AND LLGtn ■ ■■■•in -i&fcS dm i£x ICtbrtH SEYMOUR DURST -£' Tort nivtiu/ ^4mJlerda-m, oj> Je Manhatans When you leave, please leave this book Because it has been said "Ever'thing comes t' him who waits Except a loaned book." «•; wm i ■ *3^ Wery Architecturai vndFini Ajrts Library (in roi sn \ioi r B. I)i ksi oi i) York LiHR.un % -£* KM Wk. ~^ Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/darknessdaylightOOcamp eX-tL*^ Cp .4.^ /.;■■ DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT; OR, LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF NEW YORK LIFE. 3. lUoman's Story OF GOSPEL, TEMPERANCE, MISSION, AND RESCUE WORK " En Jin's Name," WITH BUNDREDS OF THRILLING ANECDOTES AND INCIDENTS, PERSONAL EX PERL ENCES, SKETCHES OF LIFE AND CHARACTER, HUMOROUS STORIES, TOUCHING HOME SCENES, AND TALES OF TENDER PATHOS, DRAWN FROM THE BRIGHT AND SHADY SIDES OF CITY LIFE.* BY Mrs. HELEX CAMPBELL. WITH AX INTRODUCTION By Rev. LYMAN ABBOTT. D.D. SUPPLEMENTED BY A JOURNALIST'S DESCRIPTION OF LITTLE KNOWN PHASES OF NEW YORK LIFE ; AND A FAMOUS DETECTIVE'S THIRTY YEARS' EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVATIONS. BY Col. THOMAS W. KXOX and Inspector THOMAS BYRXES. Illustrate* WITH TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO ENGRAVINGS PROM PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN PROM LIFE EXPRESSLY FOR THIS WORK, MOSTLY BY PLASH-LIGHT, AND REPRODUCED IN EXACT FACSIMILE BY EMINENT ARTISTS. HARTFORD, COXX. : A. D. WORTHIXGTOX & CO., PUBLISHERS. 1893. [All rights reserved.] Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1891, By A. D. Wokthington and Company, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. /T> 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, "As Seen by a Journalist ; " 3d, "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 familiar with than almost any other person. To the advantages of his facile pen and quick (vii) viii 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' prefa* i:. ix the method is exceedingly faulty in having to rely upon one of tin 1 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. Eere the modern camera came to their aid, and it alone is the basis for 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' 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 are a suspicious class. The appearance of a camera in their midst at once suggests to them the Rogues' Gallery, and recalls to their mind crimes knoAvn 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 threshold. 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 tl. 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 Xew York; not AS IT WAS. but AS IT IS TO-DAY. Exactly as the reader sees these picttu 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 Xew 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 xii publishers' preface. Prevention of Cruelty to Children ; to the superintendents of the Florence Night 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. G. Mason (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. War- rin, Jr., Mr. Frederick Yilmar, and Mr. Jacob A. Ens, 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. LIST "ILLUSTRATIONS --; 1 1 j - j af« ; ■- from Special ipbotocjrapbs taken from Uife ejpresslg for tbis lUork. Drawn in facsimile t>g ffrcoericR Blelman, XUm. X. Sbepparo, JEomuno 1b. Garrett, 1R. £. Spcrrs, ano otber eminent artists. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 16 16 PORTRAIT OF MRS. HELEN CAMPBELL. Engraved on Steel from a Photograph taken expressly for this work, ...... Frontispiece ILLUSTRxlTED TITLE PAGE, (full page.) To face Frontispiece Ornamental Heading to Publisher's Preface, Ornamental Heading to List of Illustrations, Ornamental Heading to Table of Contents, Ornamental Heading to Introduction, Introductory Illustration to Part I, Ornamental Heading to Chapter I, The Water Street Mission, TnE Platform facing the Audience in the Water Street Mission Room, ....... "All my Drlnks 3 Cents." — An Every-day Scene near the Water Street Mission, ..... Tablet to the Memory of Jerry McAuley on the Wall of the Water Street Mission Room, . . ... COFFEE NIGHT AT THE OLD WATER STREET MIS- SION.— A WEEKLY FEAST FOR TRAMPS, OUTCASTS, AND BUMS, (ffull page.) . . . To face Entrance to a Tenement-House and Alley. — The door at the left leads directly lnto a tenement. The arch- way AT THE RIGHT IS A DARK PASSAGEWAY LEADING TO FILTHY YARDS AND TENEMENTS IN THE REAR, A Typical Tenement-House Backyard, A Tenement-House on Hamilton Street known as "Tile Ship." — 1, Narrow Entrance to the Rear leading to the Garret Rooms, ...... (13) PAGE. 7 13 21 37 47 49 52 59 si 87 90 92 94 14 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 17 A Room and its Occupant as found in the 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 ln 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, (ffull 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 ln 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. (# ull page.) • To face 124 31 The Washroom ln the Newsboys' Lodging-House just before Supper Time, ...... 127 32 In one of the Dormitories ln the Newsboys' Lodging-House, 129 33 The Gymnasium in the Newsboys' Lodging-House, . . 132 34 An Evening Game of Dominoes ln 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 ln 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 page.) To face 154 44 Gutter Children, ....... 158 45 A Gang of Dock Rats Basking 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. 15 50 Patrick Kieley, as found half-starved, Age 11: Pack cur AND BODY BRUISED BY IMll MAN PARENTS, . . .177 51 John and Willie D , 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, . . . .1st; 56 The Reading Desk in the Cremorne Mission Room, . 188 57 Drinking Fountain Erected to the Memory of Jerry Mc- auley near the cltemorne 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 ln 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, (ffull fl>aCJC) Toface 230 67 An Every-day and Every-night Scene ln a Stale-Beer Dive, 233 68 A Stale-Beer DrvE on Mulberry Street by Day, . . 235 69 TnE 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, (tfull pacje.) Toface 242 71 Doyers Street, known locally as " Shinbone Alley," . 252 72 Finishing Boys' Pants at Ten Cents a Dozen Pairs, . 261 73 A Blend Tailoress and Her Family, .... 264 74 Under the Shadow of TnE 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, 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 pacje.) . To face 289 80 A Surgical Operation at Bellevue Hospital, . . 