Ganger

“ Watch the crowd—there must be over two thousand present in the great outer circle. The gangers are getting into the rostrums—two tea ships have come in, and a large number of men will be required. Hope is on many faces now; the men who have been lying in hundreds sleeping on the bank opposite—so usual a bed that the grass is worn away—leap to their feet. The crowd surges close together, and every eye is fixed in the direction of the ganger, who, up in his pulpit, his big book, with the list of the names of regular men, or 'Royals,' open before him, surveys the scene, and prepares for business. ”

“ Henceforward our five companies are to supply every day a gang of a hundred men to work five miles from here on the military hutments. Ten miles march, eight hours’ work, and to make up for this fatigue duty, a sausage of about the size of your finger. The German ganger, a tailor by trade, and a man with the finest beard you ever saw, is by no means a bad fellow. During fifteen years he has made the seat of his trousers shiny in the tailors’ workrooms of Paris. He has no hatred for the French. ”

“ The station-master told the ganger of the four navvies who went by on their trolly down the line to work. At the end of their four-mile length they told the ration-carrier of Eubindal station, who happened to call in at their camp for a drink of tea. He hurried off to the head-station with the news, and on his way told three teamsters, an inspector of selections, and a black boy belonging to Mylong station, whom he happened to meet on the road. ”

“ Each gang was in the charge of one first-class being. As a rule he lay in the sun with one hand removed from the boot and covered with a rubber glove. In this hand he held a thick rod some three feet in length which seemed to me to be made of aluminium. His quick and watchful eyes surveyed the whole of the field, and every now and then he called out an order to some individual labourer. The order was in every case instantly obeyed. In every one of these fields I was challenged by the overseer with a loud "Who are you?" ”

“ At a glance just now on the surface, in most nations, things look much as before. The same old gang is in control, but lying and allying, brow beating, scheming a little more than was necessary heretofore. ”

“ It was our wish to separate from the gang, and seek a humble and honest living. We know the haunt where the leader conceals himself, that notorious incendiary whom you have so long sought in vain, and intended to deliver him into your hands; but you are worse than the most atrocious of our gang, and as you have shown us to-day so much kindness, a curse for it shall light upon you, your family, and your offspring, to the third and fourth generation. ”

“ A gang. But do they not rather demonstrate the absence of a gang? What struggle could have taken place—what struggle so violent and so enduring as to have left its 'traces' in all directions—between a weak and defenceless girl and the gang of ruffians imagined? The silent grasp of a few rough arms and all would have been over. The victim must have been absolutely passive at their will. You will here bear in mind that the arguments urged against the thicket as the scene, are applicable in chief part, only against it as the scene of an outrage committed by more than a single individual. ”

“ It appears that, when a gang have come upon a larger plunder than they can carry away from the premises inside them, one of the number lies down on his back while the others load him up with the booty; that he balances the pile with four legs, and, to make matters extra safe, folds his tail over the goods and holds the tip in his mouth, and that his pals then drag him off along the ground by the ears and fur! ”

“ None but a keen trapper or snarer can appreciate the pleasure a detective of the true instinctive order feels when engaged in the capture of game so wild, shy, and cunning. Their very cunning is what whets our appetites, and I absolutely burned to embrace the dauntless leader of the gang. ”

“ The way it’s going to be is the battle gets going good before you join in. One gang—one army, I mean—is behind that fence and the other army comes running up towards ’em from down at the foot of that hill yonder, whooping and yelling and shooting and all. And with that, you cut in right between ’em, all by your lonesome, and take a hand. That brings you out prominent because you’re the only guy in sight that’s dressed different from everybody else. ”

“ The gang spirit became the spirit of a united whole, and the crime fraternity buzzed and hummed poisonously, spurred on by hatred, thirst for revenge, fear, and, perhaps most potent of all, a hideous suspicion now of each other. ”

“ Although by no means a rogue, he was herded with a gang of ruffians, murderers, swindlers, pickpockets and the very off-scourings of all the earth.
And such society, it must be confessed, was a much greater punishment to his sensitive feelings than the confinement, remorse, or a thousand inconveniences and annoyances to which he was daily and hourly subjected. ”

“ The master of the gang commenced, and after much stamping with his foot, and the gentleman warmly exhorting him to cry aloud, like the roaring of a lion, he endeavoured to call forth nonentity into existence. ”

“ Through all the trials and tribulations of his fifty years of life he has never been in danger of the chain gang before, for he has kept a good character for one of his hue, and now the certain prospect of the gang unless some miracle happened had crushed the spirit out of him. ”

“ A large gang under several leaders set out from our village at the usual time; but the omens, although not absolutely bad, were not very encouraging, and this had a dire effect on the whole. They had not proceeded far when jealousies and quarrels sprang up among the several leaders; they separated from each other and pursued different ways. One by one they returned disappointed with their expedition, having gained very little booty, scarcely sufficient to support them for the remainder of the year. ”

“ The gang contains the friends to whose praise and criticism he is most keenly sensitive, its standards are his aims, and its activities his happiness. Untrammeled by the perversion of special circumstances it might encourage his latent interests, train him to obedience and loyalty, show him the method and the saving of co-operation, and teach him the beauty of self-sacrifice. Gang life at its best does so. ”

“ We have so planted your men that whatever street each of the gang takes in going home, he can be seized quietly and at once. The bravest and craftiest of all, who, though he has but just joined, is already their captain;—him, the man I told you of, who lives in the house, you must take after his return, in his bed. ”

“ A gang of men in an ugly temper, running in a set direction ... he could feel purpose behind the lurching, staggering passage of the mob.... They were on their way to punish the Germans—coarse hulking giants who could laugh at Ethel Ann’s drenched face helpless in a green tumble of breakers.... ”

