first around in the morning. 
 
 A good-natured Irishman kept a saloon in the Third 
 ward, just south of the Seventh ward line. He took con- 
 siderable pains to make things pleasant for the boys, and 
 for a time held a good share of their patronage. 
 
 Early in August another Irishman opened a saloon 
 in a basement a couple of doors away. He was up to his 
 businessand understood the importance of a round on the 
 house frequently. It wasn't long until the crowd drifted 
 to his place as headquarters, practically deserting his 
 countryman, who had a just claim to priorty of location 
 on the street. 
 
 The mixer of jag seed who had been deserted by the 
 crowd for a new love felt the abandonment keenly and 
 •offered two thoroughly alive Third ward chaps all the 
 <irinks they wanted for a month free, if they would play 
 a good joke on the new comer and chase the gang out 
 of his place. 
 
 It was right in the heat of dog days and there had 
 been several mad dog stories in the papers. One sultry 
 night, about 10 o'clock, Harry's dogs came down on 
 his trail. The fellows for whom the free drinks were in 
 store were lying for them. They inviegled them into a 
 back room a few doors distant where they had a bucket 
 of foamy lather made with a cake of soap just on the 
 market, which was warranted to make a lather that would 
 hold its foam an hour. This lather they slashed over 
 the head, neck, mouth and shoulders of the larger dog 
 and then let them out. 
 
 The dogs made a bee line for the new saloon, went in 
 on the bound and flew around the room in search of 
 their master. At that moment one of the conspirators 
 stuck his liead over the stairway by the open door and 
 yelled: 
 
 "Mad dog! Mad dog! Look out there!" 
 
 As the eyes of the crowd caught on the dog with its 
 head and neck flecked with foam there was a tumult of 
 yells and a rush for the door. The shouting frightened 
 the dogs and they also made for the door. The rear 
 guard of the rush grabbed a chair and bv one swoop 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 71 
 
 sent both dogs to the rear of the room and the crowd 
 escaped onto the street. Every one was fully convinced 
 it was a genuine mad dog. Half an hour later most of the 
 gang were in the saloon of their first love where the two 
 who worked the game regaled them with blood curdling 
 stories about the narrow escapes of half a dozen persons 
 from the jaws of that same dog as he came down through 
 the First and Seventh wards. 
 
 Next day the daily papers all had the story of the 
 mad dog and the narrow escape of a score of persons. 
 Before the fellows got onto the joke they had forsaken 
 the new saloon entirely and the other fellow had a flour- 
 ishing trade again. 
 
 AN ESCAPED LUNATIC. 
 
 It was about 2 o'clock one September morning, the 
 sky clear and the air just a trifle cool. As I crossed 
 from the Chapman store and started down Wisconsin 
 street I saw coming up the street an athletic built fellow 
 fully six feet high, and well proportioned. He acted a 
 little queer, I thought, as he seemed to be watching in 
 every direction. I walked towards him and as he came 
 near he darted into a hallway and ran part way up the 
 dark stairs. As I came up to the entrance he said: 
 
 "Don't shoot! For God's sake don't!" and there was 
 a piteous tone to his appeal. 
 
 My first_ thought was that he was some fellow with 
 a case of the fruits of over-indulgence in flim-flam 
 whisky, vulgarly known as "jim jams, or snakes," and 
 said : 
 
 "What's matter, old man? Who's goin' to shoot? 
 Nobody's going to shoot you while I am here; you can 
 bet on that." 
 
 "Is that so?" he asked, "are you my friend?" 
 
 "You bet I am," said I, "what made you think I was 
 going to shoot?" 
 
 " 'Cause I met another fellow" down the road and he 
 threatened to shoot me. I thought everybody was go- 
 ing to shoot." 
 
 "No; nobodv wil shoot vou. Come on down here and 
 
72 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 let's talk the matter over," said I. 
 
 He came down the stairs and looked wildly in every 
 direction and 1 saw at once that his head had gone 
 wrong. It was about time for the regular officer to come 
 along and my play w^as to interest him until reinforce- 
 ments arrived. So I went at him in a matter of fact way, 
 not appearing to watch him at all. 
 
 ''What's your name?" I asked. 
 
 "Adam," was his reply. 
 
 "Adam? Adam what? Nothing but just Adam?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "That's all," said he, "just Adam. Y^ou've heard 
 about me, ain't you. I owned a farm out here a couple 
 of miles. My first wife's name w^as Eveline. The neigh- 
 bors called her 'Eve.' She got me into trouble with my 
 landlord, a long time ago, and I got a divorce from her. 
 I've got along better since." 
 
 "O, yes;" said I, "I remember about you now. Where 
 you been living lately?" 
 
 "Don't live anywhere," said he, "just stay wherever 
 I happen to be." 
 
 "By this time I concluded that it was a bad case on 
 my hands and I had a growing desirejor the appearance 
 of the regular officer on the beat, yet I couldn't foretell 
 what efifect the sight of another person might have on 
 him. He w^as getting uneasy and was liable to break 
 away any minute. Seeing that some move nmst be 
 made I asked: 
 
 "Where w^as it that fellow threatened to shoot you?" 
 
 "Right down this road, just this side of the w^oods, 
 right there near the milldam, where the stump fence 
 runs up against the stone w^all," said he. 
 
 "Then we'd better take a walk this way," said I, "and 
 come around the other side of the woods, or, if you like, 
 I'll take you over to my house and give you a bed. I 
 don't want anybody to shoot you." 
 
 He w^as agreed and we walked up Milwaukee street 
 to Mason, then down to Broadway and in ten minutes 
 poor Mr. Adam was in a cell in the police station. He 
 was one of the most dangerous lunatics at the Wauwa- 
 tosa asylum and had escaped that night. Next morning 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 73, 
 
 it took six good men to handle him and get him back to 
 the asyhmi, where the poor fellow died the next year. 
 
 BOY BAILED OUT. 
 
 Fifteen to twenty years ago there was a young sport, 
 son of a wealthy citizen, who was often getting himself 
 into trouble. About once a month he would send for 
 me to come over and bail him out of the police station. 
 He always fixed matters up next day and I felt it a sort 
 of duty to help him out. After a while his father learned 
 what was going on. He hunted me up and said: 
 
 ''Look here, 'Doc/ if you want to have any comfort 
 around this town don't you bail that boy of mine out of 
 the station again. Just you tell them to send for me 
 next time." 
 
 Of course, I obeyed and said nothing, but, some way, 
 the boy caught on and kept straight for quite a while, 
 but one night up came a messenger boy with a request 
 for a deposit of $31. 
 
 "0,'no;" said I, "not this time. I have my orders. 
 Go and tell his father." 
 
 Next day, just before the "consolation carriage" left 
 for the House of Correction, Willie was bailed out and 
 sent out west to grow up wath the country. He is now 
 a prosperous business man in St. Paul. 
 
 INCIDENTS WITH FIRES. 
 
 There have been a good many incidents in connection 
 with fires. Some of them have been too serious to dis- 
 cuss Hghtly. One of that kind occurred at the fire in 
 Charley Kraus' saloon, near the Academy of Music. 
 
 A fire occurred at the same place a few years before, 
 when a dressmaker who had rooms on the second floor 
 was overcome by smoke and firemen carried her down 
 a ladder. As was the case with Mrs. Kraus, she had" 
 plenty of time to have gotten down the stairs, but got 
 rattled and didn't know what to do. 
 
 In the olden times small fires were occasionally _ex- 
 tinijuished without calling out the department. The 
 
74 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 regular policeman and I discovered one in the rear part 
 of a small store on Mason street. A Kerosene lamp had 
 gO'ne wrong and the blaze around it was just starting. 
 We kicked the door open and put out the fire with a 
 pail of water which was in the store. 
 
 The owner of the building lived over the store. Our 
 kicking the door open awoke him. He slipped into his 
 trowsers, ran to the police station and said there were 
 burglars in Munn's store. Two policemen came back 
 with him on a run, just as we w^re fixing up the door. 
 No chances are taken on putting out fires by hand now. 
 
 EXPERIENCES WITH VETERANS. 
 
 Naturally I have had some experiences with some 
 of the old fellows who helped to save their country dur- 
 ing the war. Eor a long time I was an easy mark for 
 such of them as were given to absorbing the supply of 
 their needs ofif others, and there is no use denying that 
 there is occasionally one of that class. All of the clerks 
 in my bailiw^ic were aware of my friendship for those old 
 fellows and would send the stranded and strapped ones to 
 hunt me up. I don't know that I ever refused to help 
 one along unless I knew he didn't deserve it. 
 
 There w^as one old fellow who was in a habit of get- 
 ting outside the picket line, at the Soldier's Home pretty 
 frequently, and he would as often fall on me for the loan 
 of a quarter, after the last car toward the home had gone. 
 
 ''Just a quarter, 'Doc,' " he would say, "to piece me 
 out till morning, for I can't get back to the home to- 
 night. Just a quarter, till my pension comes; then I'll 
 fix it up all right. 
 
 The thing got monotonous and I resolved to stop it. 
 The next time he struck me for a quarter, ''just to get a 
 bed till morning,' I said to him: 
 
 "See here, Mr. Second Division, Sixth Corps, you and 
 I have selpt on the ground, down in Johnny Reb land, 
 lots of times, eh?" 
 "Y^ou bet we have, 'Doc,' " said he. 
 
 "Well, see here, you just take this note over to Ser- 
 geant O'Connor, at the police station, he's good fellow 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 75 
 
 and will give you a bed for the night, dam sight better'n 
 we had next night after Bull Run." 
 
 That fellow made a bee line down the street and I 
 never saw him again. 
 
 Another whom I recall used to come down and stay 
 with me pleasant nights till I went home in the morning, 
 then he would go home with me, get a good sleep and 
 dinner and in the afternoon I would take him to the 
 home in my buggy. Poor Jack Rowell ! He was a good 
 soldier, one of ^en. Braggs Iron Brigade boys. Flis 
 grave is No. 45 in the Soldiers' Home cemetery and no 
 one is better strewn with flowers on each memorial day, 
 and an American flag and a little red pack, familiar to all 
 First Corps men, are placed at the head of his last 
 bivouac, and I am thus reminded of what his old com- 
 mander once said: 
 
 "Here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray, 
 The stars of its winter, the dews of its May; 
 And when we have ended all earthly joys, 
 Then, dear Father, take care of the boys." 
 