291 16 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 81 In one of the Female Wards at Bellevue 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. (# uli page.) To face 301 85 The "Cage," or Prisoners' Ward at Bellevue Hospital, 302 86 In the Propagating Room, ..... 307 87 The View from the Schoolroom, .... 309 88 Winners of the Prize, . . . . . .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, (ffull fl>a0C) .... To face 322 91 In the Surgeon's Room, ...... 326 92 A Hopeless C\se. 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 Murderers' Row ln the Tombs, .... 344 99 Discharged Convicts Making Brooms, .... 354 100 An East River Dock, ...... 357 101 In the Cell. Blackwell's Island Penitentiary, . . 365 102 Prisoners' Cells ln the Penitentiary, Blackwell's Island. (The dark cells are on the lower floor), . . 367 103 husbandless mothers and fatherless children ln the Charity Hospital, Blackwell's Island, . . . 370 104 Insane Patients in the Brush Shop, Blackwell's Island, . 373 105 Insane Patients in the Basket Shop, Blackwell's Island, 375 106 Lunatics' Chariot, drawn by Lunatics chained together, . 377 107 The Convicts' Lockstep, ...... 379 108 The Mother's Last Kiss, ...... 382 109 Sister Irene's Basket, ...... 383 110 Foster Mothers, ....... 385 111 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 Maln Staircase, . 392 116 In the Children's Dormitory at Sister Irene's, . . 393 117 Tile Little Waif's Evening Prayer, .... 394 LIST OF ILLUSTK.\TI«i\x. 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 135 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 13T 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 14.") 146 147 148 149 150 "NOW I LAY ME DOWN To BLEEP."— BEDTIME IN THE HOMELESS LITTLE GIRLS' DORMITORY AT THE FIVE POINTS HOUSE OF INDUSTRY, (full page.) Tofaa Curbstone Gossip in Mulberry Street, Sidewalk Pease Seller, Mulberry Street, . Curbstone Beaks Seller, Mulberry Street, Push-Cart Brigade in the Great Bend, Mulberry Street Sidewalk Bread Seller, Mulberry Street, . Curbstone Vegetable Vender, Mulberry Street, . Italian Ragpickers' Settlement, Mulberry Street, Sidewalk Vegetable Stands, Mulberry Street, Sidewalk Turnip Seller, Mulberry Street, Italian Ragpicker Mending his Bags, Mulberry Street, A Cluster of Shanties ln Shantytown, Backyard of a Shanty in Shantytown, A Thrifty German's Shanty ln Shantytown. Ten Cows KEPT IN A LOW SHED ON THE PREMISES, A Typical ' Establishment " in Shantytown, A Police Station-House Lodging-Room, Midnight in the Women's Lodging-Room at a Police Station-House, ..... "Sitters" ln the Women's Lodges g-Room at the Police Station-House, ...... Entrance to a Shed Lodglng-House in the Rear of Mul berry Street, ...... EARLY MORXIXG IX A SHED LODGIXG-IIOUSE IX THE REAR OF MULBERRY STREET.— GETTIXG READY FOR AXOTHER DAY OF IDLEXESS OR CRIME, (ffull fl>agc.) .... Tofaee A Corner ln a Lodging-Shed by Day, . A " Reserved " Room in a Lodging-Shed, Tin: Schoolship St. Mary's, Boys' Schoolroom between Decks on the St. Mary The Sail-Making Class on the St. Mary's. . Learning to Splice Ropes on the St. Mary's, "Up Aloft." A Drill Scene on the St. Mary's, Ready for Sea. A Scene on the St. Mary's, Peaceful Industries at the Sailors' Snug Harbor. Old sailors making miniature shirs. A Crippled Sailor Weaving Baskets, . A One-Armed Naval Veteran with a Perfect Model of the Flag-Shir "Hartford," made with his Left Hand, A Contented Old Salt, ...... Introductory Illustration to Part II, ... 4--)l 453 455 18 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 PORTRAIT OF COL. THOMAS W. KNOX. Engraved on Steel from a Photograph taken expressly for this work, ...... Toface Ornamental Heading to Openlng Chapter of Part II Exterior of a Bowery Dime Museum, . In a Bowery Dime Museum. The lecturer, his freak and his audience, In a Ragpicker's Cellar, Baxter Street, Among the Tenements in the Rear of Mulberry I A Typical Tenement-House Alley, A Group as Found ln a Tenement-House Cellar, A Ragpicker's Room ln a Tenement-House, . A Training-School of Crime. Boys playing pickpocket, A Tenement-House Alley Gang. Candddates for crime, An Alley Trio. As found ln a Mulberry Street Alley Interior of a Low Groggery on Cherry Street, An Old Corner Groggery near a Tenement-House District Old and Young Toughs Playing Cards on the Docks, Police Headquarters Building, . Main Entrance to Police Headquarters Building, Patrolman's Shield, .... Midnight Rollcall at a Police Station-House, Policemen's School of Instruction, 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 fl>age.) . . . Toface Meeting—Place of Telegraph Wires at Police Headquar- ters communicating with all parts of the World, Policeman' Billy, Day Club, and Night Stick, AN ABANDONED INFANT.— A POLICEMAN REPORT- ING A LITTLE FOUNDLING PICI^ED UP IN AN ALLEY.— A WINTER NIGHT SCENE AT A POLICE STATION-HOUSE, (ffull fl>age.) . . Toface Harbor Police Searching for River Thteves, Handcuffs, ...... Prisoners' Cells ln a Police Station-House, The Lost-Property Room at Police Headquarters A Scallng-Ladder, SCALING-L ADDER DRILL, Fireman's Life-Saving Hook and Belt, The Jumping or Life-Saving Net, The Llfe-Line Gun, The Dummy, ..... Life-Saving Net Drill, . 459 459 465 467 471 477 479 481 482 484 485 487 489 492 494 500 501 502 503 506 509 510 512 517 518 520 521 524 530 531 532 533 534 534 535 LIST OF •LUSTRA! EONS. 19 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 Life-Line Drill, ..... In the Hospital for Sick and Disabled Horse Waiting fob the Signal, The Jumping-Hole, The Night Alarm, . Off to a Fire, A Ladder Truck, . Lamp Post Surmounting a Fire Signal-Box, . Fire Signal-Box on a Street Lamp Post, A Xoted Corner Resort for Chinese Gamblers, Entrance to a Chinese Gambling-House over an Opium-Den A Chlnese Vender of Shelled Beans, Waiting for Trade. Chlnese Curbstone Merchant-. Ln the Rear of a Chlnese Restaurant on Pell Street Skins stuffed with meat hung up to dry, Tobacco Smokers in a Joss-House, 11 hlttlng the plpe." scene in an opium' den, A Chinaman and his White TVife Smoking Opium, . A Sly Opium Smoker. (This photograph was made by flash LiGnT ln a Chinese Opium Den on Pell Street, when the smoker was supposed to be fast asleep. subse quently the photograph disclosed the fact that hi had at least one eye open when the picture was made) Caught ln the Act. An Opium Smoker surprised, . A Tramp's Interrupted Xap, .... Early Morning on the Docks. A GANG of sleeping tramps A Sleeping Tramp. A brick for a pillow, . A Dangerous Place for a Snooze. A tramp sleeping on THE STRUNG-PIECE OF A PIER, . A Genuinely Busted Tramp, An Uncomfortable Bed, even for a Tramp Taking it Easy. A tramp's noon hour, A Tramp's Sunday Morning Change, A Blind Mans Tin Sign, . What was on the Other Side, . A Typical Pawnshop, The Old Candy Woman, . "Pencils," .... An Italian Notion Peddler, A Fruit Vender and his " Shouter, Pretzel Sellers, "Cash Paid for Rags," Making a Careful Selection, A Fayorite Place for Street Children. "Cold sod WATER 2 CENTS, ICE CREAM 1 CENT," . 