The Cecil Whig., 1885-07-04
WHERE THE BAD GO.
The Last Stage of a Ruined Life-"The
Bend" of New York.

1hc Last StaSe OF Isulneu LHe-'lhe
Bend" of New York.
Correspondence Of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Where do bad men go to? What be-
comes of outcast women? These are
not quotations from church catechism.
They are questions that every man and
woman thinks that he or she can answer,
but l think that the answer they were
all taught from childhood to make is in
correct. Boys and girls are taught that
bad men go to prison or get hanged, and
immoral women reach certain stage of
moral Or mental depression and then
| fling themselves into the water. We &C.
cept these answers. Every now and then
a man is hanged, ard that seems to prove
that the idle and vicious males who
break the commandments and eschew
honest work finally reach the gallows.
But how ridiculous that is. Every one
of us knows or has known many worth
less, vicious people, but few, if any, of
US ever knew a man in our circle of ac-
quaintance to reach the gallows. The
draggled bodies of women are once in
awhile cast upon a waters edge, but how
many of us who have seen women go
astray have seen these misspent lives
reach that damp conclusioA? accident
ally ran upon solution of this phase of
the problem of life the other day and
| raoI in 4rbof hafora
swer that meets thousand cases where
the old-fashioned replies accord with
one.
! 1t was in "The Bend" and you will
come nesssrsest the truth if hereafter, when
you are asked what is is w tt,he natural end of
evil lives you reply: "Theyos;o to the
Bend" There is 'bend' in every big
city. In New York it takes it name from
the curve in Mulberry street in the
"bloody" Sixth ward. Elsewhere it is
some other quarter infested by the dregs
Of humanity. l don't believe l can de-
scribe the Bend. l have lived here all
my life, and l thought that New York
was as twice read tale to me, yet here
found state of affairs of fifty years.
growth as new to me as visitation to
the planet Mars.
THE CONDITION OF THE POOR.
had been investigating the condition
of the poor in order to compare it with
the squalor and Eeathenism of pauper
life in London. At the end of each day s
tour among the meanest tenements the
police could direct me to, felt more cer-
tain that we had in America nothing so
horrible, so inexcusable and SO damning
to the pretenses of Christian govern
ment as London presents.
| found husbands who drank while
their wives toiled, and wives who kept
their children running to the groggerles
with cans and jugs. found many and
many home that consisted of nothing
but dirty bed in room containing four
or five other beds, each of which was a
home for father, mother and children.
In one of these neighborhoods a police
man told me that if common street.
walkers were to dare to behave in public
!. as the young girls do every night while
their mothers look on and laugh at them
they would be sent to Jail.
But l can conscientiously say that
found no district, block, court, alley or
single house into which it would have
been excusable for me to bring gifts Of
money or food, or in which should have
expected such aims to have been ac-
cepted if did. AS for religion, the
E rosaries, the pictures of priests and the
prayer books in nearly every house
showed that the poorest enjoyed the
comforts of the Church.
Take him to the Bend" said police
: captain to a detective, eff he thinks we