The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1854-03-09
HOT-CO r N,
q. Or Life Scene in New York
-lgoI4 BY soIoN ROBINSON.


,.,.t ExTRAeTr 1.-THE TEMPERANCE MEETING
4James, you here? OH"
1t was his wife. He knew her voice, it
was that of other days, He started at
her; could it be her, SO neat, and clean,
and well dressed, and speaking SO fondly
to ,him-to him-for she had refused to
see him ever since she took the pledge,
Now, she came forward, took him by the
haad, ragged and dirty as he was-she
knew what would clean him-led him to
a seat and sat down by his side. Maggie
sat on the other. Fer momentthe spea-
ker could not go on. There was a cho-
king in his throat, strong man as he was,
and there were many tears in the-eyes that
booked upon that father, mother, and
daughter, that night.
aifJim Reagan" /" said the speaker, Il am
glad to see you here. You are an old ac-
maintenance of mine
AaJimReagan looked at him with aston
ishment. Could that well-dressed labor
ing MAN, clean shaved and clean shirted,
be Tom Nolan?
aftIadon't wonder that you look inqui-
ringly at me, as much as to say, lis that
you?" Yes, it is me, Tom Nolan, the
mason, me who used to lay around the
dirty rum holes with you, begging, lying,
stealing, to get drink. Do you think
that now I would pick up old cigar stumps
and7quids of tobacco, to fill my pipe?-
Do you think I would wear hat, as |
have done, that my poor beggared boy
picked out. of the streets? Look at that
Does that look like the old battered thing
used to wear? Does those clothes look
like the dirty rags I wore when you and l
slept in Jones's coal-box? Do | look like
the drunkard Tom Nolan that kept fam
ily of starving beggars, with two other
families, in one room, ten by twelve fete
square; and that a garret room, without
glass in its one window; with the roof SO
low that could only stand up straight in
one corner; and that mean room in the Vi
lest locality on earth, in house-ah!
whole row of houses, tenanted by just
such miserable, rum-beggared human be-
buildings owned by a human mon
ster-houses for the poor which are enough
to sicken the vilest of beasts;-such as no
good man would let for tenements, even
when he could get tenants as degraded as
I was-tenements that any Christian
grand jury would indict, and any court,
which desired to protect the lives of the
people, would compel the owners to pull
down, as the worst, with one exception,
of all city nuisances.
Chow did live there? How did my
wife and children ever live there? in that
miserable little room, with seven others,
Just such wretches as ourselves? How dc
hundreds of such men, women, and chill
dren as we were, still live there? / was in
the same room-the place my children
used to call honae-this evening. The en-
trance is in Cow Bay. If you would like
to see it, saturate your handkerchief will
camphor, SO that you can endure the hor
rid stencil, and enter. Groupe your way
through the long, dark, narrow passage
turn to your right, up the dark and dan
gerous stairway. be careful where yol
place your foot around the lower step, o.
in the corners of the broad stairs, for it i
more than shoe mouth deep of steamins
filth. Be careful too, OF you may NEE
some one-perhaps a man, perhaps wo
man---as nature divides the sexes; as III
rumseller combines the, both beasts, wh
in their drunken frnzy may thrust you
for the very hatred of your better clothes
or the fear that you have come to rescu
them from their crazy loved dens Of death
down, headlong down, those filthy stairs
Up, up winding up, five stories high, nov
you are under the black smoky roof; tur
to the left-take care and not upset tha
seethinng pot of butchers ofal soup, tha
is cooking upon little furnance at til
head of the. stairs-open that door-g
in, if you can get in. Look; here is 9 nc