20 , LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 224 Curbstone Dry Goods Merchants, .... 625 225 Introductory Illustration to Part III, . . . 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 of 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." (ffull Ipage.) . . To face 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' Jackscrew, ...... 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 Ipage.) . 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 Crime), 696 250 Underground Cells at Police Headquarters, . 713 251 Chief Inspector Byrnes's Private Room at Police Head- quarters, ........ 735 PART I. BY Wl^ L^_ CHAPTER I. SUNDAY IX WATER STREET — HOMES OF REVELRY AXD VICE — SCENES IX THE MISSION ROOM — STRANGE EXPERIEXCES. 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 Xame of Jesus — "God Takes what the Devil Would Turn up His Xose 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 — Dirtv Homes and Hard Faces — " The Kind God Don't Want and the Devil Won'1 Bave" — 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, 88 2 (21) 22 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 IY. 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 Y. 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 the 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 Manic 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 Sewed on Millions of Buttons, that Child Has" — "A Hot Place Waitin' for Him" — Preternaturally Aged Faces, . . 139 CONTENTS. 2 3 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 Hats — 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 CHAPTEK 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 I" — 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? lam your Jennie" — Affecting Meeting of a Mother and her Erring Daughter — Old Michael's Story — Fiftv-three Years in Prison-. . 185 24 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. THE SLUMS 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-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, 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, 208 CHAPTEE 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 ( 'crners " — " Wal, I'm Blowed " — Caught by the Great Detective, 247 CONTENTS. CHAPTEE XII. SHOP-GIRLS AND WORKING WOMEN— THE GREAT ARMY OF NEW YORK POOR — LIFE UNDER THE GREAT BRIDGE— THE BITTER CRY OF NEW YORK. Simp-Girls and their Lives —Workers in all Trades— Aching Heads and Tired Feet — The Comforts of Old Shoes — Women in Rags who S.-w 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 al Work — Brutal Sweaters — Grinding the races 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 Ly« — 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 Seenes — Starving Body and Soul — - Better, Always Worse and Worse" — The Sorrow' of the Poor, . 2oo CHAPTER XIII. HOSPITAL LIFE IN NEW YORK — A TOUR THROUGH THE WARDS OF OLD BELLEYUE — AFFECTING SCENES — THE MORGUE AND ITS SILENT OCCUPANTS. Wealth and Misery Side by Side —Training Sehools 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 A — Cutting off a Lf'j; 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, 27 ( J CHAPTEE XIY. 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 Localitv — 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 I with Them — "The Pansy Man" — Taking Flowers out for a Walk — Effect of Flowers on a Sick 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 — "Ain't They God's?" 305 26 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 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 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 CHAPTER XVI. LIFE BEHIND THE BARS — A VISIT TO THE TOMBS— SCENES WITHIN PRISON WALLS — RAYS OF LIGHT ON A DARK PICTURE. The Tombs — A Gloomy Prison — The Bridge of Sighs — Murderers' Row — 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 Unheeded 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 CHAPTER 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. 27 CHAPTEE XVIIL LIFE OX BLACKWELL'S [BLAND — THE DREGS OF A GREAT CITY — WHERE CRIMINALS, PAUPERS, AND LUNATICS ARK 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 Crinn — 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-live 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 — Seeret Communications between Prisoners, 302 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 Mother- — A "Rent-Baby" — A "Run- Around" — How Sifter 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 " Pretty 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 IX NEW YORK — SCENES IX THE GREAT BEXD IX MULBERRY STREET — HOMES OF FILTH AXI) SQUALOR The Home of the Organ-Grinder and his Monkey — Italian Child Slavery — Begging, or Honest Occupation — Grinding Poverty — An Italian's First View of Xew York — Flashing Eyes and (ray-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 — Swarming 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 Italv," 398 28 , CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXI. SHANTYTOWN AND ITS DWELLERS — LIFE AMONG NEW YORK SQUATTERS — CHARACTERISTIC SCENES AND INCIDENTS. The Land of Hans and Pat — A Fertile Field for Artists — The March of Im- provement — German Patience and Industry — Pat's Fondness for White- 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 CHAPTEK 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 Their Beds — A Visit to Casey's Den — A Rope for a Pillow — Packed Like Herrings — 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 Worst" — 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 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 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 — Jack Awaiting the Ebbing of the Tide, 434 MPIDH3 -—- — PART II. BY /%r^t^T /^^^c^r CHAPTER XXIV. STREET LIFE — THE BOWERY BY DAY AND BY NIGHT — LIFE EN BAXTER AXD 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 XXV. TRAINING-SCHOOLS OF CRIME — DRINK, THE ROOT OF EVIL — GREAT RESPOXSIBILITY OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC FOR CRIME — PL AIX 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 (/rime — 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 — Fouf Beds and Noisy Nights, . 