THE beautiful metropolis of America is by no means so clean a
city as Boston, but many of its streets have the same characteristics; except
that the houses are not quite so fresh-coloured, the sign- boards are not quite
so gaudy, the gilded letters not quite so golden, the bricks not quite so red,
the stone not quite so white, the blinds and area railings not quite so green,
the knobs and plates upon the street doors not quite so bright and twinkling.
There are many by-streets, almost as neutral in clean colours, and positive in
dirty ones, as by-streets in London; and there is one quarter, commonly called
the Five Points, which, in respect of filth and wretchedness, may be safely
backed against Seven Dials, or any other part of famed St. Giles's.
The great promenade and thoroughfare, as most people know, is Broadway; a
wide and bustling street, which, from the Battery Gardens to its opposite
termination in a country road, may be four miles long. Shall we sit down in an
upper floor of the Carlton House Hotel (situated in the best part of this main
artery of New York), and when we are tired of looking down upon the life below,
sally forth arm-in-arm, and mingle with the stream?
Warm weather! The sun strikes upon our heads at this open window, as though
its rays were concentrated through a burning-glass; but the day is in its
zenith, and the season an unusual one. Was there ever such a sunny street as
this Broadway! The pavement stones are polished with the tread of feet until
they shine again; the red bricks of the houses might be yet in the dry, hot
kilns; and the roofs of those omnibuses look as though, if water were poured on
them, they would hiss and smoke, and smell like half-quenched fires. No stint of
omnibuses here! Half-a-dozen have gone by within as many minutes. Plenty of
hackney cabs and coaches too; gigs, phaetons, large-wheeled tilburies, and
private carriages - rather of a clumsy make, and not very different from the
public vehicles, but built for the heavy roads beyond the city pavement. Negro
coachmen and white; in straw hats, black hats, white hats, glazed caps, fur
caps; in coats of drab, black, brown, green, blue, nankeen, striped jean and
linen; and there, in that one instance (look while it passes, or it will be too
late), in suits of livery. Some southern republican that, who puts his blacks in
uniform, and swells with Sultan pomp and power. Yonder, where that phaeton with
the well-clipped pair of grays has stopped - standing at their heads now - is a
Yorkshire groom, who has not been very long in these parts, and looks
sorrowfully round for a companion pair of top-boots, which he may traverse the
city half a year without meeting. Heaven save the ladies, how they dress! We
have seen more colours in these ten minutes, than we should have seen elsewhere,
in as many days. What various parasols! what rainbow silks and satins! what
pinking of thin stockings, and pinching of thin shoes, and fluttering of ribbons
and silk tassels, and display of rich cloaks with gaudy hoods and linings! The
young gentlemen are fond, you see, of turning down their shirt-collars and
cultivating their whiskers, especially under the chin; but they cannot approach
the ladies in their dress or bearing, being, to say the truth, humanity of quite
another sort. Byrons of the desk and counter, pass on, and let us see what kind
of men those are behind ye: those two labourers in holiday clothes, of whom one
carries in his hand a crumpled scrap of paper from which he tries to spell out a
hard name, while the other looks about for it on all the doors and windows.
Irishmen both! You might know them, if they were masked, by their long-tailed
blue coats and bright buttons, and their drab trousers, which they wear like men
well used to working dresses, who are easy in no others. It would be hard to
keep your model republics going, without the countrymen and countrywomen of
those two labourers. For who else would dig, and delve, and drudge, and do
domestic work, and make canals and roads, and execute great lines of Internal
Improvement! Irishmen both, and sorely puzzled too, to find out what they seek.
Let us go down, and help them, for the love of home, and that spirit of liberty
which admits of honest service to honest men, and honest work for honest bread,
no matter what it be.
That's well! We have got at the right address at last, though it is written
in strange characters truly, and might have been scrawled with the blunt handle
of the spade the writer better knows the use of, than a pen. Their way lies
yonder, but what business takes them there? They carry savings: to hoard up? No.
They are brothers, those men. One crossed the sea alone, and working very hard
for one half year, and living harder, saved funds enough to bring the other out.
