of the precincts." And it was a proud moment when in an
inconceivable retreat we were permitted to talk with an aged Chinese
actor and view his collection of flowery hats. It was a still prouder
(and also a subtly humiliating) moment when we were led through
courtyards and beheld in their cloistral aloofness the American
legitimate wives of wealthy China-men, sitting gorgeous, with the
quiescence of odalisques, in gorgeous uncurtained interiors. I was glad
when one of the ladies defied the detective by abruptly swishing down
her blind.

But these affairs did not deeply stir my imagination. More engaging was
the detective's own habit of stopping the automobile every hundred yards
or so in order to point out the exact spot on which a murder, or several
murders, had been committed. Murder was his chief interest. I noticed
the same trait in many newspaper men, who would sit and tell excellent
murder stories by the hour. But murder was so common on the East Side
that it became for me curiously puerile--a sort of naughtiness whose
punishment, to be effective, ought to wound, rather than flatter, the
vanity of the child-minded murderers. More engaging still was the
extraordinary frequency of banks--some with opulent illuminated
signs--and of cinematograph shows. In the East End of London or of Paris
banks are assuredly not a feature of the landscape--and for good reason.
The cinematograph is possibly, on the whole, a civilizing agent; it
might easily be the most powerful force on the East Side. I met the
gentleman who "controlled" all the cinematographs, and was reputed to
make a million dollars a year net therefrom. He did not appear to be a
bit weighed down, either by the hugeness of his opportunity or by the
awfulness of his responsibility.

[Illustration: THE ASTOUNDING POPULOUSNESS OF THE EAST SIDE]

The supreme sensation of the East Side is the sensation of its
astounding populousness. The most populous street in the
world--Rivington Street--is a sight not to be forgotten. Compared to
this, an up-town thoroughfare of crowded middle-class flats is the
open country--is an uninhabited desert! The architecture seemed to sweat
humanity at every window and door. The roadways were often impassable.
The thought of the hidden interiors was terrifying. Indeed, the hidden
interiors would not bear thinking about. The fancy shunned them--a
problem not to be settled by sudden municipal edicts, but only by the
efflux of generations