470 (29) 30 CONTENTS. CHAPTEK XXVI. THE POLICE DEPARTMENT OF NEW YORK — THE DETECTIVE FORCE AND ITS WORK— SHADOWS AND SHADOWING — SLEUTH-HOUNDS OF THE LAW. A Building that is Never Closed — Police-Station Lodgings — Cutting his Buttons off — A Dramatic Scene — Teaching the Tenderfeet — 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 CHAPTEK 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 CHAPTEK 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-Ying" — 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-Holc — 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 — M()('K AUCTIONS, BOGUS HORSE SALES AND OTHER TRAPS FOR THE ON WARY — 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" O Hue — "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 Californian 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, 58-4 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. CHAPTEE XXXII. 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 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 CHAPTEE XXXIII. GAMBLERS 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 PART III. Chief of the New York Detective Bureau. CHAPTER XXXIY. 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 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 Impressions of Store Locks in Wax— Teaching Young Thieves, OoT (33) 34 CONTENTS. CHAPTEK 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-Taie 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 Sqoundrel — 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 Thieve- — 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 — 5len 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 and "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 Familv'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 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XLIL SHARPERS, CONFIDENCE-MEN AND BUNCO-STEERERS — WIDE OPEN TRAPS — TRICKS OF "SAWDUST" AND "GREEN- GOODS" DEALERS. The Bunco-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 Engraved trom a teceiu photograph, expresslg for this work. t 3f Louisiana, and in Chicago that of the growing West. The political influences exerted by these cities often over-balance the rot of the state and determine the political action even of the nation. The crimes which occasionally terrify the residents in rural villages and smaller towns are planned and perpe- trated by skilled professionals, educated in the nearest great city; the gambling mania developed in its markets and exchanges is by the telegraphic wire carried to every part of the country with the rapidity with which the nerve flashes intelligence from the brain to the finger. The cities are kept alive by the immigration from the rural districts. They become schools in vice or virtue for hundreds of young- men and women who go up year by year from their country homes to the great cities in quest of a greater success than the farm or the village store promises them. To make a fortune or to mar a character? That depends upon the associations they form, the atmosphere they breathe, the life in which they are immersed in the bright, beautiful, but awful city. There is not a father or mother in America who has not reason to feel a strong personal interest in the conditions and character of the city which this book describes. And yet the picture is not all a dark one. Another volume as large, thought not as dramatic as this, might be written on the benevolent influences in our great cities for the redemption of the erring and the sinful. In the early history of Christen- dom the great cities were the gathering places of the first Christian churches. The pagans, — that is, pagam i, — were the country men or villagers; the heathen were the heath dwellers. Later it was from the towns and cities that the Benedictines went forth, carrying with them the seeds of an improved civ- ilization, in better education for the common people, and in improvements in every art which concerned the common wel- fare. In England, in the days of Simon de Montfort, it was in the cities that the Franciscans carried on their missionarv 42 DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT IN NEW YORK. work, and all unwittingly prepared the way for the English Reformation. The cities furnished Cromwell's army with his recruits, — his tapsters and serving men. The towns and cities were the centers of the great Methodist revival. And to-day it is to the cities that country parishes appeal and Western col- lege presidents come for means to carry on the religious and educational work of the smaller towns and the rural districts. The city is not all bad nor all good. It is humanity com- pressed, the best and the worst combined, in a strangely com- posite community. Mr. Charles Booth — not to be confounded with Gen. Booth, the founder and leader of the Salvation Army — began in 1886 a careful, scientific study of the city of London, espe- cially the East End, and has published in part the result of these investigations in three volumes entitled, " Labor and Life of the People." His volume is not like the present one, graphic and pictorial, though illustrative incidents are not wanting ; it is chiefly scientific and statistical. As the result of this investigation, he divided the people of London into eight classes, distinguished by the letters from A to H, as follows : — POPULATION. A. The lowest class of occasional laborers, loafers, and semi-criminals, . . 1.2 per cent B. Casual earnings, very poor, . . . 11.2 ' C. Poor — Intermittent earnings, .... 8.3 * D. " Small regular earnings, 14.5 < E. Fairly Comfortable — Regular stated earnings, 42,3 i F. " " Higher class labor, 13.6 i G. Lower Middle class, . . ."•'■. 