reader,
you have ever pictured in your mind the cave of despair, peopled by
beings human only in shape, you may form a faint idea of the
wretchedness presented in "Organ-grinders' Roost," at the top of the
house of the Nine Nations. Seven stalworth men shoot out from among a
mass of rags on the floor, and with dark, wandering eyes, and massive,
uncombed beards, commence in their native Italian a series of
interrogatories, not one of which the detective can understand. They
would inquire for whom he seeks at this strange hour. He (the detective)
stands unmoved, as with savage gesture--he has discovered his star--they
tell him they are famishing of hunger. A pretty black-eyed girl, to
whose pale, but beautifully oval face an expression of sorrow lends a
touching softness, lays on the bare floor, beside a mother of
patriarchal aspect. Now she is seized with a sharp cough that brings
blood at every paroxysm. As if forgetting herself, she lays her hand
gently upon the cheek of her mother, anxious to comfort her. Ah! the
hard hand of poverty has been upon her through life, and stubbornly
refuses to relax its grip, even in her old age. An organ forms here and
there a division between the sleepers; two grave-visaged monkeys sit
chattering in the fireplace, then crouch down on the few charred sticks.
A picture of the crucifix is seen conspicuous over the dingy fireplace,
while from the slanting roof hang several leathern girdles. Oh, what a
struggle for life is their's! Mothers, fathers, daughters, and little
children, thus promiscuously grouped, and coming up in neglect and
shame. There an old man, whom remorseless death is just calling into
eternity, with dull, glassy eyes, white, flowing beard, bald head,
sunken mouth, begrimed and deeply-wrinkled face, rises, spectre-like,
from his pallet. Now he draws from his breast a small crucifix, and
commences muttering to it in a guttural voice. "Peace, peace, good old
man--the holy father will come soon--the holy virgin will come soon: he
will receive the good spirit to his bosom," says a black-eyed daughter,
patting him gently upon the head, then looking in his face solicitously,
as he turns his eyes upward, and for a few moments seems invoking the
mercy of the Allwise. "Yes, father," she resumes, lightening up the mat
of straw upon which he lays, "the world has been unkind to you, but you
are passing from it to a better--you will be at peace soon."

"Soon, soon, soon," mumbles the