THE EXTRA CLOTH STYLE.
The cheapest style is bound in Extra Cloth, just like this Canvassing-book, which
is made to perfectly represent it. The strip of cloth opposite shows the back
of this style and the exact thickness of the complete book. Every copy of this
style will have a full gold back, just like this. The gold used is gold. Its deep,
rich color shows its extra quality. It will never tarnish, never grow dim, and never
under any circumstances will it change its color. The publishers will pay $100 to
any subscriber who will prove that the gilt on any. portion of this book is not fine
gold, and he may make the test in any way he likes, or have anybody make it for
him. Notice the beautiful design in gold on the front cover. The edges of the
book are finely sprinkled, flgir' E>rn/ copy is bound with a spring bdltk — i. < ., the
back of the'book is not glued to the back of the cover; thus the book can be opened
at any place without breaking its back, nor trill it break with any fair usage. Every
copy is double sewed with extra strong linen thread.
Considering its great authorship, its large size (740 pages), its 251 fine illus-
trations, and the quality of the paper and printing, this is the nhmpest bpok > m r *<>/} JtoVL
-
Illustrative Title Page.
Tins is partly emblematical of the book. Here is a young woman, a mission
worker, reading the Bible to a crowd of wicked looking men and women in a
low groggery. Notice the ugly-looking bar-keeper scowling behind the bar. He
does not relish having the Bible read to the human wrecks he has helped to make.
In the upper corner is an open Bible, on which is a lamp shedding light over the
scene below. This typifies that in the teaching of the Gospel lies the great hope of
leading these degraded creatures to better lives. Here we see intemperance and
vice on the one hand and the Gospel and its teacher on the other. Then notice the
beautiful little picture showing a policeman carrying a little foundling he has
picked up in the street to a police station-house. Below is a distant view of the
great city, typical of the field covered by this volume. Notice the group of home-
less boys, cuddled together to keep warm while sleeping out at night in a corner of
an alley. They have no other place to sleep. Below is an awful scene, showing a
drunkard s starving and destitute family as found in a tenement-house cellar, sur-
prised by the sudden flash of a policeman's dark-lantern. See the look of despair
and terror on every face. The drunkard himself is trying to slink from the flash of
the dark-lantern. This powerful picture shows the drunkard's certain end, and the
misery and woe that is sooner or later caused by the terrible curSe of drink. No
minister can preach a more powerful temperance sermon than is presented on this
page.
What this Work Is.
No recent publication on any subject or by any author is now commanding so
much attention from the press, the pulpit, and the reading public at this work,
which in a single volume gives a vivid portrayal of life and scenes in New York by
day and by night under three different aspects : I, "As Seen by a Christian
Woman;" by Mrs. Helen Campbell. II, "As Seen by a Noted Journalist;" by
Col. Thomas W. Knox. Ill, "As Seen and Known by the Famous Chief of the
New York Detective Force," Inspector Thomas Byrnes.
Its ^High Moral Tone.
This volume presents New York life in a manner at once truthful, impressive, and
startling. It is made both vivid and tragic by the fact that its authors did not
visit the slums and tough districts out of morbid curiosity, but as evangels of
religion, succor, and sympathy, or in the discharge of official duty. Unlike most
books it has a reason for existence — a mission to perform ; for Charity, Temper-
ance, Honesty, and Morality stand out as beacon lights in every chapter. It is pure
and elevating from beginning to end, a book in every sense for the young and old
of the family circle.
AN
ENTIRELY NEW AND ORIGINAL WORK MAGNIFICENTLY
ILLUSTRATED FROIVI PHOTOGRAPHS.
DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT :
OR
LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF NEW YORK LIFE.
UJoman's Karratiuc
OF
MISSION WORK IN TOUGH PLACES, WITH THRILLING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
AMONG THE POOR, THE HOMELESS, THE VICIOUS AND THE DE-
PRAVED IN THE GREAT UNDER-WORLD OF NEW YORK.
INCLUDING AN ACCOUNT OF
RESCUE WORK IN REGIONS OF POVERTY AND VICE; AN ALL-NIGHT MISSION-
ARY'S EXPERIENCES IN GOSPEL WORK IN THE SLUMS ; A JOURNALISTS
ACCOUNT OF LITTLE-KNOWN PHASES OF METROPOLITAN LIFE;
AND A FAMOUS DETECTIVE'S EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVA-
TIONS AMONG THE DANGEROUS AND CRIMINAL CLASSES.
WITH HUNDREDS OF
UbnUtuG Hnecfcotes, flnci&ente, an& XTales of Uenfcer patbos
PORTRAYING
LIFE IN DARKEST NEW YORK BY DAY AND BY NIGHT.
Mrs. HELEN CAMPBELL,
Author and Philanthropist.
Col. THOMAS W. KNOX, Inspector THOMAS BYRNES,
Author and Journalist. Chief of the N. Y. Detective Force.
Superbly Wlustrateb untb
Two Hundred and Fifty Engravings from Photographs
TAKEN FROM LIFE EXPRESSLY FOR THIS WORK, MOSTLY BY FLASH-LIGHT, AND REPRODUCED
IN EXACT FAC-SIMILE BY EMINENT ARTISTS.
SOLD ONL Y BY SUB SCR IP TION.
(THIS WORK IS NOT FOR SALE IN BOOKSTORES, NOR WILL IT EVER BE. IT WILL BE
SUPPLIED ONLY TO SUBSCRIBERS THROUGH OUR AUTHORIZED AGENTS.)
IIAETFOED, CONK:
A. D. WORTHINGTOX & CO., PUBLISHERS.
1891.
[All rights resi rved. I
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891,
By A. D. Worthington and Company,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
THIS volume aims to give scrupulously exact descriptions of
life and scenes in the great metropolis under three differ-
ent aspects: 1st, "As Seen by a Woman;" 2d, u As Seen by
a Journalist ; " 3d, u As Seen and Known by the Chief of the
New York Detective Bureau." It was essential that each of
the writers selected for this undertaking should possess a thor-
ough practical knowledge of the subject, combined with ability
to describe what they have seen and experienced.
The first division was assigned to Mrs. Helen Campbell,
whose life has been spent in New York city, and whose well-
known sympathies for the poor and unfortunate, combined
with long experience in city missionary work and charitable
enterprises, peculiarly fitted her for this portion of the work.
Her interest in missions and her labors among the lower classes
have brought her face to face with squalor and misery among
the hopelessly poor, as well as with degraded men and women
in their own homes ; while her ready sympathy gained for her
access to their hearts, and thus gave her a practical insight into
their daily life possessed by few. Who but a woman could
describe to women the scenes of sin, sorrow, and suffering
among this people that have presented themselves to her wo-
manly eye and heart ?
To Col. Thomas W. Knox was assigned the task of delineat-
ing phases of city life that a trained journalist of many years'
experience in New York is more familial' with than almost any
other person. To the advantages of his facile pen and quick
(vii)
Vlll
publishers' preface.
observation, born of long newspaper work, are added those of
a lifetime spent in the great city and perfect familiarity with
many features of metropolitan life which he so well describes.
To Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes, the famous head of the
New York Detective Bureau, — the most efficient bureau of its
kind in the world, — the public is indebted for the faithful de-
scriptions of criminal life and detective experiences given in
this volume. For thirty years he has been connected with the
police force of New York, working his way up from the rank
of patrolman to his present high and responsible position. For
many years he has been constantly and prominently before the
public as a detective of wonderful skill and unerring sagacity.
The very nature of his life-work has brought him into close
contact with crime, destitution, and vice, and has given him
exceptional opportunities for the study of life among the dan-
gerous classes. More than any other man he knows the meth-
ods and characteristics of " crooks" of high and low degree,
and possesses a thorough knowledge of their haunts.
When the manuscripts of these joint authors were placed in
the publishers' hands, they for the first time realized the great
importance of the work they had undertaken. In genuine
interest and graphic description it exceeded anything they had
hoped for, and their estimate of its worth grew with closer ex-
amination. The original plan of the book included but a few
full-page illustrations ; but the sterling character of the work as
revealed by reading the manuscript, — its authenticity, incontro-
vertible facts, and startling revelations, — led the publishers to
believe that it ought to be illustrated with more than common
fullness and in the most truthful and realistic manner. But
how could this be accomplished?
The old method of employing artists of quick talent to seize
the general outline of a scene, and by a few rapid strokes of a
pencil preserve the general idea, until, in the studio, leisure was
found to enlarge the hasty sketch and reproduce the details
from memory, was open to serious objection ; for in this way
everything is left to the artist, whose generally exuberant and
sometimes distorted imagination has full swing, and in addition
publishers' preface.
ix
the method is exceedingly faulty in having to rely upon one of
the most treacherous of human faculties — the memory. Such
pictures can only approximate to the reality: they may be —
and often are — very wide of the truth. The publishers were
satisfied that illustrations produced in this way could not show
the fidelity to nature that the text demanded. Here the
modern camera came to their aid, and it alone is the basis lor
every illustration in this volume. In deciding to adopt the
camera as a means to an end, they little dreamed of the labor,
time, and expense which the undertaking involved.
Recent developments in photography have rendered it pos-
sible to catch instantaneously all the details of a scene with the
utmost fidelity. The publishers and their photographer ex-
plored the city together for months, by day and by night,
seeking for living material on the streets, up narrow alleys
and in tenement houses, in missions and charitable institutions,
in low lodging-houses and cellars, in underground resorts and
stale-beer dives, in haunts of criminals and training-schools of
crime, and in nooks and corners known only to the police and
rarely visited by any one else. These two hundred and fifty
remarkable pictures were selected from upwards of a thousand
photographs taken at all hours of the day and night. Many of
them were taken at moments when the people portrayed would
rather have been anywhere else than before the lens 1 eye.
By far the greater part of them were made by flash-light,
without the aid of which much of the life herein shown so
truthfully could not have been presented at all. Some of
them were made under circumstances of great difficulty,
in dimly-lighted holes and in underground places, literally " in
darkest New York," where the light of day never penetrates.
Not a few were made long after midnight, for there are
phases of city life that cannot be seen at any other time. As a
whole these illustrations depict many and varied scenes of
every -day life and all-night life which go to make the sum of
New York's daily history.
The dark side of life is presented without any attempt to
tone it down, and foul places are shown just as they exist. Any
X
publishers' preface.
one who undertakes to "see life" in the haunts of vice and
crime in New York, especially by night, takes his life in his
own hand, and courts danger in many forms. Criminals arc a
suspicions class. The appearance of a camera in their midst at
once suggests to them the Rogues' Gallery, and recalls to their
mind crimes known only to themselves. It is not pleasant, in
underground dens, where hardened criminals and the vilest out-
casts hide from the light of day, to be mistaken for detectives
in search of their prey; nor is it pleasant to spend day after
day in vermin-infested tenements and oozy cellars waiting for
opportunities to portray some particularly desired scene. It is
dangerous to breathe for hours at a time an atmosphere poisoned
with nauseating effluvia; it is hazardous to be surrounded in
narrow alleys by a crowd of toughs who believe that bricks
and other missiles were specially designed for the benefit of
strangers. There are hundreds of places in New York where
even the air of respectability is an element of personal danger.
In midnight expeditions it was often necessary to creep
stealthily into a locality where it was known that night life at
its worst existed. The camera was quickly and silently ad-
justed in the dark, and the sudden and blinding flash of the
magnesium light was generally the first knowledge the subject
had of the presence of photographers ; but the knowledge came
too late to prevent the lightning work of the camera, which in
the two-hundredth part of a second had faithfully fixed the
scene on the sensitive plate. Surprise and wonder were often
followed by oaths and threats that were of no avail, for the
camera had done its work.
In some of these pictures will be seen — in their own haunts
and amid their own surroundings — lineaments of old and well-
known criminals, both men and women, together with those of
younger years just entering upon a life of crime and degrada-
tion, and of some whose footsteps have barely touched the
t hreshold. In no instance have artists been allowed to exercise
their imagination by drawing pictures of impossible scenes, or
exaggerating what is already bad enough. The fact that every
illustration in this volume is from a photograph made from life,
publishers' preface.
xi
and that the greatest care has been taken to present these
photographs in fac-simile, even to the preservation of the por-
traits, are features that will commend themselves to all.
It is said that figures do not lie. Neither does the camera.
In looking on these pages the reader is brought face to face
with real life as it is in New York ; not AS IT WAS, but AS
IT IS TO-DAY. Exactly as the reader sees these pictures,
just so were the scenes presented to the camera's merciless and
unfailing eye at the moment when the action depicted took
place. Nothing is lacking but the actual movement of the per-
sons represented.
Here, then, are presented to the reader faithful pictorial
representations of street life in New York by day and by night ;
scenes in various well-known Christian missions in tough dis-
tricts, their audiences, services, and so forth ; gospel work by
day and by night by mission-workers and rescue-bands in the
vilest slums ; scenes of hospital life and in charitable institu-
tions ; in cheap lodging houses and cellars ; in back streets and
alleys ; in dens of infamy and crime, where the dangerous
classes congregate ; in the homes of the poor ; in wretched tene-
ment districts, where the horror of the life that is lived by
human beings herded together by thousands is well-nigh in-
credible ; in newsboys' lodging houses ; in the police, detective,
and fire departments ; in opium-joints and among the denizens
of Chinatown ; among the Italians of Mulberry Street, and
along its famous " Bend," — these and many other topics are
here presented in the best pictorial manner, and always with
strict regard to truth.
The publishers return their sincere thanks to all who have
in any way helped them in this arduous undertaking. Their
grateful acknowledgments are due to the Board of Police Com-
missioners, and to Chief Inspector Thomas Byrnes, without
whose aid many rare photographs could not have been made ;
to the captains of various police precincts, who on numerous
occasions detailed special detectives to pilot and accompany the
photographers to places known only to the police ; to the offi-
cers of the Children's Aid Society, and of the Society for the
Xll
PUBLISHERS PREFACE.
Prevention of Cruelty to Children ; to the superintendents of
the Florence Nighl Mission, the Water Street Mission, and the
Cremorne Mission; to Sister Irene, of the New York Found-
Ling Asylum ; to the president of the Board of Public Chari-
ties and Correction, and to the Board of Fire Commissioners.
Unfailing courtesies were extended on every hand, and made it
possible to secure new and desirable material that has never
hitherto been presented.
The publishers' thanks are especially due to Mr. O. (J.
M ason (at present and for the past twenty-five years official
photographer at Bellevue Hospital), to whose rare skill they
are indebted for many fine photographs made expressly for
this volume. In photographing difficult scenes, Mr. Mason's
skill could be relied upon implicitly. Nearly all of the photo-
graphs from which the full-page engravings were made were
taken by flash-light by him, as well as many of those for the
smaller illustrations. Always ready for emergencies, possess-
ing ability and facilities to instantly meet them, he was in
every way the right man in the right place. Mr. E. Wak-
rin, Jr., Mr. Frederick Vilmar, and Mr. Jacob A. Rus, also
placed at their disposal large collections of photographs from
which very interesting selections have been made.
The whole work has passed under the editorial supervision
of Mr. E. E. Treffry, of New York, and the publishers are
indebted to his experience for many valuable suggestions.
3from Special fl>botosrapb0 taken from Xife ejpressls for tbts movk.
Drawn in facsimile b£ ffreDerick SHelman, Wim. %. SbcpparD,
JEOmunD 1b. Garrett, 1R. Z. Spcrr^, anD otber eminent Brtiste.
1 PORTRAIT OF MRS. HELEN CAMPBELL. Engraved
on Steel fkom a Photograph taken expressly fob
this work, ...... Frontispiece
2 ILLUSTRATED TITLE PAGE, (full page.) To face Frontispiece
PAGE.
3 Ornamental Heading to Publisher's Preface, . . 7
4 Ornamental Heading to List of Illustrations, . 13
5 Ornamental Heading to Table op Contents, . . 21
6 Ornamental Heading to Introduction, ... 37
7 Introductory Illustration to Part I, ... 47
8 Ornamental Heading to Chapter I, . . .49
9 The Water Street Mission, ..... 52
10 The Platform facing the Audience in the Water Street
Mission Room, ....... 59
11 "All my Drinks 3 Cents." — An Every day Scene near the
Water Street Mission, . .... 62
12 Tablet to the Memory of Jerry McAuley on the Wall of
the Water Street Mission Room, .... 81
13 COFFEE NIGHT AT THE OLD WATER STREET MIS-
SION. — A WEEKLY FEAST FOR TRAMPS, OUTCASTS,
AND BUMS, (full fl>ac$e.) . . . To face 87
14 Entrance to a Tenement-House and Alley. — The door at
the left leads directly into a tenement. the arch-
wat at the right is a da re passageway leading to
filthy yards and tenements in the rear, . . 90
15 A Typical Tenement-House Backyard, . . . 92
16 A Tenement-House on Hamilton Street knows as "The
Snip." — 1, Narrow Entrance to the Rear leaden*; to
the Garret Rooms, ...... 94
(13)
14
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
17 A Room and its Occupant as found in tup: Garret op
"The Ship," ....... 96
18 Out of Work. A 'Longshoreman's Family and Home, . 98
19 An Everyday Scene in a Tenement-House Alley, . . 101
20 Sick and Destitute. A Group as found in a Cherry Street
Tenement, ....... 103
21 A Morning Wash at the Backyard Hydrant, . . 104
22 In a Tenement-House Backyard in Mulberry Street, . 105
23 A Ragpicker's Cellar in an Alley off Baxter Street, . 107
24 A Tenement-House Backyard, looking through the Hall
into the Street, ...... 109
25 THEIR ONLY BED. — SUPPERLESS AND HOMELESS
STREET BOYS SLEEPING OUT AT NIGHT. — A
NIGHT SCENE IN AN ALLEY, (tfull page.) To face 112
26 Getting Points from the Last Edition, . . . 115
27 "Ext-r-a-h 'Dishun," . . . ... .118
28 The Schoolroom and General Reception-Room in the
Newsboys' Lodging-House, . . . . .121
29 Boys Applying for a Night's Lodging, . . . 123
30 WAIFS AND STRAYS OF A GREAT CITY.— A GROUP
OF HOMELESS NEW YORK NEWSBOYS PHOTO-
GRAPHED FROM LIFE. (ff ull page.) . To face 124
31 The Washroom in the Newsboys' Lodging-House just
before Supper Time, ...... 127
32 In one of the Dormitories in the Newsboys' Lodging-House, 129
33 The Gymnasium in the Newsboys' Lodging-House, . . 132
34 An Evening Game of Dominoes in the Newsboys' Lodging-
House, 134
35 Old Women Waiting at the Dining-Room Door for Scraps
from the Newsboys' Table, ..... 136
36 In the Crippled Boys' Brush Shop, . . . .138
37 Tired Out. A Factory Girl's Room in a Tenement-House, 142
38 The Little Coal-Shovelers, ..... 146
39 Making Artificial Flowers at Twelve Cents a Gross, . 147
40 A Group of Street Boys, as found on Doyers Street, . 151
41 A Group of Bootblacks, ...... 152
42 A Sleeping Street Boy, . . . . . .154
43 HOMELESS AND FRIENDLESS, (ffull fl>acjC.) To face 154
44 Gutter Children, ....... 158
45 A Gang of Dock Rats Basklng in the Sunshine, . . 160
46 Street Boys Sleeping on the Docks, . . . .163
47 A Dock Rat's Day Nap after an All-Night Tour, . 164
48 A Favorite Pastime for Dock Rats, . . . .165
49 Patrick Lacey, as found, Age 10: Face cut, bruised,
AND SWOLLEN BY BEATINGS FROM DRUNKEN PARENTS, . 175
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THIS is the most sumptuously illustrated book ever published in America. It con-
tains 251 superb illustrations made from photographs taken from life, mostly bp
flash-light, at all hours of the day and night. Nothing like them was ever before
attempted. In looking at these illustrations the reader is brought face to face with
real life as it exists in the great under-world of New York. Exactly as he sees these
pictures, just so were the scenes presented to the camera's unfailing eye when the
photographs were made. He sees at a glance just how Gospel work is carried on
by day and by night by rescue-bands in the vilest slums ; he witnesses pathetic
scenes of hospital life ; he is shown strange sights in cheap lodging houses and
cellars ; in back streets and alleys ; in the homes of the poor ; in wretched tenement
districts ; in newsboys' lodging-houses ; in the police, detective, and fire depart-
ments ; in the museum of crime ; in opium-joints. The greatest care has been
taken to preserve the portraits. These illustrations are said to be, and unquestion-
ably they are, the finest and most interesting series of engravings ever put into a
single volume. This is a pretty strong statement, but it is barked up by the ablest
critics and higliest authorities in our whole country.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 15
50 Patrick Kieley, as found half-starved, Age 11: Face cut
and body bruised by inhuman parents, . . . 177
51 John and Willie I) , two Boy Tramps, Brothers, as
they appeared when arrested, .... 178
52 Michael Nevins, as found, Age 10 : Face bruised and
swollen by constant beating, .... 180
53 Nellie Brady, as found, Age 7, .... 183
54 Nellie Brady, after a day in the Society's care. Never
claimed, ........ 184
55 Entrance to the Cremorne Mission, .... 186
56 The Reading Desk in the Cremorne Mission Room, . 188
57 Drinking Fountain Erected to the Memory of Jerry Mc-
Auley near the Cremorne Mission, . . .189
58 Bronze Tablet to the Memory of Jerry McAuley on the
Wall of the Cremorne Mission Room, . . .193
59 A Tenement-House Backyard in the Italian Quarter, . 197
60 Italian Garbage Women on Mulberry Street, . . 200
61 Station-House Prison Cells, ..... 206
62 Homeless Boys Sleeping in a Coal Cellar, . . . 214
63 A Familiar Scene in Water Street, .... 226
64 The Florence Night Mission Building, . . . 228
65 Midnight Lunch for Street Girls after Evening Service
at the Florence Night Mission, .... 229
66 AN UNDERGROUND STALE -BEER DIVE LATE AT
NIGHT IN MULBERRY STREET BEND, (jfull fl>acje.)
•y / • |B To face 230
67 An Every-day and Every-night Scene in a Stale-Beer Dive, 233
68 A Stale-Beer Dive on Mulberry Street by Day, . . 235
69 The Girls' Industrial Room at the Florence Night Mission, 240
70 GOSPEL WORK IN THE SLUMS.— MIDNIGHT SERVICE
OF A MISSION RESCUE BAND IN AN UNDERGROUND
DIVE IN MULBERRY STREET, (ffull page.) To face 242
71 Doyers Street, known locally as " Shinbone Alley," . 252
72 Finishing Boys' Pants at Ten Cents a Dozen Pairs, . 261
73 A Blind Tailoress and Her Family, .... 264
74 Under the Shadow of the Great Bridge, . . . 271
75 In a Poor Sewing Woman's Home, .... 275
76 A Night Scrub Woman's Home, . . . . .277
77 The Ambulance Room at Bellevue Hospital. Answering
a "Hurry" Call, ...... 282
78 A Bellevue Hospital Nurse, ..... 284
79 A CRITICAL CASE. — A BED-SIDE CONSULTATION
FOR THE BENEFIT OF STUDENTS AND NURSES IN
BELLEVUE HOSPITAL, (jfull page.) To fact 289
80 A Surgical Operation at Bellevue Hospital, . . 291
1G
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
81
In one of the Female Wards at Belleyue Hospital,
293
82
In the Children's Ward at Bellevue Hospital,
295
83
Discharged. A Patient Receiving her Bundle of Clothes
in the Old Clothes Room at Bellevue Hospital,
297
84
AN EVERY-DAY SCENE IN THE MORGUE.— IDENTI-
FYING THE UNKNOWN DEAD. (Jfull jpacje.)
To face
301
85
The "Cage," or Prisoners' Ward at Bellevue Hospital,
302
86
In the Propagating Room,
307
87
88
The View from the Schoolroom,
Winners of the Prize,
309
311
89
Italian Mother and her Sick Child at the Dispensary, .
321
90
SATURDAY MORNING IN THE GREAT EASTERN FREE
DISPENSARY.— RELIEVING DISTRESS AMONG THE
SICK POOR, (full ipaoe.) .
To face
322
91
In the Surgeon's Room, ....
326
92
A Hopeless Case. Examining a Patient's Lungs with the
Stethoscope, . \
327
93
A Hebrew Mother and her Sick Baby,
328
94
The Doctor Looking for Vaccination Scars, .
329
95
The Tombs, . . . . ."
336
96
The Gallows Yard in the Tombs,
338
97
Prison Cells for Females in the Tombs,
340
98
99
Murderers' Row in the Tombs,
Discharged Convicts Making Brooms, .
344
354
100
An East River Dock,
357
101
In the Cell. Blackwell's Island Penitentiary,
3b5
102
Prisoners' Cells in the Penitentiary, Blackwell's
(The dark cells are on the lower floor),
Island.
103
husbandless mothers and fatherless children
Charity Hospital, Blackwell's Island,
IN THE
370
104
Insane Patients in the Brush Shop, Blackwell's Island, .
6 (6
105
Insane Patients in the Basket Shop, Blackwell's
Island,
375
106
Lunatics' Chariot, drawn by Lunatics chained together, .
377
107
The Convicts' Lockstep, ....
3(9
108
The Mother's Last Kiss, ....
109
Sister Irene's Basket, ....
383
110
Foster Mothers, .....
380
111
The Children's Clothes Room, .
386
112
One of the Nursery Wards,
387
113
The Playroom,
389
114
The Kindergarten, ....
390
115
Foundlings' Bank at Entrance to Main Staircase
392
116
In the Children's Dormitory at Sister Irene's,
393
117
The Little Waif's Evening Prayer, .
394
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
17
118 " NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP." — BEDTIME IN THE
HOMELESS LITTLE GIRLS' DORMITORY AT THE FIVE
POINTS HOUSE OF INDUSTRY, (ffull fl>age.) To face 397
119 Curbstone Gossip in Mulberry Street, . . . 398
120 Sidewalk Pease Seller, Mulberry Street, . . . 399
121 Curbstone Beans Seller, Mulberry Street, . . 401
122 Push-Cart Brigade in the Great Bund, Mulberry Street, 402
123 Sidewalk Bread Seller, Mulberry Street, . . . 403
124 Curbstone Vegetable Vender, Mulberry Street, . . 404
125 Italian Ragpickers' Settlement, Mulberry Street, . 405
126 Sidewalk Vegetable Stands, Mulberry Street, . . 407
127 Sidewalk Turnip Seller, Mulberry Street, . . 408
128 Italian Ragpicker Mending his Bags, Mulberry Street, . 409
129 A Cluster of Shanties in Shantytown, . . . 412
130 Backyard of a Shanty in Shantytown, . . . 416
131 A Thrifty German's Shanty in Shantytown. Ten Cows
kept in a low shed on the premises, . . .417
132 A Typical "Establishment" in Shantytown, . . 418
133 A Police Station-House Lodging-Room, . . . 420
134 Midnight in the Women's Lodging-Room at a Police
Station-House, ....... 421
135 "Sitters" in the Women's Lodging-Room at the Police
Station-House, ....... 423
136 Entrance to a Shed Lodging-House in the Rear of Mul-
berry Street, ....... 426
137 EARLY MORNING IN A SHED LODGING-HOUSE IX
THE REAR OF MULBERRY STREET. — GETTING
READY FOR ANOTHER DAY OF IDLENESS OR
CRIME, (ffull page.) .... Toface 428
138 A Corner in a Lodging-Shed by Day, .... 431
139 A "Reserved" Room in a Lodging-Shed, . . . 432
140 The Schoolshtp St. Mary's, ..... 435
141 Boys' Schoolroom between Decks on the St. Mary's, . 437
142 The Sail-Making Class on the St. Mary's. . . . 439
143 Learning to Splice Ropes on the St. Mary's, . . 442
144 "Up Aloft." A Drill Scene on the St. Mary's, . . 444
145 Ready for Sea. A Scene on the St. Mary's, . . 446
146 Peaceful Industries at the Sailors' Snug Harbor. Old
sailors making miniature ships, .... 447
147 A Crippled Sailor Weaving Baskets, .... 450
148 A One-Armed Naval Veteran with a Perfect Model of
the Flag-Ship " Hartford," made with his Left Hand, 451
149 A Contented Old Salt, ...... 453
150 Introductory Illustration to Part II, . . .455
18
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
151
PORTRAIT OF COL. THOMAS W. KNOX. Engraved on
Steel from a Photograph taken expressly for this
work, ...... To face
459
152
Ornamental Heading to Opening Chapter of Part II,
459
153
Exterior of a Bowery Dime Museum, ....
465
154
In a Bowery Dime Museum. The lecturer, his freaks,
AND HIS AUDIENCE, ......
467
155
In a Ragpicker's Cellar, Baxter Street,
471
156
Among the Tenements in the Rear of Mulberry Street,
477
157
A Typical Tenement-House Alley, ....
479
158
A Group as Found in a Tenement-House Cellar,
481
159
A Ragpicker's Room in a Tenement-House, .
482
160
A Training-School of Crime. Boys playing pickpocket, .
484
161
A Tenement-House Alley Gang. Candidates for crime, .
485
162
An Alley Trio. As found in a Mulberry Street Alley,
487
163
Interior of a Low Groggery on Cherry Street, .
489
164
An Old Corner Groggery near a Tenement-House District,
492
165
Old and Young Toughs Playing Cards on the Docks,
494
166
Police Headquarters Building, .....
500
167
Main Entrance to Police Headquarters Building, .
501
168
Patrolman's Shield, ......
502
169
Midnight Rollcall at a Police Station-House,
503
170
Policemen's School of Instruction, ....
506
171
FOUND STRAYED.— ELEVEN O'CLOCK AT NIGHT IN
THE LOST CHILDREN'S ROOM AT POLICE HEAD-
QUARTERS.— LOST CHILDREN WAITING TO BE
CLAIMED, (ff ull page.) . . . To face
509
172
Meeting-Place of Telegraph Wires at Police Headquar-
ters COMMUNICATEE G WITH ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD,
510
173
Policeman' Billy, Day Club, and Night Stick,
512
174
AN ABANDONED INFANT.— A POLICEMAN REPORT-
ING A LITTLE FOUNDLING PICKED UP IN AN
ALLEY.— A WINTER NIGHT SCENE AT A POLICE
STATION-HOUSE, (full fl>a0C.) . . To face
517
175
Harbor Police Searching for River Thieves,
518
176
Handcuffs, ........
520
177
Prisoners' Cells ln a Police Station-House,
521
178
The Lost-Property Room at Police Headquarters,
524
179
A Scaling-Ladder, ....
530
180
SCALING-L ADDER DllILL, ......
531
181
Fireman's Life-Saving Hook and Belt,
532
182
The Jumping or Life-Saving Net, ....
533
183
The Life-Line Gun, ......
534
184
The Dummy, .... ...
534
185
Life-Saving Net Drill, ......
535
T TCT f \ E 1 TT T T'QTW \TTfi\TQ
1 ( \
T .TV I? T,T"VL'' TlT?ll T
J_>lr ili XJliMii X/XVXXjXj, ......
536
187
T V T jr V T-TfWPTT" A T ThT»T? StPIT A V n TlTmiil [Til IToum<'S
537
XOO
539
189
Twtt TT T \rPT\rn— T-Tot v
X in F. tj \J .Tlx Xl> vT XAv/Xjlli, ■ ■ • • •
540
190
Ttjtt IVinHT At a hat
541
191
Off to a Fire, ... .
542
192
A Ladder Truck,
543
193
Lamp Post Surmounting a Fire Signal-Box, .
545
194
Fire Signal-Box on a Street Lamp Post,
546
195
A Noted Corner Resort for Chinese Gamblers,
553
196
Entrance to a Chinese Gambling-House over an Opium-Den,
555
197
A Chinese Vender of Shelled Beans,
557
198
Waiting for Trade. Chinese Curbstone Merchants,
559
1 QQ
In the Rear of a Chinese Restaurant on Pell Street.
Skins stuffed with meat hung up to dry,
^fil
!3UU
Tobacco Smokers in a Joss-House,
tor
• )!>•>
201
"Hitting the Pipe." Scene in an opium den,
567
202
A Chinaman and his White Wife Smoking Opium, .
569
203
A Sly Opium Smoker. (This photograph was made by
FLASH-
light in a Chinese Opium Den on Pell Street,
WHEN
THE SMOKER WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FAST ASLEEP.
SUBSE-
QUENTLY THE PHOTOGRAPH DISCLOSED THE FACT THAT HE
HAD AT LEAST ONE EYE OPEN WHEN THE PICTURE WAS MADE),
.")71
204
Caught in the Act. An Opium Smoker surprised, .
•) i i£i
205
A Tramp's Interrupted Nap, ....
•tO'J
206
Early Morning on the Docks. A gang of sleeping tramps,
588
207
A Sleeping Tramp. A brick for a pillow, .
".Qfl
•)o\J
208
A Dangerous Place for a Snooze. A tramp sleeping on
THE STRING-PIECE OF A PIER, .
^Q1
Off l
209
A Genuinely Busted Tramp, ....
-.no
210
An Uncomfortable Bed, even for a Tramp, .
kqq
•juo
211
Taking it Easy. A tramp's noon hour,
212
A Tramp's Sunday Morning Change, .
Ov i
213
A Blind Man's Tin Sign, .....
214
What was on the Other Side, ....
■ nr.)
215
A Typical Pawnshop, .....
OW.)
216
The Old Candy Woman, .....
O 1 D
217
"Pencils," .......
fi1 7
Ox <
218
An Italian Notion Peddler, ....
61 S
219
A Fruit Vender and his " Shouter," .
u i o
220
Pretzel Sellers, ......
620
221
" Cash Paid for Rags," .....
621
222
Making a Careful Selection, ....
623
223
A Favorite Place for Street Children. "Cold
SODA
WATER 2 CENTS, ICE CREAM 1 CENT," .