 ONE OF THE BRAVE AND TRUE. 
 I think it was about fifteen years after the war closed 
 and I had located in Milwaukee that I frequently saw a 
 man in the city whose face and movements seemed 
 familiar to me, but I could not locate him satisfactorily. 
 He would appear every two or three weeks, carrying a 
 g-rip and going to or from a train. Finally, one night, 
 I stopped him and asked if he had been in the arn-.y. He 
 said he had, and was in the Iron Brigade. Yes, he re- 
 membered the newsboy of that organization, and right 
 there wc renewed old acquaintance, which is sure to re- 
 main fresh and often re-renewed while we remain on 
 this side of the shadowy land. That man was Col. J. A. 
 Watrous, one of the bravest men who ever faced a deadly 
 and determined foe and whose heart of kindness goes out 
 in sympathy to all humanity everywhere, a man who has 
 given as much of the best of his life for tne benefit of 
 his country and his fellow man as any man ever has, 
 whose lovaltv never falters and who never le^ts an op- 
 
70 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 portunity to do a kindly act pass unimproved. If he 
 should happen to be the last survivor of that great army 
 of loyal and true men whose efforts saved this govern- 
 ment from destruction by its foes of bygone days, I be- 
 lieve he would be of all men the most miserable and un- 
 happy, for there would be no one of his comrades in arms 
 left for him to think for, do for, try to make more com- 
 fortable and happy than he might otherwise be. Y'et all 
 hope he may live thus long. 
 
 LEO AND THE DOG. 
 
 King Leopold had a namesake in Milwaukee, in fact, 
 quite a number of them, but one in particular I have in 
 mind. He had plenty of cash and did not always fly 
 
 I 
 
 Went Out With the Old Year. 
 
 low. A drug store at the corner of Wisconsin and Mil- 
 waukee streets was a favorite place with him. That lo- 
 cality was also a general loafing place for a not very 
 valuable dog which nobody seemed to own, but those 
 familiar with him called him George. The dog had be- 
 come considerable of a nuisance. He had a habit of 
 running into the street and snarling at a passing vehicle, 
 often setting his teeth on a wheel and sometimes would 
 hang on and go around with it during several revolu- 
 tions. 
 
 One New Year's eve the King's namesake concluded 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 7; 
 
 it was time to get rid of that dog. Of course, as the old 
 year passed into Time's big morgue and the young one 
 mounted his pegassus, bells and whistles were tied loose 
 and a bable of noises was on. The conspirators 
 with an abundance of red and blue fire from the drug- 
 store doorfar into the street. As Chief Foley pulled 
 the fire department bell, a signal for ah to let 'er go, the 
 drug store door was opened and the dog sent out with a 
 kick and a bundle of tinware securely tied to his tail. 
 He came out with a bound and a yelp, a blaze of red fire 
 on either side of him, and struck a bee line down tow- 
 ards Grand avenue. The bridge tender said he crossed 
 the river at the third tap of the fire bell. Policeman 
 John O'Brien reported him far out on Grand avenue at 
 12:01 o'clock. The ofhcer at the city limits gave his 
 record there as 12:02, with his nose due west. His rec- 
 ord at Wauwatosa was 12:08 and on the road to Ocono- 
 mowoc. That ended George's loafing at the drug store. 
 
 FRITZ AND HIS DOG. 
 
 There was once a German tailor known only as Fritz. 
 I think the balance of his name was Kadow. He worked 
 some years for Brenk Bros., when their shop was on 
 Milwaukee street. Fritz was a bachelor, lived by himself 
 in a couple of rooms in the Fourth ward. He had a dog, 
 a sort of a brindle, stub-tailed cur with which he shared 
 his room and his mess. Some of Fritz's remarks to that 
 dog have become current as a story among men. The 
 dog was a lazy whelp and much of the time remained at 
 home loafing in the room. On other days he would go 
 to the shop with Fritz, crawl under his master's bench 
 and sleep the time aw-ay between meals, always sharing in 
 the noon lunch. One day w^hen Fritz had taken the 
 smaller end of the lunch he sat on the bench and looked 
 at his dogship in a thoughtful mood. After several min- 
 utes reflection he broke out thus: 
 
 "You dhink you vas a tog, eh? I dhink so neder. 
 Jah, you vas a tog. I vas Fritz. I vish I vas you und 
 you vas me. Afery tay I vork me hart vile you schleeb. 
 
78 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 I git me in the morning up imd gooks der breakfast vile 
 you schleeb. I feeds you und go me to vork und you go 
 to schleeb. Ad noon I gif you tinner und you go to- 
 schleeb. Ad night I go me home und gooks der subber 
 und feets you und you go to schleeb, vile I vork me some 
 more und dhink. Pime py, some tay you go det, dhen I 
 dakes me my schoffel und tigs in der yart a hole und 
 puts you in id, und dhat vas der ent of you. Pime py, 
 some tay agin yit I tie vonce. Dhen what? Dhen I 
 got to go to hell yet." 
 
 There is no certainty but Fritz would have been still 
 talking to the dog in the same strain had not Casey, the 
 bookkeeper, who had been listening at the partially open 
 back door, walked into the shop at that moment. 
 
 DOVES FROM SPIRIT LAND. 
 
 Time was when I may have been something of a 
 spirituahst, but I got over it, survived, ''passed out" 
 from under the cloud and am all right now in the rock- 
 ribbed faith of my earlier years. Years ago, a well- 
 known spiritualist named Dickenson presented me two^ 
 doves, with the injunction to guard them with choicest 
 care, as they were sacred. According to the story he 
 had recently been in Boston and while there visited a 
 materialistic medium, who gave examples of manifesta- 
 tions. At one of his seances the room was darkened 
 when two doves flew down at his feet, sent direct from 
 the spirit world, and these were the ones brought to 
 Milwaukee and presented to me. I took them home, 
 gave them the best of care and it nearly broke my heart 
 when, a few days later they both died, or rather, as the 
 spirituaHsts say, ''passed out." 
 
 A day or two later I met a young nephew of the 
 noted spirituali'st and asked him if he knew anything 
 about those doves his uncle gave to me. He replied: 
 
 "Of course I do. I know all about them. They 
 were mine before they were yours. One day uncle and 
 I were down to the German market and I saw a lot of 
 doves in a box. They belonged to a Polish woman 
 up in the Eighteenth ward and were for sale. I wanted 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 79, 
 
 a pair of them and uncle said he would buy them for me. 
 She asked 15 cents apiece for them, but uncle got the 
 pair for a quarter. I took them home, but soon became 
 tired of them and he gave them to you. That is all there 
 is about the doves." 
 
 Unless some fakir of the Ethical Society gets up a 
 seance and causes the spirits of those doves to material- 
 ize, I shall believe the boy's story rather than his uncle's, 
 and will take no more stock in Spiritualism, unless it 
 comes at a discount and through a reliable stock broker. 
 
 A PEW SITTING SHOP LIFTER. 
 
 In former years it was my custom during holiday 
 seasons to spend the afternoons in the Chapman store, 
 on the watch for shoplifters. One day I discovered a 
 woman in the act of harvesting a fine silk muffler on the 
 counter and garnering it in her muff. A gentleman now 
 engaged in real estate business was then floor walker in 
 that store. I reported the case to him and pointed out 
 the woman. When approached by him regarding the 
 matter she promptly surrendered the muffler, claiming 
 she had picked it up on the floor. I asked him if he did 
 not intend to prosecute her and he said: 
 
 **No, I guess not. She sits in the pew in front of me 
 at church every Sunday." 
 
 HUNGRY FOR LATIN. 
 When the Pierce block, corner of Wisconsin and Mil- 
 waukee streets, was rebuilt, in 1896, there was much 
 lavishness connected with its equipment. Its owner was 
 understood to have several barrels of money and didn't 
 seem to care how he spent it. Among other things he 
 hired a skilled engineer who was anxious to become a 
 Latin scholar, and had a mania for drinking wood al- 
 cohol. When Ladd &Janssen became settled in the cor- 
 ner store they made a fine window display of various 
 imported waters, wines and liquors. There was an acro- 
 batic comedian in town who gave exhibitions at the 
 shutes and was advertised as hailing from Boston, In 
 
So TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 the Third ward, where he hved, he was known as '"J^^'^'y 
 from Boston." One night Jerry and the engineer stood 
 in front of the window, when this conversation passed 
 between them: 
 
 Engineer — '7^^^)^ what is the meaning of spirit fru- 
 menti, which I saw on a bottle in the store?" 
 
 Jerry — "O, that's the best rye whiskey." 
 
 Engineer — "What is vini gaU?' 
 
 Jerry — "What, O, that's peach brandy." 
 
 Engineer — ''Then what is sic semper tyrannis?" 
 
 Jerrv-^"The best grade of port wine." 
 
 Engineer — 'T saw a bottle labelled 'Hie Jacet Gloria 
 Mundi.' What's that?" 
 
 Jerry — "The best and oldest sherry wine to be found 
 in the world." 
 
 The engineer died suddenly a few months later, either 
 from an overdose of wood alcohol or impacted Latin on 
 the brain. 
 
 HOW I FOUND GUITEAU. 
 
 Probably very few persons now living in Milwaukee 
 are aware that Charles J. Guiteau, the assassin of Presi- 
 dent Garheld, w^as ever a resident of this city. He lived 
 here, but, I think, for only a few months. 
 
 In November, 1*880, one Harold Emmons, a lawyer 
 now residing in Michigan, had his law office in the Mar- 
 shall block, corner of Wisconsin street and Broadway. 
 His rooms were the same as are now occupied by Col. 
 A. G. Weissert, past commander in Chief of the Grand 
 Army of the Republic. About 1 o'clock, one morning, 
 as I was looking through the building, on my usual 
 round, there was a bright light in Mr. Emmons' room. 
 Such an occurrence was quite a distance from the usual, 
 and I concluded to investigate. 
 
