They say “It is a wise child that knows its own father,” but it is sometimes a wiser, or at any rate a happier, child that don’t know its own father. And two of the happiest youngsters I have ever heard of were two children–one of them still livin’ out West somewhere I believe–who never knew what their own father really was while he was livin’, and didn’t find out what he had been even after he was dead.
These two children were daughters of “Johnny the Greek,” who had lived and died a common thief, and who had “done time at the stone jug;” that is, served a term in State’s prison. But, although a bad man, he was a good father, and one time, havin’ made several thousand dollars by a lucky robbery in which he wasn’t nabbed, he took the money all in a lump and took his two little daughters along with him and requested an interview with a holy Sister, the head of a Catholic institution.
He told this holy Sister privately what he was–confessed he was nothin’ but a thief–but he begged the good lady, for the sake of the God she believed in, to have pity upon him, and upon his helpless and still innocent little daughters. He begged the good lady to take the money in payment for her boardin’ and teachin’ and takin’ care of his daughters; and the good lady did as he begged her, and from that day treated that thief’s daughters as if she was their own mother.
It was, of course, an understood thing that nothin’ should ever be told the children about the real business of the father who loved ‘em and who they loved so dearly. He came to see them every now and then, but some pious lie, that was better than the truth, was told the little darlin’s, and they always thought their father to be some highly respected man.
Well, one day he died suddenly–died as he had lived, a thief–and then more care was taken than ever to keep any suspicion of the kind of life the dead man had lived from enterin’ into the innocent heads of his two daughters.
They were told their dear father was dead, of course, but that was all; and some very unexpected bits of human nature of the best kind were revealed in this emergency of the most unlooked-for quarters.
One old “fence” or receiver of stolen goods, a miser, nicknamed “Old hunks,” absolutely offered the use of his own handsome private residence to bury the thief from. You see, Johnny the Greek, though a successful thief, died–as ninety-nine out of one hundfed thieves do, whether successful or not–poor. And “Old Hunks” didn’t want the thief’s children feelin’s to be shocked by seein’ how poor their father really was; so, with a decency and sentiment that would have done credit to a first class Christian, the “old fence” gave up his house for the funeral, and the daughters found their father lyin’ in state in a splendid coffin in an elegant apartment in, as they thought, his own house.
But this wasn’t all; another thief not only contributed toward a tip-top funeral for his dead “pal,” but spent one hundred dollars extra at the last moment for gettin’ some first-class “mourners” for the occasion. There was an undertaker then, called Cafferty, who made a specialty of furnishin’ high-toned lookin’ mourners at funeral at so much a mourner. These hired mourners were paid to mourn, and did mourn conscientiously and loudly, and quite as sincerely as the average relations and friends–probably a good deal more than such friends and relatives unless they expected a legacy. The mourners were male and female, and were furnished in large or small quantities to suit customers or rather corpses. Well, this thief went to this Cafferty and hired a number of respectable lookin’ men, like bankers and merchants, and a number of respectable lookin’ women, like their wives and daughters, and when the two daughters of Johnny the Greek were conducted to their dead father, they found him surrounded not by thieves and harlots, but by a very respectable lookin’ set of mourners indeed, who did all they could to give the two girls an idea of how much their dead father had been alike respected and lamented.
I can’t help thinkin’ that when the great account comes to be settled up, that old “fence” and that other thief will find a mighty good mark on the recordin’ angel’s books for their behavior in this affair of Johnny the Greek.
But this wasn’t all. It wasn’t only the thieves and crooked people who showed this time that they had hearts; the police came in for their share of good feelin’ and showed that there is a deal of tenderness, sometimes, under official red tape and a blue coat with brass buttons.
Of course Johnny the Greek’s picture had been taken and put in the “Rogues’ Gallery.” Now, an old detective, for whom Johnny the Greek had once done a friendly service, fearing that by some mere chance, some day, the daughters of the dead thief might possibly be confronted with their father’s likeness, went to Kennedy, the Superintendent of Police, and begged, for the children’s sake, that the picture of Johnny the Greek might be destroyed. Kennedy at once granted the request, and there is now no portrait of the thief in existence.
It was a kindly, thoughtful act in the detective, and he will have his reward. Altogether, I think that the whole story of Johnny the Greek’s death and burial is one calculated to make one think better of human nature.
[Editor’s notes: John Keefe (or O’Keefe), alias John Roach, was a notorious pickpocket and thief, among the best known criminals of the post-Civil War era in New York. The anecdote above comes from the 1882 National Police Gazette‘s serialized book, Crooked Life in New York.
“Better human nature” may have been in evidence, but there were other forces in play: Keefe, though a criminal, had friends in high places due to his talent as a leader of a cadre of election fraud repeat voters:]