624
20
Til ST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
224 Curbstone Dry Goons Merchants, .... 625
225 Introductory Illustration to Part IIL . . .641
226 PORTRAIT OF CHIEF INSPECTOR THOMAS BYRNES.
Engraved on Steel from a Photograph taken expressly
for this work. ..... To face 645
227 Ornamental Heading to Opening Chapter op Part III, . 645
228 A Ten Cent Attic Lodging-Room of the Better Class, . 646
229 A Seven Cent Lodging-Room at Midnight, . . . 649
230 Night in a Hammock Lodging-Room for Tramps, . . 652
231 IN DARKEST NEW YORK.— MIDNIGHT IN A CHEAP
UNDERGROUND LODGING CELLAR. " THREE
CENTS A SPOT." (full fl>a0C) . . Tofaee 655
232 Tools and Implements taken from Burglars, . . 659
233 Sectional Jimmies and Skeleton Keys taken from Burglars, 660
234 Burglars' Improved Safe Opener, .... 662
235 Burglars' J ackscrew, ...... 662
236 Dark Lanterns taken from Burglars, . . .663
237 Burglars' Diamond-Pointed Crank Drill, . . . 664
238 Burglars' Steel and Copper Sledges and Steel Wedges, . 665
239 Burglars' Sectional Jimmies and Leather Case, . . 666
240 Dummy Pistol and Whisky Flask taken from Burglars, . 667
241 Burglars' Powder Can, Funnel, Blower, and Fuse, . 668
242 Burglars' Tools used to obtain Leverage, . . .669
243 Burglars' Mallets and Handhook, .... 671
244 Burglars' Key Nippers, ...... 683
245 False and Skeleton Keys taken from House Thieves, . 685
246 AN UNWILLING SUBJECT. — PHOTOGRAPHING A
PRISONER FOR THE ROGUE'S GALLERY AT PO-
LICE HEADQUARTERS, (tfull {Page.) . To face 690
247 Stilettoes and Knives taken from Criminals, . . 694
248 Sandbags and Slungshots taken from Criminals, . . 695
249 Gags Taken from Burglars. (From the Museum of Crimp:), 696
250 Underground Cells at Police Headquarters, . 713
251 Chief Inspector Byrnes's Private Room at Police Head-
quarters, ........ 735
PART I.
BY
CHAPTER I.
SUNDAY IN WATER STREET — HOMES OF REVELRY AND VICE —
SCENES IN THE MISSION ROOM — STRANGE EXPERIENCES.
Water Street, its Life and Surroundings — A Harvest Field for Saloons and
Bucket-Shops — Dens of Abomination — Sunday Sights and Scenes — The
Little Sign, "Helping Hand for Men" — Inside the Mission Building —
An Audience of ex-Convicts and Criminals — A Tough Crowd — Jerry
Mc Auley's Personal Appearance — A Typical Ruffian — A Shoeless and
Hatless Brigade — Pinching Out the Name of Jesus — "God Takes what
the Devil Would Turn up His Nose at" — " O, Dear-r, Dear-r, Dearie
Me!" — Comical Scenes — Quaint Speeches — Screams and Flying Stove-
Lids — A Child's Hymn — "Our Father in Heaven, We Hallow Thy
Name " — Old Padgett — A Water Street Bum — " God be Merciful to Me
a Sinner" — A Terrible Night in a Cellar — The Empty Arm-Chair, 49
CHAPTER II.
CHRISTIAN WORK IN WATER STREET — THE STORY OF JERRY
McAULEY'S LIFE TOLD BY HIMSELF— A CAREER OF WICK
EDNESS AND CRIME — THE MISSION NOW.
The Historic Five Points — Breeding-Ground of Crime — Dirty Homes and
Hard Faces — " The Kind God Don't Want and the Devil Won't Have"
— Jerry McAuley — The Story of His Life Told by Himself — Born in
a New York Slum — A Loafer by Day and a River Thief by Night —
Prizefighter, Drunkard, Blackleg, and Bully — A Life of Wickedness
and Crime — Fifteen Years in Prison — His Prison Experiences — Un-
expected Meeting with "Awful" Gardner — Jerry's First Prayer — He
Hears a Voice — Released from Prison — His Return to Old Haunts
and Ways — Signing the Pledge — His Wife — Starting the Water Street
Mission — An Audience of Tramps and Bums — Becomes an Apostle to
the Roughs — Jerry's Death — Affecting Scenes — Old Joe Chappy — A
Mother's Last Words — A Refuge for the Wicked and Depraved, 68
2 (21)
CONTENTS.
CHAPTEK III.
UP SLAUGHTER ALLEY, OR LIFE IN A TENEMENT-HOUSE — A
TOUR THROUGH HOMES OF MISERY, WANT, AND WOE
— DRINK'S DOINGS.
Why Called Slaughter Alley — Kicking a Missionary Downstairs — Life and
Scenes in Tenement-Houses — Voices and Shapes in the Darkness — My
Tour with the Doctor — Picking our Way through Slime and Filth —
"Mammy's Lookin' for You" — "Murtherin' Dinnis" — Misery and
Squalor Side by Side — Stalwart Tim — In the Presence of Death — " I
Want to go, but I'm Willin' to Wait " — Patsy — A Five-Year-Old
Washerwoman — Sickening Odors — Human Beasts — Dangerous Places
— ' ' Mike Gim'me a Dollar for the Childer " — The Charity of the Poor
— "Oh, Wurra, me Heart's Sick in me" — Homes Swarming with
Rats — Alive with Vermin and Saturated with Filth — The Omnipresent
Saloon — A Nursery of Criminals and Drunkards — Conceived in Sin
and Born in Iniquity — The Dreadful Tenement-House System, . 89
CHAPTER IV.
NEW YORK NEWSBOYS— WHO THEY ARE, WHERE THEY COME
FROM, AND HOW THEY LIVE — THE WAIFS AND STRAYS
OF A GREAT CITY.
The Newsboys' Code of Morals — Curious Beds for Cold Winters' Nights —
Shivering Urchins — Sleeping in a Burned-out Safe — Creeping into Door-
ways — The Street Arab and the Gutter-Snipe — A Curious Mixture of
Morality and Vice — His Religion — "Kind o' Lucky to say a Prayer"
— Newsboys' Lodging-Houses — First Night in a Soft Bed — Favorite
Songs — Trying Times in "Boys' Meetings" — Opening the Savings Bank
— The ' ' Doodes " — Pork and Beans — Popular Nicknames — Teaching
Self-Help — Western Homes for New York's Waifs — "Wanted, a Perfect
Boy " — How a Street Arab Went to Yale College — Newsboy Orators —
A Loud Call for " Paddy " — " Bummers, Snoozers, and Citizens " — Speci-
mens of Wit and Humor — "Jack de Robber" — The "Kid" — "Ain't Got
no Mammy" — A Life of Hardship — Giving the Boys a Chance, 111
CHAPTER V.
THE ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND LITTLE LABORERS OF NEW
YORK — CHILD WORKERS — THEIR HOMES AND DAILY LIFE.
One Hundred Thousand Little Workers — Little Mothers — Early Lessons
in Drinking — A Sup of the "Craytur" — A Six-Year-Old Nurse — A
"Widdy Washerwoman " — "See How Beautiful He Sucks at tin-
Pork" — Heavy Burdens on Small Shoulders — What a Child of Eight
Can Do — Feather Strippers — Paper Collar .Makers — Tobacco Strippers
— Youth and Old Age Side by Side — Cigar-Makers — Deadly Trades —
Working in Cellars — "Them Stairs is Killin' " — What Jinny and Maine
Did — Pinched with Hunger — "She Could Sew on Buttons when She
Wasn't Much Over Four" — A Tiny Worker of Five — " Stitch. Stitch
Stitch, in Poverty, Hunger, and Dirt" — Scenes in Working Children's
Homes — "She's Sew r ed on Millions of Buttons, that Child Has" — "A
Hot Place W r aitin' for Him" — Preternaturally Aged Faces, . . 139
CONTENTS.
23
CHAPTER VI.
CHILD-LIFE IN THE SLUMS — HOMELESS STREET BOYS, GUTTER-
SNIPES AND DOCK RATS — THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A DAY-
BREAK BOY.
Gutter-Snipes — Imps of Darkness — Snoopers — Rags and Tatters — Life in
the Gutter — Old Sol — Running a Grocery under Difficulties — Youthful
Criminals — Newsboys and Bootblacks— Candidates for Crime— "He's
Smart, He Is" — "It's Business Folks as Cheats " — Dock Rats — Unre-
claimed Children — Thieves' Lodging-Houses — Poverty Lane — Hell's
Kitchen — Dangers of a Street Girl's Life — Old Margaret — The Reforma-
tion of Wildfire — The Queen of Cherry Street — Sleeping on the- Docks —
Too Much Lickin' and More in Prospect — A Street Arab's Summer Resi-
dence — A Walking Rag-Bundle — Getting Larruped — A Daybreak Boy
— Jack's Story of his Life — Buckshot Taylor — A Thieves' Run-way —
Escaping over Roofs — A Police Raid — Head-first off the Roof — Death of
Jack — His Dying Request — Fifteen Thousand Homeless Children, 149
CHAPTER VII.
THE OPEN DOORS OF MERCY — THE SOCIETY FOR THE PRE-
VENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN — BRUTES IN HUMAN
FORM — THE DEMON OF DRINK — RESCUE WORK.
"That is Mary Ellen" — The First Child Rescued — A Dying Woman's Re-
quest—What the Court Saw when the Blanket was Unrolled— A Dramatic
Scene — Little Acrobats — Helpless Little Sufferers — Specious Pleas of
Criminal Lawyers — Inhuman Parents — A Lovely Face Hidden under
Filth and Clotted Blood — Extreme Cruelty — A Fit Subject for the Lash
— Restored to Home at Last — A Sad Case — "Before and After" — Two
Boy Tramps — Driven from Home — Cases of Special Brutality — Shiver-
ing from Fright — Wild-Eyed Children — A Fresh Arrival at the Society's
Rooms — "Everything Must be Burned" — "He is Alive" — The First
Sleep in a Bed — A Life of Pain — A Drunken Mother of Seven Children
— Unspeakable Horrors — A Lily from a Dung-Heap — The Sale of
Liquor to Children — Children as Fierce as Starved Dogs — Terrible
Tortures, 170
CHAPTER VIII.
MISSION WORK IN TOUGH PLACES — SEEKING TO SAVE — A
LEAF FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF AN ALL-NIGHT MISSION-
ARY—RESCUE WORK IN THE SLUMS.
The Cremorne Mission — A Piteous Cry for Help — "Lock me up" — Mrs.
McAuley's Prayer — A Convert from the Lowest Depths — Ragged Kitty,
the News Girl — Marks of a Mother's Cruelty — " Let me out " — "I Want
me Pat " — Distressing Scenes — ' ' Mashing " the Baby — Begging for
Shelter and Warmth — An All-Night Missionary's Story — A Baxter Street
Audience — "Roll, Jordan, Roll !" — Story of Welsh Jennie — A Mother's
Love — "She is Dead" — Seeking to Save — A Midnight Tour through
Dens of Vice and Misery — Horrible Sights — An Emblem of Purity in the
Midst of Vice — "It's no Use! It's no Use!" — "Don't you Know me Mother?
I am your Jennie " — Affecting Meeting of a Mother and her Erring
Daughter — Old Michael's Story — Fifty-three Years in Prisons, . 185
24
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SLUMS BY NIGHT — THE UNDER-WORLD OF NEW YORK —
LIFE AND SCENKS IN DENS OF INFAMY AND CRIME — NIGHT
REFUGES FOR WOMEN — FAST LIFE — CHRISTIAN WORK
AMONG OUTCASTS.
A Nocturnal Population — Dens of Infamy — Gilded Palaces of Sin — The
Open Door to Ruin — Worsl Phases of Night Life — Barred Doors and
Sliding Panels — Mysterious Disappearances — The Bowery by Night —
Free-and-Easys and Dime Museums — A Region of the Deepest Poverty
and Vice — Vice the First Product, Death the Second — Nests of Crime —
The Sleeping Places of New York's Outcasts — Lowering Brows and Evil
Eyes — The Foxes, AVolves, and Owls of Humanity — Thieves and Nook-
and-Corner Men — Women with Bent Heads and Despairing Eyes — One
More Victim — Night Tramps — A Class that Never Goes to Bed — The
Beautiful Side of Womanhood — Girls' Lodging-Houses — Homes for the
Homeless — Gratitude of Saved Women— The Work of the Night
Refuges, 208
CHAPTER X.
NIGHT MISSION WORK — NEW YORK STREETS AFTER DARK —
RESCUE WORK AMONG THE FALLEN AND DEPRAVED —
SEARCHING FOR THE LOST — AN ALL-NIGHT MISSIONARY'S
EXPERIENCE.
The "Bloody Sixth Ward" — Hoodlums — The Florence Night Mission —
Where the Inmates Come from — A Refuge for Fallen Women —
Searching for Lost Daughters — Low Concert Halls — Country Boys
Who "Come in Just to See" — A Brand Plucked from the Burning —
Old Rosa's Den of Villainy — In the Midst of Vice and Degradation —
Rescue Work Among the Fallen — Accordeon Mary — "Sing! Sing !"
— Gospel Service in a Stale-Beer Dive — The Fruits of One False Step
— Scenes in Low Dance-Halls and Vile Resorts — Painted Wrecks — An
All-Night Missionary's Experience — Saving a Despised Magdalen — A
Perilous Moment — The Story of Nellie Conroy — Rescued from the
Lowest Depths of Sin — Nine Years in the Slums — The Christian End
of a Misspent Life — Nearing the River — Nellie's Death — Who Was
E M ? — Twenty-four Years a Tramp — Last Words, . . 224
CHAPTER XI.
GOSPEL WORK IN THE SLUMS — AN ALL-NIGHT MISSIONARY'S
LIFE— A MIDNIGHT CURBSTONE MEETING — UP SHINBONE
ALLEY.
A Midnight Curbstone Meeting — A Confidence Game that Failed to Work
— An Astonished Thief — "You Ought to be a Christian" — "Will
Christ Pay my Rent?" — A Midnight Sermon — One of the Devil's
Family — Sowing Seed on Stony Ground — "If I'd only Stuck to Sun-
day School" — Dark and Dirty Pell Street — Five-Cent Lodging-Houses
— Shinbone Alley At Three o'clock in the Morning — A Typical Street
Boy — One of the Gang — " Snoozin' " on a Beer Keg — A Suspicious
Looking Wagon — A Whispered Consultation — "Corkey" from "Up
de River" — Fallen among Thieves — A Deep Laid Plot — A Thirsty
Crowd of Desperate Roughs — The Story of the Cross and the Dying
Thief — A Speechless Audience — " De Fust to Preach Religion roun' dese
Corners " — " Wal, I'm Blowed " — Caught by the Great Detective, 247
THE PAPER.
r pHE paper on which this book is printed was made specially to order for this
I particular book, and is guaranteed by the manufacturers to be made strictly of
"all rags," no wood pulp, paper shavings, or clay being used in it. |dp It is an
A No: 1 paper, the beat that can be made. Notice how very firm and how tine and
smooth it is. So, too, the paper used for the full-page engravings is expensive
coated paper made specially to order. Compare it with that used in any other book.
It is the same kind, both in quality and price, as that occasionally used for the line
frontispiece engravings in Harper's, the Century, and Scribner's Magazines, and is
much header than is used by any of these periodicals.
CONTENTS.
25
CHAPTER XII.
SHOP-GIRLS AND WORKING WOMEN — THE GREAT ARMY OF
NEW YORK POOR — LIFE UNDER THE GREAT BRIDGE — THE
BITTER CRY OF NEW YORK.
Shop-Girls and their Lives —Workers in all Trades — Aching Heads and Tired
Feet — The Comforts of Old Shoes — Women in Rags who Sew Silk and
Velvet — Stories of Want and Misery — Life among the Very Poor —
WOrking Fourteen Hours for Thirty Cents — The Luxury of Sixty Cents
a Day — Skeletons at Work — Brutal Sweaters — Grinding the Faces of
the Poor — Human Ghouls Who Drink Blood and Eat Flesh — " Poor
Folks Can't Have Much Rostin' nor Fine Doin's " — How Norah Cooked
the Steak — "Beans!" — Tea Like Lye — People who have "Known Bet-
ter Days " — Life Under the Great Bridge — Turning Night into Day —
Cries of Despair — Want and Woe — Hope Never Dies — Living on Porridge
at Six Cents a Day — Fearful Scenes — Starving Body and Soul — "Never
Better, Always Worse and Worse" — The Sorrow of the Poor, . 255
CHAPTER XIII.
HOSPITAL LIFE IN NEW YORK — A TOUR THROUGH THE
WARDS OF OLD BELLEVUE — AFFECTING SCENES — THE
MORGUE AND ITS SILENT OCCUPANTS.
Wealth and Misery Side by Side —Training Schools for Nurses— A "Hurry"
Call — The Ambulance Service — Prejudice against Hospitals — A Place
where the Doctors Cut up Folks Alive — Taken to the Dead-House —
" Soon they will be Cuttin' him up" — Etherizing a Patient — A Painless
and Bloodless Operation — A Patient Little Sufferer — Ministering Angels
— Cutting off a Leg in Fifteen Seconds — A Swift Amputation — Miracu-
lous Skill — Thanking the Doctor for Hastening the End— "Those Last
Precious, Painless Hours"— A Child's Idea of Heaven— "Who Will Mind
the Baby" — Flowers in Heaven — The Morgue — Its Silent Occupants —
The Prisoners' Cage — Searching for her Son — An Affecting Meeting —
"Charlie, Mother is Here"— "Too Late, Too Late" — A Pathetic
Scene, 279
CHAPTER XIV.
FLOWER MISSIONS AND THE FRESH AIR FUND — THE DISTRI-
BUTION OF FLOWERS AMONG THE SICK AND POOR —
ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS.
Along the River Front— A Dangerous Locality — First Lessons in Thiev-
ing— Headquarters of River Pirates — The Influence of Flowers in a
Region of Vice and Crime — Fighting Bad Smells with Good Ones —
A Magic Touch — Bud and Bloom in the Windows of the Poor —
Flowers and Plants in Tumble-Down Houses and Tenement Rookeries
— Distributing Flowers Among the Sick — Flowers in Hospitals — The
Story of a Bunch of Buttercups— Children Carrying Flowers to Bed
with Them— "The Pansy Man" — Taking Flowers out for a Walk —
Effect of Flowers on a Sick Child — The Story of "Long Sal" and Ber
Geranium — A Female Terror — Going out to " Catch Raspberries " -
Slum Children's First Week in the Country — A Suspicious Mother
Rich Results from Two Dollars a Week— "Ain't They God's?" 305
2G
CONTENTS.
CHAPTEK XV.
A DAY IN A FREE DISPENSARY — RELIEVING THE SUFFERING
POOR— MISSIONARY NURSES AND THEIR WORK - A TOUCH-
ING STORY.
From Hod-Carrying to Alderman — Leavening the Whole Lump — A Great
Chanty — Filthy but Thrifty — A Day at the Eastern Dispensary —
Diseases Springing from Want and Privation — A Serious Crowd — Sift-
ing out Impostors — The Children's Doctor — Forlorn Faces — A Doomed
Family — A Scene on the Stairs — Young Roughs and Women with
Blackened Eyes — A Labor of Love — Dread of Hospitals— " They Cut
You Open Before the Breath is out of Your Body" — The Black Bot-
tle—Sewing up a Body and Making a Great Pucker in the Seam — A
Missionary Nurse — A Tale of Destitution, Sickness, and Death — A
Pathetic Appeal — A Starving Family — Just in Time — Heartbroken —A
Fight with Death — "Work is all I Want"— A Merciful Release, 318
CHAPTEK XYI.
LIFE BEHIND THE BARS — A VISIT TO TPIE TOMBS — SCENES
WITHIN PRISON WALLS -RAYS OF LIGHT ON A DARK
PICTURE.
The Tombs — A Gloomy Prison — The Bridge of Sighs — Murderers' Row t —
The Procession to the Gallows — " Flop Flop, Flop Flop " — " Many
Would Give a V to see it "—Bummers' Hall — Aristocratic Prisoners —
Prison Routine — Remarkable Escapes of Prisoners — The Dreary Station-
House Cell — A Bitter Cry — The Value of " Inflooence "— Shyster Law-
yers—Poverty-Stricken Men, Women, and Children — A Wife's Pitiful
Plea — Tales of Destitution and Misery — Sad Cases — A Noble Woman
— An L T nheeded Warning — Bribery, Corruption, and Extortion — A Day
in the Police Courts — How Justice is Administered — A Judge's Strange
and Thrilling Story — " Give me my Pound of Flesh," .... 335
CHAPTEK XVII.
LURKING PLACES OF SIN — FACE TO FACE WITH CRIME —
CELLAR HAUNTS AND UNDERGROUND RESORTS OF CRIMI-
NALS—THE STORY OF JIM, AN EX-CONVICT.
The Slums of New York — Cellar Harbors for Criminals — Face to Face with
Crime — Old Michael Dunn — A Tour through Criminal Haunts — Jim
Tells the Story of his Life — Sleeping in Packing Boxes, Boilers, and
Water Pipes — My Visit to one of his Hiding Places — A Thrilling Experi-
ence in a Damp and Mouldy Cellar — Locked in — A Mad Fight for Life —
Floating on a Plank — Underground Resorts of Pickpockets and Thieves
— How River Thieves Operate — A Midnight Expedition — An Evil Region
— Young Ruffians and Sneak Thieves — Patroling the Streets at Night — The
Policeman's Story — Open Vice of Every Form — Lurking Places of Crim-
inals — Sneak Thieves — Dangerous Localities — " Hell's Kitchen," . 352
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVIII.
LIFE ON BLACKWELL'S ISLAND — THE DREGS OF A GREAT
CITY — WHERE CRIMINALS, PAUPERS, AND LUNATICS ARE
CARED FOR — A CONVICT'S DAILY LIFE — "DRINK'S OUR
CURSE."
The "Tub of Misery" — A Miserable Sight — Gutter-Soaked Rags and Mat-
ted Hair — Rounders — Terrible Scenes — Insanity in Handcuffs — Results
of Trying to "See Life" in New York — Aristocrats in Crime — Appeals
for Mercy — Sounds that Make the Blood Run Cold — White Heads
Brought Low — A Pandemonium — Vermin-Infested Clothes — Insane
from the "Horrors" — Suicides — "Famine Meal" — Odd Delusions and
Beliefs of the Insane — The Queen of Heaven — The Mother of Forty-rive
Children — Snakes in his Stomach — "Oh, Lord! They're Squirming
Again" — A Contented Tinker — Waiting for the River to Dry up — "For
the Love of God, Bring me a Coffin" — A Ghoul in the Dead-House — An
Irish Philosopher — The Penitentiary — Daily Life of Prisoners — A Hard
Fate — Convict Labor — Secret Communications between Prisoners, 362
CHAPTER XIX.
HEAVENLY CHARITIES — SISTER IRENE'S MYSTERIOUS BASKET
— HOMES FOR FOUNDLINGS AND LITTLE WAIFS.
Sister Irene — A Modern Good Samaritan — A Mysterious Little Basket — Its
First Appearance — " What Can it be for ? " — Its First Tiny Occupant —
Crouching in the Shadow — An Agonizing Parting — Babies Abandoned
on the Street — Broken-Hearted Mothers — A " Rent-Baby " — A " Run-
Around"— How Sister Irene's' Basket Grew into a Six-Story Building —
Fatherless Children — Babies of all Kinds — How the Record of each Baby
is Kept — Curious Requests for Children for Adoption — " Wanted, a Nice
Little Red-Headed Boy " — An Inquiry for a Girl with a " Prettv Nose "—
" Going to Meet Papa and Mamma " — The Sunny Side of the Work — The
Darker Side of the Picture — Pain and Suffering — Worn Little Faces —
The Babies' Hospital — Free Cribs for Little Sufferers, 381
CHAPTER XX.
ITALIAN LIFE IN NEW YORK — SCENES IN THE GREAT BEND
IN MULBERRY STREET — HOMES OF FILTH AND SQUALOR.
The Home of the Organ-Grinder and his Monkey — Italian Child Slavery —
Begging, or Honest Occupation — Grinding Poverty — An Itali mi's First
View of New York — Flashing Eyes and Gay-Colored Raiment — Fatalists
— The Great Bend in Mulberry Street— Mouldy Bread and Skinny Poultry
— Tainted Meat and Ancient Fish —Unbearable Odors — Rotten Vegeta-
bles and Rancid Butter — Strong Flavors in Cooking — The Beehive —
Bones, Garbage, and Rags — Squalid and Filthy Homes — Swarminu in
Great Tenement Houses — Maccaroni and Oil — The Monkey -Trainer —
Rag-Pickers in Cellars and Basements — How the Italians Live — Smashed
Eggs by the Spoonful — " Little Italy," 398
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXL
STTANTYToW N AND ITS DWELLERS — LIFE AMONG NEW YORK
SQUATTERS — CHARACTERISTIC SCENES AND INCIDENTS.
The Land of Hans and I 'at — A Fertile Field lor Ail isis — The March of Im-
provement—German Patience and Industry — Pat's Fondness lor W hite-
wash— An Accommodating Style of Architecture — Growing up in Shan
tytown — Nora says " Yes " — Sudden Evictions — The Possibilities of Old
Junk — A Persistent Landholder; His Home Blasted from under him —
Making the Most of a Little — The Living among the Dead — The Animals
of Shantytown — Dogs and Goats as Breadwinners— The Pound — The
Aristocracy of the Tenement-Houses — An Irish Landholder — The Stuff
Aldermen are Made of — Rapid Rises from Small Beginnings — Cleaning
out the Shanties — The Shadow which Overhangs Shantytown, . 411
CHAPTER XXII.
UNDERGROUND LIFE IN NEW YORK — CELLAR AND SHED
LODGINGS — DENS OF THE VICIOUS AND DEPRAVED —
STARTLING SCENES.
Life in Basements and Cellars — Underground Lodging Places — Where
Outcasts and Vagrants Congregate — The Worst Forms of Crime, Im-
morality, and Drunkenness — Sleeping Over Tide Mud — Afloat in Then-
Beds — A Visit to Casey's Den — A Rope for a Pillow — Packed Like
I In rings — Pestilential Places — A Blear-Eyed Crowd — " Full " — Five
in a Bed — " Thim's Illigant Beds" — Sickening Sights — Cellar Scenes
— Rum Three Cents a Glass — "It's the Vermin that's the AYorst " —
Standing up all Night — Floors of Rotten Boards — Dreadful Surround-
ings — Things that Creep and Bite — A "Shake-Down" — The Home
of Criminals and Beggars — "Three Cents a Spot" — A Five-Cent Bed
— "In God we Trust; All Else is Cash" — The Saloon and the Lodg-
ing-House on Friendly Terms — An Army of Impecunious People, 420
CHAPTER XXIII.
JACK ASHORE — AN EASY r PREY T FOR LAND-SHARKS AND
SHARPERS — LIFE ON THE "ST. MARY^'S " AND AT THE
SAILORS' SNUG HARBOR.
The Universal Love for the Sea — Sailor Life — A Tale of Shipwreck
and Starvation — An Unconscious Hero — An Old Sailor's Story — "I
Smelled the Sea an' Heard it" — A Voice from the Waves — "Jack,
Jack, You Ain't in your Right Place" — Jack's Curious Character —
His Credulity and Simplicity — The Prey of Land-Sharks and Sharpers
— Sailors' Temptations — Dens of Robbery and Infamy — Life in Sail-
ors' Boarding-Houses — The Seamen's Exchange — A Boy's Life on the
School Ship "St. Mary's" — Bethels and Seamen's Homes — Life at the
Sailors' Snug Harbor — A Sailor-Clergyman — Fried Fish for Eight
Hundred — The Cripples' Room — "A Case of Pure Cussedness " —
Admiral Farragut and Old Jim— Bane and Antidote Side by Side — End-
ing their Days in Peace .lack Awaiting the Ebbing of the Tide, 434
THE TYPE AND PLATES.
The sample pages in this canvassing-book are taken at random from the complete
book. The complete work will contain 740 pages like these, illustrated with
251 superb illustrations, of which only a very few are shown here. Notice the
print! This type was made specially for this book by Farmer, .Little & Co., the
great type founders in New York. It is clear and beautiful, good for old eyes and
young ones, too.
The plates and engravings cost nearly $30,000. The publishers might have got
them up for one thousand if they had wished to produce an inferior book, or had
used old or second-hand cuts. The 250 splendid illustrations in this work are cut inly
original. They were made from special photographs, taken expressly for this work
front real life. These photographs can be seen at any time at the publisher's office
by any interested party.
CHAPTER XXIY.
STREET LIFE — THE BOWERY BY DxYY AND BY NIGHT — LIFE
IN BAXTER AND CHATHAM STREETS.
A Street Where Silence Never Reigns — Where Poverty and Millions
Touch Elbows — "Sparrow-Chasers" — Fifth Avenue — The Home of
Wealth and Fashion — Life on the Bowery — Pit and Peanuts —
Pelted with Rotten Eggs — Concert Halls — Police Raids — Dime Muse-
ums and their Freaks — Fraud and Impudence — Outcasts of the Bowery
— Beer Gardens — Slums of the Bowery — Night Scenes on the Streets
— Pickpockets and Crooks — Ragpickers and their Foul Trade — "The
Black and Tan" — A Dangerous Place — " Makin' a Fortin' " — "Razors
in the Air"— "Keep yer Jints Well lied" — The Old Clo' Shops of
Chatham Street — Blarney and Cheating, 459
CHAPTER XXY.
TRAINING-SCHOOLS OF CRIME — DRINK, THE ROOT OF EVIL
— GREAT RESPONSIBILITY OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC FOR
( RIME — PLAIN FACTS AND STARTLING STATEMENTS.
The Ancestry of Crime — Effects of Heredity — Intemperance the Root
of Evil — Pest-Holes of New York — Conceived in Sin and Born in
Iniquity — Where Criminals are Born and How They are Bred — Parents,
Children, and Geese Herded in a Filthy Cellar — Necessity the Mother
of Crime — Driven to Stealing — The Petty Thieving of Boys and Girls
— How the Stove is Kept Going — Problems for Social 'Reformers —
Dens of Thieves and Their Means of Escape — Gangs and Their
Occupations — Pawn-Shops and "Fences" — Eight Thousand Saloons
to Four Hundred Churches — Liquor-Dealers as Criminals — A Detec-
tive's Experience on Mott Street — A Mother's Plea — A Cautious
Countryman — An Unsafe Place at Night— A Child's First Lessons in
Crime — Cheap Lodging-IIouses — Foul Beds and Noisy Nights, . 470
(29)
30
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE POLICE DEPARTMENT OF NEW YORK — THE DETECTIVE
FORCE AND ITS WORK— SHADOWS AND SHADOWING —
SLEUTH-HOUNDS OF THE LAW.
A Building thai is Never Closed — Police-Station Lodgings — Cutting his
Buttons off — A Dramatic Scene — Teaching the Tenderf eet — The Duties
of a Policeman — Inquiries for Missing Friends — Mysterious Cases-
Clubbing — Night-Clubs and Billies — Scattering a Mob — Calling for As-
sistance—Watching Strangers — "Tom and Jerry" in a Soup Plate —
The Harbor Police — The Great Detective Force and its Head — Chief
Inspector Thomas Byrnes — Sketch of his Career — A Proud Record —His
Knowledge of Crooks and their Ways — Keeping Track of Thieves and
Criminals — Establishing a "Dead Line " in Wall Street — Human De-
pravity and Human Impudence — The Rogues' Gallery — Shadows and
Shadowing — Unraveling Plots — Skillful Detective Work — Extorting
the Truth — The Museum of Crime — What May Be Seen There — Disap-
pearance of Old Thieves — Rising Young Criminals, 498
CHAPTEE XXVII.
FIRE! FIRE! — THE LIFE OF A NEW YORK FIREMAN — THE
SCHOOL OF INSTRUCTION AND THE LIFE-SAVING CORPS.
The Volunteer Fire Department of ye Olden Time — How Barnum's Show
Was Interrupted — A Comical Incident — Indians and Red-Coats at a Fire
— The Bowery B'hoys — Soap-Locks — The School of Instruction and the
Life-Saving Corps — Daily Drill in the Use of Life-Saving Appliances —
Wonderful Feats on the Scaling-Ladder — The Jumping-Net — Thrilling
Scenes and Incidents — The Life-Line Gun — Fire-Department Horses —
Their Training — A Hospital for Sick and Injured Horses — A Night Visit
to an Engine-House — Keeping up Steam — Automatic Apparatus — How
Firemen Sleep — Sliding Down the Pole — The Alarm — Fire ! Fire ! —
A Quick Turn-Out — Intelligent Horses — The Fire- Alarm System —
Answering an Alarm in Seven Seconds — A Thrilling Sight — Signal-
Boxes and How they are Used — The Perils of a Fireman's Life, 526
CHAPTEE XXVIII.
THE CHINESE QUARTER OF NEW YORK — BEHIND THE SCENES
IN CHINATOWN— "JOHN " AND HIS CURIOUS WAYS — A
NIGHT VISIT TO AN OPIUM JOINT.
The Chinese Junk " Key- Yin g " — The Heart of the Chinese Community in
New York — A Race of Gamblers — A Trip through Chinatown with
a Detective — A Raid on a Gambling-House — Spotting the Players — The
Opium Habit — A Chinese Drugstore — Marvelous Remedies — A Won-
derful Bill of Fare — A Visit to a Joss-House — An Opium Smoker's
" Lay-Out " — The Value of an Opium Pipe —A Night Visit to an Opium-
Joint — Carefully-Guarded Doors — How Admission is Gained— -The
Peep-Hole — Cunning Celestials — Scenes in the Smoking-Room — Victims
of the Opium Habit — First Experiences at Hitting the Pipe — A Terrible
Longing — A Woman's Experience —White Opium Fiends — Sickening
Scenes —Aristocratic Smokers — Cost of Opium — Spread of the Opium
Habit — Solitary Indulgence in the Vice — Certain Death the Result, 549
CONTENTS.
