in a strip in the centre, yellow and elusive, like gold;
someone is rattling a gay galop on a piano somewhere; there is a sound
of mens' voices in a heated discussion, a long whiff of pipe-smoke
trails through the sunlight from the bar-room; the clink of glasses, the
chink of silver, and the high treble of a woman's voice scolding a
refractory child, mingle in incongruous melody.

Two-story houses all along; the first floor divided into cuddies, here a
paper store, displaying ten-cent novels of detective stories with
impossible cuts, illustrating impossible situations of the plot;
dye-shops, jewelers, tailors, tin-smiths, cook-shops, intelligence
offices--many of these, and some newspaper offices. On the second floor,
balconies, dingy, iron-railed, with sickly box-plants, and decrepit
garments airing and being turned and tended by dishevelled, slip-shod
women. Lodging-houses these, some of them, but one is forced to wonder
why do the tenants sun their clothes so often? The lines stretched from
posts to posts seem always filled with airing garments. Is it economy?
And do the owners of the faded vests and patched coats hide in dusky
corners while their only garments are receiving the benefit of Old Sol's
cleansing rays? And are the women with the indiscriminate tresses, near
relatives, or only the landladies? It would be something worth knowing
if one could.

Plenty of saloons--great, gorgeous, gaudy places, with pianos and
swift-footed waiters, tables and cards, and men, men, men. The famous
Three Brothers' Saloon occupies a position about midway the alley, and
at its doors, the acme, the culminating point, the superlative degree of
unquietude and discontent is reached. It is the headquarters of nearly
all the great labor organizations in the city. Behind its doors,
swinging as easily between the street and the liquor-fumed halls as the
soul swings between right and wrong, the disturbed minds of the
working-men become clouded, heated, and wrothily ready for deeds of
violence.

Outside on the pavements with hundreds of like-excited men, with angry
discussions and bitter recitals of complaints, the seeds of discord sown
some time since, perhaps, sprout afresh, blossom and bear fruits. Is
there a strike? Then special minions of the law are detailed to this
place, for violence and hatred of employers, insurrection and socialism
find here ready followers. Impromptu mass meetings are common, and
law-breaking schemes find th