The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1876-07-21
A NOT NIGHT lNTHE CITY.
How Recommendations OeeupantS
. Slept Last Nlght-Stfee scenes
In the Lower wards.

L slept Last N1gnI-1Gteet Sceheo
In the Lower wards.
From the N. Y. Sun, July lOl
All over the city, at all hours OF the
night, open windows, glancing lights, and
glimpses Of white-robed forms fitting be-
fore the windows, showed how sleep was
banishel from weary eyes. But the most
remarkable effects were produced in the
great tenement districts, and in the
streets that environ the Five Points. AT
shutdown in the Five Points the tenement
hives swarmed, and as soon "a the burn.
ING supbeams had left the little paved
SQUARE in front OF the @0ld Brewery" II
was filled with motley multitude OF
men. women and children, who chatted
inhalf dozen languages, filling the air
with a loud buzzingtha sounded strange
" block or two away The children
rIayed around the fountain, and the
grown people sat on the edge Of the pat
ent pavement or leaned against the sur
rounding fences and buildings, and talked
about the terrible heat.
Everybody seemed 10 10 in the open air,
and Baxter street looked like great ba.
zaar, crowded from curb to curb with a
talking, laughing, shouting, and half
dressed multitude. ABaxter street ten.
ement, on q hot midsummer night, is a
kind Of earthly purgatory. Tie room,
hardly twelve Eeet square, contains q stove,
clothes hanging on the wall, table,
dishes, and culinary articles and It Is ey-
identity the living, eating, and aleeping
place for the whole family. The family
that has an extra room for q sleeping
apartment is exceedingly fortunate in the
worst tenement houses, and in the best
three. rooms make palace home, In
some OF these Eve story houses there are
twenty or thirty families, numbering
from ninety TO one hundred and seventy
FIVE persons, and the smaller houses are
Just Us crowded. ..7 1.
Before Q o'clock last night Thousands
OF persons in this squalid quarter had
gone out into the open street to remain
until morning. All.alorg Baxter and the
adjacent streets the inner edges Of the
sidewalks were lined with blankets and
bed ticks, upon which half.nude children
were sleeping so close together that 1t was
impossible to step. between them. They
almost lay over one another, entirely
without covering, and In many cases with
cellar door or even the stone tagging
alone for a bed. In one place eight chill
dren were asleep on a patch of wooden
pavement, ak feet long by three wide,
and babies scarcely six months old, with
naked limbs, lay exposed to the sky on
pieces OF blankets thrown over cellar
doors. UL......
The men and women and older children
had not yet thought Of retiring. A large
empty cart served as roosting place for
a dozen noisy boys, who, perched upon
the drivers seat, or lying in the bottom
OF the box, shouted, sang and told stories,
some Of which were about the gallant
Gustav, who, one youngster maintained,
was "a butler Ingin fighter than Texas
Jack"
An hour later il was curious to SEQ the
women and girls Of fifteen, sitting on the
curbstones, and making their toilet for
the night BY twisting up their hair and
throwing a shawl around them One
after another they lay down in the open
air, beside the children, and regardless
OF the noisy throng that almost jostled
them in passing, to all appearance
dropped comfortably asleep. Gradually
the noise in the streets died out. A bevy
OF young girls Who had been singing
1.-THE Star Spangled Banner" and other
patriotic airs fell asleep one after an
other on cellar door, and the sounds OF
shouting and laughter ceased. The
young story tellers in the cart curled up
where they lay and were soon in dream
land.
Then the men pulled off their boots,
and while some placed beds on the side
walk to sleep on, others lay down on the
stones or boards, and few braced them
selves up in the corners Of the doors to
act as sentinels over the sleepers.
$50 they sleep every night" said po-
liceman, land we don't disturb them.
They couldn't stand the heat indoors-it
would kill them. A funny thing happens
once in while. There is an old fellow
down the street here who sleeps on the
cellar door every night. He is very ema-
ciated, and looks as light as feather.
He puts himself into a kind OF bag that
somes up to his neck, and then throws
piece OF netting over his face to keep
away the bedbugs. One night an officer
saw him sleeping so and bedbug trying
to bite him. But the old fellow is so,
thin and bloodless that the bug had to
insert his bill through the netting into
his nose several times before he could
draw blood. This walked the old fellow
up, and he saw the officer standing over
him in the moonlight.
"'Now go away, said he, depressing
ly; you know you oughtn't to be tickling
my nose with your club And he wouldn't
believe that ii was bed bug that had
disturbed him."
The scene along Baxter street when,
nearly all its denizens were asleep on the
sidewalks and In the doorways was
strange enough. Aperson could, in some
places, hardly step without stumbling
against sleeping form. In every direc.
ton they lay, sleeping "a soundly, appar-
emily, az they would have done in the
downiest beds. When nearly all were
asleep, and only the noise Of subdued
conversation was heard here and there,
somebody got up a fight. Two burly ne
groes clinched and fell struggling upon
the sidewalk. In the fraction,ot min
ute the sleeping street seemed to have
been changed into bedlam, and crowd
OF hali.naked, yelling and,gesticulating
men, women and children surrounded the
contestants. Ten minutes later all was as