31
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE SPIDER AND THE FLY — MOCK AUCTIONS, BOGUS HORSE
SALES AND OTHER TRAPS FOR THE UNWARY — PERSONAL
EXPERIENCES.
Ingenious Lawyers — Swindling Advertisements — Mock Auctions — My Own
Experience — Mr. Barmore's Purchases — Socks "By the Dozen" — A
Stool-Pigeon — The Merchant from Trenton — I am Trapped — A Sudden
Cessation of Business — Putting it down to Experience — Perennial Buyers
— What ' ' By the Dozen " Means — A Mean Swindle — Easily Taken in —
Base Counterfeits — Bogus Horse-Dealers — The Gentleman " Just Going
to Europe" — A "Private Stable" — A Considerate Horse-Owner — Busi-
ness-Like Methods — A Breathless Stranger Arrives on the Scene — " An-
derson of New Haven " — A Chance to Make Fifty Dollars in Five Minutes
— A Warm Discussion — A "Doctored" Horse — A Trusty Groom — A
Critical Inspection — Arrival of Mr. Wakeman — "Dr. Bryan's" Office —
"Just Around the Corner" — Looking for the Doctor — Tears and
Smiles, 574
CHAPTER XXX.
THE BEGGARS OF NEW YORK — TRAMPS, CHEATS, HUMBUGS,
AND FRAUDS — INTERESTING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES —
VICTIMS FROM THE COUNTRY.
The Incomes of Professional Beggars — Resorts of Tramps — Plausible Tales
— A Scotch Fraud — My Adventure with him — A Plaintive Appeal —
A Transparent Yarn — A Disconcerted Swindler — Claiming Relationship
— An Embarrassing Position — Starting to Walk to Boston — A Stricken
Conscience — Helping my Poor Relation — Thanks an Inch Thick — Fe-
male Frauds — ' ' Gentlemen Tramps " — A Famishing Man — Eating
Crusts out of the Gutter — A Tale of Woe — A Fraud with a Crushed Leg
and a Starving Family — A Distressing Case — The Biter Bitten — The
Calif ornian with a Wooden Leg — The Rattle-Snake Dodge — "Old
Aunty " and her Methods — " God Bless You, Deary " — Blind Frauds and
Humbugs — Easily Taken in — My Experience with a Bunco-Steerer, 584
CHAPTER XXXI.
"UP THE SPOUT" — PAWN-BROKERS AND THEIR WAYS — A
VISIT TO THE SHOP OF "MY UNCLE ' — PERSONAL EXPE-
RIENCES.
"My Uncle" — A Cold -Blooded Friendship — Royal Pawners — Buried Treas-
ure — A Sharp Lot — Slang of the Trade — Putting a Watch " in Soak "—
The Three Gold Balls of the Pawnbroker's Sign — An Anxious Customer
— A Cautious Tradesman — How a Sharper Got the Better of his " Uncle "
— The "Office" — A Heart-Hardening Trade — Making a Raise — How I
Pawned my Watch — A Friend in Need — Simon's Indignation — A Sud-
den Fall in Values — Suspected of Knavery — Pawning Stolen Goods —
Police Regulations — Selling Unredeemed Pledges — What the "Spout" is
— "Hanging Up" — One Way of Selling Goods — Fraudulent Pawning —
Tales that Pledges Might Unfold — From Affluence to the Potter's Field —
Drink the Mainspring of the Pawnbroker's Success, 603
32
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXII.
STREET VENDERS AND SIDEWALK bfERCH ANTS — HOW SKIN
GAMES AND PETTY SWINDLES ARE PLAYED — " BEATEN'
THE ANGELS FOR LYINV
Dirty Jake — A Silent Appeal — A Melancholy Face — Three Dollars a Day
for Lungs and Tongue — Stickfast's Glue — A Windy Trade — A Couple
of Rogues — Spreading Dismay and Consternation — Partners in Sin —
sly Confederates in the Crowd — How to Sell Kindling-Wood — A .Mean
Trick and How it is Played — A Skin Game in Soap — Frail Human
Nature — Petty Swindles — Drawing a Crowd — "The Great Chain
Lightnin' Double-Refined, Centennial, Night-Bloomin' Serious Soap" —
Spoiling Thirteen Thousand Coats — The Patent Grease-Eradicator —
Inspiring Confidence — "Beatin' the Angels for Lyin'" — A Sleight of
Hand Performance — " They Looks Well, an' They're Cheap, . 614
CIIAPTEK XXXIII.
(J AMBLERS AND GAMBLING — A MIDNIGHT VISIT TO GAMBLING-
HOUSES OF HIGH AND LOW DEGREE — A GLIMPSE BEHIND
THE SCENES.
A Flourishing Evil — A Night Visit to a Fashionable Gambling-House — How
Entrance is Gained — "All Right, Charley" — Magnificent Midnight Sup-
pers — Midnight Scenes — Who Pays the Bills ? — A Secret Understanding
— One Hundred and Eighteen Thousand Dollars Lost in Eight Hours —
Dissipating a Fortune — Buried in a Pauper's Grave — "Square" Games
and ' ' Skin " Games — Fleecing a Victim at Faro — How it is Done — Inge-
nuity of Sharpers — Drugged and Robbed — " Dead Men Tell no Tales" —
A Tale that the Rivers Might Unfold — A Club-House with Unknown
Members — The Downfall of Hundreds of Young Men — Why Employers
are Robbed — An Interesting Photograph — A " Full Night "—Gambling-
Houses for Boys — Confidence Men — " Sleepers " — Low Gambling-
Houses — " Lookouts " — " Every Man for Himself," 628
WHAT THE PUBLISHERS GUARANTEE.
JST Subscribers please notice: —
1st. The Publishers of this new and important book desire to state to sub-
scribers that each copy delivered shall be fully equal to the standard of the Agent's
canvassing-book; otherwise those who order tin work need not feel bound to accept or pay
for the same.
2d. This work is sold only to those who order it in advance of publication
through regularly appointed agents. It is not, nor wUl it ever be, placed "it safe
in any bookstore
Our agents are instructed to leave a card with every subscriber embodying
the above guarantee and stating the price of the volume. tW Subscribers will
please notice that if this work is not just as good as represented by this Canvassing-book,
in e eery particular, then tliey need not feel under the slightest obligation to receive or pay
for the volume when it is delivered.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LOW LODGING-HOUSES OF NEW YORK — PLACES THAT FOSTER
CRIME AND HARBOR CRIMINALS — DENS OF THIEVES.
The Breeding-Places of Crime — Dens of Thieves — How Boys and Young
Men from the Country are Lured to Ruin — From the Lodging-House to
the Gallows — A Night's Lodging for Three Cents — Low, Dirty, and
Troublesome Places — Hotbeds of Crime — Leaves from my own Experience
— Illustrative Cases — A Forger's Crime and its Results — A Unique
Photograph — The Pride of a Bowery Tough — "Holding up" a Victim
— The Importation of Foreign Criminals — A Human Ghoul — How Ex-
Convicts Drift back into Crime — The Descent into the Pit — Black
Sheep, 645
CHAPTER XXXV.
SCIENTIFIC BURGLARS AND EXPERT CRACKSMEN — HOW BANK-
VAULTS AND SAFES ARE OPENED AND ROBBED — THE
TOOLS, PLANS, OPERATIONS, AND LEADERS OF HIGHLY-
BRED CRIMINALS.
An Important Profession — Highly-Bred Rogues — The Lower Ranks of Thieves
— Professional Bank-Burglars and their Talents — Misspent Years — A
Startling Statement about Safes — The Race between Burglars and Safe-
builders — How Safes are Opened — Mysteries of the Craft — Safe-Blow-
ing — How Combination Locks are Picked — A Delicate Touch — Throw-
ing Detectives off the Scent — A Mystery for Fifteen Years — Leaders of
Gangs — Conspiring to Rob a Bank — Working from an Adjoining Build
ing — Disarming Suspicion — Shadowing Bank Officers — Working thr« mgli
the Cashier — Making False and Duplicate Keys — The Use of High Ex-
plosives — Safe-Breakers and their Tools — Ingenious Methods of Expert
Criminals — Opening a Safe in Twenty Minutes — Fagin and his Pupils-
Taking Impressions of Store Locks in Wax — Teaching Young Thieves, 657
(33)
34
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
BANK SNEAK-THIEVES AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS — PLOTS
AND SCHEMES FOR ROBBING MONEYED INSTITUTIONS — A
DARING LOT OF ROGUES.
Characteristics of Bank Sneak-Thieves — Rogues of Education and Pleasing
Address— Nervy Criminals of Unlimited Cheek — How Bank Thieves
Work — Some of their Exploits — Carefully Laid Plots — Extraordinary
Attention to Details — A Laughable Story — A Wily Map-Peddler —
Escaping with Twenty Thousand Dollars — A New Clerk in a Bank —
Watching for Chances— A Decidedly Cool Thief — A Mysterious Loss
— A Good Impersonator— Watching a Venerable Coupon-Cutter — Story
of a Tin Box — Mysterious Loss of a Bundle of Bonds — How the Loss
was Discovered Three Months Afterwards — An Astonished Old Gentle-
man—A Clerk in an Ink-Bedabbled Duster— How the Game is Worked
in Country Banks — Unsuspecting Cashiers — Adroit Rogues, . 672
CHAPTER XXXVII.
COMMON HOUSEBREAKERS — THIEVES WHO LAUGH AT LOCKS
AND BOLTS — RECEIVERS OF STOLEN GOODS — HOW A
"FENCE" IS CONDUCTED.
Useless Locks and Bolts — The Sneak-Thief and His Methods — Masks on
Their Faces and Murder in Their Hearts — Faithless Servants — Fright-
ened Sleepers — Criminals but Cowards — Scared Away by Rats — Dog-
ging Their Victims Home — Thefts of Diamonds — Second-Story Thieves
— Pillaging Houses During the Supper Hour — Ranks in Crime —
Hotel and Boarding-House Thieves — Unsuspecting Prey — A Hotel
Thief's Tools and Methods — A Man Who Laughs at Bolts and Bars —
A Bewildering Mystery — Manipulating a Thumb-Bolt — Watching the
Hotel Register — Disastrous Female Vanity — Why the Boarder did not
go Down to Dinner — Prompt to Escape but Hard to Track — How
Stolen Property is Disposed of — Receivers or "Fences," ... 679
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE ROGUES' GALLERY — WHY THIEVES ARE PHOTOGRAPHED
— TELL-TALE SIGNS — PECULIARITIES OF CRIMINALS.
"Where Have I Seen That Man Before?" — Who is it? — A Sudden Look
of Recognition — A Notorious Burglar in Fashion's Throng — A Swell-
Cracksman— The Rogues' Gallery — Its Object and its Usefulness —
How Criminals Try to Cheat the Camera — How Detectives Recognize
Their Prey — Ineffaceable Tell-Tale Signs — The Art of Deception —
Human Vanity Before the Camera —Slovenly Criminals — Flash Crimi-
nals — The Weaknesses of Criminals — Leading Double Lives — A Strange
Fact — Criminals Who are Model Husbands and Fathers at Home —
Some Good Traits in Criminals — Mistaken Identity — Peculiarities of
Dress — A Mean Scoundrel — Picking Pockets at Wakes and Funerals — A
Solemn Looking Pair of Rascals — The Lowest Type of Criminals. 689
CONTENTS.
35
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CUNNING SHOPLIFTERS AND SKILLFUL PICKPOCKETS— FEMALE
OPERATORS AND HOW THEY WORK - YIELDING TO SUD-
DEN TEMPTATIONS.
A Congenial Crime for Women — An Open Field for the Shoplifter — The
Shoplifter's Dress and its Many Pockets— A Detective's Ruse — Working
with a Confederate — Kleptomaniacs — Conscience Stifled by Cupidity —
Detection, and its Results — An Adroit Thief and his Wonderful Bag-
Working in Gangs— Swallowing Gems— Pickpockets and their Rovings
— Personal Appearance of Pickpockets — How a Woman lay Concealed
for Years — Working under a Shawl or Overcoat — The Use of the Knife —
An Overcoat without Pockets — Robberies at Churches and Funerals —
" Working" Horse-Cars and Railroad Trains — Quarrels among Thieves —
How a Victim Betrays Himself to the Gang — ' ' Working a Crowd " — A
Delicate Touch — Signals between Confederates — Stealing Watches, 698
CHAPTER XL.
FORGERS AND THEIR METHODS — WILY DEVICES AND BRAINY
SCHEMES OF A DANGEROUS CLASS — TRICKS ON BANKS —
HOW BUSINESS MEN ARE DEFRAUDED.
A Crime That is Easily Perpetrated, and Detected with Difficulty — Pro-
fessional Forgers — Men of Brains — Secret Workshops — Raising Checks
— A Forger's Agents and Go-betweens — The Organization of a Gang
— How They Cover Their Tracks — In the Clutches of Sharpers — The
First Step in Crime — Various Methods of Passing Forged Paper —
Paving the Way for an Operation — Dangerous Schemes — Daring and
Clever Forgeries — Interesting Cases — How Banks are Defrauded — Es-
tablishing Confidence with a Bank — A Smart Gang — Altering and Rais-
ing Checks and Drafts — How Storekeepers aad Business Men are De-
frauded — Cashing a Burnt Check — Crafty and Audacious Forgers —
A Great Plot Frustrated — Deceiving the Head of a Foreign Detective
Bureau — A Remarkable Story — Startling and Unexpected News, 711
CHAPTER XLI.
FRAUDS EXPOSED — ACCOMPLISHED ADVENTURERS AND
FASHIONABLE ADVENTURESSES — PEOPLE WHO LIVE BY
THEIR WITS — GETTING A LIVING BY HOOK OR BY CROOK.
Human Harpies — Confiding Boarders — Relieving a Pretty Woman's Em-
barrassment — The Tables Turned — A Fashionable and Accomplished
Adventuress — Swindlers in Society — Ingenious Money -Making Schemes
— "Engineering Beggars" — Plying a Miserable Trade — "Hushing it
up for His Family's Sake" — Literary Blackmail — Practising upon
Human Vanity — Matrimonial Advertising — A Matrimonial Bureau and
its Victims — Bogus Detectives — A Mean and Contemptible Lot — Run-
ning with the Hare and Hunting with the Hounds — Getting a Living
by Hook or by Crook — Shyster Lawyers — Quack Doctors Who "Cure
All Diseases" — The Heraldic Swindler — Free-Lunchers and Floaters
— Fortune-Tellers and Clairvoyants — Transparent Stratagems, . 721
36 CONTEXTS.
CHAPTEE XLIL
SHARPERS, CONFIDENCE-MEN AND BUNCO-STEERERS — WIDE
OPEN TRAPS — TRICKS OF " SAWDUST " AND " GREEN-
GOODS " DEALERS.
The Buneo-Steerer's Victims — Glib Talkers and Shrewd Thieves — Watching
Incoming Trains and Steamers — Accomplished Swindlers — Personal
Appearance of a Confidence Gang — Robbing the Same Man Twice —
Headquarters of Bunco Men — Plausible Stories — Different Forms of
Bunco Games — A Noted Bunco Operator — Hungry Joe and his Victims
— How a Confiding Englishman was Robbed — The Three Card Trick —
Arrest of " Captain Murphy's Nephew " — A Game of Bluff — Swindling
an Episcopal Clergyman — Pumping a Victim Dry — Working the Panel-
Game — A Green-Goods Man's Circular — The Spider's Instructions to the
Fly — Seeking a Personal Interview — Victims from the Rural Districts —
The Supreme Moment of the Game — Seeing the Victim off — Moral, 728
INTRODUCTION.
45
of life, its lights and shadows, sunshine and darkness; the
misery and horror that surround the lowest forms of human
existence in such a great city; the sights and scenes concealed
by night and rarely revealed by the light of day are here faith-
fully depicted. The story will hold the reader's attention with
a fascination greater than the tales of "Arabian Nights," or
the w^eird fancies of " Monte Cristo."
If some of the incidents and experiences narrated here are
painful, they should nevertheless be told, in order that the
public may be brought face to face with life as it exists among
the poor and criminal classes of the great metropolis. In his
preface to " Oliver Twist," Charles Dickens truthfully says: —
ki I have yet to learn that a lesson of the purest good may not
be drawn from the vilest evil. I have always believed this to
be a recognized and established truth, laid down by the greatest
men the world has ever seen, constantly acted upon by the
best and wisest natures, and confirmed by the reason and ex-
perience of every thinking mind." In the following pages the
reader will be taken up to the topmost garrets and down to
the lowest cellars, in dens and hovels given over to thieves,
and in tenements crowded by the poor. There is a Bill Sykes
and a Nancy in scores of these places. Little girls are often
sent for Nancy's gin, and little boys look up. half with awe
and half with admiration, at Bill's flash style, and delight in
gossip concerning his adventures as a pickpocket. Thus the
constant association of the poor and criminal classes is steadily
deadening in the former nearly all sense of right and wrong,
and children are brought up in an atmosphere of crime.
Bad, however, as is the condition in which thousands of
men, women, and children live in New York city, from the
cradle to the grave, it is hoped that out of the very repulsive-
ness of this life a remedy may be found for some of the evils
portrayed.
The text has been most carefully and very fully illustrated
by upwards of two hundred and fifty engravings selected from
nearly a thousand photographs taken from life especially for
this volume. In the production of these remarkable illustra-
INTRODUCTION.
tions the sun has been chained to serve in giving faithful delin-
eations of the Life and scenes described; and not only the sun
but the artificial flash-light as well, without the aid of which
many of these pictures could not have been obtained.*
To the student of human nature, to the moralist and
philosopher, to hini who is a part of the active life of the city
and feels its heart-throbs day by day, — to him whose home is
in rural retreats, to the lover, yes, and the hater of his race, it
is believed that the following pages will prove not only inter-
esting but a mine of information and amusement, besides sup-
plying material for profound thought. He who reads but to
laugh will find what he seeks, as well as he who reads only
that he may weep. The humorous side of life is depicted no
less than its serious and pathetic phases; for among- the poor
there is humor as well as pathos, there is food for laughter as
well as for tears, and the rays of God's sunshine lose their way
now and again and bring light and gladness into the vilest of
XeAV York slums. The story ranges " from grave to gay, from
lively to severe," and tragedy and comedy are found side by
side. The smile and the tear are often blended and succeed
each other as darkness and daylight come and go as time rolls
onward.
* See Publishers' Preface for full explanation of how the photographs were
taken from which the illustrations in this volume were made.
PART I.
PART I was written by Mrs. Helen Campbell, the well-known author and
philanthropist, a Christian woman and a brilliant writer, who has devoted the best
years of her life to Christian work among the lower classes. She certainly was
an officer commissioned of God, and ' ' In His Name " ministered not only to the sick
and the poor, but to degraded and desperate men and women in haunts of wicked-
ness and vice. Her narrative is a thrilling record of mission work and Christian
endeavor packed with pathetic and amusing experiences. Her account of Gospel
work as now carried on in vile localities by converts from the lowest depths ; of
underground life in basements and cellars where lodgings maybe had for "three
cents a spot" ; of child life in the slums ; of homeless street boys; of hospital life,
flower missions, etc., will chain the readers close attention from beginning to end.
Perhaps the strongest interest, however, centers around her experiences in tough
places, in which she describes night life as it is in the great under world of New
York. Her vivid account of night mission work, interspersed with pathetic inci-
dents and heart-breaking scenes, shows the beautiful side of womanhood, as well as
the reverse. Her description of how all night missionaries and rescue bands search
for the lost in stale-beer dives, in lodging cellars, and on the streets ; of the wonder-
ful power of the Gospel to move hard hearts and save the lost from the lowest
depths ; of the marvelous effect of familiar hymns sung in haunts of vice ; of
scenes in night refuges for women — noticeably the Florence Night Mission — is a
story of profound and thrilling interest, that will bring tears to every eye.
She has often been asked to give this wonderful record to the world, but she
has always declined to do so until now. Not long ago some of the most
eminent men and women of the times urged her to write it, and she finally consented.
This volume is the result, and it is the best testimony to the mighty power of the
Gospel that was ever written.
§W The Gospel and Charity are the beacon lights of Mrs.
Campbell's story.
CHAPTER I.
SUNDAY IN WATER STREET — HOMES OF REVELRY AND VIC E —
SCENES IN THE MISSION ROOM — STRANGE EXPERIENCES.
Water Street, its Life and Surroundings — A Harvest Field for Saloons and
Bucket-Shops — Dens of Abomination — Sunday Sights and Scenes — The
Little Sign, "Helping Hand for Men" — Inside the Mission Building —
An Audience of ex-Convicts and Criminals — A Tough Crowd — Jerry
McAuley's Personal Appearance — A Typical Ruffian — A Shoeless and
Hatless Brigade — Pinching Out the Name of Jesus — "God Takes what
the Devil Would Turn up His Nose at " — " O, Dear-r, Dear-r, Dearie
Me!" — Comical Scenes — Quaint Speeches — Screams and Flying Stove-
Lids— A Child's Hymn — "Our Father in Heaven, We Hallow Thy
Name" — Old Padgett — A Water Street Bum— "God be Merciful to
Me a Sinner"— A Terrible Night in a Cellar — The Empty Arm-Chair.
FOR six days in the week the gray-fronted Avarehouses on
Water Street, grim and forbidding, seem to hold no
knowledge that Sunday can come. All the week, above the
roar of heavy teams, and the shouts and oaths of excited
drivers as wheels lock and traffic is for a moment brought to a
standstill, one hears the roar of steam, the resounding beat of
great hammers, the clash of metal as the iron plates take shape.
(49)
52
JERRY M' All .E V S WATEU STREET MISSION.
ment-house holds its quota of defrauded, vicious, and well-nigh
hopeless human life \
A step or two farther, and the question is answered. A
plain brick building shows itself; a carefully kept walk before
it. The wide
doors are
closed with a
spring lock-,
and on the
steps stands
a policeman,
waiving off
the children
a n d h a If -
grown boys
who make
occasional
rushes to-
w a r d the
building and
smash its
windows by
volleys o f
stones. It is
the Water
Street Mis-
sion; and
though the
rare soul of
its founder
has passed on
to the larger life for which it waited, his work is still done as
he planned at the beginning.
Jerry McAuley, born a thief, and with a lengthening record
of crime ; a bully, drunkard, and convict ! who does not know
his story and the work of the thirteen years in which he
labored for the ward in which he had grown up, and which he
THE WATER STREET MISSION.
56 PINCHING OUT THE NAME OF JESUS.
Quaker bonnet, and announced herself an inveterate drunkard,
I could not have been more profoundly amazed. I studied the
sweet, steady face ; not a line of it bearing any meaning but
that of love and cheer and helpfulness, with an even, merry ex-
pression about the lips, that smiled involuntarily at the un-
expected turns of thought and speech from one and another.
Half a dozen spring up at once, and sit down smiling,
watching their turn. A flood of experience pours out, some
eight or ten occupying not more than five minutes :
"I came in here fresh from a three-years term, and Jesus
saved me."
'"Fifteen weeks ago to-night I rolled in here so drunk I
couldn't stand, and God saved me that very night/'
" Eight months ago I was a wicked woman, none but God
knows how wicked, though some here has had a taste of it, and
Jesus saved meP
Then a woman rose ; a markedly Jewish face, and the
strong accent of the German Jew.
" I bless Gott dat ever I come here. O, my tear friends,
how vill I tell you how vicket I vas ! So vicket ! I schvear,
und tell lies, und haf such a demper I trow de dishes at mine
husband ven he come to eat. And I hated dem Christians so !
I say, dey should be killed efery one. I vould hurt dem if I
could. One time a Bible reader she come und gif me a Bible.
Yen I see de New Testament, I begin mit mine fingers, und
efery day I pinch out de name of Jesus. It take a goot vhile.
Efery day I haf to read so to see de name of Jesus, und efery
day I pinch him out. Den at last it is all out und I am glad.
Oh. vhat shame it makes me now to see dat Bible so! Den
mine husband runs avay und leaf me und de five children, und
I cannot get vork enough, und ve go hungry. I vas in such
drouble. Und one day mine neighbor comes, und she say,
k ( !ome mit me. I go to a nice place.' All de time I remem-
ber some vords I read in dat Testament, und dey shtick to me.
So I come, but I say, ' I am a Jew, I like not to come.' Dere
vas a man, und he say he been a Jew, too, und I could spit on
him; but den 1 begins to gry, I feels so queer, und den some
A TYPICAL WATER STREET BUM.
57
our say, 'Come; it vonl hurt you to be prayed for,' but T say,
£ Goavaymi1 you, I vill not.' I keep comin'. It seem good,
und al last I did understand, und 1 pray, un' beg eferybody
pray. Oh, my sins are so big! 1 vaut to lose dem. I vant to
lofe Jesus! I keep prayin', und in one day dey are all gone.
Oh, I am so happy. You vill not believe. T do not ever vaut
to schvear any more. No, not any more. I do not vant to
holler und be mad. No, not any more. I do not vant to tell
lies ; no, not "any more. Gott is so goot to me. I could not be
vicket an}^ more. Oh, pray for me, und help me to be goot."
At this point an interruption occurred. An old man in a
sailors blue shirt had taken his place among the rougher men
near the door, — a man between sixty and seventy, with every
mark of long dissipation. His hat was gone, as is often the
case, and he had come from across the street barefoot, having
pawned his shoes for a final drink. Heavy and gross ; his nose
bulging with rum-blossoms ; his thin white hair gone in
patches, like the forlorn mangy white dogs of this locality ;
trembling with weakness and incipient "horrors," and looking
about with twinkling, uncertain blue eyes, he seemed one of
the saddest illustrations of what the old Water Street had
power to do. His seat had not satisfied him. Once or twice
he had changed, and now he arose and stumbled up the aisle to
the front, sitting down with a thump, and looking about curi-
ously at the new faces. Jerry eyed him a moment, but appar-
ently decided that the case at present needed no interference.
The organ sounded the first notes of "The Sweet By and By,"
and the old man dropped his head upon his breast and shed a
drunken tear. Then looking at Jerry, he said :
" (), dear-r, dear-r, dearie me ! Here I be ! here I be ! " As
the words ended, it seemed to occur to him that, like Mr.
Wegg, he had " fallen into poetry unawares," and with great
cheerfulness and briskness he repeated his couplet, looking
about for approbation. One of the "regulars" came and sat
down by him and whispered a few words.
"All right," was the prompt answer, and for a time he
remained silent.
58 COMICAL SCENES AND QUAINT SPEECHES.
Another hymn, "Have you trials and temptations?" was
sung, and another man stood up.
"I want to tell you, my friends, salt's salt, an' if the salt
you salt with ain't salt, how you goin' to salt it?"
A pause, and the man, flushing deeply, sat down.
" You're tangled up, like, that's all," said Jerry. " I see well
enough, you want us to he lively Christians ; plenty o' sea-
soning and no wishy-washiness. Ain't that it ! "
" That's it," said the embarrassed speaker with a smile of
relief, and another arose.
" I tell ye a man's passions ride up jest the way his collar
does sometimes. You ever fought with your own shirt-collar,
when a button's off an' it rides up an' rasps your ears an' skins
your neck, an' you'd give half a dollar to keep it down ? That's
me, an' between tobacco, an' liquor, an' swearin', I tell ye I had
more'n I could do. I thought I'd reform on me own hook. I
didn't want no hangin' on to somebody's skirts an' goin' into
Heaven that way. But I had to come to it. I was jest beaten
every time. An 1 now I hang on, an' the harder I hang the
better I get along, an' that's me."
It was a July evening, and doors and windows were all
open. I had taken my place at the organ, to relieve for a time
Mrs. McAuley, who usually presided. Street sounds mingled
with the hymns and testimonies, and the policeman found it
all and more than one could do to preserve any degree of
order outside. Back of the Mission building is a high tene-
ment-house, the windows overlooking the chapel and within
speaking distance. Listening to the speeches of the men, and
fanning to bring some breath of coolness into the stifling air, I
heard from the upper rooms of this tenement-house the sound
of a fierce quarrel. A man and woman were the actors, the
man apparently sitting quietly and at intervals throwing out
some taunting words, for the woman's voice grew louder and
shriller. Then came the crash of breaking furniture; a scream,
and the throwing of some heavy piece of iron; probably a
stove lid. The door banged furiously, and for a moment there
was silence. Then began the snarling, raffing cry <>i" demoniac
A FIERCE TOKKKNT OF OATHS AND ARTSE.
59
passion; a wild-beast rage that it curdled the blood to hear,
interspersed with screams and oaths. No one went to her.
The house was well used to such demonstration, and as her
fury slackened slightly she leaned from the open window and
looked into the chapel. Then followed a volley of oaths.
THE PLATFORM PACING THE AUDIENCE IN THE WATER STREET
MISSION ROOM.
kk C ursed heretics. Bunch o' liars. 1 sphit on ye all. Ah,
but wouldn't I like to get at the eyes of yees, ye ivery one!
An' me fine lady there at the organ ! ( )h, ye sit there an' fan
at yer ease ye . do ye \ Think ye could earn yer own iivin',
ye! Comin' down an' sittin' there an' niver carin' a
if all of us has our hids knocked off! What do ye know about
throuble,— —ye? Ah, let me get at ye once, an' I'll tear ye to
slithers. I'd slatter ye if 1 had the handlin' of ye. Turn
round, will ye, an' show yer face an' I'll sphit on it."
As the torrent of oaths and abuse went on, so fierce and
furious that one instinctively shrunk back, fearing some missile
must follow, a child's voice from the room below— a voice not
60
THE EFFECT OF A CHILD'S HYMN.
shrill and piercing, like that of many children, but clear, pure,
and even — began singing, to the air of " Home, Sweet Home,"
a hymn learned in the Howard Mission ; " Our Father in
Heaven, we hallow Thy Name."
The oaths redoubled, the child now being the object of
attack, but she did not stop, and each word came distinct and
sweet. The man who had risen to speak stood silent.
Straight through to the end the little voice sung on. The
storm of words above slackened, then ceased, and silence
settled down; a silence that seemed the counterpart of that
which came upon the wild waves of Galilee when — then as
now — the Saviour's voice had power to bring quietness out
of the storm.
The men, to whom such horrible scenes were no novelty,
continued to narrate their experiences :
"If Heaven had cost me five dollars I couldn't V got
there," said another. ik I was that ragged an old-clothesman
wouldn't 'a 1 bid on me ; no, nor a ragpicker 'a' taken me up on
his hook; but here I am. Oh, I tell ye, anybody can be saved.
I said I couldn't be. I was too far gone, but here I am, clean,
an' good clothes too. You say you can't be saved. You can
be. Jesus took holt of me just the Avay he saved wretches
when he was down here, an' don't you suppose His arm is long
enough to reach across eighteen hundred years and get a holt
of you % Try it."
" Damned hypocrites, every one of you ! " growled a man
in the background, and shuffled out, turning to shake his fist
as he opened the door.
" There's many a one here has said the same in the begin-
ning," said a young man who had sprung to his feet and stood
looking intently about. " I did, for one. I said Jerry McAuley
was the biggest liar goin\ and a fraud all the way through.
'Twas me was the liar, and I said so when I'd got strength to
stop my drinkin' and chewin' and smokin' and keep out o' the
gin-mills. I'm clean inside and I'm clean outside now, and I
bless the Lord it's so. Oh, believe, every one o' you."
''lie's told the truth!" cried another: "He was a sneak,
CI I A FTER II.
CHRISTIAN WORK IN WATER STREET — THE STORY OF JERRY
McAULEY'S LIFE TOLD BY HIMSELF — A CAREER OF WICK-
EDNESS AND CRIME — THE MISSION NOW.
The Historic Five Points — Breeding-Ground of Crime — Dirty Homes and
Hard Faces — "The Kind God Don't Want and the Devil Won't Have"
— Jerry McAuley — The Story of His Life Told by Himself — Born in
a New York Slum — A Loafer by Day and a River Thief by Night-
Prizefighter, Drunkard, Blackleg, and Bully — A Life of Wickedness
and Grime — Fifteen Years in Prison — His Prison Experiences — Un-
expected Meeting with "Awful" Gardner — Jerry's First Prayer — He
Hears a Voice — Released from Prison — His Return to Old Haunts
and Ways — Signing the Pledge — His Wife — Starting the Water Street
Mission — An Audience of Tramps and Bums — Becomes an Apostle to
the Roughs — Jerry's Death — Affecting Scenes — Old Joe Chappy — The
Hadley Brothers — A Mother's Last Words — A Refuge for the Wicked
and Depraved.
HE Five Points was once the terror of every policeman, as
1 well as of every decent citizen who realized its existence.
It was for years the breeding-ground of crime of every order,
and thus the first workers in City Mission work naturally
turned to it as the chief spot for purification. Here the Water
Street Mission was begun just after the Civil War, and here it
still continues its work. Its story has often been told, yet the
interest in it seems no less fresh than at the time of its incep-
tion. For years it w as headed by Jerry McAuley, a man whose
absolutely unique personality has stamped itself forever in the
minds of all who dealt with him in person. It is to him that
every mission of the same general order owes its standard of
effort, and the knowledge of methods without which such work
is powerless; and though personally he never claimed this
place, all who knew him would accord it unhesitatingly.
I have often talked with Jerry and his wife on the origin of
(68)
82
a mother's last words.
already gone out into the world. S. IT. Hadley, the younger,
born in 1843, shall tell the story in his own way and words :
S. H. Hadley's Story.
A friend, who w as the miller of the county, told me he
would never speak to me again if I did not drink, and that he
would think I had some grudge against him or felt myself
above him socially. I took the bottle after he had coaxed me
a full half hour, and put it to my lips and drank. Will I ever
forget that moment? The vow I had made to my mother was
broken, and the devil came in and took full possession. My
mother died a short time after this, happily in ignorance of my
sin. I was away from home that day, but her last words were,
"Tell Hopkins to meet me in Heaven."
