The daily intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Territory [i.e. Wash.]) 1876-1881, 1878-04-25
The City by Night.

O"c VI TIC hiost stEikluS passages IL
that wonderful book of Eugene Sues
is where the Wandering Jew stands on
an eminence. overlooking Paris, at
midnight. and contemplates the vast
! sleeping city. The author makes him
the bearer of the dreaded Asiatic
Cholera, and as he looks down upon
the city into which lie is doomed to
euter, he shudders as he thinks of the
disease and suffering and death he is
about to carry into it. A train of re-
Election 10 superinduced which is not
unlike the thoughts that came To
Dickens in a Tale of Two Cities
There is something about the soli-
tude and quiet of great city at night,
when the rattle of business is gone out
of 1t, which is we'll calculated to ex-
cite peculiar reflections and inflameme
Imagination. Every. house of the
many thousands which stand so thickly
grouped along the now silent streets,
has its secret history known only to its
inmates-a history which would per-
haps startie its stately neighbor from
its quiet repose and astonish the multi
tude who daily pass 1t unnoticed.
Yondcr is light streaming from an
attic window. where some lone watch
ayiSs 3, ms''" Xh, how b1'ih tie # hearts in that
room struggle with the bitter antago-
nisms of life, aud pray for some quiet
haven of repose into which their tenn
pest-tossed bark might glide And it
is coming to them. The mile stones
which have told the long stretch of
life to her weary feet, are nearly pass
ed, and from the darkness of earth and
the stir and confusion of the crowded
city, she will go up into the light.
where the stars hold their festival.
around the midn,gh. throne, and where
peace and Joy come to all alike.
But hark, there comes muttered
cry of agony upon the midnight air.
Yonder rises the dark forbidding walls
of the dungeon. aud IN one OF ITS mar
row cells lies q man now old in crime,
who is soon To pay the penalty of his
misdeeds, with his life. Memory has
been busy with him tonight, and as
his feet have journeyed back over the
scenes of his past life, he has almost
imagined himself boy again, wife bis
mothers kiss fresh upon his lips. The
old homestead, with its familiar sights
and sounds. has risen before him;
the little schoolhouse. down by the
! brook where he spent his happy boy
hood days Is seen rs though he ma /.
been there but yesterday he hears
the gentle wind rasping the ripening
corn; he is shouting with the laborers
in the golden harvest field. Time has
turned backward in its flight and mer-
cifully permitted him TO be child
again lust for moment But it is
ONLY for a moment. for he suddenly re-
members all his misery and what the
morrow ia TO bring. and his agony finds
vent in the cry which broke the still
ncss Of the midnight hour.
We have just turned a corner. From
wonder habitstion, with its cleaning
| lights. comes the sound of revelry. 1t
is a palace of gilded shame. where sen
suous music and boisterous mirth cheat
| the victim aud rob the false life of its
| momentary pangs, but withal it Is 4
/ den of misery aud infamy. and we
hasten by. breathing n sigh OF pity for
the poor creatures who pass their briei
existence therein
And now past long rows Of silen.
houses and along many squares of the
silent streets, we 20 on until other
lights gleam before Us. ani shouts and
curses break the stiffness. 1t Is appro.
! priatelv termed He'll whose kab
| itaes have thus forecaste of the Plu-
tonian regions Night after nigh,
they come here to squander their hard.
earned wages, for they seem to be in 8
terrible vortex from which there is nc
earthly escape. A mothers prayer. q
wife's tears. children's cries for bread
are all forgotten in the intensity of tbs
deadly passion which abSorbs every
other sense ard feeling,
Aud %. in the shadows of night. ~
pass through the great city. with II
10 . and its SORROWS. its vice and 1t!
crime, and read the lessons which, II
silence and mysteries teach.