That done, they worked together side by side, contentedly sharing hard labour
and hard living for another term, and then their sisters came, and then another
brother, and lastly, their old mother. And what now? Why, the poor old crone is
restless in a strange land, and yearns to lay her bones, she says, among her
people in the old graveyard at home: and so they go to pay her passage back: and
God help her and them, and every simple heart, and all who turn to the Jerusalem
of their younger days, and have an altar-fire upon the cold hearth of their
fathers.
This narrow thoroughfare, baking and blistering in the sun, is Wall Street:
the Stock Exchange and Lombard Street of New York. Many a rapid fortune has been
made in this street, and many a no less rapid ruin. Some of these very merchants
whom you see hanging about here now, have locked up money in their strong-boxes,
like the man in the Arabian Nights, and opening them again, have found but
withered leaves. Below, here by the water-side, where the bowsprits of ships
stretch across the footway, and almost thrust themselves into the windows, lie
the noble American vessels which having made their Packet Service the finest in
the world. They have brought hither the foreigners who abound in all the
streets: not, perhaps, that there are more here, than in other commercial
cities; but elsewhere, they have particular haunts, and you must find them out;
here, they pervade the town.
We must cross Broadway again; gaining some refreshment from the heat, in the
sight of the great blocks of clean ice which are being carried into shops and
bar-rooms; and the pine-apples and water- melons profusely displayed for sale.
Fine streets of spacious houses here, you see! - Wall Street has furnished and
dismantled many of them very often - and here a deep green leafy square. Be sure
that is a hospitable house with inmates to be affectionately remembered always,
where they have the open door and pretty show of plants within, and where the
child with laughing eyes is peeping out of window at the little dog below. You
wonder what may be the use of this tall flagstaff in the by-street, with
something like Liberty's head-dress on its top: so do I. But there is a passion
for tall flagstaffs hereabout, and you may see its twin brother in five minutes,
if you have a mind.
Again across Broadway, and so - passing from the many-coloured crowd and
glittering shops - into another long main street, the Bowery. A railroad yonder,
see, where two stout horses trot along, drawing a score or two of people and a
great wooden ark, with ease. The stores are poorer here; the passengers less
gay. Clothes ready-made, and meat ready-cooked, are to be bought in these parts;
and the lively whirl of carriages is exchanged for the deep rumble of carts and
waggons. These signs which are so plentiful, in shape like river buoys, or small
balloons, hoisted by cords to poles, and dangling there, announce, as you may
see by looking up, 'OYSTERS IN EVERY STYLE.' They tempt the hungry most at
night, for then dull candles glimmering inside, illuminate these dainty words,
and make the mouths of idlers water, as they read and linger.
What is this dismal-fronted pile of bastard Egyptian, like an enchanter's
palace in a melodrama! - a famous prison, called The Tombs. Shall we go in?
So. A long, narrow, lofty building, stove-heated as usual, with four
galleries, one above the other, going round it, and communicating by stairs.
Between the two sides of each gallery, and in its centre, a bridge, for the
greater convenience of crossing. On each of these bridges sits a man: dozing or
reading, or talking to an idle companion. On each tier, are two opposite rows of
small iron doors. They look like furnace-doors, but are cold and black, as
though the fires within had all gone out. Some two or three are open, and women,
with drooping heads bent down, are talking to the inmates. The whole is lighted
by a skylight, but it is fast closed; and from the roof there dangle, limp and
drooping, two useless windsails.
A man with keys appears, to show us round. A good-looking fellow, and, in his
way, civil and obliging.
'Are those black doors the cells?'
'Yes.'
'Are they all full?'
'Well, they're pretty nigh full, and that's a fact, and no two ways about
it.'
'Those at the bottom are unwholesome, surely?'
'Why, we DO only put coloured people in 'em. That's the truth.'
'When do the prisoners take exercise?'
'Well, they do without it pretty much.'
'Do they never walk in the yard?'
'Considerable seldom.'
'Sometimes, I suppose?'
'Well, it's rare they do. They keep pretty bright without it.'
'But suppose a man were here for a twelvemonth. I know this is only a prison
for criminals who are charged with grave offences, while they are awaiting their
trial, or under remand, but the law here affords criminals many means of delay.
What with motions for new trials, and in arrest of judgment, and what not, a
prisoner might be here for twelve months, I take it, might he not?'
