The Yazoo Democrat., 1854-04-26
IThe FiYe POints~nPast and Present.

will give to the reader something like vague
idea VI precinct of sin and iniquity situated
in New York City, known as the Five Points
The Five Points what are they where are
they what is the life that goes on there? These
are questions which have been more and more
frequently asked during the last ten years. and
even not yet thoroughly answered Partial ac-
counts of this notorious locality have appeared
from time to time. written for various purposes
some in the interest of particular sects and
professed phianthropists-some 10 exc out the
meagre notes of & distinguished visitors" from
Europe-and many Others, like g Hot Corn to
minister to the prurient tastes of the licen-
tioas and unprincip plel classes Of the community.
A general history of the Five Points is still to
be written-although, of the different publica-
tions to which we have alluded. the recent work,
entitled the 6 Old Brewery" written by the la
dies of the Five Points Home Mission" and
published by Messrs Stringer & Townsend, is
the best 1t contains an interesting account of
the history and labors of the mission, of course
free from the indecencies and obscenities of
| g Hot Corn"
Let us, then. pay visit to the Five Points
and describe it as il is. Come with us into
Broadway. 1t Is gay and lively enough there.-
To see the splendid equpages, the crowds Of ex
pensively dressed men and women, the magnifl-
cent shops, full of the costlest fabrics, one al
m ,st forgets that there are such things in the
world as want and misery and retchedness.-
But let us step down this steep and gloomy
street, lined with ricketty and tumble-down
I ht5fj tba e. md
broken slippery with mud and ice and The gut
ters heaped up with mountains of unnameabe
abomnations of every KIDD. The whole nelsh-
borffood swarms with squalid and ragged chill
dren, who look famished and ferocous. and make
us inNuluntarily pass our hands over our pock
cts, and button up our Goals. But this is
thing merely the suburbs of the territory into
which we are penetrating. 1t will get much
worse as we so en. Now we cross the railroad,
down by The Egyptian Tombs where they keep
he nurderers and vagabonds thieves and bur
glars, whom the police now and then pick up,
while the great body OF them go at large. aud
scatter themselves at will about the Points and
the neighborhood. Now we begin to pass the
last barriers of civilization and at last, entering
the invisible portal. over which the imagination
sees the fatal inscription, g Lasciate ognl Spe,
tanza, voi che entrate!" we stand in the centre
of the Five Points.
At The foot of Anthony street, down which
we have come from Broadway, is the irregular
ly shaped vacant space, left by the meeting and
converging Of five streets-Cross, Anthony, Or
ange, Little Water and Mulberry. In the cep-
tire is small triangular patch of ground, suIe
rounded now by white wooden paling, and
laid out in walks, although it has no gate, and
there are no means of entrance. Formerly this
piece of ground was unencosed, and was used
as sort of outdoors exchange for the devilish
traffic of abandoned women, which forms so
large an item of the business OF this locality
Then, too, the whole neighborhood was almost
entirely uniluminated, and into it, at night,
thieves, burglars, murderers and every kind of
villains instinctively rushed whenever danger
threatened, concealing themselves in the obscu-
rity, from the sharpest-eyed policeman, and easi-
ly escaping into the Old Brewery through ''Mur-
derers' alley" or down some Of the cellars and
through passages of Cow bay and the adjacent
streets Now, however, the Old Brewery has
changed its character. There are no longer any
terrors in the ''Murderers alley" or the g Den OF
Thieves''-and through those passages SO often
creaking with the stealthy tread of crime, or
reeking with the blood of victims, where night
ly resounded the shrieks and yells Of drunken
and maddened licentiousness. now are heard the
monotonous noises of the schoolroom, the songs
of the cheerful and obedient scholars, and the
pleasing prattle of unstafved infancy.
On the corner opposite are seven brick build
ings, occupied by Mr. Pease's " Five Points
House OF Industry which we have already de-
scribed. With the exception of these improve
ments, and the introduction of gas lamps, the
neighborhood has undergone very little improve
ment Almost every building is grocery and
liquor store, while in most of them a room is
set apart for dancing. The easements are simi
Iary occupied, and the upper stories of the
houses are cut up into sleeping rooms. and, lit
orally, 'bed" rooms-several families frequently
occupying the same room-and not only carry
ing on all the operations of sleeping, dressing
cooking and eating there, but actually drivint
their unnameable nightly trade in one another
very presence One side of the space calet
the Points, is entirely occupied by row Of thre
lstory and basement brick tenements, calIe,
:" Farlow's Exchange" and composed of SOM
twenty or twenty-five dwellings, such as W
e have described. OF course, each floor, as vel
as the basement, has its separate inhabitants
: and there is s'rear" building, also cramme
with tenants, on every lot