 Opening the door I walked in and there was a wiry- 
 built, weazen-faced, snakish-eyed, dark-completed man, 
 apparently of French construction, pacing up and down 
 the back room rehearsing Shakespeare at a rate sufficient 
 to beat a wdiole band of incipient tragedians preparing 
 for a season of infliction upon a suffering public. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 8l 
 
 The room pacer appeared considerably excited. He 
 offered me a chair, but said nothing about fumigating, or 
 anything in my particular line, and I excused myself 
 upon the ground that a light in Mr. Emmons' rooms so 
 late at night was rather over the fence from the usual, 
 and I merely wanted to see if everything was all right. 
 He said he had rented desk room there for awhile, and I 
 bid him good night and made my escape. 
 
 Next day I met Mr. Emmons and said to him: 
 
 "What sort of a French freak have you got in your 
 rooms?" 
 
 "O," said he, "I just rented him desk room for a 
 few months, and wish 1 hadn't. I guess the thing has 
 shipped its rudder. F'll have to get rid of him." 
 
 'Tt wasn't long until the freak was gone from those 
 rooms and I neither saw nor heard of him again until the 
 2d day of the following July. I came down town in the 
 afternoon and stopped at the T. A. Chapman store when 
 Jake Segar told me Garfield had been assassinated by a 
 fellow named Guiteau. 
 
 I remarked that I believed it was the same freak that 
 had desk room in Lawyer Emmons' office, and related 
 my discovery of and short interview with him. I have 
 since corresponded with Sergeant Mason, the man who 
 tried to avenge Garfield's death, and here is a copy of the 
 letter he wrote me: 
 
 "Locust Grove, Va.. March 18, 1894. 
 
 "C. B. Aubery, Milwaukee, Wis. Dear Sir: Your 
 letter of Feb. 23d received. I live on a farm twenty 
 miles from Fredericksburg in Orange county, Va., with 
 my wife and four children; Charles-, born Nov. 30, 1880; 
 Lucy, born April 3d, 1885; Will, born Feb. 3d, 1889, 
 and Joseph, born Jan. 4th, 1892. 
 
 "1 was in the Seventy-eighth Ohio regiment, Second 
 Brigade, Third Division, Seventeenth corps. I was dis- 
 charged at Indianapolis, Ind., Jan 6, 1865, having served 
 three years. I then enlisted in the regular army at Fred- 
 ricksburg, Va., July 15, 1860, and served until Septem- 
 ber 188L At that time I was First Sergeant of Battery 
 B, Second Artillery. My love and sympathy for Gar- 
 field outweighed my military discipline and T sent a bul- 
 
82 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 let into his assassin's cell in the hope that I might get 
 the villain. It was dark and I couldn't see him, yet my 
 intentions were good enough, so I let it go, hit or miss. 
 I was tried, got eight years in penitentiary as my sen- 
 tence, served twenty months and was pardoned. 
 
 ''Hoping to some time see you and tell you more 
 than I can write I am 
 
 *'Yours Truly, 
 
 "J. A. Mason." 
 
 While on a recent visit to Fredricksburg I tried to 
 see Mr. Mason, but as he lived twenty miles away and 
 my time was limited I had to deny myself the pleasure. 
 
 HORSELESS MAIL WAGONS. 
 
 There isn't many evenings in the year that A. B. 
 Geilfus doesn't come down town from his home in the 
 
 ' 'One of Perth's Horseless Wagons. 
 
 Seventh ward, -walk around a few blocks and then walk 
 home. He does it for exercise. One night, not long 
 ago, I met him about 9 o'clock, on Wisconsin street, and 
 remarked: 
 
 "George Forth is right up to date." 
 "How is that?" he asked. 
 
 "Running mail from the postofifice to the railroadl 
 stations with horseless wagons," I replied. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 83 
 
 "Well, I declare? Is that so?" asked the water 
 registrar. 
 
 *'Yes, sure;" said I. "One of the wagons just passed. 
 Didn't you see it?" 
 
 "No," said he. "What power does he use? Gasoline 
 engines or electricity?" 
 
 "Mules," said 1, and his cane just missed my hat. 
 
 JOHN AND HIS STAND. 
 
 John Bacigalupo, — most everybody knows him only 
 as John — is a scion from Italy who keeps a fruit stand 
 
 "And the Flag- is Still There." 
 
 on the Milwaukee side of the Bunde & Upmeyer store. 
 John and his stand have been there a good many years. 
 Prior to the summer of 1881 his stand was on the corner 
 of the sidewalk, at the store. Then preparations were on 
 for a big reunion of veterans of the war and Mayor T. H. 
 Brown ordered all fruit stands removed from street cor- 
 ners. As I came down town one afternoon John came 
 running to me in great excitement and asked : 
 
 " 'Doc' what I goin' t' do? Tom Brown he ord plice 
 make tak' stan' ofif corn'! Don' know what goin' do! 
 Son of gun! He ought get rope an' hang itself!" 
 
84 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 I told him I would see; took him in the store and 
 got Mr. Btmde's permission to place his stand against 
 the store, a few feet down from the corner, if John would 
 keep an American flag on the stand. There have been 
 few days when the flag was not there and John has voted 
 the Republican ticket ever since. 
 
 ROBBERS AND BURGLARS CAUGHT. 
 
 About 2 o'clock one morning in March, 1885, there 
 was a highway robbery on Michigan street, between 
 Broadway and Milwaukee street. Three toughs held up 
 a man named McLaughlin. The robbers were John 
 Long, John Kirk and Henry Woods. Policeman David 
 Harris, now a guard at Waupun, and John I. Murphy, 
 were close after the robbers. I was near the front of the 
 Bunde & Upmeyer store when the three fellows came up 
 Jefferson street and crossed to the alley now by the 
 Hotel Pfister and stepped back in the shade of a building. 
 Harris and Murphy came up Wisconsin street in search 
 of them. I pointed out their game and told them to 
 stand where they were and I w^ould chase the robbers 
 out. Crossing over by the postofhce I then crossed 
 Milwaukee street and went through a hall, coming out 
 on the alley a few rods north of the robbers. I got 
 pretty close to them and ordered them to put up their 
 hands. They all ran and I fired several shots over their 
 heads. By the description I got of them Woods and 
 Kirk were captured the next day. Long left the city and 
 was never captured. A couple of years later he fell off 
 a steamer in the Mississippi river and drowned. Kirk 
 got a year and six months in the house of correction and 
 Woods got two years in Waupun. 
 
 About 2 o'clock in the morning, Dec. 13, 1875, D. 
 C. Reed, then government boiler inspector, came up 
 Jefferson street, turned down Wisconsin and met me in 
 front of Stark Bros.' store. About two rods behind him 
 came Pat Donahue, one of the toughest products of the 
 Third ward. Mr. Reed stopped me and as Pat came up 
 said: " 'Doc' this fellow has just robbed the Troy laun- 
 dry. I saw him in there." 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 85 
 
 I knew Pat was desperate and would shoot if neces- 
 sary, so I made a play to take his part, remarking: "O, 
 I know him. He wouldn't do such a thing as that." 
 
 Mr. Reed insisted that he was right and he and Pat 
 began arguing the case. As they became interested I 
 tripped Pat's feet from under him, laid him on his back 
 and dropped upon him. He reached for his revolver. 
 [ caught his hands, asked Reed to hold one while I held 
 the other and blew my whistle for the regular policeman, 
 Michael O'Connor, now lieutenant of police. He w^as 
 there in a minute and Pat went in. He got six months 
 in the House of Correction. Four years ago he was 
 found dead in a freight car in the C. M. & St. P. 
 yard. 
 
 One night in the fall of 1878 I discovered a fellow 
 in the alley at the rear of the store now occupied by 
 William Reckmeyer. I had forgotten my revolver, but 
 had a big duplex whistle in my pocket. I pulled it upon 
 him. He threw up his hands and I marched him out 
 to the street, just then Michael Peck, the regular ofhcer, 
 came along, identified my prisoner, gave him a certificate 
 of good character and we discharged him. It was a false 
 alarm, but it has ahvays been my policy to take no 
 chances of letting a possible burglar escape. 
 
 SOMETPHNG OF A STORM. 
 
 During my twenty-five years out nights I have seen 
 some storms. One night I was knocked down by light- 
 ning in front of the Chapman store. I managed to get to 
 the Windsor hotel. Ofificer Michael Peck happened to 
 be there. He hastened some restoratives into me and 
 went out to investigate. The lightning had struck a 
 house just south of wdiere the Goldsmith building now 
 stands and ran dow'n a lightning rod to the ground. A 
 policeman w-as also knocked down by the shock a block 
 farther away. 
 
 That was a night w^hen the wind blew. There was 
 an oak barrel in front of Dan. Jones' store. The wind 
 blew the staves and hoops away, leaving only the bung- 
 hole. Gray Bros, had just drilled an artesian w^ell at the 
 
86 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 Colby .& Abbott building. The wind blew that well out 
 by the roots, turned it inside out and dropped it away 
 up the river near the flushing tunnel. It took a week to 
 get it back and drive it into its hole again. This story 
 ought to be correct. It is just as I received it the next 
 day. 
 
 NIGHTS OFF DUTY. 
 
 During my twenty-five years of service as special 
 night police I can safely say I have not had twenty-five 
 nights ofl duty, and those have generally been during 
 Grand Army events, and a co^uple of other times. During 
 one of the latter, I w^as helping entertain a friend who 
 was attending a Masonic event. He is a Janesville busi- 
 ness man. In 1862 he was a member of "Jeb." Stuart's 
 black horse rebel cavalry and had the honor of capturing 
 me and sending me off to Richmond to become ac- 
 quainted with Libby prison. That night was spent dif- 
 ferently from my nights in Libby prison. 
 
 Another night off which I recall was the first one after 
 McKinley's election to the presidency. As I came down 
 for duty I saw trouble ahead. Mel. Sanford was begin- 
 ning to receive returns by private wire. Operator Sam. 
 lUers was at the ticking machine and John M. Ewing 
 was already shouting in the enthusiastic flush of victory 
 won. In the Pfister all were in high glee, with John M. 
 in the lead. I put a substitute on my beat, put in the 
 night with the other victors and finally went home about 
 the same as the others did — ^full, of the satisfaction that 
 prosperity had struck us. 
 