'Well, I guess he might.'
'Do you mean to say that in all that time he would never come out at that
little iron door, for exercise?'
'He might walk some, perhaps - not much.'
'Will you open one of the doors?'
'All, if you like.'
The fastenings jar and rattle, and one of the doors turns slowly on its
hinges. Let us look in. A small bare cell, into which the light enters through a
high chink in the wall. There is a rude means of washing, a table, and a
bedstead. Upon the latter, sits a man of sixty; reading. He looks up for a
moment; gives an impatient dogged shake; and fixes his eyes upon his book again.
As we withdraw our heads, the door closes on him, and is fastened as before.
This man has murdered his wife, and will probably be hanged.
'How long has he been here?'
'A month.'
'When will he be tried?'
'Next term.'
'When is that?'
'Next month.'
'In England, if a man be under sentence of death, even he has air and
exercise at certain periods of the day.'
'Possible?'
With what stupendous and untranslatable coolness he says this, and how
loungingly he leads on to the women's side: making, as he goes, a kind of iron
castanet of the key and the stair-rail!
Each cell door on this side has a square aperture in it. Some of the women
peep anxiously through it at the sound of footsteps; others shrink away in
shame. - For what offence can that lonely child, of ten or twelve years old, be
shut up here? Oh! that boy? He is the son of the prisoner we saw just now; is a
witness against his father; and is detained here for safe keeping, until the
trial; that's all.
But it is a dreadful place for the child to pass the long days and nights in.
This is rather hard treatment for a young witness, is it not? - What says our
conductor?
'Well, it an't a very rowdy life, and THAT'S a fact!'
Again he clinks his metal castanet, and leads us leisurely away. I have a
question to ask him as we go.
'Pray, why do they call this place The Tombs?'
'Well, it's the cant name.'
'I know it is. Why?'
'Some suicides happened here, when it was first built. I expect it come about
from that.'
'I saw just now, that that man's clothes were scattered about the floor of
his cell. Don't you oblige the prisoners to be orderly, and put such things
away?'
'Where should they put 'em?'
'Not on the ground surely. What do you say to hanging them up?'
He stops and looks round to emphasise his answer:
'Why, I say that's just it. When they had hooks they WOULD hang themselves,
so they're taken out of every cell, and there's only the marks left where they
used to be!'
The prison-yard in which he pauses now, has been the scene of terrible
performances. Into this narrow, grave-like place, men are brought out to die.
The wretched creature stands beneath the gibbet on the ground; the rope about
his neck; and when the sign is given, a weight at its other end comes running
down, and swings him up into the air - a corpse.
The law requires that there be present at this dismal spectacle, the judge,
the jury, and citizens to the amount of twenty-five. From the community it is
hidden. To the dissolute and bad, the thing remains a frightful mystery. Between
the criminal and them, the prison-wall is interposed as a thick gloomy veil. It
is the curtain to his bed of death, his winding-sheet, and grave. From him it
shuts out life, and all the motives to unrepenting hardihood in that last hour,
which its mere sight and presence is often all- sufficient to sustain. There are
no bold eyes to make him bold; no ruffians to uphold a ruffian's name before.
All beyond the pitiless stone wall, is unknown space.
Let us go forth again into the cheerful streets.
Once more in Broadway! Here are the same ladies in bright colours, walking to
and fro, in pairs and singly; yonder the very same light blue parasol which
passed and repassed the hotel-window twenty times while we were sitting there.
We are going to cross here. Take care of the pigs. Two portly sows are trotting
up behind this carriage, and a select party of half-a-dozen gentlemen hogs have
just now turned the corner.
Here is a solitary swine lounging homeward by himself. He has only one ear;
having parted with the other to vagrant-dogs in the course of his city rambles.
