The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-04-09
RARE "PEARL ALLEY"
How It's Children Enjoyed Them
selves Playing wake"


selves Playing wake"
It is called Pearl alley, though no
sign-board spells the name to question
ing strangers, and the residents of the
thoroughfare arc not of sort to NOR
alize upon the origin of name or the
appropriateness of its character.
Pearl alley it is to them as means of
designation, and when you see it you
will say as well Pearl alley as any
thing else, for no name, however de-
scriptive OF all that is filthy, miserable
and poor, can adequately express its
dirt, squalor and poverty.
1t runs out of Washington street
when Washington street gets down be-
low Rector, and utterly loses its re-
spectability in its efforts to stand up
against the stencil of the soap facto-
ries. At the point where the last YES
tige of responsibility disappears and
the strength of the stencil has reached
its climax there Pearl alley begins, and,
to preserve alike the ebb of decency
and the flood of smell, it runs verti-
cally through one short block and ends
abruptly against a neighboring street
that might offer slight gain of the one
and loss of the other.
The alley has at least one thing in
common with the precious Jewels whose
name it wears. Like them. it is rare.
Even among the slums of a great city
like New York there are not many fes-
ter spots so rank and poisonous as its
short length affords. The few wretched
tenements that outline its narrow way
are for the most part deserted sheds,
with three or four tall, crazy build
ings, whose dark halls and rickety
stairs resound with the sluggish steps
and british noise OF the tenants of it's
foul and crowded rooms. The sun
never shines in Pearl alley. The houses
lean over so close that the little stretch
of street between them becomes a black
thread to old Sol in the heavens and
quite out Of reach of his superb focus in
the momentary pause he makes direct
ly overhead
A good many things never happen in
Pearl alley. There is never any begin
ming or end to the day there. No
thrifty mechanic or honest artisan ever
leaves in the early morning with his
dinner pail on his arm, and his cheer
full content at the prospect of winning
bread Tor the children clustering in the
doorway behind him, nor comes trudg-
ing home at night hungry and ready
Tor the rest which follows faithful toll.
And through the daylight hours there
rs no sound of woman's tidy care of
home, no washing and scrubbing, no
brewing andbaking, no cheerful neigh
Dor gossip-no token that in MANY
other poor and crowded quarters of the
city betrays that social life, albeit of
the lowest stratum, is still extant
Hucksters do not cry their wares there,
organ grinders pass it scornfully by ;
even starved dog skulks swiftly, as if
he knew there was no stray bone there
for him
But Pearl alley has its citizens and
ITS happenings. A race of beings sifted
through the various stages of misery
and degradation which make up the
lives OF the city's outcast fall at last be-
You'd further sorting into Pearl alley.
Thieves, rogues and dissolute women.
whose orgies and debauches have finally
untitled them for even their miserable
callings, come at last to Pearl alley to
swine together in. british, besotted
misery. They live on crusts and bones
from the garbage pail; they are clothed
in rags from the ash heaps, and their
sole aim and object of existence is to
steal or beg the few pennies necessary
for the pot of beer or dram of whisky
from the shabby saloon on the corner.
And Pearl alley has another class of
citizens, smaller. thank God, but in
ilnltely more unfortunate than even
the wrecks just described. 1t has.
alas, its childrenl These are creatures
small in stature and few in years, who
crawl about over the Shiny stones and
through the damp cellars of Pearl al
ley, who have in them a touch of the
glory of childhood which the iron
weight of their dreadful existence has
not been able to crush out Hungry.
weary and cold; dirty, ragged and
sore; kicked, beaten and sworn at:
themselves wicked and deprayed be-
yond belief they are children still!
You will see Pearl alley boy rescue q
cabbage stalk from the gutter, tie a
string to it, and drag it in triumph be-
hind him for cart, and you will see
his sister hugging to her breast with a
look of ineifable fondness her doil-an
old bottle, about which bit of filthy
rag is carefully folded. But the favor
ite' pastime of these miserable little
waits is to play wake A wake is
the most common event of the COM
munity. You can not live very success
fully in Pearl alley, but it is very EASY
to die there. 1t is short cut from
that point to the Potter's Field. a very
short and rapid journey attended with
little ceremony; futter of black bed
raggled cloth on the door, a drunken
wake, and the dead wagon. And the
wakes are so numerous and really SO
cheerful compared with life generally
in Pearl alley. it is little wonder the
children like to perpetuate the festivity
in their play.
Patsy Flynn liked it best Of all the
games, chiefly because he invariably
played the corpse, and it was easy and
pleasant to lie quite still, with his
hands folded, while the other BOYS
marched and shouted and jumped
about him. Patsy was not
very strong, children somehow
did not thrive in Pearl alley,
and he liked 10 be quiet, Patsy