 A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER. 
 
 Away back in the olden time a stranger came to town 
 and located on the second floor at 41() Milwaukee street. 
 He wore a flashy tie ornamented with a silver quarter 
 made into a pin with a picture of the sun engraved upon 
 it. I frequently saw him standing in the hall door and 
 was a trifle suspicious of him. At that time Col. E. A. 
 Calkins was running a Sunday newspaper in that build- 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 87 
 
 ing. One hot night I caught the facetious Colonel out 
 barefooted gathering items for his paper and asked him 
 who the stranger was. He repUed: 
 
 *'0, he's all right. That's George Peck and he's go- 
 ing to run a newspaper up there in a room next to mine." 
 
 I believe I never told George how near I came to 
 running him in on suspicion. 
 
 SCARCITY OF FIRES AND CRIMES. 
 
 Aside from the burning of the Chapman store there 
 have been few fires of consequence on my beat in twenty- 
 five years. During Chief Foley's long reign at the head 
 of the fire department he has given me many valuable 
 pointers on watching for fires, always insisting that any 
 number of false alarms, when there was probability of a 
 fire, were preferable to even brief delay in time of dan- 
 ger. His constant vigilance, in that respect has been a 
 blessing to the city. 
 
 In this connection I am surely justified in referring to 
 the persistent efforts of Chief of Police Janssen in main- 
 taining order. He has never once failed to give me en- 
 couragement and assistance when needed. I could re- 
 late many instances in which his foresignt and wise di- 
 rection have undoubtedly averted the perpetration of 
 crime, and there are doubtless many more night watch- 
 men in the city who could give similar testimonials to 
 his efficiencv. 
 
 LANDMARKS SPARED BY TIME. 
 
 Time has wrought its changes rapidly durmg twenty- 
 five years. Hundreds of the olden-time familiar faces have 
 passed awav. Yet some remain. The largest group 
 now to be found in one establishment on my beat, who 
 were there twenty-five years ago, are in the Chapman 
 store, where they have grown up and soiiie of them have 
 grown gray in the service. Those who have passed the 
 entire quarter of a century there and are still on dutv 
 are Manager P. R. Hannifin, J. A. Seger. Harrv C. 
 
88 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 Barber, B. V. Seger, John MuUer, Hugo Bohn, A. Arn- 
 stein, W. H. Grossman, Miss Lottie Davis, Augustus 
 Chapman, B. Koepke, Matt. Wagner, Martin Muer, G. 
 C. Murphy and Harry Lawrence, and "Billy" Omisby, 
 many years a favorite with Mr. Ghapman, is still in the 
 service of the Ghapman family. 
 
 At Herman Heyn's store there is but one of the old 
 time attaches, a young lady who modestly requests me 
 not to print her name. Louis W. Bunde, of Bunde & 
 Upmeyer, was a cash boy in the Ghapman store; so was 
 that firm's optician, Henry Waldic. Otto Zedler, also 
 now with Bunde & Upmeyer, was with the old time firm 
 of Stanley & Gamp. Mr. Keogh, of Garroil & Keogh, 
 was a clerk in the T. A. Ghapman store and Louis Tis- 
 dale, secretary of the Stark Bros. Gompany, was Stark 
 Bros.' bookkeeper then. 
 
 One old-time friend I miss, but often recall one of his 
 favorite expressions. He was Edward Stark. Parting one 
 night, after a chat on the corner near the store, he said: 
 "Well, 'Doc,' good night; keep a good lookout, for 
 
 "When the iron tongue of Time 
 Tolls the hour of midnight. 
 How often we say 'Time flies,' 
 When 'tis not time that flies, 
 But we who are passing away." 
 
 In tho<se days agone, Mark Tyson, who rode his 
 mare up the full flight of stairs into the Newhall house 
 bar-room, took a drink and treated the crowd on a hun- 
 dred dollar bet, was among the active and conspicuous. 
 William Sexton was among the leading boomers when 
 there was sport in sight and G. W. Featherstonhaugh, 
 now relegated into the shades of comparative obscurity, 
 was a conspicuous figure. He was a member of the 
 second constitutional convention, which adopted the 
 State Gonstitution, and was credited with having written 
 most of that document. Featherstonhaugh was one of 
 the bright men of that period and capalole of saying as 
 mean things as any. The latter faculty he retained well, 
 as a couple of instances will illustrate. 
 
 Some ten to fifteen years ago he was passing along 
 Milwaukee street when a young man whose front name 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 89. 
 
 was Byron was sitting on a bench in front of his father's 
 place of business. As if to clear his throat he gave a 
 couple of semi-coughs. Instantly Featherstonhaugh 
 turned upon him with: 
 
 "Young man, what do you mean, sir? You, sir, 
 named after an illustrious poet and only the son of a 
 botch painter, sir!" and the old man went his way. 
 
 Not long after the great telegraph op<;rators' strike, 
 along about 1885, Peter McGill was sitting in front of a 
 hotel when Mr. Featherstonhaugh approached him and 
 remarked: 
 
 ''Young man, you are a Scotchman, aren't you?" 
 
 "I plead guilty to the charge, sir," said the gentle- 
 manly Peter. 
 
 'The Scotch are a sturdy race of strong and able 
 men, sir. Do you happen to have a spare quarter about 
 
 vou 
 
 "I have, sir," said Peter, handing him the desired as- 
 surance of two drinks. 
 
 "But, sir, the dirty cusses are all lousy, have the itch, 
 and the Duke of Argyle had a post set up on which to 
 scratch his lousy back," was the old man's instant re- 
 joinder as the quarter slipped into his hand, and he 
 moved along. 
 
 Among those seen regularly around my beat twenty- 
 five years ago and who are still here are Judge H. L. 
 Palmer, Judges Mallory and Jenkins, the venerable 
 William E. Cramer, A. J. Aikens, the Vermont Yankee; 
 Edward and John F". Cramer, Herman, Julius, Louis and 
 Adolph Bleyer, all of the Evening Wisconsin; Henry and 
 Albert Bleyer, of the Sentinel; Frank and William Bige- 
 low, Charles Pfister, Drs. Leustrom, Mason, Carlson, 
 Ladd, Marks, Wolcott and Bartlett; E. O. Ladd, B. M. 
 Weil, Herman Heyn, C. J. and Joshua Stark, H. N. 
 Hempsted, Rufus Ahen, George Eddy, A. G. Weissert, 
 Louis Auer, Fred S. Ilsley, C. A. Higgins, Capt. C. J. 
 Sackett, Senator John L. Mitchell, James Bryden, Alex- 
 ander Cochran, Robert Eliot, E. P.'Bacon, W. J. Curtin. 
 A. G. Rose, Edward Pyatt, now of Chicago; E. C. Wall. 
 Charles Whitnall, John Johnston, Commodore W. H. 
 Wolf, Gregorv Hurson, Frank L. A'ance, Albert Huegin. 
 
.go TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 M. P. Walsh, Ed. Keogh, John J. Crilly, L G. Mann, 
 James Graham, James Bannen, Sr.; E. P., A. R. and Q. 
 A. Matthews, I'eter Van Yechten, Henr}^ P'ink, H. C. 
 Koch, Juhus Lasche, Col. Thomas Keer, Col. Jerome 
 Johnson, W. C. Swain, Sam. Tate, A. G. Wright, Dan- 
 iel Wells, Jr. ; Samuel Marshall, Charles Ilsley, Henry 
 C. Payne, Henry Bracken, W. J. Denny, Herman A. 
 Bierwald, Harry M. Allen, Charles Whitnall, John 
 Campbell, A. J. W. Pierce, James Conroy, Joseph 
 Lyon, Henry Fess, Pat. O'Brien, the Evening Wiscon- 
 sin pressman during the last thousand years; George 
 Phipps, Jonathan Magie, Allton Streeter, Sam. F. Pea- 
 cock, Prof. A. G. Faville, A. W. Rich, Louis Silber, 
 Charles Munkwitz, Col. Cornelius Wheeler, David Adler, 
 Edgar W. Colman, Maj. Joseph Oliver, I. M. Lederer, 
 Ed. Silverman, Hiram J. Mabbett, James Fowler, 
 George Howard, Louis W. Bunde, William H. Upmeyer, 
 Norman L. Burdick, Thomas H. Brown, Capt. Edward 
 Ferguson, John S. George, Dr. Lytton Flinn, Peter 
 Frattinger, D. H., Albert and Dr. S. H. Friend, Carl 
 Landsee, Colin Campbell, Jabez Smith, Robert C. Spen- 
 cer, Charles H. Saveland, Henry Riemers, John Roper, 
 E. E. Chapin, Eugene S. Elliott, Edward Gray, Michael 
 Dunn, Daniel Kennedy, Edward Sivyer, Edward Mc- 
 Cann, Col. Florian J. Ries, W. T. Durand, Samuel R. 
 Bell, Patsey Coin, James Hannan, John Hannan, Capt. 
 A. B. Davis, Maj. A. Ross Houston, Joe and Arthur 
 Gressing, F". M. Keats, William F. Zeltner, James W. 
 Campbell and William H. Partridge, shoe dealers, Henry 
 Reilly, George L Robinson, Charles and Frank Anson, 
 Jonah Williams, E. P. Hackett, Thomas Ramsey, Charles 
 W. Hamilton, A. K. Camp, Henry Ramsey, John Hinton, 
 Ferdinand Pripps, who was janitor of the Evening Wis- 
 consin building when the famous spring in the basement 
 was conspicuous; and an old time drug clerk known as 
 ^Trof. Parbelow." And I suppose a lot more of names 
 will come to me when this is in print and make me mad 
 at myself for not having mentioned them. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 91 
 
 DAN SHEHAN'S EXPERIENCES. 
 
 Dan Shehan lived in the Third ward. He was then 
 roundsman on the poHce force, ex-patrohnan, ex-detec- 
 tive and an all around politician, either Republican or 
 Democrat, according to the crowd he was with. Dan 
 never drank but was an inveterate smoker. A friend 
 once asked him to take a drink. 
 
