Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1875 — A Bad Boy Decidedly. [ARTICLE]

A Bad Boy Decidedly.

The enterprise of young America has been written and talked about for years, still there are grades of opinion in regard to Young America’s sharpness, and among those who have been most struck with the precocity of the rising generation is Detective Kennock, of the United States Secret Service, New York. A few days ago a small boy applied at the Secret Service office on Bleecker street and said that he knew of a man who had counterfeit money to sell. The boy’s story was apparently reliable, and Detective Kennock was detailed to effect a capture of the counterfeiter, with the aid of the youth bringing the information. At a specified time the detective accompanied the boy to the appointed place and there instantly recognized one Coffee, an old offender, to whom he was well known. He had barely time to give the boy a roll of bills in good money to exchange for the counterteit and conceal himseii. when the counterfeiter came up and egan negotiations with the young informer. The boy agreed with Coffee to give a certaiif sum in good money for a certain number of counterfeits and received the latter, when, instead of handing over the genuine notes, he cut and ran. At this juncture the detective sprang out and arrested the counterfeiter and then waited for the return of the boy. But the boy didn’t come. He had passed like a morning mist and they couldn’t find him any more. He had the genuine money with him and the counterfeit too, and the detective and the rogue were equally disgusted at the turn of affairs. Since the arrest the counterfeiter has been discharged from want of evidence against him, and thus the last drop of bitterness is added to the cup of the chagrined detective. He wouldn’t trust his own baby now, sojthoroughly is he convinced of the moral obliquity of young America. — St. Louis Republican.