In the gilded biographies of himself which, from time to
time, Mr. Lawson has caused to be written and published in
newspapers and magazines.

My history is well enough known. I have always lived in the open. It has
not been necessary to press-agent myself. A good deal has been printed
about me in the newspapers during the last twenty-five years, but if I
have ever sought to exploit myself before the public by means of
autobiographies or journalistic puffs, and it is so proved by any
reputable newspaper, may I be shown up to public scorn.

It was Mr. Stevens who defrayed the expense of a six months'
course at a Boston business college for his protege.

I have never had such a course of six months, nor of any length, nor
have I ever been inside a business college.

Mr. Stevens, who was a kindly, philanthropic man, known and
beloved by all his fellow-citizens, died years ago,
therefore he cannot dispute what Lawson tells.

The late Horace H. Stevens died not years ago, but on March 8, 1904.

Old residents of New York will recall that long before the
days of Canfield's gilded palace, and long before the era of
the present district attorney, Mr. Jerome, there was a
gambling-house known to the commercial traveller and
man-about-town as "818 Broadway," and that one of the
backers of the game was William F. Waldron, or "Billy
Waldron," as he was usually called. Waldron retired nearly
thirty years ago from the syndicate that controlled this
house and moved to Providence, where he interested himself
in gambling and what, for lack of a better term, may be
called the cognate industries. One of these latter was a
bucket-shop of the ordinary country town type.

This bucket-shop was confined to the tender mercies of one
"Jo" Lumpkin as manager. Lumpkin failed to make the business
profitable, and Waldron, after attaching $500.00 that
Lumpkin had on deposit in a bank in New York, turned him
out. In his place he installed the present loquacious
reformer of American finance, Thomas W. Lawson, or "Billy"
Lawson as he was then known to the gamblers, race-track
touts, and confidence men who made Providence their
head-quarters.

My readers will agree with me that such weak and feeble rot is beneath
any man's attention, for even if what is here charged were true, namely,
that a young man