National opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1865-1874, 1868-10-16
Hidden Siqhts OF New York.
A New York correspondent of tn

A New York correspondent of the
Providence Press, says:
We turned into the Five Points,
and went into some of the lodging
houses. .. .tl.
Think of thirteen persons crouch
ed in one small room, without a
window, or any hole but the door
Mae and female, black and white,
little children-all hudd led up in a
heap together on the dirty straw.
The air was like a pest house. One
glance was enOugh-one taste OF
that air will last life time. 1t was
a cheap lodging pk'ce. Cheap in.
deed it was---and nasty Pounding
at one door for admission brought
out "A comeIy looking black woman.
'Rouse up your husband, | must
see him. said the detective. The
husband came; he was a white man
'They have liTed together as man
and wife over two years. Sharpen
said to me afterward, and they get
along first rate
Here is a place where children
lived. Two or three rooms, in a
battered old shanty that shook with
every step over its floors. The
children were homeless ones, father,
less and motheIless, turned out to
live or die as might be, in the streets
of careless, needless New York
Here they come to sleep, paying the
old hag who keeps the rooms, six
cents a night. BY day they tramp
ed the city, getting a living in any
way they could best. They We're
huddled around the rooms under
scauty, dirty blankets, and kept
warm by a wretched stove glowing
teeblv in one corner. Most of them
were boys, none over twelve years ;
wedged i'll with them though, were
some hungry looking girls in whose
faces the hard lines OF want and
sickness ana privation were growing
already. 1t made my heart sick to
look at them-lonely StrsyS poor
motherless things! May He in inf
iIte love and mercy forget them
not.
Down in a cellar was a gang OF
rag pickers. They were getting
ready for work, and with hook and
basket would soon be cut, over the
city, working at their business
Piles of rags, bones, otlal, broken
iron, &c, filed the place, save where
few articles OF furniture stood
They were Italians, and not dis
posed to be socable. One had his
bed luxuriously arranged on a pile
of old carpet rags, which We're damp
and noisome with the mud OF the
streets.
These rag picllers manage to
make money i'll their dirty way ;
they save it too, and one of these
years they will go home to their
country and enjoy il. The women
work as hard as the men, live as
roughly, have no shame or decency
about sexual matters, and are strong
limbed. asked the age of one OF
the women who appeared rather
more disposed to talk than the 9th
ers. She was thirty-one. should
have said fifty. She had not one
trace of youth left-a hard weather
beaten face, a body bent and mn
hinged, slow, plodding step and
wrinkles coming. She had been il
New York seven years-all the tim,
a rag picker. Had she got licl
enough to go back! Rich enough
and she smiled--'l have two child
rem in Italy that my none! is cdu
eating They don't know ,hcir pool
mother, poor dcars, but shall worl
hard for them, and sometime | viii
go back and see them y This wo
man carried a bag and iiShcd il
cutters and refuse barrels from foul
o'clock in the morning till past sun
rise, came home and sorted oiial al
day in a close damp cellar; and Yet
there was Il tender romantic sentl
ment in her life which made hel
look, not to herself, but to her littl,
ones. May she haze her wish, an,
20 back to them