“ What has the Lord to do with a gang of desperate wretches, who go sneaking about the country like robbers—light upon his people wherever they can get a chance, binding them with chains and hand-cuffs, beat and murder them as they would rattle-snakes? ”

“ A gang has seized a tailor, a poor, miserable-looking wretch with no fighting in him, almost literally as well as metaphorically the “ninth part of a man,” and his captors are dragging him off, knock-kneed and incapable of resistance. ”

“ Nothing but a head, and obedience to that head, can preserve a gang a moment from destruction. It is absolutely better for you to content yourselves with a moderate reward, and enjoy that in safety at the disposal of your chief, than to engross the whole with the hazard to which you will be liable without his protection. ”

“ You take a turn on the platform together, and he explains the whole mystery. “The fact is,” he begins, “I am Sergeant Witchem, of the Detective police.”
“And your four victims are?”—
“Members of a crack school of swell-mobsmen.”
“What do you mean by ‘school?’ ”
“Gang. There is a variety of gangs—that is to say, of men who ‘work’ together, who play into one another’s hands. These gentlemen hold the first rank, both for skill and enterprise, and had they been allowed to remain would have brought back a considerable booty. Their chief is the Frenchman.” ”

“ As a general rule, the different divisions of a gang used to encamp near each other at the various halting grounds, and were always in frequent communication with one another. No sooner had one of them fallen in with a party of travellers than the intelligence was conveyed to all the others, and every one was on the alert. Their leaders, travelling as merchants, gentlemen, soldiers, or peasants, usually succeeded by their [Pg 63] plausible manners in ingratiating themselves with the strangers. ”

“ Let's try to find out first what the gang means to the boys and what it means to the race. When a boy joins a gang, he does not discard his instinct for play or for running and shouting. He simply takes on a new relation to the world about him. As a member of the gang, he still runs and plays and shouts; but now he has become conscious of his place in the world, and that place is with his fellow-members, surrounded by all sorts of enemies and dangers and obstacles to his well-being. In his gang he finds comfort and support for his struggle with the outside world. ”

“ Under the old system the workmen were kept day after day in comparatively large gangs, each under a single foreman, and the gang was apt to remain of pretty nearly the same size whether there was much or little of the particular kind of work on hand which this foreman had under his charge, since each gang had to be kept large enough to handle whatever work in its special line was likely to come along. ”

“ The Old Guard at Waterloo, the Spartans at Thermopylæ, the Boy on the Burning Deck, the Roman Guard at Pompeii, Horatius, Arnold von Winkelried,—who of us was not brought up on these stories? The manly virtues are instinctive in proper men, but men first learn their practice in the gang.
Almost every activity of the gang is a lesson in coöperation. Not only the group games and the fighting, but the peaceful tribal occupations,—the hunting, fishing, exploring, hut-building, swimming, skating,—all have to be done more or less in common. ”

“ In measured step, each gang followed by its keeper, more than a thousand men march past the head keeper's desk.
All the varieties of ages, figures, physiognomies, expressions, are illustrated to my astonished eyes. Young men with red cheeks and simple faces; strong men with [Pg 34] bullet heads, broad shouldered, surly or impassive; fat men with wabbling bellies and cheerful faces; old men bent and hoary with age; slow and listless young men with effeminate gestures; a few cripples on sticks or crutches, and wobbling along behind the lines, a paralytic led by a companion. ”

“ It saves trouble and expense. I don't travel with a gang, like that bone-headed Buck. What's the use of a gang? They only get tumbling over each other and spoiling everything. Look at Buck! Where is he? ”

“ Closely allied to plaguing, and even more nearly universal in normal gangs, is fighting. Unlike plaguing, however, fighting is on the whole a virtue of the gang rather than a vice, notwithstanding its many regrettable aspects. ”

“ Gangs of men, in all sorts of outlandish habiliments, wild as those worn at some crazy carnival, rushed to and fro, seizing upon whomsoever they pleased—warrant-officers and dangerous pugilists excepted—pulling and hauling the luckless tars about, till fairly baited into a genial warmth. ”

“ Already I, as his lieutenant, have been selected as the leader of as determined a gang as has ever entered on a work of rescue before. We leave for Paris to-morrow, and if human pluck and devotion can destroy mountains then we’ll destroy them. ”

“ There is a babel of uncouth cries and harsh discordant yells, accompanied by whimsically energetic gestures and convulsive facial distortions, as the members of the different gangs recognize each other in the crowd, and search out the places assigned them. ”

“ I telephoned to the police there, just after you left, and they said they'd send out a posse. But the gang changed their plans, and held you up near here, where I wasn't expecting it. But I'll get 'em yet. ”

“ The poachers—desperate fellows—are coming in a gang. They’ve had the impudence to send word to the head keepers to look out for them; there is a large gang of them going to drive the wood. Can’t say this night for certain, but some night in the week. ”

“ Of all the gang-nurtured social virtues, loyalty and its allies stand easily first. The gang, indeed, exists only because of the loyalty of its members to one another. Without this mutual loyalty there could be no gangs. All the great leaders and successful trainers of boys use the lever of loyalty in reaching and holding their boys. ”

“ To begin with, we will manage always to walk in the rear of the gang. There are often rows; if some poor wretch goes mad and attacks the guard there is generally a rush of the others to his assistance. ”

“ But our gang was as you may suppose chiefly composed of and governed by men without principle, who appeared to delight in the shedding of blood, and whose only excuse has been that by acting with too much humanity in sparing life, they might thereby be exposed and themselves arraigned to answer for their crimes at an earthly tribunal. ”

“ That is why the gang appears in the second generation, the first born upon the soil,—a fighting gang if the Irishman is there with his ready fist, a thievish gang if it is the East Side Jew,—and disappears in the third. ”