reconnoitering, something like a huge dog runs past and dives under the
bed. "What is this, good friend?" we ask. "Oh, only the goat," replied a
merry Milesian. "Do the goats live with you all in this room?" "To be
sure they do, sir; we feeds 'em tater skins, and milks 'em for the
babies," Country born as we were, we have often longed to keep a dairy
in this city, but it never occurred to us that a bedroom was sufficient
for the purpose. Truly, necessity is the shrewd-witted mother of
invention! Opposite "Cow Bay" was "Cut-Throat Alley." Two murders a year
were about the average product of the civilization of this dark defile.
The keeper of the famous grog shop there, who died about that time, left
a fortune of nearly one hundred thousand dollars. In city politics the
keeper of such a den is one of the leaders of public opinion. We climbed
a stairway, dark and dangerous, till at length we reached the wretched
garret through whose open chinks the snow drifted in upon the floor.
Beside the single broken stove, the only article of furniture in the
apartments, sat a wretched woman wrapped in a tattered shawl moaning
over a terrible burn that covered her arms; she had fallen when
intoxicated upon the stove and no one had cared enough to carry her to
the hospital. She exclaimed, "For God's sake, gentlemen, can't you give
me a glass of gin?" A half eaten crust lay by her and a cold potato or
two, but the irresistible thirst clamored for relief before either pain
or hunger. "Good woman," said my friend, "where's Mose?" "Here he is." A
heap of rags beside her was uncovered, and there lay the sleeping face
of an old negro, apparently of fifty. In nearly every garret we entered
practical amalgamation was in fashion. The superintendent told me that
the negroes were fifty per cent. in advance of the Irish as to sobriety
and decency. Descending from the garret we entered a crowded cellar. The
boy's lantern shone on the police officer's cap and buttons. A crash was
heard, and the window at the opposite end of the cellar was shattered
and a mass of riddled glass fell on the floor. "Poor fool!" exclaimed
the policeman, "he thinks we are after him, but I will have him before
morning." From these sickening scenes of squalor, misery and crime what
a relief it was for us to return to the House of Industry, with its neat
school room and its capacious chapel and its row of little children
marching up to their little beds. It was like going into