Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 October 1910 — BUSIED IN CHICAGO [ARTICLE]

BUSIED IN CHICAGO

I s v . ■ •»." ” • .. Hundreds Daily Shuffle Through Streets; Without Money or Friends. i ——— Young Hoosler Lad . Leaves Bmall Town to Answer Advertisement of Employment Agency—ls Duped and Robbed of Coin. In Chicago penniless and without a friend. Were you ever in such circumstances? - Probably not, but every day sees, hundreds of your fellows who are. The other day Walter Summers, a lad of only 17 years, good looking and apparently fairly well educated, shuffled into the Desplalnes street police station. The lad, tifred and broken in spirit, eat down in a chair. “Say,” the boy asked timidly, "how far is it to Wabash avenue?” “About a mile,” was the reply. He smiled half-heartedly. "About a mile, eh? Gee, I wish I had a dollar for every mile I’ve walked today. I could buy some regular food and have enough left to get cleaned up and pay my railroad fare home.” “Where is your home?” was asked. “Evansville.’ “Indiana?” “Yep.” And then the tired boy told his Btory. “I had a Job in West Salem, Wis. ” he said, “and I was getting along pretty well, i had a few dollars saved up and thought I was satisfied. I saw an advertisement in a pamphlet up there, telling how easy it was to make money in Chicago. The ‘ad’ was signed by an employment agency. All you had to do was to give the agency $2 and it would ship you to Chicago, where a job would be waiting you. It sounded fine, so I thought I’d try it. “I gave my $2 to the agency and took the rest of my money with me. I was shipped with about fifteen other fellows. “When I got to Chicago I went to the place where the agency had told me I could land a job. The address which they had given me I found was a swamp—out that way. somewhere,” and the boy pointed toward the southwest side. “Then I saw that I had been ‘bunkoed.’ The agency, I guess, was a fake, or else they had given me the

wrong address by mistake. I thought, though, that I could get a job. next day, so I gave a dollar for the room I slept in that night. I hunted around for two days, trying to find a job. Twice I was told to call next ween, but that is as close as I’ve come, so far. “It was Tuesday when I came to Chicago. The following Sunday night I slept on the dock, down there by the river. There were lots of other fellows there, too. I spread out some papers and lay down on them. When I woke up in the morning I found that some fellow had taken my last $10.” The boy paused a minute, looked at his lone auditor and smiled. “Say, honest now, ain’t I the Tall guy*? I guess I need a guardian,” he said, and in spite of the fact that he was hungry and without money, he actually laughed. “Ever since that night I have had to beg what food I have had. And I haven’t had a shave, either, not since I came to this town.” “Yesterday I gave up. I went in the station down there,” pointing west again, “and the ‘copper’ at the desk gave me a postal card and a nickel. Then I wrote to my\ mother and told

her where I was and that I was ‘broke.’ I expect to hear from her tomorrow and then I am going home. An' say,” he went' on, “for all the three years which I have been away, I haven’t written to my mother. She didn’t know but what I was dead. I had an argument with her one day,” he admitted reluctantly, “and I ran away. I got along all right up in West Salem, but Chicago is a fierce place.” The boy got up to go. A plain clothes detective who had come out during the latter part of the boy’s story gave him 60 cents. “Here, lad,” he said, “you’re too young to be in this town without money.” The reporter added his mite to the boy’s fortune, then turned to go into the station. “Well, much obliged,” murmured the runaway, “so long” and he was oft.