 "No, Oi'U not drink, but Oi'll take a cigar," said Dan. 
 
 "Yes, give Dan a good ten cent cigar," said his 
 friend. 
 
 "Oi'U not take a tin cinter, but Oi'll take two foives," 
 said Dan. 
 
 One day, when on the force, Dan was sent out on the 
 West side to investigate a reported burglary. Entering 
 the house, with hat in hand, in response to an invitation 
 by the lady of the house, to come in, this conversation 
 followed : 
 
 Dan.— "Is this Mrs. S ?" 
 
 Mrs. S. — "Yes, sir; what do you want? 
 
 Dan. — "Sure, mem, Oi was sint here by the chafe to 
 ax yez was it at the front or rare door av yer house that 
 the burglars intered." 
 
 Mrs. S. — "It was neither, sir. It appears that the 
 burglar came in and went out again through a side 
 window." 
 
 Dan. — "Sure, mem, if that be the case I do be thinkin' 
 he was a shlippery chap an' it will be afther takin' the 
 whole foorce to bag him, begorry." 
 
 One time Dan's beat was in the Seventh ward. He 
 was anxious to know how the people on the beat es- 
 teemed him and meeting a little girl he accosted her: 
 
 "Shay, sissy, did yez iver be hearin' yer mother sayin' 
 ony thing about me?" 
 
 "Yes, she says you are a nigeramus," was the little 
 one's prompt reply. 
 
 That afternoon T met Dan, and in a semi-confidential 
 tone he said: 
 
 "Misther AhJ^ry, wud yez moind tellin' nic ])hat's the 
 manin' av the worrud 'nigeramus?' " 
 
 "That's a man born just as other men are, but pos- 
 sessed of superior qualifications in one way or another 
 
92 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 which the more they are cultivated the more conspicuous 
 they become," said I. 
 
 "Thank ye surr," said Dan, "Oi raleized thot it wuz 
 a terrum ixprissin' and bortherin' on some degra av 
 supariority. Wud yez coom over and take a segair wid 
 me?" 
 
 Alderman Shaughnessy once perpetrated a joke on 
 Dan. The alderman attended a meeting at the bishop's 
 hall. It was a very rainy night. One of Dan's daughter's 
 was at the meeting. It was at the time Dan was rounds- 
 man. On account of the rain the alderman offered to 
 escort Dan's daughter home with the protection of his 
 umbrella. Arriving at the house he looked through the 
 window and saw Dan stretched upon the lounge asleep, 
 instead of being out looking after the men in his charge. 
 As he parted from the young woman he said: 
 
 ''Should any one ask who escorted you home say it 
 was Henry Miles." 
 
 Miles was a patrolman on a beat in the Seventh 
 ward, and the alderman had a suspicion Dan would ques- 
 tion the daughter as to her escort. 
 
 ''Daughter, who kem home wid yez?" asked Dan. 
 
 "It was Henry Miles, father," said she. 
 
 "Arrah! It was, eh?" said Dan as he climbed off the 
 lounge and slid his arms down through his suspenders. 
 "Begobs, Oi'll be seein' about thot," and he got into his 
 coat, hoisted an umbrella and shot into the darkness and 
 the down pour of sky juice. 
 
 After a hunt of an hour he found Miles pacing his 
 beat with the faithfulness of a veteran before the gates 
 of a doomed city. 
 
 "Where wuz yez, Henry Miles, at 11:30 o'clock?" de- 
 manded Dan. 
 
 "After a moment's thought Miles replied: 
 
 "At the Court House park, sir." 
 
 "Indade ve wur not, Henry Miles. Let yez be 
 moindin' yer bate now till morning. Sure Oi do be 
 knowin' where yez wuz and the chafe'll know^ it in the 
 mornin'." 
 
 The alderman took occasion to put the chief onto 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 93 
 
 the job before Dan got around in the morning, and when 
 Dan came around the chief said to him : 
 
 ''Mr. Shehan, where were you about 11:30 o'clock 
 last night?" 
 
 "Sure, sir," said Dan, "Oi think that wuz about the 
 toime I wuz on Henry Mileses bate in the Siventh ward." 
 
 "Yes, but about half an hour before you were up to 
 see Henry?" said the chief. 
 
 "O, yis, Oi see, dhat was whin Oi wint down till the 
 house to lave ofY me wit clothes and put on some dry 
 ones," said Dan. 
 
 "All right, Mr. Shehan, keep an eye to your men 
 during the night," said the chief, and Dan never knew 
 how the game was played upon him. 
 
 A TRAMP PRINTER'S STORY. 
 
 About 2 o'clock one summer morning back in 1875, 
 a genius, ripe in years, abundant in experience, thor- 
 oughly schooled in that wisdom which comes through 
 observation, and, apparently, an all around philosopher, 
 came my way. He came leisurely up the street, as one 
 weary from long journeying in the good, old, natural 
 way. That was a year during which the country seemed 
 alive with tramp printers, as a rule, men who would do 
 no harm, being generally possessed of that reasonable 
 order of good sense and reason which sits side by side 
 on the throne with fair education. In short, men who 
 know somthing and think. It was my experience that 
 at least nine of every ten tramp printers would ask for 
 work the first thing they did. However hungry or tired 
 they might be, they were possessed of an ambition to 
 earn the needs of life. Of course there were exceptions 
 to this rule, but they were rare. A tramp-printer usually 
 spent his own money, whether it was for l)read or for 
 booze. 
 
 As my genius approached T spotted him for one of 
 the craft and accosted him with: 
 
 "Good morning." 
 
 "Good morning, sir; and a nice, balmy morning it 
 is, too; a morning worth living in and the kind which. 
 
94 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 as a rule, sir, only God's unfortunates have opportunity 
 to participate in the glories of." 
 
 "Gee whiz," said 1 to myself as he rattled ofT his brief 
 oration, "here's a corker. Guess I'll pump him a little; 
 may get something good. 'Where goin'?" 
 
 "That is just the piece or informatiou I am seeking, 
 sir," said he, "and I'll be greatly obliged to you for it. 
 My ambition at this moment is to get into a good bed 
 for the space of about four hours, but as I know that 
 is not only the unexpected, which is not likely to happen 
 just now, but also practically the impossible, I'll be 
 greatly obliged if you will tell me where I can be per- 
 mitted to lie down on a board and rest secure until the 
 regular working hour, when I hope to find a few hours^ 
 work in some one of the daily newspaper offices, enough 
 at least to earn a bite of breakfast." 
 
 "Owl right," said I, "I'll show you where," and as 
 we started towards the station where he would merely be 
 booked as a lodger and given the best opportunity that 
 place offered for the desired rest, I asked: 
 
 "Where d'ye live?" 
 
 "Kind sir," said he, "you mistake me. I don't hap- 
 pen to be one of those favored mortals who live, except 
 in a figurative sense. As the poet has said : 
 
 " 'Here in this body spent 
 
 I stay and strive and roam 
 And nia^htly pitch my moving tent 
 A day's march nearer home.' " 
 
 There was an all night restaurant on our route and 
 I walked the old fellow into it, motioned him to a chair 
 and sat down opposite him at the table, remarking to the 
 clerk "Two coffees, sandwiches and a pie." 
 
 My genius looked puzzled for a moment, then arose 
 and looking me straight in the eye said: 
 
 "If it is all the same to you, my friend, I will wait 
 while you take your lunch, but, to tell you the truth, 
 I haven't the price, and it is a rule with me to earn be- 
 fore I eat." 
 
 "Now, see here, my Covey," said I, showing my star, 
 "you are in my hands and, 'by the great Jehovah and the 
 Continental Congress,' vou've no right to decline to be 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 95, 
 
 my guest. You're going to eat a bite, and I'll bet on it." 
 
 "If you really insist upon it," said he, "but it is 
 against my principle to eat before I earn." 
 
 I insisted and he held the chair down again. 
 
 *'That Ethan Allen quotation sounded familiar to 
 me, sir," said he, "I've heard my grandfather make use 
 of it many times. He was in company with the old pa- 
 triot when he made the remark and carried his point in 
 the cause of liberty and freedom of conscience." 
 
 . "You've had a lot of experience in your time," I sug- 
 gested. 
 
 *'Yes, some, sir;" said he. **I have seen considerable, 
 tried to observe pretty carefully and form my own con- 
 cl^isions. I have seen much to admire and some to ab- 
 hor. This is called a strange world, sir, but it is not, as 
 I view it. The world is all right. There is a divine and 
 gracious arrangement of all things in it, as the good 
 Lord designed them, and some queer people, besides, 
 sir. By the way, sir, I venture to say you are not much 
 of a church man." 
 
 I had a suspicion that the old fellow had a store of 
 good things in his head, if 1 could get him to unwind- 
 ing. He ate like a thorough gentleman of culture and 
 I was studying a way to touch a key that would set him 
 going more freely. I ordered second cups of cofifee and 
 rather demurely confessed that I was not over active in 
 the matter of church going, and that perhaps I ought to 
 be more attentive to matters of religion, and asked why 
 he formed the conclusion just expressed. That query 
 proved the hit I was looking for. His face brightened 
 and clouded alternately during fully half a minute before 
 he spoke, then he leaned back in the chair and said: 
 
 "Because, sir, I discovered that you gave more 
 thought to feeding the hungry at your side than to con- 
 verting the heathen thousands of miles away. I venture 
 the further assertion, sir, that you would not contribute a 
 nickel for the heathen of India or Africa or any other 
 foreign land, so long as there was want in your own land. 
 And I believe that principle involves the true spirit of re- 
 ligion. I am not wholly an unbeliever, sir. I believe 
 in God and the Saviour, but I take no stock in modern 
 
.96 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 practices called religion. Wh}^ sir, this very year mission- 
 ary organizations in this country have sent thousands of 
 dollars to the heathen in far ofif countries, while thousands 
 of people are starving in the great cities of our own coun- 
 try. They hold missionary meeting in palatial meeting 
 houses, whose spires pierce the clouds with golden tipped 
 fingers, and beg contributions for the heathen, with the 
 poor, almost naked and starving at their very doors. 
 They array themselves in silks and do their devotions 
 in cushioned pews, before high salaried priests, and the 
 burden of their prayers is for the salvation of the heathen 
 who would steal the throne of heaven if they were in 
 there and could get away with it. They give no thought 
 to the sufifering at home, but burden their poor so^ils 
 with anguish over supposed misery thousands of miles 
 beyond their sight. As I said before, I am a believer 
 in religion, sir, but not in the kind much in practice. It 
 don't seem to me much like the Saviour, who preached 
 the gospel of humanity to the multitudes on the streets, 
 broke bread with the poorest of the poor and was with- 
 out a place to lay his head at night." 
 
