From the September 8, 1902 edition of the Evening World:

Begging Boy’s Honesty Proven.

He Found a Pair of Valuable Opera Glasses in the Street and Gave Them to the Police.

Patrolman Barber, of the West Thirtieth street station, arrested a sharp-eyed German of seventeen years, named Otto Gries, on Fifth avenue. He said the boy was begging. The lad says his parents live in Hesse-Darmstadt, but that he left home to see the world, landing first in London, then in Ecuador and then in New York.

A man who recognized him knew him as a boy who had refused money a few nights ago because he wanted to go to the Newsboys’ Lodging-House and said he did not care to beg. Sergt. Fuchs also recognized the lad as the boy who a month ago had found a pair of valuable opera glasses and given them to a policeman.

The sergeant said he then told the boy to come in and see him if he stood in need, but the boy’s first visit to the station-house afterward was when under arrest.