By the side of my dead mother, I vowed never to drink
again, but in three days yielded to the temptation. It was thus
far only occasional. My father died, and I began the study of
medicine with the village doctor, who was himself a heavy
drinker, though a brilliant member of the profession. Both of
us went down swiftly, the doctor soon drinking himself to
death. I left the place, and after a little experience as travel-
ing salesman, became a professional gambler, and for fifteen
years followed this life. In 1870 I came to New York, where
I had a tine position offered me, which I soon lost. Delirium
tremens came more than once, and in spite of a strong consti-
tution the time was reached when I knew that death must soon
result.
One Tuesday evening I sat in a saloon in Harlem, a home-
less, friendless, dying drunkard. I had pawned or sold every-
thing that would bring drink. I could not sleep unless I was
drunk. I had not eaten for days, and for four nights preced-
ing I had suffered with delirium tremsns, or the horrors, Prom
midnight till morning. I had often said, "1 will never be a
tram}). I will never be cornered. When that time conies, if
it ever does, I will find a home in the bottom of the river."
But the Lord so ordered it that when that time did come I was
not able to walk a quarter of the way to the river. As I sat
BATTLING W ITH DRINK.
83
there thinking, I seemed to feel some great and mighty pres-
ence. I did not know then what it was. I walked up to the
bar, and pounding it with my list till I made the glasses nattle,
I said I would never take another drink it' I died in the street,
and I felt as though that would happen before morning.
Something said, " If you want to keep this promise go and
have yourself locked up." I went to the nearest station house
and had myself locked up. I was put in a narrow cell, and it
seemed as though all the demons that could find room came
into that place with me. This was not all the company I had
either. No, that dear Spirit that came to me in the saloon
was present and said, "Pray."
I did pray, and kept on praying. When I was released I
found my way to my brother's house, where every care was
given me. While lying in bed the admonishing spirit never
left me, and when I arose the following Sunday morning I felt
that that day would decide my fate. Toward evening it came
into my head to go over to the Cremorne Mission and hear
Jerry McAjaley.
I went. The house was packed, and with great difficulty I
made my way to the space near the platform. There I saw
the apostle to the drunkard and outcast, Jerry McAuley. He
rose and amid deep silence told his experience. There was
something about this man that carried conviction with it, and
I found myself -saying, " I wonder if God can save me."
I listened to the testimony of many who had been saved
from rum, and I made up my mind that I would be saved or
die right there. When the invitation to kneel for prayer was
given I knelt down with quite a crowd of drunkards. I was a
total stranger, but I felt I had sympathy, and it helped me.
Jerry made the first prayer. T shall never forget it, He said,
"Dear Saviour, won't you look down on these poor souls?
They need your help, Lord ; they can't get along without it,
Blessed Jesus, these poor sinners have got themselves into a
bad hole. Won't you help them out ? Speak to them, Lord.
I )o. 6 >r Jesus' sake. Amen."
Then Jerry said, " Now. all keep on your knees, and keep
84
A drunkard's prayer.
praying while I ask these dear souls to pray for themselves."
He spoke to one after another as he placed his hands on their
heads. " Brother, you pray. Now tell the Lord just what you
want Him to do for you."
How I trembled as he approached me. I felt like hacking
out. The devil knelt by my side and whispered in my ear, re-
minding me of crimes I had forgotten for months. tk What
are you going to do about such and such matters if you start
to be a Christian to-night % Xow you can't afford to make a
mistake. Hadn't you better think this matter over awhile,
and try to fix up some of the troubles you are in, and then
start?"
Oh, what a conflict was going on for my poor soul ! Jerry's
hand was on my head. He said, "Brother, pray." I said,
"Can't you pray for me?" Jerry said, " All the prayers in
the world won't save you unless you pray for yourself."
I halted but a moment, and then I said with breaking
heart, " Dear Jesus, can you help me ? "
Never can I describe that moment. Although my soul had
been filled with indescribable gloom, I felt the glorious bright-
ness of the noonday sun shine into my heart. I felt I was a
free man.
From that moment to this I have never tasted a drink of
whiskey, and I have never seen enough money to make me take
one. I promised God that night that if He would take away
the appetite for strong drink I would work for Him all my
life. He has done His part, and I have been trying to do
mine. It took four years to make my brother believe I was in
earnest. He believed it fast enough when he was converted
himself. He is a splendid-looking man, a colonel in the army,
and is doing rescue work, and will as long as he lives, with all
his money and all his strength. He had a newspaper run in
the interest of gin-mills, and the day after he was converted he
cut out every advertisement that they had given him. k * This
pa pei 1 is converted, too," he said, and it was a queer looking
paper when he got through.
I was called to take charge of the Water Street Mission
COFFEE NIGHT AT THE WATER STREET .MISSION.
87
alter I had been working with all my might for four years in
tlx 1 Cremorne, and here I am settled with my wife and two
other missionaries, one of whom everybody in the ward knows
as well as ever they knew Jerry. "Mother Sherwood" they
all call her. We run low in funds often, for it costs $4,000
a year to carry on the work. When a- man starts on a better
life the odds are often against him, and he must he helped for
awhile with food, clothing, and whatever else may he wanted.
Saturday night is u coffee night" at the Mission room.
Many a poor discouraged fellow, who has been looking for
work and found none, and gone on short commons a whole
week, drifts in here on Saturday afternoon, knowing that he will
get a cup of coffee and a sandwich in the evening. There are
plenty of bummers and tramps in our Saturday night crowd,
and some a good deal worse than either, too. We weed out a
few, hut we try to keep nearly all, for who knows what
may come to them ? Empty cups are placed on the seats, and
each man picks one up as he sits down, and patiently waits for
hours. At seven o'clock our own workers carry the big coffee-
pots among the audience, and laugh for joy as they see the
look on some of the faces. The men begin to pile in by three
o'clock on Saturday afternoon, though our service does not
begin till half -past seven. Time is of no account with them,
you know, and the room is packed full in half an hour.
We are often obliged to lock the doors and turn the rest away.
Many have nowhere else to go. After lunch we have a service
of song, followed by an experience meeting, lasting till half-
past nine, when the men depart. Most of them sleep in cheap
lodging-rooms or police station-houses, though some walk the
streets all night. On several cold nights this winter we let
some of them sleep on the floor of the Mission room all night.
Coffee night is one of our institutions, and always draws a big
crowd, though generally a pretty tough one.
No matter how dirty, how vicious, how depraved a man
may he, he will find a welcome here. We will take him down
staii's and wash him. If he is sick we will have a doctor
for him, or get him into a hospital, and we won't lose sight of
6
CHAPTEK III.
UP SLAUGHTER ALLEY, OR LIFE IN A TENEMENT-HOUSE- A
TOUR THROUGH HOMES OF .MISERY, WANT, AND WOE
— DRINK'S DOINGS.
Why Called Slaughter Alley — Kicking a Missionary Downstairs — Life and
Scenes in Tenement-Houses — Voices and Shapes in the Darkness.— My
Tour with the Doctor — Picking our Way through Slime and Filth —
''Mammy's Lookin' for You " — " Murtherin' Dinnis " — Misery and
Squalor Side by Side — Stalwart Tim — In the Presence of Death — "I
Want to go, but I'm Willin' to Wait " — Patsy — A Five-Year-Old
Washerwoman — Sickening Odors — Human Beasts — Dangerous Places
— "Mike Gim'me a Dollar for the Childer " — The Charity of the Poor
— "Oh, Wurra, me Heart's Sick in me" — Homes Swarming with
Rats — Alive with Vermin and Saturated with Filth— The Omnipresent
Saloon — A Nursery of Criminals and Drunkards — The Terrible Influ-
ence of Drink — Conceived in Sin and Born in Iniquity — The Dreadful
Tenement-House System.
AX THY "Slaughter" Alley, who shall say, since among its
V V inhabitants not one can tell. No map of New York
holds the name, but from the fact that one of the oldest inhab-
itants reports that it was once Butcher Alley one may conclude
two things: either that more than one murder done at this
point has given it right to the name, or that it has arisen from
the slaughter of the innocents, — the babies, who die here
in summer like rats in a hole. And in the old days, when this
whole seething, turbulent spot was quiet meadows sloping to
the East River, there may have been, as vague tradition in-
dicates, an actual slaughter-house, cleaner, we will warrant,
than any successor found to-day.
Be this as it may, the name lias established its right to per-
manence, and the alley shall make its revelation of what one
form of New York tenement-house has for its occupants.
To one familiar with the story of old New York, Roose
(89)
PB ^1 [NG fob death.
95
savoriness. In the back room three lads, also asleep, lay across
a bed, and on the floor was stretched a woman, her sodden
face, with a great bruise over one eye, indicating what kind of
orgie had been held there. The doctor closed the door.
At the top of the house we entered a low and narrow room
under the eaves; the bed was pushed as far as it would go
against the sloping wall; a chair or two, a small table, and a
tiny cooking-stove, over which a man bent stirring something
in a saucepan, made up the furniture of the room. So deadly
and heavy was the smell, as the door opened, that a mighty
effort was necessary before I could enter at all.
"She's a grain easier, hut only a grain," said the man, com-
ing forward and addressing the doctor. "She's been prayin 5
to be released, if it's the Lord's will, an' I've come to be willin'.
Look at her."
The bandages had been removed, and I saw a painful sight ;
cancer of the face and head; yet life enough in the poor lips to
smile in the doctor's face.
"I'm most through, ain't I?" she whispered. " O, I
hope so; I want to go, but I'm willin' to wait."
" Yes. you are almost through,'' answered the kind voice of
the doctor. kk You have only a day or two longer."
The man knelt by the bed, shaking with sobs, and the doc-
tor prayed for release, for patience and strength to bear what-
ever pain must still be borne.
" That does me good," the dying woman whispered. " Come
to-morrow an' every day till I'm gone."
With a pressure of the wasted hand we hurried down the
stairs.
"I thought vou would faint." the doctor said, as we reached
the street and the wind blew up cool from the river. ki Stand
still a minute. You're trembling."
"Why does not such a case as that go to the hospital?" I
asked, when the fresh air had brought back color and voice.
"She could at least have decent comfort there."
"We wanted her to. but her husband wouldn't hear to it.
He wanted to be near the Mission, and so did she, and she said
OLD TENEMENT ROOKERIES.
103
of facetiousness might not rouse the public to some sense of
what lies below the surface of this fair-seeming civilization of
to-day.
An extreme case ? If it only were, — but these are tene-
ments built within a comparatively recent period, and thus
nominally more comfortable than older dwellings. The older
buildings still show their dormer windows here and there, and
back almost to the floor, and but one window to the room. Yet
they swarm no less than the newer ones, with the added disad-
vantage that the ancient timbers and woodwork are alive with
vermin and saturated with all foulness beyond even the possi-
bilities of brick. The older tenements are battered and worn-
Looking, so hideously massed together in places as to be with-
out yards, or huddled together like styes among stables, facto-
ries, and vile-smelling outhouses. Rows of dirty houses are
crowded on the narrow sidewalk, with still more forlorn rear
tenements crowding behind them.
7
CHAPTER IV
NEW YORK NEWSBOYS— WHO THEY ARE, WHERE TITEY COME
FROM, AND HOW THEY LIVE — THE WAIFS AND STRAYS
OF A GREAT CITY.
The Newsboys' Code of Morals — Curious Beds for Cold Winters' Nights —
Shivering Urchins — Sleeping in a Burned-out Safe — Creeping into Door-
ways—The Street Arab and the Gutter-Snipe — A Curious Mixture of
Morality and Vice — His Religion — "Kind o' Lucky to say a Prayer''
— Newsboys' Lodging-Houses — First Night in a Soft Bed — Favorite
Songs — Trying Times in "Boys' Meetings " — Opening the Savings Bank
— The " Doodes " — Pork and Beans — Popular Nicknames — Teaching
Self Help — Western Homes for New York's Waifs — " Wanted, a Perfect
Boy"— How a Street Arab Went to Yale College — Newsboy Orators —
A Loud Call for "Paddy" — " Bummers, Snoozers, and Citizens" — Speci-
mens of Wit and Humor — "Jack de Robber" — The "Kid" — "Ain't
Got no Mammy" — A Life of Hardship — Giving the Boys a Chance.
HOW shall one condense into one chapter the story of an
army of newsboys in which each individual represents a
case not only of " survival of the fittest," but of an experience
that would fill a volume? They are the growth of but a gen-
eration or two, since only the modern newspaper and its needs
could require the services of this numberless host. Out of the
thousands of homeless children roaming the streets as lawless
as the wind, only those with some sense of honor could be
chosen, yet what honor could be found in boys born in the
slums and knowing vice as a close companion from babyhood
up \
This question answered itself long ago, as many a social
problem has done. The fact that no papers could be had by
them save as paid for on the spot, and that a certain code of
morals was the first necessity for any work at all, developed
such conscience as lav iti embryo, and brought about the tacitly
understood rules that have long governed the small heathen
(in)
HOW THE BOYS LIVE IN THEIR HOME.
123
ponds with the number of the locker in which he keeps his
clothes. When he is ready to retire he applies to the superin-
tendent's assistant, who sits beside the keyboard. The lodger
gives his number and is handed the key of his locker, in which
he bestows all his clothing but his shirt and trousers. He
then mounts to the dormitory, and after carefully secreting his
shirt and trousers under his mattress is ready for the sleep of
childhood.
BOYS APPLYING TO THE SUPERINTENDENT FOR A NIGHTS LODGING.
The boys are wakened at different hours. Some of them
rise as early as two o'clock and go down town to the news-
paper offices for their stock in trade. Others rise between
that hour and five o'clock. All hands, however, are routed
out at seven. The boys may enjoy instruction in the rudi-
mentary branches every night from half -past seven until nine
o'clock, with the exception of Sundays, when devotional ser-
vices are held and addresses made by well-known citizens.
A large majority of the boys who frequent the lodging-
houses are waifs pure and simple. They have never known
a mother's or a father's care, and have no sense of identity.
Generally they have no name, or if they ever had one have
preferred to convert it into something short and practically
NEWSBOYS' NICKNAMES AM) THEIR MEANING.
descriptive. As a rule they are known by nicknames and
nothing else, and in speaking of one another they generally
do so by these names. As a rule these names indicate some
personal peculiarity or characteristic. On a recent visit to a
Newsboys' Lodging House pains were taken to learn the
names of a group of boys who were holding an animated
conversation. It was a representative group. A very thin
little fellow was called "Skinny"; another hoy with light
hair and complexion, being nearly as blonde as an albino, was
known only as "Whitey." When "Slobbery Jack" was asked
how he came by his name, "Bumlets," who appeared to he
chief spokesman of the party, exclaimed, "When he eats he
scatters all down hisself." " Yaller" was the name given to an
Italian boy of soft brown complexion. Near him stood "Kelly
the Rake," who owned but one sleeve to his jacket. In news-
boy parlance a "rake" is a boy who will appropriate to his
own use anything he can lay his hands on. No one could
give an explanation of "Snoddy's" name nor what it meant, —
it was a thorough mystery to even the savants in newsboy
parlance. In the crowd was "The Snitcher," — "a fellow
w'at tattles," said Bumlets, contemptuously, and near by stood
the " Xing of Crapshooters." " A crapshooter," said Bumlets,
"is a fellow w'ats fond of playin' toss-penny, throwin' dice, an'
goin' to policy shops.'' The "King of Bums" was a tall and
rather good-looking lad, who, no doubt, had come honestly
by his name. The ■" Snipe-Shooter" was guilty of smoking
cigar-stubs picked out of the gutter, a habit known among
the boys as "snipe-shooting." "Hoppy," a little lame boy;
"Dutchy," a German lad; "Smoke," a colored boy; "Pie-
eater," a boy very fond of pie; "Sheeney," "Skittery," "Bag
of Bones," "One Lung Pete," and "Scotty" were in the same
group; and so also was '-Jake the Oyster," a tender-hearted
boy who was spoken of by the others as "a regTar soft
puddin'."
Every boy shown in the Pull-page illustration was proud of
the fact that he "carried the banner," i. e., was in the habit of
sleeping out doors at night. Only the bitterest cold of winter
MAKING LIQUOR PAY FOR ITS FRUIT.
12?
drove them to seek the shelter and warmth of the lodging
house. An empty barrel or dry goods box ; deserted hallways,
dark alleys, or the rear of buildings were the only sleeping-
places these boys had at night from early spring to mid-winter.
The sixty thousand dollars required for fitting up the
building was raised in part by private subscription and in part
by an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars from the Excise
fund, by the
Legislature, it
being regard -
ed as just
that those
who do most
to form
d r unkards
should b e
forced to aid
in the ex-
pense of the
care of
drun k ards'
children.
This fund
grew slowly,
but by good
investment
was increased
to eighty thousand dollars, and with this the permanent home
of the newsboys in this part of the city has been assured. It
is their school, church, intelligence-office, and hotel.
Here the homeless street boy, instead of drifting into
thieves 1 dens and the haunts of criminals and roughs, is
brought into a clean, healthy, well warmed and lighted build-
ing where he finds room for amusement, instruction, and
religious training, and where good meals, a comfortable bed,
and plenty of washing and bathing conveniences are furnished
at a low price. The boy is not pauperized, but feels that he is
THE WASH-ROOM IX THE NEWS-
BOYS' LODGING HOUSE JUST
BEFORE SUPPER TIME.
DETECTING A X [MPOSTOR. 129
a neatly-sewed patch, and noted that his naked feet were
too white for a " bummer." He took him to the inner office.
" My boy ! Where do you live? Where's your father
"Please, sir, I don't live nowhere, an' I hain't got no
father, an' me mither's dead!" Then followed a long and
touching story of his orphanage, the tears Mowing down
his cheeks. The bystanders were almost melted themselves.
Not so the Superintendent. Grasping the boy by the shoulder,
"Where's your mother, I say 2"
"Where is your mother, I say? Where do you live? I
give you just three minutes to tell, and then, if you do not, I
shall hand you over to the police."
The lad yielded, his true story was told, and a runaway re-
stored to his family.
An average of three thousand a year is sent to the West,
many of whom are formally adopted. A volume would not
suffice for the letters that come back, or the strange experi-
ences of many a boy who under the new influences grows into
132
A LOUD CALL FOR PADDY.
"Paddy, Paddy!" they shouted. "Come out, Paddy, air
show yerself."
Paddy came forward and mounted a stool ; a youngster not
more than twelve, with little round eyes, a short nose profusely
freckled, and a lithe form full of fun.
"Bummers," he began, " Snoozers, and citizens, I've come
down here among yer to talk to yer a little. Me an' me friend
THE GYMNASIUM EN THE NEWSBOYS' LODGING— HOUSE.
Brace have come to see how ye're gittin' along an' to advise
yer. You fellers w'at stands at the shops with yer noses over
the railin', a smellin' of the roast beef an' hash, — you fellers
who's got no home, — think of it, how are we to encourage
yer. [Derisive laughter, and various ironical kinds of ap-
plause.] I say bummers, for ye're all bummers, [in a tone of
kind patronage,] I was a bummer once meself. [Great laugh-
ter.] I hate to see yer spending yer money for penny ice-
creams an' had cigars. Why don't yer save yer money \ You
feller without no boots over there, how would you like a new
pair, eh \ [Laughter from all the boys but the one addressed.]
Well, I hope you may get 'em. Rayther think you won't. I
have hopes for yer all. I want yer to grow up to be rich men,
134
places of im:r<;e von stkkkt boyS.
soon. I thank ye, boys, for yer patient attintion. I can't
say no more al present, hoys. Good bye."
The newsboys' lodging-houses are like the ancient cities of
refuge to these little fellows, and vet there are cases which
the Lodging-houses never reach.
"Recently/' said a gentleman, " I found a tiny fellow play-
ing a solitary game of marbles in a remote corner of the City
I hill corridors. I lis little legs were very thin, and dark circles
under his big gray eyes intensified the chalk-like pallor of his
checks. He Looked up when he became aware thai some one
was watching him, but resumed his game of solitaire as soon
as he saw he had nothing to fear from the intruder.
"What are you doing here, my Little fellow ?" I asked.
The mite hastily gathered up all his marbles and stowed
136 DIFFICULT CASES TO REACH.
" Dat ere kid," he resumed, " ain't got no more sand'n a
John Chinee. He'd be kilt ony fur me. He can't come along
de Row or up de alley widout gitin' his face broke. So I gives
him papers to sell and looks arter him meself."
I asked Jack where the " Kid " and himself slept. "I ain't
givin' dat away," said he, u ony taint no lodgin'-house where
you has to git up early in the mawnin'. De ' Kid' and me
likes to sleep late."
The " Kid," however, was now eager to be off with his
papers, and without another word the protector and protege
sped into the street, filling the air with their shrill cries.
This is one case of a class which the lodging-houses do not
reach, and other instances might be given. One little fellow
of six years makes a practice of frequenting the lobby of
one of the big hotels after dark. As soon as the streets become
deserted, and the market for his papers ceases to flourish, he
14:2 DANGEROUS AND DEADLY TRADES.
of gold-leaf a good many are employed, though chiefly young
girls of fifteen and upwards. It is one of the most exhausting
of the trades, as no air can be admitted, and the atmosphere is
stifling.
Feathers, flowers, and tobacco employ the greatest number.
A child of six can strip tobacco or cut feathers. In one greal
firm, employing over a thousand men, women, and children, a
TIRED OUT. — A FACTORY GIRl/S ROOM IN A TENEMENT-HOUSE.
woman of eighty and her grandchild of four sit side by side
and strip the leaves, and the faces of the pair were sketched
not long since by a popular artist. With the exception of
match-making and one or two otlier industries there is hardly
a trade so deadly in its effects. There are many operations
which children are competent to carry on, and the phases of
work done at home in the tenement-houses often employ the
entire family. In cellars and basements boys of ten and twelve
brine, sweeten, and prepare the tobacco preliminary to stem-
a physician's testimony.
147
that child has, an' she but a little past ten. May there be a hot
place waitin' for him ! "
From the notes of a physician whose name is a guarantee
of accurate and faithful observation, and whose work is in
connection with the Board of Health, I have a series of facts,
the result of eighteen months' work. During this period of
daily observation in tenement-house work, she found among
the people with whom she came in contact 535 children under
twelve years old, most of them between ten and twelve, who
either worked in shops or stores or helped their mothers in
In one family a child of three years old had infantile paralysis
easily curable. The mother had no time to attend to it. At
live vears old the child was taught to sew buttons on trousers.
She is now, at thirteen years, a helpless cripple, but she fin-
ishes a dozen pairs of trousers a day, and the family are thus
twenty cents the richer. In another family she found twin
girls four and a half years old. sewing on buttons from six
in the morning till ten at night; and near them a family of
some kind of work at
home. Of these 535 chil-
dren but 60 were health v.
CHAPTER 71.
CHILD-LIFE IN THE SLUMS — HOMELESS STREET BOYS, GUTTFli
SNIPES AND DOCK RATS — THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A DAY-
BREAK BOY.
Gutter-Snipes — Imps of Darkness — Snoopers — Bm.o-s and Tatters — Life in
the Gutter— Old Sol — Running a Grocery under Difficulties — Youthful
Criminals — Newsboys and Bootblacks— Candidates for Crime— "He's
Smart, He Is" — "It's Business Folks as Cheats "— Dock Rats — Unre-
claimed Children — Thieves' Lodging-Houses — Poverty Lane — Hell's
Kitchen — Dangers of a Street Girl's Life — old Margaret —The Reforma-
tion of Wildfire — The Queen of Cherry Street — Sleeping on the Docks —
Too Much Liekin' and More in Prospect — A Street Arab's Summer Resi-
dence — A Walking Rag-Bundle — Getting Larruped — A Daybreak Boy
— Jack's Story of his Life — Buckshot Taylor — A Thieves' Run-way —
Escaping over Roofs — A Police Raid — Head-first off the Roof — Death of
Jack — His Dying Request — An Affecting Scene — Fifteen Thousand
Homeless Children.
UTTER-SNIPES! That's what I call 'em. What else
VJ could they be when they're in the gutter all day and
half the night, cuttin' round like little imps o' darkness. Not
much hair on 'em either — not enough to catch by, and clothes
as is mostly rags that tears if you grab 'em. The prison barber
wouldn't get any profit out of 'em, I can tell you. Men around
here don't shave till their beards stick out like spikes, and the
women cut the children's hair to save combin'. Gutter-snipes.
That's it, and they snoop around stores and slink off a salt (isli
or a handle of wood or anything as comes handy, and home
with it like the wind. Mother is there, you may be sure, and
washin' may he. Do you suppose she asks any questions like,
' Lor, Hilly, where did you get that?' Not she. She takes the
fish, or whatever it is, as innocent as a lamb and sends Hilly for
some hits o' coal to cook it.
" Yes, that's the way it is down here. Rags and tatters are
(149)
CHILDREN OF THE SLUMS.
151
memorial mud-pie, or they play with such pieces of string or
paper as may have been deposited there. A gay bit of cloth,
a rejected paper-box, is a mine of enjoyment; but it is the
other children and a consideration of their ways that most
fascinates the baby, whose eyes still hold baby innocence, too
A GROUP OF STREET BOYS, AS FOUND ON DOYERS STREET.
on all of them is the look of experience, of cunning, or a
self-reliance born of constant knocking about. When eiffht or
ten years old such care as may occasionally have been their
portion ceases. They must begin to earn, and are allowed the
utmost freedom of choice.
The most energetic and best endowed by nature turn to
the newsboys' calling and often find it the way to their first
fragments of education, as well as to the comfort learned in
the Newsboys' Lodging ! louses. Next conies bootblacking,
JACK TKLKS THE STORY OF HIS LIKE.
whatever there was to Lay his hands on, down to the teapot.
So his aunt took Dick, an' he slep' along with the other lodgers,
an' had what he could pick up to cat unless she happened to
think, an' then she let him buy pie.
That was Dick,bu1 he turned into the Buster, an' that's what
Til call him now. so you'll know. My father was a ragpicker
on Baxter Street, an' our house was 47; do you know it (
When you go in there's a court an' a hydrant in the middle, an'
out o' that court opens seven doors as like as seven peas, an'
there's seven rooms with the window alongside o' the door, an'
so on all the way up the five stories. It's all Eyetalian now.
an' they've got big- Eyetalian beds that hols six or seven easy,
an' over them they slings hammocks an' piles the children in.
an' then fills up the floor, an' so they make their rent an' may
be more.
We wasn't so thick, and lucky, for my father wanted room
to tear round when he stopped pickin' rags an' had a drunk.
He'd smash everything he could reach, an' my mother, who was
little an' kind o' delicate like, she'd hang everything high, so's
he couldn't get at it. He knocked her round awful, an' one
night, when he come home a little worse than any one ever
seed him, he just kicked us both downstairs an' broke her all to
smash, ribs an' everything; an' then when he'd smashed up the
room too, he just sat down an' cut his own throat awful, so
when they come to arrest him on account o' my mother that
they had picked up an' sent to Bellevue, there wasn't nothin 1 to
get but a stiff.*
I hung round a bit till I saw the ambulance, an' then I made
sure they'd do somethin' awful with me. an' I cut. I made a
run for the river, because I alius liked it along the docks. You
could often pick up oranges an' bananas, an' many a time I've
licked molasses off the barrels. I'd often slep before in barges
an' most anywhere, an' so I knew a good place where there was
most always some bales o' hay, an' so T put for that. There
was lots o' boxes an* barrels piled up, an' empty ones too; an'
A corpse.
JACK FALLS IN WITH LITTLE " BUSTER.
163
way behind 'em, where they hadn't looked for a good while,
was some big bales o' hay.
It was rainin', peltin' straight down, an' sleet with it, an'
awful cold. I remember because Buster cried awful when I
found him. He wasn't bigger'n a rat much, an' when I come
pitchin' along he made certain I was goin' to turn him out.
There he was, you see, in my box,
that I hadn't never let on about, an'
he just snivel-
ed an' turned
out an' started
to run. So I
took him by
the scruff an' I
says, "Where
you goin', an'
who are you?"
an' drew him
back by one o'
the legs o' his
pants, that was
. _ STREET BOYS SLEEPING ON THE DOCKS.
big enough tor
six like him, an' then he told me. He'd had so much lickin'
at home that he couldn't stand up straight, an' his aunt wanted
to lick him more because he couldn't, an' so he made up his
mind to run. Well, he'd slep' in that box a good while, an'
the boys had fed him. He'd earned bits holdin' a horse or
something like that, an' he'd picked up odds an' ends; but he
Avas most naked an' hungry, an' when he dried up his eyes
after a good cry, I says to him, kk We'll go hunks, an' whatever
I have you shall have the same."
That's the way Buster an' me come to be pardners, but I ex-
pect we was both smaller than we thought we was, for we
couldn't get much to do till a boy gave me his old blackin' kit
an' taught me to shine. So I did that when I got a chance, an'
Buster sat round an' admired, an' we did fust-rate an' slep in
the box the whole winter.
A FATAL BLOW.
107
the two. Cherry an' Hamilton Streets back up together, an'
there's only three Peel between 'em at the rear tenements.
Now if you're chased on Cherry Street, all you've gol to do is
to run up to the roof of the rear house an' jump to the other,
go down the skylight, an' there von are in Hamilton Street an'
can get off easy, while the policeman is comin' round the
corner. The crooks have fixed it to suit themselves. They go
climbin' round over roofs an' fences till they've got it plain as
a map. Sometimes they hammer in blocks of wood for steps
an' they don't come out where the cops are expectin' 'em.
There's a hundred run-ways, an' they knows 'em all.
1 was awful worried over Buster. I know'd if he could only
gel away he'd do well enough, an' I planned to hire him to go
West an' try it, They'd dyed his hair an' made him all up dif-
ferent ; but I knew where he hung out, an' so a week ago I went
in one night, bound to find him. The police had laid for a raid
that night, but I nor nobody knew it. Buster was there, sure
enough, an' he was way down in the mouth. We talked awhile,
an' he had about promised me he'd do as I wanted when the
woman in the next room gave the alarm.
I don't know how Buster ever took such a thing in his head,
but he did. He made for the roof, an' I after him, an' just as
we got there he drew on me. "You meant to give me away,
did you ? " says he. kk D — n you ! Take that ! " an' he gave it
to me in the side. I pitched over, an' down I went into the
run- way, an' there they picked me up an' brought me here.
He didn't mean it, an' he got away, an' so I don't care, an' he
sent me word the other day that when I got well he'd go West
or anywhere I wanted. So you see it's come out pretty good
after all. an' T don't mind lyin' here because I go over it all in
my mind an' it's good as the the-a-ter to think they haven't got
him an' won't. An' when 1 get well,
Jack's voice had grown steadily weaker. " I'm so tired,"
he went on. "I think Vm goin' to sleep. If" — and here he
looked up silently for a moment; "If I ain't goin' to get well,
Buster'll go to the bad certain, for there ain't nobody but me
168
DEATH OF JACK.
he'll listen to. But I shall get well soon, an' now I'll have a
sleep an' thank you for comin '."
" Will he get well '( " I whispered to the nurse as we went
down the ward.
" At first we thought he would," she made answer. " Now
it is doubtful, for there is something wrong internally. He
may live and he may go at any time," and she turned away to
another patient.
A week later came this note from the nurse : —
"Jack asked to have you sent for yesterday, and when we said you were
out of town he begged for pencil and paper and made me promise to seal
his note up at once and let no one see it. It is inclosed herein, just as he
dropped it when the end came. We found him lying there quite dead, and
you will see a smile bright as an angel's on his beautiful face when you come,
which must be at once if you want to see him before he is buried."
On the scrap of paper within he had traced in staggering
letters,
" Plese find Buster at ."
There it ended, nor has any questioning yet revealed who it
was for whom he sold his life, — unwittingly, it is true, but
given no less fully and freely.
" Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friend."
No work in the great city so appeals to all that is just, all
that is generous in man, as the Avelfare of these street children,
and none yields larger reward. And yet the final word must be
that fifteen thousand homeless, hungry, cold, and naked child-
ren wander to-day in our streets, and as yet no agency has
been found that meets their need, and the hands that would
rescue are powerless. The city money jingles in Tammany
pockets, and the taxpayers heap up fortunes for Tammany poli-
ticians, while these thousands of little ones are outcasts and
soon will be criminals.
The children of the slums are with us, born to inheritances
that tax every power goodmen and women can bring to bear
on them for their correction. Hopeless as the outlook often
A MARVELOUS TRANSFORMATION.
175
Cava, a seven-year-old child who for a year after the mother
had forsaken husband and children had been in the care of a
woman living in the ik Great Bend" on Mulberry Street.
In this case an anonymous Letter called the attention of the
Society to the case. The woman, whose husband kept a stale-
beer dive, drank, and
the two had spent their
drunken fury on the
child, who when found
was a wild-eyed crea-
ture shrinking in abject
terror from whoever
came near. She had
reason. Her hair was
matted with blood, and
her face, arms, and body
were covered with
wounds around which
the blood had dried and
remained. A few rags
of clothing could not
hide the hideous bruises,
and yet a lovely face
was hidden under this
mask of filth and clotted
blood. Transferred, as
is the custom of the
Society, to those of her
own faith, the Sisters
of St. Dominick have
PATRICK LACEY — AGE 10.
As rescued by the Society's officers. — Face cut, bruised,
and swollen by beatings from drunken parents.
good reason to be proud of this marvelous change, no greater,
however, than that encountered a little farther on.
Here is a boy barely ten years old, whose left eye is
nearly destroyed, and whose ears have been partially torn from
his head by a drunken father, who at the same time threw the
eighteen-months baby across the room and beat his wife till
she escaped and ran to the street for help. This man, already
I
Homeless and Friendless.
