Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1893 — SICKIM’S REFORM. [ARTICLE]

SICKIM’S REFORM.

BY MCPHERSON FRASER.

Tho police force is not the place for a man with much physical strength and little moral principle. His impulses will run riot and some time or other cause him to overstep his official authority, and commit perhaps, murder. That is a rule. Here is the exception to prove it. Jim Sickim was a heavily built young fellow and possessed a vast amount of hidden genial blackguardism, and he dwelt in a section of the city which contained the concentrated essence of all the iniquity and all the vice in the universe. One day—-it was long before African geese were deposited in Back Bay Park—one day this fellow Sickim was slouching up an alley in his neighborhood, swinging a big stone jug, which was to be charged, along with Mr, Sickim, at the handiest saloon. Suddenly there was a great hullabaloo in the street on which the alley opened. Sickim scouted trouble and made tracks, but was disgusted to discover only a hot headed horse trying to turn a back somersault over on top of a little fat man in a buggy. The little man was scared to death, and shouted and. yanked at the reins hard enough to twist the beast’s head off, but it was of no use. The horse had evidently made up his mind to slay him. Sickim enjoyed the fun for a while, then set his jug on the sidewalk and went over a-d pulled the horse back to earth again. For which he expected a quarter, but when the little man got his breath he simply thanked Sickim profusely, and asked him to call next day at the office of the park commissioners. “Are yon one o’ them?” asked Sickim. “I am. My name is Smythe,” said he who had been scared, and drove away. Sickim picked up his jug and went on his way, deep in thought. He was thinking so bard that only the jug was filled at the saloon. Now, it had often been truthfully said that Sickim liked many things better than he liked work, and, moreover, he was President of the Sons of Best, a local society distinguished for its philharmonic principles. So he wondered whether the possible reward for saving the commissioner's life would pay for extreme trouble of going after it. A happy thought settled the whole argument. It occurred to Mr. Sickim that the street railroads granted—on the quiet —free passes over the city to all Sous of Rest. He decided to go.

Next morning Sickim increased his apparel by a white shirt and a collar, and presented himself before the commissioner. Who promptly rewarded him with a five-dollar bill. “Now," said Mr. Smythe, as he looked his rescuer over, “what is your occupationT" Sickim was dazed, for beyond an occasional impulse to get drunk he had but one view in life—he wanted to be a policeman. He said:, “I am not doin' anything now, sir, but I’m goin’ to try for the police some day.” The commissioner put up his eyebrows. How would you like to try now? We require a good solid man like you for Back Bay Park. I think I can secure your appointment at an early date. You will be given a nice gray suit with brass buttons, and you will get invigorating, wholesome employment at good wages. What do you say?” “I’m agreed, sir,” Sickim answered, insanely, and it was all over. The commissioner complimented himself for his usefulness to the park department, and then pulled the string whioh woke up the other commissioners and the police department. Whereupon Sickim underwent “ mental and physical examination,” and “qualified.” The machine moved very smoothly, you see, and made the man who was being run through it feel that the softest job of his life was before him. That was—as it is to-day—a big illusion, and Sickim fonnd it out in less than a week—to his sorrow. But it made a man of him. He was put into a uniform that might have fitted an elephant, given a little advice on matters of courtesy and a great deal on matters of discipline, and then he was turned over to the policeman at the Stonybrook Bridge. From that time on he got a taste of a sort of life that did not at all agree with him. On the first day—a beastly hot one—he had to tramp all over the park a dozen times so that he might know his bearings. On the second day—also very hot—he had to repeat the rules and regulations

forward and backward, chase loafers and unleashed dogs, and practice throwing a big life-preserver at a stump half way across the marsh. On the third day—still hot—he was told to polish his boots and clean up generally, —and to hurry up about it, too; then he wts assigned to a lonely night beat in a corner of the park, far away from everything except a couple of spooklike poplars and the memory of his own checkered career. Sickim travelled back and forth like a pendulum over that gloomy beat until a few thin pencils of gray light began to steal up from the eastern horizon. He had had no sleep for forty-eight hours and he was as hungry as a wolf. He wonld have gladly given his new helmet for a doughnut and a drop of whiskey. Often during the night he felt like taking French leave and jumping on a passing freight train bound for anywhere. He could easily cut off his buttons and jam his helmet into some unrecognizable shape. But something—perhaps just the least trace of inherent manliness—made him change his mind. He took a chew of tobacco, and was about to lean up against a tree when he heard something with a noisy voice coming down the road toward him. He drew his club, determined, if he got a chanoe, to vent his feelings on somebody’s head. A man’s form shambled into sight, followed by something that cried and resembled a small shadow. The man was beastly drunk, and cursed and waved his fist at the shadow, and remarked that he would like to break the shadow's neck. “Perhaps I’ll take a hand, too,” said Sickim as he stepped out from under the tree. The man pulled himself up and stopped his bellowing, but the small shadow behind him gave a little cry of glee, and, assuming the form of a bit of a girl of nine, raced by him, and threw herself sobbing into Sickim’a big hands. “Leave that young one be!” growled the man.

“Shut up your snivelling jaw,” said Sickim, “or I’ll-” “Yer not big enough!” Sickim’s pride boiled. He pushed the crying child aside and sprang at the man and gripped him like a vise. “Don’t you talk that way to Jim Sickim if you want to live any more,” and he shook him till his teeth rattled. The man knew that his game was up, and pleaded for mercy. “Now, Sissy,” said Sickim, “who’s this man, and who are you?” She whimpered between her sobs that he was her father, Johu Muggins, and she was Kitty Muggins. “Ain’t yer got no mother: Sissy?” “No, sir,” she whined, “an’ he beat me ’cause I didn’t stay to home.” Sickim held out at arm’s length the snarling, growling object under discussion and frowned at him. Then he said to him: “Aintyergot no res pec’ for yer own young one, y' drunken fool. Es it wasn’t for thb little one I’d learn yer somethin’ you wouldn’t forgit!” Apd he punctuated his remarks with a shake or two. “Now, Sissy—er—Kitty,” said Sickim, “you stop right here till I come back. Meantime, yer daddy an’ me'll take a walk. Now, don’t you cry any more.” With that he tightened his grip on Mr. Muggins’s arm, and the two moved away in the darkness. When they suddenly reached the border of the Park stream, Muggins mumbled that he would like to know the rest of the programme. “Yer faoe is kind of dirty-like,” said Sickim, “and yer boots wouldn’t‘look so bad es. they was cleaned a bit. So I’m goin’ to give yer a free bathe before we go up to the station.” Then Sickim caught him by the coat collar, and doused him in the water until he began to get sober and weep pathetically. Which took about twelve minutes, for the water was quite chilly. ******* About twenty minutes later there was a great hurroosh up at the police stationSickim had just marched in with a cute little blue-eyed girl in one hand and something that looked like a bundle of wet rags in the other, and now stood in the middle of the room with a smile on his face that was fully five inches long. Then the sergeant inspected the bundle and said: “Old Muggins again! Well, I’ll be—; this is the sixth offence, Muggins, me boy. I guess you had better go down on the Island for a couple of months aud give this child a ohance to grow. Lock him up, Sickim.” “That being the case,” said Sickim, if the court has no objections, I’ll take the young one ’round to my house. I got a sister that’ll take good care of her." Two weeks later Muggins died down at the Island. After that, Sickim moved away from his old neighborhood, for somehow or other he took a dislike to it. He baa been transferred from Back Bay to a suburban town and made sergeant. If you ever meet him and mention this story, perhaps he may tell you what a fine cook and piano player Kitty Muggins is.-- [Boston Cultivator.