The evening world., 1889-08-15

al the very doorstep Of the dissDlute old brick
tenement, and any one of the seventy chill
dren you will meet in the ball or along the
stairs will conduct you to their mother or
equally unhappy woman.
And I'll tell You what to ~take-shoes and
stock ms for women, aud children from one
week TO eleven years; clothes, bed covering
II You can, shnwls and wraps, groceries,,
milk, meat. some sweet fruit or jelly and
tl00 to save from eviction six unhappy, de-
pendent, unfortunate families.
You may lie bobbyhorsical on the subject
of ethics. temperance, social or Christian
sciences, but it wall be just as we'll to reserve
them for another visit. and these people IRE
thinking, eeiing, reasoning beings. but
they are hungry and they want bread and
Luttcr, tea and sug r. vegetables, meat,
clothes. fire, money-help.
Say, If you must have q guarantee, that
The EvfNGNG WORLD sent you. or mention
nr. Constnble's name, and not only will You
lave a cordial welcome, but a blessing on
high, if the prayers of the poor avail.
IL would ha, lest my baby but for you,"
a woman says TO the doctor. She lives on the
ground iloor of a rear flat On East Fifteenth
street. She has been cleaning out the dark
bedroom, for o young seamstress home on a
vacation has come for her crippled sister
Mary, and has taken her up to Biackwel's
Island to sit on the grass.
POO Mary il sixteen, her hip is dislocated.
and At every step the bone moves up above
her waist, and she supports herself finishing
coats that Pay her five cents each, and she
works home in the kitchen because none of
the bosses will have her about the shop,
Takes too long to get about, " they tell her.
She must have a splint. aud at once. the
doctor orders. The dispensnry people will
sell her one ON ins,alnents, but her earnings
times-that it would lake her years to pay
for it.
The doctor has come to examine her, and
we have n night-dress, a wrapper and some
underwear and a pile of Colchester the moon
faced, blue eyed baby, Mary's fye-month
niece.
As we cross the street we encounter q dead
horse. IL is pouring rain. My frizzes hang
like seaweed and both of our costumes are
dripping wet. There is no time to count the
children that hold n mimic wake about the
carcass in the gutter, but they are far too
numerous for the doctor to disperse.
We take shelter in a little basement shop
where an Irish mother sells k%indling.
How much do l make 2"
ut costs me Sc n load and ! retail II at 5
cents a basket. A load is some times a month
going, and when the floor comes up, sure
there isn't so cents worth of salt"
She has two babies. the junior q mite of a
creature with n very red and very rosy
mouth and q pair of quizzical eyes. from
the lid of one of which a small cat has taken
q bite. The elder. aged three and one
quarter, has dyspepsia from eating up his
mothers chewing gum and venerable candy
when her back Is turned, and the doctor is
puzzled to dispose of him.
A trip to the seaside hospital is impossible
as the store can't be left, and then, too, the
mother is i'll.
Whether the pathos or the moral repul.
s~iveness of the spectacle most impresses us
it is difficult to say, but my heart is lead and
my senses dazed when tho doctor leads the
way up a rickety pair of stairs.
The house is filled with a mass,of humanity
all anxious as TO the means of q livelihood,
md care-worn, haggard and prematurely
aged by strain of n ceaseless battle for life.
One fiat will suffice TO show the clrcum-
stances under which human beings can live
and still be human. Two rooms; two fami-
lies, seven persons; one ted, supported by a
pair OF carpenters ~tressels and on it o hoi-
low-cheeked, wild-eyed young woman, re.
duced to the gR%untnesB of a skeleton. Only
yesterday n baby was born to her, and fort.
%unately, or unfortunately, according to the
view you take of it. the little one yielded
up its life after the second gasp of tenement
ozone. The woman had neither nurse nor
doctor, and when we find her she is in need
of food and nursing.
On the floor, out in the larger room, are the
men, idle. but not debauched. They drive
ashcarts at night and are barely able to pro-
vide food for the tiny children lying naked
on the floor. There are two infants, the
youngest less than a year old. with q little
bonv face. in the hollow sockets of which
deep shadows lie, giving the features the
color and u~gliress of an MANTLE witch.
She lies on a door mat, her skeleton legs
bent SO that the soles rest on the floor, and in
her mouth is the ubber tube of a nursing
bottle. through which she is drawing the blue
milk with a rnpacity of appetite to be OK
pected only in animal life.
We find medicine, clothes and q prescrip-
ton for the four children, the doctor prom
ises to return and see the woman, and we are
glad to get out into the street, filthy and all
as it is, and look again into the clear, clean,
cool, promising face of heaven.
Next door a new picture, but the self same
setting, in which poverty saps the vitality of
the figures, already enfeebled in the vely
springIime of life by the cruelty of fato and
the injustice OF an honest CIV labor system.
The young girl (seventeen) is the mother.
She has two sick babies and a little sister-in.
law of seven. who has nothing the matter
with her-not even health. The woman sits
at a table, on which spindles and sticks ara