Daily Gleaner 1911 August 22 page 13
A QUEER FIGURE
Pen
and Picture Sketch
Of
a Local Celebrity.
JAMES AUGUSTUS HARRIS.
Jeff is a local celebrity well known to the police, well known to house-holders
and well known to certain storekeepers for a number of whom he is a “live”
poster.
Now it may sound unkind to say that “Jeff” is well known to
the police. But Jeff will tell you so himself. More, he will tell you unless you are known to the police you are a no-body.
And as Jeff has 22 previous convictions against him, he ought to know.
I searched the city in vain for him on Friday. I went to the place where
he lives when he is at large and he was not there. I enquired at the jail, Jeff was not there. I went round the Police Court;
no they had not seen anything of him. Where then could Jeff be?
I gave it up, after a hot walk around the vicinity of the market and concluded
the heat had driven him to the hills.
My conclusion was not correct, for on Saturday morning on arriving at the
office who should I see comfortably sitting in a chair at my desk, but Jeff. His smile was expressive when I told him how
I had searched in vain for him.
“Well, you see, I would have liked to meet you too” he said,
“as it would mean a ‘raise’.” And again Jeff smiled, this time contemplatively.
“Well, tell me where you were hiding on Friday?” I began.
“You tell me what you did want me for.”
“I wanted you to tell me a little of your history,” I said.
“Same thing a say. I know I would have to make a raise. But how much
you going to give me?”
“Talk first, and we will discuss that after,” was my answer.
Then Jeff began: “I come from Trelawny. My father and my mother dem
dead long time. I come up here to Exhibition [the International Exhibition of 1891], and I never go back. My right name is
James Augustus Harris.”
But Jeff I hear you are what is called a “bad man.”
“No!” quickly retorted Jeff. “Not me.”
“How is it then you have got so many convictions against you?”
“I tell you I never do anything wrong. I go on the spree sometimes
and when I have in me water, I sometimes talk.”
“Bad language,” I suggested.
“A few ‘blue light,’ but not so bad so; however gie dog
bad name, and you hang him. Well dats me. De moment I take a few rum whether a say, or whether I don’t say, policeman
take me before Mr. Burke. And me bredda, let me tell you, when you get before Mr. Sam and you see him turn up him eye and
look ‘pon you, say guilty and done.”
“According to the record you have been convicted 22 times!”
“Me dear good sir,” he replied “I can’t keep count
of that in my head. That is chupidness. I don’t like think pon the thing even.”
“But I’ve heard you are happiest when in jail?”
At Spanish Town? “No” he said, with a great deal of emphasis.
“Not over there. Dat place no bwoy, my friend. I tell you I never so happy as when dem backra dress me up with a coat
and beaver and send me out to advertise them goods. Now I knock a tambourine as good as any man, and when you hear a gie dem
a tune, and spin round, and go through like when you pick up your partner at a practice dance, I mek everybody happy. And
when everybody happy, why everybody well. When everybody happy Jeff bound to be happy and for this reason everybody give Jeff
a raise and I take a few rums and keep up the spirit. But how much you gwine gimme? Dis thing worth a guinea a column you
know.”
Again Jeff smiled contemplatively.
“But you have not told me where you were on Friday.”
“Well sir, I am a good shoemaker, and on Friday I was at a gentleman yard mending him boots
and I never finish the job till night.”
“Oh yes,” said Jeff, “I can tell you plenty things but not to-day. I can tell
you how them treat man at Spanish Town and you will have something to write ’bout. But if you put it in de paper and
I ever go back there, it will be a case of “cow dead lef trouble gie him skin.’’
And Jeff arose from the chair and said he was going.
W. A. S.