3.9 i II. Upper Middle class, 5.0 e In considering what duties are imposed upon us by the con- dition of our great cities, what remedies are possible for their vice and crime, what protection possible against the perils with which they threaten our commonwealth, Mr. Booth's careful scientific survey of London may serve us a useful purpose. We cannot, indeed, assume that the conditions in London are like those in New York. The proportion between the different INTRODUCTION. classes is probably different in every different city, and almost certain to be in New York other than it is in London. No such careful study of New York city has yet been made, and the census statistics are somewhat uncertain, if not absolutely untrustworthy. Yet those best acquainted with the conditions of life in New York estimate that at least one-tenth of the population of that city belong to the dependent, that is, to the pauper and criminal class. Mr. Booth's classification may therefore serve our purpose, though his figures may not. The problem of our civilization is primarily one not of cure, but of prevention. The first duty of both the State and the Church is to study, not how to recover the pauper and the criminal, but how to prevent the poor from drifting down into the pauper and criminal class ; and how to help them to climb gradually into a region of permanent self-support and manly independence. It would be carrying coals to Xewcastle were I to attempt to add to this graphic volume any further descrip- tion of life in Xew York city, but I shall venture to offer some suggestions as to the practical remedy for the evils described and the duty imposed upon all men and women of a humane spirit. These remedies are of two kinds : the political and personal. As to the distinctively socialistic remedies this is not the place to speak. The existence of poverty and crime in such vast pro- portions is a symptom not merely of individual depravity, but of imperfect social organization. Very considerable social re- construction is necessary before modern society can be truly called Christian. But to discuss the socialistic questions involved would require space far beyond the limits of such an introduc- tion as this, and I therefore confine myself to a consideration of those remedies which may be put in operation without any radical reconstruction of social order or organization. I. Political Remedies. — Mr. Gladstone has well said that our laws ought to be so framed as to make virtue easy and crime difficult. In our criminal laws there is much which makes crime easy and virtue difficult. Sydney Smith satirized 44 DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT IN NEW' YORK. the jails of England as public schools maintained at great ex- pense for the cultivation of crime and the education of crimi- nals. That satiric but sadly true description has been in print for many years, and yet remains true. Our institutions for the punishment of petty crimes are admirably adapted to convert the first not very guilty offender into a permanent and profes- sional criminal. The homeless girl in our great cities, under the influence of evil companions, falls into vice or the suspicion of a crime. She is straightway locked up in the same guard- house with criminals of the other sex or with more hardened criminals of her own. Only recently, and after a hard battle, has the legislature of New York reluctantly enacted a law pro- viding for women custodians of women suspects in the station houses of New York city. A woman committed to the peni- tentiary is a woman disgraced ; honorable life is henceforth almost impossible for her. And yet the judge, knowing this fact, can avoid perpetrating this crime against womanhood, only by stretching his authority to its utmost. That he may not do this great wrong, he will suspend sentence and then tell the girl before him that unless she voluntarily submits herself to the custody of some designated philanthropic institu- tion he will have her re-arrested and committed on the charge preferred against her. In my own city of Brooklyn, The Way- side Home, provided by Christian women as a means of pre- venting the law from pushing accidental criminals into a career of permanent crime, has with difficulty secured a charter, and can render the service which it desires to render only by suffer- ance of the law through this exercise of judicial discretion. Experts have long demanded reformatory institutions for juve- nile criminals, and that judicial discretion be given to the crim- inal judges to commit criminals under a specified age to such reformatory and educational institutions as Christian philan- thropy may provide for the purpose. A little has been accom- plished ; a great deal remains unaccomplished. While the community imposes penal sentences of too great severity in the case of unhardened criminals, it imposes absurdly fNTRODUl WON. L5 short sentences upon habitual drunkards. The usual term for a man or a woman arrested for disorderly and drunken behavior in the street is ten days. It barely suffices to sober the habitue of the saloon and whet the appetite for a new debauch. The convict is discharged only to get drunk on the day of Ins release, and to find himself on the following morning before the magistrate, awaiting a new sentence. "Rounders" spend half their time in the penitentiary, housed at the public expense, and the other half in drinking and debauchery in the public streets. All students of criminal law are agreed that this crime- breeding abuse should cease; but an apathetic, perhaps igno- rant, legislature thus far has given no relief. Every person arrested for drunkenness should be committed to an asylum lor a term sufficiently long to make a radical cure of his inebriacy possible; and for a second or third offense the committal should be until competent authorities in the asylum pronounce a cure effectual. If this sometimes involves a life sentence, what then \ It is a folly, which Talleyrand would call worse than a crime, for us to maintain, at public expense, police courts and a peniten- tiary, to administer a system of miscalled punishment, which does nothing to lessen and much to aggravate the public offense and the public cost of drunkenness. Every man who walks the streets of a great city, especially towai'ds nightfall, finds himself from time to time accosted by some vagrant beggar. Every man who lives in a great city finds his door besieged by a procession of them. Sometimes the beggar is in search of work; oftener'of a lodging for the night ; still more frequently of money to pay his passage to some other city where he has friends or the promise of a job. He is usually the victim ot some accident or disease — chronic rheumatism, a hacking cough. Frequently he has just been discharged from the hospital. Occasionally he carries an old greasy testimonial. He used to be an old soldier; but the old soldier has now disappeared. If