There were no valuables in his room, and if he was a professional thief he had his headquarters for storing his plunder at some other place than his room on Fourth Street.  Nothing was found in his room that could lead to the belief that he was a thief, except fifty or more small bits of soap.  The inference was that every place he visited he took all of the soap lying around, as all of the bits were well worn and had seen long service on the washstand.

His wearing apparel was little more than rags, and financially he was evidently not in a flourishing condition.  He was in no sense a skilled workman, and his room showed, in fact, that he was nothing more than a laborer.

The “philosopher in the garret” was a dirty wretch, and his room, his bedding and his clothing were nasty and filthy beyond belief.  His object in life seemed to have been the discomfiture of the white race, and to this purpose he devoted himself with zeal.  He declared himself to be a “patriot,” and wished to be the Moses of his race.

Under the title of “The Making of a Monster,” the reporter attempts to give “something of the personality of the archfiend, Charles.”  Giving his imagination full vent the writer says: 

It is only natural that the deepest interest should attach to the personality of Robert Charles.  What manner of man was this fiend incarnate?  What conditions developed him?  Who were his preceptors?  From what ancestral strain, if any, did he derive his ferocious hatred of the whites, his cunning, his brute courage, the apostolic zeal which he displayed in spreading the propaganda of African equality?  These are questions involving one of the most remarkable psychological problems of modern times.

In answer to the questions which he propounds, the reporter proceeds to admit that he did not learn anything of a very desperate nature connected with Charles.  He says: 

Although Charles was a familiar figure to scores of Negroes in New Orleans, and they had been more or less intimately acquainted with him for over two years, curiously little can be learned of his habits or mode of life.  Since the perpetration of his terrible series of crimes it goes without saying that his former friends are inclined to be reticent, but it is reasonably certain that they have very little to tell.  In regard to himself, Charles was singularly reticent for a Negro.  He did not even indulge in the usual lying about his prowess and his adventures.  This was possibly due to the knowledge that he was wanted for a couple of murders.  The man had sense enough to know that it would be highly unwise to excite any curiosity about his past.

When Charles first came to New Orleans he worked here and there as a day laborer.  He was employed at different times in a sawmill, on the street gangs, as a roustabout on the levee, as a helper at the sugar works and as a coal shoveler