Part 14 (1/2)

CHAPTER XI

THE BEND IS LAID BY THE HEELS

If there be any to whohty te so

It was not a s could have been undone in a day by the authorities, had they been so ically, because no one had a word to say in its defence When there are two sides to a thing, it is not difficult to get at the right of it in an arguht But when there is absolutely nothing to be said against a proposed reform, it seems to be human nature--American huh with the general good wishes but no particular lift fro expression of our faith in the power of the right to : it will not eneration that sits by to see itelse in this world, by men That is hoe take title to the name That is what is the matter with half our dead-letter laws The other half were just still-born It is so, at this rounds in New York Probably all thinking people subscribe to-day to the stateive its children a chance to play, just as o to Everybody applauds it The authorities do not question it; but still they do not provide playgrounds Private charity has to keep a beggarly half-dozen going where there ought to be forty or fifty, as a ht, not of charity Call it official conservatism, inertia, treachery, call it by soft names or hard; in the end it comes to this, I suppose, that it is the whetstone upon which our purpose is sharpened, and in that sense we have apparently got to be thankful for it So a race at the sas, there would be no wits to clear the arms to wield the axe It was the sa-houses were closed, until the Bend was gone, it seeress were flat down iin there, or not at all

[Illustration: The Mulberry Bend as it was]

Before I tackle the Bend, perhaps I had better explain how I ca as a--no, not exactly as a pastime It was never that with me I had use for it, and beyond that I never went I aood at all as a photographer, for I would like to be The thing is a constant ht To watch the picture come out upon the plate that was blank before, and that saith me for perhaps theit has never forgotten, is a new yraphy and preach about it

But I am jealous of the miracle I do not want it explained to me in terms of HO(2) or such like for I do not want lass case I want to see the sunlight on its wings as it flits from flower to flower, and I don't care a rap what its Latin name may be Anyway, it is not its name The sun and the flower and the butterfly know that The man who sticks a pin in it does not, and never will, for he knows not its language Only the poet does arapher

Also, I am clumsy, and i than the graving-tool I have lived to see the day of the axe and enjoy it, and now I rejoice in the co of the men and woe and training, and with gentle hands bind up wounds which, alas!

too often I struck It is as it should be I only wish they would see it and leave me out for my sins

But there! I started out to tell about how I carapher, and here I am, off on the subject of philanthropy and social settle pictures by proxy It was upon ht trips with the sanitary police that the wish kept cropping up inbefore the people what I saw there A drawing ht have done it, but I cannot draw, never could There are certain sketches of mine now on record that always arouse the boisterous hilarity of the family They were made for the instruction of our first baby in wolf-lore, and I know they were highly appreciated by hied since But, anyway, a draould not have been evidence of the kind I wanted We used to go in the s into the worst tene was violated, and the sights I saw there gripped my heart until I felt that I”A man may be a man even in a palace” in modern New York as in ancient Roer I looked around for so

I wrote, but it see my newspaper at the breakfast table, I put it doith an outcry that startledI had been looking for all those years A four-line despatch froht, had it all A way had been discovered, it ran, to take pictures by flashlight The darkest corner raphed that way I went to the office full of the idea, and lost no tie of the Bureau of Vital Statistics in the Health Departrapher of ood fellow besides, who entered into reat readiness The news had already excited raphers, professional and otherwise, and no ti with the other side Within a fortnight a raiding party composed of Dr Henry G Piffard and Richard Hoe Lawrence, two distinguished ale and myself, and soht, bent on letting in the light where it was so raphers it was a voyage of discovery of the greatest interest; but the interest centred in the ca from curiosity; sometimes for protection For that they were hardly needed It is not too much to say that our party carried terror wherever it went

The flashlight of those days was contained in cartridges fired froepistols which they shot off recklessly was hardly reassuring, however sugary our speech, and it was not to be wondered at if the tenants bolted through s and down fire-escapes wherever ent But as no one was hover a Stanton Street block like a nightood pictures; but very soon the slum and the aard hours palled upon the amateurs I found myself alone just when I needed help ht possibilities my companions little dreah the s”]

I hired a professional photographer next whoet up at 2 AM than ood excuse He had none, for I paid hiraphs behind et them away from him He was a pious raph the waifs in the baby nursery at the Five Points House of Industry, as they were saying their ”Now I lay me down to sleep,” and the plate came out blank the second tiainst his principles to take a picture of any one at prayers So I had to get another man with some trouble and expense But on the whole I think the experience orth what it cost The spectacle of achildren at prayers, while plotting at the same time to rob his employer, has been a kind of chart tocould stump me after that The man was just as sincere in the matter of his scruple as he was rascally in his business dealings with me

