Stead and Hinky Dink.
It was through another Joe—Joe Page, that great Canadian baseball promoter—that I met the notorious “Hinky Dink,” who has been an alderman of Chicago for years and years and has remained one notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the reform element to defeat him. His real name is Michael McKenna, and his first ward colleague in the council 20 odd years was “Bath House Jawn”—John J. Coughlin. The Dink really is a square little man and became a great pal of W. T. Stead, when he was here getting material for his book, “If Christ Came to Chicago.” On that visit Stead lived among the hobo fellows and, with them, actually was a “white wing,” pushing a broom in the streets that he might get color for his story. Hinky’s special claim for popularity is that he never goes back on “the boys;” no matter at what hour of the night or early morn he arises to go bail for any poor unfortunate in the police toils, and it is said that never has he been deceived by those he has helped out of a hole. His saloon is now closed, the landlord having raised his rent to an exorbitant sum.