The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-01-28

statements, and avoid inquiry as impru
dent. The street, it is well understood,
cannot indulge in the luxury of fastidious-
ness, and would not if it could. 1t toler-
ates everything, as it expects to be toler-
ated.
The quarter seems to be conscious Of a
degree Of masquerading. 1t has various
places where theatrical costumes are made
and are to be hired, where frequcnters Of
fancy balls may be suitably equipped. 1t
denotes a certain underlined but actual
connection with the stage. Many of the
chorus singers and ballet girls OF the opera
companies are domiciled there, and relish
the liberty they enjoy-no one TO restrain
them Or comment on their vagaries For
eign variety actors often board there, as
well as some of the dime museum freaks.
Occasionally these inferior show folk com
bine and have festal night, usually on
Saturday, when they eat, drink, firt and
dance until daylight, and have what they
call a rousing good time. They are true
merrymakers, taking life as it comes, and
refusing to be respondent over shadows
which the morning may chase away.
The people you see there are seldom web
dressed or quite decorous in manner. They
belong not to the great world, but to lit
tie and eccentric world of their own. They
have the gypsy air and the gypsy tempera-
ment, the women particularly. Not of the
ordinary tenement house class, they are
not of the lower middle class either, or of
any approach to it. Shabby gentility, more
shabby than genteel, is the stamp of their
order They look as if they had been
tricked out in secondhand fnery of many
patterns and different dates. And their
manners are as odd, as unrepresentative as
their clothes Just where they live, how
they live and on what they live it would be
impossible to tell.
They trip up and down the high stoops
of the houses, where half a century ago
exceedingly respectable and socially select
citizens were solidly established. The staid
matrons and highbred daughters of that
time never could have dreamed that their
elegant homes would be so desecrated; that
the parlors where they received their polite
guests would be turned into taprooms;
that the luxurious chambers where they
slept would be filled with common beds
which any straggler might occupy for
twenty-five cents night. What has be-
come of those families, then prominent and
prosperous, dIO ciS luty DClicbcu, DtIuld-
nent? Some of them, or their descendants,
might be traced to new neighborhoods,
with contemporaneous surroundings. But
many more have been scattered; have lost
their fortunes or become extinct. New
York society undergoes complete trans
mutation every fifty years. The time is
not long, but it is long enough to insure
any amount Of social disintegration.
Blocker street may be offered in proof.
Not long since humble funeral took
place in the street. 1t was a characteristic
incident. A lone woman had died in
fourth story back room, which she had oc-
cupied several months, being often in ar
rears for her rent, and paying it generally
by pledging some article of clothing. She
had been i'll when she went there and grew
steadily worse, as her paliid face and dark,
hollow eyes bore. witness. No one knew
her; she sought neither company nor SYM
pathy She ate little, but she took NOR
phine regularly, the habit having been
formed by her desire to alleviate pain.
When she ceased to be seen in the streets
some of her Bohemian neighbors went to
her room, stripped of almost everything,
and insisted, with the kindness which the
poor always show the poor. on rendering
such assistance as they could. Very little
could be done, and she said so in feeble
voice; she was aware her end was near.
In few days she died, and her good
neighbors contributed enough to bury her.
There was no ceremony, but there were
many tears as half dozen men and women,
whose morals might not bear scrutiny, saw
her poor body put into a plain coffin and
driven away in plain hearse, one carriage
containing the only mourners 1t was
pitiable sight, but the grace of humanity
touched it with dignity, and the sun came
out from the clouds on the dreary winter
afternoon, and, as the dead and living
rolled away, bathed them for moment IL
food of tender radiance.
JUNIUs HENRI BROWNE.