NAKED BOY, CITY FOUNTAIN (1898)
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It was a scene perhaps repeated multiple times in a year by countless naked little boys.
In June of 1898, however, one little “naked fugitive” was accosted by a “fat policeman” in the fountain of New York’s City Hall Park.
Here is how he got away.
BATHED NUDE IN CITY HALL PARK
“An altogether naked boy of perhaps 12 years and a fat policeman with clothes to spare furnished joy for the people in City Hall Park last evening, at about half-past 6 o’clock,” began an article in The Sun. “The boy had been splashing around in the pool around the fountain. The park loafers were roused to comment with some animation upon the young man’s bravery and lack of modesty.”
Apparently, in a time when such boyhood antics were looked down upon with quaint – even for the time – disapproval, for some reason, passersby “could’t avoid smiling tolerantly as they looked the other way.”
ENTER THE POLICEMAN
“The big policeman who came puffing from Park row took no such amiable view of the young man’s crime. For years,” The Sun continued, “small boys have been given to jumping into the fountain with all their clothes on.”
A naked boy, however, as the paper implied, was rare.
“A hundred voices warned the naked boy of the bluecoat’s approach. The policeman shook his club and sputtered commands and admonitions across the pool. The small boy circulated around the pool, keeping diametrically opposite the policeman, who at length climbed to the margin and threaten to jump in.
At this point, “the boy slid over the margin and landed on the asphalt walk.”
Again, in an unusual show of acceptance by the passersby, “one or two women who were watching the game from a distance giggled audibly, but they were not enough horrified to move more than ten steps further away. He was such a small boy.
“The policeman started around the pool. The boy kept pace on the other side until he came to the place where he had piled his clothes before he jumped in the pool. He grabbed the shirt as he went by.
“The policeman saw what a mistake he had made in not seizing the clothing in the beginning and hastened after the rest.”
A DOZEN SMALL BOYS AND A MOTHERLY LOOKING GERMAN WOMAN
“A dozen small boys were before him. Through the crowds of spectators dodged the naked fugitive until in a moment’s refuge behind a motherly looking German woman, who spread her skirt out to hide him, he gained time to pull on his shirt. He grabbed his trousers from a friend and drew them on while the policeman was telling another bluecoat, who had been attracted by the crowd, what the trouble was all about.”
ENTER A SECOND POLICEMAN
“Then, as they started around the pool, one going north and one south, to surround him, the boy clean, cool, and clothed, danced backward toward the Post Office twiddling his fingers at his nose. And the bearded, somnolent beggars on the benches alternatively doubled and threw themselves backward over their seats, roaring with hoarse laughter.”
And, thus, the formerly naked boy escaped, fleeing through the crowds to his liberty.
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