But he gets on very well without it; and leads a roving, gentlemanly, vagabond
kind of life, somewhat answering to that of our club-men at home. He leaves his
lodgings every morning at a certain hour, throws himself upon the town, gets
through his day in some manner quite satisfactory to himself, and regularly
appears at the door of his own house again at night, like the mysterious master
of Gil Blas. He is a free-and-easy, careless, indifferent kind of pig, having a
very large acquaintance among other pigs of the same character, whom he rather
knows by sight than conversation, as he seldom troubles himself to stop and
exchange civilities, but goes grunting down the kennel, turning up the news and
small-talk of the city in the shape of cabbage-stalks and offal, and bearing no
tails but his own: which is a very short one, for his old enemies, the dogs,
have been at that too, and have left him hardly enough to swear by. He is in
every respect a republican pig, going wherever he pleases, and mingling with the
best society, on an equal, if not superior footing, for every one makes way when
he appears, and the haughtiest give him the wall, if he prefer it. He is a great
philosopher, and seldom moved, unless by the dogs before mentioned. Sometimes,
indeed, you may see his
small eye twinkling on a slaughtered friend, whose carcase garnishes a
butcher's door-post, but he grunts out 'Such is life: all flesh is pork!' buries
his nose in the mire again, and waddles down the gutter: comforting himself with
the reflection that there is one snout the less to anticipate stray
cabbage-stalks, at any rate.
They are the city scavengers, these pigs. Ugly brutes they are; having, for
the most part, scanty brown backs, like the lids of old horsehair trunks:
spotted with unwholesome black blotches. They have long, gaunt legs, too, and
such peaked snouts, that if one of them could be persuaded to sit for his
profile, nobody would recognise it for a pig's likeness. They are never attended
upon, or fed, or driven, or caught, but are thrown upon their own resources in
early life, and become preternaturally knowing in consequence. Every pig knows
where he lives, much better than anybody could tell him. At this hour, just as
evening is closing in, you will see them roaming towards bed by scores, eating
their way to the last. Occasionally, some youth among them who has over- eaten
himself, or has been worried by dogs, trots shrinkingly homeward, like a
prodigal son: but this is a rare case: perfect self-possession and
self-reliance, and immovable composure, being their foremost attributes.
The streets and shops are lighted now; and as the eye travels down the long
thoroughfare, dotted with bright jets of gas, it is reminded of Oxford Street,
or Piccadilly. Here and there a flight of broad stone cellar-steps appears, and
a painted lamp directs you to the Bowling Saloon, or Ten-Pin alley; Ten-Pins
being a game of mingled chance and skill, invented when the legislature passed
an act forbidding Nine-Pins. At other downward flights of steps, are other
lamps, marking the whereabouts of oyster-cellars - pleasant retreats, say I: not
only by reason of their wonderful cookery of oysters, pretty nigh as large as
cheese-plates (or for thy dear sake, heartiest of Greek Professors!), but
because of all kinds of caters of fish, or flesh, or fowl, in these latitudes,
the swallowers of oysters alone are not gregarious; but subduing themselves, as
it were, to the nature of what they work in, and copying the coyness of the
thing they eat, do sit apart in curtained boxes, and consort by twos, not by two
hundreds.
But how quiet the streets are! Are there no itinerant bands; no wind or
stringed instruments? No, not one. By day, are there no Punches, Fantoccini,
Dancing-dogs, Jugglers, Conjurers, Orchestrinas, or even Barrel-organs? No, not
one. Yes, I remember one. One barrel-organ and a dancing-monkey - sportive by
nature, but fast fading into a dull, lumpish monkey, of the Utilitarian school.
Beyond that, nothing lively; no, not so much as a white mouse in a twirling
cage.
Are there no amusements? Yes. There is a lecture-room across the way, from
which that glare of light proceeds, and there may be evening service for the
ladies thrice a week, or oftener. For the young gentlemen, there is the
counting-house, the store, the bar- room: the latter, as you may see through
these windows, pretty full. Hark! to the clinking sound of hammers breaking
lumps of ice, and to the cool gurgling of the pounded bits, as, in the process
of mixing, they are poured from glass to glass! No amusements? What are these
suckers of cigars and swallowers of strong drinks, whose hats and legs we see in
every possible variety of twist, doing, but amusing themselves? What are the
fifty newspapers, which those precocious urchins are bawling down the street,
and which are kept filed within, what are they but amusements? Not vapid,
waterish amusements, but good strong stuff; dealing in round abuse and
blackguard names; pulling off the roofs of private houses, as the Halting Devil
did in Spain; pimping and pandering for all degrees of vicious taste, and
gorging with coined lies the most voracious maw; imputing to every man in public
life the coarsest and the vilest motives; scaring away from the stabbed and
prostrate body-politic, every Samaritan of clear conscience and good deeds; and
setting on, with yell and whistle and the clapping of foul hands, the vilest
vermin and worst birds of prey. - No amusements!
