21
Apr

Prisoners Clean City’s Streets

   Posted by: admin   in People, Police court

The Fort Dodge Messenger: April 21, 1905

Prisoners Clean City’s Streets

Police Guard Them While They Beautify Fort Dodge

They are Better When Busy

Idleness has a Tendency to Get Them Into Mischief – The New Method of Cleaning This City Will be continued by the Present Administration.

Ten days on the streets. If you don’t work, you get nothing to eat but bread and water.

This was the sort of a hand out Major S.J. Bennett gave to three tramps this morning in police court, and there was consternation in their faces when they realized the horrible truth that they were up against a proposition where they would either have to work or they could not eat.

To take care of them a special police officer was sworn in and he has instructions to see that they fulfill the conditions in the way of a decent amount of labor, or they will be held to the slender fare prescribed for them by his honor.

This morning they were taken out by the officer and put at work picking up the papers and trash off the streets. In this role they attracted much attention and there was a great amount of favorable comment as the people passing along the street caught at the idea.

When the papers are all picked up, they will be put at work with a shovel, and it is the intention of his honor to add to the force. The police are instructed to take precautions to capture every tramp that steps inside the city limits and there is a prospect that the special offer will have a considerable gang under his care in a short time.

One of the vags who is on the streets is the same fellow captured Thursday. He was turned loose on account of the fact that it was too rainy for him to work and ordered out of town. He was given a good meal just befoer he startd at ten o’clock, but he had the “habit” and before noon, he wa begging a “hand out” over in West Fort Dodge, ont he grounds that he had been “starving for three days.”

A telephone message to police headquarters brought out the patrol, and he was hustled into the reflectatory, where he was kept till this morning when he went to work with two other vags. The men are Luke O’Brien, Frank Jones and Martin Scott.

Frank Jones is a resident of Fort Dodge and has been a sort of outcast from society for some time. He was arrested a day or two ago and was at that time given a chance to get out of town, which opportunity he failed to avail himself of. Thursday he spent the day begging funds and drinking and was picked up by police. In court this morning when he was told it was either work or bread and water, he was highly incensed that he should be asked to work and stated he would take the bread and water.

He, however, went out on the street with the rest of the gentlemen of leisure, but at the first opportunity, made a run for it and made goo his escape. The police hope that he has made a good job of his getaway, so that he will not be seen back in Fort Dodge again. The last seen of him he was making the most undignified haste in the direction of the Illinois Central depot, where he hoped to catch a freight train out of town.

There were also two drunks up this morning, Frank Kopaski and Fern (?) Willard. Both of these men liquidated and went their ways rejoicing.

Tags: , , , ,

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 21st, 2011 at 8:15 am and is filed under People, Police court. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.