The Kansas herald of freedom., 1859-08-06
DisceIiaReops.
The Five Points

The following, from the novel By Geo. |
William Curtis, "Trumps." now being
published in Harper's FeeEly, is a fear
fully true picture of the life of mullitules
in New York city. 1t is drawn by the
hand Of master:
"And in all the streets of the great city,
in all the lofty workshops and yards and
factories, huge hammers smote and clash
ed, and men, naked TO the waist, ree,<ing
in diDgy interiors, bent like gnomes at
their tasks, while saws creaked, wheels
turned, planes and malets and chisels
showed and cut and struck /; and down in
damp cellars, sallow, ghasiIy men and
women woye rag carpets and twisted bas
kets in the midst Of Filters of puny, pale
children, with Jleared eyes and sore heads
and dirty faces, tumbline, playing, shout
ing, whimperng-scampering after the
pigs that came roofing and nOising in the
liquid filth that simmered aud stank to
heaven in the cutters at the top of the
steps and the houses above the heads Of
the CHASTITY men and women were swarm
ing rookeries, hot and close and bare, with
window panes broken, and hats and coats
and clothes stuffed in, and men with
bloodshot eyes and desperate faces sitting
doggedly with their hats on, staring at
nothing, or leaning on their ragged el-
bows on broken tables, scowIing from be-
tween their dirty hands at the world and
ihe future while in higher rooms sat SOL
itary girls in hard wooden chairs, pile
of straw, covered with rug, in the cor
ner, and box to put change of linen
in, driving the needle silently and cease
lessly through shirts or coats or trowsers.
STOPPING over in the foul air during the
heat of the day, straining their eyes when
the day darkened to save a candle, hear
ing the roar and the rush and the murmur
far away, mingled in the distance, as ii
they were dead and buried in their graves,
and dreaming horrid dream until the
resurrection.
"Oniy sometimes an acute, whitening
pain, as if something or somebody were
sewing the sewer, and pierced her with a
needle sharp and burning, made the room
swim and the straw in the corner glim
mer, and the girl dropped the work and
closed her eyes-the cheeks were black
and hollow beneath them-apd she gasp
ed and painted, and leaned back, while
the roar went on and tue ho. sun glared
and the neigh5oring church clock, strik.
ing the hour, seemed TO beat on her hear
as its mote relentlessly the girls return
ing CONSEQUENCES Then she took up III,
work again and the needle, with whose
little point, in pain and sickness and con
suming solitude, in darkness, desclation
and tlickering fa;nting faith, she priekeC
back death and dishonor.
CAT ncighboriug corners were the reef
upon which human health, hope an,
happiness lay stranded, broken up an,
gone to pieces Bloated faces glove,
through the open doors-their hurant,
sunk away into mere beastiaIi,y. Hu
man forms--meu no longer-lay on bench
es, hung over chairs, babbled, maundered
shrisked or wept alond while wome
came in aud took black bottles from un
der tattered shawls, and said nothing, bu
put down a piece of money ard the ma
behind the counter. said nothing, bat too
tho money and filled the bottles, whic
were hidden under the tattered shaw
again, and the specifies phantoms Gid
81 out, guarding that little travesty G
= nodesty even in that wild RUM"