Let us go on again; and passing this wilderness of an hotel with stores about
its base, like some Continental theatre, or the London Opera House shorn of its
colonnade, plunge into the Five Points. But it is needful, first, that we take
as our escort these two heads of the police, whom you would know for sharp and
well-trained officers if you met them in the Great Desert. So true it is, that
certain pursuits, wherever carried on, will stamp men with the same character.
These two might have been begotten, born, and bred, in Bow Street.
We have seen no beggars in the streets by night or day; but of other kinds of
strollers, plenty. Poverty, wretchedness, and vice, are rife enough where we are
going now.
This is the place: these narrow ways, diverging to the right and left, and
reeking everywhere with dirt and filth. Such lives as are led here, bear the
same fruits here as elsewhere. The coarse and bloated faces at the doors, have
counterparts at home, and all the wide world over. Debauchery has made the very
houses prematurely old. See how the rotten beams are tumbling down, and how the
patched and broken windows seem to scowl dimly, like eyes that have been hurt in
drunken frays. Many of those pigs live here. Do they ever wonder why their
masters walk upright in lieu of going on all-fours? and why they talk instead of
grunting?
So far, nearly every house is a low tavern; and on the bar-room walls, are
coloured prints of Washington, and Queen Victoria of England, and the American
Eagle. Among the pigeon-holes that hold the bottles, are pieces of plate-glass
and coloured paper, for there is, in some sort, a taste for decoration, even
here. And as seamen frequent these haunts, there are maritime pictures by the
dozen: of partings between sailors and their lady-loves, portraits of William,
of the ballad, and his Black-Eyed Susan; of Will Watch, the Bold Smuggler; of
Paul Jones the Pirate, and the like: on which the painted eyes of Queen
Victoria, and of Washington to boot, rest in as strange companionship, as on
most of the scenes that are enacted in their wondering presence.
What place is this, to which the squalid street conducts us? A kind of square
of leprous houses, some of which are attainable only by crazy wooden stairs
without. What lies beyond this tottering flight of steps, that creak beneath our
tread? - a miserable room, lighted by one dim candle, and destitute of all
comfort, save that which may be hidden in a wretched bed. Beside it, sits a man:
his elbows on his knees: his forehead hidden in his hands. 'What ails that man?'
asks the foremost officer. 'Fever,' he sullenly replies, without looking up.
Conceive the fancies of a feverish brain, in such a place as this!
Ascend these pitch-dark stairs, heedful of a false footing on the trembling
boards, and grope your way with me into this wolfish den, where neither ray of
light nor breath of air, appears to come. A negro lad, startled from his sleep
by the officer's voice - he knows it well - but comforted by his assurance that
he has not come on business, officiously bestirs himself to light a candle. The
match flickers for a moment, and shows great mounds of dusty rags upon the
ground; then dies away and leaves a denser darkness than before, if there can be
degrees in such extremes. He stumbles down the stairs and presently comes back,
shading a flaring taper with his hand. Then the mounds of rags are seen to be
astir, and rise slowly up, and the floor is covered with heaps of negro women,
waking from their sleep: their white teeth chattering, and their bright eyes
glistening and winking on all sides with surprise and fear, like the countless
repetition of one astonished African face in some strange mirror.
Mount up these other stairs with no less caution (there are traps and
pitfalls here, for those who are not so well escorted as ourselves) into the
housetop; where the bare beams and rafters meet overhead, and calm night looks
down through the crevices in the roof. Open the door of one of these cramped
hutches full of sleeping negroes. Pah! They have a charcoal fire within; there
is a smell of singeing clothes, or flesh, so close they gather round the
brazier; and vapours issue forth that blind and suffocate. From every corner, as
you glance about you in these dark retreats, some figure crawls half-awakened,
as if the judgment-hour were near at hand, and every obscene grave were giving
up its dead. Where dogs would howl to lie, women, and men, and boys slink off to
sleep, forcing the dislodged rats to move away in quest of better lodgings.
