Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1885 — UNCLE SI’S FAMILIAR EPISTLES TO INQUIRING YOUTH. [ARTICLE]

UNCLE SI’S FAMILIAR EPISTLES TO INQUIRING YOUTH.

2—Serving it Hot for a Would-be “Koper. ” An immature New York tougli writes to .me as follows; “Mistur Unkel Si ime in a snide Shue Store 20 yeers old i am butt wantcr bee a Koper Kopp fur short wich is pleesman yer know & sum gits ontu it itich Cos Its a Bully Racket & ime gonter Be a Hon if You was Mee wood you Be pleesman You Ken Bleed do Quisby Blokes & Blowers & make a Stake every Day ime gom fur it Sure wood You, if yer Down on fellers yer Ken Lay fur em & Nock de Studin outen Em its a Dizzy Backit & ime gonter bee One woodn’t You few was Mee. yer Ken wurk de Gin mds to de Queans taist & bee hi Lye wid all de Dazy surveut gurls & Play it sweat on de Apel wimmins fur Peenutts iV I peeches yer Ken iish de Lushes pokes ! <& run em in fur D.uuk & Disordly & swipe many a flimsy & the Salry is Bang up 1200 Dollars ■ Yeer & Kountt Mee in every Time.” Well, s.r, I termed you an “immature tough,” but, reperusing your uncouth screed, I must say that your immatureness is not that of the new-born clam or unfledged tadpole, not at all. All you require is a slight experience in the iield congenial to you to become a blooming tough of the lirst water; of hickory incorrigibility; it is in you, and all it wants is an outing. It is evident that the “Shue Store” —whether it or you is twenty years old would be hard to tell by your letter, but I presume yotl’ refer to your own age—is no place for you or your capabilities. What you most urgently require is a place in tue field most congeuial to your warped n ture; and the more immediately tlie better, as you would the sooner reach the end of your tether, young man, it being morally certain that you would go it with a rush from the start, without any discretion whatever, thereby being the more quickly brought down to the ring-bolt, much to the relief of your fellow-citizens and a portion of the rest of mankind, probably. As such galoots as you—your letter justices the use of this term, and the application of it to you can t be jerked up and jugged for what they are capable of doing, the best way is to give tnern every cliance possible of shoeing their cussedness, as a quick means to the desired end—the squelching of such galoots by

gallows and rope, or the secluding of the same in stone residences of the State; therefore, if you can’t emulate Tim McCarthy, of Oak street, your city, young man, and become a divekeeper of like cussedness of caliber, by all means do the next best tiling, and get appointed to the “finest police force in the world, ” as a “chief” once termed it, and which it fondly imagines itself to be, but which is thus iroaically termed by the citizens at large, ■with others not “at large,” many of whom, in durance vile, are better, morally, than the same number of the “finest,” picked at random. As a New York “cop,” young man of innate cussedness of soul, you will have opportunities to follow your natural “bent, which is cussedness of eighteen carats, fully equal, if not superior, to those enjoyed by dive-keepers of the McCarthy stamp, and I feel convinced, from your letter, that you will be fully able to take advantage of said opportunities, and make the most of them. You may not pull together as big a hoodie as Tim McCarthy, the Jay Gould of dive-keepers, has corralled in the same length of time, but a fellow of your internal sheolishness can do well until he runs the thing into the ground, as it were, which you are bound to do sooner or later. Should you ever rise to a captaincy in the ■“finest," your opportunities for harvest ing a boodle will increase in number and volume, and the amount of filthy lucre you can hive for a “rainy day” this is a figurative term for an indefinite period, as understood —need never be known to any one not inside your own waistcoat, and will only be limited by your desires in the direction of wealth, be they mode; ate or the reverse. The captain of your 2ifUth precinct, a “blue nose” from the kingdom thereof, which is located somewhere in the fogs of old-cheese density that enshroud tne far eastern portions of this otherwise blest and happy hemisphere, has, it is alleged, by following? the routes of