 We had finished the lunch and I accompanied the 
 •old man to the station, fixed him the best bunk possible 
 and told him to go in the morning to a certain printing 
 office and ask for the foreman whose name I gave him 
 'On a slip of paper. Then I went my round, went to the 
 office T had named, unlocked the door, went in and left 
 a sealed note on Foreman George Eddy's desk. The 
 old man got steady work for nearly two months. He 
 was a superior workman for those times and when he 
 left town he did not have to walk or 2^0 hungrv. 
 
 THE OLD, OLD SAFE. 
 One evening in the spring of 1883, George Cooley, 
 now dead, George Eddy and myself, during a half hour 
 chat in front of the Chapman store, conceived the idea 
 of raising a fund for a Soldiers' monument. Out of it 
 grew the vSoldiers' Monument association, of which I am 
 a member. The same summer the old safe which stood 
 imtil recently in front of the postoffice, as a contribution 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 97 
 
 box for the nionuineiit fund, was given to me for that 
 purpose by A. D. Seaman, and hauled and placed in 
 position by Deacon Edwin Hyde. It had been through 
 three fires and was of little value. The key was placed 
 in the hands of Frank G. Bigelow and the safe was oc- 
 casionally opened, its contents taken out and credited to 
 the fund. A few months ago I broke it open, oine morn- 
 ing just at daylight, and robbed it, getting $12.19, which 
 1 shall turn over to the original monument fund. The 
 newspapers made a sensation of the robbery. The safe 
 was artistically painted by Jonah Williams, when first 
 placed in position, but it finally became rusty and is now 
 in a scrap iron pile. 
 
 IN THE WRONG LODGE. 
 
 One of the worst frightened men I have met 011 my 
 beat in twenty-five years was F. C. Wieben, a barber up 
 in the First ward. Not very long ago he came down 
 town on a wrong night to attend a meeting of the Bar- 
 ber's union. He went to the customary hall, gave the 
 raps and password and was admitted. Imagine his sur- 
 prise at finding himself surounded by such men as Peter 
 Van \'echten, Louis Lachman, Capt. Norton, Samuel 
 Harper and others of that set. He knew they were not 
 barbers, and was not long in discovering that he had 
 gotten into a meeting of the Patriarchial Circle. With 
 awe striking solemnity he was surrounded by dignitaries 
 of that order and was led to believe a most horrible fate 
 was the penalty oif his intrusion. When permitted to 
 escape with his life he promptly came to me and begged 
 to be guarded to his home lest the infuriated Patriarchs 
 should follow and waylay him. He will not mistake the 
 night of the barbers' meetinq- aoain in a hurrv. 
 
 SOME OLD-TIME FIRMS. 
 
 Among good fellow\s who engaged in 1)usiness on my 
 
 beat, in my early days as watchman, are (icorge and 
 
 Arthur Wright, in the drug store they still occupy at the 
 
 post ofifice alley. Among their early employes who are 
 
98 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 Still with them were Sol. Eckstein, Ned Krauskopf and 
 Harry Pierce, all royal good fellows and widely known. 
 All have served their time as night watch sleeping in the 
 store, though none of them ever liked the job, especially 
 in the earlier years, because of the presence of so many 
 cats around the alley back of the Leigh house, and the 
 horseless wagons at the post ofhce, which were con- 
 stant sources of annoyance. 
 
 This reliable old drug house has graduated some good 
 druggists, among them Thomas Ladd, of the drug firm 
 of Ladd & Janssen, at the corner of Wisconsin and Mil- 
 waukee streets, and Daniel Jones, in business for himself 
 a few doors farther up Milwaukee street. 
 
 Another old time firm is the T. S. Gray Company, the 
 popular book store firm, nearly all of the years in their 
 present quarters. 
 
 Then there is the firm of Campbell & Partridge, 
 shoe dealers, nearly a quarter of a century in business oix 
 Wisconsin street. 
 
 Hennan Heyn is, I believe, the only other one in 
 business in the immediate vicinity who was there even 
 twenty years ago. 
 
 A HARDY HIGHLANDER. 
 
 About eight years agO' a company of Scotchmen were 
 up froim Chicago to attend the St. Andrew's society pic- 
 nic. After the fun of the day and night they went to 
 the Windsor hotel and were given rooms on the third 
 floor. Durinp- the night one fellow in the party by the 
 name of Cameron got to fooling around the open win- 
 dow and fell out. He went down through a skylight, 
 the glass of which was an inch in thickness and landed 
 on a broad shelf in the Evening Wisconsin job printing 
 room. After a long hunt I found him there, mutilated, 
 bleeded and groaning. The patrol wagon was called and 
 took him to the police station where a botch surgeon 
 plastered up his wounds. Early in the morning the re- 
 port went out that Cameron had been killed. Peter 
 McGill was secretary of the society and he, with other 
 Scotchmen hastened to the hotel to viev^ the remains.. 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 99 
 
 But Gameron refused tO' remain dead. Well done up 
 in co'Urt plaster he was down at the Chamber of Com- 
 merce seeing the sights. He has attended the annual 
 picnic every year since and says he will keep training 
 and coming until he can jump back up w^here he fell 
 down. 
 
 THE NEWHALL FIRE. 
 
 I have omitted saying anything about the burning 
 of the Newhall house, on the morning of Jan. 10, 1883. 
 1 do not want to say anything about it now. It is not 
 pleasant to turn to that page of memory, no trace upon 
 which can bring aught but sorrow. May or June, with 
 all the forces of nature full of life, and promise, and 
 beauty, are pleasanter than December, in this rigid, 
 northern climate, with all the beauties of nature in the 
 cold clasp of winter's death and dreariness. 
 
 I would rather devote a whole book to thoughts and 
 events which would produce none other than pleasant 
 thoughts and cheerful memories than one line to that 
 which could yield only saddened thoughts and awaken 
 only bitter memories. 
 
 I have seen the horrors of rebel prison pen, the carn- 
 age of battle with its awful destruction of human life and 
 the devastation following in its wake, but they form no 
 basis for comparison with the horrors resulting from that 
 fire, with its twenty-eight identified and thirty-six un- 
 identified dead. I could record pages of incidents con- 
 nected with the event, but they would serve only to 
 awaken sad memories. I mention it only that the date 
 may be again recorded and as one of the events happen- 
 ing during my twenty-five years as night watchman on 
 the streets of Milwaukee. 
 
 WALKING AROUND A BLOCK. 
 
 Not very long ago a young blood of the Seventh 
 ward, whom I will call Charley, because that is what 
 his parents call him, came around on my beat pretty late 
 in the night, with an immense load on. I tried to in- 
 
100 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 diice him to go to a hotel and go to bed, urging him not 
 to go home with that jag. He flatly refused to go to 
 bed. Then I urged him to walk around a block a few 
 times and wear it off. He agreed to that and started. 
 He Avas as good as his word and reported to me at every 
 round, though he occasionally dropped off to inquire 
 when "Mel." Sanford's next quarterly birthday was due. 
 Daylight found him still tramping around that block. 
 Then he said he had been around the block three times 
 and w^as sober enough to go home. As a matter of fact 
 he had been around the block just forty-tw^o times. 
 
 NEWSBOY Ix\ THE ARMW 
 
 A friend of mine said to me: " 'Doc/ I hear you are 
 writing a book." 
 
 "Yes, trying to," said T 
 
 "Well, don't forget to give us a touch of your experi- 
 ences as newsboy in the army," said he. And he exacted 
 a promise to that effect. 
 
 I wish I had not made that promise. If I had fully 
 realized that to fulfill it I would have to write about my- 
 self and my own doings, I would not have made it, and 
 will now only say enough to redeem it. 
 
 Wlieii President Lincoln called for volunteers to help 
 put down the rebellion, in the spring: of 1861, my four 
 brothers enlisted. I was a barefooted lad thirteen years 
 old. They entered the Second Vermont regiment which 
 left Burlington, Vt, for the front, June 24, 1861. As the 
 train bearing the regiment away was moving out of .the 
 old Burlington depot, I jumped on and kept out of sight 
 of my brothers until we reached New York. Then they 
 discovered me and telegraphed mother that I was with 
 them and all right. An uncle supplied me with shoes and 
 some clothing, and I reached Washington with the regi- 
 ment. While in camp there I worked for Lieut. C. K. 
 Leach, taking care of his quarters, earning two dollars 
 a week. When the regiment went to the front I went 
 with it, doing all kinds of jobs for the boys and finally 
 went to selling newspapers. In due time I got a horse 
 w^ith which to go to the base of supplies for my news- 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 lOI 
 
 papers. After the first battle of Bull Run the army was 
 camped at Arlington Heights for the winter. Then I 
 launched out into the newspaper business. I discovered 
 that the Wisconsin men were extensive readers of news- 
 papers and nourished their acquaintance. I stuck by 
 McClellan's army during the campaign of 1862 and kept 
 up the newspaper business. Nov. 10, 18()2, I left camp 
 for Washington to get my supply of papers. It was 
 thirty-one miles to Washington and "Jeb." Stuart's black 
 horse rebel cavalry was making things interesting in that 
 region of country. I got my supplies and left Washing- 
 
 ^Oc/\vhery 
 
 /VyitW^UKEE WIS 
 
 
 / / 
 
 ( As Newsboy in the Army. 
 
 ton in the morning of Nov. 11. During my a1)sence the 
 army started on the move. About noon, Nov. 12, I was 
 leaving New Baltimore, supposing I would soon be 
 within the Union lines. But, instead I was soon a pris- 
 oner of war and the rebels confiscated my horse and sup- 
 plies. One of my first acquaintances while a prisoner 
 was Horace Baker, of the Twelfth Massachusetts regi- 
 ment, also a prisoner. Next day we, with about fifty 
 other prisoners were marched to Gordonsville where 
 we were placed in freight cars, shipped to Rich- 
 mond and placed in Libb\- prison. Sunday morn- 
 
I02 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 ing, Dec. 12, I, with a lot more, was paroled and sent 
 to City Point, then to Annapolis where the soldiers went 
 into camp and I was told I could go where I pleased. 
 