Tins is a really superb picture, one that has brought- tears to many eyes. It shows
a poor, homeless little boy, without a friend in the world, sitting on the door-
step of a cheap lodging-house, the door and shutters of which have been closed
against him. The little fellow's rags, his loneliness and tears, and his utter despair,
tell the story more eloquently than words. It is a remarkable illustration, and was
made from an instantaneous photograph from life. It is full of pathos, and is con-
sidered by many able critics to be the gem of the series.
HOMELESS AND FRIENDLESS.
DISTRESSING CASES.
177
Society's building- at Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue.
Here is an arrangement like that of the Rogue's Gallery at the
Police Headquarters ; and though it is impossible to give every
case, all the representative ones may be looked at in turn.
"Before and after " is the order of the photographs, but often
there is no " after " save that brought by merciful death.
Here on a soap-box is
a picture of the body of
an eleven-months baby
starved to death by a
drunken mother. The
little frame is only a
skeleton, and the pitiful
face has a strange smile,
as if of triumph at escape.
Near it is the figure of a
seven-year-old child found
far up toAvn on the East
side, with her hands tied
with a bit of old rope
cutting into old sores.
Body, head, and face were
covered with bruises and
cuts, many of them fresh
and bleeding. This had
been done by a drunken
father and steprn other As found half Btarved °y the society's officers.— Face
cut and body bruised by inhuman parents.
who had also nearly
starved her ; and an indignant policeman on the beat had taken
the law into his own hands and arrested both without waiting
for any process. Both were convicted, and the child herself
recovered with that marvelous recuperative power of even the
most defrauded childhood, and looks out with happy eyes from
the photograph taken a few weeks later.
Farther on one encounters the photographs of two street
Arabs, brothers, John and Willie D -, two small beggars.
made so by their father, whose only object in life was dis-
PATRICK KIELEY — AGE 11.
WILD AND STARVED STREET WAIFS.
183
came one, a baby of three, the child of an Irishwoman and a
Chinaman, dressed in Chinese costume, and a subject of fierce
dispute in these unsavory regions, as the Chinaman wished to
send her to China,
and had planned to
do so when the Soci-
ety was notified and
interfered.
Some of these
waifs are as fierce
and wild as starved
d< >gs, but for the most
part they are silent,
scared, trembling lit-
tle wretches, covered
with bruises, know-
ing no argument but
the strap, and look-
ing with feeble inter-
est at the large col-
lection, at the Socie-
ty's headquarters, of
whips, knives, canes,
broomsticks, and all
the weapons employ-
ed in torture, many
of them still blood-stained or bent from the force of the blows
given. There they hang on the wall of the inner room, a per-
petual appeal to all who look, to aid in the work of rescue and
make such barbarity forevermore impossible. Face after face
comes up, each one an added protest against the misery it lias
known. Here is little Nellie Brady, with hair a painter would
gaze at with delight, found hungry and abandoned, wandering
in the streets. The gallery of photographs shows what one
day of care had brought about, and gives a face full of sweet-
ness and promise like hundreds of others in like case.
What has been the actually accomplished work of the Soci-
NELLIE BRADY — AGE 7.
As found by the Society's officers.
184
A MAGNIFICENT RECORD.
ety ? During the sixteen years of its existence it has investi-
gated nearly 55,000 complaints, involving about 160,000 child-
ren. Of these complaints over 18,000 cases have been prose-
cuted ; over 17,500 convictions secured ; about 30,000 children
relieved and rescued ; 7,500 sheltered, fed, and clothed in its
reception rooms, and upwards of 70,000 meals furnished.
NELLIE BRADY.
After a day in the Society's care. Never claimed.
By its action and example 227 Societies have been organized
and are now in active operation throughout the world, working
in unison with it. It lias framed and secured the passage of laws
for the protection and preservation of children, which have
been copied and re-enacted not only throughout the United
States but in Europe. And it enforces those laws by the pros-
ecution of offenders with a vigor which has made it a terror to
every cruel brute. Its work never ceases by day or night, dur-
ing summer or winter.
CHAPTEE VIII.
MISSION WORK IN TOUGH PLACES — SEEKING TO SAVE — A
LEAF FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF AN ALL-NIGHT MISSION-
ARY — RESCUE WORK IN THE SLUMS.
The Cremorne Mission — A Piteous Cry for Help — "Lock me up" — Mrs.
McAuley's Prayer — A Convert from the Lowest Depths — Ragged Kitty,
the News Girl — Marks of a Mother's Cruelty — "Let me out" — "I Want
me Pat" — Distressing Scenes — "Mashing" the Baby — Begging for
Shelter and Warmth — An Ail-Night Missionary's Story — A Baxter Street
Audience — " Roll, Jordan, Roll ! " — Story of Welsh Jennie — A Mother's
Love — "She is Dead" — Seeking to Save — A Midnight Tour through
Dens of Vice and Misery — Horrible Sights — An Emblem of Purity in the
Midst of Vice — "It's no Use! It's no Use!" — "Don't you Know me
Mother? Iam your Jennie" — Affecting Meeting of a Mother and her
Erring Daughter — Old Michael's Story — Fifty-three Years in Prisons —
Taking the Last Chance.
C IT'S life and death! Don't stop me! Clear the way, I
1 tell you. or there'll be mischief done!"
Truly it looked liked it. The man's face was flushed to a
dark red, and yet \v;is curiously pale about the lips. He was
tall and powerful; a bullet head and heavy jaw, and long
strong arms that swung- like flails as he ran wildly down the
street.
"It's murder," some one said, as with frightened eyes all
made way for the fleeing man. A policeman hastened his steps
as the fugitive rounded the corner into Thirty-second Street,
for the first rush had been down Seventh Avenue from one of
the high tenementdiouses not far away. The broad doors of
the Cremorne Mission swung open the instant the man reached
them as if some one behind them had felt the rush and
answered the cry of a need unknown as yet, but of the sorest.
" Lock me up! " he cried, as the doors swiftly closed behind
him, and he fell limp and breathless on one of the long benches.
(185)
186
A PITEOUS APPEAL FOR HELP.
" Lock me up ! You promised to help me. Help me now or
I'm gone. It's on me, T tell you. I'm going mad if I ain't
helped."
ENTRANCE TO THE CREMORNE MISSION.
Frank, to whom this appeal Avas addressed, was the faith-
ful man in charge of the Cremorne Mission rooms, and was
himself a convert from the lowest depths. He had been a
drunken sailor, dragged into the Water Street Mission by a
friend, and to his own intense and always fresh surprise Avas
converted before the evening ended. The most secret cranny
of a drunkard's mind was an open book to him. He knew
every possibility and phase of this and of every other malady
of soul that could possibly be brought before the Mission, and
he regarded each fresh case as another chance for him to bear
GOSPEL SERVICE IN THE sums.
105
Then there was the " Midget, " with innocent, doll-like face,
and others of less notoriety.
The room was well filled, so I brought the song service to a
close and was about to read the Scripture, when the discordant
sounds of an approaching street hand caused the audience to
vise en masse and rush down the stairs, Leaving me alone save
one or two tramps whose deep slumbers could hot by any
possibility have been disturbed. It was a common occurrence
tor my audience to leave without ceremony. A dog-tight or
any disturbance on the street would empty the room imme-
diately.
I was obliged to go out again and "compel them to come
in." When order was restored I read the story of the Prodigal
Son. All listened quietly, and I was only interrupted by the
stertorous snores of the sleepers, and by the yells and cat-calls
of street boys who persistently hooted at the door. The story
was familiar to many, some of whom had literally left good
homes, gone into a far country, spent their substance in riotous
living, and had arrived at the pig-pen point of the journey;
and my prayer was that some might arise and come back to
their Father.
I was urging them to do this when a woman entered and
crouched near the door. My attention was drawn to her at
once, — she was such a wreck. Though not over twenty she
looked forty. Tlagged, dirty, bruised, and bloated, she had
hardly the semblance of a woman. I told for her benefit the
story of the Scotch lassie who had wandered away from home,
and of her return and welcome by a loving mother. I ended
by saying, k> There are those here to-night who have a loving
mother still praying for them." This shot at a venture struck
home. Her lips quivered; tears ran down her cheeks. She
was the first to come forward for prayers. She told me
between her sobs that she was the only daughter of a praying
mother, then living in another part of the city. She had erred
in the choice of her company, and an elder brother in anger
had put her out of the house, threatening to kill her if she
returned to disgrace the family. Driven from home she
196
a visit to Jennie's mother.
gradually sank from one level to another until she became an
outcast on the street. For five years she had neither seen a
relative nor heard from home. I urged her to return, but she
hesitated, doubting her welcome. I promised to visit her
mother and plead for her, and the girl finally promised to be
at the meeting the next night.
The next day I visited her mother. She was a Welsh
woman, sixty years of age, living on the top floor of a cheap
tenement-house. She had been a Christian for many years.
After conversing with her on other matters I cautiously in-
quired if she had a daughter named Jennie, and was surprised
when she calmly answered " No." I told her I had been
informed that she had.
"Well, I once had a daughter by that name," she slowly
said ; " but she is dead."
" Are you quite sure ? "
" Yes. At least I think she is. Yes, I am sure she is. We
have not heard from her in five years. Then we heard she
was dead."
I told her she was still alive and anxious to return home.
The mother's love returned. In great agitation and with tears
streaming down her face she exclaimed : —
"Tell her she is welcome. Oh, find her and bring her to me,
and all shall be forgiven. For God's sake do not disappoint
me. It will kill me if you do."
I promised to bring Jennie home without fail. But that
night she was not at the meeting. In vain I searched all the
haunts of vice in the neighborhood, but found no trace of her.
In one of the saloons I met an acquaintance, — a young-
prize-fighter. He had drifted into the mission room one night
and had disturbed the meeting so much that in sheer despera-
tion I suddenly seized him by the collar and bounced him
through the door with such quick despatch that it had Avon his
profound admiration and warm friendship. I told him the
object of my search. He said that Jennie was probably in some
stale-beer "dive," adding that stale-beer dives were under-
ground cellars or small rooms kept by Italians, where liquor
198
IX DARKEST NEW YOKK.
help any one out of them dives. I ain't religious like, yer
understand? Fer can't be religious an' fight, can \w( Well,
that's how I makes my eat. No fight, no oat, see? So its
either eat or religion, an 1 as I takes naterally to eat an' don't
to religion, I eats an' fights an' fights an' eats. See? I inav
ret'oi'in some dav an' i»it religion. I hain't ffot nothin' affin it
nohow."
We walked rapidly through a narrow dark street; then
turned into a long alleyway leading into an area or back yard,
in which stood a typical rear tenement-house. We entered and
climbed up the rickety stairs. My guide unceremoniously
pushed open a door, and we found ourselves in a room dimly
lighted by a peddler's lamp. The English language cannot
describe the scene before us. The room was crowded with men
and women of the most degraded type. Misery, rags, filth, and
vermin Avere on every side, and above all arose a stench so ut-
terly vile that, the nostrils once assailed, it could never be forgot-
ten. All were more or less intoxicated and stared idiotically at
us. A quick survey was all I could stand ; the stench and sights
were so horrible I beat a hasty retreat and was about to return
to the street, when the fighter informed me that there were six
other places of like character in that one house. He then led
me downstairs into an underground room, the floor of which
was bare ground ; the walls were covered with green slime, and
water was dripping from the ceiling. Yet crowded into this
hole and huddled together were fifteen men and women.
As we entered, some one shouted, "What's wanted?" " A
girl named Jinny," said the fighter. As he said this a young
girl started up, but was knocked back by a big ruffian who
rushed forward, cursing fearfully and asking "What's wanted
with the girl ?" As he advanced in a threatening manner and
seemed aboul to annihilate me. I fell like withdrawing. But
when he had nearly reached us the lighter struck out, knocking
the brute over several others into t ho corner, where he lay rub-
bing his head. The fighter, satisfying himself that Jenny was
not 1 here, quiel ly withdrew.
We visited several other places, and finally one worse than
OLD ROSA'S DEN.
199
all, kept by an Italian hag named Rosa. We entered a hall
and stumbled over several sleepers who lay on the floor too
drunk to notice our stepping on them. Propped up on either
side along; the walls were men and women dead drunk or fast
asleep. A dim light shone through the alley and into the hall
from the street lamp, and by crouching down we soon ascer-
tained that Jennie was not there. " We will go into this room
if we kin git in," said my guide as he banged away at a door
at the farther end of the hall. " Yer see de old gal, when dey
gits full an' can't set up an' spend money, chucks 'em out into
de hall an' pulls de knob of de door in so dey can't git back
agin."
Sure enough the knob was in, and it took several vigorous
raps to get a response from within. At last the door was
cautiously opened by old Rosa, and the fighter pushed his
way in.
The place was crowded. Our advent caused a flutter and
muttered comment among those sober enough to notice us.
Some tried to escape, taking us for detectives. Others said,
"It's the Doctor, don't be afraid/' I had a kind word for
them all ; the fighter, too, reassured them, and confidence Avas
in a measure restored. While he was searching for Jennie, I
looked around.
The room was filled with the hardest, filthiest set of men
and women I had ever seen. Many were nearly naked.
Bloated faces were cut and swollen, and eyes blackened, while
on the neck, hands, and other exposed parts of the body could
be seen on many, great festering sores. Vermin large enough
to be seen with the naked eye abounded.
Boards placed on the top of beer-kegs made seats. Under
these, piled in like sacks of salt, were those who had become
too drunk to sit up. Others occupied the seats and dangled
their feet in the faces of those underneath, often stepping with
drunken tread on some upturned face. In one corner of the
room was a bed made from dry-goods boxes, covered with an
old mattress and rags. On this were lying two little Italian
children. Their innocent faces Avere in strong contrast to
302
Jennie's terrible plight.
listened t<> my appeal now joined us in urging her to go homo.
He said, " You had better go; you know if you stay around
here likely as not I'll be ordering the dead-wagon for you, and
you'll be carted off and dumped in the Morgue and buried in
Potters' Field." This had no effect. Finally, losing patience,
he gave her a poke with his club, saying, "Get out o' here.
You've got a good chance. If you don't take it Til club the
lite out o' you if I ever catch you on my beat again."
Once on the street she became more tractable but more de-
spondent, saying, "It's no use; it's no use."
The fighter, who had become intensely interested, ex-
claimed : " What yer want to do is to brace up an' go home an'
do de straight thing. Don't give in. You'll get along. Don't
it say, mishener, that de Lord will percure? I ain't religious
much meself, but I think it does. For when I was a doin' ten
days on de island a lady gave me a track that said something
like that on it."
At length, though very reluctantly, she consented to go
with us. She was in a terrible plight, being half naked and
covered with filth. We took her to the house of a Christian
woman who gave her a bath, combed her matted hair, and gave
her clothing. Then we started for her home, reaching there
about three o'clock. All was dark, but we groped our way to
the top of the house, to her mother's door. The poor woman,
worn out with watching, had fallen asleep, but Avoke at our
rap. She told us to go into the front room. We did so. Jen-
nie had been weeping silently, but now, as the old familiar
pictures on the wall became visible by the dim light of the
candle, she began to sob aloud. The mother entered with a
lamp in her hand. She gave one glance at the girl, then
quickly stepped back, nearly dropping the lamp. " That is not
my daughter," she wildly cried. " You have made a mistake.
No. no, that is not my Jennie. It can't be." She covered her
face w T ith her hands and sank to the floor beneath the bur-
den of her grief. u Yes, mother, it is your Jennie, your poor,
lost Jennie. Don't you know me? There's Willie's picture, and
that's Charlie's," she said, pointing to some photographs on the
206
A SOLEMN WARNING.
at the end o' your tether, Michael Dunn,' says he. ' Yes, you
are. You've got brains an' you've used them for naught, since
God give 'em to you, but to do rascality an' teach the same to
others. It's time now to turn round an' see if you can't undo
some o' your wicked work. Do you like it \ Do you want to
keep on servin' terms till you go up to your last Judge ? I be-
lieve you can
be an honest
man an' a
happy one if
you will.'
"I looked
at him kind
o' dazed like.
Me — honest
and happy !
Me — that
had never
had wife nor
home nor
naught but
from hand to
mouth, in the
few months
I'd be' out !
I laughed,
but it wasn't a very cheerful laugh, an' Jerry says, stern-like
as ever I heard : ' Michael Dunn, it's your last chcmce. Come
here to-night, an' see what you think o' what goes on in this
place.'
" Well i come to the Mission that night. I was that sick
an' sore inside I was ready for anything, an' when the door
opened an' I heard 'em a-singin', —
" ' For weary feet remains a street,
Of wondrous pave and golden,' —
"I says to myself, says I, 'I want to walk it some time, an' if
there's any way o' learnin' how, I'll stay here till I find out.'
STATION HOUSE PRISON CELLS.
CHAPTEE IX.
THE SLI MS BY NIGHT — THE UNDER WORLD OF NEW YORK-
LIFE AND SCENES IN DENS OF INFAMY AND CRIME — NIGHT
REFUGES FOR WOMEN — FAST LIFE — CHRISTIAN WORK
AMONG OUTCASTS.
A Nocturnal Population — Dens of Infamy — Gilded Palaces of Sin — The
Open Door to Ruin — Worst Phases of Night Life — Barred Doors and
Sliding Panels — Mysterious Disappearances — The Bowery by Night —
Free-and-Kasvs and Dime Museums — A Region of the Deepest Poverty
and Vice — Vice the First Product, Death the Second — Nests of Crime —
The Sleeping Places of New York's Outcasts — Lowering Brows and Evil
Eyes — The Foxes. Wolves; and Owls of Humanity — Thieves and Nook-
and-Corner Men — Women with Bent Heads and Despairing Eyes — One
More Victim — Night Tramps — A Class that Never Goes to Bed — The
Beautiful Side of Womanhood — Girls' Lodging-Houses — Homes for the
Homeless — Gratitude of Saved Women — The Work of the Night Refuges
QTXSET lias come, diffusing mellow light over the beautiful
O harbor and the fair islands of New York bay. Nowhere
is the soft twilight more enchanting. By five o'clock the great
warehouses along the river front, and the office buildings and
stores in the lower part of the city, begin to empty themselves,
and merchants, brokers, lawyers, and clerks stream up town to
their homes, or to the substitutes for them found in boarding-
houses. The heavy iron shutters are lowered. Office-boys skip
away with such alertness as is left in their tired little legs.
Weary porters straighten boxes and strive to bring order out
of the day's confusion. Presently the night watchman conies
in, and, save for the rush of the elevated trains, lower New
York, silent and forsaken, rests in quiet till morning once more
briners the stir and roar of traffic and the anxious or eager or
preoccupied faces of the men who are rulers in the business
world.
They have come from homes where also quiet has reigned ;
(208)
214
STREET OUTCASTS AND VILLAINS.
journey lay through hell, and whose "Inferno" holds no more
terrible picture than those to be encountered at a hundred
points in a single night among the outcasts who call the streets
their home.
In all this region there is a blaze of light till long after mid-
night. Troops of wayfarers come and go, and the many bars
do a thriving business. Then one by one lights dwindle and
/
HOMELESS BOYS SLEEPING IN A COAL CELLAR UNDER THE SIDEWALK.
go out, and the foxes, wolves, and owls of humanity come forth
and watch for their prey. From South Ferry up toward the
Old Slip they lurk at corners, vigilant and silent, taking ac-
count of every passer-by, and robbing if a favorable moment
comes. Thieves, smugglers, " nook-and-corner " men are seen
for a moment and then vanish as swiftly as they came. Women
are there, too, — some singing, or laughing a laugh with no
merriment in it; but for the most part they, too, are silent.
Now and then one who has walked with bent head and despair-
ing eyes makes a sudden resolve; there is a swift, flying rush
toward the dark Avater beyond, and the river closes over one
more victim. Such a sight is a familiar fact to the policemen
2 1 6
A STKKKT OIKt/s KM).
and a cup of coffee. It was in this dingy basement thai a
woman of about thirty drifted only the other day. She was
a comely woman, with regular features and (lark hair. A
thin shawl was drawn over her shoulders; her dress was
ragged and worn, her face deathly pale. She had no money,
and when she faintly begged for food a swarthy Italian paid
five cents for the coffee and a crust of bread that were served
to her.
She drank the coffee, and thrust the crust into her pocket.
She would have gone then, but she was trembling with weak-
ness and the man who paid for her food held her back. She
sat silent and thoughtful on the narrow bench until long after
nightfall. Then she drew the crust from her pocket and began
to nibble it.
,k Let me warm the bread for you," said the keeper's
little boy. He put it on the stove, warmed it, and brought it
hack to the woman, who suddenly gasped, and died.
The police propped her up on the bench, and all night long
her lifeless body waited for removal in the dead wagon to
the Morgue. In her pocket was found the remnant of the
crust, and a copy of these verses printed on red paper :
On the street, on the street,
To and fro with weary feet ;
Aching heart and aching head ;
Homeless, lacking daily bread ;
Lost to friends, and joy, and name,
Sold to sorrow, sin, and shame ;
Ruined, wretched, lone, forlorn ;
Weak and wan, with weary feet,
Still I w ander on the street !
On the si reel, on the street,
Midnight finds my straying feet ;
Hark the sound of pealing bells,
Oh, the tales their music tells!
Happy hours forever gone ;
Happy childhood, peaceful home —
Then a mother on me smiled,
Then a father owned his child —
Vanish, mocking visions sweet !
Still I wander on the street.
RAYS OF LIGHT IN DARK PLACES.
217
On the street, on the street,
Whither tend my wandering feet ?
Love and hope and joy are dead —
Not a place to lay my head ;
Every door against me sealed —
Hospital and Potter's Field.
These stand open ! — wider yet
Swings perdition's yawning gate,
Thither tend my wandering feet,
On the street, on the street.
On the street, on the street ;
Might I here a Saviour meet !
From the blessed far off years,
Comes the story of her tears,
Whose sad heart with sorrow broke,
Heard the words of love He spoke,
Heard Him bid her anguish cease,
Heard Him whisper, "Go in peace!"
Oh, that I might kiss His feet,
On the street, on the street.
Of the dens of crimes hiding in the narrow streets opening
up from the river the police have intimate knowledge. We
leave them behind as once more the little light of the Water
Street Mission comes in sight. In the midst of dark and
bloody ground its rays shine forth, and behind the Mission
doors — open day and night alike — is the chief hope that
illumines the night side of New York.
It is to the Children's Aid Society that New York owes
the first thought of protection and care for homeless girls,
whose condition till girls' lodging-houses were opened was in
many points far worse than that of boys. Actual hardships
were perhaps no greater, but the very fact of sex made their
position a more critical one, while it doubled and trebled the
difficulties of the work to be done.
Years ago Mr. Brace, whose faith was of the largest, and
whose energy never flagged, wrote of them : —
" I can truly say that no class we have ever labored for
seemed to combine so many elements of human misfortune, and
to present so many discouraging features as this. They form,
indeed, a class by themselves. . . . It is no exaggeration
CHAPTEE X.
NIGHT MISSION WORK — N E W YoKK STREETS A PTER DARK —
RESCUE WORK AMONG THE FALLEN AM) DEPRAVED-
SEARCHING FOR THE LOST— AN ALL-NIGHT MISSIONARY'S
EXPERIENCE.
The "Bloody Sixth Ward" — Hoodlums — The Florence Night Mission —
Where the Inmates Come from — A Refuge for Fallen Women —
Searching for Lost Daughters — Low Concert Halls — Country Boys
Who "Come in Just to See" — A Brand Plucked from the Burning —
Old Rosa's Den of Villainy — In the Midst of Vice and Degradation —
Rescue Work Among the Fallen — Accordeon Mary — "Sing! Sing!"
— Gospel Service in a Stale-Beer Dive — The Fruits of One False Step
— Scenes in Low Dance-Halls and Vile Resorts — Painted Wrecks — An
All-Night Missionary's Experience — Saving a Despised Magdalen — A
Perilous Moment — The Story of Nellie Conroy — Rescued from the
Lowest Depths of Sin — Nine Years in the Slums — The Christian End
of a Misspent Life — Nearing the River — Nellie's Death — Who Was
E M ? — Twenty-four Years a Tramp — Last Words.
THOUGH the old Fourth Ward, of which Water Street was
once the symbol and summary, is still counted as the worst
in New York, yet there is small choice between that and
the " Bloody Sixth" Ward, named long ago in the days of the
notorious " Bowery Bhoys." That pnee name of terror has
given place to a type far beyond it in evil, — the "Hoodlum,"
born most often of Irish parents and knowing liberty only as
the extremity of license. Even fifty years ago the trees still
grew all the way up from Water Street out into Chatham
Square and on through the old street, and the generation before
that knew it as a region of gardens and thickets and orchards.
For vears the remnant of one of old Peter Stuyvesant's pear-
trees offered its blossoms and fruit to the passer-by, till ;i
memorial shoot was transplanted to a more congenial spot, and
the old tree which had known the very beginning of things for
(224)
A TOUCHING INVITATION.
227
prayer meeting where a stranger rose and described a Mission
which had recently been begun on Baxter Street by himself and
Mr. Henry B. Gibbud. Mr. Crittenton listened, was interested,
Avent with the speaker, Mr. Smith Allen, saw for the first time
the degradation and horror of the life, and later visits deepened
the impression made upon him. When the baby he idolized
was taken from him, there seemed no interest in life so strong
as this one of offering redemption to the class of men and
women who filled the slums and dives of this part of the city.
The house at 29 Bleecker Street was chosen ; the two rooms of
the lower part Avere thrown into one for a meeting-room, and
the upper part fitted up with beds, while the lower served as
kitchen and dining-room. Mr. Allen Avas engaged as the
all-night missionary, a matron Avas put in charge, and a super-
intendent of home Avork appointed.
It Avas in April, 1883, that the Mission opened, the card for
night work bearing these words :
" Any Mother's Girl Wishing to Leave a Crooked Life, May Find
Friends, Food, Shelter, and a
HELPING HAND
By Coming Just As She Is, to the Florence Night Mission."
In the first year one hundred and seventy-six fallen Avomen
and girls Avere receiA T ed into the Home. They had had a terror
of the ordinary reformatory or Home, and often hesitated Avhen
the Mission card Avas given them.
"I want to do better; but, oh, I can't be shut up in one
of those places," Avas the cry of numbers. To find that no
stipulations Avere made, that the utmost liberty Avas given,
that they Avere cared for with food, clothing, and medicine if
necessary ; told to stay as long as they wished, or to leave if
they felt they must, — all this Avas a method quite unknown
to them. Soon every bed filled. Many begged to sleep on
the floor, and each night the number of unhappy creatures at
the meetings increased. To meet this demand the house next
door was bought, and both thrown into one, with a building
at the rear, so that to-day it has the accommodations of the
228
A HAVEN <>K PKACK AND KKST.
average small hotel, and there are rooms lor every order of
Work that must be done.
All who enter the house have a share in the work, which is
under the genera] direction of the Matron. Eere the inmates
THE FLORENCE NIGHT MISSION Bill. DIM..
stay till employment can be secured, till they can be sent to
their own homes, or, as must sometimes be the case, to the
hospital to die. On entering the Mission a full record of the
case is made in the record book, with a statement of age,
nationality, denomination, residence, whether father or mother
are living and if so, where, when received, by whom brought;
\
The Florence Night Mission.
This is a fine picture of the Florence Night Mission building. Mrs. Campbell
gives a splendid account of this famous mission and the good work done by
its all night missionaries and rescue bands. On the opposite page is a picture made
by flash light, in the mission room, of a midnight lunch for street girls after evening
service. Please look particularly at this picture, and especially at the woman's fig-
ure on the right, for something interesting can be told about it. A short time ago
an old woman, nicknamed "Shakespeare," was murdered in a cheap lodging house
on Water Street. She was supposed to have been murdered by "Jack the Kipper,"
and there was a great deal of excitement about it. Inspector Byrnes took hold
of the case, and he finally ran down a desperate character known as "Frenchy."
He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced for the crime. Now the wonderful
part of this story is told in a Note (given on page 240). which see.
A REFUCiE FOR THE FALLEN.
229
and when the guest leaves, a record is made of the date of
discharge, to whom and where sent, and if subsequently heard
from this fact is noted, with any information that will enable
the Mission to keep track of her.
This, it will be seen, is in reality a short history of each
life that finds shelter here, and each year has seen an increas-
ing number. In 1890 there were three hundred and sixty-
five inmates. The average age was twenty-eight. There
were double the number of Protestants as compared with
MIDNIGHT LI T NCTT FOR STREET GTRLS AFTER EVENING SERVICE AT THE
FLORENCE NIGHT MISSION.*
Catholics, and in the entire number but four Jews. In nation-
ality Americans led, there being one hundred and seventy-
three. Seventy-three Irish, fifty-five English, ten Scotch, two
Swedish, nineteen Germans, one Welsh, one colored, and thirty-
one whose nationality is unknown, made up the list, which
for the student of social problems is a most suggestive one.
Every night the women who saunter past these Mission
Rooms can hear gospel hymns being sung, — hymns that re-
mind many of them of happy homes and the days of their
youth. There is a welcome for any who choose to enter and
spend an hour. A few words of Gospel truth, a reminder in
*See note on page ~U>.
aao
[NSIDE A CELLAH STALE BEEK DIVE,
Christ's own words thai whosoever conies to him shall not be
cast out, and then more sinking and a prayer. From the
houses around conic sounds of Uproarious merriment, coarse
jests and Laughter; but here in the midst of all the vice and
degradation is a haven of peace and rest. Main- women come
and come again. Some are glad to stay.
It is the nighl work of the Mission in which the strongest
interest centers. The congregation, when it assembles in the
little chapel, is made up not only of the women and their
companions, who are cabmen, freight-handlers, saloon-keepers,
and countrymen who have come to see city sights, but also
of thieves, drunkards, and beggars. Sixty thousand women
and men are estimated to spend the night in the streets of
New York city, and thousands of them are never seen in the
daytime. It is impossible to reach this class unless one goes
among them, and this takes one into low" concert saloons,
cellar lodgi ng-rooms, or to any point where experience has
taught that they may be found. Now and then a father or
mother who has heard of the Mission work comes and begs
that they may be helped to find a long-lost daughter. A
photograph is sent, or a minute description is given, and the
missionary looks critically at the throng of faces assembled in
the Mission room, hoping that be may find the one for whom
home is waiting.
The low concert-halls and stale-beer dives offer the fullest
lield. These places are most often in the basement, reached
by rickety stairs, or through dimly lighted hallways. Often
tin 1 rooms are small, the ceiling low, and the air is always full
of the fumes of tobacco and beer. The little tables placed
against the walls are all taken, and the center of the room is
tilled with dancers, most of them young men and girls, and
nearly all of them still in their teens. Many of the men are
loafers, living in part on the gills' wages and in part by thiev-
ing and gambling. Some of them are country boys who have
come in "just to see." They will come again, and in the end
find the woe and shame that lurk under this cover of amuse-
ment.
[
WHERE THE INMATES COME FROM.
233
The girls ? Some of them are country girls, drawn by this
magnet of city life, who came seeking honest employment and
found betrayal. Many are honest working girls who wanted
dress and " fun," and were caught in the meshes of this net be-
fore they realized what the danger was. Now and then the
keeper of one of these dens will himself warn a girl to leave
before it is too late. He knows the unsuspicious girl who has
been brought in by some villain, quite unconscious of danger.
AN EVERT DAY AND EVERY NIGHT SCENE IN A STALE-BEER DIVE.
In a dance hall near Hester Street is a man who has often
worked against his own nefarious business in this fashion, and
he has a waiter equally ready to send away such a case.
A girl of this type sat at one of the tables one evening as
the missionary entered bringing with him the photograph of a
girl he hoped to find. He showed it to Tom, the waiter, who
studied it attentively. He had never seen her, and said so, but
as if he felt urged to help some one in like case, said,
" There's a girl acrost there that needs you, but she won't
hear to have you go right up to her. Til fix it. Wait a little."
The soft, troubled blue eyes of the girl looked up surprised
as Tom said in her ear,
A l>KN OF INFAMY.
beer at a con t a pint is the drink, and a description of one of
them, kept by Rosa, an [talian woman, may stand for all. The
room was small and it owned no furniture, save a bed, a stove.
ami benches around the walls. At the foot of the bed stood a
bench used as a counter, where Rosa perched when she looked
up to the picture on the wall, a high-colored saint with a halo,
before whom she crossed herself when difficulty arose. A
A STALE-BEER DIVE ON MU I/I JERRY STREET BY DAY.
crowd of men and women in all stages of drunkenness sat about
on the benches, some listening to "Accordeon Mary" playing an
asthmatic accordeon, some of them singing to it. They looked
up interestedly at a fresh arrival, and watched a chance to pick
a pocket. When the last stage of drunkenness came on, the
victim was thrown out to make room for a fresh comer.
On the floor lay a woman who had reached this stage. She
was behind the door, as if she had tried to hide, and Rosa with
many nods indicated that sin; was brought in by roughs, who
had given her drink on the Bowery and then enticed her here,
it is t he story of many. The missionary slipped a card into her
236
RECALLING HAPPIER DAYS.
pocket. When she Avakes, homeless and despairing, she may
possibly turn toAvard the Mission.
On the benches poor creatures Avere stretched, AArith sAVollen
eyes and cut faces, some of them beaten almost to a jelly.
One of them, as A\ r e looked, rose up suddenly, a AA T oman with
dishe\ r elled gray locks and mad, Avikl face.
" Sing ! sing ! " she Avildly screamed, and Rosa nodded
assent.
" Sing, 6 Where is my AA T andering boy to-night,' " she cried
again. Instead the missionary sang,
" Art thou weary, art thou languid,
Art thou sore distressed?
Come to Christ and know in coming
He will give thee rest."
" More ! More ! " called the crowd, and the shrill A T oice of
the gray-haired woman rose aboA T e the rest. To satisfy the
crazy mother the missionary sang in rich and melodious
A^oice, —
" Where is my wandering boy to-night,
The boy of my tenderest care,
The boy that was once my joy and light,
The child of my love and prayef?