economy and foresight, not to mention hindsight, and by “strict attention to business”—it is a cold day when he doesn’t attend to “business”—laid by a store of the needful sufficient unto the end of his days, even should these run up into the hundreds of years, as did those of the late lamented Mr. Methuselah, of Palestine, or some ranch contiguous; and this lay-by was erected on the foundation of a j2,U(JO yearly salary, and in a few short years; which goes to show that frugality is not confined to Congressmen, and that a New York police captain may frugalize a fortune proportionally as great as that of an M. C., by the same methods of thrift. It also goes to show that, to become men of multitudinous “rocks” on moderate sal- I aries, we must be men of serviceable “sand,” paradoxical as it may seem; ] and that the aforementioned police j captain lias an abundance of this sort of “sand,” gees without saying. But all police precincts are not alike. Not all are highly productive “sugar” | plantation--; not all rich, auriferous “placers” for the aggrandizement of the head “prospectors.” While all “pan out” more or less, in the great metrop-olis-by-the-sea, there is but one fairly entitled to the tart for “productiveness and, as happy must be the captain in whose precinct the gamblers, crooks, and bagnio-keepers most do congregate, provi ted said captain lias abundance of serviceable “sand in bis craw,” then must the captain of the pre-eminent police precinct of New York be happy, for he can “round up” more cattle of the breeds mentioned, to the square acre, than any other police captain on the continent, probably; and this kind of stock is very profitable, if well handled; and what this captain doesn’t know about handling stock of the varieties mentioned wouldn’t bo worth knowing to any one else. Verily there is but one 4'JUtli precinct—in all the land, let us hope—and the “sports” and the “ crooks ” and the bagniokeepers are its profit, and ever will be, else am I no prophet. But why speak of captaincies to you, unfledged bird of evil intent, snooded in a “snide shoe store”—it is “snide,” I suppose, because it doesn’t offer opportunities enough for your beating and bilking propensities—why to you speak of captaincies, when, fledged in the field of promise, that of police provision, you wdl fly to certain destruction, and go to meet Crowley, gone before, long ere you sport the chevrons of a sergeant, even. You— Yvhy, you are a moral rattlesnake, a moral hyena, a moral tiger, a moral octopus—this means “devil-fish,” understand —in short, a “moral leper,” tlian which noth : ng worse can be said of a human. When a man gets to be a “moral leper” he has struck bottom, as it were, aud rests—no, he can’t rest, he flounders about in the blackest slough that turpitude ever opened on the pampas of civilization; and there’s just where you are floundering, you moral “devil-fish,” you. Your letter proclaims you a combination of moral monstrosities; a whole moral menagerio of wild and carnivorous beasts and reptiles, every one of which is worse than the other; and that you should so commit yourself in black and white argues that the doctrine of total depravity was not founded on the baseless fabric of the cosmic phantom of irreconcilableness, or any other spook in the far-away whenness of ancient previosity, but on the solid bedrock of innate cussedness, an integral portion I of which is represented in your person. Now, put that in your pipe and smoke it, depraved galoot of sheolish virus; into your glass and “drink it down,” or spread it on your bread and “eat it up any way to get it into you, I caro not how.

Your letter shows you to be a fatty degeneration of triple X depravity; a natural-born boat, bilk, bruiser, ruffian, thief, and everything that is frowned upon in respectable circles. If not already a practical thief, your letter shows that you are on more or less intimate terms with the vernacular of thieves in regular standing, and that if you cannot “patter flash” with the most accomplished of the fraternity, you can catch on to the lingo readily, and finish your education in that line at short notice; and 18t me tell you, sir, that no well-regulated citizen would ever be on terms of intimacy with the flash of thieves, and don’t you forget it. It is evident that you have studied into the marvels, “makes,” maneuvers, and mysteries of that portion of the political economy of civilization which absorbs policing—if you haven’t as yet “fit into" it, as old man Shingle “fit into the Revolution,” it is morally certain that you would fit into a policeman’s coat and place, and, in time, vie with the toughest of a crowd nothing if not tough. It is a “Bully Rackit,” you say, “& sum gits ontu it Rich.” To cotton to your vernacular, I must say that you j have got the matter “dead to rights”— I it is a “bully racket” for such as join | the force, going down through the ! slums in blue and brass, and doing j business on the great thorough' ares; j and many do “get onto it rich,” the j idiom understood. You can “Bleed de Quisby Blokes & blowers & make a Stake every Day,” you say. Yes, you festive tarantula, you can do these | things, which are done every day, j and you are just the centipede I that will never fail in doing. “You . ken Lay for fellers if yer Down on etn ! & Nock de Stuffn outen em,” you say. | Of course you can; it is done every day, and you are just the “tarrier” to go for ’em; your ruffianly, brutal nature will have a wide scope for operation, and will never be backward in coming for- | ward, I am satisfied. | As you say again, you oan *wurk de

Gin mills to de Queans taist & bee hi pve wid all de Da/.y survent gurls.” Of course you can, and, as you say, sponge on the apple women, fisli the pockets of “lushers,” and “swipe many a flimsey.” True, too true, you shovei nosed shark, for they “all do it,” and you are not going to be left, to any great extent. You say the “Salry is Bangup 12d0 Dollers Yeer.” Right you are again, you hook-billed vulture, chafing in a “snide Sliue Store.” It is a “bang-up salary” for such materal as gathers it in. Not one in fifty, the whole force through, could command the half of it in any other sphere of action, the mechanics being too lazy to work at their trades, while the remainder could command only the low pay of unskilled laborers. Yes, you are right, I say, again; it is a “bang-up salary,” and you are just the sort of grappling-iron to get onto it with your hooks. You wind up vour glowing dispatch with what has been the slogan of every individual jackal from away back before tlie time of cne Adam of Eden, and which is—“Kountt Mee in every Time” —me with a capital M and double e, you warped and carnal parasite in human form! Count you in, eh ? I do; make no mistake. You will “get there” as surely as the bald-headed buzzard of Bermuda to the banquet on an overripe carcass of a mule defunct, or other feast of carrion; but it is gratifying to know that you will overgorge yourself in quick time, and, figuratively speaking, succumb to indigestion; in other Yvords, you will sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. I know you will, for that’s the sort of reaper you are, and don’t you forget it. But there, your screed makes me tired—you make me tired—all over and clear through. Go and ba a “Koper” at once, and stand not on the order. The sooner you get on the “force” the sooner you will mount the gallows, or be retired to a State prison, for you are of cussedness abnormally cussed, f-elah! Uncle Si. P. S. —If you fail to become a graft on the New York “Finest,” light out on the double-quick for Loudon, where, according to late revelations, there is a “Drury” police force, enrolled in which oi gani ation you would soon become a shining light, out-Heroding Herod, as it were. —Uncle Si, in Chicago Ledger.