he really has met with some accident and has a wooden leg. or a disabled hand, he is excep- tionally equipped. Sometimes this man really is an unfortu- 46 DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT IN NEW YORK. nate, without ability to support himself, and without personal friends; sometimes he is a criminal, and it is never wise to leave him alone in the hall if there are overcoats on the hat tree. But generally he is a vagrant who has found it easier to beg than to dig, and who is on his downward way to petty crime — or worse. On a cold night in a comfortable home, one is reluctant to turn such an applicant away ; but to give him money or clothing is to do him a wrong, because it adds one more impulse to his vagrant and lazy propensities. Philan- thropic men and women have united to protect the community against these professional vagrants. The Bureau of Charities receives subscriptions from its patrons and then invites them to send every such beggar to its doors. It has a woodyard and gives to the man a job by which he can earn a lodging or a breakfast. It has a laundry for the employment of the vagrant woman. But all unfortunates cannot saw wood or wash clothes. Gen. Booth in his Salvation Army has sketched a larger scheme and a wiser one. To the woodyard he has added the workshop. For work done he will give food and shelter to every tramp who applies. For admission there is but one condition — the tramp must be willing to do any work assigned to him. Smoking, drinking, and bad language are not allowed upon the premises. The willing and compe- tent worker graduates into an upper class where he receives small wages besides food and shelter. And from this class he graduates into independent employment which the Salvation Army endeavors to find for him as soon as he is competent to perform it. The principle of the Army is, — Never give some- thing for nothing. To do this is to rob man of his manhood. Gifts that pauperize never truly relieve poverty. In some future day the state will do by laAv what Gen. Booth endeav- ors to do by private charity. It will assist the vagrant who cannot support himself ; it will provide him with food, shelter, clothing, and work. It will require him, if he is able, to do the Avork in payment of his maintenance. And it will look back with amazement upon the days in which men and women com- INTRODUCTION. mitted petty thefts in order to secure the privilege of being sent to jail and provided with the necessaries of life, which the state gives to the criminal but not to the honest incompetent. We are just beginning to Learn that self-interesl is not a sufficient protection to the community. It is not safe to allow landlords to build such houses as they can rent, or tenants to occupy such apartments as they like. Sanitary laws are already in existence which profess to regulate the condition and character of tenement houses. But the appropriations for the Board of Health in New York city are ridiculously inadequate and the number of its inspectors absurdly small. As a conse- quence, in detiance of law, unsanitary tenements still exist. Avhere the tenants are deprived of air and light ; and bad drain- age and cheap plumbing combined with filthy streets and courts make breeding places for public pestilence. In London they have gone further and done better than we have in demo- cratic America. Unsanitary tenements have been torn down, the height of buildings has been regulated by a certain fixed ratio to the width of the streets, the number of tenants allowed to a given number of cubic feet is regulated by law and the violation of the law by the landlord severely punished. Acres of land in London have been cleared by Act of Parliament, and in the place of the old unsightly and unsanitary tenements decent dwellings have been erected by private capital. But these reforms will not be carried out in Xew York city until the country districts awaken to their righteousness and necessity. and »'ive to the over-crowded wards the boon which their ijnio- rant population are not intelligent enough to ask for. As I write these lines a movement has already been inaugurated in New York city, championed by one of its leading papers, to secure by political action the opening of parks and play-grounds in the more densely populated wards to whose children the Centra] Park is an El Dorado too distant for even an annual outing; and to provide reading and club rooms in the public schoolhouses as gathering places in the evening for the boys and young men who have now no other meeting-place than the 48 DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT IN NEW YORK. saloon. In all these reforms Whitechapel (London) has already led the way. The free library started by private benevolence has been assumed by the district, and, by a popular vote of four to one, made a public charge ; play-grounds have been attached to the public school buildings ; and the buildings themselves have been opened for club purposes in the evenings. There is no reason why these simple reforms should not be carried into effect at once with us, except that under our system of local government, the wards in which the need for these reforms is the greatest are the wards where that need is least realized and therefore least likely to be supplied. The impulse for the reform must come in most cases, if not in all, from without. II. Personal and Philanthropic Remedies. — Pev. S. A. Barnett, the founder and head of Toynbee Hall, in an article on Whitechapel in the Christian Union, has pointed out the methods by which a considerable measure of reform has been wrought in that famous district. " It has been," he says, " by a combination of official and voluntary action. Official action has a tendency to become narrow and hard ; voluntary action has a tendency to become weak and uncertain. Whitechapel reforms have been initiated and are still inspired by the hu- manity of active citizens, but they have the authority of the public sanction and the stability of official control." Law may punish crime, repress disorder, stop up some of the fountains from which crime and disorder flow, do something to change environment and ameliorate conditions ; but it can do very little directly for moral improvement of character, and moral improvement of character is fundamental. This work must be largely voluntary. It must be done by those who engage in it inspired by faith and hope and love, not ap- pointed to it by a bureau and selected