The Conservative. (M'connelsville, Ohio) 1866-1871, 1868-10-01
The Hidden Sights of New York.

IN. Y. Correspondence Of Providence PTossl
We turned into Five Points, and went
into some Of the lodging houses.
Think of thirteen persons crouched IN
one small room, without n window, or any
hole but the door Male and female,
black and white, little children all buud-
led in a heap together ON the dirty straw.
The air was like IA pest house. One glance
was euough-oue taste of that air will Inst
n life time. 10 wal a clean lodging place.
Cheap indeed it was--and nasty Pound
ing nj one door for admission brought out
II c~omelv-looking black woman. Rouse
up your husband, | must see him, said
the detective. The husband came. he was
q white mani They have lived together
rs man and wife over two years. Sharp
en- said to me afterward, land they get
along irst-rUte.
Here was a place where children lived.
Two or three rooms, in n battered old
shanty that shook with every step over its
floors. The children were homeless ones,
tatherless and motherless, 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 bag who
kept the room six cents a night. BY day
they Trump the city, getting u living in, any
WHY AhtN thhlA hNNks AhfN NNAN AhhAAANh
around the rooms under scanty, dirty
blankets, and kept warm 10y a wretched
stove glowing feebly in II ONT
Most of them were boys, non over
twelve years; wedged in with them,
though, were some hungry-looking girls,
in whose faces the hard lines of want, and
sickness, and priyntion were growing al
ready. IL made me heartsick 10 look ut
them-lonely strHys Poor, motherless
things May He III infinite love and mercy
forget thee not
Down in the cellar was Il gang of rag
pickers. They were getting ready ior work,
and with hook and basket would soon be
ont, over the city, working their business.
Piles of rags, bones, oflal, broken iron filed
the place, save where q few articles of fur
niture stood. They were Italians, and not
disposed TO be sociable. One had his bed
luxuriouBly arranged ona pile of old carpet
rags, which we're damp and noisome with
the mud Of the streets, These rag-pickers
manage TO make money in their dirty way
they a 1t, too, and some of these years
they win go home to their country and en-,
Joy il. The women work as hard as the
men, live as roughly, have no shame or de.
cency about sexual matters, are as strong
Hmbed. asked the age Of II Of the wo,
men who seemed rather more disposed L
talk than the others. She was thirty-one
/ should have said fifty. She had no
one trace Of youth leit-a hard, weather
beaten face, a body bent and unhinged,
slow, plodding step and wrinkles coming
She had been in New York seven years-al
the time a rag-picker, Had she got ricI
enough to so back Rich enough AN.
she smiled-'I have two children in Ital
that my money is educating. They don
know their poor mother, poor desrs. but
shall work hard for them, and sometime
will 90 back aud see them 70 This woma
carried u bag and hshed in cutters and I,
fuse barrels, from four in the morning ii
past sunrise, culne home and sorted rag
and offal all day in Il close, damp celia
and yet there was a tender, romantic sent
ment in her life which made her look NJ
to herself but TO her little ones. May sf
have her wish aud go back TO them.