"He'll be carrying one before he's here long," laughed a physician, as they filed out into the night.
More conspicuously here than elsewhere he had been, Wyeth saw that the undertaking business thrived better in this city than any other conducted by colored people. A half dozen companies were incorporated, with a paid-up capital stock, and declared handsome dividends every six months. And each company owned one or more ambulance carriages, or "dead wagons," as they were commonly called as they moved busily about the streets, picking up wounded and dead Negroes. Almost daily they whirled through the town at break-neck speed, to the tune of a dreadful alarm.
Then Wyeth began to see, without looking, why crime thrived. The mills, coal mines and furnaces employed thousands of men, as we know, and paid them at various times. And to a saloon they filed and drank their fill. In his observations, Wyeth had never seen saloons do such an excessive bottle business. Great cases, the length of the bar in many instances, and piled everywhere, were half pints of liquor. A man said to him one day, "You'll find, upon searching the ignorant Negro, three things almost any time: A bottle of booze, which might be empty if you searched him at his work—a cannon, if not, it is because he is not able to possess one—a knife, with a blade long enough to go through you—additionally, a pair of dice."
But it was not at the saloons that they bought all the whiskey, regardless of the great number in sight. But barrel houses and wholesale stores were operated in connection therewith. Here the tiger conductors purchased their supplies, which consisted mostly of whiskey, and the cheapest available, which was, to be exact, a dollar and a half a gallon; but, if bought in smaller quantities, it came at forty cents a quart; while the beer used by the tigers was so cheap that finally, no label was used on the bottle. And it was this kind, he learned, the tiger people used almost exclusively. It was likewise, this kind that produced the most fighting drunks, and was sold after midnight—Saturday night. So, on the outside of a good supply of drink and a crap game in sight, crime ran high in this city, and was ever in continuance.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"This Is Mr. Winslow, Madam!"
After his conflict with Moore, Legs took a silent pledge; he would quit gambling and drinking, and start a bank account. "I'm going to use some sense and save my money," he declared, with much sincerity. "There is nothing like a few dollars, in case of emergency."
"If you stick to that theory in practice, Legs," Wyeth corroborated, "you'll never have cause to regret it."