Here too are lanes and alleys, paved with mud knee-deep, underground
chambers, where they dance and game; the walls bedecked with rough designs of
ships, and forts, and flags, and American eagles out of number: ruined houses,
open to the street, whence, through wide gaps in the walls, other ruins loom
upon the eye, as though the world of vice and misery had nothing else to show:
hideous tenements which take their name from robbery and murder: all that is
loathsome, drooping, and decayed is here.
Our leader has his hand upon the latch of 'Almack's,' and calls to us from
the bottom of the steps; for the assembly-room of the Five Point fashionables is
approached by a descent. Shall we go in? It is but a moment.
Heyday! the landlady of Almack's thrives! A buxom fat mulatto woman, with
sparkling eyes, whose head is daintily ornamented with a handkerchief of many
colours. Nor is the landlord much behind her in his finery, being attired in a
smart blue jacket, like a ship's steward, with a thick gold ring upon his little
finger, and round his neck a gleaming golden watch-guard. How glad he is to see
us! What will we please to call for? A dance? It shall be done directly, sir: 'a
regular break-down.'
The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the tambourine, stamp
upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra in which they sit, and play a
lively measure. Five or six couple come upon the floor, marshalled by a lively
young negro, who is the wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known. He
never leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest, who
grin from ear to ear incessantly. Among the dancers are two young mulatto girls,
with large, black, drooping eyes, and head- gear after the fashion of the
hostess, who are as shy, or feign to be, as though they never danced before, and
so look down before the visitors, that their partners can see nothing but the
long fringed lashes.
But the dance commences. Every gentleman sets as long as he likes to the
opposite lady, and the opposite lady to him, and all are so long about it that
the sport begins to languish, when suddenly the lively hero dashes in to the
rescue. Instantly the fiddler grins, and goes at it tooth and nail; there is new
energy in the tambourine; new laughter in the dancers; new smiles in the
landlady; new confidence in the landlord; new brightness in the very candles.
Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his fingers,
rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in
front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man's fingers
on the tambourine; dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs,
two wire legs, two spring legs - all sorts of legs and no legs - what is this to
him? And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such
stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his partner off
her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping gloriously on the bar-counter,
and calling for something to drink, with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit
Jim Crows, in one inimitable sound!
The air, even in these distempered parts, is fresh after the stifling
atmosphere of the houses; and now, as we emerge into a broader street, it blows
upon us with a purer breath, and the stars look bright again. Here are The Tombs
once more. The city watch- house is a part of the building. It follows naturally
on the sights we have just left. Let us see that, and then to bed.
What! do you thrust your common offenders against the police discipline of
the town, into such holes as these? Do men and women, against whom no crime is
proved, lie here all night in perfect darkness, surrounded by the noisome
vapours which encircle that flagging lamp you light us with, and breathing this
filthy and offensive stench! Why, such indecent and disgusting dungeons as these
cells, would bring disgrace upon the most despotic empire in the world! Look at
them, man - you, who see them every night, and keep the keys. Do you see what
they are? Do you know how drains are made below the streets, and wherein these
human sewers differ, except in being always stagnant?
Well, he don't know. He has had five-and-twenty young women locked up in this
very cell at one time, and you'd hardly realise what handsome faces there were
among 'em.
In God's name! shut the door upon the wretched creature who is in it now, and
put its screen before a place, quite unsurpassed in all the vice, neglect, and
devilry, of the worst old town in Europe.
Are people really left all night, untried, in those black sties? - Every
night. The watch is set at seven in the evening. The magistrate opens his court
at five in the morning. That is the earliest hour at which the first prisoner
can be released; and if an officer appear against him, he is not taken out till
nine o'clock or ten. - But if any one among them die in the interval, as one man
did, not long ago? Then he is half-eaten by the rats in an hour's time; as that
man was; and there an end.