 I had $380 in greenbacks, which Maj. Thomas P. 
 Turner, keeper of Libby prison, had taken care of during 
 my imprisonment and returned to me when I left. I 
 took the first train for Washington, got myself cleaned 
 
 Filling Canteens for the Boys. 
 
 Up, learned that the Iron Brigade was at Belleplain Land- 
 ing, got a supply of papers and started for that point. I 
 was welcomed back and went at once to selling papers 
 again. I stuck to the Iron Brigade to the finish, was 
 with it in all of its campaigning and supplied it with news- 
 papers to the best of my ability. I was in Washington 
 after papers when the war closed, was in Ford's theatre 
 when President Lincoln was assassinated, came to Wis- 
 consin in the wake of its Iron Brigade regiments, have 
 been here ever since and here I am now. I could fill 
 several such books as this with incidents of the war and 
 the Iron Brigade, but this is not a war history. 
 
 I was invited to attend the monument dedication at 
 Gettysburg, and there met many I had known in the 
 army. On a trip south recently I met the men who cap- 
 tured me, and we became warm friends. My best pleas- 
 ure is in attending reunions of the Iron Brigade and 
 living war time days over again. 
 
 A friend of mine once said it would be impossible for 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 103 
 
 nie to write a column or talk half an hour without refer- 
 ring to the war. I guess that is so, but I have tried to 
 avoid my weakness in this book. Yet out of my collec- 
 tion of war relics I want to give one short paper, because 
 it will be of interest to Wisconsin veterans. The paper 
 
 ! Libby Prison. 
 
 was given me by a friend, to add to my collection, under 
 promise that I would not print a long list of names which 
 he said were those of officers and men who ran away 
 from the battle at Antietam. Here is the letter: 
 
 "Headquarters, Fort Terrell, Mumfordsville, Ky., 
 
 Nov. 28, 1863. 
 *'Maj.-Gen. U. S. Grant, Commanding Department of 
 the Alississippi. 
 
 "Dear Sir: — I respectfully request a position on your 
 stafT as aid de camp. To desire to be connected with a 
 man so distinguished as yourself is not only natural but 
 patriotic. I send no recommendations, as I have enough 
 on file in the department of the Cumberland. My superior 
 officers here are strangers to me and I have my own pri- 
 vate reasons for the request. My military experience is 
 limited to Perryville ancl Stone River and the example of 
 the illustrious and the honorable dead. Lieut. -Col. S. W. 
 
 B , of the Eighteenth Wisconsin, formerly and now of 
 
 the Veteran Reserve Corps, is my mother's father. The 
 appointment would be a particular favor to him. I have 
 the honor, General, to refer you to Gen. C. S. Stark- 
 weather, Col. G. Bingham or any Wisconsin officers 
 
104 
 
 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 who know me. I have the honor to be, General, very 
 respectfully, your obedient servant, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 On the reverse side of the letter is the following: 
 *'Hd. Qrs. Mil. Div. Miss., In the Field, Chattanoog-a, 
 Tenn., Dec. 11th, 1863. Respectfully returned. There 
 is no vacancy at present on the stafT of the general com- 
 manding. "Bv order of Maj.-Gen. Grant, 
 
 "Geo. K. Leet, A. A. G." 
 
 Ridiculous as this may seem, it is a true copy of the 
 letter in my possession, minus names. The writer of the 
 letter was probably as much entitled to the position he 
 sought as I am to consideration as a Union veteran, yet 
 when the governor of the great state of Vermont says, 
 "Give my compliments to 'Doc' Aubery, who was a Ver- 
 mont soldier," that settles it and my chance for a pension 
 is all right. 
 
 !Before and After My Stay in Libby Prison. 
 
 ONE ON A FlSHERxMAN. 
 
 One good fellow, now dead, was a favorite with all 
 night men. His long suit was fishing. He used to go 
 with "the boys" out to Pewaukee lake Sundays and, 
 whether the others caueht any fish or not he would come 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 
 
 10 = 
 
 back in the evening and slip up a side street with a nice 
 string of bass, always managing to let some reporter see 
 him. 
 
 Next day after one of his trips a letter came for him 
 
 from an old fisherman at Pewaukee, and there was a bill 
 in the letter — for fish, of course. Then his snap was out.. 
 In some way a reporter got on to the matter and the 
 whole game was published. Of course the exposure was 
 laid to" "that dam 'Doc'," and the fisherman and his 
 friends swore to get even with me. 
 
 They fitted up a dummy at a rear window of a store _ 
 
I06 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 which had every appearance of a burglar just going to 
 •enter the store. 1 watched the proceeding from the 
 corner of another building and overheard the chuckling 
 over the anticipated fun they were to have when I would 
 begin to shoot and yell for police. When the thing was 
 all fixed they went around the corner to see a man and 
 get into another back room where they could hear the 
 fun when trouble would begin. 
 
 As they moved away I stole up, cut the string, carried 
 the dummy away and put it in the Evening Wisconsin en- 
 gine room. Next morning it was hanging at a prom- 
 inent corner and labeled, *'A Pewaukee Fisherman." 
 
 PLEASANT TO REMEMBER. 
 
 • I shall not soon forget my first meeting with Capt. 
 Charles King, at Chain Bridge, Va. It was a pleasant 
 meeting, just such as thousands of other persons have 
 had with him in the army and elsewhere. It is always 
 a pleasure to meet such broad-minded, thorough gentle- 
 men as he is. 
 
 SOME BOOK BINDERY LIES. 
 
 A few years ago I had some volumes of magazines 
 I wanted bound and took them down to one of the 
 binderies. The manager said I could get them in about 
 two weeks. I went back at the end of a month as my 
 wife was anxious for the books. They were not ready 
 but I was told they were in the hands of the stitchers and 
 would be finished in a week. 
 
 Looking over in a corner I saw my bundle of maga- 
 zines with my name on the package. 
 
 "Are you quite sure my magazines are being 
 stitched?" I asked. 
 
 *'Yes, dead sure," was the reply. 'T carried the 
 bundle to the girls myself one day last week and told 
 them to hurry them up." 
 
 ''Guess you must be mistaken," said I, "for that stack 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 107 
 
 •over there in the corner looks very much hke mine." 
 
 He looked at it, saw he was caught, flushed a little 
 and said: 
 
 *'No, that's not yours; those belong to 'Doc.' Auberv. 
 He just brought them in a few days ago." 
 
 "That is just what I thought," said I, "only it was a 
 month ago that I brought the bundle here." 
 
 "What! Are you Aubery?" said the skillful prevari- 
 cator. "I thougnt you were Hexamer. Then it is Hexa- 
 mer's job I am rushing through. Well, I'll get right at 
 yours this afternoon." 
 
 It ran on about six months and I hadn't got my books 
 yet, but had considerable fun over that bookbinder's ex- 
 planations of the delay, well knowing he was handHng a 
 decidedly elastic kind of truth. During the time I dis- 
 covered that other persons were also meeting with dis- 
 appointments of the same kind and learned from some of 
 the workmen in the bindery that magazine binding suf- 
 fered constant delay because of the rush of new work 
 for important business houses, of which the bindery had 
 a large run. But I got handsomely avenged. 
 
 One day a couple of weeks before Christmas I went to 
 the bindery to see how my work was progressing when in 
 came a bright eyed young woman who, stepping up to 
 the boss, said: 
 
 "Mr. , when is that book of mine going to be 
 
 bound? I am very anxious to have it done for a Christ- 
 mas present to my mother." 
 
 "It will be done day after to-morrow, sure," said he. 
 *Tt is all bound and in the drying press now. I'll send it 
 lip to the house da\- after to-morrow, without fail." 
 
 "Now, you are quite sure you will not disappoint 
 me tnis time?" queried the fair visitor. 
 
 "(), dead sure. Bet your life on it. If it were really 
 necessary I could send it up to-morrow, but it will be 
 better to dry a day longer." 
 
 "Now. look here, Mr. ." said she, "I haven't 
 
 any book here to 1)e bound, nor did I ever have one 
 here. T just wanted to see how l)ig a string of them you 
 could tell at a sino-le sitting.'' 
 
 She then left the binderv. T did likewise, but I never 
 
108 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 knew whether the l^oss of that shop suspected anybody 
 of setting up that job on him. 
 
 OYSTERS AND THEIR HABITS. 
 
 Here is one which isn't entirely new. Like some 
 other things, it has been used a Httle, but it is just as 
 good as new, for it has never before been told correctly. 
 The idea, or maybe, the fact in it has been printed a 
 couple or two times, to suit different occasions. But it 
 actually happened in Milwaukee. 
 
 There was a house wdthin a short stone's throw of 
 the site of the new government building. After having 
 long served the purpose of a residence it w-as used as a 
 club house before it went up into the eighteenth ward 
 on wheelbarrow^s propelled by Polish women. 
 
 One Thanksgiving night the club then occupying it 
 had a banquet. A prominent caterer supplied the feast 
 wdiich included a long list of good thmgs, besides a large 
 bucket of raw oysters. The bivalves were generously 
 partaken of by all the party except one, a scientist and 
 analytical chemist, w^ho persistently declined them. Every 
 one w^anted to know^ w^hy he w'ouldn't eat oysters and he 
 promised to tell tnem later on. 
 