"Go, find my wandering boy to-night ;
Go, search for him where you will,
But bring him to me with all his blight,
And tell him I love him still."
Silence reigned. One by one the noisy inmates had settled
doAA r n, and AA r hen the last line AA r as sung scarce a whisper AA r as
heard. A man craAA r led out from under the benches, and sat
on the floor looking up through tears. A AAToman avIio had lain
in the fireplace, her hair filled AA r ith ashes, burst into sobs, —
maudlin tears, perhaps, but sometimes they mean repentance.
The missionary read a feAV verses, looking about to see avIio
Avere listening. OA r er in one corner sat a pair AA r hose appear-
ance was unlike the rest, and he Avondered Iioav they came
there, for they were clean and of a different order. As he
reached the corner the young man slowly rose and Avhispered,
THE LOWEST OF THE LOW.
We talked of homo and mother; soon tin* tears run down
his bronzed cheeks, and he said, " Heave ahead ; ['llgoforold
times' Bake, if you don't think the walls w ill fall on me." So,
one by one, I induced them to leave the dance-hall and Gross
over to the meeting.
I had just come out of the place named " Hell Gate" when
I saw a partially intoxicated woman supporting herself against
a lamp-post, and near by stood a burly negro. The woman
was tall and thin, and it was plain even then that consump-
tion was doing its fatal work. She had no hat, no shoes; a
dirty calico dress was all the clothing she had on, and that was
not in condition to cover her nakedness. Her hair was matted
and tangled, her face bruised and swollen; both eyes were
blackened by the fist of her huge negro companion, who held
her as his slave and had beaten her because she had not brought
him as much money as he wanted. I invited her to the meet-
ing and passed on. Near the close of the service she came in ;
with tearful eyes she listened to the story of Jesus, and was one
of the first to request prayers. After the meeting she ex-
pressed a desire for a better life, but she had no place to go,
save to the dens of infamy from which she came. I decided at
once to take her to the Florence Night Mission, and, accompa-
nied by a friend who had assisted me in the meeting, we
started.
We were going toward the horse-cars, and congratulating
ourselves that we had gotten away unobserved, when we were
confronted by the very negro from whom we sought to escape.
With an oath he demanded,
"Whar you folks takin' dat gal to?"
It was a fearful moment, near midnight, a dark street, and
not a soul insight. I expected every moment that he would
strike me. I was no match for him. Signaling my friend to
go on with the girl, and taking the negro by the coat, I said
excitedly.
" I am taking her to a Christian home — to a better life. If
ever you prayed for any one, pray for her; I know you are a
bad man. but you ought to be glad to help any girl away from
this place. So pray for her as you have never prayed before."
15
240 A DOUBTFUL PROPHECY.
All this time my friend and the woman were going
doAvn the street as fast as possible. I had talked so fast that
the negro did not have a chance to say a word, and before he
could recover from his astonishment I ran on. lie did not
attempt to follow.
Four cars were hailed before one would let us on. The
drivers would slacken up, but, seeing the woman's condition,
would whip up their horses and drive on. Finally, when the
next driver slackened, we lifted our frail burden to the plat-
form before he could prevent us.
Arriving at the Mission, we helped her up the steps and
rang the bell ; she turned to me and said, " You will be proud
of me some day." I smiled then, as I thought the chances of
being proud of her were slim, but how many times since, when
vast audiences have been moved to tears by the pathos of her
story, or spellbound by her eloquence, have I indeed been
proud of her.
She Avas admitted to the house, giving the assumed name
of Nellie Conroy. For nine years she had lived in Baxter
A REMARKABLE CONVERSION.
Street slums, becoming a victim to all the vices that attend a
dissipated life until at last she became an utter wreck. Every-
thing was done for her at the Mission, and in time permanent
employment was found.
Some time after, word reached the Mission that Nellie had
left her place and gone back to her old haunts in Baxter Street.
A card with the address of "The Florence" was left at one of
her resorts, and the whole matter was forgotten, until late one
night the doorbell of the Mission rooms softly rang, and the
poor wretched object admitted proved to be Nellie. At the
meeting the next night she was the first to come forward.
When asked to pray, she lifted her pale face to heaven, and
quoted, w T ith tearful pathos, that beautiful hymn :
"The mistakes of my life have been many.
The sins of my heart have been more;
And I scarce can sec for weeping,
But I'll knock at the open door."
Then followed a touching prayer, a humble confession of
sin. an earnest pleading for pardon, a quiet acceptance of Christ
by faith, a tearful thanksgiving for knowledge of sins forgiven.
Her life from that time until her death — nearly two years
later — was that of a faithful Christian. She gave satisfaction
to her employers ; she was blessed of God in her testimony at
the Mission, and soon she was sought after by churches, tem-
perance societies, and missions to tell what great things the
Lord had done for her. She spoke to a large assemblage of
nearly 3,000 people in the Cooper Union, New York, holding
the audience spellbound with her pathetic story. She possessed
a wonderful gift of language and great natural wit, that, com-
bined with her thrilling story, made her a most interesting and
entertaining speaker. She was uneducated, but she had a
remarkable memory; she soon became familiar with the Bible,
and many were won to Christ through her testimony. Her
pale face would become flushed with a hectic glow as she spoke
of the wonderful things God had done for her.
"Glory be to His great name !" she would say; "it was no
common blood that washed Nellie Conroy from her sins, and
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242
NINE YEARS OF SIN AND DISSIPATION.
no common power that reached down and took her from the
slums of Baxter Street after nine years of sin and dissipation.
It was nothing but the precious blood of Jesus that saved me.
Where are my companions who started down life's stream
with me, young, fresh, and happy ? We started out to gather
the roses of life, but found only thorns. Many of them to-day
sleep in nameless and dishonored graves in the Potter's
Field, and their souls — oh! where are they? — while I am
spared, redeemed ! "
Her life was indeed a changed one ; from idleness, filth,
drunkenness, and sin, she was transformed into a neat, indus-
trious, sober, godly woman. But sin had sown its seed and
she must reap the harvest ; she grew Aveaker until at last she
went to the hospital to linger for months in great suffering and
pain, borne with Christian resignation. Her constant testimony
was —
" The love He has kindled within me
Makes service or suffering sweet."
One day a visitor said, " Nellie, you are nearing the river/'
" Yes," she said, " I have already stepped in, but God's word
says, ' When thou passest through the waters I will be with
thee, and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee.'
The promise is true ; I am dry shod."
At the last she could scarcely speak ; she knew her end was
near, and when the 14th chapter of St. John's gospel was read
to her she said, " My mansion is there, the Comforter is here ;
the promise is fulfilled. Sing at my funeral, "I am going
home to die no more."
Summoned to her bedside, the nurse bent down to hear her
faintly whisper, " Jesus, precious Jesus." These were her last
words, her face lit up as she seemed to catch a glimpse of the
better land, and, with the name of Jesus on her lips the spirit
of the once poor, despised Magdalene took its flight to the
bright mansions of whose possessions she had been so sure.
At her funeral many Christian workers and friends gath-
ered to do honor to her remains. Many converts from the
NELLIE CONRpY'S DEATH. 245
slums who had been won to Christ by her testimony were
among the mourners, and not a few came to look on thai pale
lace who stil] lived in sin and shame, but who sincerely Loved
one who had so often entreated them to turn and live.
On the coffin plate was engraved :
E M
A'j(d years,
Died March Kirn, 1885.
The cities and towns of almost every State find representa-
tives in this throng oi* wanderers, and each one means a heart-
break for some one at home. The work of the Florence
Mission is typical. It is simply a variation in the form of this
work that goes on at the sister Mission on Greene Street, where
much the same methods are used. Without the freedom at-
tached to both, successful work would be impossible in this
special field. There are many Homes and reformatories where
a certain amount of force enters in, but none do just the work
of these two. They labor for women, but in the evening meet-
ings at the Florence Mission men are admitted, and the rules
of the institution are much the same as those governing the
Water Street Mission. Like that, also, one hears every form
of testimony, pathetic, solemn, or grotesque as it may happen,
but all with the same spirit of earnestness. Let an Irish brother,
whose voice still lingers in my memory, and who had tried all
depths of sin, have the last word from the Florence Night
Mission.
fc * A word on this whiskeys me friends. I heerd a man say
whiskey was right enough in its place, which place is hell, says
I. It brought me down to hell's dure, an' I well know what
it's loike. For twinty-f our years I was a tramp; a dirty spal-
peen of a tramp. The brother forninst me there said God
found him in his hotel. 'Twasn't in nary a hotel nor lodgin'-
house, nor yet a flat, the Lord found me in, but in the gutther,
for I'd niver a roof to me head. I came in here cold, hungry,
246
AN IRISH BROTHER'S TESTIMONY.
an' wet, an' stood by the shtove to dhry meself, an' T heerd
yees all tellin' an' tellin', an' I begun to pray meself thin. I
prayed God to help me, an' lie did. I was talkin' to a naygur
outside, an' he said to me, says he, 'I was an Irishman Like yer-
self in the ould counthry, but I got black whin I come to
Americy.' Ye can laugh all ye loike, but I tell yees me heart
was as black as that naygur whin I come in here, but it's white
now in the blood o' the Lamb. There' hope for every wan o'
yees if there was a ghost o' chance for me, an' you'd betther
belave it."
Note. — While this volume was passing through the press a proof of page
229 was sent by the Publishers to Mrs. A. L. Prindle, .Matron of the Florence
Night Mission, with a request to verify the statistics thereon given in order to
ensure absolute correctness. From her letter returning the revised proof we
make the following interesting extract: —
"FLORENCE NIGHT MISSION.
"New York, April 23, 1891.
"At this hour, ten p. m., word has just been
received at the Mission of a very sad occurrence. The woman at the right in
the picture on page 229, whose head is bowed, whom I remember well as
' Shakespeare,' a notorious outcast, well known in all this region, was found
murdered this morning in a cheap lodging-place on Water Street. She fre-
quently came to the Mission and was present the night you made the flash-
light picture of the girls at lunch, though too intoxicated to hold up her
head."
CHAPXEE XI.
GOSPEL WORK IN THE SLUMS — AX ALL-NIGHT MISSIONARY'S
LIFE— A MIDNIGHT CURBSTONE MEETING — UP 8HINBONE
ALLEY.
A Midnight Curbstone Meeting — A Confidence Game that Failed to Work
— An Astonished Thief — "You Ought to be a Christian" — "Will
Christ Pay my Kent ?" — A Midnight Sermon — One of the Devil's
Family — Sowing Seed on Stony Ground — "If I'd only Stuek to Sun-
day School" — Dark and Dirty Pell Street — Five-Cent Lodging-Houses
— Shinbone Alley At Three o'clock in the Morning — A Typical Street
Boy — One of the Gang — " Snoozin' " on a Beer Keg — A Suspicious
Looking Wagon — A Whispered Consultation — " Corkey " from "Up
de River" — Fallen among Thieves — A Deep Laid Plot — A Thirsty
Crowd of Desperate Roughs — The Story of the Cross and the Dying
Thief — A Speechless Audience — " De Fust to Preach Religion roun'
dese Corners" — " Wal, I'm Blowed" — Caught by the Great Detective.
AN all-night city missionary's life is full of strange experi-
ences. Mr. Gibbud's faithful work in this capacity was
unique, and from his store of reminiscences I give, in his own
words, the following interesting incidents :
A Midnight Curbstone Meeting.
Late one night I was pleading with a drunken man on the
Bowery while two friends stood waiting for me not far olf.
Suddenly I noticed one of a gang of thieves, who were loung-
ing around the door of a low concert-hall, leave his com-
panions, approach my friends, and enter into conversation. I
left my man and joined them. Seeing that I was the leader of
the party, he addressed himself to me, suggesting that we try
our hands at a "game." "My friend," I said, "I know you
and your confidence game. I should think a man like you
would want to be in some better business than swindling
people. It's mighty mean business — that of a thief — don't
you think so ?" At first he was too much astonished to do
(£47)
248
A NIGHT AUDIENCE OF STREET TOUGHS.
anything but glare savagely at me; then, recovering himself,
he acted as though he was about to spring upon me. 1 laid my
hand on his arm and gently said : " You ought to be a Chris-
tian."
He started back as though struck, but quickly recovered,
and said with a sneer and in a loud voice: " Me a Christian?
Will Christ pay my rent? Will Christ feed me \ "
"Well," I said, "I have seen a good many begin serving
Christ without a cent or even a place to lay their heads,
and I never knew one He let go down who was really in
earnest."
" But, see here, did you ever see Christ \ "
" No, but I expect to see Him ; I have His word that I
shall."
Turning to his companions he shouted: "Come here, fel-
lows, and see a chump who's got a promise of seem 1 Christ."
We were standing under an electric light, it being long past
midnight. Quite a number who were passing stopped, the
thief s companions gathered around, and I soon found myself
in the center of a typical Bowery crowd — Jew and Gentile, a
number of sporting-men and thieves, two or three fallen
women, several, drunken men, and others attracted by the
noise, eager to see what was going on.
Again turning to his companions the thief said in loud and
jeering tones: " Here's a fellow as is goin' to see Christ."
"Yes," I said, opening the Bible, "I have His word for it;
I will read it to you: 6 Beloved, now are we the sons of God;
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that
when He shall appear Ave shall be like Him, for we shall see
Him as He is.' "
" Oh, you're a son of God, are you P' lie exclaimed con-
temptuously.
"Yes, and I have His word for that," reading- the Bible
again; 'As many as received Ilim to them gave He power to
become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name.'
I was once far away from God, a great sinner, but I believed
and received, and became his child."
DRIVEN TO DESPERATION. 275
It I'd chosen the other thing while I'd a pretty face of" my
own. ['d 'a' had ease and comfort an' a quick death. The river's
the l>est place Tin thinking, for them that wants case. Such
lite as this isn't living."
I.N A POOB SEWING WOMAN'S SOME.
" She don't mean it," the first speaker said apologetically.
" She knows there's better times ahead."
" Yes, the kind you'll find in the next room. Take a
look in there, ma'am, an' then tell me what we're going to
do."
One look into the dark tireless room was enough. A pan-
taloon-maker sat there, huddled in an old shawl, and finishing
the last of a dozen which, when taken hack, would give her
money for lire and food. She had been ill for three days.
LIVES WITHOUT HOPE.
277
down. It is quite true. Convict labor, here as elsewhere, is
the foe of the earnest worker, and complicates a problem al-
ready sufficiently complicated. There is a constantly increas-
ing army of scrub women who clean the floors of offices and
A NIGHT SCRUB WOMAN'S HOME.
public buildings at night for a pittance, whose life is of the
hardest.
However conditions might differ, the final word was always
the same, and it stands as the summary of the life that is lived
from day to day by these workers, — "Never better; always
worse and worse." The shadow of the great pier seems the
natural home of these souls who have forgotten sunshine and
lost hope and faith in anything better to come. It lingers
here and there. It looked from the steady eyes of some of
CHAPTER XIII.
HOSPITAL LIFE IN N E W YORK A TOUR THROUGH THE
WARDS OF OLD BELLEVUE — AFFECTING SCENES - THE
MORGUE AND ITS SILENT OCCUPANTS.
Wealth and Misery Side by Side — Training Schools for Nurses — A " Hurry"
Call — The Ambulance Service — Prejudice against Hospitals — A Place
where the Doctors Cut up Folks Alive — Taken to the Dead-House —
" Soon they will be Cuttin' him up" — Etherizing a Patient — A Painless
and Bloodless Operation — A Patient Little Sufferer — Ministering Angels
— Cutting off a Leg in Fifteen Seconds — A Swift Amputation— Miracu-
lous Skill — Thanking the Doctor for Hastening the End — '"Those Lasl
Precious, Painless Hours"— A Child's Idea of Heaven—" Who Will .Mind
the Baby" — Flowers in Heaven — The Morgue — Its Silent Occupants —
The Prisoners' ('age — Weeping Friends — Searching for her Son — An
Affecting Meeting — She Knew her Own — "Charlie, Mother is Here" —
"Too Late, Too Late " — A Pathetic Scene.
HPHE wayfarer on Fifth Avenue passing through miles of
1 stately homes, fashionable churches, great club houses,
and all that exhibits the most lavish expenditure of wealth for
personal enjoyment, comes suddenly upon a spot w hich in an
instant recalls the fact that, under all this pomp of external
life, suffering and want still hold their place. Not a stone's
throw from the avenue and its brilliant life, one passes through
the always open gates of St. Luke's Hospital, under the shadow
of great trees whose friendly protecting branches are welcome
and greeting for all alike. Flowers bloom here as brightly as
if pain had no place. Impertinent sparrows swarm and chat-
ter under the eaves, and, perching on window sills or frames,
look in with curious eyes on the long lines of cots.
Within are broad corridors, high ceilings, and great win-
(lows. A Hood of sunshine is there and the freshest of air
blows straight from the sea. A cleanliness that is spotless;
quiet, purity, efficient ministration, form the atmosphere of this
(279)
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282
A VICTIM OF SUDDEN ACCIDENT.
sounding a loud and incessant alarm as they gallop on. The
call has conic from Sixteenth Street, and as they turn the
corner a crowd is seen gathered about something on the side-
walk. Two or three policemen are there trying to keep free
space about the huddled heap. The driver slows up and hacks
the ambulance to the sidewalk. Before this the surgeon has
THE AMBULANCE ROOM AT BELLEVUE HOSPITAL. ANSWERING A HURRY "
CALL.
sprung out and is bending over a man who lies, there deathly
white but quite unconscious, his head in a little pool of blood.
" It's out of a third-story window he come head foremost,"
one of the policemen says. "When I got to him, not a word
could he say. It's dead he is, maybe, doctor."
The surgeon's quick and practised hands are passing swift-
ly over the prostrate figure. He has seen in a moment that
the cuts on the head from which the blood streams are only
superficial, but in another moment he discovers that the light
leg is broken and the fracture a serious one. A temporary
splint must be put on before he can be moved, and it is
produced at once from the ambulance. The man comes to
A HOSPITAL PATIENT'S DAILY LIFE,
The white-capped nurse comes again shortly with some-
thing in a glass, and Pat takes the opiate without question.
The ward grows quiet, for nighl has conic. Now and then
there is a groan from some cot, or the snore of a sleeping
patient. The nurse tells him the pain will soon leave him,
and he looks at her white
cap and admires it and
her neat apron, and won-
ders if she and the others
are like the Sisters of
Charity, and, wondering,
he falls asleep and knows
no more till daylight.
By the end of the sec-
ond day he feels quite at
home and has begun to
take an interest in his
temperature card. At first
this puzzles him, but he
listens attentively as the
nurse explains, and he
looks at the card respect-
fully. After this he studies
it for himself from day to
day and sees how he is
gaining. This and the
three meals a day are a
constant interest, and the fixed routine seems to make the
time go faster. The men on either side of him tell their stories
and listen to his.
He had meant to resent the coming in of the students, but
they do no harm and he is rather interested in watching them
and seeing how pleased they are with the way his fractured
bones are knitting. There are books and papers, and as lie
mends he reads them. When he is promoted to crutches and
takes his first unsteady steps on them, he is as proud as is a
mother of her baby's first attempt, and his neighbors in adjoin-
A BELLEVUE HOSPITAL NUKSE.
THE PRICE OF HOSPITAL TREATMENT.
393
partment at Bellevue annually dispenses for use in this hospi-
tal alone about 135,000 yards of surgical gauze, 600 pounds of
lint, 3,500 pounds of absorbent cotton, 50 bales of oakum, and
vast quantities of drugs, including nearly 1,000 pounds of
ether. In the cellar about 75,000 bottles are washed annually.
Though many are free, it is the endeavor to make patients
pay where possible, though at Bellevue the highest charge is
IN ONE OF THE FEMALE WARDS AT BELLEVUE HOSPITAL.
only three dollars and a half a week. In the New York Hos-
pital prices range from seven to thirty dollars a week, and in
the private rooms one may receive a care impossible in any pri-
vate house even with a trained nurse. But the prejudice
against hospitals as a whole runs through all ranks, and
naturally enough. The freedom of home; the desire that
those who are best loved maybe near one, and the fear of
dying alone, save for hired attendance, will always deter the
great majority from accepting the hospital as the best place for
quick and effectual treatment of disease.
For the mass who have no choice or who are incapable of
l'ATIKXT LITTLE SI 1 KEEKERS.
395
Here are deformed little ones, some with feet bent double
some with bodies set laterally from hips, twisted, bent, held
up by iron belts and trusses and all devices of modern
surgery; and here on the roof, far remote from the din of
streets, they play as if sickness were not and pain had been
forgotten. Wonderful cures go out from here, and if there
are not always cures, there is always relief.
IN THE CHILDREN'S WARD AT BELLEVUE HOSPITAL.
An hour spent in the children's ward of any great hospital
convinces one that for the ma jority, home could offer nothing
so perfect in care and often nothing so wise and tender. The
first entrance into such a ward fills one with pity and sym-
pathy that is often heartbreaking. They are so patient, these
suffering little ones, who obey implicitly, and bear their pain
so mutely that even the experienced doctors and nurses are
often moved to tears of wonder and pity. They are easily
entertained. A scrap-book of bright pictures, a doll that can
be hugged close, a toy or flower, are dear delights. Many
THE TORMENT OF THE WARD.
297
In the ordinary wards there is a medley of cases. Of those
seen in a recent visit to a children's ward, some were on
the floor playing, while others watched them from the spot-
lessly white little beds. One small boy, who had been beaten
almost to a jelly by a drunken father, howled at the top of his
DISCHARGED. A PATIENT RECEIVING HER BUNDLE OK CLOTHES IN THE OLD
CLOTHES ROOM AT RELLEVUE HOSPITAL.
lungs while his wounds were being dressed, and when all was
over proceeded to torment every other child in the ward.
There is always one nuisance of this description, and it compli-
cates the nurse's work immensely, lie was sent back to bed
finally, and lav there kicking off the coverlet or winding it
aboul him till quieted by a fresh scrap-book. Next to him was
THE I'NCLAIMKJ) AND I NKNOWN DEAD.
30]
under the window. "That's father," the child said; "he
conies home tipsy every night/ 1 The nurse looked at the
little face, and thought it was terrible thai t he child should die
having known nothing of this world but its sin. She spoke
of God and of heaven, hut the child could not understand.
Taking some violets from a cup on the table, the nurse said,
" hook at these; the flowers in heaven are more beautiful than
violets." "Oh, then may I pick them?" said the child.
In spite of the loving care lavished on the little sufferers,
and the flower-like way in which those who are getting over
their sufferings open to the sunshine, sadness must be the
dominant outcome of a walk through the children's ward, —
all the more so if the visitor lias healthy, rollicking* children of
his own waiting to welcome him at home.
At the end of the lawn at Bellevue, close by the river and
partly extending over the water, is a long, low building. It
is the Morgue, where lie — often to the number of thirty or
forty — the unclaimed and unknown dead in rough pine boxes
of the very cheapest description. At the head of each coffin
is tacked a card giving all the information that is known of
each case. Of those who die in hospital it is generally possible
to give the name, age, native place, and date of death, and
these items are carefully noted on the card. It is also stated
whether the person died friendless or the body is waiting for
friends. But the majority of the silent occupants of the
Morgue are unknown. They wait in vain for friends to
identify them, and find rest at last in nameless graves in the
Potter's Field.
There is one portion of Belle vue seldom seen by the public,
and holding almost as much tragedy as the Morgue not far be-
yond. It is the Prisoners' Ward, where are cells for sick pris-
oners of every order. Slight ailments are treated by police
surgeons in the various jails of the city where prisoners happen
to be Lodged. The numerous police station-houses also have
cells where an army of prisoners is confined every night; but
the Tombs is the great receiving center, over fifty thousand
prisoners passing through it annually.
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302
A MOTHER'S LOVE.
Naturally, then, there are many patients, and all critical
cases are removed to Bellevue. Often, too, in attempted mur-
der, where the murderer seeks suicide as his only way out, both
murderer and victim may be taken here. Men, women, and
even children, who stab and throttle even more than the news-
papers record, lie under guard, knowing that when recovery
THE "CAGE" Oil PRISONERS' WARD AT BELLEVUE HOSPITAL.
comes the law and its course awaits them. Here come weeping
friends, sadder even than those who seek the Morgue, and
breathe freer when they find that death lias ended the career
that was disgrace and misery for both sinner and sinned against.
To one of these cells there came one morning a woman
bearing the usual permit to visit a patient. She was a slender,
pale little woman, with the look of delicate refinement that sor-
AN AFFF.(TIN(i MFKTINC;.
303
row had only intensified, and she looked at the physician, who
was just Leaving the patient, with clear eves which had wepl
often, but kept their steady, straightforward gaze.
"Iam not certain," she said. kk I have searched for my boy
for a long while, and I think he must be here. All the clues
have led me here. I want to see him."
The doctor looked at her pitifully as she went up to the nar-
row bed where the patient lay, a lad of hardly twenty, with his
face buried in the pillow. His fair hair, waving- crisply against
the skin browned by exposure, had not vet been cut, for the
hospital barber who stood there had found it so far impossible
to make him turn his head.
k% He's lain that way ever since they brought him in yester-
day," said the barber, and then, moved by something in the
agitated face before him, turned his own away. The mother,
for it was quite plain who this must be, stooped over the pros-
trate figure. She knew it as mothers know their own, and
laid her hand on the burning head.
"Charley," she said, softly, as if she had come into his room
to rouse him from some boyish sleep, — "Mother is here."
A wild cry rang out that startled even the experienced phy-
sician.
" For God's sake take her away ! She doesn't know what I
am. Take her away ! "
The patient had started up, and wrung hands of piteous en-
treaty. "Take her away!" he still cried, but the mother gently
folded her arms about him and drew r his head to her breast.
"Oh, Charlie, I have found you," she said through her sobs,
"and I will never lose you again."
The lad looked at her for a moment. His eyes were like
hers, large and clear, but with the experience of a thousand
years in their depths; a beautiful, reckless face, with lines
graven by passion and crime. Then he burst into weeping like
a child.
" It's too late! it's too late ! " he said in tones almost inaudi-
ble. " I'm doing you the only good turn I've done you, mother.
I'm dying, and you won't have to break your heart over me
304
AN AGONIZING SCENE.
any more. It wasn't your fault. It was the cursed drink that
ruined me, blighted my life and brought me here. It's murder
now, but the hangman won't have me, and I shall save that
much of disgrace for our name."
As he spoke he fell back upon his pillow ; his face changed,
and the unmistakable hue of death suddenly spread over his
handsome features. The doctor came forward quickly, a look
of anxious surprise on his face. It was plain that the end was
near.
" I didn't know he was that bad," the barber muttered
under his breath, as he gazed at the lad holding still to his
mother's hand. The doctor lifted the patient's head and then
laid it back softly. Life had fled.
tk It is better to have it so," he said to himself in a low
voice, and then stood silently and reverently, ready to offer
consolation to the bereaved mother, whose face was still hidden
in the boy's breast. She did not stir. Something in the
motionless attitude aroused vague suspicion in the mind of the
doctor, and moved him to bend forward and gently take her
hand. "With an involuntary start he hastily lifted the prostrate
form, and quickly felt pulse and heart only to find them stilled
forever.
" She is gone too," he softly whispered, and the tears stood
in his eyes. "Poor soul! It is the best thing for both of
them."
That is one story of the prison ward of Bellevue, and there
are hundreds that might be told, though never one sadder or
holding deeper tragedy than this one recorded here.
CHAPTEB XIV.
FLOWER MISSIONS AND THE FRESH AIR FUND — THE DISTRI-
BUTION OF FLOWERS AMONG THE SICK AND POOR-
ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS.
Along the River Front— A Dangerous Locality — First Lessons in Thiev-
ing—Headquarters of River Pirates— The Influence of Flowers in a
Region of Vice and Crime — Fighting Bad Smells with Good Ones —
A Magic Touch — Bud and Bloom in the Windows of the Poor —
Flowers and Plants in Tumble-Down Houses and Tenement Rookeries
— Distributing Flowers Among the Siek — Flowers in Hospitals — The
Story of a Bunch of Buttercups — Children Carrying Flowers to Bed
with Them— "The Pansy Man" — Taking Flowers out for a Walk —
Effect of Flowers on a Siek Child — The Story of " Long Sal " and Her
Geranium — A Female Terror — Going out to "Catch Raspberries" —
Slum Children's First Week in the Country — A Suspicious Mother —
Rich Results from Two Dollars a Week — A City Backyard — Afraid
to Pick Flowers— " Ain't They God's?"
TWENTY years and more of effort have made a different
name for one of the most infamous regions of New York.
Corlear's Hook, once unknown ground to all save the police
and the gangs of thieves, murderers, and tramps that infested
it, is no longer the scene of murders and other terrible crimes
that made it notorious a generation ago; but it is still one of
the most lawless regions in the city, and the headquarters for
the most daring of the river-thieves.
The Hook proper is at the bend of the East River. The
great machine-shops and storage-warehouses that lie along its
front are hives of industry by day, but when night comes and
workmen and clerks have departed it is a deserted region.
Back of these shops and warehouses lies a network of narrow
street and lanes, in the squalid rookeries of which the thieves
often conceal the plunder obtained in their nightly raids on the
river. Like the Five Points it Avas for years dangerous to ven-
(305)
BRIGHTENING THE HOMES OF THE POOR.
311
but iii-
would
degree
in her
From
of healing and health does not suggest itself directly,
directly many a mother has learned that, if plants
thrive, sun and air and water must be had, and has in
at least applied the lesson to the little human plants
keeping.
In the general distribution all classes are cared for.
the sick child in
hospital ward or
stifling tenement-
house, to the sew-
ing-girl working
through the long
summer days on
the heavy woolen
garments that
must be ready for
the Fall and Win-
ter trade, there is
always the sorrow
of the poor and
the bitter want
that is so often
part of the trage-
dy. Not till one
has seen how pale
faces light, and
thin hands stretch
eagerly for this bit
of brightness and
comfort can there wrNNEIls 0F THB prize, took children carrying
be much realiza- home (Wing plant..
tion of what the Flower Mission really does and what it
means to its thousands of beneficiaries. The poorest know it
best. There is a grim tenement-house on Koosevelt Street
where a pretty child, with drunken father and hard- working-
patient mother, lay day after day in the exhaustion of fever.
Nothing could rouse him, and the mother said sorrowfully,
CHAPTER XV.
\ DAT IX \ FREE DISPENSARY — RELIEVING THE SUFFERING
POOR- MISSIONARY N QRSES AND THEIR WORK — A TOUCH-
ING STORY.
From Hod-Carrying to Aldermen - Leavening the Whole Lump-A Great
Charity -Filthy but Thrifty -A Day at the Eastern Dispensary-
Diseases Springing from Want and Privation — A Serious Crowd-Sift-
ing out Impostors -The Children's Doc tor - Forlorn Faces — A Doomed
Family— A Scene on the Stairs-Young Roughs and Women with
Blackened Eves — A Labor of Love-Dread of Hospitals- ''They Cut
Yon Open Before the Breath is out of Your Body "-The Black Bot-
tle-Sewing up a Body and Making a Great Pucker in the Seam A
Missionary Nurse -A Tale of Destitution, Sickness, and Death A
• Pathetic Appeal — A Starving Family -Just in Time - Heartbroken
-A Fight with Death-" Work is all I Want " A Merciful Release
— Affecting Scenes — A Ceaseless Vigil.
I
N the lower wards of the city is concentrated the strange
foreign life that gives New York its title of "cosmopoli-
tan " ( >ne might even say that these streets with their always
11,, win- tide of humanity, a procession never ending and never
ceasing its march, was simply the continuation of that begun
in the middle ages, of which Michelet says that they presented
the spectacle only of a vast funeral pile, on which mounted
successively Jew, Saracen, Catholic, and Protestant.
We do not hum the people, but we do stifle and poison
them in the tenement-houses which are the disgrace of the city.
In the old days-say fifty or sixty years ago - these streets
were quiet shaded places tilled with the homes of the well-to-
do First came the Irish, and the Americans fled before then.
Presently the new-comers vacated the tenement-houses for bet-
ter quarters a little farther up. and as they left hod-carrying
iim , kindred employments, and developed into the rulers ol the
cits-, they ascended still farther, till now Fifth Avenue knows
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CHAPTER XXTTT.
JACK ASHORE — AN EASY PREY FOR LAND-SHARKS AND
SHARPERS— LIFE ON THE "ST. MARY'S " AND AT THE
SAILORS' SNUG HARBOR.
The Universal Love for the Sea — Sailor Life — A Talc of Shipwreck
and Starvation — An Unconscious Hero — An Old Sailor's Story — "I
Smelled the Sea an' Heard it" — A Voice from the Waves — ".lack,
Jack, You Ain't in your Right Place" — -lack's Curious Character —
His Credulity and Simplicity — The Prey of Land-Sharks and Sharpers
— Sailors' Temptations — Dens of Robbery and Infamy — Life in Sail-
ors' Boarding-Houses — The Seamen's Exchange — A Boy's Life on the
School Ship "St. Mary's " — Bethels and Seamen's Homes — Life at the
Sailors' Snug Harbor — A Sailor-Clergyman — Fried Fish for Eight
Hundred — The Cripples' Room — "A Case of Pun' Cussedncss" —
Admiral Farragut and Old Jim — Banc and Antidote Side by Side
— Ending their Days in Peace — How Jack Awaits the Ebbing of the
Tide.
LOYE for the sea is as old as the story of man, and tales of
shipwreck have fascinated and thrilled adventurous boys
from the days of Homer to our own. For English-speaking
people it is intensified by long usage. To be born on an
island implies knowledge of how best to get away from it, and
this may be one reason why emigration is the natural instinct
of the English or their 'descendants. In spite, too, of all
knowledge to the contrary, nothing convinces the average boy
that Jack's life is anything but a series of marvelous ad-
ventures in which he is generally victor, and where the hard-
ship is much more than made up for by the excitement and
the glory. Even Jack himself shares the delusion, and no mat-
ter what peril the voyage lias held he re-ships with alacrity, to
repeat the experience or even to find it his last. Sailors' songs
are full of the same faith.