for it from political con- siderations. In this field of philanthropic effort professionalism of all kinds is fatal. Even the paid agents of religious societies cannot save as a substitute for volunteers. Their knowledge may be more accurate and their experience larger, but their sympathies will be less vital, and they will always labor under INTRODUCTION. }:» the suspicion which attaches to paid officials of every de- scription. The secret of success in all personal and voluntary work for the improvement of the outcast class, or of those who are in danger of falling into it, is personal contact with men and women of higher nature. This was the method of Jesus; he put himself in personal touch with the men and women whom he sought to influence, and then sent out to a wider ministry those who had received inspiration from him, to impart it in turn to others. It is the herding of the despairing and the criminal together which makes reform almost impossible. "By herding together," says Mr. Charles Booth, "both the quarters they occupy and their denizens tend to get worse;' 3 and he describes the gain which has been made by destroying the horrible lodging-houses (of these as they exist in Xew York the reader will find a graphic description in the pages of this volume), and in the consequent dispersion of their inhab- itants. This process, however, can be carried out only where the tenements and the lodging-houses are of the worst descrip- tion ; and this process does not of itself constitute reform. It is for Christian philanthropy to turn into these lower wards a stream of pure and better humanity, and by furnishing ideals and examples of life promote purer and better living. This work of private and personal benevolence until comparatively recently has been left undone. What Mr. Charles Booth says of London is equally true of Xew York : - the publican is left too much in possession of the field as friend of the working man.'' Xothing will really serve except to give him a better friend. It is a part of the common cant of our time to charge the Christian churches with being indifferent to the condition of the poor; with being so absorbed in creeds and rituals and in their own luxurious worship that they have no eyes osee the destitution which is about them, — no ears to hear the outcry of the outcast. Whatever truth there may be in these charges, the Christian churches have been the first to 50 DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT IN NEW YORK. enter the missionary field in our great cities, to explore it, and to engage in measures of recuperation and redemption. Every city church of any considerable size and resources has one or more mission chapels in the lower wards of the city, with its Sunday-school, its week-day meetings of various descriptions, and generally its Sabbath evening service. The teachers in these schools are young men and young women from the up-town churches. They are not always wise, and are rarely skilled teachers. The value of their ministry lies not so much in the Bible or in the catechism which they teach, as in the fact that for one hour a day unkempt boys and girls are brought in contact with a young man or a young woman whom they admire, then learn to love, and so instinctively take as a pattern to be imitated. Any man who is familiar with the work of these Sunday-schools knows how, in two or three years, the appearance of the children changes. They become cleanly and well dressed. The ragged school ceases to be a ragged school ; they carry back into their homes something of the inspiration which they have derived from the hour's companionship on Sunday after- noon ; the whole neighborhood feels and shows the influence. The Five Points, for years dangerous even to policemen at night, was as absolutely purified by the Five Points House of Industry, established and maintained by Mr. Pease, as is a filthy street when flushed out by a stream of pure water. Of this mission work Mrs. Helen Campbell has given in the opening chapters of this volume a most graphic picture in her account of the work of Jerry McAuley. Her description of that mission makes evident that our Christian work in the outcast wards will never accomplish what it ought, until the outcasts themselves, who have been converted, are set apart to mission work among their fellows. Jesus ordained to the gospel ministry the twelve fishermen after they had received but a year's instruction from Him, and one of them had not fully recovered from his sailor habit of profanity; and Paul began preaching to the Jews within a few days after he was converted to Christianity. INTRODUCTION, 51 Growing historically, though not organically, out of these Christian missions arc missionary movements equally Christian in spirit, though not in name, nor in theological doctrine. In lieu of an hour's contact on a Sunday afternoon, these new philanthropic movements, born within the last quarter of a century, seek to provide a more permanent and continuous eon- tact. The most notable of these, Toy nbee Hall in East London, may serve as an illustration of the others. Toynbee Hall is a young men's club, with a house which is open only to the members or their special guests. It was founded by the Rev. S. A. Barnett, who is still the head of it. The club house adjoins his church, St. Jude's, Whitechapel, but there is no other connection between Toynbee Hall and the church. The conditions of admission to the club are only two : that the can- didate be a clubable fellow, congenial to the other members, and that he enter the club because he has a sincere desire to do some unselfish work for his fellow-men in East London. Most of the members of the club are engaged through the day in some vocation, being dependent on their industry in greater or less measure for their livelihood. But the evenings which other young men devote to calls, theaters, concerts, and society in general, the residents in Toynbee Hall devote to some philan- thropic work in the district. One young man organizes a class in. language, another in literature, another in some practical phase of physical science, another a boys' club. Each man selects his own work according to his own idiosyncrasy, con- ferring with the head of the club only to avoid collision and duplications. To those who measure a missionary work by statistics of the number of pupils taught, congregations ad- dressed, visits made, and converts enrolled, Toynbee Hall appears a failure. But to those