 As quite a number of my employers were participants 
 at the feast, a colored waiter was sent out to hunt me up 
 and bid me come and eat and drink. I promised to call 
 in later, after the drug stores were closed up, and about 
 midnight ushered myself in. There was yet an abun- 
 dance of solid food and the liquid was going around 
 pretty freely. I was seated near the chemist, who w^as 
 my personal friend, and a waiter brought me a big plate 
 of raw^ oysters. The chemist gave me a sharp look and 
 shook his head. I declined the oysters and proceeded to 
 avenge myself on roast turkey, sandw^iches and a couple 
 of tanks of liquid. It appeared that I was filling up 
 according to the identical program follow^ed bv the chem- 
 ist, at wdiich some one remarked: 
 
 'There is another crank on oysters." 
 
 Then the whole party demanded the chemist's ex- 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK 109 
 
 planation of why he refused to eat oysters, and they got 
 it. He said: 
 
 "Gentlemen, if you had anahzed as many oysters as 
 I have, and understood what the anaivses tell, you would 
 do exactly as 'Doc' and I do regarding them. As 
 sporadic fungi is the lowest order of life in the dry, so 
 is an oyster a representative of the lowest order of 
 animal life in water. Not only is it of the lowest order of 
 animal life, but it is the lurking place of countless mil- 
 lions of the vilest of disease germs and water fungi, the 
 sole purpose of which is to breed disease and destroy 
 human life. 
 
 "The oyster lives upon the filthiest slime to be found 
 on the bed of the ocean and flourishes best where the 
 ocean currents are saturated with the sewage of cities. 
 It feasts upon the effluvia that comes from passing ships 
 and offal poured into the ocean by rivers. All of the 
 slimy stuff upon which they live and fatten is thoroughly 
 saturated with the germs of diseases of the worst kind 
 and many fatal cases have been traced directly to the 
 oyster. 
 
 "The oyster is a thoroughly complex organism, and 
 possesses most of the functions of the animal body, and 
 the microscope reveals that fact. It has intestines, heart, 
 liver, etc., and the liver is about the largest part of it, 
 which is a necessity due to the filthy character of its food 
 and for the destruction of the poison it contains. Its 
 stomach is filled with everything vile that is to be found 
 on the bed of the ocean and, under the microscope is 
 shown to contain thousands of disease germs of the most 
 deadly order. If I had to eat oysters, especially raw 
 ones, I would want my stomach to be a tank of the 
 strongest whiskey to destroy some of those deadly germs. 
 
 "There are many other points about the oyster which 
 I can explain if you want them, but these are enough to 
 let you know why I don't eat oysters." 
 
 And it was enough for that crowd, half of whom were 
 already out in the yard practicing saying "New Yawk" 
 with their mouths open and a telephone order had been 
 sent out for two gallons of old rye whiskey. Oysters 
 
I lo TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 were not on the bill of the next banquet held by that 
 club. 
 
 WHEN THE GOAT GOT OUT. 
 
 It is twenty years or more ago that a lot of Milwaukee 
 society people came in contact with a secret society goat,, 
 a genuine live Mr. William Goat, in full possession of 
 his faculties to bound around and make things lively. 
 Excelsior lodge No. 20, I. O. O. P\, had a custom then of 
 holding a dance every few weeks in the winter, which 
 w^as always well attended, not only by members of the or- 
 der and their families, but by their friends as well. Nat- 
 urally the women had some curiosity as tO' the proverbial 
 goat which the members Avere supposed to have ridden 
 into the order. Among the pretty active members of the 
 organization were Thomas Ward Taylor, now dead; 
 Peter Van Vechten, Edward Sivyer, Thomas H. Brown, 
 and others always as ready for a joke as I was. The 
 women often asked Mr. Taylor to show them the goat, 
 and he always referred them to me as the right worthy 
 grand goat keeper. The requests came so frequently that 
 I finally decided to show them the animal. At that time 
 Capt. Pabst was the owner of a Billy goat. I went to 
 him and borrowed the "critter" for the occasion one 
 afternoon when a dance was to be given in ihe evening.. 
 I took the goat into a room adjoining the dance hall 
 and decked him with red, white and blue rosetts and rib- 
 bons in fine style. I put the musicians unto the game 
 so that when the goat would break out the music would 
 stop short. Along about 11 o'clock when all was mov- 
 ing nicely and the room was a maze of dancers, I put a 
 drop of turpentine in the goat's ear, opened the door and 
 he went out among the dancers at a terrific gait, bound- 
 ing around and bleating vociferously. 'Ye-e-e-p" went 
 the music. Women screamed. Several fainted. Others 
 climbed upon chairs and oh, ohd. Mr. Taylor rapped 
 with the gavel for order. Half a dozen seized the goat 
 and hustled him back into the room. With marked 
 solemnity Mr. Taylor assured the guests of the lodge 
 that what they had seen had never before been revealed 
 
OF MILWAUKEE AFTER DARK in 
 
 to any mortal outside of the membership of the order and 
 expressed his confidence that no one of them would ever 
 mention the fact to any persou. There were numerous 
 instances of women guests of the lodge commenting 
 upon the enjoyableness of that occasion but none of the 
 members ever heard of them revealing the secret of hav- 
 ing seen the goat. 
 
 HOW I CURED A GOSSIP. 
 At oiie time there was a professional he gossip living, 
 near my beat who used to try to borrow my ear to pour 
 gossip into very often. He would come with stories 
 of this or that man being mixed up in affairs with women. 
 The proceeding became tiresome and, one night I 
 turned upon him with the old gag about the woman in 
 Ohio who got immensely rich by attending to her own 
 business. That cured Mr. C. and he gave me no more 
 trouble. 
 
 A BAD, BALKY MULE. 
 
 One summer an old fellow had an electric battery on 
 the sidewalk at the corner across Milwaukee street from 
 the Chapman store. It was the first of the kind in town,, 
 and being a new novelty a good many persons stopped 
 to get a shock and see how much of the current they 
 could stand. There was usually a crowd around it and 
 occasionally some fellow who had done some boasting 
 got a crack that made him squirm, much to the delight 
 of the spectators. 
 
 One afternoon an Irishman who lived out in the town 
 of Milwaukee had been down to a Third ward vinegar 
 factory with a big mule hitched to a dump cart 
 with a large barrel in it, and got the barrel full of slops 
 for his stock. Coming up the grade approaching Wis- 
 consin street, the mule balked and positively refused all 
 persuasion to move on. Many suggestions were offered 
 bv the crowd and tried, without effect. Einally some 
 one suggested that the battery be turned upon him. As 
 it was being carried into the street the mule winked the 
 other eye and flopped his larboard ear, as if to shoo a 
 
112 TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ON THE STREETS 
 
 fly from it. vSome one brought a piece of wire about 
 ten feet long, touched it to the battery and drew it along 
 the side of that mule, the owner of the battery turning 
 on the full current. A streak of blue flame shot along the 
 mule's side, snapping like a bunch of fire-crackers. 
 
 That mule seemed to grow right up into the air about 
 ten feet and with a bound he crossed Wisconsin street, 
 the barrel of slops going out and bursting in the centre 
 of the street, while mule and cart went north on Milwau- 
 kee street at about a 1 :10 gait. The crowd yelled like a 
 thousand bleachers at a baseball game. 
 
 GOLD COIN STOLEN. 
 
 Some years ago an insurance company placed $150 
 in gold coin in Bunde & Upmeyer's window to be given 
 to school children. I told them it was not safe to leave 
 the money there nights, but the warning was unheeded. 
 One morning after I went ofif duty George Tillema saw 
 three fellows break the window with a rock, grab the coin 
 and skip out. They were never captured. Some people 
 suspected the insurance company stole the monev. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
 Just now, as the book is full, under the contract limit 
 with the greatest catalogue and general job printing 
 house in this country, a numl)er of good items come to 
 mind which I would like to record, but they'll have to 
 wait until I write my next book. Here is my old key 
 with which I registered my visits in the tinxe clock at the 
 Chapman store every thirty minutes during every night 
 for thirteen years, until it was so worn it would no longer 
 turn the register. I'll turn it here just* one more last 
 time. 
 
 (PMr'07 
 
? 'b^i, ^uxve^. 
 
 I. 
 I 
 
 A 408 BROADWAY 
 «♦ __ 
 
 Fifst-ciass <;ampif room 
 
 CHAS. R. KRAUS, Prop. 
 
 MILWAUKEE. 
 
 tldndnDeNuth Shoe (o., 
 
 Tine TootwearjiiiLiiiMsi— 
 
 111 WISCONSIN ST., 
 
 A. B. CASPAR!. MILWAUKEE. 
 
 MANAGER. 
 
 HERMAN VOSS, 
 
 ^Qmu\ BooKbinaer and Bl^^nK BooK IDaker, 
 
 Also Manufacturer of ADVERTISING NOVELTIES. 
 372-376 MILWAUKEE ST.. T MILWAUKEE, WIS. 
 
 fl. K. CAMP CO., 
 
 fine 'jewelry of an m«ds . 
 
 Cor. Broadway and Mason Sts., 
 -MILWAUKEE. 
 
 C. A. HIGGINS, 
 
 OYSTERS AND flSH 
 
 138 MASON ST., 
 MILWAUKEE. 
 
 J. LUICK'S 
 
 433 Milwaukee St., MII.WAUKBB. 
 
 Floral Decorations, 
 
 Landscape Architecture, 
 Flower Seeds. 
 
 (^I HITNALL FLORA UO., 
 
 438 Milwaukee St., Milwaukee. 
 
 LOUIS AUER & SON, 
 
 "^eiaV ^s\a\e, '^^xAvw^ 
 a^^ S.oaTvs, 
 
 2d Ward Bank BIdg., MILWAUKEE. 
 
 SAivi F=?- iviii_i_e:f=^ oo., 
 
 134 Wisconsin Street, 
 
 13^ Grand A.ventie,.<fC^ 
 
 Wines, Liquors and CicfiRS 
 
 DON'T FORGET THE NUIVIBERS. 
 
 f dmpbell & Pdrtridi^e SHoe (o. 
 
 Cadies* and Gents* Tine Shoes. 
 
 106 WISCONSIN ST., 
 Milwaukee, "Wis. *< 
 
 i 
 
 JONAH WILLIAMS, Wall Paper and Painting, 436 Milwaukee St., MILWAUEEE 
 
 BRENK BROS., 
 
 136 Wisconsin Street, 
 .-*— MILWAUKEE. 
 
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