uley,
were then in full blast, defying all police authority and outraging
common decency. The most hideous sink of iniquity and loathsome
degradation was in the once famous "Five Points," in the heart of the
Sixth Ward and within a pistol shot of Broadway. At the time of my
coming to New York public attention had been drawn to that quarter with
the opening of the "Old Brewery Mission," and by the first planting of
a kindred enterprise which grew into the now well-known "Five Points
House of Industry." The brave projector of this enterprise was the Rev.
L.M. Pease, a hero whose name ought not to be forgotten. As my church
was just off East Broadway, and within a short walk of the Five Points,
I took a deep interest in Mr. Pease's Christian undertaking, and aided
him by every means in my power. His wife became a member of my church.
The "Wild Maggie," whose escapades described in the _Tribune_ gained
such public notoriety, became also, after her reformation, one of our
church members and afterwards held the position of a school teacher.
After the resignation of Mr. Pease and his removal to North Carolina,
his place was taken by one of our Market Street elders, the devout and
godly minded Benjamin R. Barlow. In order to keep awake public interest
in the mission work at the Five Points, and to get ammunition, in its
behalf, I used to make nocturnal explorations of some of those satanic
quarters. I recall now one of those midnight forays of which, at the
risk of my reader's olfactories, I will give a brief glimpse. In company
with the superintendent of the mission and a policeman and a lad with a
lantern I struck for the "Cow Bay," the classic spot of which Charles
Dickens had given such a piquant description in his "American Notes" a
few years before. Climbing a stairway, from which the banisters had
long been broken away for firewood, we entered a dark room. There was
only a tallow candle burning in the corner, and in the room were huddled
twenty-five human beings. Along the walls were ranged the bunks--one
above the other--covered with rotting quilts and unwashed coverings.
Each of these rented for sixpence a night to any thief or beggar who
chose to apply for lodging--no distinction being made for sex or color.
As the lad swings the lantern about we spy the rows of heads projecting
from under the stacks of rags. In one bed a gray-haired, disheveled head
cuddled close to the yellow locks of a slumbering child. While we are