Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1886-05-06
RARE "PEARL ALLEY"
How It's Children Enjoyed Them
selves Playing wake"

IL 10 Cdilcu cdIl dllcy, tuOuSH Ho
sign-board spells the name to question
ing strangers, and the residents of the
thoroughfare are not of sort to NOR
alize upon the origin of a 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 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 its
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 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 for the children clustering in the
doorway behind him, nor comes trudg-
ing home at night hungry and ready
for the rest which follows faithful toll.
And through the daylight hours there
is no sound of womanfs tidy care OF
home, no washing and scrubbing, no
brewing and baking, 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.
Huckstcrs do not cry their wares there,
organ grinders pass it scornfully by
even a starved dog skulks swiftly, as il
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.
yond further sorting into Pearl alley
Thieves, rogues and dissolute women
whose orgies and debauches have finall,
untitled them for even their miserable
callings, come at last to Pearl alley t.
swine together in british, besottet
misery. They live on crusts and hone,
from the garbage pail; they are clothed
in rags from the ash heaps, and thei
sole aim and object of existence is t,
steal or beg the few pennies necessar,
for the pot of beer or dram of whisky
from the shabby saloon on the corner
And Pearl alley has another class O
citizens, smaller. thank God, but in
finitcly more unfortunate than ever
the wrecks just described. 1t has
alas, its children! These are creature
small in stature and few in years, VIII,
crawl about over the Shiny stones an,
through the damp cellars of Pearl al
ley, who have in them touch of tn
glory of childhood which the irol
weight of their dreadful existence ha
not been able to crush out Hungry
weary and cold; dirty, ragged an,
sore; kicked, beaten and sworn at
themselves wicked and depraved be
yond belief-they are children still
You will see Pearl alley boy rescue
cabbage stalk from the gutter, tie
string to it, and drag it in triumph be
hind him for a cart, and you will Sc
his sister hugging to her breast with
look of ineffable fondness her doll-al
old bottle, about which a bit of filth
rag is carefully folded. But the favor
lite psstime of these miserable littl
waits is to play wake" A wake j
the most common event of the com
munity. You can not live very success
fully in Pearl alley, but it is very cas-
to die there. 1t is a short cut fror
that point to the Potter's Field, yer
short and rapid journey attended wit
little ceremony; a flutter Of black bed
raggled clCth on the door. drunke