en at once to the station house. If
not claimed there, they are sent at nightfall to Police Headquarters,
where they are cared for until their friends come for them.

[Picture: THE FATE OF HUNDREDS OF YOUNG MEN.]

Many of the missing are men--strangers to the city. They have come here
on business or for pleasure, and have undertaken to see the sights of New
York. They have drowned their senses in liquor, and have fallen into the
hands of the thieves and murderers, who are ever on the watch for such as
they. They have been robbed and murdered, thrown into the river, from
which they sometimes find their way to the Morgue. Or perhaps they have
followed some street walker to her den, there to fall victims to the
knife or club of her accomplice. The river is close at hand, and it
hides its secrets well. Year after year the same thing goes on, and men
pay with their lives the price of their impure curiosity. The street
walker still finds her victim ready to follow her to her den, for "he
knoweth not that the dead are there: and that her guests are in the
depths of hell. He goeth after her straightway, as an ox goeth to the
slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks. Till a dart
strike through his liver, and knoweth not that it is for his life. She
hath cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain by her.
Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death."

Year after year the waters cast up their dead, and the Morgue is filled
with those who are known to the police as "missing." Men and women, the
victims of the assassin, and those who are tired of life, find their way
to the ghastly tables of the dead house; but they are not all. There are
long rows of names in the dreary register of the police against which the
entry "found" is never written. What has become of them, whether they
are living or dead, no one knows. They were "lost in New York," and they
are practically dead to those interested in knowing their fate. Year
after year the sad list lengthens.

In many a far off home there is mourning for some loved one. Years have
passed away since the sorrow came upon these mourners, but the cloud
still hangs over them. Their loved one was "lost in New York." That is
all they know--all they will ever know.

Footnotes.

{78} Samuel J. Tilden's speech.

{86} The Committee of citizens consisted of the leading merchants of New
York--such m