Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 283, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1912 — Merchant Who Manages Well Without Eyesight [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Merchant Who Manages Well Without Eyesight

Philadelphia. —Here’s another wonder of the world —a blind man at Sixth and Chestnut streets Who captures thieves, detects counterfeit coins and breaks up the gangs that manufacture and traffic in bogus money. Besides doing this, famous “Blind Al,” (who has been in the neighborhood for many years, sells newspapers, candy and fruit; goes to market in crowded Dock street all alone —and never has he knocked a basket over. He shaves himself and without a looking glass, too; blacks his own boots, sews his own buttons on and is always ready with a cheery wofd for his multitude of customers who buy at his stand next to old Congress Hall at Chestnut and Sixth. “Oh, yes,” said he, "some people try to cheat me yet, but I usually catch them; I’ve caught 221 of them in the 33 years Pve been blind. If they cWeat me once they usually come and try it again, but I soon discover something wrong and some of my ‘trusties’ on the watch and it’s not long before •the folks who pay for one apple and take three or for one peanut bar and take two find that they’re caught themaelves.”

“Blind Al” has eyes in his fingers; in the keen powers of smell he haR developed and in the redoubled acuteness of bis ears. By these “detectives’* he has corralled 18 counterfeiters and put the authorities on the trail of three bands who were making the spurious coins. “I can almost always tell if a person is giving me bad money,” said he. “The coins are always greasy and usually lighter than real’ ones; when I get them I keep them to take them out of circulation and then make the buyers give me good money.” Every day he fingers all the fruit with his brainy finger tips to tell if it is softening and just where the decaying spots are; then he puts it here or there according to the price to ask for it.