Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1886-03-26
GGTHIND THE MASK.
REAR VIEWS OF A STREET IN
THE METROPOLIS.
Ene Squalid ROOkery and rs
Wretched Denizens-What
a Search for a Lost
Dog Revealed.

presenting Tour faces to as many streets.
In effect, these houses are a sort of wall,
inclosing-whatl Backwards sometimes;
other houses and courts sometimes
whole villages of little tenements, per-
haps-factories and even graveyards.
You can never tell by the face a street
puts on what sordid secret its prim front
may conceal. l know, on the other hand,
of handsome old houses that you must
get at by alleyways through shabby tene-
ments; quiet and pleasant old court
yards, as clean and dainty as if they had
been preserved in the lavender which
was the fashionable scent when their
trim bricks were laid; pretty gardens,
gone wild with a mad riot o! the old
fashionable flowers that have no modern
rivals. The great city, rising about them
like swelling sea, has shut them off
from the world like the islets of the
Southern ocean, and there they are, and
will be till the waves, sapping their
sturdy bases like the sea-gnawed rock,
crumble them into ruin, and the black
waters of trade and toll close over and
engulf them.
Last Saturday evening went hunting
a pet dog that careless servant had lost.
This distressing, not to say calamitous
accident, had occurred on an extremely
respectable street, between two of our
great avenues. The houses which
Swallowed it were either handsome flats,
fine private residences or extremely select
lodging and boarding houses. The night,
as you may remember, was bitter one,
with high and piercing wind. The cold
was villainous. sought the truant the
length of the block, where the girl swore
she had lost him, and was about to give
the quest up when noticed a dim light
far up low, black tunnel, between two
of the finest flats. plunged into the
passage, through which the wind
whistled in an icy blast, and came out,
after fierce struggle and chilled to the
marrow, in one of the filthicst courts l
ever set foot in. Behind me lowered the
walls of the flats, smooth and solid as
those of fortress. Before me was an
old brick tenement-house, with its wood
work broken and decayed, its windows
mended here and there with old hats or
ragged clothing, with foul tatters of
frozen wash tapping in the blast overhead
and the broken tagged court glazed with
treacherous coat of frozen mire.
On either hand l could follow the gutter
lines of a whole row of similar rookeries,
losing themselves in long perspective in
the darkness. 1t was veritable town
within town; my respectable block was
only hollow shell, painted sepulchre,
filled, like Dead Sea fruit, with foulness
and decay. There was piano playing in
one of the flats, and in another the mer-
ry voices of children's party. In the
rookeries man and woman were quarrel
ing, she cursing him with horrible oaths
and a drunken voice singing flash
song.
stumbled up a shaking wooden step
over basement that looked like an open
grave and knocked at the first door, there
being light inside. 1t was opened by a
little, fat old woman, decent enough in
dress and garrulously drunk. Another
old woman was doing behind red hot
cooking stove and a pretty young one,
with a face the color of putty, sat with
her arms akimbo and stared at me. She
had coarse tumbler half full of what
smelled more like naphtha than spirits, on
the table. The old woman had tumbler
in her hand. The reek of the
stuff hung over the place like
fog. The whole space was no bigger
than fair sized hall bedroom. 1t was q
perfect incarnation of wreck. It's furni-
ture, its crockery, its walls and floor and
ceiling were broken and patched by all
manner of make-shift devices The oil
lamps were tied together with cord, and
the Goals cleaned through dozen cracks
in the old stove. But it was comfortable
and there was a pot of potatoes boiling
on the fire. They had seen nothing OF
my dog, but invited me to warm myself
internally and externally, at their twin
furnaces. | raped at a door across the
passage. Some one stirred softly within
but there was no answer. Trapped again
and heard the pulsations of a quick
breath close to the door inside. VIDA
was the breath afraid off, Forl certainly
was in mortal fear. l went upstairs. Ii
one room, the man and woman had heari
quarreling had made it up and were get
ting ready to 60 to market to buy the Sun
day dinner. He was a decent young fel
low, of the truck driving variety, an(
she great deal too we'll dressed to liv
in such place and be truckman's duti
full wife. In another an old woman wa
picking curled wool by the light of til
lamp, turned down to a mere glim
mer. Out of the corner darkness
of the little room rattlin.
breath sounded at regular intervals II
was worse to night, the old woman said
1t was the cold There was not only n,
fire, but no stove in the room, and sh
shuddered in constant tremor as sh
picked and pulled at the rope of hair
Why didn't she send him to hospital
He had bern good husband these fit
years tonight, and she'd be a good wifi
till one or t'other died. What golde
wedding! In one room boy with
head that looked enormously over-larg
for his weakened body was reading anon
some battered old books, while pal
little man, with iron bowed spectacles
squatted cross-lcgged on the end of tn
table sewing at IA coat. An old, bin
dog before handful Of fire on brio
hearth growled at me, but did not GO
up, and a big yellow cat stared at IN
from a chair The boy greeted m
politely in good, intelligent, boyi'
English. He worked in printin
office, he said, and was studying to /
8 proof reader. He was good, dutifl
boy, said the father in German, but h
studied too hard. If his poor mother
that was in heaven, hid lived and ii
little man put his hand to his eyes, an
said good night and shut the door
was series of such pictures that tl
court unfolded poverty, labor, gcol HI
NOR, despair; drunkenness and idlcne'