What is this intolerable tolling of great bells, and crashing of wheels, and
shouting in the distance? A fire. And what that deep red light in the opposite
direction? Another fire. And what these charred and blackened walls we stand
before? A dwelling where a fire has been. It was more than hinted, in an
official report, not long ago, that some of these conflagrations were not wholly
accidental, and that speculation and enterprise found a field of exertion, even
in flames: but be this as it may, there was a fire last night, there are two
to-night, and you may lay an even wager there will be at least one, to-morrow.
So, carrying that with us for our comfort, let us say, Good night, and climb
up-stairs to bed.
* * * * * *
One day, during my stay in New York, I paid a visit to the different public
institutions on Long Island, or Rhode Island: I forget which. One of them is a
Lunatic Asylum. The building is handsome; and is remarkable for a spacious and
elegant staircase. The whole structure is not yet finished, but it is already
one of considerable size and extent, and is capable of accommodating a very
large number of patients.
I cannot say that I derived much comfort from the inspection of this charity.
The different wards might have been cleaner and better ordered; I saw nothing of
that salutary system which had impressed me so favourably elsewhere; and
everything had a lounging, listless, madhouse air, which was very painful. The
moping idiot, cowering down with long dishevelled hair; the gibbering maniac,
with his hideous laugh and pointed finger; the vacant eye, the fierce wild face,
the gloomy picking of the hands and lips, and munching of the nails: there they
were all, without disguise, in naked ugliness and horror. In the dining-room, a
bare, dull, dreary place, with nothing for the eye to rest on but the empty
walls, a woman was locked up alone. She was bent, they told me, on committing
suicide. If anything could have strengthened her in her resolution, it would
certainly have been the insupportable monotony of such an existence.
The terrible crowd with which these halls and galleries were filled, so
shocked me, that I abridged my stay within the shortest limits, and declined to
see that portion of the building in which the refractory and violent were under
closer restraint. I have no doubt that the gentleman who presided over this
establishment at the time I write of, was competent to manage it, and had done
all in his power to promote its usefulness: but will it be believed that the
miserable strife of Party feeling is carried even into this sad refuge of
afflicted and degraded humanity? Will it be believed that the eyes which are to
watch over and control the wanderings of minds on which the most dreadful
visitation to which our nature is exposed has fallen, must wear the glasses of
some wretched side in Politics? Will it be believed that the governor of such a
house as this, is appointed, and deposed, and changed perpetually, as Parties
fluctuate and vary, and as their despicable weathercocks are blown this way or
that? A hundred times in every week, some new most paltry exhibition of that
narrow-minded and injurious Party Spirit, which is the Simoom of America,
sickening and blighting everything of wholesome life within its reach, was
forced upon my notice; but I never turned my back upon it with feelings of such
deep disgust and measureless contempt, as when I crossed the threshold of this
madhouse.
At a short distance from this building is another called the Alms House, that
is to say, the workhouse of New York. This is a large Institution also: lodging,
I believe, when I was there, nearly a thousand poor. It was badly ventilated,
and badly lighted; was not too clean; - and impressed me, on the whole, very
uncomfortably. But it must be remembered that New York, as a great emporium of
commerce, and as a place of general resort, not only from all parts of the
States, but from most parts of the world, has always a large pauper population
to provide for; and labours, therefore, under peculiar difficulties in this
respect. Nor must it be forgotten that New York is a large town, and that in all
large towns a vast amount of good and evil is intermixed and jumbled up
together.
In the same neighbourhood is the Farm, where young orphans are nursed and
bred. I did not see it, but I believe it is well conducted; and I can the more
easily credit it, from knowing how mindful they usually are, in America, of that
beautiful passage in the Litany which remembers all sick persons and young
children.
I was taken to these Institutions by water, in a boat belonging to the Island
jail, and rowed by a crew of prisoners, who were dressed in a striped uniform of
black and buff, in which they looked like faded tigers. They took me, by the
same conveyance, to the jail itself.
It is an old prison, and quite a pioneer establishment, on the plan I have
already described. I was glad to hear this, for it is unquestionably a very
indifferent one. The most is made, however, of the means it possesses, and it is
as well regulated as such a place can be.
The women work in covered sheds, erected for that purpose. If I remember
right, there are no shops for the men, but be that as it may, the greater part
of them labour in certain stone-quarries near at hand. The day being very wet
indeed, this labour was suspended, and the prisoners were in their cells.
