The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1877-09-08
For Tn" Cecil Wing.
BROADRRlM'S NEW YORK LETTER,
Nco lork Bfggers-ON Time Memories
Night 1mOng tie Bucket Shops

Ne" I0rk Bfggers- Oh Time Kemories-A
f Night Among tie Bucket Shops.
The American who has reached the age
of fifty years can easily recollect the time
when such thing as a beggar was almost
unknown III the United States, through
out the New England states in particular.
You might travel from Danbury in Connec-
tcut, to Bangor in Maine and never meet
teggar. do not mean to assert that
there was no poverty or wretchedness in
those days, but the organized charity of
the time was equal to the relief of our suf-
ferng poor, for poverty had not then at
tanned the colossal proportions that it has
at the present time. An American beggar
was almost unknown; our people had been
schooled to believe that there was some
thing degrading and liumliatng in ele-
mosynary aid, and they iustnctively shrank
from it as from Il pestilence. There was
hard independence in the chara ter of our
iaboring poor which seldom appealed for
charity, and if fortunes were not as they
are now, extreme poverty was almost I'M
Known, and such a thing as a person per-
ishing of starvation never entered into our
widest dreams 4 great and terrible
change has taken place among Us; poverty.
gaunt and rampant, meets you at every
corner; beggary, bold and defiant assaults
every house; and misery, squald in wretch
edneSs and rags, tiercely battles for charity's
wretched dole, and fights with starving
dogs for the bones aud offal cast out in the
garbage on the street. IL is no longer the
foreigner only whose tattercd misery ap-
peaIs to you; not only the halt and the
manned, the unfortunate and tie blind, but
iusty American manhood, sinewy and
strong, knocks at your door and demands
like highwayman the food that will keep
him from present starvation. No such
Summer as this was ever known before
In the Winter time our organized charities
and soup houses have eudeayored to stem
the tide OF poverty which congregates here
from the rural districts, aud finds shelter
in the abodes of wretchedness and crime:
but never before III Summer have we been
called upon to make provision for such an
army as that whose ragged haItalious are
now invading us, and which threatens to
engulf and swallow up all ordinary meas
ures of relief
More pitful and alarming than the adult
poverty and crime, are the swalms OF starv-
ing children on our streets God alone
knows the suffering and torture they endure
in addition to the curse of poverty. On
Saturday night last, miserable child nam
ed Anna Cusick, only seven years of age,
was beaten almost to death because she
had not sold papers enough to furnish her
degraded parents with rum. When she
was brought into court, her little body was
covered with wets from her poor little
naked feet to the nape of her neck her
hair was matted and unkempt; starvation
was cleaning from her eyes, and as they
stripped off her little ragged waist to ex-
anime the extent of her injuries great tears
rolled down the hard faces Of the court
officers and the judge, who could find moth
ing in the record of Cossack or Bashi.
bazouk to equal this terrible story. What
is to become Of them?
The other night l took stroll down
!
degradation takes its last leap, and sinks
into the nethermost hell of nfamy. Do
You know what bucket shop is? If you
do not l will tell you. 1t is species of
rum hole invented 10y the devil-the perfec-
ton of all that is wicked, Infamous and
diabolcal. 1t is generally situated in the
lowest and vilest neghborhood. It's doors
are roomy and large, and sometimes occupy
almost the whole front of the building.
| There is no attempt at concealmeat in the
bucket shops, no sign labeled family en-
trance " around the corner; barrels casks,
puncheons and kegs line the walls on every
side; here topers, foul with disease ard
drunkards rotten in rags, come with their
tin pals and buckets to purchase the mad
dering drink that drives then into insanity
and murder. In all the noisome and de-
graded throng that crowd these avenues of
hell, there is not single honest or limo
cent face. Even the little children, whose
miserable rags futter in the wind, have
faces hard and bronzed in crime, and pro
family shocking and heart-rending is the
only medium of communication. The pro-
prietor is generally graduate of the peni-
Tertiary or state prison, red-faced and
bloated; his hair cropped short on his
round bullet head gives him the appear
ance of a man always ready for a fight:
his clothes are of the best, and he eener-
ally wears heavy gold ring on his finger
and large and massive gold chain in his
vest; he speaks IN tone of authority which
ever sileUces dispute; he has little respect
for the police, and less for the magistrates
and courts; he has voice potential in the
manufacture of aldermen aud local officers,
and he generally manages to carry his point
| in the caucus. No contrast can be greater
than that between the keeper of one of these
bucket-hells and the miserable wretches
who support them; the one is clad in pur-
Pile and fine linen, and the other lives in
squald wretchedness and rags. The scenes
in one of these places along in the late
hours of the night exceed any description
that has ever been given of them, and even
by people living here in New York would
be looked on as a caricature. If you want
to see the bucket shop in all its infamy and
degradation, you should 90 there between
eleven and twelve o'clock of a rainy night;
then its wretched supporters are driven
from the streets and the parks, and find a
few hours shelter at least from the pelt-
ings of the ptiless storm; men brutalized
to the lowest stage to which God allows
humanity to fall, drink themselves into
insanity. Women unsexed and degraded
past human recognition are their compan-
ions. and children whose little lips have
never breathed "A prayer and who have
never heard of the gospel of Christ, sing
and swear and drink, or divide the pro.
ceeds of their stealings and plan new rob-
| lor;,, c,r bo J,, The 80 NOT