THE CAT'S PAJAMAS XXX

Tad Tuleja

 

A collection of the (mostly) true origins of familiar phrases

 

JIMMY

 

Jimmy O'Doyle was an Irish immigrant to New York City hired by the police department in the 1890's chiefly because of his size. O'Doyle weighed over 400 pounds.The police used him as a battering ram to break down the locked doors of crime suspects. To jimmy a lock in those days meant to break through it by brute force. Only later did the expression come to be applied to other irregular methods of gaining entry, such as picking the lock with bobby pins or special tools.

O'Doyle was a minor celebrity toward the end of the century. In addition to working for the police, he was a frequent attraction on the carnival circuit and, during the 1897 Christmas season, was the city's official Santa Claus. It is a little known fact of social history that little Virginia O'Hanlon, whose query to the New York Sun prompted the classic reply, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus," expressed doubt not about flying reindeer or the North Pole, but about how O'Doyle could get down a chimney.