" There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft
To keep watch for the life of poor Jack " —
(484)
A BOY'S LONGING FOR THE SEA.
437
"That's the right kind of a hoy !" exclaimed old Jack with a
faint attempt at a hurrah ! "I knowed you was the right kind
of a boy the first minute I set eyes on you. Of course I want
to go agin, an 1 what's more I shall, soon as this thing is knit
an' I'm set up enough to pass muster. You come along too.
an' I'll make a sailor out o' you fit to command anything as
floats."
BOYS' SCHOOLROOM BETWEEN DECKS ON THE ST. MARY'S.
" I would if I could, but you see I made up my mind so
long ago to be a doctor that T don't believe I can change
it now. Ill think about it," said the boy.
He did "think about it," to the consternation of all his kin
and the dee]) delight of old Jack, who, as his arm mended and
strength came back, begged for wood and evolved from it at
last a full-rigged brig, every rope 4 of which the boy presently
know. The curious ferment that comes to the boy even far
inland was working in him, and to such purpose that to-day he
is captain of a great ship and happiest when in mid-ocean.
PART II.
BY
CHAPTEE XXIV.
STREET LIFE — THE BOWERY BY DAY AND P,Y NIGHT — LIFE
A Street Where Silence Never Reigns — Where Poverty and Millions
Touch Elbows — "Sparrow-Chasers" — Fifth Avenue — The Home of
Wealth and Fashion — Life on the Bowery — Pit and Peanuts —
Pelted with Rotten Eggs — Concert Halls — Police Raids — Dime Muse-
ums and their Freaks — Fraud and Impudence — Outcasts of the Bowery
— Beer Gardens — Slums of the Bowery — Night Scenes on the Streets
— Pickpockets and Crooks — Ragpickers and their Foul Trade — "The
Black and Tan" — A Dangerous Place — "Makin' a Fortin' " — "Razors
in the Air"— "Keep yer Jints Well lied " — The Old Clo' Shops of
Chatham Street — Blarney and Cheating.
V*l KO ADWAY is the artery through which pulsates a great
D part of the life-blood of the city. The crowd that con-
stantly surges through it is greater in numbers and steadier in
its How than anything London or Paris can show, and it mixes
tip the most dissimilar elements of nationality and condition.
The night is never so dark or so stormy that the footfall of
pedestrians and the rumbling of vehicles are altogether hushed.
The life of Broadway varies greatly with the hours of the
IN BAXTER AND CHATHAM STREETS.
(459)
PART II.
PART II was written by Col. Thos. W. Knox, the famous author and journalist
who here shows with startling emphasis that saloons are training-schools of crime,
and that liquor is directly responsible for most of the crime committed not only in
the pest-holes of New York, but throughout the world at large. If the Gospel and
Charity are the beacon lights of Mrs. Campbell's story,
Temperance is th j . Key- note of Col. Knot 's Narrative,
No appeal from temperance advocates, no sermon from ministers, can do more to
promote the cause of temperance than the facts and incidents in this volume, and all
temperance workers will rejoice in it. Col Knox also describes opium- joints, mock
auctions, bogus horse sales, and numberless traps for the unwary. His humorous
account of beggars, tramps, cheats, humbugs, and frauds; how skin games and
petty swindles are played, and how confiding persons are deceived by rogues, is
intensely interesting.
RAG-PICKERS OF BAXTER STREET.
471
to them, scraps of old clothing, — anything and everything that
can possibly have the least value is taken in. Along the Bow-
ery can occasionally be seen a rag-picker from Baxter Street
searching the gutters with a lantern which he carries at the
end of a string, so that he can hold it close to the ground with-
out stooping. This is an idea borrowed from the chiffonier of
Paris, and not at all a bad one. Not a few of the rag-pickers
_ _ _ of New York have gradua-
,iir,,— , . ^ ; : ted from the gutters of the
The Bowery has its social divisions just as we find them in
the aristocratic parts of the city. There are race and class dis-
tinctions, and there is also the distinction of color no less
marked than anywhere else in the land. White men have
their resorts, and so have the colored, and each holds itself
aloof from the other.
Not long ago there was a curious resort on Baxter Street,
not far from the Bowery, from which thoroughfare much of its
patronage was drawn, known among white men as "The
Black and Tan," which was not altogether a safe place for a
well-dressed man to enter alone, especially at night. Off from
CHAPTER XXV.
TRAINING-SCHOOLS OF CRIME — DRINK, THE HOOT OF EVIL
— GREAT RESPONSIBILITY OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC FOR
CHIME — PLAIN FACTS AND STARTLING STATEMENTS.
The Ancestry of Crime — Effects of Heredity — Intemperance the Root
of Evil — Pest-Holes of New York — Conceived in Sin and Born in
Iniquity — "Where Criminals are Born and How They are Bred — Parents,
Children, and Geese Herded in a Filthy Cellar —Necessity the Mother
of Crime — Driven to Stealing— The Petty Thieving of Boys and Girls
— How the Stove is Kept Going — Problems for Social Reformers —
Dens of Thieves and Their Means of Escape — Gangs and Their
Occupations — Pawn-Shops and "Fences" — Eight Thousand Saloons
to Four Hundred Churches — Liquor-Dealers as Criminals — A Detec-
tive's Experience on Mott Street — A Mother's Plea — A Cautious
Countryman — An Unsafe Place at Night — A Child's First Lessons in
Crime — Cheap Lodging-Houses — Foul Beds and Noisy Nights.
A LTHOUGH social scientists have for many years been en-
f~\ deavoring to find means to prevent and punish violations
of law, there is no special organization in Xew York city hav-
ing for its object the discover}' of the most prolific sources or
causes of crime.
Mr. William Delamater, who, in discharge of his official
duties in connection with the Police Department, has had ex-
ceptional opportunity for the study of crime and its causes,
and to whom 1 am indebted for much information contained in
this chapter, says that crime may be the effect of numerous
causes which multiply themselves indefinitely as we go backward
in our examination of them. It has so many phases and degrees
that a course of reasoning from a general effect to a special
cause would be unsatisfactory. The commission of a murder,
for instance, may be the natural sequence of a burglary, the
Latter of a petty theft, which last may come of a desperate
need for the alleviation of hunger or the distress of poverty,
(47G)
E
POVERTY, RAGS, FILTH, AND DARKNESS.
481
of the city's population, and the fact that the proportion of
arrests in this precinct is nearly double that of any other pre-
cinct, is a striking commentary upon the evils resultant upon
tenement-house life and its tendency to crime. This precinct
contains a dense cosmopolitan population. It abounds with
tenement-houses, good, bad, and indifferent, — mostly bad. No
district of equal population in the city better illustrates the
A GROUP AS FOUND US' A TENEMENT-HOUSE CELLAR IN THE REAR OF MUL-
ISH I ! 1 1 Y STREET.
extreme destitution and misery of vast numbers of human
beings huddled indiscriminately together like a mass of gar-
bage, to ferment and decompose into off ensiveness ; and cer-
tainly no district in which intemperance, pauperism, and crime
prevail to so large an extent ;is in this. In it are bora and bred
a class of beings whose immediate ancestors were drunken, pov-
erty -stricken, and vile, and whose progeny must be paupers
ACJKNTS OF TIIK I >K V I L.
has ail important place. One who has studied the state of
affairs in the metropolis argues as follows to prove thai the
saloons and barrooms have the control of the Local govern-
ment : —
"Eight thousand barrooms mean eighl thousand proprie-
tors, eight thousand to twelve thousand assistants (we will take
the lowest figures), which together make sixteen thousand votes
directly in the interest of rum. Every barroom can be esti-
IXTEIUOR OF A LOW GROGGERY ON CHERRY STREET.
mated good for at least live voters among its regular patrons,
or forty thousand in all. Add five thousand votes for the
wholesale dealers and their employes, whose business depends
wholly on the retail establishments, and this will give a total
of sixty-one thousand votes from the liquor interest.
"The beer-saloon is first cousin to the barroom, if not its
twin brother. The owners, managers, and employes of the
breweries, and the owners, managers, and employes of the
hundreds of saloons and beer-gardens throughout the city, com-
DANGEROUS AND NOISY PLACES.
497
the patrons — many of whom are more or less under the in-
fluence of liquor — are dangerous and noisy, and on frequent
occasions the slumbers of all are disturbed by a row that may
end in murder. The proprietor is indifferent to such possibili-
ties, and if a lodger objects on the ground that lie wants to
sleep he will quite likely be met with the argument on the
part of the owner :
" I sells you the place fer sleeping but I don't sell the sleep
with it."
How true is that striking passage from the twenty -third
chapter of Proverbs in which the baneful effects of intemper-
ance are vividly described : " Who hath woe ? who hath sor-
row \ who hath contentions ? who hath babbling \ who hath
wounds without cause ? who hath redness of eyes ? They that
tarry long at the wine. At the last it biteth like a serpent,
and stingeth like an adder."
Shakespeare makes even his clowns and fools expose the
vice of intemperance and the degradation of drunkards.
Olivia. — What's a drunken man like, fool ?
Clown. — Like a drowned man, a fool, and a madman ; one draught makes
him a fool, the second mads him, and a third drowns him.
What a sermon, too, on the blessings of temperance, is
contained in " As You Like It," when Adam says to his young
master : —
' ' Let me be your servant !
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty ;
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood ;
Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility :
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly ; let me go with you :
I'll do the service of a younger man
In all your business and necessities."
CHAPTEE XXVI.
THE POLICE DEPARTMENT OF NEW YORK — THE DETECTIVE
FORCE AM) ITS WORK — SHADOWS AND SUA I M) WING —
SLEUTH-HOUNDS OF THE LAW.
A Building thai is Never Closed — Police-Station Lodgings — Cutting his
Buttons off — A Dramatic Scene — Teaching the Tenderfeet — The Duties
of a Policeman — Inquiries tor Missing Friends — Mysterious Cases —
Clubbing —Night-Clubs and Billies — Scattering a Mob — Calling for As-
sistance—Watching Strangers — " Tom and Jerry" in a Soup Plate —
The Harbor Police — The Great Detective Force and its Head — Chief
Inspector Thomas Byrnes — Sketch of his Career — A Proud Record— His
Knowledge of Crooks and their Ways — Keeping Track of Thieves and
Criminals — Establishing a "Dead Line " in Wall Street — Human De-
pravity and Human Impudence — The Rogues' Gallery — Shadows and
Shadowing — Unraveling Plots — Skillful Detective Work — Extorting
the Truth — The Museum of Crime — What May Be Seen There — Disap-
pearance of Old Thieves — Rising Young Criminals.
ON Mulberry Street running through to Mott Street, in
a quarter of the city that is neither fashionable nor at-
tractive, stands a plain s >lid building of four stories and a
basement. Its appearance is so ordinary that it would not be
likely to attract special attention were it not for the blue-
coated policemen that are constantly ascending and descending
the steps. This is the police Headquarters, the most important
building of its kind in America. Here are the offices of the
Police Commissioners, Superintendent, Inspectors, Detective
Bureau, Health Department, etc. In the basement is the
police telegraph office, the right arm of the service, connected
by telegraph with the fire department headquarters, Brooklyn
police headquarters, all elevated railroads, all the leading hos-
pitals, the prisons, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children, and many other institutions. Anything of import-
ance that is taking place at the farthest police point of the city
(498)
500
THE POLICE DEPARTMENT OF NEW YORK.
these in turn are divided by the captains into patrol beats or
posts for the Patrolmen.
The control of the police is vested in four Commissioners,
known as the Board of Police, who are appointed by the mayor
for six years. One of them acts as president of the Board; he
lias the special duty of examining all charges against policemen
before they are tried, and all important letters coming from
police authorities all over the world are referred to him for an-
of the force is the superintendent. His duties are arduous, and his
position one of great responsibility. He issues orders received
from the commissioners, takes command at riots or great fires,
and perforins duties generally devolving upon a superior com-
manding officer. Then come the inspectors, of whom there are
four, one of whom is Chief Inspector in charge of the Detective
Bureau, and in the absence of the superintendent acts as Chief of
Police. Each of the three remaining inspectors has charge of
swer. Another commissioner is
chairman of the Board of Trus-
tees of the Police Pension Fund,
and a good part of his time is
spent in investigating claims upon
the Fund, especially those of the
widows and orphans of policemen
who have died in the service. An-
other commissioner is
Treasurer of the Police
Board and also of the Pen-
sion Fund, and the fourth
on the list has general over-
sight of the station-houses
and is chairman of the
Committee on Supplies,
and has charge of all pur-
chases pertaining to this
department.
POLICE HEADQUARTERS BUILDING.
Next to the commis-
sioners the highest officer
c\m.\<; FOR LOST CHILDREN.
r>()!)
Night and day, rain or shine, when liis tour of duty lupins
he must go on his post and he prepared to meet nil kinds of
danger. He may encounter stealthy sneak thieves, red-handed
murderers, and lurking and desperate foes of nil kinds ; and he
must he ever ready to subdue gangs of noisy and refractory
brawlers in tough resorts. When patrolling his bent nt night
he must see that no aperture through which a thief could enter
is left open or insecure. He must have an eye to windows,
doors, gratings, and coal-chutes. On an average about twenty-
six hundred buildings annually are carelessly left open at the
close of business by clerks or owners, and on the list are promi-
nent banks, churches, and hundreds of stores. While at his
post he may be called upon to answer all sorts of questions,
give advice, make arrests, aid the sick and injured, quell
drunken and riotous brawls, and he should be constantly on
the alert to discover fires, burglars, and property in peril in
any way. He must take lost children to the Matron's room at
police headquarters, often buying them dainties on the way
to keep them in good humor. There is no part of the duties
of a policeman which calls forth so much sympathy as does
the discovery and care of a lost child, and yet he would rather
tackle a man twice his size than carry a little, dirty, tearful,
rebellious, or frightened youngster to headquarters.
More than 3,000 lost children are annually found in the
streets of New York. If the child's name can be ascertained,
it is entered, along with other particulars, in a book kept for
this purpose. If the name and address cannot be ascertained,
an accurate description of person and clothing is recorded, and
the same is telegraphed to all stations. By this means lost
children are restored to their homes in a very short time, leav-
ing but a small number unclaimed.
Communications are constantly being received from all
parts of the world, requesting information of friends and rela-
tives who have not been seen or heard of for periods extending
from one month to thirty years. The greatest attention is given
to all these cases. Officers are sent to the localities where such
missing persons have resided, and old residents are interviewed,
510 MYSTERIOUS CASES AND MISSING PERSONS.
thus often obtaining correct and accurate information. Often-
times it transpires that the persons inquired for are dead, in
which cases death certificates are procured and forwarded to
the inquirer.
Very mysterious circumstances often surround these cases.
When an inquiry for a missing person is received, the records of
MEETING PLACE OF TELEGRAPH WIRES AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS COMMUNI-
CATING WITH ALL PARTS OF THE WORLD.
the Department relating to persons arrested or sent to hospi-
tals, sick or injured, are carefully consulted ; and if the desired
information cannot be obtained from this source, an accurate
description of the missing person is recorded in a book kept for
this purpose, and the members of the department are notified
of the same by telegraph. An officer is detailed for duty at the
Morgue, and it is his place to make a daily report to headquar-
ters, giving an accurate description of all unclaimed dead bod-
ies, which report is kept in a book. In all cases the record of
missing persons is consulted to ascertain it' any resemblance
exists between the description of such dead body and any miss-
LITTLE FOUNDLINGS AND STREET WAIFS.
coming within the view and hearing of the officer. Intoxi-
cated persons are not disturbed as long as they conduct them-
selves quietly; they arc ordered "to move on" and "keep
moving" and as long as they do tin's and are not noisy they
are sale from arrest.
Although two hundred or more foundlings and upwards of
one hundred dead infants are taken charge of by the police
every year, it is well-known that these arc but a few of the
actual number annually abandoned by poverty-stricken and
unnatural mothers. The foundlings are of all ages from the
little mite a few hours old to the baby of one or two years.
Most of them are discovered after dark, on the streets, in dark-
alleys or hallways, and not infrequently on somebody's door-
step. They are generally found laid away in baskets or boxes
partially rilled with old clothes or cotton; some are wrapped
in nothing but newspapers, while others are entirely naked.
Occasionally one is found whose fine garments indicate that
its parents do not belong to the poor classes.
When a policeman finds an abandoned infant he at once
takes it to the station-house of his precinct, where an accurate
description of the babe and its clothing is carefully recorded in
a book kept for that purpose, with the name of the officer
finding the same, where found, under what circumstances, and
any other tacts which may be of interest or which may lead •
to the discovery of the parents of the child. The infant is
then sent to the Matron of the lost children's room at Police
Headquarters for temporary care, and by her is sent, with a
statement of all the facts in the case, to the Infant's Hospital
on Randall's Island, or to some protectory. Many of these
unfortunate little ones are taken into asylums and institutions
founded for the special purpose of caring for them; some are
adopted into families, and a few are sent into the country.
It is very difficult to discover the perpetrators of this
crime, and still more so to secure the arrest and conviction of
the offenders. There is usually an organized conspiracy in
each case to keep secret every detail and circumstance that
would lead to the discovery of the unfortunate mother.
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522
A BUSINESS SHROUDED IN MYSTERY.
successfully. And no man to this day knows just how the theft
was committed nor who was the thief.
Inspector Byrnes is earnestly devoted to his work. Only
recently he said : " My business is never spoken of at home.
Men say they leave the shop when the door is closed and think
no more about work till next morning. That is not the truth.
The man whose heart and soul is in his work never lets it wholly
escape. I do not dream of my work, but I go to bed and lie
there for hours studying a case. When I get a clue I go to
sleep and follow it up the next day. If it is one on which I
have failed for the tenth time, I review each mistake and out
of the corrections evolve the eleventh.
" During the day I am generally here, and every night is
filled with engagements. Sunday I am here at salvation work.
In other words, I clean house. Six days of every week bring
me personal letters from people in every walk of life. Some of
them are curious, all are interesting, and each is a clue to a
mystery. Here and there is a sheet of notepaper from which a
crest has been scraped or cut, and quite as often a letter-head,
carefully decapitated. If anything happened to me and these
letters should fall into strangers 1 hands, there might be trouble.
It is only fair to the people who trust me that I protect them,
and so every Sunday morning I unlock this desk, carefully look
over the week's mail and destroy letters, the publication of
which would blight innocent lives, break up families, do vio-
lence to individual welfare, and shock society."
As he spoke the Inspector unlocked the little desk, the
table- and pigeon-holes of which were piled and packed with
the reputations of men and women, families and firms.
" Do you like your life ? " was asked.
"Immensely. There is a fascination about a mystery that
human nature cannot resist. My business is shrouded in mys-
tery, and the more difficult it is to unravel the harder I work.
There is no satisfaction, no glory, no growth in doing the
thing that is easy enough for anybody to do."
"Do you see many tears?"
"Oceans of them. Some break my heart, some annoy me.
CHAPTER XXYTT.
FIRE! FIRE! — THE LIFE OF A NEW YORK FIREMAN — THE
SCHOOL OF INSTRUCTION AND THE LIFE-SAVING CORPS.
The Volunteer Fire Department of ye Olden Time — How Barnum's Show
W as Interrupted — A Comical Incident — Indians and Red Coats at a Fire
— The Bowery B'lioys — Soap-Locks — The School of Instruction and the
Life-Saving Corps— Daily Drill in the Use of Life-Saving Appliances —
Wonderful Feats on the Scaling- Ladder — The Jumping-Net — Thrilling
Scenes and Incidents — The Life-Line Gun — Fire -Department Horses —
Their Training — A Hospital for Sick and Injured Horses — A Night Visit
to an Engine-House — Keeping up Steam — Automatic Apparatus — How
Firemen Sleep — Sliding Down the Pole — The Alarm — Fire! Fire! —
A Quick Turn-Out — Intelligent Horses — The Fire-Alarm System —
Answering an Alarm in Seven Seconds — A Thrilling Sight — Fire-Boats
and their Work — Signal-Boxes and How they are Used — The Perils of
a Fireman's Life.
IT is nearly a century since the authorities of ~Ne\v York or-
ganized a department whose special duty it was to ex-
tinguish fires. Before that time the fire service, such as it was,
was in the hands of the police, who had a distinct branch for
the " viewing and searching of chimneys " and also for the use
of hooks, ladders, and buckets. Every house having two chim-
neys was compelled to have one bucket at the expense of the
owner, and every house with more than two chimneys Avas re-
quired to have two buckets, while all brewers and bakers were
to have six buckets each, under penalty of a fine of six shillings
for every bucket wanting.
From this crude beginning grew the old fire department of
New York, which was a most excellent institution for the
greater part of its existence. In its early days all the best
young men of the city belonged to it, and the engines were
kept in or near the City Hall, which was a very convenient lo-
cation. That the rules were more rigid than in later times
(MO)
JUMFING FOR LIFE.
533
floor aad prevented further descent by the ladder. In the
mean time the hook-and-ladder company had arrived, but as it
was impossible to make use of its extension-ladder in time, the
life-saving net was resorted to, being held by the few available
"','/. : ~ - _5§? \U\ l.i ii' i ■
THE JUMPING OR LIFE-SAVING NET.
firemen aided by a number of citizens. After the sister, who
had been compelled to remain on the fifth floor, and her
brothers on the fourth floor, had, under the fireman's direction,
successfully jumped and been safely caught in the net, the fire-
man also jumped, and, although caught in the net, he unfor-
tunately bounded out of it and fell upon the pavement, sus-
taining severe injuries. There can be no doubt that the lives
of all four would have been lost but for the prompt use of the
life-saving net.
The life-line gun or carbine throws a projectile to wdiich a
cord is attached, Avith which the endangered person can haul
up the stout life-line tied to it.
The general effect upon the firemen of a system of train-
ing at the School of Instruction has unquestionably been to bet-
ter fit them for the performance of their ordinary duties and
to quality them to meet almost any emergency. One of the
prerequisites to admission in the force is a probationary service
of one month, largely devoted to drill in the school of the
534
THE LIFE LINE AND THE DUMMY.
THE LIFE-LINE GUN.
Life-saving Corps. A few of the recruits take to it quickly
and naturally; the majority, however,
acquire proficiency gradually, while
only a very small proportion are found
disqualified. By degrees the recruits
are made to scale story after story, to
use the Life-line, to man the jumping-
net while a (lummy is thrown from a
tilth or sixth-story window, to take
the part of the rescued and of the res-
cuer, until the end of the probationary
period finds him either a qualified lite-
saver or he is dropped Prom the rolls.
If the first, he is thereupon permanently
appointed, provided the service he has
also been required to perform in a com-
pany lias been found acceptable.
The horses used in the department are Large, handsome crea-
tures, selected with great care, and their training is as care-
fully looked after as that of the men who
have them in charge. The Hospital and
Training School is in an appropriate build-
ing erected for the purpose, in the upper
part of the city. Here is a large room on
the ground floor, fitted up like the ap-
paratus-floor of an engine-house, with
engine, stalls, hanging harness, telegraph
signal-gong, sliding poles, etc., and new
horses are thoroughly educated in their
duties before they are distributed to the
engine-houses. These horses are all fresh
from the country, from four and a half to
six years old, and of course entirely untu-
tored. The tii'st step in the instruction,
and generally the most difficult one. is to
accustom the horse to getting under and into the harness and
hinged collar. To accomplish this it is often necessary to have
THE DI M M V
HOW THE HORSES ARE TRAINED.
535
one of the men precede the animal and place his own head in
the collar. When the horse's natural dread has been allayed in
this manner, he is next harnessed and
hitched up at the sound of the signal
on the gronff. This he must learn to
do quickly and without the least hes-
itation, and to teach it properly re-
quires great tact and experience on
the part of the trainers. At the first
stroke of the gong the horse is led
and guided to his place under the
harness by one man, and driven from
behind by another, whose voice, and
hand, if necessary, both urge him
forward; the collar is pulled down
and snapped around his neck, the
harness is let down upon him, the
reins are snapped, and the wide street
doors slide open. This is repeated
as often as may be found necessary,
great care being taken to handle
the animal as gently as practicable,
and to avoid making him timid or
injuring him in any way. The final
instruction consists in driving the
horse out of the
stable as if re-
sponding to an ac-
tual alarm. Occa-
sionally a horse is
found deficient in
intelligence or too
nervous, but more
frequently they
develop physical faults. In either case the horse is at once re-
turned to the dealer, who supplied it on trial. There is, how-
ever, another test to which a horse who proves, satisfactory at
LIFE-SAVING NET DRILL
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE CHINESE QUARTER OF NEW YORK— BEHIND THE SCENES
IN CHINATOWN— "JOHN'' AND HIS CURIOUS WAYS — A
NIGHT VISIT TO AN OPIUM JOINT.
The Chinese Junk " Key- Yin g" — The Heart of the Chinese Community in
New York — A Race of Gamblers — A Trip through Chinatown with
a Detective — A Raid on a Gambling-House — Spotting the Players — The
Opium Habit — A Chinese Drugstore — Marvelous Remedies — A Won-
derful Bill of Fare — A Visit to a Joss-House — An Opium Smoker's
•' Lay-Out " — The Value of an Opium Pipe — A Night Visit to an Opium
Joint — Carefully-Guarded Doors — How Admission is Gained — The
Peep-Hole — Cunning Celestials — Scenes in the Smoking-Koom — Victims
of the Opium Habit — First Experiences at Hitting the Pipe — A Terrible
Longing — A Woman's Experience — White Opium Fiends — Sickening
Scenes — Aristocratic Smokers — Cost of Opium — Spread of the Opium
Habit — Solitary Indulgence in the Vice — Swift and Certain Death the
Result.
ABOUT half a century ago a curious craft arrived one day
at New York, having sailed all the way from China. It
was the Chinese junk " Key-Ying," and she had been a long
time on the way, having visited London en route.
The "Key-Ying" Avas a speculation on the part of some
foreigners in Far Cathay. They had decided that there was
money in building a junk and sending her to distant parts of
the world as a show ; she was fitted up as a Chinese museum,
and had stalls all around her decks, where Chinese artisans
were working at their various trades. She was a profitable en-
terprise, as crowds came daily to see her, and the money made
from the exhibition was the foundation of a commercial house
that still exists at Hong Kong, with branches .in several ports
of the far East.
But one unhappy day she took fire in the harbor of New
York and was burned 1<> the water's edge. As a show she was
no longer of any use, neither could she serve as a place of resi-
(549)
OPIUM SMOKERS IN THEIR HAUNTS.
567
On one side of the room was a little alcove like a ticket-
office; it was occupied by the proprietor, and just as Ave entered
the place he was weighing out a charge of opium with some
tiny scales like the smallest of those used by druggists. Sev-
eral trays were piled at one side of the counter, and there were
a dozen or more fairy lamps on a shelf together with the other
implements that make up a lay-out.
Farther along was a curtain which hung over the entrance
"hitting the pipe." scene in an opium den on mott stkeet.
of the smoking-room. We waited till the proprietor had made
the tray ready for a customer and then followed him into the
inner room. The pungent odor increased as we passed the
thick curtain, which was drawn aside for us, and we found our-
selves in a room about thirty feet long by twelve in width. It
was dimly lighted, and there were several strata of smoke that
did not exactly resemble any smoke ordinarily seen in rooms.
All around the sides and ends of the room were platforms or
bunks, about two feet high and covered with Chinese matting.
A few have mattresses instead of matting, out of deference
to American tastes. The Chinese smoker considers a board
A VICE THAT CLINGS TO ITS VICTIMS.
51 I
wide. The can is only half rilled, as in warm weather it puffs
up and would overflow if allowance was not made for this
swelling. It is about the consistency of tar melted in the sun,
and nearly the same color. The mode of measuring it, when
selling, is by a Chinese weight called fune. There are, about
eighty-three flme in an ounce, and a can contains four hundred
and fifteen fiine, or about five ounces. The best quality of
A SLY OPIUM SMOKER.
( This photograph was made hy flash-light in a Chinese opium den on Pell street when the
smoker was supposed to be fast asleep. Subsequently the photograph disclosed the fact that he
had at least one eye open when the picture was made.)
this sells for eight dollars and twenty-five cents a can, and in-
ferior grades run as low as six dollars. In smaller quantities
eight to ten fune are sold for twenty-five cents.
Whenever a joint is discovered and raided in the upper part
of the city, but few if any Chinese are found in them. The
up-town joints are patronized almost exclusively by white
people, and I believe that the vice cannot be wholly stamped
out of existence. When once acquired the habit is not easily
shaken off, as it clings to its victims with great tenacity.
One up-town joint which was raided only a few r months ago
was located in a respectable apartment-house, and suspicion was
572
RAIDING AN OPIUM JOINT.
drawn to it by the large number of well-dressed and well-be-
haved people of both sexes who went there, and also by the
peculiar odor that came from the door and permeated the halls
of the building. Ten men and five women were captured, and
passed the rest of the night in the Jefferson Market police sta-
tion. All gave fictitious names, and some of the women cried
CAUGHT IN TIIE ACT. AN OPIUM SMOKER SURPRISED WHILE SMOKING.
and begged to be let off, as this, so they alleged, was the first
time they had ever been in the place. The smoking implements
that were captured in the raid were of the highest class of
workmanship and are an important addition to the museum at
police Headquarters. One of the prisoners was a doctor who
lived at a first-class hotel and had a goodly list of fashionable
patients. He claimed to have gone there for scientific observa-
tion and not for the purpose of smoking the pernicious drug,
CHAPTEK XXX.
THE BEGGARS OF .NEW FORK — TRAMPS, (II EATS, HUMBUGS,
AND FRAUDS— INTERESTING PERSONAL EXPERIENCES-
VICTIMS PROM THE COUNTRY.
The Incomes of Professional Beggars — Resorts of Tramps — Plausible Talcs
— A Scotch Fraud — My Adventure with him — A Plaintive Appeal —
A Transparent Yarn — A Disconcerted Swindler — Claiming Relationship
— An Embarrassing Position — Starting to Walk to Boston — A Stricken
Conscience — Helping my Poor Relation — Thanks an Inch Thick — Fe-
male Frauds — " Gentlemen Tramps" — A Famishing Man — Eating
Crusts out of the Gutter — A Tale of Woe — A Fraud with a Crushed Leg
and a Starving Family — A Distressing Case — The Biter Bitten — The
Californian with a Wooden Leg — The Rattle-Snake Dodge — "Old
Aunty " and her Methods — " God Bless You, Deary " — Blind Frauds and
Humbugs — How Count rymen are Fleeced — Bunco-Steerers — Easily
Taken in — My Experience with a Bunco-Steerer.
IT is estimated that nearly six thousand beggars live and
thrive in New York city. It is not strange, therefore, that
among this vast number of professional loafers there should be
found some whose methods of extorting money are unique.
Some of them make from twenty-five to sixty dollars a week,
and not a few of them are so well known as to furnish a topic
of conversation among those who talk over the strange life to
be seen in city streets. The Charity Organization Society re-
cently issued a circular warning the public against professional
beggars, ad venturers, and other undeserving persons who
obtain money by imposing upon the credulity of the charitable.
Even ordinary street begging is apparently more profitable
than honest labor.
The great city is a home for a good (or bad) number of
" tramps" and an occasional refuge lor many more. With the
advent of summer the tramp who has passed the winter in the
city hies to the rural regions, lie is in search of occupation
(584)
TRAMPS AND THEIR TRICKS. 585
which he never finds ; in summer he wants a job at ice-cutting,
and in winter he desires work in a hay-field or a market-garden.
Whatever employment he seeks is sure to be out of season, and
as he is unable to live by honest labor he makes up for the de-
ficiency by begging or stealing.
A tramp's interrupted nap.
The winter occupation of the circulating or tourist tramp is
much like that of the permanent city tramp whose suste-
nance is obtained by begging or fraud. He haunts the side-
walk, especially at night, and pours a tale of woe into every ear
that will listen. The ordinary tale will not be heard or heeded,
and his ingenuity is severely taxed to invent something that
will extract cash from tin 1 pocket of his listener. Some of the
tramps' tricks are worthy of record, as they display a genius
that would secure a comfortable existence in respectable
592
SHABBY-OEXTEEL TRAMPS.
munication is indicated she wishes to know how she can go
there on loot, as she is out of money and must walk. The sequel
is obvious. I once watched from behind a tree in Madison
Square a woman who had an address for Harlem, live miles
away, and saw her obtain her care-fare — five cents — four
times in succession within twenty minutes.
A GENUINELY BUSTED TRAMP.
There is another class called "gentlemen tramps," men
who were once respectable and in good circumstances, whose
downfall has been gradual, and who grow more and more
seedy in appearance every year. Some of them make a pre-
tence of desiring work, and they are always going somewhere
to answer an advertisement or to make an inquiry, but inci-
dentally they are on the outlook for alms. One of these men —
a tall and rather military-looking personage about fifty years
of age, w ith a white mustache and a head of curly white hair
THE FRAUD WITH A WOODEN LEG.
597
a soft hat with about a three-inch brim is worn carelessly on
his head ; he leans heavily on a cane and walks with a decided
limp.
He never speaks to anybody who is not looking into a store
window. Approaching his victim he says in a soft, drawling
voice :
" Excuse me, sir; but are you a stranger in the city?" and
no matter what the answer may be he continues : " I am here
from California and I have got a wooden leg," — then with his
cane he somewhat
vigorously taps the
k> wooden " leg to
prove its genuine-
ness, — "and I've
been walking around
all night and all day
on it and haven't got
any money, and if
you could loan me a"
small amount to en-
able me to obtain a
night's lodging and
a supper I shall be
greatly obliged to
you . An d if you will
give me your ad-
dress, when my sister sends me money I will return it to you."
