alley had withheld audible comment with a tact that did it credit;
but when at night Mott Street added its contingent of "fellows" to the
mourners properly concerned in the wake, and they started a fight among
themselves that was unauthorized by local sanction, its wrath was
aroused, and it arose and bundled the whole concern out into the street
with scant ceremony. There was never an invasion of the alley after that
night. It enjoyed home rule undisturbed.

Withal, there was as much kindness of heart and neighborly charity in
Cat Alley as in any little community up-town or down-town, or out of
town, for that matter. It had its standards and its customs, which were
to be observed; but underneath it all, and not very far down either, was
a human fellowship that was capable of any sacrifice to help a friend in
need. Many was the widow with whom and with whose children the alley
shared its daily bread, which was scanty enough, God knows, when death
or other disaster had brought her to the jumping-off place. In twenty
years I do not recall a suicide in the alley, or a case of suffering
demanding the interference of the authorities, unless with such help as
the hospital could give. The alley took care of its own, and tided them
over the worst when it came to that. And death was not always the worst.
I remember yet with a shudder a tragedy which I was just in time with
the police to prevent. A laborer, who lived in the attic, had gone mad,
poisoned by the stenches of the sewers in which he worked. For two
nights he had been pacing the hallway, muttering incoherent things, and
then fell to sharpening an axe, with his six children playing
about--beautiful, brown-eyed girls they were, sweet and innocent little
tots. In five minutes we should have been too late, for it appeared that
the man's madness had taken on the homicidal tinge. They were better out
of the world, he told us, as we carried him off to the hospital. When he
was gone, the children came upon the alley, and loyally did it stand by
them until a job was found for the mother by the local political boss.
He got her appointed scrub-woman at the City Hall, and the alley, always
faithful, was solid for him ever after. Organized charity might, and
indeed did, provide groceries on the instalment plan. The Tammany
captain provided the means of pulling the family through and of bringing
up the children, although there was not a vote in the family. It was not
the first time I