who are able to see how the inspiration furnished to one life is transferred to a second and a third, how each lighted torchlights in turn another, the work of Toynbee Hall takes rank with the highest and best Christian work of our century. It is imitated in spirit, though not in detailed methods, by the College Settlement of New York', a 52 DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT IN NEW YORK. settlement of college^girls, who, with a similar aim, have taken up their residence in one of the lower wards of New York city ; and by the Andover House in Boston, which has recently been established by the students of Andover Theological Seminary. Another form in which this same principle of personal intermingling of the cultivated and the virtuous with the less fortunate, is wrought out, is furnished by the Boys' and Girls' Clubs. A Working Girls' Club usually consists of from twenty to fifty members. It sometimes has rooms in a mission chapel or parish house, but more frequently hires a house of its own. A group of ladies interested in the movement identify themselves with the club and attend its sessions with greater or less regularity. The house is usually open every evening in the week, and classes are established in which dressmaking, millinery, cooking, and the like are taught. Every member of the club pays a small fee, and every member of each class 'some additional fee. These payments, however, are rarely sufficient to meet all the expenses of the club ; the deficit is provided either by special contributions or by some church. The Working Girls' Clubs thus connected with the Episcopal Churches of New York are united in one central organization. There is also both in New York and in Brooklyn a federation of the non-Episcopal Working Girls' Clubs. Connected with these clubs are country homes or " Vacation Houses," where the girls can spend their week or fortnight of summer vacation. They pay their actual expenses, thus maintaining a self- respecting independence, but the house is provided and more or less equipped by private benevolence. These Working Girls' Clubs can hardly be called missionary enterprises ; since the girls who constitute them are independent and of unexcep- tionable character ; the merit of the club consists in the oppor- tunity for social intermingling and consequent moral culture. In many of them no denominational lines are recognized, and in not a few supported by Protestant churches, Koman Catholics constitute a majority of the members. The Boys' Club differs from the Working Girls' Club only as the boy INTRODUCTION. differs from the girl. They vary in membership from twenty to two hundred. A room is secured in which the boys gathered once, twice, or oftener a week, for all sorts of employ- ment from a lecture or a clas> to a military drill or a musical ci' stereopticon entertainment. The expense involved in such work is not necessarily very great. The Rev. John L. Scudder, Pastor of the People's Tabernacle (Congregational) of Jersey City, has recently opened in connection with his church the apparatus for such a work as I have just briefly described. He has bought two dwelling-houses; turned the parlor and basement of one of them, by taking out the floor, into a swim- ming bath ; in the other, furnished a parlor and provided some class rooms ; in an additional building, constructed for the pur- pose, placed a gymnasium, bowling alley, billiard tables, library and reading-rooms, and game-room for the younger boys. The entire expense of the whole establishment has not exceeded $15,000. What the running expense will be it is too early to state with positiveness, but a considerable proportion of it will be provided for by the fees, and the demand for admission by the boys is already so great that they have to be admitted only in sections. The People's Tabernacle, however, is in a down- town district and is peculiarly well situated for such a work. Clubs of workingmen are more common in London than in this country. In AVhitechapel alone there are six of them, classed by Mr. Booth as philanthropic and religious, and all of them, with one exception, total abstinence clubs. This account would not be complete without at least refer- ing to the system of "Friendly Visitors," 1 — a system accord- ing to which certain persons, under the direction of a central board, pledge themselves to take one or more families who need counsel, if not material help, on their visiting list, and maintain personal friendly relations with them; and to the Free Kindergarten Schools, generally maintained by private benevolence, but in some communities attached to and forming a part of the public school system. 1 Of this method of encouraging self-help Miss Octavia Hill gives an admirable account in the August number of the Nineteenth Century. [3* -half sig.] 54 DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT IN NEW YORK. The reader will remember how Bunyan's Pilgrim was taken into the Interpreter's House and there saw a fire which burned hotter the more water was thrown upon it. He understood the mystery when the Interpreter took him to the other side of the wall, where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in his hand which he continually but secretly cast on the fire. I have tried in this introduction to take the reader to the other side of the wall and give him a glimpse of what is being done, and of what should be done on very much larger scale, to keep alive that form of faith and hope and love which burns or flickers, or at the worst glows as' a divine ember in every human heart. The book to which this is an introduction de- scribes only too truly the influences at work to quench the divine spark in humanity. But the case is by no means desper- ate. Mr. Charles Booth is authority for the statement that less than 13 per cent, of the population of London can be counted as " very poor," while nearly 65 per cent, are in comfort, and a portion of them in affluence. And Mr. Barnett is authority for the statement that in twenty years time, by the influences which I have here briefly hinted at, Whitechapel, famed as one of the worst city districts in the world, has been so greatly im- proved that " the death rate is now normal, and only one com- paratively small district remains unreformed and vicious to remind the child of what was common in his father's days." What has been can be. Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. *s 147) ::.*.-, THlTOBf RDD AYljEar r c&>-