If questions are asked he will produce letters to prove his
identity, and then will tell how he lost his leg by being bitten
by a rattlesnake in Nebraska, on his way east, and show that
he came further east to get better surgical assistance, and finally
lost almost all of his limb and has had hard luck ever since lie
left the hospital. Although everything about him indicates
that he is what he claims to be, he is a fraud, lie has not lost
his leg at all. A piece of board tied to his leg sounds very
wooden when rapped with his cane. He usually selects persons
who look like strangers, and that is the reason why he always
A TRAMP'S SUNDAY MORNING CHANGE.
508
THE RATTLESNAKE DODGE.
speaks to those who look into store windows. He has boasted
of collecting five dollars a day.
The snake dodge seems to be quite popular. Not Long ago
a colored man was in the habit of hobbling along Sixth Ave-
nueand Fourteenth Street with a small snake skin in one hand,
a cigar-box to contain contributions in the other, and a card on
his breast containing the following announcement:
"FRIENDS :
Tins is a Rattlesnake which had Caused Me to
Lose my Leg.
I was Bit by Him ix the Dismal Sw amps of Vir-
ginia.
I have Him Here on Exhibition.
Asking You All for a Little Help to Get an
Artificial Leg.
JOHN HOE.
When taken into custody he demanded a pistol, that he
might not survive the disgrace of his arrest. He said that on los-
ing" his le«; in the manner mentioned, his neighbors in Virginia
raised money to send him to New York to get a cork leg by
begging. He is believed to have raised enough to have bought
many legs, for the cigar-box he carried was full of coin when
he was arrested. As he had been repeatedly warned, he was
sent to the Island for three months.
Many business men within a mile of the Post Office are
familiar with "Old Aunty." Aunty believes that "it is better to
laugh than be sighing," and so she does not descend to the com-
mon whining tricks of the ordinary street beggar. She walks
into offices, and her queer little nutcracker face breaks into smil-
ing wrinkles under the frill of her old-fashioned cap. She drops
a little courtesy, holds out her skinny hand, and says, kk God bless
you, deary," and when the usual cent is forthcoming, she closes
her withered fingers on it, wishes the giver many blessings, and
walks out to visit the next man. Rain or shine, morning and
night, Old Aunty walks around from one office to another and
collects toll everywhere.
There are many men who are superstitious enough to believe
that if they meel Aunty in her old calico gown, her little plaid
OLD AUNTY CONNORS.
599
shawl, and white cap early in the day, give her a penny, and
get in return one of those smiles which breaks her quaint face
into many seams, success will go with them for the balance of
the twenty-four hours.
Old Aunty's name is Connors, and she lives in two rooms at
the top of a tenement-house in Rutgers Street, and all the
money she gets over and
above that needed for her
simple wants finds its way
across the sea to the " Ould
Sod," and lightens the hard-
ships of some of her num-
berless relatives there. How
much she receives in a day
is purely a matter of conjec-
ture, but three or four dol-
lars would not be an exces-
A BLIND MAN 8 TIN SKiN.
( For the other side see illustration below. )
A blind man is considered by nearly every one a proper ob-
ject for charity, but many of them are frauds of the worst kind.
The tin sums hanging: across their breasts, narrating harrowing
stories of misfortune, are
often gotten up for the oc-
casion and are sometimes
painted on both sides, thus
giving the beggar two tales
to help him along. lie dis-
plays the side that he thinks
will prove the most effective
in the locality he happens
to be in.
A sandy-mustached blind
man who sings plaintive airs all over town has his father as a
confederate. The father loiters in a convenient saloon in the
neighborhood while the son sings. Superintendent Hebbard of
the Charity Organization Society recently found father and
son doing a thriving business one Saturday night, and followed
ARALYZE
SINCE THl*
;:DECEMBE
WHAT WAS ON THE OTHER SIDE.
CHAPTEK XX XII.
STREET VENDERS AND SIDEWALK MERCHANTS — HOW SKIN
GAMES AND PETTY SWINDLES ARE PLAYED — " BEATIN'
THE ANGELS FOR LYIN'."
Dirty Jake — A Silent Appeal — A Melancholy Face — Three Dollars a Day
for Lungs and Tongue — Stickfast's Glue — A Windy Trade — A Couple
of Rogues — Spreading Dismay and Consternation — Partners in Sin —
Sly Confederates in the Crowd — How to Sell Kindling-Wood — A Mean
Trick and How it is Played — A Skin Game in Soap — Frail Unman
Nature — Petty Swindles — Drawing a Crowd — '"The Great Chain-
Lightnin' Double-Refined, Centennial, Night-Bloomin' Serious Soap" —
Spoiling Thirteen Thousand Coats — The Patent Grease-Eradicator —
Inspiring Confidence — " Beatin' the Angels for Lym'" — A Sleight of
Hand Performance — " They Looks Well, an' They're Cheap — How City
Jays are Swindled and Hayseeds from the Country Fleeced.
AN interesting feature of metropolitan life is the army of
street venders of many names and kinds to be met on
every hand. A stroll along Broadway or the Bowery or in the
vicinity of City Hall brings to view many of these itinerant
merchants, who literally swarm in some portions of the city
and manage to make a living out of the public. And some of
them make a very good living too.
I remember a peddler of pocket-cutlery who every evening
used to haunt the corridors of hotels, and stroll through beer-
saloons, barrooms, and other places open to the public. He
was known as "Jake" and was of German origin; sometimes
he was called " Dutch Jake " and sometimes " Dirty Jake/ 1 —
the former appellation having reference to his nationality and
the latter to his personal appearance. He was very melancholy
of visage; he never asked yon to purchase his wares; but the
silent appeal of his beseeching look, his unwashed face and un-
combed hair, his sad physiognomy, and his threadbare cloth-
ing, as he stood speechless in front of a possible patron, and
(G14J
624
SKIN GAMES AND THEIR VICTIMS.
other money boxes remain, and also the blank one. Confidence
is soon inspired in the crowd of onlookers ; and an unsuspecting-
and bona fide purchaser, who has all the time closely watched
the proceedings and is quite certain that he has a " sure thing,"
now tries his hand. But somehow he always finds a blank in
his box, and should he draw a score of times in succession, his
luck will always be the same. It is a " skin " game successfully
executed by a skillful performance of sleight-of-hand, aided by
confederates who do everything in their power to confuse the
unlucky buyer.
The man who dispenses soda Avater at two cents a glass and
ice cream at one cent a plate is sure of liberal patronage from
gamins and newsboys, a crowd of whom may generally be
found about the vender's stand.
/
PART III.
PART III was written by the great detective, Chief Inspector Thos. Byrnes.
Every line of it was written by his own hand. He is to-day the most famous
detective in the world — the dread of all criminals in this country and in Europe.
More than any other man he knows the methods and characteristics of "crooks" and
possesses a thorough knowledge of their haunts. In this volume he gives the ripe
experience of thirty years of detective life, lie accompanies us in person i<>
secret places known only to the police; explains how burglars work; describes their
tools, plans, and operations; tells how bank vaults and safes are robbed, and how
combination locks are picked, all the time weaving into his narrative thrilling, tragic,
and laughable experiences, most of them taken from his privatt diary. lie explains
how detectives recognize their prey, shows how criminals often lead double lives,
i. e., are model husbands and fathers at home, and gives many strange incidents,
bewildering mysteries, remarkable stories, and startling revelations that have conic
under his experience during his long career.
The great moral lesson taught in this part <>f the book is that
Honesty is the best Policy, first, lust, ami alt the time.
PART III.
BY
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LOW LODGING-HOUSES OF NEW YORK - PLACES THAT POSTER
CRIME AND HARBOR CRIMINALS — DENS OF THIEVES.
The Breeding-Places of Crime — Dens of Thieves — How Boys and Young
Men from the Country are Lured to Ruin — From the Lodging-House to
the Gallows — A Night's Lodging for Three Cents — Low, Dirty, and
Troublesome Places — Hotbeds of Crime — Leaves from my own Experience
— Illustrative Cases — A Forger's Crime and its Results — A Unique
Photograph — The Pride of a Bowery Tough — "Holding up" a Victim
— The Importation of Foreign Criminals — A Human Ghoul — How Ex-
Convicts Drift back into Crime — The Descent into the Pit — Black Sheep.
IT is undeniable that the cheap lodging-houses of New York
city have a powerful tendency to produce, foster, and
increase crime. Instead of being places where decent people
reduced in circumstances or temporarily distressed for w ant of
money can obtain a clean bed for a small sum, these places are
generally filthy beyond description, and are very largely the
resorts of thieves and other criminals of the lowest class who
here consort together and lay plans for crimes.
But this is not the worst feature of the matter. Take the
case of a youth who runs away from his home in the country,
(645)
RESORTS OF THIEVES AND CRIMINALS. 649
ground of justifiable homicide. It was at this same Phoenix
house that I and my men arrested the notorious Greenwal]
and Miller on the charge of murdering Lyman S. Weeks in
Brooklyn. There is little doubt in my mind that this murder,
a most dastardly crime (Mi*. Weeks being shot down in his
own house by a burglar who had invaded it), was hatched in
A SEVEN CENT LODGING HOOM AT MIDNIGHT.
this house or in* some other of like character. In the very
same place three men were subsequently arrested for a bur-
glary committed in a residence in Mount Yernon. In the
lodging-house at No. 262 Bowery, we secured a gang of thieves
who had been engaged in a series of robberies at Kingston,
N. Y., who were afterwards sent up there for punishment.
Hundreds of instances of criminals who made their abode in
houses of this sort may be mentioned.
A case somewhat out of the ordinary run was that of a
man, who was convicted of forgery on the complaint of a well-
ENGRAVED FROM A PHOTO GRAPH EXFREboLY FORTIUS WORK .
D."WORTHINGTON &CO. PUBLISHERS. HARTFORD. CONN.
652 BAD INFLUENCE OF CHEAP LODGING-HOUSES.
bing private houses in the upper part of the city. lie told me
that he had been sent here on account of being caught in thiev-
ing operations in his native land. He had no money when he
arrived, except a few shillings, and almost the first place he got
into was one of the cheap lodging-houses. He soon became
NIGHT IN A HAMMOCK LODGING-ROOM FOR TRAMPS.
acquainted with the inmates, who were mostly thieves, and in
a little while they took him out over the city and set him to
stealing. I have not the least doubt that there are numerous
cases like this.
But the evils that have been already mentioned are not the
only ones that are produced by the cheap lodging-house system.
It is notorious that these houses are used every year for the
"colonization" of voters. A large number of men register
regularly from these places, and they have not the slightest
hesitation about swearing in their votes in case they are chal-
lenged. Now and then somebody comes to grief through this
practice, but it still flourishes. Not long ago the proprietor of
(MIA PTEE WW.
SCIENTIFIC BURGLARS AND EXPERT CRACKSMEN — HOW BANK
VAULTS AND SAFES ARE OPENED AND ROBBED — THE
TOOLS, PLANS, OPERATIONS, AND LEADERS OF HIGHLY
BRED CRIMINALS.
An Important Prof ession — Highly-Bred Rogues — The Lower Ranks of Thieves
— Professional Bank-Burglars and their Talents — Misspent Years —A
Startling Statement about Safes — The Race between Burglars and Sale-
builders — How Safes are Opened — .Mysteries of the Craft — Safe-Blow-
ing — How Combination Locks are Picked — A Delicate Touch — Throw-
ing Detectives oil" the Scent — A Mystery for Fifteen Years — Leaders of
Gangs — Conspiring to Hob a Bank — Working from an Adjoining Build-
ing — Disarming Suspicion — Shadowing Hank ( Mlicers — Working through
the Cashier — Making False and Duplicate Keys — The Use of High Ex-
plosives — Safe-Breakers and their Tools — Ingenious Methods of Expert
Criminals — Opening a Safe in Twenty Minutes — Fagin and his Pupils-
Taking Impression of Store Locks in Wax — Old Criminals who 'reach
Young Thieves.
THE ways of making a livelihood by crime are many, and
the number of men and women who live by their wits in
New York city reaches into the thousands. Some of these
criminals are very clever in their own peculiar line, and are
constantly turning their lawless qualities to the utmost pecuni-
ary account. Robbery is now classed as a profession, and in
place of the awkward and hang-dog looking- thief of a few
years ago we have to-day the intelligent and thoughtful rogue.
There seems to be a strange fascination about crime that often
draws men of brains, who have their eyes wide open, into its
meshes. Many people, and especially those whose knowledge
of criminal life is purely theoretical, imagine that persons who
adopt criminal pursuits are governed by what they have been
previously, and that a criminal life once chosen, is, as a rule,
adhered to; or, in other words, a man once a pickpocket is
always a pickpocket; or, once a burglar always a burglar.
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The appeal was overheard by one of the men who had been
involved in the recent discussion. Telling the peddler to stop,
he at the same time turned to the other gentlemen present and
said. "Now, boys, I'll bet whatever you like that the town in
dispute is in the county I said, and as chance has brought us a
map of Ohio the bets can be settled without delay." Several
bets were made, and for a feAv minutes the broker's office was
in a greater state of excitement than it ever had been before,
even in panic days. As the peddler slowly unrolled his bundle
of maps the brokers and the clerks crowded about him, anxious
to learn the result. The sneak took advantage of the excite-
ment and the crowd around his confederate, and made his way,
unnoticed, to the safe. He captured the cash-box, containing
$20,000, and escaped with it while his partner was exhibiting
the map.
Another professional sneak, known as a man of great cool-
ness and determination, and possessed of no small degree of cour-
age, is credited with having entered a bank early in the morn-
ing, and going behind the desk he divested himself of his coat,
donned a duster, and installed himself as clerk. He coolly
waited there some time watching for a chance to steal a roll of
greenbacks, bonds, or anything valuable that he could lay his
hands on. One of the clerks requested the intruder to leave,
but the impudent thief retorted by telling the former to mind
his own business, and also intimating that as soon as his friend,
the president, arrived, he would have Avhat he pleased to call a
meddlesome fellow properly punished. The clerk, however, in-
sisted upon the rogue's vacating the desk, and he finally did so
under protest. In a seemingly high state of indignation the
robber left the place, and, later on, the cashier, to his great sur-
prise, discovered that he had suddenly and mysteriously become
$15,000 short. Of course the thief never called a second time
to explain the mystery.
On another occasion a bundle of bonds vanished from one
of the rooms in a safe-deposit vault, and the theft was not (lis-
USELESS LOCKS AND BOLTS.
683
knows no faltering. When lie has squandered his ready cash
in riotous lMng, and his treasury needs replenishing, he makes
it his business to scan the newspapers carefully, and keep him-
self posted on the latest arrivals, the rooms they occupy, and
other data of interest. The coming and going of professionals,
particularly female theatrical stars, salesmen, bankers, and bri-
dal parties, and all persons likely to carry valuable jewelry and
trinkets, or a large amount cf money, are objects of his special
solicitude.
When the unsuspecting prey, fatigued by travel, gives proof
of his unconsciousness by deep, stertorous breathing, the hotel
thief steals silently from his hiding-place. A slight push may
let him into the apartment, or it may be necessary to use a
gimlet and a small piece of crooked wire to slide back the bolt,
or a pair of nippers to turn the key left in the lock on the inside
of the door. Sometimes as many as a dozen rooms in the same
hotel have been plundered in one night, and none of the watch-
men saw or heard the thief. The hotel thief can carry his en-
tire outfit in his vest pocket and can laugh in his sleeve at com-
mon bolts and bars.
The shooting back of the old-fashioned slide-bolt from the
outside of the apartment was for many years a bewildering
mystery. A piece of crooked wire inserted through the key-
hole by the nimble rogue made the bolt worthless, and a turn
of the knob was all that was required to open the door.
It takes only a few minutes for an expert hotel thief to
enter a room. Af-
§ B <=
BURGLARS KEY NIPPERS.
( For unlocking a door from the outside. )
ter he has reached
the door of the
apartment in
which the weary
traveler is sleeping soundly, he takes from his pocket a pair of
slender, small. nippers, a bent piece of wire, and a piece of silk
thread. These are the only tools some thieves use. Insert-
ing the nippers in the key-hole, he catches the end of the key.
Then a twist shoots back the lock bolt, and another Leaves the
key in a position from which it can easily be displaced. Should
SMOOTH AND ENTERTAINING VILLAINS.
685
thoroughly moistened, and maintain a sufficient grip not to be
displaced by any ordinary jar. When the wood becomes dry
the door can be easily forced in without trouble or the least
danger from noise.
The boarding-house thief is always a smooth and entertain-
ing talker, who invariably makes acquaintances in new quarters
in short order. In a pleasant chat with the inquisitive land-
lady lie generally succeeds in gleaning all the information he
raS
FALSE AND SKELETON KEYS TAKEN FKOM HOUSE TTTTEVES.
desires about the other guests in the house. Most women are
fond of displaying their jewels and valuables at fashionable
boarding-houses. While amusing his newly-made acquaintances
with his laughable stories, the astute robber is at the same time
making- a thorough survey. His covetous eyes never miss the
flash of diamonds, and should he be in doubt as to their genu-
ineness he has only to speak of the matter to one of the friends
of the wearer, and he will be told w T hen and where they were
bought and the price paid for them.
After the rogue has secured a full inyentory of the jewels
CHAPTEK XXXVIII.
THE ROGUES' GALLERY — WHY THIEVES ARE PHOTOGRAPHED
— TELL-TALE SIGNS — PECULIARITIES OF CRIMINALS.
"Where Have I Seen That Man Before?" — Who is it? — A Sudden Look
of Recognition — A Notorious Burglar in Fashion's Throng — A Swell-
Cracksman— The Rogues' Gallery — Its Object and its Usefulness —
How Criminals Try to Cheat the Camera — How Detectives Recognize
Their Prey — Ineffaceable Tell-Tale Signs — The Art of Deception —
Human Vanity Before the Camera — Slovenly Criminals — Flash Crimi-
nals — The Weaknesses of Criminals — Leading Double Lives — A Strange
Fact — Criminals Who are Model Husbands and Fathers at Home —
Some Good Traits in Criminals — Mistaken Identity — Peculiarities of
Dress — A Mean Scoundrel — Picking Pockets at Wakes and Funerals
— A Solemn Looking Pair of Precious Rascals — The Lowest Type of
Criminals — Placing People Where They Belong.
\\T HERE, it does not matter, but in a fashionable place of
V V amusement which blazed with light and was radiant
with the shimmer of silks, the flash of jewels, and the artificial
glories with which wealth and fashion surround themselves, a
tall, well-dressed man Avas standing, with a lady on his arm,
waiting till the outgoing throng gave him exit. A judge of
the Supreme Court was just behind him, and at his elbow was
a banker whose name is powerful on Wall Street. With suave
manners, a face massive and intelligent, and apparel in unex-
ceptionable taste, there was yet something about the man that
recalled other and strangely remote associations. It certainly
was not the dress or attitude or air that seemed familiar. Nor
was it the quick, sharp eyes that lighted up and seemed indeed
the most notable features of the countenance. Nor could it
be the neatly trimmed whiskers or the somewhat sallow cheeks
they covered. And certainly no suggestion of recognition
could lie in the thin hair, carefully brushed back from a fore-
head that bulged out into knobs and was crossed by some deep
(689)
A LIFE OF DECEPTION.
aim to have the besl we can get, for photography hag been an
invaluable aid to t he police.
The Rogues' Gallery and Criminal Directory in New York
is the most complete in the country. There arc numbers of
instances where a criminal appeal's in public under circum-
stances Par different from those under which he is brought to
police Headquarters. The burglar before mentioned is a good
example of what a swell-cracksmau may look like when he has
the means and taste to dress himself in fashionable clothes.
STILETTOES AND KNIVES TAKEN FROM CRIMINALS.
(From the Museum of Crime.)
There are scores of men and women whose appearance in the
streets gives no hint of their real character. Deception is
their business, and they study its arts carefully. It is true
there are criminals brought to Headquarters who even in
sitting for a photograph for the Rogues' Gallery show a weak-
ness to appear to advantage, and adjust dress, tie, and hair
with as much concern as if the picture was intended for their
dearest friends. I have seen women especially whose vanity
cropped out the moment the camera was turned on them.
But that is infrequent, and one must look for the faces seen
in the Rogues' Gallery in other shapes and with other accom-
paniments than those that appear in a photograph.
All criminals have their weaknesses. The lower class of
them spend their money in the way their instincts dictate.
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MEN WHO LEAD DOUBLE LIVES.
G95
Some are slovenly hulks of fellows who pride themselves on
sliabbiness, and to them shabbiness is a part of their business.
Then there are others of the flashy order who run into ex-
tremes in dress, and copy the gamblers and variety-theatre
performers in their attire. But there are many — and they
are of the higher and more dangerous order of criminals —
who carry no suggestion of their calling about them. Here
is where the public err. They imagine that all burglars look
like Bill Sykes and Flash Toby Crackit, whereas the most
modest and most gentlemanly people they meet may be faith-
ful representatives of these characters.
Nearly all great criminals lead double lives. Strange as it
may appear, it is a fact that some of the most unscrupulous
rascals who ever cracked a safe or turned out a counterfeit
were at home model husbands and fathers. In a great many
cases wives have aided their guilty partners in their villainy,
and the chil-
dren, too,
have taken a
hand in it.
But all sug-
gestion of the
cr imina l's
calling was
left outside
the front door. The family of a notorious and dangerous forg-
er lived quietly and respectably, mingled with the best of people,
and were well liked by all who met them. Another equally dan-
gerous criminal who was found dead near Yonkers, probably
made away with by his associates, was a fine-looking man with
cultured tastes and refined manners. Others would pass tor
honest and industrious mechanics, and more than one of them
has well provided for his old mother and his sisters. I recall
one desperate fellow who paid for his two little daughters'
education at a convent in Canada, from which they were grad-
SAND-BAGS AND SLUNG-SHOTS TAKEN FTtOM CRIMINALS.
( From the Museum of Crime. )
>right young ladies, without ever
uated well-bred and
picion of their father's business reaching them
I sus-
rhis same
HOW THIEVES AND BURGLARS DRESS.
thing has been done by some of the hardest cases we have to
contend with. One of the most noted pickpockets in the
country had children whose education, dress, and manners
won general admiration. There is nothing- to mark people of
that stamp as a class.
Nor is physiognomy a safe guide, but on the contrary it is
often a very poor one. In the Rogues' Gallery may he seen
photographs of rascals who resemble the best people in the
country, in some in-
stances sufficiently like
^^^^^^^^^^^^g^=~^ personal acquaintances
to admit of mistaking
^Njl^^^2^^^^\^ one for the other,
which, by the way, is
GAGS TAKEN FROM BURGLARS.
no uncommon occur-
( From the Museum of Crime. ) _ . „
renee. it is easy tor a
detective to pick up the wrong man. Time and again I have
seen victims of thieves, when called upon in court to identify
a prisoner seated among* a number of onlookers, pick out his
captor or a court clerk as the offender.
Thieves generally dress up to their business. I do not
mean that they indicate their business by their dress, but just
the opposite. They attire themselves so as to attract the
least attention from the class of people among whom they
wish to operate. To do this they must dress like this class.
If they are among poor people, they dress shabbily. If among
well-to-do folks, they put on style. If among sporting men,
they are flashy in attire. It is a great thing to escape notice,
— to meet a man in conversation and yet leave no distinct im-
pression of face or personality. I remember one man whose
scarred cheek and missing eye would mark him anywhere, but
he managed to be so sober in his dress that no one seemed to
notice his personal peculiarities. Another, a railroad pick-
pocket, excels in gaining confidence and yet leaving scant
recollection of his dress and features. One scoundrel known
as "the mourner," and his wile had faces thoroughly adapted
for their business, which was to pick pockets at wakes and
CHAPTEK XL.
FORGERS AND THEIR METHODS — WILY DEVICES AND BRAINY
SCHEMES OF A DANGEROUS CLASS — TRICKS ON BANKS —
HOW BUSINESS MEN ARE DEFRAUDED.
A Crime That is Easily Perpetrated, and Detected with Difficulty — Pro-
fessional Forgers — Men of Brains — Secret Workshops — Raising Checks
— A Forger's Agents and Go-betweens — The Organization of a Gang
— How They Cover Their Tracks — In the Clutches of Sharpers — The
First Step in Crime — Various Methods of Passing Forged Paper —
Paving the Way for an Operation — Dangerous Schemes — Daring and
Clever Forgeries — Interesting Cases — How Banks are Defrauded — Es-
tablishing Confidence with a Bank — A Smart Gang — Altering and Rais-
ing Checks and Drafts — How Storekeepers aad Business Men are De-
frauded — Cashing a Burnt Check — Crafty and Audacious Forgers —
A Great Plot Frustrated — Deceiving the Head of a Foreign Detective
Bureau — A Remarkable Story — Startling and Unexpected News —
Thrown off His Guard — Escape of the Criminal and His Band.
A DISTINGUISHED and learned criminal jurist tersely de-
scribed forgery as " the false making or materially alter-
ing, with intent to defraud, any writing which, if genuine,
might apparently be of legal efficacy in the foundation of a
legal liability." The crime, in a general sense, is the illegal
falsification or counterfeiting of a writing, bill, bond, will, or
other document, and the statutes generally make the uttering
or using the forged instruments essential to the offense. The
uttering is complete, however, if an attempt is made to use the
fraudulent paper as intended, though the forgery be discovered
in season to defeat the fraud designed. The intent to deceive
and defraud is often conclusively presumed from the forgery
itself. If one forge a name, word, or even figure of a note,
and cause it to be discounted, it is no defense whatever to the
charge of forgery that he intended to pay the note himself,
and had actually made provisions that no person should be in-
43 (711)
HOW FORGERS COVER THEIR TRACKS.
713
plied as a means for transferring fine tracing, delicate engrav-
ings, and even signatures.
Although plotting and planning daring work for others to
execute, the forger keeps himself well in the background, and
by following a system calculated to protect himself againsl the
annoyance of arrest or the danger of conviction he runs but
few risks. He keeps aloof from the several members of his
band, and in most cases _
is known only to his , . )
manager, who is the
go-between and guid-
ing- spirit of the gang.
This system is one of
the forger's best safe-
guards, for no matter
what slip there may
afterwards be in the
effort to secure money
upon his spurious pa-
per, he is able to baffle
all attempts to fasten
the foundation of the
crime upon himself.
He employs as his man-
ager only a man in
whom he has the ut-
most confidence, who
is generally a person
of such notoriously bad character that no jury would accept
his uncorroborated testimony should he prove unfaithful.
There have been instances, however, in which the manager
has also been the capitalist and leading plotter. Such men
are to be found in the best walks of life, and their means of
existence is often a mystery to their friends. They have care-
fully guarded ways of putting the forged notes into the hands
of the agents of the "layers-down," the title by which those
who finally dispose of the fraudulent paper are known.
UNDERGROUND CELLS FOR USE OP THE DETECT-
IVE DEPARTMENT AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS.
732
THE NOTORIOUS " HUNGRY JOE.
Another form of the bunco game was introduced into this
country some years ago by a noted sharper who successfully
operated throughout the West. He called the game a lottery,
notwithstanding the fact that there is no lottery about it at
all. The game is so simple, and apparently honest, that even
the shrewdest are readily induced to take a hand, and are as
readily fleeced. There are forty -three spaces upon a lay-out,
thirteen of which contain stars (conditional prizes) ; one space
is blank, and the remaining twenty -nine represent prizes rang-
ing from two to five thousand dollars. The game can be
played with dice or cards. The latter are numbered with a
series of small numbers ranging from one to six, eight of which
are drawn and counted, the total representing the number of
the prize drawn. Should the victim draw a star number, he
is allowed the privilege of drawing again by putting up a
small amount of money. He is generally allowed to win at first,
and later on the game owes him from one to five thousand
dollars. This is when he draws the " condition prize," No. 27.
The conditions are that he must put up five hundred dollars,
or as much as the dealer thinks he will stand. This is explained
to him as necessary to save what he has already won, and en-
title him to another drawing. He draws again, and by skillful
counting on the part of the dealer he draws the " blank " and
loses all.
The notorious " Hungry Joe," is a most persistent and im-
pudent bunco-steerer, who has victimized more people by the
bunco game than any other five men in the profession. One
of his exploits was the robbing of Mr. Joseph Ramsden, an
elderly English tourist, out of two hundred and fifty dollars,
in the following manner :
Among the passengers on board the steamship Gallia, from
Liverpool, was an English gentleman past the prime of life, of
fine appearance, but somewhat in ill-health. He stopped at a
first-class hotel up-town. One afternoon he strolled down
town on Broadway, and was sauntering leisurely along when
he was accosted by a well-dressed stranger who warmly
grasped him by the hand and said, —
ONE OF "HUNGRY JOE's" EXPLOITS.
"Vhy, how do you do, Mr. Ramsden 2"
The latter expressed his inability to recognize the stranger,
but the affable young man soon put the old gentleman at ease
by adding :
"Oh, you don't know me; I forgot. But I know you from
hearsay. My name is Post -Henry F. Post. You came over
in my uncle's steamer yesterday. Captain Murphy, of the
Gallia, is my uncle, and since his return has been stopping at
my lather's residence. lie lias spoken of you to us. Indeed,
he has said so much about you and of your shattered health
that it seems to me as if I had known you a long time. I
could not help recognizing you in a thousand from my uncle's
perfect description of you.''
Mr. Ramsden had had a very pleasant voyage on the
Gallia, during which Captain Murphy and he had become
very friendly, and thus he was not surprised that the gallant
skipper should speak of him. "Mr. Post" walked arm-in-arm
with his uncle's English friend, chatting pleasantly and point-
ing out prominent business houses, until they reached Grand
street.
"I am in business in Baltimore — in ladies' underwear and
white goods," said Mr. Post, " and have been home laying in a
stock of goods. I should much like to remain a day or two
longer and show you around, but I am sorry that I must
return to Baltimore this evening. In fact, I am on my way
now to get my ticket, and my valise is already in the ticket-
office."
It needed but a few words to induce the elderly gentleman
to accompany Post to "the ticket office" in Grand Street, and
the two soon entered a room on that street. There the young
man bought a railroad ticket of a man behind the counter.
k> And now my valise," said Post to the ticket-seller.
Throwing the bag on the counter, the young man opened it,
saying " Here are some muslins that can't be duplicated in Eng-
land," and exhibited to the old gentleman some samples of
that fabric. Near the bottom of the bag he accidentally came
upon a pack of playing-cards, seizing which he exclaimed :
734
AN IMPUDENT RASCAL.
u Ah, this reminds me. Don't you know that last night
some fellows got me into a place on the Bowery and skinned
me out of four hundred dollars by a card-trick in which they
used only three cards? But I've got on to the game and
know just how it is done. They can't do me any more."
At that moment a man, showily dressed, emerged from a
back room and said : " I'll bet you ten dollars you can't do it."
" All right, put up your money," responded Joe.
The cards were shuffled by the deft hands of the stranger,
and Joe was told to pick up the ace. He picked up a jack and
lost. He lost a second time, and offered to repeat it, but the
stranger said, " I don't believe you've got any more money."
" Well, but my friend here (pointing to Mr. Ramsden) has."
" I don't believe he has," sneeringly retorted the stranger.
" Oh, yes I have," interrupted the venerable Englishman,
at the same time pulling a roll of ten crisp five-pound notes
from his inside vest pocket and holding them to the gaze of the
others.
The temptation was too great for Hungry Joe, who so far
forgot himself and his uncle's friendship for the English mer-
chant that he hastily grabbed the roll from Ramsden's hand.
The latter tightened his grasp on the notes, but Joe violently
thrust the old man backwards, and, getting possession of the
money, ran out of the place, followed by his confederates.
Mr. Ramsden notified the Detective Bureau that evening,
giving an accurate description of " Captain Murphy's nephew,"
which resulted in Hungry Joe's arrest. Joe was sitting in his
shirt-sleeves in the basement of the house, quietly smoking a
cigar, and resting his slippered feet on a chair. He tried his
old game of bluff, as is his custom, but, finding it useless, donned
his coat and boots and accompanied me to headquarters.
Mr. Ramsden was at once summoned, and was confronted
in my room by Hungry Joe and eight other men and asked to
select the swindler.
tk There is the man," he quickly said, pointing to Hungry
Joe.
" I never saw you before, sir," coolly replied Joe.
ll(>\\ CLERGYMEN A.RE FLEECED.
735
"You scoundrel," excitedly exclaimed Mr. Ramsden, " you
are the fellow thai robbed me of my money."
The evidence against Joe was conclusive, and in court he
pleaded guilty and was sentenced to Pour years in State prison.
CHIEF INSPECTOR EYRNES'S PRIVATE ItOOM AT POLICE HEADQUARTERS.
Another equally notorious character succeeded in swindling
an Episcopal clergyman by handing him a forged letter of in-
troduction from another minister in Cleveland, whose name he
had discovered in a church almanac. The letter read : "My
brother is buying- books for me. Please honor his draft for
$100, and thereby do me a great favor." The preacher thought
it was all right, and said that he was glad to meet the Rev. Mr.
Watt's brother, and gave the desired check only to discover a
little later on that he had been neatly swindled.
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THE LIBRARY STYLE.
The Library style is extremely durable, and is one of th h< si of bi/irfinys. It comes
ouly a little higher than the Extra Cloth, and it is well worth the difference-
It will stand hard and constant usage, and will last a lifetime. The strip of leather
opposite shows the quality of the leather used. It is the full Ihickness of the skin,
and is of extra quality. Many publishers use split skins known as " skivers," be-
cause they cost only half as much as full skins. Books bound in skivers are a fraud
upon the public. The publishers guarantee that every copy of the Library style of
this book is bound in whole skin of tin rery best quality. ddiP This is an important
fact for subscribers to know.
n
DARKNESS
AND
DAYLIGHT
IN
NEW YORK
TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY
ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS
PROM
PHOTOGRAPHS FROM LIFE