The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-09-21

THE HIDDEN SIGHTS OF New YoRE.-We
turned into Five Points, and went into some
of the lodging houses.
Think of thirteen persons crouched IN
one small room without window or any
hole but the door. Male and female, black
and white, little children-all bundled IN
a heap together on the dirty straw. The
air was like pest-house. One glance was
enough, one taste of that air will last
lifetime. 1t was cheap lodging place.
Cheap. indeed, it was-and nasty! Pound
ing at one door for admission brought out 8
comely-looking black woman. Rouse up
your husband, I must see him." said the
detective. The husband came; he was
white man. "They have lived together as
man and wife over two years." Sharpen
said to me afterwards, land they get along
frst-rate."
Here was a place where children lived.
Two or three rooms, in a battered OLD
shanty that shook with every step across
its floors. The children were homeless
ones, fatherless 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 night. BY day
they tramped the city, getting q living IN
any way they could best. They were hud-
died around the room under scanty, dirty
blankets, and kept warm by wretched
stove glowing feebly in one corner. Most
of them were boys, none over twelve years
wedged in with them, though, were some
ngry-looking girls, in whose faces the
hard lines of want and sickness and priVa'
t;on we're growing already. 1t made me
heartsick to look at them-loneiy little
strays Poor, motherless things May
His infinite love and mercy forget then
not
. Down in a cellar was q gang OF rag
nickers. They were getting ready for work
and. with hook and basket, would soon bt
out over the city, working at their business
Piles of rags, bones, offal, broken iron
filled the place, save where few articles
furniture stood. They were Italians, ant
not disposed to be sociable: One had hi
bed luxuriously arranged on pile of ole
carpet rags, which were damp and noisom'
with the mud of the streets. These rag
pickers manage to make money in theil
dirty way; they save it, too, and one O.
these years they will 60 home to their coun
try and enjoy it. The women work as hare
as the men, live as roughly, have no shame
or decenoy about sexual matters, and are q!
strong-limbed. [ asked the age of one o
the women, who seemed rather more dis
posed to talk than the others. She wal
thirty-one. l should have said fifty
She had not one trace of youth left
hard, weather-beaten face, q body bent ane
unhinged, slow, plodding step, ant
wrinkles coming. She had been in New
York seven years-all the time rag picker
Had she got rich enough to 60 back Ricl
enough and she smiled. 81 have TIVE
children in Italy that my money is edu
eating. They don't know their poor mother
poor dears, but shall work hard for them
~ and sometime will 90 back to see them j
This woman carried a bag and tished il
/. cutters and refuse barrels from O'Clock il
the morning till past sunrise, came HON,
and sorted rags and offal all day in close
damp cellar; and yet there was tender
romantic sentiment in her life which made
her look, not to herself, but to her LITTLE
ones. May she have her wish, and 90 bacl
to them !-Neso York. Correspondence o
the Providence Press.