Richmond Press, Inc.                          Richmond, VA                          1938

Horning In

No sooner does one strike a good line, than some other tries to get in on the play and make the public believe that he did it all; just as Colonel House boasts that he administered the world war, instead of Wilson.  Or, just like, when you were a kid and went fishing down on May's Island; and if you should happen to pull a little white perch out of the fishing hole you had found all by yo-own tef, why here come twenty or thirty others and drop their lines in the hole.

In other words, so great an interest has been excited by the accounts of old Richmond boy-gangs that now comes a learned doctor and shoots an editorial about the old gangs, as if he had discovered the subject.

But shucks! as Hambone might say, the Doctor is all wet!  He leads the wrong cards and shows lamentable ignorance of the matter.  The idea of limiting Richmond to four gangs!  Four hundred would be nearer the fact-and then some.  He has gotten the Hoboes mixed with the old Gamble's Hill gang.  He has no first-hand information and could not tell you whether Dude Clark and Cotton Dick were members of the Oregon Hill gang, or of the Sidney cats.

Poof, Doctor!  Find some subject of your own about the history of Richmond, some portraiture of the giants, and let our miniature work alone.