There was at last but one way out of it; naet a camera myself This I did, and with a dozen plates took myself up the Sound to the Potter's Field on its desert island to make my first observations There at least I should be alone, with no one to bother ot it, too When I say that with the sunlight of a January day on the white snow I exposed that extra-quick instantaneous plate first for six seconds, then for twelve, to ot the picture, [Footnote: Men are ever prone to doubt what they cannot understand

With all the accumulated information on the subject, even to this day, when it co a snap-shot, at the lastto believe that it can be A little rapher ofthe rest so that I did not knohich hich, araphers will understand the situation I had to develop the whole twelve to get one picture

That was so dark, almost black, from over-exposure as to be almost hopeless But where there is life there is hope, if you can apply that maxim to the Potter's Field, where there are none but dead men The very blackness of ic lantern, the taking feature of it It added a gloom to the show more realistic than any the utht have attained

So I becarapher, after a fashi+on, and thereafter took the pictures -pan for the revolver, and flashed the light on that It seemed more homelike But, as I said, I am clumsy Twice I set fire to the house with the apparatus, and once to ht into my own eyes on that occasion, and onlyblinded for life Forand was led about byJoss in Chinatown nearly caused a riot there It seeious principles Peace was uardians of Joss that his picture would be hung in the ”gallery at Police Headquarters” They took it as a coallery, not generally much desired Those Chinese are a queer lot, but when I remembered my Christian friend of the nursery I did not find it inpictures about hell's Kitchen, I was confronted by a wild-looking eneral condemnation of reporters as ”hardly fit to be flayed alive,” before he would let h with somewhat of a mental reservation in favor of my rivals in Mulberry Street, who just then stood in need of special correction

What with one thing and another, and in spite of all obstacles, I got my pictures, and put soht expedition to the Mulberry Bend with the sanitary police that had turned up a couple of characteristic cases of overcrowding In one instance two rooms that should at most have held four or five sleepers were found to contain fifteen, a week-old baby aers and slept there for ”five cents a spot” There was no pretence of beds When the report was submitted to the Health Board the next day, it did not s rarely do, put infrom the dark-room, came to reenforce them From them there was no appeal It was not the only instance of the kind by a good many Neither the landlord's protests nor the tenant's plea ”went” in face of the camera's evidence, and I was satisfied

[Illustration: Lodgers at Five Cents a Spot]

I had at last an ally in the fight with the Bend It was needed, worse even than in the ca-houses, for in that ere a company, in the Bend I was alone From the day--I think it was in the winter of 1886--when it was officially dooo, nine years later, I cannot ree it on Whether it was that it had been bad so long that people thought it could not be otherwise, or because the Five Points had taken all the refor to it, or because, by a sort of tacit consent, the whole nized Mulberry Bend crank--whichever it was, this last was the practical turn it took I was left to fight it out byso, I laid in a stock of dry plates and buckled to

The Bend was a -houses

It kicked back It did not have to be dragged into the discussion at intervals, but crowded in unbidden In the twenty years of my acquaintance with it as a reporter I do not believe there was a week in which it was not heard froenerally in connection with a cri affray

It was usually on Sunday, when the Italians who lived there were idle and quarreled over their cards Every fight was the signal for at least twoto their traditions and et at the facts with their stubborn ”fix hiiven up in disot out of the hospital, pretty soon there was news of another fight, and the feud had been sent on one step By far theone of us cao in the evidence that on two occasions Mulberry Street had refused to hide a e [Footnote: The Italians here live usually grouped by ”villages,” that is, those froether

The saint's name-day is their local holiday If the police want to find an Italian scae he hails, then it is a simple matter, usually, to find where he is located in the city] That was conclusive It was not so in those days So, between the vendetta, the hborhood feuds, and the Bend itself, always picturesque if outrageously dirty, it was not hard to keep it in the foreground My scrap-book fro comment on the Bend and upon the official indolence that delayed its demolition nearly a decade after it had been decreed But it all availed nothing to hurry up things, until, in a swaggering , one of the City Hall officials condescended to inform me of the real cause of the delay It was si any interest in the thing”

[Illustration: Bandits' Roost--a Mulberry Bend Alley]