Part 28 (1/2)

”It is but a step from the palace to the tomb.”

True, and so it seemed this night; for ere I had fairly realized the fact that I had pa.s.sed over the short step of two squares between the City prison--the Tombs--and Broadway, I stood looking into that great palace hall on the corner of Franklin street, known as Taylor's Saloon.

Was ever eating and drinking temptation more gorgeously fitted up? How the gilt and carving, and elaborate skill of the painter's art glitter in the more than sun-light splendor of a hundred sparkling gas-burners.

Are the windows open? No. The ten-feet long plates of gla.s.s are so clear from speck, it seems as though it were open s.p.a.ce. Look in. It is midnight. Is all still? Do the tired servants sleep? No. They are flitting up and down, with noiseless tread, to furnish late suppers and health-destroying luxuries, to a host of men and gayly dressed women.

'Tis the palace of luxury--'tis but a step from the palace to the tombs--'tis but a step beyond to the home of ”the Rag Picker's Daughter”--'tis here that the first step is taken which leads to infamy like that of that daughter's mother. 'Tis here that he, whose trade is seduction, walketh unshamed at noonday, or prowls at midnight, to select his victims. 'Tis here that mothers suffer young daughters to come at this untimely midnight hour to drink ”light wines,” or eat ice cream, drugged with pa.s.sion-exciting vanilla.

”Ha, ha, ha!” laughed the fiend as we pa.s.sed, on, ”rag-picking mothers are not the only ones who traffic away the virtue of young daughters in this rum-flooded city.”

”What,” said I, as I pa.s.sed on, ”if all the mis-spent s.h.i.+llings, worse than wasted in this palace, were dropped into the treasury of the House of Industry?”

”Cow Bay, Farlow's Court, and Rotten Row, would be no more, and my occupation would be gone,” said the fiend. ”It must not be. Dry up rum, and murder would cease and misery have no home here. It must not be.

_Our_ trade is in danger; I must alarm my friends!”

And he clattered his cloven foot down the steps of a nearby cellar, where there were loud sounds of blasphemous words, the noise of jingling gla.s.ses, and much wrangling, amid which I heard female voices in one of the ”private rooms,” and then an order for more wine--then I heard old cloven foot say, ”give them a bottle of two-and-sixpenny cider, they are so drunk now they wont know the odds.”

Then I understood why the fiend said ”our trade”--it is one which none else than such delight in.

I listened again. There was an awful string of oaths coming up out of the infernal regions, where men and women--street-walkers--were getting drunk upon alcohol, carbonic acid, and cider, mixed into three dollar bottles of ”wine”--pure champagne.

”Give me my pocket-book, you----”

I cannot repeat the horrid expletives. Why does a man call a woman with whom he a.s.sociates, such vile names? Why does the woman retort upon him that he is the son of a female dog, and call upon G.o.d to send his soul to perdition? Because they have ”tarried long at the wine; have looked upon it when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup.” Now ”it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.”

Now the woman has picked the pocket of her male companion--I cannot say gentleman; now he utters those terrible oaths; now she pours out such a stream of words as would pollute the very air where virtue lives; now there is a struggle; now a man is stabbed by a woman; now there is a crash of broken gla.s.s, a female street-walker is knocked down with a bottle in the hands of a man who has picked her up, and whose pockets she has picked; surely it was no vision of the brain that fancied we saw the incarnate fiend go down there; now there is a cry of murder; now there is a rapping of clubs upon the pavement, and running of men with bra.s.s stars upon the left breast of their coats; now the police bear up a wounded man--if, Madalina was here her wounded breast would ache with new pain--she is avenged at last; now they drag up a woman, a young girl, on her way to the Tombs--it is Julia Antrim.

Drop the curtain. Surely you would not look into a prison cell, or go into the police court, or with a ”vagrant,” not yet fourteen years old, to Randall's Island. In some change of the scene you may see her again.

_Quien sabe?_

”It was late next morning,” said Mr. Pease, ”when I woke up, and then I lay in a sort of dreamy reverie, thinking what a world of good I could do if I had plenty of means, until near ten o'clock. Finally, I heard an uneasy step outside my door and at length it seemed to venture to approach, and then there was a timid rap.”

”May I come in?”

”Yes, Tom, come in. What is it, Tom?”

”If you please, sir, I want to go away to-day.”

”Oh, no, Tom, don't go away to-day, you remember what you promised to do for Madalina.”

”Yes, sir, and I am going to do it. I am going to see where they put her, and then I will plant a flower there, and I will water it too, and that is not all, either, that I am going to do with water before I die.

I am going to teach people to drink it, and not drink rum.”

”Going to see where they put her?”

”Yes, sir.”

”Tom, do I understand you?”