Seven Umbrella Men In Town

Few other than those professionally interested, as the policemen and reporters, take cognizance of many phases of local city life, well worthy of attentive study and investigation. Among these the most apparently commonplace and prosaic afford the under-surfacejinvestigator the best returns for his labors. Ninety-nine persons out of any hundred, regard the umbrella man as a chronic, ubiquitous irrepressible nuisance, just tolerable, because he at least ostensibly earns the living which other of his class achieve through mendacious begging. Very many men and women whose hearts throb with overflowing sympathy for misfortune, particularly vhen vested in the flimsiest guise of vorthiness, and who cannot wholly learken to it even when known to be 3f vicious and persistently followed Drigin, find especial satisfaction in :onfiding the[costliest umbrellas and parsols to the repulsive looking, sld or young, "mush-fakir," i. e., umbrella man. "Because you know, my dear, the poor man needs it more than our prosperous town workmen, and then I do so like to help anyone who is trying to help himself. On last Tueiday morning there entered Ann Arbor from as many different points of the compass no less than seven different " 'brella " men, all of whom held a conventiou in a saloon which they specially affect. The object of the accidental meeting was not only to exchange points on towns and routes recently traversed, and individuals therein accessible as victims, but also to so parcel out this city as to subject it to such domiciliary visitation as should permit no possible victim to escape solicitation without interfering conflict of solicitors." Each of these had a staff of one or more canvassers who had not reached the dignity of a "kit" of their own, but whose duty it was to harass the residents of one side of a street, while those of the other were gnashing their teeth over the impudent importunities of his chief. Before this article reaches its readers, many of them will have had a personal, application of its truth which precludes the need of further averment. Every feature of the disease will have been experienced. Symptoms may have differed, but all must feel that we have touched an unhealed because constantly lacerated spot which has supervened from constant and devilishly designed laceration by the " 'brella man." And then these fellows have other fakes, all except in rarely exccptional instances equally fraudulent. They repair leaky tinware, which leaks again in time to give a job to the next speedily arriving member of the endless procession behind them; they sharpen scissors in such style as imperils the religión of pillars of the church; they repair sewing machines in such a manner as to impose ruinous loss and expense on the poorly paid seamstress; mend baby carriages so as to jeopardize the lives of their intended precious occupants; and perhaps as bad as all, expend the earnings, averaging higher than those of a first-class mechanic, in the debauchery and wreek of their own bodies. Ámong these people there is a remarkable similarity of appearance and equipment. All are ciad in conspicuously ill-fitting and bedraggled clothes. All are of equally unclean aspect, and no difference exists between them as to impudent reprisal for even the faintest complaint as to the defective character of their work. They are a wholly unreliable and equally unworthy class, and as between two evils, have no right to comparison with the average tramp in point of honesty and respectability. They are a drunken, worthless, incorrigible set of fellows whom no conscientious man or woman should encourage by patronage, especially at the expense of reputable local tradesmen. It is true they include many men of respectable origin whose early advantages give them facility of speech which might enable them to "talk the hind leg off a dog," but nevertheless respectable, wellmeaning people should have none of them. The program at the Unity club next Monday evening, April 6, 1891, will consist of a paper by Prof. George Hempl, on "Getting Settled in Berlín," a paper by Judge W. D. Harriman, on "Sócrates." Oíd college songs in charge of W. P. Moore.