The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1854-04-03

what is the life that goes on there? These are ques-
tions which have been more and more frequently
asked during the last ten years, and even not yet
thoroughly answered. Partial accounts of this mo-
torious locality have appeared from time to time,
written for various purposes in the interest
of particular sects and professed philanthropists-
some to exc out the meagre notes of distinguished
visiters" from Europe-and many others, like Hot
Corn" to minister to the prurient tastes of the
licentous and unprincipled classes of the commu-
nifty. general history Of the Five Points is still
to be although, Of the different publications
to which we have alluded, the recent work. entitled
the "Old Brewery" written by the ladies of the
Five Points Home Mission and published by
Messrs. Stringer & Townsend, is the best. 1t con-
tans an interesting account of the history and abors
Of the mission" of course free from the indecen-
cies and obscenites of " Hot Corn"
Let us, then, pay visit to the Five Points, and
describe it as it is. Come with US into Broadway.
It is gay and lively enough there To see the spen.
did equipages, the crowds of extensively dressed
men and women, the magnificent shops, full of the
costiest fabrics, almost forges that there are
such things in the world as want and misery and
Indebtedness. But let US step down this steep and
gloomy street, lined with ricketty and tumblcdown
wooden buildings. the sidewalk torn up and broken,
slippery with mud and ice, and the cutters heaped
up with mountains of unnamcable denominations OF
every kind. The whole neighborhood swarms with
squalid and ragged children, who look furnished and
ferocious, and make Involuntary pass our hands
over our pockets, and button up our coats. But
this is nothing-merely the suburbs Of the territory
into which we are penetrating. It will get much
worse as we go on. Now we cross the railroad,
down by the Egyptian Tombs, where they keep the
murderers and vagabonds, thieves and burglars,
whom the police now and then pick up, while the
great body of them 60 at large, and scatter them
selves at will about the Points and the neighbor-
hood. Now We begin to pass the last barriers of
civilization and at last, entering the invisible por-
tai, over which the imagination sees the fatal in
scription, Loscate ogni peranSa, voi che entrater
we stand in the centre of the Five Points.
At the foot Of Anthony street, down which we
have come from Broadway, is the irreguarly shaped
vacant space, left by the meeting and converging Of
five strects-Cross, Anthony Orange, Little Water
and Mulberry. In the centre is a small triangular
patch Of ground. surrounded now bya white wooden
palDg, and laid out in walks, although it has
no gate, and there are no means Of en-
trance. Formerly this piece Of ground was I'M
enclosed, and was used as a sort of outdoors ex-
change for the devlish traffic of abandoned women,
which forms SO large an item of the business of this
locality. Then, too the whole neighborhood was al
most entirely uniluminated and into il, at night,
thieves, burglars, murdeIers and every kind OF vii
lains instinctively rushed whenever danger threat
ened concealing themselves in the obscurity from
the sharpesteyed policeman and easily escaping into
the Old Brewery through Murderers' 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
arc no longer any terrors in " Murderers' alley o.
the Den Of Thieves and through those passages
80 often creaking with the steathy tread of crime,
or recking with the blood of its victims, where
nightly resounded the shreks and yells of drunken
and maddened RIGHTEOUSNESS. now are heard the mo-
notonous noises Of the sehooroom, the songs of the
cheerful and obedient scholars, and the pleasing
plattle OF unstalved infancy.
On the corner opposite are seven brick buildings,
occupied by Mr.. Peases Give Points House Of In
dustiy,' which we have already described. With the
exception Of these improvements, and the ntroduc-
tion of gas-lamps, the neighborhood has undergone
very little improvement. Almost every building Is
grocery and liquor store, while in most Of them
room is set apart for dancing. The easements are
similarly occupied and the upper stories Of the
houses cut up into sleeping rooms, and literally,
bed rooms-several families frequently occupying
the same rooni-and not only carrying on all the
operations Of sleeping, dressing, cooking and eating
there but actually driving their unnaneabe nightly
trade in one anothers very presence One side OF
the space called the Points, is entirely occupied by
row of three story and basement Dick tcnements,
called "Farlow's Exchange" and composed of some
twenty or twenty-five dwellings, such we have
described. OF course, each floor well as the
basement, has its separate inhabitants, and there
is s'rear building, also crammed with tenants, on
every lot.
The manner and material Of life as 1t is presented
in these homes of crime and vagabondagc, arc too
loathsomc for description. In describing the condi-
ton of the streets throughout our beautiful city, we
have had occasion recently to exhaust catalogue
Of words and epthcs descriptive Of the filth cngen-
deied Nv humanity when crowded thickly into close
specs, and left unreguatcd and uncleansed by the
authorities. But nothing that we have said would
convey any adequate idea of the mere physical facts
over which we stumble every step, in the Five
Points.
II must be remembered that prostitution h by no
means the only occupation on the Five Points. The
wives and children Of most OF our most notorious
thieves and robbers live there-cowerng and starry
ing by day, and trembling and shivering with fear
ali night. 10 is true that most OF these womea have
IN vsrfup-but IL alan trup that