Show FELT LIKE THIRTY CENTS how a current slang phrase started on its travels the origin of slang has always been a puzzle to philologists but once in a while a current phrase can be traced to its source the colloquialism to teel feel like thirty cents Is apparently nonsensical but it is corta certainly luly the most forceful expression of the day for denoting anything small mean and contemptible in ones own sight its origin Is thus explained by a philadelphia lawyer who sometimes practices in new york there Is a vagrant law in new york under which a person having no visible means of support may be placed in fix durance it has also been decided in that state that a person having so small a sum as thirty cents in his possession has visible means ot of support now there la Is no law annew la new york except the vagrant law under which pool sellers and gamblers may be held shortly after the decision just mentioned was formulated two gamblers were captured in a raid and taken to the tenderloin station house they sent for a lawyer who came and had a talk with them it will never do to make any show of money here he said give me your rolls they handed their wads over to him and he gave each of them a quarter and a nickel with instructions to produce the coins when ho he asked them to do so in court when their cases were called the lawyer got them off on the plea that they were not vagrants each having the legal amount ot of funds in his possession just as the decision V was a 9 rendered in favor of his clients a messenger entered the court and required the lawyers presence at the supreme court he left without seeing hla his clients and they wended bended their way to the nearest saloon how do you feel said one 1 I teel feel like thirty cents said the other and probably will until I 1 get my roll back or left ot of it IL and how that phrase was started in its travels new york mall and express i |