The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-08-18


 ters. and 'twouldn't be so plaguey hard to save sinners. Mebby there wouidn', be so many sinners to worry over, eith' err
 With these and similar reflections Aunt Mirandy passed from the region of aristocratic abodes through the dis. tricts of prim and tidy homes. past the doubtful territory of mixed business structures and habitations. into the roaring thoroughfares of Gotham; and then, more by instinct than from knowledge, into one of those down town quarters where great palaces of trade wall In vast areas of squalor. vice and crime
 At this hour of the day the crooked. loathsome street through which her footsteps led was strangely still. Aunt Mirandy was ignorant of its grewsome and dreadful night life and the silence distracted her.
 Don't wonder they can't get along" she observed with some asperity. "when they don't mosey out in the mornin' and get to work like other folks. Mercy! Why. they look like the dead!'
 She had now turned into bend of the thoroughfare where doors, windows and railways of the crazy old struc- lures were all wide open. The tottering buildings were so close together that 1t was dank and shadowy between. Fes- tering garbage covered the broken pavement. Foul odors emanated from every nook and cranny. The nauseous, appalling presence of putrid death It. self seemed to fly at her with palpable and overpowering savagery.
 In shadowy basements were stretched the revolting forms of humans of strange race and color, their features distorted as if in frightful dreams. Women and children, half nude and filthy. lay in grotesque heaps upon bare floors. or were dimly visible among piles of. wretched rags. At this window or that bare arm or leg, or a head, hung over the sill, as though its owner- CTS body had been dismembered and had fallen from sight behind.
 Every hallway and stairway was heaped with apparently lifeless bod iess Males and females lay against steps, copings. area railings, or were stretched across sidewalks. doubled in gutters, or still lay prone upon the neisome stones of the street. A few of all these hideous forms and faces were pinched and thin and drawn and pallid from pain and want; but most were blowsy and bloated and fiery from end less drink
 There was a horrible fascination in the revolting scene which drew Aunt Mirandy on and on. With her skirts instinctively gathered about her and her quaint old vinaigrette clasped tight ly to her quivering nostrils. she picked her way here and there, or leaped gin gerly over sodden bodies, muttering Mercy! mercy! mercy!" all the dread full way. .-..
 The recurring sounds of business life, the clang and clamor of the great trade thoroughfares beyond finally recalled her to her mission. ''..e '; .-
 "Huhr' she startlingly exclaimed. If I ain't doin' just like all the rest; lookin' at these horrors like a play show and leavin' 'erh horrors still! Mercy me! Where shallI begin?"
 She retraced her steps, stood still for a little, shook her vinaigrette ferocious- ly and gazed distractedlysup the@wind- ing street, loathsome in it's sinuous trailing as the discarded skin of huge snake.
 Just then horrible volley of oaths. oaths from women. too, with the un- sounds of cuttings and thumpings, arrested her attention. They issued from dark basement stairway almost beneath her.
 Stepping to the iron railing, she peered cautiously into the darkness below. When her eyes had become accustomed to the shadows of the nauseous pit, she saw in the turn of the passage way a mass of heads and legs and fists and heels.
 When the paths and the blows had somewhat stilled from exhaustion she dimly discerned the forms and faces of three girls; of those girls of the slums with little, chunky bodies; with symmetric forms and mar velously agile physical powers; with un- and exquisitely graceful and often with winsomely nodded features; of those girls who never knew a girlhood, between whom and maidenhood lies the impossible gulf, to whom womanhood is forever barred; of those girls altogether as cun- ming as imps of darkness and hard as the pavement stones, from which, for all they know, or the world cares, they have been given luckless birth.
 Right here's the place to begin" said Aunt Mirandy determinedly.
 Without hesitation she descended the slippery steps, hustled the girls upon their feet in a corner, tidied their cloth- ing, primped their hair, rubbed up their faces with her handkerchief; and all with such rush of aptitude and uncon- ,cious kindly authority, that there was no further show of protest than few gurgles and grunts of curi- osity and surprise.
 Come long to breakfast now; all of you" she commanded, herding the 'umpled and tousled lot before her, Need some more myself" she contin- led as the girls eyes opened wide in "Got rung away from nine this morning by a beggar; ;.an au- lacious beggar, too! Wouldn't, like hat, would you, girls?"
 Nope" they chorused, slyly prod ling each other with their nimble el- ,ows while snickering brazenly.
 Here we are. This'll do;'' insisted Aunt Mirandy, still herding her lot be- ore her into an unpretentious ~restau- ant. sr.
 But few patrons were now at the ta- ,les, and a waiter, noticing the strange 'arty, stepped forward with quizzi-