THE CONSTITUTION: ATLANTA, GA. TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1912.
What! Don’t know a “Jay Walker?”
Never have seen one?
Then you have never been at Five Points, nor Whitehall and Alabama streets, or perhaps you are one yourself.
Quizz the first cop you meet, inquire of your family physician, or one of the bonesetters at any hospital, or ask the guy who holds the inquest.
This Will Be Verdict.
Some of these days coroner’s juries will return verdicts which will read: “Came to his death from ‘Jay Walking.’ ” It used to be a habit—persons who claim to be authorities on the subject say—but now it is a disease. And it’s catching, just like chickenpox, a thirst for something cold to drink—the morning after.
A traffic policeman at Five Points designated at least fifty persons who were “Jay Walkers,” or who have dangerous symptoms. And the strange part of it none of them realize it. Few have even thought of such a thing, and if you should happen to accuse them they would probably knock on your ding dong for the information.
“You can stand on this corner any busy afternoon and count nearly twice that number,” the cop declared.
“See that guy over there, well he’s a ‘Jay Walker.’ Some day there will be nothing but a grease spot here, and his family will point to the spot where daddy was last seen. He is what they call a busy business man in the story books, but he is what us cops call a nuisance, a ‘Jay Walker,’ a man who is always in his own way.
“Looker there! I told you—”
Mr. Jay Walker in Danger.
And the cop pointed to the Decatur street crossing. The “Jay Walker” had started across the street, nose pointed heavenward, and all unconscious of the fact that a lumber truck, puffing and snorting, and shrieking under the sudden pressure of the brakes, was bearing down on him. Instead of beating it for the nearest sidewalk, Mr. “Jay Walker” stops in his tracks and continues to gaze complacently at the negro washing a second story window in the opposite building.
“Can you beat that?” demanded the cop, and he hastens over to inform Mr. “Jay Walker” that the driver of the truck is entitled to about ten feet of the street.
“See that dame flirting across the street?” exclaimed the cop, pointing to a vision that looked like a rainbow shooting across Peachtree. “Well, she is a ‘Jay Walker.’ ”
“I don’t get yer, Steve—explain?”
“Well, Bo, ‘Jay Walkers’ are persons who cut across corners—dash across the streets cat-a-cornered—who have not the time to walk along the sidewalk to the proper crossing. ‘Jay Walkers’ are people who are always flirting with death—who will run right in front of a street car, an automobile, or a fire engine, and if they happen to get splattered with mud will curse the driver to a fare-the-well. And if—”
“Hold on you bonehead!” shouted the cop at a chauffeur who was about to run his motor over a group of women who stood in the center of the street to exchange greetings, “ain’t you got no respect for ladies what hold reception on the street—”
Then to the ladies—
“Misses, won’t you please move to the sidewalk and let that fathead with the ice truck go by? Thank you ever so much
“Gee, but it’s getting fierce.”