Imagine these cells, some two or three hundred in number, and in every one a man
locked up; this one at his door for air, with his hands thrust through the
grate; this one in bed (in the middle of the day, remember); and this one flung
down in a heap upon the ground, with his head against the bars, like a wild
beast. Make the rain pour down, outside, in torrents. Put the everlasting stove
in the midst; hot, and suffocating, and vaporous, as a witch's cauldron. Add a
collection of gentle odours, such as would arise from a thousand mildewed
umbrellas, wet through, and a thousand buck-baskets, full of half-washed linen -
and there is the prison, as it was that day.
The prison for the State at Sing Sing is, on the other hand, a model jail.
That, and Auburn, are, I believe, the largest and best examples of the silent
system.
In another part of the city, is the Refuge for the Destitute: an Institution
whose object is to reclaim youthful offenders, male and female, black and white,
without distinction; to teach them useful trades, apprentice them to respectable
masters, and make them worthy members of society. Its design, it will be seen,
is similar to that at Boston; and it is a no less meritorious and admirable
establishment. A suspicion crossed my mind during my inspection of this noble
charity, whether the superintendent had quite sufficient knowledge of the world
and worldly characters; and whether he did not commit a great mistake in
treating some young girls, who were to all intents and purposes, by their years
and their past lives, women, as though they were little children; which
certainly had a ludicrous effect in my eyes, and, or I am much mistaken, in
theirs also. As the Institution, however, is always under a vigilant examination
of a body of gentlemen of great intelligence and experience, it cannot fail to
be well conducted; and whether I am right or wrong in this slight particular, is
unimportant to its deserts and character, which it would be difficult to
estimate too highly.
In addition to these establishments, there are in New York, excellent
hospitals and schools, literary institutions and libraries; an admirable fire
department (as indeed it should be, having constant practice), and charities of
every sort and kind. In the suburbs there is a spacious cemetery: unfinished
yet, but every day improving. The saddest tomb I saw there was 'The Strangers'
Grave. Dedicated to the different hotels in this city.'
There are three principal theatres. Two of them, the Park and the Bowery, are
large, elegant, and handsome buildings, and are, I grieve to write it, generally
deserted. The third, the Olympic, is a tiny show-box for vaudevilles and
burlesques. It is singularly well conducted by Mr. Mitchell, a comic actor of
great quiet humour and originality, who is well remembered and esteemed by
London playgoers. I am happy to report of this deserving gentleman, that his
benches are usually well filled, and that his theatre rings with merriment every
night. I had almost forgotten a small summer theatre, called Niblo's, with
gardens and open air amusements attached; but I believe it is not exempt from
the general depression under which Theatrical Property, or what is humorously
called by that name, unfortunately labours.
The country round New York is surpassingly and exquisitely picturesque. The
climate, as I have already intimated, is somewhat of the warmest. What it would
be, without the sea breezes which come from its beautiful Bay in the evening
time, I will not throw myself or my readers into a fever by inquiring.
The tone of the best society in this city, is like that of Boston; here and
there, it may be, with a greater infusion of the mercantile spirit, but
generally polished and refined, and always most hospitable. The houses and
tables are elegant; the hours later and more rakish; and there is, perhaps, a
greater spirit of contention in reference to appearances, and the display of
wealth and costly living. The ladies are singularly beautiful.
Before I left New York I made arrangements for securing a passage home in the
George Washington packet ship, which was advertised to sail in June: that being
the month in which I had determined, if prevented by no accident in the course
of my ramblings, to leave America.
I never thought that going back to England, returning to all who are dear to
me, and to pursuits that have insensibly grown to be a part of my nature, I
could have felt so much sorrow as I endured, when I parted at last, on board
this ship, with the friends who had accompanied me from this city. I never
thought the name of any place, so far away and so lately known, could ever
associate itself in my mind with the crowd of affectionate remembrances that now
cluster about it. There are those in this city who would brighten, to me, the
darkest winter-day that ever glimmered and went out in Lapland; and before whose
presence even Home grew dim, when they and I exchanged that painful word which
mingles with our every thought and deed; which haunts our cradle-heads in
infancy, and closes up the vista of our lives in age.
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