of things that you would never guess were meant to eat if you didn't
happen to see a ham or a string of sausages or some other familiar
object among them. But the color of the Bend--and its color is its
strong point--comes from its display of wearing apparel and candy. A
lady can go out in Mulberry Bend and purchase every article of apparel,
external or private and personal, that she ever heard of, and some that
she never heard of, and she can get them of any shade or hue. If she
likes what they call "Liberty" colors--soft, neutral tones--she can get
them from the second-hand dealers whose goods have all the softest of
shades that age and exposure can give them. But if she likes, as I do,
bright, cheerful colors, she can get tints in Mulberry Bend that you
could warm your hands on. Reds, greens, and yellows preponderate, and
Nature herself would own that the Italians could give her points on
inventing green and not exert themselves to do it. The pure arsenical
tones are preferred in the Bend, and, by the bye, anybody who remembers
the days when ladies wore magenta and solferino, and wants to have those
dear old colors set his teeth on edge again, can go to the Bend and find
them there. The same dye-stuffs that are popular in the dress-goods are
equally popular in the candy, and candy is a chief product of Mulberry
Bend. It is piled up in reckless profusion on scores of stands, here,
there, and everywhere, and to call the general effect festal, would be
to speak slightingly of it. The stranger who enters Mulberry Bend and
sees the dress-goods and the candies is sure to think that the place has
been decorated to receive him. No, nobody will hurt you if you go down
there and are polite, and mind your own business, and do not step on the
babies. But if you stare about and make comments, I think those people
will be justified in suspecting that the people uptown don't always know
how to behave themselves like ladies and gentlemen, so do not bring
disgrace on your neighborhood, and do not go in a cab. You will not
bother the babies, but you will find it trying to your own nerves.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

There is a good deal of money in Mulberry Street, and some of it
overflows into the Bowery. From this street also the Baxter Street
variety of Jews find their way into the Bowery. These are the Jew
toughs, and there is no other type of Jew at all like them in all New
York's assortment of Hebrew types, which cannot