Brooklyn detectives say that Daniel Evans, 19 years old, with no home, is the greatest “fit fakir” they have met professionally in the course of a long and varied experience, says the New York Tribune. He has been pretending to “take fits,” they say, with a regularity and perfection that has gained him lots of money from sympathetic persons, but which at least led him to jail, where to-day he languishes under the supervision of a “minion of the law,” who nervously watches Daniel Evans in case he should “take a fit” there.
Evans is the young man who has been visiting hotels and churches, where he had fits and fits and fits. After one fit he would have a collection taken up for his benefit and then he would seek another field and have another fit. He worked this novel scheme in various places in New York city and Brooklyn; in the former city at the Fifth Avenue hotel, in the latter at the St. George hotel and at other places. After each simulated fit Evans would collect money to pay his fare to Fresno, Cal., “where his poor old father lived.” He did this at the St. George a few weeks ago. He went to the Grace Methodist Episcopal church, Seventh avenue and St. John’s place, and had a fit and a collection in the middle of the Sunday evening services.
Last Sunday night he went to the First Reformed church, Seventh avenue and Carroll street, and had a fit there. The Rev. Dr. James M. Farrar, however, thought that Evans was having fits for value received and that his schemes was a fradulent one to gain money and sympathy. So after Evans had called at the “Dutch Arms,” a club connected with the church, Dr. Farrar informed Detectives Reynolds and Weiser, who arrested Evans.