Part 26 (2/2)

”The very spot, my dear lady.”

”Really, this must be looked to. It is quite too bad to think that place is so near our fas.h.i.+onable street, and in sight too. I thought it was away off somewhere the _other_ side of town. If I thought it would do any good, I would let Peter take a few dollars and some old clothes, and go down with them to-morrow.”

”Try it, madam. Better go yourself. Let Peter drive you down; see for yourself what has been done and what is yet to do. Lend your hand to cure that eye-sore, which will pain you every time you pa.s.s, for you cannot shut it out of sight, now you know where it is; so near your daily walk or drive to Stewart's, or nightly visit to the theatre, or weekly visit to the church. Go to-morrow; don't put it off till next week.”

In the meantime, reader, let us follow the woman and two boys with their heavy burden, on their homeward way to-night. We will go and see where they live.

So I followed down Anthony, past some very old rat-harbor houses, filled with human beings, almost as thick as those quadrupeds burrow in a rotten wharf; so on they go across Elm; now they stand a moment on the edge of Centre, for one of the little boys has taken hold of his mother's dress to pull her back--for she cannot look up with her load--with a sudden cry of, ”Stop, old woman! Don't you see the car is coming? Why, you are as blind as a brick. That is black Jim a-driving, and he had just as soon drive over the likes of you as eat. Hang you for a fool, han't you got no sense, old stupid? There now, run like thunder, blast ye, for here comes another of the darned cars--run, I tell you!”

She did run with her great load, till she almost dropped under its overwhelming weight. Why should she thus labor--thus expend so much strength to so little purpose? She knew no other way to live. n.o.body gave her remunerative labor for strong hands; n.o.body took those two stout boys, and set them to till the earth, or taught them how to create bread, and yet they must eat, and so they prowl about the pulled-down houses, s.n.a.t.c.hing everything they can carry away--a sort of permitted petty larceny, that teaches those who practice it how to do bigger deeds; and those old timbers they split up into kindling wood and peddle through the streets.

Poor uncared for fellow creatures; working and stealing to escape starvation--living, for what?--running to escape being run over by an unfeeling driver who cared just as much for them as for so many dogs.

On they went, down Anthony street; and I followed, determined to see the _home_ of this portion of the city poor. It was but one block further--only one little s.p.a.ce beyond this great, wide, open, railroad street, whose thoughtless thousands daily go up and down from homes of wealth to wealth-producing s.h.i.+ps and stores, little thinking of the amount of human misery within a stone's throw of the rails on which they glide swiftly along.

One block further, and the street opens into a little, half acre sort of triangular s.p.a.ce, sometimes dignified with the name of ”park,” but why, those who know can only tell, for it has no fence, no gra.s.s, and but a dozen miserable trees; 'tis lumbered up with carts and piles of stones, and strings of drying clothes, and scores of unwashed specimens of young humanity, whose home is in the dirt, whether in the street or parents'

domicil.

Here let us stop and look around. A very short street, only one block across the base of the ”park,” runs to the right from where we stand, past the ”Five Points House of Industry,” to Cross street. This is the most notorious little street in New York. Its name is Little Water street. It lead from the ”Old Brewery” to ”Cow Bay.” Who that has lived long in this city, or read its history, particularly that portion of it written by d.i.c.kens, has not heard of the ”Old Brewery?” It is not there now. That awful den of crime, poverty, and wretched drunken misery has been pulled down, and in its place a substantial brick edifice, in which is a chapel and school-room, and home of another missionary, has been erected by the n.o.ble, generous efforts of the Ladies' Home Missionary Society, of the Methodist Church. The old tenants have been driven out or reformed. How different, too, are the present occupants of that large brick pile in Little Water street, from those who filled its numerous rooms before the missionary came there. Every room was a brothel or a den of thieves, or both combined. Now it is a house of prayer--a home for the homeless--a place of refuge for midnight wandering little beggar girls.

Before us lies the misnamed, neglected triangle, called a park. At the further end is the frame house that we see so plainly as we look down Anthony street from Broadway. At the left, as though it were a continuation of Little Water street, lies that notorious Five Points collection of dens of misery, Cow Bay. It is a _cul-de-sac_, perhaps thirty feet wide at the mouth, narrowing, with crooked, uneven lines, back to a point about a hundred feet from the entrance. Into this court I tracked the kindling-wood-splitters, and threaded my way among the throng of carts and piles of steaming garbage; elbowing my way along the narrow side-walk, and up a flight of broken, almost impa.s.sable steps, I reached the first floor hall of one of the houses, just in time to see that great load of wood and its bearer toiling up a narrow, dark, broken stairway, which I essayed to climb; but just then, from the room on the left, at the foot of the stairs, there came such a piercing, murder-telling, woman's shriek, that I started back, grasped my stout cane, determined to brave the worst for the rescue, made one step, pushed open the door, creaking with a horrid grating upon its rusty hinges, and stood in the presence of an Eve, before the fall, in point of clothing, but long, long after that in point of sin. As I entered the open door, she sprung towards it; her husband caught her by the hair, and drew her back, with no gentle hand or word.

”Let me go, let me go--help!--he wants to murder me; let me go--help, help, help!”

I did help, but it was help to the poor man, for she turned upon him with the fury of a tiger, scratching and tearing his face and clothes, and then settling with a grasp upon his throat, which produced the death-rattle of suffocation.

A strong silk handkerchief served the hand-cuff's place, and to bind hands and feet together; after which she lay quietly upon a little straw and rags, in one corner, the only articles of furniture in the room, except a bottle, broken cup, and something that looked as though it once had been female apparel.

”Is this your wife?”

”She was.”

”What is she now?”

”The devil's fury. You saw what she is.”

”Do you live with her?”

”I did for seven years.”

”Did she drink then?”

”Sometimes--not so bad.”

”Did you drink?”

”Well, none to hurt. I kept a coffee house.”

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